Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep5: Loremen S3 Ep5 - Captain Thicknesse

Episode Date: January 23, 2020

Who starts flame wars wherever he goes? Who clearly has a problem with male midwives? Who won't let it lie? Even beyond the grave, with his own son, no less. Thicknesse. You're damn right. We delve deep into the peculiar life of Captain Thicknesse, 1719-1792, an English author, eccentric and piece of work. The Thicknesse first showed up in series 2 episode 10 The London Monster. @loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. And this episode is about one of my favourite people from all of history. Whoa. You said that you're not one of my favourite people from history. Yeah. You're from the present, James. All people in history. All people in history. All people in history. Whoa. You said that you're not one of my favourite people from history. Yeah. You're from the present, James.

All people in history. All people in history. All people in history. Yes. That's all people. Yeah. You're Jesuses. You're Maramids.

You're Dalai Lamas. Actually, there are more than one of them, aren't there? Yeah, there's tons. He's the best of the bunch, James. This episode is about Captain Thickness. No, I don't remember

his first name. It's not important. I hope it's Max. Max Thickness. No, I don't remember his first name. It's not important. I hope it's Max. Max Thickness. Just start the episode, James. Play the music. Well, this is the story of Captain Philip Thickness. Yes, Witness the Thickness. Yes, witness the thickness.

A.K.A. Was he from Witness? You didn't even let me get out me A.K.A. Oh, no, A.K.A. Philip Thickness, A.K.A. Thick Phil. And I'm spelling that with two C's. Oh, yeah. A.K.A. Thick Philly style, which I think is how it is.

Oh, nice. Yeah, he's a real white boy. If you're a keen listener, you'll remember that Thickness appeared in the London Monster story. Yeah. Engaged in a sort of... A.K.A. The Girth. He was having a flame war with a guy called Cruikshanks over which one of them was the monster. Spoiler, neither of them were the monster.

Well, they were because the monster was man. You are actually right. That is the moral of that story. The moral of the story is the monster is man, yeah. Yes the monster was man. You are actually right. That is the moral of that story. The moral of the story is the monster is man, yes. It really was. Now, you might think, I'm sure that was just a one-off case of a man getting into a ridiculous argument. I'm sure that didn't happen constantly throughout Philip Figgins' life. Yeah, he Michael Douglas-ed him falling down.

No, he didn't. No. He Charlie Sheen-ed the whole time No. He Charlie Sheen'd the whole time. In actual Charlie Sheen's life. Had to choose another actor whose parent was also famous. That's good work. That was a very apt choice. Yeah.

So you might expect that that was a one-off case of being just as mad as a bean. But it wasn't. This is a guy who had enemies. He was a lord nomad addict and a gambler. The Thickness. The Thickness. Not Charlie Sheen. Not Charlie... Well, I don't know about Lordnam. Thickness was also a famously terrible writer.

Here's an example of how be-enemied this man was. He lists his enemies regularly in the things he's writing. I'm just grabbing the book so I can quote this directly because I wouldn't want to slander him because he does not like to be slandered. Oh, by the way, this is how I'm assuming thickness talks. I can at any time muster ten or a dozen knaves or fools who will put a hundred pounds in my pocket merely for holding them up to public scorn.

Let me see. I will muster up my forces and begin as all scholars... He misspells the word scholars. Oh, no, I think that's a pun. Is it? If he's talking about really slagging off, he's like making it like dullards, I reckon. Oh. I reckon.

Wow, a subtle zinger there. Yeah, I'm a master of the subtle zinger. I will begin with my A, B, C. One, rum, Wiltshire fumigating duke. Ten, lords. A long, white-headed travelling parson three doctors of physic

a broken deaf and lame sea duck ten thousand five hundred male midwives and about the same number of their silly female customers a Bulgarian bath painter two hundred black legs

and a dancing master of the ceremonies that's his ABCs those are just the basic enemies. And also, you can very nearly sing it to the 12 Days of Christmas. A long, white-headed parson, three doctors of physics and a master of ceremonies. It nearly works.

10,500 male midwives and their whatever the thingies. That's the five gold rings, bitch. Male midwives. So that's the sum of his enemies. His main enemy was a guy called Adair, a.k.a. James McItrick. I think I'm pronouncing that correctly.

I won't tell you what he did say about McItrick, but I'll tell you what he didn't say. I will not call this double-named doctor a beast, a reptile, an assassin, a murder monger. But the reader will, I'm sure, excuse me in saying he is a base libeler, a liar, and a wicked, defiant man, has no pretensions to be considered

a gentleman. Also, I think he was implying that he was an assassin and all the other stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's very clever, though. He's very... It's like the Scolards. It's like, I'm not saying that he's a male midwife. I think he's a male midwife.

I think he's very modern in his, he would be great on social media. He'd be great on Twitter because he never says anything libelous, but you know what he meant. Yeah. There's a lot of dog whistles in what he's saying. So I should say that comes from his memoirs. And this is how we know most of the stuff that he did, because he published his memoirs, which were widely derided. And people had to publish other books saying,

no, that's not what happened. As he said, I'm not a male midwife. I'm sorry, I'm sticking on that one. It's the one I can remember the most. What are some of the other insults? Bulgarian bath painter. One Bulgarian bath painter. One Bulgarian bath painter.

He's got nothing against the others. Is that a Bulgarian who paints baths? Or someone who paints Bulgarian baths. Someone who paints Bulgarian baths. Or a Bulgarian bath that is itself a painter. Yeah, yeah. That's the third possibility. Yeah, like when you see,

oh, this elephant did this painting. Classic outsider art. Done by a Bulgarian bath mate. Well, it's better than a male midwife. That's my Charlie Sheen impression. Very good. Charlie Sheen. No, that was Nicolas Cage. Never mind. Just cut that out. He's talking to his mate.

He's just rigging him up. That's Nicolas Cage phoning, Charlie Sheen, is that you? Anyway, the title of his memoirs, and I need to bring this up because it is so important that this is what he called his memoirs. Memoirs and anecdotes of Philip Thickness, late Lieutenant Governor of Landguard Fort, and unfortunately father to George Touchet, Baron Audley.

Whoa! Yeah. George what? Well, it's spelled T-O-U-C-H-E-T, so I don't know if it's Touchet, Touchet, but I'm going to go with, I'm going with, da-da-da-da, da-da-da, George Touchet. That's the correct pronunciation of Baron Audley's name da da da da George Touchett that's the correct pronunciation

of Barry Oakley's name George Too you're reading a lot into it he's too well he is Captain Thickness's son

and Captain Thickness hates his son and everyone else very much like Bernard Manning he hated everyone the same oh yeah yeah

he gave he's a lot like Bernard Manning but I'm well the same. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's a lot like Bernard Manning. But, well, I'm getting ahead of myself to his time in Jamaica. Uh-oh. I have to be clear now. I know you like a good ghost. There's no ghost in this. There's no supernatural.

But there is a preternatural tendency towards belligerence, violence, anger, and vindictiveness in him. But what's brilliant is the account we have of all his vindictive behavior comes from his own memoirs, which are written like Alan Partridge's book, where every anecdote ends with needless to say, I had the last laugh. He's desperately trying- I'm not saying I didn't have the last laugh. Exactly. So to move into why he's got an issue with his son, I need to read you a piece of his writing. And it's not good. He's not a very good writer son, I need to read you a piece of his writing. And it's not good.

He's not a very good writer. What I want you to do is try and work out what type of piece of writing this is. So it's a little bit of a comprehension exercise here. Right. As I read this, I want you to be thinking about what is he trying to achieve in this piece of writing. Okay. Okay. It's called Hermit's Prayer.

God of my life, who numberest my days, teach me to meet with gratitude or patience the good or ill which the tide of time shall float down upon me. But never, O God, I humbly beseech thee, withdraw from me those native spirits which have been the cheering companions of my existence and have spread a gilding even upon my misfortunes. Continue to me, O God of life, those powers that I may view with rapture the inexhaustible volume of nature which thou hast spread before mine eyes, in every page of which I read the impression of thy omnipotent hand. Note. It is with inexpressible concern that I now find myself, under the necessity of adding to the above description to my paradisal abode, the following advertisement. Advertisement. On the 15th of June, 1789, will be sold by auction

St. Catherine's Hermitage near Bath. That was an advert for his house, James. He's moving his house, he's selling his house. All of that was just a build up to, I have to sell my house. Why does he have to sell his house? Because he's paying by the word for the advertising.

The reason he's chosen to sell it is that Esquire Hooper has told him that he would let the land all around his house to a parcel of beggars on purpose to perplex him. What's that? An argument with a neighbour? You? So he was trying to sell his house. In the end, I think, his son bought his house from him.

He said he was going to buy it from him for £100. I should say, Thickness's second wife was very, very wealthy. And so his sons inherited lots of money, which he didn't get. And one of his main issues with them is that they didn't put him in their will, so that if they died before him, he would get their money.

One of them agrees to buy his house, but he's not yet of age, so he wrote him a £100 IOU, basically. And then, when he became of age, he bought it for actually £200, which is very reasonable, and still allowed him to, basically. And then when he became of age, he bought it for actually £200, which is very reasonable, and still allowed him to live there. And over many years throughout his life, kept improving the house. Oh, that's good.

And then Thickness produced the IOU and insisted that he'd never been paid. What? Yeah, he just pretended he'd never sold him the house. And he's just like, no, I didn't get any of that money. What, Thickness? If you think that lie is obvious and not going to work, here's the big issue between him and his sons. The younger son made an affidavit against the older son that before he was of age, he put him on a horse, which was a famously wild horse, in the hope that the younger son would die and that the older son would therefore get his share of the inheritance that was coming to them both.

What? Thickness did this? No, Thickness's younger son wrote an affidavit saying that his older son, George... His brother? George Touchett had put him on a known-to-be-wild horse and sent him off riding in the hope that he would be killed on the horse. And that George Touchett would have inherited the full inheritance without it being split between the two of them now if that sounds like a weird story that a mad captain might have made up yes that's interesting because as part of an advert for uh selling a caravan maybe he's the kind of guy who if he ran a business would be in the adverts

himself oh definitely and do a long poem for no reason at the start of the advert. At the end of the book, it gets very strange. There's a letter from his son saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, all this business about the affidavit. Didn't you compel my younger brother to write that affidavit about the alleged horse attack between us?

And by the way, we've been friends for like our whole lives and there's no bad feeling between us. And what I can't get is why he's included that in his own book because it makes him look so bad but he responds to it with just an amazing like what i am starting to think that the horse story was a lie yeah it's obviously your Like, why would the younger brother have made that lie up? It's such an obvious lie, and it's such an obvious attempt to drive a wedge between the brothers. It didn't work. They were perfectly nice to him, and good

happy brothers for their whole lives. One of the problems with him as a writer is that he has no concept of how to tell a funny story. So, here's one of his funny stories. He wanted to marry a widow. This is before he married those boys' parents. And his friend advised him the way you do it

is you sneak into her chamber when she's alone. You put on a sleeping cap. What do they call those? Sleeping cap? Yeah. Bed hat. Yeah, bed hat.

You know the little floppy ones with the pop on the end from cartoons? I believe they call them a wee willy winky. You pop on a wee willy winky and then open the window and sort of smoke a pipe out the window type thing so that people on the street see you in there and then she'll be forced to marry you out of shame

oh that's very clever hilarious and brilliant idea now he claims to have not done that story but everyone in the vicinity claims that yeah yeah, he did do that, but then decided to marry a much richer widow instead. Oh, right. Hilarious story about treating widows badly. Yeah. He travelled a lot. He went to America and fell in love with a Native American

princess. Oh. And left at the last minute. Right. He went to Jamaica. Was he in her whatever smoking a pipe, with a sort of Native American headdress thing that people are banned from wearing at festivals, white people are banned from wearing at festivals. This is the problem, because he spent a lot of time in Jamaica,

suppressing indigenous people who had the audacity to think that they should be allowed to do what they want. Right, yeah. And the problem with those stories is they're not very funny and they're just too racist for a light-hearted podcast. They're too innately racist, although he does make the point of being slightly nicer to Jamaican people than everyone else was.

But we do have to remember this is his book about how brilliant he is. Right, yeah, yeah. Which is full of lies. Yes. Yeah, so just like the British education system, I'm going to skip over the colonial aspects altogether. Yeah, needless to say.

And get onto a funny story about a monkey. The thickness is a bit of it. But I said actually a funny story about a monkey. It's not a funny story. It's what he thinks is a funny story. So they had lots of pets. Did he marry the monkey in the end? Or did he leave it, jilt it at the altar?

It's a jilted monkey. The monkey's name was Jacko, and he would ride on a sort of postillion on a horse in front of him as they were travelling. Was it a horse

that no groom, was he trying to murder the monkey and get its inheritance? Murder monkey. Actually, I've missed it.

It's not really about the monkey. It's about his wife had a parakeet. Sorry. Naturally. And they were

looking after it this time on their way to Paris, which is where he would spend the last of his days. Two little girls who had a pet dog. And the pet dog and a parakeet were put into the same little closet-type space for a little while. And you see what he's going, the dog ate the parakeet.

And Thickness was so angry about this that he said he was going to cut the dog's throat. And the little girls, very unreasonably in his account of it, got very upset about this and were crying and stuff. And so he had them sent to a nunnery where one of them died. The end!

Whoa! Ba-dum-tsh! Another funny story about Captain Thickness's antics. What? Why is there a monkey? He just told them there was a monkey.

He just mentions it. The monkey was just there looking on ruefully throughout all that. I just said monkey because I knew he'd be interested if it was a monkey, even though monkey wasn't actually involved in the story. He was just present. Once you said it was a monkey, it was going to France.

I was thinking maybe that monkey had tried to escape thickness, got on a boat, the boat got shipwrecked. The French monkey, that would be perfect, a perfect tie-in. Extended universe. And he was urinating all over Piers. I imagine he probably did that anyway. There's probably nothing he didn't urinate on. There's one last thing,

because we've reached sort of the end of his life. I mean, I barely touched upon the horrible and ridiculous arguments he got into and the things he did. There's just such an angry man. But as you get older, you gain a bit of perspective, don't you? And you start to think that...

You become more right-wing. What a lot of people do is they try and patch up relationships that have been fractured. Now, obviously, nobody's superannuated period could be long enough to deal with all of the rivalries that he had built up in the course of his lifetime. Yeah, well, just the ABCs. Just the ABCs.

There's 21,000 people minimum. Imagine having that many enemies. At least he could try and patch things up with... George touch it. And so he wrote this in his will. I leave my right hand to be cut off after my death to my son, Lord Audrey. I desire it may be sent to him in the hope that such a sight may remind him of his duty to God Yeah, yeah, four fingers and a thumb, come on. Just give him the finger, James. He gave him all of the fingers. He gave him all four or five. And a thumb.

Yeah, four fingers and a thumb, come on. We don't want letters about this, please. And a bit of wrist. What a man. Wow. On a little sort of plinth kind of thing. I'm imagining it just in a sort of little tea chest kind of box. Just all dry and wrinkly.

Hello. Like the box that Thing comes out of in The Addams Family. Right. It's like the ultimate, like the original, like, higher emoji. Yeah. So you can only do it twice. In those days, you had to just send hands and actual human faces to express how you were feeling.

They would have to send it back as a thumbs up to acknowledge that they'd seen it. If you sent yourself in a wee-wee-lee-winky-cap with a pipe, then they had to marry you it's as good as a proposal it was the equivalent of the aubergine emoji in those days

it's score time James score time and that means I have to give you a series of categories and I'm really unhappy about the category of supernatural

because there isn't any there aren't any ghosts and you're never even happy even when there is a ghost in my stories you're like it wasn't very ghosty it's a terrible impression of you I don't know, he wasn't very ghosty. It's a terrible impression of you.

I don't know. Like, I wasn't very ghosty. Nope. That was good. It got better towards the end. Wasn't very ghosty. I am James Shakespeare. It's not how you talk.

Much I wish I could. So, okay, first category, supernatural. Yeah, zero. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I know he called Jack zero. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I thought he called Jacko. Explain that.

He was. And then Jacko had a monkey. Yeah. At the height of his wacko-ness. Yeah, exactly. A monkey with a spooky name. Coincidence. Yes.

Yes. One point for a coincidence. One point for a coincidence. Okay, thank you. That's more than I could have hoped for. Second category, names. Okay, thank you. That's more than I could have hoped for. Second category, names. Yeah, all right. That's good.

Some of them have appeared before and I have also. I mean, the main reason Captain Thickness appeared in the other story was so I could get points for names because he's called Captain Thickness. Yeah, definitely. I love him.

Captain Thickness, a.k.a. Why Johnny, a.k.a. Wideload. We've got James McAtrick who has two names yeah return of the

Mac a twice named doctor who I also don't think was really a doctor wait what were his two names also Adair Mr Adair

Mr Adair yeah and James McAtrick McAtrick McAtrick McAtrick one more time

McAtrick yep cool and a monkey called Jacko and a monkey called Jacko it turns out monkey called Jacko, it turns out. So, four. Four. Good.

All right. I'll accept that. Because thickness is brilliant. George 2 is brilliant. Do we have to bleep it if it's part of another word? I don't know. Macaday is, yeah, that's just a name. It's just an odd name.

It's just an odd name, yeah. But then a monkey called Jacko back up there. Okay, great. Any of those widows' names might have helped out. I think they do have names. We don't want to cause them any further shame for fear that they might have to marry someone. Yeah, I'm not looking at those women's names. Okay, my next category is fake news.

Oh, faux-new. Yeah. Faux-new. Yeah. Faux-nu-vo. I'm not saying that this book is full of lies, but yeah, it's pretty... I think there's something Trumpian about the way he just lies constantly and obviously, but with a sort of bellicose confidence. But in a similar way, he sort of reveals quite a lot of truth. Yes.

By saying, by reporting in his own autobiography. His own scam. I never, I never, there was a time when my youngest son accused me of trying to get him to put his older brother on a horse that was out of control. I'm not saying I did that, but I did. You did get the two brothers the wrong way around. It's not important. Well, it shows I must be lying.

Post-truth. It doesn't matter. It's got to be five out of five. Yeah. Final category, wouldn't let it lie. Oh, yeah. Five. He wouldn't let it lie oh yeah it's five he he wouldn't let it lie would he no i think if i weren't to give him five out of five i would find myself on the end of a on the end of a list of abcs so that's one point for every finger of a hand that you send to someone

yeah to win an argument yes definitely it's five five points per Bulgarian bath painter. And it is 0.02 something per male midwife that has specifically angered you. How? Is he just... Surely all midwives are male. You misunderstood. The male midwives... Most midwives are women, traditionally. Even in the past? Well, there were at least 1,500 of them, according to my sources, in the mid-18th century. 1,500? I don't remember what number it was. Or 10,050 or something.

I'll check, because we wouldn't want to get this wrong. Imagine if we said something inaccurate. That seems like a lot. That seems like more people than I imagine there being in the country. But I think you've misunderstood and you've given him too much credit. You said, how did they annoy him? Right. As if they started it. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no.

He annoyed all of them. Oh. Yes. He started the beef. Oh. With 10,000, sorry, 10,500. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. 10,500 male midwives. And the same number of their silly female customers,

which means they only have one customer each. Which also implies that he interrupted something every time he went. Like a consultation. He's like, It's a male midwife! Shouldn't be male! But 10,000... Like, genuinely.

Because this is the thing. I don't know if you've seen the comic book films that have been on recently in the cinemas. Marvel. Not heard of them, no. Oh, they're really a thing. In one of them, half of the people in the world get vanished. Yeah. That's half the midwives.

They're never wandering around like, oh, it's quite empty. And then I Google when the world's population was half of what it is now. It's like 1970. Genuinely, it's not that long ago. And it's probably quite nice. the world's population was half of what it is now. It's like 1970. Genuinely, it's not that long ago. And it's probably quite nice. It's all right. I mean, a bit of sexism.

You wouldn't go to New York, but yeah, it seems lovely everywhere else. For white men. Yeah, maybe. You should do like a white men review website where you just go, fine. Yeah, seems all right. Not a problem. Yeah, where you just go, fine. Yeah, seems all right. Not a problem. Yeah, didn't have any issues here.

Yeah. It's got to be five. Five out of five. Five out of five. Thank you, Captain. Yeah, I don't think he's really a captain. Wouldn't want to be on his ship. It's like a saucy Captain Birdseye.

Captain Thickness on a sex ship. You know that this is a sex ship, don't you? As you're already leaving harbour. What? What? I don't... Oh, no. What is a sex ship? I'll explain.

It's part of my saucy flotilla. I'm a Randy Admiral. Rear Admiral. Oh, of course. It was just there, James. Well, that was the life and some of the times of Captain Thickness. What's coming next week, James? This next one is also a return.

It's the return of Cuthbert Shields. Who's Cuthbert Shields? I hear you cry. I was literally about to cry there. Remember when he came and then left in order for him to return? Yeah, it's one of those inaccurately named stories. See Mark Morrison's album, The Return of the Mac.

First of all, do you make? Please like, subscribe and comment. Yeah, we are always open for suggestions that don't slander members of the royal family. Or Noel Edmonds. Yeah. For all we know, he didn't.