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Speaker 1: dot com. Welcome to Unexplained extra with me Richard McClane Smith,
Speaker 1: where for the weeks in between episodes we look at
Speaker 1: the stories that, for one reason or other, didn't make
Speaker 1: it into the show. In the last episode alone with Everybody,
Speaker 1: we ventured to the northern reaches of the Brecon Beacons
Speaker 1: in Cumerie to hear the story of how one couple's
Speaker 1: dream moved to the region quickly turned into a devastating nightmare.
Speaker 1: The couple stayed at the property known as he Old
Speaker 1: Fannog for almost seven years, during which time they and
Speaker 1: their children were said to have been subjected to an
Speaker 1: extraordinary array of supposed paranormal and supernatural episodes. With the
Speaker 1: family unable to afford a move, a great deal of
Speaker 1: time and energy was spent trying to find someone who
Speaker 1: could alleviate their fear and misery. However, despite multiple efforts
Speaker 1: from numerous parties, none were quite able to do it,
Speaker 1: with the exception of one person, Eddie Burks. It's fair
Speaker 1: to say that few people, if asked to imagine the
Speaker 1: archetypal self styled psychic, would have the quiet and modest
Speaker 1: Eddie Burkes in mind. Born in nineteen twenty two in
Speaker 1: the district of Bow, in East London. Eddie's was a
Speaker 1: happy and fairly ordinary childhood, with the exception of one incident.
Speaker 1: At five years old, during a minor operation in hospital,
Speaker 1: Eddie had what he believed to be a near death experience.
Speaker 1: It was while under anesthetic that Eddie found himself traveling
Speaker 1: through a tunnel of light before arriving moments later in
Speaker 1: a bright garden paradise, only to be instantly thrust back
Speaker 1: down the tunnel again, awaking soon after back in the
Speaker 1: hospital ward. The incident was never forgotten, but for the
Speaker 1: most part, barring his involvement in the Second World War,
Speaker 1: Burkes's life was superficially at least fairly unremarkable, spending his
Speaker 1: days working as a science officer researching roads for the
Speaker 1: British Civil Service, until one afternoon in June nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: when Eddie's life changed forever. There had apparently been signs
Speaker 1: that something was occurring in the years prior to this moment.
Speaker 1: The premature deaths of his wife in nineteen seventy and
Speaker 1: his son a decade later had understandably been devastating. However,
Speaker 1: in both instances, Eddie had been comforted by the belief
Speaker 1: that he had felt their presence within days of them dying,
Speaker 1: but nothing could quite prepare him for what was about
Speaker 1: to happen. On that fateful afternoon in nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: Eddie was paying a visit to then Director of the
Speaker 1: College of Psychic Studies, Brenda Marshall, to discuss a growing
Speaker 1: conviction that he might have psychic abilities. The College had
Speaker 1: originally been founded in eighteen eighty four as the London
Speaker 1: Spiritualist Alliance, before rebranding itself in the nineteen fifties. Much
Speaker 1: like the better known Society of Psychical Research, the Alliance
Speaker 1: had been established to investigate and scrutinize the growing number
Speaker 1: of apparent mediums plying their trade in Victorian Britain. However,
Speaker 1: their investigative merits were thrown into question when Eleanor Sidgwick
Speaker 1: of the spr accused William Eglinton, a medium the Alliance
Speaker 1: had previously supported, of being a fraud. The disagreement caused
Speaker 1: somewhat of a schism between the two groups, with the
Speaker 1: Alliance remaining committed to its belief in Eglinton's apparent abilities,
Speaker 1: which were indeed later revealed to have been unquestionably fraudulent
Speaker 1: by the nineteen eighties. However, the Alliance had long since
Speaker 1: moved away from the embarrassment, having by then adopted a
Speaker 1: far more rigorous approach to the analysis of potential paranormal phenomena.
Speaker 1: That afternoon in the summer of nineteen eighty three, as
Speaker 1: Eddie Burke's talked quietly with Brenda, the college's president, he
Speaker 1: became suddenly distracted by another man's voice in the room
Speaker 1: that seemed to be talking to him. The apparent voice,
Speaker 1: he believed, was pleading with him to help him find
Speaker 1: his way. As Eddie would later claim, it was the
Speaker 1: first time he had ever been contacted by a ghost, or,
Speaker 1: more precisely, according to him, a lost soul. From that moment,
Speaker 1: after claiming to have helped the spirit move on to
Speaker 1: another realm Eddie realized his true calling to help the
Speaker 1: dead find their way out of life. It was sometime
Speaker 1: in the summer of nineteen ninety two, nine years after
Speaker 1: she had first met Eddie Burkes, when an envelope bearing
Speaker 1: the logo of Coot's Bank arrived on Brenda Marshall's desk.
Speaker 1: The letter was instantly intriguing, since Coots happened to be
Speaker 1: just about the most exclusive financial institution in the country,
Speaker 1: serving the royal family, among many other of the world's
Speaker 1: most wealthy citizens, which made what she was about to
Speaker 1: read or the more surprising. A few weeks previously, one
Speaker 1: of the bank's receptionists had been sat at the front
Speaker 1: desk when all the computer systems simultaneously malfunctioned. A flickering
Speaker 1: of the building's lights was followed by a sudden drop
Speaker 1: in temperature and the appearance of a vague, shadowy figure
Speaker 1: without a head, making its way across the bank's vast
Speaker 1: atrium before seeming to disappear into a darkened doorway. When
Speaker 1: she reported the incident to the bank's personnel director, she
Speaker 1: was amazed to discover that she wasn't the first to
Speaker 1: have seen the strange apparition. In fact, three other receptionists
Speaker 1: had also reported the same thing on multiple occasions. With
Speaker 1: all four staff now too terrified to work, unable to
Speaker 1: dismiss the claims out of hand, or perhaps just looking
Speaker 1: for a way to calm their staff, the bank's archivist
Speaker 1: suggested they contact the College of Psychic Studies to see
Speaker 1: if they might help, and Brenda knew just the person
Speaker 1: to ask, are you always taking care of your family.
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Speaker 1: slash Unexplained Podcast. It was three days later, shortly after
Speaker 1: one thirty p m. When a black cab pulled up
Speaker 1: outside the bank's grand glass fronted facade at number four
Speaker 1: forty the strand seconds later, an unassuming middle aged man
Speaker 1: in a light gray suit and comfortable shoes stepped out
Speaker 1: on to the pavement, gazing up at the entrance for
Speaker 1: a brief moment before making his way inside. The entrance
Speaker 1: hall was a huge and opulent space, designed in the
Speaker 1: seventies and the manner of a giant conservatory for maximum
Speaker 1: natural light, housing an internal garden of glossy marbled stone
Speaker 1: and lush trees, complete with a pond of koi carp
Speaker 1: Eddie paid it little notice as he made his way
Speaker 1: to the first floor, where he was introduced to the
Speaker 1: bank's archivist, as well as three of the receptionists who
Speaker 1: had witnessed the apparent specter. Moments later, the five of
Speaker 1: them discreetly made their way to a small office next
Speaker 1: to the front desk to begin the procedure. It wasn't
Speaker 1: long before Eddie was picking something up. After instructing one
Speaker 1: of the others to write down what he was about
Speaker 1: to say, he began. He is a man of considerable
Speaker 1: pride who did not bend to the Queen's command and
Speaker 1: was beheaded not far from here on a summer's day.
Speaker 1: I have been waiting here a long time, he is saying,
Speaker 1: Eddie went on to describe the man as being dressed
Speaker 1: in Elizabethan clothes of the sixteenth century, who also wore
Speaker 1: expensive jewelry on his fingers and around his neck. Soon after,
Speaker 1: the others watched, astounded as Burke's then claimed to see
Speaker 1: a second entity appearing in the room alongside them. It
Speaker 1: was the man's daughter, he said, come to collect her
Speaker 1: father and lead him into the next world. Burks reported
Speaker 1: seeing them walk into a blaze of white light before
Speaker 1: they both vanished together. After thanking him for his time,
Speaker 1: Burkes suggested they let him know if they have any
Speaker 1: more disturbances. They made his goodbyes and went on his way.
Speaker 1: Although the bank had requested Burkes's intervention be carried out
Speaker 1: under the strictest confidence, it wasn't long before the full
Speaker 1: account was picked up by the press, with both the
Speaker 1: bank and many at the college being embarrassed by the exposure. Regardless,
Speaker 1: one thing was certain. The apparent ghost was never seen again.
Speaker 1: With the incident now out in the open, Unlike Burkes,
Speaker 1: who was happy just to have helped, a number of
Speaker 1: papers were understandably keen to establish the identity of the
Speaker 1: supposed ghost and verify Burke's claims. A few days later,
Speaker 1: royal historian and Jesuit priest, Father Francis Edwards, came forward
Speaker 1: with the name Thomas Howard, whose description and life bore
Speaker 1: a remarkable similarity to the details provided by Eddie. Born
Speaker 1: in fifteen thirty six, Howard, the fourth Duke of Norfolk,
Speaker 1: was a close friend of Queen Elizabeth First before becoming
Speaker 1: hopelessly entangled in the complex political rivalry between her followers
Speaker 1: and those of her rival to the throne, Mary Stuart.
Speaker 1: In a tragic but fitting representation of the ruthless political
Speaker 1: climate of the time, Howard, who was at one point
Speaker 1: encouraged by Elizabeth to marry Mary Stuart, was accused of
Speaker 1: treason when he eventually agreed to do just that. In response,
Speaker 1: he was arrested and thrown into the Tower of London.
Speaker 1: Nine months later, in the summer of fifteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: Howard was marched from his cell to the space inside
Speaker 1: the castle known as Tower Green, where his head was
Speaker 1: promptly removed from his body. Incredibly, the revelation that this
Speaker 1: may well have been the ghost haunting the offices of
Speaker 1: Coots struck such a chord with the Duke's ancestors, they
Speaker 1: felt compelled to now lay his apparently previously unsettled soul
Speaker 1: to rest. And so it was that, on November fifteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, on a wet and miserable afternoon in London,
Speaker 1: a handful of aristocrats gathered together in a small chapel
Speaker 1: in Covent Garden to pay their last respects to the
Speaker 1: fourth Duke of Norfolk. Joining them were a number of
Speaker 1: representatives of Coot's Bank, and of course Eddie Burkes, who
Speaker 1: was even invited to give a speech to mark the occasion.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to
Speaker 1: help supporters, you can now go to Unexplained podcast dot
Speaker 1: com forward slash support. All donations, no matter how large
Speaker 1: or small, are massively appreciated. All elements of Unexplained are
Speaker 1: produced by me Richard mcclained smith. Please subscribe and rate
Speaker 1: the show on iTunes. Feel free to get in touch
Speaker 1: with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard
Speaker 1: on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your
Speaker 1: own you'd like to share. You can reach us online
Speaker 1: at Unexplained podcast dot com or on Twitter at Unexplained pod.
Speaker 1: Now it's time to take care of yourself. To make
Speaker 1: time for you. Tell a DOC gives you access to
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