A Brief Gander at a Lincoln Ghost Walk...

I've always wondered who actually indulges in ghost walks, haunted house experiences and trick or treating; my initial guess would involve two distinct demographics; children, and people who intend to get shitfaced later on in the night. Apparently, I must fall into the latter category.

Two days before Halloween, me and a few friends thought it'd be a good idea to see what the fuss is all about. Surprisingly, in the 21st century, stuff like this (while quite seasonal), is still quite popular. I mean this particular group does tours all year round at 7 PM, Wednesday through to Saturday. I imagine the walk becomes pretty boring when you're trying to avert the eyes of the guide all by yourself, but still I must admit, they do seem like a rather dedicated bunch.

So, it's Thursday, (the 29th of October, to be precise), and after a hurried walk up Lincoln's aptly and imaginative named Steep Hill, (points for originality there), we meandered for a while in the square outside the Cathedral. A square which is normally relatively quiet is now host to around 200 men, women and children, all stood around in the cold with a somewhat perplexed look on their collective faces. While I was going into this experience with a very reluctant attitude, I assured myself that a turnout this big, and with claims that their stories had been shared on radio and TV, that the walk would be at least somewhat believable and legitimate; unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

The night began with a sizable crowd, a mass of people which would mistake you into thinking something important was occurring. Admittedly, the night was home to some low fog which encompassed the cathedral, so if you were into this kind of thing, the atmosphere must have been pretty great for you. I've no idea how she managed it, but the guide for the party of a few hundred managed to stand a tad taller than the rest. In a black cape and fragile glasses, everyone assumed she was selling tickets, but quite frankly, it's not like you actually needed one. For a receipt-less £4, you were granted a ticket with nothing more than some information from the company behind the walk, and even then, just their email, website and contact number. 

Truly spooky stuff.

Unfortunately, I don't know if I'll be treasuring this ticket for the foreseeable future. After a less than ideal first impression, the guide who described herself as "Harry Potter's Grandma" in an attempt to gain a few laughs off of the kids, bellowed to the group that the tour had begun, before directing our eyes to the nearby Widow Cullen's Well pub. Apparently there's a dead body at the bottom of the well, not that any of us actually ventured into the pub to have a look, but regardless, it was gripping stuff for the first 30 seconds. 

Myself and many others then continued onwards, with an unjustified wave of optimism, guessing and hopelessly assuming that the tour would pick up the pace. The next stop was only a few dozen feet away, at a nearby hotel. The capturing narrative for this locale was that of a key which shot across a room, shitting up a patron in the process. How this underwhelming tale managed to leave the walls of the hotel and make its way to this guide, I have no idea, but it was the next step on this increasingly underwhelming adventure. To make matters worse, and possibly because the climate of Lincoln appreciates some pathetic fallacy, it had now started to rain...

Another two stops went by, both equally forgettable but with a single exception; a drunk gent had joined the fray, and was stood among the kids at the front of the crowd, with a girlfriend who had a look varying from 'playful and self-joking' to 'distressed and murderous'. At this point, this gentleman, with his well-timed quips between pauses in the guide's stories, becomes the central attraction of the tour, reimbursing out four quid through a series of laughs which were only matched when my mate laughed in the piercing silence of a particular character named 'Mrs. Biggerdyke', which does seem surprisingly legitimate.

An hour into the 90 minute tour, and becomes woefully clear that this poor lady is ill-equipped to handle such a crowd; she begins rambling about different dimensions, of "civil war people", and of a particular "staunch royalist lady", (a phrase which initially draws me in, but is then ruined by the guide's countless repetition of it). At this point, I'm assuming the guide has built up some kind of connection, or at the very least, feels comfortable with more informal conduct in front of complete strangers, but that just wasn't happening here. All these little pieces of bullshit and links to the real, tangible world were presumably meant to draw us into the story, to help us suspend our disbelief, but some odd spouts of stuttering, some unchanging lexis and narrative inconsistencies quickly put a stop to that.

We could sense the end was near; we were now approaching the ominous cathedral, layered in fog and a dazzling of rain. Even if the story was awful, it'd still make for a bit of a spectacle at the very least. After trekking down narrow roads and dark pathways which I'd never seen before, the building came into sight. Anyone who's ever been near Lincoln and seen this marvel will know how it's portrayed, lit up like the centerpiece of the city, so I began to get my hopes up for the first time in the night. 

But then, we just stopped. Down a miserable road with the cathedral in sight, the diminished party came to a standstill, and we were told one last story before being sent on our merry way. We didn't even go into the cathedral...

Note the drunk gentleman beneath the clear umbrella

As we had done before, we laughed at the stories themselves, and how terribly unbelievable they were. We had a giggle at the drunk chap, and at why people even come to these superstitious events anymore, (because, I mean, we'd come out of a sense of irony, right?).

Yet after I'd proclaimed, "Pub!" and we'd took refuge in a local guest house, I got thinking: At four quid for a useless ticket, and assuming that around half of the group had paid, this 90-minute exhibition of implicit extortion had garnered a good £400, for a job which everyone was stating they could do. Everyone then went quiet, and with a internal though of "shit", we went back home. 

It's all well and good us slating things such as this, ghost walks and haunted houses, but as with annual atrocious game releases and the latest Paranormal Activity film, if some people demand it, then why not supply it? And make a good few quid in the process.