Welcomed Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain smith. For the weeks in between episodes, we look at the stories and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the show. In the last episode, Roads to Nowhere, we found ourselves circling a small concreted patch of England on the southern boundary of Yorkshire known as the Stocksbridge Bypass. This seemingly unassuming stretch of road is considered by some
to be the most haunted in all of the UK. Often, when we describe something as haunted, what we are actually referring to is the suggestion of presence, the idea that something beyond our usual modes of perception has become attached to ourselves or a place. Occasionally, we might consider this something to possess an agency of malicious intent towards us.
More frequently, however, claimed sightings like those seen near the Stocksbridge Bypass are benign, appearing more like visual echoes of the past that play out in front of us before fading from view. In this sense, we might consider such an occurrence not as a random event, but rather as a continual re emergence of the past kept alive and sustained by those who claim to bear witness to it.
In some ways, it is irrelevant as to whether those sightings exist in their own right, whether they are images somehow projected from our subconscious and psychically brought to life, or whether they are pure fictions of the mind. What remains is the undeniable sense of presence, invoking hidden landscapes, atmosphere, and of course the dead. Such elements of presence are fated to linger until the moment that there is nothing left to observe them, or God forbid, if such things
do have agency, are fated to linger indefinitely. It is common to talk about ghost sightings as occurring in liminal spaces, areas where the boundaries of the spaces we occupy, both physically and figuratively begin to blur. How fitting then that a bypass should be the location of so many apparent spectral sightings. The bypass is, by definition a liminal space, a place clearly distinct from both the relatively natural space beyond and the urban clusters from which it seeks to
divert you. The city bypass, in a sense become a border, symbolizing the point of transition between the planned and curated environment of the modern and the purity and unconstructed essence of nature. At a stretch, you might also consider that such liminal spaces invite a blurring between what is real
and what is not. It is the sort of place, perhaps where at the moment of journeying through, you might find that station you were just hearing so clearly on the radio now begins to crackle and hiss as the signal becomes weaker and weaker, before finally giving way to the eerie, blanket static of white noise. It is a theme played out to mesmerizing effect by Andrey Tarkovski in
his nineteen seventy two cinematic masterpiece Solaris. The film is an adaptation of stan as Lavlem's novel of the same name that, at its heart is an examination of the relationship between the real and the imaginary, and the relative merits of these ultimately not so distinct and irreconcilable states. Early in the film, we join cosmonaut Henry Breton for four and a half hypnotic minutes as he has ferried
along the highway of some nondescript futuristic cityscape. As the scenery drifts in an out from monochrome to color, accompanied by the beeps and words of Edward Artemiev's sublime electronic score. There is the distinct feeling of a landscape shifting before our eyes, while simultaneously remaining recognizable. Throughout there is the sense that perhaps what we are seeing can no longer be trusted. Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care of others and not yourself?
Now it's time to take care of yourself, to make time for you you deserve it. Teledoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best, to feeling like yourself again. With teledoc, you can speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video. Therapy appointments are available seven days a week from seven a m. To nine p m. Local time. If you feel overwhelmed sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely, or you might be struggling with a personal
or family issue, teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy to change counselors if needed. For free. Teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visit teledoc dot com forward slash unexplained podcast Today to get started. That's t e l a d oc dot com slash
unexplained podcast. Roads or pathways in general are a recurring motif of psychogeography, as exemplified in perhaps one of the more well known psychogeographic texts of recent times, London Orbital by Ian Sainclair. The book charts Sinclair's pilgrimage of ritual purpose to experience London anew in all its arcane and sprawling glory, using the London Orbital or the M twenty five to give it its functional label as a disruptive
prism through which to view it. Psychogeography, an idea that has its foundations in the French situationist movement, was defined in nineteen fifty five by situationist pioneer Guied de Bore as the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals. The idea was a reaction to capitalism and the way in which the system of
capitalism dictates the physical landscape around us. A phenomena perhaps most explicitly realized in cities through the construction of functional zones, a concept first proposed by modernist architects such as La Corbusier back in the nineteen thirties. As author Will Wile's notes writing for the Digital magazine aon the functional zone, embraced by both organized capital and organized labor, repurposed the city as a tool of total control and social conditioning.
Instead of existence, there was work instead of leisure consumption. In a sense, the manufactured spaces that surround us become a self perpetuating trap, self fulfilling and reinforcing the economic imperatives that govern a society. Which is not to say that capitalism is the only matrix that can create such a trap, but with its proponents often proclaiming it a model of cultural, social, and economic freedom, it is perhaps
one of the most difficult to see. In response to this, Debor and his contemporaries developed the theory of derieve or drift. The process encourages you to move through the urban environment with complete disregard for the imposed boundaries of the surrounding man and increasingly corporate made environment. To give an example, Deboor cites the case of a friend who moved through the Heart's region of Germany while blindly following the directions
of a map of London. To move through the landscape in such a way becomes a transgressive and even political act that challenges our moral convictions and preconceptions, while also in a sense revealing the ghosts of the city's past and exposing the fallacy of tradition. As for the ghosts of Stocksbridge Bypass, if it is on the boundaries between worlds that we will find them, what coincidence that the very land the bypass is constructed on was too a
boundary of sorts. In fact, the word Sheffield, the borough in which Stocksbridge lies, is thought by some to be derived from the Old English shed or sheff, meaning boundary. Roughly fourteen hundred years ago, the area of Sheffield lay along the border between the two Anglo Saxon worlds of
Northumbria and Mercia. It was fifty miles or so further to the north, at a place called Cockbeck, that King Penda of Mercia is thought to have been slain at the Battle of the Wimweed in six hundred and fifty five. Pender's death at the hands of Oswick of Bernicia and the Northumbrians marked not only the end of the Kingdom of Mercia, but also sounded the death knell for English paganism, later to be replaced by the conformity of a new
invented tradition. For those more familiar with the folk horror genre than Middle Age British history, you may recognize King Pender from David Rudkins's extraordinary TV play Pender's Fen first broadcast in nineteen seventy four, this challenging and unsettling story charts the perceptual awakening of its central character, Stephen Franklin.
The British and conservative. Stephen finds his moral certainties steadily undone by the emergence of a series of undeniable inner truths, the final rupture occurring on the morning of his eighteenth birthday, when he discovers he is not quite the pure Englishman
he had previously thought. Rudkin's play is at base a fierce rejection of imposed ideologies, in particular the myths of nationhood and the many ways in which the truth of the world can become hidden and are naturally distorted over time.
As such, it seems a fitting place with which to draw Season two of Unexplained to a close an opportunity to remind ourselves that for all those that would seek to impose the fallacy of tradition upon us, that claim orthodoxy over truth, we need only listen to the ghosts that saturate the land we walk upon to see that never has tradition been fixed, That heritage is not pure but mongrel. As King Pender says to the newly awoken Stephen at the close of Rudkin's play, be secret, child,
be strange, dark, true, impure, and dissonant. Cherish our flame. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to show your appreciation, you can now help support us by going to Unexplained podcast dot com forward slash support. All donations, no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All elements of Unexplained are produced by me, Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or on Twitter at Unexplained pod Now. It's time to take care of yourself, to make time for you. Teledoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video any time between seven am to nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc
Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app, or visit teledoc dot com Forward slash Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's t e la d oc dot com slash Unexplained Podcast