A Geek History of Time - Episode 307 - A Warren Piece, Watership Down Part I

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Item one, get the grocery store item to laundry item three over through capitalism. You know, for somebody who taught Latin, your inability to pronounce French like hurts. Oh, look at you getting to the end of my stuff. Motherfucker. But seriously, I do think that this bucolic, luxurious live your weird fucking dreams kind of life is something worth noting. Ah, because of course he had.

I got into an argument essentially with with some folks as to whether or not punching Nazis is something you should do. And they're like, no, then you're just as bad as the Nazis. I was like, the Nazis committed genocide. I'm talking about breaking noses. Drink scotch and eat strychnine. All right, you can't leave that lying there.

Luxury poultry. Yes, yes. Fancy chickens. Yes, fancy chickens. Pet, pet fancy chickens. Pet fancy chickens. Pet Fancy Chickens? Pet Fancy Chickens. This is a Geek History of Time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock.

I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. And today, my son managed to ride his bike close to close to a full block without having to stop or you know put his feet down. And what's funny about that is he had gone out a couple of weeks ago with his grandmother and she had forgotten to take his helmet. And so he was practicing on grass at the park because you know if he fell there's more cushion there and He was able to keep going in the grass for like 36 a count of 36 She was counting how long he could keep going and he was really reamped really excited Well, we didn't really have a chance because all kinds of stuff going on to get him on his bike since then but today

He and I went out and he had his helmet and I was trying to explain to him you know it'll be easier for you to pedal on a paved surface but he was like no I don't I don't I don't want to fall and get hurt I know all right okay and we and we were working on the grass in the park whenever and then finally on our way home, he got up close to the sidewalk, close to the walkway to get home. And he said, okay, well, okay, so give me one more push. And I said, well, you know, kiddo, if I give you one more push, you're going to be on the sidewalk. And he thought about it for a second. He said, okay, well, give me a push. I said,

okay. And he got up on there and he immediately noticed exactly how much simpler it was, like how much less effort it required. And at one point, as we were walking home, because it's a couple of blocks away, as we were walking home, I actually had to tell him to stop because he was getting ahead of me and getting going too fast. And I was like, you're going to get too far away from me to help you. And so I, what he was beaming, grinning ear to ear, and I was just as proud as could ever be. So that's that I had, I had a really great dad moment

earlier today with that. So that's me. What about you? Well, I'm Damian Harmony. I am a US history teacher up here in the Northern California area. And I was I've been watching a show with my kids for probably going on, you know, six, seven months now. I they're old enough to watch being human the

American version. Okay, really cool characters really cool, like just like the twists and the turns are while the whole thing is completely contrived and sounds ridiculous, it's done really really well and it's become a favorite and we come to the the the last episode or a second to last episode of the second season and the thing is there's a werewolf a last episode of the second season. And the thing is there's a werewolf, a ghost and a vampire living together trying to keep their humanity trying to they're

basically a sober living group. Okay, is really what it is. Okay. And they're trying to support each other, you know, knowing that they're all gonna fall and how to pick back up and all that. The thing is, if you are a werewolf or a vampire you can see ghosts Okay. All right. Yeah, so penultimate episode of the second season the eclipse happens and it shakes everything up

Ghosts that have been shredded come back just for the time being of the eclipse which totally sucks. Okay for the few minutes that... Yeah. Vampires don't seem to have anything happen but the the werewolves turn for the duration so they start their turn early you know and and so the werewolf is running from his girlfriend that he was going to talk about this with probably within a day or so he was, you know, kvetching over whether or not he should he's running from her. And she finally corners him in an alley and he turns around and he's growing the, you know, the Wolf chops and now the claws and she runs away from him and gets

hit by a fucking car. And he goes to take care of her and he keeps turning. And there's people gathering around so he takes off running Which is the responsible thing to do? Yeah, he comes back that evening after the eclipse is finished. He sees her sitting on the curb And he sits down and she goes to touch her and she's like no no keep your hands away from me and so he sits down next to her and He she's like so this was it. This is why you left me. This was all this and he's like, yeah Yeah, and she he's like I can protect you from this. I absolutely can't she's like dude

You're too late And then she looks past him and you turn around and the reveal is they're wheeling they're putting her in the coroner's wagon Well ghost yeah, and my daughter's now dropped open It is rare that my kids get surprised and my I hear from my son next to next to me and he's like I Feel so bad for him right now. Like yeah, yeah, and they're just both gobsmacked. I'm like, yeah All of their flabbers gassed it. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah also I found on By the time this releases we may or may not have tick-tock anymore. I don't know

But yeah, when talked tick-tock was still a thing. I found somebody posted the intro to Fraggle Rock and I'd shown this to my kids when they were much younger The point where Julia doesn't remember like in the same way that she doesn't remember I had red hair Like a hint of a memory And she's like why why do I know this song I was like cool So we finished the Muppet show finally where I'm gonna switch this over to Fraggle Rock. It's very cool Yeah, very cool. Anyway other things that I haven't shown them. I showed my kid. I showed my daughter Watership down the miniseries the four-parter that Netflix put out but I'd never shown her the 78 version You you shouldn't

She's 12 fine. Yeah as of this reporting she's almost 13. Okay. Well as of this release, she's almost. Yeah as of this reporting show with 13 Well as of this release she's almost 13. Yeah, but I Don't want to reshow it to her because again. She was really young. She doesn't remember too much of it But that's what sparked her interest in Mouseguard Guelph and all kinds of stuff. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense and She and her brother used to write stories about cats and stuff like that. Like, you know, yeah That's great. Yeah, I'm just saying I Think I speak for a large segment of our generation Say that that that is a 78

animated feature It's like 15 16 maybe Okay, I understand. Traumatizing. Yeah, it is. Traumatizing. The reason for that though is because when it came out, liberalism was like on the ropes and running out of steam. And people were really disappointed and unable to see

any way through it. And it wasn't answering their basic needs. And so they turned to an ultra right wing politician who worked on populism through identity politics and promised essentially to hurt the people that they felt should get hurt. Like, see the 2018 version is totally not like that. So totally not like the piano and showing them at this time time I don't see how the parallels would be there So I don't think the trauma will be there because we're in a much better place now

See the layer the layer of sarcasm Involved in that entire delivery. Yeah is it's on like I've seen not even yeah, it's not even frosting That's yeah, that's that's an issue of density. Yes, it's stopped. But you actually you back me over. You back me over backward into the actual name of this particular podcast, Watership Down, traumatic cartoons that crop up when liberalism is running out of steam. So.

OK, great. Now, have you ever read the bow? Yeah, I Have I have not? Joel it's been a very long time I wound up and I don't know if I finished it actually now that I think about it, but I picked it up I Want to say I was in high school picked it up I want to say I was in high school now that's interesting want to say I was in high school see if I haven't finished a book I will never say that I read it I I read I read most of it at least but I don't I don't I'm not

saying I didn't finish it but I don't I don't remember for sure whether I did because I know the cartoon It might have spoiled it for you anyway No, I actually I think I did I now now I you know thinking real hard about it. I did finish it and I remember Being kind of surprised that the book didn't leave me as like shocked and and, you know, just like gut punched as as I remembered the cartoon. And then I had to think about it for a minute and go, well, yeah, okay, I'm actually, you

know, the age, you know, I'm old enough now that, you know, it's not, you know, okay. I'm actually you know the age You know I'm old enough now that you know it's not you know Inappropriate for me to be watching it like I was when I was you know sick sure The first time I saw it, so you know okay? Well. Yeah, I have not read Watership down I saw it first as a British cartoon in the mid 1980s when my parents checked it out of the San Francisco main branch library because VHSs and VCRs and such. Yeah. It came in a brown, non-descript plastic box

that only had one hollowed out peg for the bottom spool of the VHS. You might remember these. Had a plastic sleeve that stretched across its middle, and it had a title and a director listed on it on The very library card font that they used at the time. Oh Wow watershed down Martin Rosen, that's all it said. Oh See no that was that was

The the librarian responsible for adding that to the collection in that condition was in fact neutral evil I You know, I don't know I mean I librarians have a lot of discretion and Autonomy and a lot of ways in determining things and at the same time autonomy in a lot of ways in determining things and at the same time This is a movie that was based on a book that had won children's book awards

Yeah, yeah they to me they get a pass and since it was a cartoon yeah adapted from a children's novel There were no warnings for the horror that was to come And British animation style only added to that horror to my maybe seven or eight year old self who got to watch it on our TV in the living room. So I'm mostly gonna confine my examination here to the two animated movie adaptations that have occurred in my lifetime. Which means that I'm not going to cover

the British TV series that went for three seasons from September of 1999 through December of 2001. Even though it absolutely does represent tremendous bait to me doing that, given that it straddles 9-11. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm, I'm, I have to say I'm impressed in a way that you didn't wind up going after that because that's, that's like podcast catnip for you. Yeah, but because I never watched that and probably more importantly, because the production for the cartoon was all but done

by the time of the filming of Master in Disguise, I don't really think that the tragedy of that day influenced the production to the point where I could analyze it in any way. Got it, got it Yeah, now that said their app is their episode was titled the last battle which started their season 3 it Had it released on 9-eleven Boy how's that for Unintentional prophecy yeah well and in it they finally triumph over general wound wart driving him out of effrafah and destroying it and liberating everybody in the process

Oh, yeah, what that fucking means, but they had they had that in the can like that is not yeah Yeah, yeah, but I will be does by the way John Hurt did the vocal work for hazel in the original. Yes. He did the vocal work for for hazel in the original yes he did the vocal work for Wound wart in the TV series not in the one that we that I will be discussing but in the BBC TV series Now okay, that's a that's a parallel. That's why John Hurt has done that He played Winston Smith in 1984 and then he played Adam Suttler in V for Vendetta the giant face on the score Yeah, no. Yeah. Yeah, just that weird kind of mm-hmm like they keep stunk casting that so yeah

I don't know. It's John Hurt. I don't know if you can stunt cast John Oh, yeah, like that's twice that they they played okay You're gonna play this guy and then you're gonna play the guy who beleaguered him Yeah, like well ultimate evil who beleaguered the every man that we follow yeah, that's that's something Yeah, no, I don't know what I do get what you're saying. Yeah, you know if we had a nickel for every time it happened We'd have two nickels, but it's weird that it happened twice right it is on to to paraphrase dr. Doofenshmirtz You know but yeah Huh yeah

But I will be discussing the first film adaptation that was released in the fall of 1978 and the four-part film adaptation that was released in the winter of 2018 Okay, but in order to get to the movie, I got to get through the author So let's talk about Richard George Adams Richard George Adams was born in 1920 to a country doctor and his wife Evelyn and Lillian Adams British names famously were bisexual for a very long time Right. Evelyn was the husband from what I could find, Richard had three other

siblings although I could only find the birth date of his sister who was nine years his elder. Now they lived in the countryside of Berkshire. Berkshire. Berkshire. Berkshire. Which was a rural community just outside of Newbury, probably Newbury. Newbury. Yep. And he was often left to his own devices and he grew up isolated and exploring the countryside quite a bit kind of like Gary Larson to be honest Sounds yeah. Yeah parallel. Yeah Now Adams loved growing up and exploring the areas around his home he fell in love with both the land and the creatures that he saw inhabiting the land. And I got a quote from him from, if I recall, I think this is from his memoir. He said, I can't remember ever to have done anything, anything at all, more delightful than walking

on the crest of the downs, looking away to the purple heat rimmed edge of the horizon. So his memory of this is exactly what you would hope your child would grow up with if you live in such a rural place and you decided to stay in such a rural place. The downs, it refers basically to the hilly surface of the countryside. Yeah.

It's called the down, okay. I think it goes to an old English word or some shit like that, but they're the downs. Like everything, yeah, it goes to an old English word or some shit like that. But it's there. The downs like like everything. Yeah, it goes back to it to an Anglo-Saxon or possibly even Viking term. But yeah, now there's like eight well-known areas in England that are referred to in this way. But suffice to say, the areas that look like something that could be the generic nature looking background of a new computer screen is the downs. Yeah, yeah. The default Microsoft screen image.

Yeah. Yeah, is a textbook example. Yes. So during World War II, Richard was called up into the British Army. Again, remember, he was born in 20. He's called up into the British Army and he ended up as the liaison officer for his brigade in Palestine. But he also served in Europe and the Far East. But he never actually saw combat and he it seems that he was the liaison officer for an air brigade.

for an air brigade Okay, so he never saw combat he was a remp, but He knew people who would go off and die Yeah so Now fortunately for the duration of the war he never saw combat he got out in 46 Doesn't mean he didn't bond with the men who did engage in combat and it seems that he actually grew quite attached to several Who didn't make it back? When he came back he did as most British people do stuff it way down

Get on with his life and yeah got his bachelor's and master's degree after that both in modern history And then he entered into the Civil Service in 1948 And then he entered into the Civil Service in 1948. Okay. Now because he continued to enjoy living in Berkshire, he'd commute about an hour each way to work via train every day. Oh, hey. Yeah.

I've done that. Yeah. And those commutes took him right through the same countryside that he'd loved, and it allowed him to watch the rabbits and their interactions out the window every morning and every evening. And then, because England had

basically a burgeoning middle class, he could afford a car and he and his wife afforded a car, they had two kids, I think they had two kids, they might have had three. And he'd drive his daughters on long car trips over on the weekends. Now this all came from his obituary in The Guardian, by the way.

And he would make up stories for them about the rabbits that they'd see out the windows. And eventually this led to people telling him that he should really write this stuff down. And so he did. About 200,000 words worth Which is a full manuscript about a group of rabbits whose Warren was destroyed and had to find a new place to live and that Manuscript got rejected by all the big publishers and many of the smaller publishers

and Finally a small and independent publishing house called Rex Collings took him on. It was just a guy. Oh wow, okay. Yeah, and he took him on. And I've got a quote from Rex later on, but for context, Adams started writing the book in 1966 and he finished it two years later because he was still working for the Civil Service. Right. Now the book finally gets published in 72 so he's shopping it around for the entirety of yeah of those four years. By 1974 it had sold a million copies, won several prestigious awards, and it

enabled him to spring from that into his second novel, which I think was called Plague Dogs, which gave him the ability to quit the civil service entirely and pursue writing full-time. Oh, wow. So starts writing it in 66, finishes it in 68, shops it around for four years until it gets picked up. Once it gets picked up, it runs through its first print and if I recall, and I think I wrote this down later, Collings made sure that he couldn't even afford

to give Adams an advance. And that's pretty standard for book writing. Yeah. Yeah And he made sure though that a copy ended up in the right hands all across the place That included going I think to Macmillan and Macmillan basically after they printed a second time Macmillan's like We really want to put this out there and it went bonkers like yeah The cop is multiple off like rabbits like rabbits so anyway to write Watership Down Richard Adams consulted the private life of rabbits which was a book that was written by RM Lockley this was because he really wanted to understand rabbit culture and and really get it down as far as accuracy goes when describing these anthropomorphized bunnies

Right now Lockley himself was a Welsh naturalist He was an ornithologist and the father of a paleontologist later on in 1927 Lockley leased an island off the coast of Wales that was populated by zero people. And he figured what he was going to do on that island is capture and breed the rabbits on that island for money. Because back then people fucking ate rabbits. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's the thing. It's always been weird to me that we didn't in the 1930s. Like, and I'm not saying nobody did, but I remember there were giant rabbit roundups where like people in Kansas and Oklahoma and North Texas

would pen in rabbits and go in with clubs and beat the shit out of them until they died. Yeah. And then they didn't make stew. They didn't make food. They didn't make jerky. I'm like, that is a ready supply of meat. I don't care how gamey.

That's protein, right? Yeah. Yeah. They didn't make jerky. I'm like that is a ready supply of meat. I don't care how game teen right? Yeah Yeah, um I can have you ever had rabbit. Yeah, we raised rabbits actually okay Have you ever had wild rabbit no okay? I have once and and It was my mother's mother I couldn't have been more than four and One of my uncles

Had had shot a couple of rabbits out in the back 40 and my grandmother had stewed them and My memory of it is that was No kidding the toughest protein. Yeah, I have ever consumed in my life But um you weren't starving I never was but like you know People the 30s were they were close to it so Again ready supplies meat grind it up make make patties out of it. That's something. Yeah, no I get I get what you're saying

You know I hadn't known that they that they they did that. Oh, I've got I found video of it Still wearing their pants way too high up and the short guy But they're walking around with cudgels and they're grabbing the rabbits. Like back then, the threshold of violence toward animals now versus then is so much higher. Right. They would just walk around with a rabbit corpse and just like toss it because that's one of like thousands that day and it was to save their crops and I totally get that But but at the same time like that's that's free protein here the meat like that's free Protein, it's tough and you make it into jerky. It ain't gonna get that much tougher

No, it's really not like salt and brine it and good. Yeah like yeah, I get it anyway, um, so Like salted brine it and good. Yeah, like yeah, I get it anyway So Lockley was gonna capture and breed rabbits But people he realized early on that people actually preferred to buy their pelts more than they'd preferred to buy their meat So he shifted he raised them for that but then He raised them for that, but then he actually then found that people more than wanting to buy their pelts even wanted to read about them. Okay. So he shifted again. He's like, all right, I'm not going to sell them for meat or food. I'm going to take pictures of them and write about them.

And I'm going gonna teach people about rabbits And he even helped create the 1938 best short subject one real Oscar winner The secret life of Gannett's or Gannett's Gannett's Gannett's their kinds again. It's a goal of Gannett. Yeah, yeah Damnit Gannett But he he's actually actually got an Oscar for that. All right. Yeah. So that's in 36 he made that film. It's like a 10 minute thing, but the secret life of right. And so then he he studies rabbits for a while and stuff like that. Now after World War Two ended, Lockley started mapping out foot trails for the newly created. Oh, God, Pembrokeshire. So Pembrokeshire. Pembrokes newly created Oh god Pembrokeshire. So Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire. Okay, Pembrokeshire Fucking just just please let me just read latin all day. Um Yeah what I love about that that's what I was gonna say is what I love about that is I'm It's literally english. It's literally English. Why do you have?

Is it is it trying to figure out which syllable to do it doing yes, is it okay? There's vert There's vowels and in consonants and like there's there's a prosody that you're supposed to go through Like I took my son to the zoo the other day to show him like oh he had the behind-the-scenes tour for the reptiles and oh my god he's beside himself next episode maybe i'll remember to talk about that but yeah we went to see like we were walking around ahead of that and and i said hey um what animals do you want to see oh let's go see uh this and this is i'm like do you want to see the flamingos and he just looks at me like god

You wanna see the flamingos? And he just looks at me like, God, what's wrong with you? You make him sound like a British sub-pop band. The flamingos. The flamingos, right? So. Yeah, I hate you so much. Yeah, I can totally make one. And I can picture either one of your children looking at you going, why are you like this?

Oh, he does My daughter 50% of your genetic makeup kid. I don't don't knock it this this right here see this this is your future. Yeah But but no my daughter even as she's like are you ever gonna run out of material? It's like no She's like I'm 12. You haven't done the same gag twice. I'm like I know By the time I do you won't have remembered. Yeah, yeah so But anyway, uh so it was God

Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire Sure Jesus broke sure okay Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire. Pembrokeshire. Pembrokeshire. Jesus Christ. Pembrokeshire. Okay, Pembrokeshire. Pembrokeshire. Yeah. Come on now. It's a national park, okay? There's a new national park. He's mapping out the foot trails. And in so doing, he also completed a four-year study in the 1950s of the rabbits in that part of Wales. Okay, well, tried to stop an oil refinery from being put in on the north side of the waterway in Pembroke. Sure. Thank you. Which would ruin an

estuary because think of the bunnies. Yeah, but he failed. So fuck them bunnies. Well, the bunnies do plenty of that themselves. True. That's true. That's true. But beleaguered by what he saw of the British government's failure to consider the long term consequences of extractive economy and those efforts on the landscape itself, Lockley then emigrated to New Zealand to continue to continue his study of birds.

Okay. But the book that he wrote in 1964 the private life of the rabbit became the go-to text for Adams and the two of them had actually become friends and Adams always credited Lockley is one of the main sources for his successful novel and I didn't write down what book but he actually With Lockley's permission. He made a character that was basically Lockley. I don't think it was in plague dogs It was another book later on okay, but go But he always credited him as like one of the main sources for his successful novel Watership Down

Now because of Adams's desire to keep it real son the protagonists Although they're English speaking rabbits with human emotions, they still do all the things that rabbits do and it's blended into their fiction in a very non-romantic normalized way. So they eat piss and shit, they fuck, they run, they get scared, they do all these things and also they speak English. Yeah. So, now you have a man who was born just after the Great War in Adams.

Right. Right. And his father was an important doctor at a hospital in England, so his family does not seem to have had to serve in any way during the war. And I find this fascinating because given my mental mapping of how far reaching the memory of World War One is into British society, I would have expected something. And yet this family living in the southern central part of England, rural England, seems to have been untouched by it largely.

Or at least much less affected by anybody. Yeah, and it grows up at a time where food scarcity didn't seem to touch them either, even though everybody was on rationing. He serves in a, and you know, he's a doctor's son in the rural area. Yeah. You know, but he serves in a non-combat position in the newest branch of the British military. But he gets to travel and when he comes back, he completes his education. He gets a bachelor's in modern history. He gets British military. Mm-hmm. But he gets to travel, and when he comes back, he completes his education. He gets a bachelor's in modern history.

He gets a master's in modern history. And then he enters the civil service, something that a lot of Brits could expect post-war, as the welfare state was an accepted reality and considered a bulwark against fascism creeping back up again. Right. Or socialism, like, really showing up. right? Yeah, that's a really good point Yeah, yeah

Now to explain that we can be a little socialist because that's better than being you know, like those guys Yeah, it's an inoculation comrade comrade Stalin like we don't we don't want that but yeah, you know So now to explain this a little bit more I need to let you know about a man named William beverage Okay William Everett just because it's it's it's my own curiosity Beverage ID GE or yes actually like a drink okay beverage all right. Thank you. He was born in Rangpur, India Right okay, no problem there Born in Rangpur, India, right? No problem there

You can you continually amaze me with what it is that you're able to pronounce and what completely fucks you up like yeah Yeah, okay Yeah, he's born in Rangpur, India, and he's the son of the of a British civil servant over there Beverage was educated by some very important thinkers at Oxford specifically at Balliol College in Oxford His mentor was Edward Caird Who himself was a Scottish philosopher who held the chair of moral philosophy at Glasgow until he was appointed master of Balliol College in? 1883 Spilled Balliol for me

2 L's IOL BALLL Okay All right, just I'm trying to see because I'm trying to remember how Bally all Then bailiol ballet up that might be it could be yeah, so anyway no worries anyway So cared and his wife Carolyn founded the Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for British Suffrage in 1902. Oh, very cool. Beverage is learning at this guy's elbow in college, and so he's under this guy's tutelage,

and he's struck by very frank advice that Carrad had given him, and he gave it to all the grad students there. He says, quote, when you have learnt all that Oxford can teach you, go and discover why, with so much wealth in Britain, there continues to be so much poverty and how poverty can be cured. Hell yeah. Right. So this set beverage on his path after he got his degree in mathematics and in the classics. I'll just point out, he got degrees in mathematics and the classics.

Yeah. Because if you know your humanities humanity stem can be good for humanity. Yeah, uh-huh And it's not like beverage actually had a chance of turning out any differently than he did because his mom was a unitarian And his dad was a positivist and a humanist and it was an adherence to like the traditions of August Comte's ideas of secular religion of humanity Comte Comte Comte Comte so August Comte Came up with this idea that like there should be a religion sure because it's a unifier

But it should be a religion a secular secular religion, not one that is revealed, not one that is a mystery, one that is based in humanity. And he literally was like, that's the point. And so that's Beveridge's dad. So when your dad and mom are like that, you're gonna end up gravitating towards such studies. Yes. Now Beveridge, when he gets out of college, goes to work as a subwarden of Toynbee Hall, which is a settlement in London. Right. And even before World War I hit, so I've rewound a bit, right? Right. Even before World War I hit, Beverage was advocating for state intervention to

help set things right for people because industrialism and unfettered capitalism had wrought such horrible shift. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He thought that the government should absolutely right the ship and reorganize industry and set up old age pensions for the general benefit of society, not just for the oldsters, but so that everyone would be better off because he did the fucking math Right because he did the fucking math and he had a background in ethics and classicism Yeah And and now and now I realize why the name was familiar to me. So yeah See if this pays off and let me know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah now he was He was so much so into this idea that they should do that that from 1903 when he started at toynbee hall

Until 1909 he was working on a book titled unemployment a problem industry In late edwardian england this made his mark as a brilliant critic of both labor institutions and social welfare at the time He went further advocating for free school meals, old age pensions, as I'd mentioned, as well as labor exchanges throughout England. Yeah. Did I mention that he worked with Sydney and Beatrice Webb at Toynbee, the socialists who were some of the most important founders of the Fabian Society about 20 years prior to his meeting them? The socialists who were some of the most important founders of the fabian society about 20 years prior to his meeting them The whole uh, you know, yeah So anyway because of this book he became basically the robert reich of his time. Um, he was

The comparison I like that. Okay. Um He was the expert that government people went to when it came to unemployment insurance. So much so that Beatrice Webb, feminist, socialist, Fabian and founder of the London School of Economics, right, introduced him to her friend Winston Churchill. Churchill then made use of beverages expertise prior to World War I and during World War I. So one of the things that socialists are really big on is making sure everybody has enough food. Yeah. You got an army.

An hatch. Right? Yeah. So a lot of the mobilization for feeding the troops was because of beverage. And after the war, beverage ended up being the first permanent secretary for the Ministry of Food and I just love that because Ministry of Food comma beverage. Yeah Yeah, well it's kind of tickling yeah, so anyway

So clearly England was getting into the idea of nationalizing things to help people not to die Because they just spent an entire war nationalizing to help people to die Well, you know helping non-english people to die right, you know their own people they're trying to protect You know, were they important distinct? Were they? Yeah. Well, I mean, yes, they were in after the fact like You get a c-minus at best you know yes So I'll give me I'll give you a B for effort, but your organization sucks. Yeah, your effort is because of what you did like

Like you're cleaning it up well, but you shouldn't have spilled like you shouldn't There's thank you for the stakes got made. Yeah, thank you for the tin helmets During the battle of the psalm like yeah See mine is the best okay, so in 1919 beverage quit the Ministry of Food So it was all a cart now. I was tickled as tickled writing this as I was when I was designing a lesson on the American Nazi party for my students

because the guy who helped create it was a guy named Spank Noble and he got deported and he ended up working for the Nazis, but it didn't pay enough So he opened a leather factory Shit and you just know that that first year he's like, oh if he came in over budget I've been naughty Noble and the guy that replaced him in America his last name is cunts, so it's just I'm sure it's pronounced cool, but I don't give a fuck so so

So there is a there's a friend of the family Whose whose last name is KU NZ. There's no T right. It's K you NZ and and This friend actually gets gets miffed when when people say Coons because the name is not Coons right name is cunts Yeah, so yeah, it's cunts. It's it's It's cunts. Yeah, and I'm sorry that your friend cunts gets muffed Yeah, so yeah, I'll leave a mark and but Anyway, I can hurt but I can't be angry, right? So this is why I'm not invited to your kid's birthday, okay

There's no denial there, you know, like, we could talk about that off there. That's fine. So anyway, he serves as director of the London School of Economics, which wow, and that goes from 1919 to 1937. Oh, shit. The whole time he was there, it's not like that's all he did either. He held several service posts in the British government the entire time. And in those positions, his influence reached thinkers and policymakers to the point where England was Fabianing it up a bit. It's also entirely likely that because of his strident advocacy for eugenics was there too. Oh fuck

It's too good to be true. I know Damn it. We were we were we were getting somewhere great, right? Yeah, in fact, he left the London School of Economics over that very subject He was super in favor of eugenics and he said that the London School of Economics should have a Department of Social Biology And he got really mad that then anti eugenicist sat on the chair of that program and kept it underdeveloped See he's trying to solve poverty and so in 1909 He said that poor men who couldn't work fully should be cared for by the state cool Okay, that such care would come at a cost quote complete and permanent loss of all citizen rights including not only the franchise

but civil freedom and fatherhood Suffragists feminists socialists it did not matter It was the early 1900s and eugenicists were of all stripes because It just makes you feel so much smarter. Like you just yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I mean, I remember I remember What we talked about when we when we covered it in depth, but yeah We talked about when we when we covered it in depth, but yeah

God damn it right doesn't that quote sound very anti-suffragy too Yeah, and very sterilizing. I mean yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, cuz it is yeah Yeah, damn it. I know can't we can't have nice things. No, we really can't you know Why why couldn't why couldn't his quirk have been fancy chickens? Right like that's well, we're gonna be getting back to Adams and his quirk was like fancy bunnies. So, okay All right, I mean it wasn't but it was but it was yeah Yeah, I know but but I did think of L. Frank bomb when I was doing the research on Adams I'm like, oh, yeah kind of a twit. Okay

Like in the nicest way in the very nicest way. Yeah Because I had I had kind of the same thought when you were talking about his whole, you know career progression like This is this is sounding like a more This is this is sounding like a more Middle class as opposed to genteel right L. Frank ma'am You know Frank Baum is the American like no shit He is the American equivalent of the upper class to win of the year like yes like like you know golden retriever version But yeah, I mean the nice version of it

Yeah But while while he was so yes eugenicist that he was Probably quit LSE, but he also did a lot of really important work on poverty and shit like that like yeah His conclusion was fucked when it came to that part. Yeah, but Yeah, it's like so it's hard to uncouple those things. It's the one big fat nasty fly in the ointment. Like, you know, you have this great stuff over here. But like, damn it, somebody there's a fingernail hanging on the edge of the soup bowl. Like, yeah, damn it. So beverage wrote princes or not princes

He wrote prices and wages in England from the 12th to the 19th century as part of this effort Okay. Wait, was he an analyst? No, cuz that's that's an analyst title right there. He is damn son. Yeah But the one thing the British were really good at was keeping records of shit, right? Yeah I think the royal level of the Romans. Yeah, frankly. Yeah, but it's the it's the British royal court that keeps all this And so yeah, he has access to all this. Yeah, so in 1933 Beverage starts a council That would aid academics who'd lost their positions because of race because of religion or the fact that they were escaping from the Nazis for those reasons

Okay, yeah now so He's the best kind of eugenicist, you know, like yeah, he's not a racist eugenicist. He's only a classist eugenicist Well ableist. Yeah, that's what I feel like But yeah, and even now it's gonna be racist, but like like if you if you have to be one That's at least like yeah That's not as ugly a one again. You know what he gets a c-minus You know it's okay. All right, he did all these really cool things

But yeah Yeah during World War two beverage served at the request of Ernest Bevin Bev-I-en because there's another one named Bevan But Ernest Bevin who was the Minister of Labor during the war So under Bevin Be beverage was was in his specific ministry, the Ministry of Labor. Right, right. Okay. Beverage was put in charge of the welfare department and served a very frustrating term of service this whole time. And so he basically was like way further left than anybody else in Bevan's

Ministry Okay, he just wasn't getting what he wanted done. Yeah, well enough. It's not comprehensive enough. It's not doing this shit We have well, there's a couple of things going on there. Number one. It's the middle of the war Yeah, and the labor party. Well, this is not the Labor Party. This is a ministry of labor. Yeah And the Labor Party well, this is not the Labor Party. This is a Ministry of Labor. Yeah Under a conservative under a conservative. That's the next thing I was gonna say was this is Churchill's Right government. Yeah, and and at this point Churchill has you know, completely gone Conservative side. Yeah and full autocracy too. Yeah I mean in the same way that or at least I'm gonna say totalitarian in the same way that America was totalitarian

It's a total war there is a lot more control that the government has over the people at this time Yeah, then they ever would have allowed during during not during peacetime. Yeah, and and the kinds of programs somebody with beverages And the kinds of programs that somebody with beverages, outlook and ideals and everything would be looking to try to do, you know, the people in power, number one, ideologically, like in peacetime, they would have been like, hold up, slow down their turbo. Right. Right.

During wartime, they're like, okay, we only have so many resources, right? And right now we're sending a whole lot of resources across the channel to murder Nazis Yeah, so like the amount of resources we have here to do all of this stuff Like we we understand this is all you know, your heart's totally in the right place We get it but like we just don't have the stuff right, you know, yeah So of course it was frustrated like yeah, you know And so instead he made it his magnum opus in a lot of ways. He seized what initiative he could In what many people thought was a do-nothing department that nobody cared much about and he put out a comprehensive report that

Exceeded the mandate of the committee that he was headed That he was the head of by miles in December of 42 Beverage recommended an ambitious program of social planning for post-war Britain this was in something called the Social Insurance and Allied Services report and in it Beverage advocated for a comprehensive national health system, policies for sustaining and guaranteeing employment for post-war

for people in England, government allowances for families with two or more children, and a comprehensive system of social insurance that would have its benefits guaranteed by law. So of course, the allowances had a eugenics gradation schema attached to it, but it was something. Oh, fuck. Okay.

And this was his, like, he hit it at just the right time because in 1945 the Atlee Labor Government took over from Churchill the the the Campaign that they run was that basically yes, Winston has done such a nice job that it's time to let him go home and rest Had to have Infuriated Churchill are that like oh my god, but um they use backhand compliment somebody right there. But also you can't deny the service that he had done. Yeah. He galvanized the people. And also, but yeah, they use Beverages 1942 report as a blueprint for the modern British state and yeah Britain if you will Yeah, and they pass beverage beverage was essentially the the architect Yes of of the post-war welfare state like that's that's him. That's is that is that where you're like? Oh, that's why I remember

Yeah, I was like that's that's why I recognize the name because when we talked about Thatcher I was gonna say this goes all the way back to episode 3 like yeah So they passed something called the Family and Allowance Act of 1945 and the National Insurance and National Health Services Act of 1946 and the National Assistance Act of 1948 Yep. Now I want to finish up talking about Beveridge by discussing his December 1942 New Britain speech in Oxford. That's why I referenced it earlier. Beveridge suggested the basic values that he thought would be best for Britain as a whole. Here's what he said, quote, what kind of Britain do we want at home?

In what shall New Britain differ most definitely from the old Britain that we have known? And then he went on to talk about the five giant evils that nobody should ever have to succumb to. Quote, New Britain should be free, as free as is humanly possible, of the five giant evils, of want, of disease, of ignorance of ignorance of squalor and of idleness Okay, and what's interesting in the written speech You remember where he went to school right in the written speech. He didn't have an Oxford comma You know, I'm I'm I'm gonna bring his grade down. Yeah.

D plus. Yeah. D plus. Everything else. You know long storied career of wonderful intellectual accomplishments. Right. That's great. You know founder of the ideals of the modern British state. That's critically important. You know a plus for that work, but Eugenicism mm-hmm you know brings that from from a glowing a down to a c-minus and and Goddamnit. Yeah, the Oxford comma is civilization and so I Cannot abide that especially for a guy who went to Oxford. Yeah, especially now like come on man. Yeah, get it together Right. He does just unprofessional

So so yeah anyway, but here are his you know, which doesn't this sound I mean it's it's 42 Doesn't it sound like the four freedom speech? Oh, well, yeah, I mean, it's it's it's clearly following the same kind of structure Yeah, yeah, so It I just find it interesting that on both sides of the Atlantic, you have people saying, we have to restructure everything, because look what unfettered capitalism has brought us. It's fucked up democracy to the point where it elected fascism.

So if we ever want to stop that, we need a welfare state. That's basically what he and FDR were both arguing for. Yeah. Although what I find interesting and part of this is audience. Part of this is just, you know, the context in which they were speaking. Roosevelt wasn't in the for freedom speech, freedom from want freedom from fear, freedom from trying to remember what the what the speech one essentially is. It was, I think it was freedom of speech and freedom of worship. FDR was not tying the four freedoms to a to a program if that makes sense he was At least our values these these are our values. These are the things that we are that we are fighting to Protect yeah, I mean he gave that he gave that at the beginning of 41 in the State of the Union address

Yeah, like justifying why we're doing lend-lease. Yeah. Yeah, whereas here With the with you know talking about the five evils, right? This is no no we need this is this is a rationale for a for a Brand new system a brand new system Yeah, I mean honestly FDR had already done the new deal by for yeah. Yeah, he he had he had old Yeah You know the country

Kicking and screaming and some places out of the out of the Great Depression by saying you know what I like this guy kinds and We're just gonna print more money and yeah, and you know, and I'm going to save capitalism from yourself Yeah, we're gonna do what we have to do to to pull us out of this For but for the mayor of Chicago We got that Yeah, because the guy who tried to murder him in Miami hit the mayor of Chicago instead and killed him. So There you go, yeah, but okay, so just real quick I want to reset the five giant evils right so Want disease ignorant squalor and idleness, right? Now you can see how eugenicist could also want to keep people from having to deal with

those. Well, yeah. You know, I mean, in misguided and awful and racist and all the other things that we can attach to it as it is, eugenicists are trying to solve what they see as a problem. Eugenicists are a classic real world example of the bad guy thinking they're the hero. Yes. And that I'm doing what must be done. I'm doing what has to be done. This is this is this is painful. This is unpleasant. Yeah, this is ugly. But it is what we have to do right for the greater good right now. I mean

that's that's the that's the that means the classic argument and You know all of the things that he's even even in the tone He's talking about the squalor and idleness those last two. Yeah the squalor I get it I I absolutely see it cutting one of two ways I also don't want people living in squalor, but I blame them for it. Yeah, right. Yeah idleness I what have I been saying from the jump is that I want to be idle I want well, yeah, like, you know And I've said at least a couple of times that like no no my best career option is man of leisure. Yeah

Now now saying that um at the same time He's not able to sell this to conservatives unless They're on board with the eugenicist aspect of what he's doing now I'm not saying he's canny enough to do that he's smart enough, but he's a true believer in this shit Oh, yeah in terms of the eugenics, but he's a true believer in this shit. Oh, yeah. In terms of the eugenics. So he doesn't get credit for it, but it is how he was able to sell these ideas to conservatives was that it would be good for the corporations to be able to compete more purely because if the government took over the costs of health care, then it wouldn't be on their books.

So they'd be paying for everyone that way. And then the corporations could compete with each other in a more open market. And that means that the workers would be healthier and more motivated and more productive and become the biggest demand for British made goods as a result of not having their salaries cut due to having to buy healthcare. Right. So, you know, this sounds similar to Rockefeller like taking public education and turning it into what it was. Yeah.

Like, hey, you want smart workers, right? And it's just like all in service to that capitalist model, but he sold them socialism by using the trappings of eugenicism. So it was as socialist as it got at the time, and conservatives were sold on it as much as liberals and labor parties were. After all, if you shift the conversation to be that it's utterly ridiculous to expect individual employers to have to maintain health care and the well-being of their workers, then you're ultimately, if you basically say, look, if they have to do that, you're ultimately going to retard the process of capitalism and stunt its growth. We don't want that. Think of the capitalists.

Thus, Think of the shareholders, right? Thus the only thing strong enough to bear the burden of the workers and their health is the state itself. Exactly. And the only way to do that is with what he called the pressure of democracy. Okay. So he's not, he's not Mussolini-ing it. Okay, Mussolini was all about like, we need to make sure that the corporations are taken care of so that they can answer to us. No, he's saying, fly free little bird. And the way that you can do that is that we'll take care of the workers health.

And if we do that, you're not burdened with that. You are unshackled go forth And then your workers will be so healthy and they'll make so much money that they can buy your own goods He also has anybody has anybody tried saying this to our Congress like I'm just saying it's it's kind of a deal. We are like yeah like you know um Yeah, yeah, I mean this honestly

This is gonna be uncomfortable to say I'm not endorsing this but this yeah, this sounds very similar to If you kick out all of the illegal immigrants who's gonna pick your food it has that same vibe of Yeah, the workers are a useful resource Yeah, therefore Yeah, you know, yeah. Well, yeah, you know what it feels like it feels like when somebody does an economic Analysis of the amount of money that illegal immigration adds into our system And the fact yeah, they're one of the main things holding up Social Security Because we're robbing them. Yeah, and it's like therefore you should be okay with open borders. It's like oh oh

I don't like that. You're on my side with that I mean you came to the right conclusion for the wrongest reason the worst person You know just made a really good point right god damn it damn it bill maher Yeah, speaking of son of a bitch yeah like that's how it feels You know that's that's that's very that's very much on point But this was successful and this created the national institute of health it created nationalized health care an industrialized nation

in a dying empire They were able to restructure in such a way that everybody could get their fucking like health taking care of yeah So yeah, it's like they built they built the NHS. Yeah like which which in every in every opinion poll every single opinion poll Britain's you know in the last 15 years 20 years You know you see stuff coming out of coming out of the UK of like, they don't trust anybody in government, their opinion of the opposition parties is only five or

six points better than whoever's actually in power and they hate who is in power. You know, I'm going to get to that too. Yeah. But but like all of the disaffection, all of the like, you know, the government is full of shit. Everybody works for the government is full of shit, you know, all all of that cynicism and everything. And then you ask him about the NHS, and it's like, Nope, 99% approval. You know, take you can take my NHS card out of my cold dead hands,

like, you know, because there have been reports like, I don't know if I actually made it into this this research But there was a report in 2018 where they looked at the nhs wait times in what they call a and e Which is basically emergency And in their a and e The effort was to get everybody seen within four hours of showing up Right, they were still like two and a half hours off of that.

Like, despite that, the NHS is still like way the fuck up there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. More than hands. You know. And by the way. So, yeah, their goal is four hours and they're two hours off. I'd really like to know what the length of time it is on average in, you know, urban areas in the United States. I didn't think by comparison.

Yeah. Like, yes, it's a six hour wait. Have you, have you been in an emergency room? Right. In an inner city hospital here in the U.S. Like, you know, not even inner city air quotes, but you know in any major metropolitan area Like let's talk about that. Shall we? Yeah Um, so he also has uh, one of my oh by the way, I just looked it up. Um

The median wait time Is honestly about one to two hours to see a doctor. Okay in in American hospitals, okay, so 30 minutes to see a triage nurse about two hours to see a doctor. Okay All right We're we're no giant fucking nation and that might change region to region and if that's that's the median though Not the average so that's the median though, not the average So that's why I was looking for the median, but anyway, so that's cool All right. So now that being said you still get charged at the wazoo. Yeah, don't have insurance

But you do have insurance you still yeah. Yeah, and you you will like the amount of people going into bankruptcy every year Yeah for medical issues. I think is close to 110,000 something like that. Yeah, it's it's nuts And it might be more so if I find the number later remind me to correct myself But I'm just gonna randomly throw out the phrase jury nullification Yeah for no reason whatsoever sure in the middle of that conversation. Yeah. So Beveridge also had one of my favorite quotes about democracy in this speech. Okay, so we're back to 1942, the speech that he did. He says, quote, the essential part of democracy to me is not that I should spend a lot of

time in governing myself, for I have many more amusing things to do. But I want to be quite certain that I can change the person who governs me without having to shoot him. That is the essence of democracy. Okay, you know what? I never thought these words would pass my lips, But I'm going to forgive him for not using the Oxford comma, right? so That line right there I I need to I need to find a nice font and print that out and put it in a frame and stick it up Yeah, I'll kick it your way. Just shoot me a message from Miami. So anyhow beverage

the whole reason I'm telling you about beverage is because he was the reason that Adams was able to find work after the war as assistant secretary to the Ministry of Local Housing and Local Government because that department hadn't existed until Clement Atlee's post-war labor government. So without the shift that is that is blueprinted by beverage, Adams and his wife and kids may not have gotten to continue to live in So without the shift that is that is blueprinted by beverage Adams and his wife and kids may not have gotten to continue to live in rural Berkshire With a job that allowed him to feed his family and have access to a motor vehicle to take them on long trips

Wow, yeah, yep so Adam started writing Watership down in 1966. He finished it in 1968. It didn't publish until 72. So what's going on at that time? Well, for one, Jesus, British progressivism was really moving forward. But also a lot of expansion of living spaces into formerly natural places was happening. So in other words, there's new housing going up. From 1946 until he started writing in 1966,

there had been an increase in completed housing in England from 49,250 houses completed in a year to 330,120 houses completed in a year. Yeah, almost a a year. Yeah almost a Tenfold yeah, and that's and that's and that's the rate of construction So that's that's cumulative. Yeah, not just that's not just you know, this is the number no No, no, no, no that is there is yeah the year prior to that there were three hundred and nineteen thousand You know and so yeah The year prior to that there were three hundred nineteen thousand, you know, and so yeah

That's huge growth and it's good. Yeah, but for a man who grew up untouched by the horrors of either war and who spent his time Well, not entirely untouched in the Second World War. He lost friends Yeah, and that did affect him deeply as I will show you later. Yeah but but I mean, yeah. Who, who managed, who managed to have an, an idyllic childhood in the countryside and who then, uh, managed to make it through world war two without, you know, having to experience, yeah, without having to experience combat or come away with a physical scar anywhere on his body. You know, yeah, having by the standards of anybody living in his generation a blessed existence. Right. And he spent his time wandering the idyllic and bucolic areas around the community

that he purposefully returned to after his service in World War II, you could kind of see the impetus of his worrying about the bunnies and the nature. Yeah. Adams was an environmentalist through and through. He helped to write the Clean Air Act of 1968. Wow. Yeah. He actually kind of reminds me of Walter Simonson's writing about the Thor frog storyline. Remember that episode? Yeah. Because he saw the signs that were warning dog owners about rat poison. Remember Simonson saw those signs?

Oh, yeah. Because the health department was trying to drive the rats out of the apartments near Central Park. And remember, he thought about that. He's like, what's going to happen in the marshlands? Yeah. Right. and remember he thought about that he's like what's gonna happen in the marshlands? Yeah, right So that brings us to the inciting events of Watership Down and again, I haven't read the book but I Based on the plot summaries that I read online. It seems to be fairly faithfully held to the movies

So the plot of the movies or the book in a paragraph or less There's a bunch of rabbits that are semi-happily living where they live as their society is a bit stodgy, but then the bunny with ESP, a seer runt, sort of of sorts, named Fiverr, whose brother Hazel is the protagonist. He has a vision, and humans moving in and destroying the Warren ultimately. Fiverr tells his brother Hazel, who unsuccessfully tells those in charge of what's coming and is somewhat censured for it. A few folks listen to him enough to want to follow Hazel, who is not outstanding in any particular way, and they

escape with a small party and each bring something good to the party. Hazel's judgment, Big Week's loyalty and strength, Blackberry's cleverness, Fiverr's visions. There's others, but you get the idea. Anyhow, they end up finding a good place after many misadventures, including freeing a bunch of domesticated does from a farm, running from a dog and a badger and a cat and befriending a gull and having to fend off General Woundwort's attacks to keep the warren, and then Hazel dies happy

that he's created a better place for the children with multiple warrants as allies Yeah, and now that I've said that it honestly kind of sounds like the walking dead It kind of does So I'm not gonna spend that much time talking about the books other than to point out what was happening in England and in the world when he was writing it. So I've gotten you up to him writing it. Then Adam starts writing Watership Down in 1966.

And in 1966, the Conservative Party has just been unseated by a successful labor effort to unseat the last prime minister who was from the House of Lords, a guy named Alec Douglas Holm. It was a very slim victory and Harold Wilson became prime minister in 1964 and they squeaked by with like nine seats. This government carried out a number of extended reforms that had stalled under conservative parties rule and among them specifically being housing reform. Right.

Here's some examples. The amount of money available to local authorities at special favorable rates to encourage housing subsidies of new builds went from 50,000 pounds to 100,000 pounds in 1966 money. Oh, shit. Yeah. Okay, wow. Adams's own department, the Ministry of Local Housing and Local Government, distributed a circular, it's like a policy memo for us, in 1966,

that said that families, quote, ought not be split, ought not to be split at reception centers, and that more family privacy was desirable. In other words, don't live so close together and don't live in housing projects. Set these people up to buy homes to have separate homes, let's build new cities, new towns. And this had the effect of encouraging more and more private homeownership

And that meant that less tenements people from the tenements moving And that meant building into places that had previously been rural and unincorporated Council houses hit the 50 mark and the new towns that were established which boggles my fucking mind I've never heard of a new town being established like I mean I have obviously William but yeah, but what the fuck um anyway They made new towns at the behest of the government like the government was like build more towns Yeah, like again. I live in Caucasian acres right

Yeah, like again, I live in Caucasian acres, right? I mean I live where they built these houses I will never stop finding that name funny. I do too because I ain't telling people where I really live Yeah, well, you know, of course not but yeah So, I mean I live out here these where I live 24 years ago 25 years ago didn't exist. Oh Yeah, no everything every from from where you are right now And I'm not gonna give cardinal directions because I give clues, but like down to Yeah down to and up to you know Ten miles but the thing is yeah, I mean

Yeah driving out my place you're like did I get lost and then it opens up, right? Yeah, this was still part of the city that still existed prior Yeah, so it's not a new town. It's just you built new shit in the town like yeah in England They were like build a new town Yeah, name it name it a new thing. You know, yeah. Um, so between 1965 and 1970. So right when Adams was writing Watership down, yeah, working for the Civil Service, 1.3 million new houses were built. Sweet Jiminy Christmas.

Now further the Labor Government passed the option mortgage scheme in 1968 when Adams was finishing his book and still working for the Silver Service as the Assistant Secretary to the Ministry of Local Housing and Local Government, which encouraged new home buyers in the same way as mortgage interest rates tax relief works over here. And those new houses didn't count for capital gains taxes, which means that you couldn't sneak into a new tax bracket with a new asset and get royally fucked. And I mean that literally because it's England. Yeah. And tons of regulations went into making

sure that the housing that was being built was sustainable and livable and not just minimally acceptable. Right, right. Heating requirements were put in, uniform building regulations, etc. All this stuff during that period of time from 65 through 70, right when Adams was writing and trying to get his bunny book published. And in 1967, the Housing Subsidies Act passed, which fixed interest rates for councils that were looking to build, and it fixed him at 4% This means more growth. Yeah, I don't know what your mortgage is But I refied to get it to a much better number than that. Yeah, everybody looks at me like I'm a goddamn sorcerer

It will not happen again in my life Yeah followed in It was followed in 1968 by the Town and Country Planning Act, which was aimed at speeding up the building process in places that didn't have housing built. Additionally, it would also protect the open countryside and designated areas like Green Belts and what the British classified as quote, areas of outstanding natural beauty, end quote. So you can kind of see the tension built into the very department that Adams was working in as he's riding the train to and fro. A train, by the way, which does figure

into the plot of the movie. And you can also see in the UK white flight because the Windrush generation came to London starting in 1948. We talked about them with the history of punk and most of them ended up in South London and Berkshire is just to the west of London. So it becomes one of the many places that folks start moving toward once the government was responsive to their concerns and wants for

moving out of London. Because at the same time as all these new houses and regulations were ongoing, there were also plenty of regulations and protective pieces of legislation that went through specifically to help people living in urban centers. But this episode is about bunnies, so I'm just going to leave it there that the labor government did in fact take care of generations of people who were living in squalor, helping to improve things and responding quicker than it ever had before to an influx of immigrants. This will of course lead to backlash because, why are you taking care of them? They're not British.

It's like, bro, you've made the world British. Shut the fuck up. And that is what's gonna allow the Conservative Party to come back to power in 1970 under the premiership of Edward Heath. And they held power and they tugged the Overton window rightward for four years, which then made the Labour Party's next efforts

about reclamation, not about carrying these policies forward, because it's the 1970s. Now the conservatives, when they won in 1970, it was a surprise to them and just about everyone else. And it was in this government that Margaret Thatcher held the position of Secretary of State for Education and Science. Okay. Now once the, and I just, I say that because Battlestar Galactica. But in 1974, when, what's his face, Keith, when the conservatives lose again in 74, she challenges him for leadership and she wins it for, but now they're the minority party, they're the shadow government.

And just in case you want to see how parallel and contemporaneous hers and Reagan's efforts were, remember in 76, Reagan challenges Ford in the primary. So you get the same kind of thing. Anyhow, Heath's government in the four years that it lasted from 70 to 74 saw some very tough times that came out of good times. Right. Yeah. Some of it was just what was happening in the world and some of it was the knock on effects of the British Empire.

For instance, the oil crisis of 73 was a worldwide thing, which you could arguably lay at the feet of the British Empire as well But the troubles in Ireland were undeniably Something you can lay at the feet of the British Empire. Hey an entirely United Kingdom issue. Yes Um, and so in response to the energy crisis that's happening in 73 Heath declares a three-day week So as to save on the cost of electricity During the shortage that was due to the fact that there were work stoppages going all the way back to episode 3 Various trades unions that were trying to bargain for better conditions and better pay and this lasted from January 1st to March 7th when the

general election was called in 1974. But when stuff like this happens and people are cold and you're only getting to work for three days a week, and stuff like that, that's going to hurt labor as well. And they're going to get less popular popular and if you remember the Labour Party barely won back in 66 yeah, right the conservatives surprisingly won in 70 and so in 74 Heath calls the three-day workweek. This means that TV companies were required to stop broadcasting at 1130 p.m. Oh TV companies were required to stop broadcasting at 1130 PM. Oh, wow. Now people have a nightly reminder of what they're losing out on. And businesses that were deemed non-essential could only work for three

consecutive days a week and nobody could pick up extra hours. So now people are feeling it in their pocketbook. They're feeling it at home. And all of this is going to hurt people. And at first, they're going to blame the government that's in charge. But then they're also going to have a bitter taste in their pocketbook. They're feeling it at home. And all of this is going to hurt people. And at first, they're going to blame the government that's in charge. But then they're also going to have a bitter taste in their mouth about the workers. And that's going to be easily manipulated later on. So the general election of 1974 happens in March. And it's called by the conservatives under Heath because he was being pressured to Yeah, and basically they framed it as who's in charge here?

the government or the unions Now fuck them Here's see if this sounds familiar the conservatives got more popular votes But labor won more seats It's one of those one of those rare occasions when in a parliamentary system something like that happens Yeah, called a hung Parliament. And yeah, it's really rare now immediately both the conservatives and labor I love that liberals are completely left out of this. So you got like 10 seats total. Um, But those 10 seats are kind of vital but yeah, cuz there was yeah, we're like, yeah shut up go play um Conservatives and labor tried to create a coalition. Oh and it fell apart almost immediately. Well, it's like a coalition of cats and dogs

Yeah, like dude. No, that's not gonna work. Yeah. Yeah, it's like a coalition of cats and dogs. Yeah No, that's not gonna work. Yeah. Yeah, so it falls apart So the Labour Party gets the win because they have the seats majority and they take power Now I don't want to say it's not a good time to win but they win in 1974 like win, but they win in 1974. Like, well, we've established that the 70s just sucked. Right. But it reminds me of Herbert Hoover getting to be president. Like, it's like, oh, no.

Oh, son. Yeah. Oh, buddy. Like, what even you're going to have it. You're going to have a bad time. It's not going to look good for you. Yeah So yeah 74 to 79 was just about the worst time to take the reins of power if you don't want to take a fuckton of Blame with it. Well, like just about everywhere like yes any place any place in in the Atlantic world Yeah, you know the UK the United States yo France had a fucking coup Canada Chile Argentina like it is not good no nowhere it is not good any

Honestly the only place that like Probably felt like optimistic would have been like Vietnam Yeah, cuz they just kicked the Americans out. They'd already kicked the French and the Japanese out The French out twice. They just kicked the Americans out and then they turn around and went to China be like bro step off Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying it was great for all Vietnamese Yeah, but the ones who won were like no, this is good times. Yeah, they they finally had the the opportunity to be like alright, okay look Yeah, now that we're not being bombed and losing a million of us a year We have our country now and we can fuck it up

At least it's us fucking it up, right? You know Yeah, but yeah, so bad time to win bad bad bad Unfortunate time. Yeah So now in 19th, we've got to rewind a little bit back to now 72 amid all of this watershed down is being published by Rex Collings who's like I said an individual publisher who took a risk Yeah In his obituary Collings was noted as wondering if he was crazy for taking a risk on a book about bunnies

when all the big ones, all the big publishers had turned it down and one person actually, I think she was his assistant maybe or Yeah, because I think she wrote the obituary for it, but she praised him for being intuitively brilliant and brave for doing so Because after all, I mean it's fucking water chipped down, right, we all know. Adams received no advance, like I'd said, and that's how small the publisher was. But the right people got the review copies,

and after Collings pressed a second edition, this is what happened. McMillan in the US took up the book in 74, and it was off to the races. And as we know, the book grew into a massive hit at this point. And Adams was able to quit civil service and write full-time based on his reputation for this book

and the success of his second book, which was about a bear worshiping religion called Shardic. That's what it was, not Plague Dogs. He did make a character for his Welsh friend, Lockley, in Plague Dogs, but not Shardick. So Shardick was the second book. So what we're seeing in England at the time of both the writing and the successful publication of Watership Down is a period of governmental slim majority wins each time. No clear mandate either way in a fairly a fair amount of leadership fecklessness

Okay, you know, it's kind of a grumbly vote like fine fuck we'll try you Fine fuck we'll try you again. Yeah fine back to you then I don't find it. Okay, somebody do something different like yeah keeps being very slim votes yeah, and like It's it's even though there's a lot of really important stuff that is happening. Clearly, that's not translating to the people being enthusiastic about their government. Well, because of, of, uh, disaffection, frustration, economic instability, like, yeah. So despite the fact that there's these efforts to build more housing and expand people's rights for those who've been underserved for 30 years Or so it doesn't translate to people being

Enthusiastically in support of the government doing what it's doing Yeah in his own autobiography the day gone by Richard Adams said that he based a lot of watershed down on what he saw in Operation Market Garden and the Battle of Arnhem and I'm going to finish with that part before I get to the well we'll we'll get to the movie soon but I will probably finish after reading this now real quick the Battle of Arnhem in a paragraph or so was part of Operation Market Garden. The Battle of Arnhem was a nine-day battle wherein the Allies fought to seize the Belgian towns of Arnhem, which had two important bridges as well as rail lines, making it very important for an Allied advance toward Germany.

Now predictably, the Nazis fought to keep it, and because of the delays up the line for the Allies, the British Second Army was defeated, suffering thousands of casualties, deaths and captures. Now this battle was the beginning of the end for Operation Market Garden, which was the final British failure of the war. Arnim wouldn't be rescued from the Nazis until April of the following year in 1945 in something called Operation Anger. Arnim, like I said, was the final major loss for the British Army and it still served as a solid example of the kind of fighting spirit that the British wanted to claim as categorical for themselves. But it was a loss.

And Adams specifically based the struggles of Hazel's Warren on the struggles of the 250 Company of the 1st Airborne Division. Oh, wow. Now, in this battle, famously, a messenger pigeon got a crucial message across at a crucial time that saved about 2,000 British soldiers. OK. Now, Operation Market Garden was a failed attempt at creating a wide bulge

in the German territory to give the Allies a northwestern approach into Berlin, because that was the idea. Some people wanted just a slow marching line. Other people wanted let's just dagger through the heart. And this operation was all about seizing bridges using the four hundred and fourth forty one thousand airborne forces and fast ground forces to capture the bridges and advance quickly enough to meet up with the airborne Who were dropped behind the Nazis lines? It didn't work due to the fierce resistance of about a hundred thousand German troops

Who were able to delay some of the most important coordinated successes that were needed to take the town of Arnhem specifically. So it's kind of the linchpin in many ways to Operation Market Garden. Now, Anthony Beaver, famed British military historian, he wrote, he's written a lot of books actually about World War II. He said that it was a failure from start and right from the top. He is right from the start and right from the top. Right. Very British. Yeah. Now some of it was because Montgomery and Patton were dick waving at each other and not wanting to listen to Eisenhower. The point is that there's lots of struggle, hard fighting, a lot of frustration, a lot of loss. Adam said that Hazel was based on his commanding officer,

Major John Gifford, and Bigwig was based on Captain Desmond Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh was killed in action on September 19th, 1944, at the age of 25. When his jeeps and a party of about 20 men were ambushed by German troops when they crossed the Dryans Bruges bridge Trying to recover supplies that had been dropped off the mark. Okay, so drop the supplies, but they gave you sideways So it's like let's go get those they get ambushed

Here's what Adam said of both men and I quoted wholesale from his book. Okay It would be wearisome and not really helpful to give a character sketch of each officer in the company and I quoted wholesale from his book. Okay. It would be wearisome and not really helpful to give a character sketch of each officer in the company. There were about 12 or 13 altogether, and they comprised a very strong team, much stronger than any I had yet to come across. Apart from that, collectively, they have an importance to this book,

since later, from my memory, they provided the idea for Hazel and his rabbits in Watership Down. By this, I do not mean that each of Hazel's rabbits corresponds to a particular officer in the 250 Company. Certainly the idea of the wandering, endangered, and interdependent band, individually different yet mutually reliant, came from my experience of the Company. But out of all of us, I think, there were two direct parallels. Hazel is John Gifford and Bigwig is Patty Kavanaugh.

I really cannot avoid the description of John Gifford, although he will hate it and may even be angry with me, though I very much hope not, because he has had as much influence on my life as James Hunt or Richard Hyscox, if not more. Yet, of all the things, he always hated any kind of flourish, ostentation, or, well, bullshit, so I apologize to him. John Gifford was, at this time, I suppose, about 33 or 4. He had been an architect in civilian life before the war, and he was a bachelor. He was about 5 feet 9 inches tall and had a rather high color and black hair He was pleasant looking enough or he was pleasant looking without being spectacularly handsome and he wore glasses He moved well and had a quiet clear voice when which he never raised except when giving commands on parade

He seldom exclaimed and never swore. I'm just gonna break in real quick He sounds thoroughly unremarkable Yeah, which is how hazel is yeah, okay? Back to the thing everything about him was quiet crisp and unassuming. He was the most unassuming man I have ever known when giving any of his officers an order. He usually said please would you like to or perhaps you'd better? He could be extraordinarily cutting at least one sensed it At least one sensed it like that because a rebuke from him was so quiet and so rare And because everyone had such a high regard for him that you felt his slightest reproof very keenly

He was an excellent organizer One of his strongly held principles was that it was important to get the right person into the right job and the wrong person out. This went right down to the level of private. I had never consciously thought about this principle before. Anybody can do anything. But I realized it all right after I had been under John Gifford's command for two or three weeks when he gently pointed out to me that the reason why my platoon administration was in such a mess was that Lance Corporal Tull was entirely the wrong sort of person to be trying to do what I had told him to do. Since then, I have needed no further telling. John Gifford was brave in the most self-effacing way. One morning, a few months later, when I had learned my

way around the company and knew what was what, I missed the OC at breakfast, and since no one else happened to be nearby, asked the mess-waiter, Ringer, if he knew where it was. Quote, Oh, the major went out early, sir. He heard him last night. He heard last night that some of the gunners were jumping this morning and fixed up to join them. End quote. No one else knew about this.

Jumping is a frightening and unpleasant affair. John Gifford was not in command of a parachute platoon But he made it his business to do as many jumps as anyone else in the company and had and to say nothing about it So very hazel yeah Now his discussion of what happened to Kavanaugh is also in in this quote of what happened to Kavanaugh is also in this. Quote, during the week, and remember Kavanaugh dies and he's the one Bigwig is based on. During the week, despite the adverse weather, planes were flown from England to drop supplies to First Airborne. They had a bad time from German Flak

and many were lost. There were no ground to air communication, bad fault surely on Account of this and also because the situation on the ground was so confused and in the rain visibly visibility was so bad most of the panniers Paniers, it's like pallets. Okay fell outside the Oosterbeek perimeter Colonel pack asked Patty to take his platoon and try to collect what he could of the nearer ones Colonel Pack asked Patty to take his platoon and try to collect what he could of the nearer ones. Patty and Sergeant McDowell, their blokes and their jeeps set out from the first airborne lines and drove down a narrow, empty lane bordered by fairly thick woodland. As they were coming over a little humpbacked bridge, they were caught in German small arms

fire. Corporal Wiggins and several more died instantly. Several jeeps were smashed up. Patty grabbed a Bren gun and leapt into the ditch besides the verge. Whence he returned to German fire? Sergeant McDowell joined him. Take the blokes, Sergeant, yelled Patty. Get them out of here. Back through the woods. I'll cover you. You sure of that, sir? asked McDowell. Yes, answered Patty. Get out. That's an order. Somehow or other, Sergeant McDowell got most of the platoon together inside the edge of the wood

Three or four lay writhing and screaming on the road. There was blood everywhere Patty who had several magazines continued firing the platoon retreated on foot after a minute or two They stopped to listen sergeant McDowell told me how you could hear the rip rip of German Schmeiser's Schmeiser's yeah schmeiser yeah against the slower rat-tat-tat of the Bren, a dreadful counterpoint. Suddenly there was an explosion, then nothing more. Patty lies amongst the others in Divisional Cemetery at Oosterbeek. So, clearly these men meant a lot to him, as can be expected, and the loss of Kavanaugh bothered him plenty so much so that you you can see big wig in his descriptions of Patti afterwards There's no next of kin someone who was loyal to the group and kind of an absolute Unto himself big wig was of a similar sort, right and

That brings us to the first movie so okay in true Damian fashion um I'm only gonna be comparing movies so next episode we'll take a look at what was happening during the production of the movie and its release because when you look at I've learned this through our podcast when you look at a movie you need to look at when it was made, too Yeah, oh, yeah, and what was happening when it was written even yeah like now because this is a movie That's adapted from a book. That's what a lot of this was about though when it was the book Yeah, but now we can look at the production of the movie and the responses to it. Well, and the choice to adapt it as a screenplay at that time. Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly the thing. So anyway, what have you gleaned?

That eugenicists are everywhere. Or historically have been everywhere at every point of the political compass. Because like you like you said, it's a it's a very seductive idea, because if you're the one suggesting it, you you, you are obviously one of the smart ones. And and that is that is a particular kind of bias that is yes, really hard to eliminate. Feels very much like just edge Lord. understanding of science. Well, yeah, there's that too. Yeah. But like edge Lords are very rarely do they think of themselves as average intelligence or oh fuck no No, I always think that there's a smartest guy in the room. Yeah. Yeah, and and yeah in that in that sense. Definitely. Yeah

So that number one because otherwise beverage, you know would be heroic that number one, because otherwise beverage, you know, would be heroic. Um, and, and he still kind of is, but he, you know, there's this, there's this one gigantic fucking asterisk, like, you know, you did all this great shit. And also, you know, um, and, and what I, what I'm finding, also finding interesting is we, we mentioned, uh, L. Frank now, right. As, as a comparison Adams, the other comparison that, that I, I am, I am struck by is Tolkien. I had not thought to make that one, despite the fact that you're my podcast

partner and despite the fact that you're my podcast partner And despite the fact that I mean Jesus like Oxford Yeah You know wartime wartime experience post war then you write right about it. You know and and an allegory without being an allegory and allegory without being an allegory and and the And it's it's less pronounced I think with Adams, but there is there is a Pro bucolicism and

and Anti-industrialism. Yes, you know, I mean, like Tolkien's anti-industrialism is bone deep and smeared across every page of his manuscript. The bad guy is Sauron, who is emblematic. He is the avatar of and a perpetrator of massive factory labor and all this stuff. Saruman is this innovator with technology, right? No, no, they're Satan incarnate and a quisling in his service. That's literally their position here, here, you know, the, the destruction involved in the building of homes for humans is a MacGuffin. Like it's right. It's what pushes it's, it's the, it's

the inciting event that throws Hazel and fiber and everybody else on their hero's journey. So it's, it's a little bit less, there's a little bit less of venom behind the description of it, but it is still described in terms or depicted in terms that are harrowing, you know, and you, and you really empathize with the abject fucking terror of the rabbits seeing their their war and you know facing destruction you know it's it's fivers visions too so it's yeah a supernatural vibe to it yeah and everything's like much much more dire yeah yeah yeah and and you know I remember from but then Holly comes and reports on it And like yeah, it is fucking terrible, and it's and it's awful and when and when fiber has his visions

It's like he goes into an epileptic fit like I mean he does yeah the horror is In fact, it's really during his his vision. Yeah gives wound warts bucks pause Yeah, when when they're digging the yeah, what the fuck was that what what? Yeah So, you know, it's it's the that that ideological parallel, mm-hmm you know and and the

parallel, you know, and, and the love of the natural and the bucolic and the, and the, you know, all of that. Um, there's, there's a whole lot of parallels there. And I'm sure literary critics probably, you know, delved into that and analyzed it six ways to Sunday. Oh, sure. But that's, but that's, that's one of the things that occurs to me, you know, right now in this moment talking about it cool So yeah I'm looking forward to the analysis, you know, oh good forward. Yeah. Yeah me too

So what are you recommending to folks that they read? I am going to recommend very strongly that folks go out and find the folks who do not have children watching with them. I'm going to recommend that you do in fact watch Watership Town because as much as everybody in our generation, you know, kind of makes, you know, Gen X style jokes about, oh my god, you know, kind of makes, you know, Gen X style jokes about, oh my God, you know, traumatized. It really is an amazing piece of work. It like as, as a work of, of animation, as a work of cinema, it's, it's brilliant. So I'm, I'm going to

recommend that, but like, make sure if your kids are watching, it's terrible enough to handle it. Like, yes, it's a cartoon. It's not a little kids cartoon. How about you? I'm actually going to recommend the Netflix four-part series called Watership Down. Right now, as of this recording, I don't know what... I can't prognosticate for the future. You can always look for where these things stream stream right now. You can watch the og Watership down on HBO max right and right now you can watch the Netflix one on Netflix Um, that's right actually think despite the animation being worse

And it's so bad. It's it's and and I'll get into it in a couple episodes probably okay the animation For the Netflix one is such trash in so many ways There's a couple good ways and and I'll highlight those but Despite it being so much worse. I actually think it's a superior Version I Think because you think the writing yes, well, it's four hours long instead of an it's instead of a feature Okay, they're able to expand so much more. Yeah, it's so much more okay, and so but anyway watch the one Ed said and then watch the one I say because

That's what this whole fucking podcast is about is these two movies. Yeah, so there you go. Yeah, yeah So cool. Where can they find us? We collectively can be found on our website at wubba wubba wubba dot geek history time comm On that website you're gonna find our archive which goes back Going on 300 episodes now over 300 over through broken 300 Wow so there's a there's a panoply of

topics for you to find Look through it find something that catches your interest and start there And then of course we can be found on the Amazon podcast app on the Apple podcast app and on Spotify And wherever you have found us, please take the time to subscribe and give us the five-star review That damien's revisitation of our collective childhood trauma has earned us And I of course remain a shadow in the warp How about you, sir? Well, you can find me and my pun pannions doing capital punishment in Sacramento

on the first Friday of every month. As of this recording, you probably want to buy your tickets for the April 4th show and also the May 2nd show because they will be fucking bangers. But also just come check us out. It's at the Sacramento Comedy Spot at 9 p.m. on those dates. March 7th has already happened. So April 4th and May 2nd. It's going to be a lot of fun. We have a pun tournament. There's a wheel.

People battle back and forth. Get your tickets now at saccomedyspot.com. Go to the calendars. Find us. Pay your fee. Get in because we do sell out just about every single show. If you're out of town, if you are part of our audience in fucking Austria, the town, then you absolutely can buy it digitally and check it out. Also, if you're in intercourse Pennsylvania, if maybe you don't want to get all the way to the fucking, you can just do the intercourse. You can still buy tickets online and watch us. That way it's cheaper and you can have a whole watching party while you're engaged in intercourse, so Okay, yeah

Anyway, what's that? Just intercourse and fucking I thought they were okay. They're not sister cities. I thought they would be they should be Like we're in these scissor cities. I don't know Like, you know. Or at least Scissor Cities. I don't know. Oh dear. Anywho. So anyway, yeah, check us out online.

You can watch. You can buy the ticket and then watch it the next day if you're outside of our time zone. But if you're in town, if you're in Sacramento, come see it live because while it translates very well on screen Nothing beats live so the vibe I will say As a as an audience member and participant I can I can say that the vibe really is key Like being in if you can do it being in the room is totally worth it But I've been told it translates really well on screen too. Okay, very nice. Yeah, so anyway Well for a geek history of time. I'm Damian Harmony, and I'm Ed Blaylock and until next time on screen too. Okay, very cool. Yeah. So anyway, well for A Geek History of Time,

I'm Damian Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock and until next time, keep rolling 20s.