Loremen Podcast - Loremen S5Ep61 - The Stocksbridge Monk with Nick Mason

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Nick "Maso" Mason of The Weekly Planet and Mr Sunday Movies drops in from Melbourne for a chilling tale of ghosts, ghouls and... town planning. From "God's own country" (Australia) to "God's own county" (Yorkshire), we visit the haunted building site that was to become the infamous Stocksbridge bypass. Since the 1980s, this stretch of road has been associated with a ghostly hooded monk. Has he got a head? Has he got a face? Has he got a sk8er boi wallet on a chain? It's really not clear. And, as if that weren't spooky enough, we've got ghost children dancing around a maypole. If you've got 'em, put 'em on. We're talking about gilets, because your spine is going to be tingled! 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

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Visit betterhelp.com to learn more and save 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com. 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, in a few seconds, you're going to hear my special patented, whispering voice. That can mean only one thing. Yes, a special guest deputy law person. Who is it, James?

It's Nick Maceau Mason from the Weekly Planet podcast. From the Weekly Planet podcast? And loads of other Australian podcasts. And several other things. He's a very funny man. And I attempt to scare him with tales of the Stocksbridge Bypass. Sounds like something that would frighten a local councillor in South Yorkshire. Yeah, I think it will.

But also there's some ghosts. Al Alastair. Hello, James. Beko Kingo. Oh, no. Is that Shako? Yes, it is. Shako Beko. You've Australianized our names.

That can mean only one thing. It's Maceo. And Deputy Lauro. What are we up to? What are we up to, fellas? G'day boys. What are we doing, boys? Time for a bit of Lauro-men-o.

A couple of law blokes. Here we are. Lovely stuff. Hello Maceo. How are you doing? I'm very well, thank you. I'm very excited. It's great to be back here.

I'm very excited. I'm very excited. I'm very excited. I'm very excited. I'm very excited we are. Lovely stuff. Hello, Mace. So how are you doing? I'm very well. Thank you. I'm very excited. It's great to be back here.

The last time we discussed some Arthurian geese, we unearthed that lore. I'd never heard that before. I thought I was very steeped in Arthurian legend, but there was a magical geese in a field and, and, and, you know, what are we going to unearth this week, I wonder? Well, well, we've got some, we've got some fun stuff with this time. It's probably got the most tenuous link to Australia yet. I'd see if you can spot it and you, the listener to see if you can spot the Australia reference

in this episode, because I might even forget to do it. To be honest, we're joined by Mesa, of course, of the Weekly Planet podcast. How's it going? Good. I mean, I haven't looked at the numbers in a while, but I'm continuing to record it as if it's going well. Yeah, I've forgotten the login, if I'm honest. So it might be might be going down the tubes, but I'll never know.

I'm going to keep smiling and talking about Spider-Man. I'll tell you that much. How would you describe it? It's a podcast about comic books, pop culture, movies, mostly movies centric, I'd say. As a man, you know, in middle age with opinions about that sort of stuff, I obviously have a podcast. You know, it's a big blockbuster movies with a heavy emphasis on the superhero genre. But you know, obviously that genre is going down the gurgle a little bit. So we are gonna, you know, we, we, we're branching out to anything, anything, anything big at the cinema, anything big on streaming, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll have a crack at

it. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about a wicked, the musical, the, the wizard of Oz musical. We'll talk about it. It was pretty good. I liked it. It was fun. You know, ever heard of it? I've heard of singing, definitely. But thank actually, thanks to your part, I heard about one of my favourite horror films of recent times, Talk To Me. Oh yes. Oh, you told me about that, James. I watched that because you told me to watch it.

I told you about that because I heard about it off him. Oh yes. Well, thank you, Mace. That was very scary. I absolutely love that film. I think it's insanely scary. I watched it hung over and was traumatised. Yes. That's an Australian film, right?

It is also Australian film, yeah. Filmed in Adelaide. Okay. I'd forgotten it was Australian. I was just treating them like normal people, but now I realise they're Australians. So I appreciate, Nick, you doing an Australian accent on top of your normal Australian accent for our sakes, just so that we really emphasize the Australian-ness. Traditionally, Australians are the only people on earth that don't have an accent, you know, so I do. It's just a quirk of geography, that, isn't it?

Yeah, isn't it though? Yeah, so we've decided to, you know, when we interact with the wider world, I put on a little, you know, a little the crocodile Dundee, you know, Is that why it's, Americans think it's Cockney because it's, it's just kind of, you've gone, we could do a Cockney accent. We'll do that and say it's Australian. Boom. Yeah. It's like actors on there when they list the accents they can do. Just pronounce data weird. And we, we will fool them all. Is it data down there? It is data.

We would say, we would say, we would say Dato's. We would say I've got a, I've got a, I've got a USB for the Dato's. But, um, yeah, no, Australia does have regional accents. The, the, the Melbourneians, which, which is where I'm from in Victoria, we, we are convinced we have the least notable accent, I think we think, we think we talk normal and everybody else talks weird Adelaide, weird Northern territory. Weird. There's also a lot of regional accents that have sort of died off, like the big broad crocodile Dundee accent. That's gone the way of the dodo in a way.

And was that a crocodile related thing? I think it could be. I think they've all been ate by crocodiles. Yeah. Yeah. Was that it? I think so. If you live by wrestling crocodiles, die by wrestling crocodiles. Die by wrestling crocodiles. We also have a lot of Australian slang, but in the present day, it's really difficult to figure out whether it's like real Australian slang that's been developed over decades, or it's just somebody made it up for an advertisement and it's just entered the lexicon anyway.

There's a term for if you're very thirsty, they'll say, I'm dry as a dead dingo's dunga, for example. And that sounds authentic, but I think they made it up for like a softer ink ad or something, I don't- It sounds very sort of stage Australian. It sounds like an Australian in a musical play would say. I've got two questions. One, do we need to bleep Donger? I would say almost certainly, but it's going to make it sound worse.

Fair enough. And two, is Dingo the real name or is that an Australian nickname? Boom. I did that. The animal is actually called the Ding. But thanks, so we didn't bring you here to do some casual xenophobia. Oh, all right. Bye. We're going to do much more formal xenophobia. Yeah, it's been fun.

Oh, OK. I'll put on my top hat and tails, and we can do some formal racism. Here we go. This is how we do it. That's how we do it in the magistrates' court over in Australia. Of a Sunday. No, I brought you here to talk about some ghosts. Ah, ghosts.

Definitely. Alistair, do you remember a TV show from the 90s called Strange But True, presented by Michael Aspil? Yeah, I don't remember Aspil's involvement, particularly. I do remember there being a show called Strange But True. I may be confusing it with 999 with Michael Burke. No one died. Is that true? I think some people died. Not on 999. They wouldn't show someone dying. Even the bee sting guy got away.

Really? I remember like a pole going right through a guy. Yeah, but that's the thing. They don't die because that would show the emergency services in a bad light. It's not bad. He had a pole through him. I would absolutely give the emergency services a break if they didn't save the life of someone who had been skewed. Have we reached a moment in the podcast earlier than ever before the segment, Old Man Remembering Things? Is that what's happened here? Because I remember the TV series, Games Master. Do you remember Games Master from the 90s?

Oh, yes. And this guy and he had a big robot head. Yeah, OK, I remember that. Patrick Moore. Yes, that was I remember. I think I do. We if it was shown in Australia, were you aware of who Games Master was? Because he's quite a famous astronomer.

Sir Patrick Moore. I think I learned that later. Yeah. Astronomer and sexist oddball. Sir Patrick Moore. I learned that even later. Yes. And he could also play the xylophone. Yeah. And he was terrible at video games. I had no idea. He was just, he didn't know anything about games in real life.

I can only imagine how furious he would be if people asked him for tips on something like the hedgehog in the street. No, the strange but true was of the genre of... What's that one you see eclipsclipse with Jonathan Frakes a lot on the internet these days. Oh, it's not Ripley's Believe It or Not, but it's something similar to that. It's got a... We're going to have to get this right, otherwise the listener will be furiously shouting, we made it up, or whatever it is. What is the name of that show? It didn't happen. And there was a Leonard Nimoy was the sort of the previous incarnation

of it. Beyond belief fact or fiction. Yes, well the English version was strange but true with Michael Aspel who previously had been the This Is Your Life guy. He's no freaks. He moved into This Is Your Afterlife I guess in this format. Did you have a similar version in Australia? We had a TV series called The Extraordinary and it was

similar. It was retelling some of, you know, mysterious tales of, you know, ghostly travelers that somebody might pick up on the highway and things like that. And it was hosted by a guy, I think his name was Warwick Moss and he had a very deep gravelly voice and he would say, welcome to the extraordinary. Oh, I like it. Was he known for presenting any other stuff or was he like a specifically paranormal present? He was just the extraordinary guy. I think I say that now, but again, the listeners will, we'll look it up and

they'll find he had a 30 year career in sports broadcasting or something like that, but I don't know. It's not my game at all. No, thank you. Ghostly Travelers. That's me. Well, if you're into road ghosts, don't worry. We've got you covered. This whole haunting is about a road. It's the Stocksbridge Bypass. This was quite a classic episode of Michael Aspill's Strange But True. It's near Sheffield. So we're talking Yorkshire. That's not Australia. Once again, that's a non-Australian road.

Just keep your ears pricked for the Australian reference. Okay. I'm just trying to spark the Australian link. I don't think that road goes to Australia. Don't look too hard. The joy of hearing about these locations is that they all do sound quite exotic, as someone not from there. If this were about, for example, the Greensboro bypass, I'm not interested at all. I mean, what am I going to grab the Greensboro bypass to Mill Park? I don't think so. Not exciting.

But the thing you said, the Stocksbridge, it's probably got a headless horseman on it. Well, you will find out. This has got multospectro as, which is a formal law men rating system. It can't be translated into English. So don't try and work out what it means. It does sound, again, going back to the casual racism earlier, sounds like an Aussie term. Well we'd say heaps ghosts. That's heaps ghosts. From haunted peak district by Jill Armitage, because we are in the depths of

the Peak District, we're kind of Snakes Pass adjacent, which is a very, very exciting sounding road, but is an A road that's often closed because of snow. Yes. Snakes Pass, sorry to use the local term. Is it Snakes Pass because it is absolutely filled to the brim with terrifying snakes or is it just a bit wibbly wobbly? Oh, we don't we don't have those here. I think it might be chicane based.

Yeah, we don't we've got no snakes to speak of. You you had to bring up our national shame. But so our lack of poisonous animals. We've got we've got foxes. That's the scariest thing. Would you like some? would you like some snakes? Because we have, we have a real surplus here and I could smuggle some over and we could breed them.

You could, you know, you could, you could share the joy. You can send them over in those posters containers. The tubular. Perfect. Cardboard tubes. But no, no thanks. We're good. Cheers. So I'm going to take, no thanks. We're good. Cheers.

So I'm going to take you back to the late 1980s. All right. Okay. It's late 1987 and they're building a bypass around Stocksbridge. I presume that's how naming conventions go. It's the Stocksbridge bypass. It's a little road so you don't have to go through Stocksbridge. And this will go on to become a notoriously dangerous stretch of road. Probably because of all the Lamborghinis.

Yeah. Driven by snakes in many cases. They have difficulty changing gear and breaking around the same time because they've only got one appendage to do it all. So South Yorkshire police say the road is no more dangerous than any other road of its type in britain but i would not trust south yorkshire police in the late eighties look it up. That is a dark look it up james judges ruling on traffic accidents have described the road is built on the cheap so it's a dangerous bit of road but before the bypass was even a twinkle in a county councilcillor's eye, on White Row Farm in Hunshelf lived Annie Staniforth, who would tell her daughter Ms Katrina Hewitt of a ghostly monk that she would see wandering the fields. Now that monk, she would tell her, had been killed by soldiers for some unknown reason. I mean, I don't want to victim blame. I don't know what the monk did to get those soldiers to kill him. But the story goes.

Soldiers only do that when they're very distressed. So clearly the monk is to blame in this situation. Probably jangling his bells. You know, they've always got a bell. They're toiling that bell. Bang, I say. Bang. He was rattling his rosaries a little bit too loud. Yeah, you don't want to do that. Do you mean like bell ringing in a church there, not like they've got a little dingley dangly bell around their neck? Or do you mean like a cat?

I think you've, yeah, you may have confused monks with cows. I have, that's correct. Yes. The Jersey monk is that, that's what we're, yeah. Yeah, Friesian monks. Yeah. To be honest is that that's, that's what we're, yeah. Yeah. Freezian monks. To be honest, that does sound like a brand of monk.

Let's just relax with a nice glass of monk's milk. Yeah. Don't milk the monk. Don't milk a monk. If anyone takes anything away from this episode is don't milk a monk. Hashtag don't milk a monk. Let's get that trending folks. Let's get a campaign folks. Let's get a campaign going in support.

So in nearby Huns shelf hall, Huns shelf hall, not sure how that's pronounced. I'm, I it's H U N H E L F Huns shelf. It sounds like a shelf used exclusively by Huns. Is there an S in there? Did you say the S and I missed it. H U N S H E L F. Yeah. Huns shelf. Yeah. It's probably pronounced like Hunf or something. the S? And I missed it. H-U-N-S-H-E-L-F. Yeah. Hunshelf. Yeah. It's probably pronounced like Hunnuf or something. So I wouldn't worry about it.

What are they going to do? Call the South Yorkshire police? Oh, no, let's not get into slamming the South Yorkshire police as a genre of episode. All right. Although they deserve it because of what they did in the late 80s. The monk's last wish was to be buried at nearby Stannington, but whoever buried him, I guess these soldiers, otherwise it's blooming half a job, did not do it there. They didn't even do it on any sort of hallowed ground. They just buried him in standard ground.

Mason. How do we know that? So the monks killed him and then with his dying breath, what he told them where he wanted to be buried and they were, they would say, no, we're not going to do that. We're just going to bury you here. It's just his last wish. It might not have been like his last words. Okay. He might have been like, you know, blowing his candles out on a birthday cake, make a wish, to be buried at Stannington Hall. I guess I'm just asking how we, the law blokes know that that happened. How did we find out? Well, that means that he told the wish, doesn't it?

And if you tell the wish, you don't get the wish. That's why. An upper monk, silly monk. Maybe he wrote it down on a piece of paper and then he posted it to himself. So we both, we have it on record. Yeah. And then it's, and it's got the date on it as well. It's got the stamp. So we know it's all very legally binding and they have, they have disobeyed his

wishes when they shot this guy. Rude. It's got a picture of him with that day's manuscript. So they think that that's, that's the monk that is haunting this area. And then when this motorway slash bypass was constructed, we got more monk. We got more to monk sightings. So that one of the earliest sightings in relation to the bypass happened when Stephen Brooks and David Goldthorpe who worked for constant securities, they were guarding the place of a nighttime in case someone wanted to come and steal a half built road. Wait a second, constant securities, but they're only guarding in the nighttime?

Oh, that's a very good point. That is a miss selling. Have you been miss old security in the late eighties? So they were patrolling and they saw a man standing on P. Royde Bridge, which was a newly constructed bridge. And they weren't sure what was going on. It's like someone, it was obviously someone who wasn't supposed to be there. So one of them stayed at the bottom and the other one drove the van around just to kind

of go and catch them. As the vehicle swung around and directed full headlights at the figure wrapped in a long dark cloak. Both men stared in stunned disbelief because, I'm going to break from the quote here, how many heads do you think it had? Min one. Or zero. Oh wait.

It was, it was, he had no heads at all. I was slightly misleading you with a question. It was a trick question. Zero heads. I can't believe I specifically said minimum one. This is Price's right rules. I can't believe I specifically said minimum one. This is Price is Right rules. I went over. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if I may though, also, P. Royd Bridge. It sounds like some sort of...

Yeah, P. Royd. Yeah. Is that normal? Is that a normal name? It sounds like the kind of, sounds like the end result of too much steroid abuse. Is it named after a disgraced bodybuilder? Is that what it is? It's what gym urinals are full of. I thought you were going for like the small end of piles. Oh, like a hemorrhoid and then just a little peeroid. Just a little aroid.

What's a hemorrhoid? Is a hemorrhoid like another word for, I don't want to know. Yeah, peeroid to people who've been to Yorkshire, completely normal sounding place and name. P-Royd. Who's that on? P-Royd Bridge. Let's go and have a look. Blimey. He's got no head. Mother, he's got no head. There's a classic looking monkey. He's got the brown robes. He's got the rope belt, but no head. Is that what we're, that's what we're dealing with.

Well, yeah. And that, that haircut wise, that contains one of the key monk indicators. Yes. Without a tonsure, how can we really say it's a monk and not someone in a dressing gown? Tonsure being the proper name for the monk haircut is just a border of hair. Yeah. They shave the little, they shave a little circle into the top of the head so that your thoughts can beam directly to God without getting tangled up in the hair on the way. It is that for that reason. It's like a reverse tinfoil hat. It's so like God can get right in there straight away.

Boom, have a poke around. It focuses the prayer like a laser beam. It's like shining a light through a ruby to turn it into a powerful laser, straight into God's eyes. Ah, oh, you're not going to do that. So the car, so going back to where we were, the van, the vehicle swung around a direct swang.

It swung. Swung, it swung. He swung the vehicle around and directed full headlights at the figure wrapped in a long dark cloak. Both men stared in stunned disbelief because the figure had no head and the light passed straight through his body. Within seconds it had gone completely. stared in stunned disbelief because the figure had no head and the light passed straight through his body. Within seconds it had gone completely.

And both men were so shocked, they informed the police and visited a local priest asking for the place to be exorcised. And the police, boom, they got on investigating that and bang, four days later, they turned up. So this is midnight of the 11th of September, 1987, PC Dick Alice and SC John Beat visited the bypass. Terrific. Dicko and Beat-o? Yes, yes. Beat-o, Dicko. Just a winning partnership, Dick and Bees. Just the UK, they're the UK's crocket and tubs of the 1980s. That's terrific.

In four days, that's got to be a record. Exactly. Yeah. So they were serious, no nonsense officers. I hate it when some nonsense officers arrive. Little bit of nonsense. Yeah. Would you like to smell the flower in my lapel?

Ah, sprayed me with water. Please just investigate this crime. It's this, I haven't looked at this police bike, let me look at the number on it. Now did these two have any kind of supernatural investigation experience prior to this? This is their first run. I don't believe so because it says here, they parked their patrol car and sat for a while, admiring the clear sky and full moon. And then Ellis winds down his window and then suddenly just froze.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone standing by the side of the car, but he turned, no one there. And then suddenly Beats let out a scream. The figure was standing at his side of the car and he described him as looking rather Dickensian from the 1820s era. As he tried to focus more clearly, the figure disappeared. So we know at minimum this being has the ability to move from one side of a car to the other side of a car very quickly.

That is, I mean, that's, that is terrifying, honestly. And it's a full moon, so there might be a werewolf also. Could easily be Sheffield werewolf could have traveled up. Was this the monk? Do we think was the 1820s? Was that a big monk era? I don't associate that time with a lot of, a lot of surplus monks. I mean, they've gone for a decade in 1820s, but yeah, so they assumed it was a joke. They leapt out of the car, searched the area, found nothing, and they got back in the car and drove back towards the bridge.

Then they parked because they're like, we're going to call for backup. But then the patrol car began to rock as if someone was jumping on the boot of it. And they basically, this proved too much and the terrified officers turned the car around and headed back to safety. And they were interviewed on strange, but true. Oh, by Michael Aspill, probably not by Michael Aspill, probably by a producer. And PC Ellis said it was impossible to dismiss his imagination when both he and his colleague had experienced the same thing. And anyway, the police don't make up those kinds of stories. Emphasis, emphasis reader zone. We're getting into monk season now, because the winter of 87, there was Graham and Nigel

Brook, father and son joggers, went jogging from the town of Chapletown. Just your usual father son joggers went jogging from the town of Chapletown. Just your usual father-son jogger pair. What more normal construction could there be in human society? They're going for a mid-winter father-son jog off. Of course it is. Of course it is. Check their hard drives. Check their hard drives. It's not right what they're doing out there. Father son jogging team. No wrong. Of course, at this time, the amount of data on a hard drive, I mean, you don't think you could fit a crime in there.

I don't think they had hard drives. Even check their disclets, check their five and a quarter inch disclets. They were jogging down the lay by towards Wartley village. And they notice a figure in a cap and a hood walking with his back toward the traffic. So this guy's got a hood. So that presumably has a head. Yeah. Unless it's a very flat, very flat hood. Yes. But then would you call it a hood? It would just be a cape with that's rocked up at the top. Oh, and by the way,

the guy's got no head. Cause at that point you should have noticed he was walking towards them and it was not that, it was dusk time, it is not dark, and they could see his blank face and count the buttons that fastened his dark brown cape. And I think blank face, I'm thinking from some of the reports we have later, I don't think it was just, he was just like,

oh, like, you know, looking, maybe thinking in depth about something and had no expressions. I think he had no expressions because he had no facial features. Oh, they were talking like, what's the comic guy? Is it miss the mystery? The question, the question, you're thinking of the question. That's right.

I think it's the like the comic character, the question. Interesting. Now, now, so, so previously, if we are to believe this is the same monk, so previously he had no head. So I was like, well, simple solution. You, you, you find his head, you reattach the head, then you bury him in the consecrated ground. No more problems. That's the, that is, that is the standard solution for this. But now he has acquired some sort of head. And so now he is, this is trouble. He's, he's got, he's gotten a, a soccer ball or a cantaloupe or something. And he's drawn to eyes and nose on it.

This is, this is bad. Well, he's not got to that stage yet. I think he's just inflated a balloon and attached it. He also had a bag, he carried a bag attached to a chain and they could hear the chain rattling along the ground and smell a very fusty odour. I don't know what that bag on the chain thing is. It's the only person that reports that. And they stood in stunned horror and the lights of a lorry swept the area, swept the area and the spectre disappeared. Jason Vale A completely different description each time, really. Again, that doesn't really sound like a monk's outfit with buttons, does it?

And that kind of goth bag, that Linkin Park bag on a chain is not very Dickensian, is it? Right. We're going to flash forward to 1990, July 1990. What fashions is this monk going to have this time? A hyper-coloured t-shirt, perhaps? Fingers crossed. So, Judy Simpson and her husband, David, are travelling along the B6088 by Wartley and they're adjacent to the haunted highway. And over their left, they

see a grey outline of a figure that seemed oblivious to the road. And then that runs in front of their car. Judy slams on the brakes and the figure just seems to melt into the car and disappear. And they stop, they look around, there's nothing there, there's no one there. So now we've got a grey, a grey monk. And in 1990, a lorry driver pulled into the trailer park on Station Road and he's fiddling around with his ropes on the back of the trailer and he gave a sudden shiver. It was as if a cold breeze has enveloped him. He can smell a rather fusty odor.

Looking up, he saw what he describes as a monk-like figure gliding through his headlights and that lorry driver was called Melbourne Heptan stall. Of the Melbourne Heptan stalls. My goodness. What a legacy. Ding. For the listeners listening now, that is the Australian reference that I managed to shoot on in to this episode. I forgot. I didn't put my Australian glasses on. You didn't give me enough warning to enjoy that Australian moment popping out of the screen. Now we know, we know now like the, the, the, the, the monk seems to look different every time, but he's fusty every time.

He's got a fusty odor every time, seemingly. So that's the connection. Whatever fusty is he's that. Yeah, yeah. Every day he's fussing. We're going to flash forward to 97. It's New Year's Eve. Paul Ford and his wife, Jane Ford, are in their car.

They're driving along the Stocksbridge bypass. Potentially listening to OK Computer on the cassette, if they've got the cassette player. Probably not a CD player realistically. They could have a mini disc attached to a cassette and put in the cassette. Be reasonable. Be reasonable. These are ordinary Yorkshire folk, James. They wouldn't have a mini disc player. This contains some quotes from them. Paul notices a figure in the middle of the road.

At first glance, it looked like some idiot trying to cross the busy road. And then Paul slams on his brakes, he realized the figure was dressed in a long cloak and had no face and was hovering above the road. And as with the majority of these witnesses, they knew nothing about the previous claims of the wandering monk. But do you want to know if they investigated it? Will Barron Yes. Alistair Who's there? Who investigated? Alistair The psychic consultant, Lucinda Beaver's.

Will Barron Bevo. Alistair Of Peniston. Is that how you pronounce it? Yes, you pronounced that correctly. Do you know of the town? You know, you said a lot of towns sound quite like glamorous because you don't know of Peniston. It's spelled P-E-N-I-S-T-O-N. Yes, Peniston. We are legally obliged to refer to it as Penniston. Otherwise people get annoyed.

And yes, so Lucinda Beaver is on the case. She encounters the apparition herself while she's driving home from the bypass. And she's- How convenient. Well, she's used to dealing with the paranormal. So when a dark shape appears next to her in the car, she quickly recites the Lord's prayer. Boom. Father, why never have we been there? Amen. That's how we recited in a church. And that's the most efficient way.

Just when you just wrote, recite it just quick as you can, and then you're out of it. just wrote recite it just quick as you can. And then you're out of it. You know, it was like this. We were like the sketch. She was like a paranormal the scat man. That's interesting as well, because you would think in life saying the Lord's prayer would attract the monk, but in death, yes, gets rid of him and his musty odor. Yeah. And she described the figure and his musty odor. Yeah. And she described the figure as large and very frightening. And it was such a sudden and unnerving encounter that, and well, I don't know, I'm not sure the logic here.

It was such a sudden and unnerving encounter that Lucinda is convinced others must have had the same experience. And on one occasion, I don't really get that. I don't follow the logic there, but on one occasion she saw the shadowy figure appear in someone else's car ahead of her. I think that's actually quite chilling. If you were to see in a car, a ghost appear in someone else's car, that, cause you can't, I mean, you can recite the Lord's prayer as quick as you want. It's not going to hear you.

It's, it's interesting though, as well, that he's sort of, he's, it's actually quite heartwarming that he's gone from seemingly having no idea like what the highway is, you know, he's just running across the road and so on and so forth. But now he's comfortable enough that he can appear in a car. He's like, Oh, cars are for, because we're going down the highway. I'll just hop in the passenger seat there, you know, you can have a little chat. Yeah. It's just taken him a while to sort of adjust to the speed and now he can do it. That's lovely. Yeah, because a detail I forgot to mention about the father-son jogging duo, the thing that clued him into the fact that it was a ghost, apart from the fact it had no facial features, was that the man was walking in the ground rather than on the surface.

Oh, your classic. Your classic. It's not at the same height. And the reverse had happened to Paul and Jane Ford. The ghost was above the ground, implying that, you know, it's that sort of object, object permanence or whatever. Like the ghosts interact with the terrain as it would have been in their time, which doesn't explain how they got on a newly built bridge unless this monk just happened to hover at like 13 foot or something. And also it implies that it's like running along to be in the car, you know what I mean? Like he's run along at the speed of a car in the passengers, where the passenger seat would be. Like a spectral Flintstone. Yes, exactly.

Like, yeah, like a spooky Barney rubble. So, so far, so scary. And that is all the tales of the monk that I have here. Do you remember our security guards, Stephen Brooks and David Goldthorpe from, and David Goldthorpe from Constant Securities? Absolutely, I do, yes. That wasn't the only ghost they saw. On another time near Piroid Bridge, they saw what they later described as a group of young

children in medieval clothing dancing around a pylon. So these are the night watchmen. Around a pylon? Yeah. Like it was a maypole, but for electricity. Well, that significantly reduces their reliability as witnesses for me. You see one ghost, I give you some credit, see two ghosts, it goes down. The more ghosts you've seen in your life, the less I believe you've seen any ghosts. And it also, it sounds like the kind of escalation someone lying would come up with. Like they've

gotten all this press from the last one and they're like, oh, but now there was a lot of them. There wasn't just the one. There was lots and they weren't, they didn't look normal. They were in medieval clothes and they were dancing and they were running around. Yeah. It's the alien aliens escalation is what they've done. Oh, okay. But does the alien film start with them getting out of, you know, hyper sleep, having some milk and a cig and hearing a group of small voices singing? Is that what happens? No.

No. It is quite a good scene. Okay then, in the sequel, Aliens or Alien Resurrection, does anything happen like what happened in March 1995 when child minder Pat Heathcote corroborates the story? She watched about eight children dancing around what seemed like an invisible maypole on a grass mound near the new bridge. And does anything happen in the recent Alien Romulus when three weeks later Barbara Lee of the pub, the mid-Hopstons arms, see some children playing in a field above the new bridge, miles away from where children

usually play. And she describes them as happily dancing together, the girls in shin length skirts, white pinafores and mob caps and the boys wore breeches. I would say mostly in the alien movies, it's, it's predominantly aliens. So none of that. Yeah. Except in the unreleased version of Alien 3, the script, they're on a wooden planet and there are actually a lot of monks. There's a big monk subplot in that. There is. Yes.

Yeah. The big wooden monk spaceship. I like Alien 3. I don't remember Prometheus enough, but I'm pretty sure there's no kids in pinafores. There's no kids in pinafores, no. And the outfits they're describing are not medieval there. White pinafores and breeches is 19th century, isn't it? So the kids are also shifting time periods.

Or they could be, you know, catching up with the fashions, experimenting with different sizes. I don't want to... What is a mob cap? It's what your classic maid wears. You know that... Oh, nothing to do with them. It's not a fedora, no. No. It's not an indication that you're a member of the Gusanestra. No, it's not an indication that you're a member of the Gozunostra. No, it's more a sort of a- Pretty nice maypole you've got here.

Hope nothing bad happens to us. And no one rearranges your ribbons. So I mean, those are the ghosts of the Stocksbring bypass. Spooky enough for you? Are you not terrified to paraphrase Russell Crowe in that film? It makes me want to go out there. I think that's important.

It makes me want to take a trip up there and get on the bypass and see if we can find, see if we can replicate the results. I think that's the essence of a good ghost find, you know, see if we can replicate the results. I think that's the that is the that's the essence of a good ghost story, I think, is you don't go that you you you like. I got to I got to investigate this. I got to go out and I've got to go to the town and I've got to, you know, go on the spot and I've got to go to the local ice cream

parlor and et cetera and spend some money in the gift shop and et cetera. So if they haven't. There will not be an ice cream parlor, I'm got to go to the local ice cream parlor and et cetera, and spend some money in the gift shop and et cetera. So if they haven't- There will not be an ice cream parlor, I'm afraid to say, at this place. This is Sheffield. Yeah, I was just about to say, this is, I've never heard anything. This is, this is so the words of someone who hasn't been to South Yorkshire. A gift shop and an ice cream parlor. It's, you're going to be so disappointed. I can't wait till you get to parlor. You're going to be so disappointed.

I can't wait till you get to Penniston. This is going to be great. Well, I've missed a trick. I would have, you get the t-shirt and it says, there's a mad monk. You know, there's an arrow and it points and it says, there's a mad monk next to me in the car, you know, and we'll have fun.

Or maybe, and there's a- Put a penny in a penny squasher and it can have a picture of a no face on it. It would just need to be black. You wouldn't need to, you know, you wouldn't need to put any sort of thing in it. Yes. You could just make it blank out the face on the coin already. Yes. So spooky. So you ready to score me then gang? Yes. Yes. And also I like the idea that we're in a gang. We me then, gang? Yes! Yes. And also, I like the idea that we're in a gang. We're now a gang.

Yes. Let's riot in the streets after this, fellas. I mean, separately, obviously. Putting on my mob cap now. Absolutely. There's a nice podcast you've got going on here. If nothing happens to us. Oh, my lord, be a nice pat of butter in your larder.

Be it to be ashamed. We're looking to happen to it. It would be a shame if that butter should turn rancid. I've got a mob cap that's got like a little holder for your pitch fork and flaming torch is that kind of mob. Or is a Minecraft themed one? Those are the only mobs that as far as I know exist. Right.

But let's actually score it. Come on then. Okay. First up, hit me with the naming score. What was the name of the guy who was the only tenuous link to Australia in the story? Melbourne something. Melbourne. Melbourne Heptan stall.

Okay. Now I'm torn cause that is a five out of five name. But you combine, you're combining it with Dick Ellis, John Beat. I think Dick and Beat. That's a, that's a classic combo. Dick, Beat and Beavers. That could, that's, you know, that's a law firm right there. I think that's wonderful.

Yes. That's a, that's know, that's a law firm right there. I think that's wonderful. Yes. That's a, that's a, that's a good combo. And I, again, I like, I'm giving five stars for all the town names, even though to you, they are as dull as ditch water. They're what they're, they're beautiful. They may as well be the, the lands of the magical land of Oz to me, because they're just Sheffield. Oh,

in a field. me because they're just Sheffield. Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait to go to the Sheffield gift, gift shop. I can't wait to go to the Sheffield fun fair and get on the Sheffield roller coaster. I'm so excited. Apparently in Vegas, they are making a Sheffield themed casino because it's that big. You've got UOK Hunshelf. You've got Anistani Forth. That's a good name. Well, look, I don't think it's that high, but what's normal to us, amazes me so. So yes,

I guess I have to go with the guests and say five out of five. I mean, you can, you can, I'm happy to have my score driven down by, you know, the, the, the, the, Over familiarity. No, no, to me, to me, there's nothing amusing or interesting about Penniston. It's just the most ordinary town name, but seeing it through your eyes has made it entertaining. If you were to be transported to Melbourne and you look like I did, looked on the tram sign and saw the stop of Batman, would you not be blown away?

Which I imagine to Mason is absolute. I mean, I know who the person is that it's named after. Batman Avenue. He's a terrible, terrible guy, but he's the guy that founded Melbourne, right? That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. It was going to, I believe at one point it was going to be known as batmania.

That's true. That is true. That's a fact. Yeah. I've done my Batman research. That's right. So this is just a guy whose surname was Batman. Yeah.

John Batman, John. And also the Wikipedia page describes him and some real bad stuff that he did. And the end of the page is Batman died of syphilis. Classic. Good, good stuff. Good, great stuff. Yes.

You could defeat any superhero, but not that one. He's got a plan for all of them. It's got to be for all of them. It's got to be five out of five for Batman died of syphilis. All right then. Okay then chapter two, category two, supernatural. Common M. It's a multospectro.

Or the same ghost many times. You did say multospectro. But yeah, even if the monk and the kids are the same, we've still got numerous ghosts, several children and one recurring monk. Yeah, I think that's five. He's swift, this guy. He can jump in your car. That's a novelty little trick to do. It's difficult to get in somebody's moving vehicle when they're on the bypass. Um, and I don't know, we never really resolved what, what his head situation was. Like, did he find his head in the end or did he, was it a, was it a, a, a grapefruit or something? What did he-

He had a blank face. It may be the soldiers caused him to lose his head, potentially. And then in the afterlife, he's trying to, yeah, maybe he's peeked in through someone's window and seen the film cast away. And he's like, Wilson, that's a good look. I could do that. I could pull that off. He's got himself a volleyball.

The blank face thing to me sounds like a classic case of escalation as the story is retold, because when you say someone has a blank face, you don't mean that they literally have no facial features. And if you, for the first time, were describing someone with no facial features, you would say the face was completely blank with no facial features to avoid ambiguity. And the fact that they didn't do that makes me think, you know, like the first Discworld book with the Josh Kirby's illustration on the fronts. Am I being too nerdy here? There's the character Two Flower, who in the text is described as having four eyes from the point of view of the people in Ankh-Morpork. Meaning, as everyone apart from Josh

Kirby understands, that he wore glasses. But on the cover of the book he's drawn in with four eyes. And it annoys me every day. Every time I think of it. It annoys me every day. Every day. It's because you sellotaped your copy of Disqwer of The Call of Magic to the front of your fridge. You should just take it off. I will. I will. But to me, it sounds a little bit like that. Someone said he's got a blank face and then somebody else has taken the story too literally. Or, in a sort of reverse of that, someone was trying to describe how this ghost had no head, but forgot the word head and just said face. And he meant nothing at all on the face. Like no behind the face either.

Yeah. I'm inclined, based on the Josh Kirby irritation that I just reminded myself of, to downgrade it to a four from Mesos five. So I'm knocking a point off because of the blank face ambiguity. I'm inclined to agree. I think, I think if, if we'd found like a, if there was a point in the story where we, you know, somebody had knocked the head off a statue and then he was wearing the, the, the head of the statue was his own head, like that would sort of tie it together, I think, but just the fact that it's just like, no head and then he had a head. Fine. I guess the story at the start sets up a lot of like, oh, yeah, and this is what he wanted. He had

unfinished business. And then we sort of forget all about that. And he just starts dressing like a goth. That's right. The chain, the bag and the chain. We didn't, what was he, was he holding the chain or was he holding the bag? and the chain was coming off the bag? He carried a bag attached to a chain and the chains rattling along the ground. And a hoodie, like a Nirvana hoodie. Yes, that's right. It's the runway round and he's made his own thumb holes so he can have a go at it.

Yes, sleeves with thumb holes, classic. So wait, was this sticking with a four? I think it's a four. Yeah, I think it's, it's good. It's good supernatural, but I think it needs a stronger through line for the, for the, for the, for the guy, you know? So category three, the classic Yorkshire phrase, Yorkshire phrase, that makes a better door than a window, which for translation purposes is what you'd say if someone was stood in front of the telly. Yeah. Basically you say you make a better door than a window

in that you're blocking rather than being something I can see through. Oh, that's good. Okay, okay. I remember the first time someone said this to me and I took it as a compliment. Ha ha ha ha. Just like the first time someone told me that I was dry as a dead dingo stonger and I'm

like, thank you. It's actually very nice of you to say. Now, how do we apply this to a ghost on a freeway? Well, it's because the ghost is at some point seen as see-through. You can see the beams of the car through it a number of times, it fades away into nothingness, and by having no head, is slightly more door shaped. Because a person without a head is very much the shape of a door, the sort of broad outline. And I, as a very tall person, sometimes in walking through doorways, I do wish my, I did,

I could choose whether to have a head or not because I'll hit it. I will hit it on the door frame. Do you naturally hunch as you approach a door? Yeah. Oh, big time. And some of my friends live in old, when I was growing up, friends lived in old houses, which were very small.

And there is one who's- Did they live in a pulp album? Is that what happened? With what was there? Would you put on the wall? wall. And there is one who's- Did they live in a pulp album? Is that what happened? With what was there wood chip on the wall? Pulpa from Sheffield. Pulpa from Sheffield. That's that, what he's describing there. That is what you are travelling to see. Yeah, okay. All right.

Pure misery. Arctic Monkeys are Sheffield as well, for slightly more up to date. And I'll never forget the lyrics. I bet that you'll look good on the dance floor. 1984. Chris Cantrell's cover. Oh, that's the era discussing. Yeah, that's great. I think, first of all, James, I think you shouldn't hunch when you approach a door frame. I think you should have the confidence to just walk right through and just smash your head on that doorframe. I think- There's one at my in-laws house, which is like, it's an old house. It's an old barn from

1600s conversion and the steps going down from like the kitchen to the living room, the doorway is the top of the door is at shoulder height for me. It is ridiculous. How do you live like this? And I've walked, so I'll often like tilt my head down to go in and just bang. I just present the top of my head like a monk or samurai to the door to straight in there. Well that's really put a human face on it, James. Unlike the monk. Do you think that's why the monks and the samurai shaved the top of their heads? So they have that, just that extra, you know, couple of millimeters of clearance as they go through doorways?

It could be, but then in, I noticed when I've had shorter hair and, and in areas of the top of my head, where there is less hair than there used to be, and to quote with Nell and I hair are your aerials. They do. It does let you detect when you're about to get hit on the head. So you can perform some last minute evasive action from the stationary doorway. It's a cat's whisker situation. Yes, absolutely. Exactly. Exactly. Anyway, I think I put sellotape on my head once and I just walked around in circles. And if you see me doing that, it's because I'm distressed.

I think you've dazzled us with anecdotes, James. I think that's probably quite a low scoring category, but we've been so bewildered and impressed with funny anecdotes about you banging your head that I'm thinking it's maybe a three. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'd look up. Yeah. I mean, I, I, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a classic sort of phantom move to, to be suddenly, you know, you can't, you can't quite get a hold of this guy.

You know, anytime I love the, you know, and anytime you turn to this guy, anytime you try to make a grab of him, he's gone. I think that's, you know, and, and, you know, he's, um, he's gotten away with it. Hasn't he? He's, he's never been caught this, this monk. Come on. He's gotten away with it, hasn't he? He's never been caught, this monk. Come on, he's at large. Oh, well, I reckon it's a four. I think it's a classic move and he's pulling it off quite well.

Well, all right. Meso's antipodean generosity knows no bounds. Fair enough, I'm happy to be overruled. It's a four. Yes. And to my final category then, category the fourth is a very punny title to brace yourselves. It's Yorkshire Pudding on the Ritz. Lovely stuff.

Lovely stuff. Oh, brilliant reference to the song, Pudding on the Ritz. And I'll never forget the lyrics to that song. If you were to go to something fits. Yorkshire pudding on the Ritz. Well, Yorkshire pudding on the Ritz. Classic, great lyrics. Hmm.

Well, this monk was certainly putting on the Ritz. Yes. It's the fashions. It's referring to the fashions because if you look at the stories, the monk, ever so slightly tweaks his vibe every now and then. He's got a type of look, but he, he, he acknowledges the different changes in fashion. He tweaks that look. He's adjusting.

He's adjusting the color ways. People usually stop keeping up with fashion after death. Yes. The monk breaks from that convention. Yeah. 1820s Dickensian. Sometimes decades before death. Yeah.

A hoodie. I like to think that this guy, like he's sort of, you know, like Batman, for example, might have like his standard outfit and then he's got like an Arctic outfit. You know, it's got a furry hood and it's all white. You know, I think this is- Are we talking about the syphilis Batman or the comic book Batman now? We're always talking about the syphilis Batman. Yes, that's right.

I think this guy, I think he's, I'm seeing him and he's updating himself to the decade that he's in. This story spanned a couple of decades and why wouldn't you add why wouldn't you, why wouldn't you add a, you know, a wallet chain to your, to your fashion arsenal? Why not? Wonderful. You know? Yeah. And maybe you look back on, you know, you look back on some seances you did where you admitted you had a wallet chaining, you know, you still had a bit of, you were having a bit of fun with it, you know? If he had have had a head, he would have had a

Kangal hat on it backwards, definitely. Or a bucket cap. Absolutely. He would have mulleted that tonsure. He would have. When I was in school, it was all no fear gear. Do you remember that? Oh no, big time.

He'd have a, a naff naff jacket, naff naff coat, which I think you could only get from the market. Great coat. Anyway, this is men, middle-aged men reminiscing about jackets. Do you think maybe one of those, one of those wrist bracelet things where you could slap brace a snap bracelet or a slap bracelet, the male also color change based on mood slash temperature? This monk probably had those track pants that have all the snaps down the sides and he can just...

Poppers! Yeah, he probably had. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, his robes had poppers on the sides. Yeah. So he's a stripping monk. Yeah. Poppers is a word that has changed meaning since then.

It has, hasn't it? Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Oh. Uh-oh. Yeah. So I think, yeah, you're absolutely right. The middle-aged men remembering, I think now literally every item of clothing from the mid-90s.

We've had a global hyper color, which is the, that is the king of 90s clothing. What about, what about, what about a hoodie bought at like a placebo gig, but from the street outside, so it's still got the United Colors of Benetton embroidery on it. Which I, to be honest, I feel like I've mentioned on the podcast before. A band's long sleeve tour t-shirt that is made of such bad material. It is in itself see-through like that monk. So, so the wonderful category of Yorkshire pudding on the Ritz, AKA fashion, but it's, it's a but it's got a local flavor quite literally. What are we talking? I think it's a five. I think it's a five. I think, you know, it's difficult to keep,

as we've mentioned, we've kept, it's difficult to keep up with fashion in real life, let alone in death. And he's, he's given a red hot go. I think he's probably missed it a bunch of times, but at least he's trying, you know what I mean? And it's a bit of fun. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Aim for the stars and you might land on the moon. Or that isn't, that's not the same. That's so true, isn't it?

Yeah. I'm pretty certain that's what they say at NASA. Absolutely. Well, wonderful. Well, thank you very much, Mace, for clearing that all up for us. Yeah, thanks. That's strange, but true mystery. Strange if true would be more accurate.

The huge if true TV show, your picture. Lovely. But yes, thank you very much for joining us. Where can people find you on the internet? I am on a podcast called The Weekly Planet, which is all about big blockbuster movies and sometimes a spooky movie. So that's, you know, if you like your spooks, we'll, we'll talk to me. We'll cover the substance.

We'll talk about all sorts of, all sorts of spooky movies. And I'll also, I'm on the YouTube channel, Mr. Sunday movies, where we also talk movies. So, I mean, if you like movies, you're in for a treat. If you don't like movies, I don't have anything for you. I'm afraid. And at the moment, I believe you're doing the Lord of the Rings trilogy on that. The original trilogy.

Yeah. We're taking a rewatch of the Lord. The original. That's right. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's the original. The original. And I'll tell you what, if you like old men reminiscing over things and going, boy, what a fun time. You're in for a treat. Cause that's, it's, it's if you like old men reminiscing over things that going, boy, what a fun time you're in for a treat. Cause that's, I mean, a lot of the time we'll look at an old series of things and we'll be a little bit cynical about it, but this is, it's mostly just videos of us going, Oh, and then they went to Isildur. Oh, and then they went to the, the, the, I'll remember when they got off that boat.

Oh, and then they got on that other boat. Oh, what a treat. What warms the heart. Well, thank you very much. And thank you, the listener, for listening to us. And we'll see you next time. Thank you, the listeners. We'll hear you next time. You'll hear us next time.

Yeah, unless we hear you first. Oh, if listeners want to see that in visual format with our actual faces with their eyes. Yeah, it's on our YouTube. It's a youtube.com forward slash lawmen pod. And you just type that into a computer. Just an internet type it into an internet type it into an internet and you can went to the right website. And if you want to went to another one, you could go to patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod and

there join us and get access to a load of bonus episodes. There's a whole bunch of bonus stuff from this and the Patreon discord, which is yet another website that you can access through an internet. And thank you very much to Joe for editing this. Thank you very much, Nick, for coming on and sharing this time with us. Cheers, Meso. Go check out The Weekly Planet. They're lovely guys. Thank you very much to all the people who already support us on Patreon. I'm just full of gratitude. Yeah, me too. Yeah.

To me, because nunchucks were regarded as the most dangerous thing a child could see when I was a kid. They were literally illegal for children to see him in this country. One thing I do know about the UK, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they were the hero turtles, and Michelangelo traditionally had the nunchucks, but he was not allowed in the UK. He had a flute or something. I don't know. He just didn't contribute to the team.

He was the party dude. He was just on vibes. That's right. I'm glad that's the one thing you know to the team. He was the party dude. He was just on vibes. Jason Vale That's right. Jason Vale I'm glad that's the one thing you know about the UK. If we're remembered for nothing else as we drift into obscurity, it should be over-sensitivity to hero turtle antics. Sorry, ninja antics. I can't call them ninja turtles. It sounds wrong.