Episode 77 – The Man with the Roller by E.G. Swain
A Podcast to the Curious - The M.R. James PodcastShow Notes
This episode Mike and Will put on their dancing shoes and head out to the lawn, only to encounter The Man with the Roller by E.G. Swain!
Massive thanks to podcaster Jim Moon of hypnogoria.com for letting us use extracts from his reading of this story in the episode! You can listen to the full reading, as well as all Jim’s other E.G. Swain readings here.
Note: we realised after recording that the repeated references to dancing on the lawn ire probably a bit of black humour regarding Andrew Birch who, being hanged, clearly did some ‘dancing’ of his own in relation to his activities on the lawn!
Notes:
E.G. Swain (Wikipedia)
There is rather scant information about E.G. Swain available online, but his wikipedia page is a good place to start.
The Stoneground Ghost Tales (Project Gutenberg)
This story and all the others in the volume can be read and downloaded for free here.
Stanground (Google maps)
The real-world Stoneground can be found just outside Peterborough. The church is much as Swain would have known it. The rest of the village, not so much, but these historical maps can give you a good idea of what it was like before the modern housing and industrial estates took hold.
More from A Podcast to the Curious - The M.R. James Podcast
This episode Mike and Will examine Curfew by Lucy M. Boston, a childhood tale of haunted bells, unearthed coffins and post-Jamesian highjinx aplenty.
M.R. James said that sex had no place in a ghost story. But was he right? This episode we attempt to answer this question and more, as we cover The Nature of the Evidence by May Sinclair, a tale from 1923 about a couple who just want to enjoy their wedding night. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, yes.
Hold on to your mummy! This episode Mike and Will discuss Mark Gatiss’s recent Ghost Story for Christmas TV adaptation Lot 249, as well as the Arthur Conan Doyle short story it is based on.
This episode, Mike and Will grab their literary toboggans and gallop joyously out into the snow, only to be hit in the face by a terrifying fictional snowball in the form of Louisa Baldwin’s The Real and the Counterfeit!
Who would win in a fight between a man and a bed? Find the answer to this question and more in our new episode on The Weird of the Walfords by Louisa Baldwin! Also, if you like emotionally-repressed Victorian husbands, you will not leave disappointed.