MIKE HALLOWELL: Going to Cleadon are you? (I thought you might)

As most Geordies (but hardly anyone else) know, South Tyneside is the smallest Metropolitan /borough in the United Kingdom. It never fails to amaze me (but hardly anyone else) that this proverbial spot on the landscape is the repository of literally hundreds of myths, legends and folklore tales regarding ghosts, UFOs, cryptids and other forms of wackiness.

Over the years I've written over one thousand newspaper and magazine articles (1,158 to be exact) and ten books, the majority of which have been devoted to the strange goings-on within this teeny-weeny place. One would imagine that a borough that contains just three small towns and a handful of villages would be relatively short on mystery animals, but the truth is just the opposite. South Tyneside plays host to a sea monster (the Shony), at least one mystery big cat, a giant lobster known as the Terror of Trow Rocks, a terrifying Brag, a weird humanoid called Old Blue Eyes and a big, hairy hominid known as the Beast of Cleadon Hills. You just couldn't make it up.

Cleadon Village, which is the posh end of our borough, is well blessed when it comes to cryptids. Cleadon Hills were formerly only famous for two ghost stories: the Red Woman of Cleadon Mill and the Water Tower Ghost. Now, however, visitors to this idyllic spot may also want to watch out for the Cleadon Big Cat and the afore-mentioned Beast. Cleadon Hills, it seems, has become a one-stop shop for all things Fortean.

My colleague Darren W. Ritson and I have both written up Cleadon-related weirdness, and decided that an expedition was in order to see if we could spot anything for ourselves. The expedition – which admittedly does not quite compare in grandiosity with CFZ trips of a similar nature – is scheduled for Sunday, 28 March.

Firstly, we plan to visit the Water Tower to see if there really is a shrieking, banshee-type spectre in residence there.

Secondly, we'll visit the old WW2 gun emplacements where, some years ago, I took some very strange pictures.

After the gun emplacements we'll move on to the old mill house – allegedly home to the Woman in Red – and then finally have a scout about the hills themselves to see if we can spot the Beast or the Big Cat.

The results of our foray will, of course, be posted here for all to see.

Cleadon Hills are beautiful, but also somewhat eerie. Although they aren't far from civilisation they are wrapped in a mantle of seclusion, which insulates them from the workaday world next door. When ambling across Cleadon Hills it really isn't hard to imagine that there may be a critter or two of uncertain provenance lurking behind the trees.

Watch this space….

MIKE HALLOWELL: The elephantine exotic dancer

Whales are big things; except for the ones that have eating disorders. This makes it really difficult to catch them; they wiggle about a lot during the process and stubbornly refuse to get into the box, bag, net or whatever receptacle you wish to incarcerate them in.

On August 30, 1829, some fishermen "near the Fern Islands" off the coast of Northumberland saw a Big Thing floating in the water, and deduced that it was a whale. Not having worked out quite what to do with it afterwards, they got in their boat and braved the choppy waves to approach it. Not having a receptacle big enough, they simply flung a few ropes around it and towed it back to shore.

In The Historical Register of Remarkable Events (T. Fordyce, 1886) John Sykes makes a breathtaking observation: "When found, it was quite dead". This explains why it did not struggle when they tied the ropes around it, one presumes, or at least complain loudly.

When they got back to land – which they could always easily identify due to the almost complete absence of water – they measured it and discovered that from one end to the other it was no less than 58 feet.

"I reckon we should sell it", suggested one chap. "How much for?" queried another.

"I don't care as long as it will keep us in brown ale for a week", suggested yet another.

Anyway, they chopped it up into bits and flogged it for £45, which back in those days was a tidy sum.

Mind you, whales were not the most exotic animals to be found within the Geordie kingdom. Almost exactly a year later, on August 25, 1830, a remarkable chain of events started that ended in a pretty rum do. What happened was this:

On the day in question an exotic dancer arrived at Newcastle. She was called – I kid you not – Miss D'Jeck. Hoards of horniferous young males turned out to catch a glimpse of her near-naked torso as she waltzed unashamedly through the town. Their libido was somewhat dulled, however, when they noticed that Miss D'Jeck was not quite what they expected.

"Bloody hell", said one, "I don't much like the colour of her skin".

"I know", said another, "Its grey. And her toenails could do with a good clipping".

"Here", said his pal, "What's that bloody long dangly thing hanging down from her face? I know this sounds crazy, but it looks like a colossal…"

"Gawd, your right!" said a local miner from Gateshead. "I wish I had one even half as big!"

"If you did your missus would have to take up exercise classes", his compatriot jibed.

Miss D'Jeck, if you haven't already guessed, was an elephant: A good-looking, sultry specimen with come-to-bed eyes, I'll grant you, but a pachyderm nonetheless.

Miss D'Jeck hailed from Siam, and had fluttered her elephantine eyelids at all and sundry across the globe. A certain Mr. Nicholson, who was the manager of the Theatre Royal in Newcastle, had seen a pencil sketch of Miss D'Jeck and said, "Phwoar…get a load of this, lads! This'll put bums on seats!"

When it was pointed out by a stagehand that Miss D'Jeck may have been less than human, Nicholson dismissed the idea as ridiculous.

"She's a bit on the lardy side, I'll grant you, but don't try and kid me she's a bloody elephant!"

Anyhoo, Nicholson got in touch with Mr. Yates, who was Miss D'Jeck's "manager", and booked her for a show. "Great", said Yates. "We're appearing at Edinburgh at the moment, but I'll book tickets on the Ardinaple steamer from Leith and we'll be with you next week".

It sounded like a plan, but things went awry. A ferocious storm brewed up, and the captain of the Ardinaple – a right jobsworth if ever there was one – said that, fluttering eyelids or no, there was no way he was going to have Miss D'Jeck on board in case his precious boat sank. And so, dear friends, Miss D'Jeck and her manager were forced to "walk all the way to Newcastle on foot." Mind you, as most people walk "on foot" perhaps this should not surprise us. 120 miles later, a tired and somewhat jaded Miss D'Jeck arrived in the capital city of Geordieland. She was about to make history.

Now as word got around that this economy-sized Siamese temptress had arrived, squillions of blokes crammed onto the Barrass Bridge to catch a glimpse of her. Meanwhile, Miss D'Jeck – all ten foot of her – was ambling down Mosely Street and then Pilgrim Street, as Sykes put it, "with perfect indifference". She even passed by the side entrance to the Theatre Royal, which had been especially enlarged to allow her ingress.

That very evening she put on a stunning act at the theatre to a capacity crowd. Nothing untoward happened in Newcastle, but after Miss D'Jeck's last appearance things unfortunately went less than swimmingly. Nicholson, it seems, had contacted a mate of his in nearby Morpeth and told him of the Siamese Temptress's spectacular popularity. Consequently, the horniferous males of that town also wished to glimpse her burgeoning charms.

Now before I divulge what happened next, let me tell you a little about Miss D'Jeck's dietary habits. Whereas most locals got by on Rington's tea, brown ale and slabs of pork, Miss D'Jeck was rather picky and insisted on a daily consumption of "76 lbs of potatoes, 60 lbs of hay, 60lbs of straw, 11 quartern leaves, a bushel of bran, a bushel of oats and water in proportion". Now each to his or her own, say I but I wouldn't have liked to be astern of Miss D'Jeck if she suddenly decided to "drop the kids off at the pool", as they say. Unfortunately, it didn't stop there for she was also allowed to drink as much wine and beer as she could hold although spirits were forbidden. Here, of course, the locals had an advantage, for Siamese pachyderms are no match for Geordies when it comes to tolerating alcoholic beverages. She tried to keep up with them, but invariably found herself roaring drunk whilst her hosts were still only slightly tipsy. Sadly, it was in such a state of inebriation that she was encouraged to walk to Morpeth for her next show.

Now everyone knows that elephants have good memories, and Miss D'Jeck was no exception. She could remember her home in Siam, being potty-trained, recovering from elephantine colic and numerous other peaks and troughs of her existence. Unfortunately, she could also remember with crystal clarity something that had happened three years earlier.

Miss D'Jeck's trainer was a gentleman of Italian extraction called Baptiste Bernard. Now in some respects Bernard had been a good trainer, but he also had a liking for the demon drink not unakin to that possessed by his charge, Miss D'Jeck. One day, whilst extremely bladdered, he had taken exception to something Miss D'Jeck had done and stabbed her with a fork.

"I'll get you, you bastard", thought Miss D'Jeck, and she did – on the road to Morpeth.

Bernard had booked train tickets for the star and her entourage but on arriving at Newcastle Central station, she uncharacteristically refused to board her carriage. As no one in the vicinity felt capable of physically forcing her, it was decided that walking to Morpeth was the only option. In any case, it was a damn sight closer than Edinburgh.

But the cunning Miss D'Jeck was not simply a glamour-puss; she was cute as a box of monkeys, and had a plan. As soon as the entourage had left Newcastle and were out in the sticks, so to speak, the economy-sized exotic dancer lured Bernard away from his mates and promptly wrapped her trunk around his torso. This succeeded in snapping the odd rib or five, and after giving him an extra squeeze he vomited up blood. They dashed him back to Newcastle in a handcart, but it was too late. He died two days later in mortal agony.

As for Miss D'Jeck, she found that her antics had, for some reason, disinterested the good folk of Morpeth in her appearance. She was thereafter found passage on a steamer and taken to London where, metaphorically, she found the streets to be paved with potatoes, hay, straw, leaves, bran, oats, wine, beer and anything else her little heart desired. Seemingly, those born within the sound of Bow Bells weren't too bothered about the grim fate of Baptiste Bernard, and packed out local theatres in their droves to see that exotic elephantine dancer from Siam.

I do not know whether Miss D'Jeck would ever be considered as a CFZ mascot, but she'd certainly get my vote. No one gives two hoots about Baptiste Bernard any more. Miss D'Jeck, in fact, was marginally regretful of her actions. As she told the local magistrates at the time, "I'm sort of sorry I killed him...but when you're a star like me and you get stabbed with a fork, what's a girl to do?"

MIKE HALLOWELL: More animal oddities from Geordieland

In March 1821 some workmen were digging away in a quarry at Cowpen High House, near Blyth, when they found something. Actually, they found two things, both of them pretty much the same. As they split a huge slab of stone asunder, lo and forsooth they espied two fishes.

Now I know what you're thinking; that they miracled ten loaves of bread and fed the multitude, but they didn't on account of the fish being fossilised. They were later described by a local historian as, "apparently, from their shape and dimensions (about 2½ feet in length) of the salmon tribe, though the scales were larger than belong to that type of fish. The impression of the scales was left on the stone in which they were found".

Mind you, not all strange animals found in our Geordie kingdom are dead. On October 12th of the same year a rare species of bird called a Great Northern Diver was seen preening itself near the quayside at Newcastle upon Tyne. Displaying the great conservationist tradition of his fellow Geordie countrymen, a local keelman took a shot at it. Whether he hit it or not we do not know, but it seemingly started to flap about like a mad thing under the Tyne Bridge.

Now it just so happened that there were some blokes on the bridge, and one of them looked down and said, "Here, is that a prime example of Gavia immer down there, of the family Gaviidae, flapping about in the water like a mad thing?"

"Why, pray, do you ask?"

"Because if it is I think we should catch it".

Now the Great Northern Diver is a sturdy bird, with a slightly larger-than-normal head and a somewhat intimidating-looking bill. Hence, capturing it for posterity – or, more likely, for the dinner table – was never going to be an easy task. Someone dropped a rope down with a noose on the end, but then got over-excited and dropped it. Another enterprising chap tried to throw a tarpaulin over it. The tarpaulin missed and sunk to the bottom of the river, just like a sinking tarpaulin, in fact.

For the rest of the day the locals went about trying to catch the Great Northern Diver, but their labours were in vain.

What was the Great Northern Diver doing at the quayside, when it would be another twenty-six years till the market opened? Seemingly there had been a ferocious storm raging for two days over the North Sea, and the smart money was on the idea that the creature had become somewhat disorientated and lost its bearings.

What happened to the bird is not recorded, but eventually the locals got bored and went home for tea. Seemingly, some bloke had been going around selling fossilised fish, which tasted just as good as anything else the missus had ever cooked. Maybe that's where the expression "rock salmon" comes from, who knows?

Now if these tales sound preposterous, let me assure the reader that they can all be found in The Historical Register of Remarkable Events, by John Sykes (T. Fordyce, 1886).
Mind you, even these pale in comparison to the next one I'm going to relate.

Not that long after the Great Northern Diver fiasco, a Captain Davidson was driving (Oh, all right then, sailing) his ship The Northumberland along the coast of Sierra Leone. T'was the year 1824, and the date was November 8th. One of the ship's crew was fishing on the bowsprit, and he happened to drop his knife into the water, not unlike the way the other bloke had dropped his rope off the bridge. Bugger, he thought.

Now later that day, the same chap caught a dolphin, which wasn't quite as sharp as his knife, but it was better than nowt. The captain later testified that he was there as the creature was cut open, upon which – another lo and forsooth – the very knife the sailor had dropped overboard earlier tumbled out upon the deck.

Anyway, that's it for now. Mrs H. has some salmon in the oven to be followed, I'm reliably informed, by a steaming hot bowl of Northern Diver Surprise….

glen vaudrey

About eleven years ago a blackbird landed in our back garden. For reasons now lost to Mrs H. she whistled to her feathered visitor. Nothing complex - just a series of random notes repeated several times. The blackbird looked at her and then flew off.

The following day Jackie was hanging out the washing when the same blackbird appeared on the roof of our garden shed. Once again, she whistled the same series of notes that she'd whistled the previous day. To her astonishment the bird promptly whistled the same notes back.

Everyone knows that parakeets and mynah birds can mimic the human voice but at one time few people imagined that this was a talent shared by blackbirds. But it is.

During that summer Mrs. H became good friends with the bird, whom she named Blackie. It visited our garden every day and became bolder and bolder in terms of how close it would approach. Jackie then began to feed it and within two weeks it was quite literally eating out of her hand.

Eventually the bird stopped visiting our garden and we assumed she'd flown off to pastures new. To our delight, however, Blackie returned the following summer. Once again Jackie had been hanging out the washing when she heard the peculiar whistle she'd taught the bird the year before. Startled, she turned round to see our old friend standing on the path.

Over and over Blackie whistled the same tune, in response to which Jackie whistled back. Once again she began to visit our garden daily. On one occasion Jackie was indoors when she heard her feathered friend calling for her. She went outside and smiled at the sight which greeted her. There, standing on the shed roof, were Blackie and four downy young blackbirds. We're convinced that she had brought her young to show us.

One by one the young birds joined Blackie on the path and they all waddled to within a yard or so of Jackie's feet.

Blackie continued to visit us until last year. With each passing summer the whistles become louder and more persistent. She would jump up and down on the garden fence or the shed roof until Jackie popped outdoors to see her.

When Jackie first told me of the almost psychic relationship she had developed with Blackie I was a bit sceptical. I didn't think she was making it up but I did think that she wanted so much to believe that the bird was repeating her whistle that her imagination was getting the better of her.

But then I heard it for myself and actually managed to tape-record a conversation between Mrs. H. and Blackie. I no longer doubted that an extraordinary relationship had developed between them.

Perhaps the most fascinating interaction between Blackie, Jackie and I occurred in the summer of 2000. We were sitting watching the TV early one evening when we heard a frantic scratching at the front door, accompanied by an intense flapping noise. We both went to investigate, and as we opened the door we heard Blackie's familiar whistle. The bird was extremely distressed. It flew towards a nearby bungalow in which lived some neighbours, both of whom had severe disabilities. It continued to fly back and forth between our front door and the other residence, and it was obvious to us that Blackie was trying to tell us something.

We both hurried over to the bungalow and knocked on the door. Our elderly neighbour opened it and whilst Blackie was whistling frantically behind us, said, "Oh, thank goodness! I was just about to ring you and ask for your help! Quickly…come in!"

Jackie and I walked down the hall and into the lounge. There, fluttering around wildly, was a young blackbird. It had flown through the open patio doors and couldn't find its way out. I took off my pullover, threw it over the bird and brought it to the ground. I gently uncovered it and held it in my hands until it calmed down. I then went into the back garden where – no surprises here – Blackie was waiting. I let the young bird go and it flew straight to its mother.

The only explanation we can think of is that Blackie scratched, flapped and whistled at our door because it wanted our help.

Last year Blackie returned once again. As usual, Jackie and her feathered friend talked to each other but what thoughts were running through her avian brain must remain a matter of speculation. All Jackie knew was that she'd found a true and honoured friend.

Sadly, things came to grief. One day last summer Jackie went out into the garden and found Blackie dead, lying in the ornamental bird bath where she often used to bathe and drink. We gave her a decent burial. I'm no expert, but I reckon eleven years or more must be a pretty good innings for a blackbird.

And that, we thought, was that. But there is a peculiar postscript to this story, which I find entirely baffling. Two weeks ago, Mrs. H and I were both in the garden when we heard what sounded like the unique whistle she'd taught Blackie all those years ago. It wasn't the same but it was eerily similar. Suddenly a young blackbird flew down and landed on the path near Jackie. Three times it repeated the whistle. The only conclusion we could come to was that the bird was one of Blackie's offspring and that it had somehow inherited the whistle from its mother. The bird is now a frequent visitor to our garden. It's like having Blackie back again. Like the original Blackie, this one has taken to whistling and will not desist until Mrs. H or I go out and show ourselves. Satisfied, Blackie II will then fly off.

This morning things took an even stranger turn. I went out into the garden and as usual, heard the familiar whistle. I looked up and saw what at first I thought was Blackie II sitting on a nearby rooftop. What surprised me was its size. It seemed to have grown considerably since the last time I saw it. The bird took off and headed straight for our garden. It landed on the roof of our shed and I stared at it. It wasn't Blackie II at all. In fact, it wasn't even a blackbird. It was a jackdaw. It looked at me, whistled Mrs. H's tune and then flew off.

To be honest, much as I'm fascinated by the whole thing I really haven't a clue what the hell is going on. Can blackbirds teach songs to their young? Can jackdaws imitate blackbirds? And why on earth would the jackdaw I saw this morning want to imitate the call Mrs. H taught to Blackie?

I'm sure there must be a rational explanation for all this but not being an ornithologist I can't think of what it might be. I'm really hoping that some readers out there will respond to this blog and give me their two-pennorth's worth….

MIKE HALLOWELL: The Great Herring-Eating Shark of Whitburn

The following accounts are all true. Only my rendition of them is totally inaccurate. The names of some persons have been kept the same to embarrass the innocent. Any similarity between the characters in this blog and real persons is intentional, because that is who they are and as they are long dead there isn't much they can do about it.

In July 1822, some workmen – sorry, workpersons – were digging the foundations of a new jail that was being erected at Morpeth, Northumberland. The jail was a purpose-built place in which prisoners could be housed instead of farming them out to local B&Bs, which had been the previous practice. By keeping all the local vagabonds, ne'er-do-wells and ruffians in one place, they could get away with having only one plasma screen TV between the lot of them, thereby saving money.

Anyway, as the labourers dug down to a depth of thirteen feet, they were astonished to come across the remains of a huge oak tree thirty-eight feet in height and nine feet in circumference.

"Look!" said one, "There's an oak tree, and its thirty-eight feet in height and nine feet in circumference!"

But there was more. They also found, according to contemporary reports, "the skeleton of a deer's head". This statement puzzled me somewhat, for although I have a rough idea of what the skull of a deer looks like, I have no idea what "the skeleton of a deer's head" might be. The phrase is as nonsensical to me as saying, "the arm of a man's hand", or "the foot of a man's toe". But maybe I'm just being picky.

Anyhoo, the skull also sported "fine branching horns", which was not at all surprising, for even Geordie deer have been known to display such appendages. Except for the Great Newcastle Hornless Deer, of course, which has none because I've just made it up.

The enigma, of course, was what the deer and the oak tree were doing together at such a depth. No one ever found out.

Mind you, Geordie animals never behave conventionally.

Cryptozoological or conventional, the beasts of our great Northern Kingdom can be guaranteed to mess around for a laugh. Take the Great Herring Catch of September 1807, for example, which occurred at Whitburn. That was a hoot, that was.

What happened was this. An eight-foot long shark, weighing 300lbs or thereabouts, was swimming around off the coast of Whitburn.

"Look!" said a local fisherman - sorry, fisherperson – to his pals; "There's an eight-foot long shark, weighing 300lbs or thereabouts!"

Now shark was not common fayre in Geordie restaurants at the time, as few people had pans big enough to cook them in. However, the fisherpersons were not troubled by such technicalities and decided to worry about that later. They quickly netted the shark and hauled it all the way from Whitburn into the River Tyne and only stopped when they got to Newcastle. Here they displayed their catch to crowds of onlookers, none of whom had ever seen an eight-foot long shark, weighing 300lbs or thereabouts. Or if they had, they weren't telling.

Anyways, at some point the fishermen got bored with the Outside Bit of the shark, and decided to look at the Inside Bit for a change. But lo and forsooth, when they slit open its belly they were flabber-me-gasted when no less than !180 herrings and other small fish" spilled forth onto the dockside.

And it is for this reason, dear reader, that when the people of Morpeth brag about their "skeleton of a deer's head", the good folk of Newcastle – or maybe Whitburn – will reply, "Aye but that's nowt compared to the Great Herring Catch back in 1807".

And in my opinion they are perfectly justified.

Mind you, neither the good folk of Newcastle of the equally canny personages of Morpeth can hold a candle to those of Sunderland when it comes to animal-related japes. The Great Bull Bait – great for the bull, that is – of May 28, 1822, was proof of that.

Bull baiting was a sport – so called – in which the animal was placed in a pit of approximately thirty-five feet in diameter. Dogs were also placed in the ring, and their purpose was to "immobilise" the bull. For good measure, the idiots who took part in this event would sometimes blow white pepper up the nose of the bull to make it angry.

On the day in question, a young chap by the name of Simon Thornton was "thrown down by the crowd". What exactly this means I have no idea. Perhaps he upset his pals in some way, or maybe being "thrown down by the crowd" was part of some arcane, bull-baiting ritual. In any event, he broke his leg. Whether "the breaking of the leg" was also part of the show I have no idea either – nothing would surprise me - but in any event he died, and everyone was very sad about that. In the melee that ensued, the bull survived. The bull was presumably not very sad about that, and also presumably didn't give a toss about Simon Thornton or his leg.

Bull baiting was, thank God, outlawed just a few years later.

And we're all very happy about that.

Or should be.

MIKE HALLOWELL: More Geordie Monsters

Animals born with an excessive number of limbs or organs are not uncommon; if you doubt, a perusal through a few back issues of the Fortean Times will prove the point. Calves with four eyes, goats with six legs…nature has a way of throwing up genetic mutations every now and then. Personally I feel uncomfortable about parading such animals in public. We wouldn’t dream of displaying a human being with cerebral palsy or elephantitis in a circus cage, so why do the same with other species? Nevertheless, such mutations are interesting and studying them may lead to a better understanding of genetics and even cures for certain disabling conditions.

Ah, but it was all different a century ago. No one understood genetics back then, and although respect for wildlife in general, other species specifically and our fellow human beings had advanced tremendously since the early 19^th century, things were far from perfect. There was still an attitude prevalent in some parts that “freaks” were really only good for exploitation. If your child can’t work in the mines or the mills, hey. don’t worry! Stick ‘em in the circus and make a few bucks!

Not everyone was so callous, however. There was a genuine naiveté on the part of many, who saw both humans and animals with genetic disorders not as “freaks” but as “wonders”. To some, it was almost as if such aberrations were God-given; something that wasn’t quite right, but nevertheless helped us focus on the mysteries of creation.

In September 1905, Sunderland was an economically struggling location. Large areas were impoverished, and gruelling, blue-collar work such as mining and shipbuilding was the staple means of eking a borderline existence. Precious little happened to bring light and laughter into the lives of the working class, and so no opportunity for personal enrichment was missed. Some sought solace in the church, whilst others imbibed excessive amounts of gin and porter. Yet others just waited for that “something special” to come along. Most times it never did.

But there were exceptions, as a Mr. W. Hall discovered when he found himself in possession of the legendary Double Duck of Pallion.

Pallion is a relatively unremarkable area of the City of Sunderland, but it has played a rich part in the area’s history. At the turn of the 20^th century, many residents had taken to keeping livestock in their back yards and gardens as a means of supplementing their meagre incomes. Rabbits, hens, chickens and ducks were bred with enthusiastic abandon to ensure a ready supply of meat and eggs. Mr. Hall was no different, and he was no doubt delighted when one duck in his possession laid a clutch of seven eggs. He waited patiently, and, one by one, they hatched. Eventually six young ducklings nestled under the wing of their mother, whilst the seventh egg, slightly larger and thicker than the rest, remained intact.

Some days passed, and Mr. Hall decided that it might be necessary to lend Mother Nature a hand. He took the seventh egg and ever-so-gently cracked it, hoping that if there was a live duckling inside it would now be able to brake free. It did, and what Mr. Hall saw would baffle him for the rest of his days. Inside the shell was no ordinary duckling. As the chick struggled free he saw to his horror that it actually possessed two heads. More than that, it also had four wings and four feet. Truly, this was a duck like no other.

Mr. Hall, after recovering from the shock, showed the strange creature to his next-door neighbour. Before long, the entire populace of Pallion was talking about the strange arrival in Mr. Hall’s backyard. The local press got to hear about it, and reporters began to turn up on the doorstep, along with a priest and other local personages of some distinction.

The fate of the duck, at least in the detail, is unknown. We do not know how long it survived, but it was reported that Mr. Hall was determined not to let its demise rob him of his new-found fame. He placed the body of the duckling in a large bottle filled with “spirits of wine” and preserved it for posterity.

Bizarre quirks of nature like the Double Duck of Pallion are not unknown. In 2007, Nick Janaway, of the Warrawee Duck Farm in the New Forest, picked up a young duckling to determine its sex. She was stunned to discover that it had not two, but four legs. These extra appendages seemed to pose Stumpy (as the duck was later named) no problems. It could swim, walk and feed just fine. There was a minor setback when it caught one of its additional legs in some barbed wire and had to have it amputated. This left it three legs, which was still one more than those possessed by its more common-or-garden siblings.

I have tried to track down the remains of Mr. Hall’s Double Duck, hoping perhaps that it may have been given to the Sunderland Museum. A curator connected with the establishment kindly promised to see if he could locate the specimen, but to date I’ve heard nothing. Who knows, one day it may turn up.

MIKE HALLOWELL'S GEORDIE MONSTERS: The Splitback Demon

I've already published two blogs on this site dealing with the curious appearance of a "Lizard Man" cryptid in the North of England. The creature, which I have been told Northumbrians call The Splitback Demon (although I've only the testimony of a singular Northumbrian up to now regarding this) looks pretty much like a cross between a1950s "B" movie reject and a diminutive Godzilla. Still, as cryptids go that'll do for me.

To be honest, and to quote Alice, the tale just gets curiouser and curiouser.

The Splitback Demon is, from what I can gather, an anthropomorphic reptilian-human cross with a mane of vivid-red hair, a long tail and a rather ostentatious spinal fin. He also sports two red, glowing eyes, scaly skin, four-inch long talons, a purple-red cockscomb and a dog-like snout. He is said to be about 5ft tall, which suits me fine as a 50ft tall version, although much easier to spot, would be a damned site harder to lasso.

Seriously, though, I'm leaning towards the idea that their may be a degree of credibility to the two eye-witness testimonies which I've secured first-hand to date. I'm currently compiling a detailed report – which is looking more and more like a book manuscript with every passing day – but still need more anecdotal evidence regarding other, similar creatures which may have been seen preferably (but not exclusively) in the British Isles. I'm pleading with ANY CFZ supporters who may know of lizard-man type stories to send them to me, please, with their sources.

And here's another funny thing, as if lizardy-type blokes running around the Northumbrian peat bogs wasn't funny enough; It has recently come to my attention that around the time Witness B, as he prefers to be called, espied his lizard-man, another unconnected witness had an extremely odd UFO encounter at exactly the same location. I really didn't want to go down the UFO-Reptilian route with my research, as I've hitherto thought it to be a load of old baloney, but I wouldn't be much of an investigator if I deliberately turned down the opportunity to glean insight into the matter simply because it didn't juxtapose well with my philosophical leanings. The truth is that the location where Witness B saw his lizard-man is so obscure and remote that two unconnected Fortean encounters occurring there at the same time is a hard concept for me to swallow.

Soooo….I'm also looking for accounts of lizard-man appearances that are ostensibly connected with UFO sightings. Now I'm going to have to be tactful here, but – how shall I put this – I'm not incredibly keen to hear tales of the late Queen Mum being a human-munching reptoid, Gordon Brown being the secret head of an Intergalactic Council which is trying to take over the earth on behalf of the lizard-men, etc. (My, how times change. It's only a couple of months ago that our own Mr. Downes was being accused of this and worse).

Anyway, I think you'll get my drift. I'm looking for tales of lizard-men and, if there are any, a UFO connection to them. If there isn't a UFO connection, then plain ol' lizard-men stories will do.
For your edification I've attached an artist's impression of what the Splitback Demon allegedly looks like. Witness A tells me that looking at it brings his arms out in goose-bumps, which, I think, means that it is reasonably accurate.

If you should bump into this dude whilst out shopping, or whatever, please tell him to get in touch.

MIKE HALLOWELL'S GEORDIE MONSTERS: Stop yer bloody wailing

In the early 19th century, a sperm whale was beached at Cresswell, Northumberland. What follows is an imaginative reconstruction of how locals reacted, and how King George IV capitalised on the situation.
Its true. Every word of it. Well, some.

1822 was a funny old year in Geordieland. Mind you, truth to tell, every year in Geordieland is funny as you can't get a Geordie passport unless you're an incurable eccentric. Being a nation of eccentrics, then, it’s a pretty safe bet that any year between 1,083BC (when our sovereignty was formed) and the present is going to be a bloody peculiar one.


Anyway, I digress. Back to 1822. On the morning of Thursday August 8, a Large Thing shuggied it's way up onto the coast at Cresswell in Northumberland.


"Look!" said a local Calamian deer* farmer. "There's a Large Thing!"
And so it was.
Anyhoo, the farmer's wife went and got a tape measure from B&Q, came back and measured it.
"Bloody hell!" she exclaimed, "Its sixty-eight feet from the tip of the tail bit to the end of the head bit!"
And so it was.
Now after much deliberation and argument, it was decided that the Large Thing was actually a "spermaceti whale".
"That's funny", said the farmer's wife's husband, "Them Large Things are only supposed to live in the South Seas, which are so called because they are seas and in the south. What, pray, is it doing here in Cresswell?"
"Maybe we moved during the night", said the farmer's wife.
"No", replied her spouse. "I can still see the top of the tall, pointy stone thing over there".
"You mean the church steeple?"
"Whatever. Stop being a smart arse. Anyway, we haven't moved. The Large Thing, which I will henceforth call a spermaceti whale, dearest, must have got lost".
"That's a shame. How's it going to get home, then?"
Their discourse was interrupted by another farmer who tilled the land adjacent to that owned by the first one. His farm, for the record, was called The Next One Along.
And so it was.
"Here, what are we going to do about this Large Thing, then?"
"You mean the spermaceti whale over there?"
"Whatever. Stop being a smart arse. Can you see the head bit? Its on my land, that bit is".
"But the bit at the other end, the tail bit, is on my land".
"Exackerly. So who does it belong to, then?"
"Me".
"But I've got the head bit, which is where the important things are, so it must be mine".
"No; the tail bit is where the bum is, and a spermaceti whale can't live long without a bum. Its mine".
Anyway, they couldn't agree, and both proceeded to poke a hole in the Large Thing and drain the oil out of it. One hole was at one end, and the other hole was at the other end away from the first one. According to official records, both farmers drew out a grand total of 9 tons and 158 gallons of oil from the Large Thing. The only thing was, being greedy bastards, they couldn't agree who it belonged to and they weren't prepared to half it.
Now it turned out that the King, known as George IV, on account of his being the fourth one called George, got to hear about it.
"What's this about a Large Thing at Cresswell up in Northumberland?" he asked his valet.
"It’s a spermaceti whale, Your Majesty".
"Whatever. Stop being a smart arse. Anyway, what's the crack about it?"
"Its up on the beach, not far from the tall pointy stone thing. Half of it is on the farm called The First One, and the other half is on the farm called The Next One Along, on account of it being the next one along".
"What, its in two halves?"
"No, it's in one half, but they're arguing about who owns it."
"Well that's easy sorted. It belongs to me, because I'm the King".
"And what about the oil, Your Highness?"
"What oil?"
"They got loads of oil out of it. It's all in buckets. And tankards. And chamber pots".
"How are we off for oil here, then? You know, for the lamps and that."
"Well it never comes in wrong, Your Worshipful Angelicness".
"Right then. Get the lads up to Cresswell with one of those Royal Decree thingies and a load of buckets and tell them I want the oil. And I want all of it. If they try and scam so much as a thimbleful I'll double their taxes. In any event, if they get really bolshy I might just revive that old prima nocte thing, where the King can bonk a woman on the first night of her marriage before her hubby. Edward did that, you know, up in Scotland ages ago".
"And how did that go down, Sire?"
"Like an effing lead balloon, mate. Plus, he got the pox."
And so it came to pass that the oil sucked out of the Large Thing at Cresswell was given to King George, who had a Very Small Thing in his codpiece.
But that's another story.
The moral of the tale is that if you end up arguing with the bloke next door about spermaceti whales, don't.

________________________

* There were no Calamian deer in England in 1822. I just invented this to sex it up a bit.

GUEST BLOGGER MIKE HALLOWELL: Geordie Shapeshifters

Having finished my series of reminiscences regarding the first Weird Weekend - thank you for the death threats I received in response, by the way, its nice to know that someone is reading my blogs - I think it would be apropos to return to more conventional cryptozoological subjects lest my legions of besotted fans (Bert and Evadne Crippen from Billericay) become bored and hove off to some inferior website for their edification.

Many moons ago, I read about a UFO encounter in the USA. I can't remember where I read it, the exact location it occurred in, who it concerned or much about what happened, which I fully confess is not much of a start. However, the one thing I do recall is that some alien-type creature (which looked pretty human, as I recall) was locked up in a jail cell and ultimately escaped or disappeared. He left behind him not much, except for a set of fingerprints which were indelibly impressed into a filing cabinet. For all the world it looked as if he'd been resting his digits on warm wax and not cold steel. Readers - perhaps Mr. Redfern, and I know you're out there, Nick - might recall this incident, and if they know of its source I'd appreciate hearing it. Whatever happened to the filing cabinet I'll never know. Its probably lying in an underground bunker at Groom Lake.

The fascinating thing about this story - or what I can recall of it - is that it has a predecessor of sorts. This, at long last, is where the cryptozoological bit comes in.

Picture, if you will, the sleepy town of Stockton-on-Tees. (If you're having trouble, visualise Newcastle-upon-Tyne, only with thicker pie crusts). The date is Thursday March 25, in the Year of Our Lord 1841. A man - if such he was - called James Robinson has been breaking into various and sundry residences and robbing them of silver candlesticks, brass toasting forks, loaves of bread and whatever passed in 1841 for a Sony PlayStation. With his bag full of swag, he is proceeding to his next target when, to his chagrin, he has the misfortune to bump into one of Her Majesty's Constables - Henry Waring Robinson, perchance - going about his business. The constable, without hesitation, then proceeds to stop James Robinson going about his business by promptly arresting him.

Robinson was promptly frogmarched by Robinson (I know its confusing, but bear with me) off to the local nick, charged with "several counts of felony", given a light but pleasant repast of gruel and cold water and bedded down for the night. Now even back then the gaols in Stockton were remarkably civilised places. Robinson's cell didn't exactly have a walnut drinks cabinet in the corner and a shag pile carpet, but it did have a fire. And this is where the enigma begins, dear reader.

At some point during the night, Robinson decided to escape. In the movies, escapees overpower their guards by grabbing them through the cell bars and removing the keys from their belt before strangling them (the guards, not the keys). Robinson came up with a different strategy. He started off by wresting one of the bars from the cell door or window (the account doesn't make clear which) and then started work on the fireplace. Within a short space of time it was demolished, and then, working with the motto, "I've started so I'll finish", he proceeded to knock down the rest of the wall. Having established an aperture large enough to drive a London bus through, the cheeky chappie walked off into the night and was never seen again.

Now on first pass the whole incident may seem like Stockton's low-budget answer to Escape From Alcatraz, but there is far more to the story than that.

Firstly, the gaol was an extremely small affair - two drunken prostitutes and a litter lout in the charge room together constituted a full-scale riot - and one wonders how Robinson managed to demolish an entire wall without arousing the suspicions of the constables sitting in the bait room next door. Secondly, one is also forced to wonder how the miscreant managed to wrest from its moorings the iron bar with which he demolished the said wall. Gaols back then may not have been centrally heated with en-suite bathrooms, but they were incredibly sturdy. The whole thing was baffling, and the good folk of Stockton were no less mystified than everyone else.

Before long, word got around that Robinson wasn't exactly - how shall I put this - of human stock. He wasn't a big chap, but he seemed to possess the strength of a herd of elephants. Yet, he managed to demolish the wall of the gaol with consummate grace and made no more kerfuffle than an ant farting in the middle of the Gobi Desert. (I don't know if ants actually live in the Gobi Desert, or fart, but I'm sure Messrs. Freeman and Downes will enlighten me).

Robinson was quickly labeled as a shape-shifter by locals; a creature of psychic or other-worldly provenance who could masquerade as a human whilst, simultaneously, doing things that real humans could not do at all. Such as demolishing the walls of a gaol without anyone hearing anything. Robinson's reputation as a cryptozoological entity of great magnitude was only enhanced by his subsequent disappearance. He had, it was reckoned, gone back to whatever dimension he had first hailed from.

Now its easy to laugh at such a tale - particularly if one envisages the faces of the local Bobbies who had "lost" their greatest capture - but the truth is that Robinson's bizarre escape from Stockton gaol does pose some very awkward questions. How did he demolish a sizable part of the nick without the constables next door hearing him - and, more to the point - how did he do it so quickly? There are no easy answers. There are many local legends around the Stockton area about shape-shifting entities masquerading as humans - some of which were said to possess superhuman powers. When cornered, they could deftly change into a horse, a cow, a pig or even a goose.

Call me a cynic if you like, but I suspect that within this fascinating historical vignette there is a prosaic answer to be had. Like the good people of Stockton, I just can't think of what it might be.
Answers on a postcard, please....

GUEST BLOGGER MIKE HALLOWELL: The Geordie Lizard Man and others

First of all, my apologies for the hiatus between my last blog and this one; Casa Hallowell is currently undergoing a refit of monumental proportions, which involves the laying of new floors, a new bathroom and kitchen being fitted, a complete replumbing and rewiring and a multitude of other improvements, including the addition of a curious new form of energy called "electricity". Whether the rest of the British Isles will follow suit and also avail themselves of this new wonder is yet to be seen.

In my last blog, I mentioned the fact that two witnesses had come forward, both of whom claim to have espied a strange "lizard man"; one in Northumberland, and the other somewhat closer to home. I'm still investigating these claims, and have not, as yet, satisfied myself that they are entirely genuine. I believe they are at this juncture, mainly because the experients do not seem to know each other. Both appear to be perfectly sincere, and the intriguing thing is that their descriptions of the creature tally almost perfectly.

Witness A described the creature as five ft. in height, brown/green in colour and scaled. The beast, he said, was essentially anthropomorphic, but also possessed a tail, had no discernible ears and sported a reddish, serrated crest upon its head and spine. Its face was "snout-like" and resembled that of a German Shepherd in shape. I contacted him again several days ago, and asked him to relate to me once again his sighting in detail. His account is as follows, minus some details regarding the exact location which I am withholding at this time:

Last summer - one Sunday in July, as he recalls - Witness A left his home in Northumberland and drove to a remote spot further north to engage in a spot of rambling. He arrived at his destination and parked his car at approximately 1040hrs, and then walked up a path which took him between two small hillocks. In his backpack was a flask of tea and a packet of biscuits.

After walking between the hillocks, Witness A came across a large area covered with shrub, and scattered amongst it were a number of small, boggy areas filled with peat. He noticed that as he walked forward the ground was becoming increasingly waterlogged and spongy. Suddenly, to his right, he saw what he at first thought was a man running across the ground "at high speed". He estimates that he was approximately twenty yards away from him, and was puzzled as he could not see where he had came from.

"He seemed to come out of nowhere", the witness told me, "as if he had suddenly popped up out of the ground".

Witness A told me that the creature - by now he'd realised that it certainly wasn't human - had a gait that was perfectly human-like: "There wasn't anything funny about the way he ran. If it hadn't been for his strange appearance I would have thought it was just a man".

Within seconds the creature had crossed the path of Witness A and gave no indication of being aware that he was not alone. It was, said the witness, "as if I wasn't there". The witness also recalled seeing occasional splashes of water near the creature's feet as it disturbed the boggy ground beneath him. Then, without warning, he claimed that it, "just seemed to sink into the ground, as if he had fallen into a hole. There was no noise or anything...he just disappeared."

Witness A then retraced his steps, found his car and proceeded to drive home. His ramble had been of incredibly short duration, but the incident had removed any desire to prolong it.

Witness A said that although the creature had not threatened him or even looked in his direction, he was extremely frightened. He remembers his heart beating incredibly fast and said that his mouth dried up so much that, even if he'd wanted to speak or shout, he would have been unable to.

In my last blog I appealed for anyone who had heard similar tales to come forward. No one has done so. This may simply be because no one else has spotted the creature - the area Witness A was in is quite remote - or simply because the creature never existed in the first place.

I have still to verify Witness B's testimony and ascertain further details of his own sighting, but its intriguing to think that he may have seen the same creature. Geographically I think its unlikely, but who knows.

I'd also like to appeal to any cryptozoological fanatics out there to get in touch if they know of any other "lizard man" sightings from around the globe with which I can compare this one.

Well, must dash - Bob the builder, Terry the tiler and Pete the plasterer have just arrived...

MIKE HALLOWELL: Geordie Monsters IV

There's an old maxim in Geordieland, that says it's always darkest just before it goes completely black; or, if you like, as one door shuts, another one slams in your face. As you'll have gathered, we Tynesiders are an optimistic lot, and we have to be when it comes to cryptozoology. Our kingdom is veritably teeming with cryptids and zooforms, but hardly any of them ever get identified. Its not for the want of trying; its just that we have other things on our mind, such as paying the rent and getting the kids back from the pawn shop.

One of the advantages the Geordie nation possesses when it comes to cryptozoology is our environment. We have mountains (although they're not very big ones), hills, moors, forests, lakes, rivers, a sea and a profusion of urban-cum-industrial sprawls. All of these provide a perfectly natural environment for just about any kind of cryptid you care to mention, and then some.

It never fails to amaze me what a spectacular collection of unidentified fauna we've accrued over the centuries - and how terrible we are at singing their praises.

We have hairy hominids (the Beast of Bolam Lake), dragons (The Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heugh), sea monsters (the Shony), alien big cats (the Cleadon Panther), black dogs (the Boldon Black Dog), cylathines (probably, such as the Boojum of Jesmond Vale), wolves (the Hexham Wolf) and dozens of others too many to mention.

To be honest, despite our incredible cryptozoological menagerie, I still end up feeling frustrated. To date, I haven't found any evidence of swamp monsters, for example Mind you, this could just be due to the fact that we haven't any swamps, although we do have some swamp-like bogs in Northumberland where, I have recently been told, a creature of unknown provenance dwells.

I don't want to say too much about it at the moment, as I'd like to get another book out of the story if it proves to have some substance to it, but the tale goes something like this:

Last summer, a rambler was out walking in Northumberland when he saw something run across his field of vision and dive into a bog. He described the creature as five ft. in height, brown/green in colour and scaled. The beast was essentially anthropomorphic, but also possessed a tail, had no discernible ears and sported a reddish, serrated crest upon its head and spine. Its face was, he said, "snout-like" and resembled that of a German Shepherd in shape.

The chap who related the story to me was himself the eye-witness, but was very cautious about getting his name splashed all over the press. He didn't mind me telling the world about his encounter with "the thing", providing that his name was not released as he felt that it wouldn't do his career prospects much good. Trust me, if you knew what he did for a living, you'd understand why. I have given him my solemn word not to divulge his personal details to anyone until he feels its appropriate to do so.

The witness who saw the creature strikes me as perfectly reliable and I got no indication that he was fibbing. What threw me completely was being contacted by a second witness less than two weeks later who claimed to have seen the very same beast - or at least, something very close to it. This time, the witness managed to keep the creature in view for around two minutes.

Normally I'm a trusting soul, but I couldn't help but be suspicious. It wasn't so much that two people claimed to have seen the same creature that bothered me, but the location of the second sighting. It was literally miles away from the first location, and by no stretch of the imagination could I conceive that the same animal could have moved from one to the other without being spotted many times. It had to be a different beast of the same species, or I was being set up to look like an idiot. Another problem was the nature of the second location; it just seemed the most unlikely place for some sort of lizardy dude to be living. Still, in the weird and wonderful world of cryptozoology, you never can tell. After all, the woods at Bolam Lake aren't much bigger than my front lawn, but there was a hairy hominid dodging about in their for bloody months.

Over the coming weeks I'll try to put together some more detail and, if possible, release more of the story via this blog. Are the accounts true? At this stage I honestly don't know, but I've seen nothing which makes me intrinsically suspicious - yet. Naturally, if anyone in or around Tyneside or Northumberland has seen this creature - or knows someone else who has - I'd like to hear about it.

Like I say, watch this space...

GUEST BLOGGER MIKE HALLOWELL: Geordie Monsters 3 - this time its personal

At the last Weird Weekend, my friend Steve Jones kindly offered to send me two dusty tomes penned in the mid-19th century by a chap called T. Fordyce. Fordyce was a Geordie, thus making any other positive references regarding his character entirely redundant.

The books are essentially diaries of events which took place in the Northumberland and Tyneside areas and surrounding places during that time, and they make for interesting reading. Should you ever happen upon one or more of these volumes, entitled - wait for it - LOCAL RECORDS; or, HISTORICAL REGISTER of Remarkable Events, which have occurred in NORTHUMBERLAND AND DURHAM, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, and BERWICK UPON TWEED, with BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES of DECEASED PERSONS OF TALENT, ECCENTRICITY and LONGEVITY, then I would suggest that you purchase them. Indeed, no Fortean should be without them.

Fordyce was a strange cove; never once in his writings did he mention some of Geordieland's finest achievements, such as landing the first whippet trainer on the moon (1846), our invention of the radioactive truncheon (1859) or the fact that we were the first nation to cure the vapours with intravenous transfusions of liquified stottie cake (if you don't know what a stottie cake is, look it up).

Seriously, though, Fordyce was an amazing bloke who, had he lived in our own era, would undoubtedly be giving the keynote address at every Weird Weekend from now till eternity. He delighted in accruing, as did Mr. Fort, weird tales and stories of enigmatic events. Until Geordie Dave and I came along, there had been nobody like him.

One of Fordyce's fascinations was the curious appearance of frogs, toads and other critters in blocks of stone. He detailed many instances of labourers cracking open boulders, only to find inside healthy, living specimens that had, seemingly, been there for untold millennia. Personally I think they hid there to avoid paying the Pleistocene equivalent of the Council Tax, but I'm only guessing. Geordie cryptids are devious buggers.

But Fordyce didn't restrict himself to the appearance of ordinary animals in extraordinary places. He also detailed the use of ordinary animals in extraordinary ways. He mentions this bloke, for instance, who - seriously - tethered a gaggle of geese to a barrel. He then got into the barrel and persuaded the geese to drag him up the River Tyne. It seems he was trying to replace steam power with goose power, but it never did catch on. He was outdone by a Mr. Kent, who, on May 16, 1822, according to the author, "exhibited his marine velocipede upon the River Tyne. Being Ascension Day, and the weather very fine, he fired his musket, and performed a variety of evolutions with much ease and dexterity, to the great delight of a large concourse of spectators. June 3rd, Mr. Kent exhibited his apparatus at Sunderland to at least 20,000 spectators"

I might have known those Mackems would have stuck their oar (or marine velocipede) in there somewhere.

Fordyce also mentioned the regular appearance of oarfish which appeared (mostly deceased) on our beaches. There were bloody dozens of the things, and, funnily enough, there was a picture of one in The Shields Gazette last night. Fordyce would have loved it.

Fordyce also collected tales of longevity. Hardly a page can be turned without hearing of people who were aged 102, 104, 116, etc, and were still vigorous enough to get down to the pub every night. Wisely, Fordyce refrained from announcing the secret of Geordie longevity to the world. Had he wished, he could have told those in foreign parts, such as Yorkshire, that Geordie longevity owes its legendary status to the holy trinity of baccy, brown ale and bacon sandwiches.

Another Fortean penchant of Fordyce was searching for prehistoric trees; not fossilised ones, mind you, but those still living. Now I hasten to add that the rather boring pass-time of finding supposedly extinct plants still with us didn't interest the great man in the slightest. Rather, he preferred to find trees that had begun to grow millions of years ago and were still budding forth in the 19th century. Alas, even this was too tame for Geordie Forteans (or more properly, Geordie Fordyceans). It wasn't enough, say, to find a 50,000,000 year-old tree still growing in a field in Bensham. Fordyce wanted to find living trees in more exotic places.

Hence, in July 1822, he announced the discovery of a living oak tree thirteen feet underground. This sturdy specimen was uncovered when labourers were digging new foundations for Morpeth gaol. What happened to it I do not know, and it may still be flourishing there with only a few simple needs like rain and Baby Bio. Fordyce related other discoveries of subterranean plants, much to the amusement of his followers.

I could go on ad infinitum relating the cryptozoological and other discoveries of Mr. Fordyce, but time prevents me. Mind you, if readers want I can scatter them around future blogs for their edification.

Those who wish to know more about the bizarre flora and fauna of Geordieland, or our Fordycean legacy, may apply to embark upon a degree course at one of our nation's universities, such as the Royal and Accredited University (formerly the old Co-op "8 til' late" store), in Dock Street. Course fees begin at the moderate amount of £17,000 (per term) but include a free finger buffet on a Friday afternoon.

GUEST BLOGGER MIKE HALLOWELL: A closer look at Geordie Monsters

Geordie cryptids are normally identifiable by a number of peculiar "trademarks"; they tend to wear string vests, drink copious amounts of brown ale ( colloquially known as lunatics' broth) and have a fondness for dining on the fish Gadus morhua, or Atlantic Cod. Being omnivorous, they will often supplement their diet with the root vegetable Solanum tuberosum. Together, Gadus morhua and Solanum tuberosum are commonly called "fish and chips".

Anyway, enough of the science lesson and on with the blog.

On Saturday evening, Mr. Richard Freeman and I proceeded to a somewhat ostentatious drinking establishment called The Alum Ale House. "The Alum" sits on the south bank of the River Tyne in South Shields, and provides refreshment to weary travellers. However, in keeping with Geordie by-laws patrons who frequent the place must be at least two weeks old and are not allowed to purchase alcoholic beverages until they have reached three months. For pedants, an "alcoholic beverage" in Geordieland must be at least 86% proof. Any weaker products are classed as "soft drinks", as only new-borns and "soft" people imbibe them.

The purpose of our visit was to educate the local populace regarding two cryptozoological enigmas. I opened the proceedings by informing the packed Dungeon Bar about one of our more colourful crustaceans; a huge critter commonly known as The Giant Lobster of Trow Rocks. Having suitably traumatised those foolhardy enough to attend, Mr. Freeman then followed with a rendition of his adventures in a country called "Russia", which allegedly lies many furlongs away in another land supposedly called "Europe". The existence of both these locations has yet to be verified by our scientists.

The Giant Lobster of Trow Rocks is something of a puzzle, as it is almost certainly not a lobster and it doesn't reside on Trow Rocks. Mind you, it lives pretty close to them.

Aquatic cryptids are supposed to live in picturesque underwater caves decorated with sea shells. The Giant Lobster of Trow Rocks, being a Geordie, prefers to tart up his home with old copies of Viz magazine and Woodbine packets, but we need not quibble over details.

In the early part of the 20th century, there stood in Jarrow, also on the banks of the Tyne, a dock. Docks were places where we used to build ships, dismantle ships and fish for our supper, but with the decline of the shipping industry they steadily became redundant. At the neck of the dock stood a huge steel thing known as a gate. The gate was used to keep some of the water out and to prevent the locals from escaping. At some juncture it became surplus to requirements, and a rich bloke bought it and decided to have it sent off to Norway where it could be broken down and sold for scrap. The plan went swimmingly - please excuse the pun - at first. The dock was strapped to another big thing called a boat, and it duly made its way down river. After entering the North Sea the boat turned right and got as far as Marsden Bay. Here, alas, tempestuous waves and gusty winds precipitated a disaster. The boat shuggied about a bit in the sea, and the gate fell off.

Now the gate was so big that even after it hit the bottom the top bit was still sticking out of the water, where it remained for many decades - a stark testament to both the skill of our nautical engineers and the ferocity of our ocean.

Twenty years later, a bloke from Sunderland, which lies within the adjacent Kingdom of Mackemland, purchased the gate with the intention of salvaging it. He strapped it to a boat, sailed a bit further up the shore and then watched as it fell off again. Bugger, he opined. A third attempt also ended in like manner, and the remains of the gate have lodged at the bottom of the briny ever since. You can still see it at low tide.

In 1963, people started to see a strange thing on the beach. It was 12 feet in length, dark green in colour and had big claws, upon which it sported sharp lumps. Recently, after much investigation, our marine biologists positively identified these lumps as - sorry to get technical - "pointy bits" and suggested that they are probably best avoided by bathers who find themselves in close proximity to the creature. Since its arrival, the creature has been known as The Giant Lobster of Trow Rocks, but this is a misnomer. Indeed, its description fits closely that of Jaekelopterus rhenaniae, the long-extinct (supposedly) Giant Sea Scorpion.

What, pray, I hear you ask, has this creature got to do with the dock gate? For reasons I have not been able to fathom, a legend arose that the monster - whatever its taxonomical provenance - lived beneath the remains of the gate just off the coast, and would only venture forth from its steel home to catch its prey or put a bet on at the local bookies.

This, in essence, is the story of the Giant Lobster of Trow Rocks. Those who wish to learn more can do so by purchasing a copy of my book Mystery Animals of the British Isles: Northumberland & Tyneside (CFZ Press, 2008), by means of which they may also edify themselves regarding more serious cryptids such as The Giant Rabbit of Felton and the Ghost Birds of Jesmond Dene. (The latter, I hasten to point out, should not be confused with two other species known as the Drunken Birds of Benwell and the Dolly Birds of Walker).

After, Mr. Freeman regaled our audience with tales of his Russian trip. One highlight was his fascinating description of a gorilla's penis, which was accompanied by vigorous wiggling of his little finger. Mr. Freeman assured us that both his pinkie and a gorilla's penis are nigh-identical. Whether the refusal of our audience to shake hands with him later was connected to this I cannot say, but his lecture went down a storm and the crowd yelled for more. Indeed, they got more the following evening when we were invited back by popular demand. The audience, alas, was not quite as large as the previous evening, but we at least had the opportunity to sample a delightful real ale called The Cross Buttock. I will refrain from going into too much detail, but I would like to point out that this beverage very much "does what it says on the tin", and proved to be a most efficacious treatment for solemnity as well as other burdens of body and mind.

Yours in the spirit of Biffa Bacon....Mike.

GUEST BLOGGER RICHARD FREEMAN: DID YOU SPILL MY PINT?

Guest Blogger time for Richard Freeman again. He has, as regular readers will be aware, been away from the CFZ for a week or so now. This is where he explains why...

The last time I lectured at the Alum Ale House, South Shields, Tyne and Wear (in the North of England, for those of our readers unfamiliar with British geography) the cellar bar was a dingy, damp, bare. Now redecorated the new landlord Tony Shawcross is hoping to turn it into a 'Fortean Bar'. This is such a great idea that I don't know why it hasn't been thought of before!

Sure there are 'Wine Bar Forteans' in London who gather to dismiss all phenomena as subjective, and as states of mind, but there was nowhere for real hands-on researchers to gather, listen to talks, and swap information. Until now. Together with my old mate Mike Hallowell, I lectured on the opening night of the cellar bar. It was packed to full capacity, and all the tickets had been sold. Mike gave a short talk about the monster lobster of Trow Rocks. This little known cryptid is supposedly a ten foot long arthropod that has been seen close to Marsden Bay (also home to the Shoney, the infamous sea-dragon of the North East coast).

Seen both on land and in the water, this weird beast is unlike anything else reported from the UK or even the world for that matter!Mike has postulated that it might be a Eurypterid, a giant arthropod believed extinct some 280 million years. Alternatively, he says, witnesses could be viewing the beast through some form of `time-slip`.

After this i gave my lecture on the CFZ's 2008 expedion to Russia in search of relict hominids. Both talks were very well recieved, and there was a Q+A session afterwards. Rounded off with a buffet, and an evening of drinking, it was an excellent night. Mike is aranging monthly talks in the Cellar Bar, and I wish them every sucess.

Fittingly the bar is suposedly haunted. The joiner who worked on the cellar's refurbishment saw somthing in a mirror he was erecting. It was supposedly so horrific, he refused to talk about it.

Perhaps it was his own reflection.

GUEST BLOGGER MIKE HALLOWELL: Geordie Monsters

David Frost was well known for his catchphrase, “Hello, good evening and welcome”. As I'm more important than David Frost I have adopted my own opening gambit, which is Wotcha; a Geordie greeting which essentially means, “Hello, good evening and it’s your round coz I bought the last one”.

Now that we have dispensed with the pleasantries, let's get this blog under way.

I was born within the provinces of the Sovereign Kingdom of Geordieland in 1957. 1957 was a good year – like I say, I was born then – but life in the north was tough. Electricity was still a pipe dream, mothers had to feed their kids a substance called “milk” instead of proper brown ale and the dreaded sparrow flu had devastated stocks of our only source of good avian flesh. In desperation we turned to more exotic fayre such as rabbits and chickens. It was in such a climate that I turned to Forteana as a means of enriching my life, but my Geordie roots were buried deep in our black, northern soil and would not let me go. Eventually I reached a compromise, and promised our local deities that I would carry out my research into the unknown, but use it as a means of promoting our indigenous culture. Now I am a successful writer on Forteana, but my books, columns and other scribblings have a distinct Geordie theme. Well, at least most of them do, for I am not a purist. I will occasionally go beyond the borders of our land to other climes in search of a good story. I once went to a land called “Scun Thorp” (or something like that) to hunt down a Green Man, and many moons ago, when I was younger and fitter, I took part in an expedition to Lun Dun (Eng: London) in search of a Hairy Hominid that had been seen in a park.

During my travels abroad I have been much impressed by the natives of these foreign parts. The tribespeople of Manchesta (Eng: Manchester), for example, are quite friendly and, although not sophisticated by our own standards, possess a rude friendliness that endears one to them. We did not feel in the least threatened, and were indeed surprised to find that they too are not averse to the idea that there are things in, beyond and beside our world that we simply do not understand.

There was a time when Forteana was an unknown concept in our land. Many people believed in ghosts, UFOs and indeed cryptids, but their notions were simply a cacophony of ideas and legends rarely talked about and even less understood. As a teenager I felt it was my mission to change all that.

Until recently, Geordieland was uncharted territory when it came to cryptozoology. This was a shame – nay, an outrage – for our kingdom was teeming with bizarre creatures begging to be hunted, caught, examined and, of course, slaughtered in our customary fashion. Boggle pie and Sea Monster stew are just two of our local delicacies, as Messrs. Downes and Freeman will readily testify.

Perhaps the most legendary of our cryptids is the dreaded Beast of Bolam Lake, which, in the dawning days of this century, terrified the local populace whilst they were visiting one of our picturesque nature reserves. The CFZ sent an expedition to track the creature down, and I had the honour of arranging visas for the team and the pleasure of translating for them into our distinctive Geordie brogue.

The Beast of Bolam Lake was a hairy hominid not unlike the North American Bigfoot. It was approximately eight feet in height and covered with an unseemly pelt of dark, shaggy hair. It was never captured, but several members of the CFZ team saw it and there is no doubt in my mind that it really existed. My own position on the creature is that it was (or is) a zooform beast that can both enter and leave our world at will. Why it chose Bolam Lake to make its appearances I do not know, and conjecture is probably pointless.

The Beast of Bolam Lake is a cryptid of more recent advent, however, and there are others of much darker provenance that have a far older pedigree.

In future blogs I will be introducing you to some of these entities – not personally, you understand, but metaphorically, as they have a habit of killing humans that get too close to them.

Those who live outside the borders of our realm may not have heard of creatures such as the Shotton Dobby, the Staindrop Cloggy, the Hylton Brag and the Boldon Bogey Man, but they truly exist. In a forthcoming book I will be detailing these, and I can now announce that my friend and colleague Richard Freeman has written a superb forward for it. This is not a plug for my book, and I would not like readers to think that I am using this blog to encourage its purchase. However, as it says in the Geordie Bible, “Buyeth it now, for verily, we knoweth where you live.” (The Book of Trivialisations, 22;14).

The problem Geordies have with cryptids (or rather, the problem that cryptids have with we Geordies) is our passion for smiting. In our scriptures we are encouraged to smite. “Smite, smite, smite and smiteth again”, our prophet Toonarmius instructed. In the Great Soccer War of 1148, when we fought a bitter and protracted battle with the Mackem tribe to the south over ownership of the territory just south of the River Tyne, our great general Geordius Maximus is alleged to have slaughtered three alien big cats, fifteen dragons and no less than seventeen hominids of uncertain provenance simply to prove our manhood.

Well, that's enough for now. Should anyone out there know of other north-eastern cryptids that I might be unaware of, please let me know. I'll be glad to give them the oxygen of publicity that they so richly deserve.