"Ghosts": How Did They Die? Trivia Quiz

We learned in the finale of series four, "Not Again", that Robin (played by Laurence Rickard) died after being struck by lightning when hiding from a bear in a tree around 10000 BCE. His manner of death probably explains why he can make light bulbs flicker.

Button House has a collection of around twenty ghosts who live in the basement, all played by the same actors as the upstairs ghosts. These ghosts died from the plague some time in the 14th century (the time of the Black Death pandemic) and were buried in the plague pit that Button House was later built on top of.

In the second episode, "Gorilla War", we learn that through their long existence in the basement they have become experts in plumbing.

It was fair to assume that the frequently headless Sir Humphrey Bone had been executed for some noble but treasonous act. But his death in 1575 was a freak accident, albeit one that indeed came as a result of a noble but treasonous act.

Humphrey's back story is revealed in the series three episode, "The Bone Plot". He was forced into an arranged marriage with Sophie when he was just 14 and she was 12. Sophie was French and refused to learn the "ugly language" English, so their marriage was not a happy one. But when Sophie's involvement in a Catholic plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I is revealed and guards came to arrest the plotters, Bone gallantly blocked their entry to allow Sophie to escape. Before the guards could break down the barricade at his door, he hid in the chimney flue. Once he thought the coast was clear he exited his hiding place and banging the wall above the fireplace, displaced the two ceremonial swords hanging above it that swung down and took off his head.

Mary never fully talks about the day she died as she finds it too difficult but she does come close in the series two episode, "Redding Weddy". Mary, distrusted by her townsfolk after the death of her husband, is made the scapegoat for the failing crops in the 1612 harvest. Consequently accused of witchcraft, she is tried as a witch and burned at the stake.

The manner of her death leaves her with the ability to make the living smell burning when they walk through her ghost.

Kitty's death is finally revealed in the series five episode, "Pineapple Day". The other ghosts have long suspected that she was bumped off by her jealous sister Eleanor. However, it transpires that the killer was in fact a spider transported to England on a pineapple that is the centrepiece of a banquet held at Button House in 1780.

In those days the pineapple was emblematic of great wealth because the fruit had to be imported to England at great expense.

"The Thomas Thorne Affair" in series two tells a number of different versions of how poet Thomas died in 1824. Thomas's version is inevitably over-romanticised but over the course of the episode he realises that he was set up by his cousin Francis Button to fight (and lose) a duel with a soldier who was reported to have insulted Thomas's great love Isabella.

After the fatal shot, Francis swooped in to comfort and woo Isabella leading to an eventual marriage and to the ownership of her home falling into the hands of the Button family for the first time.

Poor old Fanny Button. Her death story is revealed in the very first episode, "Who Do You Think You Are?". After Julian pushes Alison out of the window to her near death, he is upbraided by the other ghosts. His actions also prompt Fanny to recount that she died when her husband pushed her out of the window.

She had discovered him in a tryst with the groundskeeper and the butler and he feared that she would not keep his secret. Her ghost reenacts the fall every night at 3am until the other ghosts reset the clocks to make her do it in the daytime instead.

The Captain is the last death to be revealed in the penultimate episode of series five, "Carpe Diem". Having long intimated that he was a closeted homosexual, he recounts the tale of his final moments, during a party at Button House to celebrate the end of World War II. He had not been invited to attend because he did not serve on the front line but was desperate to see his great unrequited love, Lieutenant Havers, who would be there.

Entering the house through an open window, he placed some medals on his chest to pretend that he had seen action. However, his subterfuge was discovered as the medals were placed upside down. Under the stress of the concomitant accusations of dishonesty and the desperation to speak to Havers, he had a heart attack and died, finally holding the hand of his true love as he did so.

Pat Butcher's cause of death was never much of a mystery because of the rather obvious arrow sticking out of his ghostly neck. But the full tale was told in the Series one episode, "Happy Death Day". Pat had been running activities as a scout master for a group of young boys in the grounds of Button House in 1984.

As he talked to the boys about the safety dos and don'ts of archery, one of the kids fired an arrow straight into his neck going, as Pat describes in his panic, "all the way through". Though he tried to drive away in the scout bus to get help, his injuries were too severe and he soon lost control and crashed into a tree.

Julian Fawcett is the last to die chronologically (aside from Lady Heather Button at the start of the very first episode), but a reenactment of his 1993 death is never shown, probably because it is a family show. The aftermath is shown in the series three episode, "A Lot to Take In" as Julian remembers the only time he ever felt out of his depth - his first day as a ghost. From that scene, we can gather that Julian had a heart attack at a political event when in an upstairs room with a woman called Lindsay (not his wife), no trousers on and drinking champagne.