Loremen Podcast - Loremen S6Ep38 - Vicky's Ticker

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Queen Victoria, the second longest Queen of England (at the time of recording), escaped death on numerous occasions. But did she ever explore the spirit world? Alasdair recounts an series of (attempted) murder mysteries and relates the strange tale of a stolen timepiece. While James attempts to answer that age old question: who watches the watch, man? Find out more about Vicky's Ticker in Roger Clarke's article on the Spitalfields Life blog here. 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

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from Days of Yore. With me, Alastair Beckett King. And me, James Shakeshap. And James, I have got a tale of mystery and attempted murder for you from the reign of Long Queen Victoria, as everyone is now calling her. Yes, they are. We did this one live. We did it live in Ballam. I don't know if you would call them an audience. Would you say two handfuls of people?

Yes, depending on the size of your hands. And the people? One handful for James of people at the cheerful, earful podcast festival. But we had a lot of fun. And we hope you will too. It's the mystery of Vicky's ticker. Vicky ticker. Vicky ticker.

Vicky ticker. James, I've got a murder mystery for you. Oh. Well, actually, it's not exactly a murder mystery. It's a murder and a mystery. Uh-oh. It's a murder and a mystery. Or, to be more honest, an attempted murder, and an unsolved mystery.

Are we going to solve that mystery? Well... No, probably, probably not. We had better make some friends along the way. The real treasure were the attempted murders. There's one thing you can say about the English, and that is, we love a long queen, don't we? Oh, yes, that's very true. Oh, we like that.

Elizabeth one, yes, Elizabeth two. Thank you, I think I will. We love a nice long queen, don't we? And we hate a short queen. Yes. Queen of Scots. Matilda of Scots. Get out of town.

Lady Jane Grey. Queen Anne. Boo! Boo, boo. To the short queens. Let me take you back, James. It's the 1880s. Zah Alexander the Great was assassinated

when Revolutionaries threw a bomb at his carriage. President Garfield was just assassinated. Which day of the week? Do you think that happened on James? No. Was it? Was it a Monday? It was on Monday.

He was shot on a Monday. He was the gun in a lasagna. Conflicting. He didn't die on a Monday, but he was shot on a Monday. And a quick sidebar, if I may, side by this early in the episode, Alexander Graham Bell invented the metal detector

to try to find the assassin's bullet lodged in Garfield's chest. Wow. Do you think it worked? Did Garfield die of radiation poisoning? He died of metal detector. No, he died of bullet. He died a bullet, yeah.

And we can infer from that that the metal detector didn't work. I think it maybe did work. I think they were looking in the wrong part of the president. I, not to say I'm different, I would have checked the whole president for bullet. Yes, yes, definitely. But maybe you invented the metal detector, but not the metal slash bullet extractor. Yeah, yeah, that's true.

You just say it's there. Yeah. It's in there. It's in him. Which, to be honest, at that point, he's just invented a finger. Say, it's in there. I mention that only to say that the assassination of public figures was in the air in the 1880s. And in 1882, Roderick.

Edward McLean took a shot at Beloved Long Queen Victoria with a revolver at Windsor station. I read about this horrible attack in a book called The Lucky Queen by Barry Charles, a guy with two first names. And that book was published in 2014. But he either wrote two books about this subject or he wrote one book with two different titles because in 2012 he published a book called Kill the Queen! Oh! with an exclamation mark and I think maybe after a couple of years

the publisher were like let's change the title to something less inflammatory oh I thought that might have come out afterwards and that was like the musical version because it had an exclamation mark at the end no it was originally killed the queen and then it was the lucky queen

which I still think I mean maybe not that lucky in the context of all the attempted assassinations as soon as I started reading about this I thought this is a good premise for a podcast And of course it turns out there already is a podcast if you want to know like this, but with more facts. You can listen to the BBC Sounds podcast, Killing Victoria, by Dr. Bob, Nicholson.

I just feel like if you're a Dr. Bob, you probably want to be called Dr. Bob. Yes, yes, yes. Now, Wikipedia lists Roderick McLean's nationality as Scottish. And the first thing I read about this guy. So, Roddy McLean. Roddy McLean. Okay. We've got a picture, actually.

I wasn't ready for that. Oh. The prisoner? I have to lean my head. Yeah, yeah, spoiler alert, they caught him. There is a picture from the London Illustrated News of Roderick McLean and his gun, not to size, otherwise it would be twice the size of his own head.

And there is an image of him being apprehended there. Whoa. As depicted in the London Illustrated news. Can we talk about some of these people in these pictures? First of all, the guy on the back, I like the guy on the back of the carriage. I like his energy. That's John Brown, I think.

That's John Brown. That's from comedy. That's Billy Connelly's John Brown. That's Billy Colonies John Brown. He's like, get out of here. He's like, hey, don't you dare. The River Clayd. My impression of Billy Connolly saying the River Clyde, I can only do that, I can only do that river.

That's very good. Can't have him doing saying any other rivers. The ooze. Would be quite easy in the Billy Connolly voice. Now, I think we have to talk about the guy on the horse who's got quite a like, oh, what's going on over there? Kind of attitude. And his horse, which is going, let's just get out of here.

This seems dangerous. And then, of course, there is the guy shooting, of course. Yes, and that is, that's Roderick McLean. Maclean or McLean, I'm not sure how you would pronounce it. I've got a new favourite. Who's that? The guy whose Monocle is about to fall out. he's got a top hat which he's lifted and his monocle the artist has managed to capture the moment

just before a man's monicle falls out. That's incredible. And also, as a patriot, he's not looking at the gunman, he's looking at the queen to see if she's okay. Fortunately, she is. The bullet passed through the window of the carriage, I think, in this case. Really? Wow. Very dramatic. Wikipedia, and I don't know if we have Wikipedia editors in, but statistically the chances are we don't. Given our audience, I think we've got ten. I think there's a mistake on Wikipedia. Wikipedia lists McLean's nationality as Scottish. And the first thing I read about him was that he believed everyone in England was against him. And I thought, checks out. I've literally never met a Scottish person who didn't feel that way. But as far as I can tell, he's not Scottish. He was born in England, who's born in London,

and so was his dad. So I just think Wikipedia is wrong. He's not Scottish. As far as I can tell, he just has a Scottish name. And a Scottish attitude. And a Scottish attitude towards the English. He wasn't Scottish, but he was tragic.

I don't mean to imply that all Scottish people are tragic. He was kind of a tragic figure. He came from a wealthy family. His father was the proprietor of fun. What? Is that like the sort of the chief inspector of Bantz? The landlord of Glee. Was he constantly on a staggered?

do. It was a humorous magazine, and we can only imagine how hilarious, like an 1880s satirical magazine must have been. It's all pictures of Benjamin Israeli or someone. It's basically a Toby jug with some

labels. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like a knockoff of punch. Oh. But it was like a bit of a downmarket punch. Fun. Fun magazine. Right. Okay. All the kids are reading it. But Roderick's life was the opposite it of fun. He didn't work. He lived off the charity of his family who sent him a pittance and by this time

he was basically... They were English as well. So I mean, this checks out. All the English people are against him. They went out to get him. He was going from town to town in the South Coast and he wrote a poem to Queen Victoria which was very bad and full of spelling mistakes and it was returned unread because the Queen doesn't accept unsolicited poems. That's true, because if the queen were to write a poem like that, he would be able to sue. Then he could sue her for giving her the idea for the set on the throne poem. Yes. It was returned by Lady Bidolf, B-I-D-U-L-L-F.

I mean, B-I-D-U-L-P-H, Lady Bidolf, the Queen's Lady in Waiting, which I always think sounds kind of dangerous being a lady in waiting. It's like lying in wait. Yeah. I've been a sort of lady's ninja. It's that she's behind a curtain. She's there waiting. It's not the lady you need,

but the lady you deserve? Yeah, so Batman, basically. She's basically Batman. You basically, you die a lady in waiting or you live long enough to become a lady who is no longer waiting? You've waited, whatever you're waiting for, you've waited for, you've got it, which is dead.

A larger audience could have applauded us to stop that. So this guy was obviously very unwell, and I don't want to make too much hay out of that. He believed that the colour blue belonged to him. Oh. Yes, and that other people wore it deliberately to provoke him. Classic English people behaviour. And he wrote to his sister saying that if she didn't send him more money, he was going to murder someone. So nobody could have seen this attempt coming.

On the 2nd of March 1882, at the age of 28, he took a shot at the Queen's carriage and thankfully missed and Victoria survived unscathed. According to the Illustrated London News, 3rd of November 1882, he was apprehended by some Eaton boys, who, from the account, sound frankly insufferable. It was a big deal, and he wasn't the only bad poet involved, because William Topaz McGonigle, famously one of the worst poets in the English language, supposedly. He's famous for writing a poem about the Tay Bridge disaster, which I'm looking around for recognition. Yeah, whoa, the Tiberidge disaster. That's on tape now that you support that.

What colors, Topaz? I don't know enough about colors. Is it a yellow? It can be a yellow in red, but I think it comes in a variety of colors. Why'd you ask? Well, because if he thinks blue, people wear blue to mock him, and then, oh, we moved on. And then a blue guy.

William Topaz McGonigal did mock him, I'm afraid. Yeah, yeah, I think you can get blue topas, you know. He wrote a really terrible poem. James, would you like to read the poem? The scantion on it is bad. Yeah, okay. This is only the first four stanzas. Oh, God prosper long, our noble queen, and long may she reign.

McLean, he tried to shoot her, but it was all in vain. For God, he turned the ball aside McLean aimed at her head, and he fell very angry because he didn't shoot her dead. is very sarcastic. There's a divinity that hedges a king and so it does seem and my opinion is

it has hedged our most gracious queen so you know what? God's not a sexist actually. McLean must be a madman which is obvious to be seen or Elsie wouldn't have tried to shoot our most beloved queen.

Everyone for the chorus. No, it goes on for many more stanzas and it's terrible. He's done Queen. I know he's not rhymed Queen with Queen, but he's ended two... Three lines with Queen, and we're only halfway through the poem.

McLean, what do you think happened to him, James? Does it have to rhyme? It has to rhyme with Queen, your prediction. Fortunately. When he saw that it was McLean and Queen, I was like, brilliant, okay, guys. Get my poetry box. I think I feel a poem coming on.

I think he was Scottish. Did he end up in the clink? Very, very close. Yes, he was found not guilty. What? On grounds of insanity. Ah. Which I think, fair enough, like he clearly was mentally ill.

And he spent the rest of his life in Broadmoor asylum. Oh, yeah. Which, I guess from his point of he was slightly preferable to Eastbourne, because his life had been quite miserable before that. But the Queen was not happy about this, because she was very unhappy with the phrase, guilty when he obviously had done it and so they had to change the law because the queen was so annoyed and the trial of lunatics act of 1883 the next year changed the wording of that to

guilty basically guilty but insane just to keep the queen happy I mean you should probably being a queen kind of learn to kind of get over certain things but I can see how it would be annoying shake shaft to queen get over it podcast a blast It's dead queen. Very dead queen, come on. Extremely, but very long as well. Yoles, ever so long. Yeah, so I think the wording is,

until like the 60s was something like guilty of the act or a mission charged, but insane, so as not to be responsible. Which, you know, fair enough. But this wasn't the first time someone had tried to assassinate Long Queen Vic, so maybe that's why she was so irritated. Oh, okay, okay.

She had many, many brushes with death until 1901 when she had a really big, brush. Like a proper brush, like when you get everything out. Yeah, serious. And you'd brush behind. She died, as what I'm saying in 1901. I'll stop making jokes.

She had a big brush with old age. So, fair enough. You know, good innings. This was the seventh attempt on her life. The seventh unsuccessful, McLean was the seventh person to try and get old long queen Vic. Rowdy Roddy McLean? Yeah.

Whoa. And in fact, There were several others, which I will recap briefly for you now. Edward Oxford, 1840, shot at the Queen with two pistols. However, the bullets were never found. And so the prosecution couldn't prove that the pistols were loaded. Where's Alexander Graham Bell when you need him? Not born yet, I want to say, because this is like 40 years earlier.

With his magic finger to say, bullet. Bullet. Did he have Winston Churchill's voice? Yeah, I believe he did. Great impression then. Edward Oxford was sent to bedlam before being granted his freedom in Australia later in life. Oh. And he really made a good thing of his life.

He made a good fist of his life. It became quite successful in Australia and certainly ended up better than you would expect someone who weirdly tried to assassinate the queen for no particular reason. 1842, John Francis attempted to shoot the queen, was convicted and sentenced. But the queen herself stepped in and reprieved him, and the sentence was commuted to transportation to Norfolk. Island. Now then. Yeah. She really got tired of it, didn't she by the seventh?

Yeah, because early on she's like, oh, let him off. And by the seventh time, she's like, you've got to change the law. Make him pay. It doesn't sound as bad as it is, because Norfolk Island sounds really near to the United Kingdom. Yeah, well, it sounds like someone's misunderstood Norfolk. Yeah, it's Australia. It's very far away, it's in Australia.

In 1842, only a few days after the attempt to... in the previous attempt in 1842, John William Bean tried again. Mr. Bean? Mr. Bean tried to assassinate the Queen, but it didn't work because his gun was loaded with tobacco instead of gunpowder. What?

And did he smoke a bullet? They were some odd people. The people who tried to do this were odd fellows. The era newspaper was very unimpressed with this attempt and wrote, the fiend, miscreant, monster, bean, has sadly vulgarised treason. Oh.

Yeah. Oh, it's very gauche to try and assassinate the queen with tobacco in your gun. What did Topaz make of it? Surely he's got a rhyme there with Bean and Queen. Well, again, that was in the future, so that hasn't written that yet. That hasn't happened yet, James.

I bet he saw that and thought, no, I've got nothing at the moment. But give it 30 years. In 1849, William Hamilton, do you think you remember to load the gun with gunpowder? Yes. Yep, but not. A bullet? He didn't put any bullets in it.

Australia for you, William Hamilton. 1872, Robert Pate. Audience, what do you think it happened to him? Tasmania, yes. It's a province of Australia. Basically, Australian. 1850, Arthur Connor. Any guesses?

New Zealand. It is Australia again. basically for most of the 19th century if you wanted a free trip to Australia the easiest way to get it was to attempt but not succeed in murdering the queen. You get to be a prisoner in Australia

presumably. Yeah, yeah, a little treat, yeah, yeah. Lucky. So those were the many strange attempted assassins of Queen Victoria as well as having a lot of brushes with death. She was, of course, obsessed with death, was she, James, interested in the supernatural, the world of spirits? I think she was at the start.

She was kind of predisposed to liking supernatural things. But then after the sort of the seventh Ouija board, she got really annoyed and changed the rules. Yeah, that's a good guess. We don't really know, but we do have some evidence that she was interested in spiritualism. And that evidence is Vicky's ticker. There's a picture of Vicky's ticker. It's an engraved pocket watch, which supposedly proves

that Queen Victoria had an interest in spiritualism. We know that she became obsessed with death after the death of the consort, Prince Albert, whom she loved. And there's a theory that John Brown, your friend and mine, Billy Connolly's John Brown. Oh, the ooze.

That's what he would sound like if he said the ewes or as Peter Underwood describes him Rasputin in a kilt Oh, is that a burn? Is he burning? There's a theory that John Brown was a medium chanelling Prince Albert

for the queen. Ah! And if that's true, they were definitely doing it. Come on, they were. Yeah. Oh, it's me, it's Prince Albert, I'm back. And I'm naked.

As you're dead husband. and I'm naked. I'm going to show you the secret of the ooze. Which is the subtitle to the Teenish Rained Ninja Turtle's second film. She wouldn't have got that reference though. No, because that again was in the future. Yep. So we don't know if John Brown was really a medium channeling Prince Albert,

but we do think that they were doing it. Yeah. We do. Yes, come on. Yeah. So the watch is a gold presentation watch with an engraving that reads, presented by her majesty to Miss Georgiana Eagle for her meritorious and extraordinary clairvoyance

produced at Osborne House, Isle of Wight, July 15th, 1846. And there is weirdly a second inscription saying, presented by Friend of the podcast, W.T. Stead. It doesn't say Friend of the podcast. I've added that. Yeah, why do I reckon I, was he, what did he do? He is the journalist and spiritualist who died on the Titanic. Died on the Titanic. And sort of predicted his own drowning.

He wrote up the very good story of a railway ghost that we did earlier on the podcast. Yes, yes, yes. So he was very much into ghosts and spiritualism. It says presented by W.T. Stead to Miss Etter Wright, spelled E-W-T-A, W-R-E-I-D-T, through whose mediumship, Queen Victoria's direct voice was heard in London in July 1911. And what might that have sounded like, Queen Victoria's voice being channeled through an American medium, James? what a lovely lovely watch it's bane it's bane from batman

or it could easily have said oh the ooze because she was doing john brown she was so to speak yes she was doing an impression of john brown as an American good so my source here is Peter Underwood's 1986 book

Queen Victoria's Other World And the story of this watch is that... Any exclamation mark in there? No. Okay. It would be weird if it was Queen Victoria's other world. Yes. Queen Victoria's other world.

The story goes that a young medium performed for the queen at her house on the Isle of White, but tragically died, very, very young, around the age of 11, shortly afterwards, before the watch could be presented to her. And so, the queen asked Stead to present it to someone deserving. And he gave it to, in 1911, Etta Wright. From the Isle of Wight. Because she was able to channel the then-dead Queen's voice. Right.

Not just because it rhymed. It wasn't a topaz in the making. No, no. This story was popularized by psychic news. Beep-bib-bib-bib-bib-bib-breaking psychic news. You know it already. May 23rd, 1953. With the headline, Queen Victoria's Seances, there's an article by Fred Archer, and you can see

there's the Queen there, the audience can see. Looking bored. And maybe... The Queen, not the audience. Maybe she's looking bored because she's read the article, which begins, sorry Fred Archer, but it's not a particularly strong start, it starts. The story begins, as it should, with Queen Victoria, matriarch of the House of Windsor. Beyond whose reign, living memory does not travel.

In a sense, it begins. before the beginning, the start of modern spiritualism, that is. It's like, you need to do basic journalist training. This is a boring start. The first paragraph should contain enough information. If I stop reading, I've learned something. Yes. I mean, just looking at what we've got up here,

they're not implementing that in any way. No, no. This one starts, this is the first of a series of articles we present to commemorate the coronation. Come on, Psychic News. Fred Archer goes on to say that two years before the Hidesville wrappings, he's referring of course to the case of the Fox Sisters

Okay You got really excited when I said rapping Yeah Yeah yeah yeah yeah Straight out of Hidesville It's the Fox sisters We're the Fox sisters and we're here to say Two years

Things that Deb people tell us We're the Fox sisters And we're here to make weird noises With our toes Yes Two years before that happened But two years before the wrappings reverberated around the world,

the Queen had already held seances at Osborne House, her home in the Isle of White. And there are several odd details to this story. Fred Archer thinks it's impressive that she held seances two years before the fad of spiritualism began. We, cynical people in the 21st century, might say that's weird that that would happen. There's other strange things about this.

Georgiana Eagle is strange. There's a picture of Georgiana Eagle. the wizard queen and mesmerist. She's the only Georgiana eagle anybody can find is a stage magician, not a clairvoyant, not a serious spiritualist. Now, Alist, this picture,

I know we would having a pop at the news articles for being a little bit dull, but this is and perhaps people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. But this stage act seems to be the making of a cup of tea

Is that really it? I mean, she's clearly one of steam, though, James, like the mists of time there, like penetrating the veil of the other world. That's true. She won an award or has the ashes of a previous partner on stage there. But fair play.

Yep. Well, that's Georgiana Eagle. She was one of the strange things about it. In the engraving on the watch, you might have noticed, eagle-eyed audience members, Osbourne House was spelled O-S-B-O-R-N, whereas in... Like the books.

It's clearly spelled Osbourne, James. The actual house is spelled with an E, O-S-B-O-R-N-E house. So it seems unlikely that the Queen would misspell her own house. But if she was engraving and she'd started too big, she ran out of room. Peter Runderwood kind of agrees with you. He thinks maybe they were in a hurry because they knew the girl was ill

and so they didn't have time to correct the mistake. Either way, that seems a little bit unlikely because Miss Eagle supposedly died shortly after the Seance, which was in 1846, before the watch was presented to her. And then it was given to W.T. Stead, who wasn't born for another three years after that. I'm going to say that again more clearly the trouble with being such a long queen is you live for a very long time

so 1846 the time that the supposed seance happened was three years before WT Stead was born long before he broke into journalism so it couldn't possibly have happened that the watch was given to him then it doesn't really make sense they do also say about being a queen you either a fine

You can do it James go for it You're either a fine with having an attempted assassination on you or you live long enough to get really tired of it and change of the law. To be fair, it was always illegal to try to assassinate the queen. They didn't change the law to make it against the law. After the seventh one, they were like, this should be against the law.

There's a loophole here, guys. All you get is a free ticket to Australia. Australia all the time. Expenses paid. So the story has more holes in it than, Queen Victoria's carriage. Oh, nice. That's not. I like that. It doesn't quite make sense.

Maybe the sounds did happen, and the medium she had the watch engraved, you know, to show off a bit and misspelled the name, and then maybe gave it to Stead before her death. That's one of the possibilities. And he then presented it to the big American medium Etta Wright. She gave it to, your friend and mine, Mackenzie King, the former Prime Minister of Canada. Oh. Yeah, you were all going to say Mackenzie King. Yeah, Maca King.

He's like the two burgers come together, the two burger houses, except his name. It'd be better if he's called McDonald. Or Mackenzie Whopper. Yes. Mackenzie McNugget. He gave it to the Duchess of Hamilton, and basically it made his way back to the United Kingdom

and ended up on display at the London College of Psychic Studies until 1962. When? It got wrong. It was stolen. You don't need to be a psychic to work that out. Well, if only the psychics had seen it coming, it might not have happened. But breaking psychic news, reporting mere months later, psychic news out of the article

on the 9th of February, 1963, they leapt into action about three months after it happened. With the headline, historic psychic exhibit is stolen. Now, again, when you're writing a newspaper headline, you don't. need to say is. You can just say historic psychic exhibit stolen and people would guess that you mean is, they're like, I've made the font as big as I can make it. There's no word I can take out of this headline. I have learnt my lesson from the watch in raving. These guys are so bad at making newspapers. They really are. There's so much, I'm bedazzled by the fonts for a start. There's too many fonts. Scientists tells how he became convinced of friend's survival.

Quote, all facts given were correct. I don't have any information. How is that exciting? The top left, is that the advert? You will live after you die. Yep, that's the slogan. That's their slogan, okay. It's a good catchphrase.

Yeah, so the Watts was stolen in 1962. Worse still, this was the second of two psychic robberies that happened around that time. The Spiritualist Association of Great Britain Museum lost a different Gold Watch and a signet ring. It's a psychic crime wave. Oh my gosh.

And the end of that article, speculate. I was trying to think of something Batman related, but I'm going to... I don't think three is enough to form an arrow pointing at anyone, unfortunately. I'm going to leave it for now. The article... I found this plausible the first time I read the article.

The article ends by saying, what adds to the mystery is the fact that nothing else was taken from the college or the SAGB Museum, where there are apports, an apport, I had to look it up, is an object of psychic significance from a seance. There are apports and many other psychic exhibits on view in the large glass case. Oh. Yeah, so that's a bit weird, isn't it?

And then I thought back that maybe the fact that the three objects that were stolen were made of gold was a factor. Yes. Because when you think about the other things psychics have, it's always like a raggy bit of ectoplasm on a sheet. Yeah, two biorobiles. and a coat hanger. Yeah.

So I can't believe they stole the three gold objects from this poorly divended museum. They also had footnote. Footnote, while psychic news does not suggest that any special seances should be held for the purpose, as this is not really the function of mediumship. It would be intriguing to find if psychic sources are able to throw any light on these two thefts, which occurred more or less at the same time. So not saying it, but kind of saying that you should use your psychic powers to find them. If you're just chatting with, you know, your psychic guide, if it comes up in conversation,

I mean, don't shut it down. What's the word on the spooky streets? Yes. They were unsuccessful. The watch was gone forever. Proof, if proof be need be, don't look for it. It's not there. Until!

Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Ah, there's an until. So I'm sure you've read Roger Clark's book and Natural History of Ghosts from 2014. Yes. It's a great book. I would highly recommend it. There's a brief mention of the Lost Watch in that book, and Clark concludes that it's unlikely to be genuine because of the typo. And that was the end of the story until 2018.

Roger Clark writes, one morning last year, 2017, from fans of maths, I received a call from a relative in the antiques business who was monitoring sales of objects connected to the Isle of White where we both grew up. He had learned about the sale of a watch. I went one day in January for a viewing and sat in a small, windowless, fortified room as a young man brought it in. There was absolutely no doubt about it. This was Vicky's ticker, the watch given to Georgiana by Queen Victoria, which had not been seen or heard of since 1962. It had been discovered among the effects of a jeweller from Manchester at his decease by his relatives.

I think, discovered by his relatives, not that his relatives killed him. Okay, okay. who had no idea of its tainted provenance. Oh. And this account comes from The Curse of Vicky's Ticker, a blog on the Spitalfieldslife.com blog, published October 31st, 2018, by Roger Clark. So it's well worth reading that if you're interested in Georgiana Eagle

because as well as actually finding the watch at last, he did proper research into Georgiana Eagle's life, which nobody seems to have bothered to do up until that point, and uncovered many fascinating details, including she didn't die young. What? Yeah, she didn't die at the age of 11. She died in 1911, not 1846. When the other thing happened?

Yeah, round about that, yeah. So let me put that in a more Dickensian way. And tiny Georgiana Eagle, who did not die. Oh. Sorry, I assume the audience would cheer. Really? And tiny Georgiana Eagle, who did not die. And we'll layer that up.

Yep, definitely. Died in 1911, but that's much later, giving her plenty of time to pass the watch to WT Stead before he died on the Titanic in 1912. Oh my gosh. So the possibility of it being kind of true is back on. Definitely. Based on that time frame.

And you can check out that blog for tantalizingly fuzzy mobile phone photographs of the watch. But it's there. It's the weird deal. You can read the... inscription because we will never know who stole the watch or why it was for money obviously but we'll never know but we do know one thing it's time for the scores James yes I'm going to ask you and the audience and the audience is going to have to if you want any of these to be above two you're going to have to put some real welly into these chairs I would like you to score this

story the story of this Vicki's ticker I'd like you to score the story of Vicki's ticker Firstly, in the category of supernatural. It wasn't that scary. It wasn't very scary. There wasn't much to it, was there? What do we think? We shouldn't do a one. You shouldn't do a one.

Why are you trying to talk them into a one? But if it's justified. There's some clear head shakings. Some people are walking out. Most people. A lot of people. About 400 people just walked out. Wow.

Should we say a two? Should we go a two? We'll go a two. Fair enough. Fair enough. I'm happy to take that bullet. Australia with you, James. Second category is names. Now, come on. Yes. The Wizard Queen and Mesmerist.

Georgiana Eagle. Mr. Bean. Mr. Bean. I rest my case. Silly thing when he tried to do the other silly thing. Yeah. Double Bean. William Topaz McGonagall.

Topaz McGonagull. Rod McLean. Yes. Okay. Randy Roddy. Yeah, it made me think of Rowdy Roddy Piper, but it really doesn't have any of the same noises. Kill the Queen!

Kill the Queen! Great men for a book. Probably seemed like a really good idea. Any rivers? Did we mention any rivers? I think we did. The ooze. The Verclade.

I don't know whose voice I'm doing. Mackenzie Wopper. Mackenzie McNugget Whopper. Thank you for reminding us. Thank you very much. Mackenzie McPhillett Wopper. Yeah. Happy meal.

fish. Right. I obviously know more about the McDonald's menu than the Burger King one. Four? Four for names? Four for names? Or would you push it to a five? I think there's some, there's some enthusiasm up. People have motioning to turn it up to a five. There were some really boringly named assassins, I will admit, like, oh, we've forgotten about the most dangerous animal of all, the lady in waiting. Lady Biddlef. Nobody went with me on it sounding dangerous, but here she is when you don't expect her, Lady Biddlef. She sounds like she's making the noise that you'd hear when you were being stalked by a lady and waiting. Badov. Like what? Yeah, two silken slippers land on the ground behind you.

Before you've turned around, head clean off. That's the last noise you hear. It's the sound of your head dropping on the floor. Oh, yeah, you can hear it from your own ears in a few seconds. Yes. And, of course, Fun magazine. Fun. Fun. It's a bit of fun.

Yeah, actually, I'm going to push you up to a five. I'm going over your heads, which have just been taken off by the assassin Badov. Okay, thank you, a five. My third category, if you come at the Queen, it's actually a lot better if you miss. Because it's just like, it's fine. They were generally surprised, you know, because we don't think of the Victorians as being particularly kindly towards people with mental health problems. And, spoiler, they weren't. But actually, the court system does seem to have treated these guys relatively fairly, you know?

You kind of would have thought they would all just have been immediately executed. Yes. They weren't. Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. And it's good because it's going, it plays on that phrase, which I think is from the wire. It's from the wire, yeah.

Okay. You could have taken credit for that. I wouldn't have known. But I did write the wire. Ah, okay. Oh, yeah, because you used to be a beat cop in Baltimore. Yes. I spent a lot of time with the Baltimore cops

until I learned their idiom They say things like Hey, I'm police in here I'm from Baolamo Are you confusing it with Balamori? Yes Okay What's the story?

Baltimore is the original name of the wire And they changed it to the wire Anyway, what are we going for? You come at the Queen? It's actually a lot better if you miss. Yeah, five. Five. I think it's a five.

I think it's a five because unless we're doing Ludo Bounceback rules because it happened to six people did it. A seven? Well, it wasn't that great for the last one. She changed the rules. No, no, because he still got away with it. She changed the rules after he was found not guilty.

Okay, then. Okay, then. It's a full seven. It's a full fat seven. I wrote to a Ludo rule. Thank you, thank you. It would be bad to do it now. Final category.

Is this a wind-up? Because, yeah, there's so many layers of meaning here. Yeah, you better start groaning. So it's a watch. Traditionally, one winds a watch. Yes. But also, the whole story of the thing, is it just a bit of publicity

that this magician came up with? Did she just make up the whole story? Did she have the watch engraved herself? Is the whole thing a wind up? We simply don't know. Also, the, well, some of the, you know, a guy loading a gun with tobacco. Yeah, that's silly.

The gun was consistently not have bullets in there. Like, they don't seem to be making serious. attempt. I'm not saying that I think they should have succeeded in killing the Queen, but they didn't seem to make a serious effort to kill the Queen. A lot of them afterwards seemed surprised that they had done it. Really? Yeah. Some of them were like, your guess is as good as mine, don't know why. And then there's the stories around the watch as well. All the stories around the watch. Shire, whether the psychic died or lived on until 1911. Exactly. And Etta Wright, producing the voice of the Queen. Did she actually do that?

or did she put on a old lady voice? Did she say, oh, I'm the queen. Again, Queen Victoria wasn't Scottish, James. Yeah, but you don't know what happens to your larynx in the afterlife. Because some people get knocked on the head and they wake up with a scouse accent, don't they? Mostly scouse people. Yes.

Yeah, is that a wind-up? Oh, my head really hurts. I'm Queen Victoria. My favourite river's the ooze. she did one of the assassination attempts was her being hit on the head so that it and that one was actually by far the nastiest of the assassination attempts which is why I skimmed over it okay well that was in very bad taste of your to laugh there actually I think I've got to go for a five for the wind-up right unless the audience descends it's got to be a wind-up

so that is the story of vicky's ticker have you yeah no please hesitantly abroad So there you have, but the mystery solved. You said that very weirdly. Yes, yes, I did. Thank you very much all the people that did come to see us. It was lovely to see you down in Ballam in London. And if you'd like to hear some bonus bits, like the bit where James hilariously misunderstood the brief

and researched deaths in the Queen Vic from EastEnders, hop on the Patreon. Yeah, patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod. and you will not only get that, you'll also get access to the Lawmen Discord where you can chat with like-minded law folk. And loads of other bonus bits. And thank you very much to all the people that already do that. And thank you very much, Alistair.

That was a really fun story. Thank you, James. See you soon. Bye. Bye, then. Riff over. Yep. You could have stopped that earlier.

Yep. It could have stopped it at any moment. you the weaponry to do that and I don't mean a failed assassination attempt I mean just booing no