When Things Get Spooky For Phillip & Holly: 2021's Paranormal Features & Guests On 'This Morning'

In February, with Danny Robins' podcast The Battersea Poltergeist' riding high in the podcast charts, Shirley Hitchings, who was at the centre of the haunting appeared on the show to talk about the spook that tormented her and her family for 12 years when she was a child living in South London.

Shirley was just a teenager when the haunting started in her family home in January 1957, she told Phillip and Holly that in recent years she's come to understand a lot more about her former resident spook, which the family called Donald, "we've found so much more about Donald and it was giving up its secrets. I accepted Danny's offer to do the podcast so that I could further tell on with the story."

In March, Phillip and Holly spoke to Reverend Jason Bray about his unusual work with ghosts as a deliverance minister. The Anglican vicar told the fascinated hosts about his work as an exorcist, helping people to rid their homes of ghosts and spirits, as well as conducting tasks more commonly associated with your average reverend, such as weddings and baptisms. Reverend Bray was promoting his new book called 'Deliverance', which documents his encounters.

In October, television ghost hunter, Yvette Fielding, appeared on the famous sofa to talk about her new children's book, 'The Ghost Hunter Chronicles: The House in the Woods'. While talking to the hosts about a moment in the book when one of the characters is hit in the face by a bullet that's been thrown, Yvette explained that the incident was based on a real experience of her own. Yvette said, "I was investigating live on air at RAF Raynham, and we were in the dark, completely pitch black, and I felt something hit the back of me."

The object turned out to be a bullet, one of which Yvette had brought into the ITV studio. Yvette offered it to Holly, who quickly said "I don't want to touch it." She added, "I can listen and hear the stories about it now, but there's still something in me that goes if I touch that, whatever haunted that thing might come out and start haunting me."

Standing in for Phillip and Holly, Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary spoke to Broacarde about her relationship with a ghost called Eduardo. Broacarde told viewers how she met her phantom lover, a Victorian soldier, when he appeared in her bedroom on a stormy night and terrified her. Broacarde explained that it all started with an odd sensation in bed, she said, "I literally just felt this burning sensation in my heart out of nowhere." She said it wasn't painful, just warming but like her "chest was exploding." She added, "I've never had a heart attack before or anything like that, so I couldn't liken it to something."

Alison and Dermot met another spooky guest on the famous couch in October, a ghost-hunting pooch. Bond, a former race-winning Greyhound, has been dubbed a real-life Scooby-Doo. The pet, along with his owners, Brian Sterling-Vete and Helen Wuorio have been investigating things that go bump in the night for several years. They told Alison and Dermot that they spotted Bond's paranormal potential as soon as they adopted him. Brian said, "more or less as soon as he arrived we noticed, well my wife noticed, that I'd left the room and he was paying attention and interacting with something that wasn't there up on the wall."

With Halloween fast approaching, 'This Morning' introduced viewers to Kelly Angel, a former Greggs worker who swapped sausage rolls for rosary beads and demonology. The full time demon hunter told Phillip and Holly Willoughby how she got started in this unusual profession, "someone came to me for a reading and he had marks round his neck, and I thought 'god, this man really needs help'. And I ended up clearing his house."

Kelly even explained the actual process of her work to the fascinated presenters. She said, "my job is to go in, and what we do is collect it all. It all goes back to my house." She casually adds, "when I go home, I open the gates of hell, and take the dark energy down."

Also around Halloween time, Phillip and Holly met "Scary Mary," a doll that is said to be the most haunted in the UK. The proud owner of the spooky artefact is Craig Longson, who appeared via a live link-up with the midmorning show to introduce viewers to his haunted toy.

Craig was speaking to the show's hosts, who looked the part in their Halloween costumes, from his Haunted Museum in Stoke-on-Trent. He was surrounded by various haunted items such as a copy of the famous crying boy painting, Ouija boards and of course the haunted doll itself.

Craig, who opened the museum on City Road in Fenton at the end of August, then introduced Mary. Pointing at an eerie-looking doll in a red dress, he said, "this is Mary, we class Mary as the most haunted doll in the United Kingdom at the moment. She's an amazing doll, she dates back to around 1951, so she's got a great age to her."