If you’re in the mood for some Ghostly stories, need a laugh, or you love the weird and bizarre. You will love this program (on Youtube) made in the late fifties/early sixties called ‘Stately Ghosts of England’. It’s about an hour in five parts. The main personality is Margaret Rutherford (as herself) and these two other men. The whole program was scripted though all the people filmed try to act like it wasn’t which is what makes it hilarious. (At one point the Clairvoyant man says dramatically – “You don’t have two ghosts. You have three!” And then Margaret Rutherford says with a straight face, “Three! Three! Three!”). They visit real stately homes and talk to the real owners who talk about their family ghosts. In the last part the Lady of the manor is mechanically doing flowers as she talks about her ghostly experiences. Look for her husband (Lord) standing off to the left with folded arms leaning against the wall. You can’t buy that Lordly stance and superior expression! You can only inherit it from a family tree full of self-important individuals with generations of slender fingers in powerful pies. That stance sums up for me the traditional English Aristocracy which is struggling to survive in the modern world where successive governments demand crippling death taxes on their estates. I personally think it would be sad to see the breed die out, not that they’d give a dead daisy what I think.
This is brilliant television. The cameramen who shot it were artists. They did a beautiful job sculpting the light.
Thanks for posting this 60’s program, I had forgotten it over time. Watched it again from your blog. Margaret Rutherford is such a “trip” in this work! It did bring a laugh or two!