Speaker 1: Unexplained now has a substack page. If you enjoy Unexplained
Speaker 1: and want to go deeper into the world of the show,
Speaker 1: I've created a new space for all the bits that
Speaker 1: don't quite fit into the podcast, including the Unexplained Addendum,
Speaker 1: a weekly companion piece to each new episode. Expect essays
Speaker 1: that lean more academic and analytical explorations of folklore, psychology,
Speaker 1: and the shadowy corners of history that have shaped the
Speaker 1: stories you hear on the show. But it's also a
Speaker 1: home for something more personal, my fiction, my strange amusings,
Speaker 1: and the odd fragments that don't belong anywhere else. Search
Speaker 1: for Unexplained podcast on substack or go to Unexplained podcast
Speaker 1: dot substack dot com to find out more and subscribe.
Speaker 1: If it's like a little bit more of me and
Speaker 1: Unexplained in your week, join me on substack and let's
Speaker 1: keep exploring the unknown together, new writing every Monday. As
Speaker 1: Philip Larkin once wrote, they fuck you up your mum
Speaker 1: and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.
Speaker 1: They fill you with the faults they had, and add
Speaker 1: some extra just for you, whether for good or bad.
Speaker 1: We're all shaped by our family dynamics. Some of us
Speaker 1: are the product of heteronormative relationships. Others will have been
Speaker 1: raised by same sex partners, or maybe even in non
Speaker 1: monogamous or communal parenting arrangements. Some of us will have
Speaker 1: grown up with two parents who live happily together, some
Speaker 1: by parents who are separated, or perhaps by a single
Speaker 1: parent due to choice or loss. Perhaps you are raised
Speaker 1: by your grandparents or another member of your family. Some
Speaker 1: of us will be only children. Others might have ten
Speaker 1: sisters and brothers. Some are adopted or fostered with no
Speaker 1: knowledge of their forebears, while others have large blood related
Speaker 1: families that can be traced back for generations. The nuclear
Speaker 1: core of the traditional two parent household has become so
Speaker 1: entrenched as an aspiration in popular culture that when many
Speaker 1: of us think of the word family, we often neglect
Speaker 1: to account for more complex versions of the structure, versions
Speaker 1: that are as individual and variable and valid as the
Speaker 1: people contained within them. This two point four version of
Speaker 1: the family has been a staple of everything from the
Speaker 1: Simpsons to the Adams family, but in reality, this domestic
Speaker 1: ideal can sometimes conceal a much darker truth at its heart.
Speaker 1: For a start, the family is where we first internalize
Speaker 1: ideas about societal hierarchy. Patriarchal attitudes, for example, place the
Speaker 1: father at the head of the house, followed by the mother,
Speaker 1: then brother, then sister. The law of primogeniture ensures that
Speaker 1: the eldest and in many cultures historically the male heir,
Speaker 1: regardless of age, inherits the lion's share of ancestral wealth
Speaker 1: and status when a parent or grandparent passes on darkest still,
Speaker 1: most of us are familiar with the phrase stranger danger,
Speaker 1: and yet of the five hundred and seventy homicides recorded
Speaker 1: in the UK, for example, in twenty twenty four, a
Speaker 1: staggering forty two percent of crimes were perpetrated by a
Speaker 1: partner or ex partner of the victim. A further eighteen
Speaker 1: percent of cases involved people who were murdered either by
Speaker 1: a close relation or other family member, meaning that almost
Speaker 1: sixty percent of deliberate killings in the UK were perpetrated
Speaker 1: in the victim's own home by a relative or partner.
Speaker 1: This galling number has even led the United Nations to
Speaker 1: suggest that, rather than that big bad world out there,
Speaker 1: home is statistically the most dangerous place to be, especially
Speaker 1: for women and girls. For one artist, perhaps more than
Speaker 1: any other. The dark truths that lie behind the facade
Speaker 1: of domestic bliss proved to be an obsession. Over the
Speaker 1: course of nearly fifty years, American filmmaker David Lynch fixed
Speaker 1: his penetrating gaze on the hypocrisy of the suburban American dream.
Speaker 1: He emphasized the strangeness lurking at the heart of seemingly
Speaker 1: ordinary family homes and neighbourhoods by utilizing dream logic, surrealist imagery,
Speaker 1: and the occasional dose of dark humour. It's impossible to
Speaker 1: overstate the importance of Lynch's twin peaks in how influential
Speaker 1: it was in puncturing the wholesome veneer of sweet suburbia.
Speaker 1: Lynch's unique take on the police procedural, which by the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties had grown stale, arrived like an atom bomb
Speaker 1: into the living rooms of households everywhere. He showed that
Speaker 1: beneath the surface of the supposed familial ideal of straight,
Speaker 1: church going, white, picket fenced middle class aspiration, though, were
Speaker 1: complex power dynamics at play, with the potential for violent
Speaker 1: hidden at every turn. He showed how abuse often went
Speaker 1: hidden or was ignored for the sake of etiquette and
Speaker 1: lambasted the insincerity of communities who dared to be shocked
Speaker 1: when the inevitable consequences washed up on their doorsteps. More
Speaker 1: alarmingly to some, he showed how repression can lead to
Speaker 1: madness and how it spreads like a contagion when its
Speaker 1: root causes are not addressed. You might have heard about
Speaker 1: the rare condition of shared madness known as folly adieu,
Speaker 1: which we explored to some degree in Season four, episode sixteen,
Speaker 1: folly Adieure. The idea was first conceptualized at the end
Speaker 1: of the nineteenth century by psychiatric doctors Charles Lazigai and
Speaker 1: Jules Ferret. The pair noted that in several cases where
Speaker 1: one patient presented with primary delusions as a result of
Speaker 1: schizophrenia or other serious mental condition, a partner or someone
Speaker 1: living in close quarters began to experience the same delusion.
Speaker 1: The condition is so rare that only about two percent
Speaker 1: of all psychiatric hospital admissions are said to qualify. Even
Speaker 1: rarer is when a delusion is shared by more than
Speaker 1: two people, termed progressively as the madness of three or four, etc.
Speaker 1: Or even the madness of several, which is so rare
Speaker 1: that only a handful of cases have ever been documented.
Speaker 1: Some believe it was just this kind of madness that
Speaker 1: descended on one unlucky family in rural Australia in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McLean Smith. Back
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. On a chilly Tuesday morning in August,
Speaker 1: it had just gone eleven a m when Keith Whittaker,
Speaker 1: owner of a local mining utilities company, pulled into a
Speaker 1: service station in the city of Gulban in New South Wales, Australia.
Speaker 1: Keith was heading south to Canberra, about an hour's drive away,
Speaker 1: for a doctor's appointment, and was conscious of time, so
Speaker 1: after a quick dash into the garage store to pay,
Speaker 1: he got straight back into his truck and sped off
Speaker 1: as fast as he could. Keith was about halfway into
Speaker 1: the drive when he felt something kick the back of
Speaker 1: his seat. Turning round, he was shocked to see a
Speaker 1: young woman lying down behind him in the back. Keith
Speaker 1: hurriedly pulled the car to the side at the road,
Speaker 1: but when he tried to talk to the woman, she
Speaker 1: was completely unresponsive. Much to Keith's relief, she was still
Speaker 1: breathing at least unsure what to do exactly, he continued
Speaker 1: to try and rouse her without success, until about twenty
Speaker 1: minutes later, when the woman abruptly sat up and, with
Speaker 1: a completely blank expression, stared straight ahead at nothing in particular.
Speaker 1: Then slowly she seemed to come back to the world.
Speaker 1: Keith asked if she was okay and what her name was.
Speaker 1: It was only then that the woman finally seemed to
Speaker 1: notice him. What's your name, asked Keith again, confusion clouded
Speaker 1: her face. I don't know, she replied. Keith looked her
Speaker 1: over for any sign of injury, but saw nothing. There
Speaker 1: was no smell of alcohol on her breath, and her
Speaker 1: clothes were clean and presentable. It was, needless to say,
Speaker 1: all very weird. Unable to get any sense from her,
Speaker 1: Keith reassured her that she was safe and promptly called
Speaker 1: the police. For the next half an hour, the woman
Speaker 1: just stared silently out at the window until the police arrived.
Speaker 1: As they helped her out at the vehicle, she suddenly
Speaker 1: turned to Keith and offered him fifty dollars for his trouble,
Speaker 1: but he told her to keep the money. Then he
Speaker 1: watched with complete amusement as she was led into the
Speaker 1: back of the police car and driven away back to Goulburn.
Speaker 1: About the same time that young woman was found in
Speaker 1: Keith Whittakert's truck, police in Melbourne, about five hundred miles
Speaker 1: away to the southwest in the state of Victoria, received
Speaker 1: a strange call from the New South Wales Police. They
Speaker 1: themselves had received a call a short time earlier from
Speaker 1: what sounded like a young woman in a severe state
Speaker 1: of distress. The woman, who was calling from a payphone
Speaker 1: in Gulbant, frantically explained that her parents had gone missing.
Speaker 1: Their names were Jacoba and Mark Tromp, and they were
Speaker 1: both in their early fifties. She said the last place
Speaker 1: she'd seen them was that morning at a place called
Speaker 1: the Jenolan Caves, a famous natural landmark on the edge
Speaker 1: of the sprawling Blue Mountains National Park. The woman didn't
Speaker 1: seem to be making much sense, but the urgency in
Speaker 1: her voice was palpable. After giving the police a brief
Speaker 1: description of the couple and their home address, the woman
Speaker 1: swiftly hung up. The address was a farm located on
Speaker 1: the eastern fringes of Melbourne, hence the call to the
Speaker 1: Victoria Police. The call was passed on to Sergeant Mark
Speaker 1: Knight of Munbulk Police Station, a small town close to
Speaker 1: the address given by the woman on the phone. As
Speaker 1: it happened, Sergeant Knight was familiar with the property and
Speaker 1: knew the Tromp family reasonably well. The family were well
Speaker 1: known in the area, not least of all because they
Speaker 1: had a thriving red current business that employed a number
Speaker 1: of people and the large family home, swimming pool and
Speaker 1: collection of horses to go with it. There were five
Speaker 1: of them in total, parents Jacoba and Mark, and their
Speaker 1: three children, twenty nine year old Rihanna, twenty five year
Speaker 1: old Mitchell, and twenty two year old Ella, all of
Speaker 1: whom lived in work on the farm. What Sergeant Knight
Speaker 1: couldn't get his head around, though, was what on earth
Speaker 1: would Mark and Jacoba be doing at the Jenolan Caves
Speaker 1: five hundred miles away on a workday. Things only got
Speaker 1: weirder as reports from some of the Trump's employees started
Speaker 1: to come in saying that the entire family seemed to
Speaker 1: have completely disappeared without warning the day before, and so
Speaker 1: Sergeant Knight gathered a small team and drove out to
Speaker 1: the property to investigate. When they arrived, things immediately felt off.
Speaker 1: As Knight approached the house, he could see the curtains
Speaker 1: were drawn despite it only being early afternoon, and though
Speaker 1: a few vehicles were parked in the drive, it didn't
Speaker 1: take long to realize that nobody was home. Hello, he
Speaker 1: called out as he stepped up to the front door.
Speaker 1: He rang the bell, then, after a few minutes of
Speaker 1: no response, he tried the handle and was surprised to
Speaker 1: find the door completely unlocked. Hello, he called out again
Speaker 1: as he and his colleagues stepped into the eerie silence
Speaker 1: of the home, but again got nothing in response. The
Speaker 1: house was in a state of utter disarray. Various items
Speaker 1: were scattered across the floor, including endless pages of paperwork,
Speaker 1: streams of bank statements and financial records. After a further
Speaker 1: search of the property, the officers also found the family's passports,
Speaker 1: bank cards, and mobile phones all had been left behind.
Speaker 1: It was a few hours later, as the police continued
Speaker 1: to investigate the property, when they heard the sound of
Speaker 1: wheels crunching up the gravel. It was followed moments later
Speaker 1: by the appearance of a harrowed looking Ella Tromp in
Speaker 1: the doorway. The youngest daughter. It may have been the
Speaker 1: bloodshot eyes and the fact that she clearly hadn't slept
Speaker 1: in a while. Or maybe it was the odd vacant
Speaker 1: expression on her face. Whatever it was, it was clear
Speaker 1: tonight that something wasn't quite right with the young woman.
Speaker 1: When Ella saw the police, she didn't flinch, which, naturally,
Speaker 1: Sergeant Knight thought immediately strange, although in truth this was
Speaker 1: most likely because it was Ella who'd made the original
Speaker 1: call to the police back in Golbin to report her
Speaker 1: parents missing. Even still, the nonchalance with which she asked
Speaker 1: the officers if they wanted a cup of tea was
Speaker 1: a little jarring, to say the least. Knight said yes, nonetheless,
Speaker 1: keen to use the opportunity to get a handle on
Speaker 1: her current state of mind. It was his job to
Speaker 1: be suspicious and right then, for all he knew, they
Speaker 1: could be dealing with anything from a domestic dispute to
Speaker 1: a possible murder. He followed her into the kitchen and
Speaker 1: watched her like a hawk as she casually boiled the
Speaker 1: kettle and threw some tea bags into mugs. Satisfied that
Speaker 1: she was compassmenttous enough to be interviewed, he began with
Speaker 1: some easy questions, namely where the hell was everyone, though
Speaker 1: Ella was a little scatter gun at first, Slowly a
Speaker 1: very strange picture began to emerge. It all started a
Speaker 1: few days ago, she said, with her parents becoming increasingly
Speaker 1: anxious over something to do with the farm's finances, or
Speaker 1: at least that's how it seemed at first, But then
Speaker 1: things began to get weird. At some point, both her
Speaker 1: parents became convinced that someone was stalking them and wanted
Speaker 1: to steal all their money, perhaps even kill them for it.
Speaker 1: Things came to a head on the morning of August
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, the day before. In a sudden burst of panic,
Speaker 1: her parents, Jacoba and Mark, announced that the family had
Speaker 1: to leave the property immediately. They told the kids that
Speaker 1: their lives were in days if they didn't leave that instant.
Speaker 1: They ordered them to drop everything, especially their phones, because
Speaker 1: they were bugged. Suddenly, Rhianna began to panic too. Then
Speaker 1: Ella felt a surge of terror rush through her. There
Speaker 1: was no time to spare. It was Mark who suggested
Speaker 1: they'd take Ella's car, a Silver Pergio SUV, since the
Speaker 1: other vehicles were probably bugged too. Sergeant Knight looked out
Speaker 1: the window toward the Honda Odyssey parked on the driveway
Speaker 1: that Ella had arrived in. And whose car is that? Then? Oh,
Speaker 1: said Ella, Yeah, I stole that. The sergeant let that
Speaker 1: go for a moment and asked Ella to continue her story.
Speaker 1: From what she said, it seemed her parents had no
Speaker 1: real plan other than to get to the Jenolan caves.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they thought they could hide out there until whatever
Speaker 1: it was that was going on blew over, But Ella
Speaker 1: wasn't sure. All she knew was that in the moment,
Speaker 1: it had all seemed so very real, and before she
Speaker 1: knew it, they were on the road. It was just
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes into the drive when they realized that Mitchell
Speaker 1: had taken his phone with him. The parents got suddenly hysterical,
Speaker 1: both clearly terrified that they whoever they were, would track
Speaker 1: them down if he didn't throw it out the window immediately.
Speaker 1: Unlike the others, Mitchell had begun to question everything that
Speaker 1: was going on, who was after them exactly and why
Speaker 1: couldn't their parents tell them? But they just screamed back
Speaker 1: in response, telling him to throw the phone out unless
Speaker 1: he wanted them all to die. Eventually, he did what
Speaker 1: they asked, and with that they continued on their way.
Speaker 1: They drove non stop for five hundred miles until some
Speaker 1: time around seven a m. The next day, the twenty
Speaker 1: five year old Mitchell had had enough and demanded to
Speaker 1: be let out. Ella had no idea where he was,
Speaker 1: so what then of her sister, Rihanna, asked Sergeant Knight.
Speaker 1: Ella looked sheepishly to the floor. Not long after Mitchell
Speaker 1: left the family, Ella too began to question what on
Speaker 1: earth it was they were doing. But more than that,
Speaker 1: she began to worry about her horses. Since they'd left
Speaker 1: without any warning, there was no one to look after
Speaker 1: them within twenty four hours. Without food, they could be
Speaker 1: at serious risk of developing fatal digestive problems. Ella couldn't
Speaker 1: get the thought of them in pain out of her mind.
Speaker 1: When they finally arrived at the car park for the
Speaker 1: Genolan Caves, Ella seized her moment, grabbing Rihanna, the pair
Speaker 1: made their getaway. It isn't clear how Ella stole the car,
Speaker 1: but she likely found it in the same car park,
Speaker 1: perhaps spotting the keys and the ignition. With Rhianna in
Speaker 1: a complete daze in the passenger seat beside her, Ella
Speaker 1: drove for about one hundred miles until they found themselves
Speaker 1: in Golban. It was there that she called the police
Speaker 1: to report her parents missing, and it was there that
Speaker 1: she inexplicably left her sister Rihanna, who at that point
Speaker 1: could barely string a sentence together, about four hundred miles
Speaker 1: from their home. Ella couldn't explain why she'd done it exactly,
Speaker 1: She just simply had to get home to her horses.
Speaker 1: Sergeant Knight listened to it all with complete and utter amusement,
Speaker 1: but promised to do whatever he could to help locate
Speaker 1: the rest of her family. It was around this time
Speaker 1: that the woman who'd been found in the back of
Speaker 1: the truck just outside of Golban finally remembered who she was.
Speaker 1: It was, of course, Rhianna Trump. Still not quite in
Speaker 1: her right mind, she was kept at the Low Hospital
Speaker 1: for psychological observation. The following morning, Mitchell made it back
Speaker 1: to the farm safe and sound. Mitchell, who'd managed to
Speaker 1: find an overnight train home, later confirmed Ella's statement, at
Speaker 1: least up until the moment he left. Unlike Ella, to
Speaker 1: Sergeant Knight, Mitchell seemed to be of entirely sound mind, and,
Speaker 1: as he explained to the sergeant later, he was equally
Speaker 1: baffled by his parents and sister's behavior, he didn't believe
Speaker 1: for a second that anyone was really after them, and
Speaker 1: had only joined the others in the car because he
Speaker 1: was worried about them. That worry only intensified when he
Speaker 1: arrived back home to find Ella on her own and
Speaker 1: no sign of their parents, who were by then genuinely missing.
Speaker 1: It was some time around ten pm that night that
Speaker 1: a couple driving somewhere close to merrowa park in Wangorata
Speaker 1: in northeast Victoria, spotted a silver Pergio suv being driven
Speaker 1: erratically and fast approaching them from behind. The suv then
Speaker 1: proceeded to tailgate them for about five minutes until they
Speaker 1: were eventually forced to pull over to let it pass.
Speaker 1: Only it didn't it pulled over to The couple watched
Speaker 1: in horror as the driver, a man in his early fifties,
Speaker 1: raced up the road toward them, only to then stop
Speaker 1: suddenly and stare at them intensely for what felt like
Speaker 1: an eternity, until finally, having not said a word, the
Speaker 1: man turned and fled on foot into the park, abandoning
Speaker 1: his vehicle by the side of the road. The following day,
Speaker 1: police responding to the peculiar incident, found the silver suv
Speaker 1: still parked at the side of the road with the
Speaker 1: keys in the ignition. It was quickly identified as Ella's car,
Speaker 1: but there was no sign of the man who'd been
Speaker 1: driving it. It was later reported that someone had broken
Speaker 1: into the roof of a nearby motel and appeared to
Speaker 1: have stayed there for the night. Some two hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty miles away to the north of Wangaratta, in the
Speaker 1: town of Yas, a vacant looking middle aged woman unknown
Speaker 1: to anyone was found wandering around the town. Thanks to
Speaker 1: a good Samaritan, she was picked up and taken to
Speaker 1: the local hospital. Later that day, Mitchell and a now
Speaker 1: seemingly recovered Ella gave a statement to Australia's Channel nine
Speaker 1: News from their farm, asking for help from the public
Speaker 1: to find their parents, but giving nothing away about their predicament.
Speaker 1: Soon after, the woman found wandering around Yas was identified
Speaker 1: as their mother, Jacoba, with Rhianna having been identified too.
Speaker 1: Jacoba was taken to Goban Hospital to be reunited with her.
Speaker 1: She too was kept in for psychiatric assessment, but still
Speaker 1: nothing was heard of Mark Tromp's whereabouts, prompting an even
Speaker 1: more frantic search. Forty eight hours later, around six pm
Speaker 1: on September three officers driving along a highway close to
Speaker 1: Wangarata Airport spotted him walking aimlessly down the road. He
Speaker 1: was immediately picked up and driven to hospital for a
Speaker 1: mental health check, before being taken to the nearest police station.
Speaker 1: Six hours later, he was released into the custody of
Speaker 1: his brother, who also happened to be a serving police officer.
Speaker 1: By then, a crowd of journalists had gathered at the
Speaker 1: police station to get a glimpse of the man at
Speaker 1: the center of one of the strangest news stories in
Speaker 1: recent times. When he finally appeared, he was quickly shepherded
Speaker 1: into a waiting car and refused to answer any questions.
Speaker 1: As he was driven away, he flipped the bird at
Speaker 1: the assembled crowd before disappearing into the night. Nothing else
Speaker 1: was heard on the matter until two days later, when
Speaker 1: Mark Tromp issued a statement on the family's behalf. In
Speaker 1: recent days, my family has been through a difficult period
Speaker 1: and we will soon be reunited together. I hope that
Speaker 1: we will begin to make sense of our ordeal and
Speaker 1: return to a normal life. I am conscious of the
Speaker 1: burden these events have placed upon our extended family, friends
Speaker 1: and the community resources devoted to our aid without reservation.
Speaker 1: I apologize for the hurt and concern caused by these
Speaker 1: events on behalf of our family. I express our deep
Speaker 1: gratitude to Victoria and New South Wales Police, as well
Speaker 1: as the healthcare professionals who have looked after our physical
Speaker 1: and mental well being. More than anything, my family and
Speaker 1: I need time to recover. To this end, we request
Speaker 1: that the media organizations respect our request for privacy. No
Speaker 1: explanation was given for why he and his wife had
Speaker 1: forced his family to flee their home so suddenly, or
Speaker 1: what exactly he had gotten up to in the intervening days.
Speaker 1: In the end, police found no history of mental illness
Speaker 1: within the family, no sign that any drugs had been taken,
Speaker 1: and no evidence that they were trying to escape from debt,
Speaker 1: a church, cult, or any other group who may have
Speaker 1: been out to harm them. Police Sergeant Mark Knight called
Speaker 1: it the most bizarre case he'd ever worked on and
Speaker 1: was just as perplexed as the public when it came
Speaker 1: to giving an explanation. It was also discovered that during
Speaker 1: conversations prior to their road trip, the Trumps had at
Speaker 1: one point considered leaving the country, but changed their minds
Speaker 1: when it was pointed out that their passports could be tracked.
Speaker 1: The whole trip saw the family travel almost a miles
Speaker 1: in the space of just a few days for no
Speaker 1: discernible reason. Offering something of a final word on the matter,
Speaker 1: the family's son, Mitchell, told reporters it's really hard to explain.
Speaker 1: I'll put a word on it, but they were just
Speaker 1: fearing for their lives and then they decided to flee.
Speaker 1: It was a build up of different, normal everyday events,
Speaker 1: just pressure, and it slowly got worse as the days
Speaker 1: went by. In March twenty seventeen, having initially been charged
Speaker 1: with stealing a vehicle, police withdrew the charges against Ella
Speaker 1: Tromp after the vehicle's owner, presumably having thought the family
Speaker 1: had suffered enough, declined to pursue the case. Just six
Speaker 1: months later, the family were back working on the farm
Speaker 1: as though nothing had happened. No further explanation was ever
Speaker 1: given for the bizarre road trip. It's likely we'll never
Speaker 1: know just what exactly spooked Mark and Jacoba Trump so much,
Speaker 1: or how exactly their troubled mental state spread so profoundly
Speaker 1: to the rest of the family. Mitchell aside causing Rihanna
Speaker 1: to forget who she was, and Ella, a perfectly law
Speaker 1: abiding citizen to randomly steal someone's car and drive it
Speaker 1: four hundred miles without skipping a beat. Though it doesn't
Speaker 1: give us an explanation for what happened to the Tromp family.
Speaker 1: Before we go, I want to return to that famous
Speaker 1: poem of Philip Larkin's This be the verse. They fuck
Speaker 1: you up your mum and dad. They may not mean to,
Speaker 1: but they do. They fill you with the faults they had,
Speaker 1: and add some extra just for you. These four lines,
Speaker 1: perhaps some of the most well known British poetry, are
Speaker 1: often repeated with a sense of bittersweet weariness we nod
Speaker 1: along and bitter recognition at all the negative ways our
Speaker 1: own pairents of marketers. These lines are so famous, in fact,
Speaker 1: it's easy to forget there is actually a little more
Speaker 1: to the poem, and to ignore the rest of it
Speaker 1: is to miss the real point that we should go
Speaker 1: easy on our parents for what they unintentionally pass on
Speaker 1: to us, because the same was meted out to them too.
Speaker 1: They were fucked up in their turn by fools in
Speaker 1: old style hats and coats who half the time were soppy, stern,
Speaker 1: and half at one another's throats. Man hands on misery
Speaker 1: to man, it deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out
Speaker 1: as early as you can, and don't have any kids
Speaker 1: yourself now. I should say, as a parent myself, that
Speaker 1: last bit I disagree with. But it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: your family looks like and whether or not it conforms
Speaker 1: to what others might deem to be the perfect family unit.
Speaker 1: Or that your kids need is your love and to
Speaker 1: know that you'll always be there for them. Outside of that,
Speaker 1: you're just doing the best you can. This episode was
Speaker 1: written by Richard mclin smith and James Connor Patterson. Thank
Speaker 1: you as ever for listening. Unexplained as an Avy Club
Speaker 1: production podcast created by Richard McClain Smith. All other elements
Speaker 1: of the podcast, including the music, are also produced by
Speaker 1: me Richard McClain Smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook is
Speaker 1: now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon,
Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores. Please subscribe to
Speaker 1: and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or
Speaker 1: ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you have an explanation or a story of your own
Speaker 1: you'd like to share. You can find out more at
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us online through X
Speaker 1: and Blue Sky at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com, Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast list. The book a
Speaker 1: book Ann Best an book