Strange Stories UK

Send us Fan Mail

This is a well known scandal from the 1870s. Florence Cook one of the best known materialisation mediums of her day had been suspect of fraudulent behaviour (not being genuine). To restore her reputation she tried to get the famous scientist William Crookes to investigate her and prove her genuine. 
Crookes had already investigated D.D.Home and found that he had powers unknown to science, this may had caused some ridicule from the scientific community, but Crookes was famous, he had discovered one of the elements listed in the periodic table and was a member of the Royal Society. Would Crookes be able to prove that Florence Cook was genuine and at what cost to himself?
This is part 1 of the story which also includes other stories intertwined, including that of the ruthless Cook family who intended to achieve financial security by milking gullible supporters of spiritualism.
The original inspiration for this podcast was the book by Ronald Pearsall 'The Table Rappers' although many books and periodicals have been read to produce this podcast, to name but two: Trevor Hall's 'The Spiritualists' and various publications of the Society of Psychical Research. I will post part 2 within the week.  

Send us Fan Mail

This is an unsolved murder from May 1967, a shooting in Mayfair, London at a gambling club. No one was convicted but it was to become clear that a fellow gangster was responsible for the shooting, the shooting of a gangster probably employed by the Kray gang, Jack Buggy. By the end of the podcast you will know who the murderer was. I lived on the Sussex coast in the past and had heard of the Buggy case but there was no information about it, even now I don't think there are any podcasts on the case.
This podcast is long and often something of a ramble. I dont give any opinions and  the podcast was made in one take based on rough notes , I stumble after words and there are background noises, dogs and chickens. It is also quite long, I was going to make it in two parts but I am now trying to make the story in one take. I also go off on tangents but try to get back on case as soon as possible.

Send us Fan Mail

This is part 2 of the story of the murder at Tarrant Keynston.
The podcast is recorded in one take without editing.

Send us Fan Mail

This is an unsolved murder, or perhaps two involved murders that happened in an isolated Dorset village about ninety years ago.  This podcast is part one, part two will be uploaded within a couple of days. There are some unexplained aspects to this case and a village that was accused on not cooperating fully with the police investigation. It was suggested that villagers wanted an inquest verdict of accidental death or suicide, but two similar deaths within a couple of years of young men seemed too much of a coincidence.
A word of warning, this podcast is recorded in one take and there may be some background noise. I do have a recording studio but the window is left open and there is a dog in the room and I often stumble over words.

Send us Fan Mail

A Recent case from 2022. I am not sure if  it is county lines but young people and drugs are involved in the murder of a young man in a sleepy Dorset town. The story is a ramble, as all the best are. I remember some years back being in Christchurch in late August after GCSE results and the teenagers celebrating at the beach. It seemed a happy place, parties on the beach.
At the time I was working at a Pupil Referral unit in the area and also saw some of the damaged youngsters that lived in the area.
This is a recent case, some time after my time , but I recognise the attitudes that existed when I worked there. I may have known Christchurch or Bournemouth, certainly people like them. What I did recall was that the children at the PRU were proud to be travellers and even those that were not, claimed to be be as it was 'cool' to be a traveller. I 

Send us Fan Mail

This is the first Strange Stories podcast (without the UK). Since I started podcasting in June 2018, I wanted to call my podcast 'Strange Stories'but the name was taken at that time. I think it is available now, so welcome to Strange Stories. This is a short one, cryptozoology, so doomed to a low download, but I hope you enjoy it. This is the last podcast of series 4, I will be back at the end of August. Happy Holidays.

Send us Fan Mail

This case was investigated by the Society of Psychical  Research (SPR) by Frank Podmore in 1885 and published in the Journal for the SPR in September 1886. It was one of the cases that was being investigated for the book to be published by the SPR 'Phantasms of the Living'. The story wasn't considered strong enough for inclusion.
The SPR investigated and reported what they found as told by first hand witnesses, The story was embellished by Maude Ffoulks when it was included in the book True Ghost Stories in 1936. Since then the story has been further embellished by other books reporting on local hauntings. I try to give the original story here as found in the archives of the SPR.

Send us Fan Mail

As it has been three weeks since I posted, I decided to make a podcast, write it and post it as quickly as I could. I did not know what story to make a podcast about but I had some photographs of documents that I had taken at the National Archives and choose the shortest one, the one with least photos  to see how quickly I could write and post. The storey I chose, I original thought obscure, but found that a film had been made about it in 1990 called Chicago Joe and the Showgirl starring Kiefer Sutherland , Emily Lloyd and Patsy Kensit. Then I found out that George Orwell had commented on the murder. However, there did not seem to be any podcasts on what was called the 'Cleft chin murder'.
It took me 14 hours from start to finish to make this podcast, researching, writing and recording. That is why I am calling it a Punk Podcast. 
The characters in this podcast are shallow, obsessed with image and Hollywood films. Their lives are cheap and they think that life is cheap. In recent podcasts it has been suggested that it is easy to get away with a murder during a time of war, however these murderers were too incompetent to take advantage of wartime. As usual it is low fi and I hesitate over words etc.. 

Send us Fan Mail

Daniel Dunglas Home (1833-1886). Perhaps the best known physical medium. He was a contemporary of the Fox sisters, it was their  rappings that caused the explanation that they were communicating with the spirits of the dead and started the Spiritualist movement. 
During the mid Victorian period most middle and upper class homes tried to communicate with dead friends and family, it was a parlour game that many people played.  Many professional mediums charged for seances and I would say that all mediums of that time were caught out faking the phenomena they were thought to produce, the exception was Home (pronounced Hume).
Home travelled Europe and was friends with royalty and was one of the best known celebrities of his time supposedly being able to levitate, elongate and handle burning coals as well as take messages from the spirits which were  personal and private  and it didn't seem possible that Home could be able to know the messages that he gave.
There were also critics that did not believe what Home could do, but were often at a loss to explain it.
If you can bear the stumbling over words, Low-Fi and other unprofessional aspects, please listen and make up your own minds.

Send us Fan Mail

This podcast is about a murder/killing that happened in Portsmouth during World War 2. Another case that showed the failings of the British legal system. I try to make podcasts about unusual and unknown cases. They are low-fi and there is no editing, such as an ‘old time radio shows’. I am not a natural radio speaker, I stumble over certain words, for example in this podcast I say autonomy instead of anatomy. However, it is not the day job, it is just a hobby for me. The next podcast will be a paranormal story.