This week on Tales I am still, technically, on holiday - and was hoping to re-release one of five old episodes still left from the first season. This plan has been derailed somewhat. My voice is still recovering from my bout of pneumonia; and I’ve written at least a million words since I did those episodes. I opened those old scripts and realised to be content with them I’d need to completely re-do those episodes…

Not so much out of inaccuracies as out of having refined this thing I do a lot since 2020.

I’ll get back to those episodes sometime.

In the meantime, please let me present this episode, compiled from three Patreon bonus episodes. Thank you to the patrons, whose generosity helps me keep the lights on.

The episodes are: Stranded on ‘Ata 400 Word Tales: Countess Zangari Bandi Walter Powell’s Final Flight

Sources this week include: The Stolen Island by Scott Hamilton Humankind by Rutger Bregman Borderlands by Mike Dash

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Hi all, apologies for the delay. I posted up on the blog site I was unwell with pneumonia, then it occurred to me a lot of folk never visit the blog site and I better put something up here as well. Anyway, please hit play it explains it all. I am on the mend but need some downtime… sorry all.

This week on Tales we enter the vaults to revisit - and re-record - one of the five early episodes still on here that was recorded on my cheap, starter microphone. (We’ll knock the other four off next year in mid-season breaks.)

With Christmas just around the corner this seems as good a time as any to follow a young Charles Dickens around Canongate Graveyard in Edinburgh Scotland looking for ghosts… And we meet the man who - most likely - influenced one of his most famous characters - John Elwes, The Miser of Marcham Park.

Apologies for the break between parts one and two of The Tichborne Claimant. I’m hoping to get that out in the last week of December.

Sources this week include:

Sorry all I never took down any of my sources for this at the time of the original. In revamping the piece though I referred to

This BBC Article. This Mercat Tours blog post This Edinburgh Enquirer article by David Forsyth This BBC piece on Robert Fergusson And this piece on Fergusson from Roderick Watson at Scottish Poetry Library This piece from the Royal College of Physicians on Dr Andrew Duncan Very rare for me, I referred to Wikipedia for more on Dr Andrew Duncan This piece on Giusto Fernando Tenducci And this piece on Tenducci by Aoife Barry in The Journal And John Elwes: The Miser Who Inspired Dickens by Kaushik Patowary

Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.

Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly - (give or take… sorry all it’s been a rough year… Back to fortnightly Wednesdays in 2026?).

Tales of History and Imagination is on

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