Lonely Water 1973

The camera sweeps across a misty, waterlogged expanse where fallen trees and tangled debris crowd the surface, and a ghostly, black-clad figure glides over the water. The figure, The Spirit Donald Pleasence (voice), speaks with a calm, unsettling cadence, declaring the dangers of this place: I am the spirit of dark and lonely water, ready to trap the unwary, the showoff, the fool… and this is the kind of place you’d expect me to be. But no-one expects to find me here. It seems too ordinary. Then the scene shifts to a murky pool where a group of children plays along the muddy edge.

A boy, Terry Sue-Patt as Child, teeters on the steep, slippery bank while trying to retrieve a football from the pool with a stick, and the Spirit slips in behind him as the child slips into the water. The unwary ones are easier still, the Spirit notes, as another boy—fishing in a duckpond and leaning out over a rotten tree branch—loses his balance when the branch gives way and he tumbles into the pond, the Spirit materializing among the reeds.

Danger - No Swimming

Only a fool would ignore this, but there’s one born every minute.

The lakeside is crowded with rusting junk, and the bed of the lake hides unseen hazards. A boy has ventured into the water and begins to struggle, arms flailing as he tries to stay afloat. A nearby group of children searches for a way to help, finding a sturdy stick to reach him and pull him to safety. The Spirit smiles at the sight of “Sensible children!” and, with a flicker of robed fabric, his own robes collapse into a heap on the ground, declaring, I have no power over them!

A girl is told to go over and get that thing to wrap him in, and she picks up the robes only to hurl them back into the water in disgust, uttering a sharp, London-accented exclamation: Urgh…‘orrible fing! As the robes sink beneath the surface, the Spirit’s echoing warning rings out once more: I’ll be back!