Death and Posthumous Seance

Hello and welcome. I am Josh Whittdakomb. For today I'm the curator of a place of incredible artifacts and exhibitions, a place that stores the greatest thing on Earth. This is my archive of pop culture. Welcome back to the final part of the life and work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. If you thought the first two parts were a roller coaster, incredibly his life story is about to take even more wild twists and turns The final part of Arthur Conan Doyle, Tom The saddest, but I suppose that is the case with everyone's life, isn't it? Yeah It comes for us all, Josh. It does come for us us. Yeah, the mortal Goy you might be listening to us and we're already dead. Yeah. I don't think that will be the case. I don't know whether this podcast will stand the test of time. in that sense I hope it has. We'll podcast the medium stand the test of time That's a big question Yeah. Well, ass it's been a remarkable life so far for Conan Doyle. It's about to get more remarkable Really, okay, fantastic. So let's start with something sad. His stricken wife finally passes away in nineteen oh six. The year after her death he remarries. Okay I'm not one to judge. that's fine Wow, he remarries a woman he met at a party eleven years earlier. Okay So basically He's been in this position, I don't know whether you'd consider it noble or not. He's fallen in love with someone else. Oh really? o. yearsars and years earlier Yeah but has felt a loyalty to his ill wife. so has kept this affair from her. So there was an affair going on there. Yeah so. Okay, yeah, yeah yeah. He hasn't left his ill wife In his defense he hasn't is not ideal. Yeah So basically in eighteen ninety six, this is ten years before his wife dies, he meets a woman at a party who he basically falls in love with. She's called Jean Elizabeth Lecky, but his wife She clings to her life for ten more years and they just pretend to be friends for those ten years. When Dor's first wife, Ti dies, she says to his daughter, she'd not be surprised if Arthur Conan Dor married again and she says she imagines Lecky will be the second wife. She puts some money on it. It's always the one you suspect most. It's always rule When you split up with someone, who they're going to get together with, it's always the one you suspect the most. Yeah Okay It's a rule as old as time And same with if you die. So his second wife, Jean Lecky, she is, to be fair, he's a lucky lady. She's a leg lady. She's the love of his life. Yeah. he'd send her adoring notes sometimes twice a day Do Do a pre textessages, I suppose, isn't it? Well I to text Claire more than twice a day. adoring Well, they're often quite functional with stuff. we've run out our toilet roll Should I do a big shot Who's pting up the kids? Yeah, that's awes Yeah. Is that adoring? Probably not. Well, you know, I put kides in the end. The deevil's in the detail. So to give you an idea of the kind of things he sends her when he's on a lecture tour of the US in nineteen twenty three, it will be a weary old jumper who comes back to you. His first jump will be into your arms, his next one into bed Goodbye, my sweet one. I hunger for your kiss Oh, that last sentence creeped me out a little bit. I hunger for your kiss is It's thing isn't there I don't like. Hunger because it makes it like he's drooling. He's lking his lips. That's how I'm imaging it Yeah, it it's grim, isn't it Absolutely. Just write fancy anob but end uply just use the language we all do. comeome on. Yeah. So here's a twist. Gean Lecky's wife is an absolute horrible piece of work Really? Yeah. Wow, okay. So she makes it clear to his two children from his first marriage that they're unwelcome. which is a baller move. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah yeah. She backs herself, I'll give it that. ye. Exactly. In the summer of nineteen oh eight, Mary, she's away, but her last visit was not team of success. She's basically away in Dresden training to be a singer. She wanted to show her father and stepmother what she'd learned And Jean, the stepmother, was trained as a mezo sooprano, refuses to accompany her stepdaughter on the piano, so she's obliged to accompany herself. and then After a stepdaughter sng, she privately tells Arthur Conan Doyle that his daughter's singing was flat and that she stood no chance of a career in music. Oh That's so awful.. When my brother did a primary school play when he was about nine, I think it was like Peter Pan or something. My dad came up to him at the end of the play and said, donon't get any funny ideas about becoming an actor Oh that still sticks with Michael Does' it? Isn't it? It really does. I think that's a generational thing as well. I think my dad generation older.our dads saying he was no good or your dad's saying It good but you don't this is not It's that Yeah. It's not a viable career. It's that. That is what it is in his defence. And I think it speaks to a generational thing of feeling that being an actor isn't a secure career, basically, that's why. It' of course not true. No of course, it works out for everyone, famously But yeah, coming off stage anded Michael was saying, before he left theys school dreams Exactly. I'm glad you enjoyed that last hour, but let's be realistic. Yeah So Conan Doyle then writes to his daughter and she's back in Dresden passing on this bad news, telling her that while she's got a sweet voice, she will never stand out from others. He doesn't need to do that. He doesn't need He's really under the power of this lady, isn't it? Yeah yeahah And then when he starts dedicating himself to spiritualism, i. e, communing with the dead and spirits. He says the dead are saying you should give up your dreams and be coming an opera singer. they're also saying it as well Kaking a ouija board out saying you were flat, spepelling that So after the First World War, he dedicates himself to spiritualism, his wife mysteriously develops a talent for automatic writing. Okay yeah, let's conven. Yeah So she takes messages down that she receives from the other world.. And many of these messages praise the work Arthur Conan D dole doing and the vital support that she provides I really hope it's like that as well. It's saying they're praising the work of Ath Conan Doyle and the vital support. I really hope he's using that language as well. That's amazing. I think you've got to be a bit more subtle about it, every. And she gets lots of messages from lots of deceased relatives from both families, which sadly she never receives the one from any from his dead wife Okay, Oh, that's a pissy isn't it? It's a shame What are the chances? I know Did I mention also that he was an amateur boxer? I don't know if I did, but that's another thing. In nineteen oh nine, he's invited to referee the heavyweight championship of the world fight. What? In Reno, Nevada, still home to boxing fights really, isn't it? So the boxers struggled to agree on the referee for the match, they both consider it being impartial And the only name they can agree on is Arthur Conan Doyle 's like what's the equivalent of now It looks likeessard Oswan. It isn't it? Yeah. Would it has to be Richard Osman then, doesn't it? It has to be, yeah yeah, of course, Richard Osman fair enough, ye That's amazing. Antony Joshima versus Tes and Fury Trying to hold them back. keep them apart. Yeah.' the only person who can be impartial He's done it and pointless and howouses the games So a bit where that microphone comes down from the ceiling at the beginning it doesn't need to come down that far because he's so t. just comes down a bit So they also obviously they're allowed to the publicity, but he can't do it due to the distance and prior engagements, sadly. and because it would be insane. And because it would be insane. So then this is I'd say that this for me is the maddest bet right? Then he's staying in a hotel a couple of years later the Lindterurst Grand Hotel. and he has an idea for a third story extension and an alteration to the front of the building. So he sketches it down Andtration of the front of the building of the hotel he's staying in. Yeah, and a third story When you're discussing an auth, you need to be clearer when you're saying an idea for a third story. Oh y. Naturally I'm going to assume of course. Because why would he have you ever stayed in a hotel and thought, you know what I can imagine a third story on this. I should draw that Yeah And they make it. The later that year, what? and when it's finished, it's basically nearly exactly as he sketched it. That's incredible. He launches his property company Sherlock Holmes. Yeah. Oh reallyally nice. He gets really resentful. Sherlock Holmes ou be likes a safe home but they're really popular, but he doesn't like them because he wants to work on lifeock Yeah really intricate houses that not that many people are into. That's what he wants to do. That's incredible. So hes sat in the hotel, he designs a third story. I so many questions about what is the thought process there? Is he approached a hotel and thought this hotel is too short? What's happening? What he needs a third story? Al yeah, I mean, it's so strange, isn't it? It's so incredible. What was this bed on the roof and it's freezing. He's thinking this ro reallyom is the first story So would there have had lifts? Pumably they' have had lifts in those I. Yeah, lifts that yeah. I think the Patnosta lift was maybe the first one, which is like I think maybe late nineteenth century. Oh, okay, fine. But still, it's a hell of an undertaking, isn't it? Just to conclude that very briefly. so he submits it that they do actually build it. Yeah. What a life. incredible my head He's sketched on, you know that little noteepad you get next to your bed? Oh yes. Maybe he's just left and he's left it sketched on the side unthinkingly. And the maid picks it up and goes, wait a minute. This is perfect. This is perfect. So this is the same year, right? Not in twelve. Yeah in builtdown, paleontologists find shards of a scar of a million year old eight man who has a large brain, but a primitive jawbone and teeth. Bear with me on this, right And then over the decades, other countries find fossils of early eight men, but they're different from this, right? And British scientists don't take these other ones seriously because of the skull in piltdown They dismissed these and even though it turns out these are genuinely important, then in nineteen fifty three, there now it's the braincase of the modern human being, but the jawbone was an oranga tank or chimpanzee. and the whole thing was a hoax Okay, right. And some people believe the hoax was done by none other. theile. Wow You buried a human skull and a chimpanzee jaw. Yeah Why? So He's a former doctor, he's a fossil collector So he's got the expertise for this, of course, he has. What is the expertise out of interest The ability to, I suppose to those The ability to know how to place them, I suppose. Bones and what, I suppose. Yeah yeah. because he's a doctor. One of the characters in the Lost World which she published in nineteen twelve that year. said If you are clever and you know your business, you can fake a bone as easily as you can fake a photograph. He also has the opportunity. he plays golf in Pilt down and his motive is that as a spiritualist, His beliefs have brought him into conflict with the world of science that he might have wanted to. Undermine them. Ah, interesteresting However, in twenty sixteen, researchers at the Natural History Museum and Liverpool's John Malls University analyzed DNA evidence and it wasn't Arthur Conan Doyle Ah, okay But he was thought to have done that. So that's another string to his bow. Yeah, yeah. that's amazing. I love that he's his name's being drawn into these things. Shady was sort of Yeah complex character is' that probably him He enters the English Amateur Billiards Championship Of course he does. And he writes the Dale Express with an idea which is described in the House of Commons as an insane idea. Yeah which was a tunnel linking England and France. Wow, no way Yeah, so it's a twenty seven mile long tunnel. to connect England to the European mainland in France to stop us being cut off, especially in times of war That's amazing, whichich is mops and got rid of obviously. It's like a train tunnel, just an access tunnel. Well it's twenty seven miles, so I imagine it's a train tunnel. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing So we invented to be invented the the Euristar You invented the Euristar, essentially. I suppose you can say Well it certainly pushed for it, right? thenen nineteen fourteen comes. So you obviously know what happens in nineteen fourteen. World War one But it should add that on a family trip in nineteen fourteen to a national Park in Canada, he designs a golf course and anxilary buildings for a hotel And on that trip, he kills the Archduke Ferdand. Of course he kills the Achduke F Ferdinand. The plans are realized in fuller though, it's no longer still standing, but they do build the golf course and the buildings. Okay justust mad. How is he fitting all this stuff up? I knowazing Becauseuse it's nineteen fourteen. He's one of fifty three leading British authors, including HG Wells, Roger Cllipping Thomas Hardy, who signed their names on the author's decclaration justifying Britain's inclusion in the First World War, involvement, saying that the manifesto says that the German invasion of Belgium has been a brutal crime. Britain could not, without dishonor, have refused to take part in the present war. He wants to join the army Why can't you join the army He's fifty five. Okay. Yeah His mum says to him, My dearest and very naughty son, how dare you? Your very height and breadth will make your simple and sure target Stop me He turns up to visit troops on the front line and he does a John Terry. In what way? He wears full army outfit He's a fky wankker. He's a fulker ananker That's incredible Yeah. So is he there to give sort of motivational speeches to them, I guess? Is that Is that what the point is? yeah? Yeah, he goes to the front line, presumably like a kind of violin of his day. The writing says he looks like a soldier in a uniform, but the thing is it isn't a real military uniform. It's one that invented for himself. Stolen valor. That's what they call, isn't it? Yeah, real soldiers had little crowns just there. Arthurs has just got silver roses instead. He just can't accept He's too old and they don't want him Oh this is so sad. Arthur, you've achieved enough. I that, you don't even teat too much. Yeah, exactly P about the troops wasn't Arthur himself, it was of course his detective. yet again, Arthur found himself playing second fiddle to a Phantom. A, so this is when he really gets into spiritualism Now a lot of people think he got into that because his son dies in nineteen eighteen from pneumonia after he's injured in the Battle of the Some Okay in nineteen sixteen. But actually he publicly presents himself as a spiritualist first in nineteen sixteen before his son has died. So people often link that. I mean, obviously it probably helps, but that's not what leads him to it. He writes O sixty books about spiritualism Wow People got a lot done in those days. Yeah. There was no phones, there was no TV See, that's what a life without Instagram will do for you. Exactly. Obviously, you know, he wasn't able to promote it because he didn't have Instagram. Yes, yeah yeah So are these successful books, these sixty books that he they're Sherlock Holmes. Okay, yes. ye yeah But it shows how much he believes in it deeply toally. people into spiritualism around this time because the First World War has led to a lot of people being bereaved. And so spiritualism becomes a bigger thing That's really interesting. In nineteen twenty five, he's made acting president of the International Spiritual H Congress in Paris. Yeah. This is an absolute shambles. So four thousand people attend the Congress, but there's riots outside the building from people who can't get tickets for it Police are called Barriers are smashed, there's fights, there's beatings In an effort to inject some order into proceedings, Konadall begins the day with a slidees show the projectionist sadly is drunk Yeah And the slides are holiday flter ex in there. Yeah, exactly. it's all that. likeike spam out, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Now the slides are upside down or they've shared no relationship to what he's read so amazing. Yeah. And then the skeptics have got tickets and they begin to laugh in the room at Conan Doyless. Yeah Slidees show And then there's more fights inside this time. Th then someone shouts out from the middle of the hall. lookook out, you're treading on my exctoplasm And then a believer breaks a chair over the head of a heretic Wow. C furious he loses his temper and storms off stage. and then comes back again to get his slides and then storms off again. Exactly ye ye. The following year, there's another mass meeting organized this time in the Royal Albert Hall to commemorate Armistice Day. and Conan Doyle is in the front row. he stands up and he says I ask all who are sure they are in touch with their dead to rise and testify. He says this without the aid of a microphone. And then there's another pause and some members of the audience begin to stand and then more and finally over three thousand men and women stand up Some laughing, some crying Iomem laughing K kindind of just enjoy I supp. it look kind of like o, yeah. It seems like a strange idea. It does seem o. And Ath things like wells up as well And he says, Thank God, there are so many. I prophecy that within five years to such an appeal, every man and women in great hall shall arise. We are not testifying to faith, but to fact And it's quite interesting that he's a spiritualist guy because obviously Sherlock Holmes couldn't be more the opposite of spiritual. Yeah yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, he's about logic and sci, isn't he really? Yeah, he's not inter faith. But you can also see how in that interwal period, as you say that that feeling of connection must have been so important because how otherwise getting a head round that Yeah, signs of loss Exactly. be Nighon impossible. so you can completely see how people would turn to that Yeah, intense value in it. To add to the Forest Gump thing, this spiritual thing then leads to him to fall out with Harry Houdini So How How's he become a friend of Houtini? Well he just is from the celebrity nice carah He's like really interested in the supernatural Houdini, but also he wants to expose fake spiritualists. And so the families, the Houdinis and the Konadors become close. They stay with each other, share holidays. They another waterfall, so they over top of barrel C Doyle can't get enough about writing about them. Yeah. Exactly. That's how Summer Homes should have saved himself got a barrel. So there's this Hououtini's best friend Bernard M. L Ernst tells this incredible story where Houdini performs an impressive trick for Doyle. And Houdin's like, it's a trick, it's an illusion, hoping that that would persuade Doyle to stop endorsing kind of phenomena simply because he can't think of an explanation for it Got you. What do you think Dor's reaction is to it that he refuses to accept that it's a trick and believes it. He refuses to accept it as a trick Amazing. Yeah. So he's like, that's not a trick. That's real. Yeah. That's your dream audience member though sure. Of course. Perfect So they begin to argue. Houdini then delivers diatribes against spiritualism at the end of his magic shows, sometimes referring to his Scottish friend and mocking him. The two don't speak again And then Houdini eventually dies in Montreal caaused by the punch in in stomach. Is that right? Oh yeah. It gets punched in the stomach from a college student eager to prove his strength and that leads to his death. Right, okay Some years before his death, he's devised a code of signals a knockx, revealed only to his wife and Arthur Conan Doyle, saying If after I die, I want to communicate with you I will use the code for the afterlife Right And then a medium, Arthur Ford contacts Conanor shortly after Houdini's death and says that Houdini's spirit has woken him one night and given him details of a special code. Oh wow. He's questioned and his answers are accurate and Conan Doyle is euphoric. Yeah But then Conan Doyle is informed that Houdini's widow has sold the code to. It published it's been published. H is common knowledge in New York City That's such a depressing joice from the widow because there's a chance if you wait it out, you might actually get contact from your dead husband. if it' something She's takaking the cash. She's absolutely just taken the money and run. Yeah. she's taken the cash. It mad, isn't it? Yeah He constantly kind of falls for these things. That's the problem He wants to believe so badly. There's someone called Lily Loda Simmons and she's a bridesmaid at his wedding a trusted companion of his awful wife, Jean Lcky. Okay. And she's family nanny, but she's got a lung complaint which drives her to bed and she's worried she's going to lose her job because of this. and lose her place in the house. So she basically develops automatic writing and he believes her. A clever Yeah fair. Yeah. And she begins to write down message from her brothers who have all been killed in the war. and he's in awe of her Conan Doyle and he starts to make her he makes her permanent in the house. Right, yeah. So it gets played a bit. Oh, it's true Yeah. So he gets played a bit, as you say. Yeah. So then this is the ultimate situation of him being played. One summer's day in july nineteen seventeen, there's a nine year old called Francis Griffiths She comes back into the house that she shares with her cousin. Elsie Wright, who's sixteen and they're two families. And her shoes are soaked from playing in a stream at the bottom of the garden and her mum asks what's happened and she says, I go to see the fairies And determined to support her cousin, Elsie gets her father to lend her his camera saying she'd bring back proof of the fairies, right Okay And they return and the pictures developed and they show Francis the nine year old surrounded by four kind of sprites. Yes. And they're adamant that the image is real. I think I've seen these images before. you would have seen these images before. They're known as the Cottingley Fairyies photos, yeah They're very famous. And two weeks later they take another photo of her with a dancing gnome. Parents don't understand it, they're stumped sry it's just so funny how matter of fact you've said that sentence. With a dancing Noome. You do a dancing gome, ye. I don't need to go into that any further call a dancing gnome look like ye. So what's all dancing are you thinking? Is it like break dancing? sping on his head? What' doing the Charleston? the Chareston. He's flossing. Yeah. The parents don't understand what's going on. but they don't do anything about it. They just see it' like this puzzing anedote of the family. I mean, that for me feels insane. That tells me you're in on it. Yeah if you aren't feeling the need to fur when you've seen your nine nine So they're not on it for three years they just put the ph No, they put the photos away. They they just can't believe it. and they're like, well, that's weird, but we won't do anything about that It feels like Well that's that's the oddest reaction of all is to go Well I can't know what's happened there, but we won't do anything about the fact our children live Do you reckon they then found that again a few years? Oh yeah,ember That's what happened. So three years It like David Barry, looking at the snowman he goes upstairs and finds the scarf. Yeah. And he goes I remember that. In nineteen nineteen, she ye, exactly, Elsie's mother takes the prints, the photographs of the fairies to the Theosophical society in Bradford. Okay, from which word passes to Conan Doyle. He's initially suspicious. Of course his bloody is. He's not an idiot for the first time. For the first time in his entire life, he's initially suspicious. Yeah. It might be a hoax and he fears he's being set up, right? But he has several experts look over the photographs and he goes ahead and he publishes them in the Strand magazine in december nineteen twenty He says, If proven to be real, the images would mark an epoch in human thought, and after carefully going to every possible source of error, a strong prima facie case has been built up for their veracity. Right Okay, He wrote, The recognition of their existence will jolt the material twentieth century mind out of its heavy ruts in the mud and will make it admit that there is a glamour and a mystery to life S buys cameras for the two girls ask them to take further photos And so his support for the girls leaves the girls basically painted into a corner Right, okay they've got to find another dancing now. I'm able to say these are fakes. So they give them more photos in nineteen twenty one. They make more fake photos so Eventually, Francces and Llsie Fess the photos have been faked Okay Let's good at them. Join me have a guess when what how late Yeah. When did Conan Doyle give him the camera to you? nineteen twenty one. Let's say, goodness me. it's gonna be longer' let's go twenty years later What year were you born, Tom nineteen eighty one Yeah, so you were two when they wereger. That's nineteen eighteen three. They eventually admit it in nineteen eighty three. That's incredible. when they're about hundred, I guess. Yeah. That's amazing. Francis says I never even thought of it being a fraud, it was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun I can't understand this day why people were taken in. They wanted to be taken in People often say to me, Don't you feel ashamed that you' made all these poor people look like fools. They believed you. but I do not because they wanted to believe. That's so true, isn't it, really? I think that people are longing for something, aren't they really? And they love the idea of something out there. especially wants to believe in spiritualism. Completely. you talk about the loss of his son, look at the impact of war, completely, it's understandable that people are looking for connection and looking for something which gives them a feeling there's something bigger, something, you know more wonderful and shiny out there Which I get completely, I totally it totally. On the seventh of july nineteen thirty, Arthur Conan Doyle dies of a heart attack, age seventy one. He's fitted a lot into his life.. I don't think you can E into his life.ally lived a life His last words directed to his wife are you're wonderful which would dispute Yeah, yeah ye He loved to believe in things that weren't true. Yeah of course. I mean, you're rubbing your hands in glee if you get to give that eulogy. What a story to be able to tell. Where' do you start? Completely. This is gold So days after his death ten thousand people attend a mass seance at the Royal Albert Hall attended by his family. So it's seven PM, Sunday july thirteenth, nineteen thirty and basically They squeeze into Roy Albert Hall, hoping that he's going to make contact with them His widow, Jean Lak, Conan Doyle, obviously takes the stage with four of his children and they sit alongside an empty chair reserved for Conan Doyle himself, complete with his name card. Do you need to put a chair out for a ghost? I don't make just sa hoer. I don't I've never seen one come into a room and sit down You don't to take the w we going any and stand up to. Exactly. That's very good b It's a very good point. I just like it's just not needed, is it really? No, no. But you know. It shows him that you want him there as if the ten thousand people in his family wouldn't. That's a good point. Yeah, this is a good description. It's better to avoid off fence, I suppose, isn't it? than to have him a beer and going where the hell's my chair Yeah. It''s a great quote. It was quite a high stakes tense night. Iight of Coa. high stakes, whether there's life after death And three thousand people have bought tickets. ten thousand ten thousand he doesn't turn out. Towning up it's like the biggest damp scquib in of an evening ever People wanted to see the proof. The ultimate response to his critics would have been to return on the night. I'd love to see that. What response to his critics to come back from the dead that? And tell you what, Jesus put two fingers up to the doubters, didn't he our response is crazy. Most of the critics aren't gonna be going, Oh, yeah,be this is embarrassing. E on my face. Well reaction is gonna be So is real, what Yeah It's not be about you're not gonna to feel humiliated. just mind's gonna be blown. But this changes everything. Exactly. That review I wrote, I look like an idiot This changes the understanding of life as we know it. Yeah, exactly. My main concern is not the fact that I said they didn't exist a week ago. Yeah, I can live that down because my because I my view it' be completely reframed. Yeah So they open tributes and then there's a two minute silence and then a medium who was Doyle's favourite medum, took to the platform. So this is his son Adrian said the family would know If he did appear, there are tests which my mother knows, such as little mannerisms of speech which cannot be impersonated and which will tell us it is my father himself who is speaking. So the idea is Cona Dor was going to come through this medium, is that basically the idea? I don't know whether Rose, my wife has got Ts of phrase that would mean I am beyond doubt. Yeah, yeah. Without it being words that only us know. but I don't think she's got such a distinctive turn of phrase. You got a distinctive texting style? Could she tag could she talk text? you go, yeah, that is Elroo text. Like without it being like somebody who's got a very distinctive way of speaking, like Stephen Fry Brian blessed. Yeah, no I know exactly what you're saying Well, maybe pet names, stuff like that could be a Yeah. she calls you trreacle puff and stuff like that, doesn't she? Of course yeah yeah yeah. Multiple spirits are present in the hall, adding, they are pushing me like anything. Among those she claims are present This spit of the suffrager, Emmily Davison No. I died at the Derby' twenty thirteen Y higs arenly Yeah Th then suddenly, she pointed to Conondor's empty chair, announcing the author's spirit had entered the auditorium too. She said, He is wearing evening clothes I don. I find that interesting because my understanding is you just are basically in the clothes that you die in. My understanding ghs if ghosts exist, that you're just basically you have one outfit and that's what you happen to have died in. Well I whenever I see a ghost, yeah. Where are these fair clothes? I don't see many ghosts in you know that weird open backed thing you wear in a hospital that presumably is the outfit that most people die of Heaven is heaven was I got pull their bum out. Some naked people who went skinny dipping and it went wrong. Exactly. Yeah, it's a very good point. Well they are. I didn't realize that there's a rack of clothes you can choose from as a ghost. Yeah She ran over to Lady Conan Doyle, the spiritualist and she says, Sir Arthur told me that you went into the hut this morning That's the one at Dor's home where he wrote, Is this correct Lady Conondor replied, Why yes? Roberts continued, The message is tellell Mary, by that moment the wholell's organ suddenly burst into life Downing out the rest of the message. After that, the meeting was quickly brought to a close. Right. W weird? Yeah, that is quite weird I mean, it depends if someone's just playing the organ to cover the message. I'm thinking the medium has been hidden in a tree or genuinely. Or my first thought there would be they often do that thing where they'll have a plant or themselves will just be able to overhear your conversation Okay, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. because Lady Conad Dore could be have you ever been backstage at the Alb H haall Preumeably ch Yeahah yeah yeah. And it's like got, you know, they're just going to be in dressing rooms, the same dressing rooms that we would ye. She might be, you know, having a cup of tea and go, oh yeah I went into the hut this morning and do you know what I mean? Yeah yeah, completely. Yeah. But it's difficult for me to say that's what happened to singers a hundred years ago Yeah He's also saying, did you order two sparkly waters at the theatre bar? Yeah did tell that Yeahah. some McCoyyss ye Yeah, got some McCoyyss tell That stuff you're looking at in the gift shops over price. D't Don't waste your money. Yeah. So Adri and the son said The sppirit message answers all the tests which my father and mother had agreed upon before his passing. But let's be clear. they're wanting it to happen. Absolutely ye yeah So the tests are, do I get in touch with a medium probably? Yeah Did I say it's Arthur here It's him. We don't know to this day what the full contents are of that message. so I really? forever never know whether Arthur Konador got in touch whether he did or not Yeah, he lived An incredible life But strangely, the one thing he was most annoyed about was his own greatest defining creation. It's reallyally interesting that, isn't it? I mean, it's clearly a sense or he feels that he's being pushed into this at points, doesn't he Whether that's through the publishers or just as a consequence of the fact it became so it became so popular and that in its own way Forces your hand a bit, doesn't it really? Well in a way, he did that to the Cottinghland Fairies girls. Yeah Yeah, exactly they roote that until nineteen eighty three. The organ thing's interesting. So why has that happened? Has that been set up? Has the medium said, lookook, all I've got, I'll be honest is the hart thing. That's what I've got So as soon as I say the word hut, she says yes, you have to start playing something because I've got nothing else. That's all. That's what I'm imagining. They were playing that one like at the baseball, like p to go. It's fascinating, isn't it? Well, I mean, what an incredible life incredible life. J like just so much in there. And also his wants do more is what's remarkable. like it's not just that he's had these ideas and things worked out Even like wanting to go to war, everything, there's so much energy and drive in this person throughout his entire life, sporting levels, setting up organizations, all these things. It's just one of the most remarkable lies I've ever heard about. It's just so full of events and energy. It's amazing. Yeah, inccredible. And he lives on now as well, floating around in his three piece suit. Exactly. And Zello dress in front of the event. Exactly, yeah, yeah, completely Well, if you want to read Arthur Co and Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, I'd recommend the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which is the first group of short stories, which is incredible. Read that. What you're doing there though Josh, is you're doing the one thing he doesn't want you to do. He just push Sherlock Holmes. He wants you to push his other books. Yeah, I know, but I haven't read them. Okay like the rest of the fucking world Yeahes's a very good point. If you're interested in other workds, Google it. B N S Mich's B, I'm not read yet. Thank you Tom. It's been a joy It's been fantastic. I've loved that. What a fascinating guy. Yeah. That's a weird man. Yeah. ye That's a weird old cove. Yeah, but also a brilliant mind and that's why he's able to create so many of these stories which are so intricate, complicated and just I think he's lived a Stranger life for Noel Edmunds. We have to be realistic. No's always the's always the outlier. In the context of all other humans. This Con and Toyle has had an absolutely balmy life. Yeah, I love it. Great. Wonderful I genuinely it makes me want to go and read show at homes right now. I won because we' to look after the kids I' later, I will. Thanks, Josh. loved it Join us for our next story soon. I promise. We'll do one straight after this that' really bang in the middle of the nineties. And you can get all of those episodes straight away on the day of release if you join the fan club now, do that in the show notes. See y. Bye bye Archive of Pop Culture is a Kb it L production posted by me, Josh Whitigan, Researched by Emily Pickel. additional editing by James Sheldon, designed by John Gregory. Music by Pickle and Button