Comments on: Dick Turpin, Butcher & Highwayman

By: BRIAN HALL

BRIAN HALL — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 20:16:35 +0000

I too remember trips to Highbeech with my school, (Becontree Secondary Modern) also Dick Turpin’s cave. Behind the village hall where we would eat our packed lunches before a walk through the forest. Was it just folklore or was there a true connection I wondered

By: Randi SamuelsonBrown (@rsamuelsonb1)

Randi SamuelsonBrown (@rsamuelsonb1) — Sat, 16 Jul 2016 00:33:29 +0000

Excellent article on Dick Turpin, and great GREAT blog site. Looking forward to enjoying many hours reading!

By: M D West

M D West — Sat, 28 May 2016 10:56:39 +0000

In a twisted way some of the Robin Hood legend has attached itself to Dick Turpin…the Ewan McColl song mentions Hounslow Heath as one of Turpin’s haunts…. as the Stand-and-Deliver webpage says its nonsense and it sums up the Turpin legends thus…’The metamorphosis of Dick Turpin, house-breaker, torturer, murderer, horse-stealer and all-round real nasty piece of work into Dick Turpin, Highwayman and Knight of the Road was complete’.
Why do we need legends of romantic bandits?

By: Tim Clarke

Tim Clarke — Thu, 26 May 2016 22:09:40 +0000

Thank you for the course, and the inspiration your blog is giving me. I would encourage anyone who is thinking about writing a blog (or is already doing one and wants to improve it) to go on the course.

By: Ros

Ros — Thu, 26 May 2016 22:04:55 +0000

Love it that a page from the Gentle Author’s blog reminds one reader of a song she used to sing as a schoolgirl and that another reader then directs us to where we can hear it on YouTube!

By: Sally Baldwin

Sally Baldwin — Thu, 26 May 2016 12:52:44 +0000

Gentle Readers (or is that “Gentle’s Readers”?) might enjoy listening to A. L. Lloyd and Ewan McColl singing “Turpin Hero” — a song I’ve loved for well over sixty years. It can be found at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0UA2UjJYbU
— at least it can in the US.

Thanks for this story!

Sally

By: Carole

Carole — Thu, 26 May 2016 10:18:48 +0000

As an impressionable child living on the edge of Hadley Wood, the rumour that his ghost galloped along the bridle path from Cockfosters through the woods every new year’s eve filled me with wonder!

By: Pamela V. Cullen

Pamela V. Cullen — Thu, 26 May 2016 08:28:00 +0000

In the late ’40s, early ’50s, we used to sing a song in primary school in Ilford, which was about Turpin and had the chorus ‘O, Rare Turpin, Hero! O, Rare Turpin O!’. We were taken on visits to High Beech, in Epping Forest and visit ‘Dick Turpin’s Cave’. The criminal as hero, gave way in the 19th Century to the policeman as hero, e.g. Wilkie Collins in ‘The Moonstone’ and, in France, the real-life Vidocq, founder of the Surete, so our folk song was a rare survival!