Chris Roberts (ed.) – One Eyed Grey # 5 : Bank Holiday Weekend (fF&M Publications, May 2008)
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/img.photobucket.com/albums/v683/panspersons/oneeyedgrey.jpg)
‘a penny dreadful for the 21st century’
Chris Roberts – Editorial
Daisy Pearce – Black Prince (illustration Daniel Morgenstern)
Scott Wood – The Temple of Bacchus (photograph Alex Blair)
Cee Gee – Bank Holiday Weekend (illustration Celia Biscoe)
Richard Burdett – Bird Man (illustration Sara Bevan, photograph Robert Hackman)
Emily Cleaver – The Second Cellar (photograph Ken Johnson)
Andrew Flynn – The Toll Raven of Anerley Hill (illustration Alistair Kenward)
Benedict J Jones – Goin’ Underground (photograph Boris Green)
Martin Jones – EC Chainsaw Massacre III by (photograph Sarah Livingston)
Blurb:
Disappearing ladies, off licences on the sites of ancient temples, birds who charge tolls and one’s that stalk with the pigeon hordes. All this and a couple of nasty trips underground. What more could you want from a Bank Holiday Weekend?
Magic you say? We’ll we’ve got that as well in this edition of One Eye Grey which, in contrast to all the anniversary celebrations connected with Paris sixty eight, remains resolutely London two and eight.
“One Eye Grey is a collaborative effort bringing together people who fancied creating something chilling and pocket sized to read on the tube … ”
What a wonderful concept! Maybe they could throw in a can of Super strength to Circle Line ravers with next issue, The Arsenal Stadium Mystery?
In the spirit of the thing, I’ve been saving this specifically for my infrequent tube journeys, hoping that someone in the same carriage will be reading a copy which, you must admit, would be a caper!
Includes:
Richard Burdett – Bird Man: “A figure sauntered along the fields at 125 mph and looked at me, his eyes lightening in a blurred landscape. He walked straight through a man who was watching the train pass, leaving a brief pink mist. And he laughed. A woman down the coached coughed, then burst into flames ….
A pigeon-poisoner’s progress. The narrator reassures himself that Roger the tramp is a mental case prone to vivid hallucinations when he tells him about the Birdman and why he’s so grateful to Ken Livingstone for ridding Trafalgar Square of it’s pigeon population, After the terrible incident in Yorkshire, however, he no longer has the luxury of incredulity.
Benjamin Jones – Goin’ Underground: Editor Chris Roberts calls it right in his notes: “A welcome addition to the London legends of underground troglodyte communities who live off discarded burgers and unguarded commuters….”
It’s approaching midnight when a tube train arrives at Moorgate station minus one carriage. Guards Paulie, Jono, Dennis and narrator Steve enter the tunnel to see what’s become of it – and wish they hadn’t. Reads like a shudder pulp in miniature without the Scoobie Doo ‘rational’ ending and, like Mark Samuels’ Sentinels, Ron Weighell’s The Tunnel Of Saksaksalum and Robert Barbour Johnson’s ‘thirties classic Far Below, a delightfully unpleasant treat for Death Line/ Creep enthusiasts, although Ben has since informed me he doesn’t go a bundle on the latter film.
Emily Cleaver – The Second Cellar: Ok, so I cheated a bit with this one. I still had three pages to go when I got off the train so I completed it on a bench outside Tower Hill station. Just thought I’d best come clean about that.
Prof. Eckersley investigates a roadworks in the shadow of St. Giles Church where a 200 year old cellar has collapsed, exposing another beneath. Fantasising that – at last! – he’s about to make a significant archaeological find, Eckersley inadvisedly explores the premises after dark. It is located slap in the middle of what once was the Rookeries, home to the days beggars, cripples and desperately impoverished, and not all of them are at rest even now ….
Name-check for Geraldine, long-time proprietress of Bloomsbury’s Atlantis, the Occult bookshop in Museum Street.
Contact: F&M Publications