7th podcast - What exactly is a ghost?

In our latest podcast, we confront the thorny question at the heart of our endeavours: 'What exactly is a ghost?'

Along the way we listen to a story from the making of Doctor Who's 'Revenge of the Cybermen', we read two entries from our ghost story competition and announce the winner, and Mike dances naked to torchlight while humming the theme to 'Tales of the Unexpected'. Good job this isn't a video podcast...

You can stream the podcast up there, download the full 36½ minutes at the bottom of this page, or subscribe to us on iTunes.

Amy Wake is the winner of our ghost story competition, and her entry will be featured on this very blog shortly, along with a specially drawn cartoon which will be winging its way to her in the post.

In the meantime, here is the runner-up's entry from Keith Webster in Sheffield. The runner-up's prize is ... erm ... having your story read out loud on our podcast and published on this blog. Sorry it's not a car or a package holiday in Marbeya or anything...

I used to live on Broomgrove Road in Sheffield. Our accommodation consisted of two rooms on one side of hallway, one room other side. I had to stand at bottom of staircase to unlock the door to room.

One evening I was unlocking door when I saw someone standing at the side of me. I said, ‘Can I help you?’ No answer when I looked round at the person. I saw it was someone in uniform. The uniform was from the First World War type. The person just smiled at me. I turned my head away to put key in door, and when I turned back, the person had gone.

They could not pass me on the stairs, and the entrance door at the end of the hallway was too far away for them to have reached it and gone outside in such a short time. The building at that time was a block of flats.

A couple of weeks later we heard screaming coming from one of the upstairs flats. We ran up to see what was happening.

The young lady who lived in the flat was terrified. She had been laid on her bed, watching TV, when she felt as if someone was watching her. She looked over to where her chair was and saw a man sitting there. Her windows were locked and no one had come down the stairs. When we asked her to describe the man, it was the same as the man I had seen.

A few months later, I was clearing out an old attic room for the landlord when I found an old chest inside it. I found old account books, NAAFI price lists for Blanco, moustache wax, etc. Also were account books for wages for staff and running of premises, wages, food and sheets and shrouds.

When I approached the landlord with these, he decided to look into the history of the building and found out that during the First World War it had been a home for wounded and badly injured officers.

The house number was 39. It now belongs to the university.