Did you catch the Ghost Watch Live television programme and all-night Web coverage from the Tower of London? If not here is a description of Judy, our editor's experience with The Ghost Detectives and UK Horizons, part of BBC Worldwide. She was invited to take part on the second night of the two night vigil celebrating the run up to Hallowe'en.

I love the Tower of London, and the chance to spend a night there was irresistible. The Ghost Detectives and BBC Worldwide came together and managed to get permission to do a Ghost Watch at the Tower of London for Hallowe'en. On the strength of my previous articles in Psychic-Tymes I was invited to attend the second night of the vigil to act as a medium. So, on Saturday 27th October I found myself once again awaiting entrance to the Tower during the dark hours. Unfortunately for both me and Ghost Watch I was sick with a feverish cold and was having trouble keeping my voice, and would be forced to croak through the night.

The trouble with live broadcasts are that they are relatively un-scripted, and keeping tabs on what was supposed to happen is a nightmare. Emily, researcher and the Assistant Producer, wandered in an out of my orbit through out the night moaning that 'no-one was telling her where they are and she needed to know' like a gentle banshee, a sad note on the breeze! October nights in England are cold and wet, and I started this one by lurking in the make up room, the warmest part by far. The queen of the powder-puffs, Zoë, was very welcoming to someone who so obviously should have stayed in bed as she made up my poor frazzled face so that I would not look like one of the undead.

The Tower of London at night from the Middle Gate. Photograph by Judy Farncombe © Farncombe Publishing 2001.

The psychologist hired for the night, Ash, and I then decamped to the Green Room where we would warm up and eat between 'takes', and I met my first ghost of the evening. Standing between the snacks table and the wall was a plump, little old lady who was peeved, to say the least, at having us traipsing through her home. She was being ignored by the non-psychics wandering in and out, who (rightly) attributed the coldness of the room to the open front door. When the Green Room emptied of people I decided to establish contact with her. Once she realised that someone was paying her attention she decided to come at me like a bat out of hell. I laughed, and she immediately returned to her spot and we were able to talk. She had been the wife of a Tower official while Queen Victoria was on the throne. She was very house-proud and the room was a mess - the Tower were redecorating it, and the production crew had made it still worse. I do not think I was successful in persuading her to move on, but I did manage to get her to consider other options to staying in her old home. She also introduced me to another ghost in the house, a friendly and happy teenage girl who lurked around the stairs. As the night wore on I asked Ghost Detective Graham why the Green Room had not been set up with a camera, as it was haunted. He told me that the Tower had not informed them of the haunt until after they had set up! The house being used as the Green Room is known to the Tower as a haunted house but they had not told the Ghost Detectives until it was too late to include it in the programme! Truly a lost opportunity.

During the night Graham and Andy from the Ghost Detectives team pumped me for information about how I sense ghosts. They are both fine, caring and open men, attempting to understand the strange world of the paranormal but I think my quiet way of communicating with ghosts was a disappointment to them, quite different from the much more dramatic style of their usual medium. Graham had a severe case of the 'Dreaded Orbs' (everyone I meet who wants to find recordable proof of ghosts ends up with that complaint) and he dragged me off to film in the Bloody Tower. Orbs had been filmed there the previous evening, and I was able to confirm that the corridor at the top of the flight of circular stairs between the downstairs study and the upstairs bedroom was like walking through psychic soup.

Sir Walter Raleigh's bedroom, where Ash scared away the ghost and where mysterious tabacco smells were noticed. Still from the live web cam feeds on the Internet from the UK Horizons website, 26/27th October 2001. © 2001 BBC Worldwide Limited.

The lower levels of the Bloody Tower was Sir Walter Raleigh's study and contained lovely Elizabethan and Jacobean furniture. I asked Natasha, our palace liaison, if they were the original items, as haunting can be caused by souls attaching themselves to furnishings. She informed me that they were of the period, but not the original furnishings. This meant that the ghost might have come from the furniture and not from occupation of the room. From there we went up the narrow circular stair to the upper floor currently decorated as a bedroom. There I had the chance to go beyond the cordon, I knew I had a huge smile on my face, I wanted to lie on the four-poster bed and chat to the ghost. Graham and I talked instead, and we wondered why Sir Walter Raleigh would choose to haunt this place rather than his home in Devon? I did pick up on the feeling that this was 'home' for the ghost that lived there and a place to escape a nagging wife, but I could not confirm whether it was Sir Walter Raleigh. He was a polite ghost, not reacting angrily to our presence but wishing us to be gone. He was still writing his memoirs at the desk below, scratching away with his quill pen in the silence of the night. On the previous night a ghostly male presence had been picked up by the smell of wafting tobacco. My illness would have stopped me from smelling anything!

As soon as we left the Bloody Tower via Sir Walter Raleigh's Walk I noticed we were on another ghost's territory, a very angry female. Graham told me that the Yeoman Guards who were housed next to it had to be very careful who occupied the bedrooms looking out onto this walkway, as this ghost was known to try to strangle women and girls. He asked me for more information regarding this ghost, names, dates and such like. I explained that ghosts only ever think in terms of 'I', but sometimes they will go into more detail if they choose a person or medium to link to. No luck this time: this ghost did not like me because I was a woman. Later on in the night she established a link with Andy.

When we finished doing this round of filming I retired to the Green Room and found it too busy with living people to continue talking to the resident ghost. As I sat on the steps outside slowly drinking tea I tried to spy on activity on Tower Green. I thought that I caught echoes of a memory from it, perhaps the execution of Anne Boleyn, but I put it down to an overactive imagination. Andy joined me and started snapping away with his digital camera. He recorded Orbs in the direction of the Green, so perhaps my mind's eye was more accurate than I had given credence to.

View of Sir Walter Raliegh's Walk at night. The ghost Andy helped mainly stayed on the Walk just behind the light. If you go to the UK Horisons website you can see a better view of the walk with accompanying orb.
Photograph by Judy Farncombe © Farncombe Publishing 2001

I later joined the Ghost Detectives in St Thomas More's cell, the scene of a famous 'cold spot', which I would attribute to the open battlement windows and gaping holes in the floor. Andy was sitting cross-legged on the rubble floor holding a pendulum and asking it questions, watching it rotate clockwise and anti-clockwise in answer to his queries. It told him that there were eleven spirits in the room. There was certainly one: Andy was unaware that he was being overlooked by a tall monk in a brown habit! I described him to the Ghost Detectives and at their request moved around the chapel to find Andy's remaining souls. Once I had passed by the monk I noticed a lady kneeling and praying in an alcove to the right of the room. I was asked to get a name, and Matilda came to mind. Her clothing appeared to be medieval. I then moved over to an alcove on the left of the chapel, and sitting on a pile of rubble just below the window were two young boys holding each other (a pair of Princes were murdered here in the Tower by Richard III, but I'm not a great believer in 'famous ghosts'). From there I returned to stand near the monk, who wanted to hold my hands and talk, so I held out my hands to him. He told me that this place was a Chapel for the other souls in the Tower to come to for rest, and that his mission was to be their Priest. They also came to this 'chapel' during the day when the Tower was busy with tourists (I have yet to come across a ghost that actively enjoys being walked through). St Thomas More's cell is hardly ever opened to the public, in fact only once a year, so it is a haven of peace and quiet for them. When I had passed on this message I felt finished with the venue and left the others with their pendulums and cameras.

Judy being interviewed by Danny Wallace in St. Thomas More's Cell. Judy is wearing the hat. A still from the live web cam feeds on the Internet from the UK Horizons website, 26/27th October 2001. © 2001 BBC Worldwide Limited.

Over in the control centre, the Producer was busily briefing the celebrity presenters on their next set of interviews. Claudia Christian (Babylon 5) and I headed towards 'Sceptics Corner' in the Beauchamp Tower. As I wandered the battlements with Claudia I picked up very strong emanations from the rooms just the other side of the wall. I later found out that we had passed Lady Arabella Stuart Lennox's room, another notorious psychic black spot in the Tower precinct.

Beauchamp Tower had been set up as a studio, and I was ushered into a vacant chair to be interviewed by actor Paul Darrow (Blake's 7). Paul was playing the Sceptic tonight, and he asked about what had happened in St Thomas More's cell. In best journalist fashion, he muddled and misquoted, and we laughed as I corrected him. Then he got down to a nitty-gritty question on my first psychic experience, so I told the tale of my first ghost. When he asked why only some people were psychic, I pointed out that we are all psychic, only we lose the ability in childhood because of ridicule from our parents and peer group. By now my voice was just a croak and it was obvious it was time to end the interview.

Rejoining the Ghost Detectives in the Green Room, Graham told me that he felt that the commentary from 'Sceptics Corner' was taking up too much time and that there were not enough experiments going on. I did not want to spend any more time croaking at interviewers either, so we got a camera and went back to the Bloody Tower. Ash, the psychologist, had been sitting in Sir Walter Raleigh's bedroom for almost half an hour and we found that he had done an excellent job of clearing out the ghost! We returned to Raleigh's Walk, where Andy had really identified with the spook. He said she was a recent ghost and was having a hard time. So I suggested that we link our energies together to help her to move on. He still was unsure, but I pointed out that this may be the one chance the ghost has as the Crown does not like mediums wandering about clearing out the tourist attractions. Luckily the cameras were no longer on us, so I stood close enough to act as an energy feed and Andy acted as main focus. He slowly got the lassie to stop shrieking and calm down. I had told Andy to get her to think of someone or something she had loved. I noticed that as he followed my instructions she had started holding her faithful kitten and stroking it. I explained that the next stage was to call her spirit guides and others she loved to come and help her go home. When I stood back, Andy went back into meditation and worked on that. Meanwhile I pulled down loving energy and those I work with to aid us, and the girl started to wander off to the 'Other Place'. Andy came out of his meditation with shining eyes. I knew she had gone, and Andy confirmed that he thought she had.

Back to the production room, it was decided that as my voice had almost completely gone, it was sensible to attach me to one of the other experiments. Andy and I went back to St Thomas More's cell and sat meditating in the dark with a low-light camera (BMV camera) monitoring us. I started communicating with the Monk very quickly. He explained a few things that tied in with my personal quest in the Tower. He said he could move on but chose not to as long as the resident ghosts need succour. He was their Father Confessor. He stood by St. Thomas More keeping him brave and steadfast as he faced his execution, and now he takes care of the others. He really wanted the cell to be converted into a Chapel, preferably Roman Catholic with altars in each alcove to various saints and one for the Virgin Mary. He also wanted the floor covered with medieval tiles and pews for people (and ghosts) to come and rest their weary spirits. Once I handed on these messages I stopped talking on his behalf and carried on meditating in the peaceful atmosphere. At a later date he told me his name was Ranulph and had been there since the early days (1300's). Andy started getting a selection of names come through. Then after a short while the camera feed was taken off us. Our palace liaison explained that they allowed Catholics in on the anniversary of St Thomas More's death for a service but otherwise they would not turn this part of the Tower into a Catholic chapel, especially as its royal owner was a Protestant and Head of the Church of England.

Thus quietly ended the evening, and my once-in-a lifetime-chance to visit the Tower of London at night, scene of so much blood and home for so many ghosts. I will treasure the experience for the rest of my life.

© 2001 Judy Farncombe