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Edition 86 Team A October 16th 2015 Founded by Ben Owen 2011

By Ellie Parker By Isabelle Preston

The Ancient Ram Inn by Georgina Loring

As this week's theme is Hallowe’en, I decided to do

my article on the ancient Ram Inn, an actual haunted house (or inn) Anya and I visited! Even from the outside it looks creepy, with cracked windows, torn lace curtains and chipped paint, though since it dates back to the early tenth century this is understandable! It has now closed, so we couldn't go in it (not that we really wanted to!) but some paranormal investigators did and they said that it had an eerie and even evil feeling to it. The building was built on a burial mound and two crossing leylines! (lines that are said to have spiritual energy, especially when they cross. These leylines happen to lead to Stonehenge as well!) It was built near St Mary the Virgin church (used to house workers who were helping to construct the church) and what was once an abbey which were all connected by two, now blocked, tunnels. Many ghosts have been sighted there, including a witch, a priest/monk, a highwayman, two phantom cats and a cavalier. It was also used by devil

worshipers. Most ghosts are sighted in the Bishop’s

room. Also, light orbs, cold spots and strange noises have been seen/heard. Another extremely haunted

room was the witch’s room (where the witch is mainly

sighted). The inn was visited by the television shows 'most haunted' and 'ghost adventures' (I couldn't review them, because I was too scared! It really is a horrible place!) Is it really haunted? Nobody knows. My mum saw a ghost in the house she used to live in, but it's your choice, do you believe in ghosts?

Acknowledgements Daily mail

Haunted Rooms The most amazing haunted and mysterious places in Britain

by Reader’s Digest

Editorial

Ahh, I love this time of year! Pumpkins, sweets

and of course monsters! That’s right, you

guessed it, this week’s theme is Hallowe’en!

First of all, have you ever wondered what it’s

like to stay in a haunted house? Read

Hannah’s story and find out! Secondly, throwing

a Hallowe’en party? Need some fun drinks to

wash down all the sweets? Well, read Ben’s

article to find out how to make some delicious

Hallowe’en drinks! Next read Izzy P’s article for

some more Captain Slugpace madness, and

finally read Izzy B’s article for a guided tour

around the facts of the making of Harry Potter!

All this and more in this issue of Totally

Tockington, the paper written BY students FOR

students.

HAAA HAAA HAA (cue evil laugh!)

Georgina Loring

Editor Team A

And a Comment from our Editor-in-Chief…

BOO! It’s nearly Hallowe’en- the scariest night

of the year! So I hope you’ve got your eyeballs

fixed on our super scary edition of TT! This

week, we’ve got some Halloween-tastic articles

to get your teeth sunk into, such as Angus’s

chillingly creepy quiz, and make sure to read

Jeanne’s amazing article on where pumpkins

came from!

So, from all the journalists of Totally

Tockington, we hope you really enjoy our

Halloween special!

Oh no I can hear someone coming up behind me… I turn around to see…

AARRRGGGHHHH!!!!! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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Vampires by Anya Constantinescu

We all know about vampires. Well, I hope you do

anyway. The kind that have super-fast speed, can

turn into a bat and drink blood from a living soul, and

that’s not all… Do you know about how the fantasy of

vampires came to life? No? Well, here it is…

There was once a man called Dracula who lived in the

middle of a forest in Transylvania (a province of

Romania). He was mean, cruel and nasty, a person

who was perhaps lonely deep down in his heart. But

up above he was sick and evil. He would kill people!

Everyone avoided him in fear of dying and being

killed, so one day the local towns decided to return

the dead to him. They built an army and marched

over to where he lived and killed him. He was then

known as a vampire.

You can still visit his castle today – if you dare!! It’s

called Bran castle in Transylvania.

If you want to read the story of Dracula by Bram

Stoker, it is a new book in our library. It’s a classic

story and a scary one. Not for the faint-hearted- you

need to be a YA to read this book. It is a big, fat book

but why not add it to your reading journey if you are

in Year 8?

You can also get it on your Kindle if you want to be

spooked – but it is really a teenage to adult book.

It's Pumpkin Time!

by Jeanne Véron

Originally Jack O' Lanterns were carved out of turnips

and potatoes in Ireland. Irish immigrants brought the

tradition to the USA, home of the pumpkin, and it

became an part of Halloween festivities.

The oldest evidence of pumpkin seeds was found in

Mexico between 7000 and 5500 BC.

10 million pumpkins are grown in the United Kingdom

every year. There are millions and millions of

pumpkin recipes in the world. My favourite one is

about pumpkin muffins which are full of vitamin A!

A gardener in Switzerland produced the heaviest

pumpkin in 2014. It weighed 951 kg which is almost

as much as a small car!

Time for a joke: what is a pumpkin's favourite sport?

Answer: squash!

Time to get carving!

Bats by Elodie Preston

Bats are flying mammals, while other flying mammals can glide, bats are the only mammals that can flyall the time. There are over 1000 different species of bats. Bats are nocturnal and can see in the dark using echolocation. Bats make noises and wait for the sound waves to bounce back off objects. If they don’t bounce back, then the bat can safely fly forward. Bats can tell the distance of objects by how quickly the sound waves bounce back to them. In Britain all different bat species and their roosts are legally protected. This means you are breaking the law if you: deliberately capture, injure or kill a bat, disturb a bat in its roost on purpose or deliberately disturb a

group of bats. So watch out!!

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What Are You Afraid Of? Staff and Pupils’ Thoughts

by Rachel Shutt

Staff:

Mrs Glanville when she is Mr Glanville:

hungry and tired.

Big Spiders. Masks (they terrify Ms Case:

me). Heights! Balloons popping. Spooky

films.

RATS and masks of a clown. Mme Veron:

: SNAKES! Mrs Hinchcliffe

: going to the chocolate drawer Mrs Gooch

and it’s EMPTY!!!

: Growing old. Mr Spencer

: The dark! Mrs Glanville

: Rats, hornets and horses. Mrs Barron

Pupils:

little insects and spiders. Angus:

: crocodiles. Georgina

Spiders and ghosts. Anya:

Pigs. Talia:

Spiders. Dalis:

Dark closed in spaces James:

Mum and Dad getting ill. Jonathan:

Crabs Maddie:

The Haunted House by Hannah Williams

Ruby was sulking in the back of the car because she didn’t want

to spend the weekend with her parents in some old house they

had borrowed; it was Halloween, she wanted to be at home so

she could go treat or treating with her friends.

When they arrived, Ruby looked out of the window at the house

and got a surprised feeling – it was very old and very large, in

fact humungous! She was so happy she was here! She ran into

her room, it was humungous too! She unpacked very quickly,

putting all her things into the large old wardrobe in the corner.

The final thing was her massive teddy that would take up a

whole cupboard. She tried pushing it in but it was stuck. She

thought her Dad could help so she went to get him. When they

came back her Dad walked into the room in front of her and said

she had to unpack everything else first. “But I already have!”

said Ruby, looking around. All the things she had unpacked were

lying in a heap on the bed! Ruby was stunned. “Don’t worry,

we’ll do it later” said her Dad, “it’s time for dinner”.

The next morning Ruby woke up feeling happy and went down

to breakfast. She sat down and put her cereal in a bowl but

there wasn’t enough milk, so she went into the kitchen to get

some. When she returned to her seat, her bowl was on the other

side of the table! “That’s strange” thought Ruby but at the same

time she was interested and thought she would spend the day

exploring the house.

It was nearly getting dark by the time Ruby reached the attic at

the top of the house. She climbed up and started looking around

– it was full of dusty antiques. She was in a corner when

suddenly there was a massive bang which made her jump nearly

out of her skin! She looked around and the door to the attic had

slammed shut. “Maybe it’s Mum or Dad,” she thought. She

looked out of the tiny window and realized she could see them

both in the garden! For the rest of the evening she made sure

she was close to Mum and Dad, just in case any other odd things

happened. “I think this house may be haunted” she thought, but

if it was, it seemed to be a friendly ghost.

When they arrived home the next day and Ruby was feeling safe

sitting on her bed in her un-haunted room in her un-haunted

house she thought about the strange things that had happened

and decided that maybe the weekend had been better than

going trick or treating after all!

What a scary story from Hannah! Don’t have nightmares!

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The Most Haunted Places in Britain by Harry Mather

Castles are among the most haunted places in

Britain. Most castles are very old such as

Windsor Castle and Edinburgh Castle. There is

a huge amount of history in these castles and

this leads to stories about ghosts.

Edinburgh Castle in Scotland has many scary

stories linked to it. One of the scariest tales is

about a piper who was sent to investigate the

tunnels under the castle. The piper was told to

keep playing the bagpipes while walking

through the tunnels so that his friends could

track him. While he was walking through the

tunnels, the music suddenly stopped and the

piper was never seen again! Sometimes the

sound of the bagpipes can be heard within the

castle but without a piper!

The Tower of London is home to many ghosts

including the ghost of Anne Boleyn, who was

married to Henry VIII, and was executed at the

Tower of London. This story is a bit grotesque

as the ghost is seen as a headless body

walking through corridors ! Other ghosts at the

castle include the famous explorer, Sir Walter

Raleigh.

Windsor Castle is one of the homes of our

present Queen and has lots of ghosts. One of

the ghosts is supposed to be Queen Elizabeth I

and I wonder if the current Queen Elizabeth has

seen the ghost of her ancestor ? Anne Boleyn is

another ghost seen at Windsor Castle and this

time the ghost walks around carrying her head !

Harry Potter Special Effects Facts.

By Isabel Browning

It took the special effects team 1 WHOLE YEAR to create

the digital Hogwarts Castle for Harry’s last battle against

Voldemort!

In the first few films the Harry Potter props team made

the Quidditch broomsticks to hold a child about 100-120

pounds, but in the last Quidditch matches they had to re-

design the broomsticks because the actors had just about

doubled their weight.

The actor that played Voldemort wore tights under his

costume but they kept falling down so he cut the top of his

tights off!

At the Harry Potter studios you can see a scale model of

Hogwarts that was made for the films. All of these were

made for the movies …

60 pairs of glasses,

40 lockets,

Five 32-ton truck’s worth of polystyrene rubble,

900 memory vials,

250 paintings and

210,000 coins.

To keep the broomsticks light-weight, aircraft-grade

titanium was used.

Why not take a visit to Harry Potter World in London this

half term?

Visit the website to find out more…

https://www.wbstudiotour.co.uk/

I prefer my head

on this way…

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Hope you don’t meet any of these on Hallowe’en night!!

Pictures by Jacob Browning.

Hallowe’en Quiz by Angus Duncan

Hand named entries to Angus for the chance to win chocolate or other yummy stuff…

1. When is Hallowe’en? 2. Another name for Hallowe’en? 3. What year will be a full moon on Hallowe’en? 4. What do most people put outside their

houses on Hallowe’en?

5. What is it called when you go around houses for sweets?

6. What do pumpkins grow on? 7. What is J.K.Rowling famous for writing?

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Allen’s Wiggly Worms

By James & Gemma Allen

We’re going to show you how to make slimy Halloween worms

Ingredients: 2 cups of boiling hot water, a big bunch of bendy plastic

straws, 30 grams of powder gelatine, one packet of jelly (we chose

strawberry), a bottle of green food colouring

Step 1: Melt the jelly block in the boiling hot water

and mix it up till there is no jelly left. Leave it to cool

to room temperature

Step 2: Add your packets of gelatine to the jelly and stir till you can’t see any

gelatine left

Step 3: Take your straws and pull either side so the bendy bit expands. Put an elastic band around the straws and place them in a container so they can stand up. Step 4: Get your food colouring (it can be any colour and pour about 15 drops into the mixture then stir. Then pour it into the straws (wear some disposable gloves - it can stain) but only about 2cm worth of the mixture then put it in freezer for 20 minutes .

Step 5: After 20 minutes take it out the fridge then pour the rest in the straws and put it in the fridge for 3 hours. Take it out of the fridge, pull the straws from the container and take off the elastic band. Then put the straws under warm water for 2 seconds and squeeze out the worms from one side.

Hey presto! Jelly worms

Sources: You Tube

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HALLOWE’EN EYEBALL COOLER by Ben Jacobi

If you are looking for a tasty Halloween drink with a bit of drama, here is a great recipe.

All you need to make a ‘Halloween Eyeball Cooler’

A Glass

Ice Cube Tray

Orange Juice

2 tablespoons of Grenadine (per glass)

Raspberries

Lychees

1 Place the lychees in an ice-cube tray. Put a raspberry in each lychee hole. This makes the Halloween eyeball. Put the ice-cube tray in the freezer for 24 hours.

2 Once the eyeballs have frozen, pour orange juice into a glass.

3 Slowly pour in the Grenadine into the orange juice. The red grenadine will sink to the bottom of the glass, making it look like fake blood.

4 Remove the lychees from the ice cube tray.

5 Place the frozen lychees into the glass.

Now you have made a Halloween Eyeball Cooler!!

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By Isabelle Preston