Loremen Podcast - S5 Ep34: Loremen S5Ep34 - Oxford Mysteries LIVE Part 1

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

The Loremen lived again! This episode was recorded in Oxford (the Cambridge of Oxfordshire) as part of the Saint Audio Podcast Festival. James takes Alasdair and a live lorefolk audience on a tour of the county, courtesy of Mike White's book The Ox-Files. In Part 1, the boys encounter an apparition in Burford, a haunted cellar and a teeny-tiny crocodile (deceased). Apologies in advance for James's American accent. Part 2 is coming next week, but if you can't wait then the full Livestream is here: https://youtube.com/live/KUPu3MGUuUc Loreboys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 @loremenpod youtube.com/loremenpodcast www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shakeshaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett-King. Alistair, we lived in Oxford. Did we? Yeah, we had a lovely live show. Oh yes, it was lovely, wasn't it? Great bunch of people.

Well, this is part one. Part one? Yeah. Whoa. There were simply too many stories. This must have been a beefy boy. Yeah, it was. What you are about to hear is half an audio cup of Bovril.

Oh, delicious. That I like to call the oxford mysteries part one part one welcome welcome we've got some stories for you today. Oops. And... That's no good for the edit because you knocked it. Say it again. I've got some stories for you today. Does that sound more natural or less natural? It was a lot worse, I thought. Stories pertaining to the city of Oxford?

The county of Oxfordshire. I'm stretching it, but for very good reasons, which I will explain at some point I've for the first little bunch of stories I've stretched my remit which sounds bad um at our age that sort of thing will happen exactly if you don't warm up yeah um stand up too quickly lean over to get the remote at a weird angle and you stretch your remit. I'm going to stretch my remit. That is because I've got a book called The Ox Files.

Weird and wonderful tales. You're going to have to pause for people to enjoy the name of that book. James. Okay. The Ox Files. It's great. It's really good. It's very good. But see, it's great it's really good it's very good but you see it's a proper book it's not a pamphlet this is a thick book and i think the author is actually present corporally corporally not in spirit no as a person as an army person. Corporately. Corporately.

Corporately. Yeah. Yes. As much as we are probably hounded by the spirits of puttick, tongue, and Christ in a hole, it's Christina Hull. We've actually got the author in today. If you want to reveal yourself, Mike. Hiya, Mike. Hiya, Josh.

It's Mike. It's Mike White. you want to reveal yourself mike hi you're mike it's mike white so that laugh for the title all belongs to mike that is that is yours yes this is great this is a very good book which i came across and then mike joined the discord and it was like he's got the right name, Mike White. That's the right name. And I said, are you the same guy? And he was like, yes, I am. And either this is a very elaborate lie or, yeah, he's really here. Even if it's not the real Mike White, I want to believe. Lovely stuff, lovely stuff.

I also watched that show from the telly. So what I've done for the first few tales, I have, since we are in the old fire station in Oxford as part of the St Audio Podcast Festival. It's been converted into an arts venue, just to be clear. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're not really, really getting in the way. What are the slidey poles?

We move the slidey pole and they're just going to drop straight down. But we must record. I just realised I was doing the sound of them going down and up. I don't think they can go unless it turns out it's not a fire and they just go... Straight back up. How can you guys do that? Someone put a tea towel over it. That was a chip pan. I've got three little fire service themed tails for us.

And I've forgotten how the first one was fire service themed, but hopefully my notes will reveal that. Oh, yes, I remember. Okay, so first of all, I'm going to take you to The Bull at Burford. We're very near the Cotswold Wildlife Park right now.

We've been taken there by our parents and we hope we go in there, but we're going to end up going to Burford Garden Centre. That was very much a local reference thank you very much for being local nothing to me so yeah the bull in burford as as mike says here it can boast a history of famously indiscreet couples lord nelson and lady emma hamilton stayed there charlie too the king charles too and nell gwynn there. And some 50 years ago, which would be the 70s,

because this is a recent book. That almost never happens on our podcast. Wow. I've almost put an exclamation mark as to how recent that 50 years ago is for once. Juliet Waldron was staying there. She was holidaying in the UK from America. Yes. And she was staying in a room on the third floor

and around 10pm she went up to bed and she briefly fell asleep and then the next thing I knew, this is quoted text from the American, I should do an American's voice. Next thing I knew. I'm Juliet Waldron. I think this is slander.

I was standing in the hall, a few steps beyond my door. The light had apparently gone out because it was pitch black. I was in my flannel nightgown. It was confusing because I didn't know how I got there. And besides, it was uncomfortably cold. That was when I saw him. A gentleman with a mustache and beard. Listen, I can't hear that. You're miming holding a cigarette. No.

Or a small cigar. It's a cigarillo. Or is it just a toothpick? Is she chewing on a toothpick in a corner of her mouth? I didn't know how I got there. A gentleman with a mustache and a beard wearing a hat with a flowing plume and dressed in restoration over the top garb. Weirdly, he was visible, but only to the shin. Sorry, Mike.

I think my interpretation has caused befuddlement, as in the vision of him stopped at the shin, not that she could only see him through her shin. Visible to the naked shin. It was only visible to dogs and shins. He bowed, removed his hat and greeted me, saying that he was an ancestor and he'd been waiting there in Boyford to see me.

I hadn't realised how fun that was going to be to say. He'd been waiting there in Boyford, near the guidance centre. Just past the Cotswold Wildlife Park. He'd been waiting there in Boyford to see me for quite a long time. And Juliet says she wasn't frightened, and he seemed to have a strange glow, but she did feel overwhelmed by the strangeness of the situation,

which is quite right. And she felt like she was sort of seeing him through a crack in time. And then suddenly, like, as it says here, like a skipping track of a CD. I should use a voice for it. Like, suddenly, like the skipping track of a CD or DVD. Yeah, that voice hasn't heard of CDs. No, it's from the 70s. Like a skipping of an 8-track cassette player.

He vanished and she found herself staring at the patterned wallpaper in the dimly lit but unmistakably modern hotel corridor. And she was gone. So, yes, I was in my nightgown. Yes, it was icy cold. But my visitor was gone. I dashed back into my room slammed the door and locked it then jumped into bed and pulled the covers over my head i thought i'd never go to sleep again but i did the big sleep

the post ghost big sleep so all that was left was the patterned wallpaper, the pattern of a restoration man that goes down to his shins. Very popular 70s wallpaper design. Yes, and so far, so an obvious dream. But the following morning, she was having breakfast downstairs and she was excitedly telling her mother the story of what she'd seen the night before. And obviously,

you're not going to believe it. If she sounds like that, what does the mother sound like? I don't. How decrepit is the mother? Oh, Juliet, there you go with your stories again.

Your uncle Joey didn't make parole. Is that Back to the Future? That's today's first Back to the Future reference. There are other films, James. Yeah, two and three. And then the proprietor came over,

obviously overheard given the deep resonance of her voice, and came over and said, now, this is a Burford accent now, please whisper, he hasn't been seen up there for months, but he's no good for business so i don't want it to get around that he's back so not the first time this specter had been seen on the premises corroboration yeah if you will or or a man who creeps around the hotel at night oh yeah yeah that's a point um no but then uh he seemed particularly interested when juliet mentioned the apparitions

missing feet explaining he was befeated in the 16th century something yes i nearly didn't know no i thought we had a befooting on our hands i know it's the best place for them um if they've been befooted it's the second best place for feet really, isn't it? The first is only ever seen by the shins. So many great new catchphrases for you, James. The second best place for feet? The hands. The hands. He seemed particularly interested when Julia mentioned the apparitions missing feet. The guy had no feet've just knocked the axe and now i'm not the perfect axe and out my head doing that that's that's because he's standing on the old floor ever since we redid the third story and covered the old warped floor he's been chopped off like that oh it's one of them isn't it i think i believe that one yeah yeah that's really good corroboration yes nice one landlord. The tenuous link to fire servicery is,

if you go around the back of a bull, you will hear the sound. Is this a pup? Yes. Okay. Yes. Although, actually, this works, this maxim works for all. If you go around the back of a bull, you will hear strange noises. Yes.

So if you go around the back of a bull, you will hear strange noises. So if you go around the back of the bull, you'll hear the sounds of terrified animals. And that is because in 1797, a candle was overturned in the stables and the stables burnt down and there were some poor little horsies in there, seven coach horses which were indicted and died. And that is the ghost of the horsies that you'll hear behind the back of the pub. Mixing the tone, isn't it, by referring to them as horsies?

When they have just burned to death, yeah. Yes, yes. So that is the first of the triptych of a fire service themed. The second... Very tenuously themed. Oh, it gets tenuously. That was the best. I seen tenuous before.

This is tenuous. So in Ensham, at the railway inn. Is that how that's pronounced? E-Y-N-S-H-A-M. Wow, Ensham. Yeah, what would you have said? I would have said Ein-sham. Ein-sham. Call me an off-coming nor you have said? I would have said Ein-sham. Ein-sham.

Call me an off-coming northerner, but I would have said Ein-sham. I'm pretty sure it's Ein-sham. I'm sure you are. I'm not correcting you. I've been lied to. Ein-sham. I genuinely wasn't correcting him. Don't look at me like that.

I'm just saying it's not... Shut up. So I just arrived in Einchen. No. This isn't Juliet Waldron making a second appearance. Apologies to Juliet. No, a railway in Einchen, detailed by John Donnelly in the Clarendonian magazine in 1967,

the landlord of the pub, Mr Littlechild. That's his surname. He was legally allowed to run a pub. He was nut. No, the minimum is three and one trench coat, right? Mr Littlechild. Was his first name Tiny? Miss, yes.

The landlord announced that he was giving up the pub because of the continued presence of a customer who'd been murdered on the premises over a century before. Should have cleaned it up. Are you going to make a little child do that? So what had happened is that the haunting had begun four years previously. I suppose he was Mr. Toddler. I'm going to try and leave it there, but I'm not going to succeed. There'd been no sightings of a ghostly figure,

but there were a range of strange and inconvenient events that made life very unpleasant for the landlord and their family. There were electrical failures. The fridge was continually switching itself off. That is annoying. The beer taps in the cellar would regularly close themselves or the pressure just go from them. But the thing that tipped him over the edge, Mr. Little Child,

was the cellar doors would constantly rattle angrily like someone was trying to get out. Okay, that one's the first one that is even slightly spooky. That's quite... The rest of them sound like general pub business that might occur in a pub. Well, I've got... There's a quote from Mr Little Child here. No, you're going to do the voice?

Yep. There's no logical explanation. Hold on, hold on. Get a phone book for him to stand on so he can get nearer to the microphone. Do you want my phone books? Just checking. There's no logical explanation. I've got to get out.

He's frightened the life out of me. Yeah, so... Poor little child. So, yes. It's so far so nothing to do with the fire service. But in 1976, that pub closed because a van crashed into it.

Still no link to the fire service, I hear you cry. That lorry crashed because the hay that was its load spontaneously caught fire, distracting the driver so much that he crashed into a pub. For a while, it must have looked like he was delivering some fire. And then like he was delivering it really badly. Well, I may have got your fire. It's going to burn out before we get there.

They don't make you sign for it, they just take a picture of you with the fire now. Sorry, we tried to deliver your fire, but you were out. So we left it in a safe space, which is no longer a safe space, because it's full of fire. P.S. You no longer have a shed. So, another little story, just a little sidebar about the fox at Denchworth. It was haunted by the sound of spectral women's voices speaking in an oddly archaic form of english but they would seem to gossip about people at the bar and when people looked at them they'd like scuttle off and then

vanished like to a place where they couldn't couldn't have gotten out of so like just these strange little mean girls ghost mean girls is what i've got here and i've written stop trying to make an oddly archaic form of english happen to show that i'm down with the kids who are now 30 and then the final of my triptych i forgot that i've got the blooming best one here oh for uh fire service related spookiness it's not really spookiness this is the over norton crocodile in over norton near chipping norton also near hook norton it's one of the main nortons in 1862 landowner george wright went to visit one of his tenants, William Phillips in Overnorton, and in this guy's house he noticed a 30 centimetre long stuffed crocodile.

Noticed that, did he? Yeah, you would notice it. Caught his eye, did it? He asked Phillips about it and there was a whole story which he wrote up and sent in to, friend of the show, The Gentleman's Magazine, which I have looked up and it is purely text based it's fine you can google it you can google it i only read it for the descriptions of crocodiles

well you're in luck this week finally um so what had happened was william phillips had seen what he first thought was just a regular lizard lying in a gutter with its bowels protruding from a wound in its belly and then he sort of picked it up because he was odd and he said where'd this come from and the answer was that they had killed it as it ran out of a stack of wood probably the day before and mr phillips expressed his regret that they hadn't brought it to him alive and they replied they could easily get him another because the place where the wood would cut uh was near chipping norton common near it says here not far from the village of salford at the mini pool and they saw them

frequently in the water and on the land and often running up the trees you've got some questions no I'm just is the crocodile native to Oxfordshire well that's the thing is there's a lot there's a lot of questions this raises a lot of questions I know Chippy Common I went to I played at Chippy Common when I was a kid I never saw a crocodile there though part of the town called Pool Meadow I mean it's obviously named as whether there's a pond In a field He offered the workmen at Guinea

If they could procure him another specimen But unfortunately they couldn't find it So Phillips had to make do With stuffing and mounting that one Unfortunately I don't think I've ever heard a story so Related to the fire service. A pile of wood could easily catch fire.

No, it's because, I don't know if you're listening, it goes up trees. Exactly. Yes, that's the noise that makes. Who do you call when you've got an animal stuck up a tree? It's the fire service. They've got access to ladders. They're the only people with access to ladders. Just anecdotally from my life, no, you don't ring the fire service.

You don't ring if there's a cat stuck up a tree. They will give you short shrift. Ever so short shrift. Even if you tell them there's nine lives at stake. They'll hang up on you. And I don't think they're allowed to. So they wanted to find out what exactly this was. I'm sorry, this story's still happening.

It's still happening. I'm sorry, I thought that was the dramatic conclusion of the story. No, they sent it to the naturalist, Professor Richard Owen. Professor? Professor. Professor? Professor. Yes. Yes. Spotted by the ghost of James Bond.

They sent it to Professor Richard Owen, who the eagle-eared amongst you will remember. He coined the term dinosaur. An eagle-minded of you will remember even more. He hosted that dinner party inside the iguanodon wow that time the crystal palace dinosaur guy wow that's a really deep cut call back that is a deep friend of the podcast well we say friend just a discreet browser of his wikipedia it describes owen malicious, dishonest, and hateful individual.

He basically nicked loads of other people's accreditations. So, for example, he credited himself with the discovery of the Iguanodon, excluding the actual original discoverer, Gideon Mantle. And on the Wikipedia page this the next picture down which has no relation to anything else is a picture of him with his granddaughter emily and she has an expression on her face that seems to say i'm not actually your granddaughter mate you're just claiming that i'm your granddaughter for the purposes of this picture no he was a terrible turns out real bad guy oh real bad. But he said it was a crocodile.

He did know a lot about those things. Was his voice muffled from inside a guanodon? Yes, an inaccurately shaped guanodon. But his theory was that William Phillips had been tricked by the farmhands. But it seems unlikely because they didn't tell him about it they weren't like hey come and look at this lizard he was passing by and was like what's that and they're like oh we were going to chuck it away it's just it's just some weird lizard so this sort of not really sure they were really sort of hard to get about it well oh this old thing yeah it's just a

just of my crocodile that i killed this is one of my old lizards one of many crocodiles that i've seen he says it could have escaped from a touring menagerie um and may have hatched from a lost egg but it wasn't the only crocodile scene around chipping norton way um and mr c parr said that in the 1830s uh a resident of chipping Norton Way. And Mr. C. Parr said that in the 1830s, a resident of Chipping Norton crossing a field in company with some friends was pursued by an animal of the crocodile kind, which chased them across the field

situated above some waste ground known as the Common. They had difficulty escaping from it, but eventually one of the lads crushed its head in with a large stone. I don't know why I'm laughing at that. That's terrible. How can you be pursued by a crocodile? Their arms and legs come out of the sides.

They can't go quickly. I don't know. For the benefit of the listener, I'm very accurately miming it. They're surprisingly fast, the old crocodiles. Are they? I think so, yeah. In water, yes, but on land, surely not. I think they can get up to like a few,

like a 10 mile an hour or something. I don't know. Have we got any naturalists in described as malicious, dishonest, and hateful? If any podcast listenership knows the answer to what's the maximum speed of a crocodile, it's ours. No. What kind of world is near Burford? There of a crocodile? It's hours. No.

What world is near Burford? There is a crocodile world near Burford, actually, with a crocodile land and, of course, Euro crocodile. I just heard, don't know if this is true, read it on the internet, crocodiles don't age. Well, they, no. Before you write in, they do age,

but they don't, they don't die of old age. Like, like we eventually just, you know, sorry if some of you, some of you seem to be finding this out as I say it, but we eventually die, humans,

but crocodiles, you've got to wait until your head's stoved in by an Oxfordshire teen. But if that doesn't happen, they just keep going, apparently. Yeah, it's true. Like lobsters? There we go. Do you like lobsters? Great heckle.

Great heckle. I like lobsters. So, I heckled myself with an imaginary heckle. Back to the story from our heckle like lobsters. Like lobsters so i heckled myself link back to the story from from our heckle like lobsters like lobsters um hmm oh well and you know what is it also a fiery red color a fire station i know in a story when they mention something about the person's maybe ethnicity or something like that in the story, and it has no relation to the rest of the story, and it's a bit, what? That very much happens in this. The person, a woman,

described it as being a foot long and crossing near the same place some years after she saw a smaller animal of the same species now which is a vague way of saying i saw this animal when it was younger because they do age they just don't die of they do age they do age they're not just sprung full formed george wright um didn't think it was from a menagerie he thought the alligators were part of a long hidden indigenous population of reptiles that had managed to live undetected for many years in chipping Norton. I thought you were building to a brilliant

anti-Tory sort of David Cameron bit of satire there. No, he just believed in crocodiles. The fool! Have we done you justice there, Mike? Was that all right? I'm never writing anything in. What?

Well, wait, he didn't link it back to fire, did he? Yeah, because if you lose an animal up a tree. Oh, yeah. If you lose your crocodile up a tree. I thought that was a joke link and you were building to the real link. No, that was the real link. A crocodile could go up a tree well they said it went up a tree because the arms are on the sides if they got up enough

speed and the tree was curved enough you have to wedge it between two trees like samson and then it could go up that would subtract credibility from the crocodile i think if you caught it mid climb there's actually a lot of pressure in this, actually. I could crush you and drag you underwater, but now I'm climbing a tree. It's my hobby. Leave me alone. That's the voice of a crocodile there.

It's not as fun as Juliet's voice, is it? So we're just going to leave it there, and then we'll pick up... James. Whoa. James, you've given me half of a beefy boy. What was this, a half full cup of Bovril? Half a cup of vegan Bovril. You're right, Alistair, it is half full.

There's not a half empty cup of vegan Bovril. So how do I get the second half of my beefy boy? Simply wait until the next episode. I will, I will. What can I do in the meantime? Say thank you very much to all the people that came to see us. Thank you very much

to all the people who came. While we're in a pure gratitude mood, thank you very much to all our supporters on Patreon. Cheers. Which you, the listener, who is not yet one of them, can become one of.

And you'll get a bunch of bonus episodes that'll tide you over whilst you're on waiting for the second half of your cup of vegan bovril yeah it's like the bit between christmas and new year's we've already got the perfect metaphor alistair oh we're live make it sound like there was loads of vibes before the stream started and it wasn't awkward and we weren't confused by matthew crossing the stage we didn't just sort of creep out like a couple of goblins hello hello the internet