If you find ghosts a frightening prospect that is best avoided, you will probably struggle to relate to Yvette Fielding. That is how I felt when I spoke with the longtime host of Most Haunted, which has just released series 28 on Pluto TV and is already filming its 29th. They are even location scouting for the 30th, if you have any spots you want to write in with ghoulish tales.
The 57-year-old presenter co-created the format with her husband Karl Beattie in 2002. She likens ghost hunting to an 'addiction', but also recounts a crisis of conviction some years later when a crewmember had to be rushed to hospital after an apparent ghost attack. The incident unfolded in the Edinburgh Vaults – which have a rich if rather sombre history of murder, witch persecution and more – during a live broadcast across the UK and US.
During the episode, three crewmembers were cut, scratched and wholly shaken up. Their sound man collapsed with a cut down his leg that was 'so deep you could actually see the bone', Fielding recalls to Metro. The veteran TV presenter struggled to keep it together and resigned live on air.
'I had never thought that we could get harmed,' she says. 'I kept crying and saying, "That's it. I'm done. I can't cope with this. What the hell are we dealing with?"' When the taping was done, Fielding was prepared to pack it in then and there, but agreed to take a month to think about it. Many conversations with her husband ensued.
'My resolve hit through. I was like, "No, I'm not going to let this beat me",' she says. 'I then started researching cases throughout history where people were physically hurt by, seemingly, a spirit. It was unbelievable the amount of terrifying cases that were reported in newspapers – bite marks, burn marks, scratches, bruising.'
'I just thought, if you're going to investigate the paranormal, then you've got to go the whole way. You can't just go, I'm frightened of it. You've got to do the whole thing.' She adds: 'Now, if somebody gets a little scratch or a burn mark, I get so excited.' See? Not terribly relatable to us scaredy-cats. But it does make sense why Fielding has spent as many years as she has entering rooms that would have horror audiences screaming, 'Don't go in there!'
Not everyone has the same mettle
A fair few Most Haunted crewmembers have upped and left in the middle of filming after experiencing something they 'can't explain'. 'When crew come and work on the show, they might think it's a TV show, so stuff's made up,' says Fielding. 'But when they realise this is real, they start questioning things. It really can be quite upsetting and unnerving.'
Fielding rapidly relays a succession of events in the latest series alone. They include a metal crucifix flying across a room, a rocking chair moving of its own volition, tapping and scraping sounds, stalking footsteps, slamming doors, moans, groans and children giggling. It is a full-on fright night.
'I might scream and be terrified, but it is like an addiction. I can't wait to go back and do it again. I don't know why. I love it,' she says. On particularly scary filming days, she will listen to the Mary Poppins soundtrack on the way home to calm the nerves.
How did Most Haunted first start?
After departing Blue Peter, where she had been the BBC show's youngest-ever presenter, Yvette Fielding fronted several shows in other genres before she found her ghostly niche. It came from a 'chance conversation' about a highly haunted spot in East Sussex. Afterwards, her husband asked if she could hack staying there for the night.
'I told him politely where to go,' she says. 'But then we sat up all night chatting about it, and we came up with the idea of Most Haunted. I do not to this day understand what pushed us, but we decided we were going to make a pilot of the show.' The couple used their savings and paid contributors with pizza and beer, but still, they spent six months being told 'no' by TV execs. There were 'lots of tears', Fielding admits.
'Nobody was interested in it. They said the paranormal doesn't work. We were told by one channel that it was unprofessional to delve into this genre and to leave it alone.' It was Living executive producer Arch Dyson who finally gave them the green light. 'He said this is just crazy enough to work and that was the birth of Most Haunted.'
Despite the show's extensive ghosthunting back catalogue, Most Haunted doesn't seem to be running out of locations to visit
To Fielding, it is the locations that make the show. From time to time, certain spots are so spooky they merit a second look. Many come in as fan suggestions. All of them have to be vetted to weed out the charlatans. This involves rounds of interviews and eyewitness testimonies. 'It's like a jigsaw puzzle,' says Fielding. 'You're putting all the pieces together and hoping that it makes a full picture.'
Because this is ghosthunting, there is something beyond research and rigour that they rely on too: the feeling when they first walk in. But ultimately, 'seeing is believing', says Fielding, which is why Most Haunted is so gung-ho about getting sceptics, scientists and journalists to ride along. (I too am invited on a ghostly sojourn – watch this space.)
'We have nothing to hide,' says Fielding. 'I want these people, especially sceptical people, to experience something and go away puzzled.' For Fielding, spiritualism is her religion and she does not take kindly to naysayers denigrating it. 'They should respect our views, which is, there is life after death,' she says. 'Don't be rude and say "What a load of rubbish", because I'm not going to say that about your religion.'
'We go on. Our consciousness goes on. I know that my relatives are happy. I know that they come and visit. If you talk out loud to them, they will draw close and you'll feel a little bit better within a short space of time.' A couple of decades ago, pre-Most Haunted, Fielding was living in a Cheshire house which she suspected was inhabited by something spectral. She found herself uneasy when alone there. But now, living in a haunted house 'wouldn't bother her in the slightest'.
If you are not quite as thrilled, Fielding recommends going to your local church. 'The diocese will have a person that is specifically trained in how to deal with hauntings,' she says. 'Lots of people don't know that and a lot of people feel embarrassed about talking about it. I wish they wouldn't. This is part of our life. This is part of who we are as human beings. The more people understand that this is not it, there is life after death, I think that will make our lives an awful lot happier.'
Most Haunted airs on Pluto TV.
