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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George

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Speaker 1: Nori with you. Charles Christian with us. An English barrister

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Speaker 1: and Reuter's correspondent turned writer, podcaster, award winning tech journalist,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes werewolf hunter. He now writes and talks mainly

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Speaker 1: about folklore, urban myth's history and the strange and weird.

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Speaker 1: And yes, an English Fleet Street newspaper once did commission

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Speaker 1: him to go on a werewolf hunt on the night

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Speaker 1: of a full moon. He didn't find one. Charles, I'm

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Speaker 1: glad you didn't. That could have been a strange meeting

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Speaker 1: up with a werewolf. It could, indeed, yes, slightly bizarre thing.

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Speaker 1: I was rather hoping that it was just a very

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Speaker 1: large dog. But in the back of my mind thought, well,

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Speaker 1: welcome to the program, Welcome to the United States. You're

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Speaker 1: being heard on six hundred and fifty stations all over

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Speaker 1: the country in North America, so we'll have some fun

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Speaker 1: with you tonight. Thank you very much for inviting me on, George.

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Speaker 1: And how are things in England these days with COVID, Well,

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Speaker 1: we're heading towards supposed freedom day on Monday when all

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Speaker 1: the regulations go away, and I think everybody's intrepidation because

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Speaker 1: the delta variant surging, So we're wondering how long it

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Speaker 1: would be before there's a U turn and it's back

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Speaker 1: to masks and lockdown again. Los Angeles County has just

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Speaker 1: mandated defective Saturday masks go back on again when you

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Speaker 1: go inside, and they want them for vaccinated or unvaccinated people.

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Speaker 1: Strange thing. Yeah, and it's spreading across Europe, continental Europe

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Speaker 1: as well, and number of countries over there who've eased

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Speaker 1: off the rule and now reimpose them. So we'll wait

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Speaker 1: to see. Tell me about your early career. How did

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Speaker 1: it all start? How did it'd all start? Well, as

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Speaker 1: you mentioned in the beginning, I was a barrister in

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Speaker 1: London days of the which is a lawyer. The lawyers

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Speaker 1: aware the wigs and gowns, and I then moved on

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Speaker 1: into journalism. But I'd always had this interest in the

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Speaker 1: occult and focalore and legends and weird stories. I think

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Speaker 1: that was really from childhood. You know. I grew up

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Speaker 1: at a time when television wasn't as pervasive as it

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Speaker 1: is today, and in winter evenings, we'd all sit around

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Speaker 1: an open coal fire and my parents would tell stories

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Speaker 1: and ghost stories and spooky stories. And I lived in

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Speaker 1: a distinctly spooky house. You did, did somebody pass on

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Speaker 1: in the house or what happened? Well, it's a very

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Speaker 1: old house on the seafront in a Yorkshire coastal town

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Speaker 1: called Scarborough, and it had been built up and built

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Speaker 1: on over the centuries as the seafront had receded, and

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Speaker 1: they'd built warden things and so they extend in the house,

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Speaker 1: and it had strange lots on the in the roof

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Speaker 1: area which had been used as a shelter for shipwrecked

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Speaker 1: mariners had to take them in there, and some had

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Speaker 1: passed away there. And a psychic friend of my mother

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Speaker 1: said she could definitely hear the sound of seamen in

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Speaker 1: their large boots marching around on the floorboard. It was

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Speaker 1: very cheery for me as a child because I slept

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Speaker 1: immediately below it. That's right. That is a spooky house exactly.

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Speaker 1: And there were the odd bits because it had been

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Speaker 1: sublet and split and then rejoined, so the interior really

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Speaker 1: didn't make a lot of sense, and there were passages

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Speaker 1: that just went down into the ground and then stopped

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Speaker 1: for no apparent reason. And there was always remember there

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Speaker 1: was a staircase that was hinged and swung open to

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Speaker 1: reveal another cellar belief bit, and it was it was

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Speaker 1: very spooky. And when the wind blew, the house used

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Speaker 1: to shake in a rather spooky way, and it was

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Speaker 1: as if someone was grabbing the bottom of my bed.

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Speaker 1: You know I'm talking here. A'ma you know, child of

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Speaker 1: five or six and just given the better shake, and

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Speaker 1: which is horrible for little youngster to go through. It

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Speaker 1: was indeed, it was indeed, And I's a I think

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Speaker 1: with hindsight and the you know that as you grew

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Speaker 1: up and you know more about psychology, I think my

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Speaker 1: parents were probably a little bit dysfunctional, and they used

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Speaker 1: to give me very weird advice. And my father once

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Speaker 1: told a tale of when I was out on the

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Speaker 1: rock pools. There was a shoreline there with a beach

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Speaker 1: and low tide were lots of rock pools. He always said,

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Speaker 1: always take a knife with you. And I said why

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Speaker 1: why four? And he said, well, a friend of his

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Speaker 1: was when he was at school, was dabbling in a

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Speaker 1: rock pool and his hand was gripped by a congoreel

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Speaker 1: and he couldn't get the congo eel off, and the

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Speaker 1: tide came up and he was still trapped there and drowned.

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Speaker 1: And so I said, so, the idea of the knife

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Speaker 1: is that you stabbed the congo eel And he said, no,

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Speaker 1: the idea of the knife is that you cut your

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Speaker 1: hand off. And I think he was serious. He probably was. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And you know, later life, when I tell it to people,

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Speaker 1: they say, well, what would you down. Yeah, two horrible

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Speaker 1: choices here exactly exactly um, and they say, I think

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Speaker 1: some of those things reflected on me. And what really

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Speaker 1: got my interest because it was at the time when

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Speaker 1: it sounds like ancient history. But in the nineteen fifties

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Speaker 1: cars were starting to become available, modern cars as opposed

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Speaker 1: to pre war cars and things, and a big thing

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Speaker 1: everybody did was go out on a Sunday afternoon for

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Speaker 1: a drive in the country. And one day we were

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Speaker 1: returning home and we went past a particularly derelict property

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Speaker 1: and my mother mentioned, she said that during the war,

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Speaker 1: this is the Second World War, we're talking about women

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Speaker 1: in the Royal Army Service Corps. They were the people

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Speaker 1: who drove munition, the lorries and supply lorries for the

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Speaker 1: army so that the men could be on frontline duty

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Speaker 1: and the women were sort of, you know, work working

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Speaker 1: in the homeland. They were given special permission to detour

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Speaker 1: a past this house and take a long way round

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Speaker 1: rather than we go a short way, because it had

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Speaker 1: a reputation for being haunted, and it was thought it

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Speaker 1: would be wrong to send a woman on our own

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Speaker 1: in a trap pass this haunted house at night. That

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Speaker 1: struck me as odd because you know, there was a

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Speaker 1: war on and fuel was short in short supply. All

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Speaker 1: the Atlantic convoys were about, and yet here was somebody

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Speaker 1: in the military saying, yeah, we take this ghost thing

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Speaker 1: so seriously. We're allowing you to use extra fugal and

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Speaker 1: go the long way home. So I say that that

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Speaker 1: triggered my interest, and it was a story that really

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Speaker 1: prompted me in later life to investigate this particular area

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Speaker 1: of England where this tale had been told, and to

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Speaker 1: collect together lots of other ghost stories from around that

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Speaker 1: area and weird stories. Oh my gosh, you've got more

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Speaker 1: than a dozen stories. We're going to go through a

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Speaker 1: well how did you collect them all? Well, some of

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Speaker 1: it was word of mouth, some of it was sort

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Speaker 1: of old folklore, and some of it was just research,

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Speaker 1: and you look up one place and you look for

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Speaker 1: one thing, and then you sort of seeing or footnote

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Speaker 1: somewhere and you see a reference in another book, and

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Speaker 1: as the time goes on, you just collect them all

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Speaker 1: and then you can link them together. And so it

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Speaker 1: went on, and I collected for a book called The

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Speaker 1: World Newton Triangle, which is all about this particular area

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Speaker 1: of England in East Yorkshire, and that came out about

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Speaker 1: five years ago as an e book, though there is

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Speaker 1: a print one coming soon. And then more recently I've

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Speaker 1: done one on the area where I live now, which

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Speaker 1: is in South Norfolk, which is anybody who was in

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Speaker 1: the who had parents in the American Air Force during

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Speaker 1: World War two will familiar familiar with East Angea because

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Speaker 1: it's the sticks out and it's closest to Europe, and

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Speaker 1: so it was full of American air bases. And is

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Speaker 1: that the book called Shuckland Chuckland, Yes, And that's about

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Speaker 1: this particular area of East Angler And again it was

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Speaker 1: I'd heard a few stories and picked up a few stories,

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Speaker 1: and I'm always intrigued to find where the stories come

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Speaker 1: from and what the origins of them is and that's

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Speaker 1: one of the things I found fascinating. I'm going I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna let you, Charles, pick a few of your favorite

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Speaker 1: stories and just tell them to us. Okay, well, I

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Speaker 1: mean to say one of the things, obviously, when you're

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Speaker 1: talking about these times, many of the stories began several

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Speaker 1: hundred years ago when people weren't educated, and science wasn't

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Speaker 1: so strong and so, and they didn't have media and

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Speaker 1: TV and social network exactly, and stories would spread and

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Speaker 1: no one really had any way of debunking them or

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Speaker 1: proving them, and so they took on a bit of

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Speaker 1: a life of their own. There's one I particularly like,

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Speaker 1: and it's one of the key stories in the in

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Speaker 1: my first book, The Weird World's Book, and it was

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Speaker 1: the one that later led to the Werewolf Hunt that

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Speaker 1: was just five years ago, and it's of a werewolf

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Speaker 1: called Old Stinker because the werewolf's breath was apparently so

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Speaker 1: vile and putrid from eating carrion, and this werewolf it's

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Speaker 1: it's intriguing because we're wolves aren't a natural part of

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Speaker 1: English folklore. They have them in Europe, they have them

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Speaker 1: in North America, have them in other parts of the world,

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Speaker 1: but they're not really an English an English tradition, but

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Speaker 1: there was one, and it was just a few miles

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Speaker 1: from my hometown where I grew up, and it was

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Speaker 1: said to lurk during the Middle Ages, you know, a

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Speaker 1: thousand years ago, and it took the form of a

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Speaker 1: human who would go around market towns and spots which

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Speaker 1: travelers were heading along a particularly lonely road at the

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Speaker 1: end of the day and then transform into a wolf

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Speaker 1: and seize them and eat them. Now, there were actually

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Speaker 1: wolves in this part of the world at that time,

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Speaker 1: and it was such a bad problem with wolves, particularly

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Speaker 1: in winter when they'd come down from type ground start

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Speaker 1: scavenging in the Lowland, that a hostel was built there

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Speaker 1: in the tenth century specifically to provide travelers shelter from

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Speaker 1: the night and so that they weren't eaten by wolves.

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Speaker 1: And so there was this element of it. But also

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Speaker 1: then we come to ten sixty six or old that

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Speaker 1: with the Battle of Hastings. But before the Battle of Hastings,

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Speaker 1: there was the Battle of Stamford Bridge, when the Vikings

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Speaker 1: came over and had one last attempt to invade England,

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Speaker 1: and there was a huge, big battle there and these

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Speaker 1: Vikings landed on the coast just near where this werewolf

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Speaker 1: was said to lurk, and the army marched inland. And

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Speaker 1: the feature of the Vikings of anybody who's seen the

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Speaker 1: television series will know they featured berserkers, people who thought

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Speaker 1: they were imbued with the spirit of wild animals. And

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Speaker 1: some of them would wear a bare skin around them

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Speaker 1: and little armor, and others would wear wolfskins around them

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Speaker 1: and little armor. And I just find it a coincidence

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Speaker 1: that there's an area where there's tales of wolf predation,

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Speaker 1: there's a net where there's also tales of werewolf, and

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Speaker 1: where in ten sixty six an army of Vikings clad

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Speaker 1: in wolfskins came marching through. Now, you know, you imagine

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Speaker 1: you're a peasant lying in a barn, hoping the Vikings

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Speaker 1: won't come and kill you, and you see these blood

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Speaker 1: splattered Vikings wearing wolfskins going from living daylight side of you.

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Speaker 1: All they scared of living daylights out of you, and

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Speaker 1: you'd think, are these wolves that are men? Or are

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Speaker 1: these men that are wolves? And of course that's really

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Speaker 1: where you have the werewolf from, so you know, it's

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Speaker 1: just in Troy leaguing that there's these strands linking it

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Speaker 1: all together and that the later focal or legend spreads

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Speaker 1: of this werewolf. But it may be a combination of

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Speaker 1: the Vikings and the Viking heritage and the actual wolves

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Speaker 1: that used to be in that area. Is the legend

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Speaker 1: of werewolf still strong in that area. It got a revival,

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Speaker 1: there were there have been later sightings. There were sort

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Speaker 1: of the tales of stagecoaches back in the sort of

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Speaker 1: eighteenth century being attacked by wolves, and there was even

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties a tale of a lorry driver

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Speaker 1: truck driver who had his vehicle attacked by a large

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Speaker 1: wolf like creature, but he was able to drive on

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Speaker 1: and leave it. But he described seeing it in the

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Speaker 1: distance and first of all saw these two red eyes,

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Speaker 1: but he thought they were actually the tail lights of

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Speaker 1: a car, and it was only realized later he realized

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Speaker 1: it was a giant wolf. And then we had the

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Speaker 1: revival a few years ago, which is when I got

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Speaker 1: involved with the Werewolf Hub, where there were reports of

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Speaker 1: a giant wolflike creature lurking in a nearby town just

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Speaker 1: to the south of this area I'm talking about. And

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Speaker 1: these people who were reported this. They were darned serious,

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Speaker 1: weren't they, Charles, They were they were, They were completely serious. Yes,

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Speaker 1: And the area where they were reporting them was in

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Speaker 1: quite a spooky part of the town, with an old

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Speaker 1: canal running through it and lots of derelict buildings and

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Speaker 1: the right because of industrial waste and things. The canal

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Speaker 1: always had a bad reputation because people had fallen in

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Speaker 1: it and drowned, and you had steep bank that weren't

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Speaker 1: able to get out. They had a bad reputation. And

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Speaker 1: when the weather was in the right way, it would

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Speaker 1: be very foggy and misty. And the wolf had been seen.

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Speaker 1: This creature had been seen prowling around there, and there

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Speaker 1: were tales of people seeing it attacking other dogs and

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Speaker 1: dragging them away, and it was thought that it was

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Speaker 1: something more than an actual wolf, that it may have

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Speaker 1: been the whirlwolf. And I was contacted by a newspaper

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Speaker 1: and suggest and rather joking me, I said, it sounded

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Speaker 1: like old Stinker had come back from the undead and

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Speaker 1: was haunting the area again, and he might he might have. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: he might have indeed. And it then sort of took

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Speaker 1: off and became, you know, an internet fifteen minute wonder

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Speaker 1: and there are masses of stories, a newspaper coverage on it,

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Speaker 1: and in the UK and continental Europe, and on radio

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Speaker 1: shows and things, so it was. It was very popular. Anyway.

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Speaker 1: One newspaper contacted me and said, you know, as you

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Speaker 1: wrote the story, original story about old Stinker, would you

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Speaker 1: like to go on a werewolf hunt? And I did,

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Speaker 1: of course, and drag my wife along with me. My gosh,

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Speaker 1: wasn't good. Thank god you didn't find one. Exactly. Listen

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Speaker 1: to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at one

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Speaker 1: am Eastern and go to Coast to Coast am dot

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Speaker 1: com for more