Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep15: Loremen S3 Ep15 - The Manchester Mummy

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

A Mancunian tale of the macabre. Two hauntings, one terrible clock, several pronunciations of M. Night Shyamalan and a twist we're sure you won't see coming. (The twist isn't that there is no twist. Come on.) This episode is another coronavirus lockdown edition, so please listen from a safe distance of 2 metres (6' 6").  @loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. And in this episode, you've brought me quite an interesting tale, James. Yeah, I think so. We've got a lovely story from a little town that we like to call Manchester. Or Manchester. Nice.

We're recording this on lockdown again. I'm shouting into a cupboard. To anyone who can't see the microphone, what it looks like is it looks like I'm having a chat with the laundry. Let's get on with the story and not think about any of that horribleness. Let's get on with the story. It's the Manchester Mummy. One, two, three.

Yeah, one more time. Okay, one, two, three. Oh, sorry. Okay, I didn't do it one two three excellent we're in all right i've mick jaggered and i'm stood up as well i can't believe you did a jagger clap with no video feed so i can't see it and i'm sort of because of the height of the shelf on the cupboard i'm sort of liam gallaghering are you having to do that sort of lean let's have the gallagher lean as so often was the case with him it's the microphone stand isn't high enough to justify that kind of thing so he really has to sort of stick his bum out so that he can get around the mic enough to have it up his nose you've got a story from manchester

james sort of i've got a story from a couple of little bits of manchester that are somehow in two different counties two different counties wow can you imagine one of them's called lancashire the other one's called cheshire what manchester's in lancashire yeah is it i didn't know well greater manchester is maybe maybe it used to be i thought manchester was its own county anyway this has been neither educational nor interesting no it's been two blind men fumbling so i'm gonna tell you what i'm gonna do for this story actually i'm that confident in it what i'm gonna do is first up i'm gonna tell you a ghost story yeah then i'm gonna tell you the story behind that ghost and then i'm going to perform a twist worthy of m night shalammalan not the man himself yes the very same this twist would

come in number two on a countdown of top 10 twists and the twist of that countdown is there isn't a number one. Yeah? Spoiler alert, there's a twist. I know, I like it because I have to be honest. I am genuinely a big fan of M. Night Shyamalan. Not a big enough fan to confidently be able to pronounce his name, but I genuinely like his films and it's kind of not cool to like his films anymore, but I really like them. And people are like, oh, it's a story and then there's a twist but i i like that i like that formula what's wrong with

that have you seen the happening spoiler alert it was the trees oh the trees no i haven't seen the one where the trees do it oh it's so good i like the village i like the one on netflix about the creepy old people oh what the grandma and grandpa one yeah the visit The visit. The visit. And then someone pointed out, don't you think it's just kind of gerontophobic? Don't you think it's just going like, aren't old people creepy? And yes, it is. But on the other hand, old people are very creepy.

They can be. They can be. It's funny as well. The happening is very funny, but it's one of the ones that I don't know if it was meant to be. I think he derumed it. I like it and I want to hear a word said against him. Right, so we're going to start with a ghost story then.

Lay it on me, sister. Let's lay it on me, sister, not lay it on my sister. So we're sisters now. How are we two blind men fumbling, but we're also sisters? The surgeon was a woman? Everyone's a sister in the dark. So we're in Hollinwoodwood hooray for hollandwood you'll find it in lancashire it's near oldham it was a village there is a farmhouse named

birchenbauer i don't remember i don't know how the rest of that tune goes. So I'm bailing on it now. And nobody has ever got beyond the Hollywood second. The second Hollywood is the end of that song. Yeah, like the theme tune for England. I think national anthem is the phrase you're looking for. The national anthem. Anyway, so we're in Hollywood. It's the late 18th century.

No, it's at an unspecified time after the late 18th century the spookiest period in history unspecified so this is well victorian times is the closest we can get the olden days so we're in we're in the past birchenbauer i mentioned before that's not there anymore don't look for it um and at, I mentioned before, that's not there anymore. Don't look for it. And at this point in the story, it's not there anymore. But there is a row of weavers' cottages, which has been formed from part of the old building. And there, in there, is a ghost. The ghost of Madame Besic.

She's sometimes seen walking through the weavers' cottages, and you could hear the rustling of her silk dress and it's said that she's searching for the money she buried in 1745 that she was trying to hide because bonnie prince charlie's men were coming apparently one guy was digging a hole in the floor to set up a loom he unearthed a tin vessel full of gold wedges each of which was worth three pounds ten shillings slightly more expensive version of sandwiches yeah like two pieces of gold the slice of ham in the middle one of my favorite things about the past is in old novels when they say things like he has a thousand pounds

a year and i always feel like i'm richer than Mr. Darcy. Like, pretty impressive. Yeah, not bad. But now, post-corona, I've probably dropped well below that level. Darcy level. For the next 12 months. Yeah, I'm probably sub-Darcy again. Only in money. Yeah, obviously.

You should see me get out of a pond. Actually, this is nightmarish. It's like, is it seaweed? Is it man? No one can tell anyway the ghost continued to appear near a certain barn in a pool apparently this is this i'm getting this from law of the land oh yeah your old classic westward and simpson that's one ghost story there's actually two ghost stories oh but it's the same ghost we're in cheshire now

we're in sale which is in sort of south manchester sort of near stockport which is the croydon of manchester oh yeah manchester's croydon very familiar um we're again near the remains of a house that's no longer there uh it was called i don't know something priory because the priory wood is still there and there are houses that overlook priory wood and in one of houses, a woman reported seeing a ghost. She woke up in the 1960s. She woke up in the 1960s. It was in the 1960s.

And this lady was heavily pregnant. She woke up and there was a little old lady in a bonnet sitting in a rocking chair, knitting at the end of her bed. And the woman tried to wake up her husband. But by the time he woke up, she'd gone. And apparently every night the pregnant woman would wake up and there'd be the knitting lady at the end of the bed and even when she managed to wake her husband up and she could still see the woman knitting there the husband couldn't see it and this apparently continued all the way up

until she had the baby and then it stopped that is really creepy oh it Oh, there's a little creepy addendum. A post-creeped. So that little baby girl grows up and goes to university and she's writing letters back to her mum. And in one of those letters, she mentions a memory of when she was a little girl and a little knitting old lady used to play with her. A little knitting old lady that sat in a rocking chair at the end of her bed

and played with her as a five year old. So that's Madame Beswick. That ghost is also, yes, both of the ghosts are Madame Beswick aka Hannah Beswick. Aka H. Bizzle. Yeah, aka the H. Bizzle. Or the

H. Buzzwizzizzle on a formal occasion she died in 1757 and the story goes she was terrified of being buried alive because she had an older brother who'd fallen into a very deep coma and had almost been buried alive himself it was only as they were put in the lid on the coffin that someone noticed his eyelids flickering and he made a recovery and was not buried alive. There was a real big fear of being buried alive back in the days because they couldn't really tell when people were dead.

They were so ready to bury you. They buried people at a drop of a hat. It seems so. Back in the day. Yeah, at least. Give them a poke. Well, they did, actually. That was one of the methods that they used to check if people they burned them with red hot pokers either on the feet or the anus that is that is not what i they've taken my idea

and run with it in a direction i'm not happy with i said give them a poke i didn't say red hot poker in the anus at any point i didn't't say anus. You didn't not say it though. Yeah, I did not. I did not absolutely rule out anus, but I thought that was implicit. And they thought it was clearly implied. Sorry to interrupt, but I watch a lot of TV, a lot of crime dramas. And there's an awful lot of things where they come into a room and there's a body on the ground and they run over. And then a second later they go he's dead i've never once seen them poking anus to test that yeah but you don't i've never once seen them run over immediately poke the guy's

anus and say he's dead john yeah well you never see bergerac go to the loo so you're saying that's where the close-up is on the face at that point? Yeah. On her other hand. It's implied. Fair enough. I mean, I'm not a cop. I don't have the training. No. I've got my own poker and a source of heat. So she was so worried about this that when she died in 1757,

her physician, Dr. Charles White... Now this... Oh, I'd just like to say I'm getting this from a book called Haunted Places of Cheshire. Nice. There's implied colon here on the trail of the paranormal. oh i'd just like to say i'm getting this from a book called haunted places of cheshire nice there's implied colon here on the trail of the paranormal implied colon implied colon implied red hot poker and that's by jeffrey pearson jay pizzle yeah or the jay pizzle if it's sunday so tell me about this um sea weasel so dr. Charles White, he was the executor of her will, and apparently it said that her body was to be embalmed and kept above the ground for 100 years.

And then there was a further condition that in return for these services, she left her entire estate to Dr. White. She was really worried. So that's the thing, because she wanted to be made sure that she wasn't being buried alive she wanted to be embalmed presumably alive and kept above ground for a hundred years which is longer than most people live now yeah that's longer than standard life let alone someone who's who's become old and already has done also he gets her fortune she gets embalmed and then kept for 10 years and then comes back to life she hasn't got any money now does he have to give all the money back yeah i guess minus embalming costs but it sounds like he cut corners on that because he

embalmed her with tar uh i'm i'm a layman in embalming terms, but my understanding is, one, you can't do it to alive people if you want them to remain alive. Yeah. And two, you probably don't do it just with some tar. I'm very much a dilettante in this sphere as well. But thick, like thick... You dabble. You dabble.

Yes. You don't want to dabble in embalming fluid. You embalm your fingers. Tar, like thick black tar, as in tarred and feathered as in corking a ship tar i guess i mean it's going to preserve the body isn't it but at what cost it sounds like she's getting lacquered rather than embalmed i'm picturing her sort of encased in a sort of solid tar jacket well and then and that so he tarred her and then swathed her in heavy bandages, leaving only the face uncovered.

Oh, yeah, in case she needs to breathe. Well, you need to check the face to check if it's alive. That's the best way to check. James, we both know which part of the body you need access to to check if someone's alive. We can only presume he left a little, you know, you know, what would the word? Appetite.

Physician's entrance. I guess that's why the medical gowns have the same back access. They've always got pokers on the fire. Yeah. Is that poker hot enough? Yeah, it's ready. Let's see if anyone's dead in here. That was me being two doctors.

I mean, we've been laughing about it, but the reality of it just hit me. It's really horrible it's really it doesn't it does not need to be hot no warm that's just polite the last thing you want is a cold poker but no i think the last thing you want is a red hot poker so anyway dr charles needed to store this what became known as the manchester mummy So he wanted to be able to see the face, but he wanted to store her above ground. What would you use? For like an umbrella stand, maybe? Or just sort of prop her up?

A firkin, a large barrel of some kind, and you could cut a little door in. Ah, that's a good idea. What he did use was a grandfather clock. With the time bit and the gubbins all removed and just a little a little curtain across the bit where you could see her face and and apparently once a year it would be drawn back and solemnly inspected by dr white and apparently two other witnesses just to see if it she was alive oh oh yeah yeah after another year of not being fed or given water and being full of tar.

And a tiny cuckoo would pop out of a physician's entrance at midday. That is, I mean, I'm not a doctor. No. Again, I'm a dilettante very much when it comes to medical issues. But I'm sceptical at this point. What's the face telling them? Is he charging people money to open that curtain? I don't think so.

Apparently he kept it in his house when he moved from manchester he moved to sale priory and he um he brought the clock with him i think i would use it just to like play pranks on people when they came round i think my watch is a little slow oh yeah just pull the curtain you know normal clock pull the curtain back see what time it is one of those normal curtain clocks. Oh, no, that's my embalmed woman clock. How could I forget? You could have made her into a sundial, like with just a finger sticking up. That at least would have actually told the time.

Or just left the poker in. And, yeah, so when he died, he left it to a chap called Dr Richard Oliver, who then bequeathed it to the Museum of Manchester Natural History Society. And that's where she became known as the Manchester Mummy. And she was on display from 1828 until 1868. And then she was buried. Natural history? Yeah, natural history.

How does that? All right, so here's a dinosaur. Here's a platypus here's an extinct dodo and here's just a horrible thing my friend did to a woman in the museum yeah there's the dinosaur there's the dodo can you just tell me what time it is yeah maybe in the gift shop like as a fun one like where you can get those like a 1p coin stamped into the logo of the museum. That's the source of that ghost.

And you can imagine that she might be restless and her spirit might walk the area. So that's the two ghosts of Hannah Beswick. Yeah. Beswick. There's a slight continuity error there because he got all of her money, except we know that it was buried in the Miller's cottage

or whatever you said. Yes, that money was buried in the uh miller's cottage or whatever you said yes that money was yes the thing is the truth is even more confusing we've come to the m night shalama land twist because later research in the early 20th century revealed that those were not the terms of hannah bezic's will what she did not give a flying thing about whether she was buried alive or not so she had been dead the whole time she was in that clock yes what but why what would dr charles white have to gain the money from lying about it was the money why there was a woman in his clock he gained the money it was money what it was money follow the money it's like Lennon said. I'm the walrus. Thank you. So, yeah, what happened was Dr. White and financier Joseph Bancroft had decided to found an infirmary in Manchester.

And that obviously cost a lot of money. So they borrowed £25,000 from Hannah Bezic, which you and I and Mr. Darcy know. A fair amount of money even yeah exactly that's 25 mr darcy's wet or dry and what happened when bancroft died the money that had been loaned to the scheme had to go to bancroft's creditors and to pay off the terms of his will two years later bezic died as well charles white was terrified this was going to happen again later bezic died as well charles white was terrified this was going to happen again what he did was he claimed that he had read the will and that all this stuff and nonsense about

being put in a clock was in there because he knew that apparently the law at the time was a will could not be read until the deceased was buried so he just said oh i've seen it this is what she wanted but no one could call him up on it and say we need to read this will properly this is what she wanted but no one could call him up on it and say we need to read this will properly because she'd not been buried so he's found it like an incredibly disgusting and implausible loophole that nobody anticipated when they came up with the stupid law that you're not allowed to read someone's will until they're buried yeah presumably this was invented before grandfather clocks before grandfather clocks presented the very real possibility that somebody could be stored in one for 100 years.

Yeah. That is, what a ridiculous scheme. Because there's some crazy stuff that you tell me on this podcast, but that's what actually happened, right? That's ridiculous. It worked. Well, to be honest, that little sort of, that bit is only in this one book,

Haunted Places of Cheshire, implied colon, on the trail of the paranormal by Geoffrey Pearson. That's the only place I found that interpretation of the events. Oh, so everyone else still buys the story, the mainstream media version of the story? Exactly, exactly. They think that this woman was so afraid of being buried alive, she would... That she said, please put me in a clock?

No. No. She'd be hanging up the skeleton in our biology class at school. People would always scrunch up a paper ball and then draw a giant Simpsons eyeball and stick it in one of his eyes to make it look like he was squinting. And then roll up another piece of paper to make it look like he was smoking a joint. No! And then get a red hot poker to check if he's really dead.

Then, yeah, that's why he needed the giant simpsons eyes like what happened to the clock i hear you ask what did happen to the clock what about the clock well they kept the gubbins separate when they put the the body in the potentially body the um schrodinger's mummy uh they kept all the all the parts that made the clock work. And then when they actually properly interred her, they put the gubbins back in and it worked and someone bought it. Someone bought the death clock. Yes, the coffin clock. In June 1972, a local newspaper in Sale reported that it was up for sale

because the owner wanted to sell it or wanted to get rid of it, but no one in his family would take it for some reason. Weird. Probably because it stank of tar. He sold it at auction to Gordon Hare, who bought it for £252. I don't know why I find that name so amusing. Gordon Hare.

Gordon Hare, yeah. Hare like the animal. Oh, that's not quite as good. Not as good as Gordon Hare, yeah. And apparently the local newspaper described it as a grand mummy clock. Oh, very nice. That's very nice. Because it had a mummy in it.

And I can only imagine what picture that local newspaper did. Probably Gordon Hare in the foreground, looking a little little bit nervous and the grandmother clock in the background looking like a clock maybe they superimposed a face on if they could do that in 1972 i don't know i don't know if the technology was there maybe they got the the big in the little hand to make it look like a sad face on the clock as if the clock was also unhappy gordon hair 49 of sale i'm really visualizing him wearing a wig i don't know there's no reason that he would have a wig but he's got a 70s wig in my mind he's got a mustache in my mind he looks a bit like um uh sir clive sinclair so that's the tale that was that was chalamanesque it absolutely absolutely was. And there was a real twist.

So, score time, I think. Let's go, then. What's your first category? Names. Names. Okay. We've got H. Bizzle. Yeah.

Hannah Bezik. Yeah. Or Bezwick. Bezwizzle. Bezwizzle. I've got Gordon Hare, who I really like. What other names have we got? There was the Dr. Charles White.

Yeah, Sea Whistle. Chucky Whiz. The Chucky Whiz. The Chucky Whiz. He's just upped his score slightly there with The Chucky Whiz. Joseph Bancroft. Joseph Bancroft.

I'm not hugely impressed by that. That's a fairly normal name. Hooray for Harlinwood. You've got to give a hooray for Harlinwood. Harlinwood, yes. That brings the glitz, brings the glamour. Yeah's good oldham oldham no no you were riding high on holland holland wood yeah i think it's a three i think it's a three for names okay because because we don't know the names of the of the lady or her child who saw the ghost at the end of the day no no none of the um the

ghosties ghosties the ghosted ghosted yeah the bit? No, no. None of the ghosties. Ghosties? The ghosted. Ghosted, yeah. The ghosted ones. Yeah. We haven't got any names for them. We haven't got any names for them. In that case, I think it's going to have to be a three.

Yeah, okay. Fair enough. Which is good. It's a pass. It's a pass. It is. Yeah, yeah. Next category?

Supernatural. It's fairly supernatural. We've got a ghost that appears in two different places. We've got double hauntings having two completely different interests yeah knitting and gold yep so that shows range yes uh what what are the supernatural things are in the story apart from the ghost um oh that someone thought that it was worth checking if someone had died for 100 years after their reported death. That is... And...

Yeah, that's ridiculous. Someone thinking it was worth checking if someone had died one year after they've been in a clock. Yeah. Checking if someone died after they've been embalmed with tar. Yep. Thinking it's worth it. I don't know if that's supernatural, but it is... It's unnatural.

There's something odd about that. It's very weird. Do you get points for unnaturalness? Because I'm going to bring back in the red hot pokers up there. Oh, no, I'm sorry. There's nothing supernatural about it. It's just horrible. Okay.

Which could be a separate category. I mean, you can drop the categories here, James. But that's true. I'm going to say it's a four for supernatural because we've got a really solid ghost that is backed up by a second appearance from someone else. So that's rare. Multiple appearances.

Yeah, usually in your case it's like, oh, they thought the ghost was in a cupboard, but when they looked, it wasn't there. There was some dust. In this case, it's a bit better than that yeah so four brilliant i'll take that next category oh that took a turn yeah it took a turn it did it oh yeah at every point it's twist after twist and real odd twists that you don't see coming yeah getting put in oh there's a there's another odd twist that we didn't see coming i'm sorry i forgot to mention this

earlier under the this i got this from wikipedia i haven't found this in any of the other bits of There's another odd twist that we didn't see coming. Sorry, I forgot to mention this earlier. I got this from Wikipedia. I haven't found this in any of the other bits of research that I've done. But apparently under the floor in the house, one of the houses where Bezic or Charles White was supposed to have lived, they dug up the floor and they found a twin coffin. What? What's a twin coffin? I don't know.

Like a twin bed? Like a two-person coffin? I think coffin i think so like a yeah like a coffin and sidecar like wallace and gromit yeah but dead with people in it it didn't say how can it not say i know that's crucial that's crucial information it was a real annoying like it was one of those you know when you read something on wikipedia and you're like i wish there were some hyperlinks in this sentence yes citation needed for the twin coffin or even just explanation of yeah link to a page that explains what a twin coffin is yeah i've never heard of such a thing still no i didn't didn't expect it it was unexpected i think it's five out of five yes i think it's it's a real tale of the unexpected roald dahl's tales of the unexpected style tale of the unexpected it's gruesome grotesque it's got a bad 70s wig we can only hope it's perfect five out of five the twist was so strong yeah

that you can go into it knowing there's a twist and the final category hey yo what time is it hey yo what time is it yeah like flavor flavor used to say who is this flavor flavor of which you speak flavor flavor he was half of public enemy right public enemy were quite an odd rap combo would they have needed a twin coffin at any point maybe these guys are they one of the rappers have been killed no no no they're both still alive okay the point of recording just pop them under the floor then for later. I suppose if you were to have a twin coffin, one side would have to be refrigerated.

Why? Well, you could pop one person in it and then keep them chilled until the other person... Because you can't bury it, then unbury it, and then bury it. No, that wouldn't be practical. So he's one half of Public Enemy. Public Enemy. The other half's Chuck D,

who's very, like, vocally political, really good lyrics about stuff. And then Favour Flav is his hype man who kind of just shouts, hey, yo, what time is it? And the thing is, he's got a big... He's got a clock on a chain around his neck, so... Oh, I've seen this guy, the guy with the big clock.

Yes. He's the last person who should be asking that question exactly except we should be asking him his clock face faces out it's not like one of them nurses ones where it's upside so he could look so maybe you just can't he's never got his head around are you sure he's just a very short-sighted nurse who's got a much larger watch than his standard maybe yeah but yeah hey yo what time is it points because i really can't stop myself from imagining child dr charles white just enjoying himself when a guest comes around saying no you know what time is it and then they have a little look and whoa

yeah it's five out of five thank you very much it's five out of five for the strongest reference to 80s hip-hop we've had on the podcast yet for now for now we've had a lot of 90s but is it 80s is that 80s hip-hop they are 80s yeah i think so they are 80s good because i know that the listers respect my knowledge of hip-hop and i wouldn't want to make an error is that the end of the episode me talking nonsense yeah yeah no no tell us more what you know about hip-hop. Well, the story begins in, I don't know, I want to say Detroit. I think it's New York. Well, look, it's going to start on one of two sides, west or east side, I guess.

Actually, I know I asked you to do this, but I don't think you want to get embroiled in this argument. Look, the last thing I want to do is start a hip-hop beef i think the last thing you dare you will ever do would be to start a hip-hop beef you don't think i could start a hip-hop beef yeah i'm not challenging you james you've got you've got a hip-hop beef on your hands i don't want you to that's it we have a beef oh well that's good i mean for me that's good in the lockdown you know with the shops and stuff protein is hard to come by a beef with a vegan.

Vegan beef. What a paradox. Yeah, it's more of a seitan. A vegan has beef with me. You've never been less in danger of drive-by, I think. First of all, you live in Oxfordshire. And also, it's illegal to go out of your house. Unless it's for exercise, going into the shop, go into work.

Yeah, no, they didn't say drive-bys. No, they didn't say drive-bys. I've just checked on the website. No drive-bys. Are you allowed to drive, though? You must have to keep your windows up, which does limit the ability to do a drive-by. Yeah.

So stay safe, James. I know. I hope that by saying this and releasing it in a podcast format that we've actually copyrighted that story. So when M. Night Shyamalan comes knocking, he will have to come knocking to us. And listeners, if you want to make your own mummy in a clock,

what you'll need is one grandfather clock, a lot of tar, and just loads of gullible people. And probably minimum one dead old woman. Actually, you know what? Old person. Come on. Yeah, it's 2020. You can put anyone in a clock. Yeah. Grandperson clock. Yes, thank you.