Dan Snow's History Hit - Arnhem, Satire, Bartending and Drums

Episode Date: September 17, 2020

Comedian, historian, broadcaster Al Murray joins me on the podcast to discuss Arnhem. The British-Polish allied defeat at Arnhem took place in autumn 1944, 76 years ago this week.

Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History. This is a repeat episode of the podcast. We're reaching deep back into the archive. We are talking to national treasure, comedian, historian, broadcaster, Al Murray. He's a great friend of this podcast. He's a great friend of mine. And he now has his own brilliant World War II podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk, with the equally brilliant James Holland. So go and check that out. And we talked to him a couple of years ago about his love of history, his journey towards history and his personal area of fascination,

which is Arnhem. He's obsessed with Arnhem, the British-Polish Allied defeat at Arnhem in the autumn of 1944. In fact, which was 76 years ago this week. So it's a timely repeat this one we've produced hundreds of episodes of this podcast about the first and second world wars and so what we decided to do is launch a new podcast it's presented by historian professor james rogers he's probably

the world's leading expert on drones by the way he's been on this podcast a few times professor rogers will be presenting this podcast called the world wars the world wars it expert on drones, by the way. He's been on this podcast a few times. Professor Rogers will be presenting this podcast called The World Wars. The World Wars, it's all of our episodes about the First and Second World War, talking to veterans, historians, people that lived through it, civilians, politicians. And it's also new episodes released each week that he'll be recording with some brilliant guests as well. So please go and check out The World Wars,

part of the History Hit Network. Like it, rate it, all that junk, wherever you get your pods. In the meantime, everyone, here is the brilliant Al Murray. Enjoy. So it all goes back to you. You know, very famous comedian, etc. History, I've been to many of your gigs, history runs like the writing through a stick of rock through those gigs. But you have written a great book about watching orphans and your dad. I mean, is that your entry into history?

Yeah, absolutely. My family is a family that talks about history at Sunday lunch, often to the annoyance of outsiders. And so I grew up in an environment that was, where you would, and mainly talking about the Second World War, where that was a big topic of discussion, and argument as well, as much as anything else. So, yeah.

And then it was on my radar when i was about eight because i went to see a bridge too far at the cinema and my father was an airborne soldier in the 50s and knew a load of the characters from the battle of arnhem from first airborne division in fact a captain mckay who was at the bridge in the school thought in the school of the bridge was my father's brigadier at one point and dad remembers him being shouted at by this guy. Anyway, so we went to the cinema to see this because it was a portrayal of the whole maroon thing that my father, the maroon machine that my father was part of.

And he sat there basically spluttering and cursing at the movie. And there was a great moment that I remember very clearly when the tank comes over the bridge and it's supposed to be a tiger and it's a leopard from the 90s. Leopard 1 from the 1960s. And he went, it's the wrong bloody tank. And so that's where it all comes from, from that moment in the cinema, growing up going to Pegasus Bridge when I was nine or ten,

you know, Waterloo, I think when I was 12, this whole thing, you know, it was unavoidable in my family history. And your grandfather had an interesting job in the war as well. Well, as far as we know, this is the thing. My grandfather worked for PWE, the Political Warfare Establishment, I think. He was part of the thing that was going on on around woburn sands and woburn rather than bletchley so they were they were the where the government's in exile were and all that sort of thing and he was involved in black radio he was in vienna for some reason in may 1945 we don't

really know why um he crops up all over there's a picture of him in a major's uniform in cairo in 1942 or something and he wasn't in the army. So who knows? And there's even a story about someone involved with some Yugoslav partisans who'd kind of crossed the line. There's a historian in Aberystwyth I talked to about this, about what my grandfather got up to. This guy who crossed the line in his dealings with the Yugoslav partisans and then died mysteriously possibly a heart attack and my grandfather was

around at the time and who knows and if you speak to my uncle my uncle will say oh oh there's definitely something fishy there and he speaks to my father my father's like absolutely not he was definitely not involved in that and it's all quite it's all quite murky and quite interesting as well as having been a bbc man in the 30s before the war so literally working alongside um dimbleby senior and doing all that sort of stuff i mean my career would take such time for the better if i left the bbc and just didn't whack him you just like part of that oh joyful it's all good but what's interesting about it is when when he died my father my he'd asked my father to burn his personal papers when he died, and my dad did. Because my dad's from that...

Would you have just gone, sure, Dad? He was from that Mulder person that if his father asked him to do something like that, even with, you know, it'd be an absolute treasure trove of stuff. Absolutely, that's what you want me to do, and he did it. Yeah, yeah. And he's since been researching him, and it's hard to find anything out.

It was all secret. I burned it all, son. Exactly, exactly, exactly. It's like Kafka-esque. Yeah, yeah. So, and you are, in your own right, an expert, I would say, on Arnhem. I mean, you've crossed swords with the best of them. We've had Anthony Beaver on the podcast saying it was all disastrous from the start. It would never have worked.

The whole thing was a joke. Just quickly, where do you stand on that controversy? If they'd gone a week earlier, I think we'd be looking at a very different story. With that operational plan, right? If they'd gone just a week earlier, because the Germans were still on the hop a week earlier, and there's a week's coagulation

in certainly the german command structures um there is there is there's a very interesting book of um uh essays that john buckley um has edited about arnhem it was in the last couple of years and one of the essays is called a week too soon question mark and then there's this i mean the other thing is there's the controversy over the airlift plan. And was that what the army wanted or what the air force? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the thing is, there's an RAF historian who's since gone through all that, a guy called Seb Ritchie, who's since gone through the actual genesis of the airlift plan.

And what's very interesting about it is the army asked for that airlift plan. They say they want that what went wrong in Normandy, what went wrong in Sicily is the drops were scattered. What went wrong in Normandy is the drops were scattered. Could we just all land in the same place together just this once, please? And the Air Force give them exactly what they want. And then of course, after the event, the army blame it all on the Air Force. They wouldn't let us land where we wanted to, but that's not, not really what happened. And Ritchie also looks into the, into the, the one of the intelligence myths which is the overflights and he's because he's an ref historian and he's obviously thought enough's enough so he's gone through all the ref reconnaissance logs for overflights you know where they take picture of uh of panzer ss units around on him he cannot find a single flight that matches that description

he cannot find the photographs that matches. He's not to say it didn't happen, but there's no record of those flights that Urquhart, the intelligence officer, claims to have ordered happening. So that's quite interesting. And again, that's the RAF going, because he's an RAF historian. You know, they've copped all the literal and uh metaphorical flack around the arm on a mop so he's just going on i mean let's just actually look at these things and that's that's really interesting i think beaver's probably right it but but i think it's

the it's the not the conception that's the problem with arnhem it's the it's the um it's the realization the actualization you know if but if they if they decided that a staggered lift was a bad idea and that what you do is the assets you land on d-day at arnhem that the air landing brigade and the and the parachute brigade if you if you decide they're both going for the bridge rather than half of them having to stay behind and defend landing zones because of your second stage lift, you've got more chance of getting more people to the bridge, which is what it's all about. So I think there's still miles to go with what you can say about Arnhem, I think.

It's not settled. That's clear. Also, whenever I read military history, I think the best and most trivial, but also the best expression is victory has a thousand fathers

defeat is an orphan yeah and Arnhem now everybody can tell you what an absolute absolute but I mean

Manstein or you know Rundstedt's thrust through the Ardenne that reached the coast you know Guderian in charge crossing that

it was it was an extraordinarily risky yep and talk about one single MSR in Wales, and yet it's hailed as the greatest victory. It's the most brilliant piece of military operation. But, to which I would say, the thing that precedes Arnhem is the greatest ever armoured breakout, which is the breakout after Falaise. And the decision, if you,

I think the problem with Arnhem is exactly as you say. We look at it now, it's obviously never going to work. If you're making that decision in late August, when the Germans seem to have decided to take up. When they are done for, as far as you can tell, you've destroyed them in the West and you're doing, I can't remember which division it is, 90 miles, yeah, yeah, there's 90 miles in a day.

So no wonder you're thinking, well, this is just going to keep going. And from September 1939, on the Allied side, there's been this idea that the Germans are going to collapse like a pack of cards any minute, right from the beginning of the Second World War. And that idea is still doing around six years, four years, five years later. It shouldn't be a surprise, I think. And also, you know that the Russians, the Soviets, are conquering and committing unimaginable brutality.

So if you can get to Berlin first, you know, I find it fascinating. Well, I find it, I mean, in the end, I find it a forgivable mistake on Montgomery's part. Although actually, I mean, and of course, you know, failure in this instance isn't an orphan. The buck is laid

at the stops of Montgomery all the time. Although, let's be honest, Ike approved it. So, you know, if we're going to look for where the buck stops, it's got to be with Eisenhower. He says, OK, go for it. And, you know, but this will never end. This will go on forever. And at Chalk Valley, buck stops it's got to be it's got to be with eisenhower says okay go for it and and and you know but this this this will never end this will go on forever and um at chalk valley at the history

festival we had a morning of airborne forces stuff and the airborne archivist from the museum in duxford comes over from the aerosol museum says oh you must come and have a look at this stuff because the thing no one likes to talk about is how bad officer relations were within first airborne how no one was talking to anybody how they all was a Scottish clique and there was a parachute clique and a glider clique and they're all at each other's throats in the run-up to Market Garden. because it would look... Because they fought incredibly gallantly, as we accept, but it would look like you were really, like, you were rubbing their noses in it or adding salt to the wound. So there's still loads more about Arnhem to come out.

What I like about you, Alan, is you're... I think working at the BBC is slightly... Because there's a sense there that you can't just keep producing stuff about the Second World War, and so I quite admire guys like you and James Holland who just go, you know what? The Second World War is the largest conflict in the history of the human race. It remodelled the city that I grew up in.

My own family were involved in it. In my case, my dad was nearly killed by a V1 in about 44. So it's not surprising that we're quite interested. And you are just like an unashamed... Yes, but by the same token, where the Second World War sits in our culture at the moment is something that drives me mad. And it's all very well being interested in a historical event, but using it rhetorically and using it politically at the moment is wildly out of control and something that really makes, on the other hand,

as well as I am being very interested in, makes me think, I've got to stop being interested in this. We've got to move on from this somehow or historicise it. But you do that through your comedy. We try to. And that's something that confuses people. Funnily enough, I had a conversation this morning when I said I was with the Western Front Association

and all these people, massive fans of Al Murray. But they went, because they don't understand some bits of your comedy, because they don't kind of get who you are and which bit is you and which bit isn't, and which is a pub landlord, which is one of the most recognisable comedy characters in the last 30 years in the UK. So how do you... Well, I like the confusion. Well, I like the confusion. You know, I think a big element in comedy should be mischief,

confusion, ambivalence, chaos. We're supposed to be... Comedians aren't supposed to be po-faced people with the answers to everything. They're supposed to cause... We're supposed to sow discord and cause mischief and people are meant to misunderstand you and they're meant to not get the joke. You know, you can't get all the jokes.

So I'm quite comfortable with the idea that some people don't get it, that some people think what I'm doing is absolutely ghastly. It's all right, it's fine. Comedians, if you look at the history of jesters, comedians used to have to eat on their own. They weren't allowed to sit even with the musicians. They had to eat on their own because they had no patron. They only had the king as a patron so that

they would speak truth to power rather than be the Duke of Norfolk's jester and have other patronage so that they could get to the king via the jester. In that respect, comics should eat alone. They shouldn't sit

with the minstrels and the jugglers and the jonglers and all those people. They should be on their own, wearing their motley outfit, wearing their tweed and sitting by themselves. Just tilting at everyone. Absolutely. And there's a really excellent book about justice in the English court. And I can't remember who wrote it, but it'll come to me. Really, really fantastic book about that, which says, you know, the entire, this entire tradition that dies out during the Elizabethan era, when everything gets sort of theatricalized, turned into drama. There was this tradition of the, you know, the fool who had no patron but his master, so that he could have the licence to say what he wanted to his master.

It wasn't answerable to anyone else. And in a way, if you're not causing confusion and pissing people off, you're not doing your job right. If you're not taking flat, you're not over the target. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient egypt and avoid the poisoner's cup in renaissance florence each week on echoes of history we uncover the epic stories that inspire assassin's creed we're stepping into feudal japan in our special series chasing shadows

where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. every week. What do you say to him? Because you, the pub landlord, is he like,

well, what's he... The pub landlord, I mean, I've seen him a lot of times. And I see the gleam in the pub landlord's eye when I come in late and I know I'm about to get some history-related banter. And you've had me on stage shooting. I don't have 100% control over him, I'm afraid. Yeah, especially as the evening goes on.

But because he rips apart the Metropolitan League, but he also is as furious in his scathinghing in his criticism of, you know, the so-called... the people that have been left behind, you know, the people that we're told gave us Trump and Brexit. Yeah, well, I suppose... well, yeah, I mean, I'm trying to... The thing is, is I... When I'm writing it and the way I conceived it, it's first of all supposed to be a piece of entertainment,

so you try and make as many different people laugh on as many different levels as you possibly can. But it's also, in one respect, supposed to be like a piece of satire, which is what led to me running for Parliament three years ago. And you can't satirise the politics we have in a pluralistic one-man-one-vote democracy without satirising the people who are doing the voting.

We're all part of the same fruitcake. And there's lumps of this, lumps of one thing in a fruitcake in one place, but it's a whole, you can't just do the politicians, you've got to do the people that vote for them. And that's sort of my approach to it. And I think to an extent, everyone in a pluralistic democracy, where we kind of have lots of liberties and freedoms that don't exist everywhere else,

kind of everyone's fair game. And the metric of whether you're punching up or punching down, which is the thing people like to talk about with comedy, of whether you're punching up or punching down, which is the thing people like to talk about with comedy, is harder to work simplistically in a society like ours, I think. You know, because if boorish, idiotic people are dominating a debate, just because you're better educated than them doesn't mean you shouldn't take the piss out of them.

Because if they're dominating the debate, they have power. They have the power. And as a comic, you're supposed to talk truth to power. And if more educated people than you are dominating, you should take the piss out of them too. Or if, you know, slack-brained conservatives or pie-in-the-sky socialists are the people in power, then you have a duty, you know, as a comic, as the jester,

as the mischief-maker, as the disruptor, you know, as a comic, as the jester, as the mischief maker, as the disruptor, you know, the problem is you start talking about it, it sounds quite pretentious quite quickly, that those should be your targets, and that's sort of what I try to do with The Pub Landlord. I mean, often, I often miss, and I often get misunderstood, but I kind of, so what, you've still got to shoot at the damn thing. And you... History does run through your comedy. Oh, yeah. Why do you... Do you find that people... They respond to history. Do you understand what our shared historical stories are?

You'd make jokes about the Second World War, but you probably wouldn't make a joke about Magna Carta. Corn Laws is off the limit. No-one knows about the Corn Laws. But there is, you know, like... There is a sort of orange squash, totemistic set of historical things. Henry VIII. If you go to Henry VIII, everyone knows what you're talking about.

I mean, it might all be wrong, but everyone knows what you're talking about. Head-chopping wives. Head-chopping wives telling the Pope to get knotted. You know, the original Brexit, whatever you want to call it. So things like that, the Civil War, Oliver know, Oliver Cromwell banning Christmas. Everyone knows about that. So there's a series of things. And because they're those everyone knows about that things, we enter the territory of the uses and abuses of history.

And which I think is as interesting as history itself. What history gets used for, how it gets abused, how it gets turned around and pointed at us in a different direction. it gets used for, how it gets abused, how it gets turned around and pointed at us in a different direction, how, you know, how appeasement is wheeled out as a thing we must never do. And the thing is, yes, if you agree with that picture of what was happening between 36 and 39, that is what you should never do. But there's much more to the story of what's called appeasement. Appeasement itself, as a diagnosis of those three years, was a political diagnosis from people who wanted to besmirch the Chamberlain government, who you could argue ran this fantastic

rearguard action to get to the point where we were able to deal with Nazi Germany. You could argue that. You can toss it in either direction. So I'm interested in that know uses and abuses of history uh kind of in a way that comics always have them because you're always looking for cultural cultural touch points where you know you can definitely get people to all they all know about something dennis norton talked what you know died quite recently talked talked about in a really great interview, he said he started writing comedy after the Second World War

when you lived in essentially a monoculture because everyone had been through the same thing. So finding things for everyone to laugh at was pretty easy, right? And that version of history is a thing I think everyone has in common. So you can push those buttons as sort of... And it's our cultural bathwater. There you go. After that history.

There you go. Don't drink the bathwater, though. You end up, like Boris Johnson, imagining you're Winston Churchill. Because he's definitely drunk the bathwater and may have peed in the bath before he did it. Oh, my Lord. His 14th century now long repealed century, now, long repealed laws.

Yes, long repealed, but it doesn't matter because no one knows. I mean, in a way, he was doing what the Pablano would do there. You know, I used to have this routine where I would prove, historically, that Great Britain, and he never calls it the UK, the Pablano, because no one does, right? That Great Britain has, even though he obviously includes Northern Ireland in it, that Great Britain has defeated every single country in the world at war. And he does that as a, like, and so you'd say, well, what about the War of 1812 against the United States?

And so I'd do a whole load of waffle about the White House being, you know, burned down by the Royal Marines and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And anyway, they're our ally, and that counts as losing to us. You know, so, and that's what boris is doing he's using one pulling out a thing going dazzle dazzle look at this and then constructing an argument even though it's rubbish and and you know it's it's no coincidence that politicians do this because they're looking for things to they're looking for things to... They're looking for things... Either things we all understand or all things we go, oh, that's interesting.

And that Prime Munieri, wasn't it? Yes, that's right. Everyone goes, oh, yes, that's interesting. No-one's heard of it. Of course they haven't. But they also expect it from that brand of Conservative. Anyway. He knows his medieval history. And it turns out he didn't.

Yeah, well, who does? Who knows what happened in the Middle Ages? Nobody, not really. You ran for office. Yes, not really. You ran for office. Yes, I did. You ran for high office. Well, no. You ran for office.

Office against Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK. And all the other parties. Otherwise, on Twitter, it would be like, you're a meltdown, sorry, it's Nigel. And how did it go? Remind me how many votes you got. 318, which is a Kabbalic number

that's in the Bible I think at one point Abraham actually selects 318 warriors or something like that it's all getting a bit Q and on yeah

you're going to be somewhere on a big whiteboard with some string absolutely so 318 listen man that's 318 more people

than I've ever voted for me but you would run as a wig wouldn't you an old fashioned wig proper old fashioned wig home rule for Ireland me. But you would run as a wig, wouldn't you? An old-fashioned wig. Proper old-fashioned wig. Home rule for Ireland. But as you I mean, obviously, because

as you get older, do you like getting in the cut and thrust of political discourse? It's something I've been drawn into more and more, I think. It used to be something that didn't bother me but to be honest, a lot of the stuff that Pablon was banging on about when I first started

doing the act in the mid-90s, which was quite a big chunk of the act, was his sort of hallucinatory year of scepticism, basically. And I used to do that because that was, I thought, an amusing fringe activity that, you know, kind of... Now it's mainstream. So you were like

making jokes about the WTO? You know, I used to go on it's mainstream. So you were, like, making jokes about the WTO. You know, I used to go on about Maastricht and wanting to be a metric martyr, wanting to be arrested for using Imperial. You know, because that was the flesh and blood of it in the 90s. It was all about metric, it was all about weights and measures and this sort of foreign dictatorship, blah, blah, blah. And anyway, but I had that in the act

and it was a fringe activity. And now the thing that the act used to be really concerned about is mainstream, is absolutely smack in the middle. So I've sort of been dragged into relevance by events. I was quite happy being irrelevant. And he probably took the piss out of socialists as well. Well, yeah, absolutely. Although, in lots of ways, the pub landlord is quite...

He's quite an old Labour 1970s socialist. Yes. Or, you know, he believes in the working man and all that sort of stuff, in a ludicrous abstract way, of course. But so he's... Because he's a mesh of all sorts of things. Because, after all, a great deal of old laborism was quite tied up in a national in national ideas you know which

is what david edgerton's writing about at the moment really interestingly that you know that you've got a national thing at the core of of the of the labor movement right right certainly from the end of the second world war, but that's a digression. So yeah, I found politics has dragged my act back into being relevant, having been quite, I was quite happy to be wittering on about this stuff to myself and my audience and not really being anything to do

with the main discourse, but now smack back in the middle. Thanks to the likes of Nigel Farage who stole my act. He stole your seat. He stole your seat. Yeah. Right, just last thing. We can't go because we're sitting in your lovely study and there is an enormous, enormous drum kit here.

Just talk me through this passion because this is something... Well, I've played the drums since I was a kid and on and off. I played in bands when I was at uni, and then after uni tried to be a musician for a bit, and then realised I wasn't good enough. Which is, I think it's always important in life,

if you're not very good at something, realise. Realise that as soon as possible, and then you can carry on enjoying it by not pursuing it to the point where you ruin it and you in the process. So I know lots of musicians who some days would rather not go near a musical instrument but have to. So anyway, so the long and the short of it is I met a drum maker five years ago. I was having one last drum set made that I would never do it again.

Two years later, his employment changed. It's the most polite way of putting it all. And I said to him, the thing you should never say to anyone, well, if that happens, if they really do let you go, you must, we should go into business together. And three weeks later, he rang me up. Were you serious about that? So we now have a factory in Stockport. We're called the British Drum Company. The drums are handmade in England. We make our own ply. We have our own cold-press lamination method that's proprietary and not like what anyone else does.

We had three people on the floor three years ago, and we've 14 now, and it's growing. You're exporting to China? We're exporting to China, yes, I know. You know, something like 40 million people play the piano in China. The size of the music market in China and also their

taste for high-end European products. Well, I mean, let's hope we don't, touch wood we don't mess it up, but it's quite a big, there's quite an opportunity there. But the thing that's really great is we're plugging into manufacturing tradition here where people have been having this stuff designed here and made in the Far East

and we're making the darn things by hand in England. The ply in the shell is so precise, it's cut by hand with a Stanley knife and then it clicks into place in the shell. And there's this amazing satisfying moment where the ply clicks in and then you put the next one in and build up the ply like that and it's there's just something about the Satisfaction, you know, it's carpentry So it goes back to the dawn of all the way to the dawn of time So now when I live near Southampton dockyards and I always think think, oh, it's sad, there's nothing leaving on those ships.

And now I know, in all those vast, empty containers, one of those containers is going to be absolutely chock full of Al Murray's drum kit. That's very, very likely. That's so cool. Yeah, we have this thing where the container comes, the container for America comes, and the whole floor fills the damn thing and then off it goes.

It's very exciting. Oh, that's incredibly exciting. Man, it makes me think I chose the wrong career path. So anyway, I'll thank you. We're looking for investors. Thank you so much for coming, bud. It's a pleasure. Really, on the podcast, it's been well overdue

and it's just great to share your passion of history with everyone out there. Well, yeah, thank you. It's good well overdue and it's just great to share your passion of history with everyone out there. Well, yeah, thank you. It's good to have someone. The thing about this is we could talk for... There's a time limit on this podcast, because people have lives. We have been lost on a few wormholes. Oh, God, it's been brilliant.

Okay, thank you. thank you and give us a five-star rating and a review. It really helps, basically boosts up the chart, which is good, and then more people listen, which is nice. So if you could do that, I'd be very grateful. I understand if you don't want to subscribe to my TV channel. I understand if you don't want to buy my calendar, but this is free. Come on, do me a favour. Thanks.