TimesPastOTR on Huffduffer: Recent Episodes
None
This Pulitzer prize winning novel is Hemingway's masterpiece; set in Cuba on the Gulf Stream, this is the thrilling and tantalising story of an epic battle between an old, experienced fisherman and a large marlin. Santiago, has gone 84 days without catching a fish, and is considered unlucky; his only friend is young Manolin, the boy whom he's taught how to fish. When on the 85th day, Santiago sets sail again, his luck seems to change when he catches the biggest fish of his life. But the biggest battle of his life is about to commence.Produced and Directed by Pauline HarrisFurther InformationCited by the Nobel Committee as contributing to Hemingway's Nobel Prize in Literature, the novel is a seemingly simple tale, full of emotion and drama.It's the story of the struggle of life - a meditation on life and death, and old age. It's about the challenge of survival and the pitting of one man's ageing body and ageing mind against nature. It's about an ancient culture about to come to an end, and a practice as old as time itself. It's a final act, and the boy is there to remind us that life moves on, and a new generation steps forward.
"Seattle Blues" is a critical milestone episode of The Adventures of Harry Nile, a hard-boiled private-eye radio drama created by writer-producer Jim French. First broadcast on December 2, 1976, the story serves as a prequel to the main timeline. It details Harry Nile's very first visit to Seattle, occurring a full decade before he leaves the Chicago police force to permanently settle down in the Pacific Northwest. In this case, Harry works to help a young woman recover money from a crooked gambler.
"West for My Health" is the very first episode of the long-running audio radio drama series, The Adventures of Harry Nile. Written and produced by Jim French, this foundational story introduces listeners to the hard-luck private investigator and sets up his entire narrative timeline.
Freder is an underworked "captain" in a high level position in the futuristic consumer society of the mega-city named Metropolis.Feeling suicidal, but unable to understand why, Freder switches identities with a low level "product insertion" - a kind of telemarketing.Failing at that, Freder soon finds himself working for Maria, an imperfect beauty with all the answers. Maria plunges Freder into the depths of her underground conspiracy to disrupt the workings of society.Thea von Harbou's 1925 novel became husband Fritz Lang's 1927 silent movie classic.Its terrifying vision of the future was born in an age of booming heavy industry.Peter Straughan's new version finds its hero, caught up in a nightmarish world all too recognisably drawn from the one we find ourselves in today.Freddy ....... Edward HoggMaria ....... Tracy WilesJosaphat ....... Damian LynchSchmale ....... Peter MarinkerWith:Kim WallElizabeth BellAnthony GlennonLiz SutherlandJacqueline CloakeThomas WheatleyDirector: Toby SwiftFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2006.
The Prince of Africa is an acclaimed 1987 BBC Radio drama written by the renowned Kittitian-British author Caryl Phillips.First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in March 1987, the play follows an English sea captain who, while new to the slave trade, finds himself in command of an overcrowded slave ship bound for the Americas. It employs an experimental and fluid narrative style that moves seamlessly across time and space, exploring the overarching themes of the African diaspora, dislocation, and the history of slavery.The original broadcast starred actors Trevor Laird as the African and Geoffrey Collins as Captain John Winston, and was directed by Ian Cotterell.
The famous "Army Hour" radio interview with Audie Murphy was recorded on August 16, 1960, while the legendary World War II hero and Hollywood actor was on location in Western Germany.
By phone from his home in Southern California, this beloved man of many talents and voices was a live guest on Radio Classics program on WBBM, Chicago. Listeners had an opportunity to call in and talk with him about his career on radio and cartoons and his book, “That’s Not All Folks!” He was born on May 30, 1908 and was 80 at the time of this broadcast. He died just ten months later, at age 81 on July 10, 1989.
A chance encounter in a random phone-call may prove good fortune or bad luck for Jess and Lydia. A sweet romance about taking control of destiny.
A young composer arrives in Northumberland, looking for an old man reputed to have written a hauntingly beautiful love song. The old man only sang it once - after his wife left him - and says he'll it sing it no more.The composer embarks on a cold-hearted campaign to make the old man's daughter fall in love with him.
A harrowing tunnel search in Vietnam where the platoon deals with an explosive underground bunker
A moving Civil War story of a young man plagued by doubts of cowardice in battle. An interesting look at the thoughts of a common foot soldier of the day.
Tim Krabbe's cult novella dramatised by Oliver Emanuel.Rex and Saskia stop at a petrol station. Saskia goes in to buy drinks and is never seen again.Eight years later, Rex is so haunted by her disappearance that he sets out to discover what happened to her, regardless of the cost.A chilling love story that takes us to the heart of the perfect crime.Cast:Rex ... Samuel WestSaskia ... Melody GroveLieneke ... Ruth GemmellLemorne ... Liam BrennanDenise...Natasha WatsonCashier/Woman ... Claire KnightJean-Pierre Gallo/Manager ... Robin Laing
The riddle of Sherlock Holmes' disappearance after the Reichenbach Falls is at last solved.And the real reason for Professor Moriarty's power is revealed...Starring Simon Callow, Ian Hogg and Karl Johnson.Nicholas Meyer's Gold and Silver Dagger Award-winning novel, first published in 1974.Dramatised by Denny Martin Flinn.Sherlock Holmes .... Simon CallowDr Watson .... Ian HoggSigmund Freud .... Karl Johnson
A Prairie Home Companion was a long-running live radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor, airing from 1974 to 2016. It also inspired a 2006 film directed by Robert Altman, set behind the scenes during a fictional final broadcast of the show.
"The Cowboy and the Lady" aired on Hollywood Radio Theater starring Gene Autry and Merle Oberon. Poor Mary Smith can't go night-clubbing or have any other fun because any hint of scandal could damage her father's political career. She decides to rebel and convinces her two maids to let her go along with them on a blind date with some rodeo performers.
Indiana Jones and the Bridge to Yesterday is an epic, feature-length fan-made audio drama released by the IndyCast in 2019. Developed by Raiders Radio over five years, it features high-quality voice acting, original music, and cinematic sound effects. The story follows Indy into the Devil's Triangle as he attempts to right past wrongs.
It's 1948. Sleuth Easy Rawlings is drawn into a web of murder and corruption. Walter Mosley's thriller, read by Paul Winfield
A BBC radio full-cast dramatization of this much-loved classic adventure about a dog named Buck.In Yukon, Canada during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, strong sled dogs were in high demand. Buck is stolen from his comfortable home in California and sold into service as a sled dog in Alaska. He becomes progressively feral in the harsh environment, where he is forced to fight to survive and dominate other dogs.Sold to a group of inexperienced gold hunters, he is eventually saved by John Thornton, with whom he forms a deep bond.Exciting and action-packed, The Call of the Wild explores the timeless relationship between man and dog, and the draw of primitive instincts that pull Buck away from humanity towards the wilderness.Starring Robert Jack, Finn Den Hertog, Robin Lane, Nick Underwood and Melody Grove.
Sea ChangeDrama on 3By John Fletcher.This is the story of the battle between appeasers and anti-appeasers in the period before - and just after - the start of the Second World War, and the formation of a coalition which, like the election of 2010, abruptly ruptured all previous political alignments.New political alliances and social organizations - which had first arisen in the Bridgwater by-election of 1938, but which had been ignored by the London-based political and media establishments - united in their fight against appeasement. Suddenly and dramatically, in May of that year, this new united front rose against the government and, in the space of only three days, overthrew it. Somewhat surprisingly, the magnificent story behind this overthrow is little known. It is a story of ferocious loyalty and betrayal, outrageous media manipulation, blackmail, prejudice - and not a little courage.The appeasers are principally represented by Neville Chamberlain and his ruthless, over-protective spin doctor Joseph Ball - a man who would have eaten Alistair Campbell for breakfast. The anti-appeasers, battling through various foreign policy crises, are a disparate group: an Australian, Rex Leeper, the Foreign Office's press officer, constantly - and largely unsuccessfully - countering Ball's pro-appeasement spin from Number 10; Harold Nicolson MP, bravely opposing appeasement amid the innuendos of fellow backbenchers and Ball's press smears; Vernon Bartlett, a radical foreign correspondent for the News Chronicle, who is asked to stand as the anti-appeasement candidate in the Bridgwater by-election; and Guy Burgess, anti-appeasement patriot, communist and BBC political producer, who is blackmailed over his homosexuality by Ball into couriering secret messages between Chamberlain and the dictators.The fascinating and little known story of the struggle to establish the coalition government of 1940 - a story of idealism, blackmail, and political skulduggery. Based on real events.
John Wayne, Mel Ferrer, Mala Powers, Barton Yarborough, William Johnstone, George Neise, Wally Maher, Norman Field, Dan Riss, Paul Dubov, Edward MarrCaptain Nathan Brittles, on the eve of retirement, takes out a last patrol to stop an impending massive Indian attack.
A tough man makes the first cattle drive with a 10,000 head herd, over the Chisholm Trail. Walter Brennan, Jeff Chandler, William Keighley (host), John Milton Kennedy (announcer), John Wayne, Joanne Dru, Sanford Barnett (adaptor), Charlie Forsyth (sound effects), Fred MacKaye (director).
A story of gold and greed in the mountains of Mexico. The last commercial has been deleted. Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Frank Lovejoy, William Keighley (host), John Milton
Jules Verne's classic adventure, dramatised by Steve WalkerLidenbrok, a Hamburg geologist, decodes runes which tell of a passage to the centre of the Earth.
In Peter Lovesey's thriller set in the 60's, a lecturer is forced to re-live his childhood memories of a gruesome murder. Did he contribute to a miscarriage of justice?Dramatised by Michael Z Lewin
Frank Carter is taking early retirement from teaching. In theory, he's glad to go; in practice, he was good and very popular and he liked being both.
Falling in love with a stranger has never been scarier: A gripping new thriller.Vibrant, young, attractive, Mollie Spiers, signs up to internet dating. When the man she arranges to meet looks suspicious she spontaneously sits next to another man, Colin, and hurriedly asks him to pretend they're on a date. Molly and Colin fall for each other and what seems like serendipity turns into a chilling thriller. As Mollie falls headlong in love Colin is arrested on a murder charge. As we inter-cut between murder trial and action, Mollie's own life is in danger.
Sherlock Holmes has never been able to resist a challenge so when Karl Marx turns up asking him to find his ‘kidnapped’ revolutionary tract Das Kapital, he agrees.
The history of crime detection has produced no more famous name than that of SEXTON BLAKE…’In ‘Lilies for the Ladies’: In the first episode of the series, Blake investigates the unexplained murders of four wealthy society women.
The classic western story about a strange lawman and his unusual methods. Jimmy Stewart, Joan Blondell.
The story of Wyatt Earp, Marshall of Wichita Kansas, a town that needed cleaning up. The script was based on the 1939 film, the broadcast originates from Hollywood. Henry Fonda, Robert Armbruster (composer, conductor), Stewart M. Lake (author), Maurice Robinson (adaptor), Russell Hughes (author), Ozie Waters, John McIntire, Herb Butterfield, Jerry Hausner, Horace Murphy, Bud Hiestand (announcer), Jack Zoller (producer, director).
The classic story based on the movie about The Ringo Kid, The Plummer Boys, and The Apaches. The series is also refered to as, "Screen Director's Playhouse" and "NBC Theatre.". John Wayne; John Ford (guest screen director); Ernest Haycox (author of the original story and screenplay); Milton Geiger (adaptor); Dudley Nichols (author of the story and original screenplay); Claire Trevor; Ford Bond
Broken Arrow from Screen Director's Playhouse aired September 7, 1951. Starring in their original roles is James Stewart as Tom Jeffords, Jeff Chandler as Cochise and Debra Paget as Sonseeahray (Morningstar). Broken Arrow is the story of a land, of the people who lived on it in the year 1870, and of a man whose name was Cochise. He was an Indian leader of the Chiricahua Apache tribe. The performances of James Stewart, Jeff Chandler and Debra Paget are outstanding and Broken Arrow is one of the first westerns to portray Native Americans in a balanced, sympathetic way. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, and won a Golden Globe. Interesting is that the world premier was at the Nusho Theater in downtown Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
Walter Mosley's thriller, featuring private detective Easy Rawlins. Read by Paul WinfieldSet in 1948, the story begins in the Watts area of Los Angeles, with Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, a Houstonian — from that city's Fifth Ward — who lost his job at an aviation defense plant in Los Angeles and is unable to pay the mortgage on his LA home. Easy is sitting in a bar run by Joppy, a friend who is also from Houston, when a man named DeWitt Albright walks into the bar and offers him a job finding a young White woman named Daphne Monet
Professor Challenger sets out to find a lost race of creatures in the heart of the Amazon. Stars David Robb and Jamie Glover.
Tell Sackett knew that gold spelled trouble faster than anything except a woman, and he had a lot of gold. Problem was, none of it was his. Tell was just delivering the gold for a fee. And now the Coopers, a gang of bloodthirsty desperadoes, were hot on his trail.So the last thing Tell needed was Christine Mallory to slow him down. But to leave her in the desert was to leave her to die. As Tell Sackett's father used to say, "Women are trouble". Tell was about to learn what he meant.
The Joads are a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes, and bank foreclosures. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California along with thousands of other “Okies” seeking jobs, land, dignity, and a future.
An original western by Sebastian Baczkiewicz.It’s 1904. New Mexico. Legendary lawman Pat Garrett has grown weary and old. An altercation with President Roosevelt has left his future looking bleak, his present is awash with whisky, blood and bullets, and all the while he’s haunted by a ghost from his past.This is the story of how the myth of the Wild West was created and how outlaws were forged into great American heroes.Pat Garrett ..... Sean GilderBilly The Kid ..... Sam SwannNancy ..... Madeline AppiahBenjy ..... Edward HoggClayton Claypole ..... Nathan OsgoodPresident Roosevelt ..... Rolf SaxonStubbenfield ..... John GuerrasioMaxwell ..... Caolan McCarthyDirector: Helen PerryMade for BBC Radio 4 by BBC Cymru WalesDramaFirst broadcast: Sat 2nd Jan 201614:30 on BBC Radio 4 FM
After the short reign and mysterious death of Pope John Paul I, the election of a new Pope takes place in an atmosphere of high tension between opposing factions within the Vatican, including those who want to elect the first non-Italian Pope for over four hundred years.
"The Oklahoma Cowboy Murder Case " from the series Richard Diamond, Private Detective aired September 27, 1950 on NBC sponsored by Rexall. Rick mounts up and rides out to solve a wild-west homicide. Clay Baxter hires Diamond to find his brother's killer. Dick Powell, Barton Yarborough, Blake Edwards (writer), Frank Worth (composer, conductor), Hal March, Arthur Q. Bryan, Wally Maher, Bill Forman (announcer), Jaime del Valle (transcriber), Virginia Gregg, Wilms Herbert
The Big Sleep Marlowe is consulted by a wealthy family man with two big problems: his children.
Hopalong Cassidy is a fictional cowboy-hero, created in 1904 by Clarence E. Mulford and appearing in a series of popular stories and novels. In print, the character appears as a rude, rough-talking 'galoot'. Beginning in 1935, the character, played by William Boyd was transformed into the clean-cut hero of a series of 66 immensely popular films, only a few of which were based on Mulford's works. Mulford actually rewrote his earlier stories to fit the movie conception, and these led in turn to a comic book series modeled after the films. This story is about Hoppy portrayed on the screen. The juvenile lead was played by James Ellison, Russell Hayden, or Rand Brooks. Gabby Hayes originally played Cassidy's grizzled sidekick Windy Halliday. After Hayes left the series due to a salary dispute with producer Harry Sherman, he was replaced by comedian Britt Wood as Speedy McGinnis, and finally by veteran movie comedian Andy Clyde as California Carlson. Clyde, the most durable of the sidekicks, remained with the series until it ended.
Hosted by Johnny Carson, this two-hour retrospective reviews 50 years of classic NBC radio and television comedy performances. It aired Thanksgiving Day in 1982 as a special with Carson presenting comedy excerpts from a variety of comedy genres and explains his take on each. Included are satirical sketches from Saturday Night Live, the irreverent comedy of Bob and Ray; and the topical comedy of humorist Will Rogers. Also included are excerpts from the radio series "The Lucky Strike Program" starring Jack Benny and "Maxwell House Coffee Time" with George Burns. Performances by Victor Borge, Fred Allen, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Lucille Ball, Abbott and Costello, Red Skelton, Ernie Kovacs, Steve Allen, W.C. Fields, Mae West, and Flip Wilson, among many others.
1936: The enigmatic Mr Shaitana hosts an unusual dinner party.His guests include four sleuths - including Hercule Poirot - and four suspected murderers.
A BBC Radio adaptation of John Fletcher's play about Christiana Edmunds, the "Chocolate Cream Killer", who carried out a series of poisonings in Brighton in the early 1870's.When people start falling ill all over early 19th century Brighton, everyone thinks it's cholera due to the lack of proper sewers. Little do the police know that it's actually the work of a middle-aged spinster who, thwarted in love, its taking her revenge on all of the citizens of Brighton with very special montelimars and pralines.Obsession, bad drains, royalty, murder and chocolate all play their part ...
n this exciting BBC Radio adaptation of the novel by H.G. Wells set in 1900, we join the eccentric professor Cavor (Sir Donald Sinden) and the rakish free loading Charles Bedford (James Bolam) on their extraordinary journey to the moon in a huge metal sphere resplendent with drape curtains, gentleman’s arm chairs and brass fittings.
The 1949 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio adaptation, broadcast March 6, 1949 on CBC Stage 49 and starring Lorne Greene as Ahab.
There is an assassin on the loose in Victorian London. Actor and detective Richard Mace is called in to investigate...By 'Doctor Who' scriptwriter Eric SawardTwo episodes of approximately 30 minutes each - first broadcast in 1974.With:-----Carole BoydJohn HollisGeoffrey MatthewsAlan DudleyWilliam EedleLeonard FentonFraser KerrDiana BishopBetty Huntley-WrightJohn BryningJulian FoxWritten by Eric SawardProduced by Roger Pine
Ellis Peters' murder mystery dramatised for radio by Sally Hedges.Ellis Peters' murder mystery dramatised for radio by Sally Hedges.Tom Felse is a mathematician and not at all superstitious. However, a strange disappearance on the Hallowmount prompts him to investigate, revealing tales of witchcraft and ritualistic murder...
A BBC Radio adventure starring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective, in which a broken leg is no barrier to leading the hunt for a real-life demon of Victorian crime ... a man whom, it is said, claimed at the very moment of his execution that he was Jack the Ripper!
Falling in love with a stranger has never been scarier: A gripping new thriller.Vibrant, young, attractive, Mollie Spiers, signs up to internet dating. When the man she arranges to meet looks suspicious she spontaneously sits next to another man, Colin, and hurriedly asks him to pretend they're on a date. Molly and Colin fall for each other and what seems like serendipity turns into a chilling thriller. As Mollie falls headlong in love Colin is arrested on a murder charge. As we inter-cut between murder trial and action, Mollie's own life is in danger.
The most famous radio show of all time. Mars invades New Jersey. Orson Welles (producer, director, host, performer), Dan Seymour (announcer), H. G. Wells (author), Howard Koch (adaptor), Paul Stewart (associate producer, adaptor, performer: doubles), Frank Readick (doubles), John Houseman (producer, adaptor, script editor), Bernard Herrmann (composer, conductor), Kenny Delmar (quadruples), Ray Collins (triples), Davidson Taylor (production supervisor), Ora Nichols (sound effects), Ray Kremer (sound effects), Jim Rogan (sound effects), John Dietz (sound engineer), Carl Frank (doubles), Richard Wilson (triples), William Alland (doubles), Stefan Schnabel, William Herz, Howard Smith.
From April of 2007 through October 2008 Icons Radio Hour from MODA Entertainment left us with 50 shows. It was hosted by writer/director John Mulholand. Each week, John interviewed those who know classic Hollywood best - actors, writers, directors, producers, and their colleagues, family and friends. The premiere show was co-hosted by Stephen Bogart, son of Hollywood legends Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall.
It is 1941. While the "war of chaos" rages in the skies above London, an unending fight against violence, murder and the criminal underworld continues on the streets below.One ordinary day, in an ordinary courtroom, forensic pathologist Dr. Keith Simpson asks a keen young journalist to be his secretary. Although the "horrors of secretarial work" don't appeal to Molly Lefebure, she's intrigued to know exactly what goes on behind a mortuary door.Capable and curious, "Miss Molly" quickly becomes indispensible to Dr. Simpson as he meticulously pursues the truth.
Randy Stone tries to track down twenty tons of contaminated butter before a typhoid epidemic hits Chicago!. Anne Whitfield, Don Diamond (producer, host), Frank Lovejoy, Frank Worth (composer, conductor), Joan Banks, Larry Marcus (writer), Lou Rusoff (writer), Nestor Paiva, Peter Leeds, Russell Bender (writer), Tudor Owen, Warren Lewis (director).
Dramatisation of the 1953 stage play, filmed in 1955 with David Niven in the lead; titled "Court Martial" in the USA.War hero Major Charles 'Copper' Carrington is arrested for embezzling £125 from his unit's safe, for leaving the base and entertaining Captain Alison Graham in his room.Appearing in his own defence, Carrington claims that he took the money openly because of all the back pay owed him and because his wife Valerie was pressuring him for money. She has become ill as a result of the financial worries and has even threatened suicide.
If somewhere is 'beyond the black stump' it means it is in the deepest darkest wilds of the Australian outback. This is the sun-baked setting for Nevil Shute's novel of a romance that is tested by the differences between two young people's home lives.
Radio dramatisation of the 1920's Aldwych farce.Peter and Barbara Wyckham plan to travel by railway from London to a country house in Somerset, but Peter...
A chronological profile of Dylan’s career from the early 1960’s until his most recent work.
A chronological profile of Dylan’s career from the early 1960’s until his most recent work.
A chronological profile of Dylan’s career from the early 1960’s until his most recent work.
A chronological profile of Dylan’s career from the early 1960’s until his most recent work.
A chronological profile of Dylan's career from the early 1960's until his most recent work.
A chronological profile of Dylan's career from the early 1960's until his most recent work.
Some of the clips in "Baseball: Great American Pastime" include: a 1926 reading of "Casey at the Bat," excerpts from historical games, the comedy skit "Who's On First?," an interview clip of Lou Gehrig, and a few humorous moments of baseball.
“Whoever would understand the heart and mind of America had better learn the game of baseball...” As this quotation sums up our attitude toward the national pastime, so our program illuminates the origin and the history of the great game of baseball.
In retrospect, most people think of Johnny Cash as always being in the public eye, and always being the Man in Black. In fact, Cash's career was a turbulent one with wild ups and downs and surprises. From his start on the farm, through country stardom, drug problems, religious awakening and recent resurgence, there's never a dull moment in the life of Johnny Cash. His story gives us a glimpse of Cash the Everyman in search of his American dream.
Roy Plomley's talk with Hollywood film star Lauren Bacall. First broadcast: Sat 03 Mar 1979 BBC Radio
Violet Hunter visits Holmes, asking whether she should accept a job as governess; a job with very strange conditions. She is enticed by the phenomenal salary which, as originally offered, is £100 a year, later increased to £120 when Miss Hunter baulks at having to cut her long hair short (Her previous position paid £48 per year). This is only one of many peculiar provisos to which she must agree. The employer, Jephro Rucastle, seems pleasant enough, yet Miss Hunter obviously has her suspicions.
She announces to Holmes, after the raised salary offer, that she will take the job, and Holmes suggests that if he is needed, a telegram will bring him to Hampshire, where Mr Rucastle's country estate, the Copper Beeches, is situated.
A banker, Mr. Alexander Holder of Streatham makes a loan of £50,000 to a socially prominent client, who leaves the Beryl Coronet — one of the most valuable public possessions in existence — as collateral. Holder feels that he must not leave this rare and precious piece of jewellery in his personal safe at the bank, and so he takes it home with him to lock it up there. He is awakened in the night by a noise, enters his dressing room, and is horrified to see his son Arthur with the coronet in his hands, apparently trying to bend it. Holder's niece Mary comes at the sound of all the shouting and, seeing the damaged coronet, faints dead away. Three beryls are missing from it. In a panic, Mr. Holder travels to see Holmes, who agrees to take the case.
The story entails the bride of the fictional Lord Robert St. Simon disappearing on the day of their marriage. She attends (and participates in) the wedding, but disappears from the reception.
The events of the wedding day are most perplexing to Lord Robert as it seemed to him that his bride, Miss Hatty Doran of San Francisco, was full of enthusiasm about their impending marriage. St. Simon tells Holmes that he noticed a change in the young lady's mood just after the wedding ceremony. She was uncharacteristically sharp with him. The only obvious happening at the church where the wedding took place that was out of the ordinary was Hatty's little accident: she dropped her wedding bouquet and a gentleman in the front pew picked it up and handed it back to her.
In his narration, Dr. Watson notes that this is one of only two cases which he personally brought to the attention of Sherlock Holmes.
The story, set in 1889, mainly consists of a young London consultant hydraulic engineer, Mr. Victor Hatherley, recounting strange happenings of the night before, first to Dr. Watson, who dresses the stump where Mr. Hatherley's thumb has been cut off, and then to Sherlock Holmes himself.
Hatherley had been visited in his office by a man who identified himself as Colonel Lysander Stark. He offered Hatherley a commission at a country house, to examine a hydraulic press used, as Stark explains, to compress fuller's earth into bricks. Stark warned Hatherley to keep the job confidential, offering him 50 guineas (£52 10s, an enormous sum at the time, worth over 4000 GBP today.
A young woman named Helen Stoner consults the detective Sherlock Holmes about the suspicious death of her sister, Julia. One night, after conversing with her twin sister about her upcoming wedding day, Julia screamed and came to the hallway where Helen came out to see her, in Julia's dying words she said "it was the band, the speckled band!" Julia had been engaged to be married and, had she lived, would have received an annual GBP250 annuity from her late mother's income. Now Helen is engaged to be married. Holmes' investigation of the mother's estate reveals that its value has decreased significantly, and if both daughters had married, Dr. Roylott, Helen's ill-tempered and violent stepfather, would be left with very little, while the marriage of even one would be crippling. Therefore, the main suspicion falls on him.
Watson visits his friend Holmes at Christmas time and finds him contemplating a battered old hat, brought to him by the commissionaire Peterson after it and a Christmas goose had been dropped by a man in a scuffle with some street ruffians. Peterson takes the goose home to eat it, but comes back later with a carbuncle. His wife has found it in the bird's crop (throat). Holmes makes some interesting deductions concerning the owner of the hat from simple observations of its condition, conclusions amply confirmed when an advertisement for the owner produces the man himself: Henry Baker.
Dr. Watson is called upon late at night by a female friend of his wife. Her husband has been absent for several days and, as he is an opium addict, she is sure he has been indulging in a lengthy drug binge in a dangerous East End opium den. Frantic with worry, she seeks Dr. Watson's help in fetching him home. Watson does this, but he also finds his friend Sherlock Holmes in the den, disguised as an old man, trying to extract information about a new case from the addicts in the den.
Mr. Neville St. Clair, a respectable and punctual country businessman, has disappeared. Making the matter even more mysterious is that Mrs. St. Clair is quite sure that she saw her husband at a second-floor window of the opium den, in Upper Swandam Lane, a rather rough part of town near the docks. He withdrew into the window immediately, and Mrs. St. Clair is quite sure that there was something very wrong.