Evelyn Hollow: ‘Don’t call me a ghost hunter’

Are you team believer? Or team sceptic?

This is the question Evelyn Hollow asks in her hit BBC radio and TV series Uncanny.

The 30-year-old from Livingston investigates ghost stories and other paranormal experiences in a bid to find the answers.

The series’ resident parapsychologist, she is an empathetic companion to people recounting their terrifying experiences.

Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic and paranormal abilities and events.

Delving into these makes Uncanny an entertaining show but it is a role Evelyn takes seriously.

“Regardless of whether or not you believe in the paranormal, the people are serious,” she said.

“If someone has experienced this, that trauma and fear is very real and you need to treat it as such. It happened to them, regardless of what it was.

“It is a duty of care. Some people had really long-term experiences. They take up a big part of their life. I have really got to treat them with the respect that they deserve.”

Evelyn’s involvement with Uncanny began in 2021, with an email from the programme’s creator and presenter Danny Robins, asking whether she wanted to appear in his BBC podcast The Battersea Poltergeist.

The drama-documentary series told the story of a haunting which was said to have taken place over 12 years in a working-class London home in the 1950s and 1960s. It was a massive success, bringing an obscure and almost-forgotten story of the supernatural to a mainstream audience.

“It came out during lockdown and I think it was a perfect storm. It turns out loads of people were interested in the paranormal and it took off in a way that most of us involved never expected,” Evelyn said.

“From that we got so many emails with people telling their own stories that Danny had to set up Uncanny.”

Now in its third series, Uncanny has a devoted audience eager to lap up its stories of haunted Highland bothies, close encounters at Cold War air bases and loved ones returning from beyond the grave to watch over those they have left behind.

It came as no surprise to Evelyn when the emails and stories started rolling in.

“I think lots of people have these experiences and never tell anybody because they are worried people will think they are crazy,” she said. “Uncanny gives them a chance to come forward and not be laughed at.

“And we have created a community where people can share these stories and be listened to.

“It confirmed a suspicion that I have always had that this is quite common. I hear lots of people saying things happen to them. We have been able to create a new environment for them to talk about these things.”

Evelyn’s path to Uncanny began with a degree in psychology from Edinburgh’s Queen Margaret University. Towards the end of her studies she switched to parapsychology from forensic psychology, which concentrates on criminal behaviour.

After further study and lecturing, she had moved into writing and consulting on TV and podcasts when the call came from Danny Robins. She remains committed to the scientific method, putting research at the heart of what she does.

“A lot of these shows have ‘ghost hunters’ but they are not parapsychologists or scientists or historians. Their job is not to categorise or analyse it. There are very few people who do that as I do it,'” she said.

For Evelyn, Scotland is a great place to ply her paranormal trade.

“Edinburgh per square mile has the largest number of reported ghost incidents,” she said. “It is nicknamed the city of the dead. It is fairly ancient and deeply mythological. It’s a country of witchcraft, UFOs, ghosts and also a place of deep spirituality.

“The people here have old and deeply held paranormal beliefs.”

As you might expect, Evelyn has her favourites among the many ghost stories she has studied.

“With ghosts in Edinburgh I quite like the white ladies. They are a particular type of ghost in white dresses and they are always in a place they knew and are connected with their lives,” she said.

“There is one called Clarinda who was a mistress of Robert Burns. She is buried in the Canongate graveyard and is said to wander around it. I kind of feel sad for her.

“Her actual name was Agnes and she was the inspiration for his famous work ‘A Red, Red Rose’.”

She added: “I’ve not seen her but several have and believed her to be a real woman who was in mental health crisis or injured, due to her crying, but when they tried to approach her she would vanish.”

Another favourite, from the other end of the country, is the Orcadian demon known as the Nuckelavee.

“It’s basically a demonic skeletal horse,” Evelyn said. “It sometime has a rider on it. It’s considered to be the most evil demon in Scotland. It’s a big part of Orcadian folklore and it’s my favourite. Nessie has been done to death”.

This year, Halloween falls in the middle of the Uncanny stage show’s 42-date UK tour.

For Christians, the festival marks the eve of the All Saint’s Day feast but it has older, pagan roots, in the Gaelic festival Samhain.

“If you look at the origins of lots of the things about Halloween they come from here. Carving turnips, guising, wearing masks to scare off creatures,” Evelyn said.

“People in Scotland are deeply spiritual and this is a part of that spirituality.

“And we are not afraid of the dead. People from other countries are very frightened of the dead. Here in Edinburgh we have picnics in cemeteries.

“We honour the dead and we are not afraid of them.”

Between radio, the TV and the stage, it has been a busy year for Evelyn and the Uncanny team. On top of all that she has written a book and is working on other projects for the BBC for 2024.

Uncanny has done a good job of bringing her niche subject to a wide audience. So is it fair to say parapsychology is coming out of the dark as an academic subject?

“I think so,” she said. “Back when I was a student, I had a professor who was very well respected. I said to him that I was moving out of forensics to parapsychology and he said it was career suicide.

“He said I would not get work. But I have never been busier.”