Short and Sharp

AND there I was thinking the Pendle Witches were simply women wronged. Unpopular crones who fell victim to NIMBYs par excellence.

I based my belief on historical fact. Down the ages, historians, social scientists and all manner of academic experts have studied the story of the Lancashire Witch Trials.

And they concluded that Old Demdike, Chattox, Alice Nutter and pals were simply the victims of an intolerant society and petty point scoring among jealous neighbours.

That and the fact magistrates up and down the land were in a race to win favour with James I, the new king who was obsessed with evil witches.

So it was a bit of a shock to find out this week that the historians and researchers were wrong all along. All those academics who sought to get a posthumous pardon for the so-called Pendle Witches have merely been wasting their time.

What they should have done is gone straight to the source - hired a Scouse psychic, a jumpy ex-Blue Peter presenter and a film crew and just sought out the ghosts of the witches to ask them all about being an evildoer in 17th century Pendle.

It seemed to work for the producers of Most Haunted, the cult show on satellite channel LivingTV.

They set up camp in Clitheroe for the weekend and went out and about exploring the legend of the witches, getting possessed by evil spirits and so on.

Part of the drama was ruined by little, mouse-like Yvette Fielding being constantly on edge, screaming: "OH MY GOD WHAT WAS THAT?" when a firework went off nearby, or a door creaked open followed by a crew member walking in carrying a brew. That's one frightened woman.

The upshot of the show was to "prove" that the women WERE real, evil witches. We know this because one of the dead hags made a glass move on a table, apparently.

But apart from complete ignorance for true facts (and the sort of open laughter at the sensible scientist drafted in to be resident sceptic we normally reserve for the David Ickes of this world) there's no denying it was good telly.

Its popularity even led to calls in yesterday's Lancashire Evening Telegraph for tourism authorities to start taking advantage of Pendle's mystique. The expected viewing figures, and the fact that folk head for the Hill at Hallowe'en in the same way moths seek out light, means there could be an opportunity to turn the annual pilgrimage into a top event - and a potential goldmine for local firms in the tourism trade.

The TV show even did its best to market any future event, with Yvette portraying bleak Pendle as a place where backwards rustic types are terrified of going near old barns, where ghouls and goblins run wild after dark. Yes Love, and we all howl at the moon. Still, the Southerners will have swallowed it.

But I side with the Pendle villagers on this issue. The area's limited infrastructure and tiny roads couldn't support a massive, organised event. And the last thing folk in Newchurch, Barley or Sabden want are even more hordes of drunken obsessives tearing through their gardens in the search for spirits every year.

And if the people who swallowed the claptrap shown on Most Haunted are anything to go by, I'd rather they stayed at home altogether. Maybe check out the fairies at the bottom of the garden.