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!
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!
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?
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! 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!