NEWS: An Edinburgh walking tour with a difference

Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
March 23, 2009


IT'S not uncommon to walk away from one of Edinburgh's ghost tours with the firm belief that it's all a load of rubbish - but you would not expect the guide to be emphatically agreeing with you.

That, though, is the basis for a new venture by a former ghost tour guide turned sceptic. The city's newest tours will aim to debunk all of Edinburgh's classic supernatural myths.

Theatre and performance artist Alex Pryce is currently putting plans together for the "Ghosts Busted: Skeptics on the Mile" tours starting in July.

The plan has been given a ringing endorsement by celebrity sceptic Dr Chris French, star of shows such as ITV's Haunted Homes, who believes the tours will be a UK first.

Mr Pryce, 26, who moved to Juniper Green from Leicester nearly two years ago to establish his Chimera Productions theatre company, refused to reveal which tour company he worked for, but said the stories he was churning out night after night left enough of a bad taste in his mouth to prompt him to try something different.

He said: "Some of these tours claim Edinburgh is the most haunted city in Europe, but it doesn't even register as the most haunted in Britain. York has more alleged ghost 'sightings'.

"However, regardless of the number of sightings, once you put these things under the microscope, they just don't stand up to scrutiny.

"When I was out doing the ghost tours, I was presenting stories as fact, when most of the time they had several interpretations and on many occasions had no historical basis whatsoever.

"With a bit of research, I was able to discover that the truth was often more exciting than the myths."

Mr Pryce e-mailed his ideas to Dr French, head of the University of London's Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit, who suggested that a good way to gauge the popularity of such tours would be to set up an Edinburgh chapter of the growing Skeptics in the Pub phenomenon.

Dr French said: "Skeptics in the Pub has been going for about ten years in London, but in the last 18 months it's grown from a hard core of around 30 people to a group of over 200 who meet over a pint to hear regular presentations and discuss alternative explanations for supernatural phenomena.

"There are now Skeptics groups springing up all over England, but to the best of my knowledge no one's tried a walking tour before. "

Dr French was among the 30 people who attended the first Edinburgh Skeptics meeting at Nicol Edwards pub on Niddry Street last week - billed as "Edinburgh's most haunted pub".

He believes the popularity of the inaugural meeting is a testament to the potential market for Mr Pryce's tours.

However, Mr Pryce hasn't got the city's ghost tour operators rattling in their ghostly chains just yet.

Ian McKain, manager of Auld Reekie Tours, said: "We're not worried in the slightest! What we do is intended to be tongue-in-cheek and is supposed to be entertaining.

"Alex Pryce has tried to set up tours in the city before with little success - probably because he takes life too seriously."

A DOUBTER'S TRIP AROUND FAVOURITE HAUNTS

Greyfriars Bobby

The story: "A devoted Skye terrier guards his masters grave for 14 years."

Alex says: "He was probably only there to take advantage of the abundant food and shelter offered by a churchyard in the middle of a busy trading street."

Graverobbers find 'undead' corpses

The story: "Graverobbers unearth a woman who wakes up when they cut off her jewellery."

Alex says: "There have been cases of people being misdiagnosed as dead. Even if it did come from actual graverobbers, it's hardly an honest profession."

Nicol Edwards, 'the most haunted pub in Edinburgh'

The story: "There is a black ghost called The Watcher who haunts the entire vault network where Nicol Edwards is built, and another in the ladies toilets, which makes lights flicker, turns hand-dryers on and causes loud bangs."

Alex says: "Again, you have to think of the sources for this one. It's either drunk people or tired bar staff working into the small hours. The ghost in the toilet can be easily explained by electric faults or noisy central heating."

Edinburgh Vaults 'poltergeist'

The story: "They say someone was 'cooked alive' inside the vaults during the great fire of Edinburgh in 1824 and remains to this day as a poltergeist."

Alex says: "Thirteen people were killed in the great fire - all of them above ground."

The Mary King's Close 'ghost' photo

The story: "Staff testing an infrared camera catch a ghostly image at the top of the close."

Alex says: "Photographic anomalies identified as ghosts are as old as photography itself."