Loremen Podcast - S2 Ep6: Loremen S2 Ep6 - The Trials of Jan Tregeagle and The Hartlepool Monkey

Episode Date: January 24, 2019

Alasdair tells a tragic monkey's tale and James turns private dick, on the trail of a Cornish Bluebeard. Who fled the headless hounds? Who hung the monkey? Both these questions answered for the low price of zero pounds. (Seriously, if you haven't visited Trago Mills - you should. It's quite the thing.) Find the show notes here: www.loremenpodcast.com/episode-6-s2 @loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.loremenpodcast.com/about www.facebook.com/LoremenPod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shakeshaft, travelling back in time to kill Hitler. And I'm Alasdair Beckett-King, travelling back in time to kill my own grandfather, Hitler. In each episode, we'll unearth pieces of forgotten folklore and hold them up to the searing light of our arbitrary scoring system. This tale is the tale of a Cornish handyman gone wrong. We're going back to Cornwall for this tale and we're going to be talking about potentially

Cornwall's most powerful ghost in a tale entitled The Trials of Jan Tregeagle. I love these Cornish surnames. They all sound like you fell down the stairs while saying them. Tregeagle. I love these Cornish surnames. They all sound like you fell down the stairs while saying them. Tregeagle. He's either Jan Tregeagle or John Tregaggle,

which sounds like he choked as he fell down the stairs. I'm going to go with Tregeagle because it says eagle in it. So Jan Tregeagle. Oh, God. I'm not going to go with either of them, it seems. Jan Tregeagle. This is 1600s. He died in 1665.

But whilst he was alive, he was a very wicked man. And again, I mean that in the old sense of the word. You mean bad? He's a wrong-un. But also in the old sense of bad, not in the Michael Jackson sense of bad. Yes, the very old sense of bad. Also, Michael Jackson might have been other kinds of bad as well. Yeah, it's like he was trying to reclaim badness.

What's wrong? We can't put that in the podcast, obviously. We have been happy to, and what's the word for when you become a saint? It's sanctifying. That's a specific word for it. He had a ghost as well, so he's already got one miracle. Michael Jackson has a ghost? If you Google Michael Jackson ghost,

they were filming in Neverland Ranch afterwards, and he this shadowy figure walks across forwards walks across a corridor and potentially disappears through a secret door well that's fascinating but we probably have to edit all of that yeah i mean who's gonna sue us jermaine uh you know actually it would be jermaine jackson or his son jemajesty how do you know all the jacksons' names? They're an extremely famous family, and I just don't know these things.

Just so we know, if we do keep this in, none of this counts towards naming. Fair is fair. That's very reasonable of you. Yeah. So, Jantrick Eagle, died 1665, unscrupulous lawyer. He took bribes, forged documents, bore false witness. May have murdered his wife and children

who would put those in that order it's burying the lead a little as well as the wife and children may have seized an orphan's estates yeah

not just seized an estates an orphans may have been a Cornish bluebeard like the fairy tale bluebeard yeah I didn't know about this

who killed all of his wives and had them in a room yeah like an ugly man ugly Frenchman who was I think it's a I keep saying Frenchman The fairy tale bluebeard. Yeah. I didn't know about this. Who killed all of his wives and had them in a room. Yeah. Some grim fairy tales. He was like an ugly man, ugly Frenchman, who was... I think it's a... I keep saying Frenchman because it was like originally a French tale. Oh, is it a Charles Perrault fairy tale then?

I don't know. I just looked it up on Wikipedia. Didn't bother to look at the citations. All right. Sorry. Carry on. Ugly Frenchman. Killed all his wives.

Yes. Basically. Married, killed, married, killed. Yeah Frenchman. Killed all his wives. Yes. Basically. Married, killed, married, killed. Yeah. That's the way to do it. Don't marry 12 and kill them at once. What a day. He's very much easier to remember than Henry VIII.

Killed, killed, killed, killed, killed. And so this Jantra Ghegol, he was so rotten that he bribed a parson to be buried in consecrated ground in order to escape the devil in the afterlife. That's not going to work on God. Well, so after Tregeagle had died, there was a court case, and it was a dispute over some land that Tregeagle had been a solicitor for, and he'd ripped some people off for committing some fraud and basically got the land put in his name. And as the court case was going on, it was a real mess.

Just before the judge was about to sum everything up, the defendant called his last witness, Jan Trig Eagle. And then his ghost appeared in the witness box. Yeah. I mean, it's a risky gambit. The judge cross-examined him. You really ought to do that in cases of murder.

Just get the ghost of the victim to come and testify. If we've got the technology. If the technology's there. That's what we should use it for well they did it these ghosts appeared and was cross-examined the case was settled the in the defendant's favor and he just left he was like you deal with it about the ghost though you're gonna sort this ghost out is that nah it was really difficult getting him here you can deal with it so the local clergy were summoned and they they decided that if they just sent Tregeagle back, the devil's going to get him.

And they're vicars. They want the best for people, ultimately. So they decided that they wanted to save Tregeagle's soul from the devil. So they gave him tasks to do. Your classic infinite task. So he's getting homework now. He's now getting homework. Somehow that means the devil's not going to get him.

His first task was to empty Dozemere Pool in Bodmin Moor using a shell with a hole in it. Dozemere Pool was a magical pool. Some people thought it was bottomless or it might have linked out to the sea. It's one of the places that the Lady of the Lake of King Arthur legend is supposed to have been. All right. And where the sword Excalibur was thrown. There's one story that someone threw a bundle of sticks into it, and they turned up six miles away on top of a hill.

Someone just, look, what's that in the distance? I recognise them sticks. These are my sticks that I threw away. And so he's doing this, but apparently one stormy night he makes a break for it, and he's pursued over the moor, Bodmin Moor, by the devil and his headless hounds. Which sounds scary when you just

sort of say it like that. They just bark like... It's very much taken away the scariest bit of a dog. The action point, the attack centre of a dog, is the face. What's it going to do? Just hump your leg? Just neck you a lot. Nuzzle in your crotch with no head at all. Oh, that'd be be awful not as bad as being ripped to shreds by massively powerful jaws yeah you're right and he got as far as roach rock which has the remains of saint michael's chapel and he

managed to get his head through the window but he got stuck and was evidently mauled by the storm and the dogs he's the kind of ghost that can't just run through he goes i don't know walls he has to get through holes okay yeah he's a ghost with a job just run through walls. He has to get through walls. Okay. Yeah. He's a ghost with a job already. And his screams were heard for miles around. And the local priest was like, forget this. This has got to end. So he called on two saints to help

move Tregeagle on. And he was then moved on to Lowe. And he had to carry sacks of sand. Sorry, sorry. They just moved on to a different job. Yeah. How's that going to... I mean, the devil can just...

He's got a new job now. Yeah, so he's at Lowe Estuary carrying sacks of sand across. But at one point, a demon tripped him, and he spilled one of the sacks, and it formed a sandbar which sealed off the harbour, and all the people at Lowe were very angry and moved him on again.

To Gwenvor Cove. And there he was tasked with making a truss of sand and carrying it up the hill to a certain rock. Or some stories is that he has to weave ropes out of sand. This old chestnut. We know that's difficult. However,

one cold and frosty night, he used some fresh water from Velendreth Brook, freezes the sand. Completes the task, like, what were you worried about? So they moved him on again. Being a wise-ass. And he now, then he had to

sweep sand, and I believe he's there still, sweeping sand from Porthcarno Cove at Land's End. It's very windy. He keeps blowing the sand back in. He's just sweeping it and they're blowing it back. Sweeping it, blowing back in. And on particularly windy nights, you can hear his anguished cries.

And that, Alistair, is where the story ends. Or is it? In the book, Ghosts of Cornwall, by Peter Underwood. Unders. I'm spelling it with a Z. Yeah. We haven't mentioned yet that the president of the ghost club society

too many words in that one too many anyway I was flicking through this book also looking up other legends and I got to the bit about Roach Rock

a young couple Nicola and Mark were visiting Cornwall having a lovely time driving around Mark decided he wanted to climb up Roach Rock to see this

you know this ruins of this chapel and Nicola she stayed in the car and she thought she didn't quite like it she had a little bit of apprehension feeling it sounds to me like they might have had a row she stayed in the car thought she'd take a photo of him she saw a figure at one of the windows and took a couple of snaps and then waved there's no response to this wave and then she looked over a little bit and there's mark and he's waving at her and

then she looked back to the window and she realises there's no floor or ceiling on that bit of the wreck and she got a little bit freaked out took another couple of pictures she wanted to go and join him but she was just a bit too scared and when he came down

they took it to have the film developed so that dates this story already because this story took place hundreds of years ago yeah about 20 in the 90s

yeah and she took this film to be developed and each of the three shots she'd taken of roach rock were blank all the preceding shots are fine the latest shots are fine just these three pictures of the rock were not there i love the way in these stories the fact that there isn't any proof is presented as proof and then the photographs didn't exist And he admitted it was simply a dream. That's where that story ends. But that, that's the same church that your friend of mine, Jantra Giegel, had got his head jammed in.

So are you doing some original research here and connecting those two stories? You could say that. I'm glad you did say that. Do you have any evidence to support that connection? No. It must be true. Nah.

I'm pretty impressed. Yeah. I don't think we've ever done any original research before. I know, I suppose I heard genuine oral folklore in the Durham story. About cows? Not about cows. It's got loads of stuff going for it. Oh, yeah, Hitler and that.

Yeah. Hitler specifically wanted to bomb it, James. Stop mocking that. It's true. He hated Durham Cathedral for its freedom. There's a place, the round table's supposed to have been on the south coast. It's got a thing called Buttercross, and Hitler loved it. It's where he would have set up the capital of England to have been.

Well, I bet he would have ruined it. I'm Googling to find out. I've inadvertently come up with a new television format. Hitler's favourite town, UK. It says Bridge North, but that's not it. Also Oxford. Everyone's claiming that they would have been the capital if Hitler liked them. Where is everyone saying that? Whoa, we've just taken a bold anti-Hitler stance on the podcast.

Didn't know it was going to get political, James. It's going to make a stand. Unless we get loads of complaints. Yeah. We'll do a pro-Hitler edit that you can download from the website. Right, the scores. I think one of the worst segues to the scores so far.

Names excluding the Jackson family and now Hitler. So the people's names. Jan Tregeagle. Jan, Jemajesty Tregeagle. I think that's his full name. Jan. Jan Tregeagle. We've got Jan, Jan Majesty Tregeagle. I think that's his full name. Jan Majesty Tregeagle. That's a,

that's a, I don't want to overstate things, but I think that is an award winning name in and of itself. Tregeagle? Tregeagle. What was the name of that lake? The lake had a pretty good name. Dosmary Pool or Dosmary Pool.

Dosmary Pool. Gwenvor Cove. See, the thing is Cornwall, the place names sound like rejected Star Wars characters. There's a place called Morazenvos. There's Kriegbroz, Treeskellad, Zella, Velandrith. These guys are all just sitting on the subs bench for Lord of the Rings. Just turn it off.

Not quite. There's also a place, I think technically it's in Devon, called Trago Mills. Which if you ever get the opportunity to go to Trago Mills, you take the opportunity. You grab it with both hands. Apart from being a bounty hunter, is it good? Yeah, it is amazing. It's like, oh, it's like a big pound shop. And you go there, and sure, there is a big pound shop there.

But there's also a load of fairground rinds. And the other thing that no one mentions, places thick with peacocks. It's like you've gone to a town where everyone's been mysteriously turned into peacocks. There's like, you go in the loo, there's a peacock in the loo. It's Trago Mills. Trago Mills. Honestly, I can't advertise it enough. I think it's five out of five for names.

These are all great. I think these are some of the best names we've ever had. Land's End. Porth Curnow. I mean, Land's End's not that good. I think that's quite a good name. Does you not like Land's End? It's all right.

It's kind of obvious. It's no John of Groats, is it? John of Groats. But you don't know what you get in John of Groats. No one says John of Groats. That only is Mum when he's in trouble. John of Groats. Five for naming. Well done says John of Groats. Only his mum when he's in trouble. John of Groats. Five for naming.

Well done. Two. Supernatural. Come on. It's hard to fault it. You've got ghosts and Satan. It's all about the ghosts. A ghost involved in a legal dispute.

Exactly. Which is rare. That's a rare supernatural. Or rise from the dead. So many witnesses. An entire court. Yeah. Multiple.

He also appears, potentially, in a second ghost story. It's like Stan Lee. Just doing a cameo in another ghost story. No, it's like part of the Cornwall extended universe. It is amazing to think that all the people of Cornwall exist in the same world. I know. It's five out of five. Brilliant.

It's a really good story. And also, that name, Trials of Jantra Giggle, that's my name. I came up with that. You named it the Trials of Jantra Giggle? Yeah, that's not the name it was in the book. It was called Tasks. But I was just going for the trial pun because of the cork case. Oh, yeah.

And that's really good. I missed it. Well, it can't have been that good. I would have stuck an extra point on naming, but you've already got five out of five. Five out of five for supernatural as well. Yes. Next task. Sand gets everywhere.

A lot of the tasks are sand-based. Exactly. And that's what I was noticing as I was going through. Well, the first one was not sand-related. He had to empty a pool using a shell that had a hole in it. So no sand there. Next one, sand. Carry bags of sand. Demon tricked him. He spilt that sand. Blocked off a harbour. Killed off a hole in it. No sand there. Next one, sand. Carry bags of sand.

Demon tricked him. He spilt that sand, blocked off a harbour, killed off a town's livelihood. Next place, making trusses out of sand to transport that sand to the top of a rock,

which is like a big sand. Yes, in a way, if rock sand is made of small rocks, so in a way a mountain is just very large sand. And then he's got to whip away the sand at land's end then he's got to whip away the sand uh at land's end he's got to sweep up the sand oh yes so that's three with sand and he also

i feel you're leaning towards just giving me a three for this i am leaning towards a three he also he beats the sand at its own sand game by freezing the sand like do you remember when we did bad lord sulis? I do. We were very disappointed there was no resolution to the spinning ropes out of sand tale. Yeah, I remember that. This guy's just done that. I don't know how frozen sand is a rope.

So it's a stretch. It was like a truss. It was a truss. Well, fair play to him. I was leaning towards three. I think it's four. The reason it's not five is that the category is sand gets everywhere,

and there are several places in the story where there isn't any sand. Yeah. So that's not accurate. Maybe. A more accurate category would have been sand gets several places, but not everywhere. Sand gets you four out of five. Bang on. Yeah.

And the final category is James Shakespeare, Private Eye. Quite bold to make you a category in a story not principally about you. And am I right in intuiting that the reason you've done that is you're very impressed with yourself as having noticed two similar things in two different books? Yep. How many points do you think you're going to get for that? Well, it's a maximum of five.

I came up with a name. You named it, The Case, but you didn't even call it The Case Of. It didn't begin with a dame walking into your office. You're not wearing a fedora, thank goodness. Oh, a genuine sorry, man. Today, middle-aged man, average build, height, everything, average guy, average suit, average tie,

wearing a fedora and a cape. I feel like Terry Pratchett has a lot to answer for because he's a wonderful writer, but he did keep wearing that hat. And I feel like a lot of undistinguished white middle-aged men have confused a hat for a collection of interesting opinions. Yeah. I think he's taken his New Year's resolution. He's like, well, I'm going to wear my cape more. Combine it with the hat. Whenever I wear the cape, no one mentions the hat.

And I don't like judging people necessarily for their fashion choices. I wish hats could come back for men. I would love to. As a man who's going bald, I would love if hats came back for men. The problem is that the people bringing them back are the worst people yeah i was going to score you quite low but then you demonstrated a sort of sherlock holmes inability to deduce an awful lot about a man just by looking at his appearance even if the man in the question was wearing a hat and cape making it a little easy

for you yeah um so it's possible you have a nemesis out there, which is quite a Private Eye thing to have. So I'm going to say three out of five. But on the subject of Private Eye, since we are recording this near Crystal Palace in South London, have you seen the FBI just around the corner from here?

There is a private investigator who's called Finlay's Bureau of Investigation. I was literally walking past it yesterday and I heard the there is a there's a private investigator it's called finlay's bureau of investigation which is i was literally walking past it yesterday i heard the people on the other side of the road notice it and go look at that finlay's bureau of investigation i hope like his first name is callum or something the fbi complain and he changes it to callum's investigative agency something like that would be great he he's a real private eye you're you're not so three out of five maybe i could get a job Callum's investigative agency. Something like that would be great.

He's a real private eye. You're not, so three out of five. Maybe I could get a job. Or advertising. Finlay, if you wish to advertise. Yeah, free advertising for what I assume is an Irishman in a cape and a fedora. Probably not going to advertise if you listen to this podcast then.

Not all heroes wear capes. Not all heroes wear capes. Now we're going to answer the question you should never ask someone in Hartlepool. Who hung the monkey? I don't know whether this story qualifies as being forgotten folklore because I think it's almost as famous as the Lambton Worm. Oh. We're in Wormtown here, James.

Oh. Yeah, so it's pretty famous. Forget it, James. It's Wormtown. It is quite famous, but it is definitely a local legend and it is the story of the Hartlepool Monkey. Ooh. I thought we needed some ghost monkeys.

Thank you. So there's a chance that you've heard this story. But if you haven't, here's what happened. During the Napoleonic Wars, which was, as you and I both know, the past. Sharp's territory. Yes. Yeah. Like Sharp territory, except in hartlepool a french ship

of the the type chasse marais i don't know if i'm pronouncing that correctly founded on long scar which is a rocky outcrop in hartlepool and all hands were lost which is an old-fashioned way of saying everyone died except for one pair of hands a very hairy pair of hands. I think you can see where this is going. Yeah. So a large monkey washed up on the shores wearing a red beret. And that is important. That is as important as it is unrealistic. The beret would have survived.

Maybe clutched at the beret like, don't lose my beret. If I lose my beret, I lose my sense of self, the monkey presumably thought. Prince will write a song about me. Raspberry berry. Oh, yeah. Cannot you find it in the sticking in store. We can't afford the PRS, so stop singing that.

I don't think that's a... Stop doing that absolutely accurate replica of a prince song. And when he was a monkey, wouldn't wear much more floods. So, I've set the scene, and you've ruined it with a Prince song. Yeah, I'm now thinking about Prince, unfortunately. Just like the Tim Burton Batman film, when the Bat-Rap comes in, ruining the whole thing.

Bat-Dance, but good effort. Is that what it's called? Yeah. So, no, no, no. It's a great effort. Bat-Rap would be brilliant. It's what Batman would use, like cling film. the the the villagers flocked around and everyone got involved like the local coast guardsman which is not the same as a coast guard as far as i can tell i don't

know what a coast guardsman is probably someone who's looking out for french invasion and the mayor and they don't know who this guy is they ask who he is and he doesn't respond in English. Sidebar, because he's a monkey. And they conclude he must be a French spy. This supposedly happened during the Napoleonic Wars. The earliest account

that I can find is Athol Forbes, a.k.a. the Reverend Forbes Alexander Phillips. And he runs down the reasons they thought he was a French spy.

One is the red beret. Beret, obviously French. And red is the colour of revolutionary France. So that's extremely suspicious. Second, he's covered in hair. French. The third is when he was offered the Bible to swear upon, he bit it in half.

Like a French atheist would. Johnny Frenchman. And the fourth, and the most convincing of all is a woman, a townsperson from Hartlepool said, well, I wouldn't marry him. And that was conclusive. The annoying thing about this, his account of the story is,

it says they couldn't work out the language he was speaking. So they thought about going to talk to the vicar who spoke Greek, Hebrew and French, or maybe the schoolmaster who spoke French. And that is the last time either of those characters appear in the story. No, they just never get called back to. We could go and ask these two people in the town who speak French or don't.

So they had, for want of a better word, it was a kangaroo caught right there on the beach. You saw what I did there. It's another kind of animal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They did a variety of unpleasant things to it. They stuck a fish in its eye. Ned Corvin, around 1860, wrote a popular song to the tune of Tinker's Wedding.

So now you can imagine it. I can't quote much of this song because it's basically all monkey torture. But I will quote just this bit. Just because it... Tinker's Wedding. To poor pug. That's what he's called. That's what the monkey's called in this version of it. To poor pug, thus all hands behaved. Cut off his jimmy, some fools raved.

Another cries out, he's never been shaved, before they hung the monkey. Oh, and I think of all songs that end with oh, this is the worst. Unless the oh is the sound of his jimmy being cut. I mean, cut off his jimmy doesn't leave most of the imagination as euphemisms go so it's pretty pretty horrible stuff paul screton in aspects of teeside has looked into this or scrutinized it as i assume he would say definitely and his is the the lengthiest uh account i can find He's got a couple of theories. He starts by pointing out that there is no contemporaneous record of this happening during the Napoleonic Wars,

which is a bit of a bummer because that means it didn't happen. But his main theory is that... Cover up. Not quite, although there is a scandal coming. His main theory is that it was a bit of propaganda put about by West Hartlepool as a way of attacking Hartlepool. It's frustratingly not called East Hartlepool because then we might have a West Side, East Side sort of beef going on. Sharks and jets. Yeah. So basically.

Or, you know, I don't know what they think a shark might be, a French submarine or something. So these basically the West Side. He thinks that the railways were being built and someone wanted some business and so they were putting about rumors that the other people they were just attacking the other guys um and comparing them to monkeys or as he calls them jenny hannivers which is apparently a kind of fish which when dried can be shaped so it looks like a monkey you'll have seen the sort of the fake mermaids which are half fish half monkey yep they've got those in the museum in Hartlepool.

So you could call that a Jenny Hanover. And he thinks the phrase was being used to suggest that the officials over on the other side of town were sort of phonies. Right. Yeah, he thinks that's part of the general monkey business, as he calls it. Of course.

Is that the origin? Of the phrase monkey business? Probably not. Absolutely not. Monkeys are notoriously silly. Just the general mischievousness of monkeys is the origin of the phrase monkey business, I think. Imagine if it had come from a town famous for not ever having a monkey in it. So the other reasons why this probably didn't happen are that it's told about several other towns.

In Scotland, though, Hartlepool appears to be the oldest. There's one down in Cornwall Way, I think. Somewhere in Cornwall, they did that. They did a similar thing, yes. Maybe Mouseholes. Mouseholes thing yes. Maybe Mouseholes. Mouseholes? It's written Mouseholes. There's a place called Mouseholes? Yeah. There's some silly place names in Cornwall. There are some ridiculous ones.

Westwood and Kingshill think that Hartlepool is the earliest place where this story takes place. Oh! I promised you a scandal didn't I? Yeah. So there's two potential scandals here. So one is, one of the side theories is that, according to traditions and law, ships are only salvageable if all crew have been lost. And so the theory is that the ship was wrecked. But the monkey found, in order to be able to salvage it, they had to find a way of doing away with the monkey.

And so it was a cover-up. That's one of the theories. It was a monkey and they had to pretend. They had to kill it. No, because they considered the monkey to be part of the crew. So in order to be able to salvage the ship, they had to kill the monkey. But not salvage in any dignity because they're still saying that a monkey being on a ship is part of the crew rather than just cargo. Just cheeky cargo.

It reminds me of, makes me think of Indiana Jones. A lot of things make me think of Indiana Jones. But this, do you remember? It's Raiders of the Lost Ark, isn't it? Where he's got a little monkey mate. Does the monkey wear a fez? I feel like it's the kind of film where a monkey would wear a fez. His mate, the one that shouts, Indy!

Jonathan Rhys-Davies? Yes. Wearing a fez? Yes. Are you thinking of Jonathan Rhys-Davies yes wearing a fez yes are you thinking of Jonathan Rhys-Davies as a monkey a tiny version of him

eats one of the dates and dies no there is a little he's not even French he's Welsh I think the macaque had a little waistcoat I don't remember

there being a monkey in it at all I'm not saying you're wrong it got poisoned and Indy does a really cool thing where he hoys a date up in the air

and goes to catch it in his mouth but Jonathan Rhys-Davies playing outside his race catches it points at the dead air and goes to catch it in his mouth but jonathan reese davis playing outside his race catches it points at the dead monkey and goes he had a bad day good wordplay not even related to it it's just another incidence of a monkey dying what you're saying is here's an example of a monkey hey i've seen you like dying monkeys here's my dying monkey story but i've got a secondary semi scandal for you which is And this is the reason I think the story

is quite well known now. According to Atol Forbes or the Reverend Forbes Alexander Phillips, it's a way to humiliate Hartley Pudlians to say, oh, by the way, who hung the monkey? Or who hanged the monkey? They do say hung the monkey all the time even though I know that's not correct, so please

don't write us emails. They won't. The people who would correct on that would not write emails. It would all be longhand. That is true, yeah. I don't want to receive a scroll. I would like to receive a scroll. Yeah, I would now that I've said it. But I'd have to sign for it.

It'd be annoying. So, what was I saying? I can't remember what I was saying. This is the other scandal. Oh, no, it's a way of slagging off Hartley Pudlians. Oh, yes. Not Hartley Pudlians? I believe it's Hartley Pudlians.

Cool. Yeah, like Liver Pudlians. Yeah. Or Nova Castrians for Newcastle. Shut up. Yeah, that's it. That's like... I mean, no one has ever said that.

If they were from space. Novacastrians. So, wait a minute. Are people from Poole just Pudlians? Poole in Yorkshire. Oh, Poole in Dorset. Hold on. Sorry, stop that.

I didn't do the joke. It's impossible. It's a super easy joke to do. So, where's paul endorse it of course i want to bloody love the place oh yes the glee in your eyes did it right i'm gonna edit that so it sounds like you didn't uh yeah obviously obviously but clearly through time hartland buddhians have come to embrace this story. And they have a mascot for the local team, football team. And he's a monkey called Hangus.

Oh. Hangus. Now, you could have just called him Angus. And the pun still would have worked. But they've called him H apostrophe Angus. A Scottish name, not a French name. But that's the monkey's name. Has he got a noose around his neck?

Because that seems in poor taste. Well, he was played by a man called stewart drummond and i was just looking because wikipedia has an interesting thing about this guy which is that he ran for mayor of hartlepool and that's where he made national news because he ran for mayor wearing the monkey costume oh and so it was on things like have i got a few so people have heard about this and he was promising uh free bananas for all school kids or something like that among not that many other things. That was his central policy.

Probably just to smear his own excrement on the walls. And he won. That's the important thing to know. Yeah, he won. According to Wikipedia, it says he won, but was not allowed to wear the monkey costume in office. And I followed the link to check that. And it goes to a Google article, which does not mention that at any point.

So I really hope it's true that he wanted to continue dressing as a monkey because the chain wasn't big enough to go over the head maybe the mayoral chain it wouldn't be it's not practical there's a new statesman article about him before he was elected saying that up until that point he was famous for having once simulated a sexual act with a female employee of the football team while she was trying to carry out the halftime lottery draw and i'm guessing he was dressed as just as just as hangus the monkey yeah so it's not it's not just him pronounce her anger anchor while she was trying to carry out the half-time lottery draw. And I'm guessing he was dressed as... Dressed as... H-Angus. Dressed as Angus the monkey, yeah.

So it's not just him. Pronounce H-Angus. H-Angus. It wasn't just him, it was H-Angus that he was bringing into ill repute there. But that isn't even the scandal that I was going to tell you about. The scandal is that after having won and promised all the schoolchildren bananas, he immediately rolled back that promise and did not give any schoolchildren bananas, but went on to win two more terms,

having been quickly forgiven for his banana flip-flop and the whole of that was an attempt for me to bring us to the phrase banana flip-flop that was the point brilliant first class i've learned a phrase we should have used in an earlier episode when we're talking about yubbat and yonis yeah this story is a blazon populaire, which is a folklore. That sounds like monkey talk to me. It's a folklore term for a story which is told about another group or race or nationality. So when you make fun of the stupid thickos in the next town over, or when you make fun of the people of Hartlepool based on an obviously not true story, it's a blaison populaire.

That's the old word for bullying. Yeah, racism. It's a blason populair. That's the old word for bullying. Yeah, racism. It's the French word for racism. So that is the story of the Hartlepool monkey. Caught his jimmy off. That's quite a good

Hartlepooliness. It's not bad. To the scores. Yes. So my first category for the scoring is I'm going to go with supernatural because

I don't think there's anything supernatural. No, we'll's anything supernatural in the story. No, we'll get that out of the way. Supernatural. There's not even a tale of... There's a nearly a mermaid. Nearly a mermaid. The idea of a mermaid.

Yeah. Long scar sounds pretty spooky. No. Zero. Come on. Zero? Is it possible to give zero? Yeah, we've given zeros.

All right, then. Next category, naming. Yes. We've got loads of names. Yeah. Haangus. Haangus. Blaison Populaire is a good name for a thing.

Athol Forbes, a.k.a. the Reverend Forbes Alexander Phillips. Athol protected. We've got Long Scar. He would be as well. Oh, Ned Corvin wrote the song. That's a nice name. Ned Corvin. I quite like that name, actually.

Yeah, this is very high for song. That's a nice name. Ned Corvin. I quite like that name, actually. Yeah, this is very high for naming. It's a four. It would have gone up to five if they'd have at least come up with a name for the monkey. Pug. The monkey's called Pug, sorry. To poor Pug, all that has behaved. Yeah, because not only has the monkey's got a name, the monkey's penis has a name. And that name is Jimmy.

And that name is a nickname. So you think the monkey'sis' full name was James? Yes. Or Jimothy. My next category for you is the spirit of Brexit. From that famous Charles Dickens novel. Yeah. It was the worst of times.

It was the worst of times. The spirit of Brexit. Because I feel like it's got a lot of Brexit equalities. It's got general xenophobia. Massive. That's quite... Yeah. I mean, I don't know how Hartlepool voted,

but I also don't think we need to check. So there's a bit of xenophobia there. There's a bit of sort of an element of fake news, like the story probably didn't really happen at all. It's being spread as a deliberate lie. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. This promise is being made, like,

you're going to get loads of bananas. And then later on, I never said anything about bananas. Yeah, did he write that on the side of a bus? Or perhaps a banana boat? Yeah, for all we know, he did, yeah. And he definitely didn't. Because this guy's still alive. An alive person. That didn't happen. The Hartlepoolian

politician Stuart Drummond is a fictional character, bearing no relation to the actual man. We're having fun with the idea of Drummond. He ran for election dressed as a monkey. I think he likes a laugh. I hope he likes a laugh. So, yeah, I think it's pretty Brexitful. Totally Brexitful.

Capturing the essence of Brexit only a few hundred years before the event itself. The only thing that would make that more brexitable would be if the hartley puddleyans were not allowed to hang the monkey because of brussels red tape and the reason that drummond couldn't supply those bananas is because they were of the wrong shape that is true although the first part is almost, because they should have taken him to Durham to be tried, but they didn't want Durham to get the glory and honour, a quote from Athol Forms. So it sort of is true.

They were circumventing those pen-pushing bureaucrats. Yeah, the bloody bloomin' Brussels bureaucrats. Take that. I'm going to hang our monkey any way we want. We're going to cut any jimmy's off cut all his jimmy's off he's only got one we're used to have more in the good old days dunkirk spirit so uh my final category that was a five obviously my final category is the tarantino factor uh well i have phil i have to explain that I really have edited out a lot of Hartlepudlian

on monkey violence. Oh. In relating Ned Corvin's version of the story and all versions of the story. The song version. The song version is mainly just a list of horrible things done to a monkey to comic effect. Like cutting his jimmy off is just the tip of the jimmy.

Ooh. Iceberg. They did the whole thing. Yeah, it's oh it's they're tearing chunks out of this poor monkey and uh it's hilarious because violence towards animals was really funny in the past you used to love it yeah i've i've read a very disturbing book about court cases in about with animals yeah where like a wolf got tried for, because it ate a baby or something. So they took it to court and nailed it into a chair so it was sat. Horrible.

That is awful. Yeah. And I was in Germany somewhere. Another town, they tried a pig because it had ate in someone's dinner or something. I don't know. That seems like a misdemeanor at best. Hey, the law's the law.

I'm sorry. So what do you reckon? Could it be more tarantino-ish it could have happened in a non-linear fashion there could have been unnecessary shots of feet in it and it could have been about four hours long or turned over two podcasts yeah true it could be more i give it a three a three for tarantino miss because it's very bloodthirsty it is unfortunately, that isn't solely what Tarantino is known for anymore. Should have said Sam Peckinpah. Sam Peckinmonkey's ball. You've been listening to Lawmen. The Lawmen james shakeshaft and alistair beckett king

please subscribe rate review and recommend to a friend you can tweet us at lawmen pod or email us at contact at lawmenpodcast.com to suggest stories from your area And this tale is a tale of Cornish... I mean, I don't know, just odd jobs.