Prof Rob Gandy | Aintree Spectres | ASSAP webinar

Purveyor of the Fortean and the weird. Professor Rob Gandy brings in 2024 with his presentation on the The Aintree Spectres.

www.ASSAP.ac.uk

[Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter] can I say a Happy New Year to everybody and let’s hope that 2024 is as weird as we can hope um the entry specters yes this is a a subject that I have presented on before so if you could do the next slide please uh I said

This webinar expands upon the original article that I wrote in for and times that appeared in December 20120 and um subsequently in uh 2022 I did a presentation at weird weekend north um yeah okay next one all right now what a tree is most famous for is

The grand national um and I I thought just for a bit of fun I would check on whether any of the horses that have won the Grand National over it’s something like being over about 150 years something like that um whether any of them have any um phenomenological or you know foran type

Uh names and uh unfortunately there weren’t very many I when I look there were only two and both of them were a bit crypto Zoological which should uh probably please uh Rich Freeman um one in 1968 was red alligator and uh and the other one and you’re going back to

1895 was was actually the wild man from Borneo so um as I said does your horse have a ghost of a chance I’ve backed a lot of horses over the years and uh most of them fall at one of the fences but I have one on occasions I’m still upset

That Andy py didn’t win the year that Red Rum came and won its third race but they so next slide please this is my overview I always like to let people know what’s going to happen in case they want to go and met C te um I’ll start

Off by talking about how I became aware of this phenomena that I’ve dubbed as being the anry specters um then I’ll move on to how I undertop the research with a call for informational testimonies maps are quite important as you all see and so I investigated some going back quite a long time

Um potential explanations it is this is one of the most curious uh pieces of research I’ve ever done I’ll be quite honest and uh as you will see at the end and I hope this isn’t spoiler but I can’t explain it at

The end of the day um but I do have a go what is or or was going on and I I’ve included here some suggestions received in that um after either the article in forun times or my presentation that’s weird weekend um I did receive or will

Publish in for in time some ideas about what might have been going on and they’re quite interesting and then I come to some conclusions then before I go into Q day um I I’m going to talk about a bit of presentational precence um more about that later and uh now we

Will move on to the next slide please I became aware of the anry spcs now the Phantom Concord now this might seem a bit in congruous but I’m always um I don’t know if it’s look or you know the um the trickster in the sky or whatever

But I find that uh a certain amount of happen stance in coming across U you know various news and information about various strange phenomena and this was the case that I had in that back in U in the day after um I I’d had article about strange stories from

Southport I was contacted by Glenn uh Preston um that’s a pseudonym who went on and told me about his bizarre experience which was to do with Concord and and then he then mentioned that there was something going on to his brother experience which is the subject of today’s presentation but I I thought

It would be worth just talking about the Phantom Concord for a bit because when people talk about ghosts they’re normally assuming or a lot of people assume that they are the wraiths the spirits of the dead and departed but I’m not really sure how what the spirit or

The soul is of Concord so I’ll just tell you the story about it because U it’s one of my top six weird um uh Road ghosts uh that I’ve come across during my researches and I I go back to midle late August 1975 when Glenn Preston was H 15 years

Of age and he was on a weekend trip to shopshire with his mom and his dad and he stayed at a campsite in it was either Arley or Hampton lob he was particularly interested in seeing the locomotive at the beauty station bit of a train buff

That weekend on the 7 Valley Railway uh the steam train got delayed at Hampton load station and everyone disembarked on onto the sunny platform to wait and this included uh peculiarly a carage full of nuns a Spitfire aircraft flew over and someone remarked that there was an air

Show or there must be an air show nearby later that fine Sunday afternoon they left for their home on Mery side they were perhaps 15 to 20 minutes into the jour which places them probably north of Bridge North on the a442 which is the most direct route out

In the countryside suddenly to their left behind well at first it was behind the low and hedge they saw the quite unmistakable shape of Concord what was ridiculous and remarkable was that its height speed and angle made it appear that it had only just taken off it was about 10 to 15 ft

Off off the ground and thenen recalls that the undercarriage was still deployed but accepts that his memory might have been filling gaps but all three of the family commented that it was just an ordinary farmer field that he had seemingly taken off from Concord was parallel to them also heading north

And about a 100 yards away Len can’t remember if any noise which would be expected if they were so close but this might just be his memory again the airplane disappeared from view behind Hedges and trees as they continued up the road and it was then nowhere to be

Seen thenen knew that they were not near any Airfield and has tries to rationalize the events over the years maybe it was an air show the nearest major air show is kford but no show in 1975 there was no show in 1975 and Concord only featured there in 1986 and

87 maybe it was taking off from an air strip which was in the seven Valley beyond the beyond the field but the a Runway to be able to take Gord uh would also be capable of handling the Boeing 747 jumbo jet no such air strip exists maybe he was

Experiencing trouble and so was flying very low but surely this would have made the national press maybe it was something Al together but L has no doubt it was unmistakably a conquor therefore this episode must be filed as both strange and unsolved thank you so next slide please uh

CJ so how I became aware the second B is that it I was talking to then leaing with him about his story when he told me about um bizarre and frightening events that had happened over a number number of years outside the village of Atri

Which is in the Mery B of Sefton not Liverpool It’s On the Border but it’s uh it’s just over the Border Interceptor right now this is uh there are two slides I’ll describe this first one but I’ll just say the following slide actually goes in a bit more

Closely but what you’ll notice is that uh the there are two blue lines one that loops around um from the middle left and then goes all the way around past vodica at the top is actually the leads Liverpool canal and then going from the top left

Down to the bottom right is the river alt so the village of anry is well where you see uh the the red uh marker on ball Bridge Lane and the the road crosses the river alls at ball Bridge hence the name and goes into Spencer’s Lane and it is the

Field to the right which is bordered by Spencer’s Lane the river alt and the um the canal this is the one in question um in the original times the M57 was not there that’s a comparatively recent development um but by pure coincidence if you look below

The the red U blob in the middle you’ll see there is a pub called the Blue Anchor and for me this is uh quite a bit of a coincidence because um it it’s the pub where I was when my work colleague told me all about his firsthand real

Life experience of a phantom hitch which led me to the old man of houseold moss and started me on my researches into Phantom hitchikers and Road ghosts so uh next slide please rob just one pause for a second can anybody else hear site feedback when Rob is

Speaking no it’s perfect here okay cool in that case it’s probably mine thank you just wanted to make sure it wasn’t a general problem okay yep all good good okay uh next slide please yeah this is a a closer in view uh where you can see the river alt the

Leads Liverpool canal and Spencer’s Lane and that area there uh the length of the field is approximately 700 M um with its with its width ranging from 200 MERS to 360 at its widest so it it’s quite a big field as you can tell um next slide please okay

This this is the view from bullbridge which is over the river alt and the Fielding question is the one to the left so you can see it’s a very big open area and when you go over the bridge there is a a little turning to the right which

Takes you into of the field so this gives you a feel for what is actually uh present there um I I recorded the testimonies from Glenn and his family and to see if there were other Witnesses I had what what I always call a call uh piece

Published in the Anri and meling issue of the champion newspaper on the 14th of November 2018 responses included people saying that the field was the sight of a fatal air crash on Grand National Day in 1964 the journalist and broadcaster Nancy Spain and Joan wner Lori uh the

Editor of she magazine were both killed however I drew one related story which I will come to firstly Glenn’s older brother Jeff who was in his late te missed the last bus home um one Autumn evening in uh or night rather I should say in either 1967 or

68 he was walking over ball bridge heading for the family home on Spencer’s Lane it was between 11 and 11:30 and the night was clear and I say this was before the M57 Motorway was built with that stretch opening around about 1972 and there was no Street lighting

Therefore all there was total darkness it was at this point that Jeff noticed lights to the right of him about 150 yards away in the field what he saw was a group of up to nine men carrying bright burning torches walking along the bank of the river alt

Heading away from him Southeast towards fak they were wearing grayish robes with pointed hoods similar in shape to those worn by the C Clerk’s Clan and marching two or three AB breast in line like soldiers understandably Jeff was frightened and ran to his home where he

Got his father out of bed they went to the upstairs back bedroom window and could see still the torch lit procession over the fields Jeff was very scared mainly because he didn’t know who or what the procession was and decided to sleep on his parents’ bedroom floor

Law Glenn then tells about the parents now deceased at driving home from exactly around 9:30 to 10:00 one October November night in the early 70s the father who collected the mother from Bingo they crossed bullbridge and saw in the same field to their right a dozen or so men holding bright burning torches

And wearing robes some with pointed hoods they were standing in a circle if they were involved in some magical Gathering the parents didn’t stop to look but saw the group clearly through the car windows it was fully dark at that time and the father related later that it it

Would have been impossible for the group not to have been seen by the many dozens of people who used the road despite this his inquiries over the next few days as to whether or not anyone else had seen the group was met with black BL looks he wondered if

Perhaps this had been some sort of Halloween event but but seemed to think that it was too early or too late for this he quite expected it to be the talk of the village and was perplexed by the fact that seemingly no one else has seen

It quite by chance sometime later and un prompted by Glen the father of one of his friends who is a security guard at The bicc Works in meling told him have seen the same or similar event whilst traveling that stretch of road on his moped during the early

Hours now the these events could be Mis dismissed as nothing more than observations of a group of people with lighted torches and robes messing about in a field however in the late 1980s the father was chatting to an old friend of his over a drink in the horse and jockey

Pub in melik his friend had long since emmigrated to Canada but was back in the country revisiting friends and family the con the conversation turned to the subject of the Supernatural and so the father started to relate his sighting of the group with torches and

Robes but before he got very far his old friend interjected saying that he knew exactly what he was going to say he had seen he then related how he had seen exactly the same site whil cycling back from a dance late one night but he’d observed the event from the leads

Liverpool Canal on the other side of the field significantly the time when he had been when he had seen the lighted torch bearing group had occurred during the early stages of World War II when strict blackout procedures were in force which is well over 40 years previously the one response that I got

From my call was from aiss age the testimony was as follows it was about 700 p.m. one evening about around Christmas 40 or so years ago which would place it in the mid to late 1970s I was in our car with my husband and young daughter traveling back to our

Home in melink having been to see my mother-in-law in the phac area it was very dark and it was Misty we crossed ball bridge on to Spencer’s Lane when immediately to our left and close to the road we saw a group of people all dressed in light outfits that looked

Like those worn by the CP clubs Clan there were about half a dozen of them although it might have been as few as four or as many as eight it was difficult to judge in the circumstances and given that we passed them at the normal driving speed of about 30 mil an

Hour their appearance was very scary and a bit spooky they looked as though they were getting ready to do something my immediate reaction was what are they up to none of them appeared to be carrying anything and there was definitely no lights or torches naturally we didn’t

Stop to investigate as we were very very frightened I am a lifelong resident of meling I was in my 30s at the time I have seen nothing like what we saw that night before or since my husband now deceased and I never forgot this experience and talked about it on many

Occasions although we never heard of anyone else having the same or similar experience that there is a series of events of apparently the same phenomenon taking place in the same location over a long period is definitely strange several witnesses naturally inferred a paranormal Source but what is

Striking is how long Jeff Preston saw the spect for on the night in question Jeff’s running maybe the best part of 700 meters home waking his father and and and both of them then watching the procession will have involved many minutes paranormal events tend to be quite transient in

Short the fact that the specters all behave like people dressed up rather than performing Fantastical Feats or failing from sight in some ghostly way suggests the flesh and blood explanation but given that the field is so large and open and close to a busy road and housing any group of people

Undertaking the activities described should expect to be readily observed and challenged not least by the police and or the farmer who uses the field if it were some clandestine or magical group then how did the participants get there as in none of the events described was their reference to

A series of cars parked up at the side of the road by the field if any group was undertaking some magical practices then there must be something particular and special about the field for them to a keep returning and B Place themselves at risk of observation to investigate if there was

Some past presence on the field I studied available maps at Liverpool Central Library historically the core of a tree was a small linear settlement to the east of the center of the current Township heading up bowbridge Lane I.E towards and close to the field in question in all the maps back to

1786 the field is simply Farmland the henet map that you can see from 1830 shows a mill on the river alt you will note that the river Al meandered quite a lot at that time it has since been straightened to what it is now the map also marks a chapel on the far

Left of the crossroads which is approximately 200 meters up from bullbridge apparently this was a Methodist chapel and comparing Maps the chapel was built between 1818 and 1830 which means that it is not historic in 1847 to 49 carhouse Farm is in the middle of the field and Chapel Cottages are seen where

The chapel was recorded previously looking at current maps it appears that the Works building near to the motorway The Works building near to the motorway is on the site of carhouse farm and the road uh to it follows the original Farm Road one of the things that all of you

Will have noticed over on the right hand side of this slide is that there is a hob Lane this no longer exists and is subsumed within Kirby um the canal itself um was begun in 1770 a local farmer told me that the field is good farming land which was part of Lord sefton’s

Estate which was sold off in the 1950s or 60s for building houses but as it is on a flood plane it is unlikely that building will ever take place consequently the land is farmed by tenant Farmers so there has never been anything special historically about the field like a medieval Monastery or whatever

That might attract a magical group I asked the farmer if he or anyone he knows who witnessed any specters he said his family had been in the area since 1933 and has been around for over 60 years and knows a lot of people he has never seen anything or

Known anyone who has seen anything but he has heard rumors at times then via an intermediary I also contacted the current owners of M Farm which overlooks the field from across the river alt they’ve lived there for 30 years and have never seen or heard anything which suggests uh that nothing

Similar has occurred since the light the late 1980s given the witness apparel and suspicions some sort of magical group might be involved I asked my weird weekend North friend Steve Jones a practicing Pagan if he was aware of any such group in the area he posted my question on his Facebook account and

That of other Pagan groups this resulted in a testimony from Mark one of his Pagan friends which is as follows whilst at University of Liverpool during the mid 1980s I was interested in spiritual things and was looking for a form of Christianity I could feel comfortable with I dabbled

With a number of opportunities including being born again around 1985 86 however I had reservations because it didn’t feel right and I wasn’t persuaded by a Billy Graham Revival meeting at anfield in Liverpool in 1984 nevertheless I allowed a girl I fancied to talk me into going to a

Meeting of evangelicals in the Sports Hall out in as he recalls Kirby the Evangelical group appeared to have been well established for some time reflected in the fact that he had hired a Sports Hall for the evening there were lots of people there mostly people in their 20s and 30s although some were

Older I went twice but but each occasion caused me deep disqui it was fullon stuff I remember people to speaking in tongues and reciting long Bible passages from memory in trans-like States everything in fact except the wrestling of snakes as a newbie and Outsider I found that I could see no main focus

Nevertheless it was clear that there was a secretive Inner Circle whose members def definitely LED things what stood out for me was the treatment of a former member who had apparently gone to the dark side I remember people being instructed not to interact with him in any way and

To go to the other side of the street to ignore him Etc as he was controlled by the devil I found it scary when when talking to people that some identify themselves as social workers lawyers teachers and similar with almost all saying that they were not from the area but had been

Called there by God these people absolutely believed in the physicality of evil and the devil and I never went back after the second visit I asked Mark if he thought that dressing up in KKK type clothes and parading around a field at night with burning torches might be the sort of

Thing that such a secretive Inner Circle might get up to away from the main group he said that the level of weirdness that he had witnessed he he guessed that this could well be the case and it should be noted that the main sports center in Kirby is no more than

Three miles from the field in question less than 10 minutes Drive following on from Mark story I contacted the merys side anti antifascist Network to see if they were aware of any local right-wing food CLS clite groups that could be linked to such Christian fundamentalists no one had heard of

Anything that could be related although there were one or two inevitable speculations the Lily white boys this is nothing to do Tottenham hotspur’s double winning scene of 1961 by February 2019 I felt that I had exhausted all reasonable Avenues of inquiry but by chance in May I read Tom San’s haunted

WHL article in the WHL Globe my local free weekly newspaper what caught my eye was reference to attacks vandalizing graves in Ford Cemetery in Bole which is just over three miles away from bullbridge Lane in 1974 where Witnesses described weird hooded figures in robes reminiscent of

Those worn by the KKK only the the hoods had bizarre exaggerated noses made from cones of fabric stitched onto them Tom argued that they were members of an ancient sect of Druid likee Warriors known as The Lily white boys he also referred to other graveyard desecrations

In bootle and bur and had as late as 1982 the latter incident had the Lily white boys waving swords and chasing a couple at 1:00 a.m. in the morning to the girl’s home in sna Road which was at least a quarter of a mile away Tom’s website said that or says

That there are a sun worshiping cult predating Christianity which practices animal and allegedly once child sacrifice they’re referenced in the ancient folk song called Green Grow brushes o with the line two two ly white boys clothed all in green now I have got I’m hoping that this

Works um so that you a lot of you will know the tune um it even though you might not be able to think of it first so let’s see if it works the Okay so that is an ancient song well known I think we probably sang it uh when I was at Primary School all those years ago in the 19th century now apparently these um Lily white boys have been seen for hundreds of years acoss Ross the country but on

Mery side they congregate at specific times of year at four locasion whs bidston Hill baring park on the Liverpool heighten border delir forest and a field between rodica and melik of course this is the field I have been investigating Tom describes one incident as follows one harvest moonight in the

1970s Brian and Tina a young couple traveling homewards down goldbridge Lane in a saw a saw a circle of figures in green robes standing in the field around a bonfire and one of the figures was holding what looked like a small doll-like Effy Brian got out of his car near the

River alt to get a better look at the strange ceremony and asked an old passerby what was going on it’s the Lily white boy Bo burning a child said the oldster Gravely and he advised Brian not to go anywhere near the group or they would kill him too you’re joking said

Brian that’s some guy Forks thing there burning isn’t it but the old man shook his head solemnly Brian raced home and called the police but only the charred remains of a sheep was found in the smoldering vestages on the following day Tom also refers to incident in World War

II war had ARP wardens investigating a huge bonfire in baring Park during a blackout and being faced with green robe men and naked women dancing around the fire with five of these men wielding SES and swords this ties in time wise with the experience of lenon Jeff’s father’s friend who had emigrated to

Canada I asked Jeff and Mrs H if these descriptions fitted with the figures they saw Jeff didn’t recall any exaggerated noses but then the figures he saw at a distance and heading away from him and if the color is a light green then it would be quite difficult to distinguish

This in the torch light from the grayish colors that he recalls similarly for Mrs H A light green outfit could Well appear white or light colored when partly illuminated by car headlights and traveling at 30 mph she could not recall any exaggerated noses what is or was going on you I I

Tried contacting Tom slaman via the world globe so as to compare notes and sources and ask if he knew whether the Roes are dark or light green unfortunately Tom never got back to me it’s intriguing that his stories about the Lily white boys tiing well with the first and secondhand

Testimonies I’ve collected in terms of both appearance and some of the actions his earliest references to incidents were in World War II and his last references were in the early 1980s again consistent with testimonies that I collected it can be concluded that these specters have been seen on several

Occasions from the mid to late 1960s to the mid to late 1970s and possibly as far back as World War II and as recent as the early 1980s there was great consistency in where and what was witnessed suggesting a single if infrequent phenomenon understandably Witnesses believ something paranormal or

Supernatural could be involved because they were so scared but everything points to human involvement of course the outfits were not necessarily C Cooks Clan related because poined hats of a conical form uh which I think is pronounced uh if you want to go to the next slide please

Capero if you’re Spanish and capirotes if you’re from the black country are part of the uniforms of some brotherhoods during Easter observances and reenactments in some areas during Holy Week in Spain religious robes specific to a cult such as the Lily white boys would make a lot of sense nevertheless it would be

Imprudent to exclude the possibility that the motivation by the activities was malevolent and all political the maps did not indicate any explicit ancient presence on the site which might attract a magical group on a recurring basis however a captain Moonlight States a a tree the name the

Word a tree derives from the Anglo-Saxon anrio meaning one tree and that one tree was an ancient sprawling Oak sacred to The Druids and the Lily white boys Cult of nature worshippers alternatively it might simply be that it is large reasonably out of the way and convenient for the

Participants the timing of Mark’s experiences with the Christian fundamentalists is not incons with the fighting with the sightings because this would only stretch dates into the mid 1980s but it would seemed that the phenomenon had ceased since at least the late 1980s but if it was the Lily white boys

Are they still active or has the cult disbanded well at least on Mery side perhaps it simply withered on the vine as its members grew old and died and their children or other potential members turned their backs on it continuance I Google researched as much

As I can about the Le white boys and other than references to Green Grow the Rizo Harry kon’s 1960 play of this name and a story of this title by William Maxwell I have not been able to find anything wholly independent of Tom San’s writings excuse me I asked Dr David

Clark who fortun times in Sheffield halam University if he was aware of the cult through his folklore networks and again I Steve Jones through his Pagan contacts but both drew a blank perhaps the Lily white boys are a literary device created by Tom slan to provide a backstory to actual local events or

Stories that he has picked up on after all I unlikely to be the only person that has Witnesses who have spoken about this phenomenon unfortunately as I say Tom hasn’t got back to me nevertheless there seems to be a distinct possibility that some form of sectors involved and maybe in the N the

Early 1980s its members changed Tac and followed an entryism route into the local christian fundamentalist group for whatever reason and were the secretive Inner Circle that Mark commented upon such a possible length would all but be pure spec speculation on my part however it is safe to say that it is

Highly unlikely that the Spanish Brotherhood would travel to Mery side to practice their observances and reenactments in the middle of a farmer field in the middle of the night in the middle of the winter next slide please Spectre strike again those of of you who know me will

Know that I sometimes experience s strange synchronicities with Fortune times so after chatting with David Sutton the Ft editor about publishing my anry specs article I opened up my newly arrived issue of 14 times to see reference to a fiveg mast being set Ablaze at entry near the M57

Motorway naturally I checked out exactly where the 5G Mast was situated and found that it was on the site of the old chapel Cottages which is right on the opposite side of Spencer’s lane from the field where the specters were seen brandishing their burning torches so maybe just maybe it wasn’t local vandals

That set the master to light responding to Corona Corona virus conspiracy theories maybe the specters had made a belated comeback and torch it after all they carry the necessary tools next slide please some suggestions uh I had an email from uh Ryan sherlo who’s a great guy and

He’s been at weird weekend North and uh written Fortune times and uh he U emailed me saying that he kept coming back to the idea there was some sort of military explanation partly on the connections that he’s had in the past uh where offic Junior officers and could

Out that Air Force bases get completely bored and like to let off steam sometimes by dressing up and so on and you through correspondence we noted that it’s not that far from what used to be the old USA base uh at Birchwood um but you maybe or maybe not but um what he

Does say about that was looking at the dates there could have been C cl’s Clan penetration of the US Military and they would have needed a sympathetic and like-minded landowner to do their nonsense so maybe maybe with local um US Air Force uh Personnel um with some cl

Cl people there or maybe not um my um friend uh Steve Jones highlighted that he’d been uh with Richard Freeman and people to the search out Jeff the the talking Mongoose at the art of man and while they’re in the MS Museum in Douglas he noticed uh

In the in the football section A small paragraph about the white boys accompanied by a a costume and a black and white photo it briefly said that they used to visit people’s houses to beg for money interestingly the costume consisted of a white robe with some colored ribbons attached and a round

White headpiece with eyeh in it but when you analyze it it was far more to do with mumming um around Christmas time and then finally on this bit uh there was a a letter from Dean Bellinger in New Zealand which appeared in 14 times where he talks about the um a mysterious

Group uh called the the U the white boys which is an Irish political secret society which goes back to the 18th century who um did a lot of Civil Disobedience and so on and so forth and uh he just wondered that with the Irish connections that there andly are with in Liverpool

Maybe that was something that uh uh with the Irish immigration uh could have been a contribution conclusions before Tom San’s article my best guess was that the anry specters were a small group of local christian fundamentalists who enjoyed the excitement of dressing up in C’s Clan type apparel and Performing rituals with

Burning torches in the middle of the night perhaps with some political backdrop pointing the finger at the Lily white boys or whatever they might be called has obvious attractions but there is no there are no evidential sources I could find independence of Tom’s writings but of course there is a

Problem the secret sects are by definition uh secret therefore assuming that the Lily white boys actually exist or existed it will be virtually impossible to confirm if they were involved short of a member or a former member coming forward and one point that I I think I should

Make is I don’t think whatever was done then would happen today simply because of the ubiquity of mobile phone cameras um as soon as anything is spotted these days um people will their C their phones out and uh and take a video of whatever’s happening so unless someone who

Participated in such events or knows someone who did is prepared to make an admission which might simply be something along the lines of it was me and your mates having a laugh I will adopt a for stance and keep an open mind on exactly what lies behind this very peculiar phenomenon presentational

Pressings this is this is a picture of a photo of me um wearing one of my weird weekend North t-shirts giving my presentation about the anry spcs at weird weekend uh 2022 now at the end of it um uh Jane hurried to me and asked me

Why I had repeated it from the ear from an earlier we weekend North rather than deliver a new one surprise I explained that it was the very first occasion I had ever given the talk which perturbed her greatly she told me she had seen me do the exact same presentation before

Even down to the jokes and decides no comments on that I needed to make way for the next speaker and so later when I chatted to her she explained that she sometimes had similar inexplicable episode but was adamant about having seen my present uh anry specters in the

Past her daughter who was with her added that when they were outside at the break they had heard someone else say that they had seen me do it as well and pointed him out I went over to Jerry and asked him about this and he confirmed that he believed he had also

Seen my talk in the past although he described it as more a strong case of deja vu at the lunchtime I asked if anyone else might have had a similar experience and lo and behold Greg caught me on the afternoon and told me of having seen my complete presentation

Before just like Jane he’ mentioned it to his colleagues at the time which greatly puzzled them this is all very strange I have never previously delivered my an spector’s talk and yet three people say that they had they had seen it I asked if they had read my article in Fortune times but

They were clear it had no influence did some sort of time slip take place or has the covid or had the covid-19 pandemic affected some people’s memories in an unknown way it is certainly something somewhat unique for something so Fortune to take place at a fortune event that next slide please which is

Questions and answers right thank you um I will try and answer any questions that people have I CJ you there there he is so first question up um I think I mentioned this last time when was the but it was round about the Christmas period one of the

Sizings one with the others is there a particular time of year associated with it no is the but the earliest sting was the late 80s was the late 7s 78 somewhere the the earliest one possibly was in World War II yeah but the earliest one that you heard about sorry first yeah I

Think 1970s yeah right there is a reasonable argument for exp which would explain it in the mid to late 80s but going back to the 70s it fails completely and certainly doesn’t work in World War II in the 196 60s the band MC5 released a record called kick out the

Jams and that record was picked up by um Rob shayer and Robert Anon Wilson for their 1981 I think science fiction Trilogy the illuminus trilogy fre books it’s BR I mean I read it when I was 14 it had a major effect on me but it’s a kind of um conspiracy theory

Occult um it doesn’t really make much sense stream of Consciousness set of novels set in the real world that takes in everything from the assassination of JFK he basically an extraordinarily 4an work in three volumes but as a teenager it had a big influence on me it also had an

Influence on a couple of chaps called Drummond mccy who never finished reading the book I’m not tell you you if I ever did either but they they also at me picked out the names and the images and they picked up the fact that one of the groups in the book is called the

Justified ancients of Mumu which is a joke about kick out the jams from the 1965 record uh they later on got hold of a sampler and they started to record records and hold situationist art events they were both artart students as well as being musicians I believe as well as

Being one of them was quite prominent in the record industry and they lived in Liverpool and they would hold what they called situationist happenings in which they would dress up in Peculiar costumes now one of their motifs is dressing up in either Fisherman’s gear or occasionally white robes with KKK style

Hoods and holding torch lit parades which they last did in the wh in 2023 um as art events and if you just Google Justified ancients of Mumu you’ll find pictures of them and they started to do things like hold wave parties this DJ parties with their Ford prefect I

Think it was a Ford pre it was a they called it Ford prefect after the character it was a an ancient Ford angli or something like that they had which they painted um a a um what you call those things that you carry around on your shoulder they were big in the 80s

Beat box kind of thing they painted a beat box on a pyramid on the side of an old police car did it up like an American police car drove it around sometime in the late 80s they had a number one hit in the UK having changed their name to the time Lords they

Recruited unfortunately Gary Glitter and they did a song called doctor in the Tardis to the tune of um rock and roll only they were singing Doctor Who Doctor Who Doctor Who yeah and they decided to um after that they took their musical career to the next level by

Becoming known as the klf and the klf had a whole string of hits such as what time is love um 3:00 a.m. Eternal and they released an album called the white room they had a by that time though they moved to a squat in Lon Stone I believe somewhere in North

London but that was in the very late 80s early 90s that they moved to London and they made a huge amount of money which they then they won a load of uh musical awards went to the Brits fired a fake tommy gun into the crowd threw a bucket

Of fish over the music critics deleted all their records so that they’ve been unavailable from then until now and took the million pounds that they’ made out of the bank went to a shed and filmed themselves burning it and having burns a million quid and you can actually find

The K Foundation how we Burns a million quid the remaining £80,000 they nailed to a uh um pallet and left outside the Tate for the worst artist of the year which they awarded to someone who’d actually had one of their works exhibited at the tape but who was so

Incredibly bad in their opinion that they desired the division and the artist in question took the 8,000 quid I’m not saying it was definitely Drummond to mccy but in the late 70s early 80s in that part of inry it’s worth Googling the images of the time and possibly even asking them do you

Know who did this do you know anything about this because it strikes me as very much their sense of humor and extremely like to likely to be the kind of thing that they might have been involved with however at the same time there was an active kuuu clan in

Wales and there was a white nationalist movement in North Wales and they could easily have come across but the KF would were prone to wearing white robes it’s their stomping ground in the in that era and um they are I think the KF Stoke also known as Justified ancients movement

Also known as the KF I think they they are the kind of people who might have done it there’s a brilliant book on them um I’ve got no idea it’s it’s it doesn’t meet of any of the earlier stuff which suggests a genuine occult connection or a supernatural connection it’s a really

Eerie case I remember being quite nervous about it the first time I heard it but you haven’t been murdered by the ly white boys yet so I’m sorry touchwood so I think we can put covered over there oh they’re waiting to LEAP out as soon as the yeah

Yeah I mean if you could email me those details again I mean if if these guys are still around then oh they’re definitely still around well I’m perfectly happy to you know try and contact them I mean if there cont there is a response you know if they did it and you

Know well it might just be it I don’t think they do it deliberately but it could be one of their dance parties it just sounds like if you Google um it’s Grim up north well that that’s fairly commonly stated yeah if you all right it’s Grim up north YouTube You’ll fight

K um or alternatively what time is love you’ll get the idea and it’s screw up north is very unusual very unusual I think it’s is a fair way of put you have to wait till the ending of it to understand how powerful a piece of music it actually is

But it is very very very um yeah I could share it now actually if you if you wants to know a little bit about what they like but I’m sure most people here have heard of them anyway let’s go over to the questions who’s taking the questions tonight Christian do you want

To deal with the questions or CLA I’m here I’m happy for chrisan to do it um thank you so much Rob for a brilliant talk that was really interesting actually um I think you’re going to have to engage your Aviation geek whether you have any Aviation geek or not later on

Because some of these questions are connected to the concord thing first of all that’ll teach me to broaden my horizons be careful what you say and thank you CJ so much for um engaging everyone’s Alexa with I’ve probably done it again now haven’t I um with Barry

Manalo and everything um so let’s have a look yeah it was a really interesting talk um Kieran Farrell says he remembers red alligator the name but the horse didn’t live up to expectations in what way kieren just unmute yourself there there oh where’s he G um well it’s basically I thought it was

Going to be a brilliant horse and it was going to win because I love the name um but it kind of followed it a couple of times and it didn’t really do that well so you know uh made a bit of a fooling myself in front of some of my mates

Because of it that’s all do you want to ask your quite technical questions here about the aviation side of it oh when the con Etc oh yes um basically I just want Rob whether you knew whether the Concord was in sort of takeoff or Landing mode where

It had it it sort of special Sloop droop nose down or whether it was in the sort of normal flight position which would be straight up not like that like like that that that level of detail wasn’t mentioned but it was clear that they thought that it was taking

Off so it would be down then the nose I can I can only presume so but that me you you had Mother Father and Son teenage son who were adamant that they were seeing Concord which by all means everybody reckons it um you know it’s one of the

Most distinctive uh airplane shapes um ever and I remember when um I I I did mention this at one of my previous weird weekend North um when I was talking about phenomenon across Mery side and one of the audience uh it was from lapis I think was saying No this this

Must have been this that or the other but actually Glen was in the was in the audience and he and he stood he revealed himself as it were and said no it was Concord no messing it was it was adamant absolutely adamant thanks and it’s just it was

Really just a technical point because like you say the witnesses considered it was just kind the Concord was taking off so in which case that implies that the nose should be in that position the reason why they they designed it in that way was to ensure that it had a higher

Amount of lift in taking off in landing um because it was designed as a supersonic airliner and um if you have too much lift that can be a problem when you get up to very high speeds so it was there a mechanism similar to flaps really um but just applied to the nose

Of the aircraft as well as the wings I think Stu wants to come in with something on on this steu yes yes I do um basically I can I can answer a lot of Concord questions my dad was one of the chief fuel Engineers on it in in filton in

Bristol so I grew up kind of looking at con and at Vulcans as well they went from Vulcans to Concord because obviously one basically informed the other very big degree one thing that I will say about Concord if it was not if it was in Flight position it had to have

Been at least 4 or 500 feet because the Snoop as as was said the Snoop was down not just for the drag but also so it could actually see the ground when it was coming in if the snip was straight out you couldn’t see the ground from the

Cockpit whereas if the Snoop was down they could see the runway that’s the other thing about it but also if it was at that height you bloody hear it you’d hear it for miles around you know what I mean one possibility however and this has been raised a few times as possible

Um triangular UFO reports is a solid derable which the US um Air Force has apparently been working on and they are very delta-shaped but obviously pretty much silent and they can hover at a very very low altitude and that’s um that’s a possibility because in profile it would

Look a great deal like Concord or vcom yeah you’re talking about 1975 yeah yeah yeah it goes way back they’ve been if you think the Belgian EO flat they they’ve been going I mean there was mostly early 80s weren’t they but they’ve been seen before that certainly

In the US Midwest they’ been triangular sightings going back right to the sort of 60s you know because Lockheed would were developing Delta wings but they dropped them quite quite early but it looks like they they certainly have been using derable solid durables because obviously they they they have buoyancy

So you don’t need the same degree of fuel to get them off the ground so um yeah they can’t go as fast but bloody fire so that’s a possibility can I play devil’s advocate here as well and say that our own bill a has asked if the U

The image of what you thought was Concord could have been a Vulcan no con Vulcans are noiser than Concord you have heard the buger all I can all I can say is that having had many conversations with Glenn and um with him being prepared to stand up at

Weird weekend North that year um he and his family were adamant but and you know you’re talking about witness’s perception I wasn’t there you can only go by what people say although I I you can accept that maybe if it was a an aircraft of similar shape or whatever

You know it could be that but the issue Still Remains even if it was say a Vulcan for argument sake was there was no as there you know it was 100 yards away um from them and it was only about 10 15 ft um so need they need a two mile air strip

So he throw could take it fil and water were the only P that could take it yeah yeah so I mean so it it’s it’s just weird but there you go life is full of inexplicables keeps up going isn’t it don’t happened it’s just is when people

Start say stuff you never doubt that they saw it it’s just what the bloody hell was it yeah absolutely yeah nice one thank you very much thank you Kieran and Stu for that um Stu you also said the klf which Christian was just talking about did wear white robes for a long

Time he did yeah he’s part of the the thing if you look at the um the video for Last Train for Trans Central they’re on a big platform stage pyramid stage at the end all of them in kind of Kut Clan white robes um so yeah I mean the million pound um

Burning thing that that CJ mentioned if you read John higs book John higs wrote a fabulous book about the kalef including all the discordianism and Robert Anton Wilson stuff like that in the roots and there’s a documentary was done on Channel 4 some years ago where a

Forensic um guy watched it he reckons it was probably about 50,000 quid that they actually burnt and the rest of it but you know who can tell it’s the klf they might have actually done it it’s equally likely they got they walked off with 950

Grand and just burn 50 of it you know and apparently the last thing I heard they were on the radio just before Christmas and they they’re going to set up an old people’s home apparently I always look that up I’m not making that up I always look it up I’m going to

Bring Dave civier in in a minute because he has some input on it but am I misremembering or is it uh the klf that released the song with Tammy winette Justified the Ancients that’s really stuck in my head Now Dave you wanted to talk about Rachel Whitehead good evening David how are you

Yeah wa to right we Reed yes she was the vict she was the artist who they nominated as being the worst artist uh to get the Turner prize that year and uh they awarded her they awarded her the money for you know they set up for worst artist and she

Got she got a bit annoyed because she didn’t like her up being dissed I mean I think one of I think what she did was she filled a hat Cas uh which is due to be condemned with concrete and then took the house apart leaving this sort of like threedimensional internal

Impression or what it was like anyway uh she went to see her lawyers about it because it was a terrible terrible slot and they said Take the Money and Run so she took the money but read out a prepared statement saying that she didn’t really agree with it

Wow well they say artst subjective anyway very subjective yeah okay thank you so much for that Dave let’s have a look is there and Robert Robert you there Robert just before we go go on in response to the forensic claimes that they didn’t burn the money the a they only burned 50

Grand they actually did want go to the trouble of having it delivered by the bank so if there was any dodgy it would have been on their part I’m pretty sure of that but the major reason I believe they actually burnt it was that they had the receipts from the bank for the

Withdraw of a million which is all part of the actual documentary how we burn a million quid um their manager wrote down the serial numbers so that subsequently they could have gone to the bank of England and requested the money back and they never did okay uh they refused to as a

Principal they I mean burning money was something that I’d experimented with in the some to disgust to everybody around me by saying well maybe we should just burn money because it’s the last to totemic you know chain against us if we destroy the means of capitalism by burning the

Money that will over help overthrow the state faster but none of my fellow revolutionaries are uppr it at that point however what was the case very much was oh sorry um they they definitely did burn a lot of money and the reason I believe it is because they

Were dirt poor afterwards for a while I mean they were not wealthy people so if they certainly didn’t spend the money on themselves put it that way whatever happened to it interesting I just put a link into the guardian story about the old folk Zone perhaps that’s where it

Went only I’m making it up I just giving you a link yeah yeah yeah well I mean last year they did their weird 2023 thing didn’t they because they they said they were going to leave pop music for 23 years after the Millennium the 1997 thing which was we want it now

Which was when they were was a kind of anti- millennial campaign and they’re currently campaigning to raise money to build a people’s pyramid yeah um yeah I’m not entirely sure what that is about but this is the klf nothing about them makes much sense really so the old folks

Home did they actually do that they actually built that no well they said they were going to but they said they’re going to do a lot of things you know that’s the thing it’s the klf you the way is I’m sure CJ would agree the thing with the klf is they say

They’re going to do stuff and then sometimes they actually do Bloody do it and that’s what that’s their great stick you cannot tell you know tell if they mean it or not and the top stff de Martin just said happens every year uh now since 2023 well it started last it

Happened last year and that involves a lot of burning Tores and yeah I mean they are they are performance artist stroke ritual matrician stroke situationist Anarchist stroke whatever you want to call them really they’re an interesting bunch of people thank you and then Martin adds in the KF members

Still organized the annual talks of Day of the Dead in Liverpool as far as I know and there’s also been a documentary in the last few years called who killed the Cale my goodness I just thought they released a catchy tune with Tammy winette which I was impressed enough

About wow there’s a lot more to it than that Martin want to expand on that at all are you there Martin you can unmute yourself hi Mark hi can you hear me yeah we can hear you yeah I watched the documentary I think it’s by Chris Atkins

Called um who killed the kalef and they go into the um uh the story of the kalef I think it’s actually based on the book that uh CJ mentioned um but yeah it’s a interesting documentary I think they show the um the group wearing the all the people they

Hir anyway um in kind of a cultish um kind of like cultish dress bit like the ones we’ve been seeing with kind of KKK style outfits um and there’s also a um on the um the main quid burning as well sorry I’ve just the stairs about to

Breath um oh yeah it’s a really interesting documentary no while we’re here while and we’re talking about their music let’s go for something that isn’t catchy I will if I can get this to work play you a tiny bit just so you can see what their music is like this is what not

Typical I guess hang on a CRM shouldn’t weigh your butt right so first up I need to share screen then I need to uh how do I do this B I go to here and I share sound yeah and then I go back to oh new share where is

It this is just a tiny bit of them to give you an idea of what they’re like oh end of slideshow no I’ve G back to the slideshow new share stop share okay try that one more time budget down it should lift your teams up a CRM shouldn’t H skip You uh videos here we go oh that’s top of the pops version that oh there’s the yeah here we go Leads North witch nwit nutsford h s sford southp Lee kby kley kethley M harate harfield Alden lsby GL Rale Mor tles field Le St ANS The6 Scy all in the North You do basic do it well turn this off stop sharing but basically at the end of that how do I stop sharing have I stopped yeah that’s okay you’re back on the main screen Yeah so basically they’re just playing a dance beat and listing Northern towns the bit

Is at the end the last minute and a half of it they go into Jerusalem by William Blake and it goes into a full Coral version of Jerusalem beautifully done with syns and it ends with amongst these dark satanic Mills and it’s a comment on the north of

England which is where they’re both from so as pop music it was a brilliant attempt to lose money and to piss off their fans which was generally their plan throughout their entire ity of their career and when they were at the height of their artistic credibility they recorded a song with Tammy wette

And an ice cream van which is actually much much more listenable and Claire actually likes but these are the kind of people who are messing around in the Ole an anarchist space in Liverpool in the 80s early ‘ 80s late ’70s um they one of them was in a band with Jing

Coob um he was in the teardrop explodes he and he wrote a um a book on Stone circles and meali lifs which I’ve never read but which I’m told is quite entertaining if not entirely accurate it’s very very well done very J and C it’s the modern antiquarian or

Something isn’t it I think that’s right yeah have you read it St years when it came out so 25 years or so ago now it was it was well back in the 90s wasn’t it um yeah yeah yeah I read it back then it was good I was

Engaging he well written but you do look at think where you going mate you know he he does have his own IDE it’s kind of Hillary Evans on acid though I hate to say it that way Hillary Evans on acid sounds kind of interesting oh

Yeah maybe I don’t know it was just one generally it was just one idea um that I thought was worth pursuing what what Rob what what’s your interpretation of what’s what’s been happening at anry me uh yeah if if you had to be you know nailed down to something

Um why that area what’s happening well that that was the thing that um when I looked into it I I wondered if there was something particular about that strip of land that had some I don’t spiritual or whatever um meaning or history and there was none absolutely not and I

I what puzzles me the most is that it it it’s a sort of activity that would have been seen by in theory by lots and lots of people and the police you know it’s the main road it’s not like the the you the main Southport to Liverpool Road or

Anything like but it’s still a major road with a lot of traffic and it just un bounds me to a large extent as why people if if you were going to do something why would you do it in such an open area you can’t necessarily easily escape from

And where you’d easily be spotted and you know what bit odd that the police never unless it was aough the police were doing it you know I wondered actually they were waving the trunions about I don’t know you mentioned the 1964 plane crash yeah yeah that was a meling according to

The accident report but I didn’t realize that meling covers the whole area so it could very well have been in the field it was cabbages it was that field apparently right yeah there were cabbages in it at the time when the crash occurred yeah I this is a very big

Field could somebody have uh I mean the weird thing about the plane crash is nobody ever found out what happened but the two women two of the women in it um Nancy Spain who my mother my parents both liked she was seems to have been a racing commentator stri Sports

Commentator and she was a very famous lesbian of the 60s and 70s 50s 60s and 70s or 50s and 60s she died but I mean after the war she was proudly out and living with her girlfriend at a time when that was uncommon but it really

Didn’t cause any raise any hackles in my par at all they weren’t bothered by it she seems to have been fully accepted which I think we we tend to forget now is that gay people openly did live in the entertainment business back then oh

I just wondered if the crash in 7 in ‘ 64 with police tortures at night and people standing around could have replayed itself but no it’s too definite isn’t it no um yeah and hob I I did get a response from which I didn’t include in the

Articles from a guy who claims to be um psychic who reckoned there was something to whether it might be to do with the crash but you know uh um it seems unlikely yeah the only reason I thought of that is if you imagine people in white forensic paper

Overalls but would they have used those and they wouldn’t have done would they not in 60s no I mean there were I mean there are newspaper articles which shows people you know like officials uh around the the plane crash U investigating it and so yeah Nigel has brought up an

Interesting possibility based on hob go for it Nigel yeah yeah there the old um TV series uh where the situation the uh the underground station where the quer master is it’s called Hobs Lane yeah yeah but they said is on old name for the

Devil yeah but I mean the hob Lane uh in Kirby I say it still technically exists as a kind of walkway it’s as if whoever was rebuilding Kirby um didn’t want to let go of such a uh you know a tricky name but Kirby was built after World War

II with a lot of people from Scotland Road being moved out there when they were doing the slum clearance in Liverpool and um so hlan that map goes back to the 19th century and uh I mean the thought is is that big Lanes like hob Lane as it was

Uh why was it called that it suggests that there was some folkloric or Supernatural um reason for it getting that sort of name um which should be lost in the midsts of time and um so so maybe that the I mean it the Liverpool Le Canal was built

As I say whichever year it was so hlane and that field would have you all run into each other um you know before the the canal was built or dur how you describe it um but that that’s just you know it’s ping at some straws in many

Ways it’s it’s one of the strangest things that I’ve I’ve looked into because I don’t necessarily feel that there is a supernatural um explanation it to me it’s some people doing something for this might have been for ritualistic reasons um but I don’t know why they

Would do it there why they would do it in such a way that they would be observed the very first case that I was told about with Jeff they must they they must have been in that field for over half an hour minimum probably a lot longer it’s really weird isn’t it what’s

The field name have we ever is there is there a historic name for the field do we know no nothing aware of I mean as it says it’s it’s FL playing I me I I spoke to the farmer and it’s just a field you know which um is good farming

Land um it’s not much good for anything else he so it’s such an odd and Eerie case well thank you ever so much no no problem I’m glad to start the year with it if you wanted it well [Laughter]