This episode Mike and Will examine Curfew by Lucy M. Boston, a childhood tale of haunted bells, unearthed coffins and post-Jamesian highjinx aplenty.
Big thanks to Debbie Wedge for providing the readings for this episode.
Show notes:
- Curfew by Lucy M. Boston – read by Robert Lloyd Parry (Youtube.com)
The text of this story is not freely available online for copyright reasons, but why not enjoy this live-streamed reading of the story from the quintessential Jamesian actor, Robert Lloyd Parry? - About Lucy M. Boston (Wikipedia)
Lucy M. Boston had an eventful life, from scandalising her strict Wesleyan family by abandoning their religion, to serving as a volunteer nurse in Normandy during the first world war and later studying art in France, Italy, Austria and Hungary. She is most famous for her Children of Green Knowe series of children’s books which were set in a fictionalised version of her home for over 50 years, Hemingford Grey manor in Cambridgeshire. - Norton Priory, Cheshire (Wikipedia)
According to Robert Lloyd Parry’s excellent introduction to the Swan River Press edition of Curfew and Other Tales, the locations in Curfew were almost certainly based on Norton Priory in Cheshire. Lucy M. Boston lived within sight of this decaying manor house during the 1920’s, shortly before its demolition, and it certainly fits the descriptions in the story very closely. - Folklore related to this story (DarkOxfordshire.co.uk)
In this episode we compare the events of the story to various pieces of English folklore from our area of the country, including curfew bell traditions, haunted bells in ponds, black dogs and even mysterious deaths in bell towers. - A Ghost Story for Christmas: Woman of Stone (bbc.co.uk)
The latest Mark Gatiss Ghost Story for Christmas will be based on ‘Man-Size in Marble’ by E. Nesbit. - Hypnogoria’s The Horrors of Christmas Advent Calendar (hypnogoria.com)
This Christmas Jim Moon has produced a series on the origins and history of Christmas horror movies. Highly recommended!
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Crikey. It lives!
Huzzah! Looking forward to this one.
Wonderful to have you back, gents!
LADS!!! Was really hoping that we hadn’t heard the last from you both! Please make it less “occasional”! Have a Merry Christmas and line up some more bangers for us in the New Year!
Glad to have you two back! Here’s hoping we get your discussions more often. A slight shame that your 100th will be a Gatiss film, but ah well.
This was a really fun story, and I think both Robert and Debby do it justice. There are many effective passages and little moments that speak to Lucy Boston’s skill as a ghost story writer. I do agree with Mike, though, the horror elements don’t exactly fit together. I do have a theory, loose and mostly made up, but I’m working with what I have:
The curfew bell was used to call some local brute in the squire’s employ who hurt people out after hours (the squire was cruel and malicious). Eventually, the townsfolk had themselves a good old fashioned peasant uprising, they killed the squire (it’s his skull in the lake) and entombed the brute in the stone coffin. The bell is rung once more years later on a dare (Roger’s grandfather) and eventually torn down and cast into the same lake. Fast forward to modern day, the grave is opened but the now undead brute is waiting to be called (hence nothing happens before the bell is rung) but is still lurking around, maybe as he did back in the day. Why didn’t he appear to commit violence until the end of the story? I guess he’s slow to move, and the bell, itself a thing used for evil, is feverishly calling its familiar. Brute and bell are quite possibly still out there, too.
Welcome back!
You all have improved my Christmas this year by at least 60% by releasing a new episode!! Love the podcast so much, Will & Mike. I hope you and your loved ones are well and happy, and I extend the most sincere best wishes for a joyful, loving, and peaceful Christmas & New Yearās to you gentleman, and to all the other listeners of APCFTC. Cheers!
What a very welcome surprise! Christmas without the podcast just wouldn’t be Christmas!
Fab to have you both back! Greatly looking forward to Mansize in Marble, and your thoughts
Except that it’s not called ‘Mansize in Marble’, it has had a Gatiss gender reassignment, and is now ‘Woman of Stone’.
It will have no hint of the repressed Victorian sexuality, or the hint of darker things that may have happened to Laura before her death.
I’m starting to detest Gatiss’ realisations of classic supernatural stories. I was probably spoilt by Lawrence Gordon Clarke’s Ghost Stories For Christmas.
rant over.
I’ve worked with Mark, and he’s a lovely, generous man. Incredibly, you don’t have to watch it!
I’m sure he’s a nice guy, he looks like a nice guy, but that doesn’t excuse the liberties he takes with the narratives of classic supernatural tales.
And no, I don’t have to watch it. In fact I didn’t, but remaining faithful to original story wouldn’t have hurt. Would it?
Although I am a fan of Gatiss since the days of The League of Gentlemen radio days, I do feel that it is time for the BBC top open up their talent pool and engage other writers to adapt the stories. Gatiss just hasn’t got his adaptations right. He doesn’t get the sense of dread or menace that is needed and his original story THE DEAD ROOM was beyond disappointing. Fair play to him for bringing the tales back into public consciousness though.
See? I KNEW that after lying dormant and half-forgotten for long enough, something creepy would re-emerge to trouble the living — and brighten up Christmas! For which occasion I’m going to save this episode. Many thanks in advance!
Geez, I genuinely thought you guys packed it in. It’s been about 9 months since the last podcast – the longest break you’ve ever taken, surely.
It’s good to have you back – especially for Christmas!
Welcome back, great episode.
Completely coincidentally, I noticed this post about Lucy M Boston & radio version of the “Children of Green Knowne” this morning, just before listening to this episode.
https://www.metafilter.com/206865/1999-Radio-4-dramatisation-of-The-Children-of-Green-Knowe
The direct link to the Mr Sibley radio play is
https://briansibleysblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/christmas-at-green-knowe.html
It has been up since 2014, and still seems to work, so I don’t think it’s time limited.
I look forward to your next episode.
I usually have to work on Christmas Eve and for the past few years my tradition has been to listen to my favorite episodes and cap it off with the inevitable December episode. Even if you don’t upload anything in 2025 I hope you keep up with the December episode. Happy holidays guys!
Youāre back! What a fantastic Xmas present! Much more enjoyable than āA Woman of Stoneā!
Hey guys, it is great to have you back. Myself and my twin brother are huge fans of your work so when he sent me a text to say āNew episode from our boys dropped on the 18th Decemberā I knew exactly what he was talking about. We absolutely love your theories and insights although we occasionally miss the giddiness of your earlier episodes! Thank you for adding to the lexicon such gems as āJamesian wallopā and now āpost-Jamesianā. Please keep it up, we know you are busy people and we donāt mind how infrequent these treats are once you never say āwelcome to the last episode of a podcast to the curiousāā¦
I finally picked up the Swan River collection based on this episode, although I haven’t started in on it yet.
I recently finished W.H. Hudson’s A Shepherd’s Life (1910) and in chapter 19 there’s a curious legend about a church bell being stolen by the Devil and thrown in a nearby river. Although it’s not mentioned I think I can guess the location too…
Welcome back! Such a treat to have a new episode for Christmas – and doubly exciting because this was a new story to me. I adored the Green Knowe books as a child – and still do – so delighted to hear about one of her spooky stories. It does seem to be lacking some of the detail that makes James’s stories so thought-provoking and ones to return to. As Mike said, we get just the right amount of detail about County Magnus’ life to know that we should be very very scared at the idea od him coming back, so a bit more about the back story of the bell might have added to the unease. Thanks for a new episode and wishing you all a happy 2025!
Excellent, nice to hear you back!
The scary face seen coming through the shrubbery put me in mind of Tales From The Crypt (1972). The story where Peter Cushing’s character Grimsdyke rises from the grave, an amazing make up job.
Welcome back, and thank you for another great episode! This was an interesting story, even if it doesn’t quite deliver. Are the other ones in her ghost story collection also in this “modern Jamesian” style?
Bob Odenkirk and David Cross used to have a sketch comedy series on HBO called “Mr. Show with Bob and David.” One of the sketches was a segment from a supposed 1950s horror movie called “The Return of the Curse of the Creature’s Ghost,” in which the characters fruitlessly struggle to understand what exactly they’re supposed to be afraid of. I think “Curfew” sort of falls into this category.
Your discussion about the things that children find scary reminded me of my first Lucy M. Boston experience, when I read her supposedly kid-friendly “An Enemy at Green Knowe.” That book contains a scene that made me terrified of mirrors for several weeks. If I had read this story back then, I don’t think I would have found it nearly as scary as that. There’s not much in this one that I would have related to, and the sheer amount of ghost-provoking desecration engaged in by the family both verges on hilarity and makes their eventual comeuppance rather unsatisfying. I might have been creeped out by some of the zombie imagery and whatnot, but I doubt that it would have stayed with me in the same way that her Green Knowe book did.
Welcome back!! Such a nice surprise to wander over and find a new episode. I hope you all are doing great!
Will we ever get the 100th episode? Or will we be frozen in aspic… forever?
If yāall donāt release a 100th episode Iām going to have to fly to the UK and menace you with a haunted window curtain!
If that doesn’t work, we’ll turn loose the vengeful kites next.
Seriously, though, I would genuinely enjoy and appreciate a wrap-up episode. This feels so incomplete; and not just for numerological reasons. ‘Podcast to the Curious’ was _so_ excellent, and while I certainly can appreciate the creators’ having moved on, run out of steam, run out of free time, etc., having it stutter slowly to an uncertain silence is a sad way to go out.
I know real life gets in the way, but surely a brief note from Will and Mike about the future (or not) of the podcast would be the thing to do for all their loyal followers who have been with them for the past 14 years?
Real life gets in the way. We got 99 very fine episodes. If the guys want to come come back to it then great but they don’t owe anyone anything. Quite the reverse in fact.
Totally agree
To be fair to the guys: the time between episodes 98 and 99 was roughly been the same as now, and they admit they’re busy and wait until they have the time to set aside for research, recording, and editing. Also keep in mind this is also the big 100 and I’d prefer they took all the time they needed to do something they’re happy with, even if it is a goodbye (which I hope it isn’t!).