Episode 14 Timeslips Part 1

[00:00:00] - [Speaker 0]
Hello everyone my name is Graeme Milne.

[00:00:02] - [Speaker 1]
My name is Karen Swanston.

[00:00:04] - [Speaker 0]
Welcome to Lights On Still Scared where today we'll be talking about time slips. What's your thoughts on time slips?

[00:01:03] - [Speaker 1]
Oh, they're timey wimey.

[00:01:07] - [Speaker 0]
Time slips are interesting because time slips to me anyway, my slight knowledge of the subject would appear to be when people witness a supernatural event that's played over from the past that involves more than one spirit. So it could be a battle, it could be crowd, a gathering, it could be a hanging, it could be anywhere where there's been groups of people. Predominantly in not so nice circumstances I have to say but occasionally, you know, not pretty normal things. We've got a few examples today to share with you which should be fun. So would you like to kick off today Karen?

[00:01:49] - [Speaker 1]
Yes. Yes. I I'd like to kick off with those Romans?

[00:01:52] - [Speaker 0]
The Romans? The Romans.

[00:01:54] - [Speaker 1]
They're Romans in York.

[00:01:55] - [Speaker 0]
They are They're in York. Indeed. Romans.

[00:01:59] - [Speaker 1]
Have you been to York?

[00:02:00] - [Speaker 0]
I have. I was in New York fourteen years ago. Very nice.

[00:02:04] - [Speaker 1]
Beautiful place. I do like York.

[00:02:06] - [Speaker 0]
It's very nice. Yes. So,

[00:02:09] - [Speaker 1]
yes. So hidden behind York Minster, which is a very nice church, cathedral Church, cathedral.

[00:02:15] - [Speaker 0]
Cathedral. You're at Minster.

[00:02:17] - [Speaker 1]
You're Minster. Minster. Her wife's a minster. Nice. Treasures House is now owned by the National Trust.

[00:02:23] - [Speaker 0]
Mhmm.

[00:02:24] - [Speaker 1]
The present building dates largely from the seventeenth and eighteenth century, but its foundation sits directly above the remains of a Roman fortress. Yes. Abercrom?

[00:02:35] - [Speaker 0]
I'll go with that.

[00:02:36] - [Speaker 1]
Let's go with that as well. Let's go with that one. One of the most important military bases in Roman Britain. Archaeology investigations have shown that a major Roman road passed beneath the cellar approximately three meters below the modern surface.

[00:02:49] - [Speaker 0]
Mhmm.

[00:02:51] - [Speaker 1]
So the itself was one of the greatest cities of Roman Britain. It was founded in a d seventy one by the ninth legion and later occupied by the sixth legion. It became the military headquarters of Northern Britain.

[00:03:05] - [Speaker 0]
Very good.

[00:03:06] - [Speaker 1]
So yeah. So it's got quite a big history when it comes to the old Roman Empire. The most well known story is witnessed by Harry Martindale. He was 18 at the time, and he was an apprentice plumber and heating engineer. And this happened in February 1953.

[00:03:27] - [Speaker 0]
Right.

[00:03:27] - [Speaker 1]
And he was in the cellar of the treasurer's house. So he was helping install a new central heating system in the cellar. Yeah. He had no particular interest in the paranormal by his own accounts and never experienced anything unusual before that day. So throughout his life, he consistently maintained the same version of events and refused payment for his encounter with his experience, something that often noted by researchers when assessing his credibility.

[00:03:54] - [Speaker 0]
Yes.

[00:03:54] - [Speaker 1]
So he didn't go off to the local papers or anything. No. Didn't try to to make any money or to whatsoever. And he still maintained that story as well through his life.

[00:04:05] - [Speaker 0]
He appeared in and I know, as you say, he didn't ask money but I think as a much older man and I don't think he was alive much longer after that. He was involved in a programme, I'm gonna say the early eighties, it's on YouTube. It's one of these, you know, these great old British ghost story programs were so good because it was just like no drama, it was just people telling the stories and they interviewed him as a much older guy and he was incredibly credible as a witness and you know, like he's got no vested interest in this And at

[00:04:42] - [Speaker 1]
his story never changed.

[00:04:44] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah, was a fantastic story and I mean, oh good god, wild.

[00:04:48] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah, the story goes that it was close to midday when Harry's second day working in the cellar, so he didn't found that there was anything at all the previous day. And he was standing several rungs on a ladder, chiseling through the brickwork to install heating pipes, and the work had become routine for several hours underground. Then he heard a sound, not a voice or footsteps, just a clear note, like a blast of a Roman military trumpet or horn. At first, he assumed it was coming from elsewhere in the building, And moments later, he heard it again, but this time it was louder.

[00:05:26] - [Speaker 0]
Right.

[00:05:27] - [Speaker 1]
A third blast came from directly from the wall behind him. So he looked down most silently through the solid wall was the top of the helmet and the figure slowly stepping into the cellar, followed by another and then another. Soon, an entire file of Roman soldiers was marching across the room. Later, Harry estimated that there was about nine or 10 pairs of soldiers accompanying what appeared to be a horse. The soldiers showed no sign of notice to him.

[00:06:00] - [Speaker 1]
They marched in formation, talking quietly among themselves exactly as if they were in routine patrol. Obviously, Harry was terrified. Mhmm. Fell backwards from the lander and scrambled in the corners there, convinced he'd witnessed something impossible.

[00:06:17] - [Speaker 0]
Mhmm.

[00:06:17] - [Speaker 1]
But he still continued to watch. So what did he actually say? Did he see a whole load of whole load of people? The way he described them, they had weathered faces, dusty appearance, greed tunics, leather sandals strapped almost to the knee, round shields carried on the left arm, short swords and daggers hanging from the right hand side, plume helmets on some of the men. Mhmm.

[00:06:44] - [Speaker 1]
And said one soldier appeared to be leading a horse. So I suppose the most strangest thing was that they were only visible from the knee up.

[00:06:52] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah. Yeah. I found that.

[00:06:54] - [Speaker 1]
What is interesting is that, first of all, they said, well, just made it up. Why would soldiers be missing their lower legs and all that? But later on, archaeologists working beneath the treasurer's house confirmed that Roman Road laid well below the modern cellar floor, and the soldiers would have been marching on the ancient road surface, Yeah. We sat lower than Harry's standing position. So they would have been

[00:07:18] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah. A couple of feet lower.

[00:07:20] - [Speaker 1]
And initially, historians questioned Harry's description of the soldiers as well. They said, no. Well, you know, it doesn't make any sense in the way he described them. But then later historic research suggests that his description met soldiers from the later Roman occupation of Britain, particularly the fourth century auxiliary troopers rather than the iconic imperial legions. So that all makes sense from what he actually said.

[00:07:47] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. The way he described them. Yeah.

[00:07:51] - [Speaker 0]
That's a good story.

[00:07:51] - [Speaker 1]
Bizarre. It's a good story. But were they a time slip or did he go back in time? Well,

[00:08:00] - [Speaker 0]
I'm not sure, but I tell you, there's Roman legions have been seen quite often and I know I spoke to a guy a few years ago from Creef and I he was an electrician and he told me that one of his neighbors had seen a Roman legion, if you like, walk through their front room while watching the telly, which is quite interesting. And it's actually a Roman road because at the time they had no idea about it and it was a very it was like a standing stone and it's adjacent to a motorway now but it was an ancient road at the time. Yeah. But these guys were silent, know. No sound at all.

[00:08:38] - [Speaker 0]
I've not seen a legionism like masses of people but it was a group of people. Yeah. Probably roughly the same amount of people as Interesting. We

[00:08:48] - [Speaker 1]
Well It

[00:08:50] - [Speaker 0]
my story to kick off today is from Dundee or just outside Dundee and it's an interesting one. It was first reported by the Society for Psychical Research, you know, when it was first brought to the public's attention, thought to be a time slip. And the witness potentially stumbled across the aftermath of a battle And the battle and and again, I apologize for massacring these names. Dunnechtane, which was fought between the Northumbrian king Egfrith and the Picts led by king Brydie Macbilly, I think the name was. It supposedly took place on the March 20 at Dunnechen, which is in Angus, and it was related to the SBR by a guy called doctor Jameson Cargue of Dundee.

[00:09:44] - [Speaker 0]
And he described in the story the the incident witnessed by a miss e f Smith of Latham in Dundee who sat and recorded her experience to him, basically. The date between her experience and the battle, believe it or not, was estimated to be twelve sixty five years had elapsed between the battle and what she had seen in 1950. And she was interviewed in 1971 by a clinical psychologist and people from the university, know, because it's a story she told a few times. I think she passed away soon after, but in 1950, being a much younger woman, she'd been out at a cocktail party.

[00:10:25] - [Speaker 1]
Very nice.

[00:10:25] - [Speaker 0]
I know, at very civilized times. So the January 7, wintertime.

[00:10:30] - [Speaker 1]
That's my birthday.

[00:10:30] - [Speaker 0]
Is it? Well, that's when it happened.

[00:10:33] - [Speaker 1]
Not that old but No.

[00:10:34] - [Speaker 0]
Well, I know. I know. So the car skidded, you see, on the way home, and it went to a ditch which left her, you know, with the option of lying in the car in the middle of nowhere or walking home which was an eight mile walk and she had a dog with her. So for two of those miles she was forced to carry her dog.

[00:10:54] - [Speaker 1]
Pruvy thing. I won't carry my

[00:10:55] - [Speaker 0]
dog. Know. I

[00:10:57] - [Speaker 1]
won't They're big dogs so I

[00:10:58] - [Speaker 0]
won't carry

[00:10:59] - [Speaker 1]
them very far.

[00:11:00] - [Speaker 0]
I'm sure hers wasn't a wolf, but I could be wrong. But after a couple miles, the dog was put down and she was approaching some woodland. So this is kind of the route she normally took so it's not like, you know, she's going anywhere she didn't know. But she said an unaccountable nervousness came over her. So veering to the right, she walked on but began to see torches in the distance.

[00:11:21] - [Speaker 0]
Walking on she then found herself witness to the sight of an oddly dressed man sprawled across the grass. So with nowhere to go she's now found herself in the midst of a tableau. I like that word tableau.

[00:11:36] - [Speaker 1]
A

[00:11:38] - [Speaker 0]
wee gathering of people. Okay. She contend her journey but what I find quite amusing was that she was very stoic, she just kind of went ahead with it, you know, would have been like I think I'll turn around and head back. But she kept going. But she noticed that nobody's paying her any attention, so what else was going on around her?

[00:11:57] - [Speaker 0]
She was just walking between all, they weren't playing a blind bit of attention. But there was slain warriors everywhere and others appeared to walk amongst them, stooping occasionally turning them on their back to their fronts to inspect them and many of the people that were inspecting were holding torches which he later described as being bright red as in the wood color. So these were thought to have been fashioned by Scots fur. So it was exclusively visual and during her progress no sound or smells were detective and the men she later accounted wore what appeared to be long tights dark in colour at which at certain points there were rolls of material which actually antiquarians described as matching the outfit that Pictish warriors would have worn. It was later found two years prior to her experience a doctor Feet Wainwright, head of the Department of History at Queen's College Dundee had produced a paper on the battle and according to him her descriptions were absolutely accurate.

[00:13:03] - [Speaker 0]
Later some suggested she'd somehow subconsciously seen his paper to which he answered I had not seen it before I saw this. Somebody gave it to me afterwards to read but I merely told him I was one up on him. And that's what happened. She eventually got home but she walked through the battle and was completely honest. Hundreds of people apparently just came about their thing.

[00:13:28] - [Speaker 0]
The academics of course could not at all fathom how this woman who was not an academic and knew nothing of the battle had given such vivid descriptions. And she maintained her story right to the end.

[00:13:40] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah, so she was there and again is it a case that she's gone backwards or have they come forwards? You don't know? Yeah. Great. That's a good one.

[00:13:49] - [Speaker 1]
Alright. So my next one is a haunted road. Time slip on a road. It's the A 21

[00:13:56] - [Speaker 0]
Yes.

[00:13:56] - [Speaker 1]
Which runs from Lewisham in South East London to Hastings. So it's a bit of a long road.

[00:14:02] - [Speaker 0]
Oh, it's a long road, dad.

[00:14:04] - [Speaker 1]
Long road. And it passes through Sevenoaks, Tunbridge, Purbury, Tunbridge Wells, and the Kent And Sussex Sweald. So it's paranormal reputation since mainly around the 7 Oaks Barrow Pass and the air around the Old Gracious Lane. Mhmm. Story contains a few known witnesses, exact dates, and accessible contemporary police reports.

[00:14:27] - [Speaker 1]
So they say, no. Well, there's no evidence.

[00:14:30] - [Speaker 0]
Quite the police say no evidence.

[00:14:32] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. So there's two principal legends to the Phantom Road and the white haired woman, apparently. A possible ghost nun appears in the small number of the modern returns but remains unverified. So yeah. So there's a lot going on in this road.

[00:14:47] - [Speaker 1]
So the phenomenon associated, I'd say, with the bypass reportedly occurs close to where the modern dual carriageway crosses Old Gracious Lane, and Gracious Lane exists before the bypass was constructed. And the new road divided or subsequently alters the old route. A bridge now carries Gracious Lane across the A 21. So what happens is that when motorists travel towards the Gracious Lane Bridge, the familiar A 21 carriageway suddenly appears to disappear. A different road or slip road seems to replace it.

[00:15:22] - [Speaker 1]
False road appears to curve or leads towards the right. Drivers believe it's a genuine continuation of the road or a legitimate exit, So following it would direct the vehicles towards the central reservation opposite the carriageway or another dangerous part of the junction. Phantom route disappears when the driver corrects course or looks away. It's a bit of a weird thing. Yeah.

[00:15:47] - [Speaker 0]
I mean that's literally a ghost road.

[00:15:49] - [Speaker 1]
It is, it? A ghost

[00:15:50] - [Speaker 0]
road, literally.

[00:15:51] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. So later claims attached to the story is that more than one motorist have said to experience this phenomena. At least one driver leisurely narrowly avoided a serious collision. Some articles blame fatal accidents or drivers following the false route. The apparition is said to be more noticeable at night or in pale weather.

[00:16:11] - [Speaker 1]
So I had a quick look to see if there was any deaths or anything. I couldn't find anything at all.

[00:16:16] - [Speaker 0]
Right. Okay.

[00:16:17] - [Speaker 1]
But yeah, it also says that the old lane also has the old ghosties on it as well. Yeah. So the former road has left an impression that replays like a recording. So it's a good, like Mhmm. Proper, like, time slip there.

[00:16:32] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:33] - [Speaker 1]
Bit of a dangerous one.

[00:16:35] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah. Yeah. Not not most of them are usually, you

[00:16:37] - [Speaker 1]
know, not like But, yeah, but as I said, there's a there's a white haired lady apparently reported there. She's described as elderly Mhmm. Wears a fawn or tan or brown coat, stands or walks directly in the carriageway. Mhmm. She bears completely solid and looks like a living pedestrian.

[00:16:52] - [Speaker 1]
Mhmm. Yeah. Drivers react as if they believe it's a real person. And as usual, people see the woman too late to stop safely. So it's a typical one where

[00:17:02] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah. Mhmm.

[00:17:03] - [Speaker 1]
They they hit hit them and think then get out and they think there's no one there. Yeah. So that's a that's a good road. No. It's not a good road because obviously it tries to kill people on it.

[00:17:13] - [Speaker 0]
Oh, it's a naughty road.

[00:17:14] - [Speaker 1]
It's a naughty road.

[00:17:15] - [Speaker 0]
It's a bad road. It's a road to hell. Oh, maybe not hell.

[00:17:18] - [Speaker 1]
That's the wrong road.

[00:17:21] - [Speaker 0]
Terrible though, isn't it? God. That's the neat What are these ghosts trying to do to us? What are they trying to do?

[00:17:28] - [Speaker 1]
They're trying to make us ghosts. That's what they're trying to do.

[00:17:31] - [Speaker 0]
They are. They would need more.

[00:17:32] - [Speaker 1]
You need more in Yes. The ghost So that's my story of the ghost road.

[00:17:37] - [Speaker 0]
Well I've got another ghost road one. We sort of start with a bit of a ghosty road y thing then we've got a time slippy thing. So it's definitely a time slip story. It's ghosty road y to begin with. So this one is reckoned to be the most haunted potentially in Britain.

[00:17:55] - [Speaker 0]
Oh! Not Britain.

[00:17:56] - [Speaker 1]
That is a

[00:17:58] - [Speaker 0]
big boast. A73 Kinmount Straight or Ghost Road. Why it's so haunted remains unanswered but numerous witnesses have described a wide range of apparitions for decades and these have included sightings of figures on horseback, an eyeless hag, a man carrying a musket, a white lady crossing the road near Kinmount House and a Roman legion.

[00:18:24] - [Speaker 1]
That's a lot there. Did you say an eyeless hag?

[00:18:26] - [Speaker 0]
An eyeless hag. You'd say an eyeless hag. Yeah. Not Irish hag. Eyeless.

[00:18:31] - [Speaker 1]
Eyeless. Eyeless. Eyeless. Eyeless.

[00:18:32] - [Speaker 0]
Eyeless. No eyes.

[00:18:34] - [Speaker 1]
And she had no eyes.

[00:18:35] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah.

[00:18:36] - [Speaker 1]
Well, could be worse, she could be normless or legless.

[00:18:40] - [Speaker 0]
Or legless. Well actually speaking of legless, the Roman legion are actually seen only from the knee up again so there you go, same old thing. But most recent sightings have included that of an elderly man dressed in tweed cap standing beside a bus stop and when people approach him he's seen to vanish. So it's an impressive roster of stories. In a recent interview with a local, this gentleman described several contemporary sightings.

[00:19:05] - [Speaker 0]
The gentleman questioned him was called Bob Sturgeon and conveniently lived near the road and he had up to that time, which was fairly recently, this is about five or six years ago, owned a roadside snack van at Carruthers Town which is near the haunted hotspot. He stated there was really a week went by without somebody telling me about the experience they'd had, usually along the Kinmount Straight. And his van became described as a refuge for those who had parked overnight in nearby laid bys who'd had bad experiences. So it was quite popular long distance lorry drivers and appear that many would be keen to get things off their chest having had harrowing experiences. He also stated that drivers were not the kind of people to share these stories and invent things, but usually straight straight up people as they described them as.

[00:19:56] - [Speaker 0]
So one of those common sightings according to Mr Sturgeon was appearance of groups of dejected and bedraggled people carrying bundles, pulling carts like medieval camp followers. He further stated one man was so shocked that he gave up lorry driving altogether and I never saw him again. It was by all accounts a terrifying experience. Someone else said by boy waking at three in the morning while parked there in the van noticed a parade of people passing by which went on for ages and afterwards he described as just being frozen in an awful state so it affected him really badly what he saw. Further horrifying reports include those from the Millers who were driving home on the a 75 when a figure suddenly appeared in the road ahead of them which was described as a man with a hessian sack, and the figure held a rag in his hand.

[00:20:48] - [Speaker 0]
They were terrified and drove off. Again, a similar tale and this time was another driver, so a similar figure step out in front of the car and instinctively slammed on the brakes which vanished on impact which is you know, it's a fairly common thing. So it made the headlines in 1997 after a subsequent police search revealed that nothing could be seen because they were called out to do the incident. But perhaps the most infamous story and it's one I do remember as a kid and I absolutely freaked me out was from the same area and it was first documented in a book by the famous researcher Peter Underwood and a lot of people will know this book, it's called The Gazetteer of Scottish Ghosts. I have it through the house as I speak and it's actually been in the public domain for years the story so check it out.

[00:21:38] - [Speaker 0]
It took place in April 1962 on the same stretch of road between Dumfries and Annan and it involved two brothers, Derek who was 22 at the time and his 14 year old brother Norman who afterwards recounted a terrifying experience. So the journey up till then had been uneventful, but as midnight approached, they found themselves on that infamous stretch of road when from out of nowhere the pair were stuttered by the appearance of a large hen.

[00:22:03] - [Speaker 1]
A hen. A hen. Okay.

[00:22:04] - [Speaker 0]
A hen which flew at the car before disappearing at the point of impact. So barely recovering from the shock they were then taken aback by the sight of a woman wearing rags who ran towards them with outstretched hands, her face contorted angrily and again at the point of impact she vanished. The brothers were then subjected to a stream of spectral figures lunging at them from the dark would cause them to break frequently and according to their testimony, they spent the next half hour trying to avoid hitting a multitude of figures. They described, people, pulling carts, they described people in rags, people in despair, cattle, it went on and on. The ghostly retinue also had various phantom animals which included horses, again more chickens and goats, all quite clearly seen, all coming towards the car then vanishing.

[00:22:55] - [Speaker 0]
And eventually the driver became aware of the taillights of a truck just ahead of them and feel much relieved to see something tangible realized that a collision was now inevitable.

[00:23:05] - [Speaker 1]
And

[00:23:06] - [Speaker 0]
so unable to apply the brakes properly he warned his brother to brace himself for the worst, put his foot down on the floor and then they struck the van but it too disappeared. Oh. So slamming on the brakes, the pair then sat in shock for some time before they were able to continue their journey and came back and recounted their story. Terrifying, they never had any belief in the supernatural, they never experienced ever again like it. But I have to wonder that the van in front, could it have been a ghost van that had seen spectral figures and wasn't able to stop in time it crashed?

[00:23:45] - [Speaker 0]
Interesting story. Interesting fact that there was a, you know, multitude of people and animals and obviously it was a replay of some description of the past, what it is. Knows? Sounds

[00:23:57] - [Speaker 1]
like there was a lot going on there.

[00:23:58] - [Speaker 0]
A lot going on there. Yeah. They would have

[00:24:00] - [Speaker 1]
been thrown at you and goats.

[00:24:03] - [Speaker 0]
Terrified. But they knew they laid an egg themselves, but never mind. I'm good at that.

[00:24:07] - [Speaker 1]
They laid something.

[00:24:11] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah. It might not have been an egg. But anyway, let's not dwell. Yeah. I've never been in that road ever and I've I've always been kinda curious to us like, I know there's been so many stories about it and I mean, it's not just them, who knows?

[00:24:26] - [Speaker 0]
Maybe one day I may go down there and have a

[00:24:28] - [Speaker 1]
look. Indeed.

[00:24:29] - [Speaker 0]
Probably just gonna look like anything else, but

[00:24:30] - [Speaker 1]
never mind. Yeah. So has there been anything recently on that road then?

[00:24:34] - [Speaker 0]
The last the last time was that guy, the the guy on the canteen, and it was about like say, not that long ago, maybe fifteen, ten, fifteen years ago. Mhmm. In fact, it's probably less than that. Probably five years ago, suppose. It was in the newspapers at the time and I did go and look at him and he was he was in a few websites, he popped up and he was quite keen to he quit his job apparently.

[00:24:56] - [Speaker 0]
I don't know if he quit his job selling, know, flipping burgers at the side of the road because of it but he did quit the job but he did have a business there for many years and his regulars would come in and go and tell him, you know, very similar stuff saying me at least. There

[00:25:11] - [Speaker 1]
you go. Well, we got another army in my next one.

[00:25:14] - [Speaker 0]
What's that one?

[00:25:15] - [Speaker 1]
We've got another army. Another army? Another army. Tricky. Yes.

[00:25:19] - [Speaker 1]
So we're going back to the English civil war Uh-huh. At Edgehill in Warwickshire.

[00:25:24] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah.

[00:25:25] - [Speaker 1]
So Edgehill lies between Banbury and Stratford Upon Avon Mhmm. And was the site of the first major battle of English civil war fought on the 10/23/1642.

[00:25:38] - [Speaker 0]
Mhmm.

[00:25:39] - [Speaker 1]
The battle marked the beginning of conflict between the royalists led by King Charles the first. I nearly slipped and said King Charles the third.

[00:25:48] - [Speaker 0]
So many of them. We could barely keep up.

[00:25:51] - [Speaker 1]
And the parliamentarians under the Earl of Essex. So around 30,000 men took part in the battle with 3,000 casualties. Mhmm. So it was about 10%. Yeah.

[00:26:03] - [Speaker 1]
That's good for maths. I'm not usually that quick.

[00:26:05] - [Speaker 0]
That's very good.

[00:26:07] - [Speaker 1]
I'm impressed. Although technically indecisive, the demonstration that the civil war would be long and brutal. And today, the battlefield is peaceful farmland. Mhmm. But the centuries have been associated with stories of ghostly armies and unexplained sightings.

[00:26:24] - [Speaker 1]
So the English civil war was one of the bloodiest conflict fought on British soil. Families were divided, neighbors fought neighbors, and the battlefield Edge Hill was left strewn with bodies after the fighting ended. Many soldiers were buried hastily where they fell. People living nearby, the memory of the battle remained vivid long after the armies had departed. Mhmm.

[00:26:48] - [Speaker 1]
And it's only weeks later that strange reports started to emerge. So this is quite an old one. So the sightings are going back since the sixteen hundreds.

[00:26:58] - [Speaker 0]
That's interesting. Especially since it was literally contemporary at the time.

[00:27:04] - [Speaker 1]
Yes. So unlike many of the stories involving signal witnesses, this is accounted by a large number of people

[00:27:12] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah.

[00:27:13] - [Speaker 1]
Said to have witnessed the phenomenon where the local villagers, travelers, shepherds, former soldiers. According to later accounts, the records became so widespread that it reached the ears of King Charles I himself. So the full story says around Christmas sixteen forty two, approximately two months after the battle, people living near Edge Hill claimed that they could once again hear the sounds of war. At first, it was distant, the unmistakable beat of a military drum. Then came the trumpets, and soon afterwards, the sounds of cannon fire.

[00:27:46] - [Speaker 1]
People rushed outside expecting another battle was taking place. Instead, they reported something extraordinary.

[00:27:53] - [Speaker 0]
So

[00:27:54] - [Speaker 1]
across the battlefield appeared hundreds of soldiers, entire regiments marching in formation. Cavalry charged across the fields, infantry exchanged musket fire, cannons discharged, and officers shouted orders. So witnesses described seeing banners flying above the troops, and some even claimed they recognized the officers who had been killed during the original battle only weeks earlier. So the fighting appeared completely real, and the soldiers looked solid as well. Apparently horses galloped across the landscape as well.

[00:28:30] - [Speaker 1]
There were even smoke drifting over the fields. So it caught the ears of King Charles the first, and he took the reports very seriously. And according to tradition, he sent officers to investigate the sightings. The investigators reportedly witnessed similar phenomenon themselves. Some versions of stories even claimed that they recognized fellow officers who had died during the battle.

[00:28:55] - [Speaker 1]
So, yeah, it's very strange. And later reports, stories of the ghostly armies continued well into the eighteenth and nineteenth century where travellers occasionally claimed to hear marching soldiers, distant drums, cavalry and shouting across the field. So it's interesting to see whether I mean, it's a field now Yeah. Whether they actually see in the field

[00:29:25] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah.

[00:29:26] - [Speaker 1]
Now, whether it's all like calmed down.

[00:29:28] - [Speaker 0]
And also the fact that they heard things because there's few instance that I've got, know, I've read about that people witnessed battles when there was no sound which made it kind of weird because obviously there's a lot of people involved. You could see like smoke from cannon or guns, horses charging but utter silence.

[00:29:47] - [Speaker 1]
And the fact that they actually recognize some of the officers as well. So yes, that's a

[00:29:56] - [Speaker 0]
I knew a guy years ago and he had a really weird experience actually in Aberdeen and obviously it's a much smaller scale but he was walking through Old Aberdeen which is the university part of the city. I think he was heading, if I remember correctly, to Tillydrone, which is kind of like a housing estate just behind it. And as he's approaching King's College, you know, University building, it's got a big grass here at the front with a monument to the bishop elf and stem in the front. So, you know, and then the university sit back and it's, you know, an ancient building. He said he saw two guys fighting with swords there and some musketeer type clothing is what he described as.

[00:30:39] - [Speaker 0]
But they were totally unaware of him but when the swords were striking each other there was no sound and it was weird, he says they were kinda solid but there's like like weird I know it's hard to describe like the outline of them was slightly blurry at the same time. Yeah. So he just watched and just kept walking as you do.

[00:30:59] - [Speaker 1]
As you do.

[00:31:00] - [Speaker 0]
But yeah, it was weird and then of course somebody said I bet it would have been students from you know the fencing society. Well they didn't look like normal people put it that way. So I don't know. It's it's strange.

[00:31:15] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. Very weird. So that's a good old time slip though. Yeah. It was a time slip.

[00:31:21] - [Speaker 1]
Hope you enjoyed that episode. Our next episode we continue on with haunted time slips. In the meantime, keep the lights on, still scared. Louder than before. Lights are still scared.

[00:32:39] - [Speaker 1]
You can't hide from but every night I swear I feel a presence drawing near. You can say there's nothing there, but tell me if that's true.