Haunted

Les had died on Bridget's hospital ward. Strange and unsettling events began to occur around the bed and the room in which he passed away. Bridget and her fellow nurses all witnessed increasingly noisy and violent acts which convinced them that an "evil" force was stalking those working the night shift. 

Bridget had seen plenty of death, but she was sad when one particular patient she was nursing passed away. She thought Les was gone... but then as she embarked on an eerie series of night shifts his old hospital bed and room became the epicentre for a catalogue of deeply unsettling and unexplained events. Was a poltergeist taking root in a place of science and reason?

Judith's earliest memories are of vivid ghost sightings. A kindly old man was always waiting in her childhood bedroom. Growing up she passed ghosts in the street. As a wife and mother the ghosts weaved themselves firmly into her family life - and made her feel increasingly unsettled. But how could she tell people without being branded as "crazy"? 

Host Danny Robins asks psychotherapist Rosalind Grainger of e17therapy.com what might cause someone like Judith to see dead people day after day.  

Larry was a student, living a privileged, carefree life in South Africa in the dying years of Apartheid. The violence and oppression of white rule had little impact on him. Then in the dead of night he experienced a terrifying, ghostly visitation that would make him question his own sanity and the depth of racial injustice in his homeland. 

Private Lee Davis was hanged in a British prison in 1943. The execution chamber where the young American GI spent his final tragic moments is now a tourist destination, popular with "ghost hunters". When a tour guide recently recounted the story of the hanging there, the man felt a sudden, fierce pain. His hand had been badly, but inexplicably wounded. Was Private Davis sending a violent message, perhaps protesting at becoming the focus of such macabre entertainment?  

Widowed for decades, Jim lives alone in an old cottage. Not quite alone, though. A thin, black-haired woman comes to his bedroom as he sleeps. When he wakes and sees her, she simply points to the corner. Then she disappears. This ghostly co-habitation takes a new twist when Jim finds the spirit wants to share his bed, as well as his home. So what is at the root of this most intimate of ghost sightings?   

We’re thrilled to present Panoply’s Fall 2017 lineup of shows. They include the satirical self-improvement show “Dexter Guff is Smarter Than You (And You Can Be Too),” the creepy paranormal series “Haunted,” “Family Ghosts,” in which people play detectives in their own family mysteries, “You Must Remember Manson,” which dives into the links between Charles Manson and Hollywood, the immersive fiction podcast “Tumanbay,” and “Battle Scars,” which features frank and sometimes funny conversations with the men and women fighting today’s wars.

In addition to new shows, season 2 of “By The Book” launches with Jolenta and Kristen trying to go on a digital diet, “Why Oh Why” talks with the founder of a dating app for men with beards, “Happier with Gretchen Rubin” offers holiday happiness hacks, “Happier in Hollywood” considers whether holiday gifts are necessary in the workplace, and “Side Hustle School” revisits some of its best hustlers.

Learn more about all our shows at https://www.megaphone.fm

Did Neil's mother smash up his kitchen to tell him she'd passed away in hospital miles away? Did Julie's husband make an appearance at his own funeral and knock drinks over at the wake? Did Karen's friend help solve the mystery of her own demise with a message from beyond the grave? Many grieving people say that their deceased loved ones have made contact in unusual and unexpected ways. Is this a sign that the bonds of love are simply too strong to be broken even by death, or is the pain of loss at the root of such ghost sightings?

Percy Lambert promised to quit motor racing once he won back the land speed record, but on Halloween 1913 his car flipped and he was killed. His death - alongside the many other racing fatalities - makes the famous Brooklands track an eerie place. Author Mark Richardson even wrote a light-hearted novel about the circuit's creepy reputation - The Ghost at Brooklands Museum.  But then a strange encounter on the tarmac left Mark wondering if he too had met Percy's unhappy spirit on the anniversary of the racer's death.    

It was just a modest home in a poor part of London, but a previous resident didn't seem ready to leave it. Each and every day a little old woman would wander into Tyronne's kitchen and talk to his mother. The spirit seemed fairly harmless - though Tyronne's parents worried when the old lady fixated on their two-year-old daughter in her cot. However, when the family finally sold the property stories reached Tyronne that the ghostly former inhabitant was making life uncomfortable for any immigrants taking up residence. Had the ghost really taken her prejudices with her into the afterlife?