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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In this Christmas Special* Will and Mike get stuck into Count Magnus by M.R. James, and explore some startling questions:

• What is the connection between Count Magnus and Ghostbusters 2?
• Will sewing your corpse into the carcass of a deer save your soul from the devil?
• Would Mr Wraxall prefer to have been shot in the balls by Robocop?

Answers to these questions and much, much more can be found in this bumber festive edition of the greatest and only M.R. James podcast! This episode features readings by Chris Savory.

Show notes:

• About the real Count Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie (Wikipedia)
• An image and map of the real manor at Råbäck
• Varnham Abbey, the site of the mausoleum of Count Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie (Wikipedia)
• ‘The Familiar’ by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Full text at Gaslight)
• The Black Pilgrimage to Chorazin by Rosemary Pardoe and Jane Nicholls (Ghosts & Scholars)
• Dark Devotions – M.R. James and the Magical Tradition by Ron Weighell (Ghosts & Scholars)
• About Chorazin (Wikipedia)
• The Tale of the Witch of Berkeley by Rob Hardy (twistedtree.org.uk)

* This edition may or may not feature Mike and Will singing an exclusive acapella rendition of ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’, accompanied by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge (spoiler alert: it doesn’t).

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In this episode Mike and Will pack their portmanteaus for a holiday in HELL (well, Denmark actually) as they tackle ‘Number 13’ by M.R. James! Thanks to our reader this week Kirsty Woodfield.

Also in this episode Will and Mike:

• Coin ‘The Jamesian Wallop’
• Tackle the schleswig-holstein question
• Discuss hellish subjects such as alchemy, German sunlounger etiquette, and Toploader
• Inexplicably find something funny about the phrase ‘the Danish area’

Show notes & links:

• Viborg on Wikipedia and Googlemaps.
• ‘The Shadow of the Occupant of Number 13’ by Helen Grant (at Ghosts and Scholars)
• The Significance of Number 13 (at Squidoo)
• ‘Warnings to the Curious’ by S.T. Joshi & Rosemary Pardoe (ed) (at Amazon)

Don’t forget to join us for our next episode when we will be looking at ‘Count Magnus’!

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