Matt Ayres talks to the man who leads ghost tours from Oxford Castle every Friday and Saturday

Lurking beneath a veneer of majestic architecture and academic prowess, the secretive ghosts of Oxford find their homes between narrow cobbled streets and alleyways; beyond the shaded windows of old colleges and churches.

Some of them hover quietly around the vicinities of high street shops and cafes, invisible to the busy eyes of tourists and locals alike. They’re well hidden, but any courageous soul who dares to seek out the spooks among the spires will find them.

If you’re brave enough, your first step will be to join forces with Oxford’s dedicated ghoul seeker, Bill Spectre. Unlike the ghosts, he’s difficult to miss — dressed all in black and donning a Victorian undertaker’s uniform, Bill always begins his notorious spook tours from outside Oxford Castle Unlocked, next to the Castle Mound, on Friday and Saturday evenings.

His trails will take place whatever the weather: come rain or shine, Bill is always willing to guide his intrepid followers around the city, pointing out the historic homes of each as he sets the scene with a variety of spine-tingling stories and convincing illusions.

With piercing blue eyes and phantom white hair beneath a lofty top hat, you might be fooled into believing that Bill’s been ghostbusting his whole life. In fact, a series of less spooky jobs are what led him to this one.

“I trained to be an actor originally, and did that for about seven years doing TV and theatre parts and so on,” says the guide, who goes by the name of Bill Ritchie in the 21st century.

“When my wife and I got married, I thought I’d better find a way to get a proper income. After being an electrician and a picture printer for a while, I started these ghost trails, and I’ve been doing that ever since.”

Between Bill’s first gig working behind the scenes at a London theatre and his current one as Oxford’s spookiest tour guide, it’s been quite a journey.

Born in Birmingham and originally moving to the Oxfordshire village of Blewbury with his father, Bill really came into his own as an actor during a year-long stint in America. He toured the West Coast with a theatre company, allowing him to see the sights as a tourist whilst simultaneously gathering a small but sufficient income through his talents.

“After that, I thought I’d try and be a proper actor!” he laughs. “I came home and went to drama school — the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow.”

Fully qualified and determined to succeed, Bill moved around between England and Scotland in the hope of getting his first full-time acting job. Eventually, he discovered that his best chance of success was going it alone.

“Acting is very competitive,” he admits. “I found that I was spending too much time waiting, trying to drum up work from other people, when actually what I should have done is what I do now — dreaming up my own ideas and making them happen.”

“If I’d started doing ghost trails when I was living in London then maybe I would have found something more prestigious through it, but I was concentrating on getting TV and stage work. Now I realise that the way forward is to make your own work.”

Performing in a range of roles, it’s variety that keeps Bill’s passion for theatre alive — even in his current guise, alternative trails in Burford, Woodstock and Stratford Upon Avon keep his personality fresh.

It was Burford where the character of Spectre first emerged, near his home town of Witney. The first incarnation of this spooktacular tour emerged with a hair-raising reaction.

It wasn’t long before Bill was approached by an old Broad Street attraction, The Oxford Story, who were the first to request his ghost act in the big city.

“Originally, the folks at The Oxford Story wanted me to do something for Halloween,” Bill explains. “After seeing me work, they were very happy to help me get going independently in Oxford, and helped me to advertise without charging. Now they’re part of the continuing group who now run Oxford Castle Unlocked; when that opened up and the Oxford Story closed, I moved my headquarters down to the Castle Quarter.”

With a range of haunts to show his fellow ghost hunters, Bill must be an expert in Oxfordshire history. Alongside acting, it’s a passion that has grown through practice: first hitting the library to find books on his chosen subject, the next step was to seek out historic sites on a map, before visiting them and deciding on which gruesome tale was most fitting for each stopping point.

“After that, it was simply a case of joining the dots and walking through the tour, practising some illusions and tricks to enhance the atmosphere, and introducing it all to the public,” Bill smiles.

“More recently I’ve been doing some work at Blenheim Palace, where I wrote and performed a couple of parts for an attraction. I was a Victorian school teacher, a Victorian butler and a Victorian sportsperson.”

Indeed, from attending one of Bill’s trails, it’s obvious that his talents as a public entertainer go further than merely spooking people out. Unlike the scripted corporate tours you might find elsewhere in popular tourist destinations like Oxford, this homegrown act is tailored to suit whoever attends.

More daring volunteers are playfully coerced into the story with comical results, at the mercy of the undertaker’s devious sense of humour.

Having experienced just about every kind of reaction you can imagine over the seven years his tour has been running, Bill’s act runs smoothly every time.

This has not always been the case, though: he’s learned the hard way during those inevitable early day blunders with faint-hearted guests.

“During my very first tour, there was a bit where I pretended to cut off my own arm. As I did, one of the women in my group fainted! Her friends were telling me that she’s all right, that it happens all the time. I had to just step over her and carry on with the trail!”