Hello, this is PMs in your DMs - it’s like Tinder, except with Prime Ministers 

This panel show from the makers of Everyone Dies In Sunderland takes two of the 54 men and 3 women to have been the British Prime Minister and imagine they’ve matched with one of our panel on a dating app – are they swiping left or are they swiping right? 

In show one, Hannah said she would immediately rule out any man called Anth from Sunderland – so what will she make of Anthony Eden, a Prime Minister called Anth from Spennymoor? Are she and Claire prepared to overlook that time he took a load of speed and invaded Egypt and his slightly iffy relationship with his bosses’ niece? Let’s find out! 

Like a totally normal history podcast, we also have cocktail advice, a discussion of which order you’d lick the Jonas Brothers in and repeated use of the phrase “boaty boaty ship ship”.

Hello, this is PMs in your DMs 

It’s like Tinder, except with Prime Ministers 

In this panel show from the makers of Everyone Dies In Sunderland we take two of the 54 men and 3 women to have been the British Prime Minister and imagine they’ve matched with one of our panel on a dating app – are they swiping left or are they swiping right? 

And by the end, we hope to know for certain which UK Prime Minster Consett’s Premier Ellie Kemper Impersonator would feel the most comfortable with one of her friends dating. 

In this pilot show we meet two Prime Ministers, one looked a bit like Johnnie Lee Miller, ran away from the circus to become an accountant, inspired David Bowie and survived an actual assassination attempt. And another whose middle name really was “boner” 

You know when Noel Edmonds would turn up in a helicopter on Christmas morning to deliver Christmas presents to deserving members of the public? Even through there was no indication they wanted him to?

We don’t have a helicopter, but we do have 22 minutes of bloopers from the last 12 months – SOME OF IT ORIGINALLY CUT FOR PROFANITY AND ALL OF IT WE HOPE YOU KNOW WE’RE JOKING – including some extra chat with our friends Scarred for Life. 

Carnations you mistook for roses, that’s us.

Anecdotes about John's appearance on Pointless are going to be our version of Joe Cornish's story about Steven Spielberg, aren't they? 

Second Easter Egg as you're probably  aware of Taylor Swift.

"I'm on a date with God and he's drunk"

In the mid 1990s Britain carried out an interesting social experiment to see if taking a children from a chaotic and poverty-ridden childhood in some of most deprived parts of the North, giving them a dehumanising nickname, making them some kind of weird celebrity, and repeatedly publicly condemning in the hope that would stop their offending behaviour.

Rat boy. Spider boy. Worm boy. Boomerang boy. Balaclava boy. The singing defective.  Who were they? And what became of them? Did widespread national condemnation work?

Spoiler alert: It didn’t work.

But this is a time when the government literally wanted the justice system to, and this is a quote from the Prime Minister “understand less and condemn more”  

And it’s the story of a region too, and by that I mean, this is what they thought of us back then. 

DID SOMEONE SAY LISTENER OFFER! LISTEN TO FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN GET 20% OF A SPIRIT SEEKERS GHOST HUNT NEAR YOU!*

It’s 1996! Jarvis Cocker wiggles his bum and then gets beaten up by a man dressed as Buddha! Chas Chandler dies – but not before he’d helped Jimi Hendrix busk near Byker (but not near Byker Grove)! Babylon Zoo spend more time at number one than Liz Truss did at number 10 (or did they?)

John creatively fills that fiscal black hole we’ve heard so much about. Gareth introduces Claire to Mr Pinkwhistle. Roy of the Rovers gets seriously weird.

Who are your bewildering local heroes? People like Lord Latif or the guy from Durham who looks like Mario? Is he a lecturer at the university or did John dream that?

You can reach us on email [email protected], on Twitter at @everyonediespod, on Facebook and Instagram. 

Our theme music is performed and written by The Way Out, was it not? Usually though, it’s “Steady Away” by Pete Dilley and can be found on his album Half-truths and Hearsay which you can/should buy/stream here because he’s got a kid on the way and kids need shoes. 

https://petedilley.bandcamp.com/album/half-truths-and-hearsay  

It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me. 

*As long as you live in Sunderland. 

Something particularly alarming about growing up in the eighties and nineties was how ambivalent everyone was about basic road safety – even though horrific accidents happened with terrifying regularity. 

In June 1925, the brakes failed on a coach as it made its way down a steep hill at Dibbles Bridge, in North Yorkshire. Seven people would die in what was at the time the worst road accident in British history. 

Fifty years later, thirty three people would die at Dibble’s Bridge in identical circumstances. 

Nearly fifty years on, this crash remains the worst road accident in British history.

It took another 20 years for seatbelts to become mandatory on coaches. 

Along the way: David Bowie ingratiates himself with the people of Sunderland! John Pertwee takes a very unorthodox approach to convincing electrical retailers to sell their customers extended washing machine warranties! Ben Wishaw smells lovely! Jimmy Nail thinks she’s lying (she’s lying)! 

The gang behind THE OFFICIAL PODCAST OF STACEY SOLOMON SCENTED AIR FRESHNERS also recall the first time they were censored. Young Gareth accidentally doodles boobs. Young Claire defaces her Snatch. Young John articulates a trees-eye view of nuclear war between Britain and America Wogglebox Island

You can reach us on email [email protected], on Twitter at @everyonediespod, on Facebook and Instagram. 

Our theme music is “Steady Away” by Pete Dilley and can be found on his album Half-truths and Hearsay which you can/should buy/stream here: 

https://petedilley.bandcamp.com/album/half-truths-and-hearsay  

 “Well I'm love forty down
And I can well recall the age my father reached the ancient age
That I'm now staring down
Through the barrel of my fourth decade and honestly I am afraid 

Between 1964 and 1965 a still unidentified serial killer took the lives of six sex workers in London, earning the nickname “Jack the Stripper” as their bodies were left naked or undressed in public. Was the killer someone famous enough to have had their own This is Your Life and had Bruce Forsyth as a pallbearer at their funeral?  

This is a story with everything. The Krays. The Masons. James Bond, The Profumo Scandal, a beloved sport-star turned TV personality, his boyfriend, the popstar, soon to die in mysterious circumstances, Dave Allen, Bob Monkhouse, and the most extraordinary – if horrible - murder weapon this or any other podcast will ever feature.

Does it have any connection to the 1990s or the North East though? 

Probably. 

We also remember the absolute state of eating out in the eighties and nineties. The Wimpy Bender! The Little Chef having a logo which was literally a man sticking his fingers down this throat! BHS AS A RESTAURANT! 

Along the way: Bread the Board Game, Gazza the Board Game and Cluedo the TV show.

What do you think the worst board game of the eighties and nineties? And what was the worst tourist attraction your parents dragged you to when it wasn’t raining?

You can reach us on email [email protected], on Twitter at @everyonediespod, on Facebook and Instagram. 

Our theme music is “Steady Away” by Pete Dilley and can be found on his album Half-truths and Hearsay which you can/should buy/stream here: 

https://petedilley.bandcamp.com/album/half-truths-and-hearsay  

“Freddie Mills is Dead, Freddie Mills is Dead, Dead Fred, Dead Fred, Dead Fred/ FRED’S DEAD! BROWN BREAD! FREDDIE MILLS IS DEAD!” 

In today’s show we revisit the time in 1999 when a Northumberland doctor casually admitted to killing 300 people in a local TV interview.

I’m genuinely surprised you don’t remember.

Doctor David Moor was a much loved GP who would often appear in the regional media as a local medical expert. But one such appearance would lead to him facing a murder charge for helping an apparently terminally ill patient to die. But was Britain’s approach to end-of-life care what was really on trial? And if this was murder, does that mean the Queen’s Granddad got murdered too?

40 years earlier another doctor – John Bodkin Adams – had found himself in a similar position. Was Adams a pioneering doctor who changed the face of palliative care? Or was he lethally useless and more of a danger to his patients than their medical conditions? Or he was he, in fact, literally Britain’s most prolific serial killer?

Along the way, there’s an establishment cover-up, clandestine sexual relationships, clay pigeon shooting fatalities and a welcome(ish) return of Gareth reading poetry. 

We also revisit 1999. Rod Hull dies. Whizzer and Chips is nowhere to be found. Kiwi-flavoured 20/20 is consumed. Everyone talking about epigenomics apparently. Nothing like Prince described it. 

Trigger warning: This show discusses  issues surrounding end of life care and assisted suicide throughout.

You can reach us on email [email protected], on Twitter at @everyonediespod, on Facebook and Instagram. 

Our theme music is usually the song “Steady Away” by Pete Dilley and can be found on his album Half-truths and Hearsay which you can/should buy/stream here: 

ttps://petedilley.bandcamp.com/album/half-truths-and-hearsay  

But for a third show in a row it isn’t. Pete’s getting married though. Congratulations Pete! 

“SO DAMN EASY TO CAVE IN, MAN KILLS EVERYTHING”

Michael Straughan was 23 stone and nearly two metres tall, so he was certainly conspicuous. 

But on the 18th of June 1992 he was seen waiting for a friend outside a pub in Newcastle City Centre... and he hasn’t been seen since. 

In June 2005, Janet Brown spent the day working as an extra on a TV show being filmed in Northumberland called “Distant Shores”. 

She too would never be seen again. 

Although it did take the police five years to notice she was missing.

We are also joined by Caprice from The Unseen for a discussion about the disappearance of Manic Street Preachers lyricist and guitarist Richie Edwards in February 1995.

We also reminisce about terrifying school days. Claire gets an encyclopaedia thrown at her face. John witnesses an assembly being sabotaged by disaffected teachers. Gareth shoehorns in a callback to a nineties Jasper Carrot and Robert Powell sitcom .  We also learn the best thing “marquee related” Gareth has ever seen. 

Make sure to check out The Unseen in all the usual places, which Caprice has helpfully consolidated here

You can reach us on email [email protected], on Twitter at @everyonediespod, on Facebook and Instagram. 

Our theme music is usually the song “Steady Away” by Pete Dilley and can be found on his album Half-truths and Hearsay which you can/should buy/stream here: 

ttps://petedilley.bandcamp.com/album/half-truths-and-hearsay  

But for a second show in a row it isn’t. 

“If you dare to be different, good faith considerate, you’re the idiot”

We interrupt this podcast for a very special episode where the gang talks harrowing children’s television of the eighties and nineties with Dave and Steve from the deservedly popular Scarred for Life books and stage shows.

As regular listeners know, for the true crime happening literally down our roads, the most upsetting moments of our childhood were televised. Moments like Captain Planet meeting Hitler, Nutsy doing the Green Mile in Lady and The Tramp, Barney Rubble’s suicide attempt, teatime lynching in Scarf Jack, Noseybonk, and the unexpectedly downbeat conclusions to Blake’s 7, Dinosaurs and Denver the Last Dinosaur. 

And Ghostwatch. Bloody hell, Ghostwatch. 

We also talk about the triggering effect of News Reports, which were frequently so apocalyptic I found myself hyperventilating about Princess Anne getting married. 

We also learn what Gareth likes to watch on the internet when his wife is in bed. 

Didn't believe
 those stories about
 Mother Seddons, did you?
 
 Fee fie foe fum...

You can learn more about Scarred for Life here, buy volume one here and buy volume two here.

They also have some live shows coming up:

·         Wigan, February 17th 

·         Harrogate, February 25th 

·         York, May 21st  

You can reach us on email [email protected], on Twitter at @everyonediespod, on Facebook and Instagram. 

Our theme music is usually the song “Steady Away” by Pete Dilley and can be found on his album Half-truths and Hearsay which you can/should buy/stream here: 

ttps://petedilley.bandcamp.com/album/half-truths-and-hearsay  

But this week it isn’t. 

“Public sex versus social skills versus gunboats, giants and bands that kill”

Close to midnight on March the 19th 1990 the doorbell rang at the home of Gateshead science teacher Jack Royal. As he looked though the porch window to see who it was, he was shot in the face at point blank range. 

Jack had enemies – he’d twice stood trial for murder – but over 30 years later, we still don’t know who killed him. But we do know it wasn’t Andrew Adams, which is a bit of a shame for Andrew Adams, who spent 14 years in prison for the crime

This is the story of how in a blink of the eye “a good looking lad who could pull the girls” can wake up in bed – having indeed pulled a girl the previous night - to find his house surrounded by the police, endure armed police storming his mother’s death bed, and end up in prison for stealing a pair of trousers having been denied compensation for a decade and a half in jail for a crime he didn’t commit thanks to an “incompetent defence” from his legal team (that’s an actual quote from the Criminal Court Review Commission). 

We also revisit 1992, a time of putting cockerel-shaped reflectors from breakfast cereal packets in the spokes of your Raleigh Street Wolf, Astrofarm, the Freddie Mercury tribute concert and the robbing of Benny Hill’s grave! 

Claire calls Colin the Caterpillar “a twat”. Gareth gives John man flu. You don’t want to know what Claire thinks her majesty the Queen has. 

We also have time for a game of Nick Hancock-era Room 101, which we’ll just call “Robbo vs The Really Wild Show”.

You can reach us on email [email protected], on Twitter at @everyonediespod, on Facebook and Instagram.  Why not tell us about your worst ever housemates? 

We recorded this at the exact same time as an episode of Namely 90s  which you can check out here. Coming up, we’re doing Mas Debaters so look out for that too! Mentions in the show to Hallmark of Greatness and 100 Things We Learned about Film.  

Our theme music is the song “Steady Away” by Pete Dilley and can be found on his album Half-truths and Hearsay which you can/should buy/stream here: 

https://petedilley.bandcamp.com/album/half-truths-and-hearsay

Oh god, it’s New Years