Loremen Podcast - Loremen S5Ep50 - The Poltergeist of Moreton

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

The boys are back, with yet more tales of Moreton lore! This time James visits South Moreton in Oxfordshire, for the outrageous story of a faux-poltergeist (fauxtergeist?). But don't fret, folklore fans - the village of South Moreton boasts enough "real" ghosts to spook the horses. Plus, a deadly locomotive and a very misleading prophecy. Come see the Loreboys LIVE in spooky West Norwood Cemetery on Friday 11th October 2024 (2024): https://choose-se27-comedy-festival.designmynight.com/66968247e76bce06372992c8/loremen-podcast-live-recording This episode was edited by Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor. LoreBoys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 @loremenpod youtube.com/loremenpodcast www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So what's it like to buy your first cryptocurrency on Kraken? Well, let's say I'm at a food truck I've never tried before. Am I gonna go all in on the loaded taco? No, sir. I'm keeping it simple. Starting small. That's trading on Kraken. Pick from over 190 assets and start with the 10 bucks in your pocket.

Easy. Go to kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shake Shaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett-Ginn. And Alistair, there's yet more Morton.

There can't be, surely. There has to be. It's quite a short episode, but I have a run. Yeah, I'm looking at the runtime. There's not that much more Morton, is there? There's enough more Morton. It's longer than the first, probably. Where we hear the tale of the Poltergeist of Morton.

You didn't really commit to that as a title, did you? I realised the SEO would be bad. Alistair Beckett King? Yes, James Shake Shaft. I've got some even more, yet more, Morton for you. Surely we have reached peak Morton by this point. No, we've got South Morton. And these, by the way, these are just the Mortons in the Cotswold slash Oxfordshire slash Warwickshire area. Are you telling me there are more Mortons?

I am not ruling out finding more, more Mortons. I mean, I've never been a fan of Morton in the first place. And so I just want to register my objection to your insatiable Morton lust. It was in Gloucestershire Morton in Marsh, by the way, I've just found out. Breaking news. Oh, my Morton related ticker tape is coming through and it says that Morton in Marsh is in Gloucestershire. Oh my James getting counties wrong ticker tape is coming through and yeah, I got a county

wrong again. County error alarm reset. Zero days since James got a county wrong. But in my defense, I've got two defenses on this one. It's a two-prong defense. Morton in Marsh is two miles to the west of the Four Shirestone, which marked the boundaries of Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Oxfordshire. And my second defense is this Morton we're on about South Morton did used to be in a

different county. And I will tell you which one once I finished Googling. I can hear you typing. Tapity tap tap. It's currently in South Oxfordshire, but it used to be Berkshire until 1974 boundary changes. A classic 1974 boundary change there. Thank you very much.

Out of interest in the 2011 census, how many people do you reckon were recorded as the population? Of a little place in Oxfordshire, 300? 2000. Not far out. No. little place in Oxfordshire, 300? 2000. Far out. No, somewhere between those and nearer the first one. 700. No, less.

500. I'm going to put you out of your misery. It's 420. 420. Oh yeah. A classic, a classic meme number. A memeable number. Wow. It was that or 69? That's an unfeasible amount of people for even a hamlet. That's about exactly right for a hamlet, I'd say. A pretty saucy hamlet as well.

Hmm. In the Doomsday book, it was known as Morteune. Morteune? Morteune. Hmm. And it had some manor houses and what not. More tune. And it had some manor houses and what not.

But nowadays it's fully called South Morton. The eagle-minded and the eared listener might remember we had a North Morton recently and yes, it's the same type of Morton. The Mortons, the North and South Mortons are bisected by the railway. You said that as if it's just arrived in Oxfordshire and it's a bit new. It's been there since the 1850s. I did a little skit about train stations on the internet and several people yelled at me or I should say shouted at me for calling them train stations, which like yelled is apparently an Americanism rather than railway stations,

which is in their view, the correct British way of saying train station. But I looked and like Google Ngrams shows railway station being more popular in America and England for most of history. But these days train station is ahead in both countries. It's just Americans started saying train station 20 years before we did 20 years ago. I suppose it's somewhat like a railway station is the equivalent of an airport and a train station would be the equivalent of an aeroplane port. Yeah, but it's more like a bus stop.

It's somewhere between a bus stop and a bus station. It's not a road stop. You don't call it a bus network station, do you? You call it a bus station. So I didn't think that would be in any way an interesting aside, but I just wanted to come, I just wanted to gripe about getting messages from someone from 1860. You said train station. I had no idea what you meant.

Yes, you knew exactly what I meant. I don't like it when pedantry happens to me. I like it when I'm doing it. I prefer to dish it out. Is it like fallen soccer? It's like they are considered Americanisms, but they're actually Englishisms. I don't think so. Or is soccer the old name for it then?

Soccer is, yeah, because at the point when rugby and what we know as football were big at the same time, Oxford Dons wanted to differentiate them from rugby football and association football. So they gave them the nicknames of Rugger and Soccer. I see, I see. So soccer is kind of a posh nickname for association football. Well, that explains why everybody hates it. No, in this case, you know, Google n-grams is a thing where you can search the frequency of phrases in a selection of texts in different versions of English. So looking at looking at that, I saw the train station starts to overtake railway

station in America in like the eighties and around the year 2000 in the UK. So it's quite new in both countries. What's the engram for engram? Great question. Who polices the police? Who watches the watchman? Who engrams the engram? Yeah. Was it you that had a, you had a bit on that, didn't you? I had a who milks the milkman. But Alistair, I didn't, I didn't get you here to tell me funny jokes. No, sorry.

I didn't get the listener here to listen to funny jokes. Sorry. I forgot you're here for really quite long and boring complaints about me being corrected on the internet. I also didn't get you here for that. I got you here to tell you about the village of South Morton, population 420. Nice. I've got three little tales from there, Alastair. And they are gonna get, I'm not sure if they get more scary or if the level of terror remains

consistent. But first of all, I'm going to start at the start of the 1800s. It's 1804. Nice. And a farmer called William Field dies. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was still laughing at his nominative determinism, but then he died.

Mid-laugh. I feel bad. He died and his ghost haunted his farm. laughing at his nominative determinism, but then he died mid-laugh. I feel bad. He died and his ghost haunted his farm. His spirit was unable to rest. Oh, by the way, can I give another shout out to Mike White? Because this is of course from the Veiled Veil, Strange Tales from South Oxfordshire. I'm trying to do a foghorn noise for Mike.

Airhorn. Not foghorn. That's a foghorn noise for Mike. Airhorn, actually, not foghorn. That's a foghorn. Classic Mike White foghorn there. His ghost would appear at the stackyard to the south side of the barn and a boy called George Hall told of his terror when the grinning ghoul peered at him from behind a tree and another kid, Thomas Money. Bit more well off than the farmer, was he?

Yeah. Described how he'd been watering horses at a trough, which I'm going to assume means giving them water rather than trying to- Sprinkle water on them, surely not. Yeah. Trying to make them grow, Yobberton might. That is a callback to surely not. Yeah. Trying to make them grow. Yoberton might. That is a call back to series one. Yeah.

Yoberton Yornies who tried to make their church tower grow by putting manure around the base. While this guy was watering the horses, a white apparition appeared, causing those said horses to stampede. So, you know, it's not just humans seeing this ghost. Yeah, it's horses as well. Yeah. Tommy Money, Georgie Hall, son of small change.

And in 1850, so 46 years later, the priest decided to get involved. And 11 of them. 11 priests. Were sent to lay the ghost. 11 priests. We're almost in a too many Parsons scenario here. Too many Parsons. Oh, it's not enough priests because it should be 12, right?

Cause of Jesus and that maybe 13, if you want to spare and put a little bit of jeopardy, cause it's like, oh, it's 13 priests. Is that bad luck? Cause it's 13 or is it good because it's 12? Yeah. Whichever one is on the bench is going to be kind of bitter about it. Do you want that kind of tension? It could be a super sub priest who's like really good, but couldn't do a whole laying. Yeah. So he just, you wait until the devil starts to fight back and you just bring him on.

Yeah. Once you've tied the devil out over, you know, 80 minutes of the eulogy, not eulogy, I keep saying eulogy, exorcism, then you bring in your super sub priest to just finish it off. Anyway, Alastair, we're not here to talk about priests as if they were football players. Oh, is that what we were doing? Right. Okay. That's what it was. Yeah.

Is that what that was? Okay. That is what it was. Is that what that was? Okay. That is what that was. Word got around that these 11 priests were coming to lay this ghost and people were kind of excited and a couple of brothers, John and James Parks, decided they really wanted to see it. So they got to the barn before the vickers and hid themselves in a pile of straw so that they could have a little watch. Because you'd want to, wouldn't you? Will Barron Yes, yes, you would. Jason Vale They'd be pretty scary turning up because

you're going somewhere that you know definitely there is a ghost at a time when you know definitely there's no religious people there to protect you from said ghost. They hid under the straw in the barn and nothing bad happened until the ceremony began. And the ghost manifested itself to the vicar's and they had a bit of a chat and the vicar's were like, listen, we're going to banish her and the ghost was like, fine, my terms are. Do we negotiate with ghosts? Apparently these priests did negotiate with ghosts.

The original terrorist, because they're so terrifying. The ghost demanded for his departure either the cock on the dung hill or the two mice under the straw. Not at very high price. Oh wait, wait, wait, wait, but they're not mice, they're men. Wait, Alastair. They're two little boys, Johnny and Jimmy Parks. Did we know they were children? I was picturing full adult men. Did you tell me they were children? I was imagining two burly guys just having a laugh under some straw in a barn. To be honest, Mike doesn't say, I imagine they were kids because they're described as two mice and mice are smaller than adults, like kids.

Yeah, John and Jimmy Parks, it just says they're brothers and they wanted to see an exorcism. So I presumed they were kids because it sounds like a kid thing to do. You're probably right, yeah. But two burly men could also hide themselves under enough straw. Yeah, you just need more straw. Fortunately, the priests on that 50-50 went with a cock roll, rather than not knowing they would have been damning two brothers of indeterminate age two, which you'll know what happened to the, the cock of the dunghill. He was instantly torn to pieces by the ghost. Oh wow.

Yeah. No, the cock roll was instantly torn to pieces by the ghost. So didn't even want it for its, I don't know, meat or to make a soup. He just wanted to tear it to pieces. He just wanted to see the world burn, Master Bruce. Yes. Yeah. Was Harry H. Corbett in that film? Yes. He played Alfred de Butler.

It's the Joker. I can't remember whose voice I'm trying to do at the minute. It's a dirty old Gotham City, Master Bruce. It's a very dirty city. This is a verse. Someday a come. Oh no, that's taxi driver in it. Someday a real rain's going to come and clean these streets clean. Really an actor with great range, Harry H. Corbett. There's something he can't be in. He was, wasn't he? I don't want to bury another Wayne. That sounds like he's a guy called Wayne when Harry H.

Corbett does it, doesn't it? Not a, not a posh American family. So yeah, the Vickers won. They set, they staked the ghost to the bottom of the pond and it was never seen again. So I'm guessing it's one of the ones, you know, where they pop it in a bottle and then put it in the water. And that's kind of, that contains the ghost. Like a sort of early version of the Ghostbusters trap from the film Ghostbusters. And that's where you get all them stories that like when the water drains,

you know, if that pond ever dries out, then the ghost will be released again. We've got a similar story in a little village next to me. There's like a slightly more modern take on it. Will Barron I think I ever, I think I might have a Ghostbusters joke off the back of that. Yes, it's true. This dunghill has no cockerel. Yeah, the Ghostbusters reference. Took me a while. Jason Vale It's worth it. Well worth it. Maybe I did bring you here to do jokes. There's a little pond in the village across from us, and apparently, in a more modern take on that

bit of legend, there's meant to be like a bomb from World War II that landed in it. And if the war... So in the bottom of this pond, you'd see a bomb. Old Adolf Hitler pop straight out. A bomb full of Hitler. Yeah. I think that was a Smith's album, wasn't it? Yeah, but we didn't realise at the time that he was approving of that idea. Yeah. I think that was a Smiths album, wasn't it?

Yeah, but we didn't realize at the time that he was approving of that idea. He liked the bomb. I'm actually on the bomb side. Okay, join another one from, so during that reign of terror of that ghost, which reigned of terror from 1804 till 1850. I mean, reign of terror seemed strong for frightening four horses. And a boy! A grinning ghoul peaked out from behind a tree. That's quite spooky.

Yeah, classic ghost behaviour to hide behind a tree. There was a cottage in the village that was plagued by a poltergeist. So some of the things it would do. One, throw gravel into the bedroom at night. Cause the Bible to leap off the shelf and the candles would explode sometimes. Oh wow, that's, that's sometimes. How often are we talking?

When lit, definitely. And sometimes they'd either go out or explode in a flash. Wow, that's quite impressive. It is quite impressive. And so two brave men, Job Lowsley and Thomas Humphrey. That wouldn't be Job, would it? Maybe? Oh yeah.

Job. Yeah. It is Job Lowsley. Lowsley. You've taken nominative determinism too far and thought that he got a job because his name was Job. Yeah. Well, I thought, and then Thomas Humphrey, I thought between them, they've got two names,

but one's got all the first names, one's got all the second names, but no, Job is a first name, isn't it? Job Loesley, Job Loesley, or Lousley. They were going to investigate what this poltergeist, and they offered to stay the night on the property. And they had, I think other people had, you know, been in there and tried to work out what was going on, but these guys, well, we're going to get to the bottom of this. We are the 1820 equivalent of the Ghostbusters again.

But what they said that no one else has said before is that they wanted to be alone in the house. And surprisingly, this is where the owners put their foot down. They were like, no, we don't know. These Poltergeist, whilst they've been reasonably chill so far, we don't know if we're not here, they could ramp things up and do you some real damage. Okay. Hmm.

In the end. I'm a bit skeptical of that. Managed to convince them to go out. Yes. Well, you're right to be skeptical. Either the family are causing the disturbances and they want to be there so they can go, oh, all these guys are going to rob them. Yes.

Well, Alastair, one of them is right. Ooh, J.B. and Thomas will be quite offended with your allegations because they stayed the night, nothing happened, but they did give the property a thorough examination, not for gold, not for spare gold that they could steal. No. Okay.

Okay. But what they found was basically the house had been elaborately rigged up to give all the effects of a potty. Wow. That's really cool. There were loose floorboards in the bedroom underneath the mat. And if you stood on the table in the dining room, you could lift up the floorboards and chuck gravel into the mat. And if you stood on the table in the dining room, you could lift up the floorboards and chuck gravel into the bedroom. What catapulting it using the floorboard or

just getting gravel out from there? I think you just lift it up and you just chuck it in. And it would just like be the eye in the morning, there's a load of gravel or you'd hear the gravel coming in, but no one will be in the room to chuck that gravel. And the wall behind the Bible shelf, there were loads of little pegs in it. And if you went through to the room on the other side, there was the other end of those pegs. And if you push those pegs, the Bible jumps off the shelf. What did they put in the candles to make them go kablam? Gunpowder.

What else did you put in the thing to make it go kablam? Fair enough. They put gunpowder in the candles. And apparently what a thing to make it go ka-blam? Fair enough. They put gunpowder in the candles. And apparently what it was, the reason the family had done it is because they thought that the landlord was trying to raise the rent, but obviously needed to get them out in order to get new people in and raise the rent. Ah, okay.

So they wanted to make the house undesirable by saying it was haunted. I'm suddenly on their side now. If they were to leave, the landlord would think, well, no one's going to want to live in this blue and haunted house. Yeah, I'm on their side now. Seems reasonable. Reasonable strategy. And quite inventive.

Today's tenants from hell could learn from this family. So yeah, that's what they did. Yeah. It's quite a clever way of doing it though, isn't it? Rather than, you know, things like, things like the court. A brilliant alternative to paying rent. Just put all your money into pegs and gunpowder. Loose floorboards and gravel.

And now we've got one last little tale from 1894. So we're coming to the end of the 19th century. We've spent a whole century of ghosts in South Morton. Incredible. They're not getting their deposit back now that I think about it. I think the pegs, I think, maybe the floorboards, maybe the floorboards they could have got away with because it was underneath a mat, but drilling holes in the walls to put pegs in to flick a Bible over.

Unless, unless they were already there when you moved in, in which case you better have taken a photograph on it. Or maybe in those days, a mezzo tint. But what could they, if they, what would be the equivalent of blue tack instead of like hanging a picture up properly? And then I've got a final little spooky little tale from South Morton. Are you ready for it? Yes, please.

As Mike White introduces it, this is the sad tale of Felix Maggs, who, another farmer, lived on Fulskut Farm and in 1894, he went to the local wise woman and he wanted to, you know, get his palm read, find out his future, see what the future had in store for him, and she gave him a terrifying vision. She said that he would die by being struck down by a great black horse and that he should keep a lookout on trying to avoid this fate. Mags lived the rest of his life avoiding horses, which is quite difficult, I imagine, in 1894. In 1909, possibly whilst trying to get out of a field that suddenly realized it had a

horse in it, he stepped on that railway line that bisected North and South Morton that I mentioned at the beginning. Oh, Chekhov's railway line. Chekhov's railway line. And he was splattered by a big train. A locomotive. A locomotive. A locomotive. Which to the primitive mind of the 19th century fortune teller was figuratively described as a black horse.

Well, I mean, she, I thought that first of all, and then I looked up how long they had trains in this area. And in fact, that specific train line is a very old one because it's like proper Isambard Kingdom Brunel stuff. They had trains there for about 50 years. She should have said trains. He wasted a lot of time avoiding horses. Exactly.

She's being wilfully obtuse. It's like when I refer to the website, LinkedIn. I know it's called LinkedIn. It's like when people say they're videoing something, but what they're really doing is they're putting a series link on their skybox, they're not videoing it. So that, I mean, that's more to say you really need to nail down what a wise man, a cunning man or a wise woman is trying to tell you, you really need to drill into it. Yeah.

Ask all the questions while you're in there, rather than spend 15 years avoiding horses. So much time he could have spent close to a horse wasted. Yes. He could have petted the horses. I mean, keep your fingers flat. Sure. When you're feeding them a carrot, there was the, take your finger clean off.

So that brings me to the scores. Let's do it. First of all, naming. Well, I was very impressed by Felix Maggs, because he sounds like a newsagent. All of them sounded like they were named after another thing, because we have Billy Field, the farmer. Mm-hmm, that's good. Thomas Money, yep. George Hall, John and James Parks. That's true, yeah, And, uh, job, wisely job lousy.

And some jobs are lousy. Yeah. Hmm. And then Thomas Humphrey, the outlier who's, it just got to, he's just refused to have a surname there. Still, we had a good run there of surnames. There were things. So what do you, what do you reckon for names then?

I think it's pretty. I reckon it's got to be a four. Yes, come on. I'd love to do your five, but Thomas Humphrey really let the team down. All 11 men, all of the 11 priests really let them down. They were probably all called vicar, vicar's or religious man, you know, that famous surname. Weird that priest is a surname when you think about it. I'm not sure how that's happening. It is. That shouldn't be a surname, should it? Explain that in the Catholic Church.

Right then. So second category though, supernatural. Oh, well, very high. A ghost appears with a witness, not just by several horses, but by 11 priests and two boys of indeterminate size. And two other boys, hall of money. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a lot of, a lot of sightings. And I think in general, a bunch of people must have seen it,

to get them 11 priests in there 46 years later. Yeah. Over the years. Yeah. That's a lot. And that's just the first story. Now the second story, to be fair, nothing. There is nothing supernatural. Unfortunately, landlords wanting to increase the rent is as night follows day. Yes, it's very natural. But then what about old Magsy? Felix Mags. The wise woman.

Yes, it's weak. It's weak because she kind of gets it wrong, doesn't she? It's not a really clear strong prediction that comes true. It's a vague, irritatingly vague riddle. Do you think if he'd like just had a heart attack, it would be like, ah, he was, yeah, he was struck down by the great black horse of a, in this case, a heart attack. Or if you were hit by one of those cars that have the horse on the hood or bonnet, what, which is it Ferrari? Yes. Yeah. Ferrari's has the black horse on the hood or bonnet. What, which, which is it Ferrari?

Ah, yes. Yeah. Ferrari says the black horse on it. Yeah. Could be easily be hit by a Ferrari. Yeah. So it starts really strong supernaturally and then it dips and it doesn't quite recover. So I'm going to say three.

Ah, all right then. All right then. So we come to category the third, I'm going gonna, I think this is going to be my second wind. Category three, inaccuracies slash say what you mean. Yeah. Okay. I can see how that applies to the story of Felix Maggs. Yes. Big time. Mice in the straw. Do you mean boys of indeterminate age and size? He does. Yeah. He does mean that. The house is haunted. Do you mean you're playing a bunch of elaborate tricks on your landlord?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Say what you mean. So you're flipping the names category on its head now. Trying to milk the names category for all it's worth. All right. Well, there were a couple of people saying things vaguely, but I don't think it's strong enough to be an entire category. So if straight talk is what you want, James, is what I'm going to give you, and it's two. Sorry, I should have said, you will be irritated by a swan.

Swans look a bit like the number two. This is a great score if you like bad scores. Hold on, even less hope for this last category, which I just put in for a bit of fun. Final category, Cocker the Dunghill. Don't look for the Cocker the Dunghill. Five out of five. Wait, oh, I just remembered, too late, I've already scored it. I just remembered that it's not there anymore.

Blast. Don't look for the Cocker the Dunghill. Yeah, don't look for it, it's not there. I don't know why, I just like the phrase Cocker the Dunghill. Yeah, don't look for it, it's not there. I don't know why, I just like the phrase, cock of the dunghill. Yes, it's like cock of the walk. He thinks he's cock of the walk, he's very arrogant. If it's like that, but you've got a more realistic level of self-awareness. It's like he's cock of the dunghill. He thinks he's cock of the dunghill.

He's doing well within his lane. Yeah, five out of five. Well done, James. You must be feeling like the cock of the dunghill. ALICE I do, actually. And I think I've wrung all that there can be for Morton's for now. Okay, so is this it? Is it a Morton moratorium? ALICE Unless listeners want to write in with more, even, yet even more Morton.

Please don't! ALICE Please do! Less, lesston, please. ALICE I mean, there's a load of people called Morton, Please don't. Please do. Less, less-ton please. And there's a load of people called Morton, of course. There's, you know, Matthew Morton, the first Baranducci. I'm sorry? Yeah, exactly. Oh yes, that's, that's the, in that case, the title passes on, on the left-hand side. Oh my word, there's so many Mortons. There's a Morton Corbett in Shropshire.

There's a Morton on Lug. What's that in Herefordshire? Stop, stop looking up Mortons, James. No! We're never going to, we're never going to end the Mortons. There's so many Mortons. Oh, Alastair, little village near me with the pond in it that's got the World War II bomb. The contained Hitler, yeah.

Yes. I'd forgotten what it was called. What's it called? It's called Morton. What? And if you are unsatisfied with the amount of lawmen you are listening to, you can hear more if you go to patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod. And thank you very much to Joe for editing this.

Thank you very much to all the people that already do support us on that. Thank you to you, Alistair, for listening to all these Morton tales. Thank you to you for telling them, James. Oh, come see us live on the 11th of October. West Norwood Cemetery. 2024. Google it. Google lambethfringe.com. Yeah. Was that that four-chord again?

Sorry, I'm recording brought you here to very specifically reminisce about my school time riddles and a TV program that I think only I've ever watched. To have that extent.