Loremen Podcast - Loremen S5Ep55 - Ghosts of the Road with Hayley Stevens

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

The Loremen were LIVE at the QED festival in Manchester and we were joined by Deputy Loreperson Hayley Stevens. Sceptical listeners might be familiar with the Hayley is a Ghost blog, all about ghosts that (spoiler warning) probably don't exist. In this episode, we meet roadside ghosts and road-adjacent spectres from across the UK (and beyond). Have you ever picked up a hitchhiker? No, neither have we. And these modern legends might make you feel a bit better about it... This episode was edited by Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor. LoreBoys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 @loremenpod youtube.com/loremenpodcast www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am so dreading groceries this week. Why? You can skip it. Oh, what, just like that? Just like that. How about dinner with my third cousin? Skip it. Prince Fluffy's favorite treats? Skippable.

Midnight snacks? Skip. My neighbor's nightly saxophone practices? Er, nope. You're on your own there. Could have skipped it. Should have skipped it. Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals meals and more delivered right to your door on skip. Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shakespeare. And I'm Alistair Beckett King. And Alistair, we've mentioned North for this

episode. We traveled North. We traveled to the Northlands where it drizzles. Yes, we're in Manchester. Greater Manchester. Kind of right in the middle, but it was pretty good. We were there for the QED Festival and we had a deputy law person, Hayley Stevens. From the Hayley is a Ghosts Skeptic blog about how ghosts, spoilers, don't really exist. Well put that aside! Don't think about that! And there we discussed the ghosts of the road. Oh, ghosts!

What to expect to explain it to those of you who don't know. Lawmen is a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alistair Beckett King. And I'm James Shake Shaft. And today we have a guest deputy law person. Deputy law person Hayley Stevens. And this is quite different from us because we are at QED. The skeptics. Were you just confirming that that's true? That's true. You should always check. We are live at QED. Or are we? Do people make that joke every year? Yeah? They do. Okay. Or do they? When James said we were doing a skeptics festival, I was a little bit nervous because for me, I think I'm a skeptic. I'm an atheist, but it's a bit like when someone introduces themselves as a gamer. I like video games

and everything, but what are your opinions about feminism? What kind of a gamer are you? I feel like skepticism has a similar thing. Hayley, you said that skepticism has a bit of an image problem. Yeah, I think it's something we've discussed as a movement really that through outsiders we can seem as though we're just sort of dismissing people's beliefs when that's probably not true. I think QEDCon is a very welcoming environment, but to people who come to QEDCon to speak, sometimes they can be a bit worried that it's just going to be a bunch of people going, well, that's not true. You're an idiot. Get out. That kind of thing. But that's certainly not what

it's like. But yeah, I think it's fair to say we've got a bit of an image problem. That said, our podcast is talking about ghosts and then going, yeah, but they aren't real, are they? So our podcast is a little bit like that. Or maybe ghosts are real. Did I spoil the end of the episode? My God, don't spoil it. I suppose, though, as a performer, you don't want to hear that your audience is skeptical before you go on. We want to go to the really, really easily pleased audience. So today we're going to be talking with Hayley Stevens, who is a blogger and paranormal

researcher. Now, Hayley, how would you describe yourself? I've described you there as a blogger and paranormal researcher. Is that quite accurate? Yeah, I think in a nutshell, that's what I do. I think that when people hear paranormal researcher, they think that I'm someone who goes chasing ghosts, that I believe ghosts are real, and that I look for evidence of the paranormal. But really, what I do is I use scientific skepticism to try and solve spooky mysteries, is sort of how I would sum it up to see if I can find the logical explanations as to why someone may have had a spooky experience or taken a photograph or a video that's got something a bit weird in it.

Like a one person Scooby Doo team. Yeah. Yes. I'm not the dog though. I don't know if that's what you were alluding to there. I don't think I was saying you were the dog. Okay. So today we're going to be talking about hitchhikers, ghostly hitchhikers.

We're going to be talking about ghostly hitchhikers and other road ghosts. Hitchhikers, comma, ghostly, if you were putting them in the index of a book. Exactly. So, as a slight content warning, there is going to be some talk of death, obviously, because it's ghosts, suicide, gibbeting. No, don't be insensitive. Someone could have experienced it with gibets that are negative. We wouldn't want... I think it's gibeting as well. Mispronunciations.

We never know how to pronounce gibbet gibbet. Yes, we're not making fun of any of that sort of stuff. Even if you're not necessarily affected, do prep yourself for some very awkward gear changes. Okay, so let's start off with a tale from Somerset, from Nani in Somerset. Sounds like a euphemism for something. Back in August... Oh, he's bruised his Nani. He's bruised one of his Nani's. He's bruised one of his nunnies. The bigger one. So let's take you back to August 1977 and a driver has given a lift to a middle-aged

man in a check jacket and the man sat in the back of the car complaining of the cold and then vanished while the car was in motion. And the driver reported this to the police at Froome. To the police? To the police, yeah. Okay. And the police leapt into action. It doesn't say they did a thing. Weird that they wouldn't have taken action against a vanishing hitchhiker.

Not even laughed. Another occasion, the same driver saw the same man standing in the centre of the road and in trying to avoid hitting him, he crashed his car into a lamppost or hedge. We're not sure which, but hopefully he was, otherwise there's a very much more obvious reason why he crashed into a thing. Yeah, so he was obviously startled again by this vanishing man. This guy has got reliable witness written all over him. This is the most truth some story we've ever had. But this is 1977. I don't need to remind you.

It's the year of the silver jubilee. Or as it was known at the time, Sylvie Jubes. Who sounds like one of my mum's mates. Your auntie who's not really your auntie. Yes, yes. People were worried that the celebrations for Sylvie Jubes were going to be affected because people were going to be somehow scared to go out in the street because of, well, probably that driver to be honest. But the ghost.

So a posse of vigilantes started patrolling the lane in order to presumably beat up a ghost. Anti-ghost thugs. Yes. Yeah, why wouldn't you? I mean, this is the reboot of Ghostbusters we need to see. A bunch of Somerset blokes going out punching hedges and saying they're all ghosts. And they got some sort of explanation of the story. A retired lorry driver said that some of his mates in the 40s used to see a ghost around that area. And it

was, it was due to the dying curse of a cyclist who'd been knocked down by a car. Wow. I curse you to have shape shiftingshifting road furniture. Yeah, so that was that was noney. But that's, I mean, that's reasonably recent. We've got an older case of this kind of road ghost. We're going to go just over the county border or not, actually. Right. So if you've listened to this podcast before, you know that James has never made any geographical mistakes on our podcast. Can always be relied upon to correctly name the county a story takes place in.

Actually, I suffer from county blindness. Is that a recognised issue? No, it's not recognised. Some people think it's a lamppost. So yeah, it could clearly be a hedge. We're going across to Dorset, which is next door, right? Next Dorset. To the town of Tarrant Gunville, which is amazing. It sounds like a Doctor Who baddie. And it's the ghost of William Doggett, who in the 18th century, he was the steward of Lord Malcolm,

and it was discovered that Billy Doggs, William Dogger, had been defrauding his employer and when it was found out he went to one of the rooms and shot himself and it left an indelible blood stain on the marble floor. I mean according to local historian Edward Griffiths, it's chronologically impossible. The dates don't add up, the Lord had died like 20 odd years before this is supposed to have happened. But needless to say, stories of the ghost continued. That's even more mysterious then, how it could have happened. Yeah, exactly.

When he was dead. So wow, well done. The ghost haunted the area, headless, driving around the park in a Phantom coach, which was drawn by headless horses and driven by a headless coachman, doesn't mention whether the coach was a convertible, because that would really fit with the remit. And this, I think, is a warning to respect those maximum height signs you see by bridges. And then apparently, this would arrive at the mansion,

Doggett would get out of the coach, re-enter the house, go up to the room, and shoot himself once again in the same room as before. Difficult to shoot yourself through the head when you're headless. Even if you're a ghost, I don't know, it just would have missed. But anyway. Why were the horses headless? I don't know why they brought horses into this. And also, this has come up before, I'm not as animal blind as I am county blind, or as

that guy was road furniture blind. A headless, a horse without a head, there's a lot of other animals that could be, right? One of the more defining features of, like at a distance, you'd assume it was a horse if it's pulling a carriage, but it could be a zebra in a jacket. Although, to be honest, a zebra with a head also still looks like a horse. So that's not the best example. It could be... A shockingly poor example. It could be, yes, it could be a giraffe. That is the perfect example. That's worse than zebra. Sorry, James, and everyone in this room,

are you seriously telling me that you couldn't tell the difference? If you saw... James, and everyone in this room, are you seriously telling me that you couldn't tell the difference? If you saw, we walk into the crime scene, we are three cops, there's been a moider at the zoo, and you're telling me there's a headless animal, you think you wouldn't be able to tell from the legs if it was a horse or a zebra? Because I'm not an expert or anything, I'm not a zoologist, 100% could tell you if it was from the patterns. Yes, if we're at a zoo as well, we'd be in the giraffe enclosure. So yes,

as opposed to the horse enclosure that all boring zoos have. It just kind of sounds like someone's heard of the legend of horse-drawn carriage ghosts, like the headless horsemen, but they've not quite got it right. And they're like, oh yeah, there were no heads, not even the horses had heads. Just nothing had a head. It could have been told by a hippie, it's like a headless horse, man.

LAUGHTER The church was repaired and restored and some of the old vaults were demolished. And an old man told a Miss MF Billington, I didn't know it was her, in the shorts beforehand, Miss M.F. Billington, we can only guess what that stands for. Miss M.F. Billington, she was told the story that an old man had gone in to do this work on the vault

and he found Doggett's vault and the man's body was in a fair state of preservation. You could see the course of the bullet through his head. Wow. And he was described as a short, ginger-haired man whose legs were tied together with a broad yellow ribbon, which was as fresh and brightly coloured as when it was buried. Well, there were also like four horse heads in there. It says here, my informant added that he had abstracted a piece of the

ribbon and a lock of the hair, which that's, I don't think that's right. Bit weird. I think leave it. I think leave it be. Yep. I like the word abstracted being used in place of stealing, which is what that is. Yeah. And so a lot of people thought the ribbon was maybe there to, to prevent him from

walking from beyond the grave because they kind of had an inkling that this guy Yeah, and so a lot of people thought the ribbon was maybe there to prevent him from walking from beyond the grave. Yeah. Because they kind of had an inkling that this guy was going to be a ghost who would be abroad. But apparently that is a reasonably normal procedure of the time and nothing should be read into it, which again sounds like it's said by someone with something to hide. There's a link later on, according to Kingsley Palmer, blue ribbons were found in one of the tombs in the church. The chocolate bar.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A few Jammie Dodgers scattered around. Mm. And a trio.

But basically, they found these ribbons, and they thought they were the driver's garters left there. And it's kind of linked to the drivers' garters. Were these ribbons that the... You know garter. You know what I mean. James, for the benefit of the listener, James is miming, you can't probably see on the live stream,

he's miming garters under the table. I'm sort of making spinning images with my fingers. Garters, you know, round the leg. Round the legs. No, like, I think, not like a saucy garter. Oh, no, I think, not like a saucy garter. Oh no, no, that would be absurd.

Like a guts-for garter. Like the people used to tie to make their trousers. Yes, okay. In the past, I think what it was, in the past, people wanted skinny jeans, but they only had one. They didn't have the technology in those days. No, so they had to tie the trousers up to make them tighter. But basically, they'd sort of postulate that this is linked into the more modern ghostly hitchhiker thing, where an item of clothing is found upon a gravestone or something like that. So it's kind of saying that this kind of spectral hitchhiker has been around for a long time.

Well, a road ghost, the idea of a road ghost has been there. I've taken these stories from a friend of the show, The Law of the Land, which I do need to point out is a book because some people can't understand my voice and think I'm saying Laura the Land. A woman called Laura. Laura the Land. With the unlikely surname of The Land.

It's interesting what you say there about the sort of the transference of the types of ghosts, because there is a guy called Owen Davies who talks about how he explores the way that ghost stories evolve through time. He talks about how the headless horsemen and his headless horses were very much of their time of course, of that time period. They have somewhat evolved. You've got the Crossroads ghosts and the gibbet or gibbet ghosts.

One of those is the thing that you put in crocs, but I can't remember which. Yeah. Right. There we go. You see those reports coming in less and less nowadays, but you do get these reports of Phantom Hitchhikers, which are sort of, they kind of, I guess, straddle the line between urban legend and reports that people make of the experiences they have. And there are people who report having these experiences. I've had one reported to me that I've investigated in like the last, probably like the last eight years or so. And, but he also suggests that as time evolves, because hardly anyone hitchhikes anymore. I don't know if anyone here has ever encountered a hitchhiker, certainly in the last 10 years, but he suggests that those ghosts will

continue to evolve and that eventually we probably won't see phantom hitchhikers as often. Instead, we'll probably start to see apparitions at the sites of RTCs, road traffic collisions. So where you see bouquets of flowers at the sides of the roads or makeshift memorials, you may see apparitions there. Actually, a lot of the roads or makeshift memorials, you may see apparitions there. And actually a lot of the road ghosts that people report these days tend to be reported in areas that have very dangerous road conditions. And it's said that the apparitions jump into the road or make themselves known to make the driver stop their vehicle to avoid them from having the same collision that they may have had. So he thinks that we'll continue to see that evolution.

So headless horsemen might have evolved into hitchhikers in the same way that tying ribbons around your trousers evolved into skinny jeans. Absolutely. It does exactly the same thing. It's all linear. Yeah. Yeah. And it'll be evolved onto headless TikTokers in the future, not to date the podcast we've heard too much. You sent us some really fascinating bits of research for this.

Thank you very much. There was an article by Rob Gandhi in the 14 times back in 2017. The FT. The real FT. Yeah. So who is Rob Gandhi, sorry? It's one of those names that sounds like bad advice. Don't.

No, he's got no pockets. Rob is probably, so when you look at hitchhiking ghosts or as they're known, phantom hitchhikers, which is just the scariest sounding ghost, in my opinion, there are a lot of reports in the north of England. And so you might think, wow, there just seem to be a lot of phantom hitchhikers up in the north of England. It turns out that's because the guy who does the most research into phantom hitchhikers up in the north of England. It turns out that's because the guy who does the most research into phantom hitchhikers lives in the north of England. He's actually quite local to where we are today. It's the Rob Gandhi gravitational distortion effect. Exactly. He's a magnet for these hitchhiking ghosts. They're all going to his house. Rob gets told a lot of the stories from people who

either have had the experiences themselves or they get passed on from friends who've had the experiences, you know, word of mouth, that kind of thing. And yes, so he's written several articles in the 14 times about road ghosts, hitchhikers. Does he have a motorbike as well? Because there are a lot of motorbike related ghost stories. No, I don't think Rob does personally. Well, I think what he has found is that there's this sort of vein in the Phantom Hitchhiker kind of law that there happen to be some Phantom Hitchhikers

who are bikers and are seen in biker levers and so on. And again, it might be the Rob Gandhi effect, which I think sounds quite cool actually. It sounds like a movie. Manchester seems to have quite a few Phantom Hitchhikers who are bikers, which is quite interesting. One of the stories that really caught my attention was Michael's story, which was Michael of Morton on the Wirral. Not another Morton, James. Another Morton. Have you selected this story? James tells a lot of stories. There's so many places called Morton. James is always telling stories from Martin. More Morton they cry. More, more, more. No one is crying that. I hear them. More Morton. Thank you. Wow. We need to record more episodes with an audience

because they back me up. No, this is yeah, Morton on the Wirral. So this happened in 1979. Guy was given his mate a lift home and they were riding pillion, which I suppose what? Riding pillion. I don't know what that is. It is when you've got the person behind you right on the bike. I guess it's evolved into the novelty backpack that looks like Grogu. So wait, they were going from Morton to Newton and they run out of names for towns at that time. Yes, that was they passed through Toon on the way and I don't know, another Toon. And as Michael points out he clearly remembered that he had only had one pint that night.

That's what they all say. They're driving between 2.30 and 3 a.m. so he really nursed it and you know in them days pubs had to shut at 11 as well. So this guy's definitely sober. And they're traveling on the B5139 on the rural hamlet of... That was a good... I acknowledge. So I did 5139. I know it well. You B5139 fans in, James.

Yes, and they were, they rounded a bend. Michael thought he saw a hippie draped over a circular road sign. In what way, sorry, just speaking on behalf of my people, this is, in what way draped over? Like a model on a car trying to sell the road sign or hang right over it? I think it's, like, what kind of draped over like a model on a car trying to sell the road sign or hang right over it? I think it's like what kind of draped? In the article it's an air quote, draped over. So I think it's like it was a damp hippie and they just wanted to air it out. OK, you want to dry your hippies on a radiator, I think. The hippie in question was facing towards Michael, away from the sign, with his arms

kind of behind him as though clinging to the sign. He had to be over 5'10", with long hair, a gangly frame and a long face, and Mamma's wearing dark cloth, a jacket and dark trousers. I've highlighted this because this freaks me out. His legs, like his arms, were bent backwards at the knee. That is the usual place to bend your legs. The knee is a standard. Like backwards?

Yeah, backwards. That's normal knee bending. Forwards would be unusual for the knee. Wait a minute. I've been getting needlessly freaked out by so many descriptions of knees. would be unusual for the knee. Wait a minute. I've been getting needlessly freaked out by so many descriptions of knees. I thought when they meant bend backwards, they meant bend like in the opposite way

to which they're supposed to go. I think that's what they meant. Really? They just described it really badly. I suppose Laura Palmer says sometimes my arms bend backwards and that's creepy. Because if she said sometimes my knees bend backwards, you would have said,

yes, that's how knees work. That's a Swedish version of that. That's a terrible Agent Cooper impression. That's how he sounds. Brian, no, that does make more sense because he was gripping the sign with his legs. He's been tied to the sign like a scarecrow. Yes, probably a scarecrow. Michael though could see that he was wearing heavy boots and he did not appear to be standing or anything and wasn't moving. That's not in quotes but I think that should have been in quotes. So they passed this and they pulled over and was like, did you see that? And his mate hadn't. So they did a U-turn, went back there and there was nothing, there was nobody there. They continued on to the friend's house and the mate was like, it might have been some sort of

optical illusion, but it was right next to the cemetery and there was a wall bordering the road so they could have hopped over the wall and like been playing a prank. So he took the route home and he went down the old B5139. Thank you very much. Looking out for a chortling hippie. There was no sign of anyone. No hippie, happy or otherwise. Yeah. And they pulled up so quickly.

There was no real time for the prankster to climb off. And as it says here, Michael was surprised with what he saw and remembered with so much detail off. And as it says here, Michael was surprised with what he saw and remembered with so much detail about the figure. And it says, and Rob Gandhi has said, therefore the file must remain open. You know who I think that was? I think it was a friend of the podcast, Jesus. Because he's always pulling stunts like that, Jesus. Eventually that guy, Michael, will meet Jesus and he'll say,

I've never met you before. And Jesus will go, ah, but you did meet me in a really confusing way where I wasn't clear about who I was. I was the hippie, almost crucified on the roads. Maybe it was a cross thing and it was like the cross. So it was probably Jesus. The whole thing with like the arms behind the back just sounds like someone was being kidnapped. They just they interrupted a kidnapping. By a sign. Yeah. Roads. If you've got roadside blindness like that guy, it could easily have been a hedge. It could also have

been a hedge. Yeah. I mean, the file remains open. It simply must. Yeah, I don't know. It could easily have been Jesus. Pull in one of his Jesus pranks. Sorry, if you listen to back episodes of our podcast, Jesus did do a lot of pranks in his early days. In the Apocrypha, there's a lot of hilarious pranks. We got the nickname Jesus Christ Ultimate Serial Killer. Yes. Don't let Jesus see you playing Fiverr Side. And that's why we did get email complaints. Yeah, we got a lot of complaints, complaining about referring to Jesus as Jesus Christ Ultimate Serial Killer. It was a Christmas episode as well, so it's his birthday.

Seems extra cruel. But we do have examples of these sort of things. It's a global phenomenon. We've got some examples. I think you found out some from Japan in the wake of the Tohoku earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear incident. That is downplaying it quite a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was quite a big deal. Disaster, I think we can all say.

Yeah, we're kind of taking the tone down now. Yes, so following the... Oh yeah, we all enjoy it when hippies are being victimised. I'm sorry, no, this is much more serious. Yes, than an imagined hippie. Okay. So in 2011, after the tsunami had devastated large parts of that area of Japan, there was someone who was doing some research into reports of local ghost sightings that were related

to the tragedy. And they interviewed taxi drivers who are working in the region. And a number of them, it was a very small sample size, to be honest, but I would say that because I am a skeptic. As they were speaking to the taxi drivers, a number of them reported somewhat independently

that they would pick up a fare who asked to be taken to one of the devastated villages or towns and on route to that location, they would turn in their vehicle as they were driving and discover that their passenger had vanished mid-journey. What they would do though is they would continue the journey. They would go to the village, to the town, wherever it was that they'd been asked to drive to, and they would essentially take what they believe to be the spirits to their destination because it was sort of believed that they had unfinished business. They were going back to their resting

place essentially because there were so many people who sadly were not recovered, were not given proper burial. That was discovered to be a reoccurring theme. Not many taxi drivers reported that, but enough for it to be quite interesting. I don't know if anyone here who's experienced with Japanese taxi drivers, they don't mess around. I lived in Japan for a bit and the only time I've ever been properly told off in Japan was by a Japanese taxi driver, because they've got, they are amazing. If you've ever seen them, they're very fancy driver because they've got they are amazing if you've ever seen them they're very fancy cars they've got like little doilies on the back shelves the drivers have got hats white gloves and stuff they have a special lever that opens the door of the car for you so they pull up and they pull it open the lever and if you try and open that door yourself yeah you get

shouted at unsurprisingly in Japanese so you know there's no chance that someone slipped out of the cab or did a run or anything in these kind of scenarios. And I believe there was quite a nice little sort of side note on some of the articles that I read about this was that the taxi drivers would pay the fare themselves out of their own money for the person. And they would open the door for their unseen passenger at the destinations that they could complete their journey. For them, it was probably part of the process for them to come to terms with what had happened as well, because it obviously was devastating. And so that was probably part of one of the rituals that they undertook as people who had been affected by that to come to terms with what had happened.

But it just goes to show really that we talk about Phantom Hitchhikers, and I mentioned them being quite a northern thing here in England, but actually they do seem to cross cultural boundaries quite often. It's not just here in the West that they're reported and experienced. There's a quote here from one of the taxi drivers, Yuka, who says that, I mean this is obviously translated, young people feel strongly chagrined at their deaths and they want to convey their bitterness. And they may have chosen taxis, which are like private rooms as a medium to do so,

which I think comes from a taxi driver there, which is much more eloquent than it was either a hedge or a lamppost. I think. Yeah, so yeah, this is an international phenomena, but I mean, Hayley, have you got anything bit closer to home or us right now rather than actually our homes? Yeah.

Have you got anything closer to where we are now? Which is Manchester. Which is Manchester. Just a bit of a recording. Yeah, from the recording we're in Manchester. This lovely hotel is definitely not my home. But yes, so when we knew we were going to be doing this episode, I was looking at what I think almost immediately I sent you guys a message saying we have to talk about the stockport

Phantom Hitchhiker, which is what led us down this path. And so that's how we decided to cover this subject because it's a very well known case here because of the Rob Gandhi effect. And but as I started researching this story, I started getting really confused because the coverage of it was different locations mentioned and that kind of thing. It turns out Manchester has two phantom hitchhikers who are women in biker gear. The original story comes from this wonderful book called Supernatural Stockport, which

is really difficult to get a copy of. They sell online for like 160 quid, which is ridiculous. So I borrowed a copy because I'm not rich. And the author is M.G. Mills. And he starts this story off by saying that it has come from the next story in our quest for the Haunters' stockpour comes once again from my Shawheath informant, Dot. Now Dot is this lady.

That's not her real name. He's kept her anonymous name, he's kept her anonymous, which leads me to suspect she may not be a real person. But apparently she shared a lot of ghost stories with him, two of which are in this book, and this is one of them. And Dot's brother worked with a man who's a motorcycle enthusiast. And this man who's the motorcycle enthusiast, so you can already see it's a brother of a friend of a person who's told you the story, but he had an experience in 1989 and which MG Mills says will haunt him day and night thereafter and may possibly do so for the rest of his natural life. Now having read

this story, that's complete overreaction. He just needs to get over it. Like come on. So one day during the Easter holidays of that year, so 1989, he was riding his motorbike down the A6 towards Stockport from the direction of Heaton Norris. And as he approached Mersey Square, he noticed a female biker standing near a bus stop on the other side of the traffic lights and said that the way that she stood suggested to him that she was unhappy and sad and possibly had been stood up by her boyfriend. I don't know how you can tell that by looking at someone. The last bit is definitely, that's a reach isn't it, it's really reading quite a lot into that there. I mean the first bit is quite easily, if someone stood there doing that for the recording,

made fists in front of my eyes, is that what James did? The boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo, the boo,

the boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the the Boo, the Boo, the Boo, the Boo whether she was waiting for someone, to which the girl nodded. Then he asked if she'd been stood up. Again, the girl nodded without saying a word. Bit weird, right?

He became a little uneasy, couldn't fathom why. Perhaps the reason she wasn't talking was because she had a full face helmet on, which he's only just mentioned in the story. She could have been talking. So she couldn't have been boo hoo hooing with a helmet covering her face. Well she could have but that would have been really weird and you wouldn't pull up to help her would you? She did the fist rubbing on the outside of the visor.

What a weird time she drove by. You're definitely trying to let people know that you're crying though if you're living that. I might look impassive but underneath I'm very sad. So he thought perhaps his engine was drowning out her voice said, do you need a lift? And she nodded. And he said, where do you live? And she pointed towards the town hall. And he said, Hazel Grove, which is quite how he worked that out. By I don't know, the girl nodded, and then he invited her to hop onto the bike and they rode Pillion up Wellington Street South.

Pillion like a backpack. Yes. Okay. Yep, yep, yep. With her arms wrapped around Mike's waist. But strangely, he could not feel them. So that's when you know something is amiss, right? Yeah.

In this up until now completely normal story. Just guys interacting with gals the way they do. As soon as they approached Hazel Grove, he saw her hand indicate a number of houses ahead of him. This was obviously where she lived and where she wanted to alight. So he turned around, he pulled up on the curb and turned around to see his pillion off bike, but found that she had already gone. Bearing the worst that she may have fallen

off the bike, he lifted his motorcycle onto its main stand and walked back down the road to find her but there was no sign of her. He then did the next best thing, called at the house to which the girl had pointed and this is where it gets weird guys, weirder I guess. A woman answered the door and to her, Mike had the embarrassing task of explaining his predicament and the woman accepted the story with graceful resignation and invited him into the house. Mike was informed that the girl he'd offered a lift to was actually their daughter who was a motorbike enthusiast. This wasn't the first person this has happened to because their daughter had accepted many lifts from passing bike riders over the past few years, though strangely never from a car driver. Mike was

told to then sit down and drink some tea at this point before the couple went on to explain that their daughter was dead. Yes. Thank you for gasping. Thank you for pretending we didn't know that was coming. This book has got this incredible hand-drawn picture of the ghost, which is called... That is gorgeous. A gorgeous pencil rendering. They've called the ghost the Black Rider. So it's a mysterious woman clad all in black. I'll have it on the table for people who want to see it on the way out. This is the story of the Black Rider of Mersey Square. And for the audio, you can tell that she's very upset.

The drawing is in the style of those drawings. And for the audio, you can tell that she's very upset. The drawing is in the style of those drawings that I don't know in Durham market when I was growing up, you could buy so many pictures of like footballers like David Beckham. And you can get a really realistic pencil drawing of David Beckham for your wall. Yeah, it has got that vibe. It's in that style. But the mic, the guy who tells a story in it looks really angry for your wall. Yeah, it has got that vibe. It's in that style. But Mike, the guy who tells the story in it, looks really angry for no reason. He's got a real friend on him, Mike.

Well, that is amazing and terrifying. Bunch of stories. Alistair, are you ready to score us? I would love to score these stories. Yes. OK, Hayley, go first. What's your first category, Hayley? The first category is names.

Names or naming. We've never really decided on the name of this category. Ironically. There were some good names. Yes. MF Billington. MF Billington. That's the standout one for me. And there was Billy Dogs. What's that? B-Dog? Billy Dogs at Tarrant Gunville. Tarrant Gunville. What's the name of the place? Yeah. A nunny, which was easily bruised. Hazel Grove. Sounds like a person. Thatant Gunville. It's the name of the place. Yeah. A nunny, which was easily bruised.

Hazel Grove. Sounds like a person. That is a place. Is a place. So we've got both. The Black Rider. That's just an ominous name. The Black Rider.

Yes, which is a Tom Waits album and I like Tom Waits. So that's good points there. Sylvie Dukes. Sylvie Dukes. The Sylvie Dukes. The Sylvie Dukes. The Sylvie Dukes. The Happy Hippie, potentially.

Yeah, I don't know. I didn't want to that story. What about Rob Gandy himself? Oh, I forgot. The Sylvie Joobs. The Sylvie Joobs. The Happy Hippie, potentially. Yeah, I know. I didn't want to that story. What about Rob Gandy? Oh, I forgot Rob Gandy's name, yes. And his article, I can see on your notes, was called Uneasy Riders, which is a great one.

That's the next one. Great bit of wordplay. Well done, Rob Gandy. I think, I mean, come on. I think it's strong. I'm thinking it's in the four or five out of five area. I'm looking at the room for guidance there. How do we feel about a four, four? I'm seeing some fours. I think that the consensus is four. Is that right?

It's a four out of five, a very strong opening score. Okay then. What's your next category? Next category, Alistair, Supernatural. Come on. I mean, we are at a skeptics event. Ooh, ooh, the potential for me to score is zero out of five because ghosts don't exist and none of this happened. Wait a minute.

That's really tempting. Don't tell them, don't tell them. Oh, okay. Someone, listener, someone is winking at me and holding up two fingers in your classic Winston Churchill, Japanese girl, V, the two groups of people and hippies. John Lennon.

Paul McCartney, actually. I think that there's a case to be made that phantom hitchhikers are really scary ghosts because they are experienced by people who are driving on their own usually at night, dangerous conditions. That's why they appear because they're warning you about the road. Something terrible's happened and then you get scared, silly by this apparition that appears in your car. That's how they usually experience. I think that's pretty supernatural, even if they don't exist.

Yes. And it's a point when people are meant to be paying the most attention possible. It's not one of those ghosts that's clearly a dream because they're driving. So whether or not it is actually the spirit of an actual living person, it seems there is something happening. There's evidently something supernatural about crossroads. Yeah, true. The soap as well. Yeah, and in the story of the Black Rider, there is some kind of confirmation,

like if Dot's story, if Dot's brother's friend's account is reliable, then that's pretty impressive. I think it's at least a three. What do we think, three or four? Angry. No, there's some real head shaking. This is the toughest crowd. There's a one in the back of the room. There's someone holding up a zero. I thought it was okay. I think actually a half point. What's that? Detuct a point for the normal knees. Detuct a point for the normal knees.

I think it's a three and you're lucky to get that with this crowd. Who have been shaking their heads and going, didn't happen all the way through. Okay. Let's go with the crowd category. Mistaken identity. Come on. And that was suggested by you, so it's got to be high. Come on. Mistaken identity.

Everything is mistaken. Who can really, who among us can tell the difference between a giraffe and a zebra without seeing the head? Or a hedge and a lamppost. Come on. Very easily confused. Or a hippie on a sign and a sign and and one female biker ghost was confused for another as well by many retailers of those

tales yeah there's loads of cases of mistaken identity yeah so what are we looking at come on hold your fingers up gang either looking at something looking at Oh, I see some fours over here. I'm going to go with five. I think it's a five. I mean, I'm the one deciding, James. Final category. We're clearly running out of time in this session, so it's five out of five. Yes, final category.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Ghastly. Okay, now thank you for that reaction. I appreciate that because I came up with that before we started, even though I didn't know the stories. But also it works better in the Northern accent. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Ghastly sounds more like Galaxy. Thank you. Thank you. Before I give it five out of five, because I thought of it, do you want to defend that category?

It's quite a fitting category because if you think about it, we're talking about obviously journeys and what happens to the people on those journeys is an improbability drive? Yeah. That sounds like a five out of five. To me, it's five out of five. And I think, let's all just take a moment to think about what a great category it was. Five out of five for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Gastly. Or Gastly.

Because it doesn't sound right. You have Mars bars and Galaxy bars. Thank you very much, Haley. Stephen, big round of applause. Thank you very much to the QED Festival for having us. Thank you all for coming here and enjoying us and passing your judgment. And we're also on YouTube at youtube.com lawmen podcast. You didn't say the slash.

Yeah, I said slash. That's not gonna work. And Hayley is a ghost blog. That's your blog, right? It is. To be clear, we're not saying that Hayley is a ghost. Oh, what a reveal. The blog is called.

What a reveal for the end of the podcast. I just vanish in front of you all. Take that skeptics. Pfft. Thank you. What a great deputy law person Hayley was. So where can people find her stuff? Hayleyisaghost.co.uk is the name of Hayley's blog and it's full of really good stories.

She properly investigates ghosts and generally discovers that they don't exist. Sorry. So far. So far she appears not to have found any ghosts. Thanks again to QED for having us at the festival. For a sceptical audience they were actually quite easily pleased. Well thank you very much to everyone who joined us there, and thank you very much to all the Lorefolk who already support us on Patreon.com forward slash

LoremenPod. You can join them there at that. And thanks very much to Joe for editing. Thank you Joe! Thank you. Has anyone here heard Lawmen before? Yeah. Okay, no, we need a better... I know it wasn't very many of you, but... You all sounded like you hate it, and it's your worst podcast.

So by way of a cheer, because it's got to come out on these mics for the recording, by way of a cheer, because it's got to come out on these mics for the recording, by way of a cheer, who has listened to the podcast before? Has. That's the kind of thing we want. A spontaneous, unasked for response in the edited version of this. And who has not listened to the podcast before? Okay, that's loads of people. Loads of people who sound happier.