Blanket media coverage for Two Men and a Ghost! (by Andrew Wooding)

What a phenomenal week it’s been! With our Sheffield ghost-hunting blog barely two weeks old, we have been the proud recipients of what can only be described as blanket media coverage … a veritable whirlwind of publicity in a frenzied Sheffield media storm.

In short, we had blanket media coverage at the bottom of page 10 of The Star on Thursday … and on Saturday morning, on BBC Radio Sheffield, we had blanket media coverage for 9½ minutes at 7.45 in the morning, between traffic reports and an interview with a vicar about trespassing sheep.

The Star article, expertly scribed by columnist Martin Dawes, can be eyeballed here:

http://www.thestar.co.uk/diary/Comic-writers-get-in-spirit.5353540.jp

As for our radio appearance – on the Saturday Breakfast show, hosted by the effervescent Gareth Evans – I was hoping to provide a ‘listen again’ link, but there isn’t one. Too bad, as there seems to be a ‘listen again’ option for just about every other Radio Sheffield programme, including Sunday Breakfast, and Gareth Evans’ weekday shows.

Was it ghostly intervention that prevented our interview from being archived? Even though we’ve just started, are we getting so dangerously close to the truth that spooks are scared of us and need to intervene with BBC mixing desks and digital recorders? Naah … I didn’t think so either.

I’d like to report on one spook, though … the subject of our first investigation, the mad monk of Stocksbridge, a ghost that purportedly interferes with the inner workings of cars because he isn’t happy about his eternal rest being disturbed by the sudden new influx of noisy traffic thundering along the Stocksbridge bypass.

You may recall that our first outing to Stocksbridge was in Mike’s car, the mileometer of which inexplicably packed in for the entirety of our exploration and only started working again when we headed away from the so-called haunted area.

Trying to be scientific – we decided to pay a visit to Stocksbridge again – but this time in my car. Cynics could say that maybe Mike’s mileometer was faulty and it was all just coincidence. But if the mileometer stopped in two separate cars on two different journeys, then we would really have something worth writing about.

Our experiment paid off. Sure enough, as Mike hopped into my passenger seat and we set off from Meadowhall car park to the busy Stocksbridge bypass, my mileometer…

…worked perfectly, and it did so for the remainder of the evening. Ah well. At least it was nice getting out for a drive, as well as pigging out on a family pack of Gold Bars, kindly supplied by Mike.

The only thing I can think of is that maybe, just maybe, the mad monk is pleased with us for spreading the word about his frustrations. He only does his stuff with people he’s narked with, but by sticking up for him we’re now in his good books and he’ll leave our cars alone. So the fact that our mileometer worked perfectly might still be definite proof that the mad monk exists. Not convinced? Don’t blame you, but I’ll leave you with this final true fact.

After dropping Mike back to his parked car at Meadowhall, then heading for home in my own car (in Waterthorpe near Crystal Peaks shopping centre), I put my iPod on ‘shuffle’ mode. There are hundreds of possible songs on there, but just minutes from reaching Waterthorpe, shuffle threw up Rasputin by Boney M again, that celebrated hit single about the most famous mad monk in history. What are the chances of that, eh? Was it a sign from the mad monk himself? It makes you think, doesn’t it?

The mad monk of Stocksbridge might be pleased with us, but he has a terrible taste in music.