“Simply that feeling of somebody watching. And waiting for me to make a mistake.”

The Tamar river snakes through south west England, separating Devon and Cornwall.

One man who lives not far from its banks is Ernie Gregory. An expert on the old abandoned arsenic mines that dot the countryside, he lives a hermit’s existence, salvaging copper. And at dusk, he confesses to being scared of the ghosts of the old miners returning.



Clip taken from Curious Character of Britain: I Suppose We Died with the Arsenic, originally broadcast on BBC One on Thursday 23 April, 1970.






You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults.

Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss a single stop on our amazing journey through the BBC Archive - https://www.youtube.com/c/BBCArchive?...