1 00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:06,559 You're listening to the Paranormal UK Radio Network, the best in paranormal talk radio 2 00:00:06,799 --> 00:00:13,359 in the UK and around the world. Paranormal Dimensions is fortnightly on Mondays on 3 00:00:13,400 --> 00:00:28,559 the Paranormal UK Radio Network. Listen to them, she listen enough to night. 4 00:00:30,679 --> 00:01:23,799 What music day? I am dracular. I bid you welcome. It's 5 00:01:23,879 --> 00:01:29,760 really good to see you are. I don't know what happened to the driver 6 00:01:29,959 --> 00:01:34,120 and my luck each and well, and with all this, I thought I 7 00:01:34,159 --> 00:01:49,560 was in the wrong place. I bid you welcome. Spooky. Tell me, 8 00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:57,959 young man, what new reports are you getting on Unidentified Flying up Jects? 9 00:01:57,079 --> 00:02:01,480 Hello, and welcome to the show. I'll have to apologize if you 10 00:02:01,519 --> 00:02:06,280 were expecting this show last week, I'm afraid I wasn't very well, so 11 00:02:06,599 --> 00:02:09,800 it got delayed by a week. So here we are this week. So 12 00:02:09,840 --> 00:02:15,479 we were running a week late. I was actually at the Festival of the 13 00:02:15,560 --> 00:02:20,120 Unexplained last week and I was trying to get well in time for that. 14 00:02:20,319 --> 00:02:25,719 In actual fact, just about made it. But today's guest is Neil's story, 15 00:02:27,039 --> 00:02:30,719 and I actually spent quite a bit of time with him there because that's 16 00:02:30,719 --> 00:02:34,199 where he was a period. So you'll hear us talking about the Festival The 17 00:02:34,319 --> 00:02:38,919 Unexplained coming up, but we've actually been and done that now. So now 18 00:02:39,039 --> 00:02:45,280 Neil's Story has just brought a new book out on Brown Stoker, and while 19 00:02:45,280 --> 00:02:47,879 we were at the Festival of the Unexplained, he actually told me that the 20 00:02:47,919 --> 00:02:53,000 initial print run of twenty thousand copies I've already sold out. Neil presented me 21 00:02:53,080 --> 00:02:58,520 with a copy at the event, so I'm very fortunate to have a It's 22 00:02:58,599 --> 00:03:02,039 number fourteen of twin of the first edition print offs. Are very honored, 23 00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:07,319 So no doubt we'll be talking a bit about Bram Stoker during this show. 24 00:03:08,199 --> 00:03:13,199 And also Neil's been working on a new UFO book too, so we'll be 25 00:03:13,280 --> 00:03:16,280 talking about UFOs. From Dracula to UFOs, we'll be talking about on this 26 00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:21,560 show. Anyway. My apologies again if you were expecting the show last week, 27 00:03:21,599 --> 00:03:24,680 but you've had to wait till this week, so I'd got to bring 28 00:03:24,719 --> 00:03:30,280 on today's guests, mister Neil's Story. Hello, Neil, welcome back to 29 00:03:30,319 --> 00:03:32,879 the show. Hi David. Great to be on the show again. It's 30 00:03:32,919 --> 00:03:38,840 wonderful to welcome your back. We had a little busy ourselves together to the 31 00:03:38,840 --> 00:03:45,240 Cold War Museum recently and which which I'm yeah, which unfortunately we weren't allowed 32 00:03:45,240 --> 00:03:47,759 to get to weapons storage area, which you was kind of hoping for. 33 00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:54,199 But it always seems an excuse. They say that they have a tour there 34 00:03:54,360 --> 00:04:00,840 that takes two or three hours. Great, but you can't see the weapons 35 00:04:00,879 --> 00:04:08,919 storage area where the rendels from incident has a part of the story where the 36 00:04:09,159 --> 00:04:15,879 stranger fo shine it it's beam of light. Was quite a considerable nuclear storage 37 00:04:15,919 --> 00:04:19,000 area. Oh no, no, no, it's it's under repair. Oh 38 00:04:19,079 --> 00:04:23,720 no, security won't let you through. Oh no, come on god. 39 00:04:23,879 --> 00:04:27,720 Yeah, it's a real shame. But was that because yeah, you kind 40 00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:30,720 of made the trip especially for it, didn't you? Even? Yeah, 41 00:04:30,759 --> 00:04:34,439 I mean I realized that they do have an issue that they don't don't have 42 00:04:34,879 --> 00:04:40,800 a huge number of volunteers, and they should because it's a supermuseum run by 43 00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:46,519 really lovely people. There's there's a lot of goodwill will there and I actually 44 00:04:46,519 --> 00:04:48,839 wouldn't have anything said it against them. I think they have to fight against 45 00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:54,959 bureaucracy and all sorts of things. Yeah. Absolutely, I can't get access 46 00:04:55,000 --> 00:05:00,720 to and maybe there are security questions why we aren't, But but there are 47 00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:09,600 photographs of the nuclear weapons storage facility at Woodbridge. On the internet, they're 48 00:05:09,639 --> 00:05:15,600 on documentaries. Why we can't access that quite easily, I don't know, 49 00:05:15,759 --> 00:05:19,439 really. I don't know if it's because they have to run a bus out 50 00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:21,959 to it, because it is a bit of it is a bit of a 51 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:26,920 trot and I know I'm pretty sure that a couple of quite a few years 52 00:05:26,959 --> 00:05:30,360 back. I'm sure I went out on the bus for it, and I 53 00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:32,720 remember it was poor rain. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I won't 54 00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:39,480 have a word sense said against the team at the Cold War Museum because they're 55 00:05:39,519 --> 00:05:44,639 a good bunch there. They really are nice people. It's a cracking It's 56 00:05:44,639 --> 00:05:46,759 a cracking museum, isn't it. Oh So it's wonderful going up into the 57 00:05:46,800 --> 00:05:50,519 several tubs, as you know, I've never been before, and you walk 58 00:05:50,560 --> 00:05:57,120 in the main door for the exhibition area and you're straight in. They don't 59 00:05:57,160 --> 00:06:01,480 they don't pull any punches. Straight in with Rendelsh, some incidents, newspaper 60 00:06:01,560 --> 00:06:06,319 cuttings and the most fantastic little set up. It looked very much like the 61 00:06:06,759 --> 00:06:12,560 Roswell alien footage. But they've got a mannequin. It's a pretty good product. 62 00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:16,959 It As you look through the glass door and it's got a station dost 63 00:06:16,959 --> 00:06:24,959 thing and it's so you can't know. Was it a caution? There's something 64 00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:27,879 on the door. Yeah, yeah, it's quite effective. As as soon 65 00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:30,759 as you walk in the door. I guess we will talk in case someone 66 00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:33,399 doesn't know what we're talking about here. It's actually the Cold War Museum was 67 00:06:33,439 --> 00:06:40,120 actually the it's on the on the Bentwater there's a Woodbridge Air base where the 68 00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:45,040 render from Forest incident from nineteen eighty occurred. This actually the base has been 69 00:06:45,040 --> 00:06:47,480 closed down now and I think a lot of it is a film museum. 70 00:06:48,079 --> 00:06:51,040 Will say movie, it's a music it's a movie set. I I don't 71 00:06:51,040 --> 00:06:59,160 believe all sorts of filming over the years. Indeed, a few moons ago 72 00:07:00,240 --> 00:07:05,040 I filmed there when they were making a documentary one of the TV channels about 73 00:07:05,040 --> 00:07:13,800 the Waco massacre, and I played one of the ATF officers involved with the 74 00:07:13,879 --> 00:07:19,959 case and I had to kick in a window and as I enter the room, 75 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:25,240 I've got a big blood bag on my leg and suddenly that explodes. 76 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:29,800 It's blood all over this shop, but I've got to keep firing, and 77 00:07:30,319 --> 00:07:34,319 my bloody chups me a magazine and oh my word, and I thought, 78 00:07:34,319 --> 00:07:39,360 what a great idea. After the filming too, they said, do you 79 00:07:39,360 --> 00:07:41,600 want to get changed? I said, well, I'll get changed, but 80 00:07:41,639 --> 00:07:46,319 I leave the blood on because my son's a lovely lad but he likes that 81 00:07:46,279 --> 00:07:51,759 boisey sort of activity. Wouldn't that be fun If I come home and I've 82 00:07:51,759 --> 00:07:57,120 got blood all up my leg all over my face from an action scene, 83 00:07:57,600 --> 00:08:01,040 Lawrence would love to see that. I got home great, Yet have a 84 00:08:01,040 --> 00:08:03,560 look at Dad. It's like, oh, it's coming in blood. Great? 85 00:08:03,959 --> 00:08:07,319 And then I go into the shower to remove my trousers and they're coming 86 00:08:07,319 --> 00:08:13,560 in blood. And I discover that to film and TV, blood can stage 87 00:08:13,680 --> 00:08:18,839 quite a lot of sugar, and when that's allowed to dry over the hour 88 00:08:18,920 --> 00:08:26,160 or two journey to get home, that causes your leg hair to stick a 89 00:08:26,199 --> 00:08:31,679 lot of super glues in these trailsies and most of my leg hair came off 90 00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:37,240 with my track. Yeah, we won't do that again, will you. 91 00:08:39,600 --> 00:08:41,919 I don't know if you know when you've got kids. I've got two little 92 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:46,840 granddaughters now, and if I just had to show them the lower leg with 93 00:08:46,919 --> 00:08:50,440 a bit of a crazy injury shown on there, do you know what? 94 00:08:50,720 --> 00:08:56,080 I'd do all the same again. But they wouldn't see wouldn't see grand head 95 00:08:56,159 --> 00:09:03,200 in the shower. Grand that's one. And I guess that was before you 96 00:09:03,240 --> 00:09:07,879 had your trademark stars as well. It's PM years that is primus starch. 97 00:09:09,039 --> 00:09:15,000 Yeah, yeah, absolutely, well I used to do back in the nineties 98 00:09:15,039 --> 00:09:18,360 and early two thousands, I used to do quite a lot of film work 99 00:09:20,559 --> 00:09:24,679 as an extra I had. I worked at the Civil Service and that was 100 00:09:24,720 --> 00:09:28,320 all right, but I always had a sort of part of me that enjoyed 101 00:09:28,320 --> 00:09:33,639 a bit more adventure and a bit and and a lot of the chaps in 102 00:09:33,679 --> 00:09:39,080 those days in in the civil Service, it was quite quite a male orientated 103 00:09:39,960 --> 00:09:43,720 place in those days. At Her Majesty's Stationary Office in Knowledge, there were 104 00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:48,879 there were a lot if we had angly A TV in Knowledge as well in 105 00:09:48,919 --> 00:09:52,960 those days, So if there was some sort of filming work going on, 106 00:09:52,759 --> 00:10:00,440 you'd lose half of certain departments of Her Majaey's davery others that would be called 107 00:10:00,480 --> 00:10:07,039 to do a crowd scene for Anglia TV's Tales of the Unexpected the Chief or 108 00:10:07,080 --> 00:10:09,159 a host of documentaries and all sorts of stuff. It was great fun. 109 00:10:09,440 --> 00:10:13,960 It was great fun. It was a very welcome one hundred and twenty pounds 110 00:10:15,080 --> 00:10:20,840 per day to literally have a little bit of TV work. I was in. 111 00:10:22,279 --> 00:10:24,080 Well, that wasn't bad money bad then, was it? Really? 112 00:10:24,440 --> 00:10:28,519 He couldn't knock it, you know. And if you've got a young family, 113 00:10:28,639 --> 00:10:33,360 you thought to add, you know, maybe a third or a quarter 114 00:10:33,480 --> 00:10:39,879 of your wage on onto your packet agains. Literally messing around for a day, 115 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:45,639 that'll do me. It was great fun. I got to meet some 116 00:10:46,159 --> 00:10:50,600 wonderful people that BBC used to film Love Joy in the area in those days, 117 00:10:50,639 --> 00:10:56,039 and if there was an auction scene or any sort of crowd or some 118 00:10:56,080 --> 00:11:01,000 sort of action, that'd often call on us and I was be There's one 119 00:11:01,080 --> 00:11:07,120 great one of the last episodes of a series with Joanna Soala, there was 120 00:11:07,799 --> 00:11:13,759 a Dinsdale landon and we were filming in the Angel Hotel in Barry Saint Edmunds 121 00:11:15,080 --> 00:11:18,360 and all I had to do was put on my work suit and walk the 122 00:11:18,399 --> 00:11:22,799 other way Danna Corridor with Dinsdale land and Joanna Soala going the other way. 123 00:11:24,720 --> 00:11:28,879 And I got walk on two for that because I had to have some sort 124 00:11:28,879 --> 00:11:33,240 of direction and interaction with the with the with the stars, and that was 125 00:11:33,279 --> 00:11:37,159 it, and it was one of the most one of the nicest days ever 126 00:11:37,639 --> 00:11:41,919 in filming because it was coming towards the end of the series and Ian McShane 127 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:48,120 came down and there was Dudley Sutton and the wonderful Dinsdale Land and Joanna Soala. 128 00:11:48,440 --> 00:11:52,200 It was what Julia Sola forget which one, I'll forgive me that one. 129 00:11:52,799 --> 00:11:56,360 But they were lovely, get lovely, lovely people, happy days and 130 00:11:58,039 --> 00:12:01,519 you know, to spend an afternoon just having a coffee or two with with 131 00:12:01,639 --> 00:12:09,320 people who are or would become legends names. Yeah, exactly. Shane began 132 00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:11,279 as an extra. Yeah, I'm sure it used to be in things like 133 00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:16,480 the old the old shows like The Saints and things like that. Have any 134 00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:20,919 discrimination, I mean, everybody, if you've got a job to do, 135 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:24,519 when you've got to do a reset, that that's that's that's that's fine that 136 00:12:24,600 --> 00:12:28,799 you'd have to grab your lunch and go quickly. But there was no hierarchy 137 00:12:28,840 --> 00:12:35,320 that you'd really feel on location in McShane would just make sure everybody's treated with 138 00:12:35,399 --> 00:12:39,679 the same the same respect, and you had to, you know, everybody 139 00:12:39,679 --> 00:12:43,799 had to respect each other. Yeah, that's what should be. Oh God, 140 00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:48,799 was it wasn't it? It was just a lovely environment to be part 141 00:12:48,039 --> 00:12:56,559 of making a TV show that was phenomenally successful and popular in its day. 142 00:12:56,600 --> 00:13:01,440 It was filmed all over Norfolk and Suffolk she Beck. In those days, 143 00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:05,720 he was actually I can't remember if there'd been any violence in it, but 144 00:13:05,759 --> 00:13:09,799 it was. I remember the stories being very good about to antiques and things 145 00:13:09,799 --> 00:13:13,720 like that. Well, they were clever, they were clever. It was. 146 00:13:13,840 --> 00:13:16,879 It was a set. You didn't need any murders. I like Midsummer 147 00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:24,679 murders. It was just little stories about how loved Joy, although he was 148 00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:28,559 a bit of a boy, would turn the story around and kind of make 149 00:13:28,639 --> 00:13:31,559 things all right. If somebody's been ripped off, he's going to turn it 150 00:13:31,600 --> 00:13:35,919 around, make it all right, but also make sure he spins himself a 151 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:39,279 little bit of money out of it. Yeah, I've seen a few episodes 152 00:13:41,159 --> 00:13:45,279 again when they do the reruns, and yeah, do you know what they 153 00:13:46,200 --> 00:13:50,399 stand up And many years later, I've done a few episodes of love Joy 154 00:13:50,679 --> 00:13:56,919 and a lovely actress called Phillip Slogan. She she played one of these ladies 155 00:13:56,919 --> 00:14:03,440 of the manor that love Joy his love interest to I maybe met Phyllis once 156 00:14:03,519 --> 00:14:07,360 or twice on location. I did another filming job for All the King's Men, 157 00:14:07,440 --> 00:14:11,679 and she remembered me. She was just lovely. She she was good 158 00:14:11,679 --> 00:14:16,679 fun, she spoke with a very nice accent in the show, which she's 159 00:14:16,679 --> 00:14:22,759 Scottish by birth, and it was just lovely to see her and remember those 160 00:14:22,840 --> 00:14:28,879 times. That's how friendly that that set was. Happy days now he goes, 161 00:14:28,919 --> 00:14:33,360 by the sound of it, do you know you don't need them. 162 00:14:33,679 --> 00:14:39,120 I've been really lucky. Do you know I'm no sham and said saying, 163 00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:43,200 I've been a supporting our teeth, do you know? And over those years 164 00:14:43,639 --> 00:14:48,399 I got to meet some of the biggest names in TV and film and subsequently 165 00:14:48,399 --> 00:14:52,440 as an advisor. Yeah, I've met them too. I've met some of 166 00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:58,159 the nicest people along the way. It's sometimes there are people in the middle 167 00:14:58,279 --> 00:15:03,000 ground trying to to make it on the way up, and they are there's 168 00:15:03,519 --> 00:15:09,879 very very few of them who really are quite unpleasant. But those that have 169 00:15:09,200 --> 00:15:16,279 made it, people like David Jason's absolutely lovely, a lovely man, lovely 170 00:15:16,320 --> 00:15:22,759 man, Ian McShane, absolutely lovely Martin Shaw. We did several series of 171 00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:26,120 The Chief I as a tactical farms officer in that just just one of a 172 00:15:26,200 --> 00:15:33,399 team as young fellows leaping around and firing blanks off and jumping out of fans 173 00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:37,120 and messing about it. It was great, great fun. I guess somebody's 174 00:15:37,159 --> 00:15:39,519 old series. I don't think I ever saw a chief, to be honest, 175 00:15:39,799 --> 00:15:46,120 I remember him in or what was the other thing that The Professionals, 176 00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:50,879 That's right, The Professionals was Martin Shaw's big break. Remember him seeing him 177 00:15:50,879 --> 00:15:58,000 in there? Really and although he does a very good banquet in a I 178 00:15:58,039 --> 00:16:03,240 think it's a TV film version of The Scottish Player, and he was very 179 00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:08,240 very good in that. I'll tell you change modest and kind man change with 180 00:16:08,600 --> 00:16:15,799 Martin Shaw. Actually I actually saw him on stage playing elvisa all things God. 181 00:16:15,600 --> 00:16:18,759 Yeah, yeah. I think it was called You're Lonesome Tonight and went 182 00:16:18,879 --> 00:16:22,960 it on back in the early eighties or little mid eighties. I think it 183 00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:27,039 was with that well. It was actually quite good, to be honest, 184 00:16:27,279 --> 00:16:30,159 it was actually, I mean, multy shure. It was nothing like Elvis, 185 00:16:30,240 --> 00:16:34,159 of course, but I suppose we're a wig and he's hearing a bit 186 00:16:34,200 --> 00:16:37,440 of makeup and from a distance they kind of made him look like it. 187 00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:41,080 It wasn't a music or as such. It was like it was supposed to 188 00:16:41,080 --> 00:16:47,159 be like the final final few hours of Elvis. Basically, you know, 189 00:16:47,240 --> 00:16:49,960 it's sort of you know, that's kind of what it was. It was 190 00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:52,360 a bit of bad language in it and everything, but yeah, I can 191 00:16:52,399 --> 00:16:56,519 remember it was good and being quite impressed with it the way he did it. 192 00:16:57,399 --> 00:17:00,720 But you wouldn't have put that down to multi Shan, would you, 193 00:17:02,039 --> 00:17:06,559 you know? But do you know, we don't we Marty sure that that's 194 00:17:06,599 --> 00:17:11,039 a completely different person. He lives in Norfolk, not far from Windham, 195 00:17:11,039 --> 00:17:15,680 where for a little while back in the day, I was often round in 196 00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:22,000 Windham and I encountered Cat I was a close friend with him, but I 197 00:17:22,119 --> 00:17:27,680 encountered Martin and his wife, who also works in TV as a presenter. 198 00:17:27,759 --> 00:17:34,559 And she's absolutely lovely, real sunbeam, smile lady. And it was funny 199 00:17:34,599 --> 00:17:41,640 that she'd smile and get on mark and be ever so quiet, ever so 200 00:17:41,720 --> 00:17:48,880 quiet, but just nice, just a really nice presence. He's got nothing 201 00:17:48,920 --> 00:17:56,519 to prove, never overbearing, but a man of immense feeling for for people 202 00:17:56,279 --> 00:18:00,519 you know, and the world around him. It's such a kind, kind 203 00:18:00,640 --> 00:18:03,799 soul. It's nice to hear, isn't it. Actually, Well, it 204 00:18:03,039 --> 00:18:07,519 is, and it's the same with David Jason, such a lovely man. 205 00:18:07,799 --> 00:18:12,839 When we were filming All the King's Men, I kind of stuck with David 206 00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:17,079 a bit. I kind of played his batman. He wanted to get a 207 00:18:17,079 --> 00:18:22,359 flavor for flavor for Norfolk and Norfolk history. And my great granddad had been 208 00:18:22,359 --> 00:18:26,880 in the old fifth Battalion and it was the story of them over in Gallipoli 209 00:18:26,960 --> 00:18:33,200 and supposedly disappearing, you know. And I think Nigel McCreery did a very 210 00:18:33,240 --> 00:18:37,839 good job on the original book, and Nigel was on set and David was 211 00:18:37,880 --> 00:18:42,200 there, so yeah, it was a really nice time. It was, 212 00:18:42,279 --> 00:18:45,839 and we filmed in the UK, we filmed in Spain. We couldn't film 213 00:18:45,880 --> 00:18:51,440 the scenes over in Turkey because they landed in Gallipoli. But it was a 214 00:18:51,480 --> 00:18:56,720 great experience and getting to know David was lovely. I used to really his 215 00:18:56,920 --> 00:18:59,759 putties up for him in the morning, just like a good batman would make 216 00:18:59,759 --> 00:19:03,279 sure he's all smart. You'll never get off of yourself. Of course on 217 00:19:03,319 --> 00:19:06,519 the way after, well, you know, you never see his tie out 218 00:19:06,519 --> 00:19:10,079 of place, I'll tell you. And that's me making sure of that because 219 00:19:10,119 --> 00:19:15,480 the wardrobe team are really nice and it was it's a nice feeling to be 220 00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:21,480 part of that. But David Jason is such a He came up, you 221 00:19:21,519 --> 00:19:27,000 know, from a repertory an ordinary actor, and worked his way up to 222 00:19:27,039 --> 00:19:33,079 be an absolute national treasure. Yeah. I actually I can remember the very 223 00:19:33,079 --> 00:19:36,799 early days of Daby Jason when he was he used to drive a little bubble 224 00:19:36,799 --> 00:19:40,440 car in a comedy show. I can't think what it was called. Yeah 225 00:19:41,200 --> 00:19:44,720 it was. It was like one of these sort of early the Whole four. 226 00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:49,240 I think it was a BBC show. It was called but the Yeah, 227 00:19:49,079 --> 00:19:55,039 oh wonderful. But as way before the days of Only Fools and Hall 228 00:19:55,079 --> 00:19:59,920 season, I will absolutely And he's in one episode of Randol and hop character 229 00:20:00,079 --> 00:20:06,480 seats. I saw that. Well remember that in the old day spot David 230 00:20:06,559 --> 00:20:08,599 loves scuba diving. That's it. You wouldn't think so, would you. 231 00:20:10,119 --> 00:20:12,079 Well, you know, you could assume a lot of people things about a 232 00:20:12,079 --> 00:20:19,480 person by the personas that they play. But he had injured his back with 233 00:20:19,519 --> 00:20:27,799 scuba diving not long before we were filming, and my back at that time, 234 00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:32,039 and I've actually discovered the main problem was actually my hips. I had 235 00:20:32,039 --> 00:20:36,519 to have a replacement hip, but that caused me a lot of pain. 236 00:20:37,319 --> 00:20:40,839 So we found this kind of link that I was this young guy with a 237 00:20:40,880 --> 00:20:44,920 back is shoe and whatever, and he's got a tailble backage. But neither 238 00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:48,359 of us wanted it to impinge on what we were trying to do. I 239 00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:52,440 certainly wanted to be part of the show, and it meant a lot to 240 00:20:52,559 --> 00:20:56,319 him to be part of the drama. So we kind of helped each other 241 00:20:56,400 --> 00:21:00,960 and that was great. So if, for example, there was one scene 242 00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:07,039 they supposedly were going into battle and suddenly you had to hit the deck as 243 00:21:07,079 --> 00:21:11,079 the cloud of the battlefield, a part of the legend came over us, 244 00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:15,079 and David has to go down. He's got a crash match, you see, 245 00:21:15,319 --> 00:21:18,759 which is great because he's the main star. I'm going to look after 246 00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:22,319 him, but because I've got a Dickie hip, I land beside him this 247 00:21:22,519 --> 00:21:26,519 time is batman. I'm never far from David. But it also means that 248 00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:33,119 very discreetly, I'm a little bit better off than David with my mobility, 249 00:21:33,559 --> 00:21:38,599 so I'm able to get up quickly and help him up. So we helped 250 00:21:38,599 --> 00:21:44,000 each other. I didn't have to land on a on a rough, horrible 251 00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:51,759 terrain, would do absolutely right. And he loved he loved that side of 252 00:21:51,759 --> 00:21:57,039 it, and I loved him to bits a very kind and generous man. 253 00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:02,160 And we won't forget that. We haven't sort of gone into I don't. 254 00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:04,119 We haven't got into the world that are paranormal just yet. But it's nice 255 00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:08,720 to see a little bit of insight into you, don't. Yeah, that's 256 00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:12,200 the way I look at it. Why not? Why not? Well, 257 00:22:12,279 --> 00:22:15,440 no, I think it's the way it should be done anyway. I don't. 258 00:22:15,799 --> 00:22:18,079 I know the last time you came on, I don't think we sort 259 00:22:18,079 --> 00:22:21,839 of went as far back into your history, if you like. There's that, 260 00:22:22,079 --> 00:22:26,119 But I think it's great to sort of do get a little bit of 261 00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:30,200 an insight into somebody now. I know when when you were last on, 262 00:22:30,279 --> 00:22:37,200 you were talking a bit about the that you were actually working on a Bram 263 00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:41,279 Stoker book, but you were you were working on the biography. Now I 264 00:22:41,359 --> 00:22:45,440 believe that's just on its way out now, isn't it. It will It 265 00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:52,200 will be what we are recording today, which is the twenty night. I 266 00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:56,319 think to my is tomorrow the last of the month. No, not quite, 267 00:22:56,480 --> 00:23:00,240 because I'm off too. We were talking a little bit about that. 268 00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:04,160 I'm off to Romania on the my words first or second of the weeb. 269 00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:07,799 So we've got a few this month. Yeah, we've got a couple of 270 00:23:07,839 --> 00:23:15,839 those to go yet. Yes, Bram Stoker, author of Drag Dracula The 271 00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:22,720 Illustrated Biography, it's due for publication. In fact, I've had my first 272 00:23:22,119 --> 00:23:27,119 twenty copies through, most of which are now sold. Because I thought, 273 00:23:27,119 --> 00:23:32,240 well, there are going to be people interested, hash we put me on 274 00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:37,799 one aside David, you asked for one and side for you. Thank you. 275 00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:44,960 We'll sort that out later, thinking well, it's been absolutely brilliant. 276 00:23:45,839 --> 00:23:48,359 It's going to be released in America very soon. It's it's really the UK 277 00:23:48,519 --> 00:23:53,079 release, but some people over in the States, you know that they want 278 00:23:53,119 --> 00:24:00,680 the first first for anything, and I have to say I know that feeling 279 00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:07,119 myself, and so yes, they've been copies go over to America, they've 280 00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:12,319 been copies going over to the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, all across 281 00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:19,279 Great Britain, in one over to Wales, and we've got one copy even 282 00:24:19,319 --> 00:24:26,000 north of the border over in Scotland. Absolutely brilliant, Yes, yeah, 283 00:24:26,039 --> 00:24:32,480 and everyone. What I have done is that the first twenty copies I've numbered 284 00:24:32,519 --> 00:24:38,519 them so you'll get a signature, and one of them is for you. 285 00:24:38,519 --> 00:24:42,480 You get a signature, it's it's best wishes Nils in our story. That's 286 00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:47,440 how I signed my name twenty twenty three. But then it will say one 287 00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:53,880 of and then it will be it could be one of twenty or number five 288 00:24:53,960 --> 00:25:02,440 of twenty eleven of twenty. So they are really really special. Yeah, 289 00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:07,599 so this first edition's number that's lovely and well they are actually the advanced copies 290 00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:15,559 because officially it's not even published yet, but I've got a batch really for 291 00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:18,119 the paramet where we're going to launch it. But I thought, well, 292 00:25:18,519 --> 00:25:22,799 there will be people who cannot make the paramet, so I put it on 293 00:25:22,799 --> 00:25:26,519 my Facebook if you would like one. You know, it dropped me a 294 00:25:26,559 --> 00:25:32,839 light. I couldn't believe I'm quickly so many of them, so it was 295 00:25:33,079 --> 00:25:37,599 deeply touching. But I could imagine it's could be a big seller actually because 296 00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:44,480 brem Stroke is obviously a very popular character in the history of books and write 297 00:25:44,559 --> 00:25:48,799 and also writing horror stories and things like that, isn't he So I quite 298 00:25:48,799 --> 00:25:57,559 agree. I don't think we would have the vampire horror genre, and in 299 00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:04,920 fact, because Drack is such a powerful character, contentiously speaking, I think 300 00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:11,200 he's more of a an even more powerful character with a mass appeal than even 301 00:26:11,279 --> 00:26:19,680 Frankenstein's. Mary Sherley's book is a classic, without doubt. It's it's a 302 00:26:19,799 --> 00:26:25,920 journey of a man who challenges God and the power of life and death, 303 00:26:26,759 --> 00:26:33,119 and quite rightly it is a Gothic horror classic. But for my money, 304 00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:41,599 the figure that touches me and no doubt millions of others more, it's dracular 305 00:26:41,799 --> 00:26:48,519 because Dracula is not killed in a firing windmill or boy whatever. Means that 306 00:26:49,079 --> 00:26:57,720 the films and dramas have killed killed off the monster Dracula is. He keeps 307 00:26:57,759 --> 00:27:04,279 coming back in a variety of forms and guysers. And you know, you 308 00:27:04,319 --> 00:27:11,400 can see how the Gothic horror genre has taken vampires to think everything from Blade 309 00:27:11,599 --> 00:27:19,200 to and Rice and the stats and these in quick the Vampire Diaries, and 310 00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:26,599 you'll even get sparkly vampires now in Twilight. But even Buffy the vampire slab, 311 00:27:26,079 --> 00:27:33,000 all of this, I would argue, would not have existed, or 312 00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:37,920 certainly not in this more dramatic form, if it had not been for Bram 313 00:27:38,039 --> 00:27:45,759 Stokers eighteen ninety seven Classic Dracula. I agree completely and In fact, when 314 00:27:45,759 --> 00:27:51,119 you hear the name bram Stoker, immediately did the name Dracula comes to mind? 315 00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:55,119 And if you hear the name Dracula, bram Stoker immediately comes to mind. 316 00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:59,920 So in my mind the two go hand in hand. I do absolutely. 317 00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:04,319 I think probably brown Stoker is probably the most well known for like that's 318 00:28:04,319 --> 00:28:08,519 for having the name linked to a particular book. I think you're probably right. 319 00:28:10,079 --> 00:28:15,079 I think Mary Shelley is most certainly in the same way linked to Frankenstein. 320 00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:22,240 But with no other horror monsters, Beard, Awarewolf or whatever. Can 321 00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:27,359 zombies? I mean zombie is a reanimated body. I mean that's in many 322 00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:36,039 ways a by product of the vampire contagion. But let's talk about the mummy. 323 00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:40,960 Well, the mummy can be found in nineteenth century literature, so Arthur 324 00:28:41,039 --> 00:28:45,839 cul Doyle tells one of the earlier stories of a reanimated mummy, as does 325 00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:52,599 bram Stoke in the Duel of the Seven Stars. I didn't know that was 326 00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:59,559 the first ever. Oh yeah, one of the first ever reanimated mummy. 327 00:28:59,599 --> 00:29:06,200 Fix and books that we know. So there's two, there's me and there's 328 00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:14,319 there's Dracula that you know, really are constructs of our wonderful bram Stoker. 329 00:29:14,559 --> 00:29:17,799 Well, so I guess the whole story and all of that will actually be 330 00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,279 in the book. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean the focus 331 00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:29,160 of bram Stoker, author of Dracula, is literally that were I've strongly focused 332 00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:33,599 on Dracular, how he created it, the people that he drew upon to 333 00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:38,640 create his characters. Now, there've been an awful lot of sort of speculation, 334 00:29:40,759 --> 00:29:48,720 both academic and sometimes quite frivolous, about how how bram Stoker created the 335 00:29:48,799 --> 00:29:52,960 characters in his book. But to be honest with you, if you read 336 00:29:52,480 --> 00:30:02,119 his own notes for Dracula, plus his two volu in Biography of Sir Henry 337 00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:07,079 Irving, which at the time of bram Stoker's death was described as his greatest 338 00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:15,680 literary legacy. But if you read those two and the notes for Dracula are 339 00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:22,480 published with notes by Robert eighteen by Saying and Elizabeth Miller, they are excellent 340 00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:30,440 sources to see exactly how did his mind work. I mean too, you 341 00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:33,559 know, it doesn't take too much to find the sources of our brand. 342 00:30:34,279 --> 00:30:40,319 Hm. Also, you did have another book about bram Stoker and Dracula, 343 00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:44,839 and it seems to be the which I don't you when we were talking about 344 00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,200 it didn't do very well in Britain because it wasn't really released properly. Well, 345 00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:52,400 well, yes it did, okay, I mean we had advanced orders 346 00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:57,279 around the world, twenty thousand copies. It was great. But the publicity 347 00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:03,000 I don't know quite what they're long. I know that my editor went from 348 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:11,039 the publishers and sadly there wasn't somebody there to foster it through. Maybe that 349 00:31:11,119 --> 00:31:15,440 was partly part of it. It seems odd to me that some people, 350 00:31:18,119 --> 00:31:22,519 I think a lot of people feel that they have an ownership of knowledge of 351 00:31:22,599 --> 00:31:36,960 Dracula, and they've established themselves through good academic speculations, but speculation nonetheless examining 352 00:31:37,119 --> 00:31:48,839 sexual undertones and overtones within the novel, speculating on how bram created these characters, 353 00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:56,680 his motivations. To be honest with you, they hadn't really encountered a 354 00:31:56,720 --> 00:32:01,319 book that draws on bram Stoker's notes and bram Stoker's letters. Now, I'm 355 00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:08,640 was very privileged to have had access. Now that this access was no mean 356 00:32:08,839 --> 00:32:14,799 feat. It took ten years. What had happened was in the in the 357 00:32:14,839 --> 00:32:22,960 year many years decades before Thomas Henry Hall Caine, one of bram Stoker's closest 358 00:32:22,079 --> 00:32:29,240 confidants, one of his dearest friends, and in his day, one of 359 00:32:29,279 --> 00:32:34,279 the greatest authors. It's one of the sad things for Thomas Henry hall Caine 360 00:32:35,279 --> 00:32:43,359 that his books simply have not endured with time. They're often quite well Victorian 361 00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:49,359 in their outlook. They involved love triangles, they often have Christian messages. 362 00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:57,839 There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't really appeal to the modern audiences. 363 00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:01,880 So hall Caine, even in literary circles, not that well known. 364 00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:07,039 But he's his foot, he was his play his books were turned into plays. 365 00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:10,480 He wrote for years and years and years, and some of the very 366 00:33:10,519 --> 00:33:19,160 first films that you see being commercially made for circulation films are based on hall 367 00:33:19,279 --> 00:33:27,279 kane novels. Anybody. Hall Kane and Bromstoker corresponded for decades. They were 368 00:33:27,319 --> 00:33:36,440 great friends. But when hall Kane died, his archive was given in entirety 369 00:33:36,799 --> 00:33:39,480 to the Isle of Man archives. He lived on at Grieber Castle on the 370 00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:45,480 Isle of Man. It's where hall Kane's granny and her side of the family 371 00:33:45,599 --> 00:33:50,880 had lived, so it gets left to the nation. But it couldn't be 372 00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,720 it couldn't be released. There were I can't go too much into it. 373 00:33:55,720 --> 00:34:02,000 It's nothing too dark. There was sensitive things relating to the family. Nothing 374 00:34:02,119 --> 00:34:06,920 dark, but it just could have caused a lot of hurt. Yeah, 375 00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:12,159 just post all things on stand well. And the point was that, you 376 00:34:12,159 --> 00:34:16,440 know, you couldn't release this until those family members who were involved, and 377 00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:21,280 there weren't many were had passed away and because it had never been sorted, 378 00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,280 they weren't sure what was where. But because because of this, oh, 379 00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:28,840 there gets a mistique that it was embargoed or anything else. No, it 380 00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:34,599 wasn't. The deal was, let's let's just leave it and one day we 381 00:34:34,679 --> 00:34:38,679 can sort through it. And so it was around about the year two thousand 382 00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:45,280 it was it was released. Because there was that would have been affected passed 383 00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:52,320 away. It took ten years for the Manx National Archives to sort through the 384 00:34:52,440 --> 00:35:00,039 letters. Some that were deemed could be released a little bit. There was 385 00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:08,360 a biography by Vivian Alan where she told his story and included some of the 386 00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:15,199 letters that were not sensitive, and that was great. I had no idea 387 00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:21,480 of the number of letters involved in my interest. What I realized was from 388 00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:27,760 her book and her appearance on a documentary about actually about Jack the Ripper and 389 00:35:28,599 --> 00:35:35,559 the Special Branch suspect doctor Francis Tumblety, who was revealed with the discovery of 390 00:35:35,599 --> 00:35:39,679 a letter by my very good friend Stuart P. Evans, who wrote The 391 00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:49,719 Lodger, which explored the first American serial killers. We thought then and this 392 00:35:50,039 --> 00:35:55,119 idea that Tumblety was Jack the Ripper, an idea that all these years later, 393 00:35:57,039 --> 00:36:00,880 twenty thirty years later, now it's never been disproved. In fact, 394 00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:06,039 the more you dig, the more you find about Tumblety. But it was 395 00:36:06,079 --> 00:36:10,960 thanks to this documentary that Vivian Allen appeared on their talking about the relationship of 396 00:36:12,119 --> 00:36:16,480 Hall Caine with Francis Tumbleton, and I thought, hang on a minute, 397 00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:28,880 Hall Kane is the dedicatee of Dracula. This man is branst Bram dedicated the 398 00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:35,960 book Dracula to his dear friend. That's out's caption to my dear friend Hommy 399 00:36:36,079 --> 00:36:40,639 Beg h O M M y b e G. And people wondered for many, 400 00:36:40,639 --> 00:36:45,280 many years who was Hommy Beg. Now I have to admit I did 401 00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:50,880 not solve that mystery that was sold a little while before I came onto the 402 00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:57,519 sea. But Hommy beg was most certainly hall Caine, because that word is 403 00:36:57,599 --> 00:37:01,159 Manx. It means little man, young man, and it was the Manx 404 00:37:02,039 --> 00:37:12,320 nickname that hol Kane's granny had for the young Thomas Henry hall Kane. So 405 00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:19,960 it was a wonderful link to find. And I spoke to Wendy Thirkettle at 406 00:37:20,159 --> 00:37:24,039 the Isle of Man Archives and said, look, when is this going to 407 00:37:24,079 --> 00:37:29,039 be released? And we spoke for a number of years. I actually lectured 408 00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:34,199 at King Williams College on the Old Man for a little while for a few 409 00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:39,360 years, actually guest lecture, and I kept in touch with Wendy she and 410 00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:44,239 I said, look, Wendy, is it ready this year? You know, 411 00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:49,119 year after you She said, we're just about there. Come and see 412 00:37:49,199 --> 00:37:52,239 us in and I think it was sometime October September, September October time, 413 00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:58,400 come and see us and we should have it. And actually I helped go 414 00:37:58,639 --> 00:38:08,039 through the very last box of correspondence between hall Kane. That just amazes me 415 00:38:08,599 --> 00:38:14,880 to be able to go through stuff like that. It was absolutely an incredible 416 00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:23,199 honor and I'm incredibly grateful and loyal to that that wonderful relationship with the Manx 417 00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:30,159 National Archives, who trusted me never to abuse that that that privilege and all 418 00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:36,239 I will always give full acknowledgment to them, because thanks to the Manx National 419 00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:40,559 Archives, there's well over fifty letters and telegrams that had never been seen before 420 00:38:40,599 --> 00:38:45,400 that I was able to publish in a book called The Dracula Secrets, which 421 00:38:45,519 --> 00:38:54,719 explored the link between Hall Kane, Bram Stoker and Francis Tumblet. And in 422 00:38:54,800 --> 00:39:00,920 doing so I transcribed transcribed all of these letters and it had has been acknowledged 423 00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:08,400 as the greatest discovery of letters written by a contemporary Jack the Ripper suspect. 424 00:39:08,599 --> 00:39:15,280 You know it's there in black and white. Tumblety is a highly likely suspect 425 00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:20,519 for Special Branch and no one had mean when when I went and found the 426 00:39:20,559 --> 00:39:22,840 cash of letters, little did Ike. I thought it might be ten, 427 00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:28,760 maybe twenty. I didn't think there'd be over fifty of the things. Absolutely, 428 00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:32,119 it was incredible. It was electric. My friend Stuart Evans, who 429 00:39:32,119 --> 00:39:37,440 had made that original discovery, you know every night I'd be in those days 430 00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:45,400 you couldn't easily email anything. I was updating him by telephone. I remember 431 00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:50,239 those days. But you know it's incredible. You know that's over ten years 432 00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:53,239 ago. Now, yeah, but it's quite a difficult to get a hold 433 00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:57,039 of, what doesn't it. I mean, I may to check down a 434 00:39:57,079 --> 00:40:00,719 copy, as you know, a couple of weeks ago, and it's an 435 00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:06,719 almost immaculate, brand new copy. I was amazed it is. And I, 436 00:40:07,519 --> 00:40:10,079 even though it's my book, I think it deserved it deserved to do 437 00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:14,239 better than it did, because it's a beautiful little book. Here, I 438 00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:16,719 agree. Tried to say, oh, there's it was very much like their 439 00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:23,239 their own precious theories about Bram's Stoker, and you can clearly see the influences 440 00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:29,880 that he drew on and loved me in putting mysteries into his books and stuff. 441 00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:34,199 But it was quite clear that they were almost paranoid that, oh my 442 00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:40,000 goodness, all of this academic theory that I've built into my life or even 443 00:40:40,039 --> 00:40:45,719 invested as a reader of Dracord, Oh my goodness. Well that's all right, 444 00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:49,880 not necessarily wrong, but not quite as they thought. And some people 445 00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:52,440 tried to say, oh, no, no, nothing to see here. 446 00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:55,440 It's like stretching your arms out in front of a house on fire, will 447 00:40:55,480 --> 00:41:00,599 wake up, you know, But they didn't want people to. Some others 448 00:41:00,599 --> 00:41:06,559 were wonderful they were full of encouragement and it you know, it did get 449 00:41:06,679 --> 00:41:12,239 some good coverage. And I don't regret anything because I know it's published. 450 00:41:12,840 --> 00:41:16,000 Many others know it's published, and it was very well received among those that 451 00:41:16,119 --> 00:41:22,000 do actually know, and it can be objective to that world. But what 452 00:41:22,159 --> 00:41:29,599 happened was when I was going through the Tumbledy paperwork, I found the Bram 453 00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:37,440 Stoker correspondence, which is far larger and more considerable than the whole Cane and 454 00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:44,880 Tumbledy stuff. You know, this goes from It runs from late eighteen seventies 455 00:41:45,039 --> 00:41:53,039 up to very shortly before Brown Stoker's death in nineteen twelve. The whole came 456 00:41:53,119 --> 00:42:00,360 was a hypochondriac, we know were that. And the tragedy is when Bram 457 00:42:00,559 --> 00:42:07,000 was so very very ill and really should not have traveled to the Isle of 458 00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:14,760 man Hall. Came was supposedly on his deathbed and Bram could have done without 459 00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:17,000 that. It was quite an arduous journey because you've got to kind of cross. 460 00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:22,880 You don't have to get from London to Liverpool and then cross over the 461 00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:28,440 Irish Sea to the Isle of man Bran wasn't well. It was quite a 462 00:42:28,519 --> 00:42:31,760 journey in those days and it could have even shortened his life blessing, but 463 00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:37,239 Bram wouldn't have regretted that because he wanted to be there for a friend that 464 00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:43,800 he believed was dying. In fact, hall Caine lived for a far more 465 00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:49,840 than ten years, longer than poor Bram Stoker. But Bram would not have 466 00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:55,679 regretted that, because he knew what it was to be a true friend. 467 00:42:57,559 --> 00:43:02,960 So I copied, and it's quite a volume of Bram Stoker letters in the 468 00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:08,639 Island of Man than the Man's National Archive. And it's taken quite a lot 469 00:43:08,679 --> 00:43:15,039 of years to get the hang of them. Because my good friend Daker Stoker, 470 00:43:15,119 --> 00:43:22,360 who I acknowledge with my hat off with the warmest of glad hearts, 471 00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:29,679 Bram Stoker's great grand nephew, and really there are no direct descendants left now 472 00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:35,840 of Bram Stoker, and Daker has supported the project throughout. And the problem 473 00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:39,719 is Bram had to write hundreds of letters every single week. Remember this is 474 00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:46,280 Longhand for Sir Henry Irving, because Bram was the acting manager for Sir Henry 475 00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:52,159 Irving, the greater actress, greatest actor of his day at the Lyceum Theater, 476 00:43:52,559 --> 00:43:59,119 and he's Bram's handwriting writing at speed. Even Brown would joke, you 477 00:43:59,159 --> 00:44:02,480 know, it is very diff called to decipher and Daker and I call it 478 00:44:02,559 --> 00:44:10,880 Stoker ease because it's so hard and so tricky. But we've done it. 479 00:44:13,039 --> 00:44:20,320 We've transcribed the letters and there's some really lovely insights into Bram in sickness and 480 00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:27,079 in health, and it even shows how he wrote to hall Caine too, 481 00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:30,559 because hall Caine. A lot of people don't realize this, this great author. 482 00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:36,599 Hall Caine and Bram Stoker had met each other as they were on the 483 00:44:36,639 --> 00:44:43,280 cusp of getting somewhere with their writing. Bram had only recently been made acting 484 00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:50,400 manager. He was started. He was looking at his first fiction work in 485 00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:55,599 book form. He had written articles for years and short stories for magazines for 486 00:44:57,400 --> 00:44:59,880 years and years, but this is this is the first book. It's called 487 00:45:00,039 --> 00:45:05,719 Under the Sunset. It's a collection of weird stories for kids. That was 488 00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:14,039 Brown's. And hall Caine was just coming from theater critic and article writer to 489 00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:19,960 establishing himself as a great author. And he's got a few books out before 490 00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:29,440 Bram, and he's dedicated books to Brown before Bram Stoker put in the Homi 491 00:45:29,519 --> 00:45:35,920 Beg dedication. Some people even tried to say bat Brown was trying to kind 492 00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:40,320 of leap frog on the shoulders of hall Caine to become one. No, 493 00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:47,360 nothing more distant from the truth could be. He They were friends, very 494 00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:53,679 dear friends. They're rather like Sherlock Holmes and Dr Wattson. They've gone on 495 00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:58,039 theatrical tour. They're trying time it so they could catch up with each other. 496 00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:02,800 Wonderful stuff. Wonderful. I'll just say both you're obviously your latest one 497 00:46:04,079 --> 00:46:07,320 and also the other little dracular book we were talking about, the bram Stoker 498 00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:10,320 one. They're both worth getting. Obviously, if you anyone listen to this, 499 00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:15,559 if you want to track down that's earlier book about bram Stoker and Dracula. 500 00:46:15,599 --> 00:46:22,039 It's a fantastic book to get. It's called The Dracula Secrets. That's 501 00:46:22,039 --> 00:46:28,639 the one Grand Stoker and the darkest sources for Dracula, and then the new 502 00:46:28,679 --> 00:46:34,760 one, and it is. There are some themes that will be included because 503 00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:37,760 they have to be as they were in the previous book, but there's an 504 00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:45,119 awful lot of new material in bram Stoker, author of Dracula. I think 505 00:46:45,159 --> 00:46:52,880 people will be particularly interested to see the long interest that Bram had in Mesmerism 506 00:46:52,960 --> 00:47:00,559 the power of the mind over other people, and that was something that he'd 507 00:47:00,599 --> 00:47:06,840 had for years. He corresponded with one of the founders of the Society for 508 00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:12,679 Psychical Research, and Sir Oliver Lodge. Indeed, Bram was a member of 509 00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:21,360 the Society of Psychic Research himself, and he Bram and Sir Oliver discussed the 510 00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:27,880 idea of how one person's mind could could control another, Was it possible? 511 00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:37,199 And Bram wrote about that in particular, I mean Dracula as elements of this 512 00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:39,880 mind control over So I was just going to say that when you were talking 513 00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:44,559 about that regularly has that? Does he when he stays into the eyes to 514 00:47:44,599 --> 00:47:47,079 a thing? Oh? Absolutely, according to the movie version. Anyway, 515 00:47:47,719 --> 00:47:52,000 Well, it's in the book. And also that this distance power that he 516 00:47:52,119 --> 00:48:02,440 had over Renfield. You know, there's this zoophagus Acolyte. It's an incredible 517 00:48:02,519 --> 00:48:08,360 book for this power of the mind, the power he has over those he 518 00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:15,320 wishes to draw their blood, you know. But this was revisited by Brown 519 00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:17,639 and his last book as well. It's in fact, it's in several of 520 00:48:17,639 --> 00:48:24,039 his books. But Brawn's last book, The Layer of the White Worm, 521 00:48:24,079 --> 00:48:29,199 it goes so far as one of the characters, one of the most sinister 522 00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:37,760 of all kills another character by the power of their mind alone, disturbing stuff 523 00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:39,639 like now that one I do though I have field of that one. I 524 00:48:39,679 --> 00:48:44,239 don't think of it. I'm sure I haven't read it, but there might 525 00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:49,199 be one on my list to actually get ahold of that. There's a film 526 00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:57,440 starving a number of faces that you including including Hugh Grant, which is okay, 527 00:48:57,440 --> 00:49:01,079 But for goodness sake, read the book, don't h't don't leave it 528 00:49:01,119 --> 00:49:07,280 on the shelf, or Biden Howe read because it's interesting. He sets it 529 00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:12,000 in a mysterious place called Mercier. Now Mercier, you might image, might 530 00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:16,159 be over towards the west of Great Britain. But what bram has done is 531 00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:22,360 Mercier. He kind of says, it's over not a long drive away from 532 00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:30,840 Liverpool, but where he's actually set it is Scotland. He in my book, 533 00:49:31,159 --> 00:49:35,559 I draw on some of his letters. He went to stay in a 534 00:49:35,559 --> 00:49:40,119 place called Inchmaralow Castle or Inchmaalow House in Scotland, and you can see it's 535 00:49:40,119 --> 00:49:43,599 on the letter heads. Then he had a wonderful time. He had a 536 00:49:43,679 --> 00:49:47,480 chance to explore Scotland, and he would go from Inchmalow to go and see 537 00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:57,960 the dignitaries at Slain's Castle, and it was just a wonderful base for him. 538 00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:01,920 But he went up to it's called Blair Castle, which is absolutely superb 539 00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:07,400 and Bram describes in Lair of the White Worm this collection of weird and wonderful 540 00:50:07,519 --> 00:50:14,599 antique arms and armory, which you can still see in Blair Castle. And 541 00:50:14,679 --> 00:50:16,519 people may say, ah, yes, Neil, but a lot of Scottish 542 00:50:16,559 --> 00:50:22,400 castles have collections of arms. Ah yes, they may. But then stroll 543 00:50:22,639 --> 00:50:27,760 into the garden, as Bram Stoker did, and you will discover Diana's Grove. 544 00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:34,079 And there is only one Diana's Grove in any castle ground in Scotland, 545 00:50:34,119 --> 00:50:38,480 and I think, for that matter, in Great Britain. And Diana's Grove 546 00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:45,599 is amongst some very tall trees. They're enormously tall. Now, it's some 547 00:50:45,679 --> 00:50:50,079 of the tallest you'll find in all of Scotland in the grounds of Blair Castle. 548 00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:55,159 And it has a statue of the Huntress Diana, her bow and arrow 549 00:50:55,199 --> 00:50:59,480 in hand, and it's still there. You can stand on the spot that 550 00:50:59,559 --> 00:51:05,920 bras Socus stood on, and Diana's Grove is part of the storyline of Lair 551 00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:08,440 of the White Worm, and it's one of the few indications of his true 552 00:51:09,159 --> 00:51:15,800 locations that he drew upon. And if you read the descriptions of the case 553 00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:21,920 at the casta in Lair of the White Worm, you almost certainly record if 554 00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:22,960 you get a picture up, we'll have a look in my book at the 555 00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:29,079 picture of blair Castle. You'll say, oh, yes, that that's that's 556 00:51:29,119 --> 00:51:34,960 his basis for that. Very interesting. Is it's fascinating? Okay, Well, 557 00:51:35,079 --> 00:51:37,039 well, I guess we better talk about your other new book that you're 558 00:51:37,039 --> 00:51:40,159 working on. Dude. I don't think it's actually finished yet, is it. 559 00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:45,920 And you're talking about the Tyne sign triangle. Oh, the time side 560 00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:51,079 triangle, that that will probably be a long term project. Really as I 561 00:51:51,199 --> 00:51:58,239 transcribe the time side UFO Society Archives. Yeah, so we got we go 562 00:51:58,360 --> 00:52:02,000 from that regular to UFOs. Well, why not? Because my life has 563 00:52:02,039 --> 00:52:10,239 been spent uncovering lesser known history, the stories of those who often would not 564 00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:15,800 have a voice, the animals in World War One or World War Two, 565 00:52:16,639 --> 00:52:22,559 the voices of women on the home front and on active service. Two World 566 00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:28,480 wars have been part of my life as a professional historian. Bram Stoke has 567 00:52:28,519 --> 00:52:34,679 been pure pleasure. I have known his most infamous creation since I was a 568 00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:39,719 child in the nineteen seventies and I could see the posters of Hammer horror films 569 00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:45,960 starring Christopher Lee. Oh yeah, I love the effects on my Facebook page, 570 00:52:45,199 --> 00:52:47,639 on my photo section, I've got all. I've got a collection of 571 00:52:47,679 --> 00:52:54,519 all the horror posters because they're fantastic, They're brilliant graphics and they're all a 572 00:52:54,679 --> 00:53:00,599 thing of their time. I've known Bram all of these its years, and 573 00:53:00,639 --> 00:53:06,360 having had a long term interest in Jack the Ripper, you see with the 574 00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:12,920 bram Stoker connection or it was a perfect synergy to create something new. But 575 00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:19,119 when I was working on a First World War project with the City of Newcastle, 576 00:53:19,159 --> 00:53:22,320 I had the honor to work with both my home county of Norfolk and 577 00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:30,559 the City of Newcastle on some very special commemorative events for the centenary of the 578 00:53:30,599 --> 00:53:36,360 First World War and working with that Newcastle Cathedral as well, lovely people up 579 00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:42,559 there. I had the privilege to get into the strong room at Newcastle Library 580 00:53:42,599 --> 00:53:49,000 to get some of the old photograph albums out there, and I saw and 581 00:53:49,079 --> 00:53:53,440 the side of the strong room some boxed filing cabinet, the old sort that 582 00:53:53,519 --> 00:54:00,760 I certainly knew when I was first in the civil service Osworth metal card filing 583 00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:05,920 cabinets. This was a wooden one and you pulled out the file cabinet draw. 584 00:54:06,199 --> 00:54:10,719 Remember this is before the days of computers. My first office job, 585 00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:14,800 I didn't have a computer. I had an in and out tray and a 586 00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:20,400 telephone and I thought that was quite flash. Not even a typewriter. There 587 00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:22,880 was no, no, no. If you wanted anything typed, you had 588 00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:30,760 to write things out longhand placed it into a transit envelope and it would be 589 00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:37,119 sent to a typing pool. It would then be typed, proved red, 590 00:54:37,639 --> 00:54:40,719 and then placed back in the envelope and met and brought to you by messenger, 591 00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:46,519 normally that the afternoon or by the morning at the very latest, if 592 00:54:46,559 --> 00:54:52,159 they were busy, either the same day or the next day. It was 593 00:54:52,400 --> 00:55:00,840 a very different world. No wonder is called snail mel It was yes, 594 00:55:00,920 --> 00:55:06,000 And once you had received it back you had to check it. You had 595 00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:09,960 to sign it, and then you would place it into an envelope which would 596 00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:15,440 have a a banker envelope with a little window in it. It folded up. 597 00:55:15,519 --> 00:55:20,920 It's signed, It folded up, put it in the envelope, and 598 00:55:20,920 --> 00:55:23,159 then it would be sent down to the post room. And in the post 599 00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:29,239 room they had a frank English frank it and if it would it sounds like 600 00:55:29,280 --> 00:55:34,280 the art, doesn't it. Yeah, Well, I don't think anyone anyone 601 00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:37,559 sort of born after the nineteen eighties. I don't think anyone would sort of 602 00:55:37,000 --> 00:55:43,840 recognize that world at all, absolutely right. But that was the one behind 603 00:55:43,960 --> 00:55:49,400 me because I began in something that was known in those days as personnel. 604 00:55:50,280 --> 00:55:53,360 Now I think that sounds far more human, but now it gets tam changed 605 00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:59,519 to human resources nowadays. But in all of these filing cabinets, you know, 606 00:55:59,559 --> 00:56:04,679 they were cards on everybody recording their promotion and where they were working and 607 00:56:04,719 --> 00:56:09,920 all that kind of stuff. Now And actually I was one of the team 608 00:56:12,480 --> 00:56:15,239 who got the whole lot computerized. In fact, I was quite known for 609 00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:21,719 myself in the civil service for doing myself out of a job of computerizing everything 610 00:56:21,719 --> 00:56:28,400 that was put in front of me. But there we are. But I 611 00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:32,760 saw these kind of filing pull it out and on the top of this wooden 612 00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:40,320 box card filing cabinet, four drawers, it said flying source of sightings. 613 00:56:40,440 --> 00:56:45,679 I thought, what the hell's that. And I pulled the drawer and they 614 00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:54,119 have file cards filled with references to sightings of UFOs. Well, to my 615 00:56:54,239 --> 00:57:05,159 delight that every single one of those final cards related to a scrapbook page or 616 00:57:05,199 --> 00:57:14,320 even a file of research carried out out by the Timeside UFO Society absolutely in 617 00:57:14,559 --> 00:57:21,079 an incredible record, not just for the northeast of Britain, but in fact 618 00:57:21,239 --> 00:57:30,239 it covered UFO investigations that were reported in the press from the nineteen fifties right 619 00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:36,280 up to the late sixties early seventies when the archive was handed over to the 620 00:57:36,960 --> 00:57:40,400 library. In fact, we were very lucky to have a gentleman god, 621 00:57:40,440 --> 00:57:45,800 Harry Lord. And Harry Lord was a real scrap booker, so he didn't 622 00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:50,320 just cut out, he stuck in. He dated it, he annotated it, 623 00:57:51,079 --> 00:57:58,320 and sometimes they even followed up local cases by writing or first of August. 624 00:57:58,360 --> 00:58:05,400 The addressers were not always apply, but they locate the witnesses and write 625 00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:08,719 to them, and low and behold, some of them wrote back. It 626 00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:12,800 was a different time, you see. People felt obliged if you hear from 627 00:58:12,800 --> 00:58:16,480 the Time Side UFO Society that you would right back, and yes, you 628 00:58:16,519 --> 00:58:22,639 would expand on the details of what you had seen. They drew what they 629 00:58:22,679 --> 00:58:25,679 had seen in the sky, and that's fantastic. Then add on to that 630 00:58:28,119 --> 00:58:32,400 the archives that I uncovered from another source, which take us back to the 631 00:58:32,519 --> 00:58:37,840 days of the Second World War and the Observer Corps latter part of the war, 632 00:58:38,400 --> 00:58:43,000 Royal Observer Corps, and the reports of what they were seeing. They 633 00:58:43,039 --> 00:58:49,719 had a name for unusual phenomena in the sky and they were known as PHENO. 634 00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:54,400 If you couldn't explain it, it was just simply described as phenomena pheno. 635 00:58:55,079 --> 00:59:00,039 That was the code work. I found reports from eight girls along the 636 00:59:00,119 --> 00:59:05,360 time operate and a lot of the I should think about ninety percent of the 637 00:59:05,400 --> 00:59:14,440 boas balloons were operated by mostly female boshed balloon operators along the time, and 638 00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:20,840 they were reporting this strange object. They were white. More than one instance 639 00:59:20,880 --> 00:59:25,559 of this about the size of an Austin ten cup. They thought it was 640 00:59:25,559 --> 00:59:34,800 a crashing aircraft that would dive towards the ground and it would cut through the 641 00:59:34,920 --> 00:59:39,320 bowrased balloons. You might think they're held on by some sort of hemp rope, 642 00:59:39,400 --> 00:59:45,400 but actually the rope is wire. It's woven in the same way as 643 00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:50,559 a hemp rope because it has many wire strands to it. But they reported 644 00:59:50,559 --> 00:59:53,559 these things going through the wires. Now, the wires on bowrased balloon were 645 00:59:53,679 --> 01:00:01,679 designed to take the wings off bombers and fighter aircraft or the or the aircraft 646 01:00:01,719 --> 01:00:07,599 would get tangled up in that wire and you know, tangled up with the 647 01:00:07,599 --> 01:00:09,639 Boars balloon and the whole lot would go up in a whole ball of flame. 648 01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:15,760 These objects are they're white, they're diving down. They look like well, 649 01:00:16,400 --> 01:00:21,360 people said, is it a crashing aircraft? We don't know. It's 650 01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:24,519 before the days of dual bugs, before the V two rockets are coming out. 651 01:00:27,840 --> 01:00:30,519 They didn't know. But what they did know that this thing would go 652 01:00:30,719 --> 01:00:35,840 through the ropes. It traveled at quite some incredible speed and zip away. 653 01:00:37,559 --> 01:00:40,599 And when they recovered the Boas balloons would either go up in flames or would 654 01:00:40,639 --> 01:00:49,480 drift away. And when they examined the metal woven ropes, they looked like 655 01:00:49,559 --> 01:00:54,280 they had been burnt through. They were rounded, the metal had burnt in 656 01:00:54,320 --> 01:01:00,800 the moments it took to touch it. It was absolutely incredible. So when 657 01:01:00,800 --> 01:01:06,039 it was investigated, it was claimed that these white objects were you're gonna like 658 01:01:06,159 --> 01:01:10,280 this. Remember this is mid World War two, Okay, we're getting nineteen 659 01:01:10,320 --> 01:01:15,400 forty one, forty two, forty three BEERID mid World War two, and 660 01:01:15,440 --> 01:01:21,519 they're saying it's weather balloons. Now we will hear that all again. It 661 01:01:21,679 --> 01:01:25,159 was, well, wouldn't we absolutely? Yeah, Now we have to admit 662 01:01:25,320 --> 01:01:31,480 that there's operation Outward now that's down on the East Anglian coast out of Felix 663 01:01:31,519 --> 01:01:36,639 Stoe. Now the reason why it's coming out of Felix Stoe is because there's 664 01:01:37,360 --> 01:01:42,320 an airstream that goes through there that would take weather balloons and this was top 665 01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:49,920 secret in its day, weather balloons that had incendiary devices attached to them over 666 01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:58,679 really to Germany. And when these balloons and things caught hold of wires, 667 01:01:58,719 --> 01:02:04,360 when they came into contact maybe telephone wires, forests and the like, that's 668 01:02:04,400 --> 01:02:12,920 when the combustible incendury would would would break into flame. And the idea was 669 01:02:13,000 --> 01:02:15,920 that there'd be so many fires started on quite a large scale that it would 670 01:02:15,920 --> 01:02:20,559 distract from the war efforts, you know, that kind of thing. But 671 01:02:20,679 --> 01:02:25,400 what was claimed that all the way from a Felix Stone on the east coast, 672 01:02:25,480 --> 01:02:28,400 you know, on the east coast, but this is you know, 673 01:02:29,719 --> 01:02:34,239 below Norfolk gets around the bend on the eastern counties that they've actually drifted up 674 01:02:35,440 --> 01:02:39,320 to the time. Now that's against the slip streams, but oh no, 675 01:02:39,639 --> 01:02:45,679 it's drifted up to the time. And these weather balloons withincendury devices have got 676 01:02:45,719 --> 01:02:52,280 tangled up with some of the Boar's balloons on the time. And of course 677 01:02:52,320 --> 01:02:59,079 you cannot talk about it, girls, because it's all top secret. Do 678 01:02:59,119 --> 01:03:05,199 you believe it? Yeah, I do believe it. I'll tell you what 679 01:03:05,239 --> 01:03:07,360 I've been in this book. That's company when it is all this stuff? 680 01:03:07,480 --> 01:03:10,320 Is it? Is it like exclusive? Is it? Is it sort of 681 01:03:10,360 --> 01:03:15,920 the first time it's being seen. I've certainly never seen that before in any 682 01:03:15,960 --> 01:03:22,440 way, shape or form. It comes directly from contemporary World War Two reports 683 01:03:22,480 --> 01:03:30,559 that I think we're just filed away. It may not got into any local 684 01:03:31,079 --> 01:03:37,559 UFO magazines and things. Might they ever got that far because there would be 685 01:03:37,639 --> 01:03:44,079 one copy that are sent to report it, and the second copy is retained 686 01:03:44,119 --> 01:03:47,880 by the Observer Corp. And you know, when the Observer Corps closed down, 687 01:03:47,920 --> 01:03:52,760 a lot of things were thrown away. Some were sent away to the 688 01:03:52,800 --> 01:03:58,920 public archives. And these are some of the archives that members took. You 689 01:03:58,960 --> 01:04:02,000 know, the report books that the members took away with them. M it's 690 01:04:02,039 --> 01:04:06,960 amazing really. I mean when you think about all the already UFO reports that 691 01:04:08,000 --> 01:04:11,519 we're we already know about it. They're all famous out there anyway, and 692 01:04:11,559 --> 01:04:14,440 all the other ones that are not so famous. And when we've got all 693 01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:18,840 this and now added material which which you've discovered, it kind of backs up 694 01:04:18,840 --> 01:04:24,119 a lot of things, isn't it that, yes, that something is really 695 01:04:24,119 --> 01:04:29,960 going on. It makes an awful lot of sets And in fact, you 696 01:04:29,960 --> 01:04:34,079 know, with my owner, I'm not the first person to look at the 697 01:04:34,880 --> 01:04:42,119 nineteen o nine Scare ships incidents, but I think I'm one of those that 698 01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:46,519 have certainly looked at it in quite some depth over more recent years, since 699 01:04:46,719 --> 01:04:57,679 more and more newspapers have come online and looking at it now, certainly I've 700 01:04:57,679 --> 01:05:01,800 looked at it like never before, and I can see that from the initial 701 01:05:01,920 --> 01:05:10,119 sightings you know in the springtime with with with PC Kettle in Peterborough that the 702 01:05:10,239 --> 01:05:15,800 sightings carried on through the May, June, July, and they're not restricted 703 01:05:15,920 --> 01:05:19,760 to East Anglia. And in fact there's some extremely convincing sightings that were taking 704 01:05:19,840 --> 01:05:27,840 place with multiple witnesses. The one I don't know whether I've mentioned before to 705 01:05:27,920 --> 01:05:31,880 you the one at Time Dock, which is on you know, on the 706 01:05:31,920 --> 01:05:36,360 on the river Time Time dock mouth of the time. It's if they need 707 01:05:36,480 --> 01:05:43,760 jarrow, it's just across the road across the mouth of the Time. You've 708 01:05:43,760 --> 01:05:50,599 got Jaros slate or Jaros slat beside it. And it's an incredible sighting where 709 01:05:50,599 --> 01:05:58,519 this it's shaped like a Zepplin but it has a beam of light that comes 710 01:05:58,519 --> 01:06:04,800 down that illuminates the Jared's slat in red and it just strikes me as incredible. 711 01:06:04,880 --> 01:06:09,480 This is some sort of red light. It's very very similar. It 712 01:06:09,519 --> 01:06:12,599 does sound familiar to me. I'm not sure if you've actually mentioned it on 713 01:06:12,639 --> 01:06:17,159 the show when we were talking, you know. Yeah, so it's it's 714 01:06:18,360 --> 01:06:24,880 and that's in nineteen hundred and nine, and they're trying to as being an 715 01:06:24,920 --> 01:06:30,440 experimental craft. So we've got and I'm sure if we're really honest, if 716 01:06:30,440 --> 01:06:36,599 we start whining history back, you will find examples in the nineteenth century and 717 01:06:36,840 --> 01:06:44,000 earlier right definitely here. But we can't easy because we must have been an 718 01:06:44,039 --> 01:06:50,599 incredible thing to see these sites that people couldn't easily articulate them. They emit 719 01:06:50,760 --> 01:06:56,639 into the medieval eye. This this is something heavenly, it's a celestial body, 720 01:06:57,440 --> 01:07:01,280 it's a message from God, it's angel's, it's some sort or it 721 01:07:01,280 --> 01:07:05,960 could even be a sort of judgment upon us. So we've got to be 722 01:07:06,039 --> 01:07:11,039 really careful. But in the twentieth century, where more people are looking at 723 01:07:11,079 --> 01:07:15,800 the sky with more critical eye, but with an eye that sort of thinks 724 01:07:15,840 --> 01:07:19,559 about it in it with an H. G. Wells perspective, you know, 725 01:07:19,679 --> 01:07:25,440 it makes G. Wells had published War the World nineteen hundred and nine, 726 01:07:25,480 --> 01:07:29,360 he would published, or at least he who veneered a publishing War in 727 01:07:29,400 --> 01:07:36,800 the Air, which was an incredible vision of aerial warfare being bombs dropped from 728 01:07:36,840 --> 01:07:44,280 above that he would revisit again, you know, in numerous editions, including 729 01:07:44,280 --> 01:07:49,719 one in nineteen thirty nine where Wells said, look, I predicted this fuck 730 01:07:49,760 --> 01:07:54,920 in the early twentieth century, and you did not heed me, you damn 731 01:07:55,039 --> 01:07:59,639 fools. Just I mean, I'll tell you what I often think about things 732 01:07:59,679 --> 01:08:02,159 like that. I always wanted to say, they have some sort of INSI 733 01:08:02,199 --> 01:08:06,519 I had knowledge. You know some of these people. What do you think 734 01:08:09,039 --> 01:08:13,360 do you think it's a possibility? I think H. G. Wells, 735 01:08:13,599 --> 01:08:19,600 writing in the late nineteenth century was a visionary, I really do. He 736 01:08:19,680 --> 01:08:29,279 had this incredible creative mind. I don't know of extensive notes from Wells or 737 01:08:30,039 --> 01:08:35,279 in speaking of how he created the Martians, but there was certainly at that 738 01:08:35,359 --> 01:08:44,800 period in time a great interest rather like Bram Stoker drew on his on the 739 01:08:44,920 --> 01:08:49,560 fears of Jack the Ripper, and this notion of there even being a White 740 01:08:49,640 --> 01:08:55,920 Chapel vampire. Now that wasn't Bram's creation, that was the media. And 741 01:08:56,079 --> 01:09:01,880 I think when we look at the late nineteenth century, as flight starts to 742 01:09:01,920 --> 01:09:08,520 become a possibility more than just a pardon the bud of flight of fantasy, 743 01:09:10,119 --> 01:09:17,680 it becomes a very real possibility that we can have manned flight, and you 744 01:09:17,720 --> 01:09:24,720 know, considering what could happen, I think it was thought that sooner than 745 01:09:24,760 --> 01:09:31,039 the sort of string and canvas affairs, I think the money was on there 746 01:09:31,119 --> 01:09:38,600 being some form of motorized dirigible, a balloon that could kind of lift up. 747 01:09:39,319 --> 01:09:42,399 It could fit a motor to it, and you could guide the thing 748 01:09:42,439 --> 01:09:46,399 around. So in common parlance you called it a zepplin or an airship, 749 01:09:47,119 --> 01:09:54,159 and it's why in the eighteen nineties you will see these instance of Zepplin reports 750 01:09:54,199 --> 01:10:01,640 in the American West. I think even the most ardent of our of us 751 01:10:01,680 --> 01:10:10,199 who believe that there are forces from whether it be inter dimensional, into planetary 752 01:10:10,239 --> 01:10:15,600 or whatever it may be, I think the Western site is a push, 753 01:10:15,680 --> 01:10:21,600 push, push the powers of credibility a bit do far, but it got 754 01:10:21,600 --> 01:10:28,119 people thinking. He certainly did. Yeah, and I'm sure with that climate 755 01:10:28,319 --> 01:10:33,520 of interest plus the spark, and we've got to say HG. Wells, 756 01:10:33,560 --> 01:10:38,199 you know, he was a young man at that time and he wrote it 757 01:10:38,359 --> 01:10:41,920 that many many years after, you know, all sorts of different books, 758 01:10:41,960 --> 01:10:45,960 you'd be surprised if you look at the catalog of HG. Wells. He 759 01:10:46,279 --> 01:10:53,399 captured something, and that is that that spark of literary genius someone. I'll 760 01:10:53,439 --> 01:10:59,199 be honest, I don't think he had secret inside on knowledge, but I 761 01:10:59,279 --> 01:11:08,600 certainly think that he captures something of the zeitgeist of it's a it's a fear. 762 01:11:09,920 --> 01:11:14,840 Even Arthur C. Clarke said, you know, if you experience technology 763 01:11:15,239 --> 01:11:24,199 way beyond your comprehension to you, it will seem like magical witchcraft. And 764 01:11:24,279 --> 01:11:28,479 I think that that's kind of what he's picking up on. But also, 765 01:11:28,560 --> 01:11:33,800 you know, as people are more and more observatories existing, there's a wider 766 01:11:33,960 --> 01:11:43,760 study of the stars, and there was very much a consideration of are we 767 01:11:44,680 --> 01:11:51,399 alone and the natural fear of if we are not alone, then what are 768 01:11:51,439 --> 01:11:55,800 they going to want to do to us? And we had this kind of 769 01:11:55,800 --> 01:12:01,079 thing from the early twentieth century, really certainly from the fifties with you know, 770 01:12:01,479 --> 01:12:05,319 they came from Mars and all sorts of things, up until the late 771 01:12:05,399 --> 01:12:10,560 seventies early eighties when that kind of turned around a bit more when we had 772 01:12:10,600 --> 01:12:15,680 close encounters and what we don't know zer, but they appeared to be friendly 773 01:12:15,720 --> 01:12:24,680 aliens, and then they certainly nailed the friendly alien notion with et And you'll 774 01:12:24,720 --> 01:12:31,680 notice that that period in time in some areas, the UFO groups are dying 775 01:12:31,680 --> 01:12:35,920 out. They're dying out in the latter part of the seventies and they're kind 776 01:12:35,920 --> 01:12:42,359 of lesser danger, kind of dies off. And then nineteen eighty we didn't 777 01:12:42,399 --> 01:12:47,359 know in nineteen eighty is something weird's happened in Rendelshom. It took what three 778 01:12:47,479 --> 01:12:54,600 four years you'll know better than I, David, it actually came out that 779 01:12:54,920 --> 01:13:00,840 something some incident and we're looking at nineteen eighty three, nineteen eighty four and 780 01:13:00,920 --> 01:13:08,560 the Rendelshim incident comes out, and that's when there's a whole brand new interest 781 01:13:09,239 --> 01:13:14,800 in UFOs in Britain. Yeah, I think it did kind of spark it 782 01:13:14,920 --> 01:13:19,119 really didn't it. It's I mean, yeah, I can remember it was 783 01:13:19,199 --> 01:13:24,119 later on that I was I found out about the rendership obviously the same probably 784 01:13:24,119 --> 01:13:28,640 the same time as everyone else did. Obviously before that, I don't think 785 01:13:28,680 --> 01:13:31,079 there was so much interest in UFOs because I mean, probably the biggest one 786 01:13:31,119 --> 01:13:35,039 before that was Roswell. But I did. I do think that probably Renderssion 787 01:13:35,119 --> 01:13:41,520 sparked the major interest in UFOs in this country. Well certainly gave it, 788 01:13:41,720 --> 01:13:44,840 you know, a defibrillation, should we say, Well, I mean to 789 01:13:44,920 --> 01:13:46,720 hit the front pages of the news of the world as it was back then. 790 01:13:47,800 --> 01:13:51,359 It was actually very big news, wasn't it. It was. I 791 01:13:51,399 --> 01:14:00,159 mean, in some ways aliens had never and UFO had never gone away from 792 01:14:00,239 --> 01:14:05,520 the nineteen fit it became there was some even look at there were sci fi 793 01:14:05,680 --> 01:14:14,359 magazines in the late nineteen thirties, you'll see reports of some alien or unidentified 794 01:14:14,399 --> 01:14:18,119 spacecraft in World War Two. Then in the years after World War Two, 795 01:14:18,159 --> 01:14:23,439 when we have these notions of rockets, well, what's the potential of rockets. 796 01:14:23,479 --> 01:14:27,560 There will be popular fears and things will emerge out of that. But 797 01:14:27,800 --> 01:14:33,640 people are now trained through the observer Corps and service in the forces to spot 798 01:14:34,359 --> 01:14:40,119 what's going on in the sky, and people are seeing unusual things going on, 799 01:14:40,720 --> 01:14:45,880 so it rolls on. Then we get into the In the fifties there 800 01:14:45,920 --> 01:14:53,399 were some books about sightings of even alien landings in Great Britain. Then we 801 01:14:53,439 --> 01:14:59,640 get to the nineteen sixties and things really do start to kick off, particularly 802 01:15:00,720 --> 01:15:04,239 when we think of the war Minster Mystery, or what was known in the 803 01:15:04,239 --> 01:15:10,439 press as the Warminster thing that was seen in the sky, right, my 804 01:15:10,560 --> 01:15:14,479 Arthur shuttle Wood. Yeah, but I do think that a lot of that 805 01:15:14,560 --> 01:15:16,800 was actually still laughed off though, wasn't it, because he didn't actually hit 806 01:15:16,840 --> 01:15:23,960 the front pages. That's right, I think I thought, sorry, excuse 807 01:15:24,039 --> 01:15:26,800 me. I know. Another person that kind of kicked off a lot of 808 01:15:26,800 --> 01:15:29,960 this whole thing was the von Denik and when he brought out chairs of the 809 01:15:30,000 --> 01:15:34,399 Gods, that kind of one when I started getting them used to get sort 810 01:15:34,439 --> 01:15:39,640 of like in a series in the newspapers. I think every Sunday and I 811 01:15:39,680 --> 01:15:44,359 think their spots a little interest because people started looking at the possibilities of not 812 01:15:44,520 --> 01:15:49,560 the ancient alien theories that is really well accepted nowadays, you know. But 813 01:15:49,560 --> 01:15:57,239 but but we'll see that with George zukerlast you'll see and you'll see with Van 814 01:15:57,319 --> 01:16:01,119 Downikon appears on some of George's shows. It's great because it perpetuates the idea. 815 01:16:01,159 --> 01:16:08,840 But we must not forget that in the nineteen sixties nine on, ten 816 01:16:09,079 --> 01:16:17,119 years before Eric von Dannikin publishers Charts of the Gods, you've got the notion 817 01:16:17,199 --> 01:16:27,399 of the ancient Aliens spaceman being published by w Raymond Drake, and he wrote 818 01:16:27,920 --> 01:16:35,880 seven or eight books looking at various cultures around the world where and his work 819 01:16:36,000 --> 01:16:41,560 was seminar. It was very very good, and it involved translation of ancient 820 01:16:41,760 --> 01:16:46,359 languages. And he's not unforgotten nowadays. I think that's a terrible, terrible 821 01:16:46,479 --> 01:16:57,039 shame, because he was doing what Eric von Dannikin obtained worldwide fame for. 822 01:16:57,880 --> 01:17:01,199 He was doing it ten years before him. I remember there. It's not 823 01:17:01,239 --> 01:17:08,119 a name mine though this place to mind must say, I would thoroughly recommend 824 01:17:08,279 --> 01:17:15,840 people to look at w Raymond Drake. He and there are a number of 825 01:17:15,840 --> 01:17:23,800 books Gods and Spacemen looking around the world and and just pick it up have 826 01:17:24,079 --> 01:17:30,439 a read. They're thumbing good Reads. He was by profession a customs officer 827 01:17:30,600 --> 01:17:36,560 and he was based in Sunderland in Northeast Britain. And his stuff is good. 828 01:17:36,640 --> 01:17:41,840 He has he has the the the eye of somebody that has to be 829 01:17:41,960 --> 01:17:47,840 quite precise in their reports to write up his findings, and because he was 830 01:17:47,880 --> 01:17:55,840 quite a good linguist, he was able to uncover articles and evidence from around 831 01:17:55,920 --> 01:18:01,640 the world. It's compelling, it's fascinating, and it's ten years before Eric 832 01:18:01,760 --> 01:18:10,319 von Dannikin. Mhmm. I don't understand has a I don't think Eric has 833 01:18:10,359 --> 01:18:15,800 a desperate academic background, not that that always means an awful lot, but 834 01:18:16,640 --> 01:18:20,800 I have to think, and I like what Eric has done. But I 835 01:18:20,840 --> 01:18:29,960 think I think it's a shame that Raymond Drake has not received that same spot. 836 01:18:30,039 --> 01:18:31,960 Like, yeah, I mean some people don't get a recognition of userve. 837 01:18:32,039 --> 01:18:34,800 I agree with you. You no, no, he hasn't you know. 838 01:18:34,880 --> 01:18:40,960 I think Eric von Dnikin's background was in hotel management. It was he 839 01:18:41,079 --> 01:18:45,159 was kind of I think he was like an enthusiastic in the in archaeology, 840 01:18:45,680 --> 01:18:47,359 and I think a lot of that was self tall, wasn't it. Yeah, 841 01:18:47,399 --> 01:18:57,880 And there's nothing wrong with that at all. But w Raymond Drake why 842 01:18:57,960 --> 01:19:02,039 his books took longer to produce because his research was so original and it was 843 01:19:02,279 --> 01:19:08,520 so good. It really picked him up and read him. And years later 844 01:19:08,600 --> 01:19:14,439 he was interviewed because the spaceman and gods, you know, they put the 845 01:19:15,359 --> 01:19:19,840 his book beside Raymond Drake often on the bookshelves, you know, which beside 846 01:19:20,039 --> 01:19:27,439 Eric van Dannakan's book on the bookshelves. And of course Eric van Dwnikan gets 847 01:19:27,479 --> 01:19:31,319 the he gets his book is translated, it sells all over the world. 848 01:19:31,359 --> 01:19:38,560 It has this incredible publicity. Yeah, and Raymond Drake was very philosophical about 849 01:19:38,600 --> 01:19:42,359 it. He said, well, look, I've got enough for my life 850 01:19:42,399 --> 01:19:46,720 and I'm happy with my life. But you know, if I get anything 851 01:19:46,760 --> 01:19:51,239 more, it would have been nice. Yeah. So all I'd say, 852 01:19:51,319 --> 01:19:57,960 look look up gods and spacemen, look at the various areas around the world 853 01:19:58,399 --> 01:20:01,600 that he looks at, and he his books are divided into various cultures. 854 01:20:02,199 --> 01:20:09,800 And do you know what folks decide for yourself? I think if you want 855 01:20:09,880 --> 01:20:15,520 something light that will interest you in all of this, Eric von Dannik and 856 01:20:15,720 --> 01:20:21,439 does it. That's a very good job he's done with you translation, it 857 01:20:21,640 --> 01:20:26,680 was helped with some with some pretty good proof readers and stuff. Well, 858 01:20:26,399 --> 01:20:28,920 we all could do with a good proof reader. Let's be off it. 859 01:20:29,039 --> 01:20:31,119 Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, I think he. I think what Eric 860 01:20:31,159 --> 01:20:35,199 W. Denikan did he I think he laid it out for the laymen basically 861 01:20:35,520 --> 01:20:43,039 to read and find the whole thing interesting and encourage them to sort of research 862 01:20:43,119 --> 01:20:46,239 themselves, right, you know, and which I think is such a good 863 01:20:46,279 --> 01:20:51,479 thing because it certainly turned me onto the whole subject, absolutely right, And 864 01:20:51,640 --> 01:20:57,359 we you know, I and nobody else should become an academic snob about it, 865 01:20:57,399 --> 01:21:01,079 because there's not enough people that will take the stuff of ancient aliens or 866 01:21:01,199 --> 01:21:06,199 UFO, indeed the paranormal seriously when I could, I could never look on 867 01:21:06,319 --> 01:21:11,640 you as an I'll know you're talking well, but I think, you know, 868 01:21:11,800 --> 01:21:18,079 if only more serious academic research could be carried out, I think an 869 01:21:18,079 --> 01:21:23,920 awful lot of good could be brought to this world if we understood more about 870 01:21:24,199 --> 01:21:30,960 UFOs and the paranormal. And I think a more frank disclosure about the strange 871 01:21:30,000 --> 01:21:34,640 objects that we have seen in the sky. Really, you know, I 872 01:21:34,680 --> 01:21:40,000 think we're all big boys and girls now. The old arguments of mass panic, 873 01:21:42,720 --> 01:21:46,239 I really don't think that holds a lot of water anymore. I think 874 01:21:46,279 --> 01:21:50,399 we can cope with it, and I think it's about time that if we 875 01:21:50,520 --> 01:21:57,680 have I mean it had some sort of alien contact or something has crashed that 876 01:21:57,840 --> 01:22:01,880 really is from another domen out of this world, will why not admit it? 877 01:22:02,359 --> 01:22:06,119 Is it? Really? It would be? Are we really as as 878 01:22:06,119 --> 01:22:11,840 a world? Are we so arrogant that we think that we are the only 879 01:22:12,000 --> 01:22:17,359 ones? That just doesn't make sense to me whatsoever? You know, not 880 01:22:17,399 --> 01:22:21,319 at all? It doesn't, you know. And if things are going to 881 01:22:21,920 --> 01:22:27,720 be out to zap us or kill us or infect us or whatever, it 882 01:22:27,720 --> 01:22:30,000 would have happened a very very long while ago. It may well have done 883 01:22:30,039 --> 01:22:35,399 also, may you never know. I think it just just I think people 884 01:22:35,439 --> 01:22:43,600 are people deserve the truth, you know, I really do. Some things 885 01:22:43,640 --> 01:22:46,680 have to be held for national security. We know that to keep everybody safe. 886 01:22:47,760 --> 01:22:51,359 But I think as a world, we've we've we've come a long way, 887 01:22:51,399 --> 01:22:58,359 and I sincerely hope if we do have civilizations that we are in contact 888 01:22:58,439 --> 01:23:02,920 with, that maybe they could help us sort the mess out with climate change, 889 01:23:03,319 --> 01:23:08,079 everything else that's going on here. Don't go don't go down that road. 890 01:23:08,119 --> 01:23:15,880 Please, I'm not it's my old hippie head saying. I think sometimes 891 01:23:15,880 --> 01:23:18,479 it's just nicer to work as a team to solve some pretty nasty problem. 892 01:23:18,920 --> 01:23:24,199 Yeah, I agree with you and ask for that. We've we've had seemingly 893 01:23:24,319 --> 01:23:28,359 we've had previous civilizations that may well have come to an end, and who 894 01:23:28,399 --> 01:23:30,199 knows, it may well have been a years aboard it to an end. 895 01:23:30,399 --> 01:23:35,079 You never know, You never know. I mean, I don't know enough 896 01:23:35,119 --> 01:23:40,279 to debate that effected it. What I do know is that around the world, 897 01:23:40,359 --> 01:23:45,479 you look at the ancient technology and the iconography that you see around the 898 01:23:45,520 --> 01:23:51,640 world in everything from the NASCAR lines to pyramids. And I'm not just talking 899 01:23:51,640 --> 01:23:58,680 about pyramids in Egypt, but I'm talking about structures in South America and around 900 01:23:58,760 --> 01:24:06,479 the world that kind of technology. Can it already be lost or where people 901 01:24:06,560 --> 01:24:13,319 were? I just don't know. Yeah, I don't try and prove or 902 01:24:13,399 --> 01:24:19,520 disprove anything. I would admit that I've loved my journey and I hope it 903 01:24:19,520 --> 01:24:26,319 will continue for many, many years in the paranormal and I love wondering if 904 01:24:27,039 --> 01:24:33,520 because if we don't wonder about the paranormal and the strange and what is unexplained. 905 01:24:33,680 --> 01:24:39,119 You're never going to explain it. No, I agree. Now talking 906 01:24:39,159 --> 01:24:45,600 about journeys, you've got something coming out, as I understand it. That's 907 01:24:45,640 --> 01:24:53,560 a nasty rumor. No, not that one. Yeah, Governor, I 908 01:24:53,600 --> 01:25:00,520 have, I have, and it's it's a super little event. It's it's 909 01:25:00,560 --> 01:25:05,119 called the Power Meet and the main man behind it is a lovely man called 910 01:25:05,159 --> 01:25:15,159 Neil Packer, and it's metamorphosed into various names. People might well know the 911 01:25:15,239 --> 01:25:21,199 Haunted Antiques to Research Center. Now it's a paranormal research center and it's a 912 01:25:21,279 --> 01:25:27,720 great It started off as a kind of a mute as a center for people 913 01:25:27,760 --> 01:25:31,359 to come together and investigate the paranormal, a bit of a paranormal museum, 914 01:25:31,640 --> 01:25:36,359 trigger objects and all sorts. And Neil thought, we've got we know so 915 01:25:36,439 --> 01:25:45,720 many people, so many people on Facebook and various organs or even just over 916 01:25:45,760 --> 01:25:51,560 the phone or whatever. If they we don't get together, we should get 917 01:25:51,600 --> 01:25:57,840 together and have it, because let's face it, there's nothing worse than being 918 01:25:57,880 --> 01:26:01,319 at parties, bar big cues or whatever, and no one wants to talk 919 01:26:01,319 --> 01:26:06,800 about paner normal or the unexplained or Gothic horror or anything really really interesting. 920 01:26:09,319 --> 01:26:12,800 On the other side of that, there are events, but sometimes they're so 921 01:26:12,880 --> 01:26:16,560 expensive so people can't not in everybody's pocket, are they now? I do 922 01:26:16,680 --> 01:26:20,680 know for a fact that Neil Pecker is keeping the prices down so they're within 923 01:26:20,840 --> 01:26:25,840 everyone's reach. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm not going to play 924 01:26:25,840 --> 01:26:30,439 anyone against the other because I tell you what they Sometimes if you dig a 925 01:26:30,520 --> 01:26:34,279 little deeper, you'll get different types of speakers and stuff. But what I 926 01:26:34,439 --> 01:26:40,279 really like about Neil he keeps it real. It's very UK based, and 927 01:26:40,359 --> 01:26:45,159 I like that it's bringing it. It's it's a it's filled with goodwill. 928 01:26:45,239 --> 01:26:49,439 The prices are right, you know, the venue is really nice, and 929 01:26:49,520 --> 01:26:55,600 the people that you meet I just lovely, And it's it's got that it's 930 01:26:55,680 --> 01:27:00,920 bringing all your YouTube or YouTube and Facebook friends, bring some life. Yes, 931 01:27:00,359 --> 01:27:05,600 we are more than two dimensional. Let's say hello, and let's say 932 01:27:05,600 --> 01:27:10,119 and I'm going to launch. I mean, I've had my advanced copies some 933 01:27:10,319 --> 01:27:13,800 sort I've already gone around as I've telled it, but I'm going to formally 934 01:27:13,920 --> 01:27:20,159 launch my bram Stoker Orthodracula at the Para meet brilliant and sure, I've thoroughly, 935 01:27:20,239 --> 01:27:25,600 thoroughly look forward to it, and it's going to be lovely to meet 936 01:27:25,600 --> 01:27:30,039 people. Say, now, unfortunately I can't make that because I shall be 937 01:27:30,119 --> 01:27:33,880 in Romania. Well on earth? Are you doing there? Well? Because 938 01:27:33,920 --> 01:27:39,680 we pre built it before I knew about. Are you going to Remania to 939 01:27:39,760 --> 01:27:44,359 go to Castle Dracula or Tula's Castle? Which which isn't? Which isn't Dracula's 940 01:27:44,399 --> 01:27:48,520 Castle? I know Bramstoke and ever foot the Romania tourists more don't like me. 941 01:27:49,279 --> 01:27:56,000 I can ever put a foot in Romania, Transylvania or anywhere. No, 942 01:27:56,359 --> 01:27:59,640 I think it's just legend. Yeah, I think, I think, 943 01:27:59,680 --> 01:28:02,920 to be honest with you, some of those castles and attractions, Yes, 944 01:28:03,039 --> 01:28:09,399 there are connections with Vlad Tepesh, which if you which yeah, okay, 945 01:28:10,159 --> 01:28:16,600 there's a connection to Dracula, undoubtedly, But bram Stoker didn't know about Vlad 946 01:28:16,640 --> 01:28:23,079 Tepesh. Okay, there's no mention of Vlad Tepesh or the famous engraving neils 947 01:28:23,239 --> 01:28:31,720 of this Wallacan Wall, Lord the Impaler. There's no wood cut in bram 948 01:28:31,800 --> 01:28:38,239 Stoker's notes. He read all Stoker fan was a reference in Wilkinson's Guide to 949 01:28:38,279 --> 01:28:42,880 wallaka to Dracula. I like to imagine it was on a very wet day 950 01:28:42,920 --> 01:28:46,039 at Whitby, as as it can sometimes happen on these holidays. He had 951 01:28:46,119 --> 01:28:49,079 wandered down to one of the lending libraries and he fact he thought, well, 952 01:28:49,319 --> 01:28:53,520 you know, I'm setting the book in Transylvania like that, I want 953 01:28:53,560 --> 01:28:58,279 to know more about it. He'd probably learned about the Demeter before the visit, 954 01:28:59,279 --> 01:29:03,159 which was the Mitry, the boat that broke up on the beach at 955 01:29:03,199 --> 01:29:08,560 Whitby. And I bet I want to know more about this this boat from 956 01:29:08,640 --> 01:29:12,359 Varner. Let's if we can find out about that. And he certainly was 957 01:29:12,520 --> 01:29:17,800 versed in in Emily Gerrard's Transylvanian Superstitions book. You know there's a lot going 958 01:29:17,840 --> 01:29:25,159 on, and Bram found the name Dracula. Dracula is noticed as a voivode 959 01:29:26,239 --> 01:29:30,640 Ammerson, not desperately good one, and that's all it is in that book. 960 01:29:30,760 --> 01:29:33,159 It's a name, but it's a name that if you roll around your 961 01:29:33,159 --> 01:29:39,159 mouth, it feels great. Dracula. Yeah, it's got a terrifying the 962 01:29:39,399 --> 01:29:43,319 field to it asn't what it had. It really works. Originally, Bram 963 01:29:43,399 --> 01:29:46,760 Stoker was going to simply call the book the Undead. Then he tried with 964 01:29:46,760 --> 01:29:53,039 the idea of Count Vampier. It would be pronounced Vampier, but it's spelt 965 01:29:53,720 --> 01:29:57,720 w A M P y r p i R Count Vampire and the Undead. 966 01:29:58,079 --> 01:30:00,960 Well, yeah, that's not going to work, is it. But then 967 01:30:00,960 --> 01:30:06,000 he sees Dracula. Okay, Dracula and the Undead, but when it comes 968 01:30:06,079 --> 01:30:11,840 to publication just won't work. It was a hell of a gamble because nobody 969 01:30:11,920 --> 01:30:16,359 knew what a Dracula or who Dracula was. That's all it was. It's 970 01:30:16,359 --> 01:30:21,000 a name, but it works, and it works really well. But yeah, 971 01:30:21,039 --> 01:30:24,640 I mean boiled ma. Bram had ever had the chance to go to 972 01:30:24,640 --> 01:30:30,199 Transylvania or Romania, I did say he would have probably gone and thoroughly enjoyed 973 01:30:30,239 --> 01:30:34,840 it. It would have been great. Yes, do go. We've got 974 01:30:34,840 --> 01:30:40,119 to love the sicky stay well, you know I personally, you know, 975 01:30:40,359 --> 01:30:45,720 I would get a lot closer to Bramstoke and Dracula with a nice long weekend 976 01:30:45,800 --> 01:30:55,720 in Whitby or to slains and to what port airwell or couldn't bay slains Castle 977 01:30:55,760 --> 01:31:00,960 and stay at the Kilmarnock Arms. Then you're being very very close to Dracula. 978 01:31:01,000 --> 01:31:03,359 Yeah, well, I think it is that. I think that castle 979 01:31:04,279 --> 01:31:09,640 is kind of the design they used in the Hammer horror films. I think 980 01:31:09,640 --> 01:31:13,760 that's that's kind of where I think it's got the links with Dracula more than 981 01:31:13,840 --> 01:31:17,199 actually the links to that in payment and everything like that, don't you think. 982 01:31:18,039 --> 01:31:25,039 I think that the castles certainly have the links to Vlad or lad tever 983 01:31:25,159 --> 01:31:29,479 So. I don't know, because I've never studied in detailers neither branded, 984 01:31:30,680 --> 01:31:36,000 but I'm sure that they must have some connection to these figures. But artistically, 985 01:31:36,600 --> 01:31:43,199 yes, the filmic dracket Castle Dracula will be based on you know, 986 01:31:43,279 --> 01:31:53,479 if you've got tourist guides two Transylvania and Romania in the nineteen fifties sixties, 987 01:31:53,520 --> 01:31:56,479 that they're going to draw on those. They're going to draw on the themes 988 01:31:56,520 --> 01:32:00,920 that we saw right back to the old universal monster, you know, back 989 01:32:00,960 --> 01:32:06,600 to the Baylor lagorsid oracularre. It's what people expect, you know, they 990 01:32:06,680 --> 01:32:12,079 want something foreign, not a battlemented castle as we were knowing Great Britain. 991 01:32:12,119 --> 01:32:15,880 I'm sure Bram wouldn't have wanted that either. He's going to want turrets and 992 01:32:15,920 --> 01:32:24,840 he's going to want kind of spires and things that give that continental air to 993 01:32:25,079 --> 01:32:28,359 it. But if you've long drops of a cliff and things like that, 994 01:32:28,960 --> 01:32:32,720 quite right. But if you go to Slains Castle, which is crudent back, 995 01:32:33,479 --> 01:32:39,479 it's on this rocky out crop and even though it's ruined us now, 996 01:32:39,520 --> 01:32:43,600 Brown would have known it in an a habitable state. Indeed he stayed there. 997 01:32:44,680 --> 01:32:47,159 But yeah, it looks it looks right. And then you add to 998 01:32:47,239 --> 01:32:53,600 that the vision that Bram had when he was staying on Prince's Street of Edinburgh 999 01:32:53,720 --> 01:32:59,600 Castle, this huge castle spreading across the top of a rock. Yeah, 1000 01:32:59,680 --> 01:33:06,039 yeah, they are castle drag killers. And not to mention the guy had 1001 01:33:06,039 --> 01:33:13,199 a wonderful imagination. And if you look at the Castle of the King in 1002 01:33:13,920 --> 01:33:16,800 Under the Sunset, his first sever fiction book for kids, I mean, 1003 01:33:16,800 --> 01:33:23,319 the darn thing's got a cast like a skull in the architecture of the building. 1004 01:33:23,960 --> 01:33:26,840 The entrance to it is the mouth of the skull. Check it out. 1005 01:33:26,880 --> 01:33:30,960 Yeah, yeah, there's castle there. It is anyway, So let's 1006 01:33:31,000 --> 01:33:33,479 the bad news, or we won't be able to see each other at Paramet 1007 01:33:33,520 --> 01:33:39,920 which is which is dated what that was the early September isn't it power Meat? 1008 01:33:40,279 --> 01:33:44,479 Is that? Actually I'm arriving on Friday, and Parameat is Saturday and 1009 01:33:44,520 --> 01:33:49,159 Sunday this week. That's right now. Unfortunately this show goes so this show 1010 01:33:49,239 --> 01:33:54,239 will go out after that paramet, so you'd have already met everybody that you're 1011 01:33:54,239 --> 01:33:59,760 going to meet. Hey, it's been great, Hey we will but the 1012 01:34:00,199 --> 01:34:03,720 news is we will meet again at the Festival of You and Explained, which 1013 01:34:03,880 --> 01:34:10,880 is coming up on the fourteenth of the seventeenth. Yeah, and that Bosworth 1014 01:34:10,960 --> 01:34:18,600 Hall. In each of these wonderful festivals and paramly they have their own identity 1015 01:34:18,800 --> 01:34:27,880 and the Festival of the Unexplained that brings over personalities from American ghost sending shows 1016 01:34:27,920 --> 01:34:33,279 and investigation shows in a big scale. Everybody from Daniel Class right boat over 1017 01:34:33,359 --> 01:34:42,880 to really Rob Thompson ghost finders, really good people, and and and d 1018 01:34:42,960 --> 01:34:49,119 and d my amazing wonderful friend, old friend, the man that gave me 1019 01:34:49,279 --> 01:34:55,760 my big break in America. David Schrader. Ah, well, we haven't 1020 01:34:55,840 --> 01:35:03,279 had a tour together since it's got to be five years thanks to the darkness 1021 01:35:03,319 --> 01:35:08,840 that was locked down. But Davi is back in the UK. We're taught 1022 01:35:08,880 --> 01:35:11,960 and he's going to be at the Festival of the Unexplained People will no day 1023 01:35:12,000 --> 01:35:16,319 from the Holes of Files one of the best ever shows to show people the 1024 01:35:16,319 --> 01:35:25,840 way I think it should be conducted. You know, you've got the wonderful 1025 01:35:25,920 --> 01:35:31,439 historic cases of hands holes and then we use new technology, the truly gifted 1026 01:35:31,960 --> 01:35:39,520 in investigative skills and pameable skills of Cindy Kayser. I mean that the lady 1027 01:35:39,920 --> 01:35:43,840 is, in my view, gifted. I mean, for goodness sake, 1028 01:35:44,319 --> 01:35:49,560 there's Shane Pittman, bless him. He always gets the I think he gets 1029 01:35:49,560 --> 01:35:53,960 the short story at times. But you know, you've got to bring these 1030 01:35:53,960 --> 01:35:59,840 youngsters on and if the work experience, he's quite intense, he's quite intense. 1031 01:36:00,039 --> 01:36:08,880 Say sometimes we love Shane. But above all I think the world of 1032 01:36:09,159 --> 01:36:12,640 Dave Schrader. And I'll tell you why not only because you give me my 1033 01:36:12,840 --> 01:36:17,800 first great great break. We think alike. We we believe in honesty. 1034 01:36:18,039 --> 01:36:24,319 And if Dave gets the slightest whiffed, and it wouldn't be with Holes of 1035 01:36:24,399 --> 01:36:26,640 Files, but with other shows. Oh yes, will you come and do 1036 01:36:26,720 --> 01:36:30,079 this filming with us? Yes, Dave will say. But if a director 1037 01:36:30,359 --> 01:36:32,560 happened to say, oh, well, can we just manipulate this, or 1038 01:36:32,600 --> 01:36:36,680 can we do it? Or will you say that Dave won't have anything to 1039 01:36:36,720 --> 01:36:41,600 do with it. Yeah, I walk out straight away. That's a lot 1040 01:36:41,119 --> 01:36:45,399 that ain't going to happen, or he'll make it, you know, if 1041 01:36:45,399 --> 01:36:48,319 you're going to play like that, I'm not an eye it because his reputation 1042 01:36:48,439 --> 01:36:57,039 is built on really good, genuine investigation skills. So if you see Dave 1043 01:36:57,560 --> 01:37:02,840 being pushed by something, sensing something, observing something, you know it will 1044 01:37:02,880 --> 01:37:08,960 be the real deal. That's why I respect it. I'm certainly looking forward 1045 01:37:09,000 --> 01:37:11,319 to meeting him. Oh, you'll love it, along with the rest of 1046 01:37:11,319 --> 01:37:15,640 the team of course as all. Oh it's quite a lineup, you know, 1047 01:37:16,119 --> 01:37:20,199 and it's lovely to be with all of them. Again, it's different 1048 01:37:21,800 --> 01:37:27,560 experience, and you know, if you had the chance to come to both, 1049 01:37:28,079 --> 01:37:32,359 I would certainly recommend come along to both because they are very different. 1050 01:37:32,359 --> 01:37:38,920 And there at the Festival of the Unexplained. I Shall be a book I 1051 01:37:39,000 --> 01:37:44,680 produced earlier this year on the Blackout murders I Shall, which includes the murder 1052 01:37:44,720 --> 01:37:49,439 of Charles Walton. Now do old Charlie Walton was in his seventies and he 1053 01:37:49,520 --> 01:37:59,239 was murdered on Saint Valentine's Day in nineteen forty five, dear old boy was 1054 01:37:59,319 --> 01:38:04,199 believed by some people in his local village to be a witch. Was it 1055 01:38:04,840 --> 01:38:12,600 that popular fear that caused somebody to murder him? Or was it somebody with 1056 01:38:12,640 --> 01:38:21,119 another motive that played on these ideas of witchcraft and this undercurrent in the countryside. 1057 01:38:21,119 --> 01:38:27,239 Wis are like a very dark episode of Midsummer murders. And they killed 1058 01:38:27,319 --> 01:38:33,119 him to what would be known as to locals as a ritual way of murdering 1059 01:38:33,640 --> 01:38:39,039 or killing a witch. And it would be seeing a disposing of somebody that's 1060 01:38:39,039 --> 01:38:45,159 cursed the land. The poor old Charlie has his neck pinned through with a 1061 01:38:45,239 --> 01:38:49,760 pitchfork, which is then bent backwards by its handle and placed under the hedge 1062 01:38:49,760 --> 01:38:54,960 he'd been worked on. And then a slash of hook is taken and his 1063 01:38:55,039 --> 01:39:00,840 thoats cut out. It's absolutely horrific. I'm glad I've had more two already. 1064 01:39:01,119 --> 01:39:08,119 God bless you go. So the local police do the initial investigation, 1065 01:39:08,239 --> 01:39:14,720 but they draw a blank. So Inspector Bob Fabian, chief inspector or Chief 1066 01:39:14,760 --> 01:39:18,119 super by that. But he's famous. He's known as Fabian of the Yard. 1067 01:39:18,159 --> 01:39:23,039 He was one of the big, big, big names in Scotland yard 1068 01:39:24,680 --> 01:39:28,039 during the Second World War. And you know, you might even remember there 1069 01:39:28,119 --> 01:39:30,520 was a series called Fabian. Actually thought it was a fictional character, so 1070 01:39:30,560 --> 01:39:34,239 it was a true he's the real deal. All the cases are based on 1071 01:39:35,159 --> 01:39:41,439 those of Bob Fabian. Fabian goes with it, you know, with it 1072 01:39:42,439 --> 01:39:51,279 with his detective sergeant who over to the village of Lower Quint and there are 1073 01:39:51,600 --> 01:39:56,039 and the villagers around there. There's a big prisoner of war camp. So 1074 01:39:56,079 --> 01:40:01,039 they have another police officer who's a pretty good interpreter and they interview all the 1075 01:40:01,039 --> 01:40:06,039 prisoners of war because there's a certain amount as quite understandable in wartime, it 1076 01:40:06,159 --> 01:40:15,039 must be one of the prisoners of war that's killed Charlie. But for Fabian 1077 01:40:15,600 --> 01:40:19,600 it's weird because the locals are just clamming up, they're shutting doors, saying, 1078 01:40:19,640 --> 01:40:23,800 well, he's been dead over a month, you know, what are 1079 01:40:23,800 --> 01:40:29,239 you worrying about? And it's the one case that really stuck in Bob Fabian's 1080 01:40:29,279 --> 01:40:35,640 money that he could never ever solve and it remains unsolved to this day. 1081 01:40:38,239 --> 01:40:43,960 No one, but there are theories. I certainly explore a theory that was 1082 01:40:44,800 --> 01:40:48,239 shared by Fabian, who couldn't in his own lifetime publish the theory in any 1083 01:40:48,279 --> 01:40:55,479 of his books for fear of libel, but he shared that with a crime 1084 01:40:55,479 --> 01:41:00,640 author by the name of Richard Whittington Egan, whom I was acquainted with in 1085 01:41:00,079 --> 01:41:04,520 Richard's later life. A wonderful man, extremely erudite, and a good author 1086 01:41:05,439 --> 01:41:13,439 who also wrote some of the or edited the Weekend book of Ghosts and Murder 1087 01:41:13,479 --> 01:41:17,039 and Mysteries and Legends. He was a lovely man, a true gentleman, 1088 01:41:17,119 --> 01:41:27,279 and a scholar. Great company. And Fabian said, you know, he 1089 01:41:27,520 --> 01:41:32,159 named the person he thought did it and a reason why, And I revealed 1090 01:41:32,199 --> 01:41:40,279 that in my Blackout Murder's book. Prove it. But it makes a very 1091 01:41:40,960 --> 01:41:47,720 logical case for who killed Charlie Walt. Yes, are You're not treading only 1092 01:41:47,800 --> 01:41:53,960 one's toes. You're just sort of putting the information out there. And oh, 1093 01:41:54,840 --> 01:41:58,479 as an assumption, I guess, well, I don't make an assumption. 1094 01:41:58,520 --> 01:42:04,640 I repeat what was told me and and actually was in a printed forming 1095 01:42:04,800 --> 01:42:11,840 in one of Richard Whittington Egan's articles. I have no problem with that. 1096 01:42:15,399 --> 01:42:20,279 It's just we had to it couldn't be done it at the time by Richard 1097 01:42:20,760 --> 01:42:26,399 himself. If you see what. I haven't read the book. I don't 1098 01:42:26,479 --> 01:42:29,960 claim it as my theory. I didn't crack the case, and we might 1099 01:42:30,039 --> 01:42:32,520 all be shown up to be wrong in the long run, but I think 1100 01:42:32,560 --> 01:42:40,560 it sounds a very viable case, sounds interesting. If not every people may 1101 01:42:40,600 --> 01:42:46,520 have suspected, maybe not everybody will know. And I did take it a 1102 01:42:46,760 --> 01:42:54,760 little bit further with a little bit more evidence. That makes the theory a 1103 01:42:54,840 --> 01:42:58,159 bit more compelling. And I think that's what you're well known for, Neil. 1104 01:43:00,039 --> 01:43:01,479 But yeah, I mean we all have a good murder mystery. I 1105 01:43:01,560 --> 01:43:04,239 think. I don't think as many people out there done like a good Mooner 1106 01:43:04,279 --> 01:43:09,439 mystery, so this sounds like a good one. I hope people will enjoy 1107 01:43:09,439 --> 01:43:13,159 it. It's the Blackout Murder, isn't it? It's still available, but 1108 01:43:13,479 --> 01:43:18,079 the first run I think sold out in four days. It's a great title 1109 01:43:18,159 --> 01:43:21,640 as well. It's sort of it says it all really in the titled, 1110 01:43:21,680 --> 01:43:28,840 isn't it? Well? I was amazed, really that there was no There've 1111 01:43:28,840 --> 01:43:34,640 been books on wartime crime, but nothing has ever really focused. And there'll 1112 01:43:34,680 --> 01:43:39,239 be stories of Gordon Cummins, who was known as the Blackout Ripper. That's 1113 01:43:39,319 --> 01:43:44,720 quite right, they exist, but my book examines Cummins. Yes, but 1114 01:43:45,000 --> 01:43:53,079 other some very notorious are the far less known cases of that took place during 1115 01:43:53,079 --> 01:43:58,279 the blackouts in Britain during the Second World War, some of which aren't deeply 1116 01:43:58,399 --> 01:44:03,039 disturbing because it shows that there was a mindset in Britain. It was a 1117 01:44:03,079 --> 01:44:11,600 small minority, but life became pretty cheap for you know in nineteen thirty nine 1118 01:44:12,560 --> 01:44:15,279 when it was thought, oh, we're all going to starve because we'll get 1119 01:44:15,399 --> 01:44:19,000 cut off from our imports, and we had to rely on a quite a 1120 01:44:19,000 --> 01:44:25,439 lot of imports for food before the war, and we wouldn't be able to 1121 01:44:25,479 --> 01:44:30,199 feed our animals, our pets. And the fear was also that you know, 1122 01:44:30,239 --> 01:44:33,039 they might be killed by gas attack. They certainly would not allowed in 1123 01:44:33,199 --> 01:44:36,600 public shelters, allegedly, I mean, that was the kind of the rule. 1124 01:44:38,000 --> 01:44:45,800 So PDSA and other animal interest groups did set up air raid shelters where 1125 01:44:45,840 --> 01:44:51,359 you could go down and shelter with your pets. But before that took place, 1126 01:44:51,840 --> 01:44:56,680 it got out your pets aren't going to be able to go anywhere if 1127 01:44:56,680 --> 01:45:00,920 there's an air raid, so the kindest thing would be kill them. And 1128 01:45:00,960 --> 01:45:12,880 then yes, and the trouble was and it is heartbreaking. The problem was 1129 01:45:12,960 --> 01:45:19,640 that in nineteen forty, when the air aids really kick it and London starts 1130 01:45:19,680 --> 01:45:25,840 getting raided night after night, that people lose it. Lord knows what their 1131 01:45:25,880 --> 01:45:30,439 mental state may have been before, but these are civilians that are exposed to 1132 01:45:30,720 --> 01:45:34,880 night after night of aerial attack and you really don't know if the next bomb 1133 01:45:34,960 --> 01:45:39,279 is going to be on your house. You've got to ask the question, 1134 01:45:39,520 --> 01:45:44,319 how much could you take? Seriously? You know, you watch a TV 1135 01:45:44,560 --> 01:45:49,079 show it's suspenseful, but this is real. This is on your doorstep. 1136 01:45:49,119 --> 01:45:55,880 That's happening in nineteen forty Inland night after night, relentlessly, week after week, 1137 01:45:56,119 --> 01:46:00,119 every night, and you will get sleep fatigue. How that can affect 1138 01:46:00,199 --> 01:46:04,319 people and some people it broke them. And the question is like, okay, 1139 01:46:04,359 --> 01:46:10,000 if somebody is broken, what happens next? Well, some people will 1140 01:46:10,000 --> 01:46:15,840 receive treatment and some people will will maybe be taken away into mental health care. 1141 01:46:16,520 --> 01:46:21,800 Other people will react in a way where they actually killed the people they 1142 01:46:21,880 --> 01:46:28,439 loved, thinking it was the kindest thing to do. At one air aid 1143 01:46:28,520 --> 01:46:32,560 Warden had seen elderly people in air raid shelterers. He didn't want to see 1144 01:46:32,600 --> 01:46:39,159 his mother hopping from a shelter and tube station to tube station night after night, 1145 01:46:40,439 --> 01:46:43,439 and so he thought the kindest thing was to kill her. Another woman, 1146 01:46:44,520 --> 01:46:49,439 she had her husband that they'd been bombed out. Her husband was gradually 1147 01:46:49,439 --> 01:46:55,399 losing his sight, and she thought the kindest thing would be to kill him. 1148 01:46:55,479 --> 01:47:00,239 Quite whether that was the kindest way to kill him using a sharpened chit 1149 01:47:00,279 --> 01:47:06,760 is another matter. But it happened. See, maybe that was an excuse 1150 01:47:06,800 --> 01:47:10,239 for some people as well, to get rid of somebody you didn't like, 1151 01:47:10,479 --> 01:47:15,399 or you're enodies. It could well be you see when when they were proposing 1152 01:47:15,520 --> 01:47:20,840 blackouts local chambers of trade, and indeed the police expressed the concern that this 1153 01:47:20,880 --> 01:47:25,840 will lead to a mini crime wave, which you did. But what had 1154 01:47:25,840 --> 01:47:30,359 been forgotten that this led to a mini murdered wave because people who thought yaren 1155 01:47:30,439 --> 01:47:33,720 for the very first time, I've thought about it for a lot of years. 1156 01:47:34,439 --> 01:47:36,520 Well, I can do it in the dark and no one's going to 1157 01:47:36,600 --> 01:47:42,760 capture me, because it really is pitch black. You know, you've got 1158 01:47:43,199 --> 01:47:48,319 hundreds, if not thousands, of people being injured and certainly hundreds of people 1159 01:47:48,399 --> 01:47:55,800 being killed in road traffic accidents. Between nineteen thirty nine and forty more people 1160 01:47:55,800 --> 01:48:00,000 are killed with road traffic accidents during that period of time before single bomb fell 1161 01:48:00,079 --> 01:48:06,000 on London. It was shocking and people using this as a cover. So 1162 01:48:06,039 --> 01:48:10,840 you've got youngsters that have watched too many gangster films that are going out on 1163 01:48:11,079 --> 01:48:17,640 with First World War hand pistols and doing stick them up raids because they would 1164 01:48:17,640 --> 01:48:21,000 have been a lot easier to obtain back. They wouldn't they court it would 1165 01:48:21,039 --> 01:48:25,960 this would be stuff that would be knocking about. You know, most a 1166 01:48:25,960 --> 01:48:30,399 lot of people their dad dad served in World War One. What's he brought 1167 01:48:30,399 --> 01:48:33,119 back? He's brought back a German luga. Great that it doesn't always mean 1168 01:48:33,119 --> 01:48:36,960 you've got the ammunition, although a lot of old boys did. Returned officers, 1169 01:48:38,399 --> 01:48:42,640 you know, they've got their Webley six revolver in their draw and indeed 1170 01:48:42,760 --> 01:48:46,560 some people made sure they had ammunition in case the invasion came. Initially to 1171 01:48:46,920 --> 01:48:51,439 defend themselves, but then you know, leave a couple of bullets in case 1172 01:48:51,520 --> 01:48:57,319 we want to dispose of ourselves. Yeah, the worst happens. So it 1173 01:48:57,520 --> 01:49:01,319 was the most incredibly dark time there. I mean, and I do look 1174 01:49:01,359 --> 01:49:08,640 at those that you these bogey men existed in the dark you know, bogie 1175 01:49:08,640 --> 01:49:14,680 men were attacking children and women on their own in the dark of the blackout. 1176 01:49:14,960 --> 01:49:20,600 Fact it happened, and it's time that those women and children who were 1177 01:49:21,000 --> 01:49:26,279 victims of those attacks, it shouldn't be brushed under the carpet, and that 1178 01:49:26,640 --> 01:49:31,680 my book is dedicated to their memory. You know that these these okay, 1179 01:49:31,920 --> 01:49:35,840 the weeds grow over the grave, communities that don't always want to remember. 1180 01:49:36,319 --> 01:49:41,079 And I can understand that we do want to put some things behind us. 1181 01:49:41,119 --> 01:49:46,439 But these are just ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. And I don't 1182 01:49:46,560 --> 01:49:51,560 think that their stories should be completely buried, but we should remember their names. 1183 01:49:51,600 --> 01:49:55,279 Now. I don't want I don't care at the killers, but let's 1184 01:49:55,359 --> 01:50:00,920 let's care about those who were taken from us. But not only that. 1185 01:50:00,720 --> 01:50:08,159 Serial killers, some of the most infamous serial killers began during the blackouts in 1186 01:50:08,199 --> 01:50:12,960 Britain during the Second World War. You've got you've got Johnny Haig, the 1187 01:50:13,039 --> 01:50:17,800 acid bath murderer. Well he's got you know, quite quite a central London 1188 01:50:19,439 --> 01:50:28,039 supposed it's a kind of factory office. That he's inviting people down there, 1189 01:50:29,239 --> 01:50:33,520 people who were his friends and the and their families. Thinking of Donal Donald 1190 01:50:33,600 --> 01:50:43,239 mcswan and the families there he one clink on the head and there and they're 1191 01:50:43,279 --> 01:50:48,159 put into the He actually borrowed aarp. The RP used to use oil drums 1192 01:50:48,159 --> 01:50:51,319 as water bugs. He's borrowed on from the aarp. Yeah, well, 1193 01:50:51,520 --> 01:50:55,039 well that damn thank you lads, just born that for a couple of days. 1194 01:50:55,640 --> 01:51:00,680 Get some cardboards of acid because he claims to on government work. But 1195 01:51:00,720 --> 01:51:05,680 then he doesn't realize that dissolving human bodies that quantities of acid is going to 1196 01:51:05,720 --> 01:51:12,520 give off nasty fumes. Under the cover of the blacks, he's able to 1197 01:51:12,720 --> 01:51:17,560 upstairs. He's got the rear entrance to his workshop, and he's got to 1198 01:51:17,600 --> 01:51:21,760 leave the door open at times or staying standing near the door and breathing the 1199 01:51:23,159 --> 01:51:27,439 clean air. So he and he's able to get these people in and out 1200 01:51:27,479 --> 01:51:30,680 of his place, you know, and walk there, take them there in 1201 01:51:30,760 --> 01:51:36,640 his car and nobody knows because it's under the cover of darkness. Or you 1202 01:51:36,720 --> 01:51:43,600 got a ten ten Rillington place where you've got red Christie Well in wartime pre 1203 01:51:43,760 --> 01:51:47,600 war. He's a fraudster. He's beaten up one of his former partners and 1204 01:51:47,720 --> 01:51:53,479 put the poor woman in the hospital. He's a vicious, nasty piece of 1205 01:51:53,479 --> 01:51:57,960 work. But the police are not carrying out the checks that they really should, 1206 01:51:57,960 --> 01:52:00,680 and he becomes a war reserved police officer. Sounds a bit familiar to 1207 01:52:00,720 --> 01:52:05,000 what we got today. That's another story. It is another story, but 1208 01:52:05,039 --> 01:52:09,520 it's letting that. It's you know, they didn't do the checks. They've 1209 01:52:09,560 --> 01:52:13,520 got a wrong on there. But and he's got he's got all the power 1210 01:52:13,560 --> 01:52:17,159 of the police. He's got the police intelligence as well. So he gets 1211 01:52:17,199 --> 01:52:23,640 involved with prostitutes and it's sort of that turned the blind out eye and get 1212 01:52:23,680 --> 01:52:28,039 a favor. Women start to trust him and come under my place, or 1213 01:52:28,119 --> 01:52:31,720 I'm a policeman. Or even after he left the police force because he had 1214 01:52:31,640 --> 01:52:35,680 had an affair with a married woman, he goes to work in a factory. 1215 01:52:35,680 --> 01:52:39,560 I'll come under mine, Yeah, I'll look after you. Before the 1216 01:52:39,560 --> 01:52:43,199 war, I trained as a doctor. What did he do with these women, 1217 01:52:43,279 --> 01:52:47,560 Well, initially he was burying them in the garden. Christy is famed 1218 01:52:47,920 --> 01:52:54,399 for burying them or not paring them, putting them into a cupboard, a 1219 01:52:54,479 --> 01:53:00,119 fitted cupboard in his kitchen at ten Rillington Place. But his first victims were 1220 01:53:00,119 --> 01:53:04,199 buried under the cover of the blackout when there was no more blackout. He 1221 01:53:04,239 --> 01:53:11,039 couldn't risk being in a terraced house with a small back garden in Willington Place. 1222 01:53:11,119 --> 01:53:15,680 He couldn't risk being seen. So that's when he starts stacking up the 1223 01:53:15,720 --> 01:53:20,560 bodies in the fitted cupboard and under the floorboards at ten Rellington Place. Yes, 1224 01:53:21,560 --> 01:53:30,079 absolutely horrific, it really, yeah, dear dear. Anyway, Neil, 1225 01:53:30,159 --> 01:53:34,600 it's been an absolute, an absolute pleasure once again to have you back 1226 01:53:34,640 --> 01:53:39,640 on the show. I'm really looking forward to seeing you again at the fest 1227 01:53:39,640 --> 01:53:45,279 of They explained, I'll tell you all about Castle Traqula. We'll see you. 1228 01:53:45,279 --> 01:53:46,760 No, I'm sure you know all about it anyway, I don't. 1229 01:53:47,000 --> 01:53:50,720 I don't because I've never investigated it. I hope you have a wonderful time. 1230 01:53:50,920 --> 01:53:54,960 No, I'm sure. There's only a few days anyway, and it 1231 01:53:54,960 --> 01:53:58,359 looks interesting, it looks nice, so I'm looking forward to it. But 1232 01:53:58,479 --> 01:54:00,960 unfortunately I will miss that pair of which I unfortunately. When I looked at 1233 01:54:00,960 --> 01:54:03,159 it, I thought, oh great, I can go there, and then 1234 01:54:03,199 --> 01:54:05,640 I've realized, oh no, I'm booked to go to Rumain. Yes, 1235 01:54:05,720 --> 01:54:13,840 I can't do that. Well Norfolk will say that lane. Yeah, it's 1236 01:54:13,880 --> 01:54:15,880 good to go to all and you know, coming back fresh and hopefully there'll 1237 01:54:15,920 --> 01:54:20,079 be another power Meat and a Festival of the Unexplained next year and you could 1238 01:54:20,079 --> 01:54:26,600 do try and what's the dates next year? But at least I will see 1239 01:54:26,640 --> 01:54:30,039 you at the festival and that'll be great. And then we hopefully we're going 1240 01:54:30,079 --> 01:54:34,119 to get another week in October. I look forward to that. But as 1241 01:54:34,159 --> 01:54:38,119 always, Neil, it's a bit of great pleasure talking to you, and 1242 01:54:39,319 --> 01:54:41,479 all the time's getting on a bit. Noah, I hope you've been all 1243 01:54:41,560 --> 01:54:44,239 right. Hope you hope you don't mind up that you've been on to the 1244 01:54:44,479 --> 01:54:46,439 two hours school. Well, I hope the listeners will enjoy it too. 1245 01:54:46,560 --> 01:54:50,439 Oh yeah, it's been fantastic, you know. I wish you was all 1246 01:54:50,520 --> 01:54:56,479 of the best, David. I send my kindness regards to all the listeners, 1247 01:54:57,239 --> 01:55:00,159 and wherever you may be, or whoever you may be, keep safe, 1248 01:55:00,520 --> 01:55:04,640 safe travels and be kind to each other. Yeah, and as you 1249 01:55:04,760 --> 01:55:11,720 go, all your poet, because old Dixon used to say to speak David, 1250 01:55:11,800 --> 01:55:15,279 take care YouTube to take care of yourself and I'll see yourself not for 1251 01:55:15,359 --> 01:55:19,279 it broby, There we are. That was Neil's story. Thank you, 1252 01:55:19,359 --> 01:55:25,319 Neil, there's great seeing you again and congratulations on a very successful book. 1253 01:55:26,359 --> 01:55:29,560 Okay, the next show, it's going to be actually next week and it'll 1254 01:55:29,600 --> 01:55:32,680 be the second of October, and it's another Neil. It's a mister Neil 1255 01:55:32,760 --> 01:55:39,199 Pecker. Neil has been a guest on the show fairly recently, but there's 1256 01:55:39,239 --> 01:55:44,159 been some updates with what's going on with him, so Neil's back again. 1257 01:55:45,039 --> 01:55:50,119 So that's Neil Pecker on Monday, the second of October. In the meantime, 1258 01:55:50,199 --> 01:55:54,279 if you'd like to get in touch with me at all, as always, 1259 01:55:55,279 --> 01:55:59,239 my email address is David Young took you in at your who dot co 1260 01:55:59,560 --> 01:56:03,600 dot u K. That's David Young tu qu n at Yahoo dot co dot 1261 01:56:03,720 --> 01:56:10,199 UK. So thank you for listening and I'll catch you next week. That's 1262 01:56:10,640 --> 01:56:15,319 Monday, the second of October, and it's a mister Neil Pecker. Wish 1263 01:56:15,319 --> 01:56:17,960 you all well and take care of yourselves. There's David Young signing out, 1264 01:56:18,560 --> 01:56:26,359 Bye bye. We have learned much, but we have sacrificed. Who are 1265 01:56:26,399 --> 01:56:30,159 you? Are you receiving me? I clicked it back. I'm being hold 1266 01:56:30,279 --> 01:57:33,239 up. Paranormal Dimensions is fortnightly on Mondays on the Paranormal UK radio network,