Help! My House Is Haunted: Ghost Of Grandad, Nottingham - Series 2, Episode 11 Review
This article is more than four years old.
In the penultimate investigation of the series, Barri Ghai, Chris Fleming, and Jayne Harris are in Nottingham, a beautiful city which Jayne says is one of the top five most haunted cities in the UK. The team have been called to investigate an ordinary looking family home on the outskirts of the city.
The residents, Luke and Kim, need the team's help with strange paranormal activity they've been experiencing in the house. Kim said it all started a year ago on the night they moved into the house, when she saw a figure stood at the end of her bed. She said, "it looked like a man's torso. I couldn't see a face, it was very quick." Luke also caught a glimpse of it, "I aw the actual shadow of it walking from the side of the bed towards the door."
Since that first night they've experienced countless incidents, including their bed shaking in the night. Kim even blames a recent illness on the haunting and hasn't gone back to sleep in that bedroom since. The house has been in Kim's family's hands for many years, but they were unaware that her family suffered a major loss here. She explains, "I recently found out that my grandad passed away in the living room."
Luke and Kim are amateur ghost hunters themselves and have captured some evidence of the haunting through their own investigations. The couple believe they are dealing with two spirits, one of which is Kim's grandad, Albert.
The team's psychic medium, Chris, always insists on being kept in the dark about the location, but while the team were travelling to the property in their ghost-hunting camper van, he had a vision of what awaits them. Even before they arrived at the property, Chris said he's been aware of the word "gateway" and the phrase "I unlocked the gate". He feels this is to do with communicating with sprits, opening a portal and not closing it again.
More From 'Help! My House Is Haunted'
You can read more and the team's investigations on our 'Help! My House Is Haunted' hub, where you'll find detailed reviews of each episode, trivia quizzes and news on future episodes.
Chris' Walk Through
While Barri and Jayne head off to try to uncover more about the local area and the paranormal history of the house, Chris started the investigation with a solo walk around the property. As soon as he stepped into the property he became aware of a heavy atmosphere that made him feel nauseous.
Later Chris is drawn upstairs where he becomes aware of a negative energy. He says, "it's definitely a man, an older man". In one of the bedrooms, Chris became aware of a spirit who bothers people while they are sleeping and wakes people up.
Chris says, "I'm beginning to understand what's happening in the house now. There are two strong presences here, one malevolent and one benign, that seem to be struggling for control". He adds, "someone's father I think passed away, and he's trying to make contact with them." Pretty close.
Chris thinks the negative energy might be coming from the attic and goes to investigate. He is concerned when he finds what he describes as "a little paranormal workshop". He says, "you open up a portal or doorway and you can't shut it down". Something he had mentioned in the van. Chris thinks the couple could have opened something up upstairs without realising what they were messing with.
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The House's Haunted History
While Chris investigated the house, Jayne went to meet with Paul Stevenson, the editor of Haunted Magazine. As a local, Paul is well placed to tell Jayne about the haunted history of the area. Paul says that when it comes to hauntings, Nottingham has got the lot, "everyone's got a white lady. Everyone's got a grey lady. Haunted roads, haunted castles. You name it."
It's not just castle or coaching inns that are haunted, as Paul says, the unassuming house the team are investigating cold well be haunted too. He said, "I believe that anything can be haunted."
Meanwhile, Barri went to meet Paul Buckland, a friend of Luke and Kim, who is sensitive to the paranormal. Paul has had his own paranormal experience at the house. He told Barri, "I got mid-way up the stairs and the feelings completely changed. It went from being nice and family-loving, to walking through mud. And as I'm getting further up the stairs I can feel a different energy, not such a nice energy but almost like 'this is my property, I don't want you here'."
But Paul says there's also a much more benevolent energy in the house, "I could feel an energy at the bottom of the stairs, almost protection from something". Paul thinks the friendly protective spirit downstairs, is stopping the negative spirit upstairs from coming down.
Barri also spoke to Kim's mum, Elaine, to find out more about Kim's grandfather who she thinks is haunting the house. Elaine describes her father-in-law as "kind, basically he was just a really loving man. A family man, definitely a big family man."
Barri's final stop was to meet James, a member of Luke and Kim's paranormal team. James tells Barri about their attempts to communicate with the spirits in the house. He said, "they did do divination with the board, they've used the mirrors for scrying, they've used pendulums, and they've used tarot cards and things like that."
Barri says, "in my experience, unless you ask to speak to the exact spirit in question, anything is going to come through and that can lead to a whole host of problems."
Re-Group
With their own individual investigations completed, the team re-group with a better understanding of the area and the spirits they might be facing. They share what they've learnt and put a plan of action together. The team invite Luke and Kim to join them for the next stage of their investigation, as well as Kim's mum. They hope that their involvement might encourage any spirits in the house to interact with them.
They've also brought along a photograph of Grandad Albert and his walking cane in the hopes that these items might act as triggers and help him make his presence known.
They start their investigation in the living room, but before they even get started, Barri suddenly feels as if someone is stood right behind him. Barri is using a digital audio recorder in an attempt to capture EVPs. These are believed to be spirit voices caught electronically. At one point Luke called out "do you mind that we're all here trying to communicate with you?" A voice in the recording appeared to say "no".
Chris then called out "are there other spirits that enter into this house as well?" A voice in response appeared to say "a gate". Chris excitedly reminds his team mates that he mentioned a gate during their drive to the house. Chris thinks Albert is trying to warn his family that there is a portal allowing whoever and whatever to enter the house.
Lockdown
As the light fades outside, Luke, Kim and Elaine leave, and static cameras are rigged around the property. The team are then locked down inside the house for a 12 hour investigation throughout the night. They begin their investigation in the living room, the room where Kim's grandad passed away.
Chris decides to lie on the sofa and make himself at home, in the hopes this might elicit a response from the spirits. As Chris lay on the sofa, he became aware of the spirit of a tall man stood next to him. At the same moment, Barri noticed a mist floating across the screen of his phone while using the camera.
As Barri tries to communicate, Chris feels a spirit move through him. An experience he describes as being overwhelming. Chris says, "as quickly as it enters, it's gone." Chris believes the team are in the presence of a positive spirit. Moments later they capture an EVP which seems to be saying "Albert" in response to the team asking it its name.
The team then heard a sound coming from the adjoining conservatory. They went to investigate and found that the planchette that was sat on top of one of Luke and Kim's Ouija boards on the table had flipped over. The team take this as a sign to use the spirit board.
First they sit in silence around the table with an audio recorder capturing everything. When they play the audio back, they hear what they think sounds like "help me, Chris." Chris then calls out "allow us to hear those sounds of those souls, those spirits, going in and out of that doorway." Seconds later, seemingly in response, they heard a knocking sound. Another EVP confirms to Chris that Albert is trapped in the house.
The team finally decide it's time to use the Ouija board and each lightly place their hands on the planchette. Almost immediately the planchette starts moving around the board. Chris is confident that they are communicating with the spirit of Albert and asks, "how many human spirits are here?" The planchette slid across the board to the number two. Barri speculates that this could be confirmation of the darker entity residing upstairs.
Unfortunately for the team, the next sound they hear seems to be leading them upstairs, to the attic room where Luke and Kim store all of their paranormal paraphernalia.
As the team climb the steep stairs to the attic, Barri spots something odd while using his SLS camera. This device, also known as a Structure Light Sensor camera, is supposed to be able to map anomalies invisible to the human eye and highlight these potential manifestations by showing them as stick figures drawn over the camera's image.
The stick figure Barri had caught was right in front of him on the stairs, as if blocking his path. Moments later the twitching figure on the screen seemed to warp and roll up into an abstract ball and then vanish. Watching the footage back from the top of the stairs, Chris excitedly shouts down to Barri "dude, it went through a portal!" Barri says, "this is amazing evidence and seems to confirm we're dealing with portals or gateways."
Next the team head to Luke and Kim's former bedroom, the room where they both reported seeing an apparition. Chris lies on the bed, but pretty soon gets more than he bargained for when he felt something knock the bed. Seconds later he felt like a spirit was attempting to take him over. Chris said he managed to block the spirit from entering his body, but said "I felt it go through my field."
As their investigation nears its end, Chris confirms the plan of action. He says, "we need to do prayers for Albert and we need to get rid of the doorways."
Chris remains in the bedroom alone to conduct a session with a spirt box, a device which scans through the radio spectrum. The idea is that spirits can affect the sound and use it to communicate. Chris tells Albert of his intentions to help him and asks for confirmation, a voice amongst the static seems to say "yes."
Chris begins his cleansing ritual upstairs in Luke and Kim's old room. Chris reads the prayers for the dead while using a chyme that produces a pure harmonic tone to get the spirits attention. He also blesses the upstairs of the house with holy water and salt.
Barri concludes, "it's been a successful investigation. The prayers have closed the gateway and helped the malevolent spirits crossover. All that's left to do is for Chris to perform a final cleansing ceremony in the living room." The team perform this prayer session together to help Albert move on.
Conclusion
The team revealed their evidence to Luke and Kim at the end of the episode, some of which was very interesting. Jayne had captured what appeared to be a face in a photograph of the living room TV, and at the same moment captured a very clear EVP which seemed to be saying "I can see you."
Kim also revealed to Barri that the mist he caught on his camera in the living room could have been down to her grandfather being a pipe-smoker in life.
The episode was a little less reliant on REM-Pods and spirit boxes than normal, instead we saw some more traditional spiritual methods of spirit communication, including a séance and spirit board session - both of which yielded results for the team.
Although Chris seemed a little overly paranoid when using the Ouija board. He warned the team that "opening up any form of spirit communication is a risk, but with these boards you need to be especially careful as you don't know what or who you are talking to."
However a spirit board is just another form of communication, after all Chris said himself that "any form of spirit communication is a risk" and up until this point the team haven't had any real idea of who they are communicating through any of the methods they have used anyway.
In fact moments earlier when the team felt they were communicating with a positive spirit through EVP, Jayne said "we need to be sure it's not the dark energy Kim described upstairs trying to trick us." So, a spirit board doesn't seem any more risky than any other method of spirit communication.
'Help! My House Is Haunted' continues next week on Really as part of the channel's #Freakend event, bringing viewers two nights of paranormal entertainment every Thursday and Friday.
You can watch in the United Kingdom and Ireland as part of the Discovery family of channels. You can watch Really on Freeview (17), Sky (142), Virgin Media (129) and Freesat (160), plus YouView, BT TV and TalkTalk TV. Or watch previous episodes on demand on dplay.
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