When you think of The National Trust, you probably think of historic monuments, charming little gift shops, and groups of pensioners eating carrot cake in castle cafés. Not me. I think of freaks, zombies, axe-murderers, and the resurrection of Freddie Mercury. Wednesday night was of course Halloween, and reluctant to stay in and face the trick-or-treaters, I decided to head instead for The National Trust’s ‘Devilish Dyke Halloween Walk’.
I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. I arrived at the Devil’s Dyke to find the car park filled with about two hundred people, half of whom were dressed as witches, goblins and skeletons. One man had a scythe, but I’m not sure if that was part of a costume or just his usual attire for a night out.
The walk was led by Saint Cuthman of Steyning, who was quite chatty for a hermit, and looked particularly well considering he died over a thousand years ago. Cuthman asked for our help in defeating the devil, and led us off into the darkness until we arrived at a travelling circus (which looked suspiciously like a National Trust van with a trailer), where a Ringmaster introduced us to his line-up of freaks: Wolfboy, The Thing, a Bearded Lady and a man in a wetsuit who was referred to as ‘The Gump’. Possibly because we were in a forest.
Having cracked his whip a few times, the Ringmaster then produced some bags of tomatoes and invited us to throw them at his freaks. I've never seen children so keen to get their hands on a bit of fruit and veg. Tragically, having pelted them for a minute or so, the freaks unexpectedly broke free of their shackles and ran amok in the crowd, which just goes to show the importance of chaining your bearded lady securely.
Having watched the Wolfboy disappear, howling, into the night, Cuthman warned us about the devil's cowpats up ahead, and we continued on down the hill to a bench where we heard about the headless horseman of Poynings, before being unexpectedly attacked by a group of zombies. At the time I thought it was all quite scary, but at that point I hadn’t attempted to walk down a steep slippery hill in complete darkness with my girlfriend trying to pull me to the ground and break both my legs. Trust me, that was scary.
Fortunately, having slid downhill through the cowpats, we arrived not in casualty, but in the woods at the bottom, where we encountered a woman hanging from a tree, before being accosted by the evil dead, who were not so dead that they couldn't climb into the branches of trees, start bonfires, and make growling noises in the dark.
By some miracle we made it out of there alive, and emerged into the clearing at the base of the valley, where a couple of witches served us pumpkin pie and directed us on to the haunted pond. There we heard the story of Thomas, Richard and Harold (those names ring a bell), two of whom drowned there more than a hundred years ago. Fortunately Harold survived, but was apparently struck dumb by the experience. Making it all the more surprising when his ghost came running down the hill and shouted that he couldn't find the stile in the dark.
On the verge of mental trauma, and wondering how much they’d paid those zombies to wade through freezing cold water in the dark, we continued on through the valley, past a headless axeman who was busy hacking the circus ringmaster to death, and before long reached our final battle with the Devil himself.
Following instructions issued to us by Sister Ursula, who appeared on a hill looking like the Emperor from Star Wars, we all shone our torches on the Devil and shouted "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" (as Cuthman said, "I apologise if this comes as a bit of an anticlimax"). Intimidated by the sound of two hundred people doing bird impressions, Satan naturally fled at high speed, and we marched on triumphantly to the climax of the evening's entertainment: an appearance by the late, great, Freddie Mercury, who emerged from a coffin to perform 'I Want To Break Free', before riding out of the valley on a quad bike.
And to think some people stay in on weeknights.
