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Classic Ghost Stories

A Pair of Muddy Shoes by Lennox Robinson

Classic Ghost Stories

Tony Walker

Fiction, Drama, Science Fiction

4.9686 Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A Pair of Muddy Shoes by Lennox Robinson Lennox Robinson was an Irish author, poet, dramatist and theatre produce who was born in Westgrove, County Cork, Ireland in 1886 the son of a Protestant clergyman, who had previously been a stockbroker. Lennox (fully Esme Stuart Lennox Robinson) was often ill as a child and educated by private tutor and at a Church of Ireland (that is the Protestant Anglican Church) School.  He became interested in drama when he saw a production by W B Yeats and Lady Gregory at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin when he was 21. (If You Appreciate The Work I’ve Put In Here - You could buy me a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker or join as a Patron for exclusive content here: https://www.patreon.com/barcud) His play Cross Roads was produced at the Abbey in 1909 and he became manager there the same year. He resigned in 1914 after a poorly reviewed tour of the USA, but came back in 1919 and was appointed to the theatre’s boar din 1923 and served there until his death in 1958. It is said that he was an alcoholic and often depressed.    He was Anglo-Irish but was committed to the Irish nationalist cause (like Yeats and Lady Gregory).  His wife’s mother was a spiritualist.  A Pair of Muddy Shoes is written in a very naturalistic, conversational style which was fun to read and very different from some of the other things we’ve been reading out recently (Poe, I’m looking at you).  It’s all fun, and I like both styles. The story is written from an Irish woman’s voice and I read it as an English man. You will know I debate with myself whether I should do accents (which I enjoy) or read a woman ’s voice. The second I have few problems with to be honest, the first is more of a problem because though I enjoy doing the accent there is always someone who’s ear is so finely tuned that it jars and spoils the story.  So, I decided to do this in my native voice.  The story is about a possession but it’s unusual and fresh in its setting in rural Ireland (I thought of Craggy Island and the big priests’ house looming up from the middle of a bare field, no garden, no path, no nothing leading to it). The spirit of the murderer remains very wicked and his pleasure in the crime infects the shy young woman who is speaking. There is something about weird juxtapositions like the white cat with the narrator’s face and then when she goes into the house, the victim says that she has the face of a girl, but the hands of a rough man.  And you can join my mailing list and get a  free audiobook:  https://bit.ly/dalstonvampire Music By The Heartwood Institute https://bit.ly/somecomeback*** New Patreon Request Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched! Start for FREE Support the showVisit us here: www.ghostpod.orgBuy me a coffee if you're glad I do this: https://ko-fi.com/tonywalkerIf you really want to help me, become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/barcudMusic by The Heartwood Institute: https://bit.ly/somecomeback Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Everybody dies, don't think?

0:10.5

Everybody come back, isn't that so?

0:14.4

You tried to get into the locked drawer today, didn't you?

0:17.1

How do the dead come back, mother?

0:19.9

What's the secret? A pair of muddy shoes by Lennox Robinson.

0:27.2

I'm going to try and write it down quite simply, just as it happened. I shall try not to exaggerate

0:33.9

anything. I'm 22 years old. My parents are dead. I have no brothers or sisters.

0:40.8

The only near relation I have is Aunt Margaret, my father's sister. She's unmarried and lives

0:49.4

alone in a little house in the country in the west of County Cork.

1:00.3

She's kind to me, and I often spend my holidays with her, for I am poor and have few friends.

1:05.2

I am a school teacher, that is to say, I teach drawing and singing.

1:08.7

I'm a visiting teacher at two or three schools in Dublin.

1:12.3

I make a fair income, enough for a single woman to live comfortably off, but father left debts behind him, and until these are paid off, I have to live very

1:18.3

simply. I suppose I ought to eat more and eat better food. People sometimes think, I'm nervous and

1:25.4

highly strong. I look rather fragile and delicate, but really I'm not.

1:31.4

I have slender hands with pale tapering fingers, this sort of hands of people call artistic.

1:37.8

I hoped very much that my aunt would invite me to spend Christmas with her. I happened to have very

1:43.1

little money. I paid off a rather big

1:45.7

debt of poor fathers, and that left me very short, and I felt rather weak and ill. I didn't

1:51.8

quite know how I'd get through the holidays unless I went down to my aunts. However, ten days

1:56.5

before Christmas, the invitation came. You may be sure I accepted it gratefully.

2:02.3

And when my last school broke up on the 20th,

...

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