Video: The Pontefract poltergeist

Pontefract, Yorkshire, 1966.

In an ordinary house on an ordinary street, young Phillip Pritchard witnesses something decidedly extraordinary. From a few inches below the ceiling of his new home, a semi-detached council house at 30 East Drive, white powder is falling to the floor.

It is late summer but there is an icy nip inside the room. A chest of drawers appears to move without human assistance. And, in the kitchen, puddles of water materialise that have no source even when investigated by the man from the water board.

It is the puzzling beginning of something that will eventually become a fixture within modern accounts of the paranormal 
and be accepted as “the most violent poltergeist haunting in Europe”.

Pontefract, Yorkshire, 2012.

No-one lives at 30 East Drive anymore. Home to the Pritchard family for more than 40 years, it stands empty – an unremarkable, everyday house bordered by overgrown lawns and drooping rhododendron bushes.

Yet the strange tales that for decades have been linked to the property have permeated the surrounding streets and passed into local lore.

This is how it happened. After the unusual events of September 1966 the Pritchards – dad Joe, mum Jean, son Phillip and daughter Diane – enjoyed a normal life until 1972 when, quite suddenly, they experienced a succession of frightening episodes.

The three-bedroom house shook to the sound of banging doors, loud knocking and mighty thuds like kettle drums. Sheets were torn from beds. A framed wedding photograph was shattered on the floor, the image torn in two. And in the most shocking incident, Diane was dragged screaming up the staircase by invisible hands that clutched at her neck.

Were that not all. In a manifestation that continues to provoke debate today, Joe and Jean claimed to have witnessed the black-cowled shape of a monk in their bedroom. For aficionados of the paranormal it provided evidence that the case had gone beyond mere poltergeist activity. This was something else altogether.

There were others who dismissed the entire occurrence as a hoax, initially perpetrated by Phillip and later by the family at large.

One incident, in which an aunt’s sheepskin gloves were seen to “conduct” as the terrified woman sang Onward Christian Soldiers, smacked of a teenager’s mischievous mind.

Yet the Pritchards never sought to exploit the goings-on in their home. In fact they learned to live with the entity they nick-named “Fred” and were never driven out.

The disturbances made a small impact regionally but hardly anything appeared in the national Press.

And unlike the Lutz family of Amityville Horror fame – which was pre-dated by the Pontefract poltergeist by two years – there was no headline-grabbing flight to safety, no bestselling book, and no film.

Until now. In When the Lights Went Out writer/director Pat Holden has returned to a story that has disturbed and captivated him since childhood.

Jean Pritchard was his uncle’s sister-in-law and, as a youngster, he lived just five minutes’ walk away from a house that, 
even then, enjoyed an eerie reputation.

“It’s the fulfilment of a lifetime’s ambition, really,” says the 46-year-old commercials director turned movie-maker.

“I grew up with the story. I was born in 1965 and it first happened in 1966 so through my whole childhood – from when I was first old enough to take things in – I’d hear tales of it.

“My Mum was a regular at their house so it just became normalised. The story was well-known in the local community. You’d get kids at school asking you about it, and neighbours and friends.”

He adds: “You think haunted house stories occur in mansions or castles but you never expect it in a little council house. I found it a very intriguing story. The family was very modest, private and down-to-earth. I don’t think it would have occurred to them to publicise it. Also it was very affecting and troubling and they were glad when it went. It was something they were happy to forget.”

But Holden couldn’t forget. In researching his film he traced the surviving members of the family – dad Joe died around 30 years ago – and conducted a series of interviews upon which he based his screenplay.

Trust played a big part – that and Holden’s decision to change the family’s names as well as tinker with the story.

As he points out, he wished to make a £4m movie, not a documentary.

Thus the Pritchards became the Maynards: dad Len (Leeds actor Steven Waddington), mum Jenny (Kate Ashfield, heroine of Shaun of the Dead) and daughter Sally (newcomer Tasha Connor, also from Leeds).

The character of Phillip does not appear – a deliberate move, says Holden, enabling him to concertina events into a more manageable whole and present one character as the heart of the haunting.

“When I was writing the screenplay I did originally have everyone in it,” affirms Holden. “It felt like it was losing focus so I combined [the brother and sister] into one character. I freely admit it’s very much based on story rather than a documentary.

“In trying to do a horror film there’s certain things that an audience expects. When you’re telling a story it doesn’t always fit into the act of reality.

“So right from the start I approached it more as a not strictly accurate retelling.

“I also wanted to protect their privacy. They had such a tough time when it first happened, being pestered by people. So I changed all the names.”

The film was shot in Huddersfield in the studio vacated by Last of the Summer Wine. This gave Holden and his crew freedom to breathe in a way that using the real house would not have.

News that When the Lights Went Out was not shot on authentic Pontefract locations gives rise to the obvious question: was Holden scared off by the history of 30 East Drive and its ongoing effect on the surrounding Chequerfield Estate...? Holden’s answer is one of practicalities.

“We considered it and then we decided we’d build the entire interior of the house on a set for various reasons.

“I wanted to construct classic, tension-building scenes like you’d get in a Hitchcock film or old horror films like The Innocents. They had a very formal way. The budget dictates the film style. That’s why we have so many hand-held films in the UK. People post-rationalise that it’s cinéma vérité but at the end of the day [it’s money]. That’s the truth of it.

“I think of films like Jaws where they do a lot of things in one shot. That would be very hard to do on location because you just can’t get a camera back enough. Before you know it you’re fighting the location and that’s the last thing I wanted to do.”

Holden describes his picture as “a ghost story for families”. There is a gentle vein of humour but it eventually builds to a crescendo of genuine terror.

“Fred” is never mentioned and the Pritchards’ method of using humour as a defence was gently excised.

“I tried to make the film with warmth,” explains Holden. “I wanted people to care about the characters.

“When I interviewed Diane this was something that had happened decades before and she was still uncomfortable about it. She still found it upsetting. I found that very moving.

“I’ve never been scared by the story. It’s always been an emotional thing for me because my mum was involved and I knew all the people.

“I’ve never really had the heebie-jeebies over the supernatural and part of that was via my mum who was the local psychic. I’ve grown up with that stuff every day, séances and all that. It was all sort of normal. I don’t find it creepy.”

When the Lights Went Out is released in Yorkshire on September 12 and nationwide on September 14.