Speaker 1: Welcomed Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain smith. For the
Speaker 1: weeks in between episodes, we look at the stories and
Speaker 1: ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make it
Speaker 1: into the show. In the last episode, Roads to Nowhere,
Speaker 1: we found ourselves circling a small concreted patch of England
Speaker 1: on the southern boundary of Yorkshire known as the Stocksbridge Bypass.
Speaker 1: This seemingly unassuming stretch of road is considered by some
Speaker 1: to be the most haunted in all of the UK. Often,
Speaker 1: when we describe something as haunted, what we are actually
Speaker 1: referring to is the suggestion of presence, the idea that
Speaker 1: something beyond our usual modes of perception has become attached
Speaker 1: to ourselves or a place. Occasionally, we might consider this
Speaker 1: something to possess an agency of malicious intent towards us.
Speaker 1: More frequently, however, claimed sightings like those seen near the
Speaker 1: Stocksbridge Bypass are benign, appearing more like visual echoes of
Speaker 1: the past that play out in front of us before
Speaker 1: fading from view. In this sense, we might consider such
Speaker 1: an occurrence not as a random event, but rather as
Speaker 1: a continual re emergence of the past kept alive and
Speaker 1: sustained by those who claim to bear witness to it.
Speaker 1: In some ways, it is irrelevant as to whether those
Speaker 1: sightings exist in their own right, whether they are images
Speaker 1: somehow projected from our subconscious and psychically brought to life,
Speaker 1: or whether they are pure fictions of the mind. What
Speaker 1: remains is the undeniable sense of presence, invoking hidden landscapes, atmosphere,
Speaker 1: and of course the dead. Such elements of presence are
Speaker 1: fated to linger until the moment that there is nothing
Speaker 1: left to observe them, or God forbid, if such things
Speaker 1: do have agency, are fated to linger indefinitely. It is
Speaker 1: common to talk about ghost sightings as occurring in liminal spaces,
Speaker 1: areas where the boundaries of the spaces we occupy, both
Speaker 1: physically and figuratively begin to blur. How fitting then that
Speaker 1: a bypass should be the location of so many apparent
Speaker 1: spectral sightings. The bypass is, by definition a liminal space,
Speaker 1: a place clearly distinct from both the relatively natural space
Speaker 1: beyond and the urban clusters from which it seeks to
Speaker 1: divert you. The city bypass, in a sense become a border,
Speaker 1: symbolizing the point of transition between the planned and curated
Speaker 1: environment of the modern and the purity and unconstructed essence
Speaker 1: of nature. At a stretch, you might also consider that
Speaker 1: such liminal spaces invite a blurring between what is real
Speaker 1: and what is not. It is the sort of place,
Speaker 1: perhaps where at the moment of journeying through, you might
Speaker 1: find that station you were just hearing so clearly on
Speaker 1: the radio now begins to crackle and hiss as the
Speaker 1: signal becomes weaker and weaker, before finally giving way to
Speaker 1: the eerie, blanket static of white noise. It is a
Speaker 1: theme played out to mesmerizing effect by Andrey Tarkovski in
Speaker 1: his nineteen seventy two cinematic masterpiece Solaris. The film is
Speaker 1: an adaptation of stan as Lavlem's novel of the same
Speaker 1: name that, at its heart is an examination of the
Speaker 1: relationship between the real and the imaginary, and the relative
Speaker 1: merits of these ultimately not so distinct and irreconcilable states.
Speaker 1: Early in the film, we join cosmonaut Henry Breton for
Speaker 1: four and a half hypnotic minutes as he has ferried
Speaker 1: along the highway of some nondescript futuristic cityscape. As the
Speaker 1: scenery drifts in an out from monochrome to color, accompanied
Speaker 1: by the beeps and words of Edward Artemiev's sublime electronic score.
Speaker 1: There is the distinct feeling of a landscape shifting before
Speaker 1: our eyes, while simultaneously remaining recognizable. Throughout there is the
Speaker 1: sense that perhaps what we are seeing can no longer
Speaker 1: be trusted. Are you always taking care of your family?
Speaker 1: Do you often take care of others and not yourself?
Speaker 1: Now it's time to take care of yourself, to make
Speaker 1: time for you you deserve it. Teledoc gives you access
Speaker 1: to a licensed therapist to help you get back to
Speaker 1: feeling your best, to feeling like yourself again. With teledoc,
Speaker 1: you can speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video.
Speaker 1: Therapy appointments are available seven days a week from seven
Speaker 1: a m. To nine p m. Local time. If you
Speaker 1: feel overwhelmed sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious, depressed
Speaker 1: or lonely, or you might be struggling with a personal
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Speaker 1: facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy to
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Speaker 1: That's t e l a d oc dot com slash
Speaker 1: unexplained podcast. Roads or pathways in general are a recurring
Speaker 1: motif of psychogeography, as exemplified in perhaps one of the
Speaker 1: more well known psychogeographic texts of recent times, London Orbital
Speaker 1: by Ian Sainclair. The book charts Sinclair's pilgrimage of ritual
Speaker 1: purpose to experience London anew in all its arcane and
Speaker 1: sprawling glory, using the London Orbital or the M twenty
Speaker 1: five to give it its functional label as a disruptive
Speaker 1: prism through which to view it. Psychogeography, an idea that
Speaker 1: has its foundations in the French situationist movement, was defined
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty five by situationist pioneer Guied de Bore
Speaker 1: as the study of the precise laws and specific effects
Speaker 1: of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the
Speaker 1: emotions and behavior of individuals. The idea was a reaction
Speaker 1: to capitalism and the way in which the system of
Speaker 1: capitalism dictates the physical landscape around us. A phenomena perhaps
Speaker 1: most explicitly realized in cities through the construction of functional zones,
Speaker 1: a concept first proposed by modernist architects such as La
Speaker 1: Corbusier back in the nineteen thirties. As author Will Wile's
Speaker 1: notes writing for the Digital magazine aon the functional zone,
Speaker 1: embraced by both organized capital and organized labor, repurposed the
Speaker 1: city as a tool of total control and social conditioning.
Speaker 1: Instead of existence, there was work instead of leisure consumption.
Speaker 1: In a sense, the manufactured spaces that surround us become
Speaker 1: a self perpetuating trap, self fulfilling and reinforcing the economic
Speaker 1: imperatives that govern a society. Which is not to say
Speaker 1: that capitalism is the only matrix that can create such
Speaker 1: a trap, but with its proponents often proclaiming it a
Speaker 1: model of cultural, social, and economic freedom, it is perhaps
Speaker 1: one of the most difficult to see. In response to this,
Speaker 1: Debor and his contemporaries developed the theory of derieve or drift.
Speaker 1: The process encourages you to move through the urban environment
Speaker 1: with complete disregard for the imposed boundaries of the surrounding
Speaker 1: man and increasingly corporate made environment. To give an example,
Speaker 1: Deboor cites the case of a friend who moved through
Speaker 1: the Heart's region of Germany while blindly following the directions
Speaker 1: of a map of London. To move through the landscape
Speaker 1: in such a way becomes a transgressive and even political
Speaker 1: act that challenges our moral convictions and preconceptions, while also
Speaker 1: in a sense revealing the ghosts of the city's past
Speaker 1: and exposing the fallacy of tradition. As for the ghosts
Speaker 1: of Stocksbridge Bypass, if it is on the boundaries between
Speaker 1: worlds that we will find them, what coincidence that the
Speaker 1: very land the bypass is constructed on was too a
Speaker 1: boundary of sorts. In fact, the word Sheffield, the borough
Speaker 1: in which Stocksbridge lies, is thought by some to be
Speaker 1: derived from the Old English shed or sheff, meaning boundary.
Speaker 1: Roughly fourteen hundred years ago, the area of Sheffield lay
Speaker 1: along the border between the two Anglo Saxon worlds of
Speaker 1: Northumbria and Mercia. It was fifty miles or so further
Speaker 1: to the north, at a place called Cockbeck, that King
Speaker 1: Penda of Mercia is thought to have been slain at
Speaker 1: the Battle of the Wimweed in six hundred and fifty five.
Speaker 1: Pender's death at the hands of Oswick of Bernicia and
Speaker 1: the Northumbrians marked not only the end of the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of Mercia, but also sounded the death knell for English paganism,
Speaker 1: later to be replaced by the conformity of a new
Speaker 1: invented tradition. For those more familiar with the folk horror
Speaker 1: genre than Middle Age British history, you may recognize King
Speaker 1: Pender from David Rudkins's extraordinary TV play Pender's Fen first
Speaker 1: broadcast in nineteen seventy four, this challenging and unsettling story
Speaker 1: charts the perceptual awakening of its central character, Stephen Franklin.
Speaker 1: The British and conservative. Stephen finds his moral certainties steadily
Speaker 1: undone by the emergence of a series of undeniable inner truths,
Speaker 1: the final rupture occurring on the morning of his eighteenth birthday,
Speaker 1: when he discovers he is not quite the pure Englishman
Speaker 1: he had previously thought. Rudkin's play is at base a
Speaker 1: fierce rejection of imposed ideologies, in particular the myths of
Speaker 1: nationhood and the many ways in which the truth of
Speaker 1: the world can become hidden and are naturally distorted over time.
Speaker 1: As such, it seems a fitting place with which to
Speaker 1: draw Season two of Unexplained to a close an opportunity
Speaker 1: to remind ourselves that for all those that would seek
Speaker 1: to impose the fallacy of tradition upon us, that claim
Speaker 1: orthodoxy over truth, we need only listen to the ghosts
Speaker 1: that saturate the land we walk upon to see that
Speaker 1: never has tradition been fixed, That heritage is not pure
Speaker 1: but mongrel. As King Pender says to the newly awoken
Speaker 1: Stephen at the close of Rudkin's play, be secret, child,
Speaker 1: be strange, dark, true, impure, and dissonant. Cherish our flame.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to
Speaker 1: show your appreciation, you can now help support us by
Speaker 1: going to Unexplained podcast dot com forward slash support. All donations,
Speaker 1: no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All
Speaker 1: elements of Unexplained are produced by me, Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, and feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: or on Twitter at Unexplained pod Now. It's time to
Speaker 1: take care of yourself, to make time for you. Teledoc
Speaker 1: gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you
Speaker 1: get back to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed
Speaker 1: therapist by phone or video any time between seven am
Speaker 1: to nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc
Speaker 1: Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app,
Speaker 1: or visit teledoc dot com Forward slash Unexplained podcast today
Speaker 1: to get started. That's t e la d oc dot
Speaker 1: com slash Unexplained Podcast