a football from the pool with a stick. "But that pool is deep. The boy is showing off...the bank is slippery," says the spirit, approaching from behind as the child slips into the water. "The unwary ones are easier still," observes the spirit, as a boy is seen fishing in a duckpond, leaning out over the water as he holds onto a tree branch. "This branch is weak, rotten; it'll never take his weight." The branch gives way and the boy tumbles into the pond as the spirit appears among the reeds. A "Danger - No Swimming" sign appears on screen. "Only a fool would ignore this, but there's one born every minute." The lakeside is littered with rusting junk, and the bed of the lake is also strewn with hidden traps. A boy has gone swimming and got into trouble, waving his arms and floundering. "It's the perfect place for an accident." The struggling boy is spotted by a group of children who find a big stick with which to help him out of the water. "Sensible children!" says the spirit in exasperation as his robes collapse into a heap on the ground, "I have no power over them!" The boy is rescued, shivering. A girl is told to "go over and get that thing to wrap him in". She picks up the robes, but throws them into the water in disgust (the girl's line, which baffled many viewers, is "Urgh...'orrible fing!" spoken in a strong London accent). As the robes sink under the water, the spirit voices his famous echoing threat: "I'll be back!" Production The script for Lonely Water was written by Christine Hermon for the COI and passed to Jeff Grant for direction. Grant recalled the moment he received the script, "I read it and got a bit of a shock. Gone was the gentle cajoling of Rolf Harris, who had recently appeared in a public information film aimed at persuading children to learn to swim. This one plumbed the darkness; it set out to scare." It was posited that the COI were being "irresponsible" and "foolhardy" with such a frightening script, though Grant praised the creative latitude it gave him as director, "something you more often than not had to fight for". Lonely Water was filmed over two days a few miles north of London. Initial difficulties with the filming included getting the smoke to