Loremen Podcast - Loremen S7Ep1 - The Pittville Circus Haunting

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

The Loreboys have returned! Alasdair kicks off Series 7 with the story of amateur ghost-hunter Rosina C. Despard. Her Cheltenham home was the site of one of the most well-documented hauntings of the 19th century... Or was it? Creaks on the stair! A rustle of cloth! A face hidden by a handkerchief! It simply has to be a ghost... Surely? We promise not to end every sentence this series with an ellipsis followed by a question... Or do we? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠See Alasdair On Tour in 2026!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Edited by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laurence Hisee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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

From the creative team behind the Brutalist and starring Academy Award nominee Amanda Seifred in a career best performance, Searchlight Pictures presents The Testament of Anne Lee. With rave reviews from the Venice Film Festival, this bold and magnetic musical epic tells the story inspired by a true legend. Anne Lee, founder of the radical religious movement, The Shakers, The Testament of Anne Lee, now playing in an exclusive Toronto engagement in theaters everywhere January 23rd. Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from Days of Yore, with me, Alastair Beckett King. And me, James, James, you're a little under the weather. Yes, I am.

Well, I hope your chills aren't too bad, because I'm about to add to them. Gulp. With a spine-chingling tail. Spine-chingling? The spine-chingling tale of the Cheltenham hauntings. aka the Pitville Circus Apparition I've got a hot water bottle strapped to my head

Have you also got a thermometer? Never take it out I'm not going to tell you where it is though Well James How are you feeling there in yourself Oh not good Not good Because I noticed

One of the episodes came out a little bit late I'm sure the listener Is furious As as angry as I am about that What happened there James I had that flu That's going around I don't know if you've had that flu that's going around

but I would not recommend it. Oh dear. Okay, well, I feel bad now for saying how angry I was. And I hope the listener feels bad for all the angry emails. Yes. The messages, James. Where's the episode? Where's the episode, James?

Where is that best of episode? Where's the best of episode? You can't expect me to just listen to the entire year's worth of output and do it myself. And have my own opinions. No. I need a best of episode stat. That was the almanacs that came out in the last. over the Christmas period.

By the way, thank you very much everyone for voting in them. Thank you so much, yeah. And James, you've just recovered, or you are recovering from that flu. I'm mid-recovery, yes. Mid-recovery. Oh, well, thank you so much for getting out of the sick bed

and hobbling, hobbling to the microphone. I've been confined to my quarters. Well, would you like a spooky story to help you recover? Yes, definitely. If I don't, would a chilling story, would that help to reduce a fever? Well, according to homeopathy, a pseudoscience, yes. Yes, it would, because like cures like. So if I take a spooky story and then dilute the spookiness. Right. So that almost no spookiness remains, which is exactly what we do on this podcast, then yes, it should cure you of your chills. My understanding of homeopathy is that someone would just need to tell a spooky story a couple of towns over and I'll be all right.

But I don't really understand. That should do you. Yeah. Yeah. Pardon the part. I wanted to call this episode. the Pitville Circus Apparition. But then I realised I only wanted to call it that because that made it sound a lot more exciting than it actually was. Because it doesn't take place in a circus, James. What? The Pitville bit of the name was the least exciting part of the name, Alistair.

Yeah, I'm sorry it doesn't take place in a circus. It takes place on Pitville Circus Road as well. I was being cheeky. So it's just on the way to the Pitville. Circus. Well, yeah, because now, is this a southern thing? because I don't think northern towns particularly have circuses in as much as, I mean, the circular roads that are called.

I didn't even know that they were because they were circulars. My main references for circus-based places outside of the obvious circus is Oxford Circus in that London, and my stepdad's saying it's like Piccadilly Circus in here. Like Piccadilly Circus. They're very small. There are sort of bigger ones which people live on, which are sort of circular roads.

Right. Which is just, as far as I'm concerned, fancy southern nonsense. Because in the north, we wouldn't mess around with your wiggly roads. They just go straight to a mine. Well, that's presumably

what the Pitville Circus is. Yeah, fair enough. It's the pits. Well, this story takes place in Cheltenham. Oh, yeah. I know. I know of it. So I ran into the story

of the Cheltenham hauntings in The English Ghost by Peter Ackroyd. Yes. A book which actually contains lots of ghosts, so very inaccurate name. Yeah. He wouldn't do very well for scoring. You want to call that book at least five ghosts, Peter?

And then I followed it up in a book called Hauntings and Apparitions by Andrew McKenzie. That's good. That's plural. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're, and it's a very unusual ghost story in, in one particular way. So in 1892, Friends of the podcast, the Society of Psychical Research, I say Friends.

I'm not sure how they feel about us. I don't know if they know about us or if they still exist. Are they still going? Yeah. I don't know. I think they may have turned into a different organisation anyway. The SPR, Friends of the podcast, the SPR, and the X-Files of the 19th century, published an article entitled Record of a Haunted House by one Miss R. C. Morton.

And what makes this story unusual and quite famous in psychic circles. Sorry, just to briefly sidebar, I do find where people have the initials R.C. I hear a sort of temperament there. Yes, me too, absolutely. Same with the remote control car character from Toy Story. Yeah. Very difficult to work with. All right, mate, yeah.

Good, glad we're on the same page on that one. Yes, absolutely, my first thought. What makes the story unusual in psychic circles? is how well documented it was by Miss Morton. But first fact of the recording, there's no such person. Morton was, she was writing pseudonymously, pseudonymously,

pseudonymously. Ghost writer, no. A nom de plume. Ghost writer is only confusing matters. Morton was a nom de plume. The real name of the writer was Rosina C. Despart. Oh, so she is R-C-E-S-E-E-E-E, but not so Morton. She's an Arcee Despaard.

Absolutely. She was 19 years old and she was studying to be a doctor and living with her family in a house in Cheltenham, which at that time was called Donor. No, come on, you need to do your research, Alistair. That's D-O-N-O-R-E, D-N-O-R-A. Where do they live? Don-O-N-R-R. It's not called that anymore. No wonder she was so cheezed off.

Like, if you'd try and get a handsome cab home, what's the address, Donor? Well, I need to know where you're going. It's basically the Who's on First sketch was our entire life. It would be infuriating. Just take me to the circus.

Oh, no, the other... We've got a clown in the back. A little bleeding clown in the back. It's not called that now, but it's a real specific house it's still there you can look it up on Google Maps

which I did and so that's why I'm not going to say what it's called now because I don't want the listeners invading the privacy

of the people who live there now but I did I think you don't know I think it's because you don't know so she lived there with her father Captain FW Desbard

her mother who was very ill sick in bed throughout the whole story Oh I really This is really per human face for me

yeah Three sisters, Edith, Lillian and Mabel, and two brothers, Henry and Wilfred, who was six, very young. And it's hard to imagine a baby Wilfred, isn't it? Mm. A six-year-old Wilfred. Little baby Wilf. I'm just off to draw my pension. Come on, Wilf.

Baby Welf, little baby Welf. And there was also an older married sister who didn't live there, but often visited, and her name was Mrs. Frieda Kinloch. Mm-hmm. But in addition to the members of the Desbarred family, there was another. visitor. You've handed me an envelope virtually. I'm handing you a virtual envelope. Open that up. Oh. And you'll find an artist's impression of quite a spooky figure. Is that the ghost? Oh. Would you like to describe what I've shown you there, James? Yeah. So it looks like a female form in presumably sort of Elizabethany type. You know that hood that women had in the past? It does look a bit like that hood, yes.

But the spookiest thing about them is that they're holding a kerchief over their face in, yeah, just, oh. So a handkerchief is held with the right hand over the face of the woman. Yeah, the entire, like held up at the forehead, so it drapes down. So that drawing comes from an illustration published by the psychic press, and it's quite spooky, isn't it? It's like there's something unnervingly sinister about the hand covering the face holding a handkerchief. Yeah. So I'll get into the sightings with your permission, James. Yeah, go right ahead.

Go right ahead. It's June 1882. Starwipe. To June. Mm. And Rosina Desparred writes, I had gone up to my room, but was not yet in bed,

make a note of that, not in bed. Right. Currently awake. Okay. So we're already off to a great start ghostwise. Yep, yep, yep.

When I heard someone at the door and went to it thinking it might be my mother, on opening the door, I saw no one, but on going a few steps along the passage, I saw the figure of a tall lady, dressed in black standing at her head of the stairs.

After a few moments, she descended the stairs and I followed for a short distance, feeling curious what it could be. I had only a small piece of candle and it suddenly burnt itself out. Guttered, I think is the technical term, right? I think so. A guttering candle.

Guttered, gutted out. Sputtered and guttered and pss. It's gone. Being unable to see more, I went back to my room. The figure was that of a tall lady dressed in black of a soft woolen material, judging from the slight sound in moving.

The face was hidden in a handkerchief held in the right hand. A widow's cuff was visible on both wrists, so that the whole impression was that of a lady in widow's weeds. There was no cap on the head, but a general effect of blackness suggests a bonnet with a long veil or a hood. Oh. So there you go. You interpreted it as a sort of Elizabethan garb,

but Rosina interpreted it as someone dressed in mourning. What was that morning cuff? Widows cuffs. The widows cuff. The widow's cuff. I think, well, the drawing shows her wearing sort of large gloves that sort of flare out a little bit like banana man's gloves. Yeah.

Presumably not in yellow though. You'd hope because it was presumably to do with morning. Is it so that if you, because you'd be crying a lot and you've got sniffles, you can just kind of wipe your tears and nose. Or yeah. Or you just wipe them directly on the gloves. Yeah. Or you're right.

Or better way would be to fill them with tissues. That's better, I think. Yeah. Well, I don't know, but I think we've probably quite accurately guess. Every time we have to guess what a hat is or a piece of clothing from the olden days, I assume we're right because I never bother. to check. So that was the first sighting of the ghost.

But what's strange about this is she saw that ghost again and again and again. And she documented it in great detail. But she didn't tell anyone in the house what she's seen. She only wrote about this to a friend. Ah. At first. I think she's an interesting character, Rosina. The first thing she starts to do is she starts following the ghost when she sees the ghost

to see where the ghost is going, down the stairs and into the drawing room, where the ghost usually would stand for a while at a window. and then go out into the garden and vanish. Oh. See, that is not what I would do. What would you do? I would run away. Sorry, not as a ghost.

I wouldn't just stand at a window and then go out into the garden and vanish. Oh, I don't know what I'd do as a ghost, actually. In summer of 1882, Frida Kinloch was visiting. That's Rusina's older sister. Similarly, a difficult name to imagine as a baby. Freeda. Baby Frida. Oh, come on.

Pop kids Netflix on for Frida. And Wilfrid. Sit down, Wilfred. Little Wilf. Sit down, little Wilf. Go ahead. Watch, yeah, blueie and karate sheep. Karate sheep's a new one on me.

Is that what the kids are watching? No, that's what mine are watching, and you're very lucky that's not in your life. It's very amazing. So Frida came down to dinner late one time, and everybody else was sitting at dinner. And she came in and she said, who was that Sister of Mercy

whom I have just seen going into the drawing room? So she took the figure for a nun. Of course, there was no sister of mercy in the house and they went to check and the drawing room, of course, was found to be empty. In autumn of 1883, a housemaid reported that someone had got into the house and when she gave a description of that person, it matched the description of the woman on the stairs. On or about, December 1883, one of the young boys was playing in the garden with a friend and he looked into the drawing room window and he saw a woman who was crying so bitterly she was. And they ran inside to

see who she was and what was wrong. But of course, when they got into the drawing room, it was empty. There's a million of these. The cook, who was a middle-aged and very sensible person, heard footsteps, which is often how it started for Racina. She would hear footsteps outside, and you'd go and look and find the woman. The cook heard footsteps and once saw the figure on the stairs. Slow, soft and even steps, they were, unlike those of the living household, apparently.

They presumably were hard, fast and uneven. Yeah. They were a family of tap dancers. Yeah. They were like the Fremen from Dune, and they would go up the stairs in an arithmical way. Yes. But they're being haunted by SARS-Guard when he blows up like a balloon at time.

Many of the sisters heard steps, but it was only Rossina who would go and investigate. And every time she investigated after hearing the steps, she saw the apparition. Hmm. It's not just members of the family. In 1944, a solicitor, called George Gooding wrote to the SPR to corroborate his memory of having seen the spectre as a boy.

He wrote, um, she were not particular, where or when she appeared. The two occasions I clearly remember were, one, in the garden in bright sunlight walking about, and two in the drawing room, where we made a ring around her by joining hands from which she appeared merely to walk out between two people and then disappeared. Ooh.

Yeah. Now, I think it's interesting that he says she wasn't particular about where she appeared, because actually all of the accounts seem to describe her doing pretty much the same actions. She goes down the stairs, she goes to the drawing room for an indeterminate amount of time, and she goes out into the garden. But I suppose if you just saw her in the garden and walking out, it being in the drawing room and then walking out. Yeah, I guess so.

If you're only two, he's only seen it twice. It does seem inconsistent from his point of view. Okay, I know what you're saying. You're saying, so far it's a run-of-the-mill haunting. widows weeds, repeating the same actions over and over again. But I think Razina's tenacity as a hauntie is what makes it remarkable. Definitely. She's like Dana Scully.

She is of the SPR. The 1890s, yeah. Yeah. She writes, the first time I spoke to her was 29th of January 1884. The ghost doesn't actually say anything back, so don't get too excited. That's a year and a half, though, isn't it? It lasts about two years, yeah. She appeared on and off quite intensely for a period of about two or three years, and then it tails off after that.

She writes, I opened the drawing room door softly and went in, standing just by it. She came in past me and walked to the sofa and stood still there, so I went up to her and asked if I could help her. She moved and I thought she was going to speak, but she only gave a slight gasp and moved towards the door. Just by the door, I spoke to her again, but she seemed as if she were quite unable to speak. She walked into the hall, then by the side door, she seemed to disappear as before. Ooh. That wasn't the end of her experimentation. In May and June 1884, I tried some experiments, fastening string with marine glue across the stairs at different heights from the ground.

She wants to prove that the ghost is insubstantial and is able to pass through the stairs without disturbing the string. This is a great investigation. It's a really good investigation, isn't it? She's 19. I do need to know what marine glue is. Yeah, it sounds very smelly. It's a specialised bonding agent designed for harsh boat environments. Wow. I guess this is the kind of thing a Captain Desbarred would have about the house.

Yeah, that's a good point. But also, that's not going to break. Yes, exactly. It's substantial. Now, there are some YouTube videos about this, because it's quite famous, because it's such an unusually well-documented ghost case. And I saw them with, like, AI-generated images of a screaming teenager as the thumbnail.

And I think that it makes me sad because that seems really unfair to Rosina because she's not like that at all. No. She's exactly the kind of person you would want a haunting to happen to. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because a lot of the time, the kind of people who see ghosts are the kind of people who see ghosts. Do you know what I mean?

But that's what I mean. Ghosts often happen to people who are less RC and more BS, if you will. I know what you've done that. Yes. Yep, yep, yep. Thank you. I spell that out. But she's great. She's a really good hauntie. She attempted to touch the ghost.

I also attempted to touch her, but she always alluded me. It was not that there was nothing there to touch, but she always seemed to be beyond me. And if followed into a corner, simply disappeared. Oh. Yeah. You know what? Me too, actually. And like at a party or a social gathering, you've chased me to a corner, I'll just disappear. Yeah. I'm gone. So, so far, so spooky. Do you also like just sort of gasp if people try and speak to you? Yeah, and just, I'm often just seeing crying in the orchard. What happens if people form a ring around you? I simply walk out between two people. Fair enough.

It sounds like, Conister, you might be engaged. So there are a couple of cases of some people seeing her, but other people not seeing her. So although several different people saw this figure, not everyone saw her all the time, on July 21st, Rosina was in the drawing room with her father and sisters, and the apparition came in and stood behind a couch like a dad watching Bridge over the River Kwai. Yeah, good. Just hands on hips, I imagine. I'm not going to sit down.

I'm not really watching it. And she stood there for half an hour before entering the garden. And Razina couldn't understand why the others had not reacted to seeing the ghost. So seemingly she was the only one who saw it. Ah. Which sort of makes you think, okay, well, maybe she's imagining it. but she doesn't seem particularly like the kind of person who imagines things. And she's being very rational about it.

And other people have said they've seen it unprompted. And here's a great example of that. On August 6th, General A, we don't have his name. Most of the names have been pseudonymized. Right. But people have subsequently worked out who they were, but I don't know who General A was. He popped around, this is quite sad, actually, to offer his condolences because Frida, the older sister, had recently lost her son.

Can I walk back that earlier joke? Well, yes, no, it's too late now. It's in the recording. That's been added to the permanent record. So he came round to offer condolences thinking that he had seen Frida out in the garden crying in the orchard. Or morning.

Yeah. That was with a you, sorry. Yes, exactly. Frieda wasn't in the house, but the general was sure he had seen a woman dressed in black crying in the orchard. She had blooming widows' cuffs on. Exactly.

She was distraught. Now, in the first part of the story that I find really difficult to believe, Captain Despard swore the family to secrecy, lest word about the ghost get out, and it affects their landlord's ability to lease the house in future. Oh, that's very kind. Won't someone please think of the landlord? I've just never known anybody treat their landlord with that kind of discretion.

Just utterly, like, I would be on the first. owned to the property management company straight away, saying, we've got a ghost. What are you going to do about it? Yeah, that's the thing. If you're a homeowner, you've got to sort out your own ghosts. But if you're renting, just get the landlord in, boom. Get the landlord in, sort it out, yeah. Yeah. Just get it in with a vacuum cleaner or something, ghost busted.

Yeah. So there are lots more sightings all following similar patterns. But in essence, that's it. I've given you the story of the Cheltenham hauntings. Now, there are two main explanations for these unusually well-documented occurrences. The first is that the ghost is the ghost of Imogen Swinho. Right. Why? Well, she was the second wife of Henry Swinow.

He had moved to Cheltenham from Calcutta with his first wife into this house. Donor. Donor. Donor. And then when she tragically died at the age of 35, he took to the bottle and became an alcoholic. Right. And it was said that he buried his first wife's jewels under the floorboards so that they would go to his children as a dowry. Basically, he didn't want his second wife, Imogen, getting his hands on them.

Right. And his marriage to Imogen was terribly unhappy. He drank, she drank, eventually she left him. He died in 1876 and she died two years later of dipsomania. Oh. So that's very sad. Dipsomania is not as fun as it sounds? It is not as fun of the sad.

It's alcoholism really or addiction of any kind. Oh, right. Okay. Oh, dear. So that's the most popular hypothesis is that Imogen Swinher, or Mrs. S, as she's called in the documents, is returning to the house in search of that dual dowry that was kept from her.

Right. But frenemy of the podcast, Peter Underwood, Hey. Mr. President of the Ghost Club Society. The new Ghost Club Society. The New Ghost Club and the Real Ghost Club Society. Yeah. One of them's got a monkey in it.

Yeah, that's how you can tell them apart. Yeah. And in that one, he's blonde, I think, because they didn't have the rights to use his likeness. Well, no, it was for the toys. Was it for the toys? I see. Yeah, it was so that the toys could be easily distinguished. A lot of people thought he was made blonde because they didn't have image rights for Peter Underwood, but no. That's more, thank you for correcting me on that.

Same voice as Megatron. Garfield. Yeah, the same voice as Megatron. But there's just one more theory, which is Peter Underwood's theory. And this is very rare as a Peter Underwood theory because it is an unsupernatural theory. Ah. But it is scandalous. So it's for you to judge, James, whether you think the ghost was the ghost of Imogen Swinho. Or if you agree with Peter Underwood and think that she was Captain Despard's secret living mistress.

Oh. And she got away with it by pretending to be a ghost. By pretending to be a ghost. So that's Underwood's idea because his wife was so ill. and, you know, Underwood's theory is that Desbarred was, well, not playing away, playing at home. Yeah. But pretending it was with a ghost? Pretend, but on condition that she dresses a widow and pretend to be a ghost.

Or that he would just, he just told the household that it was a ghost and they built the story around it. It's kind of tempting because it's real gothic American soap opera and nonsense as a story. But it's so hard to believe that anyone could think. a real person was a ghost. I mean, I imagine our audience is of the demographic that they remember the TV series A Loa Loa. Go on. That is a René Arta...

I assume you're only going to say this once, so just let me listen carefully. Yeah. That is a René Artois level getting away with having an affair. It is, isn't it? Just for people who aren't aware of a lower... How can we explain a lower level? I didn't even understand it at the time. No, well, what I found out recently is it was a parody of a popular drama that had been on,

which you and I have never seen, because it then continued to run as a sitcom long after a drama about the French resistance stopped being on television. So Alo, Alo is a knock-about sex comedy about living under Nazi rule in Germany-occupied France. And René is a... Cafe. Café owner. A cafe owner. Orbaugh, it's kind of like it's France, isn't it?

And he's a sort of, well, not necessarily a particularly attractive middle-aged man, but he is having four affairs roughly, roughly in every episode, while also aiding the French resistance and evading the comical and effeminate Nazis. And Italian fascists. Oh, they're Italian fascists as well? Yeah, there's one, and he's got a flamboyant headgear, and his joke is when everyone says, says Heil Hitler. He says very loudly, Hyle Mussolini. Oh, classic. Classic British comedy.

Like, when we were kids, like, so many, like, because you had Dad's Army as well. Hitler was in most comedy shows when we were children. So, Second World War-focused comedy. So odd. It's a weird show. It is odd. Sorry, that was a, I think, I fear I slightly sidebar. But I think I'm going to use it in the scores. So don't you, don't you think about putting that in the bonus. So before we go into the scores, James, I'm going to pick up. you down, what do you think? Ghost or lady.

Hello, hello inspired. Yeah, ghost or affair. Yeah. Sex excuse, if you will. It sounds like he's not a very considerate lover if she's literally always crying. Well, but maybe she's just holding the handkerchief to her face at all times to conceal her face. Yeah. I was really, really on the side of ghost until that last minute swerve into

Yeah, a farce. But I'm going to go back to ghost. I think, yeah. I don't think you, maybe a child, but even though I just don't think you can convince somebody that a real person who they've seen multiple times is a ghost. I just don't think he could. Yeah, because she was saying that she gets them right up into the corner

and then they disappear. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And in those days, everyone was worried about madness, wasn't, weren't they? You like, you wouldn't, oh, I was going to say, you wouldn't, you wouldn't gaslight someone at the 10th of the century, but actually, you might. So maybe I'm wrong about that.

At the time when that play was written. You wouldn't gaslight at the time that that is set and when Gaslight was widely used. Well, James, shall we score? Yeah, let's do it. The Pitville Circus Ghost or the less excitingly named Choddenham Hauntings. My first category is names. Yes.

Just remember how much you enjoyed, D'nor. I am. he's enjoying it. Oh, that's really nice. I mean, yes, and Pitville Circus, which is a weird, like a, you know, it's got two different, it's a sweet and sour name, isn't it? Yeah. It's a Muller Corner of a, of a name.

Yeah, I love that, Pitville Circus. I love it. I love them all five, five out of five. Oh, wow. Okay, great. In that case, I'm going to move straight on to Supernatural. Now, remember, James, you just said it was a ghost. I did just say it were a ghost.

You just, you yourself said it. I admit it. Yes. You yourself admit that it's a ghost. But then there is that curveball. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I'll give it, I'm 80% ghost. 1% hello, hello themed.

It's excuse. So I'm going to go with four out of five. Well, that's exactly four out of five. So that's worked out brilliantly. My next category for you, James. Yeah. Do the widow's cuffs match the widow's peak? That's an excellent joke.

Thank you. You came up with that during the bit where we paused and discussed what the categories should be. Yeah. Would you get to explain it? Because I don't want to. As a category, it was meant to basically say, was everyone seeing the same thing? Obviously, it's a reference to an L-O-S phrase about whether people dye their hair or not, basically, isn't it?

Yeah, I'll explain to you what the category is, and then I will also mark that category. Yeah. Does everyone think it's the same thing? I suppose, yes. Are we just seeing a series of different women? Yeah. And it's all being bundled together to form ghost.

Or like different experiences, but they're very consistent. Everyone's describing it. in the same way or, I mean, in close enough ways that it's, you know, it sounds like everyone's describing the same thing, someone with a hood, like either a nun or someone who's mourning. That guy that turned up and saw the sad person in the garden, don't want to say their name again, and they saw the sad person in the garden and assumed it was someone who was sad from the house, a woman who was sad in the house. No, but it could have been the sad ghost. I think that is because it's also really great wordplay a five out of five.

Oh, wow, he scored his own self in a clear conflict of interest. Five out of five, well, I'll take it. It's worked out well for me. And my final category for you is aloh-lowe. Because, okay, yes, we enjoyed perhaps somewhat indulgent recap of the entire premise and plot of the lo-a-low. Yeah. Some of which might have ended up in the bonus. We don't know.

But not only was an alo-a-lo-lo-like farcical scheme, she also attempted to talk to the ghost, but the ghost didn't reply, James. Hello? She would have said, hello? Yes. And got no answer. And, you know, they're sometimes despard, that's French.

So maybe she said it with a slight gallic inflection. Hello? Hello? And she's an investigator, James. And what does a policeman traditionally say? Hello, hello, hello. Hello, hello. Oh, wow.

The classic London Bobby says, Hello, hello, hello. Yeah. Hello, hello, hello. So that's, you know, what's going on here then? Yes. I mean, really, this is, if anything, it's a six. I don't think we've ever had any more alo, hello,

inflected story on the podcast, so it has to be a five. Wow, well, I'm sure the Despaired family would be delighted to hear that. Well, thank you very much. You're very welcome. Thank you for listening to the Cheltenham Horn. and I hope you feel a bit better, James. Thank you very much. Thank you much for a wonderful story

which really made me go for Donor. Don't know. That was the Cheltenham hauntings, James. That was really good. Thank you very much to everyone who already does that. Thank you very much to Lawrence for editing this episode. Thank you, Lawrence. And thank you, the listener you, for listening.

It was good, wasn't it? Are you okay, James? No. I'm waning of moderate to severe confusion. For our entire lives, all you have to do to make a million dollars as a kid's TV guy is to just take an animal and a mind. martial art and then that's it. But at least there was a bit more flare with the teenage mutant ninja turtles.

Was there with the samurai pizza cats? Yeah, but karate sheep is just, I mean, I don't want to say things aren't what they used to be, but if you look at it. Animals who practice martial arts are not what they once were. Hmm.