Tales of History and Imagination

This week, on Tales we’re in Nuremberg, Bavaria: The year is 1828. A young man has appeared as if from out of nowhere with a horrific tale of captivity. Some wonder if he is some deposed price - but be warned, the following is no fairytale. Part one of a Two parter.  

Content Warnings: Discussion of war, death, child neglect and imprisonment, violence, conspiratorial thinking and social deception.   

Sources Include:

Kaspar Hauser: The Foundling of Nuremberg by Paul Anselm von Feuerbach
The Great Pretenders by Jan Bonderson
Napoleon the Great...

This week, on Tales we’re in England, the date November 26th 1703 - as a giant storm settles over the country that would haunt the nation for many years - and give birth to at least one new profession. 

Content Warnings: Descriptions of animal cruelty, traumatic deaths, and period-appropriate superstitions which may now seem utterly ridiculous.   

Sources Include:
Daniel Defoe’s The Storm. 

Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. 

Please leave Tales a li...

This week, on Tales we return to Thebes one last time to discuss what happens when others even the field, the life and death or our two heroes, a young man named Philip - and a giant lion..  

This is part three of a three parter. 

Content Warnings: Battlefield injury and death, some depictions towards the end are quite graphic. Political violence, slavery and hostage taking. Assassination. Suicide-adjacent fatalism. Mass burial. Discussion of LGBTQI+ history not that THAT one should ever need to be a trigger warning - but there you go…Yes I got hate...

This week, on Tales we return to Thebes, to see how their Sacred Band is working out for them. We learn a little bit about Spartan King Agesilaus’ lost love, and we meet a warlord named Jason.  

This is part two of a three parter. 

Content warnings: historical ableism, homophobic attitudes, warfare, assassination, battlefield death, executions and forced displacement.   

Sources Include:

James Romm’s ‘The Sacred Band’
Plutarch’s ‘Lives…’

Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or T...

This week, on Tales we journey to ancient Thebes, a Greek City state suddenly - unexpectedly - under the control of their foes, Sparta. When you have lost your freedom to a despot, and are fighting for your very survival, what can you turn to? First you have your foundational myths, and second - if you are Thebes - you have some of the toughest gay men ever to exist. 

This week, in part one of a three parter, we discuss the formation of The Sacred Band of Thebes. 

Content warnings: brief discussion of se...

This week, on a much waylaid episode of Tales we return to the Tichbornes,’ as Tom Castro makes his play for the land, money and titles. Does it turn out he was, in fact Roger Charles Tichborne - long thought lost at sea - or was he some larrikin on the lookout for an easy life? 

This is part two of a two parter. Apologies all, I lost a good month and a half to a bout of pneumonia just after Christmas.  

Content warnings: I said nothing on the tape: but on reflection: childhood bull...

This week on Tales I am still, technically, on holiday - and was hoping to re-release one of five old episodes still left from the first season. This plan has been derailed somewhat. My voice is still recovering from my bout of pneumonia; and I’ve written at least a million words since I did those episodes. I opened those old scripts and realised to be content with them I’d need to completely re-do those episodes… 

Not so much out of inaccuracies as out of having refined this thing I do a lot since 2020. 

I’ll get...

Hi all, apologies for the delay. I posted up on the blog site I was unwell with pneumonia, then it occurred to me a lot of folk never visit the blog site and I better put something up here as well. 

Anyway, please hit play it explains it all. I am on the mend but need some downtime… sorry all. 

This week on Tales we enter the vaults to revisit - and re-record - one of the five early episodes still on here that was recorded on my cheap, starter microphone. (We’ll knock the other four off next year in mid-season breaks.) 

With Christmas just around the corner this seems as good a time as any to follow a young Charles Dickens around Canongate Graveyard in Edinburgh Scotland looking for ghosts… And we meet the man who - most likely - influenced one of his most famous characters - John Elwes, The Miser of Marcham Park.

Quick note all: This episode is approx 29 minutes long… I’ve accidentally left some background music or something muted at the end + will delete that and re-upload once home again…
Sorry all, there is no secret Easter egg at the end of this episode, it’s ok to hit stop when the end credits roll… 

This week On Tales we return to the Australian outback - this is the last time we visit my neighbours to the west of Aotearoa/New Zealand for a while, I promise. The year is 1866, the location Wagga Wagga. 

Tom Castro...

This week On Tales we return to the Arctic, the year 1871. Charles Francis Hall has passed on, mysteriously, after drinking a suspiciously sweet, yet metallic coffee. What will happen to the expedition as power passes to the hard-drinking Sidney Buddington? Today we’ll find out. 

This is part two of a two parter. Apologies for the delay in getting this one out there - it took some of my neighbours a week to run out of fireworks bought for Guy Fawkes Day. 

Content warnings: Death. Gun violence. Brief mention of sexual abuse.     

Sources...

This week On Tales we take a slight detour from the Polaris Expedition: I think where that Tale goes IS shocking, but not terribly in a Halloween horror kind of way… So this week we’re taking a ride to the town of Halifax, England to meet The Halifax Gibbet - someone’s wild solution to petty thievery.  

We’ll return to The Polaris in a fortnight. 

Content warnings: Beheadings.

Sources Include: Daniel Defoe’s A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain.
Samuel Midgley & William Bentley’s Halifax and It’s Gibbet Law Pla...

This week On Tales we travel back to 1871, to take a journey to the top of the world. Our intrepid hero, Charles Francis Hall has dreams of becoming the first man to stand on the North Pole - but dreams can sometimes go horribly awry. Just what happened to the Polaris Expedition? 

This is part one of a two parter (part two will follow after we take a brief intermission for a Halloween special episode.) 

Content warnings: Death. Gun violence.    

Sources Include:
Fatal North by Bruce Henderson.
Arctic Experiences… by Euphem...

Last week when I covered the Tale of Spring Heeled Jack, I mentioned a couple of people in passing without explanation… Apologies all, I’ll be coming back to a few of those people sometime in the near future… But with regards the Hammersmith Ghost, there is a Patreon minisode from back in 2022. I re-recorded the episode over the weekend. 

The following minisode comes to you by way of the generosity of my backers on Patreon.       

Content warnings: Gun violence.   

Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or T...

This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return to an episode from the first season to give it a new coat of (red) paint… speaking of, we’re going back to London in 1837 to discuss newspapers, the death of ‘Silly Billy,’ ‘painting the town red’ and a mysterious sex pest whose legend took on a life of it’s own throughout the remainder of the century…   

Content warnings: This week we discuss a sexual abuser.   

Sources Include:

I failed to keep a list on this one back in 2020, (apologies all) and mostly built it up f...

This week on Tales of History and Imagination we discuss a murdered nanny, the murderer… his awful ancestors, and said murderer’s mysterious disappearance. 

Trigger warnings: murder.   

Sources Include:

A Different Class of Murder by Laura Thompson
And several dozen news articles, including this piece from Lynn Barber interviewing John Aspinall
This one from Steven Morris on the many theories on Lord Lucan’s disappearance
This one (Morris and Angelique Chrisafis) on Jungle Barry (sometimes called Jungley Barry)
This article (author not listed) from the Whanganui Chronicle on an unpleasan...

This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return one last time to the wreck of the Batavia. This is where things, finally, go all ‘Lord of the Flies’ on Batavia’s Graveyard. 

This is part four of a four parter - thanks for hanging in there with me all… I promise a load of one parters in the back half of the year.

Trigger warnings: murder, rape, descriptions of death by dehydration, a pitched battle and a handful of executions.   

Sources Include:

Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash
And Batav...

This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return to the wreck of the Batavia. In part two we follow the adventures of the 48 in the longboat as they make their way along Australia’s Western coast; learn a little more about Francisco Pelsaert, and speak of the first of the murders on Batavia’s Graveyard. 

This is part three of a four parter.

Trigger warnings: Murder, colonialism, accidental poisoning.   

Sources Include:
Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash
And Batavia by Peter Fitzsimons. 

Support Tales on Patreon...

This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return to the wreck of the Batavia. In part two we discuss heresy, and the harrowing life of under-merchant Jeronimus Cornelisz. 

This is part two of a four parter.

Trigger warnings: Murder, colonialism, child mortality, religious extremism.   

Sources Include:
Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash
And Batavia by Peter Fitzsimons. 

Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. 

Please leave Tales a like and...

This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return to Australia for a real life soap opera that was considerably more bloody than Neighbours or Home and Away. First we need to take a cruise on a Dutch VOC flagship called The Batavia, the year 1629. 

In part one of a four parter, we discuss the voyage; how and why folk took such risks to travel to the end of the earth like this - and the voyage itself, right up until the ship wrecked on Houtman’s Abrolhos. 

Note: Apologies all, as you can hear...

Hey all the next episode is likely to be delayed by a week or so… as you can hear I’m getting over a bit of a nasty cold/ case of flu - and my voice is still pretty ragged.. 

But in the meantime, here’s a little something I’ve had lying around collecting dust for, I guess years now?? I have actually forgotten what I was writing it for, but can think of a few places I can take this to….

What do you reckon, should I write an episode around this for some time i...

This week we travel to Australia for a game of Marn Grook, to discuss origin stories; perhaps the archetypal troubled sportsman - and horrific massacres.    

Trigger warnings: Murder, suicide, colonialism, and to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people listening to this episode - I discuss some of your origin legends as best I can, and play a brief excerpt of a speech from an Aboriginal elder. 

Sources Include:

Australia’s Most Unbelievable True Stories by Jim Haynes
This University of Newcastle Article on Aboriginal massacres, quoting studies by Professor Lyndall Ryan<...

The American actress Ilda Orme knew a thing or two about being cancelled, a long, long time before social media put the cancel button in the hands of the public at large. Her cancellers, she suspected were two hateful former in-laws and a theatre manager in their pocket. 

Her cancellation was nearly literal - culminating in an assassination attempt.  

What does one do when cancelled? If you’re Ilda Orme, you seek revenge in the most public way possible. 

Trigger warnings: Gun violence and false accusations leading to incarceration. 

Note: This f...

On, or around 11th June 323 BC Alexander the Great died in Babylon. While there are mysteries surrounding his passing - did an Indian holy man prophesy his passing a year prior while self immolating in Alexander’s presence? Was he poisoned? Did somebody entomb him while still alive? - He is just a cameo in this Tale. 

This week we travel to Athens - then chafing under the Macedonian yoke - as they make a bid for freedom. 

Trigger warning: some swearing, talk of three suicides. We discuss the fall of two mighty empires and one...

On May 18th 1926 the evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson took a trip to Santa Monica Beach, California to work, seek inspiration and have a little fun in the sun. However, the day would end in tragedy when Aimee disappeared without a trace. 

Was her disappearance all it appeared?

Sources Include:
The Vanishing Evangelist by Lately Thomas

Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. 

Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The bes...

Hi all, welcome back (again) - sorry it’s a week later than planned… a few ongoing voice issues from the cold. This week we conclude the tale of Sidney Reilly and the ‘Red Terror.’ 

Sources Include:

R.H. Bruce-Lockhart ‘Memoirs of a British Agent’
Sidney Reilly + Pepita Bobadilla ‘ Adventures of a British Master Spy’
James Palmer ‘The Bloody White Baron’

Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. 

Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you li...

Hi all, welcome back - sorry it’s a week later than planned… I had a nasty cold. This week we’re in Russia just after the October Revolution. The Bolsheviks have taken over, plunging the nation even further into disarray. They’re determined to exit the First World War. 

Britain, knowing this would be disastrous for their war with Germany need a hero to go in there and upset the apple cart - the kind of talented, yet completely amoral man Ian Fleming would draw on years later when crafting his best known invention - James Bond. 

Hi all, Happy Holidays! This year I’ve got a ghost story for you all. Today we travel to Greenbrier County, West Virginia in 1897. 

Sources Include:

Again this week I’ve gone from a handful of online articles, a few online genealogy pages - and a couple of podcast episodes. 

Including…

‘How The ‘Greenbrier Ghost’ Helped Convict a West Virginia Murderer in 1897’ by Joey Rather. 
This website on ghosts in West Virginia.
‘Can We ‘See’ Dead People?’ By Mark Shelvock.
‘The Greenbrier Ghost’ by Brian Dunning. 
Zona Heaster Shoe’s ‘Family Search’...

This week we travel to Tana Island, Vanuatu (then the New Hebrides) in the midst of World War Two. God has returned - and not a moment too soon. Having abandoned them decades earlier, just as bad men with awful intentions arrived to steal their land - and send their people off to far away locales to be worked to death - he was back, as an American soldier named John Frum.  

Sources Include:

This week a lot of articles (which I had saved in tabs - when my iPad crashed and needed a r...

This week, how do I sum this up? I was freewheeling a little today, but have I got a tale of resistance, and a weird little man for you all. Anthony Comstock was a weird, joyless guy - and his ‘Comstockery’ ruined many ordinary lives - but hell hath no fury like Margaret Sanger and Katharine Dexter McCormick - our heroines this week. 

Sources Include:

I was free associating things I knew this week, rather than going off a script - but Andrew Marr’s A History of the World was where I first came ac...

Hi there all, just dropping a quick note, before I return to the writing desk… USA I’m aghast… and worried, and saddened by recent turns of events. 

And tonight I just wanted to send you all my love (well, obviously not all of you… some of you voted for a fascist) and just explain why I’m pulling an upcoming episode… hit play, spoken me explains it all better… 

No ‘Sources Include’ tonight - unless you’re in fight back mode - in which case no specific recommendation, but I’ll be looking round for a good book on the F...

This week, it’s Halloween! So, naturally I’ve got a tale of… well, historic hotel rooms in Kansas City, Missouri… And a notorious murder carried out in Room 1046 of the Hotel President.. 

Sources Include:

This fantastic article by John Horner, which appears the font of a dozen or so other articles I read through.
This post by the ‘Murder She Told’ podcast
This article on Tom Pendegast by K.C. Yesterday

And a handful of things found in online newspaper archives and genealogy sites. 

Support the show on Pat...

This week we return to Cuba to conclude our miniseries on the Cuban Missile Crisis. This week we discuss arctic explorers, nuclear test sites, saboteurs, spy planes gone awry, submarines and why I think having such power out there in an age where a ‘mad king’ could come to power is still very disconcerting.  

Sources Include:
One Minute to Midnight by Michael Dobbs
Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen

Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. 

...

On 16th October 1962, American President John F Kennedy was presented with three indistinct photos taken of several tubes laid out in a field in Cuba. Kennedy at first took the scene for a football field. His brother Robert, on viewing the scene, wondered if it depicted a farm house in mid construction. 

It was, of course, a nuclear missile site in mid construction, and the following thirteen days brought humanity closer to nuclear war than any time before of since. 

This fortnight, and next we’re looking at the Cuban Missile Crisis, primarily from the...

Hi everyone, this week we’re doing things a bit different. I’ll be back from my mid year break with new episodes in two weeks’ time. In the meantime we’re running a pledge week for the Patreon channel. 

Tuesday through Friday I’ll be dropping on old Patreon minisode per day - today, after visiting the set of the Donohue Show, we ask the question… Is a Nude Horse a Rude Horse? 

Check out my Patreon! For just $2 a month* you get a minimum of one tale every month 

(we’re committed to 20 a...

Hi everyone, this week we’re doing things a bit different. I’ll be back from my mid year break with new episodes in two weeks’ time. In the meantime we’re running a pledge week for the Patreon channel. 

Monday through Thursday I’ll be dropping on old Patreon minisode per day - today we’re going to meet a now obscure, but terrifying General named Uqba Ibn Nafi. 

Check out my Patreon! For just $2 a month* you get a minimum of one tale every month 

(we’re committed to 20 a year there this y...

Hi everyone, this week we’re doing things a bit different. I’ll be back from my mid year break with new episodes in two weeks’ time. In the meantime we’re running a pledge week for the Patreon channel. 

Tuesday through Friday I’ll be dropping on old Patreon minisode per day - today we’re discussing one of history’s stranger What if’s. Thomas Johnson was a renowned smuggler, a talented escape artist - and it is rumoured he had a submarine - in 1820. Was he hired to bust Napoleon Bonaparte out of St Helena?

Hi everyone, this week we’re doing things a bit different. I’ll be back from my mid year break with new episodes in two weeks’ time. In the meantime we’re running a pledge week for the Patreon channel.

Tuesday through Friday I’ll be dropping on old Patreon minisode per day - today we visit Milan, the year 1630. A comet blazing across the sky spooks the people. Augurers spoke, the comet portends death - in one form or another. Then people started dying. This reminded the folk of an ancient legend… That one day, The Devil himsel...

Hey all I’m on holiday, though I’ve got a few things programmed to drop while I’m away… including this; a re-upload of this episode from October 2021.  

“On 9:14 pm, 22nd November 1987, Chicago’s WGN TV was ‘zipped’ by a mysterious attacker - a figure wearing a rubber Max Headroom mask. The attacker would strike again, upsetting Whovians in the Windy City. 

In this short Tale we discuss the Max Headroom Incident.”

Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. 

...

Hey all I’m on holiday, though I’ve got a few things programmed to drop while I’m away… including this, my short ode to the astronomer Tycho Brahe.  

Sources include: Apologies all, this is from an old blog post where, now very much to my shame - I never noted my sources. If I’m recalling correctly I first heard the story of the moose/elk on a cracked.com video on YouTube (which I couldn’t find to link.) I think several of the posts I used have been taken down since, or paywalled? 

Sup...