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- [00:00]
Hannah George
Hello, I'm Hannah.
- [00:01]
Taylor Glenn
And I'm Taylor.
- [00:02]
Hannah George
If you enjoyed the mystic and the Mayor, we think you might enjoy our latest series, Toil and Trouble.
- [00:08]
Taylor Glenn
It's the story of Alfred, an 80 year old man who runs a school of magic in Rye.
- [00:14]
Hannah George
But when he invites a student to stay with him and learn more about the world of tarot and psychics, it all gets very dark very quickly.
- [00:22]
Taylor Glenn
Here's Episode one Rye, East Sussex. A medieval hilltop town near the south coast of England. Cobbled streets wind through the staggered rows of ancient timber framed houses. Each one gently leans in as if to get even closer to its neighborhood. Curtains of emerald ivy frame the historic buildings. Flowers burst from breaks in the cobblestone.
- [01:01]
Hannah George
It's close enough to the sea that you can smell the salt in the air. It's a town of artists and creatives. You'll find shops selling everything from eclectic antiques to taxidermy. Rye is the epitome of a quaint English town. And today, above the usual chatter of tourists and cries of seagulls circling overhead, something else can be heard.
- [01:30]
Taylor Glenn
Distant drumming, shouts of celebration, the clink of teaspoons and teacups. It's May 2023, the weekend of King Charles III's coronation. Red, white and blue bunting flutters from every house. Railing and lamp post, tablecloth, trestle tables groan under the weight of cucumber sandwiches and fruit scones. The street parties are in full swing.
- [02:05]
Hannah George
But for 80 year old Alfred Douglas, this weekend is anything but a celebration. Alfred bolts the bathroom door. His breath rasps. He's just scaled a flight of stairs and his heart is racing. With the landlady phone gripped tightly in his hand, he tiptoes to the window and peers gingerly down into his garden. Shards of glass sparkle up from the ground below. The seedlings in his greenhouse shiver at the wind whipping through the shattered panes. His lean to is broken and battered with sharp fragments of plastic protruding from the frame at his eye line. Held in the branches of one of his garden's many trees. Average spots something dripping blood.
- [02:59]
Taylor Glenn
A quiet falls over the house and then from below, banging starts. Hands shaking, Alfred dials. The only person he knows will be able to help him.
- [03:17]
Paul
PAUL I've just locked the gate. I've locked my door and I've locked the door from and she's hammering at the door now and trying to get in. I've also put a doorstop against the door from the basement so she gets in downstairs. She woke up to come out foreign.
- [03:41]
Taylor Glenn
I'm Hannah George and I'm Taylor Glenn. And this is Toil and Trouble.
- [03:48]
Hannah George
You might know us from the podcast Drunk Women Solving Crime, but this series is altogether more sober. It's a story about control, consent and trust.
- [03:59]
Taylor Glenn
It's also a story about magic, how a stranger can arrive at your door and change your life forever.
- [04:08]
Hannah George
This is episode one, the Lodger.
- [04:18]
Anna
When the pandemic ended, then of course, we all wanted to reappear as if. Yes, as if it was exactly as before and it wasn't. It was changed.
- [04:28]
Taylor Glenn
That's Anna and her husband Paul.
- [04:30]
Hannah George
They're both artists. Anna paints British coastal scenes, stacked lobster cages, prickly beach grass, a giddy dog running along the sand. And Paul runs a graphic design agency. They're a warm couple. Paul is clean shaven with short white hair. Anna is petite with a tidy bob and glasses.
- [04:50]
Taylor Glenn
Since childhood, Paul has been very close to his uncle Alfred. Over the pandemic, Alfred was in a support bubble. That's the term the UK government used during lockdown with his lodger, Moira. Moira is almost 40 years Alfred's junior, but she was a helpful part of his life, living downstairs in his garden flat.
- [05:10]
Anna
They were shielding together, but he invited.
- [05:13]
Paul
Her over to stay here as part.
- [05:15]
Anna
Of the pandemic and so otherwise he would have been on his own and we wouldn't have been able legally to have visited him.
- [05:22]
Hannah George
Moira was studying to become a barrister at the King's Inn School of Law in Dublin. When the pandemic hit, all her teaching moved online. They'd been acquainted for a while, so when she told Alfred of her slow and unreliable Internet in Dublin, he invited her to stay and finish her studies remotely from Rye.
- [05:42]
Anna
So you were looking at huge periods of time where he would have no contact with anybody if he was to observe the rules. So that was a big reason of thinking. There's enormous value to him having somebody in the house, although it's got separate entrances and it's got a separate door inside, that he has got somebody if anything happened to him, if he became unwell with COVID that she would at least be able to get some medication or be able to call emergency services. So we felt that he was safe or safer with her in the property.
- [06:17]
Taylor Glenn
For Alfred, it became something of an adventure.
- [06:21]
Paul
She was doing training as a barrister in Dublin and it was decided that he would help facilitate her through her last exam and he would tell us of him pretending to be the judge at a hearing and they would go through various enactments on Zoom back in Dublin with one of her colleagues and with her in the house and they would work this strange court like scenario and you would do it daily and eventually she passed her examination. It worked. So thanks to him and her heart studies she qualified.
- [07:01]
Taylor Glenn
Alfred was even there to watch her be called to the bar by the Chief justice of Ireland. With the ceremony taking place over zoom on 21 July 2021 Maura Lane, the.
- [07:14]
Paul
Benches of the Honourable Society of King's Inns. Having been pleased to admit you to the degree of Barrister at Law, I now admit you to practice in the courts of Ireland and you will take your place accordingly.
- [07:25]
Taylor Glenn
In some interviews you might hear people calling her Mora. We understand she prefers the pronunciation Moira which is what we're using.
- [07:33]
Paul
The idea after that apparently was when we were coming out of COVID that she would get a job in England, in London and move out of the flat and start her own life. But she still had to convert from the Dublin barrister qualification to the UK equivalent over here. So there's a bit of a time and in between period where she was restudying and he just said, you can be my guest, just stay there, that's fine. And that's how it was.
- [08:05]
Hannah George
But when Paul and Anna returned after the restrictions were lifted, the mood in Alfred's house had changed.
- [08:12]
Anna
They came very close very quickly and. Yes, so now you know, the situation was different and the house was different.
- [08:23]
Paul
Yes. And the dynamic was very different from.
- [08:25]
Anna
Somebody who was a guest who we hadn't really given that much.
- [08:29]
Paul
Well she was transitory now she was there.
- [08:31]
Anna
Yes. Then she became a permanent lodger.
- [08:35]
Paul
Yes.
- [08:36]
Anna
There was a noticeable and I suppose because we were used to sort of just walking in or because we got keys, you were very aware of the fact that there was somebody downstairs working. So it became a different experience going to visit.
- [08:54]
Taylor Glenn
This is the story of Moira and Alfred, lodger and homeowner, student and teacher carer and cared for and the consequences of letting a stranger into your home.
- [09:09]
Anna
There's nothing ordinary about him. Everything about him is extraordinary.
- [09:14]
Hannah George
Alfred is tall, with silver hair, twinkly blue eyes and a white moustache. He wears half moon spectacles on a cord around his neck. In the picture I'm looking at now, he's standing in front of a Christmas tree, beaming in a soft moss colored jumper. In short he looks like a granddad from a storybook. And he's been a very important figure in his nephew Paul's life.
- [09:37]
Paul
I've known Alfred very closely since I moved down to London to study and his wife Patsy and he Put me up in their flat in the centre of London and from there we became very close and full of admiration for his work and understood exactly what it was that he did. In my own juvenile way, but he's put up with me for all these years and so we've stayed very loyal and very lovingly towards each other and Anna's very much part of that.
- [10:11]
Anna
Alfred is really funny and he's cheeky and he has his own way of doing things.
- [10:17]
Taylor Glenn
Anna and Paul live about 15 minutes down the coast from Alfred in a small village called Fairlight.
- [10:23]
Anna
Patsy and Alfred moved to Rye at.
- [10:25]
Paul
The end of 2000.
- [10:26]
Anna
Yes, so they've been in our part of Sussex for a long time, so we, you know, we would always come over and visit them.
- [10:35]
Taylor Glenn
But Alfred and Patsy weren't your average aunt and uncle. Yes, they'd retired to Sussex from London, fleeing the city like many older people, but they were from a completely different world.
- [10:48]
Anna
They're very good company to come and have a meal. They'd be very fun and there would always be somebody visiting and they tended to be musicians or artists or Auntie Patsy was a well known writer, so it was a very creative house with lots and lots of people coming and going and it was busy and it was fun.
- [11:06]
Hannah George
Patsy, Alfred's wife, was known professionally by a different name, Jo Sheridan. She was widely regarded as a leading astrologer and palm reader and worked as an editor for Prediction magazine, a publication that covers everything from astrology, horoscopes and the tarot to psychics, mediums and clairvoyants.
- [11:28]
Taylor Glenn
Alfred worked alongside Patsy and their specialism was the occult.
- [11:35]
Paul
Alfred first got interested in the occult. He was about 16, 17 from art school. He came down to London with the intention of getting to know a person called Madeleine Montauban, who was a renowned psychic and she used to run her own school from her maisonette in central London and had various rooms off that into which pupils would stay and live.
- [12:07]
Hannah George
As a student of Madeleine Montalban's, Alfred became an expert in tarot.
- [12:12]
Taylor Glenn
In 1972 he launched a deck, the Sheridan Douglas Tarot alongside his wife Patsy, to accompany his book the the Origins, Meaning and Uses of the Cards.
- [12:25]
Hannah George
Not only were Alfred and Patsy celebrities of this world, but actual celebrities sought them out.
- [12:30]
Paul
There's a lovely photographer, Alfred, at the back of one of his books and whoever the photographer was is a very good friend of Cliff Richards. One of Patsy's very good friends was the creator of Coronation Street, Tony Warren.
- [12:45]
Anna
Yes, you'd never go around there when Coronation street was on because there was no auntie. Patsy would be watching Coronation street and you would sit in silence.
- [12:55]
Taylor Glenn
Alfred even worked with stars like Joan Bakewell and Peter Sellers.
- [13:00]
Paul
He knows all these different people and it's extraordinary. And, you know, Peter Sellers was his guide, his mentor, because Peter Soars could never do anything and unless he had his astrologer let him know that it was a good thing to do.
- [13:16]
Hannah George
Bob Dylan was a fan. And a copy of Alfred's book, the Tarot, found its way onto an episode of the Muppet show held by none other than Gene Kelly.
- [13:26]
Taylor Glenn
We're telling you all this because Alfred might appear to simply be a distinguished elderly academic, albeit of an unusual discipline, but he is in fact, a big deal.
- [13:39]
Hannah George
Alfred and Patsy were asked to keep Madeleine's work going, and after her death they became the sole custodians of the school. The apprentice had become the teacher.
- [13:50]
Paul
Madeleine's school is called the Order of the Morning Star, which is a world of which we are not familiar, but it's all to do with magic.
- [14:04]
Taylor Glenn
That's right, magic.
- [14:07]
Hannah George
She really upheld the importance of reading and knowing your occult history and reading the teachings of others. So when she founded the Order of the Morningstar, that was crafted entirely from her own research and her own experiences that drew from several sources and traditions and of course, what would be ever present in all of her teachings, which is astrology. Madeleine put astrology at the center of everything. You can't be a great magician unless you master astrology.
- [14:36]
Taylor Glenn
To this day, Alfred continues Madeleine's work, teaching a correspondence course to students around the world.
- [14:44]
David
People say, you know, he's into magic, you know, whatever that means.
- [14:50]
Taylor Glenn
This is Alfred's next door neighbor, David.
- [14:53]
David
There's a famous book that I read when I was at school called Religion and the Decline of Magic. It's not what we think of. It's certainly not Paul Daniels on the tv and it's certainly not sort of the black arts. What it is is effectively the study of pagan beliefs and philosophy. He would think of himself very much as a sort of philosopher and academic.
- [15:14]
Taylor Glenn
David considers Alfred a good friend and they've been neighbors for over a decade.
- [15:19]
David
Alfred is, you know, one of the sweetest guys you could ever meet, really. He looks kind of professorial with his amazing white hair, always very dapper in a sort of jacket and well dressed like a gentleman who just keeps himself to himself and makes a nice living from this correspondence course. In his retirement, he rents a little shop under his house as well. And he just Tootles around the town quite happily. It's a very magical place. I remember once discussing it with him, you know, Romney Marsh as you come into Rye. Very flat, obviously, but it's got this kind of, you know, misty, ghostly sort of atmosphere about it and it's quite magical itself and it's a fantastic place to live.
- [16:04]
Hannah George
Patsy and Alfred certainly thought so. After long and successful careers working in London, they decided it was time for a change. And there was something mystical about Ryder. They bought a big Victorian end terrace complete with cosy garden flat, and set about renovating it. It's a rambling red brick townhouse with a bottle green front door. Inside, it's filled with books and ornaments from all over the world.
- [16:28]
Taylor Glenn
But it's the outside, a lush walled garden that is Alfred's pride and joy.
- [16:35]
Paul
One could say he has a magical touch. Everything seems to grow wonderfully.
- [16:41]
Anna
Alfred gardens by the moon, which is why his plants were three times taller.
- [16:47]
Paul
Should you need to know.
- [16:48]
Anna
So I've got plants of a certain type in my garden and then if you go to Alfred's, they're twice as big. It's a lunar garden.
- [16:59]
Taylor Glenn
Patsy was 25 years older than Alfred and not long after the house was finished, she died. Life changed for Alfred, but he had a devoted core of friends. Patsy's Kara, Kate would come and see him often. His stepchildren Joe and Christine, and of course, people from all over the world who at some point or another had corresponded with him about magic.
- [17:25]
Hannah George
And despite Alfred's life becoming smaller since Patsy's death, the garden flat became a great way to host people at his home.
- [17:32]
Anna
That's the thing. He had a long history of having characterful guests or family members who would. Then they would have an adventure or something would happen and that then became part of his social life. So we would come to expect there to be a musician or an artist or somebody lurking in the garden flat.
- [17:50]
Hannah George
That also extended to his students who would take the opportunity to come and stay with Alfred for a few weeks in the same way he had stayed with Madeleine Montalban all those years ago.
- [18:01]
Paul
So he's quite used to the idea that to learn the craft of his world, you stay with a master and you learn from there. A guru character, really.
- [18:14]
Taylor Glenn
Alfred had had many students under his tutelage stay in his home over the years, but only for the short term. And that was all about to change.
- [18:35]
Paul
Alfred mentioned her in an email to me that he had had a message from a person called Moira and that she was coming over to meet him and he had said, if you're really interested in what I do, you must come look at my library. I've got some books here that we'd find very useful.
- [18:57]
Hannah George
Alfred has a huge collection of books in his home. Several rooms piled high with paperbacks, hardbacks, first editions.
- [19:05]
David
His living room and one of the other sort of front rooms full of books. They're all about, you know, sort of the Aichi and Eastern philosophy, pagan religion, Tarot cards, obviously.
- [19:19]
Hannah George
Alfred's neighbour, David.
- [19:21]
David
I remember when I moved in, I heard about his writing, so I found on ebay a copy of one of his books on the tarot cards. Yeah, it's quite nice and impressive to live next to an author.
- [19:31]
Taylor Glenn
It was March 2019. Moira Lane was in her late 30s and had attended a course of Alfred's back in 2014. She'd begun her studies to be a barrister in Dublin, but was interested in learning more about Alfred's work and the Order of the Morning Star.
- [19:48]
Hannah George
At that point, they didn't really know each other, so Alfred arranged for Moira to stay in a bed and breakfast nearby.
- [19:54]
Paul
So she'd flown in from Dublin, where she was living, and spent a weekend in his presence. He'd have visitors all the time, so she was just another one. And then he told us that she was really very delighted with what he had and. And could you do some more studying with him? And he said, well, if you're really interested, you can stay in the flat. And that's how it grew.
- [20:20]
Taylor Glenn
Alfred invited her to stay during her spring break so she could spend more time in his library. And Moira kept coming back.
- [20:28]
Hannah George
And then one day, quite unlike the guests that had come before, Paul and the family were invited to meet her.
- [20:34]
Paul
Alfred arranged that his stepdaughter, Christine, and her husband myself would meet with her at a restaurant in Rye, so we'd get to know her better. Maura, to me, was very interesting. She was Irish, she was from Dublin and she was vivacious and charming and quiet, all of those things. And you could see that Alfred was very pleased to be in her company. So for Alfred's sake, I felt this as a friendship that's worth nurturing. I think he loved the idea of having a companion, but he couldn't tell us that, of course, that's slightly embarrassing.
- [21:16]
Taylor Glenn
And there were some similarities with Alfred's wife, Patsy. Like Patsy, Moira was Irish and like Patsy, she had black hair and a fair complexion.
- [21:27]
Paul
She wasn't domineering, she wasn't showing signs of being flirtatious. It was great it wasn't a patsy substitute but it was certainly something close to that.
- [21:39]
Hannah George
Over the passing year Moira spent more time in Rye and slowly she was welcomed into Alfred's life and into the family. Some family members felt concerned about the speed of their friendship but Paul and Anna could see the positives.
- [21:54]
Anna
I think there is a value to somebody expressing some concern and seeing Alfred as vulnerable and identifying that which we didn't. We saw somebody who was living in a very large house with the potential to have lots of friends and family come and stay all the time and that would give him energy and he was energized by Moira's presence. She at that point she was wearing quite old fashioned clothes. She presented as a granddaughter. She didn't wear any makeup actually at the beginning she looked very young, she looked herself quite vulnerable. She was quiet. She would keep the house very clean. So we saw only the positives. We saw her as a student who was learning from him and that obviously he'd be interested so it would keep his brain active. She was helpful. She used to go to Jemson's which the supermarket shop run, you know, which was helpful to him not having to carry the heavy bags. She had his bank card but she would bring a receipt so that he could see exactly what she was spending and he was very happy for her to. She was very useful in that relationship in exchange for the free use of the flat. And who are we to poke our noses into his personal arrangements? And I think we felt very much that he was clearly had capacity. He's an intellectual man. He's got a very esoteric outlook on life and we certainly wouldn't consider it our position to be commenting on who he spends his time with in the same way as any other friendship or family. It just wasn't our place.
- [23:52]
Hannah George
Moira was estranged from her own family so she decided to stay in Rye over Christmas.
- [23:57]
David
So Alfred would come round on Christmas Eve with a couple of the other neighbors. We used to have this kind of little tradition and in fact in 2019 I think it was the Christmas before COVID he actually bought Maura for the first time. And I remember her sitting there watching on the sofa in my living room and, and chatting to, to her. She was a student barrister apparently. She seemed very professional, very, very pleasant at that time. And in fact I remember she sort of looked over at my bookcase with probably you know, 300 books on it and she picked out Religion and the Decline of Magic that I had still for my school days and she said, oh You've got that. And I said, yeah, yeah, we did it at school and, you know, in history and, you know. So I thought. I thought that was interesting that she picked out that book straight away. But it was all fine, it seemed fine at that time.
- [24:45]
Taylor Glenn
Anyway, Moira was invited to join Paul, Anna and Alfred for their traditional Christmas Day celebrations.
- [24:55]
Anna
I got some photographs of when she first arrived. There's just one right at the very beginning where you're all wearing your ho, ho, ho, silly hats and. Oh, here we go. So you see, and Alfred looks quite happy, like a sort of proud family member. And with a giant teapot. There was always this giant teapot.
- [25:19]
Hannah George
And that takes us back to the pandemic. Two years of Moira and Alfred largely alone together.
- [25:27]
Anna
When the pandemic ended, then, of course, we all wanted to reappear as if. As if it was exactly as before and it wasn't. It was changed.
- [25:36]
Taylor Glenn
Moira had become Alfred's whole life. But now, for the first time, Anna and Paul were wondering if that was a good thing. Alfred seemed to be drawing away from.
- [25:50]
Hannah George
Them and everyone else, everyone who wasn't Moira.
- [25:58]
Taylor Glenn
So they started to keep a diary.
- [26:01]
Anna
If you hadn't kept the diary, I think we would be absolutely lost as to what day, anything happened or the fact that we kept a diary is really significant to this whole thing.
- [26:16]
Hannah George
130 pages and counting of entries. Paul and Anna would slowly build a picture of what was going on behind the closed doors of Alfred's home, all relating to one person, Moira.
- [26:32]
Anna
So by keeping this diary, we were able to have a really good sense of the time frame and also the significance of the birthday party.
- [26:45]
Taylor Glenn
Next time on Toil and Trouble.
- [26:48]
Anna
This is going to end up in some serious event. It was quite clear that somebody was going to get seriously hurt.
- [26:54]
Taylor Glenn
If you want to hear more, just search Toil and Trouble wherever you get your podcasts.
- [27:01]
Hannah George
This has been an audio always production presented by me, Hannah George and me, Taylor Glenn.
- [27:08]
Taylor Glenn
Toil and Trouble is produced by Louisa Adams. Our assistant producer is Mansi Vethlani and our executive producer is Ailsa Rochester. Sound design design is by Craig Edmondson.