Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep44: Loremen S3 Ep44 - The Wyck Rissington Maze

Episode Date: November 5, 2020

The Loremen came together for a special Halloween livestream, and here is the audio thereof! Featuring the much-anticipated reveal of great-grandaddy Shakeshaft's name! (It is not a human name.) James brings you a clock-hating poltergeist, a classic haunted inn and a bunch of skeletons that are believed... to be dead. The stories all connect, but how?  Gather your red string and thumbtacks now, for one challenge remains. Are you brave enough to enter the ghost maze of Wyck Rissington? (Say it with a flourish.) Loreboys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen @loremenpod www.twitch.tv/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 James Shegschaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And what follows this week, dear listener, is the hallow stream that we did. We did a live stream for Halloween, so we called it a hallow stream. It's a portmanteau. A panto. You've done that joke.

We've done that before. Oh, no, I haven't. Or live scream, I referred to it as. We had ghosts. Two vicars. And a cameo from none other than Jimmy Shakespeare after he sent Gangster. Let's hear the haowscream live scream. Hallowscream doesn't work.

No. It's just Halloween. Just say Halloween if you want the word to be spooky. All right, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, James. Shall I start the music? Are you ready for that? Yeah.

Okay. Okay. I'll sing it so you know what we're up to james i don't know what you're singing okay shall i go yeah Yeah. That was awful. That was horrible sounding, wasn't it? No, that was terrible. Not only out of tune, also out of time. In fairness to you, only I can hear the music. So the challenge of us both singing along was we were never going to make that work. Oh, dear. Hello, folks.

Hello. How are you, folks? You've been keeping an eye on the law oh the wild hikes very pleased to see the shakeshed back in business yes oh midnight library oh midnight library that tattoo is not gonna remove itself those memories if i could remember any of them yes hello special being county durham the palatinate county yes the Palatinate County of Durham? Yes, the Land of the Prince Bishops. Yes. Is there any other Palatinates? Well, I'm from County Durham,

so as you know, I'm an expert in these things. So, what you need to understand, James, is it's the Palatinate County of Durham. Oh, right. Oh, that's explained things for you. Yeah, that's really cleared those waters. I've got a couple of little Halloween pumpkins.

Gently cut the pumpkins. Yeah, you can. Throughout. Yeah, that works. Oh, they're actually real. They're real pumpkins, yeah. That's actually a squash, I think. Yeah, that's a squash, so...

I don't want to be a pumpkin racist, but I can't tell the difference between pumpkins and squashes. Pumpkin racist. James Shakespeare, squashes. Pumpkin racist. James Shakespeare, pumpkin racist. Pumpkin racist. Oh. I liked when I... I look forward to the grovelling apology video

where you tearfully apologise to all tubers. No, not tubers. Oh, now I've got to do one. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Oh, yeah, tubers is it now. That's the old word for them. Captain Francis says it's okay in Australia.

They're the same thing. Because no one in Australia could be racist. I don't know if we ever put it into an episode where I thought I'd worked out the etymology of bumpkin. Yeah. In relation to pumpkin. And bumpkin sound like they're talking about inbreeding. Yes.

You thought it was like bumpkin. Yes, as in to bump one's kin. And I realised this recently that rumpy pumpy, that's really horrible. Like, for a light-hearted version. It's almost worse, isn't it? And also the one i only really again realized the implication of you know when someone says they were just a glint in their father's eye

yeah that's like that sort of glint isn't it yeah it's like a sort of a sexy dad glint what's your problem sexy dad glint that's fine yeah sex what's wrong with enjoying a sexy dad yeah i don't know speaking of sexy dads we're all here for one reason oh yeah of course we are to find out the name of my great grandfather right just in case anybody hasn't been following the um saga of this uh james you are the third james shakeshaft in the Shakeshaft family. In the current line. But you found out that your great-grandfather, who was a bit of a... in the East End gangster mould,

had a name that was not a human name. And you have been teasing us with this for weeks now. Yeah, no one would ever guess his name. Let's have a little look in the chat. Has anyone got any last-minute guests? Yeah. The Leather Footstool. Oh, Sister Whistie. He is a full-on armchair take that back inspector fluffles mr chippenfield oh miss just

shaft i like that you're damn right shaken vac pumpkin spiced shake shaft that is good so so uh what happens was my dad, Jim Shakeshaft. East End Gangster. EEG. He came to visit recently and got him talking, which is not hard to do. And I popped the recorder on and just got a little... I'm imagining you with it taped underneath your shirt. Yeah. Like an FBI mole.

You wearing a wire, son. Oh, son. I never thought it would be you. If it had to be anybody, I'm glad it was you. Yeah, that's a very good East End accent. I can't do an Al Pacino either. It's Al Pacino. Al Pacino.

Al Pacino. So, yeah, he told me some wonderful stories about my various ancestors of mine who were in various East End gangs, times. He had run-ins with the Krays in swinging 60s London. Just in case you're not British, the Krays were notorious gangsters, not like scary fish. Yeah, or just the Krays.

What's this new Krays? It wasn't Pogs. It was even more serious than Pogs. He told me all this stuff, and then as soon as we finished recording, he said, of course, you can't use any of that because you can't say any of their names, because he was telling... He told me a lot of stories about murder or manslaughter

and just to be clear on this podcast we're against that yeah oh yeah very much uh against that and then that led into me trying to get him onto the subject of great granddad shakeshaft so i think if we can play the tape i mean everyone's killed a policeman in their time, though, haven't they? Well, there's the story, the old story about Donkey Shake Shaft. Yeah. Donkey Shake Shaft. That's donkey as in the animal, not like donkey, like donkey-oaty Shake Shaft. He wasn't a Spanish aristocrat.

My favourite part of it is that my dad can't remember his name for a bit. Yeah. He's like... In his head, he's just going through the other quadrupeds. Yeah. Is it... Zebra. Yeah.

Giraffe. Ocelot. Donkey. Now, I mean, obviously that implies something that i probably can't describe in too much detail about great granddaddy shakes i suppose there's no way if we can if we can check up on whether that nickname was earned i do know where the nickname comes from but do we want to hear the story of his alleged crime all right here we go, there's the story, the old story about... Donkey Shake Shaft.

Donkey Shake Shaft. Donkey Shake Shaft. Donkey Shake Shaft. Who's that? That's your great-grandfather. So your grandfather. My grandfather, yeah. There's the story of him having thrown a copper into the Regents Canal.

Right. Or was it the Grand Canal? It's the canal that run past... You can't remember which canal? No. The old Gainsborough Film Studios. Oh, yeah. Apparently, it was on a Sunday lunchtime

and the pub's closed at two o'clock, and they were standing outside the pub, and there was a guy, he had a jug of ale to take home. He had a jug of owl? Ow, owl. Ale, okay. Not a jugged owl. And the cop had come along and told him to move on,

and the cop had kicked this guy's jug of beer over. And it was a very low bridge over the canal. It was at the bottom of Hyde Road. He's given all the postcodes for all of the specifics of this. Yeah, all the specifics apart from the name. That's where they were living at the time and Don't Get Shaked, I was supposed to

pick this policeman up and free him out of the war into the canal. Psh! Yeah, get in that canal, buddy. I don't know what happened to the policeman after that, but that was a story that went around. And then what was the repercussion of that?

They moved to Dagenham. They moved to Dagenham. What else can you do? Just when I thought I was out of Dagenham, they pulled me back into Dagenham. Darling, get the kids. Don't say it's true. We're moving to Dagenham.

There's a wet copper on my arse. I've just killed a cop. Oh, no, what's going to happen's true. We're moving to Dagenham. There's a wet copper on my arse. I've just killed a cop. Oh no, what's going to happen? We're going to move to Dagenham. Should have spent more time learning

how to swim, less time out to kick over owls. Jugs of owls. A jugged owl. Just sitting... Oh, it's a bit beaky.

I mean, it is the Halloween episode. Probably the most frightening member of the Shake Shaft family we've encountered so far. The scariest, spookiest Shake Shaft. He's the scariest one I'm allowed to tell you about, I think. You Pendragon is asking a very good question. How disappointed do you imagine Donkey Shake Shaft would be in you

for being essentially a podcaster and not an Eastern gangster? I think, to be honest, he'd be glad I got out. I don't want this laugh for you. Unlike the policeman. That might be a myth. Would you like to know why he's called Donkey? It's not because he's got a great ass. Donkey Shake Shaft used to work on the canal boats.

Canal boats full of bricks would come in. You got extra money if you did the last two layers because they would chuck them up and then the people would catch them. You know that thing where you catch like five bricks? Oh, yeah, yeah. He would go down the bottom and throw the bottom layers up.

Oh, yeah. And so he worked like a donkey. That's why he was called Donkey Shake Shaft. That's incredible. The legend of Donkey Shake Shaft. So, James, we have promised people ghouls. Ghosts. Have you got ghosts? Have you got ghosts there in the Shake Shed?

Gather round your computers, everyone, and your smartphones and other internet-enabled devices. We've got some spooky stories for you this evening. These are all Cotswolds-based and I'm going to start with one from a little, very small town near Malton-in-Marsh called Batsford.

I love the way you always mention a place that's near another place, and the other place is also a place nobody has heard of. No one's heard of. It's always like, this is Denge, near Pimple. Moreton-in-Marsh, famously, very bad phone reception. So, Batsford House. Batsford House. Batsford? Yeah, there's a stately home there,

and a forester who worked there and his wife lived in a cottage on Dawn Hill, D-O-R-N Hill, Dawn Hill, just off the road to Aston Magna. Oh, OK, right, now I've got a picture of where it is. Yeah, now you know. Near Nibble-in-the-Fling. Yes, just round the corner from that. Near Melton on Hare. But at least they're not in French,

like up your way, like Chester the Street. Can we just go one podcast without you laying into Chester the Street? He seems to be like a sort of a musical star to me, Chester the Street. And Chester the Street.

He sings, he dances. He don't do magic though not after the rabbit died so the forester and his wife now these uh happenings started in the early to mid 40s towards the end of the second world war and a heavy door would open by itself even though when there was no wind and a carriage clock that was on the mantle in the kitchen would jump off and fall to the floor and not break. Jump? Fall off. It would fall off all by itself. Fall, OK.

I'm not sure. Jump is maybe a bit strong. You've made it sound very Beauty and the Beast. Yeah. Propelling itself. Even when they moved the clock up to their bedroom, it would still hurl itself off the shelf. Now, the report says sometimes travelling a number of feet. And I think that means in a sort of horizontal direction

as well as a vertical direction. If it fell off a shelf and only moved like one foot and then just hovered. Yes. That's more impressive. Now you're talking. And so they called on the Reverend Harry Cheels of Rissington, who was noted... Rissills of Rissington, who was noted...

Rissington. Rissington. Rissington. Say it with a flourish. Rissington. Rissington. Quick. Quick.

Rissington. He was brought in to do an exorcism. He advised them to give it a name and tell it to stop whenever it did anything. As Sister Twisty says, Clocky Joe, you stop that. They did not call it Clocky Joe. They called it Geoffrey.

Geoffrey. And they'd say, Geoffrey, stop it. Stop it, Geoffrey. Did Geoffrey stop it? And Geoffrey would stop it. But the problem was they'd only know to tell Geoffrey to stop it when the clock jumped. That's very much stopping the poltergeist

after the clock has fallen. Yes. As the saying goes. To coin a famous phrase. Yeah. And so what they did in the end is they attached it to the shelf with the small chain. Practical. If I didn't mention before, the clock never broke. The glass never broke. The clock never stopped working. That suggests that the poltergeist didn't really want to do a great deal of destruction. No, it was just having a bit of fun. I remember seeing a student band in a rural County Durham pub trying to sort of rock out. But obviously it was their guitars and drums. They'd be like, oh, swinging the guitar and then just putting it down.

And so they just very carefully dismantled the equipment. Essentially, they just started packing upled the equipment and then just sort of essentially they just started packing up their kit while performing the song but violently that sounds like a scam like they they needed to get that last train back yeah rebels with the bus tickets got a return ticket if it passes midnight this baby's not valid and so i went to dawn and made a little field report. And listeners can find that on our YouTube channel. But I warn you that, James, you are wearing your bandido mask and also double denim.

Essentially, he looks like the double denim bandit. The double denim bandit. Yeah, DDB. I mean, arguably, you didn't discover any lore at all. No. In that field report. I mean, you could say it was a wasted morning. Yeah, but no. I mean, arguably, you didn't discover any law at all. No. In that field report. I mean, you could say it was a wasted morning. Yeah, but no morning is wasted as long as the denim is double.

Exactly. It's double. As the French call it, le denim double. Where? The French and people in Chester Street. So that's story one. We also, we did a few other little places on our trip around the Cotswolds. Oh, yeah?

There's a junction between the A40 and the A436 that is a notorious accident black spot. It's not sounding very folkloric so far. No, it's not terrifying, but it's rumoured, not even factually, it's rumoured that there was a gallows there. Or that idea was put across by the Reverend Harry Cheels. He thought that centuries ago, a gallows had probably stood on the original junction. So not even that junction.

It's a ghost junction that followed the road around. So the junction is a ghost in this? I don't know. The gallows are the ghost? I don't know. But there used to be a Roman settlement there called Wickham. Oh yeah. And there was a small temple there and they found a shallow grave

with a bunch of Roman skeletons in it that may have been died quickly. They thought they might have died quite quickly. Those skeletons had died. I'm sorry to say. They found a bunch of skeletons and investigators believe that the

skeletons died. Someone needs to look into this. These skeletons may have been killed. I'm sorry to wake at you. Your skeleton's dead. Boney! And yeah, the Reverend Harry Chills thought that it was maybe because of this gallows maybe because

there was okay the sight of lots of people dying that somehow would cause drivers to be bad at driving yeah yeah the next tale is from the town of king if you if you consider that to be a tale yes yeah the last one's not really a tale it It's more a... A junction, is what that was. At best. This one is referenced in Haunted Inn's lovely book. Features, lots of pictures of men with big sideburns

and cigarettes on the go. That's the one. Yeah, loads of 70s guys going, yep, there's a ghost there. Used to be a ghost over here. That's where it was yeah just full portion of chips in hand going yep saw a ghost that's just a man looking near a wall so yes the langston arms in kingham in oxfordshire it was the langston arms hotel it's a very big building and uh the author of this mark alexander visited and spoke to the landlord there.

It may have been connected to Bruin Abbey, which has got a whole host of ghosts related to it that we don't have time to go into here. And it's believed that the ghost in this pub is the ghost of a nun. It's described as being about the size of a human. I mean, some scientists now think that nuns are human. They're approximately the right size. Yeah.

And it was a sort of a white misty shape. But Mr Scales, who's the landlord... Sorry, is Mr Scales a person rather than the name of a child's imaginary friend? What, Sidney Scales? That's a real person. He was the landlord. He doesn't think it was a nun because it is so scary. These are quotes, OK?

From what I know of the business, I don't think anyone can really say what it is. It's been described as a faintly luminous shape about the size of a man, but too vague to have any features. A few years ago, it was exercised by the vicar of Rissington Church, but I don't think the ceremony was all that successful.

Strange things still happen here. Exercised by who? The vicar of Rissington Church. Rissington Church? Rissington Church. Rissington. Say it with a flourish. Rissington. The vicar of Rissington Church. The barman,

Steve Palmer, was gripped by an inexplicable sensation of fear. And this is a quote. I don't believe in ghosts, but... Whenever someone says, I don't believe in ghosts, but... you know that the next thing they're going to say is going to be, believing in ghosts. Some of my best friends are ghosts.

No, I don't believe in ghosts, but, well, I didn't believe in them. Anyway, this night, everything was the same as any other night. I came out the kitchen after the bars had closed, went up the stairs to the corridor that leads to my room. As you can see, this is a rambling place. I had quite a distance to go. I must have been halfway there when suddenly it happened. I was seized by a sensation of terror

such as I have never experienced before in my life. Why does this pub owner and barman all talk with the exact same narrator's voice? I was seized with a sensation of terror such as I had never experienced in my life. I, a barman from 1980s Britain, was gripped with a most palpable sense of dread. Steve Palmer. The blood ran cold within my

veins. I was rooted to the spot. I said to myself, I'm not going on any further. It got better when I came downstairs again. And So basically that guy got scared on a landing? Yes. Okay. And Mr. Scales, Sidney Scales said You should have seen Steve the next day

He looked so bad I asked him what was the matter and then he told me And he's not the only one to experience something there If dogs go near room one I mean arguably he didn't experience anything there Since then It's become a care home for old people Oh well I imagine it's not spooky anymore now.

And in the 1980s, a nurse there in 1988 said that they saw a white figure in one of the corridors. And, guys, this is where it gets real. A close personal friend of mine. No, a friend of mine used to live next door in Langston House. And in around 1988 or 89 he's not 100 sure he was playing with his legos and he looked up was he a child at the time yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah he was a child okay so he's playing with his lego not his legos we're not american uh so he was

playing with his duplos and he looked up and there was a woman in a white gown there and he realized it was unfortunately one of the people from the old people's home who had gotten a bit lost i'd wandered into his house and what did it tell us wow it must have been terrifying to be honest he was like eight yeah and he he took he took her and led her back and said she had a very cold hand. Wow. And that child grew up to be Donkey Shake Shaft. Quite right. So, the eagle-eared amongst you, noticed any links between these stories so far, apart from a distinct lack of ghost?

I have spotted the link. It's the Reverend Harry Cheels. The Reverend Harry Cheels. It's the Reverend Harry Cheels. The Reverend Harry Cheels. He was a notorious exorcist in the Cotswolds area, or an expert on the paranormal. He apparently would give talks on paranormal things. In one version of his story,

it says that he had a ghost in his rectory. I beg your pardon? In Wickrissington. It's a phrase that means when you're quite annoyed. Like, he had a ghost in his rectory, I tell you that. Oh, he's got ghosts in his rectory. He started dealing with ghosts and spirits when a poltergeist at his rectory ran up and down the stairs,

rattled door handles and banged doors. Additionally, the ghost, which he called Geoffrey... Isn't that the same name? Yeah. You can't just keep calling all ghosts Geoffrey. Isn't that the same name? Yeah. You can't just keep calling all ghosts Geoffrey. Or, is it the same ghost? And he just exercised it out of his rectory

into the Forester's Cottage. He's got a ghost in his Forester's Cottage. Does that work? Is there any distance in that as a euphemism? I think so. And again, he would just say to Geoffrey, stop it, Geoffrey. and it would stop for a bit of a while. He's very much got one move when it comes to ghosts, which is to say stop it, Geoffrey.

And if the ghost isn't called Geoffrey, that doesn't change the strategy at all. Yes. I've seen the film The Exorcist, and at no point in it does anyone just come into the room and say, stop it, Geoffrey. Maybe that would have really saved Father Karras' life, potentially. The power of Geoff compels you. The power of Geoff compels you.

I mean, that's not really where his eccentricities end, claiming to be an exorcist. As the vicar of Rissington Church. Quick Rissington Church. Quick Rissington. He had a dream one night. And some stories of this dream is that he was looking out of the window of his rectory into the garden and there was something there.

And there was a figure behind him telling him, you have to build this. And he didn't know what it was and he told his wife about this dream the next day. Is this Field of Dreams? Is this the plot of the film Field of Dreams? Kind of, yes. And his wife said,

what you've described there is a maze and he made a maze in his rectory garden. You had to pass through these 15 points in a certain order. It was originally laid out with boulders, but then later planted. And every year he made all the children of the tiny village of Wickrissington go through this maze. And they talk about this in the little bit of film you can find about it. We can't play it in for rights reasons, but it is an amazing piece of sort of hauntological horror because it starts with the voiceover saying the children of

wick grissington sing songs with rhyming words as if the concept of songs with rhyming words had never been heard of before as if they had invented it and they used sydney scales to do the voiceover uh a landlord from the langston arms yeah everyone talked like that in 1980 but it's but also the songs they're singing are all like teeth and bone skin and hair it's like really they're not stock nursery rhymes you haven't heard any of you can't really make out the words but it is yeah sinister and i think the voiceover even mentions that these are rhymes that have been passed down through the generations of children in this specific village yeah yeah he makes the all the children walk through this maze every year and there's a bit where the reporter sort of generally says oh

have you lost anyone and he says like not this year oh no not this year a humorous term from the from the reverend harry chills harry chills yeah he seems quite sort of sweet And innocent And But Yeah There's another Harry Chills Yeah if you Well I was looking If you Google Harry Chills

This guy comes up And he is not friendly looking But But he died In 1947 But was also Was also the rector Of the same church

So I don't know If this is Daddy Chills With Christenton I don't know If that's Daddy Chills and we've got sort of Baby Chills. And then previously Donkey Chills. And then Donkey Chills East End Gangster.

A bit of maze out of bricks. And dead policemen. Yeah. I chucked a policeman into a maze. Get out of that copper. It turns out the maze that sounds so fantastic was destroyed in 1984. Yeah, they knocked it down.

Can you knock down a maze? A hedge maze, yeah, it's quite easy. You just sort of, I suppose you dig it up rather than knock it down. I have, in an act of extraordinary hubris, I've taken the map of Harry Chills' maze and I have recreated it in video game form. Now, podcast listeners won't be able to see so i want to prepare the listeners for basically the the next gen quality graphics

you're gonna see we're talking playstation 7 we're talking we're talking have you heard of quake we're talking really high quality graphics let's see if this works there we go i didn't know the maze was on a beach. It's not on a beach. I just couldn't do the rest of Wickrissington, so there's nothing there. Oh. Okay, so here we go. Oh, there we go. There it is. The Reverend Harry Cheers. And this is the first point.

Annunciation is the first stage. Annunciation. Annunciation. Say it with a flourish. Annunciation. Annunciation. There's like 15 of these. You keep talking and I'll keep trying to explore There's a printout of what the maze is all about It's called The Maze of the Mysteries of the Gospel Subtitle

More for the pilgrim than the sightseer And it was following a vivid dream in 1950 In which Harry Charles was instructed to create a maze in the rectory gardens He was instructed to do it? Yes I'm doing really well I'm on six I'm on the agony now Oh nice one was instructed to create a maze in the rectory gardens. He was instructed to do it? Yes. I'm doing really well. I'm on six.

I'm on the agony now. Oh, nice one. I skipped over a few, to be honest, because I'm an atheist and... Oh, what's this? Two! How am I back at two? Back at two! This maze is hellish.

Now, opposite number 14, there was a sign that said, life after death. If you don't believe in it turn back that is very frightening which is quite sinister for a thing to make children do once a year so every year on the feast of saint lawrence which was august the 10th he would lead this procession through the maze passing through each of the 15 mysteries of the gospels in the correct order without the procession ever crossing itself there was a black tunnel and then there's a self-shutting gate called the gate of judgment

no turning back i have to say at this point we're about to approach the center of the maze and where the giant tree should be but i didn't know there was a giant tree there at the time so i've just put a giant james shakeshaft head in the center of the maze. There he is. You've achieved eternal life. We finally made it. Oh, wow. Nobody has tread on that maze for 36 years until tonight. The ghost maze. I find him a little menacing, this Harry Chills guy.

I mean, making the entire village walk through your maze. Yes. That is a power move, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. You know, like if you go into a meeting with someone, you're a little bit nervous, and they say, should we do this in the maze? You have to say yes. You can't say no thank you to the maze,

but at the same time, you're a bit on the back foot. Try and find my sequoia. So I think it's time for the scores. What's your first category? I'm going to go with naming. Oh, there have been a lot. I'm leaving the Jeffs to one side. I like Wick Rissington.

Wick Rissington. I like the Reverend's Harry Cheels. The Reverend's Harry's Cheels. For once, my dad's pluralisation is at work. What else have we got? Dorn. Dorn. Aston Magna.

Oh, this was the other thing that I think added some sort of sinisterness to the Reverend Harry Chills. The next village on from Rickrissington or the next village is on are collectively known as

the Slaughters. The Slaughters? You've got Upper and Lower Slaughter. Oh, I mean, Upper Slaughter sounds bad, but Lower Slaughter. Oh, those people from Upper Slaughter. That sounds awful. slaughter. Oh, I mean, upper slaughter sounds bad, but lower slaughter. Oh, those people from upper slaughter. That sounds awful.

Yeah. Wow. Okay, you're getting points for the slaughters. What else have we got then? Tea Cake 2000 points out, quite rightly, Sydney Scales. Sydney Scales. Sydney Scales. Okay, I think it's a four.

Wait a minute. Donkey Shake Shaft. Forgot about Donkey Shake Shaft. Donkey Shake Shaft. That's a funny name. Excuse me, Senior Donkey Shake Shaft. Please, you must help our village. shaft forgot about donkey shake shaft donkey shake shaft that's a funny name excuse me senior donkey please hey you must help our village well yeah they've got a sheriff gone bad and he's kicking over owls the sheriff is wearing double denim is this al pacino playing these parts yeah al pacino

playing that role yeah yeah i think it's got to be a five it's got to be a five for donkey shake shaft you're damn right TK2000. Yes, come on. What's the next category? Should we go with Jeffs? There's a lot of Jeffs. There's a lot of Jeffs. A lot of Jeffs. Wait, no, there's only two Jeffs.

There's two Jeffs, but it could be any amount of Jeffs. We don't know how many other people he badly exercised by saying, call it Jeffrey and call me in the morning. But equally, we don't know if it was the same Geoffrey simply moving from house to house. Whoa. James, I think you're looking at a one out of five for Geoff's. But it's such a big

one. Oh, it's a huge one. It's a gigantic one but it's just not quite as big as a two. Ah. What's the next category? I don't know. Should we go with Supernatural? That's good acting. That was so natural. That was good acting. That was really convincing. That was very good acting. The people listening to this in the podcast will have no idea that we had a little behind the

scenes chat there. Yeah. Thank you for that suggestion, James. Supernatural, I think it's a four out of five. It would have been five out of five, but your field reports have been so lacking in anything of any substance. Denim is famously a very substantial fabric. James, let me be clear. I wasn't criticising the denim. I would never do that. I wouldn't do down the double denim. No. This isn't about the denim. Good. Thank you. Final category. What have you got for me? Doubles.

Doubles. Well. Dubs. We've got two Jeffs. Boom. We've got the double denim you wore during the investigative reports. Dub den. Yeah. What else have we got? I think that pint of ale, I think it was actually a two-pint jug of ale. Yeah. Because I remember my dad saying that what used to happen was the pub would shut in the morning

and then open in the afternoon. So you'd get a two-pint and stand outside for those two hours to tide you over the time that pubs were closed. So you'd get a two-pint jug. so you'd get a two pint jug two pints of ow that was two pints of owl ow that's another double then because normally in a bar a double means like a double shot of spirits not like a pint not like a bucket of alcohol no wonder no wonder a policeman ended up getting thrown in a policeman was thrown in one of two canals double canals yes we've got two Harry Cheelsers.

It's like Doctor Who, just there's a different Harry Cheels for every generation. Or Jimmy Bond. Cheels, Reverend Harry Cheels. Or James Shakespeare, very much. And there is my replica of his maze, which is a double of the maze. It's five out of five, James.

Thank you very much. Good work. And two pumpkins, of course. Double pump. Two pumps. Double pump. Double pump double pump twice the pump twice the pin especially one says you're just making this up aren't you i can't understand how you could have got to this point in the podcast without having You've been listening to the Lawmen Hallowscream livestream. No! Halloween livestream.

You can just call it Halloween livestream. You were listening to it with me, Alastair Beckett-King. And me, James Shakeshaft. We now have a Patreon. Yes. Which is a way that you can support us on a regular monthly basis at patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod. What do people get in return, James?

Oh, kickbacks, baby. Oh, yeah? You're going to get a Deputy Lawperson badge. There's going to be bonus episodes and proof of ghosts. Really? Subject to availability. So become our supporter

by going to patreon.com forward our supporter by going to p-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com forward slash lawmenpod. I've just remembered, we're not playing now because it's quite long and I've literally just told the story

in a lot quicker than my dad did, as well you can imagine. He speaks with the slow confidence of a gangster. Like the godfather, the godfather's not saying like, I can't believe you came to me

on my daughter's wedding day. On my daughter's wedding day. I would really like. They always speak in a slow. He's got the confidence of a forgetful gangster. He gives out a brilliant Shake Shelf Life Act. Oh, really? Wow.

Like an old school one as well. One from the old school. When you're throwing bricks, what you want to do is. It is brick related. Of course it is brick related and theft related we know two things we know bricks and we know crime the brick is the same weight and almost the same size of tins of corned beef that were coming over during the war from the argentine from Oh, from Frey Bentos? Frey Bentos, yeah.

Down the meat market, the Smithfield meat market, they would pinch a couple of tins of corned beef out of a box of them and replace them with household bricks, nail the box back down, and some butchers would get their supply of tins of corn wheat when they knocked the box open. There was two tins worth of bricks.

So that's theft, essentially, there, Joe. That's theft more than it is a life hack. A lot of crime is basically life hacking, isn't it? So Don't Chase Your Half, he would throw the bottom two layers and that's why... Yeah. And that's how he got the name donkey right

because he's like a donkey he worked like a donkey so maybe the policeman thing it was just muscle memory