Tales of History and Imagination

This week, on Tales we journey to ancient Thebes, a Greek City state suddenly - unexpectedly - under the control of their foes, Sparta. When you have lost your freedom to a despot, and are fighting for your very survival, what can you turn to? First you have your foundational myths, and second - if you are Thebes - you have some of the toughest gay men ever to exist. This week, in part one of a three parter, we discuss the formation of The Sacred Band of Thebes. Content warnings: brief discussion of sexual violence, incest, anti-LGBTQI+ attitudes, political violence, assassinations and executions. Sources Include: James Romm’s ‘The Sacred Band’ Plutarch’s ‘Lives…’ Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week, on a much waylaid episode of Tales we return to the Tichbornes,’ as Tom Castro makes his play for the land, money and titles. Does it turn out he was, in fact Roger Charles Tichborne - long thought lost at sea - or was he some larrikin on the lookout for an easy life? This is part two of a two parter. Apologies all, I lost a good month and a half to a bout of pneumonia just after Christmas. Content warnings: I said nothing on the tape: but on reflection: childhood bullying, and more talk of a character’s weight than I am comfortable with. Sources Include: Robyn Annear’s The Man Who Lost Himself Rohan McWilliam’s The Tichborne Claimant Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week on Tales I am still, technically, on holiday - and was hoping to re-release one of five old episodes still left from the first season. This plan has been derailed somewhat. My voice is still recovering from my bout of pneumonia; and I’ve written at least a million words since I did those episodes. I opened those old scripts and realised to be content with them I’d need to completely re-do those episodes… Not so much out of inaccuracies as out of having refined this thing I do a lot since 2020. I’ll get back to those episodes sometime. In the meantime, please let me present this episode, compiled from three Patreon bonus episodes. Thank you to the patrons, whose generosity helps me keep the lights on. The episodes are: Stranded on ‘Ata 400 Word Tales: Countess Zangari Bandi Walter Powell’s Final Flight Sources this week include: The Stolen Island by Scott Hamilton Humankind by Rutger Bregman Borderlands by Mike Dash Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

Hi all, apologies for the delay. I posted up on the blog site I was unwell with pneumonia, then it occurred to me a lot of folk never visit the blog site and I better put something up here as well. Anyway, please hit play it explains it all. I am on the mend but need some downtime… sorry all.

This week on Tales we enter the vaults to revisit - and re-record - one of the five early episodes still on here that was recorded on my cheap, starter microphone. (We’ll knock the other four off next year in mid-season breaks.) With Christmas just around the corner this seems as good a time as any to follow a young Charles Dickens around Canongate Graveyard in Edinburgh Scotland looking for ghosts… And we meet the man who - most likely - influenced one of his most famous characters - John Elwes, The Miser of Marcham Park. Apologies for the break between parts one and two of The Tichborne Claimant. I’m hoping to get that out in the last week of December. Sources this week include: Sorry all I never took down any of my sources for this at the time of the original. In revamping the piece though I referred to This BBC Article. This Mercat Tours blog post This Edinburgh Enquirer article by David Forsyth This BBC piece on Robert Fergusson And this piece on Fergusson from Roderick Watson at Scottish Poetry Library This piece from the Royal College of Physicians on Dr Andrew Duncan Very rare for me, I referred to Wikipedia for more on Dr Andrew Duncan This piece on Giusto Fernando Tenducci And this piece on Tenducci by Aoife Barry in The Journal And John Elwes: The Miser Who Inspired Dickens by Kaushik Patowary Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly - (give or take… sorry all it’s been a rough year… Back to fortnightly Wednesdays in 2026?). Tales of History and Imagination is on | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |

Quick note all: This episode is approx 29 minutes long… I’ve accidentally left some background music or something muted at the end + will delete that and re-upload once home again… Sorry all, there is no secret Easter egg at the end of this episode, it’s ok to hit stop when the end credits roll… This week On Tales we return to the Australian outback - this is the last time we visit my neighbours to the west of Aotearoa/New Zealand for a while, I promise. The year is 1866, the location Wagga Wagga. Tom Castro, the town’s Chilean-born butcher has a good life, living in ‘Castro villa’ with his young wife and step-daughter. He enjoys his work, horse riding and his larrikin mates down at the local pub… But then one of those larrikins turns his life upside down with a newspaper article. Was Tom secretly Baronet Roger Tichbourne, a British peer who disappeared in mysterious circumstances off the coast of Brazil a dozen years earlier? This is part one of a two parter. Apologies ahead of time, I’ll more likely than not have to pause part two till late December/early January to allow for a Christmas episode. Content warnings: Not too much on this one. Some animal cruelty, and appearance being central to this tale, I have to comment on the protagonist’s appearance in ways not intended to offend… but I may slip up on this one Sources Include: Robyn Annear’s The Man Who Lost Himself| Rohan McWilliam’s The Tichborne Claimant Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly. Tales of History and Imagination is on the following, so please follow me. | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week On Tales we return to the Arctic, the year 1871. Charles Francis Hall has passed on, mysteriously, after drinking a suspiciously sweet, yet metallic coffee. What will happen to the expedition as power passes to the hard-drinking Sidney Buddington? Today we’ll find out. This is part two of a two parter. Apologies for the delay in getting this one out there - it took some of my neighbours a week to run out of fireworks bought for Guy Fawkes Day. Content warnings: Death. Gun violence. Brief mention of sexual abuse. Sources Include: Fatal North by Bruce Henderson. Arctic Experiences… by Euphemia Blake The Arctic Grail by Pierre Berton This New York Times article on John Torrington (that, shockingly, was not behind a paywall) Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week On Tales we take a slight detour from the Polaris Expedition: I think where that Tale goes IS shocking, but not terribly in a Halloween horror kind of way… So this week we’re taking a ride to the town of Halifax, England to meet The Halifax Gibbet - someone’s wild solution to petty thievery. We’ll return to The Polaris in a fortnight. Content warnings: Beheadings. Sources Include: Daniel Defoe’s A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain. Samuel Midgley & William Bentley’s Halifax and It’s Gibbet Law Placed in A True Light Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week On Tales we travel back to 1871, to take a journey to the top of the world. Our intrepid hero, Charles Francis Hall has dreams of becoming the first man to stand on the North Pole - but dreams can sometimes go horribly awry. Just what happened to the Polaris Expedition? This is part one of a two parter (part two will follow after we take a brief intermission for a Halloween special episode.) Content warnings: Death. Gun violence. Sources Include: Fatal North by Bruce Henderson. Arctic Experiences… by Euphemia Blake The Arctic Grail by Pierre Berton This New York Times article on John Torrington (that, shockingly, was not behind a paywall) by Leanne Shapton Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

Last week when I covered the Tale of Spring Heeled Jack, I mentioned a couple of people in passing without explanation… Apologies all, I’ll be coming back to a few of those people sometime in the near future… But with regards the Hammersmith Ghost, there is a Patreon minisode from back in 2022. I re-recorded the episode over the weekend. The following minisode comes to you by way of the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Content warnings: Gun violence. Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return to an episode from the first season to give it a new coat of (red) paint… speaking of, we’re going back to London in 1837 to discuss newspapers, the death of ‘Silly Billy,’ ‘painting the town red’ and a mysterious sex pest whose legend took on a life of it’s own throughout the remainder of the century… Content warnings: This week we discuss a sexual abuser. Sources Include: I failed to keep a list on this one back in 2020, (apologies all) and mostly built it up from online articles and a Reader’s Digest book on Mysteries … but Mike Dash’s ‘Spring Heeled Jack: To Victorian Bugaboo from Suburban Ghost Was a given. Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week on Tales of History and Imagination we discuss a murdered nanny, the murderer… his awful ancestors, and said murderer’s mysterious disappearance. Trigger warnings: murder. Sources Include: A Different Class of Murder by Laura Thompson And several dozen news articles, including this piece from Lynn Barber interviewing John Aspinall This one from Steven Morris on the many theories on Lord Lucan’s disappearance This one (Morris and Angelique Chrisafis) on Jungle Barry (sometimes called Jungley Barry) This article (author not listed) from the Whanganui Chronicle on an unpleasant man named Roger Woodgate This article by Gary Nunn on John Stonehouse This Daily Mail article by Laura Thompson on the Taxi Driver hypothesis And a handful of documentaries I never recorded at the time of writing the first attempt at this script a few years ago… Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return one last time to the wreck of the Batavia. This is where things, finally, go all ‘Lord of the Flies’ on Batavia’s Graveyard. This is part four of a four parter - thanks for hanging in there with me all… I promise a load of one parters in the back half of the year. Trigger warnings: murder, rape, descriptions of death by dehydration, a pitched battle and a handful of executions. Sources Include: Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash And Batavia by Peter Fitzsimons. Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return to the wreck of the Batavia. In part two we follow the adventures of the 48 in the longboat as they make their way along Australia’s Western coast; learn a little more about Francisco Pelsaert, and speak of the first of the murders on Batavia’s Graveyard. This is part three of a four parter. Trigger warnings: Murder, colonialism, accidental poisoning. Sources Include: Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash And Batavia by Peter Fitzsimons. Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return to the wreck of the Batavia. In part two we discuss heresy, and the harrowing life of under-merchant Jeronimus Cornelisz. This is part two of a four parter. Trigger warnings: Murder, colonialism, child mortality, religious extremism. Sources Include: Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash And Batavia by Peter Fitzsimons. Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week on Tales of History and Imagination we return to Australia for a real life soap opera that was considerably more bloody than Neighbours or Home and Away. First we need to take a cruise on a Dutch VOC flagship called The Batavia, the year 1629. In part one of a four parter, we discuss the voyage; how and why folk took such risks to travel to the end of the earth like this - and the voyage itself, right up until the ship wrecked on Houtman’s Abrolhos. Note: Apologies all, as you can hear my voice is still a little scratchy on this one… I’ve had a bit of a nasty cold, and figured better to get this out now, than keep you waiting a month and a half to start this. Part two should be less so… Trigger warnings: Murder, colonialism, attempted genocide and sexual assault. Sources Include: Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash Ocean by John Haywood And Batavia by Peter Fitzsimons. Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week we travel to Australia for a game of Marn Grook, to discuss origin stories; perhaps the archetypal troubled sportsman - and horrific massacres. Trigger warnings: Murder, suicide, colonialism, and to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people listening to this episode - I discuss some of your origin legends as best I can, and play a brief excerpt of a speech from an Aboriginal elder. Sources Include: Australia’s Most Unbelievable True Stories by Jim Haynes This University of Newcastle Article on Aboriginal massacres, quoting studies by Professor Lyndall Ryan This NSW State Library piece on The ‘First Fleet’ This article on Edward Wills First Contact by Anita Heiss This piece on the Dreamtime. The deplorable (alleged) Neo-Nazi interruption of tribal elder Mark Brown, care of the Guardian Speeches from Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese on election night 2025, care of SBS News. Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

The American actress Ilda Orme knew a thing or two about being cancelled, a long, long time before social media put the cancel button in the hands of the public at large. Her cancellers, she suspected were two hateful former in-laws and a theatre manager in their pocket. Her cancellation was nearly literal - culminating in an assassination attempt. What does one do when cancelled? If you’re Ilda Orme, you seek revenge in the most public way possible. Trigger warnings: Gun violence and false accusations leading to incarceration. Note: This fortnight’s episode is a little shorter than usual in the hope that doing a quick firebreak episode will get me back on a two-weekly schedule. Next fortnight should be back to around half an hour again. Sources Include: The Battered Body Beneath The Flagstones and Other Victorian Scandals by Michelle Morgan The Madness of Ilda Orme by Dr Nell Darby Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |