THE HOLE IN THE ROOF
ARCHIVE for December 2002/January 2003Note: There were actually no updates during January 2003 due to far too much insane festive behaviour on behalf of the webmasters. Well, that and being extremely busy...
UPDATE: Sunday 22nd December 2002
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From us here at The Shrine, to you there, er...not at The Shrine, We'd like to take this opportunity to wish you a most smashing festive season - and thank you for your patronage of this website over the past nine months. The impact it appears to have created has been far more overwhelming than we could ever have imagined, and we look forward very much to expanding the site and bringing more hospital joys in the new year. If only we could say with as much confidence that the buildings themselves will live to see another Christmas. For the first time in living memory, it looks almost a foregone conclusion that, sadly, they will not. We'll keep you posted.
So - Have a peaceful one - Don't eat too much asbestos, and we hope that the Flincher brings you everything you asked for :-)
Damon Torsten & Owen Pellow
Webmasters
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Predictable seasonal goings-on have made the process of adding bonus goodies for you here rather impossible - but fear not, for we are now faced with a magnificent backlog of glorious CRCMH related stuff set to come your way as we cruise leisurely into 2003. Here's just a few examples:
- Somewhere in the
region of 100 further photos from explorer Michael.
- Urban Exploration
guru Simon Cornwell brings you his word on the state of thing at the
CRCMH - again to be accompanied by nearly 100 all-new photographs.
- His eminence Ray
Hurley-Castle will be gradually enhancing his corner of cyberspace with
no less than a further 918 colour and 134 B&W photographs (at least!),
more enthralling swashbucking adventures, and a whole heap of exclusive
movies for you (around the 120 mark by the looks of it).
- More memorabilia
than you can possibly eat (the itchings, the itchings... why won't they
stop?) - and that will include Plan Scans™ from all over
the site which will have to be seen to be believed.
- More nursing tales
from Jeannie Hopkins - including an encounter with the morgue.
- And a whole lot
more with bananas on top (and that does include candid pictures
of Mr Woolmer, believe it or not). So be sure to stay tuned.
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Oh - and before we go, have a gratis festive chuckle at one of our latest supernatural aquisitions. A reader writes...
Dear Damon and Owen, I recently took this photograph of a ghost at the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital on a ghost hunting trip. Find it attached. Regards,
Dr. Spencer Kaye
(Ghost Hunter Extraordinaire)
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See you soon - Be good.
UPDATE: Monday 2nd December 2002
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Well, well - Barely half a day goes past since that last update and here we are once again. Aha, you ask - does that mean I've remembered one of those things I'd forgotten yesterday? Well, no actually - this is something altogether different - and to say that it's the very latest in CRCMH information is a raving understatement. Read on...
- As promised at
the end of last night's update - our intrepid explorer Ray Hurley-Castle
did indeed revisit the world's most popular abandoned hospital once
again at the weekend. His foray has resulted in many new fascinating
mementos which will of course appear here on The Shrine in due
course. What's truly unheard of though, is the speed in which he's prepared
an account of his adventures for you. Truly remarkable - as indeed is
the tale he has to tell. This one is the ultimate adrenalin rush - complete
with axe-wielding bad guys (perhaps). It also gives you an incredibly
vivid picture of the sorry state of our beloved overgrown metropolis
(evident also in the few video stills which accompany his story). So,
without further ado, if I were you I'd head straight to Ray's simply
absorbing Conquest 2002 Part 3 - 'They Have Come For Us': The Forage
of Saturday 30th November 2002. Well, if it wasn't presently offline,
that is.
- And if that isn't
enough to occupy you for now - well, get a life...
UPDATE: Monday 2nd December 2002
THE SHRINE IS PROUDLY
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
-
This update is proudly brought to you by the "Plan B" poster Churchill never wanted you to see..
- Okay, have we
got a lot to get through today or what? It didn't originally seem like
there was a lot of significant additions, but realistically, there's
about 3 million things for you, and I'm bound to forget half of them
here. Right. Where to begin?...
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Our friend Michael has been busy for you over these past few weeks. As announced in the last update, he uncovered some fine plans of the northern end and the maternity unit. We've now installed his 5 images of them here (and there's a chance he'll be producing some better scans of them before long, though the most important one is good quality). So, how did he come by these plans you ask? Well, why not find out by reading Michael's Exploration Tales, which are now resident in our Tales section (funnily enough). And to finish off the Michael-related trilogy if you like, you can now access no less than 39 excellent quality photos of his explorations by night. They paint a very vivid picture of the state of the hospital these days - and in glorious technicolour too. Three cheers for him and his exploration crew we say (er, off the record of course).
- The "amazing"
CRCMH Locator™
has been updated a bit to include the names of a few places previously
shown as question marks. It looks like the original purpose of most
of the main areas of the site are now reasonably well established, though
do keep the corrections coming if you spot something you know to be
erroneous - and that goes for anything mentioned anywhere on this website
too. Thanks to Linda Rowntree amongst others for giving us a helping
hand.
- I expect you always
thought that we'd completely fabricated the name "Sister Muthucumaru"
didn't you? Well, new evidence has emerged to back us up. It's still
far from conclusive, but it's a start. See for yourself here.
- Ray's Exploration
Rantings Part One (and yes, he is still working on Part 2) can
now also be accessed via the Tales section of The Shrine.
- A few new names
have been added to the staff contact list on the Contact
page. If anyone would like their email address included as a link from
their name, then just let us know. It's a very logical idea and I don't
know why we didn't suggest that to start with, because it can only make
life easier for old colleagues to get hold of each other. New additions
to the list are of course also welcome - it doesn't have to be just
a Friends Reunited related thing - if you worked there, we'll
happily put you on the list.
- Aha! An entirely
new page...or is it? The Haunted section has always been tricky
in a "what to put where?" type way. Stuff that isn't The
Flincher, or The Soldier,
or Other Nearby Spooky
Places has, until now, ended up spread all over the place. What
we've done then is to introduce The
CRCMH - A Paranormal Realm (which now resides alongside the above
in the Haunted section). It's primarily a page for all the little
"mysterious" stories, photos, and useless bits of "unexplained"
trivia that aren't either solely Flincher related, or too vague or common
to warrant an in-depth look (i.e. "We went into the hospital and
- oooh - it was scary"). It'll be an expanding area, for sure,
but to give you an idea of its purpose, the page currently contains
these stories:
- Lurking in
the Shadows - A mysterious image shows up in a photograph of the
sentry box. Is it The Flincher, or just an inanimate blob? (this article
is several months old now).
- More Mysterious
Shapes - Two photos from Bob Hurley. They don't purpory to be "paranormal"
but they're nice and atmospheric (again, not a new article - it's been
online for a couple of months).
- Who Is Colin
- And Why Won't He Leave? - This is a new article, and a fairly
amusing one at that. Does the CRCMH have a resident tramp, or is The
Flincher actually from Birmingham? Further info on the mysterious Colin
would be gratefully received.
- Black-Eyed
Dogs? - Another new article. It's either pure fiction, or it helps
corroborate what Ray witnessed on his foray earlier this year.
- Utter Nonsense
- A reproduction of the silly "We went into the hospital and
- oooh - it was scary" post from the last update - simply by way
of pleading for no more "We went into the hospital and - oooh -
it was scary" type posts.
- Cause Or Effect
- A new piece telling of a tragic moment in the life of the CRCMH,
not previously mentioned on this website.
- Coming Soon
- Actual CRCMH Ghost Photos? - This is perhaps the most intriguing
of them all. Some allegedly "real" ghost photographs have
recently come to light and we hope to get them up here for you as soon
as possible. Go find out what it's all about.
- A new - and very
interesting - addition to the Your
Tales page, by way of historical information. Did you know that
the CRCMH had two wooden annexes on the Bath Road in Cippenham? Neither
did we - but we do now.
- Webmaster Owen
has come up with a Flincher-related graphic which now seems to be appearing
all over the place. If you can't find one just by opening any page at
random, then why not head for the absolutely awful Flincher
Gallery page.
- Ray's 4 very groovy
Grand Corridor MPEGs (as introduced in the last update whilst they were
very much floating around in cyberspace) are now the first customers
of our brand new Video Clips
page in the Visions section. It's looking very minimalist at
the moment, but now there's a home for video footage on The Shrine,
it might inspire us to start getting a few more of the ten zillion video
clips we have online. Sure, they're only little, but, complete with
audio, they certainly give you a different experience than just looking
at still pictures.
- Ah - here's a
great one. Owen has been going through one of Ray's foraging baskets
and emerged with the best page of today's update I'd say. Ever wanted
to know what the CRCMH Staff
Club spent all of its cash on between 1974 and 1979? It's good,
believe me - well worth a look. And what's more, there's even a scan
of a CRCMH Staff Club cheque to print out if you're bored.
- As I said earlier,
there's probably many other minor things I've forgotten about, so I'll
leave them for you to discover whilst we head off and get on with assorted
pressing tasks. We'll leave you with one final further snippet of news
first though: We have it on good authority that the inimitable Ray Hurley-Castle
is, as we speak, plunging once again into the darkest depths of the
CRCMH. His vast collection of wares, artefacts, images, film and banter
from his previous expeditions is nearing completion to go online (so
he keeps telling us), but we get the feeling that there's just one last
little piece of business he has to take care of at the site. Something
elusive perhaps? Rest assured that whatever exclusives he musters for
us will be coming your way as soon as we get our grubby hands on them
- but rest easy in the knowledge that out there somewhere - even in
the dead of night - is a modern day superhero - half Spiderman and half
Indiana Jones - and he's preserving the past so that we can all conquer
the future. Isn't that a heart-warming thought? And with that, we shall
bid you farewell until next time.
- Be good ;-)
- P.S. Just in case you were wondering - Hurtle Lupton didn't win his seat in the state elections at the weekend, and is therefore destined for a life of shame and obscurity.
