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It was not my wish to have the very main theme composed.

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The end.

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NoTP

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has the power to mislead us or to distort reality.

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It is, after all, the filter through which we perceive

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the outside world.

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But there are times when incidents

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can't be explained away by saying it's all in the mind.

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We have two such stories tonight.

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One is from what many researchers now believe

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is Britain's most haunted castle.

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It's a ghost story that spans the centuries.

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First, we have a story about faith healing.

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Skeptics would say it's a prime example

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of patients persuading themselves

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that they're getting better, which is a plausible theory.

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But there's one problem with it.

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How can you explain faith healing

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when the patients are animals?

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These pets and their owners are waiting at an animal clinic

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in Totnes, South Devon,

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but they will not be seen by a vet.

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Nicky Provo is an animal healer.

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Her patients are mainly pets

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which have already been treated by a conventional vet.

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But drugs and treatments don't always work,

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and coming here is often a last resort.

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I don't really know what happens when I give healing.

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I just know it works, and I connect with the healing energy,

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let it come through my hand onto the animal,

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so I act as a channel if you want.

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This clinic is one of a number which have sprung up to Cata

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for the growing band of animal lovers

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who believe that if spiritual healing can work for humans,

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why not for their pets?

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We think Nicky can actually heal the animal

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a lot quicker than the vet.

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I'm not a vet and I'm not medically trained.

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I don't think that I need to know what the diagnosis is

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or what is wrong with the animal.

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If after a healing session it's eating more,

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enjoys life more, that's good enough for me.

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There's no way she'd still be alive

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if she went for conventional veterinary medicine.

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I know that. There's no way.

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Animals aren't able to say whether they feel better or not,

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so it's easy for sentimentality to override

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the lack of scientific evidence on the subject.

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Whatever the owners believe,

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many vets remain highly skeptical.

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The vet's professional body,

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the British Veterinary Association, disapproves.

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We're not happy with forms of healing

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that are not based on science,

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and as a veterinary surgeon who's been in practice

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for some 35 years,

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I am not aware of any case

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that has responded to spiritual healing.

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But not all vets are unconvinced.

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This surgery in Potter's Bar, Hartfordshire,

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actually allows one healer to run a clinic here every week.

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The senior partner refers patients personally.

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I qualified about 22 years ago,

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and I used purely conventional techniques

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for about 10 years,

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but then I began to feel that a lot of conventional drugs

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had side effects and could even do harm to patients,

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and they weren't curing them.

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So I looked for other methods, such as healing,

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to help my patients.

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Healer Charles Siddl started working

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at Richard Alport's surgery last year.

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He now sees between three and seven patients a session.

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I certainly couldn't say what Charles is doing

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or how he does it.

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I know that he's having a healing effect in some fashion.

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I know that many patients are helped by it.

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Of course, healing isn't a cure-all,

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but in many cases, Charles can do a great deal of good

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for animal patients.

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But the bulk of Charles' work

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is done in the tough, big-money world of horse racing

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and show-jumping, where only results count.

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His skills are attracting a valuable clientele.

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Orion Blaze is a potential show-jumping champion

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worth over 40,000 pounds.

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He has treenalized his chance of fame

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in the show-jumping arena.

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Two years ago, he tore a ligament.

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I was devastated, because he's my main horse.

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We thought he was going to go quite a long way.

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He'd just gone as a grade A show jumper.

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The vet recommended a long period of rest.

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That would have meant a loss of valuable competition time.

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A friend suggested Charles Siddl.

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As there was nothing to lose with it,

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we decided to go ahead and try.

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Charles came up.

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He ran his hands over the horse's leg.

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And having done that, he then asked me for 25 pounds.

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And I thought I'd been robbed.

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The next morning, I got the horse out of the stable,

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looked at his leg, and the leg had gone down.

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So I tacked him up and took him out for a ride,

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and he was fine.

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And we've gone on from there from strength to strength.

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So who is Charles Siddl?

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And what powers does he claim to possess?

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I didn't know I was a healer until I was in my 50s.

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And I met a very famous vet called Buster Lloyd-Jones,

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who said that I could heal.

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Charles has since healed hundreds of animals.

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Those involved in Charles's successful cases

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have no doubts about his abilities.

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Jessica is a top breeding racehorse.

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Both her first twofolds have gone on to become valuable winners,

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Nipper Reed in particular.

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It's Nipper Reed, clear by a very long way,

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10 to 12 lengths,

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all bit of front running for Nipper Reed.

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Today, Jessica's worth around 20,000 pounds.

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But only three years ago, she was on the brink of death.

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Someone has suggested using a healer three years ago.

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Completing that's a waste of time,

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wouldn't have even entered my head.

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I first noticed a lump on Jessica during routine grooming,

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just over the top of her left eye on the top of her eyelid.

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It wasn't very big, it was about a small pea size.

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Yeah, Mandy.

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Take a look at this.

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Looks like a lump.

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Oh, it's probably nothing.

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Still, I better get the vet into her the look.

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Go.

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So, what's the matter with Jessica then?

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There's a lump above her eye.

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Jan called in her vet, Mark Sinett.

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He's treated the Piper's horses for several years

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and knows Jessica well.

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When I first examined Jessica,

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she had a couple of lumps involving her upper eyelid

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and also a few lumps under her throat and in her groin area.

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It's difficult to tell just by sort of initial first appearances.

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I mean, that's why we went on and did like further tests

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to try to ascertain what condition Jessica was suffering from.

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So what's wrong with her then?

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It's difficult to tell at the moment.

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We should be all right to have another fall, won't she?

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We'll just have to wait and see.

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OK, darling.

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But when the test results came through, the news was bad.

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Hello?

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Hi, Jan. I've got the results of the test through.

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I'm afraid Jessica's got equine lymphosarcoma.

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What does that mean? She's going to be all right.

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No, Jan. Jessica's condition is terminal.

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She's got cancer.

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Equine lymphosarcoma is a cancer

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affecting the white blood cells of horses

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and it usually spreads to internal organs as well.

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And there is no known cure for it.

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And I discussed her case with other vets and sins

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and they have the opinion that no horse has recovered from it.

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But all was not lost.

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Jan Piper had been told about Charles Siddles' healing skills

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by a racing colleague.

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Here you are, Graham. Someone gave me this. Take a look.

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What? It's an animal healer.

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That's nice.

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My husband's attitude towards healing was...

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When I suggested we call her a healer in,

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was that it was a load of old poppycock

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and he didn't want nothing to do with it at all.

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It's all nonsense.

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Well, we've got nothing to lose.

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She's going to be put down anyway.

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If it makes you feel better, give him a go.

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I don't think the people who own Jessica

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believed that anything would... happen.

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Good evening. I'm Charles Siddles.

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You must be Mrs. Piper.

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How do you do? Jessica's this way.

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Good girl.

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It's all going to be better soon, though.

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One.

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I didn't understand what he would do.

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He was totally sort of relaxed with her

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and she was relaxed with him.

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I can't remember at all how long I was in this actual stable with her.

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He was laying his hands all over her

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and I'd never seen anything like that before

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and Jessica didn't seem to mind.

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She'll be all right, mate.

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Probably she'll be tired, but tomorrow she'll be fine.

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Well, thanks for coming anyway.

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When Charles left, I mean, Jessica looked no different

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and I told my husband he was leaving

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and he just laughed and said that was a total waste of time.

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Well, that's it, old girl.

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I've tried everything now.

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When I left the stable, I knew Jessica would be all right.

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The next morning, Jan was in for a surprise.

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Jan! Jan!

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What?

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You won't believe it. Jessica's knocking at the door for food.

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Jessica?

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He can't be Jessica. She hasn't eaten in weeks!

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Jessica!

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Try on some hay first if she'll eat it.

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Hello, dear.

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Here you are.

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I couldn't believe it was the same horse that she was well.

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She was hungry.

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That's amazing.

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I can't believe it. She just looks so much better.

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She was just a completely different horse and I do put it all down.

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Well, I have to put it all down to what Charles did.

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Jessica made a complete recovery

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and the following year gave birth to Frank,

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who already shows racing promise.

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Today, Jessica is at the stud farm,

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hoping to conceive another in her line of winners.

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By all the laws of veterinary medicine,

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Jessica should be dead by now,

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but she's still walking around happy in the field with a foal.

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And this is just something that we cannot explain.

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And you might be pleased to know that animal healing

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has now been given the seal of approval

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by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons,

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which allows healers to lay hands on animals

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under the care of a qualified vet.

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Our ancient and historic monuments

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often have ancient and historic ghosts to go with them.

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You can even find them listed in the guidebooks.

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So far, so good for the tourist business.

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Our story tonight concerns one such historic site.

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The occasional tourist would leave terrified

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after a brief encounter with the supernatural,

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but that could always be put down to an overheated imagination.

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But what was more perplexing

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was the fact that the tourist was not alone.

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But what was more perplexing

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was the behaviour of the overnight visitors,

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level-headed friends of the family.

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They often refused point blank

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ever to spend another night in the place.

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They were seeing something that wasn't in the guidebooks.

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They were seeing the wrong ghost.

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Moncaster Castle.

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Since 1325, it has stood on the northwest coast of England,

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built to guard the ancient trade routes

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going south from Carlisle

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and to watch for invaders coming in from the Irish Sea.

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The Pennington family have been the lords of Moncaster

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since the 13th century,

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when Alan the Penitone was granted the lands of Moncaster by King John.

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In recent years, the family and friends

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have been plagued by strange happenings within the walls,

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doors open and shut of their own cord,

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unknown footsteps walk the corridors.

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Patrick Gordon Duff Pennington

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has lived at the castle since he married into the family,

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but he feels uncomfortable at times.

264
00:12:52,880 --> 00:12:56,880
Going up in the winter between the back door and my office,

265
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come snow, come hail or shine,

266
00:12:59,880 --> 00:13:02,880
every night footsteps used to follow me in the dark in the winter

267
00:13:02,880 --> 00:13:04,880
and I didn't like it one little bit

268
00:13:04,880 --> 00:13:08,880
and the dogs don't like it much either.

269
00:13:08,880 --> 00:13:11,880
I've always thought this house was a fairly normal house,

270
00:13:11,880 --> 00:13:14,880
but just lately it's become extremely strange.

271
00:13:15,880 --> 00:13:17,880
Horticulturalist Alan Clarke

272
00:13:17,880 --> 00:13:20,880
also had a bad experience at Moncaster.

273
00:13:39,880 --> 00:13:43,880
Had a quick look outside, nobody there at all.

274
00:13:44,880 --> 00:13:47,880
I then found it was quite difficult even to shut the door.

275
00:13:49,880 --> 00:13:53,880
But things didn't stop there for Alan Clarke that night.

276
00:14:03,880 --> 00:14:06,880
You hear the expression of the hairs that stands on the back of your neck,

277
00:14:06,880 --> 00:14:08,880
stands up on the back of your neck,

278
00:14:08,880 --> 00:14:10,880
and I never really believed it,

279
00:14:10,880 --> 00:14:12,880
but this really did sort of happen.

280
00:14:13,880 --> 00:14:15,880
Until now, the hauntings at Moncaster

281
00:14:15,880 --> 00:14:18,880
have been blamed on the spirit of Tom Skelton,

282
00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:20,880
otherwise known as Tom Fool.

283
00:14:20,880 --> 00:14:23,880
He was the jester at the castle in the 16th century,

284
00:14:23,880 --> 00:14:26,880
and his portrait now hangs in one of the corridors of the castle.

285
00:14:26,880 --> 00:14:30,880
By all accounts, Tom Fool had a sadistic sense of humour.

286
00:14:31,880 --> 00:14:33,880
He used to say that underneath the chestnut tree,

287
00:14:33,880 --> 00:14:37,880
that's outside this round door still, which is 600 years old,

288
00:14:37,880 --> 00:14:39,880
and when you came and asked the way back to London,

289
00:14:39,880 --> 00:14:41,880
if he didn't like the look of you,

290
00:14:41,880 --> 00:14:44,880
he pointed you down to the quicksands instead of over the fort.

291
00:14:44,880 --> 00:14:48,880
We'll never know if Tom Skelton really did send travellers to their deaths in the sands,

292
00:14:48,880 --> 00:14:50,880
but one thing is true.

293
00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:52,880
Just below the castle, along the river-esque,

294
00:14:52,880 --> 00:14:55,880
quicksands do appear at low tide.

295
00:14:56,880 --> 00:14:58,880
Legend states that Tom was also responsible

296
00:14:58,880 --> 00:15:02,880
for the gruesome murder of a carpenter within the castle grounds.

297
00:15:02,880 --> 00:15:06,880
An act he carried out to win favour with his master, Sir William Pennington.

298
00:15:10,880 --> 00:15:12,880
Tom Fool's presence pervades the castle.

299
00:15:12,880 --> 00:15:15,880
It's at its most disquieting by his macabre portrait.

300
00:15:15,880 --> 00:15:18,880
A scowling Tom Fool, he stands beside his will,

301
00:15:18,880 --> 00:15:22,880
a document that predicts his own death by drowning.

302
00:15:23,880 --> 00:15:27,880
One tourist had a frightening experience while looking at the painting.

303
00:15:28,880 --> 00:15:31,880
He's an evil-looking man, isn't he?

304
00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:48,880
She was convinced that she'd heard footsteps on stone,

305
00:15:48,880 --> 00:15:52,880
a claim that surprised the local investigator into the hauntings.

306
00:15:52,880 --> 00:15:55,880
When I interviewed her, sometime after the experience,

307
00:15:56,880 --> 00:16:01,880
I pointed out to her that the stairs and the corridor were indeed fully carpeted.

308
00:16:02,880 --> 00:16:05,880
And she'd never actually realised this, even after the experience,

309
00:16:05,880 --> 00:16:08,880
and she'd thought that she'd had a strange experience.

310
00:16:08,880 --> 00:16:11,880
She'd never actually made the connection between the stone footsteps,

311
00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:15,880
and the fact that that wing of the castle is fully carpeted.

312
00:16:16,880 --> 00:16:20,880
The tales of Tom Fool and a headless carpenter make for a good ghost story,

313
00:16:20,880 --> 00:16:24,880
but can all the bumps and bangs in the castle really be a true story?

314
00:16:25,880 --> 00:16:28,880
Is it attributed to a 16th-century jester?

315
00:16:28,880 --> 00:16:32,880
More recent incidents seem to have nothing to do with Tom Fool.

316
00:16:32,880 --> 00:16:35,880
More disturbing than anything that's gone before,

317
00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:40,880
these experiences centre on this room in the castle, the tapestry room.

318
00:16:43,880 --> 00:16:47,880
James Cartland is an archivist and a family friend of the Penningtons.

319
00:16:47,880 --> 00:16:51,880
In the early 80s, he was invited to stay at Monkester.

320
00:16:51,880 --> 00:16:56,880
His hosts put him up in the tapestry room, and a wing of the castle now little used.

321
00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:01,880
I'd heard this sort of strange...

322
00:17:01,880 --> 00:17:03,880
I had to have got to describe it. It was a sort of...

323
00:17:03,880 --> 00:17:08,880
as if somebody was talking, but muttering, sort of strange sound.

324
00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:10,880
I can't really explain it.

325
00:17:11,880 --> 00:17:14,880
I stuck my head up the chimney. I thought, well, it might be the wind in the chimney,

326
00:17:14,880 --> 00:17:18,880
but it never is. It was a very, very quiet night, very frosty and quiet.

327
00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:25,880
MUSIC

328
00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:41,880
I was the only person in that wing of the castle,

329
00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:43,880
so there was nobody else there to make a noise.

330
00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:46,880
Absolutely the only person. Everybody else was at the other end.

331
00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:49,880
And I went back into the room, and it was still going on.

332
00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:51,880
And it was more audible by then.

333
00:17:51,880 --> 00:17:54,880
I mean, it was definitely a child crying and somebody talking to it,

334
00:17:54,880 --> 00:17:56,880
as if a child was ill or something like that.

335
00:17:56,880 --> 00:17:58,880
I got back into bed.

336
00:17:58,880 --> 00:18:02,880
I never slept a wink. Terrible night.

337
00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:09,880
Unknown to James Cartland, a teenage girl had stayed with her mother at the castle a year earlier.

338
00:18:09,880 --> 00:18:12,880
Now a trainee solicitor, she prefers to remain anonymous,

339
00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:15,880
but her experience is recreated by actors.

340
00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:22,880
MUSIC

341
00:18:49,880 --> 00:18:52,880
MUSIC

342
00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:58,880
CRIES

343
00:19:01,880 --> 00:19:03,880
Oh, no.

344
00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:05,880
Oh, no.

345
00:19:10,880 --> 00:19:12,880
Oh, no.

346
00:19:12,880 --> 00:19:14,880
Shhh.

347
00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:16,880
Shhh.

348
00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:22,880
The late Lord Carlisle had a similar experience,

349
00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:25,880
which he recounted to an excurator at the castle.

350
00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:30,880
Lord Carlisle told me that he'd only once stayed in Monkester,

351
00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:33,880
and that time he'd been in the tapestry room.

352
00:19:33,880 --> 00:19:35,880
And he'd woken up in the middle of the night,

353
00:19:35,880 --> 00:19:37,880
the sound of a baby crying, in the room.

354
00:19:37,880 --> 00:19:39,880
And there was no baby in the room.

355
00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:41,880
He said he's never been more terrified in his life.

356
00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:43,880
And he was the man who got the MC in the last war,

357
00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:45,880
so he wasn't the man who was easily frightened.

358
00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:48,880
But he said nothing would get him to stay in Monkester again.

359
00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:50,880
And he was running as quiet as a second.

360
00:19:51,880 --> 00:19:54,880
No one testimony is proof that Monkester is haunted,

361
00:19:54,880 --> 00:19:57,880
but to investigators, these accounts, over a long time,

362
00:19:57,880 --> 00:19:59,880
add up to an impressive case.

363
00:19:59,880 --> 00:20:03,880
Monkester not only makes the grade with the witness's testimony,

364
00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:06,880
it far surpasses the level of criteria that you're looking for,

365
00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:10,880
which basically revolves around the correlation of stories

366
00:20:10,880 --> 00:20:12,880
over a vast period of time,

367
00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:15,880
or even at the same time if you had a collective experience.

368
00:20:15,880 --> 00:20:17,880
Without prior knowledge, that's the key.

369
00:20:17,880 --> 00:20:20,880
The only other way you could explain it would be mass collusion.

370
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:23,880
And on that scale, spanning decades from people that

371
00:20:23,880 --> 00:20:25,880
nowhere ever met each other.

372
00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:30,880
So if Monkester is haunted, who or what is doing it?

373
00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:35,880
In particular, who were the children said to be crying in the tapestry room?

374
00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:40,880
It was James Carthland who may have stumbled upon the answer.

375
00:20:40,880 --> 00:20:42,880
I came across some old plans,

376
00:20:42,880 --> 00:20:47,880
and I discovered that when the castle was altered in the middle of the 19th century,

377
00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:53,880
the room, the tapestry room, had been part of the old nurseries,

378
00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:57,880
and that those rooms had been cut up or altered in some way.

379
00:20:59,880 --> 00:21:01,880
So I immediately thought, my goodness,

380
00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:06,880
those children lived in those rooms, they were the nurseries.

381
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:08,880
It's rather unnerving.

382
00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:14,880
Could the tapestry room be haunted by the cries of children?

383
00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:19,880
Certainly the Pennington family had their share of tragedy in the 19th century.

384
00:21:19,880 --> 00:21:22,880
Gamal Augustus, the third lord of Monkester,

385
00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:26,880
lost his only child, Margaret, when she was 11 years old.

386
00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:31,880
She was buried in the family church, just a short walk from the castle.

387
00:21:32,880 --> 00:21:35,880
Philip the Pennington doesn't know how her distant relative died,

388
00:21:36,880 --> 00:21:39,880
nor is she certain that Margaret slept in the tapestry room

389
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:42,880
where the children's cries can now be heard.

390
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:44,880
But she does remember the words of Annie Preston,

391
00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:48,880
whose family worked at the castle in Gamal's time.

392
00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:53,880
Annie Preston, who is a lady who lived in the village,

393
00:21:53,880 --> 00:21:56,880
who died last year, aged 92,

394
00:21:56,880 --> 00:22:00,880
told me that her grandfather put Margaret Elizabeth,

395
00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:03,880
the daughter of Gamal, Lord Monkester,

396
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:05,880
into the family tomb.

397
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:08,880
She was the last person to be put in there.

398
00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:13,880
And also, he said, that she had screaming fits before she died.

399
00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:22,880
As a result of these inexplicable events,

400
00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:27,880
Monkester Castle now finds itself catapulted onto Britain's most haunted list.

401
00:22:27,880 --> 00:22:31,880
So much so that the only guests willing to spend the night in the tapestry room nowadays

402
00:22:31,880 --> 00:22:35,880
are paranormal investigators. Good night.