Past Times

EVER had that haunted feeling?

Sitting tenants can be hard to shift when they come in the form of spirits who decide to make themselves at home. BBC comedy Ghosts is back for a new series on Monday with the dead residents of crumbling country estate Button House returning to cause more mayhem for owners Alison and Mike.

Putting the fun into the afterlife has long proved popular in the movies and on television. A generation of children grew up singing the theme song of BBC children’s show Rentaghost, which opened with the lines “If your mansion house needs haunting just call Rentaghost. We’ve got ghouls, and freaks and fools at Rentaghost”.

It was written and performed by Michael Staniforth who played medieval jester Timothy Claypole on the show. Claypole claimed he had been cracking jokes since the 12th century trying to keep the court of Empress Matilda entertained and he was constantly baffled by changing technology all around him in the modern age.

Rentaghost began in 1976 and kept a nation of children spooked for eight years. It saw recently deceased Fred Mumford (Anthony Jackson) come back from the dead to set up a company offering ghosts for hire. Claypole was one of the first spirits to sign up long with Victorian gent Hubert Davenport (Michael Derbyshire). Landlord Harold Meaker (Edward Brayshaw) and his wife Ethel (Ann Emery) later took over the running of the agency and Rentaghost saw all manner of spirits turning up over the years.

Future Coronation Street regular Sue Nicholls played Dutch ghost Nadia Popov, Prime Suspect writer Lynda La Plante was Tamara Novek and Carry On star Kenneth Connor appeared as Whatsisname Smith.

Kenneth Cope was the very dead but not so silent partner in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). The supernatural drama about a private detective duo began on ITV in 1969 with Kenneth playing the whitesuited ghost Marty that only his business partner Jeff Randall (Mike Pratt) could see and hear.