The antics of Antix

MOST HAUNTED LIVE - Manchester

THE ANTICS OF ANTIX - by Emma Gee

Together with Karl Beattie, her husband of six years, Yvette Fielding is Antix Productions.

Creators of Most Haunted and Most Haunted Live, they are also producers of the shows.

It is perfectly reasonable to suppose that Antix had a hand in choosing the location for Most Haunted Live, on Saturday 3rd September - an inauspicious date in Britain if ever there was one.

And they didn't have far to look.

The registered office of Antix Productions Ltd (left-hand circle) is only a stone’s throw from Barnes Hospital in Cheadle (right-hand circle).

A stone’s throw.

Now there’s an unfortunate choice of words.

Source: Multimap

Yvette’s opening words confirm her prior knowledge of the building: "I’ve driven past this location many, many times..."

So, how was it that an innocuous Victorian convalescent home, with no history of misdeeds or tragedy, came to be described as “hideous”, "barbaric", "with the power to force you to lose your mind" by presenters of Most Haunted Live?

Is it possible that a terrible, but simple, mistake

was made by the programme’s researchers?

Hardly. Even the most basic Google search for “barnes hospital" cheadle reveals the truth.

So where is the real Cheadle 'asylum'? This aerial view shows Barnes Hospital (top) and Cheadle Royal (bottom)

No, this was no mistake; it was a cynical deception on the part of Antix, or LivingTV, or both.

But in the absence of an explanation, we can only speculate.

Source: Multimap

Perhaps it was thought that a lunatic asylum would sound inherently more haunted, and scarier than a hospital.

Was the genuine asylum, only a couple of miles away, the intended location, but something went wrong? With the merchandise already printed, was there a last-minute panic to find a substitute?

Could it have been an elaborate deception intended to expose Acorah as a fake? Maybe it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

So how did Yvette actually describe this former convalescent hospital on-air?

"It was once hailed a refuge for the mentally and physically ill; now its corridors are said to echo with the screams of past patients.
This place is so haunted that the owners have asked us to refer to it only as The Asylum."

Immediately this raises questions. The owners are about to embark on a huge redevelopment programme on the building, and the rest of the site - something local residents await eagerly.

Is it likely that those developers would instruct Most Haunted to deliberately misrepresent what will be desirable flats as being located in a terrifying haunted asylum? Of course it isn’t, nor did they.

Whatever the reason behind the deception, Yvette and the team were clearly happy to carry it on throughout the programme. If only that were the worst of it.

When the glass would not perform during a ouija session,
Yvette commented,
"If they were a patient here, they wouldn’t be able to
understand all these letters and numbers.” Acorah agreed.

click for video clip

Disclaimer: All clips are copyright to LivingTV
and are shown only for the purposes of review and critique.

To describe her words as offensive, insensitive, and totally uncalled for would be an understatement.

Yvette was undoubtedly aware that she was in a hospital that had, in its very recent history, cared for the elderly, and those incapacitated by stroke; perhaps our parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles.

How much more offensive was it, then, when the words referred to those who have suffered mental problems; those with neuroses and psychoses; the weak and addicted; the depressed and the suicidal. Those, too, are our parents or grandparents, our brothers or sisters, and even us.

One in four people will experience some kind of

mental health problem in their lifetime.

Yvette Fielding’s callous comment, backed up by Acorah's agreement, has upset a great many people who have experienced problems, or work in mental health.

At the Holly Bush pub, Watling Street, Elstree, on Saturday 7th May 2005, Yvette Fielding made the following on-air statement:

"There is no acting that goes on in this programme, none whatsoever. Everything that you see and you hear is real. It's not made up; it's not acted."

Now is the time for a public statement from LivingTV/Antix,

and a public apology by Yvette Fielding.

Yvette Fielding was informed of this article, and given the opportunity to comment, but there has been no response.

The true history of Barnes Hospital >>>