Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep55: Loremen S3 Ep55 - Chris Cantrill - The Tale of Meg Merrilies

Episode Date: January 28, 2021

Chris Cantrill of The Delightful Sausage (BBC Radio 2) returns! And, having moved to Cumbria, he has a brand new story up his grubby little sleeve. Meg Merrilies was a highwaywoman from "the pasten days" who was ruthless in her pursuit of riches, a hobby which some say has continued beyond the grave... However, Chris devotes most of the show to describing a nearby tea room's delicious tray bakes. If you've never heard the words "tray bake" before, you will be sick of them by the end of this episode. To his credit, Chris's story includes First Hand Witness Testimony™, and you won't believe how badly a man from Bradford can mangle the word "lure". 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 | @ToplessCantrill

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shakeshaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And Alistair, we've got a returning deputy guest lawperson. It's only Chris Cantrell from The Delightful Sausage. I'm so glad it's Chris. He respects the format of podcasts. Big time.

And he didn't swear too much. He's climbed down off his high horse to brighten our day. It's not that high a horse. It's a normal horse, but he's put it in stacked heels. What's happened is someone's stolen the horseshoes

and so it's up on bricks. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Chris Cantrell with the story of Neg's Tea Room. It's better than that. It sounds. I need to get the name right of this.

Law Men. Alistair. I need to change my avatar so I'm not wearing a santa's hat i had a meeting with a business person and i've been on like a beer zoom the night before and my name was big terry and she was like hi terry it was absolutely excruciating she was like hiya terry it was like it was it was absolutely excruciating she was laughing she thought it was good fun but it was like a serious sort of meeting about you know finances and stuff i guess that's the new sort of double handshake for like the age of zoom business meetings change your background to a super yacht and loads of yen symbols and change your name to success.

But with dollar signs. Yeah. Hello, success. This guy's a go-getter. Or a maniac. We still haven't done a clap, have we? Cool, let's do it. We haven't done a clap.

No, we haven't done a clap. We haven't done a clap. We're 20 minutes in. So, three, two, one, clap. Three, two, clap. No, we haven't done a clap. We haven't done a clap. We're 20 minutes in. So, three, two, one, clap. Three, two, one. No, Chris. No, Chris. Was that Chris clapping at completely the wrong time?

Well, I... No, because I said three, two, one, clap, and I didn't need the warning. I did it there and then. Well, you did it out of time for that one as well. Should we do the clap properly now, actually? I'm not going to name any names. If everybody could pay attention this time.

Three, two, one. I paid attention too much, if anything. That did feel bad to me. Right. Thank you for having me back on. Thanks for coming back on, Chris. I didn't want to come back on, but I've got too much of a

terrifying tale that I couldn't leave. After I was on the last time, a lot of people were saying I just kind of made it up off the top of my head. And Bradford's museum trust were, like, tweeting me and not totally amused with... So I was like, I'm staying away from this drama. So this time I'm much more prepared, as in I've got a pamphlet.

Ooh, what is the name of the pamphlet? Gillsland and Greenhead. And since we last spoke, I have moved in the pandemic to a place called Gillsland, which is like out in Cumbria, which is for listeners. I know you get lots of international listeners. It's a bit like the Lake District. I think of it as the miami of the northwest i don't know if that's fair it's near carlisle a place called carlisle yeah so if you're

listening to this in the indian subcontinent it's near carlisle yeah it's it's equidistant you're in bogota and hexam but it's um so i've just moved there and obviously a big boy from the streets and all I've ever known is violence. But then I've moved to the countryside. So I'm suddenly in a rural community, a small community. And I've just started knocking around. I mean, I live in a bed and breakfast

and I'm running a bed and breakfast with my wife. Yeah, you need that caveat. Otherwise it does sound a lot more tragic. There's so much context to this. Basically, I've got this inherited these old books, a lot of local history books. So I was like, after how stressful it was moving house in a pandemic, I have decided that I'm never doing it again. And I am going to die here. So I was like, I'm going to get my feet under the table of this community so i started reading these local history books this one is by mark alexander and geraldine

walker is that mark with a c by the way mark with a c yeah yeah with a c the author of haunted inns the collector of the photographs of the men with cigs standing near walls. Yep. It's a brilliant little book. Maybe he made it because there's advertising in the back of it. Maybe this was his business model of going around and writing about smallish places and reaping anywhere up to £300 in sponsorship fees. It's a brilliant little book. Anyway, it turns out, I started doing a bit of digging,

it turns out Gildsland is an absolute treasure trove of spooky goings-on, spooky shenanigans. The first page I got to in this book, I'm not going to go into detail on this one, but it talks about a little dead boy that's knocking around. Ghost of? Ghost, yes. Yeah, not just the looming spectre of childhood poverty under this Tory government.

Or some sort of pre-teen weekend at Bernie's. So I'm not even here to talk to you about the spooky little dead boy. That's just, if you say that up here to everyone here, they're like, oh, it must be Tuesday. That's how common it is. This is the tale of Meg's Tea Room in Gillsland. There could have been a better title there. So just down the road, there's a tea rooms,

which serves a local community and the tourist trade when that's allowed to happen. And it's called Meg's Tea Rooms. Beautiful place, but turns out it's steeped in history because it's actually the tale of a lady called Meg Teasdale, who was known as Meg Merilise. Merilis? Merilise. Do you know what? I'm just going to, can you put that out on Twitter?

And it feels like it's someone else's problem. So this story. So what happened is back in the past and days about 170 years ago as a fact for you the meg's tea room is it is today with amazing tray bakes he does like he'll do like a flapjack and it's got celebrations in it oh nice you know i mean i'm always messaging him like what's going on with these tray bags he's getting a bit annoyed with me to be honest it's 99 of the reason i moved away from manchester just because i was like i'm not getting a regular influx of tray bags it used to be a tavern an inn of ill repute and basically meg teasdale or meg merrilees which I don't understand what that nickname means.

Does it just mean she got married? Oh, maybe. Yeah, maybe. Hmm. But apparently she was known as Old Meg and she was a gypsy that lived atop the moors. And apparently she was known for she'd murder people, she'd steal from them.

No, I should have done that the other way around. She stole from them. And sometimes she would... Like, the escalation was all gone. If she murdered people and sometimes stole from them. Yeah. So she'd steal from people at the inn, and sometimes she would even murder them.

For apparently, in Megs, there's a sealed-up wall. What's beneath that? An ancient tunnel. The tunnel connects to another house in the village and that house is next to the river. So she'd lure in someone, probably with some sort of two for one deal, on whatever Blue Wicked was.

What would she do, Chris? She'd lure them in. Sorry, just once more. What did I say, though? I think you said lure. All right, yeah. Can I she's sorry just once more what did i say though i think you said law can i just hear it just once more she'd lure just clean just get that clean now i'm embarrassed we can end the call now the podcast is now called lure men guys she'd lure innocent drinkers after bar, maybe she offered to show them,

maybe she said she had a dog that she wanted to show them. Something like that. A box of puppies, is that what you're thinking? A box of puppies or like a load of mice that are not really separated at birth, so they're all like conjoined. She was like, I could show you it if you stayed till after closing time.

And then she'd do away with them, drag them through the tunnel, throw the dead bodies into the river and they'd float down the river. And then it's someone in Carlisle's problem, isn't it? Yeah, yep. Oh, there's another dead body. Like, the blame's down the river.

Yeah, let them deal with it in the big city. Nobody, nobody is thinking to go upstream to Gildersland. So she's getting on with it for ages. And this is all, like, at this point, you're like, this sounds made up. I want you to know that it's actually a fact. Because it was immortalised in a story, a book or a blog post, I haven't got to the layer beneath it, by Sir Walter Scott. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Yeah. wow. Yeah. Yeah. Fact. Yeah, he's a real guy. John, who's, no. What's Keats' first name? Keats wrote a poem. I'm going to look this up.

We can't go through the whole podcast just guessing what Keats' first name is. Terry Keats. Big Terry. John. Are you going to read a poem to us? James always gets upset whenever I read poems. Can't listen to poems. Why?

I don't know. But that's like, I can't listen to poems. I have to have waffles and beans for my tea. This is just another thing. Your social standing is exposing itself. Me and Alistair are classy, classy guys who listen to poems all the time. Sometimes we don't even have the telly on. Do you have a telly, Alistair?

No way. There we go. Comes as a surprise to absolutely nobody. But how do you watch telly? On the internet. Right, yeah. Keats' well-known poem. It's actually written on the walls of Meg's tea room in Gillsland.

Oh, this is a long one. I'll read it all. I'll read it all and you can edit it down. No, just read the first two lines. Just read the first stanza. You can put the extra on Patreon. No, we want to keep our Patreons. Old Meg.

She was a gypsy and lived upon the mars her bed it was the brown heath turf and her house was out of the door she wore a chip hat had she on god rest her aged bones somewhere she died for long agone um and while we could definitely agree that did take up time, valuable time, in absolutely no way did it even remotely suggest that anything that I've said is true. Because it specifically says she lived out of doors, not in a pub and murdered people.

Yeah. I thought it was going to go, Old Meg, she was a gypsy and lived upon the moors. She would gather mice and use them as maybe this was her early years you know how like harry hill used to be a doctor and now he murders people in pubs that's chapter one nice what i've tried to do there is just smash down yeah that's just undeniable fact like so absolutely no leg to stand on saying it's just a load of nonsense so the next bit of it is that meg who died of causes is actually still around to this very day

andy he's experienced lots of paranormal activity at Meg's. Meg's has been in his house for, I think, a couple of generations. Andy's the guy doing the tray bakes? He's doing the tray bakes. It's an award-winning Cumbria tourism establishment, so it's not like messing around. I didn't mean to bring you back onto tray bakes.

These tray bakes are really worth the visit alone. To be honest, I'm not sure whether I was supposed to be focusing on Meg or the tray bakes. It's going to be a story of ghostreybakes. These Treybakes are really worth the visit alone. To be honest, I'm not sure whether I was supposed to be focusing on Meg or the Treybakes. It's going to be a story of ghost Treybakes. It's quite heavy on the Treybakes.

So, he's experienced lots of paranormal activity to this day. I've just seen, I've seen some ghost hunters went there with,

as far as I could tell, absolutely not the right equipment and they spent the night in Megs and they're asking him about it and he's saying like, someone's like as far as I could tell, absolutely not the right equipment. And they spent the night in Megs. And they're asking him about it. And he's saying, like, someone's at his shoulder. And he turns around and he says, what?

No one's there. Do you know what I mean? Temperature changes. Oh, here we go. Who's that in that reflection? Oh, it's just a plug socket. There's no one there, even though I could have sworn it was a person. Oh, I've just touched that. That kettle, it's really warm.

That one's not connected. That's normal tea room stuff. That's a tea room issue. So that's just a really hot kettle. You don't want to be touching that. That is the bulk of the tale. I don't think there's any other... I have to say,

Chapter 2 is looking a lot shorter than Chapter 1. Yeah. Suggesting there was more than one. Chapter two was pretty much, she's a ghost. So what it should have been is, this is the Tale Makes Tea Room, postscript. That's what it should have been. That's how I should have framed it.

Yeah. But if I just say to you... The postscript is that she's a ghost now. If we just get that clean, postscript, you just tap it over. Yeah. So to further prove my case about meg merrily's teesdale of meg's tea rooms with the amazing tray bakes i got in touch with owner and master tray baker andy keen

and this is what he had to say about the supernatural phenomenon still knocking around. House of Meg has been open 14 years. During the 14 years there's been a few incidents of paranormal activity from light bulbs smashing all at the same time. We've had doors shutting and we also had myself and a colleague working away in the kitchen and I felt a poke in my back thinking it was a colleague, but it wasn't. Footsteps down the corridor and there's nobody been there. Also, the medium that came said that there was four ghosts. One was a little boy that would run back and forward. There was one that was like a tall figure

that was angry at the little boy. There's supposed to be a lady, like a small lady with a cloak. Now, we think that could be Meg Merrilees, that notorious highway woman in the 17th century. That's who we've named the tea rooms after. And also he found that there's a he said it's not human it's not an animal it's just a thing and he's quite happy for me to be opened so yeah hold on so we've got two other ghosts that you forgot to put in the

podcast where are these guys no no because because i've zoned it in, James was like, tell the story of Meg. Of Megs? He wasn't like, tell the story about all these other ghosts. This is all in the same cafe. There's three other ghosts in the cafe that you didn't mention. These ghosts are all in the same cafe. There's three ghosts. When they talk about ghosts and stuff being the unexplained,

this isn't what they mean. Someone not giving information chris when yes i agreed to have you on this podcast i feel like you needed more but i don't know what more to give you than a murderer like a murder a murderer disposing bodies in a canal who is a ghost now i think what bothers me is that you've kept changing your story so much. That's not true. So she's a murderer or there's a whole poem not mentioning her being a murderer. I'm confused.

I've not changed my story, but what we've got is a second argument coming from Keats. So the question to you is, whose word are you going to take for it? Ah, now we go. Me, who has spent upward of 12 minutes reading local history books and watching a bit of a documentary or Terry Keats.

I've got nothing really to add to it. Shall I try and find some more poetry? No, not necessary. I'm ready to squash a series of hot scores like celebrations into a tray bake. Ooh. What's your first category? Do I say it is?

I'm going to help him out on this one, this Chris guy. I'm going to side with him. Even though it sounds like I've not, I'm actually on Chris's side. Okay. Chris, first up, we're going to go. As your lawyer, I advise you to say naming. Like the supernatural all right all right then okay he hasn't managed it all right he hasn't managed it he's james but that's okay he's defended himself right you're you're caught appointed attorney but no you're going you're

gonna you're gonna represent yourself i thought you said yourself. I thought you said these. Okay. I thought you said these. The first category is... They're supernatural. They're supernatural, apparently. Okay. Well, you've got a ghost. Have we? Yep, because Andy got tapped on the shoulder.

I've heard Andy's testimony. There's an old lady at table number seven who wants a pot of tea. I've got a pot of tea. Where's this old lady? She's on table number you know what i mean well that's not so much evidence as a short play that you just did there if we can see if dench is free like i really saw her as the tea lady well to play the silent old lady who disappears can we get robert De Niro to do the door noise?

There's no lines. How is the radio show going? Well, the only thing I can really say for certain is that then she's out. She's officially unavailable. So I think you're looking at a two out of five. That feels unfair. That feels unfair.

I think you should accept that. As his attorney five. That feels unfair. That feels unfair. I think you should accept that. As his attorney, you're advising him to accept that offer. I'm now saying it's a supernatural, this is a supernatural hotspot. After the judgment. My community is dependent on the tourism trade brought in by this podcast making a big deal about the ghosts. Are you looking for a pity three, Chris?

You want a pity three? I want to put Gildsland four out of five. Yeah, I want to put that on the signpost. This is outrageous because you don't deserve it. Yes. But out of respect, not for you, Chris, but for the community. Yes. And each testimony and the number of ghosts in that cafe,

I'm reluctantly prepared to give you four out of five. And I will accept it. My hands are tied. What is the next category? The next category. Do I do this? The next category I've got for you is... Names.

Marketability. So, James, quick official formal lawmen aside, Chris has skipped over the naming category. I'm going to advise him to come back to naming. My next category has got to be naming. Naming. Well, there's Terry Keats. Yeah.

There's Meg. Meg. The two Megs. There's Meg Teasdale. Yes, Meg Teasdale. Meg. Merrilees. Merrilees, lovely. There's Carlisle. There's Andy Keane. There's Meg Teasdale. Yes, Meg Teasdale. Meg. Merrilees. Merrilees, lovely.

There's Carlisle. There's Andy Keane. There's Treybakes. Treybakes is actually French for verybakes. So there's that. That's the twee wordplay that I assume the velour-wearing fans of this podcast will love. Velour and corduroy. Velour and corduroy. Velour and corduroy.

The two fabrics. Your typical fan, velour, corduroy, pockets full of Doctor Who audio story cassette tapes. Please don't put that in. Yeah, there's some names. I'm generally, I'm unimpressed. There's fewer names than there are ghosts, which is unusual. I'd like to find another name.

King Juan of Spain. King Juan of Spain. Has he got anything to do with it? And does he exist? The answer is no, on all counts. But I just... I said you shouldn't take the stand. This is why.

It's a one out of five for names. I'm sorry. Next category, please. The next category I have for you is marketability. Okay, break it down for me. I'm intrigued. What I'm saying there is that this is a tale that expands in many different mediums. Like, this is a story that I can imagine on a T-shirt.

It's already in a poem. It's already got a tea rooms named after it. Yeah. I mean, to place this in context for the listener, before we started recording, Chris, you told me that an actual lawyer had told you that you were like the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

So, I mean, who am I to challenge you when it comes to marketability? Yeah, I think this is like, you can imagine this tale on a sandwich box as a film. Like, it's got it all, really. The depth and lore of this world could run forever and ever, I think.

Chris, as an expert witness, I just have to accept that. It's five out of five for marketability. Brilliant. Okay, final category. What is it? I thought long and hard about this and I think it's got to be tray bakes it's gotta be tray baked i mean surely nothing stands in its way yeah it's five out of five it's five out of five for tray bakes isn't it what can i say they're delicious they're delicious

can we put in the show notes like a menu example can i just put some pictures in the show notes so if anyone does want to chris when you described to us that book yeah you said that mark alexandra had come across a unique sort of usp where he sort of put in adverts for local businesses in the back and you sort of poo-pooed that as a business plan and then you just did it. You've turned our podcast into a Mark Alexander pamphlet. You've basically made our listeners listen to a 30 to 40

minute, depending on the edit, advert for Meg's tea rooms. A 15 to 20 minute advert. A 10 to 20 second You can tell you're making a show for the BBC. This is where you get out all your... A completely unbroadcast advert.

What's Andy got on you? All I'm going to say is that you should also maybe visit the Gills and Spa Hotel. I couldn't be in secret. Waiting to be discovered. Well, this is it. It's a beautiful place.

Definitely, if you're into the supernatural and you think everyone in York sort of carries themselves, keep on going. Yeah, I love York, but we've got more ghosts per capita. You've got a hot tub as well, haven't you? I don't want to talk about the hot tub. It's images of me in the pandemic drinking sherry in a hot tub have actually made me more hated than Matt Hancock.

I think I'm in danger. There's almost a neat segue there for you to promote whatever you're up to, Chris. He's just done a promotion for what he's up to at the minute. He's in league with Andy. I'm buying Treybakes. Lots and lots of Treybakes. He's got shares in Megs. He's got a job.

A lot of Treybakes he can't share. As of last time, I sort of knock around with a lady called Amy Glidehill and we're in a double act called The Delightful Sausage. And we've got a podcast, which is a bit slicker produced than this random... Called Tired This Kills, which is very, very silly. And we're recording a radio show next week on Tuesday, which is going out in mid-February or March.

On real radio? Actual radio? Yeah, like from the 1940s. Digital? Yeah, radio. What? BBC? It's Radio 2 as well. Radio 2? The Wireless. They've never even had comedy on Radio 2 before. Some would argue they're still on. And I would suspect they might not again.

You promised us dench. It's a weird concept because it's like you know like even when you're doing an edinburgh show and stuff like that and people come and see you that don't know who you are and stuff but it's because someone sort of said check this out so they're sort of like even if they haven't seen you and it's like you might like like there's an inkling that they're gonna like it whereas this is just being broadcast into vans and cars and kitchens and stuff like that

it's going to go into a lot of the wrong ears they're just going to be like what is this hopefully not I'm sure some of our listeners when they finish their Doctor Who audio books I'm sure a few of them will jump over I'm so sorry about that yeah you guys are the best

thank you for your mention this episode was brought to you by Meg's Tea Room and... Traybakes! I genuinely think I'm going to go and make a traybake now. What's happening now is James is looking at me and I'm fading out and it's being replaced by a traybake. Steaming traybake. Thank you to all the lovely people who left us reviews, by the way. And thank you for joining our Patreon.

If you haven't done that, you still can. Unfortunately, you will get to hear the full poem as read by Chris Cantraw. I would like to hear him read more poems. I wandered lonely as a cloud. So join us at patreon.com forward slash lowman poem. You know how to spell it. And Master Trey Baker, Andy Keene. And this is what he had to say about the supernatural phenomenon

still knocking around. So you can be professional when you decide you want to be. You can switch it on. I know. That's what's galling about it, Chris, that when you want to do it, you can do it. I'm going to send you... A poo in the post.

A poo in the post!