Episode 69: "The Hair" by A.J. Alan

 


A vintage radio special of EnCrypted Classic Horror, returning once again to the humorously macabre shaggy dog stories of A.J. Alan. In "The Hair" (1928), Alan recounts a strange sequence of events surrounding a box found in an old curiosity shop.
 
Nottingham-born A.J. Alan (real name: Leslie Harrison Lambert) was a performing magician, radio ham, volunteer coastguard radio operator, and  naval intelligence officer who, at the start of World War II was part of the vital military intelligence effort at Bletchley Park. Prior to the war, he was telling stories on BBC radio and became one of the most popular broadcasting personalities of the time. These stories - light, but often strange, and sometimes spooky - found their way into various ghost story collections such as the Fontana series curated by Robert Aickman, although they were meant to be performed and delivered in the rambling, conversational style Alan had made his own. 
 
He died in 1941.
 
Archive radio of A.J. Alan is now hard to find, but you can hear some gramophone recordings on the Stars of the Wireless site here: https://rfwilmut.net/wireless/alan.html
 
More great horror stories COMING VERY SOON...
 
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Please support my work...
Researching, reading, re-reading, recording, mixing, uploading,  promoting each of these short story audio presentations takes many hours  - possibly more than you'd imagine.   You can say thank you in the following ways:
 
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/encryptedpod
 
YouTube channel membership: https://www.youtube.com/c/EnCryptedClassicHorror/join
 
One-off donation:
https://ko-fi.com/encryptedpodcast 
 
Get in touch!
I like to hear from listeners, so feel free to reach out to me on the  socials.  If you want to discuss the show, talk business, or have any  ideas for stories you'd like to hear in future episodes, contact me:  encryptedpod@gmail.com
 
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About the episode: 

"The Hair" by A.J. Alan. First collected in "Good Evening, Everyone" (pub. Hutchinson, 1928).

Credit where credit's due: 

Theme music:  The Black Waltz by Scott Buckley | www.scottbuckley.com.au Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
 
Music included:   Ghost Story by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3805-ghost-story License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  

Sound effects: All sound effects sourced at Freesound.org 

The recording was created using Audacity and BandLab. Podcast hosted by Anchor.

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