He has an exquisite voice for story telling.

I found a whistle in my garden today whilst I was digging. I cleaned it down and blew it. Anyhow, just come across this story and looking forward to listening to it and unwinding; I hear it's meant to be good.

Hordern the gold standard in narration. love this one with a passion!

I enjoy listening to this story when going to sleep. It’s not boring… it’s nice and eerie and relaxes me.

@katestent8319

2 ай бұрын

Same!

I’ve listened to this and other M R James ghost stories at the height of the British Summer when it’s still light after 10pm and they’ve been OK. However listening to Michael Hordern reading this in the week around Christmas when it’s dark for fifteen hours a day and you’re just about to go to bed and there also maybe a howling wind and rain beating against the window which make it a very different experience.

@loulou7963

3 жыл бұрын

Sounds perfect to me. All that’s needed is a roaring fire 🔥

@greenman6141

Ай бұрын

Yes, perfect for winter reading or listening in the UK. Even as far south as London, with wintery weather, in those weeks either side of the solstice, it barely seems to get light at all. Our main character is experiencing these days. 18 hours of black, broken by a handful of watery grey ones. That's his backdrop while struggling through the winter wind off the North Sea and clambering over those dank barnacled groynes. Other stories, like The Ash Tree, benefit equally from the other end of the calendar. It seems especially horrid to think of the big, wet fat hairy spiders, rushing out of the tree in that late night brightness. The warm summer air, the reason for wanting the bedroom window kept open. I love how hugely the light changes with the seasons in the British Isles. It makes midsummer feel so different than, for example, in America. You really do get the feeling that some deity is merely having a brief nap, she doesn't want to sleep through the things the humans are getting up to in order to celebrate the solstice. Whereas in winter, it does seem that the sun may never come back. I've had visitors from New England once commented "now I know what she meant by In the Deep Midwinter"

Perfection is always a true delight.

I happened to see The Ghost and Mrs Muir on tv when I was younger, and could never put my finger on why I liked it so much. I'm still not sure what it is about British ghost stories tha's so facinating to me, but this one was terrific.

What a combination MR James and Mr Horden wonderful superb

And Michael Hordern took the lead role in the TV dramatisation of this story. Excellent

Love this narration - a spooky story, but very well written. Rest in Peace Michael Hordern. Edit: Parkins reminds me of Icabod Crane for some reason. Anyone else get the similarity?

@nicholasgerrish6022

Жыл бұрын

Not I…. I cannot see any similarity whatsoever.

@phoebevaughan5095

Жыл бұрын

@@nicholasgerrish6022 Parkins and Crane are academic people who teach others, they are both scared of ghosts/the supernatural, and too proud to admit it, and then are terrified out of their wits by a ghost/entity. Maybe I'm over-thinking it?

A descent into madness or something far more inexplicable? M.R.James always allowed his readers to decide, which made them all the more disturbing.

Love The Detectorists and its little nod to this story

Second listen through. Really pretty great. Thanks.

Hey Paul! I don't know how I missed that you uploaded all these mr james stories read by the brilliant Michael Hordern. I just love them. This is one of my favorites. It is flat out scary! Michael Hordern also starred in a film version of this. It was great! Thank you Paul. Kathi 😎🇺🇸

Great story, well read. Much better than any dramatized version. As is usual where the imagination is concerned.

My favourite M R James story read by my one of my favourite actors .....absolutely love it and very clear version mate ....thanks for posting it up.

@andrewmurray5542

Жыл бұрын

Agreed. It's noticeable when an actor reads a story compared to someone who just reads it - if you see what i mean. Horden's version is so much better; the characters come more to life. Love it.

A useful tool for a sailboat in a calm.

The BBC film of 1967 [monochrome ] was awesome; -Hordern ideally cast - and as I remember, all the more so without any attempt at music background - .

@robplazzman6049

4 жыл бұрын

I remember it freaking me out as a kid. Left me with a chill of big deserted beaches ever since.

Really a fine, fine horror story beautifully read.

Wonderful & so well read. Thank you 👍

So happy to find this reading by Michael Hordern. Thank you.

Very good reading. Scary and interesting story.

Love this story. The actor playing the Professor has a voice that reminds me of one of my favorite actors: John Williams, the English stage, film and tv actor.

Superb narrator.

Wonderfully read horror by Mr Paddington himself . Thank you Paul 👍🏻🇬🇧

@dubbingsync

5 жыл бұрын

I was trying to work out where I knew this guys voice from. Thank you for this comment.

@TheTigersbay

5 жыл бұрын

No problem 👍🏻🇬🇧

So excellently read!

Lately been listening to BBC radio plays of Jeeves and Wooster, with Michael Hordern as Jeeves. plus, one of my fave short films is the 1960s version of this very story - the remake with John Hurt wasn’t quite so good.

Some say the best ghost story ever written was The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions. He fused the idea of hair and the subtle magnetic field that may exist brilliantly. ha ha...Underground Train systems easily end up haunted as the tunnels lie undisturbed beneath the ground. Here's a sickie so prepare yourselves. Vast bales of hair have to be removed from train tunnels that are accumulated from passsengers who wait on the platforms~ sucked off their sculls when the train pull in I also liked the Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood and The Wine Dark Sea collection by Robert Aickman. The best ghost stories ever written were done by just before,during or after the Edwardian era , there are about half a dozen classic ghost-horror stories generally repeated in anthologies from this era.

@JasonJason210

5 жыл бұрын

I agree about the era (although LTC Rolt must be an exception). I guess it's when people still believed in ghosts and there were enough old places around to haunt. William Hope Hodgson wrote some interesting ones in his Carnacki series in the early 1900s. Also Lord Dunsany.

@oldproji

4 жыл бұрын

Yes! It is rare to hear the name of Algernon Blackwood mentioned these days, but he was a fine writer of the ghostly genre. In particular, his The Empty House is one of best ghost stories I have read, although it would be difficult for me to say which ghost story is truly the best ever. They are all amazing, especially those that came out of the 19th century stable.

Thank you for posting this.

Unless you're a detectorist, in which case blowing it may bring about shifts in time and events from the past - and maybe a Romano-British gold hoard....

I was waiting for Paddington to make an appearance!

This is very good Thank you posting

Be careful when you signal you don't know what may answer. 💀

Great stuff Thanks 👌

excellent!!

Marvellous reading XX

Have you heard of a short story entitled “”Adam and Eve and pinch Me.” ?? I forget the name of the author but the story is magical. 💙💜💚

@TheTeacher1020

2 жыл бұрын

Perhaps you mean A. E. Coppard?

I said this before and I'll say it again. Nothing sounds better than a old snooty British guy reading a story or audiobook. This dude would make reading the periodic table sound interesting.

@sclerismockrey8506

3 жыл бұрын

pearls before swine

@2msvalkyrie529

2 жыл бұрын

What if it was Raymond Chandler book ?

Didn't Michael Horden play the professor in the film of the story ? An excellent film

@startledmoose

4 жыл бұрын

A bit late with an answer to your question but yes, you're right. Michael Horden played Professor Parkins in the late Jonathan Miller's adaptation of this story, which he wrote and directed for the BBC Omnibus strand in the late 60s. The setting was updated to the 1930s and Parkins, as played by Horden, was an older, compared to the character in the story, but still fussy man. It's a superbly creepy version, with an excellent performance by Horden that is heartbreaking come the end.

@janetcw9808

4 жыл бұрын

@@startledmoose Thank you for the info 👍🏼

@OnceTheyNamedMeiWasnt

4 жыл бұрын

He could even have played the whistle he was that good.

@Johnconno

3 жыл бұрын

He may have done...Why do you ask?

Apparently, this year (2019) somebody actually did ...

💚💚💚💚💚💕🙋😸

Daughter

The Hotel is a sanatorium for addicts, it's just left unsaid.

I'll probably get banned or censored for mentioning this, but there really should be an 'Oh' at the beginning of the story's title. It may not seem an important omission to modern perceptions, but English has lost much of its nuance in recent years; there's no shame in using the language with precision and respecting an author's intentions. There was a time when school teachers wouldn't stand for such an alteration. 🧐That missing 'Oh' matters because it alters the title's sense and meaning. Once - not long ago, says she with a wry smile - boys (and yes, even girls) were schooled in not just English, German and French, but also Latin and Greek. Understanding how a language worked mattered because it allowed one to daub grammatically-correct graffiti on a wall telling the Romans To Go Home [Life of Brian ref], and made for clearer communication. It imparted an understanding of why words should be used with care. Shortening things for convenience was not an option because the various levels of meaning were changed by it. Alas, the use of texting, Twitter, Google and the 'live chat' sections of KZread videos has created a generation of people unable to communicate clearly. Not quickly - they can do that - but their no-rules, grammar-free, spell-as-you-like English is often hard to comprehend and lacks subtlety. And things such as a missing 'Oh' go largely unnoticed. So like ROFL m8 whatever 🤣 It's sad to see languages die through changes of usage, although it's those very changes that ensure languages survive. A story's given title, though, shouldn't be subject to change. I think this one was originally part of a poem by Robert Burns, and we've nae business telling HIM what he meant tae say.🤭 Languages evolve in order to survive. Yep. No problem with that. Chaucer's dead, long live English. "Yay!" for language evolution through natural selection. Ironically, Darwin's great book on evolution itself also suffers by the loss of its title's first word. It's frequently called, 'The Origin of Species', which is incorrect. The book is 'On the Origin of Species'. That missing 'On' - which seems so unnecessary to modern minds - transforms the writer's intention, changing the book from a scholarly proposal and discussion of a radical idea supported by empirical facts and evidence into a crude soap-box declamation that Darwin himself would never have made. Bring back the 'Oh'; remember the 'On'. And let's say what we mean.🙂

@paulgoddard

2 жыл бұрын

Hi Elli P, sorry I missed the "Oh". I know the story should start with an "Oh". I believe we should respect the author's original title and meaning. I'm dyslexic and I believe what happened, I copied the title from the Internet to make sure it was spelt correctly. I'm using my phone at the moment but later today I'll put "Oh" back where it belongs. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. 🙂

@2msvalkyrie529

10 ай бұрын

Well said ! Can you imagine.. " for a muse of fire " without the " Oh ! "

@marknewbold2583

4 ай бұрын

Grammar is not one set of rules. There are many grammars