Ghosts, vampires & Abba holograms: an uncanny history of London

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. Millions of tourists flock to London each year, eager to snap a selfie in front of Buckingham Palace or Big Ben. But beyond the crowds lies a darker and distinctly stranger side to the city, a gothic metropolis haunted by tales of demons, poltergeists, and murders most foul. In today's episode, John Borcombe talks to the author and historian Clive Bloom about some of the capital's spookiest stories, and why he believes that the eeriest encounters tend to unfold in the most mundane of places. Now, Clive, your new book is quite a wild ride, isn't it?

Because it's not a conventional travel logue, it's not a guidebook, and it's also describing fictional London as well as real London. How would you go about introducing listeners to the world of London Uncanny? Well, it's a strange world and it's a meditation on the urban landscape of London. It's a sort of an urban dream in a way. It takes the idea that London is obviously reality.

We run around every day commuting, you know, there's bricks and mortar and concrete and glass and cups of coffee and all the rest of it, and yet at the same time there's an imaginative London, a London that's sort of under the surface, if you like. It's almost as if London's what they used to describe as a thin place, a place where the veil might be rent at any time and we might step into some other world. And a number of writers, filmmakers and other people have seen this other world. And so when you walk around London, you're half in this world and half in another world as well, which makes it very exciting when you're walking around. But you have to be attuned to it.

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