Strange Stories UK

This a short episode to end Series 3. Again a rambling story about a possible paranormal incident in a small village (St.Boswells)  in the Borderlands between England and Scotland. The story comes from the Journals of the Society of Physical research. I give the links to these on www.strangestories.uk.comI will not post anything for the next six weeks. I would like to thank you for reading this and I will try to get some different Damselfly music for series 4.

This is part 2 of the Hess Enigma. What happened to Hess? Was he murdered? Was it Hess? We also examine the roles of other characters such as Tancred Borenius, the Polish leader Sikorski and others.There is also Anthony Blunt the Soviet spy who carried out dirty business for the Royal family.There are so many secrets and rumours regarding the Hess flight, and he was prevented with communicating with anyone after he was locked up, so it is unlikely that the truth will ever come out.

 May and June 1941 was the period that Nazi Germany came close to conquering Western Europe. But the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler then  opened  a second Front which was going to cost him the war. Events during May and June 1941 are  shrouded in mystery, part of the puzzle was Rudolf Hess's (Hitler’s deputy) flight to Scotland during May 1941. Was Hess sent by Hitler to offer Britain peace terms so he could concentrate on invading the USSR? Did Hess ask Britain to help them defeat the USSR? Was Hess tricked by the British security services ? Was Hess trying to cause civil unrest in Britain to aid the Nazi cause? What is certain is that there was a large section of the British people who seemed to be in favour of  a peace deal with the Nazis, appeasement;  these were the Middle and Upper classes that had the most to lose. The perception of Britain in 1940 was that the Nation was united against the Nazi threat. This was not  true.Was the Churchill government playing the Nazis and the Soviets against each other? I don’t think that we will ever know the true story, but some members of the aristocracy and the Royal family do not come out of this story very well. This is part one of the story, part two will be posted within the next two days. 

This is a rambling story based on John 'Goldfinger' Palmer. We find how the Brinks Mat gold bullion robbery was responsible for a lot of criminal enterprises as these were funded by the proceeds of Brinks Mat gold. John Palmer was an interesting character, a key figure in disposing of the Brinks Mat gold.Palmer managed to avoid prosecution and started a huge Timeshare fraud on the island of Tenerife which made him so much money that he made the Sunday Times rich list on equal place with the Queen! Anyone who has read the book McMafia will realise that organised crime noticed the money made by Palmer and moved in on his enterprises. The police and insurance companies were also trying to get back stolen money. There was a lot of paranoia, jealousy and shootings, so much so that it was said that the Brinks Mat gold was cursed.British organised crime gangs and enemies of Palmer were also making moves against him. Palmer was never really able to enjoy his wealth and always had to wear a bullet proof vest when he was in public. Having just played back the recording while uploading I realise that I have not thanked Damselfly for providing the backing music or you for listening.The main sources of information for this podcast were the two Wensley Clarkson books: Killing Goldfinger and the Curse of Brinks Mat,  Goldfinger and me by Marnie Palmer, various other books and newspaper articles. http://www.strangestoriesuk.com 

There has been recent news items on the interview between the BBC Panorama  programme and Princess Diana in November 1995  and that was the inspiration for this podcast. I have not attempted a full story of the car crash that killed Princess Diana, in chronological order, as the story is quite well known. I have focussed in on some areas.There have been suggestions that Diana was killed by a faction within the security services that were unable to accept the fact that the future king of England's mother may have married a Muslim and converted to that faith.This podcast looks at certain aspects of the car crash that killed her and Dodi Al Fayed and their driver Henri Paul. I try not to come to any conclusion in these podcasts and leave it to the listener to make their own minds up. The Princess Diana death is a well known conspiracy theory, it won't be proved either way but there are some inconvenient loose ends that have not been explained.For a bibliography please visit the 'strangestoriesuk.com'  website.

I thought it time for a paranormal type episode, this one taken from the journals of the Society for Psychical Research. I do my research in the British Library for these podcasts, this one comes from the 1949 journal.I like to do a paranormal podcast during the month of May, This story was published in the 1949 Journal of the Society of Psychical Research and was called 'The Woman in Brown'. Edward Osbourne was an investigator for the SPR and it was he that wrote up the story.I gave quite a long lead into the podcast explaining what London was like in 1948, for someone in their 80s, they must have seen so much change during the course of their lifetimes’, it would scarcely seems credible to someone much younger so I thought I would give some description to London life at that time.There may be something of a delay in my next podcast as I have to do some building works, I am going to try to lay a concrete floor using Youtube tutorials, so I think that will take up most of my time for the next month. I will try to put another podcast out within the month.   

Northern Ireland 1970s, MI5, Clockwork Orange, Murder, SAS, paedophiles, IRA, UDA.What could possibly go wrong?Well quite a lot did go wrong. This is part one of a story that few people come out of very well.Colin Wallace had a questionable job peddling black propaganda. But you have to accept the position he was in, his background in Northern Ireland and the fact that he thought he was doing good by fighting terrorism. He was to find that once you join such an organisation, it is difficult to leave.Clockwork Orange developed into a policy that would target anyone that the Security Services (MI5, MI6, Special Branch , RUC and others) disapproved of. Even the democratically elected representatives of the people. It was said that the Security Services were out of control in Northern Ireland during the 1970s.Colin Wallace learnt of a paedophile sex ring operating from perhaps nine children’s homes in Northern Ireland but centred on one home called Kincora. The security Services tolerated paedophile abuse because they were able to blackmail those committing the offence to gain useful information.Please see the web site for the list of sources used for this podcast. Two that were particularly useful were the Lobster magazine which is available online https://www.lobster-magazine.co.ukhighly recommended and if you are interested in this story there is a wealth of similar stories available to read online free of charge!I also made a lot of use of Paul Foot's book 'Who framed Colin Wallace?I will post Part 2 of the story within the next couple of days.

This is part three of the Hilda Murrell murder, please listen to parts one and two.The police continue to insist that the Hilda Murrell murder was a burglary gone wrong despite evidence mounting up that there was more involved. Were the police chiefs being told to follow this line?More evidence comes forward that a gang abducted Hilda before killing her.The police arrest somebody for the murder twenty years after it was committed. There was a guilty verdict.  However, not everyone is convinced, there were many unanswered questions and it was argued that the jury had to reach a verdict without hearing all the evidence.