This episode features the second half of our podcast extravaganza on M.R. James’s seaside shocker ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’. Neither beach nor bedtime will ever be the same again!

Thanks again to Tom Hemmings who lent us his wonderful voice for the readings, and to Dave Senior (EastScapes) for the excellent groyne photo.

Show notes:

• ‘The Toad in the Study: M.R. James, H.P. Lovecraft & Forbidden Knowledge’ by Simon McCulloch
  This essay first appeared in Ghosts & Scholars 20-23, and can now be found in ‘Warnings to the Curious’, a book of excellent criticism edited by Rosemary Pardoe and S.T. Joshi.
• ‘Innocents and Not-So-Innocents in the Stories of M. R. James’ by John Alfred Taylor
  Another essay featured in ‘Warnings to the Curious’ which explores and categorises what M.R. James’s characters did (if anything) to deserve the horrors that confront them.
• Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)
  Read more about this Templar-tastic Spanish horror film which features many ‘Oh, Whistle…’-esque qualities.

For more ‘Oh, Whistle…’-related links, see the post for Episode 7a.

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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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