Episode 7a – Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad
In this episode Mike & Will look into ghosts, golf and some decidedly fishy goings-on in Felixstowe in the first of a 2-part special on M.R. James’s ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’!
Big thanks to Tom Hemmings who returns as our reader for this episode.
Show Notes
- ‘Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’ by M.R. James
Read the full text at Wikisource. - Felixstowe Golf Course and Beach on GoogleMaps
Here can be seen the real-world setting of ‘Oh, Whistle…’ - 1968 TV version on Youtube
Watch the BBCs classic adaptation, starring Michael Horden. - 2010 TV version on IMDB
Read about the BBCs recent tv adaptation, starring John Hurt. - Review of the 2010 TV version at The Gothic Imagination
Includes some very interesting discussion in the comments section. - The Quadruple Object and Ontography
A website explaining the area of modern study now known at Ontography. - Pilgrim’s Progress Quote
This is the section of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress that comes to Parkins’ mind when seeing a figure following him along the beach. - “I Shall Most Likely Be out on the Links”: Golf as Metaphor in the Ghost Stories of M. R. James. by Terry W. Thompson
A really interesting essay relevant to this story. - The meaning of “Fur/Fla/Fle/Bus” at Ghosts & Scholars
Ghosts & Scholars provides a summary of the various speculations about the meaning of the text found on the whistle. - Photo of the beach below Cobbolds Point, Felixstowe circa 1900
The more touristy part of the beach at Felixstowe, south of where Parkins had his horrible experience. - Info on the Felixstowe Bath Hotel | Photo of Felixstowe Bath Hotel
This is the hotel on which James based The Globe Inn in ‘Oh, Whistle…’. The hotel is sadly no more, having been burned down by Suffragette arsonists on April 28th 1914! - Image of ‘The Lodge’ Felixstowe | ‘The Lodge’ on GoogleMaps
This is the house owned by James’s friend Felix Cobbold, and where parties of friends from Kings College would meet for holidays (and probably a round of golf or two at the nearby golf course). - Penelope Fitzgerald on M.R. James
In this 2000 article for the Guardian, author Penelope Fitzgerald examines James the man as well as James the writer and compares James’s personality to that of Parkins in ‘Oh, Whistle…’ - ‘Bleak and Solemn…’ at k-punk
This article retraces the Norfolk and Suffolk locations used in the filming of the 1960′s TV versions of ‘Oh, Whistle…’ and ‘A Warning to the Curious’. Photos are provided to show the locations as they are today (well, in 2007). - Knights Templar on Wikipedia
Read about the history of this much-maligned order of religious knights.
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It seems that we can safely add ‘small boys’ to M.R.’s list of pet hates..the account of Parkins discovery of the remains of teh Templar site notes that the area of the ruin had perhaps been disturbed in the past by small boys or ‘other creatures!’
I kind of see Parkins’ reluctance to admit the supernatural exists is a matter of academic pride. Ontography sounds like a field that overlaps a lot of other subjects (or should I say ‘disciplines’) and may not get much funding or respect from others. To have him, and by extension, ontography, associated with ghosts and other ‘woo’ subjects would mean the end of his academic career, or any career that would pay, really. I almost wonder if Parkins is the ontography department, and is involved in the administrative tangles.