Christmas ghosts

There were two adaptations of ghost stories on TV over Christmas - Martin's Close, from an MR James story adapted by Mark Gatiss, and a version of Susan Hill's The Small Hand starring Douglas Henshall. I recorded both and have finally caught up, but I have to say both were rather disappointing. The MR James...

The Seathwaite Dam Riot

I only found out about this riot, which happened in 1904, recently, thanks to this informative blog post from Lakeland Tales and Histories. Apparently it all started when some navvies employed on constructing the dam across Seathwaite Tarn to provide drinking water for Barrow in Furness were denied drinks in the local pub. They went...

Two have a wintry walk

After about a week of stormy weather it suddenly cleared yesterday and although it was really nippy, we took advantage of the break to have a mooch round Waterhead. There was still quite a lot of snow on the fells, mist over the lake and a crisp frost on the surrounding fields, and it was...

The Wainwright treasure hunt

I've always loved the Wainwright guides to the Lake District. My dad had the entire set and used them frequently to plot walks around the area, and as a kid I enjoyed poring over the maps and occasional sketches of sheep. As an adult that love has continued, and I've also discovered a rich vein...

Weird museum exhibits #1: dodo

I was chatting to a friend on Twitter about the strange things we'd seen and loved in small local museums. These museums are often a treasure trove of eclectic, unusual, and downright bonkers exhibits, and I thought it might be fun to run an occasional blog series about some of the ones I've seen. First...

Ghostly reminder

A quick reminder for anyone who missed the original announcement, or who was going to check it out and forgot (the sort of thing I do all the time...). My short ghost story Can't Fool Me features the further adventures of the Got Ghosts? characters, who are offering £5,000 to anyone who can spend the...

Monday mystery: garnet(t)s and leprosy

Thanks to this interesting snippet of local history in the Westmorland Gazette, I now know that Kendal had a leper hospital in medieval times. According to the article it was sited on the outskirts of the town (quite common with such an infectious disease, to try to keep it away from the rest of the...

Fox Spirit helping Australian fire charities

All this week, my publisher Fox Spirit Books is donating every last scrap of profit from the sale of books by two of their authors, Joyce Chng and J. Damask, to the charities helping victims of the Australian bush fires. So if you want to help a great cause and need an even better reason...

The Bone Detectives review

In the 1990s Channel 4 had a really good name for archaeology programmes, spear-headed by the brilliant Time Team with its open-minded yet scrupulously scientific approach under the tutelage of Professor Mick Aston. This was quite possibly my favourite TV programme of all time, so when I saw that they were running a new series...