Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Banned History

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

How much did Britain and its allies know about the Holocaust? Could the Bengal Famine of 1943 have been helped? And was Elizabeth I really the Virgin Queen?  Lynsey Calver is a history teacher, and in this episode, she helps us to fill in some of the gaps on the history curriculum. *WARNING There are adult themes and discussions of racism and the Holocaust in this episode* Produced by Charlotte Long and Sophie Gee. Mixed by Joseph Knight. Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society. A podcast by History Hit.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts, and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. I am here again, as I should be, as I want to be, as I will be forevermore, bringing you your fair do's warning. Fair do's, everyone, this is an adult podcast. We will be discussing adult themes.

There'll be some swearing. And I think actually today we do get quite dark. We're covering the Holocaust and cannibalism as well. So, do you know what? You just might not want to be listening to that at this exact point, in which case. Get out, run, leave while you still can. The rest of us will do our best without you. For the rest of you that are still hanging around, let's do it. Remember what you were taught in history classes at school?

I bet it was a lot of kings and queens, maybe a smattering of World War I or World War II, possibly a revolution cropped up here and there. So any of this bring back memories. How about incest? Or maybe cannibalism? Or perhaps that Elizabeth I, the so-called Virgin Queen, wasn't quite as advertising. No? Well, funny that. None of that made that into the curriculum, did it? Well, today I am looking at the darker side of history and the stuff that never made it into our textbooks at school. What do you look for a man? Oh, money, of course.

You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect confidence of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing the button. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. A beautiful dam. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Dary. Hello everyone and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets with me, Kate Lister. Joining me Betwixt the Sheets today is a history teacher who decided to write a book on the history that wasn't being taught at school after becoming frustrated by the curriculum.

Lindsay Calvars started writing the book after a trip to Auschwitz, where she was really shocked to discover that the Allies knew about the Holocaust while it was happening. They certainly knew about Auschwitz and they didn't talk. target it or bomb it in their air raids. And Lindsay found out a lot of other eye-opening stories while working on the book, everything from medicinal cannibalism to the less than glorious side of Winston Churchill. I hope that you find this all as fascinating as I did. Welcome to Betwixt the Sheets Lindsay Calver!

How the hell are you? Hello, I'm great thank you. Thanks for having me. I've been looking forward to this for ages. So cool to be here with you. I have been so looking forward to this for ages, because your book, do you know what, Lindsay, I'm holding it in my hands right now, and it is quite a chunk. It is. It's heavy, isn't it? It really is. There's some proper weight to this. Your book banned history,

what they didn't teach you in school. That's it. Well, as a teacher, obviously, I know what, you know, is being taught and what isn't. So I thought, let's do the real story here on a few things people are interested in. What was it that made you think this is a book I need to write? Well, basically, I've always been interested in the other side of things, you know, facts that people don't know, things to impress people like that. I started on the journey when I was training as a teacher, and I was lucky enough to go to Auschwitz with the Holocaust Educational Trust. Yeah, it was a free trip that they do for teachers. And the things that they told us was just starkly different to what was in the textbooks and what we'd been given at school was resources. It's not that anything was made up at school. There was just another side to the story that wasn't being told,

such as the collusion with the Allies to not do anything, and such as what happened to the Jews once the Holocaust was over, you know, it wasn't all good times after that either. And as all that started coming out, I started learning more about Churchill and his role in all of that. And then I started researching him. And then one thing just leads to another, doesn't it? And I started looking at all these figures that we love as, you know, citizens of the UK and thinking, let's get to the truth of this. Let's get to the bottom of what they're really about. Because history, it is really powerful, isn't it. He'd sort of think that history isn't something that would be censored or have a bias to it because it's just supposed to be a reporting of the facts. These are just the things.

as it happened. But it never, ever is. I don't know if you could ever have an unbiased history because it has to be filtered through someone. But history is incredibly important to how we understand ourselves today, isn't it? Oh yeah, yeah, just to know where we are and how we're here today, even the Ukraine war at the moment, you know, if you look back at history, then you get a really good perspective as to why this is happening and why it's happening now. It just helps us understand where we're going as well sometimes too. So I love it for lots of lots of reasons. But yeah, the fact that there's always something another side that's not being told. That's what really grabbed me. And I felt that people were missing out, not knowing those things. And yeah,

I felt it was my responsibility to let everyone know. We'll start with the heavy stuff. I don't if we're going to move much away from heavy stuff. So take me to Auschwitz and what was happening there? What were you being told that kind of made you go that? I've never heard that before. It was the fact that Britain knew about Auschwitz and we knew about the existence of the camp quite early on. I mean, it opened in June 1940 and Britain knows about it within the first year. We know of the atrocities within the first year. The gassing's don't begin until August 1941. But again, Britain is quite quick on the uptake of that and we find out for definite, we've got documented knowledge from January 1943. And it's just finding out things like that that makes you think,

well, why didn't we do anything then? I was always under the impression that we didn't take action because we didn't know. And that was always the party line that, you know, Britain had no idea it was this bad. We didn't know Jews were being gassed. We didn't know that that was that many people. But actually, archival evidence shows the exact opposite. And interestingly, it's other countries' archives, which are showing the exact opposite. Very conveniently, our archives have lost all the files that were gathered at the time about the evidence that was coming in. So it's all just very dodgy. And again, that just really, really interested me. So started researching of other countries, archives and those documents that came from the Polish underground in particular.

This is difficult, isn't it? Because I guess a lot of this stuff could still be classified, or it's been destroyed. But what did the British government know about Auschwitz? They knew it was a camp. What was the extent of it that they knew? They knew pretty much everything. There was a slight time delay, but within six months or so of things changing, so from political prisoners to just Jews, we knew within months. When they started gassing, we knew that was a bit later. That took over a year, but still we knew that that was happening. We just knew pretty much real time about the pogroms

and the exterminations that were happening across Poland because we were listening into the Nazis radio. So we knew that this was happening. We got some of Churchill's notes where he was given the numbers of people that were massacred and he circled them, you know, like someone does when they're revising or something. All must come back to that.

And Churchill does a speech about it, so he does recognise it, but nothing ever led to any action at all, which is atrocious. One of the things that I thought was interested in, and it's kind of come to light in recent years, is after the war ended, after the Holocaust was revealed, quote and quote, I guess the full extent of what was going on, I suppose. There was a BBC film made about it, and that was played in cinemas, and that was shown to local German citizens. So there was afterwards this kind of move to be like, this is so awful, this is terrible, this is what we've been fighting the war about? Why wouldn't they have harnished that at the time? What did they tell the public? Did the public know about this? Our public were kept in the dark. for a long, long time because of the censorship of the media. And that was a government policy, and their policy was to marginalise any news that came in. And they told newspapers, put it in the inside pages, you know, not on the front cover. And when you're talking about it, say it as if we've heard rather than it's a fact. And the politicians would never confirm that the facts were real,

even though they knew they were. They had specific reports confirming it. So the public never really understood the full extent. When it was on the BBC News, for instance, it was like the ninth story of the night, and there was no coming up this really terrible story you might want to listen to. So again, you know, the public weren't as aware, but if you did read some Jewish newspapers in Britain, you would have been aware. So other news outlets did cover it, but the most common ones didn't. And then after, when the war ended, everyone was so focused on prosecuting the Nazis, quite rightfully, but so focused on that that there was no thought given to any other blame anywhere else. Because again, it does seem like, oh, it's the Nazis, they did it. And of course they did,

but it's collusion that helped them to. And what's even more shocking is that the Nuremberg trials where we could have revealed some of this evidence that we had to take down the Nazis, we still didn't because that would have shown we had this evidence so early and we didn't want to admit we had this evidence because we kept it hidden from America.

So America didn't know the truth until summer 1944, even though they're our ally. Oh, see, that kind of scrambled my next question really, because I suppose what I was, my question is basically is why didn't they do anything? If they had this information, could they have done anything, and why didn't they do anything? I suppose like an answer to that might be, we were in a fucking war. We had a lot of shit going on.

But there's no excuse for like not stumping that up at the Nuremberg trials. Well, the three reasons that they gave at the time were they didn't have the range and the planes that they required to bomb Auschwitz effectively. Is that true? It was until 1943. And by that point, we could have the range because we had bases in Italy after they changed sides. And we had America in the war. so we had greater resources. That was true when the first request came into

to bomb Auschwitz in January 1941. The second reason that they gave was it wasn't vital for the war effort like you're touching upon, you know, more important things. And they did really push that one. They said their priority was winning the war. And they even said the only way to rescue the Jews was by winning the war. And they didn't think it was needed or possible to do two things at the same time. And so they prioritised the war over that. They knew hundreds of thousands to millions were being murdered. They knew that. Like babies going to the deaths? Yeah, yeah, they knew. They knew. And they decided that those lives were not as important

as the lives in Britain. So they're prioritising different lives. That's probably one of the secret reasons, if you like, as to why they didn't do anything. They didn't want to. Ultimately, it comes down to that. And there's some xenophobia in that. There's some anti-Semitism in that. There's some nationalism in that. You know, it's multifaceted, why not? And another valid reason, if you like, as to why they didn't and what they said at the time was they were fearful of reprisal action. So that if they did bomb them, then they would be something worse that happened to us.

But, I mean, we're already being bombed. They thought as well that maybe the Nazis would try and blame the Holocaust on us, that if we bombed them, that they were then going to do a press release saying, well, we're the ones responsible. But I mean, as if anyone's going to believe what the Nazis are saying in the midst of a war anyway.

And I think that's the problem I've got with this whole topic. You hear it face on. You're like, okay, yeah, war effort. Okay, yeah, the planes weren't great. But every time you can save actually, that's not the case. And that's what's so destroying about it. What good would it have done if they did by Moushevitz, just to play devil's advocate? Because it wasn't the only concentration camp. Would it have stopped the Nazis dead in their,

like what would that have done? It wouldn't have stopped them dead in their tracks. No, it was one of six camps, but it was the one that was responsible for the most deaths, 1.1 million in total. Now, if we bombed when the first request came in at the start of 1941, we would have saved most of those million lives. And again, they had the other five camps. It would have carried on, but it also would have sent a message, and I think that's what was most important. Sending a message to the Nazis that we're not accepting this. Sending a message to the Jews that we're going to be helping, we're going to do something, and just sending a message to everyone that we care.

And I think that's what's so lacking here, you know, this idea that Britain just didn't care about these people. Yeah, I mean, I can understand why that's not the top of everyone's curriculum in school, because Britain doesn't come out particularly well in that one, does it? No, that's the whole problem, again, with the curriculum that we'll come to in a bit is the fact that Britain's always portrayed so brightly that we have this false sense of superiority. And I think that's damaging, you know, for world relations and for our future. We need to have some perspective of the damage that we've done directly and indirectly. And I think that's what's lacking here. So tell me about everyone's favourite controversial hero, Winston Churchill, a very polarising figure.

But then maybe I don't know the full story either. So you tell me what you know about him. We don't know everything, do we? We can never fully understand someone. But yeah, he's been misportrayed for sure. He is, you know, hero commendable for winning World War II. I'm not going to take that away from him at all. He's, you know, got lots of achievements on that front.

Well done. Yeah, well done. Well done, Winston. But regardless, he's got a lot of dodgy things in his history. The main terrible thing that I'd like to pick up on is his role in the Bengal famine. Now, this is during World War II. And it's in India, which is part of the British Empire, the jewel of the empire. However, we know from things that he said that,

Churchill was not a fan of the Indians. And when the Bengal famine happened, there's a few causes to it. It's not Churchill that caused it, but Churchill made it worse and didn't help. So it started when Japan took over Burma in World War II. And that cut off the rice supply to the Bengal region. Then there was a cyclone in October 1942, which destroyed crops 40 miles inland. But then Churchill at this point, instead of providing food like any person would, any normal rational human being with an empire country needing help. He didn't. And instead, he did

scorched earth policy. So his view was, Japan have got Burma and these guys are really struggling, but I'm not going to help them. I'm just going to burn what crops they've got left. So that if Japan do take them, they don't benefit from it. But he didn't just burn the crops. He went out and burnt all the fishermen's boats as well. So not only could they not use what they'd grown, they then couldn't go out and fish. So that obviously really exacerbated the effects of the famine. There's more, there's more, Kate. So brace yourself. Oh, yeah, okay. Not content with just that.

Other countries offered aid to the Bengal region, so Canada, Australia and America offered to send ships with food. And he said no. He diverted an Australian ship away. It was on its way to the Bengal region with 170,000 tonnes of wheat and Churchill diverted it to Europe because he thought we should store the wheat there

because we might need it in the future, not thinking about them right there. He turned down any help from America and Canada to take the wheat because he said, we can't give you the ships to transport it. We're in a war and I'm not going to dedicate those ships to do it. And even when Bengal directly, you know, appealed to him for firstly one and a half million tons and then having no luck, they went lower, 0.5 million. He just outrightly refused, said that no, we cannot do that and said India should look after

itself as we Britain have done. Bear in mind we Britain who imported twice as much as we exported in the 1930s. And his attitude at the time is just awful. You know, his response was, oh, it's merrily culling the population. No. Yeah, he was happy this was happening because he wasn't a fan of the Indians as a race. He was hopeful that it might kill Gandhi.

That was another quote. What a prick. I like to try and play devil's advocate and find some kind of justification. But that, I've got nothing. I've got absolutely nothing. Like, to actively deny them food. Yeah, and deny when other people

are willing to put the effort in as well. That's another level. Like let those people do it then. There's no skin off your nose. Let that ship get to there. And then to say, we haven't got the ships to send it. They were sending one already, Churchill. One of the things that you sort of hear about this is somebody might say, like, oh, it was a different time.

Values were different. Blah, blah, blah, blah. At the time were people pointing out this was a really twatty thing to do. I say twatty. That's a massive understatement. Devastating massacre. Were people pointing that out? People who were aware of it, yes.

So the people in India, the viceroy of India, was pleading for help. His cabinet in England were pleading for help, and they wanted to help and send that foreign aid. So people at the time did want to, yes, public awareness I'm not so sure of, because again, it's wartime and whether that would have dampened morale and not got in the news is very likely. But he's viewed so negatively in India now. A politician, for example, put him on the same kiltre as Stalin and Hitler, for goodness sake. How many people died in the famine? Three million is the estimate.

up to three million. That's Indian estimates. Of course, our estimates put it a lot lower. But, yeah, Indian stats say up to three million deaths as a result of that. That's appalling. Yeah, shocking, shocking. That really is. And apparently he blamed India directly for that, saying that it's their fault for breeding like rabbit. Is that one of his as well? Yeah, yeah, that's it. Not his responsibility at all, of course, no. I suppose by the standards of his day, did he have racist attitudes? Yes, he did. And that was well documented as well.

like even his doctor said that he was racist. And I mean, if he's got time to talk about those sort of things while he's having a checkup, then he must have been spouting it quite often. We must have been. Yeah, people at the time. MPs also said he's at the far end of the racist spectrum. It was not acceptable at the time.

And I don't like this view that, oh, everyone was anti-Semitic. So, you know, that's fine. Because, no, it's never been fine. And it wasn't fine at the time. It was recognised by his peers that he was racist, yes. What is it about Winston Churchill? Yet he was the prime minister when we won the war, and he was voted Time Magazine's man of a year

and all these things and it's great that you won the war but you would think that like these other things that he did like allowing three million people to die why hasn't that made the news what is it about Churchill that still gets people so excited I think it's just lack of awareness to be honest and if you don't investigate yourself

you will never know the full truth and then I think people just love this cult hero that we've developed from Churchill everyone loves the fact we won the war of course like you said we defeat the bad guys who's not going to like that And then now he's, you know, he's on a teetow, he's on a mug, you know, his voice is emulated. He's just become this popular figure that we can't get rid of now it started.

And then the public will just know the good stuff. And I don't think it's really people's fault. That's just the way the education has gone. I suppose he's become emblematic of being British now, hasn't he? And when you attack that, I think people take that quite personally. They don't want him to have been this bad person. They want him to stand in for all these amazing things that Britain did. and it's quite uncomfortable to go,

shit, he did that stuff as well. I think so, and it makes people feel good thinking they're part of a great country that has defeated the Nazis, you know, so it gives everyone a nice, warm feeling inside. But knowing the truth, it just heals that, doesn't it? I mean, I don't really like canceling people retroactively, but I do believe in having all the information

and they're making your own decision. That's a hell of a lot of information to have, isn't it? I'll be back with Lindsay after this short break. Hi there, I'm Don Wildman, the host of the brand new podcast, American History Hit. Join me twice a week as I explore the past to help us understand the United States today. You'll hear how codebreakers uncovered secret Japanese plans for the Battle of Midway. Visit Chief Poetan as he prepares for war with the British. See Walt Disney accuse his former colleagues of being communists

and uncover the hidden history that lies beneath Central Park. from pre-colonial America to independence, slavery to civil rights, the gold rush to the space race. I'll be speaking to leading experts to delve into America's past. New episodes dropping every Monday and Thursday. So join me on American History Hit, a podcast by History Hit. Tell me about some of the other historical periods that you have unearth. A really good one would be the Egyptians, for example. Like the things that we learn about them in school.

So I'm thinking pyramids, I'm thinking hieroglyphs, thinking clear. Apatra, that's what I remember from school. Yeah, I mean, to be fair to the history curriculum there, when you do the Egyptians, it's primary level. So all the good stuff, I just don't think it's age appropriate to start talking about incest and bestiality and all the sexual relations that they love. So I do get it.

I do get why we come out school with the skewed view of what the Egyptians are. But the Egyptians, basically, they don't really have qualms about anything. So they'll basically fuck everything that moves, if you excuse my French there. So they had provisions, you know, for their temples, you could make love with a goat and then that would put you in, you know, good in the eyes of the gods. Incest was part and parcel of their life. It was in their Egyptian myths.

Cleopatra is from an incestuous family. And Tutankhamun, who we are, you know, very familiar with. He was also from an incestuous family. That was just normal. And so was the bestiality in Egypt as well, as I've said. So there's just got these whole different attitudes to what we have today, so much so that when the Romans took over the land, it took them 200 years to stamp out these sexual deviances. And in fact, the Romans were very set against incest, but they even found themselves joining in. Really? I thought it was just royalty that did it because it was, you know, preserving the purity of the bloodlines. I'd be watching far too much house of dragons and Game of Thrones. No, that's true. But yeah, it was very, very common amongst the Egyptian people.

And, yeah, in some cities, like, that's all you did. That was the accepted thing that you would marry your brother or your sister. In fact, in Spain, it's still legal to marry your sibling, did you? No, it's not. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Is anyone doing it? I don't know, actually. I don't know. I would hope not. Again, history lessons are important, right? If you look up the Habsbergs, then that'll put you off for sure. Actually, a very, very quick Google search shows that incest is legal in 25% of European countries.

Oh, my goodness. I mean, yeah, have we learnt nothing from history? You know, this is why we need to change what we're teaching, because we can't carry on like this. I mean, the Habsburgs killed themselves, didn't they? With too much incest. They did. Yeah. And who was the final? final, at Hapsburg King and there's... That's Charles II. Well, he's the one who, like, you know, messed it up for everyone else,

if you like, because he was just unable to have children, unable to talk, his tongue was so big, he couldn't fit it in his mouth and he wasn't able to speak. Yes, and there's descriptions of him, like, sitting in like a wicker basket

and just, like, spinning round and round and, like, really not a well put together person. He was called the Bewitched because he had epilepsy and various many other problems. He, of course, found a wife, you know? King, and he? Yeah. And it was her fault that he couldn't have a child.

Right. Yeah. Not the fault that he... Not all of that. You're not the fact that he didn't really have working genitalia. No, not that at all. Or that his family tree was a shrub. No. She was put through all sorts of procedures that really ruined her ovaries. Yeah, just because no one would believe her. Fuck. You kind of wondered, like, did nobody figure that out? That, like, marrying close relatives doesn't tend to have great results.

Well, they still haven't, have they? Look at their law. This is true. Then, if I was feeling generous, maybe we could. say that incest is legal in 25% of countries because it's never even occurred to them to make it illegal because why on earth would you do that? Yeah, of course. Yeah, why not? It did start to change for Darwin, of course. That's when the tide started to turn for most countries when they realized, oh, actually it does mess up the genes of people. Oh, that's why people aren't living very long, or one of the reasons. Clearpat is another good example, isn't she, of like what we think we know about

her? You mentioned to just then, she married two brothers, didn't she? Yeah, she did. Yeah, no kids with either one of them though. And again, probably just because that was what she should have done. Because she was a female ruler and that wasn't that acceptable. I know they had no qualms about most things, but female rulers was still one of the things they weren't up for. So she married her brothers just to keep the peace, if you like, with that. But she doesn't seem to be overly enamoured with it and she had the second one killed. That's an awkward Christmas. Ledy hell. Who else have you found in your books that like you really wanted to get into to be like, we're not being taught the truth? So we've got Winston Churchill, not good. Egyptians, up to

some weird shit. And what else have you found? Well, there's Elizabeth I first, because we teach her quite in-depth at school as GCSE and A-Level. And I'm a big fan. I think she's an absolute legend, but more for her strength of propaganda than what we think that she's done, because the things that she's got us believing just hundreds of years later is amazing, like the fact she's a virgin. Do you not believe that? You're not buying that one. No, no. And I've got plenty of evidence for my lots. You can make up your own mind. But no, no, I'm not convinced of that. And the fact she started the slave trade, you know, that casual fact there that's left out of all the history books. Pages and pages of how we ended it, not a single fact about how the fact we started it, of course.

And her role in the Spanish Amada, how she basically caused it by just Narcan Phillips so much, kept prodding. She stole all of his gold, you know, that's going to start something, isn't it? True. She gets all the credit for ending it, and winning the Spanish Amada, but it was the weather, it was not really her. And you know what? She didn't even pay the sailors. She didn't pay the sailors. Yeah, the commander had to give it out of his own money in the end, because she just didn't

handed the money over after they set their ships on fire and did help cause a victory, of course, but it wasn't because of her, that is for sure. Oh God, tell me why you think that the whole Virgin Queen thing is a nonsense. Makey case. My case is that, well, mainly that there was a child born. Yeah, that would rule out the virgin bit, wouldn't it? Yeah, that's the main bit of evidence I've got. So this boy, he turns up, Arthur, and he's the son of her and Robert Dudley. And again, Like you might say circumstantial, lots of pretenders at that time, maybe not. But Robert Dudley says, yeah, that's my son. And I mean, was he not in on the memo that she's meant to be a virgin or something?

He's got nothing to gain from it. She's got everything to lose from it. And then he strangely disappears, the son, that is. And then there's stories at the time as well of how she goes into seclusion. There's another story of how a man is called to the royal court to take away a baby that's been born to a lady. We cannot admit who it is. And then he brings up the baby.

and then on his deathbed says, you know, your Elizabeth's son says that one. And then another quite telling piece as well, I think, is at the end, it's quite normal to have a post-mortem of the body. And Elizabeth had her ladies make sure that no one examined her down below. And again, I think that that would have been perfect to do if you were a virgin and you want that to be believed. But she didn't want anyone to look. And so all I can imagine is like, hmm, because you've got something to hide maybe.

Interesting. Oh, Lizzie, you saw she minks. I know, but that's what I like her for. Yes, absolutely, right? Talk to me about cannibalism. That's a different direction, isn't it? Yeah, a bit different, yeah. Well, actually, you say that.

It was very big in Elizabeth's time, you know, to drink bones crushed up. Medicinal cannibalism is probably the most used across the world, and that began in the 17th century, really. And it's just the theory of using your body parts as medicine. You would drink blood, you would eat fat. I mean, everything. The common people would go to an execution and catch the blood in a cup or on a hanky just to drink later

because they thought it had properties that revitalise them and all the way up to royalty. Cannibalism has been really long time. Europe has got the oldest evidence of cannibalism. There's been lots and lots of bones found and the Natural History Museum has excavated lots and found proof of the way that we've scraped the bones. Like no animal scrapes it off that cleanly or that well, you know, they're gnawing at it. And we found skulls that have been hollowed out and made. into cups. And again, we know that the skull, if you want to use it or something, you wouldn't

break it completely. But the way that some of the bones have been broken is to get to the flesh, to get to the muscle so that someone can be eaten. And then, of course, there's the stories from Russia, which has got a lot of history of it, as has China, to be fair, lots of stories from both countries, but Russia in the 20th century, for sure. So they had a famine in the 1920s, and that led to huge instances of cannibalism. People liked it. That was another reason why they didn't stop. Obviously, it fed them. Once you start, you can't stop, apparently. And the same again in World War II.

I mean, I've never tried. I've never tried. That's just what people say. Oh, but fun story from World War II as well is that one of the future presidents of America, George Bush Sr. He was nearly eaten by cannibals in Japan. I do know this story, but please share it with us. It's quite stunning. Yeah, so these guys that he's with, they have a wreck out in the sea,

and then the Japanese are taking them prisoner. Now, somehow, I don't get how this happens. He manages to be rescued. whilst out at sea. Everyone else isn't. So they're taken prisoner and then they're kept locked up and then there's an order given for them to be for dinner that night basically. And they get the medical people to come along to the prison and they're very trained in this and they cut them open and they take out their livers and then they cook up the livers and then they eat them for dinner. And then sometimes they're taken one bit at a time. So they cut off your arm and then they might

come back the next day for the leg. So there's lots of horror stories like that of people in captivity that have had it as a punishment as well. I know that when he said medicinal cannibalism, that we did have a weird habit in like the 18th and 19th century of finding mummified bodies and remains and then making them into medicine, which is stupid for many reasons. And also because we could have learnt something from that,

your silly sods, and you just keep eating historic remains. And what was even more stupid is that because it was so popular, they started up a black market and a false trade in it and people were faking mummies. So they were just pretending that this was an ancient. mummy and it was just someone who died in a sandstorm and the body had been brought over. So yeah, it really was so popular that even in the early 20th century, there was German shops still selling mummified remains to be bought as medicine. People still eat it today, don't they? Placenta.

People like a bit of that. Well, they do. And also in sort of countries where there's some belief in witchcraft and superstition and black magic. And the very dark trade of that is that people do harvest body parts. There have been cases of that within, well, recent history, which is quite terrifying. Exactly, yeah. Well, in the 60s as well, yeah, they found some evidence of funeral rituals, you know, where that's what happened to the dead body, because then they could live on, and they didn't like the idea that they're sat in the ground slowly rotting. So the logic to it is sort of there. Don't think I fancy it, though. No, no, no, no, no, I'll just take my multivitamin, absolutely fine. So what would you like people to teach in schools? Obviously, you've written

your book, but if it was up to you, if the government were to come to you, what would you teach? I would teach a world of history. So our curriculum is all Britain, basically. So for Key Stage 3, they say Britain this, Britain, that, all the way from the 11th century to the 20th century. You have one topic that's the world. And I just think that's lacking because we're in a global state right now. And we need history of Russia and China. And just countries that just aren't in our Key Stage 3 curriculum at all, apart from they're the bad guys.

Or look at how bad it was for them. So I want another view of actually Britain as the bad guy and other countries, this is their history, as objective as we can, but I think we need to be less biased about Britain. For example, our textbooks, you know, slave trade, it's all about ending it, not starting it. Empire, it's all about how great it was for Britain and how we gave everyone railways and they should be grateful for that and nothing about all the murders and the deaths that came from all of that. And I just feel that people have a skewed view and I just want to balance it out.

That's what I'd like to see, a balanced curriculum. I think that it's not about, you know, counselling anyone or about saying that Britain didn't do great things. I suppose it's more about saying that all of these things are true at the same time. Exactly. Yes, exactly. But let's not just give one half of the story. Let's do it all. Let people make their own minds up. Would you get Churchill out of the curriculum? I don't know if he's still in the curriculum, actually. He's in it in the sense of winning World War II and wasn't Dunkirk a great achievement and all of that. I'd keep him in. But as I say, we've got to do both sides of it. So I think, I think I'd do a lesson of, does Churchill deserve the title, greatest prime minister ever,

and then present all the evidence for and against? Then again, the children can decide, based on the evidence they've got, what they think, rather than telling them he's a hero, let people judge for themselves. And throughout the course of writing your book, there must have been so much that didn't make it in there because of what things that were not taught. Did you recall anything that, like, if you were to do a follow-up, you go, I'm definitely putting that in, or was there something that you wish you'd got around to, but you didn't get the chance?

There was two topics, yeah, that I'm thinking of another book for sure. There was the history of drugs in terms of like recreational, legal, illegal and just looking at how that's developed from being acceptable to not acceptable. And that comes up in the medicine course we teach at GCSE. So there's already something in the curriculum. But again, getting that worldview of it, you know, little facts like how Scott of the Antarctic, they took cocaine to help them get there. And Hitler was on a cocktail of drugs, including, well, cocaine for one as well, and speed. and I'd like to look at racism as well. I'd like to look at how that began

and how that spread and how it's got to what it is today. Is that not taught in schools today, like the history of race and... No, concepts like that aren't taught. Wow. Conceptual history would be a good thing to do. I just think it's such a big topic.

It's quite hard to simplify, perhaps, for a student. But it's so important. Absolutely. You've been incredible to talk to it. And if people want to know more about you and your book and your work, where can they find you? I'm on Instagram as at,

history miss. I've got a YouTube channel with a few videos on as well, some little educational ones. And I am on Twitter, but I'm not so active on there as perhaps I should be. Thank you so much for joining me, Lindsay. You've been an absolute pleasure to talk to. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you to Lindsay for coming on the podcast to share your research and your time. That was just wonderful. And if you like what you've heard, please don't forget to like, review and subscribe, wherever it is that you get your podcasts. I know everybody says that, but it actually does help other people finders.

the producers really like reading the comments. We've got episodes on the real Casanova, Alexander the Great Sex Life, and a very special episode on Rochester, The Restoration's Filthiest Poet, all coming up. So please make sure that you are subscribed and that you don't miss any of the good stuff. This podcast includes music by Epidemic Sound.