Mary

Mary Guppy
Occupation	Peasant
Biographical details
Era	Stuart
Born	1571
Died	13 February 1612 (aged 41)
Cause of death	Burned to death
Status	Deceased
Abilities	Causes living people to smell burning by walking through them
Physical description
Species	Ghost
Gender	Female
Distinguishing features	Covered in soot and ash
Relationships
Family	John Guppy (husband; predeceased Mary) Unnamed mother
Portrayal information
Portrayed by	Katy Wix
Series	Ghosts UK
Season(s)	Series 1 • Series 2 • Series 3 • Series 4

"It is back to boredom I suppose."― Mary to the other ghosts and Alison

Mary Guppy is the ghost of a peasant woman who was burned at the stake at some point in the 17th century, during the reign of King James VI and I. She has a West Country dialect and often pluralises words unnecessarily. She is portrayed by actress Katy Wix.

Biography

History

Mary was born in the late 1500s. Mary was a peasant woman during the Stuart era, she was never taught to read or write and so remained illiterate even after her death. She also never left her hometown. She was married to an unnamed man who died in a farming accident while ploughing a field three years after their wedding, Mary believes to be partially responsible for this as the wedding cake wasn't broken over her head after the ceremony. Mary seems to have been Catholic, while the Monarch in her time, James I of England and VI of Scots was a Puritan (strict Protestant).

After her husband's death in a ploughing accident three years after their wedding, Mary began talking to herself a lot, which annoyed the others in her villages. After a crop failure in Mary's village, two male farmers were fearful about the reaction from the local Lord of the Manor. They noticed Mary collecting food nearby, and remarked on her eccentric habit of talking to herself and how her husband had died, they decided that they could deflect blame for the crop failure by claiming that Mary was a witch and had cursed the harvest. They reported Mary to the other people in their village. Mary was tried for witchcraft, but appears to have somehow survived the ordeal of the trial and thus believed to be a witch. She was burned at the stake on the grounds of Button House, implying she worked there as a servant.

Death

Mary's horrific death has left her with the ghostly ability to cause living people to smell an intense burning when they pass through her. She is still traumatized from her witch trial and has refused to speak about it for four hundred years. Briefly she does reach a point where she is comfortable to speak about it all in "Redding Weddy", but after The Captain's secret mine explodes she has, what she calls, 'a setback' and once again refuses to speak about it.

Annie, another ghost who died around the same time as Mary, was Mary's best friend for almost a hundred years. Annie, who had been treated badly by men in her life, enjoyed making fun of the living and voicing her opinions, and taught Mary to do the same. Annie moved on to the afterlife, something Mary called being 'sucked off' much to Alison's dismay. Mary longed for this to happen to her as well but eventually gave up on moving on and is now content to just continue haunting Button House.

At first, Mary was against Alison and Mike living at Button House, and agrees with Julian that they should kill them in "Who Do You Think You Are?". After Julian pushes Alison out the window she is the only one who appears indifferent about the whole thing despite having not actively tried to hurt the living. Later when the ghosts decide to try haunting she agrees to let Alison walk through her so she'll smell burning but it backfires and Alison just assumes her husband has burnt his toast somewhere else in the house. Later when Alison gets her ability to see them she seems quite eager to haunt her and follows her around the house repeating 'get out' over and over again; Mary had put some thought into this as she tells Pat she has 'something up her sleeves'. Mary once again leans towards getting rid of the Coopers in "Happy Death Day" when she aids Julian's and Cap's plan to get rid of the builders, though precisely how much of their plot she knew of is unknown. However, she gets used to Alison and Mike and complies when Alison asks her to watch the pheasant and help her at poker. By the episode "Getting Out" Mary has become rather fond of Alison and refuses to help the Captain to banish the Coopers from Button House. She even secretly spies on Mike while he's in the bathroom, at one point she goes so far as to sit in the bath and try to watch him shower; unfortunately for her she's thwarted by Mike wearing his swimming trunks.

In "Free Pass" when the house is used for production of a drama set in the Regency period called 'The Life Of Byron', she asks Pat about the camera used for filming which she calls a 'metal cow', once Pat has explained it to her in words Mary's unique mind can understand she quickly triumphs at the art of directing seemingly having a natural talent for it. At one point her recommendation for improving the scene is then parroted by the real director, something Pat commends her for.

While the ghosts explore the day of Thomas' death it is revealed that Mary remembers it in a rather psychedelic way. She believes that people were floating around the room while wine came out of their ears. However, she does remember things more normally as well, Mary remembered that while Thomas recited his poem everybody went still like statues and she believes the audience died of boredom.

Mary spends most of the build up to Clare and Sam's wedding trying to figure out if the brides are wearing garters. This whole subject greatly concerns Mary as she is highly superstitious and doesn't want anything bad to happen to either of them. After the wedding when the party is in full swing she convinces Alison to throw a piece of cake at Clare to ensure she is safe from any sort of unlucky backlash.

In the episode "Gone Gone", after the group fears that Robin has moved onto the afterlife after not seeing him for three days, Mary very suddenly moves on to the afterlife herself (or as she calls, being "sucked off"). In the episode "The Thomas Thorne Affair" Mary says "I used to dream of the day that I would be sucked off". However, her moving on affects the ghosts greatly especially Kitty and Captain. Alison decides to hold a memorial service for her where she places Fennel, a Loose Women magazine, and a photo of Mike into a basket that she made with the help of Mary's instructions with the means to bury it under a tree.

Appearance

Mary is dressed in a simple yellow and blue dress and white apron and cap, her outfit suggests she was a servant who worked at Button House. All of her clothes and most of her skin is covered in soot from the witch trials and occasionally a small puff of smoke rises from her head.

Personality

Generally, she is fairly polite and nice to everyone. Mary is always quick to lend a helping hand and avoids conflict for the most part though has been known to get into the fighting at times; she headbutts The Captain in "Perfect Day". Even after her trial and being burnt at the stake she still has a kind innocence to her. Mary can come across as disorganised and at times even a bit lackadaisical but is ultimately more intelligent than a lot of people give her credit for and has been known to stay quiet with the right answer when someone else thinks they're right. Such as when Kitty gets the colours of a rainbow wrong and she starts to say violet only to be cut off by 'very light blue'.

As one of the eldest ghosts to haunt Button House she has seen just about everything and has managed to come to terms with being dead though not the act of it nor the trial.

Her beliefs are distinctly 17th-century as she tells Alison to renounce Satan when Alison finally accepts that she can see them, and is appalled at the idea of gambling. She also believes that swans are the devil's agents going so far as to refer to one as 'Lucifer's lackey'. It also appears Mary was Catholic.

She was closest to Annie - a Puritan ghost - until she moved on and does not seem to have formed such a strong friendship with anyone else since then save for perhaps Robin. In "About Last Night" her feelings for Robin are explored. As two of the oldest ghosts they have spent hundreds of years together and have grown close in that time. While throwing Humphrey’s head onto the roof they flirt similar to how teens would, though it is later once they've put Kitty to bed that things come to a head and they almost kiss; ultimately this goes nowhere.

Quotes

• "A manwich." (Who Do You Think You Are?)
• "That one be Lucifer's lackey for sure." (Happy Death Day)
• "You can eat them now, they have stopped calling out they are dead." (Free Pass)
• "Cut what? Oh, not my lace." (Free Pass)
• "Ooh, she's a fancy flapjack." (Free Pass)
• "What be a Tootsie?" (Moonah Ston)
• "Stew update, all the water's turned to clouds." (Moonah Ston)
• "I can't play gambles." (Moonah Ston)
• "I knows, put the house on wheels or a cart move it to pastures new then the hair lady can build the hotel in its place and our the house forever will be." (Getting Out)
• "Ohh, laughin 'orse." (The Grey Lady)
• "Right, box, 'nother box, bigger box and some worms." (Bump In The Night)

Trivia

• The event of Mary's witch trial is particularly painful for her. Even centuries after her death she still has not shared the story with the other ghosts, even though the older ghosts that came before her probably witnessed it. She also cowers when there is any mention of fire or burning in passing conversation.
• She is illiterate and often turns random words into plurals or adds 'ing' to the end of words unnecessarily, something which constantly irritates Thomas, though Alison has taken it upon herself to steadily teach Mary to read via children's books.
• Mary knows how to make a wicker basket, which she gave a talk about in the first episode, "Who Do You Think You Are?"; another of her talks is how to milk a cow. She also knows how to cook a pheasant, and tells Alison she has remove the 'gizzards'. However, since she always smells burning, she is not good at telling when food is cooked. This suggests that Mary had a multitude of homemaker skills in life, and if she did work at Button House, she was likely a Maid or Cook.
• Mary is the first of the main ghost characters to have moved on.

Gallery

Promos

Series 1

Series 1

Series 4

Stills

Who Do You Think You Are?

Gorilla War