Loremen Podcast - S5 Ep32: Loremen S5Ep32 - Cheddar Gorge with Richard Herring

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

Richard Herring, a comedian who straddles England's North/South divide like a podcasting colossus, joins the boys for a deep dive into one of Somerset's deepest dives. It's Cheddar Gorge! Somerset's answer to the question, "Which Somerset attraction is almost as good as Wookey Hole?" Prepare to meet the Witches of Pocklington, the Devil (himself), grumpy gravediggers and what might be the birth of a new cryptid... You can catch Richard on his Can I Have My Ball Back? UK Tour. And please give generously to his Movember fundraiser: www.justgiving.com/page/ballback And check out our YouTube Channel to watch and listen to this episode at the same time: https://youtu.be/voIwAgwLFLw 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

Si vous faites vos achats tout en travaillant, en mangeant ou même en écoutant ce balado, alors vous connaissez et aimez l'excitation du magasinage. Mais avez-vous ce frisson d'obtenir le meilleur deal? Les membres de Rakuten, eux, oui. Ils magasinent les marques qu'ils aiment et font d'importantes économies, en plus des remises en argent. Et vous pouvez aussi commencer à gagner des remises en argent dans vos magasins préférés, comme Old Navy, Best Buy et Expedia, et même cumuler les ventes et les remises en argent dans vos magasins préférés comme Old Navy, Best Buy et Expedia. Et même cumulez les ventes et les remises en argent.

C'est facile à utiliser et vous obtenez vos remises par PayPal ou par chèque. L'idée est simple. Les magasins paient Rakuten pour leur envoyer des gens magasinés. Et Rakuten partage l'argent avec vous sous forme de remise. Téléchargez l'application gratuite Rakuten et ne manquez jamais un bon deal. Ou allez sur rakuten.ca pour en avoir plus pour votre argent. C'est R-A-K-U-T-E-N. 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.

Oh, Alistair, we've got a treat. We've got a bunch of treats this week. Have we? Yeah, we've got a guest. We've got the king of podcasts, Richard Herring. What did Richard Herring? Off of Richard Herring's Lister Square Theatre podcast. Yes, exactly that. Which I've been on, incidentally, not to show off or anything. People should maybe check that out as well.

But only after they've listened to us talk to Richard Herring about the Tales of Cheddar Gorge. about the tales of Cheddar Gorge. Psst! James! James Shakeshaft! Yes, yes, Alistair Beckett King! Join me in the whispering hole. I'm in it. I was in it already. Well, then where was I? I don't know. I said hello when I came in, but no one heard me. No one responded.

James, stop all this whispering nonsense. Okay. We have no more time for nonsense because we have a much in demand deputy law person for this episode. It is TV's and the internet's Richard Herring. Is that the correct form of address, Richard? I mean, I think probably more

the internet than TV, but yes, let's go for it. I mean, formally. I remember the 90s most fondly. I was there, I was at home, I was a child, technically. Yeah. Probably staying up a bit late for some of it. Sure. Now, I'm sure listeners to this podcast are familiar

with Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre podcast or Reholastapa, as I believe the cool kids call it. And your extraordinary body of work as a podcaster, comedian, and I think of you quite prominently as a sketch writer. Is that...? I mean, I did write a lot of sketches back in the day. I guess I haven't done it so much recently. I did a little bit in lockdown, I suppose.

But, yeah, we started off as... I did a bit of stand-up, but I preferred sketches. I went to university and school and did lots of sketches. And then I guess we were lucky to be able to do a sketch show in the 1990s. And then, yeah, I've done a few online things. I suppose there's Radio 2's history sketch show, and then I did As It Occurs To Me, which was a sketch show. A.I. Automer, I believe.

Some of the core kids are calling it A.I. Automer. So, yeah, I've always liked sketches, but I don't, you know, I think also as you get older, it gets harder to write anything, but sketches particularly for me. It feels like a young man's game. I reintroduced Peter Dibdin, the driving instructor, during lockdown, and I wrote about five or six sketches of that, and then I thought, yeah, it's quite difficult

keeping something like that going. And even short films and things i've been done a few short films in the last few years and i suppose that's sort of sketches with a well i'd say with a budget but they don't they generally have a budget but they they look like they've got a bit more of a budget i suppose on the subject of the impossibility of creating anything as you age you're on tour at the moment i think Is that correct? I am, yes. I'm doing my first stand-up show or tour in six years. Obviously, lockdown and having two children

sort of slightly slowed me down, and also the podcast doing quite well. It's unexpectedly providing me with an income, meant it quite difficult for me to do stand-up. And I also had had cancer which which it was bad but also as a comedian quite good it was cancer of a funny place cancer of my testicles and that's what my show's about so like you know something happened to me in lockdown and I was able to turn that into hopefully a profitable enterprise of a tour. Yeah, I'm just very lucky that you got one of the funnier serious diseases.

It does. That could have been horrible. A lot of comedians are touring with proper diseases, proper really serious ones, and still manage to make it funny. I think as a comedian, as you guys know, just something like that happens to you, and there's always a part of your brain. Even if you're about to die, I think, you'd be thinking,

well, can I get a joke? Can the hologram of me get a joke out of this? The title of the tour is quite good, so I don't want to say it. I don't want to steal your thunder by saying it. It's Can I Have My Ball Back? So there is a book. Weirdly, I've written the book before the show, which is if you usually get to write a book,

it's because you've had a successful stand-up tour. But the tour is different, and podcast actually as well where i talk to other one bald men you generally and other people who know about testicles and cancer so it's there but they are quite different there's some different there's some similar stuff but there's some different stuff uh and yeah it's really good fun to be back doing stand-up i have to say i'm really enjoying it say. I'm really enjoying... I've literally just finished a podcast tour, which you were part of, Alistair. I don't... I was so nervous that the whole thing is a blur.

But it was one of those ones where people afterwards said, you were good on that, and I can't tell if that means I was good on it, or if it was so bad that they are saying that to make me feel... They were like, oh, we better be nice to them about this. I don't listen to it back out of shame. I don't listen back to them, and I did about 70 of them this. I didn't listen to it back out of shame. I don't listen back to them.

I did about 70 of them. I can't remember a thing about any of them. But, yes, well, I've only done, I would say, one or two gigs on the road so far, but it's felt like a completely different experience because, A, you're not spending all day researching the guests and writing jokes about the place you're going to be in, and, B, it does feel like a different thing.

So I think once I've definitely got the show under my belt and it's there, which you're always working on it a little bit, even as you tour, I think, it should be fun. But again, I'm feeling my age. I worry that I'll be tired and get ill. So far, two gigs in, it's fine. This is a question which I think is particularly pertinent to you, Richard, because our podcast, I'm from the north, technically.

You can't take that away from me. I am. I grew up in the north, whereas James, sadly, is from the south. And so at least when we started this, I would tell legends from the north and James, you would tell legends from the south. Yes. But you're from the north and the south. Is that fair to say?

I think it is. You've got half of a northern accent and half of a southern accent. So what's going on there? Could you address that, please? Well, I was born in Yorkshire. I was born in Pocklington and spent the first four years of my life in Pocklington in Yorkshire. My family are from Middlesbrough, really.

My mum and dad met in Middlesbrough, and my grandparents were all from Middlesbrough. It's even more in the north than Parklington. It is. And my dad moved around a bit as a teacher. So I do feel like I support York City, and I do still feel a big affinity with the north, but I left there when I was so little. So I moved to the Midlands first, and then I moved to Somerset, Cheddar and Somerset, where I grew up from eight to 18 oh that's intensely south some of the most southern parts of the south in there are there are a few places that are more south like uh antarctica uh but uh but yeah this it is it is far down and then i lived in london for a long time and

now i live in hertfordshire so i yeah, although I like to think of myself as Northern and the roots go back to Celtic places, basically, as you follow my grandparents' journeys back. But I think I'm largely a Southern softie. You've got some flat vowels, which I respect, frankly. And I misunderstand. So are you bath and path and grass and all the rest of it? I think it goes both ways,

because I was in Somerset and we needed to bath, and so you get a very sane bath. I found it all reel-to-reel taping myself at four years old, singing songs and doing a little radio show and stuff, and absolutely 100% Yorkshire boy I was singing the theme tune to Wait Till Your Father Gets Home that will date me a lot and no one will remember that show I mean I think a real to real cassette recorder might slightly date you as well I think that was old even at the time I think that was just an old piece of tech for younger listeners that's like a wax tablet

from the 70s so you're not I should say I don't want to take anything away from your career, but you're not the only famous person to come out of Pocklington. I've been doing a little bit of research. First of all, to be clear, the place we're talking about, we're not talking about Poppleton, as I keep wanting to say, which is also a place just outside York. There's Upper Poppleton and Nether Poppleton, but this is Pocklington. Yes.

Which might mean, according to Yorkshire place names by Peter Wright, it might mean the farm of Pockheller's people. Or it could less likely, but more interestingly, mean the town of Puckler from the old English Puckle or Goblin, like Puck off of Midsummer Night's Dream. So it could mean town of goblins, but I say it almost certainly doesn't. No. I didn't say any goblins when I was there. Did you see anyone called Porkella?

Is there anyone still called that? No, not that I remember, no. You know what they say, though? If you're amongst a group of people and you don't see a goblin, that kind of means you're the goblin. Yeah, that could be true that could be true i found a list of witches i'll be honest i misread it i misread old wife green as old willie green and i know i was i was so geared up to be talking about a guy called willie green but unfortunately

it was a woman who of course was uh executed for being a witch which i'm sure i'm sure she was innocent as was uh petronel haxby but what in 1649 we've got isabella billington a resident of poplington oh that's fun to say yeah and it's usually when we talk about witches we assume the the accused woman was innocent but this sounds pretty bad she was sentenced to the stake at the York Special Aziz's for ordering a calf and cockerel burnt as sacrifice after... And cover your ears, listeners, because you won't want to hear this.

After crucifying her mother in Pocklington. Ooh. I mean, I think she had some issues. Really serious. Yeah, that's... That is worse than... That's worse than being a witch.

That is worse than being a witch, which is not a thing. So that's one famous person from Pocklington, the mother crucifying Isabella Billington. So there was John Dolman who founded the Pocklington School in 1514, I think. And apparently a local woman, Margaret Easingwald, was in love with him but couldn't marry him, of course, because he was a priest. And so she went away and became a nun at wilberfoss again this is according to howard peach's curious tales of old

each yorkshire right but it seems that when she died her memorial stone was brought back because in 1892 oh well in in bultner's history and directory of east yorkshire from 1892 they describe workmen in all saints church preparing foundations for the pulpit, discovering a marble slab. I'm going to quote now and do an olden daisy voice. Bearing an incised, floriated cross and an inscription to the memory of the Lady Margaret Easingwald, prioress of this place, which had probably been brought from some neighbouring convent after the dissolution. probably been brought from some neighbouring convent after the dissolution. Near the slab was a skeleton with an Abbey token, about 500 years old, fast in the socket of the eye.

Oh my gosh. That's quite good. Yeah, so they don't go on to say this was probably her body. They just move straight on to some other feature of the church. Right. I choose to believe that that skeleton was the body of Margaret Easingwell that had been brought back to be with John Dolman after all those years. Apparently she haunted the subsequent prioresses at the nunnery. Sad, sad romantic story.

Third famous person, just to bring the mood up, was a guy in the 1890s who could pull out teeth with his fingers. Don't have a name for him. And it's not clear from curious tales of old East Yorkshire whether he was doing that to help or hinder the person in question. It includes it in examples of continuous excitement, bringing laughter, badinage, coarse jests, brawls and mayhem. Yeah, I can see that arc, to be honest.

If you're going around pulling people people's teeth it starts with a laugh yeah after a while that was one of my favourites yeah I mean teeth were a lot looser I reckon in the 19th century

I think it would have been easier and fingers a lot grippier yeah maybe I suppose rougher because they'd be a lot rougher there's no there's no

hand cream in those days really you're not going to be softening your stuff up it's going to be like the height of lockdown everyone's hands yes this was phc pre-hand cream is that is that the northeast that is literally every interesting thing i could find out about pocklington between the time that you messaged me saying do you know anything about pocklington and now well i looked around the

somerset region because being from the south, that's my manor, as we say, around these parts. And I was looking up the gorge because... So hold on a second, James. Imagine for a second that I haven't been to a cheddar gorge. That you, a northerner, don't know something about a very specific southern beauty spot. My question is, what is? what is a cheddar gorge? What is a cheddar gorge? A cheddar gorge, well, it is a gorge.

So, you know, like a little mini valley. And it's got a bunch of caves in it, which is where the visitor's centre and all that sort of stuff is. The two main caves are Goff's Cave and Cox's Cave. That's Gough's, not Gough's, said in an accent. Yes, exactly. There's no Gough's Cave. Well, I'm sure they go to most of them.

You've got... So Gough's are permitted throughout, thank you. Yes, and then there's a bunch of other smaller caves. You've got Gough's Old Cave, Great Oon's Hole, Say's Hole, So goths are permitted throughout. Thank you. Yes. And then there's a bunch of other smaller caves. You've got Goth's Old Cave, Great Oon's Hole, Say's Hole, Soldier's Hole, and Sun Hole. Those are the main caves. Please continue.

All right. There's two camps, really, around the Somerset region, if you're talking about subterranean experiences. Yeah. You've got your Wookiee Hole, and you've got your Cheddar Gorge. Yeah. And it seems near the twain shall meet. It's one side or the other. Absolutely.

It's the ultimate rivalry. Big sort of east side, west side. Yeah, Jets and Sharks. Well, Edgar Wright very much wows Wookie Hole. And when he was on, we had a long discussion about Cheddar Caves versus Wookie Hole. So, yes. I mean, I have to say Cheddar Caves is best.

I've worked there, but I say it with some difficulty. I say that Cheddar Caves is best. Do they have, you know, now that you're a star, do they have a picture of you like barbers, people who go to the barbers? Do they have a monthly picture framed? As a kid, I hoped there would be a museum to me. I kept all my O-level certificates so they could go up in there. I've written a lot of unmade sitcoms and comedy dramas about Cheddar Gorge.

So if any of those had come off, I think there probably would be a little Richard Herring or, you know, Gorgeous or whatever I was going to call the show. There might be a little exhibition up in Cheddar Caves, but yeah, unfortunately, none of those have yet happened. We may talk about one of them. Is that because of the difficulty of filming a sitcom in a cave? Is it just very expensive compared to a normal sitcom? I don't think it is. I think it's quite static. You could easily make that in a studio.

I think it's just people not liking my scripts, I think, is the problem. It's the perennial problem with TV. Someone commissions it and then they leave and then someone else takes over and they don't want the other person's project. And I don't work. I was never working fast enough. But I literally, I think, have written at least,

well, I've written one of them twice, I think. Once you've been in show business as long as I am, you can start opening your drawer and bringing out the scripts from 30 years ago and then rewrite them and do them again. And it's new people, the people who had them first are dead. So I've done it twice trying to do something about being a cave guide. I've done one about, I was trying to, it ended up being like trying to do a deadwood in a modern

day sort of cave setting so it's called it was primarily called chedwood that was about it wasn't quite about cheddar but it was about uh it sounds like it had a jedward crossover that's enough that's that's another story i always i to remake... That is the stunt casting, perhaps, that it was lacking. One of my unmade ideas is to remake Deadwood, frame for frame, exactly the same, with all the actors, but Jedward are in every shot. That is so... That's Jedward, Deadwood, they're just somewhere in every shot,

but everyone has to get back to make it exactly the same, which may be problematic, because they're older and probably dead. As an aside, I often think when people get very upset about, you know, like, oh, this show was sort of cancelled for political reasons, politics is ruining telly. I think people should realise that the vast majority of films and sitcoms don't get made in the first place. Yes.

People have written loads of them they never got made that's not getting made is the normal state for a sitcom yeah i think it's the bbc's pro wookiee agenda to be honest in order to kind of you know finally give us the answer i did look up what is better cheddar or wookiee okay and according to to a popular travel advice website the third best comment on there is cheddar always cheddar wookiee is okay and has the underground lake to look at but they take you on a tour so you don't get to hang around cheddar has three caves one with a dragon and you can take your time cheddar also has great walks blah blah they really slip in the dragon thing i think that should be more at the forefront if they do i don't think the dragon's uh there anymore the the i mean there's a lot i can tell you about cheddar case

i did work there again one of the one of the one of the project i mean i don't this will come up this might you might discover this one of the projects i tried to do was about a guy called roland pavy who was in the 19th century to do was about a guy called Roland Pavey, who was in the 19th century, who attempted to find a cave. There were the Goffs Cave have been found, the Cox's Cave have been found. And then this guy, who believed in water divining, and he believed everyone had invisible angel wings.

He used to throw himself off the gorge in an attempt to fly. He's an amazing character. Multiple times? That implies he did it more than once. He did. Well, he threw himself and survived. I don't think he threw himself off the cliff, but I think he threw himself off the top of the hill

and rolled down and, you know, and didn't die. I suppose you'd make your way up, wouldn't you? Yeah, you'd try it bit by bit, but it depends how much you believed it, I suppose. But he tried to find his own cave and he used dynamite to try and find his cave. And in the end, he'd made a big enough hole to open up as a cave, but it was just a hole that he'd blown up.

Yeah, I had come across the guy that decided to look for caves using dynamite. And it's like that, you know, when you've got a hammer, everything's a nail. But when you've got a hammer, everything's smashed, basically. You will find a cave if you use dynamite to find it but i first came across cheddar man which got me very excited then i found it was the it was actually just a skeleton of a man i thought it i thought we had a new dairy based superhero and this is the bit that i was sadly as a man it was a man of flesh and blood. Or it might not have been, actually, because we only have the skeleton.

His, you know, his sinews could have been cheese strings. Very easily. I also feel, whenever you say Cheddar Man, it sounds like one of those headlines for, like, someone has done something embarrassing, like, you know, Cheddar Man found Cheddar Man attempts to fly

by leaping into gorge that sort of headline well i think the headline for this guy could potentially have been cheddar man eats neighbor because there there is some other human remains down there which has evidence of cannibalism wow yeah but if you're made out cheese... I don't want to blame the victim here. Yeah. You're going to get hit. When you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you're made out of cheese, everything looks like lunch.

Yes, it's true. Everyone looks like a toasty. Mmm. Cheddar Man is... You may be about to give me this fact, but Cheddar Man, they did a DNA test on him against the history teacher at my school, Mr Target, and all of his class to see if there was any mitochondrial DNA linked to anyone in the village.

So they did this project. And my old history teacher, Mr Target, is related to Cheddar Man's direct... I think related to maybe Cheddar Man's mum. I think he's related to his uncle or something like that, or sister or something like that. So, yeah, so he's related to his uncle or something like that or sister or something like that so yeah so he's moved literally his family have moved about 450 yards in the last 10 000 years and i think if you're related to someone from 10 000 years ago's aunt you're related to someone from

10 000 years ago if you're if you're cast in the net that wide. Was there anything cheesy about this teacher? Was there just a hint of cheddar about him as a man? No, you know, it's amazing. There isn't that much cheese and cheddar. That's probably going to be the biggest revelation of this podcast. There's one place of cheddar that makes... Genuinely, as a vegan, I don't know anything about this. This is all news to me.

There's one place in cheddar that makes cheddar in the gorge, I think, as a result of... I don't think it's where it was invented i think it was just named after cheddar it would there's never been a cheese factory there and i think they put the cheese i think they stored the cheese in the caves they definitely do that in wookiee hole as well uh but they so they would they would age the cheese in the caves i don't think they do that anymore and there's a lot of the cave pavis cave the one that you're talking about is probably where the dragon was and in the end cox's cave is quite a beautiful little cave but they again they've just made tunnels through all these things to connect them all so even in the modern

day it's a lot of what you're seeing isn't real cave and they've basically made cave pavis cave yes it changes every time you Every time you go back, they're trying a different thing. There's been Lord of the Rings down there. They had one of those, you know, those globes you touch and it makes your hair stand up on end with the electricity going through it. Oh, yeah. They had one of those in there for a while. So they've really struggled to think of what to do.

I can't even remember what was it. The last time I went there, it was like a caveman adventure thing so you'd go through and you'd see videos on the wall of of cavemen and how they live their life so they it's really absolutely nothing that that end of the cave is is just a man-made thing that they try to fill with some gump bump to get people excited but you know it's served it's a fantastic day out i can't i can't knock it so are you were you an actual tour tour guy well we call them tour guys two guys this pod i was a tour guy because if you were this sales pitch where you go this this room is rubbish and we haven't really worked out what it's about

is quite a sales pitch i worked in the caves my brother who's about five years six years older than me was a tour guide between the time he worked there and i worked there five or six years later they they automated it so there were just you know those speakers with a with an automated voice telling you about each thing as you went around so i didn't ever give a tour though i presume i think i you know i knew enough about it at the time and certainly having listened to the tapes endlessly over and over again so you'd move around the cave just stand in the cave and try to stop people breaking stuff and and if they had questions you had to answer the questions and occasionally you worked on some of the other attractions and stuff like that i went there for i mean out of all the real jobs

i've done it's probably the one i worked in longest so i worked there for a couple of months and then i would go back and you know in holiday time at college and and do extra shifts and stuff so i work there quite a bit so i do know quite a lot about it and about the caves the secrets the secrets of the caves oh that is very exciting yeah that's that's really good that's way better tagline than there's never been a cheese factory here which which sounds like a sort of slightly folk horrorish like that definitely is there's people in the cheese there's never been a cheese factory here the cheddar man yeah sort of like the wicker man but yeah but you put him in a giant piece of cheese the next my next sort of area of research took me to the folklorist ruth l tongue who

is is reasonably well known on this podcast she now some of her stuff to put this in the nicest way has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Yeah. Some of her folklore tales, because she collected quite a lot of tales in her lifetime and she kept them all in one place and then that place burnt down. Oh. And then she recreated all the things she could remember. She's kind of like writing, kind of like making it up.

Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. But she's written, one of her books, Forgotten Folk Tales of the English Counties, has a few sections on Somerset and the Mendip area. And they're quite fun little, they're sort of basically jokes. Okay. There's one called The Courageous Fellow,

and a lot of it is written in dialect. So blanket apologies to the South anywhere from basically oxford to the lizard peninsula needs an apology from me the story goes that there there was a fellow and they took and send him to take a pig to market they told him to keep a good tight hold of the pig's tail and cd done so the pig didn't exactly relish it but a chap he kept hold as he were told they met up with a girt bear as run away from his bear ward and when folk came with bill hooks and pitchforks they found the bear laid dead with a chap's hand right down his throat bear were a choke dead and the chap were sitting there so quiet and patient and he was hailed as a

hero for killing the bear, but all he would say were, I'd be only waiting for the pig to come out. Well, okay. So he'd been told to keep hold of the pig's tail. So he was just doing as he was told. Is that how you lead a pig to market? By holding the tail?

It sounds more like the pig's leading you. Yeah, I don't think that's... I feel like the hold onto the tail thing was engineered in order to get to that end point it doesn't it's so laborious to set up and don't forget you have to hold the pig's tail i don't they like it i don't think they like it if you hold their tails pigs i mean i'm that's only guessing i've never i've never done it no they're curly they don't want to be they don't want them to be you have to straighten them they don't want them to be... You'd have to straighten them. They don't want them to be straight. They want them to be curly. I suppose you could kind of wrap your fingers around it.

It would, you know... I mean, back in the old days of the old telephones with the cord, you'd just sort of twiddle your hands into that. Maybe that's what... That's probably where it started. Do they not come off like gerbils' tails? They don't come off if the pig is threatened. What? Gerbils' tails come off?

Yeah, gerbils. If you pick up a gerbil by its tail, the gerbil falls off, or the tail falls off, depending on your perspective. What? I don't know. I did not know that.

I've never picked up a gerbil. I'd go as far as saying I've never picked up any creature by its tail. Maybe the odd cat. No, just to be clear, Richard, we're not accusing you of handling animals by their tails. You're being very defensive. I don't think it's necessary for you to say that you've never held a pig by the tail or a jell by the tail.

Nobody is saying that. Well, you know, they're leading questions that seem to me. The real nature of this podcast comes out. It's one of those ambushes. Like when they tell criminals they've won a yacht we've got you there under false pretenses to accuse you of holding animals by the tail I'm going to make the graphic for this

a picture of you holding a pig by the tail And the headline will be Cheddar Man Holds Animals By Tail There's nothing wrong with it if you want to hold an animal by the tail I don't want to do it I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it.

Of course you do. I'm not saying you do. Leave them alone. If you did, we wouldn't judge you. That would be a bad animal to start with, though, the gerbil. Don't start with the gerbil because it comes straight off. This is from 1965, told by a taxi driver. And this is basically just a joke about a grave digger,

a grumpy grave digger. This could all be characters for the next version of the sitcom yeah definitely grumpy taxi driver he's good value so he'd be digging the grave and he hated to be interrogated as the villagers passed you know they'd ask questions like oh someone dead then who'd be that for someone dead then to a grave digger just keeping my hand in just in case someone dies you can do mine later yeah exactly a couple of wags walking past that is the difference between being a child and an adult isn't it when you're cleaning a car whether a passing adult says you can do mine later or not at that point you've become a man when you're an

adult as an adult you're you're oh they don't say it to you as an adult no no not at all no i don't have a car i don't know these things i don't clean it and that and someone's people would say like oh who's dead now finally one persistent question and receiving no answer stepped to the very edge of the grave and shouted the question as if for the death who be dead then the old man stopped digging leaned on his spade that looked at the inquisitive villagers severely then he said in decisive tones no one living hereabouts i get it so no one living is that sorry i don't think i got the joke I get it? So no one living around here. Sorry, I don't think I got the joke.

He should have said no one who lives around here because he's a grave. The person is obviously dead, so no one is alive. He's saying there is no one living hereabouts because this is a graveyard. I think he was so grumpy because he had to explain his jokes. Yeah. I mean, those aren't tales. Those are just terrible jokes that someone's written.

There must be more in Somerset than two bad jokes about a pig in a bear and a man in a grave and a grumpy grave digger and there was a dog with no nose, there was a chicken crossing the road there must be more to cheddar than this

there is, it is the stomping ground of the devil himself There must be more to cheddar than this. There is. It is the stomping ground of the devil himself. Whoa. From the Bible? The actual the devil, yeah. He might be seen, and this is from Somerset Folk Club by Ruth L. Tongue. He might be seen leading the Yef Hounds or ambling alone on a black horse or riding a giant pig.

This is devil stuff. Yeah, Richard Herring hanging off behind the pig, holding onto his tail. Yeah, life. They said it would come off. That's a real animal. That's gerbils. That's gerbils, man.

On Banwell Hill. I don't know if you know of Banwell Hill. Banwell's got the, is it the narrowest high street in the world or something, or the longest? It's very difficult to drive down, I'll tell you that, so I do know Banwell. That's an incredible claim to fame, the narrowest high street in the world.

Yeah. A lot of people claim for the widest, but yeah, I've never heard the opposite. On Banwell Hill, which is like an Iron Age hill fort, there is a 70-foot-long cross made out of turf. So it's two foot high and 70 foot wide along the ground and the reason they did that it said is because the devil themself would blow down any upright one so they made one that he couldn't blow down because in essence it was already blown down oh fun additional fact banwell is supposed to be the birthplace of St. Patrick. Banwell? From Ireland.

You know, from Ireland. Ireland, St. Patrick. Yeah, that's what it says. That's what one person said once. I mean, wait, you know, we're talking, we're in Banwell. Banwell's like a good eight miles away from Cheddar. This is going too far away. This is going too wide from Cheddar.

You're vetoing. I'm saying this is too far away. One of our strictest law people so far. James, I'm sorry, the final vote has been ruled out. We can't put it for the scores, fair enough. What about Thurloxton? I don't know where that is. I don't even know where that is.

Well, you do well to deny it, because some traces of devil worship are occasionally uncovered, and in the woods above Thurloxton, a black leaden figure is hidden, which is very difficult to find. That brings terrible luck on the finder. So you don't want to look for it. It's going to be really bad. It's a leaden figure.

So in the woods, that's quite, that's very good. And it's basically a statue of the devil. Potentially could potentially could be kings cliff woods i looked up the reviews for that they don't mention it one star awful place so muddy trees down everywhere wouldn't recommend it to anyone i buy trees down everywhere i mean the trees are falling down maybe i think this guy just went after a storm okay didn't like the forest trees everywhere. But on the upside, five-star review, it's a great place to clarify thoughts. Oh.

Sounds like someone's had a bit of a week. Standing stones in the area attributed to the devil throwing them or giants throwing them or the devil and giants throwing stones at each other, usually. And that brings us on to how the devil made Cheddar Gorge. How the devil was giants throwing stones at each other usually and that brings us on to how the devil made cheddar gorge how the devil was it made how the devil well it was the devil whoa i'm gonna mix

some of the sort of ruth l tongue stuff with some of my own take on this you may well be able to tell when it's my words and when it's ruth's very much in the tradition of ruth l tongue just yeah kind of making it up yourself based on what you think yes exactly it's what she would have wanted it's what i'm saying she would have wanted so the devil was chilling out on the mendips and looked at the smooth green line of the mendip hills and thought here's something i can spoil so he dug a cleft out of the hills by cheddar and created the gorge and he flung a spadeful into the seven which made steep home and flat home and then he threw another one that only got as far as brent knoll which is not in the sea and he's like oh i'm starting to lose my arm here

because he wanted to his next target was minehead which is really quite far away so he was so worried that he might miss he put the rest of the rocks in a basket and set off for Minehead. And he jumped over the River Parrot. And when he landed, the rock flew out of the basket and made Cumwich or Cumwick. And you can still see the mark of his hoof there

where he landed on all fours. Wow. But the mark his hands made, nobody remembers nowadays. The jokes for the devil because the Cheddar Gorge is like the main tourist attraction that brings people to the village. So he may have spoiled the straight lines of the hills, but he actually created a whole industry that's lasted for hundreds of years. So, you know, bad luck to the devil. Yeah.

Classic the devil. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was giving Ch cheddar a tourist attraction to rival Wookiee Hole. Second only to Wookiee Hole. Now, the final bit about cheddar and the gorge, I think this is actually, this is post, this is the post the herring era. But still within the hand cream era, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, yeah, we're just coming into peak hand cream

i'd say so this is a guardian article from 2017 it's about have you heard of the feral sheep of cheddar i don't think i have i would love to you should see the tail on them richard very very appealing little tail they've got they're a type of sheep called the Soe sheep, and one of the peculiarities about their things is their tails are self-docking, as in they fall off by themselves, not they don't charge up by the tail. Convenient.

How convenient. Just to be clear, James, because sheep, obviously, the plural and the singular are the same, when you say the feral sheep, is that a breed of sheep, or is it an individual sheep that has been terrorizing is it one show that has been terrorizing cheddar gorge it is multo sheep mult multo sheep okay the story goes that in 1992 during a poker game a farmer was down to his last chips and he pushed them all in and his seven sheep i'm presumably something

to represent those sheep otherwise that's a that's a difficult game of cards and he lost and the winner took the sheep home put them in his garden and in the morning they'd eaten all his flowers so he just released them and they are one of the uk's only flocks of feral sheep they are definitely there whether that story is true or not is up for debate, really. According to the Guardian article about the annual count that they have to do, they interviewed a David Bullock, whose, it's a good name, but wrong animal. And the quote, I thought might particularly appeal to you, Richard, look at the size of his scrotum. Per body weight, that's the biggest pair of testicles on any mammal wow and that is that describing david bullock or is that oh sorry no he's talking about what yeah he's talking about

one of the goats and and that i think what we might be witnessing there is the birth of a modern cryptid because a lot of these sort of alien big cats are supposedly 1970s exotic pets that were released into the wild and you know this is just a 90s version pets that were released into the wild. And, you know, this is just a 90s version of that. One day people might be talking of the feral sheep. Just a particularly large, bald sheep. Yes, exactly. Wow.

So by feral, you just mean not living, just living wild rather than, because feral to me, I mean, it does. But feral sort of implies they're biting and stuff, I would have thought, doesn't it? I mean, that's the meaning I would take from it. So you're just saying they're sheep that don't live in a traditional field.

I think the male sheep are pretty deadly. Like, you don't want to get near them. But with testicles like that, that's hardly surprising. Yeah, so there's... Well, according to 2017 stats, there's 107 sheep and 61 goats. Loose.

Where did the goats come from? Well, that's what I thought, because this guy seemed to know what he was talking about. But then he referred to male sheep as goats, which was a mistake I used to make as a child. I don't, they're not, they're different, they're different animals. A flock of sheep can't create a goat, so those goats. I think there are goats in the gorge. I've seen goats. I don't know if I've seen sheep there, but, you know.

I've got to say, goats in the gorge also sounds like a premise for an episode, I think, of a sitcom. This is definitely kind of an alarm. Yeah. Maybe the sheep are aware of your reputation procedure, read tales, so the sheep run away. Do goats have tails? Goats have got tails, haven't they? According to a little bit of extra research,

the hybrid of a sheep and a goat is called a geep. What? Is that a thing? Yeah. Can they breed? They can. In the same way that a lion and a tiger will make a liger. Is the geep able to reproduce if it has sex with a goat or a sheep,

or is it a dead end if you get a geep? I would guess they tend to be infertile, don't they? Otherwise we'd be overrun by geeps. I can't see a goat and a sheep having sex and producing a child. Well, you can if you go to Cheddar. Yeah, I think you can, yeah. I don't see it. it yeah they're very rare um they're not to be confused with the sheep goat chimera which are artificially created by

combining the embryos of a goat and a sheep wow that's why are people making that why is that being done i mean this is quite a big wik, surprisingly. For goat-sheep hybrids. Yeah. Alleged and confirmed cases. And there's a whole extra bit on the sheep-goat chimera. It doesn't say who's doing it, though, or why. We just know it's happening. We don't know who's behind it, we just know it's happening.

Oh, and obviously the other version is a shoat. You've got the geek on the shoat, of course, as you have a liger and a tie on so alistair are you ready to pass judgment i'm very excited about it yes let's go excellent okay richard i suggest we we start with names because okay alistair had a lot of good names in his bit about poplington that's true that he's going to score that well i think yeah that's true i was very impressed to score that well, I think. Yeah, that's true. I was very impressed with my own research into Pocklington. Upper Pockleton, Lower Pockleton, Nether Pockleton, sorry, not Lower Pockleton.

The town of Puckler. Great, all great names. Isabella Billington. Isabella Billington is just fun to say. We've got Cheddar Man. Yeah, which is just a really good superhero name. David Bullock. Fantastic. Am I right in thinking. David Bullock. Fantastic.

Am I right in thinking that David Bullock was also talking about testicles in his interview? Yes, exactly. He did, yes. But it's getting close. He always manages to swerve it around. They weren't really just talking about sheep, and he started talking about a goat's scrotum. That was back when The Guardian was good.

It was mostly about goat's scrotums. I don't read it anymore. A little yellow pop-up saying, you've read 400 articles about goat's scrotums. Would you like to give us some money? No. No, I won't. I read The Guardian to be angry, not to help you.

Is the river Parrot? Or Parrot? I'm probably saying that wrong to make it sound funnier. And Cumwick? Cumwick? Or which? It's W-I-C-H, make it sound funnier. And come wick. Come wick? Yep. Or witch. It's W-I-C-H, so it's probably wick.

Okay. All right. But it's probably, yeah, it's probably like quitch or something in the local idiom. Yeah, we'll get emails. Well, I think it's quite high, but that's also because I did some of the research and I was very impressed with myself. Yeah, I agree with that. I'm going to say for names, honestly, I think Pocklington, Yorkshire has some fantastic names,

and I think they are better than the names in Somerset, broadly speaking. However, the advantage that Cheddar has over literally everywhere else is that the name is also a type of cheese, which is very amusing. I mean, I'll see your Wet Wang and i'll raise you limply stoke which is one of my favorite place names there's a place in somerset called limply stoke all right and there's also a place that i'd sort spotted recently when i was down by froom called well it's spelt w-y-l-y-e so i think it's pronounced why lie and i just i just shout that in the car to my children when we pass. But yeah, go on.

What have we got? Go on then. It's four out of five then. It's a high score. That's okay. I'm happy with that. That's not bad. I appreciate you seemingly actually writing that down, Richard.

Thank you. I am writing it down. Thank you for entering into the ledger. It's got to be there for the future generations. It's got to go in the Richard Herring Museum. Of course. It's a man museum. It's got to do something with that extra cave

that isn't really a cave. Yeah, at some point it'll be Richard Herring themed. So, second cuttory, let's go for Supernatural. Go on then, Alistair, what have you got for us? I gave you a case of Yorkshire Matricide, which may have been diabolical in nature. It had a calf and a cockerel burned to sacrifice. So that's quite supernatural.

And what have you got there? Goats and sheeps doing what they shouldn't? Is that supernatural? Or is that just nature taking its course? It's the long nights in the gorge. It's definitely not natural i gave you the idea of a cheddar man

and then i took it away almost instantly the idea of a man made of cheddar yeah um or or equal also yeah the big wicker man style cheddar man

also good the devil uh creating the gorge is supernatural yes exactly yeah scooping it out

just because he hated goodness were there any spooky tales from when you worked there richard was that supernatural. Yes. Yeah. Scooping it out just because he hated goodness. Were there any spooky tales from when you worked there, Richard? Was that anything going on in the staff room? No,

not really. There was mainly just people shagging which wasn't supernatural so people would find little nooks and crannies

to get into. Humans, right? Yeah, what humans do. He was making a human child. Just the normal thing. A human hybrid? Hybrid of a man and a woman and something that made, you know,

something in between. That'll take off, I reckon. No, don't they wear any ghosts? You would think there would be ghosts, but there weren't any ghosts. There was like a shadow of a big cat on the wall but that just depended on where you placed the light really to be honest so I don't think that can count

devil on a giant pig oh yes of course I forgot about the devil riding a giant pig so I'm gonna say it's three out of five for supernatural I think I think that's fair because shadows are ghosts in a way aren't they yes category the third what's the next category led on me it's the greatest trick the devil ever pulled and what i can't remember what i said

the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was i know it was minutes ago in the recording but i'm very old and tired now and i can't remember what it was i'm on tour as well listener don't go and see her ring store come see my tour probably see both you could see but yeah you could see you could see both the same venues but different times which is convenient scheduling wise i don't want to be rude to our guests but it was kind of convincing the world that cheddar gorge was a decent day out are you at this late stage coming down on the side of wookiee hole well you're a wookiee head james cheddar gorge is is marketing itself as the more sort of grown-up serious take

on subterranean with the dragon and lord of the rings and stuff yes yes compared to wookiee all that is actually very straight laced yeah and all of the people having sex and stuff that's quite grown-up quite Quite adults-oriented. And the other trick, you know, it was creating all those places, the hills and the islands. Well, yes,

obviously there's no way a hill could have come into existence without the devil throwing a big clod of earth there. So I accept that naturally. He took that clod of earth from a hill to make another hill.

I don't think it's that good a trick. We've got some kind of recursive problem there, haven't we? There's the black leaden figure in the woods. Oh, yeah. It's very difficult to find. And if you do find, there's very bad luck. So that's a bit of a trick from the devil. He's sort of luring you in to your own doom.

It's very obvious to me. I have never been to Cheddar Gorge or Wookiee Hole. It's obvious to me that Ch never been to cheddar gorge or wookiee hole it's obvious to me that cheddar gorge is more rubbish but as i'm sorry to get all patriotic but it was only saint george's day a week ago and you know the flag and they're taking it away from us and you can't sing nursery rhymes anymore i like an underdog uh you know a cave which is a bit crap and it's not even a real cave because a guy blew a hole in a cliff hoping to find a cave. And then he said, but in a way that is a cave. What could be more English

than just doing something really stupid and then pretending it was on purpose? Yes. And is as good as Wookie Hole. I can't remember where I'm going with this, but I love it. I'm on side. It's five. It's five. The strictest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people that Cheddar Gourd was as good as Wookie Hole when it isn't.

The devil's going to be so pleased with that. Well, the final category is tall tails. Ooh. But they're sort of underground tall. What's the very opposite of tall tails? Depth. Deep tails. Yeah, no, these were not deep at all.

They were quite surface level, I have to say. Yeah, which is not bad for such a subterranean place. I suppose we were going off Ruth L. Tongue's memory of what someone had said happened. My memory of Ruth L. Tongue's memory. It's what she would have wanted, to be slightly paraphrased inaccurately on a podcast. Yeah, I singed the edge of my notebook as well,

just to make it authentic. I used to dip the treasure maps I would make in tea and I would sprinkle a little salt on them to suggest that they had actually been in the ocean. That's good. In case treasure hunters licked them. I don't know what I was thinking. I just thought it would add a sort of a briny,

a briny ambience to the map. Did you put them in the oven? Did you go full? We did. I did. I'm sure I've put a treasure map in an oven in my time, yes. A bit of lemon juice

and stick it in the oven, browns it right up. There you go, kids. Because a lot of kids listen to this podcast. Yeah, do that, children. Definitely, definitely put paper in the oven, kids.

And also crisp packets in the microwave. That's a different episode, though. What was the category again? Tall tales. Perhaps in the oven? Tall tales. Tall tales. We've got the tales of Ruth El Tongue,

the guy that simply wouldn't let go of a pig's tail. And then there was the tall tale of a of a grumpy grave digger there were a lot of tall tails but they would be taller if i were able to picture richard hanging off the back of an animal holding its tail so i guess the question is rich are you prepared to admit to doing that in order to get five out of five or do you want a three that's the question i'm saying are we pivoting into gotcha podcasting if it works yes if we can take down richard herring then that that really bumps us up the podcast rankings significantly if that's what if that one's gone this could be a steven fry moment are you are you are you refusing to admit that you hold on to animals' tails? There's something wrong with it, Richard.

Wow. Only to get them out of the way. If you have to lift them up to get them out of the way when you're f***ing the animals, that's all I've got. It's God's handbook, really, isn't it? Well, I'm not sure how we're going to get around that bleep-wise, but I'm going to say it's five out of five. Here is what we'll do.

We'll bleep most of that, and then I'll say five out of five, and people will assume that somewhere under the bleeps there is a confession. Oh, thank you for sharing that with us today. It's five out of five for tall tales. Amazing. It's one of the tallest we've seen. Richard Herring, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

We really do appreciate it. people can see you on tour and they can buy your book they should do that obviously is there anything else you would like to plug before the music plays um no you can listen to my podcast and go like listen to alistair becca king on my my podcast it's fantastic he was very good, apparently. Why not listen to me? That's what everyone says. I may or may not have been good on the book club version, which is, I think, the slightly better version. A lot of people are saying

the book club version of it is better than the real one. It's classy. I was going to listen to that. Yeah. More sophisticated. James. It is.

James, that was cheddar gorgeous. Well done. Lovely. Thank you very much. But a wordplay that I think we avoided for the. Lovely. Thank you very much. But a wordplay that I think we avoided for the whole episode. Thank you very much to Richard Hemming for coming on.

And as well as going to see Richard on tour, you can support his fundraiser for Movember, the link for which is in the show notes. Yes. And thank you very much, Joe, for editing this episode. If you want to check out the video version, go and look at YouTube. The link will also be in the notes in the notes of show thank you very much to all our supporters on patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod

go there for bonus a whole extra bonus chat with richard load of other bonus episodes and to join the law folk discord very spooky extra bonus channel oh yeah thanks for listening and yeah give us a nice like on the old internet cheers thanks for dropping in bye see you give us a ring when you get in yeah just don't just let it ring once so we know you're safe yeah does that still work with mobiles you'd just text wouldn't you that is the start of act two of the scary film that started with the crow you still think it's just stuff happening and it's all normal but yeah of the scary film that started with the crow finding the crow. Yes, so that brings us up to the middle point in a horror film. You still think it's just stuff happening and it's all normal, but, yeah, we'll see what happens next.

Probably just a dream. Probably just working a bit too hard. Time to shut yourself away in the house for winter, I would say. That was really quite spooky, actually. I mean, it sounds to me like there's ghosts there. It does. I have a 130-year-old Venture Chris Dubbing in my house that I do a podcast with as well, so that's quite spooky.

So I feel like he's going to come down and kill us one day.