|
|
Post by jackball74 on Dec 2, 2014 16:59:01 GMT
With the changing of the seasons, I was wondering if Christmas ghost stories are still popular in certain places. Over here in the states it is virtually unknown with the general public - save for A Christmas Carol - but I hope some in the UK still keep the tradition alive. Are there any magazines or TV shows that feature such tales?
|
|
|
|
Post by Shrink Proof on Dec 2, 2014 19:24:19 GMT
As far as TV goes, here in Britain the most famous was the BBC's "A Ghost Story for Christmas" series. You can read the background via this link. The various stories crop up all over the Vault and the programmes are available on DVD. It seems to run for a bit, then goes quiet for a few years, then returns. Like a ghost, in fact. Last year's M R James' "The Tractate Middoth" was very creditable but the one before that (a version of M R James' "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad" in 2010) was dire. Right now the BBC are 2/3 the way through the ghost story "Remember Me", last part due this Sunday evening. It's got its very own Vault thread right here. |
|
|
|
Post by jackball74 on Dec 3, 2014 15:21:44 GMT
Cool - I've heard of the series but haven't seen any episodes yet.
|
|
|
|
Post by ripper on Dec 4, 2014 9:09:12 GMT
I am a little too young to have watched the BBC's Ghost Stories for Christmas when they were originally transmitted in the early to mid 1970s, but I do recall them sometimes showing a supernaturally-themed film or two on Christmas Eve, usually on BBC2 around midnight in the 80s and 90s. Indeed, it was always the first thing I looked for when we got the special double issue of Radio Times covering Christmas and New Year. Around 20 years ago BBC2 showed the Val Lewton RKO horror films, one per night, over the Christmas period. I think it was also on Christmas Eve that ITV first screened The Woman in Black in, I believe, 1989.
Magazines proliferated during the Victorian period until their decline as radio and television became people's main source of news and entertainment, and Christmas issues would be crammed with ghost stories. I can't say if today's magazines also include a ghost story at Christmas as I rarely read them now, but I do remember seeing the occasional one in the late 70s and 80s. My mom used to get Woman's Own every week and I feel sure that they would include a ghost story in the Christmas issue, though perhaps not every year.
It is my own practice to read a couple of ghost stories on Christmas Eve, ones actually set at Christmas usually.
|
|
|
|
Post by ramseycampbell on Dec 5, 2014 10:14:53 GMT
Decades ago a local newspaper commissioned me to write a Christmas ghost story but rejected it as being too gruesome for their readers.
|
|
|
|
Post by ripper on Dec 5, 2014 10:48:50 GMT
Ramsey's post has reminded me that our local paper used to sometimes include a ghost story in its Christmas Eve edition. I can't remember if they were public domain reprints or written by members of staff as it was so long ago now.
|
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Dec 5, 2014 10:53:56 GMT
Decades ago a local newspaper commissioned me to write a Christmas ghost story but rejected it as being too gruesome for their readers. Was it ever published elsewhere? Would we know it? |
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Dec 8, 2014 9:07:44 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by jackball74 on Dec 11, 2014 4:28:27 GMT
Going to definitely check it out!
|
|
|
|
Post by ramseycampbell on Dec 11, 2014 12:02:15 GMT
Decades ago a local newspaper commissioned me to write a Christmas ghost story but rejected it as being too gruesome for their readers. Was it ever published elsewhere? Would we know it? It's "Calling Card", and you may be amused to learn that one place it was published was the very same newspaper some years later, after a new features editor took over. |
|
