Masquerade Podcast: Unexplained Mysteries With Author Steph Young

Beachy head is the most notorious spot for suicide in Britain. The famous white cliffs of chalk were formed in the Late Cretaceous era between 66 and 100 million years ago when the entire area was submerged under the sea. On Easter Sunday in 1981, a local photographer set his camera on a tripod close to the cliff-edge at Beachy head. He was hoping to take some stunning photographs of the South coast of England, when a 19-year-old boy approached him, pointed at the camera and said: “I hope you’ve got that loaded”. The boy then walked away, turned on his heel, and ran at the edge, yelling madly as he jumped to his death.’ “This beautiful place openly invites us to die,” wrote novelist Louis de Bernieres in an essay on Beachy Head. “All about are the wisps and traces of broken hearts, cancelled dreams, abandoned expectations.”  ‘High among the chalk crags, where the wind always howls, dwells the most malevolent spirit in Britain,’ writes John Maklin. ‘It is an evil influence that, it is claimed, has hurled more