In 1998, the presenters of ITV's popular daytime show THIS MORNING turned their attention (not for the first time) to the subject of GHOSTS. Accompanied by the Revd. Lionel Fanthorpe, the jovial host of Fortean TV,  Richard Madeley (one half of 'Richard & Judy', the popular husband & wife team) and Julia Carling (standing in for Judy Finnegan) hosted a phone-in of personal experiences from the general public. Neither Richard nor Julia could have anticipated that they were about to hear a story that would so captivate them that it would result in an investigation that would span several shows.

The story that was to prove so fascinating was Kevin Whelan's terrifying encounter with a 'road ghost' just weeks previously on the A15 near Ruskington, Lincolnshire:

transcript from

LIVING WITH GHOSTS  

A feature of This Morning, ITV's daytime show (1998):

with

Richard Madeley (RM), Julia Carling (JC), Lionel Fanthorpe (LF), Nina Myscow (NM)

All images: screen captures from ITV's This Morning (1998)

Richard Madeley checks his notes regarding the next caller's, Kevin Whelan's (KW), experience:

RM: Whoa, I’m surprised you didn’t drive off the road, mate.

KW: No.

RM: Now hang on, Kevin, you’re telling us the truth?

KW: I’m telling you the complete truth. First of all, before this experience, I didn’t believe in ghosts. If anyone said anything to me, I’d have ridiculed them like anyone else.

RM: Gotcha. Right, what happened?

KW: Right, a fortnight ago, I was driving...I live in Sleaford...I was driving from Lincoln toward Sleaford -

RM: A lonely road that is.

KW:  A very lonely road, the A15.

RM: Yeah, I know it.

KW: Just before the Ruskington turn off I saw, on the horizon, like a white shadow. I didn’t know what it was. I thought it could have been car lights. I didn’t give it much thought. When I got to that white shadow, all of a sudden from the driver’s side of the car a face appeared around the front pillar, and it was on my windscreen, with the left hand up. I had been travelling probably a little bit faster than I should have been, and it completely - well, it just got me by surprise.

RM: Could you see through it?

KW: No, I couldn’t; that’s what everyone asks me. It had dark hair; it was like a Greek-looking person; the skin was olivey-green; it had a pitted face; I could see the teeth; I could see everything. One hand was up. From the neck down was like a sort of - on a photograph when you photograph someone with a flash on, it’s too bright, you get that white fluorescent sort of look.

RM: And how long was it there?

KW: It was there, I’d estimate 40..50 seconds?

RM: Did you stop the car?

KW: No, I didn’t. I didn’t stop the car.

JC:  How did you control the car?

KW: I don’t know. The tape player was on very loud. My immediate reaction... because it scared - .the tape player was on, and I was completely baffled...I put the front of the tape, the fascia, I just threw it out. It didn’t just go away, it faded into obscurity down the side of the car. When I got back in...I just bombed it back home. When -

JC: I’m not surprised.

KW: When I got in, and my wife was asleep, I left just left the car unlocked. I got inside. I locked the door behind me - which I never do - I woke my wife up, I looked in the mirror and I was white; my skin looked like a turkey, it was all goose bumps. I was crying.

RM: And you said first thing the next day you went to the car wash?

KW:  I had to put the car through the car wash.

LF: That’s very understandable.

KW:  I’ve been back since - I had to go back, I went back last Saturday -

RM: At night?

KW:  At night - the same time and I videoed it -

RM: Anything?

KW: No, but I’m going to go again, because I’ve got to prove to myself -

JC: Maybe it's because you were going too fast?

KW: That’s what everyone says to me.

JC: Do you think there might have been an accident there or something and this guy was warning you perhaps or...

KW: I have been told - a friend of mine has told me - the police don’t recognise this sort of thing, but a police officer has told a friend of mine that in the last 18 months a motorcyclist was killed there, with both legs were taken off in the accident.

RM: But just tell us exactly which - it’s the A15?

KW: The A15.

RM: Heading towards Sleaford?

KW: You’re heading towards Sleaford.

RM: And where exactly is it on the road?

KW: On the road, where you come to a very very tight bend, and it’s just before. There’s a turn-off left to Ruskington, and a turn-off right to Cranwell -

RM: Right to Cranwell - the RAF place?

KW: That’s right, yeah. And just before the turn-off to Ruskington, there’s a house on the right and it happened between the very very sharp bend and the house on the right.

RM: Anybody, Kevin, whose watching, or knows of anybody whose had a similar or exact experience as you did on that bit, ring us in.

KW:  I’m shaking now just telling you.

RM: Oh, I’m shaking listening to you.

JC: It’s so recent as well...

RM: I believe him. Do you believe? [to Lionel] I believe he’s telling us what he saw.

LF: Yes I do. In the literature, in the records, there are so many cases of psychic phenomena -

RM: Road ghosts.

LF: Of road ghosts.

RM: Road ghosts, yeah.

LF: In fact I had a first hand - I had a story told to me by a man who had experienced it. He was driving down to Maidstone and was quite certain that he’d hit a motorcyclist and got out, he and his friend, searched the area, all around, found nothing, drove into Maidstone Police Station, reported the - asked if they could help to find the injured motorcyclist, and one grizzled old officer who’d been there for some time said you’re about the tenth person to report that, sir.

JC/RM: Ooh, ah.

RM: Alright.

LF: He said I’ll come back with you with pleasure but there’ll be nothing there.

RM: Alright.

JC: Slow down on that bend, Kevin. That’s what I say.

RM: Kevin, thank you very much for calling us.

JC: Brilliant story.

RM: If we get anything more, ring in again, and maybe we’ll make a film of you or something. That’s a top ghost story.

JC: That was a good one. That was very believable as well.

Later in show (witnesses: Rob Burkett (RB), Sarah Martin (SM):

RM: Rob and Sarah have called in, and they feel sane again, because they had the same experience. Rob, hi, you on the line?

RB: Yeah, hello.

RM: You must have had goose bumps when you heard Kevin tell that story?

RB: You ain’t kidding.

RM: We both want to hear your story. What happened?

RB: It was about half-past eight at night. I used to deliver day-old chickens, because there are an awful lot of chicken farms down in Lincolnshire.

RM: Of course, yeah.

RB: And I'd finished a delivery. It was around about October-November time, about 14 years ago. I used to stay at a B&B in Ruskington - I can’t name the pub now, I don’t know what it was - I was going into Ruskington, as I say, about half-past eight/quarter to nine at night, and wallop, all of a sudden, this thing on the side of the road, with his hand up and he seemed to walk out. And I seen it -

RM: And this is on the A15, the Ruskington turn-off?

RB: Yep.

RM: Blimey.

RB: Yep. Yep. And I just broke the speed limit.

RM: To get away?

RB: Yep.

RM: And just like Kevin said, one hand was raised?

RB: Yep.

RM: What, as if in warning?

RB: Yep.

RM: Who have we got next?

JC: Sarah.

RM: Where are you calling from Sarah?

SM: Cranwell.

RM: Cranwell? Which is very close.

SM: Yeah.

RM: When did you see something there?

SM: Last year. On exactly the same place as the Kevin said before.

RM: Now, listen, you’re us telling the truth, aren’t you? It’s not a wind up?

SM: No. I was coming from Lincoln - we’d seen the pictures - coming to Cranwell where we live, and on that particular corner near the house that Kevin said I was driving along there and this black silhouette figure of a man, I would think, ran out from the ditch and went straight in front of the car as though...obviously, y’know we should have hit it, but it wasn’t - 

RM: Nothing there.

SM: 'Cause I sort of gave a quick sort of yell, and my partner didn’t even see a thing.

RM: You’d got a silhouette without a face. And he didn’t see anything but you did?

SM: Yeah, that’s right.

RM: [to off-camera crew member] Tim, have you found it yet? Let’s have a look. We’ve got the map now. [RM is handed a road atlas].

JC: The amazing thing is none of these people have had accidents because of it. You’d imagine if you’d see this ghost it would freak you out and you’d have an accident.

SM: I wasn’t actually driving; my partner was driving. Like I say, if it was a person obviously we’d have hit it. But...it was horrid, it was really frightening.

RM:  Now look, Rob, are you still on the line? Rob Burkett? No? OK Sarah, you stay with us then.

RM: I think we’ve found the spot here, right. 

[RM finds Sleaford and works north to Ruskington turn-off and the area just before the B1191 turn-off].

RM: Is that Rob? Are you there? Is that exactly the spot we’re talking about?

RB: That’s right, yeah.

RM: That’s it, isn’t it?

RB: That’s it.

RM:  Right, can somebody find out what the name of the pub is in Ruskington and we’ll give them a ring.

JC:  We’ll research it a little bit more.

RM: Yeah, we’ll research it now. We’ll call the pub up as soon as we can. Or if you’re watching in the pub, give us a ring - the pub, the big pub in Ruskington.

Next Day: [video of section of road plays, with RM's voice-over:]

RM: Here, live at the scene of what we all think is the most believable haunting we have ever heard about. We’ve got loads of witnesses from all over Britain who have seen the spectre of the A15 near Ruskington. That’s right after today’s stories from Julia. Good Morning.

New set:

RM: This set here is just for atmosphere, as we are taking this very seriously. Just to re-cap, if you missed it yesterday, or earlier on - we’ve just scripted this, ‘cause all this stuff keeps coming, the story has changed shape now about five times -

JC:  It’s constant. I can’t believe it.

RM: Constant changes, but we think we’re there now. If you missed it yesterday or earlier on this morning, we really think we’ve got the ghost for you in the phone-in yesterday. Kevin Whelan phoned up to tell us an extraordinary - a terrifying story. He was driving at his spot - circled here - on the A15 north of Sleaford. It’s the turn-off to the little village of Ruskington, and it was there, in the middle of the night, that he had the most frightening experience of his life. Now loads and loads more people phoned in too to say that they’d encountered exactly the same thing at the same spot. Now we’re going to tell you what is in a second, as we’re going live to him. Now Harry, c’mon Harry, Harry, one of our researchers, who’s - there’s been a whole team on this -

JC:  He’s been working all night.

RM: - Working all night digging into this story. Now, Harry, we’ve got film now of the actual stretch of road, haven’t we?

Harry: Yeah.

RM: Can you talk us through it, because this is what Kevin would have seen, except it was dark, of course, and would’ve have been in the headlights. Just talk us through it.

Harry: Right, this is where Kevin three weeks ago, and about 2 a.m. in the morning, he was driving about 60 miles an hour. Just after that sign, a face appears on the windscreen, a Greek face, black and green, it stays there, and he’s absolutely petrified. He looks in the mirror, he’s white, he goes past the turning to Ruskington which you see on your left, he carries on going, he puts his foot on the accelerator -

RM:It’s still there.

Harry: It’s still there, It’s still there, it’s still there. He’s going down the road, and he’s coming to this dip down here; just when he gets to this dip it suddenly dissolves, and goes away. And he couldn’t see through it. He doesn’t know how he managed to stay on the road.

RM: Okay, Harry, thanks very much for that.

RM: Now we can’t actually transmit live from that spot on the road junction because there’s an RAF base nearby, and apparently our satellite was interfering with their own transmission. But we are going live now to the Duke of Wellington pub, near Ruskington - which is where Kevin, and Sarah Martin are - they also called in yesterday; they saw something in ‘96.

RM: Hello, all of you. Which is Kevin? You’re Kevin?

RM: It’s really good to see you Kevin, thanks a lot for coming down today.

JC:  He’s got a bit of colour back in his face.

RM: Yes, exactly, the pallor’s gone.

RM: Now you tell us, in your own words again, exactly what happened that night a few weeks ago?

KW: It was 2 weeks ago, 2 weeks ago in the early hours of Sunday morning. I was coming back from Lincoln, to Sleaford. At a very sharp bend just before the Ruskington turn-off, as I got around the bend, I saw in front of me like a white image - like a large bin bag - white bin-bag - that’s the only way I can describe it - floating in front of me - and I didn’t really give that much sort of thought for concern really, because it could have been car headlights or anything like that -

RM: Sure, anything.

KW: and as I got to where I saw that, all of a sudden in front of me a face appeared from the - a face appeared.

RM: OK, if you look at the television screen now Kevin, was it on the top right of your windscreen?

KW: It was yeah - I’m sat in the drivers seat, obviously - the pillar - it just sort of came around the side of the pillar of the car, diagonal, and just appeared in front of me with it’s hand up like that.

RM: Okay, show us again; show us your hand movement again.

RM: Like that.

KW: Like that, yeah, it just sort of stayed over the front of the car.

JC:  I don’t know how you kept on the road, I really don’t. That’s the most amazing thing.

KW: I don’t know. I was sort of doing a good 60 miles an hour, I should think. Probably a bit faster. Absolutely disorientated. I threw the tape player - the fascia of the tape player out - because the car was full of sound, I just didn’t know what to do, and it was just staring at me all the time; mouth was open, jet black hair, I could see the eyes, the pitted skin, olive...a very very olive, green complexion -

RM: And you say that you got the impression, Kevin - that it was in - whatever this thing is or was - it was in a state of some distress?

KW: It was very very very distressed, yes, I didn’t know if it was trying to - people say to me it was telling me to slow down, and it may well have been -

JC:  So you talked to people about it afterwards, did you?

KW: Yes, yes, I did.

JC:  And did they believe you?

KW: Most people did believe me, because they know the sort of character I am - that I wouldn’t be taken in by this sort of thing. I am a sort of disbeliever to be honest.

RM: Well, Kevin, you told us on the phone-in yesterday that when you got home you woke up your wife and for the first time she that can remember you were in floods of tears, you were very very upset.

KW: I was.

RM: And as you said, you were as white as a sheet. Now, your wife’s there. What’s she called?

KW: Susan.

RM: Susan. Is that Susan with you?

JC: Sarah Martin.

RM: Hello Sarah.

SM: Hello.

RM: Now you were watching the programme yesterday. Where from? Where do you live?

SM: Cranwell.

RM: Cranwell, just round the corner. And you heard this story from Kevin, and you nearly fell off your chair?

SM: Yeah.

RM: Tell us what happened to you.

SM: Well, I’d been to the pictures at Lincoln, and I was going down to Cranwell -

RM: When was this, Sarah?

SM: This was ‘96. And on the way home, the same place as where Kevin saw his - this black shape - silhouette - ran out of the dyke and ran straight in front of the car. It was just all black, from head to toe, and we went straight through it.

RM: And what did you say to your boyfriend, who was driving the car?

SM: Well, I just screamed, really, and he didn’t see a thing. He didn’t know what was wrong or anything, so I told him what it was, but obviously if it was real we would have hit it, but we went straight through it.

JC: We also had another caller yesterday - Rob - remember he was driving the chickens?

RM: That’s right.

JC: - and he saw the same thing. Somebody else called in - and this is the amazing thing - because back in 1960 he was driving a coach with a whole load of school kids in the back. He did exactly the same thing -

RM: He’d thought he’d run somebody over -

JC: And he’d thought he’d run over it.

RM: That’s right. And he actually got out of the car - the van...the coach, rather, and he went back down the road and of course there was nothing there. He called in. We’ve had actually a lot of calls -

JC:  So many.

RM:  We’ve probably had about 5 dozen calls, from people who are all very credible, and we believe them, and some of them are now gathering at the pub, aren’t they?

JC: Yeah.

RM: Inside the pub. And actually we want to talk to your wife, Kevin, because we want to hear how she found you when you got home.

KW: Yeah.

RM: This is amazing isn’t it? This really is extraordinary.

KW: It is, yeah.

JC:  Well, he’s not alone, that’s the main thing.

RM: Also, when we come back...Nina Myscow, you’re there, aren’t you?

NM: I am. Hello Richard.

RM: Hello, love. What are we going to be hearing about, in the pub later?

NM: Well, there a lot of other stories, and it’s not just the sort of the head or a black shape. People have seen other things. They’ve seen a woman in a pink ball gown; there’s a story of white cart-horses, and they’ve been seen three times - these two white cart horses on the same stretch of the road. And it is a spooky little place, because apparently at night it is totally pitch dark, there’s no lights anywhere. And as well, probably because it's low lying, a lot of mist gathers about. But I believe when Kevin saw what he saw, it was a completely clear night. Completely clear.

RM: That’s right. Well OK, we’ve also got local historians in the pub, we’ve got the local journalist in the pub, we’ve got lots of people who’ve got -

JC:  The pub is busy, actually.

RM: The pub is busy today. They’ve all got a handle on this thing. Everyone knows about it around there. I think you said it was mentioned in one book?

JC:  Somebody’s called in, actually - from the Atlas of Magical Britain, and there’s a reference about the Ruskington ghost. It says along the road, it used to be full of witches and the last witch apparently was innocent, and she became the black-figured ghost.

RM: This is great.

JC:  So there we go. We will be going to back to the pub later to talk to all those people. Now, I’m afraid it’s time for a quick break.

Later:

RM: ...Kevin Whelan, and Sarah Martin, who have both seen this extraordinary apparition at exactly the same spot on the A15 near Sleaford - just north of Sleaford.

RM: Dozens and dozens more of you have phoned up and - a totally sort of wide-ranging group of people, very credible - saying on that spot that’s been highlighted there, just on the left of the screen, you’ve seen really strange things that have terrified you. And we’re going back now to Ruskington - that’s the village just off that turn-off - to Nina Myscow,  who is inside the Duke of Wellington pub, with even more villagers who have got stories to tell. They’re all flooding in there. How’s it going Nina?

NM: Yes, it’s quite extraordinary, because everyone you talk to has heard something or seen something or knows something about it, and it really seems to be an area which is quite sort of prevalent with these things. And nobody seems surprised by it; they seem to be very accepting of it. And that’s the strange thing. I’d be terrified to go out, or to live here, with the things I’ve heard. But people accept it, it’s part of local life here.

RM: And we’re not talking about sort of mass hysteria here, are we? I mean this isn’t sort of mass hysteria. These are totally individual people, and most of them don’t even live there; they’ve come down especially for this programme.

NM: Absolutely. It’s all very very calm indeed; it’s just accepting this is part of life.

[Richard Madeley prompts Nina to conduct a few interviews]:

NM: I’m going to talk first to Sue, because Sue is married to Kevin. Now, Kevin, I have to say, is the least likely person to come up with an hysterical tale. You’re very very down to earth, and yet Sue what happened when he came home that night at half-past two in the morning?

SW: Well, I was asleep in bed, and he literally came in the bedroom and he said - he was a bit like a child, really, and he’s like "Sue, Sue", like all in a panic. And he was like standing there, he was white, he had tears streaming down his face, and I sort of went "what’s the matter?" and he said "I’ve seen a ghost". He said, "You’re not going to believe this, I’ve seen a ghost." And he was so adamant, and like in the thirteen years together I’ve like never seen him anywhere near that sort of state over anything, and he was just really distraught, distressed. I’ve never seen him like it before.

NM: Had he been drinking?

SW: He doesn’t really drink anyway, very rarely does drink. He doesn’t believe in ghosts. He would ridicule somebody. He’s not that type of person.

RM: OK, Nina, that sounds great. Just take us around the pub. Just give us as many stories as you can squeeze in in the next 3-4 minutes.

NM: OK. We’ve got here - we’ve got Catherine Stephenson. Now Catherine, what happened to you? It was when you were 15?

CS: Yeah, I was 15. I used to walk to Ruskington to school. It was behind me, I felt a cold shiver up my back; and then I just turned round and there was this figure and it was like head and shoulders, but from the waist down it was just like a sheet.

NM: What could you see? What did the figure look like?

CS: It was just a head and the shoulders; you didn’t see any arms or anything.

NM: And it came out of the -

CS: Out of the ditch, yeah.

NM: Now, Leigh, you’re a local reporter here and last night you went down to -

L: Horseshoe hollow.

NM: Which is the road near the A15, because you heard there was some haunting and -

L: Well, we’d got phone calls at work yesterday saying that people had being seeing things and ringing up the TV, and we were getting phone calls so I went down to the local pub to see what had been going on, and got a story about people seeing black figures, so I went down to Horseshoe Hollow because I’ve heard that’s haunted. In the summer, you walk along there in the dark and there’s mists covering your feet; you can’t even see your feet. Anyway, me and my boyfriend went down with his dog.

NM: And a torch, I hope?

L: And a torch; yeah, we went down with a torch. And we were walking around and there was one spot that was colder than the rest, and if you moved from that spot you got warmer, and I went to walk towards some trees, and my boyfriend’s dog ran in front of me, and I sort of turned around and said, "What you playing at?" And my boyfriend said, "She was cutting you off, she don’t want you to go in there, she was cutting you off."

NM: So the dog was trying to save you, you think? Thank you very much.

NM: Henry Brown, you’re a kind of a local historian. You’ve written three books about your childhood here. Do you think this area is kind of filled with stories and history of sightings?

HB: Oh yes, all the way up the A15, and around the area there are all sorts of tales of ghostly figures and most of them quite harmless; I haven’t heard of any that have presented any danger to anyone.

NM: Er, so thank you very much Henry. And back to Richard and Julia.

RM: Yes, thanks. You see, the thing is, you get all these general stories of ghosts haunting certain areas, but what we’re interested in is this specific one. We sent our researcher, Michelle Baulker, down there last night, and she’s been talking to lots of people, and, Michelle, I gather that a lot of people will tell you off the record that they have seen something but they don’t - they think they’ll be laughed at - and you’ve actually to your own satisfaction found that there are enough credible witnesses there - and you are a television researcher - that you think too that they are telling the truth - that they’re not in this to get on the telly, because they won’t come on the telly.

MB: That’s true, Richard, yes. Several people have actually witnessed very similar things to what Kevin and Sarah - who we spoke to earlier - had seen, but, yeah, they were too frightened to come on, for fear of retribution, really. I mean, I actually drove the route - Kevin and Sue showed me the route last night. At midnight I got in my car and I actually drove it. I’ve got to admit I was really really scared, it’s pitch black, it’s open countryside, there’s no traffic, it’s very very atmospheric - and I wouldn’t do it again actually. Fortunately nothing happened to me.

JC: She’ll be glad to get out of there now, won’t she?

RM: Absolutely. Well, we’ll come back to you all in a minute, because we want you to listen; turn your sound up on your television in the pub now, because we want you to listen to these two here. 'Cause none of these people are isolated at all. We’ve got Jenny Sellars here, who’s also encountered the ghost, and she’s here just in case that link went down; and also Christine Lee, whose father saw it lots of time. Jenny, what did you see and when?

JS: It was about 9 / 10 years ago and I was driving from Sleaford to Lincoln, and I wasn’t driving particularly fast because its quite a dark stretch of road, and this white - I can only describe it as a sheet or a bit of plastic, which I thought it was -

RM: Just like Kevin said: he thought it was a plastic bin liner.

JS: Yes. It just came down in front of the windscreen and I just slammed on my brakes because I thought I’d hit something but knew I hadn’t because there was no impact or anything on the screen. I stopped the car, and as I stopped the car, it went round the side of the window. And I only sat there for not very long. I did actually open the door of the car because I was convinced I must have hit something although I didn’t actually feel that I’d hit anything, and there was just nothing, y’know, when I -

RM: stopped -

JS: Yeah, there was nothing on the ground, there was nothing. It was just black.

RM: What did your father see?

CL: Well, He said when they were coming back from a night out - they were going back to their barracks -

JC: He used to work at the RAF base, didn’t he?

CL: Yeah. Yeah.

RM: Cranwell, yeah.

CL: Yeah. And he was saying they were walking across the fields and this white ghostly figure came from up high; put his hand out as if to say ‘don’t go’ -

RM: Now we keep hearing this, we keep hearing that there’s this hand coming up. This is a common feature in this particular haunting.

JC:  It’s the warning.

RM: It’s the warning sign. Get back.

CL: Yes, he said he put the hand up, and five of them were walking - my father and his friends saw this figure, and grabbed hold of the other three and said we’re not going that way, we’re going this way and took the long way back round to the barracks.

RM: Right. They were that frightened? They didn’t want to carry on.

CL: Yeah, yeah, and what he was worried about, he said, because it was all fields they wasn’t sure if it was marshy or boggy, and he was just telling them what was there.

JC:  Not to go.

RM: And didn’t he see it again, when he was driving?

CL: Yeah, later on he said he went back up there when he was driving, and he saw it again. And he just turned off and went through the other way. He said he wouldn’t go further up on the A15.

JC:  I mean, we’ve had calls exactly the same. I’ve just picked a couple, y’know. Lynn Gothing from Essex here saw same thing one-and-a-half years ago. She said it looked like a monk waving. And Helen Carter - the same thing - holding the hand up, as a warning. You know, don’t come this way, isn’t it?

RM: And apparently all these people - you included [to Jenny and Christine] - all the people we were talking to in the pub - almost everyone, has never spoken about this before, it’s only because it kind of erupted yesterday on the programme. We spoke to somebody at the information library in Sleaford, which is about four miles away from this spot and apparently - there’s a bit of history here - the area where these sightings are constantly seen is known as Hangman’s haunt. It’s also called Dunsby Hollow, and apparently in the past it was very difficult for the stagecoaches that used to come down to get insurance if they went down that road because odd things would happen - passengers would jump off and run away, and apparently highwaymen used to haunt the spot because it’s very lonely and it is in a hollow and you can’t see them as you’re coming over the horizon. You were saying earlier, Julia, we had a call from a guy who used to drive kids in coaches on school trips around there in the 60s, and he ran over somebody at that spot, got out of the coach, and there was nobody there, and he went down the pub that we’re going back to now, for a drink, to settle his nerves. You see, this goes back years and years and years and years and years. OK, what are people there generally going to make of everything now? I mean, they obviously believe that they’ve seen something. Is there a consensus that that is definitely, without question, irretrievably, a haunted place where you are likely to see something if you go there often enough?

NM: It’s pretty close to that. But I must tell you, that when Kevin heard the story about - Kevin’s come up in gooseflesh, and I mean he just really went cold all over. But you felt terrified that -

KW: I felt sort of relieved that somebody else had experienced the same thing, but at the same, a shiver down my back, and my whole body’s just come out in goose bumps, and I’m sort of re-experiencing that evening again.

NM: Yes, because you said you hadn’t had nightmares?

KW: I haven’t had nightmares, but I’m sort of going through it again, I just can’t believe it. It’s just so much like what I saw on the early hours of that Sunday morning.

NM: Does it make you feel better?

KW: It does, but it makes me feel worse, because it reinforces that there is something there. People have said all sorts of things. I’ve this morning heard people saying about jets, and images of jets causing it. I mean I’ve seen no RAF planes flying over this area at half-two in the morning, and I’m sure if you contacted Cranwell or Waddington or anywhere like that they could back that up. It just wasn’t that. This was real. I can guarantee that.

NM: Well Kevin, I can also say you’re [one of] the most straightforward people I’ve - most down-to-earth, and least likely to fabricate anything and to be histrionic about things, so I’m prepared to believe you very much.

KW: Thank you very much.

NM: Richard, I think it’s pretty iron-clad, this one.

RM: OK, we thought it would be, didn’t we? Thought it would be.

JC: I want to know what it is, though, I want to know what the warning is.

RM: OK, that’s Stage 2. OK, it’s the 'Ruskington Horror'. But it’s Stage 2 of our investigation. We’ll do some research into, some real deep research now. And we’ll give it a few days.

JC: Because it’s obviously not a bad thing -

RM: Well, I don’t know actually. It frightens them.

JC: But if somebody’s warning them away it might be that there’s something bad behind them. That’s what they’re trying to avoid.

RM: There’s so much to find out.

JC: I know. I’d love to know the history.

RM: Well we know there’s a hermit used to live there, who apparently got run over by an army lorry during the war. We’ve talked about the highwayman, it’s known as Hangman’s Hollow. I think we need to get into it. So, we’ll find out a lot more from the local history people, and in a few days we’ll put it all together, nice and tight for you. Today was the emotional day. That was good.

JC: Brilliant. Brilliant stuff.

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Link: This Morning website