The Beast of Blanchland by Rowan Bowman
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 พ.ย. 2021
- The Beast of Blanchland starts with a man driving home on a winter's night thinks he sees a big cat stalking the moor. He crashes his car and then the weirdness really begins. An original story by Northumberland author Rowan Bowman.
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39:00 Interview with Rowan Bowman
#audiobook #horror #northumberland #blanchland
Further notes sent me by Rowan after our discussion:
Influences in my writing:
Raymond Chandler. He writes as a film director, intent on the reader seeing the view clearly in front of them.
Daphne du Maurier. Partly because of her sense of place, but also because of the subtlety of the ghosts in some of her stories, Rebecca in particular, the writing is haunted by the melancholy of the nameless narrator, and the actual haunting, the influence that Rebecca has from beyond the grave, is superbly handled. Mandalay was based on du Maurier's own house. I often set books in or around houses I have known intimately.
Shirley Jackson. The best writer of mad protagonists and unreliable witnesses in my opinion.
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The first proper ghost story I ever read was A Christmas Carol, I think that's where a lot of people start. As a teenager I suffered from terrible nightmares and took solace in Poe and Lovecraft and progressed to Ray Bradbury (Something Wicked This Way Comes still gives me the shudders). Then I went on to James Herbert, Shirley Jackson and lots of crime stories and thrillers, anything that confirmed it's normal to be scared and okay not to be okay.
Life sorted itself out and I was busy raising my children. The nightmares eased and I read anything I could reach while doing something else. Danielewski's The House of Leaves was the first book in years to actually scare me. I still enjoy Robert Harris thrillers and the Cormoran Strike novels, but I'm back in this stage of my life to seeking out the weird and scary.
Dan Simmons is always a good read, I recommend Drood. The atmosphere is intense and like most of his stories the landscapes suck you in. I enjoyed Michelle Paver's Thin Air, but prefer Dark Matter as a supernatural horror, again the landscape is one of the characters, the real horror in Thin Air comes from mundane self-interested cruelty which rather overshadows the supernatural element for me. The landscape in The Loney is brilliantly evoked. There have been several novels since set around the area, but none capture it in the same way.
My favourite China Meiville novel is The City and The City, its fantastical landscape is so well drawn that it seems more real than room you are sitting in.
The best book I've read since the start of Lockdown has been Piranesi. I loved Johnathon Strange and Mr Norrell; this is very different, but equally good. The reader understands what is going on just before it is revealed, set in a fantasy world that is so well drawn that it's utterly convincing.
If you've ever been asked, 'What is wrong with you?' when admitting to a love of the macabre or frightening, then I recommend Noel Carroll's accessible The Philosophy of Horror (1990) and Lovecraft's collection of essays Supernatural Horror in Literature.
Hope this may be of some interest.
Thank you for reading The Beast of Blanchland.
All the best,
Rowan
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If you like stories from the wild border country between Scotland and England try The Bewcastle Fairies th-cam.com/video/n2yOaKFlkNE/w-d-xo.html
mr. spindledrift goodfellow is my favorite. so adorable, so sexy. genius.
I forgot to edit that so forgive the mistakes, You will get to gist of it- I press the little microphone and spoke the message! There for “day” was meant to be “they”🤦🏼♀️
Raises our "northern hackles" too here in Newfoundland...the characters' poor hospitality had me chuckling! Great spooky tale. Interview was fun!
What a unique story. It had all the hallmarks of a horror story with the accidental encounter with the big cat and the meeting with the protagonists in this filthy house with suggestions that they may not appear what they are and the idea planted in our mind that the delay in the arrival of the awaited character could have a link with the accident with the big cat. And then all of a sudden it veers towards ghost story with the visit of the narrator to an empty house where he witnessed all the drama after his accident. But the narrator being in fact the haunter is quite extraordinary. For me it feels, that the narrative got wrestled from the creative hand of the author and became a ghost story. Also what a contrast with the open spaced and beautiful landscape to the claustrophobic and dirty house. The description of the house was really nauseating.
This is a great story. Loved that the beast is the politician as we do see that idea of goodie two shoes politicians have something dark in their past that if it comes out totally destroys their reputation and character. The twist of him being the ghost was really good too. Thanks as always for bringing this story to life.
Didn't Lord Lucan's good friend have a menagerie with a few escaped felines?
And weren't there other wealthy people with pet wild cats who let them free in the countryside when they lost their fortunes?
There are logical explanations for big cat sightings in the UK.
All felines can breed with each other (they prefer their own kind but will breed with any feline in the absence of a suitable mate) and it could explain the unusual description of these big cats.
Scotland has a large wild cat (the Highland tiger - endangered species) big enough to breed with these menagerie escapees.
I did love this story, it made me hold my breath with dread more than once.
Thank you for a good tale and a fascinating interview.
Captivating story, narration and truly interesting commentary. And...I'm a believer... . A lot has happened in 2 years. Thank you, Tony, Rowan. Much appreciated.
I’ve always loved the Hamlet speech. To be or not to be, It shows how long people have been wondering about “ what comes next” as he says, if we knew for sure what comes next, no one would suffer this life, would they?
I love this device used in old ghost stories where the storyteller cannot be challenged or argued with because it is never their story but one they were told or found so the listener on the train or pub or country inn must take it as it comes.
The storyteller does not have to declare their own belief system because this is the tale they were told.
Ms. Bowman describing a potential panther as a "poor little cat" made me chuckle. Spoken like someone who has never been stalked by a big cat. I live in cougar country, and it is an absolute godsend that cougars aren't just a bit bigger, or humans a bit smaller, than they/we are, because to anything but an extremely enterprising or hungry cougar, adult humans are just slightly larger prey than they normally feel comfortable attacking. If that weren't the case then the Rocky Mountains would be as dangerous as areas with Bengal tigers in India. Children, on the other hand, are just the right size to become a cougar snack, and every so often one will get snatched by a hungry cougar, often right out from under the noses of adults. One cannot imagine how fast, agile, and strong big cats are until one has seen them in action. Not to mention silent and nearly invisible when they want to be. What I'm saying is that a group of guys grabbing the biggest guns they can lay their hands on in response to a possible panther in the area is an understandable response, even though I would hope the cat could be captured unharmed rather than killed. And I have no doubt the "panther patrol" looked ridiculous, and would have looked even more so trying to hit a cat on the run, unless they were experienced hunters and excellent shots.
Good point! If you're interested, there was a short article called something like "In Zimbabwe we don't cry over lions" that was a really good read. It was a response to the huge internet outrage over the sport killing of a lion (which don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of at all) and the totally different perspective of the people that actually live with them and suffer the consequences. Your comment made me think of it immediately.
Anyways, a somewhat related recommendation from me to google for!
ha!
i’ve paused it at the point of which he says “no wonder the people here are so strange, they were obviously traumatized by interior design.”
to say this story is awesome so far. nice choice, thank you.
i love your taste. i love that you’ve introduced me to stories and authors that i’d never have heard otherwise 🤍
(my absolute favorite are your original stories. i anticipate and wait hopefully for each next one)
Thanks Holly. Rowan has other stories available which are just as good.
Mr. Walker, if you are doubting that the BIG CATS exist, please feel free to visit the Southern Appalachians and Florida. We have no shortage of panthers, painters, cougars, mountain lions, bobcats, wildcats, who would be only too happy to have you over for dinner. For in their minds, humans are crunchy and good with ketchup. And the sound of a panther at night is just as the legends say, exactly like that of a woman screaming in utter terror. And since our mountains and those of the British Isles are all part of the same chain, it is entirely possible that BIG CATS grew up on both sides of the pond.
This story was so good! As a 70s kid I do love a good timeslip. And I loved the narration.
A great story and a very interesting discussion with the author. Thank you!
I've read "Chrome Yellow".
I am fond of that book!
.....always loved the name Persephone 🐈🐾
I love stories where you can imagine you are the protagonist and thinking what would I do? As a wild youngster I would get marooned places after parties and wonder how I would get home… imagine being injured and in pain stuck in a house of people with murderous intent and no phone reception… I thought he kept a very cool head! Great story beautifully read💕👍
Wonderful story and great interview. Thanks Tony.
Enjoyed the story and really enjoyed your conversation with Rowan afterwards. All sorts of thought-provoking ideas there. Thanks to both of you 💐💐
O.O. I was THERE. Excellent.
I'm an original Weardalien (grew up in Weardale 😄) and was so excited that the wee place I call home got a mention 🥰
When we were bairns there used to be so many stories went round about big cats like this - takes me back!
Love your stories, and certainly the writer of this one - thank you so much for creating and sharing them 😊
When I worked at Allston and had to go to Durham are used to drive down Weardale a lot
@@ClassicGhost Alston is lovely - someone said they were in the process of recobbling the streets there. I never knew it without the cobble stones - it's what made it stand out
I'm sure they will keep the cobbles. As you say, that's what makes it.
I loved the story, and the interview was the icing on the cake. Thank you so much, I felt as if I were in the room because the conversation was so pleasant and informative.Rowan Bowman is someone I would love to hear more from.
What a great visual story! And I really enjoyed the conversation afterward as well.
I just now heard that you work with suicidal people in your day job. I volunteered over 5000 hours on a 24-7 suicide prevention hotline back in my greener days. Thank you, sir, for being there for these people. As someone who suffers from depression and PTSD, myself, I have found that knitting, quilting, sewing, and writing have been enormously therapeutic. Also my two chihuahua-dachshund dogs. Those dogs have saved my life more times than I care to remember.
You speak much truth. Ordinary things and contact with animals and the natural world reminds us that not everything is rotten.
I really enjoyed the interview. What an intelligent, creative woman and the conversation between you two was thought provoking. I'm on day five of a covid quarantine, thanks so much for making it interesting!
All the cat sightings reminds me of The Brotherhood of the Wolf.
Glad you enjoyed it!
That was a lot of fun! Thank you.
Fantastic way to begin a Things-To-Do Saturday!Really gripping, painting vivid word- images, masterful narration and compelling, thought provoking, informative commentary. More of Bowman, please! Many thumbs up! (TH-cam teasing me again- suddenly not letting me use your own delightful figures). Lots to think about in both story and commentary here. Thanks to both of of you. Will listen to this again, to be sure!
I am recording today, an Irish one I think
@@ClassicGhost Great!Looking forward to it! Thank you!
Just listened to this again I think one of your best great story
A riveting story---and very interesting chat afterwards too, thank you.
Ooh! that was a good one! Thanks
Gotta take a break and listen...love the photo 🖤 🐈
great .Not to long from were I live in the North East. Great story love the Ambuguity in it not much is left to the imagination these days i feel in horror storys.
Fantastic story. Really had me guessing. Thank you both!
This was a good one. I enjoy all your readings but this story was the most unique I think I've heard in quite a minute. Thanks so much per usual ❤✌🏼
This is such a great story. So well read. Thanks so much Tony.
Great interview!
I really want to read that children's story about the feral sausages! Sounds so adorable!
Ha ha. If you find Rowan Bowman on the internet you might be able to
This was a cool story.
Brilliant story and superbly narrated as usual. I also really enjoyed the following discussion and found it very interesting. Thank you 🙏
Great story and interview
This was an interesting one! It isn't often the way the story is going surprises me more than once. Great listen.
Another great reading. The story was "eh" until the end, outstanding ending.
FAN-tastique authorship interview,! I just REALLY love the spontaneous adventure you embark on with the authors! I miss that type of meandering, while focused,, dialogue that often happens when one is in college, but less “in the real everyday world”. One might call it the art of conversation. Language, dialogue, storytelling, structural content, communal foundations, historical connectivity, universal humanity, gestures of the known & unknown...your channel is a LITERAL row boat to a sea, often depressed in the tides of my current national and global cultural, of tears & fears. Somehow this darker content is the light beckoning me out of this tunnel. I REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR contribution in my life. I don’t know you personally, but your work lives as a gift of delight & hope. You are an inspiration thousands of miles away- thank you!
Yes, "while focused". Lol. I am pleased to hear you are liking the channel. In fact I'm a bit overwhelmed. I was watching Worzel Gummidge last night, the episode called Guy Forks and Worzel says about the importance of storytellers. I think my dad's family were story tellers way way back. Nice to hear it brings something to the world.
I wasnt brought up in the UK and how I grew up the first thing you do is drag people in and fill them with tea and food 🤣
Tony I missed your notification, I can’t find it! I was just looking on your channel to listen to the Welsh story, and I spotted this! I will let you know what I think as soon as I have seen it! I mean heard it! We use our imaginations to see stories that are read to us, that’s why I didn’t delete the words seen it!
This story warms my heart. It reminds me of the very first Classic Ghost Story I heard. Two lasses adrift on a terrible night who found themselves in an extremely unwelcoming home. Plenty of difference and this story is even better. Fantastic actually but I’m filled with the best kind of nostalgia possible.
Now I like the Stooges as much as anyone but not when I have cracked ribs. Even folky Bowie is a slog when your ribs are cracked.
Well done Rowan. Excellent musical taste and a brilliant twist. And even funny. Hope to hear much by you in the future.
I’ve got a question which has no relevance to this story or ghost or horror stories in general but it’s something I’ve wondered for years now and continually forget to ask - so before it scuttles away again my question is this - why are what we call housing projects in the USA called Terraces in the UK ?
Hope you are well by the way
I don;t think so. A terrace is a long row of houses on a street. Can be a short row actually but all the houses are in a line and joined to each other. Project are what in England they call "Council Estates" and in Scotland "Schemes."
Enjoyed the story and the conversation. Very interested in what you said about the importance of/rootedness in place, and of course that is very much in evidence in Alan Garner's writing. I've very much enjoyed his latest book, Treacle Walker - he's still going strong at 87!
That actually is a really big thing for me. The resonance of space and time in a setting.
Treacle Walker is my cousin
We have native panthers in the States but they aren't black. Sometimes exotic pets get loose or are abandoned and that can explain some sightings.
Reeeally interesting rambling conversation! 😃 I loved hearing about the "big cat" sightings on your English moors. We hear similar tales of mysteriously elusive "big cats" here in Australia too - usually around country towns where there's loads of space. Q: Why the hell can't anyone seem to *confirm* that they exist?! Where's David Attenborough's SpyCam when you need it? We should get HIM on this. 🤔📹🐈📸🐆🔦
we should but maybe they don't really exist.
@@ClassicGhost but then, WHAT are we seeing? 😬
...it smelled of a time before hygiene! 😂👏👏👏
Interested by the question on dowsing. I can dowse, my husband can't, but if I touch my hands very lightly on his it works. Also worked with my father and a few other people. Seems to work best with people I like or feel connected to.
I have copies of those *Alan Garner* YA books: *Owl Service & Red Shift*
Oh I loved The Owl Service!!! Alan Garner, wow! I read a lot of Diana Wynn Jones and Peter Dickinson and Joan Aiken when I was a kid❤️
@@thelastsausage635 *Owl Service* is FREE here on YT & I have a *Diana Wynne~Jones* title: *Homeward Bounders* I've read it so many times
@@mijiyoon5575 I haven’t read that all one, I might just order it!!! The one I remember best was called Charmed Life, haven’t read it for forty five years might order that one too and take a trip down memory lane…. The Ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively was a huge huge favorite of mine 😀👍🌸
@@thelastsausage635 *The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy* is a favorite of mine by *Penelope Lively* & luv its cover art; had to order it & these books are getting hard to find ... if you get the *Homeward Bounders* book please make a comment about it here after you read it; & I'll get a notification on it
@@mijiyoon5575 Yes! Loved The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy! Will try and get Homeward Bounders and comment!👍🌸
Love blanchland, had many a good day at the lord crew hotel
Bizarre how you and the author discuss sightings of Panthers in the UK. There are similar in a place in Victoria, Austrlia. They are rumoured to be the descendants of mascots from a US army base that were set free when they left.
Once some short footage was shown on the news back in the 90s of what looked like a black cat walking in the bush, but then you see a wallaby scamper and realise it is an extraordinarily large cat, no way it is just a large feral cat.
As you heard Rowan saw one :)
When I was listening I had the impression that the cat was a mystical beast that transported him to the past and back to the present. Guess I was wrong too. 😅
Me too of course as I think I said.
I was just listening to the interview again, I really love this author! I wish I could let her know! You said you read a story of hers called the stone circle, however I cannot find it! So, maybe you meant you read it for your own entertainment! Which ever, maybe you could get permission from Rowan to do it?!?! I’m sorry- this is me being very cheeky and pushy! Yes I’m definitely going to try and buy some of her books! Thanks again Tony for a fabulous reading and so well chosen a story that it’s stuck in my head! Fabulous idea with such a good ending! Lots of stories are so well written, but then the ending lets you down, this one couldn’t have been better! Please, please help Rowan know how much I appreciate her, I enjoy your interviews almost as much as the stories, (you could have a successful chat show for authors, you really should send this interview and the one you did with that amazing author that wrote 37 books before she had success! A delightful woman, Glasses grey hair and a cockney accent, with her v large cat making an appearance and her husband with a very unusual background! Her name escapes me, she wrote An absolutely amazing story about a woman who comes back from the grave to save the next wife, if you send these two interviews into the BBC and other channels for the radio I am positive you would be successful! I really believe what I am saying! Ask other people if you don’t believe me!)so I kept this for another time and tonight was that perfect time! The name Rowan is for both men and women so I was a bit confused when she started talking! Then I looked it up on Wikipedia because I didn’t want to offend anybody. (Especially Rowan, because I love her! I love that she’s interested in the paranormal, so I know I will love her books even more! Dying to know where I can get hold of them and what they’re called!) Anyway, gender means less and less Nowadays!
Some Victorian male writers, for example, when you read their books- if you’re a woman, you automatically think this person must be a writer that is female! especially when they only had initials on the cover. So maybe that’s how they survived being born in the wrong body, to live vicariously through the characters because before the pill came out, there was no way of taking female hormones, which started with Andy Warhol documenting the whole thing! A lot of his lead actresses were transgender. He was always into the new and avant-garde... Sorry message too long again🤦🏼♀️😬
💜🌟💜Forgive me Tony! Excellent interview and I love your discernment! Looking forward to the next one!
Rowan has seen this
Video so she should see this comment and she may reply. You can find that story about the stone circle online though
I am enjoying your podcasts very much. Duchess Meghan could take some interview tips from you.
Yes! First one here!
Maybe a bad story for me to listen to? It's that time of year - driving home from work every evening in the dark over country roads, worrying constantly about deer jumping in front of me. The other day I had a coyote walk into the middle of the road and just stand there until I came to a full stop. I slow down, but there's always some fool behind me who seems to think it's broad daylight and apparently hasn't heard of deer, coyotes, raccoons running into the road. I dread having to choose between hitting the animal or being rear ended by the tailgater.
Twenty five years I've made this commute without hitting anything - although I've had some close calls. I have this superstitious fear that I ran through my luck several years ago, and I'll hit something one day soon. At least I'm not driving while I listen to this story. ;)
You have lots of luck left. I can feel it
Are The people in the house Shapeshifters and can turn into Panthers .?
These are the sorts of sounds you get from cougars and black panthers. th-cam.com/video/O7rDMZz6pNI/w-d-xo.html
Yikes!
*Spolier Alert* Poor ole Johnny
This is a very drunk stupid and pointless comment, but I got dumped by the love of my life and he's from Yorkshire and I'm South African and when I was having a bad day I'd say 'call me cupcake,' and he'd say it in his accent and it always made me feel better and now he's gone, he's fucking GONE and ill never hear him say 'cupcake' or 'ah, yer alright luv' again, but I listen to your stories at night at pretend it's him reading them to me and it helps a bit.
Oh no! That made me sad .
@@ClassicGhost @Classic Ghost Stories Podcast - Tony Walker omigosh I'm so sorry about this! Went to the pub last night and got sozzled, then came home and had a bit of a dark night of the soul and listened to this extremely cool story in your extremely cool accent.
I'm alright now, I woke up and decided to take myself on an awesome date, so I am going to take my notebook and my knitting to my favorite coffee shop and see if I can finish either the story or the jumper I'm working on.
I've always loved the Northerm accent, it feels fluffy and soft and fuzzy round the edges. But I also listened to killer clowns last night and was dead impressed by the American one! I really like the stories you wrote, especially the one about the catacombs and the one about the storage unit. And I LOVE that you do little chats about the stories afterwards, please don't ever stop doing that!
I don't know if you take submissions, but if you do I would love to send you some stories, because if I heard you reading one of my stories it would be, like, the coolest thing that's ever happened to me 😂
I'm sorry for writing you, a total stranger, two giant essays in the form of TH-cam comments. But I just wanted to let you know that your stories and your accent always brighten my day, so please don't be sad on my behalf!
I hope you have a lovely autumnal weekend up in the northern hemisphere; it's spring here, and the flowers grow back after winter, and so will I.