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TV, Films, Books That Turned The Young You Onto The Fortean

That's Antony Dacres Hippisley Coxe.
Is he related to R Hippisley Coxe?
Yes, I've noticed the lack of final 'e'.

Since you asked ... :evillaugh:

"R." (Robert) was Antony's father. The spellings shown on the book images are correct. It's not clear why Antony employed the "e" on the end.

Here's the quaint documentation ...

Robert Hippisley COX (b. 1857) became a surgeon. He was the regular medical attendant to George Henry, 3rd Marquess CONYNGHAM and was living with the Marquess in Belgrave Square, London, in 1881 ...

The 3rd Marquess died in 1882 but Robert continued to serve the family. In 1883 the 4th Marquess, Henry Francis, suffered an attack of pleurisy and Robert's reports on his condition were printed in the London Standard. Robert served as a lieutenant in the medical corps of the Coldsteam Guards from 1886 to 1890, although he saw no active service overseas. He was also vice-chairman of the Prince's Racquets and Tennis Club in Knightsbridge and ran an exclusive restaurant in London called Romano's.

Robert married Helen de Lacy LACY on 12th January 1910. She was born in London in about 1880 and was the daughter of Charles Sethward de Lacy LACY of Apsley House, Hurstbourne Priors, Hampshire and Augusta Matilda PATERSON. ...

Robert and Helen had two children together - Antony Dacres, born 21st March 1912, and Tacina Elizabeth, born 21st April 1918. In 1914 Robert's book "The Green Roads of England" was published in which he described the prehistoric earthworks and megaliths of Southern England and the ancient trackways which linked them. He died on 29th April 1923 in Hurstbourne Park, Whitchurch, Hampshire, and his widow Helen died on 16th April 1968.

Robert and Helen's son Antony Dacres Hippisley COXE went to Dartmouth at the age of 14 but he was unable to join the Navy due to poor eyesight, so instead he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, serving in the Second World War and rising to the rank of Lt-Commander. He also worked as a freelance journalist and wrote numerous books, including "Haunted Britain", "A Book About Smuggling in the West Country, 1700-1850","Galley Wise" with his sister Tacina and "The Book of the Sausage" with his wife Araminta. He also helped prepare plans for the Festival of Britain in 1951, during which he organised the first tightrope walk across the Thames, worked for the B.B.C.'s Oversees Monitoring Service, was head of press and publicity for the National Farmers Union and later head of media at Shell International. Antony loved going to the circus as a child and became a noted circus historian; he organised the first international exhibition of Circusiana at Simpsons of Piccadilly in London in 1948, was a member of the International Union of Circus Historians, wrote "A Seat at the Circus" and donated his collection of circus memorabilia to the Victoria & Albert Theatre Museum in 1978, of which he had been a devoted supporter. He also trained a troupe of performing cats called Coxe's Catrobats! Antony died in 1988 aged 75 and the following is from the obituary that appeared in The Independent, written by Alexander SCHOUVALOFF of the Theatre Museum: "He loved good food and wine and was a most generous and thoughtful host. He was a totally unpretentious man who always had a kind word for everybody. Adored by young and old, he had that rare quality - an old-fashioned, charming gallantry."
SOURCE: http://www.boddyparts.co.uk/hippisley.htm
 
Just a brief follow-on tidbit concerning Antony and his foray into being an entertainer - Coxe's Catrobats ... This reminiscence wouldn't have been out of place in one of Viv Stanshall's "Sir Henry" works ...

... And Felix I got to know, really, through a man called Antony Hippisley Coxe. And Antony Hippisley Coxe I'd met because his sister, who was called Tacina, was being courted by Frank Adie, who I was sharing a flat with, and she was a jolly girl, and Antony was slightly sort of ... odd man about town. He worked for P.R., Shell, and he used to wear shirts with horizontal stripes, and always wore a black hat, because he was rather a dandy. And he had founded a troupe of performing cats, called Coxe's Catrobats. And there were about eight of these, and they lived in a caravan parked in Smith Street, Chelsea. It's amazing to think, in those days, you could leave a caravan in Smith Street for a year without parking offence. And he had a manager for these Catrobats, and they used to tour, sort of for flower shows and agricultural shows, and various sort of country parties. They did little things like walking tightropes, or ringing bells or running up ladders, and they were all mongrels. And when the War began hotting up, so to speak, the beginning of, sort of, '38, '39, he thought he couldn't really cope with this complication in his life, and so he gave them all away to his neighbours in Smith Street, and he said, when he went down to the bus in the morning to go to work, there were all these old troupers would be sitting on the steps, washing themselves, and as he passed, they'd raise one paw to sort of say, "Hi". ...

NATIONAL LIFE STORIES LEADERS OF NATIONAL LIFE Sir Hugh Casson
Interviewed by Cathy Courtney
https://sounds.bl.uk/related-content/TRANSCRIPTS/021T-C0408X0016XX-0000A0.pdf
 
The Reader's Digest: Strange Stories - Amazing Facts
It had everything a young mind could want. Ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, Sea Serpents, Jack the Ripper, Spring Heeled Jack, curses, magic, witchcraft and those damned fucking scary Belmez faces that terrified me as a child.
I still have a copy in my library.
View attachment 24857
yes this. it was my parents. a few years ago mum was having a clear out and i purloined it. its on my shelf now. i loved it. not just the fortean stuff, but all the stuff about rediscovered mayan temples, and future tech and ancient people.

*a random opening brings up (pg134) 'how artificial protein may sustain life' - making meat style protein from soya, pea vines and potato waste. 'By AD 2000, however, hunger may change our minds' (about prefering to to real meat)

and (pg 429) The Bunyip!*

fantastic.

also Ghosts seemed to be very much in fashion when i was little, and an awful lot of childrens novels feature fortean subjects.

when i hit adulthood the X-files had just taken off. i feel it was massively influential to a lot of people.
 
A disturbing memory just popped into my head - one of my much older sisters had a girls' magazine annual for xmas one year, which had a scary drawing inside the front cover. It was of two girls crouching on the floor looking terrified, while behind them someone tall was standing up wearing a huge grey overcoat and possibly a mask.

What frighted the 7/8 year-old me out of my wits was the fact that the coat sleeves dangled down over the figure's hands. Dunno why that was so scary, unless I thought the arms were going to pop out of the sleeves like tentacles or summat.

Kids sometimes pick up on things like that, they can't explain it at the time. I just used to keep my eye on the book and slam it shut whenever anyone opened it in case I accidentally saw the picture!

girls comics of the 70's and 80's had some grim stuff. the boarding school japes and horse stories were still popular but there was a lot of pg creepiness.
and a lot of fortean stuff. ghosts, time slips, time travel, ecological disasters, aliens, mysterious satanic societies (pg scooby doo versions), mythical/magical objects and beings.

so many.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misty_(comics)

https://www.nature.com/articles/palcomms201737

thinking about it, these comics were probably the main things that turned me onto forteana and mysteries as a kid.
 
Me too. I remember getting a book about aviation mysteries and that was what really triggered it - especially the chapter on UFOs.
Countdown brings back many memories, I couldn't wait for the next issue to come out.
I used to have this wallchart up in my bedroom.
4a8b8ecbc20ba5d85dc279a3b49ea89f.jpg


And I still remember this article about Rex Heflin's photographs
Countdown%252B002%252BPg%252B22-23.jpeg
Countdown was my favourite comic!
 
when i hit adulthood the X-files had just taken off. i feel it was massively influential to a lot of people.

When the programme was at its height of popularity I had a neighbour who was obsessed with it. I acquired an X-Files teeshirt from a car booty or some such, new, for 50p, and posted it through her door as I passed. Forgot about it, and next time I saw her she was buzzing about how the letterbox had mysteriously rattled during the most unearthly sequence of the actual show and a wonderful teeshirt had appeared on the doormat!

She'd had an X-Files teeshirt for a couple of years and worn it out, and wanted a new one, and BAM! There it was! Incredible!
 
When the programme was at its height of popularity I had a neighbour who was obsessed with it. I acquired an X-Files teeshirt from a car booty or some such, new, for 50p, and posted it through her door as I passed. Forgot about it, and next time I saw her she was buzzing about how the letterbox had mysteriously rattled during the most unearthly sequence of the actual show and a wonderful teeshirt had appeared on the doormat!

She'd had an X-Files teeshirt for a couple of years and worn it out, and wanted a new one, and BAM! There it was! Incredible!
Wish fulfilment!
 
When I was a kid, I randomly found a book on UFOs that someone (one of my brothers?) had left in the upstairs hallway. I don't know where it came from and nobody else seemed to either, so I kept it! It was a small paperback that had stories of Betty and Barney Hill, Professor X (I think that was his name?), and other notable contactees/researchers. There was also a photo/illustration section that I found terrifying and fascinating so of course I couldn't stop looking at it.

Not long after, I got a book called something along the lines of "Superstitions, Hexes, and Spells" from the Scholastic book fair at school. I remember the cover was purple and had a hissing black cat, a broken mirror, and possible a four leaf clover? It had a chapter that contained lurid facts such as Bela Lugosi's request to be buried in his Dracula cape, which was spooky to no end to my third-grader mind. That book got passed around my friends group and eventually disappeared.

Those are the two biggies. Since then I've filled out my collection, donated some of it, had someone else's entire collection passed back to me. My solution is to buy more bookcases.
 
I should mention here too, that my step father had a tattered original copy of Project Blue Book which I used to devour. It was hard reading for youngster, but fascinating at the same time.
Also 'In Search Of' hosted by Leonard Nimoy opened my eyes to many unusual things, as did Arthur C Clarke's 'Mysterious World'. I have to confess that the crystal skulls at the beginning of each show always creeped me out just a little.
 
I should mention here too, that my step father had a tattered original copy of Project Blue Book which I used to devour. It was hard reading for youngster, but fascinating at the same time.
Also 'In Search Of' hosted by Leonard Nimoy opened my eyes to many unusual things, as did Arthur C Clarke's 'Mysterious World'. I have to confess that the crystal skulls at the beginning of each show always creeped me out just a little.
I too enjoyed the 'In Search Of' and 'Mysterious World' - watched a documentry last week that said the crystal skulls were faked...I was gutted.
 
I should mention here too, that my step father had a tattered original copy of Project Blue Book which I used to devour. It was hard reading for youngster, but fascinating at the same time.
Also 'In Search Of' hosted by Leonard Nimoy opened my eyes to many unusual things, as did Arthur C Clarke's 'Mysterious World'. I have to confess that the crystal skulls at the beginning of each show always creeped me out just a little.
I loved 'In Search Of'! Yes those skulls freaked me out too.
 
A bit plain but... "Alice in Wonderland"

I was age 4 or 5 and it was completely different to anything I ever read before (started reading when I was 3). Blew my mind....or actually opened it wide :)
You must have a huge IQ to read that at such a young age.
 
One of the things that sometimes makes me feel like I might have turned up to the wrong party is the almost complete lack of engagement I've had with the SF and Fantasy genres through out my life. I read The Hobbit and LOTR way back - and enjoyed them, but beyond that, although I've given it more than a couple of goes, I've never managed to get into the wider genre. Similarly, I've tried some classics and even explored a bit further, but I've just never been able to get involved with SF.

It often seems I'm on my own in this respect, and I just wonder if this really is a rare indifference in this kind of environment.
 
One of the things that sometimes makes me feel like I might have turned up to the wrong party is the almost complete lack of engagement I've had with the SF and Fantasy genres through out my life. I read The Hobbit and LOTR way back - and enjoyed them, but beyond that, although I've given it more than a couple of goes, I've never managed to get into the wider genre. Similarly, I've tried some classics and even explored a bit further, but I've just never been able to get involved with SF.

It often seems I'm on my own in this respect, and I just wonder if this really is a rare indifference in this kind of environment.
What about Fortean-related SF?
 
It often seems I'm on my own in this respect, and I just wonder if this really is a rare indifference in this kind of environment.


No, you're not alone. As far as fantasy goes I've only read some Tolkien and a few Conan stories, which I remember enjoying but I never felt like exploring the genre further. However, in recent months I have been enjoying Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastard Sequence, a crime-caper that just happens to be set in a fantasy world.
Science Fiction...some Philip K Dick is about the limit of my experience there.

What I really enjoy is 'weird fiction', 20thC Horror and Ghost stories. A shout out to Errantry by Elizabeth Hand for everyday oddness here. Which, now I recall, includes a fantasy story but it's so different to anything I've encountered, it probably doesn't fit into that genre.
 
I guess it could be about SF that provokes a 'sense of wonder' (or as I call it, 'sensawunda'). Maybe you simply haven't yet read anything that has done that? I guess the first stuff I read (Wells, Verne) did that for me, which is why I'm hooked on the genre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_of_wonder
 
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I can't stand sci fi. It is the stupid words they come up with to create their supposedly magical world. I have tried a few but as soon as the characters start bindleflipping their foombangles or something I get irritated and stop reading.

edit -having just read Mytho's post mentioning Verne and Wells I think it is probably just modern sci fi I can't stand.
 
I can't stand sci fi. It is the stupid words they come up with to create their supposedly magical world. I have tried a few but as soon as the characters start bindleflipping their foombangles or something I get irritated and stop reading.

edit -having just read Mytho's post mentioning Verne and Wells I think it is probably just modern sci fi I can't stand.
Yes - read some old SF, it doesn't rely on stupid bamboozley stuff. It's about gosh-wow ideas.
 
Also 'In Search Of' hosted by Leonard Nimoy opened my eyes to many unusual things, as did Arthur C Clarke's 'Mysterious World'. I have to confess that the crystal skulls at the beginning of each show always creeped me out just a little.

Took my then very young children to see the Crystal Skull at the Museum of Mankind in London.
To my surprise there was nothing whatsoever to acknowledge its status as a world-renowned iconically weird object. It was poorly displayed, high up on a column in a glass case behind a rope barrier. I had to lift the kids up one by one to look at it.

Not only that, there was only one grumpy old curator around who not only wouldn't/couldn't answer questions but threatened me with ejection if my impeccably-behaved children touched the barrier. Miserable old twat. I hope his prostate problem turned out every bit as bad he feared.
 
Took my then very young children to see the Crystal Skull at the Museum of Mankind in London.
To my surprise there was nothing whatsoever to acknowledge its status as a world-renowned iconically weird object. It was poorly displayed, high up on a column in a glass case behind a rope barrier. I had to lift the kids up one by one to look at it.

Not only that, there was only one grumpy old curator around who not only wouldn't/couldn't answer questions but threatened me with ejection if my impeccably-behaved children touched the barrier. Miserable old twat. I hope his prostate problem turned out every bit as bad he feared.

Perhaps the skull cursed him for being a grumpy old shit?
 
You must have a huge IQ to read that at such a young age

Being an introvert also helped :)

Not sure about IQ - apparently, my method was to ask my grandma to read to me the same books over and over until I memorised them completely so I was able to tell them by heart. Then I connected letters with what I was saying and that is how I learned to read.

All this is "apparently" as I have no memory of the process :)
 
Yes - read some old SF, it doesn't rely on stupid bamboozley stuff. It's about gosh-wow ideas.

Agreed ... The most entertaining and suggestive sci-fi remains the short stories and novellas (rather than full-length novels) from the 1940s through the 1960s. These shorter works often introduce a novel concept or situation and play briefly on the "what if" aspects. These treatments provide reasonable and tantalizing helpings of the sense of wonder. The later / longer works tend to presume much of the earlier wondrous elements (e.g., interstellar travel, etc.) and demote them to mere stage setting for an otherwise pedestrian melodrama. As the once-wondrous bits recede into the stagecraft all the wonder gets leached out of them.
 
Agreed ... The most entertaining and suggestive sci-fi remains the short stories and novellas (rather than full-length novels) from the 1940s through the 1960s. These shorter works often introduce a novel concept or situation and play briefly on the "what if" aspects. These treatments provide reasonable and tantalizing helpings of the sense of wonder. The later / longer works tend to presume much of the earlier wondrous elements (e.g., interstellar travel, etc.) and demote them to mere stage setting for an otherwise pedestrian melodrama. As the once-wondrous bits recede into the stagecraft all the wonder gets leached out of them.
Yes! Short stories and novellas definitely have more punch and keep the reader interested.
Today's SF/fantasy trends towards very long books, which can sometimes end up with a reader losing interest part-way through.
 
Agreed ... The most entertaining and suggestive sci-fi remains the short stories and novellas (rather than full-length novels) from the 1940s through the 1960s. These shorter works often introduce a novel concept or situation and play briefly on the "what if" aspects. These treatments provide reasonable and tantalizing helpings of the sense of wonder. The later / longer works tend to presume much of the earlier wondrous elements (e.g., interstellar travel, etc.) and demote them to mere stage setting for an otherwise pedestrian melodrama. As the once-wondrous bits recede into the stagecraft all the wonder gets leached out of them.

I remember quite enjoying this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(short_story)
 
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