Inside Room 623

This is the fourth post in a series, a look at inspirations in my fourth Listen with Other story 'The Curious Case of Room 623'.

First up, why 623? As a child whenever we stayed in a big hotel, it always seemed to be room 623. No idea why. The number has just lodged in my brain as an inevitable room number.

The podcast 'The Unexplained Universe of Roger Unthank' is, of course, entirely fictitious and you should not draw any parallels between that and a real podcast that featured a story about strange goings on in a university hall of residence tower block. The similarity is slightly uncanny, though.

The University of Lowlands is, naturally, lifted from Andrew Davies' A Very Peculiar Practice. I meant to write some nuns in at some point, but may have forgotten. Or decided nuns would be too on the nose.

Yes Professor Strangely-Wyrd is a terrible name, but it was revealed to me in a dream so we all have to go along with it I'm afraid. Did you notice one key thing about the professor though? Their gender is not mentioned once in the story. Did you assume they were male? Hmmm.

Trellis Tower is partly inspired by the now-demolished tower in Owens Park, Fallowfield, University of Manchester. I was lucky to be in nearby Tree Court F, relatively near the ground. I imagine Trellis Tower to be taller and more concrete-y.

Podcast researcher Fiona Scott is named after someone I was at primary school with. After one summer holiday (Plymouth, I think) it turned out totally coincidentally she'd been in the same hotel in room 523. My family had been, of course, in room 623.

The dead student's housemates were inspired by real housemates as was the cassette letter incident. Look, if I can't have some fun with trauma 40 years after the fact, when can I? The intended recipient of the cassette letter in real life was of course...