Speaker 1: Here's a question for you, dear listener, Do you feel lucky?
Speaker 2: Punk?
Speaker 1: Punk Wow? Sorry about the punk thing and the dodgy accent.
Speaker 1: The reason I ask is because today's episode explores luck,
Speaker 1: both good and bad, although mostly bad. Moncaster Castle in
Speaker 1: Cumbria is the home to the Pennington family, and in
Speaker 1: our previous month cast episode, I was talking to you
Speaker 1: in Frost Pennington, the soon to be owner of the castle.
Speaker 1: We got familiar with his sausages meat wow.
Speaker 3: However you describe it, it has indes.
Speaker 1: We heard about the castle's haunted tapestry room.
Speaker 3: We had too many people complaining that they couldn't sleep
Speaker 3: because of the crying child. And supposedly the bit that
Speaker 3: I like, hate be love is that it's fine the
Speaker 3: child crying. It's just when the nurse starts singing to
Speaker 3: try and calm the people get too freaked out.
Speaker 1: And Ewan told us about Muncaster's most famous resident, Tom Fall,
Speaker 1: the guy who drowned people in quicksand for a laugh if.
Speaker 3: He didn't like the look of you. Supposedly, as the
Speaker 3: story goes, he would direct you the less convenient quicksand
Speaker 3: invested route.
Speaker 1: And then they get just sucked under and never heard
Speaker 1: of again. Yeah, he's a murderer, exact directly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as I say, the sixteenth century sense of humor
Speaker 3: is probably slightly different.
Speaker 1: You can say that again, the.
Speaker 3: Sixteenth century sense of humor is probably slightly different.
Speaker 1: Yet all right, not literally. We had our own encounter
Speaker 1: with Tom after trying to chat to Ian Douglas Moncaster's
Speaker 1: current four. I'm happy to say we came out alive,
Speaker 1: but it was certainly unnerving. To be fair, Youwan did
Speaker 1: give us a heads up.
Speaker 3: The kind of legend is the term Tom foolery. We
Speaker 3: use a lot of Moncaster because quite often technology or
Speaker 3: just weird things go wrong exit actually the wrong time.
Speaker 1: Remote recordings can have their challenges. But what we didn't
Speaker 1: expect three hundred miles away from Cumbria in central London
Speaker 1: was for this to be happening. After mentoring Tom Fall.
Speaker 2: I used to live up the straight two years ago
Speaker 2: when my children were young. I lived in Castle a
Speaker 2: few times.
Speaker 1: So sorry, I just you know, I'm just gonna pause
Speaker 1: you there a second.
Speaker 2: Oh goodness, hob knobs Ewan's grandfather would suddenly appear from
Speaker 2: a bush.
Speaker 1: The reception is still very, very bad at our end
Speaker 1: I'm struggling to hear. I know there's a granddad in
Speaker 1: a bush. That's about all I got. Tom fooled around
Speaker 1: with us like this for quite a while. We restarted
Speaker 1: and restarted, but in the end Tom won and we
Speaker 1: gave up here.
Speaker 2: Hello, hi as well.
Speaker 3: I'm here so I can't quite hear what you're saying
Speaker 3: drops in and out, but I think we're gonna just
Speaker 3: stop the recording for now and then bex or I'll
Speaker 3: give you a call on it.
Speaker 1: Really tomfoolery or just bad luck? If you ask me.
Speaker 1: It seemed a little too well timed to be the latter.
Speaker 1: I've been doing this podcast long enough to know when
Speaker 1: spirits are getting up to no good. My producers willelm
Speaker 1: and Becks did sort something out. But before we hear
Speaker 1: from Ian, let's start this episode with some good luck.
Speaker 1: Producer Willhelm has an enamel mug shaped like a tooth.
Speaker 1: He loves it, even if it's dirty. He'll wash it
Speaker 1: up to use it for tea Producer Chris likes his
Speaker 1: shrimp mug from Dartmouth, and for coffee, he likes his
Speaker 1: little red one. Oh bless him. Personally, I'm too clumsy
Speaker 1: to be trusted with anything around here. So when I
Speaker 1: get a coffee, they normally serve it to me in
Speaker 1: an old shoe. But imagine your family was gifted a
Speaker 1: bowl so precious that it got its own name. This
Speaker 1: is the story of the luck of Muncas Tests. It
Speaker 1: starts in fourteen sixty one during the War of the Roses,
Speaker 1: Ewan's ancestor John Penny, and did a very good deed
Speaker 1: for King Henry the sixth after one of the war's
Speaker 1: bloodiest battles.
Speaker 3: So King Henry the sixth joined the War of the Roses,
Speaker 3: was on the run and he was taken in by
Speaker 3: the Penningtons just before he went to the Tower of London.
Speaker 1: Indeed, war between Yorkshire and Lancashire. Yeah, Yorkshire being the
Speaker 1: White Rose, Bankshire being the Red Rose. And what side
Speaker 1: he was on he was Lancastrian.
Speaker 3: Lancastrian, So even though he had been defeated in one
Speaker 3: of the bloodiest battles and he was on the run,
Speaker 3: the Penningtons took a bit of a risk, took him
Speaker 3: in and looked after him for a few weeks and
Speaker 3: showed great hospitality to him because even though he was
Speaker 3: a useless fighter, per se he was a very academic
Speaker 3: and spiritual person, like he founded King's College in Cambridge.
Speaker 3: He founded Eton.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why they called that the Lea's and the Roses.
Speaker 1: That's him, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So he just before coming to the Tower
Speaker 3: was Moncaster and the Pennington at the time hosted him
Speaker 3: and he was obviously so grateful that he gave them
Speaker 3: his only worthy possession, which was a Venetian drinking bowl.
Speaker 3: And he said that as long as this bowl remains
Speaker 3: intact from the or unriven, the Penningtons from Moncaster will
Speaker 3: never be driven. Kind of a bit more bit more
Speaker 3: sexy that that way we're saying.
Speaker 1: That is the bait, and word for word how he
Speaker 1: said it, he started a bit he was very tired.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at time, lots of battles and about to be
Speaker 3: murdered in the Tower of London.
Speaker 1: And so this this bowl has seen a lot of
Speaker 1: action in your family past down the generations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's all sorts of like mystique and history about it,
Speaker 3: and it'd been lost and rebound and lost and all sorts.
Speaker 1: The holy grail of the Penningtons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Have you used it yourself?
Speaker 3: I've never used it. I've seen it twice.
Speaker 1: Now, how do you mean seen it twice later?
Speaker 3: I'm quite clumsy in general, and.
Speaker 1: They don't let you near it.
Speaker 3: And well for me, like, I think it's a really
Speaker 3: important like passing of the bowl right to the next generation.
Speaker 3: It's kind of a big deal. And I now know
Speaker 3: where it's kept, but I don't know where the key
Speaker 3: for that secret safe is. So I think when it
Speaker 3: gets around to me being entrusted with that key, because
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm I found out very recently that every
Speaker 3: Pennington prior to like our particular line, it was christened
Speaker 3: using that bowl, but my parents decided not to because
Speaker 3: they were worried that it might break the cold water
Speaker 3: but maybe the cursed as a consequence. I'm going to
Speaker 3: be the one to let the castle crumble, be driven
Speaker 3: because I wasn't baptized or christened with it.
Speaker 1: What did you get christ with? Like a sports Direct mug,
Speaker 1: something robust.
Speaker 3: Maybe hopefully it is the holy Grail and it does
Speaker 3: give me a life. Get the key and they can
Speaker 3: drink from it.
Speaker 1: Well, make sure you get the right bowl. Ewan, We've
Speaker 1: all seen in Jenna Jones. You don't want to die
Speaker 1: from rapid aging. You must choose, but chews wisely. It
Speaker 1: must be nice having a good luck charm like that
Speaker 1: around the place, even if you don't know where it is.
Speaker 1: All I've got is this old bowl of cereal that's
Speaker 1: been in the sink for four days. The coca pots
Speaker 1: are so hard now I have to chisel them off.
Speaker 1: We're going to leave Ewan and his lucky bowl there
Speaker 1: for now, because our luck is about to turn. It's
Speaker 1: time to talk about Tom fool We briefly touched on
Speaker 1: Tom full in our first Moncaster episode, but here's all
Speaker 1: you need to know. In the sixteenth century, Tom Skelton
Speaker 1: was Muncaster's court jester, trickster and all round funny guy.
Speaker 1: He was so popular he had his own portrait.
Speaker 2: But there's a.
Speaker 1: Darker side to Tom. You've already heard the havoc he
Speaker 1: caused last time when we tried to discuss him with
Speaker 1: the current full of Moncaster Ian. Well, we rearranged our
Speaker 1: chat with Ian, but as you'll hear, it seems we
Speaker 1: weren't quite rid of Tom yet. For some reason, he
Speaker 1: didn't want us wearing headphones. So now and then you
Speaker 1: may hear a bit of an echo min echo min
Speaker 1: Echo mineko leko Ian Douglas has been at Moncaster Castle
Speaker 1: for the past eleven years, and I started by asking
Speaker 1: him the question. I'm sure you're all thinking, so, how
Speaker 1: did you become a jesture? Did you see an ad
Speaker 1: in the paper or did you like go for a
Speaker 1: trip around the castle and just get pissed and fall
Speaker 1: through a window and went, there's our guy. How do
Speaker 1: you like? How did she get the job?
Speaker 2: Well? I think traditionally at Moncaster, certainly over the last
Speaker 2: fifteen years, there's been a competition and fools or the
Speaker 2: performers from around the world have kind of congregated around
Speaker 2: April time and have competed for the title.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, So it's like the full Olympics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it. That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 1: But everyone's lost their running spikes and like the baton's
Speaker 1: gone missing and someone's got javeling through the head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've kind of watched it. I've watched it
Speaker 2: number of times because I've been performing at the castle
Speaker 2: during the during the vessel. But my work's quite different.
Speaker 2: I'm not that kind of gesture. I don't juggle, I
Speaker 2: don't I used to do fire a long time ago,
Speaker 2: but after an accident I stopped doing it.
Speaker 1: Oh God, do I dare I ask what the accident was.
Speaker 2: I was on a boat breathing fire as part of
Speaker 2: a show on derwant Water in Cumbria, and I was
Speaker 2: on a small wooden rib boat and the only way
Speaker 2: I could get leaverage was to ram my feet into
Speaker 2: the corners of the boat. So I had both my
Speaker 2: hands free, and in one hand you have you have
Speaker 2: the fuel, and in the other hand you have a
Speaker 2: fire eating torch and the You put the fuel into
Speaker 2: your mouth and hold it there until the appropriate moment,
Speaker 2: and then you spray it out onto the flaming stick,
Speaker 2: and beautiful things happen. And all was well until we
Speaker 2: went to the I think it was the final rehearsal,
Speaker 2: and two minutes before I was about to put the
Speaker 2: liquid into my mouth, a large boat set off from
Speaker 2: the top of the lake and it sent a wave
Speaker 2: flight coming down towards my boat because I was on
Speaker 2: a tiny little boat, and I put the liquid to
Speaker 2: my lips and the wave hit the boat and I
Speaker 2: rocked to one side and swallowed it and it went
Speaker 2: down to my gardens. And so I was in hospital
Speaker 2: for two weeks with that one. So I now have
Speaker 2: a partial lung here, a part of it doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 2: So I stopped doing fire breathing at that point.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, I wasn't expecting that at all. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: mad Max meets the perfect storm, the.
Speaker 2: Thing you'll do to make a crust, my friend. But
Speaker 2: I was Yeah, so my act, the stuff I do
Speaker 2: as a performer is quite different. So I've worked for
Speaker 2: the Castle as a performer for over eleven years now,
Speaker 2: and I think two three or just before COVID, actually
Speaker 2: they decided to dispense with the Fool's competition and they
Speaker 2: decided to try and do it a different way. So
Speaker 2: they looked at the people they were working with. So
Speaker 2: the previous fool to me is a guy called Gary
Speaker 2: Bridgings or Gacko. He's a showman performer and he'd entered
Speaker 2: the competition a number of times but never was never
Speaker 2: successful because again, like me, his act wasn't that kind
Speaker 2: of big show acts, more musical and storytelling, right. But
Speaker 2: then I think they wanted a deeper relationship with their fool,
Speaker 2: somebody who was there more prominent and more visual and
Speaker 2: visible at the Castle. So once Gacko finished.
Speaker 1: If I might say less of a gimmicky hack, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm more of an actual artist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think that's it. I
Speaker 2: think that's it. And I think somebody that they knew,
Speaker 2: you know, somebody that they knew, would tell them the
Speaker 2: truth and could be involved in thinking about the future
Speaker 2: of the Fool and where it might come. So I
Speaker 2: was just second in line, I suppose because of the
Speaker 2: depth of work I was doing with them. It was
Speaker 2: probably a natural fit.
Speaker 1: And so when you did get the role, what were
Speaker 1: the first sort of main changes you think you brought
Speaker 1: the role. Did you go in and start going, right,
Speaker 1: this needs to go, this needs to go. I want
Speaker 1: to have this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I was just much more interested in
Speaker 2: So the Fools up until now, I think have been
Speaker 2: very much on show at their festivals. Here I am,
Speaker 2: I do my act and I leave again. Whereas the
Speaker 2: first thing I did was put the court on and
Speaker 2: went wandering around the grounds, meeting people and talking to
Speaker 2: people and telling them the stories of the castle, you know,
Speaker 2: and saying, actually, I am the fool of Moncaster. I'm
Speaker 2: a real person. You can come and talk to me.
Speaker 2: And I think that was one of the things I
Speaker 2: think that they were interesting that there was a person
Speaker 2: there that actually could tell stories of depth about the castle,
Speaker 2: about the family, and about what the castle is about,
Speaker 2: if that makes sense, and do it.
Speaker 1: To people on a one on one basis, not just
Speaker 1: in a big show, so it's much more personal vibe.
Speaker 1: Oh that's really lovely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 2: I am a performer in my own right. I'm a storyteller,
Speaker 2: so I can do big performances for people, but also
Speaker 2: I am very confident and comfortable work in one on
Speaker 2: one with people and saying welcome to the castle, you know,
Speaker 2: and suddenly they've got a face of somebody. And also
Speaker 2: I'm quite well known in the area, so suddenly there's
Speaker 2: a face that people recognize and want to come and see.
Speaker 2: So I think it's that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: That's what you want in a performer. You want somebody
Speaker 1: who can play the palladium but also just chat your
Speaker 1: ear off down the pub.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, of course, absolutely, you know, and I've got
Speaker 2: a twinkle in the eye. I know, want to be
Speaker 2: rude and want to be sensible, so I think they
Speaker 2: appreciate that as well.
Speaker 1: I think and you said that a fool's job was
Speaker 1: to slap the face of the king, and he was
Speaker 1: the one member of the court who could view everyone
Speaker 1: as equal. So when it comes to you, say, you
Speaker 1: interact with the tourists and the public a lot, but
Speaker 1: do you ever play tricks on the family? I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of you, and in particular because I know you and
Speaker 1: him have quite the relationship together. And he's quite a
Speaker 1: cheeky guy as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah he is, he is. I haven't played tricks on
Speaker 2: him yet, but I have had to do. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm fifty one these days, and I've got I've got
Speaker 2: we've got four children between me and my wife, and
Speaker 2: I have had to bring my dad voice out on
Speaker 2: him only yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, in a nice way.
Speaker 2: Just you know, he's very new to the row, isn't he.
Speaker 2: And I know he's grown up in the family, but
Speaker 2: actually too, I remember sitting around the kitchen table with
Speaker 2: the whole family. I'm sure he won't mind me telling
Speaker 2: you this, and we were talking about Halloween projects and
Speaker 2: various other things, and I did have to lean across
Speaker 2: and say, now, listen, young man, I'm fifty one years
Speaker 2: of age. Fifty one times around this planet. I've gone
Speaker 2: so listen to my wisdom, and he listened. You know.
Speaker 2: That's what's lovely about you. And you know he is
Speaker 2: new to the role, but he's open and he's listening,
Speaker 2: and he's and he's taking it all in and he'll
Speaker 2: make a great front man. You know. I think the
Speaker 2: castle is in very good hands with you.
Speaker 1: And the role of the fool goes back many, many years,
Speaker 1: but the most famous one is Tom fall. Let's get
Speaker 1: into him. So talk to me about his legend and
Speaker 1: where he came from. How much do you know about him?
Speaker 2: So Skelton, it was a sixteenth century fella. And what's
Speaker 2: really interesting about Tom Skelton It wasn't you know, it
Speaker 2: wasn't just the fool of Moncaster. He was a really
Speaker 2: two sided coin. You know. If he liked you and
Speaker 2: showed favor on you, you know he would he would give
Speaker 2: you hilarity and joy and music. He was a great
Speaker 2: lover of music and pros and he could be, as
Speaker 2: much as I understand it, incredibly charming man. He loved beer,
Speaker 2: he loved good food, he loved good company. But wo
Speaker 2: betide you got on the wrong side of him because
Speaker 2: the flip side of Tom Skelton was that he was
Speaker 2: a murderer. You know, he he was known to.
Speaker 1: I mean that is quite a flip side, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Oh it's a hugeful love poetry. He was into music.
Speaker 1: He also murdered people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, you know, he was known to behead people.
Speaker 2: And he's greatest. Yeah, yeah, he beheaded there's the there's
Speaker 2: you'd have to ask you in the full story. But
Speaker 2: he was paid to behead somebody in their sleep.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, we can't just leave that story hanging. I
Speaker 1: asked you about this, and I've got to say, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure i'd want Tom Fall in my employment. This
Speaker 1: guy is a loose cannon.
Speaker 3: So the Lord of Moncaster at the time, his daughter
Speaker 3: was having an affair with the carpenter, and the carpenter
Speaker 3: was awfully kind of embarrassing the family because he was
Speaker 3: going around the local pub's bragging of how he had
Speaker 3: a thing with the lady of the house and she
Speaker 3: was betrothed to a local lord's son, and so that
Speaker 3: was an awful embarrassment. So Tom Fall was asked to
Speaker 3: sort this mess out and he.
Speaker 1: I love, He's a gun for hire. He's like a
Speaker 1: sort of Boba Fett star Wars.
Speaker 2: He was right.
Speaker 1: We he's having done higher the Fall, And I.
Speaker 3: Think this is why he's such an interesting character because
Speaker 3: he was the fool, but he was arguably the manager
Speaker 3: of the estate and also took on loads of other
Speaker 3: roles and jobs, including gun for har as you say.
Speaker 3: And so anyway, he invited the carpenter around, who he
Speaker 3: proceeded to get very drunk, and as the legend goes,
Speaker 3: he then took the carpenter's own hammer and chisel when
Speaker 3: he was drunk and asleep, and proceeded to chisel off
Speaker 3: the carpenter's head and hide it.
Speaker 1: What Hang on a second, This has gone from funny
Speaker 1: little pranks with a painting to quick sam murders. So
Speaker 1: now he's chopping people's heads off with their own tools.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this guy's a lunatic a little bit, But at
Speaker 3: the same time, I think it comes down to what
Speaker 3: was what was done in the sixteenth century versus now.
Speaker 1: He also does a bit of juggling as well, and
Speaker 1: face painting and blue animals, and he will decapitate your enemies.
Speaker 1: Tom Fall, ladies and gentlemen, lover of beer, good food,
Speaker 1: and good company. Also a murdering psychopath available for birthdays
Speaker 1: and barmits. As according to you in the Ghost of
Speaker 1: Tom Fall is very much still present in the castle.
Speaker 1: So I asked Ian if he'd ever witnessed any Tom
Speaker 1: foolery himself.
Speaker 2: I don't believe in ghosts. Let me get this straight.
Speaker 2: I don't believe in ghosts. I have no truck with religion.
Speaker 2: I gave up thinking about those things a long time ago.
Speaker 2: The only thing I believe in on this world that
Speaker 2: is outside of normal, So let's call it supernatural, if
Speaker 2: you like, is the spirit of Tom. And I've been
Speaker 2: around that castle long enough to know that Tom, he
Speaker 2: still walks the carriers up there.
Speaker 1: How do you feel the spirit comes through in the castle?
Speaker 1: I'm imagine like echoing laughter down hallways, or paintings falling
Speaker 1: off stuff, things going wrong, just an energy that you feel.
Speaker 2: So every year we do the big hallowe In piece,
Speaker 2: and it's not a particularly high tech piece of work,
Speaker 2: but it takes people through the castle on a kind
Speaker 2: of haunted tour and it's very successful and it's very
Speaker 2: very very well attended. Last year we went a little
Speaker 2: bit more high tech and we've decided to do the
Speaker 2: whole show in one room with lighting, desks and computers,
Speaker 2: the first time we'd ever done it with proper, real
Speaker 2: tech stuff. And this is all brand new stuff. It's
Speaker 2: all been pack tested, it's all been worked on, and
Speaker 2: everything's absolutely fine. We've got a text dish in place,
Speaker 2: and everything just stopped. Everything stopped ten minutes before the
Speaker 2: audience is about to arrive. Nothing is working, and these
Speaker 2: computers were going flying all over the place. We've got
Speaker 2: remote lights going crazy in the place, and we're thinking, right,
Speaker 2: the audience is five minutes away, and Peter just very
Speaker 2: calmly as we all ran around like headless chickens, just said,
Speaker 2: hang on a second, and he went off. And about
Speaker 2: a minute later everything started working again, and Peter came
Speaker 2: in and he said, it's okay. I've sorted it. And
Speaker 2: I said, well, what did you do? Did you find
Speaker 2: the switch? He said no, I just went and talked
Speaker 2: to Tom and somebody had turned Tom's portrait light off
Speaker 2: as a portrait light above his head, and somebody had
Speaker 2: accidentally turned it off. He said to I've switched it
Speaker 2: back on and lit some candles and I asked Tom
Speaker 2: to please allow the show to can continue. We haven't
Speaker 2: forgotten about him, and I swear down. Everything came back
Speaker 2: on and it ran absolutely perfectly until the third night
Speaker 2: a child had been in the building and again had
Speaker 2: switched the light off on Tom Fool's portrait, and everything
Speaker 2: went berserk again and we'd all we had to do
Speaker 2: is go and flick the foot the switch and it
Speaker 2: all kicked back in again. So now we have a
Speaker 2: tradition when we go down to Moncaster, first thing we
Speaker 2: do we go up the stairs to Tom Fool's portrait,
Speaker 2: make sure the light's on, and I bow to him. Hello, Tom,
Speaker 2: we haven't forgotten about you. And that seems to solve
Speaker 2: the problems.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, But at what point does the fool actually
Speaker 1: become the king? It seems to me like Tom's the
Speaker 1: most powerful person in the entire place.
Speaker 2: Well, the fools run the castle. Peter will tell you
Speaker 2: that it's the fools that run the castle. And it's
Speaker 2: absolutely right.
Speaker 1: Ian, I'm starting to see your your ulterior motive. You
Speaker 1: actually just certainly want to take the whole thing over yourself.
Speaker 1: One day, by the age of sixty, you'll be living
Speaker 1: in there on your own, with your own portrait. Oh
Speaker 1: would you like your own portrait.
Speaker 2: Well, we've got our own banners. So my banner is
Speaker 2: me on my storytelling bike. So I have a storytelling
Speaker 2: bike that and well known for kind of traveling around
Speaker 2: in There's quite a bit of interference going on. Sorry, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: can you tell?
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell? I was going to ask Tom to that's right,
Speaker 1: listeners right on que Just after Ian had told the
Speaker 1: story about Tom full messing with some technical equipment, guess
Speaker 1: who shows up. Luckily, your humble host is a pro
Speaker 1: and soldiered on through the interview. How do you actually
Speaker 1: design the Fools banner? Do you have your own symbol?
Speaker 1: Is it like a coat of arms? What actually makes
Speaker 1: up the whole design?
Speaker 2: So it tends to be the thing that you use
Speaker 2: for your act. So I've got a trike called Vira,
Speaker 2: which is my storytelling bike. So I'm presented on the
Speaker 2: back of my bike the previous fool Gary as Dolly
Speaker 2: his trolley. It's it's doing it again. Whatever's happening? Sorry,
Speaker 2: it is doing it again, isn't it?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: M m m m m.
Speaker 4: Then yeah, it's just suddenly going off.
Speaker 1: And that's where Tom cut us off.
Speaker 5: I was talking about Tom Skelton.
Speaker 2: He's tricking really told you.
Speaker 5: Oh that's weird, is it sudden?
Speaker 4: All grand?
Speaker 5: Well, it took a couple of m Yeah, how about that,
Speaker 5: told you Tom.
Speaker 1: After lighting some candles and a quick word with Tom,
Speaker 1: we were finally reconnected.
Speaker 2: Hello again, Hello, we're back. Hurrah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you look way more clearer. That's much better. She's
Speaker 1: done at the beginning with Tom out of the picture
Speaker 1: for now, at least. Ian told me one of his
Speaker 1: favorite stories from Moncaster's history.
Speaker 2: One of the most famous characters at Moncaster is Mary Bragg.
Speaker 2: She was associated with somebody in the local town, raven Glass,
Speaker 2: and she fell in love with the guy from upstairs,
Speaker 2: one of the possblokes, and he kind of reciprocated and
Speaker 2: they started this secret love affair. But the housekeeper at
Speaker 2: the time she took umbrage because she quite liked him
Speaker 2: as well, and she paid some people to do her
Speaker 2: in and they killed her and they buried her in
Speaker 2: the grounds of Munca, and all went on quite well
Speaker 2: until a period of time later. Her body was found
Speaker 2: by a young boy and he reported the body being found,
Speaker 2: and so in a panic, they took her down to
Speaker 2: the river Esque and they laid rocks on top of
Speaker 2: her and left her there to rot. Ah how respectful
Speaker 2: I know, it gets better and worse, because she somehow
Speaker 2: floated up and was found again. Mary brad would not
Speaker 2: be left without letting people know that she'd been done
Speaker 2: in badly. So they took her body and they burnt
Speaker 2: it to ash and they buried it, as far as
Speaker 2: I understand, buried it beneath a tree that stood above
Speaker 2: the estate, and it became known as the Cursed Tree.
Speaker 2: Skip forward in time years later, probably about ten or
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago, there was a survey done on the
Speaker 2: grounds and in particular the trees around the area, and
Speaker 2: they found out that the Cursed tree was a danger.
Speaker 2: It was going to fall because it was rotted through.
Speaker 2: It stands by the side of the main busy road,
Speaker 2: so they needed to it needed to be felled quite
Speaker 2: quickly before it caused some damage, and they put a
Speaker 2: call out to tree surgeons in the local area, but
Speaker 2: nobody would touch the Cursed tree. The story of Mary
Speaker 2: Braggan had kind of been quite prolific in the area.
Speaker 2: The only man that dared do it. The only man
Speaker 2: was a man called Murray who's the grounds keeper at
Speaker 2: Moncaster and he's a stoic, big old boy ex soldier,
Speaker 2: and he went up to chop down the tree with
Speaker 2: his chainsawn. There was a crowd of people gathered, and
Speaker 2: here is the truth that when he cut into the tree,
Speaker 2: the tree spurted blood all over him, and he turned round.
Speaker 2: They thought maybe he'd chopped his arm off or something,
Speaker 2: and the tree fell, which is shocking enough. The truth
Speaker 2: of it was inside the tree there were bats roosting,
Speaker 2: and he chopped into the rooster and out came this flood.
Speaker 2: But obviously the rumors and stories went around the village.
Speaker 2: The story doesn't quite in there because the tree was felled,
Speaker 2: and then people were offered the wood, but nobody would
Speaker 2: burn the cursed tree would and Murray said, well, if
Speaker 2: they're not having it, I'll have it. So he went
Speaker 2: back again to start to chop the tree up and
Speaker 2: the limbs up. I heard tell that he was gone
Speaker 2: for some hours and they couldn't reach him on his radio,
Speaker 2: And eventually fact he turned up clutching onto his hand.
Speaker 2: And if you ever meet Murray and get to shake
Speaker 2: hands with him, you'll notice that his hand as a
Speaker 2: scar all the way from top to bottom because he
Speaker 2: chopped his entire hand off and it was held on
Speaker 2: only by a fleck of skin. Luckily enough, they managed
Speaker 2: to be able to stitch it back on it and he
Speaker 2: can now use it. But it's it's quite hell of it,
Speaker 2: heavily scarred because he cut right the way through his
Speaker 2: hand and the cursed tree. The rumor of the cursted
Speaker 2: tree continues, and the wood I think, as far as
Speaker 2: I understand it lay, the tree lays in the field, felled,
Speaker 2: but nobody will nobody will touch the tree. All come
Speaker 2: down from the curse of Mary Bragg. That's how I
Speaker 2: understand the story.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. Mary's a braver man than I am.
Speaker 1: If I cut into a tree that bled, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be going back to cut it up for firewood. I
Speaker 1: be on the first train out of Camria. After that
Speaker 1: disturbing story of Mary Bragg. I think we need a
Speaker 1: palate cleanser. Go on, Ian, give us one more before
Speaker 1: we go.
Speaker 2: Here's a great little story for you. And on the
Speaker 2: on the flip side, in terms of favorite moments in
Speaker 2: the Castle, Iwonna, I'm sure she won't mind me saying this,
Speaker 2: because we are friends. Iona's reputation around the Castle is
Speaker 2: she's quite a formidable character. And we've always got on
Speaker 2: incredibly well with our owner and find a very warm
Speaker 2: and a very loving character. But we've always been told
Speaker 2: don't get on the wrong side of Iona. About nine
Speaker 2: years ago, myself and my good friend Gary Bridgins, who
Speaker 2: run the Halloween show, we were up they're working putting
Speaker 2: the show on, and we did the whole run of shows.
Speaker 2: It was very successful, and it was the night before Halloween,
Speaker 2: and in the castle itself, there's a room upstairs. It's
Speaker 2: called the Tapestry Room. It's a tiny little room and
Speaker 2: it's supposedly the most haunted room in the castle.
Speaker 1: Oh believe me, we know about that one, don't we. Listeners.
Speaker 1: You in scared the crap out of me with that
Speaker 1: story in a previous mon Caster episode.
Speaker 2: Anyway, me and my friend Gary said, well, been us
Speaker 2: tomorrow night's Halloween. Would you mind if me and Gary
Speaker 2: slept in the bed in the most haunted room together?
Speaker 2: It's this beautiful four poster and they agreed and we said, okay,
Speaker 2: we'll go and do that. That's brilliant. And the run
Speaker 2: of shows had ended and as a little present, Peter
Speaker 2: and Iona presented me with a bottle of whiskey, and
Speaker 2: Gary with a bottle of whiskey, and around eleven o'clock
Speaker 2: years up the stairs, we went to the most Haunted
Speaker 2: room and sat around, helping ourselves to a few DRAMs
Speaker 2: of whiskey, until eventually the clock struck twelve and the
Speaker 2: door opened. Suddenly we both jumped and it wasn't a ghost.
Speaker 2: It was Pete Peter, and Peter escaped because his wife
Speaker 2: was asleep. He said, no, boys, I'll come to join you.
Speaker 2: I'd brought another bottle, and we dragged these bottles of whiskey,
Speaker 2: and around three in the morning decided that the only
Speaker 2: spirits we were going to see that night were the
Speaker 2: spirits inside that bottle. And eventually it was time for bed.
Speaker 2: I was going to sleep in the adjacent room and
Speaker 2: Gary was because I can't sleep with Gary. He sings
Speaker 2: in his sleep, seeing Yeah, he sings in his sleep. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a shocker, it's a shocker. We were just about
Speaker 2: to room and I said, and I said, listen, we
Speaker 2: are the fools of Moncaster. We should at least leave
Speaker 2: some kind of memory of this evening. There's a security
Speaker 2: camera on the wall up there. Why don't we show
Speaker 2: I owner our bums. That would be a nice thing
Speaker 2: to see on an hour wee night. So we mooned
Speaker 2: the camera, laughed and went off to bed. Now in
Speaker 2: the morning we woke up with thick heads and we
Speaker 2: sat and started to think remorsefully about what we'd done
Speaker 2: and the rumors of obviously Iona, we're all around us,
Speaker 2: and we were thinking, what we don't need today is
Speaker 2: to be sacked for showing our bums. Maybe we should
Speaker 2: admit to our crime. And we found we found Iona
Speaker 2: out in the courtyard and said, hello, Iona, we're really sorry,
Speaker 2: but last night we were all jinks and boys and
Speaker 2: all that, and we showed our bums to your security camera.
Speaker 2: So if you see our bums today, that's why. And
Speaker 2: she said, oh, security camera. There isn't a security camera
Speaker 2: in that room and we said, yes, there is in
Speaker 2: the corner we showed our bums to each last night.
Speaker 2: She said, no, that's not a security camera. That's the
Speaker 2: world wide Web camera. And where do you think every
Speaker 2: ghost hunter in the country was looking at midnight last night?
Speaker 2: And that's that's the legacy we leave behind at Moncaster.
Speaker 1: Amazing things that go bombing the night. Yes, nice, oh
Speaker 1: thank you so much ian.
Speaker 2: That was really it's pleasure to that suit pleasure.
Speaker 1: It's taken five months, but finally we can finish an
Speaker 1: episode with a bump. Un just goes to show never
Speaker 1: give up on your dreams.
Speaker 2: Kids.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode. I'm after the full Olympics.
Speaker 1: Until next time. Don't ask Tom full for directions, don't
Speaker 1: show your bum on the web, but do mind your manners.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Bad Manners. If you like the pod,
Speaker 1: please share it with your friends. Rate it on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Leave a review and make sure you spill the tea
Speaker 1: on any of your favorite Bad Manners that we could
Speaker 1: feature in future episodes. This podcast was produced by Atamei
Speaker 1: Studios for iHeartRadio. It was hosted by me Tom Horton.
Speaker 1: It was produced by William Lensky, Rebecca Rappaport, and Chris Ataway.
Speaker 1: It was executive produced by Face Steur and Zad Rogers.
Speaker 1: Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore and our production coordinator
Speaker 1: is Bella Selini