IT’LL be a Halloween unlike any others this year. Parties are off the cards and families have been advised against going out trick or treating because of the risk of Covid infection.

But in years past the Adver has reported on all sorts of Halloween stories.

A decade ago we told how Pat Smith spent two weeks turning his Park North home into a shrine to Halloween using three rolls of sticky-backed plastic and some plastic table cloths.

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The illuminated windows, one featuring a picture of Nightmare on Elm Street character Freddie Kruger and another showing a scene from Psycho, was a huge draw for children in the area.

Back in 2007 we reported on locally-produced comedy horror film Afternoon of The Rat Faced Zombies which was set to premiere at the Wyvern Theatre. Creator Vinson Pike came up with the plot about a vat of faulty ale after watching a TV news story.

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He got Swindon folk involved to play undead nurses, builders, firefighters and police storming Rodbourne Cheney Primary School.

He told the Adver at the time: “It was a job to turn the filming around, get it edited and out on disk in two weeks but everyone who has had the chance to see it so far has been in stitches."

That year ghost hunters went in to the Drove Road fire station to investigate suspected poltergeist activity.

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The building on the route of the old canal, was said to be haunted and ex-firefighter Paul Rowland told us then: "There were always weird goings-on at the station. I never liked staying there on my own.

"There were doors creaking and footprints. It would put the fear of God in you."

The investigators said they heard voices from the gym but when they ran towards it the door to the room started to close slowly.

And in 2006 Alan Button and his family raised money for Liden Community Centre with a Halloween party featuring traditional games like apple bobbing.

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