"It is true, the spoken word enlightens both the spirit and the soul. Indeed, the HENDRICK’S Master Distiller can often be heard talking at length to her ‘two little sweeties’ – the delightful and peculiarly small copper pot stills from which the most unusual gin flows."

SPIRIT BROADCASTS AND GHOST TRAINS
with Sarah Angliss and Colin Uttley

Friday the 10th of June 2011
 Doors at 6 pm, Talk commences at 7 pm
In the early 1920s, a radio station closed the studio doors, switched on the microphones and invited listeners to report any anomolies they could hear in the silence. These Ghost Broadcasts were the latest attempt to use new machines to explain telepathy and probe the spirit world. Delving into the archives, engineer and therematrix Sarah Angliss examines some of the stranger obsessions of some early adopters of radio in the 1920s, a time when many found the wireless transmission of disembodied voices as paranormal as telepathy. Sarah's talk includes a live musical performance and ends with some genuine disembodied voices - shellac recordings of soldiers, sent home to their loved ones before they stepped onto the battlefields of the First World War.

Starting with the ghost train on Brighton's Palace Pier, Colin Uttley explores how the 18th-century phantasmagoria became this classic fairground ‘dark ride’. Along the way he even reveals a Victorian railway disaster, deep in a tunnel which inspired Charles Dickens' haunting tale The Signalman. Includes some ghost train special effects - hold onto your seats!


Talks at 11 Mare Street - please click here to buy tickets