February 13, 2024 • 58 mins
This time on Twisted Britain, Ali tells us of the Hammersmith Ghost murder ( and Bob loves ghost stories!) its one he heard of through a family friend who is a decentdent of the victim
This is our first attempt at a distance recording sothe sound is not as good as normal
This is our first attempt at a distance recording sothe sound is not as good as normal
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Episode Transcript
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(00:31):
Hello, and welcome to Twist Britain, the podcast I'm tricking and Britain with
the sprinkling the weir in a caband your host Summie Body and me Ali
Downy. Good evening, well,almost good evening, Ali down, how
are you? It is good evening, it's evening. It's well, it's
still evening, but it's good.I can only see you through the medium
of a postage stamp sized picture onmy phone. Yeah, okay, it's
(00:54):
not ideal, and will screen shotit in a minute. It's the most
ridiculous. It's the smallest version ofAli I've ever seen, is it?
Well, there are smaller things aboutAli, but this is the smallest version
of a full alley that I've everseen. For it is funny because it's
true. I think it probably shouldexplain what we're talking about. We are
(01:17):
not in the same room together recording. No, you are in the cell,
I am. You might be ableto hear dumb as in the background
because I'm actually at the bar inthe cell for Sam, Wow, why
are you at the bar? Andthe settle there, Bob wi Fi is
an issue Alistair. This is theleast tigh tag podcast we've ever made.
(01:40):
Fact, I set up all ofour normal kit and now just on my
phone case is currently taking a phone. I'm just on a phone on my
airport. That's tonight, and you'releaning against a wall and you've got a
full fucking brand new studio set upand everything. It's true. I've got
a little mini I mean it stoodgoing on here now there's a microphone post
that on the DISCUSSI okay, wecouldn't quite make work. Yeah, but
(02:05):
you know, but to be fair, I think you're possibly as far away
as as humanly possible in the BritishIsles for me, maybe with it go
into like the Isle of Wight orsomething. Oh yeah, sorry, Mainland
Britain. I mean yeah, no, but the last time you were further
than that, we didn't record becauseyou were in France. Yeah quite a
(02:29):
lot. You're not that far fromwhere you were before. To be fair,
I reckon it's quite possible. Iwas closer as the crow flies when
I was in France. Yeah.Possibly. You are in Bournemouth, of
course. Yeah, you are downseeing your lovely fiance and she has made
(02:52):
this well made the equipment happen thisevening I think would be fair to say
she's donelliantly. I've got a microphone. This is our emergency backup procedures,
besting the emergency backup procedures. Imean, we'll put it out as an
episode anyway, it's content man.Yeah, well, we'll see what it
sounds like and then we'll do it. But to make up for the fact
(03:13):
that you fucked off down said you'vewritten the episode this week, I have
how has your time sitting? Didyou get up today? I got here,
yeah, left last night, gothere today, and you wrote an
episode en route I wrote, Yeah, I wrote some of it on route
and most of it the night beforeI left. But this is actually one
that I've had on the back burner, so to speak, for quite a
(03:35):
while. Okay, so what Iwould I be able to guess what it
is or is it talked about?It's what I've not talked about enlightenly,
then go on, all right,Well, tonight's Tonight's KSE is a bit
of a metasode, a metisode.Again, it's a bit of a metisode.
We have stories within stories. Isit a meta metapode? Yeah,
(03:58):
it's a meta metasode or a betametaisode, a beta metaisode, but it
is a bit of that. We'regoing to talk about a ghost, a
real ghost, or as real asany ghost is at least. We're also
going to talk about a fake ghostor at least one ghost, all of
(04:21):
them men and I think ghost whosefalse hauntings had contributed to urban myth which
survives to this day on the Internetand in some very old history books.
We're also going to talk about avery real murder, and it's one which
my attention was brought to by twoof our listeners. Maybe they might not
(04:46):
be anymore, but they were atthe time. No, it's it's two
of mum's friends, David and MarionFife. Hi, David and Marion.
They may be listeners, or theymay just have heard from my mum that
I'm still doing that crime pop castthing. Oh yeah, those podcasts,
those podcasts. But either way,they very kindly told me about this case
because the victim of the very realmurder tonight, which we will get to
(05:12):
was Marion's great grandfather. Oh nice, well, not nice, but you
know what I mean. Yeah,always good to have a connecting, Yeah,
yeah, connections. Yeah. ThomasMillwood was his name, and how
far back we're talking. We're goingto the start of the eighteen hundreds.
So her, what did you didyou say? Her great grand great grandfather.
(05:36):
Okay, so like three generations agoexactly. But first though, we
have to we have to have theghost of course, Yeah, because we
have real and false ghosts which precipitatedthe circumstances that would lead to the sad
death of Thomas Millwood. You see, throughout eighteen three, the residents of
(05:59):
the then country suburb of London Hammersmithwere haunted by an apparition. A ghostly
figure graped in pure white, wasoften seen by the locals floating between the
gravestones of the churchyard and the adjoininglanes Saint Paul's Church, I think it
(06:21):
was. Other people reported the ghostwearing shining white calfskin and moving between the
high hedges of the roads on eitherside of the church. Is it just
a local luney it? Yeah,tell me more about this looney. Well,
(06:44):
obviously at the time the locals didn'tbelieve it was aloney, and contemporary
urban myth would have us believe thatit was the restless spirit of a man
who had committed suicide the year beforeand then been buried in the consecrated ground
of the church. Do you knowwho said man was? I couldn't find
(07:05):
his name. That's why I don'ttrust it. I mean that he was
supposed to have slit his throat andthen been buried in the church. And
of course, popular religious belief ofthe time was that the soul of any
sinner buried on holy ground was incapableof going to Hell because holy ground is
magic for some reason, but alsodenied the paradise of Heaven. I was
(07:28):
going to say, you know that, was it illegal at the time of
suicide. Yes, so for himto be very buried on would have been
weird. Anyway, it's a veryodd occurrence. I don't believe it.
Oh No, it's funny that Ifelt like pointing out the urban myth.
Nonetheless, anyway, the Hammersmith localsbelieved that the ghost was the suicide man
(07:55):
that probably never existed, and itwent on for most of eighteen o three
until November and December eighteen o three, when the ghost changes his mo o
somewhat. It stops just floating andhe starts frightening. Right. Also,
he's gone from passive to aggressive exactly. He also starts to be reported by
(08:20):
some people as looking like a figuredraped in a white sheet, like the
proper stereotypical Halloween cost Yeah, obviouslythis is a terrifying ghostly figure draped in
some ethereal sheet of the undead.So just like that stereotypical view of a
ghost that Halloween your two aisles gotof sheet. Yeah, what's basically happened
(08:46):
is some people have thought they sawa ghost, and then some people have
started dressing up as a ghost,like the killers clowns dressing as clowns and
yeah, for what's it called notmimic of coffee cutting? Yeah? Coffee
(09:09):
cutting. Yeah. The people ofHammersmith, though, thought it was real,
and the people of London thought itwas real. In eighteen oh three,
the London Morning Post newspaper wrote,this ghost has hitherto appeared every evening
in the churchyard about half a milefrom the town, adjoining to which is
a public road, And on thesixth of January the next year, eighteen
(09:33):
oh four, the same newspaper reportedthe ghost has for upwards of two months
excited so much alarm that every superstitiousperson in that neighborhood has been filled with
the most fearful apprehensions. So terrorstruck are the minds of the women and
children that not one will venture overthe threshold after five o'clock in the evening.
(09:56):
The properly scared, then they arescared. But as I said,
they were definitely scared of a manin a cheet but they thought they were
scared of a ghost. Yeah,but people also had the direct encounters with
this ghost. Shook his hand.Yeah. One man who had a direct
encounter with the specter was Thomas Groom. He was a drayman from the local
(10:22):
Hammersmith brewer, mister Burgess. Adreamman was just basically a delivery person for
beer, okay, right, specificallyfor beer. Specifically for beer. They
got a special name and a badge. I think they should free beer.
Yeah. That was like the storiesof the posts in Isla, like joining
the queue for the free whiskey everydistillion going home about like smashed every day.
(10:45):
Yeah, free boods was a realthing for folks that worked there.
Yeah. But anyway, though,Thomas Groom, on the fifteenth of December
eighteen oh three, he and anotherservant were walking through Saint Paul's churchyard between
a and nine o'clock at night,and he reported and later testified that I
had my jacket under my arm andmy hands in my pocket when some person
(11:11):
came from behind a tombstone behind meand caught me fast by the throat with
both hands and held me fast.My fellow servant, who was going on
before hearing me scuffling, asked,what was the matter? Then, whatever
it was gave me a twist about, but I saw nothing. I gave
a push out with my fist andfelt something soft, like a greatcoat,
(11:33):
but never saw a thing. Sohe saw something. Yeah, sorry,
I still I was processing that.So something grabbed them, Someone grabbed them
something, or someone grabbed them.I was gonna say, we've gone beyond
the spurious sightings that happened. Thisis now pranksters. Yeah, this is
(11:54):
I was gonna say. I wasgonna say, it's not quite an attack
on him, it's a scare.Yeah, and it was here. The
Morning Post also tells us the fright, together with the ill usage, threw
this poor fellow into a fever,from which he is but very lately recovered
the shot himself. Yeah, himselfwent to bed for a couple of days.
(12:18):
Now towards the end of that sameMorning Post article as a reference to
another encounter. They right, wehave a very melancholy circumstance. To add,
the wife of a laborer in thetown are advanced in a state of
pregnancy, saw this ghost, andher fright was so great that her life
is despaired of Oh fuck, Thisactually does refer to an unnamed pregnant woman
(12:43):
who reportedly encountered the ghost in BlackLion Lane, which runs alongside Saint Paul's
Church. So was she actually scaredto death by death? No, she
wasn't. She did die, butshe wasn't scared to death. Now.
The ghost was said to wrap itsspectral arms around her before she fainted,
and was found some time later bya local who took her home, where
(13:07):
immediately she went to bed without sayinga word, and she was said to
pass away a few days later.Right. The important thing there, obviously
is a few days later. It'sunusual, though not unheard of, for
people to die of fright. It'snot impossible, I mean, because it
called a heart attack or something atthe time exactly, it's from a pre
existing heart condition or something like thatthat would certainly not kill someone a few
(13:30):
days later. I'm waning. Sopregnant lady died from something other than ghost
fright? Oh, I mean,which is a pretty sad set. I
mean it was not on my dinglecard for this evening. No, it
was pregnant lady dies by ghost fright. No, I mean I hate it
and enjoy it as a sentence.Is that all right? Yes, it's
(13:52):
fine. This ghost was big news. It was even reported in Edinburgh in
the Scotsman. Holy shit, fromwhere were they? Hammersmith? So it's
part of London now, but backthen a suburb of London. It wasn't
actually party being reported. The Scotsmanwas far away. The Scott'sman wrote the
(14:15):
terror of the phantom operating upon thesuperstition of an elderly woman, brought on
a dejection of mind from which shenever recovered. Oh what does that mean?
Well, it's hard to confirm,because there isn't even a death that
I can look up. A whatof the mind? A dejection of mind?
A dejection of mind? I couldfind a record of an old woman
(14:39):
who was supposedly frightened so badly thatshe went mad and refused to leave her
cottage ever again. So I wego with dejection of mind. I mean
it's sent her by. Yeah,okay, that's just a cool statement.
Yeah, dejection of mind. Therewas also a carriage driver who became uneasy
(15:00):
with a suspicious rustling from the highhedges of the lane next to the churchyard.
He slowed his horses, expecting bandits, but then legged it when a
ghostly white figure stepped out of thehedgeline. Franksters. Yeah, he left
his passengers to flee behind him.Jesus legged it back to the nearest town.
(15:24):
He was not a committed taxi driver. The Morning Post again reported.
So terrified was the man that hejumped from the coach and ran back to
raise the alarm. About a dozenstout fellows proceeded with him to the spot
where the coach and the horses hadbeen left. They found the traces cut
and the horses grazing in an adjoiningfield, but no sign of any person
(15:48):
or creature. So somebody has cutthe horses free though, Yes, so
somebody's done something. So obviously thisis prankice, is it? I don't
know, is it totally empty frivolitythen, or like I know, somebody's
died already not of fright, yeah, but they still like you don't know
(16:12):
what caused that. Obviously that wasa contributing fact. And some guyain strangled
and the churchyard isn't cool? Butis it? Is it harmful? Nonsense?
It's harmless. No, I'm noteven saying harmless. Probably harmful.
But like nobody's been robbed during thator like, no, no one was
(16:33):
robbed, no one was beaten up. There's some guys at it. Yeah.
Now this is obviously before real organizedrural policing, but the residents of
Hammersmith had hired a watchman to patrolthe streets at night, and he also
encountered the ghost. Okay, wasthis like we spoke about it recently about
(16:57):
like a parish level police sing.We talked about it one of the one
of the kind for the education system. But this would have been the local.
It was night watchman, wasn't it. I was gonna say, kind
of do good? That made sureeverything was all's well. He had to
(17:17):
shout every ever, yeah this isthe ghost presumably God. Anyway, On
Thursday, the twenty ninth of December, William Girdler, who was the night
watchman, saw the ghost close tofour mile Stone on Black Lion Lane,
he noticed a tall, whitish figure, which, as he stealthily approached,
(17:41):
he saw had a white tablecloth orsheet raped over their heads. And what
was his name? William Googler ThomasGirdler Gurgler? Okay, Now, when
the ghost heard Thomas Girdler approach,it turned round, but Girdler had a
pistol, so the ghost. Theghost raised his hands into the air,
(18:07):
which also raised the sheet, andThomas Girdler clearly saw a dark coat underneath
it with metal buttons. The ghostthen turned tail and fled, with Girdler
in hot pursuit of the sheet.The ghost was now moving much more like
a man in a sheet and muchless like a spectral being of pure energy.
(18:30):
Well, it wasn't just floating along, there's floating now. Now it's
pelting along along now. But regardless, the ghost managed to give Thomas Girdler
the slip in the graveyard by takingoff his sheet and appearing like a man.
Yeah what ghost he went that way? Yeah? Now, you'd think
(18:53):
Thomas Girdler's encounter would have done somethingto sort of tithe the stem of gossip
and fear that was sweeping the smallcommunity of Hammersmith, since the ghost has
essentially been revealed as a man ina sheet by a man of like in
authority who has said this as well, like it's not just rumors that farmer
Jym saw a guy in a sheeldand this is the night watchman. No,
(19:18):
absolutely, Well, people still believedin ghosts, and they were still
terrified of the Hammersmith ghost. Peopleare really sometimes need to remember that these
people believed in spirits and they weregenuinely frightened by this to our eyes obvious
hopes. Yeah, well we're evenplace for five guineas anyone who could catch
(19:40):
the ghost. Yeah, and we'vesaid it on more than one occasion,
Like we looking back at these storiesand cases with like the clearest vision of
hindsight you can get two hundred andtwenty five years later or whatever. Yeah,
but yeah, we can see clearlythat it's a hoax. But like,
if you're caught up in that twohundred years ago, a much better
(20:00):
story as well. The sheet.Yeah, but it wasn't doing the sheet
in fact, Well, there's anumber of possibilities for the identity of the
ghost in inverted commas. I suspectthat given the long period of time that
it was active over a year,and the four distinctly different descriptions from multiple
(20:25):
sources, there was probably more thanone person posting as the ghost of Hammersmith.
Was there a university or something nearby, you know, I'm trying to
think, but in fact that therewas certainly more than one person, because
one person actually came forward during theoutcry which will follow these tragic events that
were coming up to And mister Graham, who was a local shoemaker, admitted
(20:48):
to going out on several nights dressedas a ghost with a sheet, with
the idea of scaring his apprentices,who had upset him by telling his children
ghost stories. I'll teach them alesson. Yeah, but he didn't grab
anybody in a churchyard. He didn'tgrab anyone in a churchyard. And mister
(21:10):
Graham was with his family on theevening that the night watchman, Thomas Girdler
had chased the man in the sheetand lost him in the graveyard. Solid
Alimi. Yeah, And he onlywent out on a few isolated nights,
which couldn't account for the frequency ofthe ghost's appearance in the town. But
mister Graham was arrested in charge withbeing a nuisance. Is that something you
(21:32):
get charged for? It was then, yeah, just being I'm glad it's
not now, I'd have been liftedages ago. I have a lot of
accounts of being a nuisance on myrap sheet, your wrap? Shoot,
and what's the American thing? You'llsay? Tonight December of eighteen oh three,
the community of Hammersmith were up inarms about the ghost, and now
(21:55):
there was this potential reward of fiveguineas. How much money is that?
It's five guineas. It's five guineas. Oh cool, thanks, thanks for
thanks for appeasing me. There onefucking job. Every time at it's lost.
I can't even look up because we'reon my phone, which makes me
(22:17):
so happy. Right, I'm gonnasay eleven grand Sure, why not New
Year's Eve of eighteen oh three,We're finally going to meet Thomas Millwood,
okay, marrying Fife's great grandfather.He was a bricklayer born in London in
seventeen eighty one, right, andhe was now living with his family in
(22:40):
Hammersmith, So he had about twentytwenty four when the ghost he was cut
about. Yeah, exactly Now,as he was walking home on the evening
of the New Year's Eve, thethirty first of December, do you want
to remember it was? It wastough. He was walking along hammer Smith
Terrace. He alarmed two ladies anda man who were traveling in a coach
(23:03):
along the road. Now, itshould be pointed out at this juncture that
the standard uniform for bricklayers at thetime was long, pure white trousers,
a white flannel waistcoat, a whiteshirt and a white apron like a ghost.
Yeah, he was essentially dressed asa ghost. The man in the
(23:26):
carriage cried out, there goes theghost, oh, while leaning out of
the carriage window. Thomas Millwood,who had already been mistaken for the ghost
on more than one occasion over thepast few weeks, stopped and shouted back,
I am no more of a ghostthan you are, sir. Will
(23:47):
you be wanting a punch to thehead? I challenged the It's the nicest
possible precursor to violence. I thinkI've ever heard you know the fucking like
hugilistically and jumping about with a rollingfist. He's read the Marcus of Queensberry
rules. I couldn't remember the nameof the books. Thank you Now.
(24:11):
When it became apparent that nobody actuallydid want a punch in the head,
Thomas Millwood went on his way hometo complain to his family, you wouldn't
believe it. Misticky for a ghostagain? Why are you gone American?
Deep South? I don't know,okay. I enjoyed it. He lived
(24:33):
with his wife and children and motherin law in a modest house just off
Hammersmith Terrace. His mother in law, Phoebe Fulbrook, was the first person
Thomas told about the event, andshe would later recall being worried for her
son in law's safety walking the streetsin the evenings. Thomas says, I
I don't know why. Thomas says, I there is a piece of work
(24:59):
about this ghost and you look white. Pray did It's because it's the word
pray? I think maybe just notlike that. You're so boring. He
lived with his wife and his childrenand his mother in law in a modest
house just off Terrace. His motherin law, whose name was Phoebe Filbrook,
(25:22):
was the first person that Thomas toldabout the event, and she would
later recall being really worried about herson in law's safety walking home in the
streets in the evenings. She's quotedas saying. Thomas says, I,
as there is a piece of workabout the ghost, and your clothes look
(25:44):
very white, pray do put onyour great coat that you may not run
any danger. He said he wishedthe ghost was catched or something of that
sort, but did nothing about it. This seems like a perfectly reasonable suggestion
from his mother in law. Stayyour jacket on. Yeah, like,
(26:06):
yeah, I mean that's if youif you're worried about being accused of being
the ghost, don't look like afucking ghost. Oh yeah. If I
was in Thomas Millwood's shoes and crazyfolk were wandering the streets either hunting a
ghost or hunting somebody dressed as aghost, and my everyday clothes were essentially
a ghost costume, then I'd havean overcoat so colorful that Jason would quit
(26:32):
stage until they got a technical colordreamt as good as mine. I was
gonna say it. Would it bea coat of many colors? It would
be a coat of many colors.Would you love your coat of many colors?
I would love my coat of manycolors. I could literally go through
the whole song. If you wantme to no, because I know you
could. Thomas Millwood was a proudbricklayer. Oh so he wears the uniform.
(26:56):
You aren't going to cover up hisuniform. He continued tostew his great
coat in lieu of his ghost costumeor sorry uniform. Even as hysteria about
the ghost reached fever pitch. Inthe first few days of January in eighteen
oh four, groups of young menarmed with guns, presumably loaded with ghost
(27:22):
bullets had begun patrolling the streets andthe fields around Saint Paul's Church, nominally
organized by Thomas Girdler. The nightWatchman is a ghost bullet like ectoplasm.
I have no idea. They werehunting a gold and they had guns.
So but the first few days ofJanuary eighteen oh four, we now have
(27:47):
gangs of vigilantes hunting the ghost withghost bullets. Maybe with ghost bullets.
It depends if these people believe thatit's a ghost or if they now believe
it's a man in a sheep.Oh yeah, that's true. They could
just be out there like not ghostbulleting it exactly. But if they believe
(28:08):
it for the ghost you've gotta hopethey have ghost bullets, yeah, because
there's no point otherwise. Really exactly. One of these would be vigilantes was
twenty nine year old customs officer FrancisSmith. He was a lodger in a
house owned by a mister Oakley,who, like everybody who knew Francis,
(28:33):
described him as a well tempered anda good mannered young man. He was
a member of the local church.He was well liked person. He was
genuinely upset that people were being frightenedby this ghost, and I think he
did believe it was the ghost aswell a community do good to who like
(28:56):
I can fix this exactly with ashotgun on chooses the third of January,
Francis Smith loaded his fowling piece,which is a shotgun intended for large waterfowl.
Oh not like partridge or pheasant.Shit like this is a big goose.
Yeah yeah, blunderbuster yeah. Good, like a fucking daffy dutch got
(29:19):
or some shit. Yeah. Andin the afternoon he headed to the pub
for a few pints before the dangerouswork of hunting ghosts live. You don't
want to do it sober, ohstupid exactly, and then sufficiently boosted by
the false courage provided by Sweet Ladyalcohol. Around ten pm, Francis Smith
(29:41):
left the pub and joined the huntfor the ghost. He was met by
the night watchman Thomas Girdler at tenthirty pm at the corner of Black Lion
Lane. Francis Smith told the nightwatchman that he was off to hunt for
the ghost. Thomas Girdler, beingno fool and seeing how drunk Francis was,
(30:03):
said that he would come straight backafter he cried the hour and search
the lanes and take Francis home ifpossible, but he'd literally out with his
bell and ship crying the hour.Yeah, yeah, I know, we
know that's not that was a realthing, but it's always just bad to
think of somebody doing that, youknow, it's wild. Girdler wasn't a
(30:25):
fool either. He also insisted ona password, since Francis was obviously armed
and drunk on a dark night huntingfor a ghost. So I mean he
was definitely the smart one of thetwo. Yeah, they settled on who
goes their friend advanced friend pouring password. Yeah, I'd have gone much better
than that, I think. Yeah, both of us a thing about passwords
(30:52):
now, aren't we Yeah, butno passwords. This complex code was established.
Girdler went on with his rounds,and Francis went ghost hunting. Of
course he did now. At thesame time, Thomas Millwood was at his
parents' house on Black Lion Lane.When he arrived, he told his mother
and his sister Anne that his wifewas ironing at the house of a local
(31:15):
outrider and would be some time.And later recalled chatting for over thirty minutes
with Thomas and their mother by thefireside before he finally had to leave.
He said, we talked for aconsiderable time till my mother fell asleep.
While my brother was sitting I heardthe watchman crying past eleven o'clock. I
(31:37):
told my brother, your time wasexpired, you'd better go. He did
not attend to me, but satfor a considerable time until I said you'd
better go. It's dangerous for yourwife to come home by herself. Then
he jumped up and said I willgo, And he bid our mother and
me good night and went out ofthe door and shut it. So he
(32:00):
just buzzed off to night to goand get his wife. Yeah, okay,
that means that out onto Black LionLane has gone Thomas Millwood just remember,
essentially as a ghost. I wasgonna say, has he got his
coat on? No, he's dressedas a ghosts. Just as down black
(32:21):
Lion Lane comes a drunk Francis Smitharmed with a shotgun, hunting ghosts like
some paranormal elmord I thought, Ithought I was, I'm hunting webbits.
(32:42):
I'm hunting wabbits. That's right,yeah, thank you, pesky rabbit,
pesky wabbitt. The two men metvery close to Thomas Millwood's parents house,
so close that and his sister heardthe encounter outside from the hallway. A
young man's voice shouted quite quickly,you who are you? And what are
you? Damn you? I willshoot you. Later testified, whilst they
(33:07):
were speaking, the gun went off. I saw the flash of fire from
the gun. I went to thedoor and called Thomas as loudly as I
could, three or four times,but nobody answered. I ran out of
the door, and when I'd gothalfway from my father's house to my brother's
I saw my brother lying dead atthe gate. I took hold of his
(33:27):
right hand and said, speak tome, but he could not, for
he was quite dead. His headwas laying towards me, his face bloody
and entirely black. Realizing that therewas nothing she could do for her brother,
An ran home to raise the alarm. As Anne was rushing back to
her parents house. A few streetsaway, Thomas Girdler, the night watchman,
(33:52):
was talking to mister Honor, whoowned a local public house, the
White Hart Tavern. The two menwere approached by Francis Smith in a flustered
state, babbling about having hurt someone. Thomas later remembered he said he had
hurt the man. I said,I hope you've not hurt him much,
(34:14):
says he. I have, andI fear very badly. Oh, dear,
I want said hurt. I said, I hurt myself quite badly.
Me you may have hurt. Imay have hurt myself quite badly. And
I felt down the stairs at yourmom, and dad says through the stairgate.
Yeah, I mean, you knowthey don't have small children. Why
(34:36):
do you have a stairgate to bequatter two dogs? It's way more dangerous
for a drunk bob. It's waymore dangerous for drunk bob. You're right,
the dogs never hurt themselves in thestairgate. No, I really hurt
myself that night. Oh yeah,nowhere near as bad as this. It
was Kicks Club the next day foryou that I love. I'd tell him
(34:58):
my phone that at the skate park. It's not it's moment of mine.
So we move on with the guywho's really really injured. Oh he's really
dead. Anyway. The three men, Thomas Girdler, mister Honor and Francis
Smith, went back towards the crimescene, and they were joined by two
more men on the way, JohnLocke, a local wine merchant, and
(35:21):
a mister George Stowe. How werethey dressed normally not ing cricket wise?
No, right, there was onlyone person. Well though there was more
than one person dressed as a ghost. I suppose because there was the ghost.
There was the ghost, or theseveral ghosts, or the several ghosts.
(35:43):
Anyway, at the junction where BeaverLane meets Black Lion Lane, they
saw the very dead body of ThomasMillwood. He had been shot in the
face through the job to be precise, by Francis Smith, who when he
saw the body again, having presumablyseen it just after he shot it,
he became very agitated. Not denyingit, just repeating that it had been
(36:08):
dark and he'd seen a ghostly figureapproaching, and then he called out twice
before firing. Francis also insisted onbeing taken into Cluff today. At once,
oh he knew he sucked up.Then oh yeah, it was at
this point Francis knew he sucked up. Well done, smaller culture as I'm
(36:31):
proud of you. Thanks, Butthey wouldn't arrest Francis at that time.
He was told to go home andwait for someone to come by his house
tomorrow, even though he's really admittedlyshot this man in the face. Yes,
get you tomorrow, ye. ThomasMillwood's body was carried to the Black
(36:54):
Lion Pub, right, which wecan Why why would you the closest public
building, public building? We talkedabout an inquest being held in a pub
recently as well, so I supposeyeah, they were just accessible areas,
weren't they. They will hold thisin quest in the pub, right,
(37:16):
okay, in one of these pubs, Yes, in the Black Lion.
Oh nice, Sorry I jumped forward. Carry on, that's all right.
I don't even think I wrote that, I just know it. I like
those pets A parish constable named Brookscalled on Francis Smith the next day when
he knocked, Francis looked out fromhis window and then came straight down to
(37:38):
give himself up into legal custody.Oh he knew he sucked up. Then
he knew he fucked up. Yeah. The body of Thomas Millwood was examined
in the Black Lion Tavern by adoctor Flower, whose report said the face
(37:59):
was black. It had a gunshotwound on the left side of the lower
jaw, with a small about thesize of a number four, one of
which had penetrated the vertebrae of theneck and injured the spinal marrow, which
has communication to the brain. Iexamined the brain, but there was no
(38:19):
injury whatsoever to the brain itself.So the shotgun pellets? Fine, you
say so, a number four isa size of pellet. I take it
that's the size of the ammunition orthe shrapnel that came out the shots.
Yeah, it small to a policemanor a coroner, but large to a
(38:42):
farmer shooting rabbits, right, andand he's peppered with it, essentially,
is what they're saying. But notin the brain, No, Yeah,
nothing in the brain, but itdoesn't matter. Yeah, he's fan breed
and it was point blank because it'sin higher face. The victims was covering
powder burns. Fucking hell knew theguy fucking knew it was near ghost.
(39:09):
Yes, I would have said hedid. He carried be that close to
somebody and think that a fucking ghost. No, I agree. I think
I think Francis probably went out tokill a ghost, not to kill a
ghost. He thinks he was afucking ghostbuster. He thinks he was igor
(39:32):
So on the one hand, Iagree, I don't think there's any way
you can mistake somebody in a sheetfrom like two feet away, three feet
away, end of the end ofyour rifle. At the same time,
Francis Smith seems genuinely shocked that hehas harmed someone, and he instantly turns
(39:57):
himself in. He knows these fuckingoh yeah, yeah, it's a weird
one. So he's obviously claiming it'snot been deliberate because he's given himself up
the ship himself. But well hehe will claim it was deliberate, Okay,
but he thought it was a ghost. Fucking he'd been better saying the
(40:21):
other way around. Probably gun wentoff it's not a ghost. I understand
that I was smashed with a shotgun. Okay, sorry, Yeah, he
hands himself in. Yeah, hehas himself in and he's taken to the
local police. It's not still becauseI don't actually have we talked about Remember
(40:50):
that joiner that got locked up ina roundhouse if it was something like that
nakeshift Yeah, same kind of timeframe roundhouses and they were literally just like
wooden structures and stuff. Yeah.And they held the inquest into his death
in the Black Lion, as yousaid, which is I suppose it kind
of makes sense, does it.Well, it's like I said, it
(41:15):
was a locally accessible space, probablyhad a functionary big enough to hold enough
people. I think it's so thatthe inquest people could have a couple of
jars. I mean that probably hadsomething to do with it. Yeah,
scoops, after you say, ah, he was a murdered. He was
a murdered and he was their ghost, and he was the ghost. The
(41:39):
inquest, which was held in theBlack Lion, brought back a verdict of
wilf murder. Okay, yep,that's fair. I think fair Smith would
be tried for wilfor murder. I'dfound. Well, we'll get to that
(42:01):
in a minute. The defense teamargued and diminished responsibility because he thought it
was a ghost. No, diminishedresponsibility because he was drunk. Maybe,
diminished responsibility because he thought it wasa ghost. The worst legal claim I
(42:28):
think we've ever heard. Yes,it is, but it actually did spark
a legal debate which went on rightup until nineteen eighty three. No,
it did. It did the questionall whether acting on a mistaken belief was
sufficient defense to a criminal charge.Okay, fine, So I was thinking
(42:52):
you were going to say, likebelieving in ghosts as a fucking pardon.
But what you mean is like brainwashingcomes under that surely then, or like
cult behavior and all that comes underthat kind of Were you liable because you
(43:16):
were following not following orders, becausethat's a very different thing, but like
indoctrinated into exact Yeah? Is thata legal argument? I suppose it's sub
scenarios. Possibly, But when you'retalking about fucking ghost No, definitely,
(43:36):
definitely not if you're talking about goal. The trial was held a few weeks
later, and it was presided overby Lord Chief Baron MacDonald. Yeah,
very good, good judging name,very good judging name. Yeah, absolutely.
And then Lord Chief Baron observed that, and he told they that Smith
(44:01):
had neither acted in self defense norshot Thomas Millwood by accident. He had
not been provoked by the supposed apparition, nor had he attempted to apprehend it.
Millwood had not committed any offense tojustify being shot, And even if
(44:22):
the supposed ghost had been shot,it would not have been acceptable as frightening
people, while pretending to be aghost was not a serious felony. Well,
that last bit is quite funny.Basically what he said there is I
know you shot the guy and youknew who he was. This essential what
(44:45):
he just said there isn't it?But in Wonderful eighteen hundred Flower the language
exactly. Now, what the jurydo is bring back a verdict of manslaughter.
Fucking how, Lord Chief Baron McDonaldis having none of this. Baron
(45:06):
McDonald's not on board with this.Baron McDonald's not having man flaw. Baron
McDonald tells the jury, No,this is a trial for murder. Go
back and try again. You can'tbring back either a guilty verdict for murder
or an innocent verdict for murder,and he had a preference. I feel
(45:27):
he did have a preference, andthey brought back a guilty verdict for murder.
I think he got his preference thenhe did, and he sentenced Francis
Smith to death. Okay, Imean we never agree with definitely, really
do we all? But I thinkyou said this the last time we talked
(45:49):
about this. It was the levelof punishment approach appropriated at the time,
So you can't disagree with it.But at the same time, at the
same time, Francis Smith has deservedto swing. No, because like whether
you claimed him in his responsibility foranything or not doesn't matter. It doesn't
(46:09):
really matter, does it. Idon't think he meant to go out and
kill somebody. As much as Iwas joking about the fact that you must
know it's a person when you're thatclose, he hadn't gone out to do
that that night. No, hewas. He was a well liked member
of the community. He was genuinelyupset that this ghost slash person dressed as
a ghost was his town. Yeah, I don't worry one. I don't
(46:37):
worry. Francis Smith will not swing. Okay, I think I'm all right
with that. Actually, well,the Crown intervene, right, George,
the third intervenes. What's the actualcrowd? I thought you were going to
say, like, it's usually theHome secretary we talk about doing something.
This time, is the actual crownintervening? Okay? They remand the sentence
(47:01):
to one years hard labor locked upthough, yeah, oh yes, I
believe you should be locked up fora while with hard labor. I think
we've gone too far the other way. Now, that might be too light.
It's a tough one. I doI feel when I say it feels
(47:22):
it feels light, but I don'treally know how hard hard labor was in
eighteen o three. Totally mad,Yeah, I'm still killed the guy and
all, just like totally arguing againstmyself here. You should carry on.
Well, I think about what I'mthinking about. So Francis Smith was reprieved,
(47:43):
he served one year's hard labor inprison and was then released. And
I think we're going to disagree whetherthat was a substantive enough sentence. It's
a tough one. Halfway between ayear of hard labor and swinging is where
I want to be. And itwas obviously the outcry for this trial which
(48:06):
made John Graham, the shoemaker andthe other confirmed ghost come forward. So
he came forward to admit his Yeahhe's pranking, yeah, because of the
trial. Yeah, but he wasquite adamant in that I wasn't the bad
cut, Yeah he was, Yeah, he was, and I believe him
(48:27):
too. So we've kind of gotspace and means for three ghosts here.
I suppose maybe more some your pranksshoemaker pranks there, yep, yeah,
yeah, Brickey who was not actuallya ghost but a ghost. Yeah,
and then some dude that's like cuttingthe horses free and strangling people in churchyards.
(48:50):
That's gotta be a least You've gotat least three there, Yeah,
because you've got to wonder how manytimes are Brickie was mistaken for the ghost
previously? And our Brickie could havebeen mistaken for without doing it. Now,
that's what I mean. Was hethe original ghost like walking to the
churchyard at night? You know,Yeah, there's every chance he was the
(49:14):
man who sparked it. But that'sI mean, that's more than speculation on
our part, really, isn't it. But so he the crown forgives it.
It gets a year, he seesout his time just goes back to
life. Yeah, I think Ihate it more than I'm solved. I
(49:37):
feel like he should have been injail for longer than a year. Al
they still show somebody in the faceand killed them and killed them. The
murder victim was your mother's friend's greatgrandfather great grandfather. What if they've got
any stuff about him that we couldget pictures of, Like I wonder if
(49:58):
they've got done there ancestry dot comship, we could get some marry Marian
will have. I wonder if youget foot like his birth and death to
two, like just stuff we wouldnever normally get. That'd be cool,
like have a look at we couldshare share it at the same time as
the episode. That'd be pretty cool. Yeah, technically remind me I will
(50:20):
do. I will do. I'llsend Sarah a message thanks. That'll get
to me. I know, well, I know your text messages get to
you because it says red and thenlike fucking eight days later. Still you
might die one day and I'll neverknow. I don't get I've not been
getting text messages for ages. You'renot helping me out here. I get
(50:40):
them now now that you're you fledthe country, no. You see,
Sarah got a better phone for Christmas. By better you mean working, yeah,
exactly. But then when I cameup here after Christmas and before New
Year, I left. I leftnew shiny phone down here. You're an
(51:01):
idiot, which is why for thepast like five weeks I've been communicating solely
through WhatsApp. You're an idiot.So I'm gonna go next door when we
finished and look at new phone,and I probably have like eighty messages from
I'm going to send you some more. They're going to get angry from this
(51:23):
point onward. It's all encompassing anger. What the probably we need to finish
this podcast, what we're talking about. Okay, So he got so,
he got a year and intervened bythe crowd, and then just went back
to society. Yes, I thinkwhen you say it in that small amount
(51:45):
of words, it seems I'm nottaking away from them. I think so
yeah, half way, but halfway between halfway between a year and hanging,
I'm all right, way, youknow, he needs to serve some
time. But I didn't think hedeserves to die, because he certainly he
didn't. I don't think he meantit, and he showed her like instant
(52:07):
remorse. Yeah, not that thesethings buy your time off your sentence,
but it shows he wasn't a nastyhuman being. Yeah, which he wasn't.
Well, thank you for that,Alistair. I would normally turn my
roll my eyes when you tell mewhat you're gonna go in a ghost story.
(52:27):
But it was pretense with it's notreally a ghost story. It's a
man and a sheet story. Iwas gonna say. It was presented as
a ghost story, but it actuallyhas a connection to somebody that you know,
and it was just a crime.There was certainly a crime, and
it was British. So you've tickedthe boxes. You tick the boxes.
So I'll let you away with yournon ghost ghost story because I think I
(52:52):
might go with it might be justa brickie walking home at night before.
So originally no ghosts whatsoever, becauseghostwhere literally not, because go start real
well, we have used this asa test this evening, Alice. So
I think it's gone reasonably well bythe point that we actually did a recording
this evening. We've failed to dothat in Settle sometimes that's true. Actually
(53:16):
we actually have. We've done bettereight hundred miles apart than we have.
Thank you very much for doing that. I think this test work will if
we have to do it again,we will. But I suppose the news
that goes with the fact that we'rereleasing this episode that Ali's downside that we're
(53:38):
doing this test is the fact thatAli will be down informed with pretty much
permanently from very reasonably soon. Yeah, but for reasonably soon. We are
going to do as much local recordingas we can. When you come back,
I'll be back up all the time, but we may have to do
these long distance ones. Sometimes wemay have to do this to fulfill some
(54:01):
kind of quota. And this hasbeen our test this evening. So if
you're hearing this episode, it meansit's worked. That's the thing that's fair
to say. Our next test isgoing to be a quadruple recording. That's
going to be fun. Our nexttest is going to be me plugging the
fucking internet cable in and the pubrather than working off Wi Fi. We'll
(54:22):
see if that one works. Tellyou quadruple recording. Imagine how piss will
be at the end of it.Yeah, I can. I can't do
that. We could live it onFacebook and people could buy us drinks over
the internet as we're doing it.What no, No, I mean for
many reasons. No, A youand I'll get absolutely malcy and I'll pee.
(54:45):
We could just text it in andthen Leslie will just keep bringing us
weirder and weirder drinks. I thinkthat was going to be my second point
is do you think Leslie has thecapability and technology and here to do that?
Absolutely not. Is whiskey and water. Never put water on whiskey.
(55:07):
Actually your whiskey. Put what youwant in it. I don't care.
I care. I'll tell you whatbefore we move on, I give you
my favorite whiskey phrase I heard ahundred years ago, and it's the is
it today's rain? Is is nextgeneration's whiskey? I very much enjoy that.
That's a good one. Quite likethat. It's one of my favorites,
(55:29):
that one. So let's let's moveon. Did I what? Sorry?
You should have finished with that?Well? Maybe I will. I
just don't cut the podcast off heredone, Maybe I will, thank you
(55:50):
very much. Alison very much enjoyedthat case tonight, and I normally don't
enjoy golf stories as much as othersdo, but that was fun. We'll
be back in person next episode.I think we'll be back in person on
Tuesday. And when we do so, we yeah, see next Tuesday.
(56:12):
Follow us on social media all thatnonsense. You can find us on Facebook,
Instagram, and ex going to giveit to you by looking for Britain
and you can join the Twisted Britaindiscussion. Were looking for that on Facebook.
It's wild like to review, subscribeall that pish, what else?
(56:32):
Smash that light bar? Anything elseto say? Alistair, No, I'm
good. This has been a lotof fun. Thanks for listening to everyone
in this first international Twisted Britain recording. Intern that we still you're still in
Britain, We're in England, you'rein Scotland. Oh okay, enter that
(56:53):
cross borders bitches. Yeah, don'tget me started on this. You know,
Serio says we're not a rus mhm, I mean you're a race you
actually no, people aren't erased,so she can't be racist against Scottish people.
Yes, suppose we are, andthat's fine, we'll call it that.
(57:14):
But I had enough of the feeling. I'm gonna go with a thank
you, love you, bye,thank you, love you, bye,
thank you few bye you hear yourselfthank you, Bye M Book,
Hello, and welcome to Twist Britain, the podcast I'm tricking and Britain with
the sprinkling the weir in a caband your host Summie Body and me Ali
Downy. Good evening, well,almost good evening, Ali down, how
are you? It is good evening, it's evening. It's well, it's
still evening, but it's good.I can only see you through the medium
of a postage stamp sized picture onmy phone. Yeah, okay, it's
(00:54):
not ideal, and will screen shotit in a minute. It's the most
ridiculous. It's the smallest version ofAli I've ever seen, is it?
Well, there are smaller things aboutAli, but this is the smallest version
of a full alley that I've everseen. For it is funny because it's
true. I think it probably shouldexplain what we're talking about. We are
(01:17):
not in the same room together recording. No, you are in the cell,
I am. You might be ableto hear dumb as in the background
because I'm actually at the bar inthe cell for Sam, Wow, why
are you at the bar? Andthe settle there, Bob wi Fi is
an issue Alistair. This is theleast tigh tag podcast we've ever made.
(01:40):
Fact, I set up all ofour normal kit and now just on my
phone case is currently taking a phone. I'm just on a phone on my
airport. That's tonight, and you'releaning against a wall and you've got a
full fucking brand new studio set upand everything. It's true. I've got
a little mini I mean it stoodgoing on here now there's a microphone post
that on the DISCUSSI okay, wecouldn't quite make work. Yeah, but
(02:05):
you know, but to be fair, I think you're possibly as far away
as as humanly possible in the BritishIsles for me, maybe with it go
into like the Isle of Wight orsomething. Oh yeah, sorry, Mainland
Britain. I mean yeah, no, but the last time you were further
than that, we didn't record becauseyou were in France. Yeah quite a
(02:29):
lot. You're not that far fromwhere you were before. To be fair,
I reckon it's quite possible. Iwas closer as the crow flies when
I was in France. Yeah.Possibly. You are in Bournemouth, of
course. Yeah, you are downseeing your lovely fiance and she has made
(02:52):
this well made the equipment happen thisevening I think would be fair to say
she's donelliantly. I've got a microphone. This is our emergency backup procedures,
besting the emergency backup procedures. Imean, we'll put it out as an
episode anyway, it's content man.Yeah, well, we'll see what it
sounds like and then we'll do it. But to make up for the fact
(03:13):
that you fucked off down said you'vewritten the episode this week, I have
how has your time sitting? Didyou get up today? I got here,
yeah, left last night, gothere today, and you wrote an
episode en route I wrote, Yeah, I wrote some of it on route
and most of it the night beforeI left. But this is actually one
that I've had on the back burner, so to speak, for quite a
(03:35):
while. Okay, so what Iwould I be able to guess what it
is or is it talked about?It's what I've not talked about enlightenly,
then go on, all right,Well, tonight's Tonight's KSE is a bit
of a metasode, a metisode.Again, it's a bit of a metisode.
We have stories within stories. Isit a meta metapode? Yeah,
(03:58):
it's a meta metasode or a betametaisode, a beta metaisode, but it
is a bit of that. We'regoing to talk about a ghost, a
real ghost, or as real asany ghost is at least. We're also
going to talk about a fake ghostor at least one ghost, all of
(04:21):
them men and I think ghost whosefalse hauntings had contributed to urban myth which
survives to this day on the Internetand in some very old history books.
We're also going to talk about avery real murder, and it's one which
my attention was brought to by twoof our listeners. Maybe they might not
(04:46):
be anymore, but they were atthe time. No, it's it's two
of mum's friends, David and MarionFife. Hi, David and Marion.
They may be listeners, or theymay just have heard from my mum that
I'm still doing that crime pop castthing. Oh yeah, those podcasts,
those podcasts. But either way,they very kindly told me about this case
because the victim of the very realmurder tonight, which we will get to
(05:12):
was Marion's great grandfather. Oh nice, well, not nice, but you
know what I mean. Yeah,always good to have a connecting, Yeah,
yeah, connections. Yeah. ThomasMillwood was his name, and how
far back we're talking. We're goingto the start of the eighteen hundreds.
So her, what did you didyou say? Her great grand great grandfather.
(05:36):
Okay, so like three generations agoexactly. But first though, we
have to we have to have theghost of course, Yeah, because we
have real and false ghosts which precipitatedthe circumstances that would lead to the sad
death of Thomas Millwood. You see, throughout eighteen three, the residents of
(05:59):
the then country suburb of London Hammersmithwere haunted by an apparition. A ghostly
figure graped in pure white, wasoften seen by the locals floating between the
gravestones of the churchyard and the adjoininglanes Saint Paul's Church, I think it
(06:21):
was. Other people reported the ghostwearing shining white calfskin and moving between the
high hedges of the roads on eitherside of the church. Is it just
a local luney it? Yeah,tell me more about this looney. Well,
(06:44):
obviously at the time the locals didn'tbelieve it was aloney, and contemporary
urban myth would have us believe thatit was the restless spirit of a man
who had committed suicide the year beforeand then been buried in the consecrated ground
of the church. Do you knowwho said man was? I couldn't find
(07:05):
his name. That's why I don'ttrust it. I mean that he was
supposed to have slit his throat andthen been buried in the church. And
of course, popular religious belief ofthe time was that the soul of any
sinner buried on holy ground was incapableof going to Hell because holy ground is
magic for some reason, but alsodenied the paradise of Heaven. I was
(07:28):
going to say, you know that, was it illegal at the time of
suicide. Yes, so for himto be very buried on would have been
weird. Anyway, it's a veryodd occurrence. I don't believe it.
Oh No, it's funny that Ifelt like pointing out the urban myth.
Nonetheless, anyway, the Hammersmith localsbelieved that the ghost was the suicide man
(07:55):
that probably never existed, and itwent on for most of eighteen o three
until November and December eighteen o three, when the ghost changes his mo o
somewhat. It stops just floating andhe starts frightening. Right. Also,
he's gone from passive to aggressive exactly. He also starts to be reported by
(08:20):
some people as looking like a figuredraped in a white sheet, like the
proper stereotypical Halloween cost Yeah, obviouslythis is a terrifying ghostly figure draped in
some ethereal sheet of the undead.So just like that stereotypical view of a
ghost that Halloween your two aisles gotof sheet. Yeah, what's basically happened
(08:46):
is some people have thought they sawa ghost, and then some people have
started dressing up as a ghost,like the killers clowns dressing as clowns and
yeah, for what's it called notmimic of coffee cutting? Yeah? Coffee
(09:09):
cutting. Yeah. The people ofHammersmith, though, thought it was real,
and the people of London thought itwas real. In eighteen oh three,
the London Morning Post newspaper wrote,this ghost has hitherto appeared every evening
in the churchyard about half a milefrom the town, adjoining to which is
a public road, And on thesixth of January the next year, eighteen
(09:33):
oh four, the same newspaper reportedthe ghost has for upwards of two months
excited so much alarm that every superstitiousperson in that neighborhood has been filled with
the most fearful apprehensions. So terrorstruck are the minds of the women and
children that not one will venture overthe threshold after five o'clock in the evening.
(09:56):
The properly scared, then they arescared. But as I said,
they were definitely scared of a manin a cheet but they thought they were
scared of a ghost. Yeah,but people also had the direct encounters with
this ghost. Shook his hand.Yeah. One man who had a direct
encounter with the specter was Thomas Groom. He was a drayman from the local
(10:22):
Hammersmith brewer, mister Burgess. Adreamman was just basically a delivery person for
beer, okay, right, specificallyfor beer. Specifically for beer. They
got a special name and a badge. I think they should free beer.
Yeah. That was like the storiesof the posts in Isla, like joining
the queue for the free whiskey everydistillion going home about like smashed every day.
(10:45):
Yeah, free boods was a realthing for folks that worked there.
Yeah. But anyway, though,Thomas Groom, on the fifteenth of December
eighteen oh three, he and anotherservant were walking through Saint Paul's churchyard between
a and nine o'clock at night,and he reported and later testified that I
had my jacket under my arm andmy hands in my pocket when some person
(11:11):
came from behind a tombstone behind meand caught me fast by the throat with
both hands and held me fast.My fellow servant, who was going on
before hearing me scuffling, asked,what was the matter? Then, whatever
it was gave me a twist about, but I saw nothing. I gave
a push out with my fist andfelt something soft, like a greatcoat,
(11:33):
but never saw a thing. Sohe saw something. Yeah, sorry,
I still I was processing that.So something grabbed them, Someone grabbed them
something, or someone grabbed them.I was gonna say, we've gone beyond
the spurious sightings that happened. Thisis now pranksters. Yeah, this is
(11:54):
I was gonna say. I wasgonna say, it's not quite an attack
on him, it's a scare.Yeah, and it was here. The
Morning Post also tells us the fright, together with the ill usage, threw
this poor fellow into a fever,from which he is but very lately recovered
the shot himself. Yeah, himselfwent to bed for a couple of days.
(12:18):
Now towards the end of that sameMorning Post article as a reference to
another encounter. They right, wehave a very melancholy circumstance. To add,
the wife of a laborer in thetown are advanced in a state of
pregnancy, saw this ghost, andher fright was so great that her life
is despaired of Oh fuck, Thisactually does refer to an unnamed pregnant woman
(12:43):
who reportedly encountered the ghost in BlackLion Lane, which runs alongside Saint Paul's
Church. So was she actually scaredto death by death? No, she
wasn't. She did die, butshe wasn't scared to death. Now.
The ghost was said to wrap itsspectral arms around her before she fainted,
and was found some time later bya local who took her home, where
(13:07):
immediately she went to bed without sayinga word, and she was said to
pass away a few days later.Right. The important thing there, obviously
is a few days later. It'sunusual, though not unheard of, for
people to die of fright. It'snot impossible, I mean, because it
called a heart attack or something atthe time exactly, it's from a pre
existing heart condition or something like thatthat would certainly not kill someone a few
(13:30):
days later. I'm waning. Sopregnant lady died from something other than ghost
fright? Oh, I mean,which is a pretty sad set. I
mean it was not on my dinglecard for this evening. No, it
was pregnant lady dies by ghost fright. No, I mean I hate it
and enjoy it as a sentence.Is that all right? Yes, it's
(13:52):
fine. This ghost was big news. It was even reported in Edinburgh in
the Scotsman. Holy shit, fromwhere were they? Hammersmith? So it's
part of London now, but backthen a suburb of London. It wasn't
actually party being reported. The Scotsmanwas far away. The Scott'sman wrote the
(14:15):
terror of the phantom operating upon thesuperstition of an elderly woman, brought on
a dejection of mind from which shenever recovered. Oh what does that mean?
Well, it's hard to confirm,because there isn't even a death that
I can look up. A whatof the mind? A dejection of mind?
A dejection of mind? I couldfind a record of an old woman
(14:39):
who was supposedly frightened so badly thatshe went mad and refused to leave her
cottage ever again. So I wego with dejection of mind. I mean
it's sent her by. Yeah,okay, that's just a cool statement.
Yeah, dejection of mind. Therewas also a carriage driver who became uneasy
(15:00):
with a suspicious rustling from the highhedges of the lane next to the churchyard.
He slowed his horses, expecting bandits, but then legged it when a
ghostly white figure stepped out of thehedgeline. Franksters. Yeah, he left
his passengers to flee behind him.Jesus legged it back to the nearest town.
(15:24):
He was not a committed taxi driver. The Morning Post again reported.
So terrified was the man that hejumped from the coach and ran back to
raise the alarm. About a dozenstout fellows proceeded with him to the spot
where the coach and the horses hadbeen left. They found the traces cut
and the horses grazing in an adjoiningfield, but no sign of any person
(15:48):
or creature. So somebody has cutthe horses free though, Yes, so
somebody's done something. So obviously thisis prankice, is it? I don't
know, is it totally empty frivolitythen, or like I know, somebody's
died already not of fright, yeah, but they still like you don't know
(16:12):
what caused that. Obviously that wasa contributing fact. And some guyain strangled
and the churchyard isn't cool? Butis it? Is it harmful? Nonsense?
It's harmless. No, I'm noteven saying harmless. Probably harmful.
But like nobody's been robbed during thator like, no, no one was
(16:33):
robbed, no one was beaten up. There's some guys at it. Yeah.
Now this is obviously before real organizedrural policing, but the residents of
Hammersmith had hired a watchman to patrolthe streets at night, and he also
encountered the ghost. Okay, wasthis like we spoke about it recently about
(16:57):
like a parish level police sing.We talked about it one of the one
of the kind for the education system. But this would have been the local.
It was night watchman, wasn't it. I was gonna say, kind
of do good? That made sureeverything was all's well. He had to
(17:17):
shout every ever, yeah this isthe ghost presumably God. Anyway, On
Thursday, the twenty ninth of December, William Girdler, who was the night
watchman, saw the ghost close tofour mile Stone on Black Lion Lane,
he noticed a tall, whitish figure, which, as he stealthily approached,
(17:41):
he saw had a white tablecloth orsheet raped over their heads. And what
was his name? William Googler ThomasGirdler Gurgler? Okay, Now, when
the ghost heard Thomas Girdler approach,it turned round, but Girdler had a
pistol, so the ghost. Theghost raised his hands into the air,
(18:07):
which also raised the sheet, andThomas Girdler clearly saw a dark coat underneath
it with metal buttons. The ghostthen turned tail and fled, with Girdler
in hot pursuit of the sheet.The ghost was now moving much more like
a man in a sheet and muchless like a spectral being of pure energy.
(18:30):
Well, it wasn't just floating along, there's floating now. Now it's
pelting along along now. But regardless, the ghost managed to give Thomas Girdler
the slip in the graveyard by takingoff his sheet and appearing like a man.
Yeah what ghost he went that way? Yeah? Now, you'd think
(18:53):
Thomas Girdler's encounter would have done somethingto sort of tithe the stem of gossip
and fear that was sweeping the smallcommunity of Hammersmith, since the ghost has
essentially been revealed as a man ina sheet by a man of like in
authority who has said this as well, like it's not just rumors that farmer
Jym saw a guy in a sheeldand this is the night watchman. No,
(19:18):
absolutely, Well, people still believedin ghosts, and they were still
terrified of the Hammersmith ghost. Peopleare really sometimes need to remember that these
people believed in spirits and they weregenuinely frightened by this to our eyes obvious
hopes. Yeah, well we're evenplace for five guineas anyone who could catch
(19:40):
the ghost. Yeah, and we'vesaid it on more than one occasion,
Like we looking back at these storiesand cases with like the clearest vision of
hindsight you can get two hundred andtwenty five years later or whatever. Yeah,
but yeah, we can see clearlythat it's a hoax. But like,
if you're caught up in that twohundred years ago, a much better
(20:00):
story as well. The sheet.Yeah, but it wasn't doing the sheet
in fact, Well, there's anumber of possibilities for the identity of the
ghost in inverted commas. I suspectthat given the long period of time that
it was active over a year,and the four distinctly different descriptions from multiple
(20:25):
sources, there was probably more thanone person posting as the ghost of Hammersmith.
Was there a university or something nearby, you know, I'm trying to
think, but in fact that therewas certainly more than one person, because
one person actually came forward during theoutcry which will follow these tragic events that
were coming up to And mister Graham, who was a local shoemaker, admitted
(20:48):
to going out on several nights dressedas a ghost with a sheet, with
the idea of scaring his apprentices,who had upset him by telling his children
ghost stories. I'll teach them alesson. Yeah, but he didn't grab
anybody in a churchyard. He didn'tgrab anyone in a churchyard. And mister
(21:10):
Graham was with his family on theevening that the night watchman, Thomas Girdler
had chased the man in the sheetand lost him in the graveyard. Solid
Alimi. Yeah, And he onlywent out on a few isolated nights,
which couldn't account for the frequency ofthe ghost's appearance in the town. But
mister Graham was arrested in charge withbeing a nuisance. Is that something you
(21:32):
get charged for? It was then, yeah, just being I'm glad it's
not now, I'd have been liftedages ago. I have a lot of
accounts of being a nuisance on myrap sheet, your wrap? Shoot,
and what's the American thing? You'llsay? Tonight December of eighteen oh three,
the community of Hammersmith were up inarms about the ghost, and now
(21:55):
there was this potential reward of fiveguineas. How much money is that?
It's five guineas. It's five guineas. Oh cool, thanks, thanks for
thanks for appeasing me. There onefucking job. Every time at it's lost.
I can't even look up because we'reon my phone, which makes me
(22:17):
so happy. Right, I'm gonnasay eleven grand Sure, why not New
Year's Eve of eighteen oh three,We're finally going to meet Thomas Millwood,
okay, marrying Fife's great grandfather.He was a bricklayer born in London in
seventeen eighty one, right, andhe was now living with his family in
(22:40):
Hammersmith, So he had about twentytwenty four when the ghost he was cut
about. Yeah, exactly Now,as he was walking home on the evening
of the New Year's Eve, thethirty first of December, do you want
to remember it was? It wastough. He was walking along hammer Smith
Terrace. He alarmed two ladies anda man who were traveling in a coach
(23:03):
along the road. Now, itshould be pointed out at this juncture that
the standard uniform for bricklayers at thetime was long, pure white trousers,
a white flannel waistcoat, a whiteshirt and a white apron like a ghost.
Yeah, he was essentially dressed asa ghost. The man in the
(23:26):
carriage cried out, there goes theghost, oh, while leaning out of
the carriage window. Thomas Millwood,who had already been mistaken for the ghost
on more than one occasion over thepast few weeks, stopped and shouted back,
I am no more of a ghostthan you are, sir. Will
(23:47):
you be wanting a punch to thehead? I challenged the It's the nicest
possible precursor to violence. I thinkI've ever heard you know the fucking like
hugilistically and jumping about with a rollingfist. He's read the Marcus of Queensberry
rules. I couldn't remember the nameof the books. Thank you Now.
(24:11):
When it became apparent that nobody actuallydid want a punch in the head,
Thomas Millwood went on his way hometo complain to his family, you wouldn't
believe it. Misticky for a ghostagain? Why are you gone American?
Deep South? I don't know,okay. I enjoyed it. He lived
(24:33):
with his wife and children and motherin law in a modest house just off
Hammersmith Terrace. His mother in law, Phoebe Fulbrook, was the first person
Thomas told about the event, andshe would later recall being worried for her
son in law's safety walking the streetsin the evenings. Thomas says, I
I don't know why. Thomas says, I there is a piece of work
(24:59):
about this ghost and you look white. Pray did It's because it's the word
pray? I think maybe just notlike that. You're so boring. He
lived with his wife and his childrenand his mother in law in a modest
house just off Terrace. His motherin law, whose name was Phoebe Filbrook,
(25:22):
was the first person that Thomas toldabout the event, and she would
later recall being really worried about herson in law's safety walking home in the
streets in the evenings. She's quotedas saying. Thomas says, I,
as there is a piece of workabout the ghost, and your clothes look
(25:44):
very white, pray do put onyour great coat that you may not run
any danger. He said he wishedthe ghost was catched or something of that
sort, but did nothing about it. This seems like a perfectly reasonable suggestion
from his mother in law. Stayyour jacket on. Yeah, like,
(26:06):
yeah, I mean that's if youif you're worried about being accused of being
the ghost, don't look like afucking ghost. Oh yeah. If I
was in Thomas Millwood's shoes and crazyfolk were wandering the streets either hunting a
ghost or hunting somebody dressed as aghost, and my everyday clothes were essentially
a ghost costume, then I'd havean overcoat so colorful that Jason would quit
(26:32):
stage until they got a technical colordreamt as good as mine. I was
gonna say it. Would it bea coat of many colors? It would
be a coat of many colors.Would you love your coat of many colors?
I would love my coat of manycolors. I could literally go through
the whole song. If you wantme to no, because I know you
could. Thomas Millwood was a proudbricklayer. Oh so he wears the uniform.
(26:56):
You aren't going to cover up hisuniform. He continued tostew his great
coat in lieu of his ghost costumeor sorry uniform. Even as hysteria about
the ghost reached fever pitch. Inthe first few days of January in eighteen
oh four, groups of young menarmed with guns, presumably loaded with ghost
(27:22):
bullets had begun patrolling the streets andthe fields around Saint Paul's Church, nominally
organized by Thomas Girdler. The nightWatchman is a ghost bullet like ectoplasm.
I have no idea. They werehunting a gold and they had guns.
So but the first few days ofJanuary eighteen oh four, we now have
(27:47):
gangs of vigilantes hunting the ghost withghost bullets. Maybe with ghost bullets.
It depends if these people believe thatit's a ghost or if they now believe
it's a man in a sheep.Oh yeah, that's true. They could
just be out there like not ghostbulleting it exactly. But if they believe
(28:08):
it for the ghost you've gotta hopethey have ghost bullets, yeah, because
there's no point otherwise. Really exactly. One of these would be vigilantes was
twenty nine year old customs officer FrancisSmith. He was a lodger in a
house owned by a mister Oakley,who, like everybody who knew Francis,
(28:33):
described him as a well tempered anda good mannered young man. He was
a member of the local church.He was well liked person. He was
genuinely upset that people were being frightenedby this ghost, and I think he
did believe it was the ghost aswell a community do good to who like
(28:56):
I can fix this exactly with ashotgun on chooses the third of January,
Francis Smith loaded his fowling piece,which is a shotgun intended for large waterfowl.
Oh not like partridge or pheasant.Shit like this is a big goose.
Yeah yeah, blunderbuster yeah. Good, like a fucking daffy dutch got
(29:19):
or some shit. Yeah. Andin the afternoon he headed to the pub
for a few pints before the dangerouswork of hunting ghosts live. You don't
want to do it sober, ohstupid exactly, and then sufficiently boosted by
the false courage provided by Sweet Ladyalcohol. Around ten pm, Francis Smith
(29:41):
left the pub and joined the huntfor the ghost. He was met by
the night watchman Thomas Girdler at tenthirty pm at the corner of Black Lion
Lane. Francis Smith told the nightwatchman that he was off to hunt for
the ghost. Thomas Girdler, beingno fool and seeing how drunk Francis was,
(30:03):
said that he would come straight backafter he cried the hour and search
the lanes and take Francis home ifpossible, but he'd literally out with his
bell and ship crying the hour.Yeah, yeah, I know, we
know that's not that was a realthing, but it's always just bad to
think of somebody doing that, youknow, it's wild. Girdler wasn't a
(30:25):
fool either. He also insisted ona password, since Francis was obviously armed
and drunk on a dark night huntingfor a ghost. So I mean he
was definitely the smart one of thetwo. Yeah, they settled on who
goes their friend advanced friend pouring password. Yeah, I'd have gone much better
than that, I think. Yeah, both of us a thing about passwords
(30:52):
now, aren't we Yeah, butno passwords. This complex code was established.
Girdler went on with his rounds,and Francis went ghost hunting. Of
course he did now. At thesame time, Thomas Millwood was at his
parents' house on Black Lion Lane.When he arrived, he told his mother
and his sister Anne that his wifewas ironing at the house of a local
(31:15):
outrider and would be some time.And later recalled chatting for over thirty minutes
with Thomas and their mother by thefireside before he finally had to leave.
He said, we talked for aconsiderable time till my mother fell asleep.
While my brother was sitting I heardthe watchman crying past eleven o'clock. I
(31:37):
told my brother, your time wasexpired, you'd better go. He did
not attend to me, but satfor a considerable time until I said you'd
better go. It's dangerous for yourwife to come home by herself. Then
he jumped up and said I willgo, And he bid our mother and
me good night and went out ofthe door and shut it. So he
(32:00):
just buzzed off to night to goand get his wife. Yeah, okay,
that means that out onto Black LionLane has gone Thomas Millwood just remember,
essentially as a ghost. I wasgonna say, has he got his
coat on? No, he's dressedas a ghosts. Just as down black
(32:21):
Lion Lane comes a drunk Francis Smitharmed with a shotgun, hunting ghosts like
some paranormal elmord I thought, Ithought I was, I'm hunting webbits.
(32:42):
I'm hunting wabbits. That's right,yeah, thank you, pesky rabbit,
pesky wabbitt. The two men metvery close to Thomas Millwood's parents house,
so close that and his sister heardthe encounter outside from the hallway. A
young man's voice shouted quite quickly,you who are you? And what are
you? Damn you? I willshoot you. Later testified, whilst they
(33:07):
were speaking, the gun went off. I saw the flash of fire from
the gun. I went to thedoor and called Thomas as loudly as I
could, three or four times,but nobody answered. I ran out of
the door, and when I'd gothalfway from my father's house to my brother's
I saw my brother lying dead atthe gate. I took hold of his
(33:27):
right hand and said, speak tome, but he could not, for
he was quite dead. His headwas laying towards me, his face bloody
and entirely black. Realizing that therewas nothing she could do for her brother,
An ran home to raise the alarm. As Anne was rushing back to
her parents house. A few streetsaway, Thomas Girdler, the night watchman,
(33:52):
was talking to mister Honor, whoowned a local public house, the
White Hart Tavern. The two menwere approached by Francis Smith in a flustered
state, babbling about having hurt someone. Thomas later remembered he said he had
hurt the man. I said,I hope you've not hurt him much,
(34:14):
says he. I have, andI fear very badly. Oh, dear,
I want said hurt. I said, I hurt myself quite badly.
Me you may have hurt. Imay have hurt myself quite badly. And
I felt down the stairs at yourmom, and dad says through the stairgate.
Yeah, I mean, you knowthey don't have small children. Why
(34:36):
do you have a stairgate to bequatter two dogs? It's way more dangerous
for a drunk bob. It's waymore dangerous for drunk bob. You're right,
the dogs never hurt themselves in thestairgate. No, I really hurt
myself that night. Oh yeah,nowhere near as bad as this. It
was Kicks Club the next day foryou that I love. I'd tell him
(34:58):
my phone that at the skate park. It's not it's moment of mine.
So we move on with the guywho's really really injured. Oh he's really
dead. Anyway. The three men, Thomas Girdler, mister Honor and Francis
Smith, went back towards the crimescene, and they were joined by two
more men on the way, JohnLocke, a local wine merchant, and
(35:21):
a mister George Stowe. How werethey dressed normally not ing cricket wise?
No, right, there was onlyone person. Well though there was more
than one person dressed as a ghost. I suppose because there was the ghost.
There was the ghost, or theseveral ghosts, or the several ghosts.
(35:43):
Anyway, at the junction where BeaverLane meets Black Lion Lane, they
saw the very dead body of ThomasMillwood. He had been shot in the
face through the job to be precise, by Francis Smith, who when he
saw the body again, having presumablyseen it just after he shot it,
he became very agitated. Not denyingit, just repeating that it had been
(36:08):
dark and he'd seen a ghostly figureapproaching, and then he called out twice
before firing. Francis also insisted onbeing taken into Cluff today. At once,
oh he knew he sucked up.Then oh yeah, it was at
this point Francis knew he sucked up. Well done, smaller culture as I'm
(36:31):
proud of you. Thanks, Butthey wouldn't arrest Francis at that time.
He was told to go home andwait for someone to come by his house
tomorrow, even though he's really admittedlyshot this man in the face. Yes,
get you tomorrow, ye. ThomasMillwood's body was carried to the Black
(36:54):
Lion Pub, right, which wecan Why why would you the closest public
building, public building? We talkedabout an inquest being held in a pub
recently as well, so I supposeyeah, they were just accessible areas,
weren't they. They will hold thisin quest in the pub, right,
(37:16):
okay, in one of these pubs, Yes, in the Black Lion.
Oh nice, Sorry I jumped forward. Carry on, that's all right.
I don't even think I wrote that, I just know it. I like
those pets A parish constable named Brookscalled on Francis Smith the next day when
he knocked, Francis looked out fromhis window and then came straight down to
(37:38):
give himself up into legal custody.Oh he knew he sucked up. Then
he knew he fucked up. Yeah. The body of Thomas Millwood was examined
in the Black Lion Tavern by adoctor Flower, whose report said the face
(37:59):
was black. It had a gunshotwound on the left side of the lower
jaw, with a small about thesize of a number four, one of
which had penetrated the vertebrae of theneck and injured the spinal marrow, which
has communication to the brain. Iexamined the brain, but there was no
(38:19):
injury whatsoever to the brain itself.So the shotgun pellets? Fine, you
say so, a number four isa size of pellet. I take it
that's the size of the ammunition orthe shrapnel that came out the shots.
Yeah, it small to a policemanor a coroner, but large to a
(38:42):
farmer shooting rabbits, right, andand he's peppered with it, essentially,
is what they're saying. But notin the brain, No, Yeah,
nothing in the brain, but itdoesn't matter. Yeah, he's fan breed
and it was point blank because it'sin higher face. The victims was covering
powder burns. Fucking hell knew theguy fucking knew it was near ghost.
(39:09):
Yes, I would have said hedid. He carried be that close to
somebody and think that a fucking ghost. No, I agree. I think
I think Francis probably went out tokill a ghost, not to kill a
ghost. He thinks he was afucking ghostbuster. He thinks he was igor
(39:32):
So on the one hand, Iagree, I don't think there's any way
you can mistake somebody in a sheetfrom like two feet away, three feet
away, end of the end ofyour rifle. At the same time,
Francis Smith seems genuinely shocked that hehas harmed someone, and he instantly turns
(39:57):
himself in. He knows these fuckingoh yeah, yeah, it's a weird
one. So he's obviously claiming it'snot been deliberate because he's given himself up
the ship himself. But well hehe will claim it was deliberate, Okay,
but he thought it was a ghost. Fucking he'd been better saying the
(40:21):
other way around. Probably gun wentoff it's not a ghost. I understand
that I was smashed with a shotgun. Okay, sorry, Yeah, he
hands himself in. Yeah, hehas himself in and he's taken to the
local police. It's not still becauseI don't actually have we talked about Remember
(40:50):
that joiner that got locked up ina roundhouse if it was something like that
nakeshift Yeah, same kind of timeframe roundhouses and they were literally just like
wooden structures and stuff. Yeah.And they held the inquest into his death
in the Black Lion, as yousaid, which is I suppose it kind
of makes sense, does it.Well, it's like I said, it
(41:15):
was a locally accessible space, probablyhad a functionary big enough to hold enough
people. I think it's so thatthe inquest people could have a couple of
jars. I mean that probably hadsomething to do with it. Yeah,
scoops, after you say, ah, he was a murdered. He was
a murdered and he was their ghost, and he was the ghost. The
(41:39):
inquest, which was held in theBlack Lion, brought back a verdict of
wilf murder. Okay, yep,that's fair. I think fair Smith would
be tried for wilfor murder. I'dfound. Well, we'll get to that
(42:01):
in a minute. The defense teamargued and diminished responsibility because he thought it
was a ghost. No, diminishedresponsibility because he was drunk. Maybe,
diminished responsibility because he thought it wasa ghost. The worst legal claim I
(42:28):
think we've ever heard. Yes,it is, but it actually did spark
a legal debate which went on rightup until nineteen eighty three. No,
it did. It did the questionall whether acting on a mistaken belief was
sufficient defense to a criminal charge.Okay, fine, So I was thinking
(42:52):
you were going to say, likebelieving in ghosts as a fucking pardon.
But what you mean is like brainwashingcomes under that surely then, or like
cult behavior and all that comes underthat kind of Were you liable because you
(43:16):
were following not following orders, becausethat's a very different thing, but like
indoctrinated into exact Yeah? Is thata legal argument? I suppose it's sub
scenarios. Possibly, But when you'retalking about fucking ghost No, definitely,
(43:36):
definitely not if you're talking about goal. The trial was held a few weeks
later, and it was presided overby Lord Chief Baron MacDonald. Yeah,
very good, good judging name,very good judging name. Yeah, absolutely.
And then Lord Chief Baron observed that, and he told they that Smith
(44:01):
had neither acted in self defense norshot Thomas Millwood by accident. He had
not been provoked by the supposed apparition, nor had he attempted to apprehend it.
Millwood had not committed any offense tojustify being shot, And even if
(44:22):
the supposed ghost had been shot,it would not have been acceptable as frightening
people, while pretending to be aghost was not a serious felony. Well,
that last bit is quite funny.Basically what he said there is I
know you shot the guy and youknew who he was. This essential what
(44:45):
he just said there isn't it?But in Wonderful eighteen hundred Flower the language
exactly. Now, what the jurydo is bring back a verdict of manslaughter.
Fucking how, Lord Chief Baron McDonaldis having none of this. Baron
(45:06):
McDonald's not on board with this.Baron McDonald's not having man flaw. Baron
McDonald tells the jury, No,this is a trial for murder. Go
back and try again. You can'tbring back either a guilty verdict for murder
or an innocent verdict for murder,and he had a preference. I feel
(45:27):
he did have a preference, andthey brought back a guilty verdict for murder.
I think he got his preference thenhe did, and he sentenced Francis
Smith to death. Okay, Imean we never agree with definitely, really
do we all? But I thinkyou said this the last time we talked
(45:49):
about this. It was the levelof punishment approach appropriated at the time,
So you can't disagree with it.But at the same time, at the
same time, Francis Smith has deservedto swing. No, because like whether
you claimed him in his responsibility foranything or not doesn't matter. It doesn't
(46:09):
really matter, does it. Idon't think he meant to go out and
kill somebody. As much as Iwas joking about the fact that you must
know it's a person when you're thatclose, he hadn't gone out to do
that that night. No, hewas. He was a well liked member
of the community. He was genuinelyupset that this ghost slash person dressed as
a ghost was his town. Yeah, I don't worry one. I don't
(46:37):
worry. Francis Smith will not swing. Okay, I think I'm all right
with that. Actually, well,the Crown intervene, right, George,
the third intervenes. What's the actualcrowd? I thought you were going to
say, like, it's usually theHome secretary we talk about doing something.
This time, is the actual crownintervening? Okay? They remand the sentence
(47:01):
to one years hard labor locked upthough, yeah, oh yes, I
believe you should be locked up fora while with hard labor. I think
we've gone too far the other way. Now, that might be too light.
It's a tough one. I doI feel when I say it feels
(47:22):
it feels light, but I don'treally know how hard hard labor was in
eighteen o three. Totally mad,Yeah, I'm still killed the guy and
all, just like totally arguing againstmyself here. You should carry on.
Well, I think about what I'mthinking about. So Francis Smith was reprieved,
(47:43):
he served one year's hard labor inprison and was then released. And
I think we're going to disagree whetherthat was a substantive enough sentence. It's
a tough one. Halfway between ayear of hard labor and swinging is where
I want to be. And itwas obviously the outcry for this trial which
(48:06):
made John Graham, the shoemaker andthe other confirmed ghost come forward. So
he came forward to admit his Yeahhe's pranking, yeah, because of the
trial. Yeah, but he wasquite adamant in that I wasn't the bad
cut, Yeah he was, Yeah, he was, and I believe him
(48:27):
too. So we've kind of gotspace and means for three ghosts here.
I suppose maybe more some your pranksshoemaker pranks there, yep, yeah,
yeah, Brickey who was not actuallya ghost but a ghost. Yeah,
and then some dude that's like cuttingthe horses free and strangling people in churchyards.
(48:50):
That's gotta be a least You've gotat least three there, Yeah,
because you've got to wonder how manytimes are Brickie was mistaken for the ghost
previously? And our Brickie could havebeen mistaken for without doing it. Now,
that's what I mean. Was hethe original ghost like walking to the
churchyard at night? You know,Yeah, there's every chance he was the
(49:14):
man who sparked it. But that'sI mean, that's more than speculation on
our part, really, isn't it. But so he the crown forgives it.
It gets a year, he seesout his time just goes back to
life. Yeah, I think Ihate it more than I'm solved. I
(49:37):
feel like he should have been injail for longer than a year. Al
they still show somebody in the faceand killed them and killed them. The
murder victim was your mother's friend's greatgrandfather great grandfather. What if they've got
any stuff about him that we couldget pictures of, Like I wonder if
(49:58):
they've got done there ancestry dot comship, we could get some marry Marian
will have. I wonder if youget foot like his birth and death to
two, like just stuff we wouldnever normally get. That'd be cool,
like have a look at we couldshare share it at the same time as
the episode. That'd be pretty cool. Yeah, technically remind me I will
(50:20):
do. I will do. I'llsend Sarah a message thanks. That'll get
to me. I know, well, I know your text messages get to
you because it says red and thenlike fucking eight days later. Still you
might die one day and I'll neverknow. I don't get I've not been
getting text messages for ages. You'renot helping me out here. I get
(50:40):
them now now that you're you fledthe country, no. You see,
Sarah got a better phone for Christmas. By better you mean working, yeah,
exactly. But then when I cameup here after Christmas and before New
Year, I left. I leftnew shiny phone down here. You're an
(51:01):
idiot, which is why for thepast like five weeks I've been communicating solely
through WhatsApp. You're an idiot.So I'm gonna go next door when we
finished and look at new phone,and I probably have like eighty messages from
I'm going to send you some more. They're going to get angry from this
(51:23):
point onward. It's all encompassing anger. What the probably we need to finish
this podcast, what we're talking about. Okay, So he got so,
he got a year and intervened bythe crowd, and then just went back
to society. Yes, I thinkwhen you say it in that small amount
(51:45):
of words, it seems I'm nottaking away from them. I think so
yeah, half way, but halfway between halfway between a year and hanging,
I'm all right, way, youknow, he needs to serve some
time. But I didn't think hedeserves to die, because he certainly he
didn't. I don't think he meantit, and he showed her like instant
(52:07):
remorse. Yeah, not that thesethings buy your time off your sentence,
but it shows he wasn't a nastyhuman being. Yeah, which he wasn't.
Well, thank you for that,Alistair. I would normally turn my
roll my eyes when you tell mewhat you're gonna go in a ghost story.
(52:27):
But it was pretense with it's notreally a ghost story. It's a
man and a sheet story. Iwas gonna say. It was presented as
a ghost story, but it actuallyhas a connection to somebody that you know,
and it was just a crime.There was certainly a crime, and
it was British. So you've tickedthe boxes. You tick the boxes.
So I'll let you away with yournon ghost ghost story because I think I
(52:52):
might go with it might be justa brickie walking home at night before.
So originally no ghosts whatsoever, becauseghostwhere literally not, because go start real
well, we have used this asa test this evening, Alice. So
I think it's gone reasonably well bythe point that we actually did a recording
this evening. We've failed to dothat in Settle sometimes that's true. Actually
(53:16):
we actually have. We've done bettereight hundred miles apart than we have.
Thank you very much for doing that. I think this test work will if
we have to do it again,we will. But I suppose the news
that goes with the fact that we'rereleasing this episode that Ali's downside that we're
(53:38):
doing this test is the fact thatAli will be down informed with pretty much
permanently from very reasonably soon. Yeah, but for reasonably soon. We are
going to do as much local recordingas we can. When you come back,
I'll be back up all the time, but we may have to do
these long distance ones. Sometimes wemay have to do this to fulfill some
(54:01):
kind of quota. And this hasbeen our test this evening. So if
you're hearing this episode, it meansit's worked. That's the thing that's fair
to say. Our next test isgoing to be a quadruple recording. That's
going to be fun. Our nexttest is going to be me plugging the
fucking internet cable in and the pubrather than working off Wi Fi. We'll
(54:22):
see if that one works. Tellyou quadruple recording. Imagine how piss will
be at the end of it.Yeah, I can. I can't do
that. We could live it onFacebook and people could buy us drinks over
the internet as we're doing it.What no, No, I mean for
many reasons. No, A youand I'll get absolutely malcy and I'll pee.
(54:45):
We could just text it in andthen Leslie will just keep bringing us
weirder and weirder drinks. I thinkthat was going to be my second point
is do you think Leslie has thecapability and technology and here to do that?
Absolutely not. Is whiskey and water. Never put water on whiskey.
(55:07):
Actually your whiskey. Put what youwant in it. I don't care.
I care. I'll tell you whatbefore we move on, I give you
my favorite whiskey phrase I heard ahundred years ago, and it's the is
it today's rain? Is is nextgeneration's whiskey? I very much enjoy that.
That's a good one. Quite likethat. It's one of my favorites,
(55:29):
that one. So let's let's moveon. Did I what? Sorry?
You should have finished with that?Well? Maybe I will. I
just don't cut the podcast off heredone, Maybe I will, thank you
(55:50):
very much. Alison very much enjoyedthat case tonight, and I normally don't
enjoy golf stories as much as othersdo, but that was fun. We'll
be back in person next episode.I think we'll be back in person on
Tuesday. And when we do so, we yeah, see next Tuesday.
(56:12):
Follow us on social media all thatnonsense. You can find us on Facebook,
Instagram, and ex going to giveit to you by looking for Britain
and you can join the Twisted Britaindiscussion. Were looking for that on Facebook.
It's wild like to review, subscribeall that pish, what else?
(56:32):
Smash that light bar? Anything elseto say? Alistair, No, I'm
good. This has been a lotof fun. Thanks for listening to everyone
in this first international Twisted Britain recording. Intern that we still you're still in
Britain, We're in England, you'rein Scotland. Oh okay, enter that
(56:53):
cross borders bitches. Yeah, don'tget me started on this. You know,
Serio says we're not a rus mhm, I mean you're a race you
actually no, people aren't erased,so she can't be racist against Scottish people.
Yes, suppose we are, andthat's fine, we'll call it that.
(57:14):
But I had enough of the feeling. I'm gonna go with a thank
you, love you, bye,thank you, love you, bye,
thank you few bye you hear yourselfthank you, Bye M Book,
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