After a three-year interregnum, Weird Weekend North returned to the Community Hall in Rixton-with-Glazebrook, Warrington, on 2-3 April. Glen Vaudrey deserves praise for his determianed efforts to overcome many obstacles and keep the weird flag flying! His programme included a good mix of new and old faces, with compere ‘Barry Tadcaster’ (Richard Freeman sans trademark beard) delivering bizarre introductions, helped by Orang Pendek Ken Jeavons and Gef the Talking Mongoose. One unanticipated problem was that the refurbished hall now had black curtains behind the stage, so presentations had to be projected onto a side wall. The attendance of around 80 would have been greater had not some people fallen victim to Covid.

I opened Saturday’s proceedings with what I can assure readers was a new talk (see panel) about ; people marching around a field outside the Merseyside village at night wearing KKK-style apparel and brandishing burning torches (see Rob Gandy, “The Aintree Spectres”, ). They had been witnessed on various occasions between WWII and the late-1980s. Suspects included extreme Christian fundamentalists and an ancient sect called The Lily-White Boys, but definitive conclusions could not be reached because secret societies tend to be, well, secret.