Loremen Podcast - S5 Ep25: Loremen S5Ep25 - The Beast of Belper and the Surrey Puma with Long Cat Media

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

The cats from Long Cat Media came back! Lindsay Sharman and Laurence Owen (who are so award-nominated they seem to have gained another nomination since last week) return. And they bring with them a first-hand sighting of a cryptid. That's right, Laurence saw Derbyshire's elusive Beast of Belper. Meanwhile, James Shakeshaft has not been shake-shirking his research duties. He's on the trail of the Surrey Puma, and he's found photographic evidence that will blow you away (if you've never seen a picture of a normal cat before). Join us for another Loremen Live in Oxford on 25th May: https://oldfirestation.org.uk/whats-on/loremen-podccast/ This episode was edited by Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor. LoreBoys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 @loremenpod youtube.com/loremenpodcast www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod

welcome to lawmen a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore with me james shakeshaft and me alistair beckett king and alistair the long cats are back the longest of cats have returned yes and they've got another animal-based terror tale for us. Have they brought a feline spectre with them, James? They're feline spooky. Sorry about that, everyone. That's all right. That's okay. I just thought I would be completely silent and give you time to think about that.

Well, let's move quickly on and enjoy and be terrified by the Beast of Belper and the Surrey Puma. Meow. Lawrence, Lindsay, the long cat boys. Hello. And girls, the long cat folk. Folk. Do you have a preferred collective term for yourselves? Cats? Could be the Long Cats.

The Long Cats. Oh, the Long Cats. The Long Cats are still here in... Sorry, I paused as I realised I don't want to do the whole of this podcast in a fake courtroom. Oh no, that's just too confusing. The Long Cats are still here in Lawmen HQ, trapped by an unwieldy and burly door person. Yes.

And while you're here, we'd love to squeeze another story out of you. Okay. Well, I actually have what I believe to be a positive ID on a real- life cryptid. What? What? Yeah.

You've seen it? You've seen it yourself? I've seen it with my eyes. No. Before you knew about the story as well? Yes. So which I hope will add more credence to my tale. It's laden with credence now.

It has more credence than a Clearwater revival. Jeez Louise. So if I may kick this off i i'm from london but my sister lives sorry sorry sorry i forgot i am northern technically fair enough i thought you were booing sister my sister we hate sister yeah we're yeah you're on the internet now. Girls are loud. Boo for being female, boo. So she decided to get out of London. Boo! And move.

It sounds like we're in a pantomime. We've gone very pantomime. This is more pantomime than I'd intended this early on. Oh, no, it isn't. I was all right. There you go. How perfectly did I set that up for you? I even left a lovely little pause for you to jump in on. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah i think you deserve most of the credit for that thank you oh no i don't

so my sister moved to belper which is small mill town in derbyshire and the mill i'm going to tell you this the mill was founded by a derbyshire industrialist the hosier and cotton spinner jedediah strutt jedediah jedediah that's d's in the middle i'm just dropping that jebberdia not jebberdia i read it twice jedediah jedediah strutt a man and a walk walk like you own a mill. The Jedediah Strutt. It's like a kind of another ragtime number, isn't it? The Jedediah Strutt. He was a pioneer of a machine known as the Derby Rib, which made rib stockings.

He didn't invent it, but he basically bought it off the guy who invented it and called it his own. I could well imagine how he left that business meeting. Do-do-do-do. So I feel compelled at this point also to say just quickly that Jedediah Strutt had five children whose names were William, Elizabeth, Martha, Joseph,

and George Benson. Oh! He's the... George Benson is the only... None of the other Strutt children have two names, just George Benson. Benson's not a name, either. Benson's a surname.

Maybe he suspected George wasn't his. Is there an actual George Benson in the village who is doing the opposite of the Jedediah Strutt? Yeah. Just sort of skulking along. The Benson Skulk. So, yeah. the opposite of the jedediah strutt here in that one skulking along the benson skull so yeah jedediah strutt and his many children have no bearing on the story i'm just very aware that i don't have any other names really beyond this point billy strutt billy strutt nice so my

sister moved to the town of belper in i think about 2010 and I went to visit her. Near the mill, founded by Jedediah Strutt, is the River Derwent and there are houses with gardens that back onto the river. We were walking around near this mill and we saw an animal in one of these gardens. It was sniffing around the garden, around some furniture, like table and chairs, garden furniture. At first I thought it was a dog because it seemed to be dog shape and size. But then we realised, no, it's a cat. And we were looking at it and going, wow, that's a big old cat.

And then there was a sort of a pause where we both let the cogs in our heads turn and sort of came to the conclusion, wow, that cat is really massive. But it was in the shape of a dog. It was a cat in the shape of a dog. It was a cat. I would say the size of a dog it was a cat in the shape of a dog it was a cat i would say

the size of a dog and it didn't look quite right it didn't have the proportions of a normal cat it was a bit longer like not stocky like a panther not less sort of not like big cat proportions more skinny i didn't know what a lynx looked like at the time. But Lindsay, you showed me a photo of a lynx and it pretty much was like a lynx. Tiny head. Yeah. Small head, rangier and weirder than a normal cat and much bigger. And compared to the chairs, yeah, I would say about the size of a Labrador. If you were if you're a lynx listening to this and you've got body image issues, this is not going to happen.

I apologise. We can put it. Because you're like, it looked like a lynx you know really disgusting weird well i've got a very tiny head for my body i wouldn't necessarily say that's a bad thing you're allowed to say that that's the listener might not realize that you taper to a point i zero i'm like a christmas tree or an iceberg so we're looking at this, Lynx, and we start going through a sort of skeptics checklist going,

first of all, are we absolutely sure that this is not a dog? And we looked at it for a long time. We were seeing it. It was not kind of just a thing that we saw briefly and then it scampered away. We looked at it for about

two to three minutes, this thing. So we concluded, no, we know what dogs look like. We have cats in our house. We know what cats move like this is a cat like being and so the next thing we thought well are the chairs tiny good that was going to be my next question i can see it in your eyes james then you were about you were small chairs well thank you thank you for little wendy house playset yeah i've i, I thought I saw a sort of Godzilla once, but it was just a toddler with a doll's head.

I'm sorry for you. I would love for you to see a Godzilla at some point. In the wild. Not in a zoo. It was just for all. They get stressed. It's horrible. Are the chairs tiny?

Is that the remarkable thing are we in fact looking at a normal cat owned by a community of pixies maybe the cat is maybe cat the cat is not the interesting thing maybe the pixies are there yeah so all of this crossed our mind we were talking yeah did you did you check that you weren't nearer to it than you thought you were uh yeah yeah that was another thing that we ruled out quite quickly we had various points of reference we had sheds fences for scale houses how long were you staring at this sort of and this was all going through your head about two to three minutes we were standing looking at this thing having this conversation in real time um but unless the houses were an elaborate disney imagineering style trump doy where the whole thing had been set up purely for the benefit of us

looking at this creature i think they were real houses and yeah and we were even thinking is it just like a really big main coon which is like one of the biggest types of cats no it was just too big and anatomically it didn't look right. We're definitely going to get... Anatomically weird. We're going to get angry letters from lynxes, and I know, but... I can hear, you know,

what a cat, didn't look right. So we went home, we looked it up, and it turns out there are numerous big cat sightings in Derbyshire. So we weren't going mad. Mmm. Am I right in thinking, because you told me,

Lawrence, with I think a tone of shame, that you'd written a song about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have written a song about it. Why the shame? Why the shame? You write music.

What's to be ashamed or embarrassed about? Well, I think what I did in my lyrics there was try and make it better than my kind of slightly sort of, it's a bit big oh yeah that's really quite big if i'd gone for a more honest account of how it went but i tried to improve the story further for the purposes of art and actually that's where i feel ashamed i feel ashamed about i think you should maybe you should have done more of a punk song, like horrible links, disgusting. Yeah. You know, just try and really emphasise how... Stupid little head.

You've got an excellent punk voice, Lindsay. I like the... It's very Vivian from the young ones. It's the only style I do, really. How old were you when you did this song? I was about, I'd say, 21. And my sister, actually, who is a theater maker she made a local a piece of promenade theater children's theater called the beast of belper inspired by this very

sighting see i reckon this is what happens with cryptids artists they build on the story this absolute nonsense is disseminated throughout the community yeah what a shame that this disgusting links was seen by two people who cannot contribute to society and have decided to work in the arts liars instead of do something useful like own a mill i'm gonna improve this disgusting links through art i hate that allow me to write a song it's a bit better so my sister and my brother-in-law they started talking to locals which is always a good thing to do when you're you know looking for folklore mostly men in pubs which is where you go to find out this sort of thing and that's where the locals are yeah they literally that's what they're called, pubs.

Locals. So the most common explanation deals with Riber Castle, which is a place in Matlock, built by another industrialist called John Smedley in 1862. It was his private home, and it was known locally as Smedley's Folly. Not as cool as Jedediah Strut, I'm afraid. Smedley. That's who he bullied at school isn't it smedley's grovel strut bullied smedley for sure definitely i'm sorry mr strut there's a problem with the machines see if strut had built a big stupid castle

it would be known as like strut towers and everyone would have a everyone would have nothing but respect for it. Strut's big phallus. But no, Smedley got Smedley's Folly and his wife lived in Smedley's Folly until her death in 1892, after which the castle became a boys prep school until this became financially unsustainable in the 1930s. Now, the architectural historian John Somerson went to the school in the 1930s. Now, the architectural historian, John Somerson, went to the school in the early 20th century. And although he had a pretty good time,

he was not a fan of the architecture of Smedley's Folly. And he described the castle as, and this is a direct quote from him, an object of indecipherable... Which you may not even be allowed to say. You'd think he was looking at a lynx. He's so angry with how disgusting it looks.

He did call this place a true monster. A true monster. A true monster. Maybe this is the beast of Belper. The real beast of Belper. That's the true beast. It was the enemies that the castle made. Yeah.

So with the coming of World War II, the Ministry of Defence used the site for food storage and following the war the castle remained unused until the 1960s at which point it became home to a wildlife park i mean you could have just said that but you had to bring smedley well i had to bring smedley in because i wouldn't have got to say an object of indecipherable i thought it was going to be that one of the school boys had brought it home on after a field trip to france or something like a flick knife yeah a laser pen so from the 1960s it was home to a wildlife park containing british and european fauna

and at the late 20th century saw increasing criticism of the treatment of animals at the zoo, and it closed in 2000. Being kept in a bastard tower. A bastard tower. Yeah, that's not that long ago, really. No. Long enough for maybe a small community of big cats to thrive in people's back gardens in small Derbyshire villages. Well, these things do happen. Are you aware of the Peak district wallabies pd

dubs what yeah yeah yeah yeah the the pd wallies um according to the mank.com uh this is very very short in 1936 a local landowner henry brocklehurst introduced five wallabies to his private zoo collection and there's not enough information on the website, and I've deliberately not found out more information because I love the next sentence. The creatures were deliberately released during World War II, along with three Himalayan yak. There's no explanation for why they did it deliberately. I like the idea that it was to confuse Germans.

Had Fritz landed. We're like, ohitz landed we're like oh no we're in Australia damn turn around Hans this is

some of the worst navigation you have back into the U-boat this year apparently they lived for quite a

while against the odds the wallabies thrived although I think a series of cold winters might eventually

have put paid to the wallabies of the peak district but they did last for a good long while good on them and there's real might eventually have put paid to the wallabies of the Peak District. But they did last for a good long while. Good on them. And there's real photographs of the little fellas hopping about. Well, it's more than we can say for the only photographic evidence of the Beast of Belper.

Are you referring to the derbytelegraph.co.uk video featuring a big cat sighting i think i probably am yes which is i think it's one it's one of the the the main publications dealing with what i think is a very important derbyshire cryptid jack bryan not jack bryan jack bryan cited a big cat i don't want to spoil it james uh i don't think you've seen it. Will you watch this and give us your live reaction? Yes. Remember, podcast is an audio medium, so whatever your eyes are about to see, the listener won't get that.

So could you try and put into words the horror and the extraordinary images that you're about to witness? Okay. So, yes, this um i'm just yeah jack bryan believes he saw a big black cat roaming in the woods near grindleford railways grindleford that's a good one that's a that's a good name grindle anything on tuesday this is in 2018 okay yeah this happened ages ago so uh the video says starts with the you know it's got a title screen

it says can you spot the black panther is this going to be like the basketball one with the gorilla in the background it's not like that it's not exactly a where's wally situation i'm going to go full screen it's very dramatically shot it starts with his legs walking towards oh yes something yeah he's looking at the ground oh he's he's hiding behind a corner of a building and we're getting a pov he's peeking round i can see a fence and he sort of he sort of panics and pulls back as if he's too afraid of what he's seeing no i did not spot the black panther there it's just some trees i can see some trees he's peeking back around again a lot of trees he He peeks round.

And what is that? What's that there? What's he zooming in at? A shadow? Oh, there's a little... It's a cockapoo. It's the absence of trees. It's just absolutely nothing there.

This is where he believes it to be. And it is some shadows? Or a cockapoo? You're being generous with cockapoo james it might have a tail there might be a tail it's the the the build-up gives you so much expectation he peers around the corner and then he just zooms in on a patch of leaves there's nothing there well yeah it's a shadow but at the best it's a shadow. But a shadow of what? When I was watching it, I thought it might be one of those videos where you watch it for a long time and you zoom in

and then suddenly a horrible face jumps in. The hag's face. That is how unimpressive it is that your mind invented a good ending. It looks like the setup to a jump scare that we were then denied, which I felt a bit annoyed about. I mean, when we talked about Black Shark, he occasionally appeared invisibly. So maybe this is an invisible beast.

Yeah. Is this footage of an invisible panther? There's a saying, which I can't remember to whom it's attributed, but any newspaper headline that's phrased in the form of a question, the answer is no. Yes, it's someone's law. Is this footage of a panther prowling through Derbyshire Woods? No. I'm sure people will be tweeting and emailing and sending postcards in with the name of the person whose law that is. Calbury train station in Oxfordshire, there is a model of a black cat in the woods

that an unhilarious landowner has put there just to startle commuters. I've seen, I've been aware of it for a while, and I've seen, I know when it's coming up and you can watch people who are gazing out the window give a little bit of a start and a double take. It's a lot of fun. Really? That's a lot more frightening than the video yeah it looks like a cat it does actually look like a cat how how disgusting would you say its head is compared to a lynx oh no it's not gross

it's not it's not yeah it's not abhorrent it's not a crime against man and god so it can't be the beast i don't think i know what a lynx looks like i'm gonna look up a lynx now and see if they're as bad as you're saying oh just imagine the most disgusting cat a cat but stretched and wrong it's a domestic cat's head on a big cat's body on a on a sort of yeah on a cheetah's body but why is it got it it got a little beard situation going on? Ugh. Oh, no. The four that show up in the quad on Wikipedia, the bottom left one. That's the worst one of all. Is the worst one.

Really off. I quite like the others. They've got something of the Thundercat about them. I don't know. They look like Khajiit from the Elder Scrolls games. Actually, some of the Thundercats had very tiny heads. The blue one. Panthro.

Yeah, he was a bodybuilder though, essentially, wasn't he? They all have tiny heads. He tapered to a point. I don't need to tell you. They did introduce a Link, so I think actually in later seasons.

Well, that probably was what ended Thundercats. Yeah, mate. It just... It's too weird. It just occurred to me, if Lynxes smell anything like Lynx Africa, then we might have on our hands

just the worst possible creature. I had been thinking this is pretty much... Whenever we'd said the word Lynx, I had to jump from thinking about the deodorant to... That's the scent they rub on the curtains, isn't it? Oh, no. Yeah. They spray that on you.

Yeah. The uncut Lynx spray that on you. They spray Pure Lynx Africa on you. They said it's too much for humanity. We were never meant to smell Pure Lynx in its raw form. Is that a very noiseful... what was the word you said? Noisome. Noisome, a noisome creature.

Great callback to the last week's episode for a week ago, or next week's episode, depending on the order that we release the episodes. Well, funny you should say that this animal stinks. Oh, are you doing a stink link? I'm doing a stink link. It's a stench segue. Are you aware of the Surrey Puma? I don't think so.

No, not at all. It sounds like a sports team. Yeah, it sounds like it would wear a lot of Lynx Africa. The Surrey Puma. It was quite a big deal in 1964, in autumn and winter of 1964. Local newspapers were ablaze with headlines of the Surrey Puma. There was a spate of sightings,

and one of them was by a Mr Blanks, in fact, Farmer Blanks. Did he refuse to give his name? I don't know I guess not or was it just really offensive yeah he did give his name that was the problem he was the manager of Bushy Lee's farm in Crondall in Hampshire he had a herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle and he said that he'd seen this puma many times. It had attacked his animals. It had startled his cattle.

Oh! Yeah. On the 18th of August... What? Just trying to put a question mark, an inflection in that moo that Tim the Toolman Taylor noises. That is, isn't it? That's how they got it.

They startled a cow. His cattle broke out of their field and when it was when they were rounded up it was found that a 400 weight steer was missing sorry this is again from mystery animals of britain and ireland and this this 400 weight steer was discovered in nearby woods bitten and mauled about the flanks shoulders and legs in a pool of blood and and unsurprisingly a vet was called in and he made the and what did she say there was a he made the interesting comment i cannot operate on this this hundred weight steer steer is my son i was i was pretend i really i was pretending that you'd said yvette the woman's man but then i realized you had misunderstood me yvette was called him anyway oh that's lovely so she so she was the the

cow's mom james in this vet's opinion the injuries could not have been caused by any animal found in this country all right i think that goes beyond the pronouncements but that's usually made yeah yeah do they teach that in vet school this is the mauling animal so farmer blanks uh said he'd seen the puma clearly on four occasions and in the distance several times he said it was about the size of an alsatian dog a light sandy color with a cat's head and a long tail the creature made unnerving yowling cries and brought with it a smell like ammonia so strong it was almost suffocating ammonia is just pissy smell isn't it yeah yeah yeah it is the farmer Blanks is trying to be polite. I can't pee-pee smell.

And when Mr Blanks would unleash his hounds when the animals were around, they were terrified of it and would not even attempt to follow the scent. It's very rare that a dog smells something horrible and goes, oh, no, thank you. Not for me. Oh, that's awful.

No, no, that's going too far. Fox corpse. It's right in there. Yeah, but ooh, ooh, no. oh no no that's going too far fox corpse oh no i mean i may be a dog but that that really reeks this this slight smell of i'm not i'm not down with that there so reports of this beast continued a reporter for the farnham herald uh heard a loud screech and saw a large sandy-coloured beast with a cat-like head, long tail and laid-back ears. I guess that means pressed onto its head rather than... Cool Britannia. You've got some laid-back ears there.

So it scrambled up the bank at the roadside. Animals described as a big cat, puma or lioness were seen at Hale Common in Ushut and even crossing Farnham Bypass on a Saturday lunchtime. However, the affair of the Crondall Cougar started to feel like an anti-climax. The affair of the Crondall Cougar is just a title that has maybe changed its implications. My favourite show of shame story. On the 7th of September, PC Bill Cooper,

which I misread as PC Bill Copper, which is the ultimate policeman name, at Godalming Police Station, again, that's a place rather than an exclamation, he received a telephone call from Mr Roy Pettit. You don't want to, Pettit. You don't want to pet it. That's terrible advice. Roy Pettit, who was a trainer at the racing stables, and they'd found a trail of unusual paw prints

on some sand that was used for horses. I don't know. And several experts were shown photographs and officials at london zoo said the prints had been made by a puma as did local taxidermist mr percy mountray who specialized in big cats so there's a taxidermist called mr mount something yep mr mountree bill cooper his full name was sawdust Stuffin Mountry. This is the most nominative determinism. Mr. Pettit.

And Ian notices things was on hand and he spotted a very number of clothes. We've got Yvette called Yvette. It was spotted by a long distance lorid driver called david back who saw it at shooters hill police station yeah okay so it was seen again by a man picking black breeze doesn't say their name are you telling me that's not his name it was an iman picking blackberries near the water tower at munstead had seen a very large cat-like animal on the other side of the bushes the animal spat at him and he fled oh no it does say his name

is mr george wisdom and he said the animal was about five feet long excluding the tail three feet high with short stocky legs and large paws it was a dirty brownish gold color with a dark stripe down its back and tail the head seemed small in relation to the body mr wisdom had given a remarkably accurate description of a puma sounds like a real i normally i sceptic, but I think this is a real thing. The two incidents together suggested a large, possibly dangerous wild animal was at large, causing the police to issue a public warning to this effect. So began the hunt for the Surrey Puma.

That's pretty compelling. It lasted for three years. So the sightings are only for a couple of months and then they kept hunting for three years. Well, sightings are only for a couple of months and then they kept hunting for three years well it's sightings continued through 65 mr robert where a forest ranger saw the puma at a distance come on uh in hurtwood common i'm just looking for puns now in the actual names okay do you think it was just you know innocent blackberry pickers and forest rangers that saw it no on the 16th of october 1965 the honorable philippa thesiga

thesiga i'm guessing that is not how their name is pronounced because they're posh and it's written in using letters uh thesiga daughter of viscount chelmsford went to feed her horses near the family home of chiddingfold court and she found one of the horses at the gate shaking with fear and another hiding in a corner of the field i don't know how you can tell a horse is hiding when they're in the field yeah behind a blade of grass just sort of ducking down behind a tuft but both the horses had sadly been injured and she saw a puma crouching in the grass only 20 feet away she made a noise and the animal ran off the following night just a posh noise and the puma recognized rank the following night lady ph Philippa entered one of the sheds where bells

of hay were stacked. The puma launched itself from the hay, went right over her head as she ducked and dashed into the night. And then we get a photo of it. What? Yes. In August of the following year, which is I'm guessing 1966,

the ex-police photographer Ian Pert i'm guessing 1966 the ex-police photographer ian pert page three photographer i don't know why i'm enjoying that but i am in pet was mounting a dawn vigil with an assistant near warplesden after they'd been a sighting. Sorry, it was mounting door vigil. Ten days later, their patience was rewarded, as Mr Pert described. It was between 5.45 and 6 in the morning.

I was about 35 yards away from the animal, which was sandy-coloured, about three feet long plus tail, and about two feet high. It seemed to have a small head in proportion to the rest of its body. It was muscular, with a thick and very hefty tail and very sleek. Its face was very cat-like. As soon as the camera clicked, the animal was away in a flash. That was my impression of Ian Pert. It was very good, yeah, yeah.

It was like he was in the room. Dr. Ed... Oh, no. OK. of ian pert yeah it's very good yeah yeah it was like he was in the room dr oh no okay you don't normally react before you say the head keeper at chesington zoo dr edward or bell which i think is a human or bell he chimed in. From 35 yards, this animal is too big to be an ordinary cat. Its size is more that of a female puma. And I've got this picture here.

It's slightly more, it's slightly better than the Derbyshire Shadow, but, I mean, I'm holding it out to the camera now. That is... That's a cat, mate. That's a photograph of a cat, I'm holding it out to the camera now. That is... That's a cat, mate. That's a photograph of a cat. I'm convinced. There's not even a pound coin for scale.

It looks like it's in front of a huge keyboard. It's not there, is it? It's the smallest cat in the world. It's on a piano, on one piano key. Incredibly tiny cat. That's just a cat, James. They haven't even got it next to some lawn furniture some toy lawn furniture no that is just that's rubbish you build that up so much i know ah i feel like the a string of people from carry-on films have just taken me for a ride they've sure have the thing is though i think you know

photos always look a bit so even if you did take a photo of godzilla or something it'd probably just look like a monitor lizard or something you'd take it and you'd be forever saying to people wow it was more impressive in the flow yeah you had to be there. These phone cameras, they don't really, they never really get it the way you want. Who has not taken a picture of the moon and been disappointed? Come on. I mean, come on. And when it looked like exactly like a house cat.

I don't think you realise how far away the moon is. You need to put a pound coin by the moon for scale. Actually, you take photographs through telescopes, don't you? Yeah, I take pretty good pictures of the moon, actually. You didn't want to say anything. You didn't want to toot your horn. Oh, no, no. I would never.

I tooted it. What's your surname? The moon's not moving, though, so that helps. I mean, it moves a bit. It does move a bit, but it moves pretty slowly compared to a puma or a very ordinary cat. I'm glad I brought that up. And that's why my name is Lionel Horn Tutor. But why didn't you take a picture of the cat? Was it 2010?

Did we have phone cameras in those days? I can't remember. We had. I mean, I think I had a phone that had a camera of sorts, but it wouldn't, it would have been even worse than the Derbyshire Shadow. This was definitely pre-iPhone ownership on my part. The Derbyshire Shadow is too cool a name for a photograph of nothing. It's better than the Beast of Belper, the Derbyshire Shadow.

It's really good. Well, just to back up my um my my guys in this but there is a story in this book from a farmer ted noble in glen canick in venice sheer who captured he captured a female puma ah wow now that's a puma it's it's directly behind a fence and that fence might be in a field but it also might be in a zoo don't you think that's a puma. But it's directly behind a fence. And that fence might be in a field, but it also might be in a zoo. That's a very good point. Sorry, are you disbelieving Ted Noble? Can I just say, I've seen like seven or eight pictures of wallabies in the Peak District.

There's definitely wallabies. Or they could be kangaroos slightly further away. I don't know. How would you know? There's no lawn furniture available. There's no way of knowing. I tried to lob a table at them, but they were too quick for me. Bounded away.

Well, yeah, there are further reports of Derbyshire big cats as recently as 2016 and 2018. I've got a couple of them here. This is from the Derbyshire Times. Members of the public report seeing big cats as large or larger than big dogs, often using terms such as lynx, puma, jaguar, black leopard or panther. So September 20th, 2016, somebody reported, there's a dangerous cat. It's got a much bigger tail and it's a lot bigger and taller than a cat, presumably is the implication. It looks like a small panther. It was laid 15 yards away from me and it was laid flat like it was stalking.

It's a young animal, but it's still growing. Which is a weird turn of phrase. Oh, give him a break. He's still growing. As if it was actually getting larger in front of the person's eyes. Would be quite frightening

if that was going on. It's about the size of a dog. The face looks like a cat's, but much bigger. It's most definitely not a native animal so that was 2016 i know when people say something is the size of a dog we all kind of get it right but of all the animals dog is one of the ones that has the biggest gamma of sizes that you could it goes all the way from irish wolfhound down to the the toy chihuahua i had the decency to

specify labrador you did and i appreciated that thank you we respect and then you really coated off links is to such a degree that we're gonna have to put a disclaimer on this episode to the links community labrador is just not scary though You compare things to a Labrador. You're imbuing it with friendliness. It removes the gravitas from any cryptid that you could compare to a Labrador. It's like a Labrador! Let's hit him with our first category. Let's knock him out of this easy chair. All right, so category number one, names.

Boom. It's five out of five. Next. Next category, names. Boom. It's five out of five. Next. Next category, please. It's a while since we've had so many silly names. Mr Category Scorer. Yeah, it's five out of five. I don't even want to negotiate.

Sorry, could I just say, there was one other, there was another witness, Mr Ernest Jellett. That was just me opening a page at random. Is this a real book? Yes, I wrote it. It's just a list of names. Silly names. The man just made up a list of odd names

and then strung it together with stories in as plausible a fashion as he could. Yeah, great opening category. Good choice. Five out of five solid which sadly brings us to the danny devito to its arnold schwarzenegger the supernatural category well i like danny devito yeah we all love danny devito i like danny devito more than i like arnold schwarzenegger that's true but there wasn't a lot of danny devito in this particular story

yeah yeah it was hardly danny devito at all danny DeVito's a union man, so I like him better. But, yeah, honestly, I think they're real cats. I think they're real big cats that have escaped captivity and bitten some cows. I believe it. This is the first time I've been persuaded they don't have glowing eyes. They don't have sparks coming out of anywhere. They almost all have heads, even if that is weird.

They have nostrils, but they're attached to a nose. Yeah. A consistent number of eyes. Yeah, they're just real animals, James. It's just real. It is true. I'm sorry to inform the listener. Some things happen, and this is one of them.

So I still have not brought you a positive idea of a cryptid. I've just brought you a positive idea of a piece of wildlife. Yeah. So it's a one for Supernatural, because I am a believer in big cat theory. One, I think, is pushing it. I mean, what's the one for? That was a picture of a cat.

Does it even deserve one? Well, it's possible yeah it was a pity one if i'm being honest but but it's possible that what you saw was the ghost of a cat that was released okay 18 years earlier if i sort of add that little allegedly yeah alleged allegedly shamalan plot twist of it being a ghost. Yeah. Will that bump up the supernatural score? No, that one was assuming. Oh, okay. Assuming that it was a ghost.

It's inbuilt already. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'd already taken that into account when scoring. Not my first rodeo. Although, actually, I've never been to a rodeo, so. No, me. So your first rodeo will be your first rodeo.

Yeah. What a day that'll be. I'll tell everyone when I'm there. This is my first rodeo. Where's the that'll be when i'm there this is my first rodeo i would where's the best place to sit see the horsies next category is with apologies to the links community oh that's the category yes yeah we need to we need to get get the iphone notes app out and start writing get tearfully into your YouTube apology. This has been appalling. Yeah.

Yes. I'm sorry, Lynx community, but you do look weird. Oh no, I've done it badly, haven't I? I've done it wrong.

I've done it all wrong. Some of our listeners might have small heads. That's a real YouTuber's apology you just did there. I'm sorry if you felt like you were a disgusting cat. Really weird head and just just wrong limbs do better lynx is it's their fault for their silly tiny little heads i like them i like what they've done with their beards yeah actually to be fair james you were the least critical of lynx is when we finally saw what a lynx actually looks like yeah you would we've actually had to cut you out cut out

you throwing up i hated it i hated what i saw the beard is to elongate the face it's got a double beard like like jesus has in paintings it's got a beard going into two prongs one of them yeah suggesting the lynx is dual nature. Maybe it's because they're thinking a lot. So they've got their sort of, they're sort of resting their chin on their little paw. Yeah, you think it's a mulling crevice caused by stroking their chin.

Or maybe they're just in disbelief of everyone in the 90s, in a 90s school playground going, do a chinny wreck on. With the double beard, it could do a double chinny reckon. Oh, a double beard. It could be the most sceptical cat. This is why no one likes

Lynxes. Yeah, everyone hates you, Lynxes. What was the category? With apologies to the Lynx community. No, no, I'm not going to apologise to them now. No, two. Two, because you know, they ask for it really, don't they?

I feel like I switched sides, actually. I started off really defending their little heads because I've got one. And I just turned on them because it was the

majority vote. Our mob mentality. Wow, that was... Wow. That's like Lord of the Flies. What a salutary lesson we've all learned.

What's the final category? It's... Don't look for it. It's not there. James, it's not there. I've seen the video. We've seen that video. We looked at that video. It's the gap between some leaves.

That's all it is. It's a gap. You're showing me a gap. It's the jazz of encrypted videos. It's about the links as you don't. That's right. You literally saw it though lawrence yeah i did yeah but we only have my word yeah yeah could this be just an elaborate yarn do you think that little cat that i showed that i spent ages building up to the picture of do you

think that little cat could have taken down a 400 weight steer i mean i i'll be honest at this point i don't know what 400 weight means no it sounds like a lot i did look it up and it isn't it isn't 400 weights it's like it's a rat it's a it's a 100 weight is a number that does not correspond to 100 i hate non-metric measurements they're're so confusing. I noticed as well that the person who took a picture of the terrifying puma didn't also take a picture of the 400-weight steer. So we have only... If there had been a picture of the 400-weight steer,

we might have seen a slightly less impressive animal. So it's like a cat taking down a corgi or something. Yeah, that's exactly it. I'm torn now because on the one hand i really don't think it was there in the video but a very small cow has been ripped apart by an average house cat um i really don't think it was there but on the other hand i do believe in the big cat theory now abc yeah the i don't believe that they're aliens but that just means that they're not local. They are real big cats. They're aliens like Sting was an alien.

Also like alien in the sense of foreign. Aliens do take cows from fields a lot though, don't they? They take their anuses, weirdly. I thought they were humans. So does Sting. Yeah, in the film Dune, when he was an alien. What, he took a cow's anus? They cut it out. David Lynch insisted on that. Not in the film Dune when he was an alien. What, he took a cow's anus? They cut it out.

David Lynch insisted on that. Not in the books. Maybe aliens shrunk the cow, and that's why it's so small. Well, there's a lot of mystery. Mystery abounds. We'll never really know. I'm going to say it's four out of five. It should have been five out of five.

But as for the final point, don't look james it's not there he's got me he's done me he's done me he's given me a hundred weight of points yeah which is a random number yeah it could be any amount of cow it's a good thing we're not farmers we'd constantly be being taken for a ride and not a fun way on a small like it's a rodeo like our first rodeo these horses are a lot smaller than they sounded when i bought them well thank you very much the long cats thank you long cats would you like to get a plug in for your many podcasts? Yes. Thank you. So you can go to our website, which is longcapmedia.com, where you will find info about all of our many fiction podcasts,

which include Mockery Manor, which features the voice of Mr. Alistair Beckett King, and also The Ballad of Anne and Mary, which is a pirate musical. Madame Magenta. Not in that one. No. So in fact, just... The listener will want to know which ones I'm not in.

So we'll just stop there, in fact, because in in fact that's the only one that you're in you've got several others that i'm not in this is outrageous i'm horrified and angry to discover that oh thank you very much for joining us you may you may leave lawmen hq the doors are now clear yeah we moved the big big person out the way remember whoever that was at the door. Thank you so much for having us. That big person, when you get nearer, actually a lot smaller than they seem. Yeah. They told us they were 100 weight

and we thought that was good. Well, weren't the long cats lovely? They were lovely. They were as lovely as they are long, James. Which is very. And how can people hear more of them apart from by listening to the previous episode that they were also in?

Or their many podcasts at Long Cat Media. Well, they could hop along to patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod. Oh yeah, there's a whole bunch of extras, aren't enjoy that james add free feed bonus episodes like 100 maybe not 100 maybe 75 um tons of bonus episodes and access to the law folk discord the discord yes to chat with like-minded law folk I can't that noise that's between or not the noise that's between a and a that you get you know that noise you're trying to do the sexy one but you keep pissing and I think once you've reached the point of saliva,

I don't think it's a sexy one. It's meant to be scary. You're not trying to go... It is scary. Yeah, but it's that one that's in between the... and a hiss. I don't know. That noise.

Imagine that. Yeah.