Captain Slash, the infamous highwayman of Northampton, died this day in 1826. He’d been terrorizing vendors at a horse fair in Boughton when he was apprehended and subsequently hung. To get the better of his mother, who had predicted “he would die with his boots on”, he kicked them off just before he was hanged. It is said that the highwayman (that obviously not even a mother could love) now haunts Boughton Church, especially at Christmas. Now there’s a guy you’d really like to sing carols with, eh?