Tipple Tours Went Ghost Hunting in Eastbourne. The Ghosts Asked Us to Leave

Five hours. One supposedly haunted theatre. Several electronic devices. A Ouija board. And an increasingly urgent desire for garlic bread.

Tipple Tours normally concerns itself with spirits of the bottled variety. Whisky, brandy, rum, wine and occasionally something homemade in Moldova that removes both your ability to pronounce consonants and several layers of tooth enamel.

But while in Eastbourne, we decided to investigate a different sort of spirit and joined a five-hour ghost hunt at the Royal Hippodrome Theatre.

Five hours.

This is important.

Apparently ghosts do not operate to a convenient 90-minute schedule with an interval.

We entered with open minds. We left with aching arms, several photographs of my finger and absolutely no idea who Philip was.

They Put Me in Charge of Paranormal Photography

One of the first extraordinary decisions of the evening was putting me in charge of taking photographs.

This was brave.

Most of my normal photographs are out of focus, so adding complete darkness, potential ghosts and an unfamiliar camera was unlikely to improve matters. Nevertheless, I was dispatched around the theatre as Tipple Tours’ official paranormal photographer.

The results were spectacular.

Blurry chairs. Blackness. Half a wall. Something resembling ectoplasm that may have been my sleeve. And several magnificent photographs of my finger.

I cannot wait to see if any eventually appear online as evidence of paranormal activity.

“LOOK! A MYSTERIOUS PINK APPARITION HAS MATERIALISED IN THE LOWER LEFT CORNER!”

Nope.

That’s my finger.

Automatic Ghost Writing Produces a Squiggle

Our first attempt at proper communication with the spirit world involved automatic writing using a planchette placed over a piece of paper.

Everyone concentrated. The room fell silent. Slowly, the device began to move.

Something was happening.

Eventually we lifted it away and examined the message from beyond the grave.

It was approximately four centimetres long.

And it was…

a squiggly line.

There was genuine excitement.

I examined it carefully and, drawing upon my extensive experience of looking at squiggly lines, concluded that it looked remarkably like a four-centimetre squiggly line.

The dead had finally communicated with us.

Unfortunately, their handwriting was terrible.

The Ouija Board Contacts…Zu

Having established that the spirit world could draw a line, we decided to see whether it could manage letters.

Next came the Ouija board.

Hands were placed gently on the planchette, questions were asked and everyone watched closely as it began moving around the board.

Eventually, the spirits apparently gave us a name:

ZU.

Progress!

We’d gone from a squiggle to two actual letters.

Was Zu a forgotten performer who died tragically at the theatre? A mysterious visitor from decades past? Some ancient entity trapped between this world and the next?

Or was it a dyslexic demon attempting to spell UZ?

We never established this.

Zu, if you’re reading, please get in touch.

Preferably by email. Your handwriting isn’t great.

The Pendulum Delivers Terrible News

We were then handed spirit pendulums.

The principle is straightforward. You ask a question and the spirits supposedly move the pendulum in a particular direction to indicate their answer.

Naturally, I decided to ask the most important question of the evening:

“Are we really stuck in this ghost hunt for five hours?”

The pendulum swung decisively.

YES.

I tried again.

YES.

At last! Unambiguous evidence of supernatural intelligence.

Unfortunately, after several minutes my arm was aching so much that the pendulum could probably have predicted the National Lottery numbers.

Mirror Scrying Turns Someone Into Michael Winner

Then came mirror scrying.

This involves staring at somebody’s reflection in a mirror in near darkness until their face supposedly begins to change.

And astonishingly, one did.

One of our fellow ghost hunters gradually appeared to transform into…

Michael Winner.

Not Henry VIII. Not Jack the Ripper. Not some tortured Victorian music-hall performer condemned to roam the Royal Hippodrome for eternity.

Michael Winner.

For younger readers, explaining Michael Winner would take considerably longer than explaining mirror scrying, so ask your parents.

Whether this was paranormal activity, low lighting or the human brain becoming increasingly desperate for entertainment remains uncertain.

The Haunted Warm Seats in the Gods

We climbed high into the theatre, up into the gods, where we sat silently and attempted to detect mysterious changes in temperature.

And amazingly, some of the seats were warm.

Very warm.

Could this be residual spiritual energy from former theatre-goers who had refused to leave after the final curtain? Were we sitting in the precise location where a ghostly audience still gathers every night?

There was another possibility.

The previous ghost-hunting group had just been sitting in them.

We may therefore have discovered Britain’s first scientifically documented case of…

PARANORMAL BUM HEAT.

Further research is required.

The Hex Radio, Rolf Harris and the Ghost of Garlic Bread

Then somebody switched on what was essentially a ghost radio.

The device scans radio frequencies, producing fragments of noises and voices that can apparently be interpreted as messages from beyond the grave.

Ours started whistling.

Repeatedly.

It sounded suspiciously like Rolf Harris.

Which wasn’t the spirit contact anybody had been hoping for.

The machine also appeared to say “bloody” and repeatedly produced the name:

“Philip.”

Who was Philip? Was Philip haunting the theatre? Was Philip attempting to communicate an important message? Was Philip just trying to find Zu?

Then, during all this electronic communication with the afterlife, somebody suddenly announced:

“Oh my God. I can smell garlic.”

Now THIS was interesting.

Had Philip returned from beyond the grave smelling faintly of Chicken Kiev? Was Zu trying to communicate through the medium of Mediterranean cuisine? Had we discovered the first documented case of a poltergeist with a garlic press?

There was, unfortunately, a slightly less supernatural explanation.

There was a kebab shop nearby.

Case closed.

From this point onwards, the Hex Radio could have announced the precise location of Lord Lucan and I probably wouldn’t have noticed. I was thinking about garlic bread.

Philip, if you’re reading, please get in touch.

And bring some garlic mayo.

The Séance of the Touching Pinkies

Next came a séance.

We sat at a table back stage and touched pinkies.

Nothing happened.

We waited.

Still nothing.

No knocks. No footsteps. No icy breath. No spectral Victorian actor wandering through the curtains demanding to know why there were strangers touching little fingers in his theatre.

Just a group of adults sitting in the darkness, touching pinkies and waiting for somebody who had been dead for possibly 150 years to make the first move.

The dead remained remarkably uncooperative.

The Terrifying Room With No Air

We eventually descended deep underneath the stage into a storage area.

Almost immediately, people began saying:

“There’s no air down here.”

The atmosphere certainly felt strange. Could spirits somehow be draining oxygen from the room? Could an unseen presence be pressing down upon us? Was this the suffocating energy of somebody who had died there many years ago?

Or…

was it a basement with no ventilation?

Sometimes scepticism ruins all the fun.

The EMF Meters Go Red

We were also given EMF meters, little electronic devices that detect electromagnetic fields.

Suddenly…

RED LIGHTS.

Excitement swept through the group.

Something was here.

A ghost? A Victorian actress? Zu? Philip? Michael Winner?

Possibly.

Alternatively, we were standing inside a building containing electrical wiring, plug sockets, mobile phones and enough electronic ghost-hunting equipment to open a branch of Currys.

Still, flashing red lights definitely improved proceedings.

Every ghost hunt needs production values.

The Woman Behind the Curtain

Then things became genuinely dramatic.

A lady sitting at our table back stage reported feeling somebody touching her face. She experienced tingling and then complained about a pain in her back.

While everyone else considered paranormal explanations, I was quietly thinking:

I really hope she isn’t having a stroke.

Thankfully, she appeared fine.

Later, she returned from a trip to the ladies’ toilets with another extraordinary revelation.

She had…

seen a face in the toilet bowl.

There are some paranormal investigations where you desperately want photographic evidence.

This was not one of them.

Ghost Hunters Need Better Questions

After several hours, I noticed that ghost hunters tend to ask the same questions.

“Is anybody there?”

“If you’re here, can you make yourself known?”

“Can you knock if you’re here?”

These spirits have supposedly been dead for 150 years. Imagine waiting a century and a half for somebody to finally communicate with you, only for them to ask whether you’re there.

We need better questions.

If Tipple Tours ever conducts its own paranormal investigation, we’ll be asking:

Where did you hide the good wine?

Is there a pub in the afterlife?

if so, does it serve cask ale?

Why is Philip here?

Who the hell is Zu?

And, most importantly:

“Do you want us to go?”

After five hours, I suspect the answer from both the living and the dead would be:

YES PLEASE.

The Tipple Tours Paranormal Verdict

Did we prove ghosts exist? No. Did we prove they don’t exist? Also no.

What we did establish beyond reasonable doubt is that warm theatre seats remain warm for a while after somebody gets up, human arms aren’t designed to hold pendulums indefinitely and putting me in charge of paranormal photography produces considerably more evidence of fingers than ghosts.

We encountered mysterious smells, flashing machines, strange noises, tingling faces, Michael Winner, a four-centimetre squiggle, a possible face in a toilet, someone called Zu, a spirit apparently named Philip and compelling evidence that there is a kebab shop somewhere near the Royal Hippodrome.

But perhaps the most chilling discovery of the entire evening was this:

When they said the ghost hunt lasted five hours, they genuinely meant five hours.

Next time, Tipple Tours is going back to investigating the other kind of spirits.

They might not communicate with the dead.

But after five of them, you probably will.