Loremen Podcast - Loremen S6Ep25 - The Cauldknockle Haunting

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Looking for a tale to warm your knockles? If so, you've come to the wrong place! Alasdair's North Country legend will make your knockles chillier than ever. You're gonna wish you'd invested in 8 tiny beanies to keep 'em warm*. This is the sanguinary story of Stephen Hollin's ghost from Manfield (near Darlington). Stephen is a spectral prankster who will either kill you with a plough coulter or steal all your cheese. Stroll through his field and you'll be lucky to make it out with both your shoes... * Delightful image and business idea © James Shakeshaft, 2025. Mistake Warning: Alasdair says the River Tees goes through Sunderland, when it actually goes through Middlesbrough. Shocking bad mistake. This episode was edited by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the LoreFolk at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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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Buy your tickets now and get a free chili dog. Chili dog not included. The Naked Gun, tickets on sale now. August 1st. Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. With me, Alistair Beckett King. And me, James Shake Shaft. And James, are you ready to come with me to the North Country? Yes!

On the very cusp of Darlington and Durham. Wonderful Darlington. For a chilling tale of murder and Jeremy Beadle-esque pranks. Oh no! But yeah, I really want to hear all about it. You are ready? You ready? In that case, let me tell you of the cold knuckles haunting. Yes, please. It's very hard to say that not in a cold knuckles haunting.

James Shakespeare. Hello. Alice De Beckerft. Hello. Alistair Beckett King. Hello. Well, we started on a positive note, but we've got an apology to make, haven't we, James? We made a mistake. Oh no. Which one? And we, well loads. I mean, we've been making these podcasts since the mid 18th century and we've made millions of mistakes, but we've made a big mistake. And I think the worst thing about it is that I also made the mistake. That is the worst thing about it.

That's what really brought it home to me was that it was me doing it. And you, because normally the biggest mistakes happen when I'm away doing something else and Cantrell is allowed to just run wild. Yes. And we have to, as I've said before, release full episodes afterwards, correcting the mistakes. But we have a correction to make. And the worst thing, the double worst thing about it, that again has really brought it home to me, is I can't remember what we said that was wrong.

We mixed up the solstice and the equinox in a recent episode. Yes. But also, which one is which? I don't know. I don't know. What did we say? And what should we have said? We should have said solstice. Solstice? What we said was equinox a couple of times. So we weren't consistent throughout. It was just randomly throughout the episode one or other of us would get it wrong and

say equinox when we meant solstice. Let's just say solstice now and then edit it back in. Can you do that? Edit it back into a previous episode. To people's memories. Yes, into people's memories, please. Solstice. If we say solstice enough, people will be like, well, those guys are always saying solstice.

Solstice. Equinox. The law boys, no way. They say solstice. Can I demonstrate that I know the difference? Go for it. An equinox is when the day and night are equal, which happens at the opposite times of the year to the solstices. Of course. When you have your summer solstice, longest day, winter solstice, shortest day, halfway between them,

there's your equine. Equi, the same. Nox, There's your equine eye. I've got equi the same, nox, whatever that means. Knight, knight maybe? But it makes kind of sense now. Yeah, that's how I should remember them. And solstice, sol, the sun, stice, that means the other thing. Yes! Different. Ah, yeah, different.

So sorry, everyone. Thank you for pointing that out. Sorry sorry everyone, thank you for pointing that out. Sorry to everyone who angrily pointed that out. I thought they did, they managed to, on the whole, keep a lid on their simmering rage. I don't know, there was a real tone of, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, well, well, well about it. Yes, why, oh why. That is exactly it, yeah. But thanks for pointing that out. I suppose it does well for the algorithm, because it makes it

look like people are engaging with us. If where it turns out, they're actually correcting us. Thank you for boosting our content listeners. Sign up, like, subscribe. Yeah, you get a direct line to give us a telling off. Yeah, that is actually a good reason to get into the Discord. If you've got a correction for a big mistake we've made, just get into that Discord, join the Patreon, get in the Discord and just yell at us. Is that correction worth money? Yeah, how much do you want to correct it? That's the question you gotta ask yourself. Well anyway, what mistakes are we going to make this week?

None. Zero. Yes. We're going to make zero mistakes as I tell you the story of the Cold Knuckles Haunting. Cold Knuckles? Sometimes yes, but also Knuckles. Cold Knuckles. Called Knuckles. Called C-A-U-L-D-K-N-O-C-K-L-E-S. Called Knuckles. Well, this story comes from the monthly chronicle of North Country Law and Legend,

which was a monthly chronicle of North Country Law and Legend. Wow. Released in a sort of compendium. They do it every month. Well, we do it every week. So, it was basically the lawmen of the 19th century. And it was serious intellectual gents like you and me, James. Oh, yeah. Maybe some non-gents. And they released a big compendia. There's five volumes of it. So, I guess it ran for five years. I don't know. It goes on for ages. There's loads of stuff, loads of stories we've touched on before. Or one we haven't is the Cold Knuckles haunting. Oh, Cold Knuckles.

And the stories I'm going to tell you come from volumes four and five from 1887. But before I tell you the Cold Knuckles haunting, basically we've got a structural problem with this episode, James. Which is that the Coldnochle story starts out very scary. And then transitions to quite whimsical and lighthearted. Yeah, it's sort of the wrong way around. That's the way the story is told, so that's the way I have to relate to you. That's the way it's gotta go, yeah. So to ease us into the scariness, I'm going to deal with some of the lighter, some might

say crapper, ghosts that I've found in the monthly chronicle of North Country Lore and Legend. Here's your first ghost, James. It seems a preacher Orton, Preacher John Orton, a Methodist, was riding home to Stockton in the Northeast. Stokton on Tees? Indeed. And it was the banks of the Tees he came near when he encountered a farmer who had no hat. Which whenever this happened was incredibly noteworthy and bizarre, like the kind of thing

you would mention. Isn't there a song about it? That's in Ilkley Moor, Bartat, yes. Just a little bit south in Yorkshire. Very, there's a little bit south, not far. You don't have to go far from the T's to get to North Yorkshire. Going outside without a hat was basically regarded as instant death in those days. One single sunbeam touched your scalp.

Dead. And vampires, a lot of them. And it was later at night when this happened, but still he thought it was very strange that the man had no hat. Still, he was a preacher. He was a Christian. And so he bade the man, good night, he said, but received no answer. I'm reading from the Chronicle now.

It being near midnight and the place quite solitary, Oughton wondered what the man could be doing at that untimely hour. He therefore turned round and followed him to see, if possible, where he went, for he suspected from his appearance that he was upon no good errand. But after retracing a few steps, he lost sight of him all of a sudden. The man disappearing or rather vanishing into a bush on the left-hand side of the road. Okay. Yeah.

What do you think's happening here, James? Well, it started off a bit scary, like a man disappeared, but then it was like, he disappeared into a bush. That's a bit silly. But then James, I don't know why I'm doing that voice. This is me talking. But James, the book says, when Orton went cautiously forward and peered into the bush, there was no living creature there or near about.

Oh, okay. He disappeared into a bush. Or it was some kind of bush portal. Yes. Now what Orton didn't know was that a farmer Wilson had drowned on that very spot, riding home from Stockton market sometime, I think around the 1840s, a little worse for wear. You know, he drowned in a bush. It just takes one inch of bush. Now he drowned in the tees.

Remember, they're near the banks of the tees. So he had drowned not in that very spot, but very near that spot. And of course, in the process of drowning, James, I don't know how much you know about hats and headwear in general. Very floaty. They'd come off, yes. So when his body was found shortly after he died, the hat was missing. And he was understood, he was barred at, he was understood to appear and cause terror to belated travelers. Could I just, just a brief explainer slash just quickly for people not familiar with the area. Tease is a river. The tease is a river. Yes. Yeah. The tease is a river. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not because there's

a lot of things it sounds like it sounds like to tease someone. It sounds like the caffeinated beverage and sounds like something to do with golf. Yep. And just the letter. None of that. In this case, it's a river. He drowned in a river. That's normal. Well, it's not great. In the Northeast, we've got the, we've got the Tyne going through Newcastle. We've got the Weir going through Durham, and then we've got the Tyne going through Newcastle. We've got the Weir going through Durham. And then we've got the Tees going through some other places, not in one. The Weir? The Weir is Weir? Yeah, yeah. And it's spelled Weir, so don't get caught. And I feel I should say the Tees

goes through Darlington and Sunderland, I think. But I'm so, I feel like I've already made a mistake there. Sorry, Sunderland. Simply Darlington. Well, our main story comes from Darlington, James. So once again, you've got to get it out of your head that Darlington is a terribly sort of no cowardish place. It's not. It's not like that. Darlington. Yeah, I've grown a mustache especially, and I've popped on a smoking jacket just to say that. Darlington.

Darlington. Darlington, Darlington. Darlington, is that the T's? Welcome to Darlington. And you know, like the signs you have in towns that say like, welcome to Darlington. And it's like, says like, thank you for driving carefully. It's welcome to Darlington.

Thank you for being fabulous. And it's cursive. Oh, yeah. The whole sign is in cursive. And it's got a little optic that just gives you an instant martini. They won't let you in unless you're wearing a cravat. So preacher Orton, a little bit shaken by his experience, got home and he told his wife how he had followed the steps the figure had taken and peered into the bush and found it empty.

And his wife replied, why man, it's been Ard Wilson. Why man, it's been old Wilson. Oh, the ghost. She knew well who it was. She knew the story. You think a vicar would have been more is more involved in the births and deaths, etc. You'd think you'd think. But I guess he was a, I don't know, a traveling preacher, maybe.

I don't know what methodists are like. Maybe they're just in preach out done. Obviously not a Baptist. Yeah. So possibly that might've been a really good joke. I don't know. You think they'd be good at, yeah, I don't know. Water-based things. That's the first what you might call crap ghost. Right. Preacher Orton's son-in-law also has a spectre of his own. He relays the story as follows. A few days after my father, same voice.

Were they related? One night, a few days after my father died, I was sitting in the backyard getting my pipe when all of a sudden something appeared, James. Now was it A, a dog the size of an elephant? B, an elephant the size of a dog? Or C. A dog the size of an elephant? Whoa. B. An elephant the size of a dog? Or C. A size the dog of an elephant? I only really had two. I know which one I want it to be, but I think it must have been a dog the size of an elephant. Yeah, I wanted it to be an elephant the size of the dog. It was. A great black dog,

as large as an elephant, stood right before me as motionless as a rock. Oh. Now, this was a few days after his father died. He was having a hard time. He had been drinking a little bit. He wasn't feeling well. He said, he had a head ready to split and a feeling not unlike the horrors. But he was a rational fellow, James. I was still in full possession of all my senses. So I determined to find out whether what I seemed to see really existed outside of me or was within my own brain. And therefore I sat watching it for about five minutes.

It stood motionless all the time. It's a bit of science. He did a bit of science there. Drunk guy in the garden having a couple of tinnies doing a bit of science. It's a YouTube channel nowadays. It stood motionless. Yeah, he'd have so many subscribers and lucrative sponsorship deals. It stood motionless all the time. My eye was steadily fixed on it. But at last, in order to satisfy myself, I moved my eye sideways first to the left and then to the right. Is he action man? You can't imagine how suspicious he must have looked at this moment.

Have I told you that my father-in-law, I don't know whether it's just through like an un-hilarious older person miss here, or it's his own invention. He calls it slide eye, rather than side. Well, then side eyes, slide eyes. Great. He's put his own spin on it. His own slide on it. He's given it slide. I slide.

I lovely that is better. I'm afraid this turns out probably not to be a ghost because the big dog moves every time he moved his eyes. Yeah. So as he, as he moved his eye to the left and to the right, the big dog appeared to the left and then to the right. Each time I tried the experiment, I was convinced that it existed only in my own disordered brain. And there's a third crap ghost story, which is a little bit similar. This story comes from Mr. Christie, the Duke of Beclues land surveyor. Right.

An authority, whoever there was one. He told the story of a Northumbrian gent who had committed a murder, but got away with it. And not completely, because he was haunted for the rest of his days by a spectre of the dead man. Normal size, unfortunately. Okay. Normal size. But what he would do, James, is he would come into the room, he would open the door and come into a room and sit down. And the, yeah.

And the gent lived in a mortal fear that he would, as far as I can tell, he was afraid that he would go, oh, hello, and reveal in doing that, that he was a murderer. I'm not sure how, you know, if there had been somebody else there, they would say, nobody, you just said hello, but nobody came in. You must have murdered someone who is now a ghost. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The only explanation for that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was his fear. He was ever after haunted by the ghost of the murdered man dressed in the costume he had worn when alive. This unwelcome visitor was in the habit of coming at all hours without any formal announcement, just opening the room door and walking in.

Which another ghost are more famous for knocking, but it's just quite rude ghost. Or just simply walking through a wall. Or walking through the door. Not this guy, just opens the door comes in. If the gentleman had returned his salute, it might have disclosed his secret. I don't agree that it would have. No, that's No, that's a lot of leaps for many witnesses. So, whenever the door opened, it was his habit to look round and put his finger to his eye in such a way as to cause himself to see double if the entrance was composed of flesh and blood.

Okay. I'm not a detective, although I did want to be one when I was a kid. But I would say that is more suspicious. James, can we become detectives? Yes, we can be detectives, Alistair. Yes, detective handshake. Yep. We first thing we need to make business cards. James and me are now detectives, listener. Okay.

We need to make business cards. Forget the rest of the episode. We're detectives now. Please get into the discord and ask us to solve cases. What were you saying though? Whimsical ones. Thanks. Whimsical cases only.

Nothing real. You know, the fun crimes. I only want rich people who've been murdered. What I was saying was, I think that's more suspicious. If you poke yourself in the eye whenever someone walks into the room. Yeah. That's, that's, words going to get around. If you see someone doing that, they aren't definitely a murderer.

Yeah. Also, have you, I, I'm not a murderer. I'd just like to get that on the record as well, but I have. It's suspicious how he just came out and said it, eh listener? Hey, I'm just saying as an, as a, as a, as a, I'm establishing that I'm a normal non-murdering guy. Okay. All right. I have waved at someone that was not waving at me, which makes me now feel like if someone

else saw that, they might have thought I was a murderer. I don't think they would have. I don't think they would have. Okay. I, to be honest, I've also poked myself in the eye. This kind of makes me think that ghosts, in someone's conception at least, materialise inside your eye and only you can see them. Or are just, someone might, a cynical person might say, hallucinations of some kind. Yeah, yeah, they might say that. He would put his finger to his eye in such a way as to cause himself to see double if

the entrant was composed of flesh and blood, while if it was only his disembodied friend materialised for the nonce, the vision remained single and he took no notice. So he's not a murderer, but he doesn't want people to think he's a murderer, but he doesn't want people thinking he's what? Quite. So that was quite a crap ghost number three. Wait a minute, thinking about the finger to the eye thing, do people thinking he's what? Quite. So that was quite a crap ghost. Number three. Wait a minute. Thinking about the finger to the eye thing. Do you think he's bringing his finger up to like touch his nose so he goes cross-eyed staring at it?

Well, I think I'm just poking myself in the eyeball now to get a sort of second, a second picture going. It works fine. Ow. James, don't do it hard. Again, listener, we are doctors and we do recommend that you poke your eyes, but not hard. Well, I'm holding my finger up right in front of me and bringing it right to my nose while I was looking at it. That's making myself go cross-eyed.

Yeah, that would work. That would work. Yeah. Actually, you could just go cross-eyed. You could just go cross-eyed without poking your eye would work. That would work. Yeah. Actually, you could just go cross-eyed. You could just go cross-eyed without poking your eye at all. That might be better. So those were just your tasters.

Your starter ghosts, James. Your amused boos. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, very good. Those were just some small plates to get you in the mood. Where? Where?

Now for the called Knuckles Haunton. The called Knuckles Haunton. The called Knuckles Haunton. I'm not sure I'm making it more frightening. Me Knuckles are so awkward. Oh me Knuckles are cold. The coldest of Knuckles. Somewhere west of Darlington. Which again is a South Durham, almost North Yorkshire town.

Indeed. And not a home county dandy dwelling. It's their second home. It's where the dandies go to just let their hair down. Drive around with scarves blowing in their open top cars. Mm-hmm. Well, if you are in Darlington, you simply must visit Manfield. Oh, come on. Yeah. Yeah, you simply must visit Manfield. Oh, come on.

Yeah. Yeah. You're not happy with Manfield? Darling, Darlington, welcome to Manfield. You've got to go to the Manfield. Not to be confused with Mansfield. We're talking about Manfield, just one. Cause Mansfield, that's simply a field that belongs to a man.

A Manfield is a field full of men. I think it's actually Maine like stone. Oh, okay. Now weirdly, Dalough is in the Palatinate County of Durham, salutes. But Manfield is actually in North Yorkshire in spite of just being a little bit to the west. For some reason, I know, it's just nuts isn't it? Just can you imagine? No. of just being a little bit to the west. For some reason, even stranger, the Chronicle

of Lore and Legend calls it Tanfield. I think what's happened is, it's the start, the first word of the article is Manfield, and it's got a big ornamental capital T, you know, like you might have a big letter. I think someone's just chosen the wrong one. Ah, right. And it's took a lot of effort, so they're not going to do it again. They've done it, well, they've done it now. And also it was over a hundred years ago. So it's really too late to correct them.

Unlike our podcasts, which you can correct on a weekly basis. At weirdly, Tanfield is a real place. It's a village on the north side of Durham, but it's not this place. Manfield is described as a scattered village on the south bank of the Tees. I think it's even less populated now than it was in the 19th century. So, it was quite small then, and it's still pretty small now, if not smaller. And between Manfield and the River Tees were some low fields called the cars. C-A-R-R-S. Well, come on.

The cars. This is, there's a Manfield, which is stone in between it. There's some cars and there's tea everywhere. Well, I was, I wondered what cars meant because I, I lit when I was a kid, lived in a place called Carville in the Northeast. So there's lots of cars around in the northeast. And so I went to the Cars Wetland Project blog, where they have an explanation of the origin of the word. Apparently, it's a Viking word for like a flatland or marsh. That makes sense. Yeah. Just as you approach the river, you'd have sort of flat fields. If you'd been wandering around in days of yore, you might have come across a lonely hind house or servants building where a farmer named Stephen Hollin was murdered by his two nephews.

Wow. Yeah, in an appalling case of nephew on uncle violence. Yeah. At first, they buried his body in the field, but then people started asking questions. Where's Stephen? Has anyone seen Stephen Holland? These are just examples of what they might have said. Yeah. And I guess they got nervous and thought someone might start literally digging around, so they dug up his bones and burned them in a brick oven. Needless to say,

Stephen Holland's ghost was not best pleased. I well remember coming home from gathering mushrooms in these cars on misty autumn evenings and looking round quite expecting to see Stephen Hollins' ghost coming along the long grey fields in the brown suit and low crowned hat of which I had so often heard. And while this writer never actually saw Stephen, he did hear many stories. Old Bessie Tweddle. Pardon? Old Bessie Tweddle, old Bessie Tweddle.

Old Bessie Tweddle. Old Bessie Tweddle. The Tweddles, of course, have been blacksmiths in Manfield, as long as anyone could remember. And old Bessie Tweddle was the last living person to have seen Stephen's ghost. Okay. And she told many a tale. The first one is the scariest. I've said before on this podcast, the thing about ghosts is that they don't kill people.

Usually. Well, James, get ready to hand me some humble pie for me to eat. Because we've got a murdering ghost on our hands. Don't be too scared. But it is frightening. So be a bit scared. A servant boy who came to our grandfather's blacksmith shop rather late in the evening with a plow coulter, which I think is a plowshare, the blade of a plow, with a plow coulter to be sharpened was warned that he might see Stephen as he returned home. He had to pass through the cars to another lonely farmhouse. He replied that he didn't care for Stephen.

If Stephen came to him, he would throw the plough coulter at his head. Oosh, that's big talk. Yeah, very big talk. Well, let's see where it got him. Next morning, his dead body was found in the fields, all scratched and torn. Aye, aye, aye. Of course, Stephen Holland had killed him. And he immediately goes on to relate another equally scary tale. Mm-hmm.

A relation of my father's who was coming from Grunton one winter night in the snow. From Grunton. Real place. Huh? A relation of my father's saw Stephen's low-crowned hat over the hedge. She ran for her life and lost her shoe in fright. Many people searched for the shoe, but it could never be found. Stephen had got it.

Can you imagine that? Sometimes he murders people and sometimes he steals shoes. He took a shoe. There were of course many Stephen related incidents at Cold Knuckles, which was the name of his farm. Sometimes it's Cold Knuckles, like I said, according to an article in the Northern Echo in 2009 by Chris Lloyd, it's Cawd Knuckles. C-A-W-D, new word, Knuckles. Cawd Knuckles. Cawd Knuckles. Cawd Knuckles. C-A-W-D, new word, knuckles. Cawd Knuckles.

Cawd Knuckles. Cawd Knuckles. I'm sure the Northern Echo has come up on this podcast before, and I'm sure I must have made this joke before. Go on. The Northern Echo is how they did the end of the Biker Grove theme tune. Just adjusting my Darlington cravat. Because there's an echo in it.

If you don't remember listening, you got to remember that. I think all of our listeners, every one of them knows the Biker Grove ending noise. Thank you. Thank you to the tiny Tim of remembering Biker Grove. The article in the Northern Echo, by the way, is called, has anyone seen the ghost of Stephen Holland dot dot dot and lived? Oh, which is a classic example of the Betteridge's law. Have you heard of that?

Beth who? Betteridge. Betteridge is a journalism, a professor of journalism. What's the law? And Betteridge's law states that any headline that is written in the form of a question can be answered with the word no. Ah, yes. Okay.

Because if the paper was confident enough, they would just print a statement. Yes, yes, yes. But in this case, because it all happened over a hundred years ago, the answer really is no. Nobody has seen the ghost of Stephen Holland and lived. They are now all dead. And there's men to be a no. Yeah. So that's the spookier answer. I tried to track down where Cold Knuckles is. Apparently there's a Cold Knuckles, or there was a Cold Knuckles in Weardale, but this is south of the Tees. So... Weirddale.

So, Weirddale. Weirddale, the dale around the river Weir. James, you just have to accept that these places exist. Not everywhere is Oxfordshire. Not everywhere. It isn't made up. Come on. These are real places. Weirddale.

Tees. The River Tees. It's made out of tea. It's not made out of tea. Stop making things up just because I'm never going to go there. Oh, you're never going to go there now. If you set foot in Darlington. Or Zimbly Darlington.

In big trouble. I'll whip that cravat off you as soon as I look at you. Roll you downhill in a barrel. So I don't know. I guess Cold Knuckles is perhaps a humorous name that you would give to a farm in a variety of areas, is my guess maybe. And it was in Cold Knuckles that Stephen's activities transitioned from the murderous and the shoe pilferous to the Jeremy Beadlesque.

At Cold Knuckles, as his own house was called, he was on quite familiar terms with the inmates. He would sometimes hold the Milker store, preventing all admittance at his pleasure. I forgot to look up what the Milker store was. I guess a door to where the cows are milked would be my guess. Yeah, I think that's a decent guess. That's a good enough guess. If that isn't true, they should call it something different. Sometimes in a playful mood, he would roll cheeses downstairs. Bit of fun. Yeah, good enough guess. If that isn't true, they should call it something different. Sometimes in a playful mood, he would roll cheeses downstairs.

Bit of fun. Yeah. What a rascal. I feel like that's quite easy to deal with compared to being murdered in a field. Depends on the cheese. Just store your cheese on the ground floor. One, yeah, I've never, to be honest, I've never seen a cheese upstairs. You've never seen upstairs cheese? I don't think I've ever seen upstairs cheese.

I might. Cheese is a downstairs treat. Very much so. Very much so. Listen, if you've ever had cheese upstairs, write it in and tell us. Yeah. There are people that can help. Have you ever seen cheese? Can cheese be taken upstairs? I suppose it could, but you wouldn't. Cheese and biscuits is not a bedtime snack. It's too crumbly. And you're going to start seeing elephants the size of dogs.

And cheese dreams. Yeah. So if anything, you may have been helping there. You may have seen some, you may have seen a roll of cheese placed ill advisedly next to a bed and thought I'm not having that and just rolled it straight downstairs. Thank you very much. Don't thank us. No problem. Just Stephen Owens. I will murder you though, if you cross that field. As long as it, as long as it wasn't too soft debris, cause although we are fully a full wheel of Brie, I would like to see that go downstairs. Cause if it's soft

enough, it would kind of like track into the, like take the shape of the stairs and become quite efficient. Like a cog. Yes. Cog. A cog of Brie. A Brie cog. You'd end up with a Brie cog. And that's where Brie cogs come from. It's like just so stories, but quite a bit less racist. Have you read them?

Incredible. Incredible that that was a book you would give to children, even in the 90s when I read it. Are they, is the subtitle just so racist? They're just so racist. They're just so racist. I know you may think I'm just being a sort of a sensitive woke flake, but seriously, just look at the book. It's very racist.

He stole a tailor's thread, took it upstairs and threw it down from a hole in the ceiling into the tailor's face. Oh, yeah. Thread? A thread. Okay. Not so bad. I was kind of assumed there was a needle attached. Well, yeah, even if there was, it's notread? A thread. Okay. Not so bad. I was kind of assumed there was a needle attached.

Well, yeah, even if there was, it's not going to do that. But I mean, also the tailor would have had to be looking directly up at the hole for that to work. So it feels like we've moved towards the area of antics. Just silliness. Yes. Yes. He's gone from being like a modern style ghost, who's you have to pass through his area and

he might murder you into a kind of household spirit, more like a fairy. Hmm. You know, it's just sort of, well, I suppose, you know, once he's retiring, moving towards ghost retirement and he wants like somewhere nice to be. He's just winding down, just doing a few gags on the side. And he's also, he's got his rules, no cheese upstairs. No cheese upstairs, No cheese upstairs. Sometimes thread upstairs, very quickly downstairs.

Also, could someone fix this hole? That's why he's, yeah, he's just trying to say, yeah, fix the hole. He would ride the horses at night and they'd be all, all in a lather in the morning. Hagridden. Yeah, exactly. All foaming and eyes staring, you know what horses are like. Yes. And they've been out on the lash. Occasionally the noise of threshing, of course with a flail then, would be heard and dust and

calf would be seen streaming abundantly out of the barn door. But the people there didn't, they weren't really bothered. They knew who it was. They would just say, it's only Stephen. A servant girl was on such familiar terms with him that she used when she had a heavy skeel full of calf meat to convey to say in a coaxing manner, take hold Stephen. And the invisible Stephen used to hold up the other side and carry exactly as a real person would do. Wow.

Which is really kind of cool, but also seems like something maybe she would do as like a bit. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like just like, Oh, come on, Steven, help me out. Oh, he's carrying it.

Oh, Steven, is there some stairs behind this low wall? But the strangest of all his pranks was a meaningless one. A cow had carved one night. I'd love it if this one brought it back to spooky. Yeah. I'm going to make it as spooky as I can. A cow had carved one night and the calf disappeared and could nowhere be found. At last it was heard to blare in the air and there it was thrown across the rigging tree

of the house. Whoa. No, the rigging tree is the, I should have told you what a rigging tree was. How can you be chilled without being able to visualize it? Yes. In that part of the country, that's the name for the sort of the beam that runs across the top of a roof. Oh, right. The very, the ridge basically, rig like ridge of the very top of the house. So the calf was presumably two, four legs on one side and hind legs on the other.

Yes. How did it get up there? Of course Stephen had put it there. Of course he had. It was a very quick and powerful birth. Is that the right noise for a calf? To be honest, they do make a similar noise. Yeah, he might be winded. In broad strokes, you're airing on the bar town. I'm in sheep territory.

You're in bar town, yeah. Yeah, forget it James. And that is the last of Stephen's mischief that is recorded by the unnamed correspondent. He ends by saying, Many more such tales could I tell. These tales were spread far and wide over the neighbouring villages and formed the subject of conversation round many a winter fire. Their real existence was devoutly believed.

We durst not venture on a word of unbelief to Bessie. Had she not seen Stephen herself when a girl? Alas, he no more revisits the glimpses of the moon. He was conjured into a well by a priest. Oh, nice one, priest. Will he ever return? I'm afraid not. The end. Done. What? That's the end. You're supposed to do like, question mark?

Oh, you just really wanted to draw a line under that? No, you meant to keep it open for a sequel. But no. No, he'll never return. That's the end. He was conjured into a well by a priest. What more information do you need? Yeah. So that is the story of A Cold Knuckle's haunting. Well, that was haunting and all so silly. He was conjured into a well by a priest. What more information do you need? So that is the story of a cold-knuckles haunting. Well that was haunting and also silly. Very silly, yeah.

The real tonal shifts from Stephen. Are you ready to pass judgement on the cold-knuckles haunting, James? Absolutely. The first category is naming. Wow. They're, they're knuckles. They're cold. Let me hear you say it. How're, they're Knuckles. They're cold. Let me hear you say it.

How cold were they? Knuckles. I mean, Derry. Oh, yeah, they're called Knuckles. Wonderful. I'm happy to accept Weird Dale, even though that's not what it's called. I like Weird Dale. Grunton.

Darlington. Darlington. Old Bessie Tweddle. Old Bessie Tweddle. Old Bessie Tweddle. I quite like the kind of the communal gardenness of Stephen the ghost. Yeah, Stephen, quite a low-key name there for a ghost. Not that sinister. Manfield is also perhaps not that characterful a name.

The Manfield. It's like a minefield. I dunno. It's probably fine. I think it's high. I think I'm going to go five just because I really like Weird Dale a lot. And I think it's because I used to listen to a lot of Adam and Joe. So the Steven factor makes me chortle inside.

Okay, good. So the fact that Steven is quite a rubbish name for a ghost has actually helped. Yeah, yeah. It's so bad, it's good. That bodes so well for just the rest of this podcast, really. My second category is Supernatural. Way. Okay, yes. A dog the size of an elephant that follows you around the room, follows your eyes around the room. Yeah. Because the ghost is in your eyeball.

I think. I think it's just, just inside your eyeball. Yeah. Poking yourself in the eye to tell if someone's a ghost or not. Maybe those little floats, maybe those little floaters you see sometimes are ghosts, they can be veryers you see sometimes are ghosts. They can be very small ghosts. Tiny little ghosts.

Yes, they could easily be. There's no reason why they're not. You can't prove they aren't. I can't. You can't, no one else can see them. Classic ghost. And then of course, Steven themselves, hiding behind walls, stealing shoes, killing a plow boy.

Killing one, what? You kill one plow boy and everyone bangs on about it. Nobody even mentions when you threw a piece of thread out of a hole or rolled cheese downstairs. Throwing darts in Taylor's eyes. Yeah, that's good. Chucking cheese down the stair. That's just helpful, but it is spooky. And so I'm going to give him- Spooky cheese mischief. I'm going to give him a four. Four? Oh, okay. Well, what could I have done to make that a five, James? Let me know so I'm going to give him a four. Four? Okay. Well, what could I have done to make that a five, James?

Let me know so I can be better next time. That it would not have ones where people say, do a big test as to whether it's a ghost and it isn't a ghost. Yeah. Yeah. It did turn out it wasn't a ghost in two of them. Fair enough. Fair enough.

I accept that. In one of them. I kind of think it was not really a ghost for the guy who was poking his eyeball. Makey eye man. You think it was a real ghost? You think he was doing that for fun? No, of course he was doing it because it was a real ghost. Category number three. Category the third. Watch out. Steven's about. Category of the third.

Watch out. Steven's about. Modelled after, I'm sure you know it well, James, the Beatles about theme tune. Yes. I think we did do a video explainer on the idea of Beadle. We may have. I'll pop a link. I'll see if I can dig it out and pop a link in there just so people can get up to speedle speedle speedle. He was. He was a TV prankster in the 90s, 80s and 90s.

He was a TV prankster with the vibes of a innkeeper, I think. A mischievous innkeeper. On your TikToks, people are making a career out of it. They're just telling their partner that this bowl full of flowers stuck to the surface when it clearly isn't. And they pretend to pick it up quickly and they get flour on them. Silly. Yeah. It's just people who need to break up now. Immediately. That's what we think pranks are these days. But back in the 90s, in the good old 90s, it was simply making someone think that their car had been put in a car crusher in front of them. And they swear a lot. And then telling them that their car was fine.

That was entertainment. That was our Shakespeare. Yes. Maybe slip in a Montana so that they calm down. Just please stop, please stop swearing. And I feel like Stephen's antics sort of span, you know, the, the, from, you probably would swear if you saw a body that had been murdered, but also maybe shoe stealing is a bit more in the area of prank.

And, and cheese down the stairs. Yeah. Very, very, very whimsical, very lighthearted. Yes. Is, I think it's a five, cause it's making me 30 of Jeremy Beedle. And to be honest, since you mentioned the category, I've just had Stevens about, you better watch out, cause Stevens about running through my head, which is the theme tune for Beedle's, Beedle's about.

Yeah. The, you'd better watch out. Quite threatening. Yeah. You'd better watch out. Right. Well, I'm going to take that five and crush it in a crusher right in front of you. No, it wasn't the real five. It wasn't the real five. Your

five is fine. What the bleep? What have you done to my bleep in bleep, you bleep? Final category. Shake Shaft investigates. Yes. Yes, thank you. Now you might say, how come it's Shakespeare and not Shakespeare and ABK or whatever? And I refer you to the John Long episode where you're a detective and I'm your ghost assistant,

a la Randall and Hopkirk deceased. Yes. So that obviously is the reason it's Shakespeare investigates. And the thing is, whenever another detective enters the room, I will poke myself in the eye just in case they are another ghost that's trying to help me out on the case. Just to make sure I'm a ghost. Yeah. And actually viewers at home are encouraged to poke their

eyes while watching the show, which might explain why it was eventually cancelled. Yes. Yeah. It's like a version of when you would put on 3D glasses, but much cheaper. And Poco's eyeballs. And ultimately you could never see in 3D again. Instead of making the show 3D, we made all 3D stuff 2D. Yeah, this is a great TV show for a start. I think this is another wonderful TV show that we've come up with.

What I was thinking is, because we're kind of going to different regional areas, we're finding locals that have got the local knowledge that will be able to help us out. And I'm thinking we're in the Northeast. We've got a ghost that's limited itself to cars. Okay. Yeah. We need Reg Vardy. Reg Vardy as the sort of huggy bear. Yes, exactly. Yes, get Reg Vardy. I still can't sing it. Reg Vardy.

Reg Vardy. Yes. I mean, for the non-eagle minded listener who doesn't remember who Reg Vardy is. For the eagle memory, you don't need help. He was basically a car dealer from the Northeast who haunted the, the tele, the airwaves. He haunted the television. Yes.

The local adverts. Very, very memorable if you grew up in the Northeast. And I think he would be able to help us out on this one. Although I believe Reg himself is not with us, so he would also be a ghost. There's quite a lot of ghosts in this show. I had to poke myself in the eye so many times. Is that you, Reg Varney? Dressed,ressed kind of

like a 70s pimp for some reason. So what's the score for Shake Shed Investigators? Five out of five. There you go, James. Did the story live up to the scary, scary title? That was great. Thanks very much, Alistair. I assume the listener is on the edge of their seat, ready to complain about mistakes we've made, accents we've done. If they want to get those complaints directly into our ears, what do they do, James? Well, the most efficient way would be to put it in a five-star review.

Another way would be to join us at patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod. Another way would be just to tell a friend about the podcast and trick them into listening to it. And thank you to all the people who already do do all of those things. And also thank you very much to Joe for editing this. Thank you, Joe. Cawd knuckle. Cawd knuckles. Cawd knuckles. The Cawd. Yeah, say it with a Northern accent, it makes sense. The Cawd knuckles haunting. I mean, knuckles are sore Cawd. I mean, knuckles are absolutely frozen, man. What you need to do in this scenario is not wear those gloves for weightlifters that have the little peekaboo knuckle holes.

They have the knuckles cut out. Is that really a thing? Like pickpockets, but just for knuckles. Like, I think they're also fingerless, but they also have little peekaboo knuckles. Little peekaboo knuckles. That's very flirty. Hand chaps. Hand chaps.