This week on Tales of History and Imagination we discuss a murdered nanny, the murderer… his awful ancestors, and said murderer’s mysterious disappearance. 

Trigger warnings: murder.   

Sources Include:

A Different Class of Murder by Laura Thompson

And a handful of documentaries I never recorded at the time of writing the first attempt at this script a few years ago… 

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This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return one last time to the wreck of the Batavia. This is where things, finally, go all ‘Lord of the Flies’ on Batavia’s Graveyard. 

This is part four of a four parter - thanks for hanging in there with me all… I promise a load of one parters in the back half of the year.

Sources Include:

Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash

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This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return to the wreck of the Batavia. In part two we follow the adventures of the 48 in the longboat as they make their way along Australia’s Western coast; learn a little more about Francisco Pelsaert, and speak of the first of the murders on Batavia’s Graveyard. 

This is part three of a four parter.

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This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return to the wreck of the Batavia. In part two we discuss heresy, and the harrowing life of under-merchant Jeronimus Cornelisz. 

This is part two of a four parter.

Trigger warnings: Murder, colonialism, child mortality, religious extremism.   

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This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return to Australia for a real life soap opera that was considerably more bloody than Neighbours or Home and Away. First we need to take a cruise on a Dutch VOC flagship called The Batavia, the year 1629. 

In part one of a four parter, we discuss the voyage; how and why folk took such risks to travel to the end of the earth like this - and the voyage itself, right up until the ship wrecked on Houtman’s Abrolhos. 

Note: Apologies all, as you can hear my voice is still a little scratchy on this one… I’ve had a bit of a nasty cold, and figured better to get this out now, than keep you waiting a month and a half to start this. Part two should be less so… 

Trigger warnings: Murder, colonialism, attempted genocide and sexual assault.   

Sources Include:

Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash

Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.

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Hey all the next episode is likely to be delayed by a week or so… as you can hear I’m getting over a bit of a nasty cold/ case of flu - and my voice is still pretty ragged.. 

This week we travel to Australia for a game of Marn Grook, to discuss origin stories; perhaps the archetypal troubled sportsman - and horrific massacres.    

Trigger warnings: Murder, suicide, colonialism, and to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people listening to this episode - I discuss some of your origin legends as best I can, and play a brief excerpt of a speech from an Aboriginal elder. 

Australia’s Most Unbelievable True Stories by Jim Haynes

The deplorable (alleged) Neo-Nazi interruption of tribal elder Mark Brown, care of the Guardian

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Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.

Tales of History and Imagination can be found on…

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The American actress Ilda Orme knew a thing or two about being cancelled, a long, long time before social media put the cancel button in the hands of the public at large. Her cancellers, she suspected were two hateful former in-laws and a theatre manager in their pocket. 

Her cancellation was nearly literal - culminating in an assassination attempt.  

Trigger warnings: Gun violence and false accusations leading to incarceration. 

Note: This fortnight’s episode is a little shorter than usual in the hope that doing a quick firebreak episode will get me back on a two-weekly schedule. Next fortnight should be back to around half an hour again. 

Sources Include:

The Battered Body Beneath The Flagstones and Other Victorian Scandals by Michelle Morgan 

The Madness of Ilda Orme by Dr Nell Darby

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On, or around 11th June 323 BC Alexander the Great died in Babylon. While there are mysteries surrounding his passing - did an Indian holy man prophesy his passing a year prior while self immolating in Alexander’s presence? Was he poisoned? Did somebody entomb him while still alive? - He is just a cameo in this Tale. 

This week we travel to Athens - then chafing under the Macedonian yoke - as they make a bid for freedom. 

Trigger warning: some swearing, talk of three suicides. We discuss the fall of two mighty empires and one despot. 

Ghost On The Throne by James Romm

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Tales of History and Imagination has ‘X-it-ed’ from Musk’s hellsite, sorry Twitter folk. But I can be found on…

On May 18th 1926 the evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson took a trip to Santa Monica Beach, California to work, seek inspiration and have a little fun in the sun. However, the day would end in tragedy when Aimee disappeared without a trace. 

Was her disappearance all it appeared?

Sources Include:

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