Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Rich people in the public eye - with Dan Snow

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

Jane and Fi pitch a device to help short people feel more comfortable in the bath.They're also joined by historian Dan Snow, who chats about his latest documentary about the Black Death.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producer: Kea BrowningTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

where did you say what are you in trouble for i don't even know what um well this is very important that people know this yes okay uh no it was at the beginning of the times radio program today yes it was a there was a technical issue with our newsreader so I had to just keep talking when I didn't really have a lot to say which is the story of my working life really and I ended up, it was a joke but I said that I'd watch the rugby on Saturday I wasn't much of a joke

it's awful when you have to I didn't even want to finish the sentence you have to examine the entrails of a joke that didn't work it wasn't a joke but I do know it's not goals in rugby. But I do also know that England were just dreadful. They were just dreadful on Saturday afternoon. They had no answer to the French.

No answer at all. Non. Non. Rien de tout. Absolutely crap. Anyway, I'm sure things will improve Can I just mention that we have had a French correspondent Of course you can

Well, actually, it's Deborah who isn't French Hello ladies from a hospital bed in Annecy in France It's annoying for you There I was, minding my own business on an unexceptional blue piste nearly two weeks ago I'm just going over to our skiing correspondent What's a blue piste? It's quite an easy one.

Is it? Yeah. Or is it the easiest? No, green I think is the easiest. Is it? Yeah. And is blue next? Then it goes blue, then red, then black.

Okay. On an unexceptional blue piste, just cannot say that, nearly two weeks ago, in a patch of ice surprised me, hence me now being flat on my back with a fractured pelvis far from home. Oh, no, that's horrible. Oh, Deborah, really, that's horrible.

My French is beyond appalling, and the English rugby team, having given the staff here good reason for much derision, British radio has preserved my sanity. Just one problem, I'm not in pain except for when I laugh, and listening to you two does make me laugh. Dilemma, do I abandon you and mope, or stick with you and suffer? Yours in post-menopausal sisterhood, Deborah. Deborah, I think you'll have to just ride the pain,

although I cannot imagine what that pain is like. And if it is unbearable, just leave us for a couple of weeks until you're feeling a bit stronger. And also, if it's any consolation, we're really very unfunny today. Oh, most of the time. Yeah, we're very unfunny today. So I wouldn't listen to that at all. But really, deepest sympathies, that is a horrible injury. And I'm sure it has run through your mind that skiing's not worth it.

Well, it does make you think, doesn't it? Yes, it does. Yeah, because just a patch of ice coming up at you like that. If you're not very good, like I'm not very good, there's a kind of loop playing in your head all the time that is just, you know, something terrible is going to happen, something terrible is going to happen. And I'm not sure that I want to push on through with my own personal skiing journey

to see whether either something terrible does happen or that thought goes away. It's funny that it's not just things like that. So maybe it's just something that happens at our sort of age. But a really good friend of a really good friend of mine had just a very mundane domestic incident a couple of weeks ago that's put her in hospital. She's had any number of operations. She just had a bit of a fall.

But sometimes if you fall from the wrong height or in the wrong way at the wrong time, you can really suffer. I agree. Not just skiing. Actually, I'd like to say huge, huge warm wishes to my lovely cousin Caroline, who did exactly that. She was carrying a great big basket of laundry down the stairs,

missed the last step, pins in the legs, everything. Oh, no. Yep. Right. So if you are, I tell you what, isn't the most dangerous place you can be? Is it in socks on your stairs? Yep. And also it's in the home.

In the home. Right. That's not very cheery. But we just say, yeah, we say, you know, get better soon. And I really hope that, you know, that your next holiday obviously is less eventful. Just go somewhere, lie down on a sun lounger. Right. I'm going to read this one out and we don't have to dwell on the subject, Jane, because I know that we've talked quite a lot about it today. Steady yourself against something firm. Dear Fi and Jane, can I just say how much of those of us who work with refugees are cheering Gani Lineker and colleagues on for their stand?

I can't do it publicly as I work for a local authority where I was grudgingly given just £40 to fund summer activities for young unaccompanied asylum seekers. By putting your own money in and finding generous partners and volunteers, we did manage to provide visits, sports, arts and picnics, but it just fills me with anger at how these vulnerable children are treated. No one would want that for their child. I work with a wonderful group of impressive young people who've suffered unspeakable trauma and are housed in hostels far from home without any resident care from the age of 16.

It's heartbreaking and the language we use is really important. It's cheering to hear this simple plea to do better in how we talk about refugees in a public space. Thank you, Gary et al. Thank you for reading this. Keep up the good work. You cheer me and my colleagues up. We are all women of a certain age. Well, you're doing incredibly important work. If we bobble along beside you sometimes, then that's just a lovely thing for us, actually. And I hear you.

Whatever you think of Gary Lineker, his salary, his position or whatever, the conversation about how we discuss people who are trying to get to this country or other countries, escape a life, is just so important. And that is where it all started. I just think sometimes too many of us forget that we're almost certainly at some level descended from somebody who came here hoping for a better life. Oh, totally. It's just, why else would you come? And also, do you know what, Jane? I quite often think when this kind of, and it's obviously not the first time that a row about the language around migration has gone off

and people start saying, some people start saying absolutely terrible things sometimes. Those people are exactly the vociferous, ambitious, determined people who would be the first to want to leave and to try and make a better life for themselves and their families in a different part of the world had they been born in the circumstances that so many people seeking migration have been born into.

So it just seems so hypocritical for those people to use their voice to be mean to others. I also do think, though, and I think I said this on the radio show, although sometimes I forget what I've said, that I may or may not agree or disagree with what Gary Lineker said about the use of language by the government. But I just wish he hadn't said it, because he must have known what trouble he was going to cause for an employer that I'm really fond of and care about, the BBC, and I know a lot of other people in Britain really care about the BBC,

and particularly understand at the moment how many challenges it's got, and he just hasn't helped. Who would you think would be an acceptable person to say that? Oh, no, no, it's not... Because you could argue that... I don't think anyone accepting over a million quid from an employer that is fighting for its life in terms of its relationship with the government at the moment,

I don't think Gary Lineker has helped the BBC very much by saying what he said at the time he said it. I simply don't believe, he's an intelligent man, I simply don't believe that he didn't know what controversy he was going to cause. But I throw this into the mix. Would it not be true that during the campaign for

equal pay at the BBC, it would actually have been nice to hear from extremely well-known people of both male and female colleagues who worked right at the top end in the six-figure salary department with millions of squillions of followers on Twitter.

Well, we didn't, though, did we really? No. Right, this is all about Richard the Furness. Oh, no, this is important. I'm very glad that Louise sent this. So this is from Louise Seymour, who says, Just a quick email,

because I don't want Jane to get a pub quiz question wrong. Heaven forbid. I'm sure she said on Monday that one of three funerals the late Queen attended was that of King Richard III. I did, and I was wrong. A couple of things. There was no funeral for Richard. The only ceremony allowed was the re-internment of his remains

in a new tomb in Leicester Cathedral. It was a big old ceremony, but not a funeral service as such. Also, the Queen definitely didn't attend. She delegated to Sophie, Countess of Wessex. Benedict Cumberbatch. Now, of course. The Duchess of Edinburgh. So much to catch up on.

So much! I'm amazed I got that right. Benedict Cumberbatch was there, based on the fact that he apparently is some very distant descendant. I once played Richard III. I was lucky enough to be working for Leicester City Council, says Louise, and was involved from the point we were given permission for the University's

archaeology service to dig up the social services car park. The social workers were not pleased, as you can imagine, particularly as the city mayor said at the time they were more likely to find the bone fragments of a Kentucky fried chicken takeaway and the lead archaeologist said

he would eat his hat if they found Richard III. And they did. She goes on to say happily they found him and then we went on an amazing journey to prove that it was Richard. I'm glad you had such a good time doing all of that. It does sound like a very hectic year and bit

and Louise ends by saying anyone who knows anything about construction and high profile projects will understand that when I said when I say that I went grey that year although you would never know with my six weekly visits to the hairdresser I'm very impressed it's only six weekly visits

because I'm on about I have to go about once every month at the moment. Well, I'm about five. Are you? Yeah, six and I really start to feel it. When are we going to stop dyeing our hair? Well, we'll involve you, Louise, in that conversation because I'm not stopping for the time being.

No, I do love that quote. You're more likely to find a Kentucky Fried Chicken takeaway. Oh, it's Richard III. Just imagine some of the conversations around that. And I stand corrected. And I think I actually picked up that tidbit from the socials. So it just shows you. And also, it's just fantastic that somebody with absolutely all the knowledge was listening.

So I really appreciate that. Do you know what else I saw on socials yesterday which knocked me sideways? What? Genuinely. Was that apparently there was somebody on TikTok had said, this was then reported on Twitter, that they knew someone who thought that the numbers on a toaster's dial were related to the amount of toastiness

that would be applied to the bread or bagel or whatever it might be, rather than to minutes. Oh, I've always thought it was the amount of toastiness. And so have I. Is it minutes? It's minutes. Is it always minutes? It's minutes.

I had absolutely no idea. Well, I'm amazed that both you and I have come to such venerable years I am nearly 150 years of age with that mistaken knowledge I thought it just meant 5 was very very dark 3 was a bit medium and 2 was flabby No, I'm going to approach toasting my bagel tomorrow morning in a whole new way

Okay I'll get impatient now I'll get very impatient I don't like the idea of having to stand looking at my toaster for five minutes. Well, you don't do it for five minutes. Why would you? Well, because, no, you do. You do.

Yeah, no, I like a... See, no, they're wrong, Jane, because it's not five minutes. I'm quite often at the high end of the dial and it's not five minutes. You're at the high end of the dial, all right. A quick one here from Joe, who says, catching up with Offair this week as I walk my two Labradors, sloping and sliding by a muddy lake, I got rather overexcited on a number of occasions

at things you were chatting about and nearly went for a Burton, if I'm still allowed to say that. And I thought, are you? I mean, what does that come from, going for a Burton? Is that because Richard Burton drank a burton uh is that because richard burton drank a lot and fell over isn't there another richard burton something to do with opera i don't know composer i've never stopped to think about what going for a burton means gone for a burton that's gone for a burton uh and maybe it's one of those phrases that we've

been using it without understanding that there's something wrong with it. Gosh. Yeah. You better get back in touch, Jo. Jo also says that she's got in touch this time because of the mention of the lady shed. No plug. She says, well, it is kind of. Our podcast, Rich Pickings, comes straight from my podcasting partner, Nina's Garden Shed,

which has bookshelves and armchairs and is a very nice place to record from. And last week we had the ultimate praise of our guest, James Alexander Sinclair, telling us that he enjoys listening to us after listening to you. Anyway, the point is we love a shed and everyone should have one. She goes on to say,

I got very, very excited last month at your mention of Commissario Brunetti, Donna Leon's hero. And she's attached a video of the opening night of the Venice Carnival from the actual terrace belonging to Commissario Brunetti. When I say actual, I mean the spot used for the TV location. It often happens that when one's in the bathroom minding one's own business, there'll be a plaintive, Ist das Haus von Commissario Brunetti? Call from a hopeful German visitor who's come all the way to find this location

only to discover, as so often happens in this watery city, that you need to travel half an hour back to the other side of the Grand Canal in order to view it. Now, this is because Commissario Brunetti is one of the most successful long-running crime dramas in Germany where the rights were sold. Oh, they've got a TV show there. So they've got a TV show that keeps...

And do you remember we had this conversation about strange places where a crime novel becomes really famous without the people around them really understanding it. There are German series set in Cornwall as well, aren't there? Yes, I think the Chamomile Lawn. Right. Yes, I think, wasn't it the writings of that novelist? Anyway. But that just made me laugh because I was also wondering if I'd be able to watch, because obviously I love Commissario Brunetti,

would I be able to watch the German version with English subtitles, obviously written about Italy. Or is that too much of a journey to be taken on, do you think? I'm back in Brexit. I don't understand a word of that. Let's just involve Paul in Chelmsford. I know you wanted pictures of she-sheds with their soft furnishings, wall coverings and wicker chairs,

but I want to offer my man cave. More brutal plain white walls, drab grey blinds, tools hanging from the rafters and the obligatory work made. It's all a bit of a mess as I'm building a model railway and the danger of having a man cave

is I no longer put my tools away. Paul, thank you. Yes, yours is a very butch world indeed, and one I wouldn't dream of entering. But thank you very much indeed for sharing it with us. He was the bloke I met on the gondola going up the mountain in Banisco. Hello, Paul. Yes, nice to have you on board.

He's obviously not forgotten you, has he? A holiday flirtation, who knows where it might lead. Do you know what? You always think that literally whenever I talk to a man that there's some kind of relationship that's going to follow. We had a really interesting conversation about gentrification, about knife crime outside of London. Gentrification and knife crime.

All on the gondola on the way up. It's not that flirty, is it, really? Not really. I think we had talked about the legalisation of helmets across Europe as well. Molly says, I'm not sure what's been going on in the last 24 hours, but last night I hopped into a bubble bath with a chocolate mousse pot. It was a rare treat.

I should say that she was eating it. It was a rare treat for me to eat in the bath and I was listening to Fern Cotton's podcast which began to go into sudden detail about the distinctive tang of fox poo as you can imagine not much of the moose was enjoyed after that, now I can imagine and oh Fern's on to something

that is a particularly vile stench isn't it? This afternoon as I sat working from home I decided to heat up a slice of carrot cake as an afternoon treat while listening to you both and talk almost immediately turned to postures i must admit i had to put you both on mute to eat the cake i got through in the end is this some demonic sign from the universe to tell me to stop having sweet treats no molly it's no sign um you just go on enjoying your treats in the bath i don't

actually i remember a great joy before i needed glasses to read was to read in the bath and now i just can't do that anymore how did you deal with the steam well no because i didn't need glasses to read from just read a book oh i see yeah so it's the whole long and and since the glasses have come on you can't takes that little joy away, doesn't it? Another thing that you just learn to live without. But also, how come you could be comfortable reading in the bath? Because you're absolutely minute. And didn't you slip down? Did you have one of those sticky things at the top?

A special thing stuck me to the top of the bath. Do you know what? That's what you should mark it later in life. What would you call it? An in-bath harness. Midget pad. Yes. That'd be all right.

So I'm more thinking it's something you attach to the taps at one end and some kind of firm piece of furniture at the other and it just kind of lifts you up and holds you you know like a hammer across the bar like a bob about gently yes as the waves evan flow yeah and you think maybe just get an in-bath chair am i in santorini or am i still at home as i glance up at my bottle of matey matey matey oh I tell you what the whiff of romance

is never going to die in your household you should try some badidas shouldn't you do you remember that advert things happen after a badidas bath and I always wondered when I was about 8 that sounds terrible what awful fate is going to befall this pretty woman?

Right, this comes from Francis. I love the email you read out on Thursday about kindness being next to wisdom. Oh, this is a really good one, Jane, and then we will get to our lovely guest, Dan Snow, and that giving someone an exit route out of a sticky situation can be an act of kindness in itself. I've always associated wisdom with empathy. I think

it's less about pure knowledge and more about walking around a problem to find out how other people might see it. The email made me think about my cousin. She's a humanitarian aid worker and an expert in negotiation with armed non-state actors. I mean, that's a job, isn't it? Yeah. And has lived and worked all over the Middle East for the last 10 years. I asked her recently how she managed negotiations. I think I was expecting something about walking in authoritatively and trying to look powerful. But she replied, it's only ever about building a ladder for the other person to climb down. There's a quiet strength in that, which I think is a lot more impressive than bulldozing and I really wanted to give her a shout out she's one of the most life-affirming people I've ever known and my

absolute hero who's always been like a big sister to me well what a lovely thing to say about somebody Frances we're more than happy to do that shout out and just imagine if you're trying to do that job Jane we're actually allowing somebody to get themselves out of the place of aggression that they're in really does take some doing, doesn't it? You can't meet it with aggression because that just escalates it. It won't help at all. But the kind of machinations you're going to have to do to allow that person to come good without losing face.

It does take a proper amount of thought and a quick reaction would not be appropriate, would it? No. No. I just wanted to mention Barnes has sent a lovely email, a very long one, full of all sorts of musings. They're currently accompanying, that's Barnes and her husband, I think it's her, on a two-month overseas tour.

So far, the couple have been to Malaysia, gosh, Melbourne, Tasmania, a place I've never heard of called Noosa. What's that? No. Coffs Harbour, Nelson, have you heard of Noosa? Yes. Kia is an Australian. She's Antipodean. She's producing our podcast this week.

So what is Noosa? Like a beach town. Is it like Blackpool? very southport yeah a little bit place so barnes has gone all this way just to visit somewhere that she could have visited in the mersey riviera southport uh nelson bay and now in sydney before we head off to hawaii and san francisco we're returning to heathrow on the 2nd of april um but that's not right i don't know why i mentioned all this although it does sound an amazing trip. Does she want us to pick her up?

My flight gets in. I am relatively close to Heathrow although long term listeners will know I struggle to find it. Don't ever ask Jane to pick me up at the airport. Don't book me for an airport pick up. But Barnes wanted to reminisce about she had an aunt who

pronounced things in a funny way, a bit like my great aunt Rita, who for a period of time towards the end of her life decided that coins was pronounced Coen's. And Barnes's aunt also took a similar term. Oh, no, it was her mother-in-law. That's right. Her mother-in-law who died a few weeks of her 106th birthday. She always talked very fondly about a place she insisted was called the Coxwolds. And it was the same lady who told me on our first meeting. This is a great quote. You don't need to look like a boy. There are operations nowadays. Then she got you have big legs for such a slim person.

Mary didn't dress well either. Mary was my husband's previous wife Gosh Legend Hashtag legend That's what that lady clearly was Oh that's amazing I cannot wait to be approaching my 106th birthday God the podcast will be good then won't it

Because you'll be quite perky You'll only be 102 Yeah So you'll be very much in charge And it'll be quite perky. You'll only be 102. Yeah. And so you'll be very much in charge. And it'll be great. I'll be saying exactly what I want. Yes. I can't wait for that too.

It'll be absolutely glorious. I don't think there ever comes a time where I think I'm always going to be, well, I know that I'm always going to be four years younger than you. I don't think there comes a time when I'm allowed to kind of overtake you in years, Jane. No, I'm not an idiot. I do know that. But you've just said that I'll be in charge. I don't think that's going to happen.

Well, I mean, I meant that I might be a little frailer. OK, yeah. Right. Shall we talk about historian Dan Snow now? Yes. OK, it is time. He came on the programme today and he was really delightful. He wanted to talk about his Channel 5 documentary, which he's made with the archaeologist Raksha Dave, which is all about the Black Death.

But he did indulge us as well because we thought, as a man who has studied so much history, and actually modern British history in particular, we wanted him to give us some context about Gary Lineker's tweet and the bit where that all started, where he compared the language used in the government's new asylum seeker policy to that of 1930s Germany. There are very clever historians, eminent people who have said he was right,

people who have said he was yeah he was right that the uh the the language of the 1930s became about othering uh talking about picking on a group in society and giving them a kind of disproportionate agency in the problems that working men and women face the reason your lives are rubbish is because these these people over here now clearly you know those migrant boats is a problem that people are very exercised about. But, you know, for example, it's less likely to affect your life than the cost of childcare, or the ability to make your next mortgage payments in light of increasing rates. And yet, for some reason, we're programmed as a species to kind of go, that's a nice target, there's some people in some boats, they're coming over here, let's talk about this,

in a kind of disproportionate way to their actual importance, I think, in all of our lives. So, and I think what he was referring to is that it begins, it began, in the famous expression, it didn't begin with massive genocide. It began with a slow attritional process of undermining people's personhood and creating an out group in order to kind of bolster power of of an entrenched political interest the problem is on the other side it's clearly deeply offensive to victims of fascism the hundreds of millions of tens of millions of people who died in the middle of 20th century whose lives were ruined to start to start you didn't use the

word fascist or nazi but you know you're making, you're comparing two things that perhaps there are big dissimilarities as well. So I'm kind of really boring, unfortunately. I think the language, you can't, I don't think you can fire someone for that tweet. You can sort of disagree with it and take it. And it's kind of interesting, but it wasn't a grotesque, sackable offence, I don't think.

And also it's outside, as you guys have been discussing, it's outside work, you know, how do we how do we manage this? Yeah. Do you think it was just a rather naive interpretation of history? Well, I mean, I think if I think it's naive. I mean, I think it is. There are there are historians who've come out and said, actually, no, this is this is this is the choosing pick choosing groups to to highlight and talk about, in the same way that we talk about trans people. There are very few trans people in this country. Very few of us meet trans people on a regular basis.

And yet the amount of time we spend talking about trans people is extraordinary. And a part of that is because certain malign interests want us to kind of be worried and be mobilised and not talk about other things that do actually affect us, like I say, like your kids' primary school results and building, say, to building repair and stuff. So I think it's not necessarily naive, I just think it's one interpretation that is probably, you know, I have some sympathy for it, but I think it is, it's pushing, it's, yeah, But I think it's pushing, historians would say that is sort of pushing at that parallel. And by the way, the fact that he was then immediately, if you're looking to say that we have nothing in common with 1930s Germany,

immediately trying to get the person fired who said that and shutting down that debate is not a terrific look. I mean, they're sort of perhaps demonstrating that you're very happy with that free speech and you choose to ignore it. And, you know, that might have been a cleverer way to handle it for those who disagreed with him. We will come on to talk about the Black Death in just a couple of moments' time. I was very struck by something that was said by Pat Young, who used to work at the BBC,

who was in charge of television, I think, for a while this morning, where he said the important thing to remember is that people have a right to comment on the kind of passage of history. We are standing by history all the time when we look at news and current affairs in our present. And if you want to be a person who doesn't want to see history repeated, you're entitled to say something at this time. i thought that was a very good point to make yeah i think the thing is we complained about 10 15 20 years ago now we all complained the whole time the only things kids studied in school was

the rise of totalitarians in europe and we thought there's lots of other bits of history out there they should be studying and it turns out we have seen the rise of total we have seen India, the United States of America, Indonesia, Russia, Hungary, backslide democratically. So the point is, why did we, I grew up going never again, always remember, drilled into you again and again and again. One of the worst things that ever happened in the history of the human race was mid-century, 20th century Europe, right, and Japan and elsewhere. So you either kind of go, okay, well, let's use this currency. Yeah, wow, we should be...

Look, we're not there yet, but this is a bit alarming, this characterisation of trans people like this or of the boat crossings like this. Let's deal with them in a kind of rational, evidence-led way. Gosh, it is getting a little bit... There are hints here of the 1930s.

That's the kind of point I thought of teaching all the time if every time you go you know trump with his armed insurrection on the camera that's a bit 1930s isn't it if every time you go you could never use the 1930s parallel that's deeply that was a unique evil you go hang on where are so what's the point i don't know i mean if we can talk about france in the 1790s if you want but it's it's whether we like it or not, that is our historical hinterland for 90% of people out there. They're not that interested in talking about the 18th century corruption in Britain

or France or even the American Civil War. We talk about the 19th century. We watch movies about the 19th century. We have podcasts and wonderful books. You have people on here all the time talking about the 19th century. So that's kind of what we use. And I think that's okay.

And it leads to robust discussion like we had at the moment. But I think it's not, as I say, I can't come back to it, it's not a firing offence, is it? And particularly given the hypocrisy of certain other presenters on the BBC using that platform or using that Twitter to celebrate things like Brexit or whatever else. Dan Snow, the historian, is our guest and his documentaries, they're already running actually, aren't they, on Channel 5? They already have to go

on the internet now and find them, yeah. My5 and they're all about the Black Death and I did not know that the Black Death came to our shores via a quiet place in Dorset. It looked absolutely idyllic. Just explain exactly what happened. Well, we think. Obviously, it's quite hard to know. We think it essentially came into Weymouth. In fact, it was a suburb of Weymouth at the time, a little fishing village. And it arrived there, we think, from southern France in the hold of ships.

So the interesting thing about the pandemic disease, and I talked about this a lot on my podcast history during the pandemic, is each pandemic sort of reflects the world in which we're living. So this recent pandemic affected disproportionately, as we now know. We've rehearsed it all. It affected the old. It particularly affected people with obesity and things like that. Well, we live in an old, quite obese world at the moment.

Now, in 14th century Europe, it was a place of coastal trade, of small boats coming up, beetling up the coast from Bordeaux, possibly carrying wine to do with the English affliction for French wine, and rats travelling in the cargos. Wet, damp cargos, perfect places for rats to travel. So it's, you know, the technology of the time, the economy of the time, the patterns of life at the time, then are reflected in the kind of pandemics we the patterns of life at the time, then are reflected in the kind of pandemics we get. So in the 19th century, we get these kind of Asiatic dysentery, the cholera and stuff. We get these Asiatic diseases from empire soldiers coming

back from these imperial missions out to these. But yes, the 14th century was about the reasonably slow, well actually in retrospect, I guess quite quick. I mean, the whole of Britain was basically covered in about a year, but it goes from village. So from Weymouth, it just makes its way up through Dorset. And we're able to trace that with these amazing documents that survive. These sort of almost like parish records. Not quite, but... And they say, you know, in this month, one person died. And we redistributed his will.

This is what we did with them. They're all sets of property, of course, and land. And then three months later, you've got 40 people die. You know, it's extraordinary numbers. Spikes in number of mortality, and land. And then three months later, you've got 40 people die. You know, it's extraordinary numbers, spikes in number of mortality, in mortality. And then it hits big cities, and then it kind of, and then London and Bristol get hammered. And then the north of England was fine for a while,

and then it eventually succumbed as well. But it never got to Scotland, never got to Ireland. Well, no, I think it did get to Scotland. And I think we, the records are less good, but we think it touched, we think it touched Scotland to Scotland, and I think the records are less good, but we think it touched Scotland Island, for sure. And there's certain reasons that certain communities come off slightly better, we think, around the number of rats, for example. Rats, I didn't know, are not native to the UK.

They are tree-dwelling animals. So it's another kind of aspect of medieval life. They loved these wooden houses with thatch and these wooden beams. It was genetically that rats are kind of culturally predisposed to seek those kind of environments. There is so much, I have to say, if you've got youngish children, I think they'll quite enjoy some of the truly diabolical details yes it's funny we're obsessed with medical the medical history always does very well i'm not

surprised if you get far enough away from it it becomes funny and of course actually you're describing the most tragic and appalling thing and actually you do make that clear i want to know at one point there is a detail where you say that um people were in such agony they were barking like dogs that is this was no way to die, was it? If there is a good way to die, it wasn't this. No, I think this was a particularly bad way. And the lack of being able to do anything about it, of course, the ignorance, the uncertainty.

In York, we came across wills where it seems fairly clear that the person writing the will was about to die because then you get the kind of stamp going, this will was enacted a week later, so it could just be coincidence. And you can see as you're dying in pain, you're trying to make arrangements for your kids. I mean, it's just awful. It is that...

And we think it's a third to a half of the population of this island that were killed in this very short space of time. And what did the authorities, what could the authorities do to try to contain it? Not much. I mean, I'm quite interested. There was some sense of social distancing, but there was not,

you wouldn't call it public information campaign. I mean, the king and the pope both seem to have sat in a room and not let anyone come near them. So there was a kind of a sense of like this person-to-person transmission, I think. But on the whole, so on the whole, what the king does, the state, is tries to legislate for the effects of it. So it just kind of tries to, no one's going to increase the price of bread. There's no crops being grown in the fields.

The price of bread's going through the roof. And so the state spends more time just going, stop selling bread too expensively. And it's like well thanks mate you know that's not helping and then the other one you know states go peasants aren't allowed to move around because actually it was in some ways it was a right

actually those if you were lucky enough to survive it was kind of a social mobility engine because obviously everyone suddenly needed labour for their fields and enterprises and so if you were previously quite sort of attached to the land you had to just work away for your local lord, you could nip off to the local town and get a better job or nip off to a neighbouring lord.

So you see a lot of kind of trying to control, basically the monarchy, the sort of royal government just trying to kind of suppress and be like, let's just make, please just go back to normal. So there wasn't much in the way of kind of prevention. Although there are some things around cleaning up streets and stuff, but, yeah, it's not... They didn't really know why it transmitted.

And, of course, in fact, everyone went off to Canterbury in particular and gathered together and tried to pray, you know, at the shrine there in Canterbury Cathedral, and that obviously was a sort of, you know, mass... Super-spiriting event. Super-spiriting event, yeah. How much would other parts of the country have known about what was happening so how would people in london have known what was happening in bristol good question the letters

letters um letters and then and then dissemination information was power at that point so merchants very well connected so there's the famous story much later century about the rothschild family sort of finding out the result of the Battle of Waterloo before everyone else and buying loads of shares in London because they realised, so merchants would always have quite a nifty, you know, if the king died and there was a struggle between his sons or whatever, you might want to just make sure you haven't got much inventory left at the moment because, you know, chances are there was going to be a bit of that.

So I think you'd end up with these letters that would travel north and then they would be they would be sort of shared within communities in you know in markets and that kind of stuff so it was very as you can imagine very gabbled very uncertain the church was important so the church was a sort of conduit where you could, there was some hierarchy where you could reach out to parishes and with a particular message. But it was the north of England knew what was coming. It's quite scary. York was like, we're all right so far. And then, but they knew what this kind of absolute terrible event was going on in the south. So religion is, it's interesting, isn't it? Because I don't, I mean, I could be wrong and you can contradict me. I don't think there was any kind of religious revival during COVID, was there?

Well, that's a good question. Did religion sustain people or was it simply that at the time there was no alternative? Yeah. I am not a religious person, therefore I don't know. I remember people hearing reports that churches, but you know, it could have just been pre-vicar's going, no, we're very busy on our Zoom at the moment. We've all been guilty of that, let's be honest, claiming we've got lots of online followers. Bigging up the audience. Exactly.

I think, yes, perhaps that's interesting, perhaps it's because in a time of, when you really don't have a clue what's going on, you do turn to at least something that might provide. And there were a lot of religious people carrying trinkets, people blessing things, nosegays under your nose to try to clear bad odours and smells. And bits of paper with religious, funny, Christian, almost memes written on them and you'd put them next to your heart and things like that. So, no, you certainly see a lot of that. And what about the after effects? The economic recovery must have been very, very slow progress.

Well, it was pretty slow progress, I think, and the population didn't rebound for hundreds of years is the thinking. It's a bit like COVID in some respects. It does seem like it kind of accelerated change that was already in the air. So, like, I always think with COVID, covid you know the high street just took another battery yeah it was in trouble anyway it took an absolute kicking um covid uh digital entertainment you know it benefited but so it seems like if you look at that sort of people some people sort of call it feudalism that break up that that was sort of slightly accelerated by the Black Death.

And so it magnified things that were already happening, I think. And, yeah, I think it would have taken a long time. Although, of course, the economy was a lot simpler back then. You know, it was overwhelmingly agricultural. So harvests were... And the big issue was not enough people to collect harvests. That was huge. And then famously, that's why you get these plague villages

that are kind of pretty much abandoned. Well, yes, there's a very sad part of the second part of the documentary, I think, when Raksha Dave, your archaeologist colleague, goes to a completely abandoned village. I was very jealous of that assignment. Yeah, but when they go up and you see the drone footage, you can see that there was once foundations and presumably beautiful homes there.

Absolutely. It's actually very... We think of it as a life... Well, clearly it's more than one lifetime away, but it's closer to me than I thought. I had no idea you'd still be able to see the foundations of abandoned villages. Yes, I think that's the funny thing about history.

I find so much... When you meet a 100-year-old person, you start doing that fun game of thinking, who could they have met? It doesn't take you very long, you know, to get back a long way. I think this whole... All our human history has just been the blink of an eye.

One of the things I found terrifying, Dan, was the notion that the bacteria is actually still with us. Oh, yeah, knocking about, yeah. Knocking about. But, I mean, it has killed people. It killed people in the 20th century, yeah. I mean, luckily, it's antibiotics to deal with it now it's extraordinary i mean it's um it's one of those remarkable life-changing that's the weird thing i find it you know

whenever i'm on the podcast and so i i find history is something that is good for my mental health because you when we focus as we just said on on migrant boats or things that anger us and upset us about the modern world uh you realize actually we should probably just quickly tip our hat to the old antibiotic revolution you know like it's all of us would have lost siblings and mothers and loved ones or our own lives in childbirth you know it's it's astonishing the pain and the the hardship and the misery that existed until yesterday you know and it of course, still does. We're still a work in progress. But it is fascinating.

The idea that you just... I mean, it's like this new thing for obesity, this new injection. Oh, that's done. That's good, isn't it? I mean, the economy's like, oh, wrong, we just solved obesity. That was quite useful, wasn't it? And the other one that I had last year, I was going on about it, everyone thought I was mad, is NASA put that meteor off, like, redirected it.

Diverted it, yeah. And it's like, hold on a minute, what that did for the dinosaurs, and now we've just gone, yeah, then we've sorted that problem out. I mean, that's kind of unbelievably amazing. But rightly, we focus on things that need doing, I guess, but I think occasionally you give yourself a little pat on the back. Yeah, and maybe the news agenda is a little bit skewed, because you're right, both of those stories are massive, but we've spent a lot of time talking about vastly more important

than anything else that's happening in the newspapers let's hope so anyway well yes um can we just squeeze in a quick word about the approaching coronation oh yes so um what can you offer us historian dan oh i can offer you all sorts funny coronations about i'll tell you history here is your home for all things coronation. Oh, no, it wasn't an opportunity to plug that. So, obviously, George IV's wife, barred from the Abbey, not allowed in

for the coronation. And all sorts of fun stuff. William the Conqueror, who, when he was crowned in Westminster Abbey, his guards thought the shout of acclamation was actually a shout of uprising

and they torched all the surrounding buildings. So there's loads of good coronation content. I've got plenty coming up. Right, but neither of those two things will happen. Are you going? of good coronation content. I've got plenty coming up. Right, but neither of those two things will happen. Are you going?

I don't think so. No invite at the moment. As yet. Well, you know, I'd better be careful because I might publish my autobiography and then everyone will be in big trouble. Well, don't look at me. I'm not in your autobiography. At least I don't think so. Am I? Scribbling a new chapter. That was

historian Dan Snow talking to us about his new documentary The Black Death and you can it's hard to give it the big sell but it is interesting I actually rather wish that they

called it something like I don't know something that referred to buboes and pus. Because that's what it was. That's the horribly intriguing bit that they ended up focusing on a lot in the documentary. It's like a very niche nightclub. You can watch it now on Channel 5. But the strange thing is as well, Jane there are just so many uh comparisons to the recent

pandemic that you wouldn't have thought there would be because there are 500 years maybe 600 years uh spanning between those two pandemics but the lockdowns the fear you know the hesitancy about believing that it was a real thing some of the bunkum surrounding it, the way that you might be able to cure yourself, you know, with things that just don't work. You know, that's all there in human nature in 1438 as much as it... 48. 48. Really? Just because I got Richard III wrong.

OK. As it was early a couple of years ago here. It was... I think that's why I found. It was sobering to watch. Very sobering, yes. And it was the bit where he went to that village in Dorset where the Black Death, we think, arrived in England and it couldn't have looked lovelier, could it?

It was just a tranquil scene and one morning a boat came in and that was it. I was surprised as well just by how quickly people died. So you'd be infected on the Monday and quite possibly be dead by Wednesday or Thursday. Just to have your body ravaged so quickly by something must have been so painful.

And utterly terrifying. I mean, just terrifying. So that's fun times, Channel 5. Yes, but nevertheless interesting. I just wanted to mention this because it's from somebody who was kind enough to come to the WOW Festival show. We did an edition of Off Air at the WOW Festival at the Southbank Centre in London on Friday

and that will be made available, we think, towards the end of this week. I think it drops on Friday. Drops on Friday, wherever you get Off Air from. But we've had a lovely email, an interesting one, from a female plastic surgeon. She is, I don't, well, no, I won't mention her name just in case. She says, I thought it was

a really interesting show with two amazing guests and our guests were June Oscar, who was an amazing Indigenous Rights Social Justice Commissioner. That's right, isn't it? Yes. And she was so interesting and I'm afraid I just felt so ignorant about First Nations people

and I learnt a lot from talking to June, so I hope other people enjoyed it. And our other guest was Meera Sayal who is obviously well known to anybody who's watched British television over recent years and she is starring in a new detective show, isn't she? Mrs Sidhu Investigates. That's right, so she's at in a new detective show isn't she which

is Mrs Sidhu Investigates so she's at the peak of her power so she was great as well anyway um this lady who was there says I'm a female plastic surgeon in the NHS sexism and stereotypical views of surgeons still very much exist both within our profession and in the public domain I can recount many personal tales of gender bias. These include being expected to insert urinary catheters for patients rather than my male co-workers, as if I would know the male anatomy any better, to patients asking me to thank their surgeon without realising I was the surgeon. My experience and sentiments are shared by many female doctors. And this is evidenced by the hashtag Med Bikini campaign in 2020.

This is especially felt by the black Asian minority ethnic doctors, myself included, who've suffered a disproportionate amount of conscious and unconscious professional and social biases. and social biases. That's interesting. She ends by saying, how and on what platforms would you recommend us to share our stories safely as healthcare professionals? And that's, I don't know whether I'm equipped to answer. I mean, I don't really see why you can't make your own podcast. Well, I think there's always a fear,

and I think it's a well-placed fear, actually, that your voice is as recognisable as your face. And I think it's a well placed fear actually that your voice is as recognisable as your face and I think it's true actually I think you can tell who it is who's talking so maybe a podcast isn't for you. I think a blog you know you could be pretty

anonymous on that I would definitely try and make that happen because those stories are well worth hearing. And just being able to peel away some of the facade of medicine is just, as you know, so helpful to patient and doctor, I think. So I really hope you can carry on going with some kind of project that allows you to do that.

I did look up the med bikini because I'd not heard of that hashtag. And I hope that I've got it right. It appears to be a very valid campaign about doctors and nurses being able to not be judged by their appearances. If you want to wear a bikini, if you are a doctor, a female doctor, and you want to go to work in something that maybe the old-fashioned medical profession didn't approve of, it's absolutely your right to do that.

So I think it's in that kind of vein of being able to just be whoever you are. Can I just say on the point of June Oscar and the things that you learnt, I went to Tate Modern at the weekend. Did you say the Tate Modern? Tate Modern. Does it really matter?

You know, big art gallery in London. I don't want this to be too London-centric, but as most of our listeners seem to be in Brisbane, perhaps you'll forgive me if I am. There is the most magnificent exhibition there, a free exhibition, which is a year in Australia, which has got so much Aboriginal art and a lot of really, I mean, quite heartbreaking works of art detailing the struggle of First Nation people.

It's well worth seeing. And it just happened to be, you know, on the same weekend that we talked to June. And just some of the facts that you couldn't have the vote in Queensland until 1965 if you had any Aboriginal blood in your family. So there are quite a few letters from people writing in to say, I really believe that I could have a part in democracy because I'm this, that and the other. And people writing back saying, no, there is some Aboriginal connection. You may not have the vote, you know, even though we're on your land. And there's the most beautiful map of what we call Australia but it's a map of what the indigenous communities called all of their communities

and it's just, it's so moving to see. So if you're in town, it is free you can wander through and some of the art's just beautiful as well. So that's free because sometimes you go there and you have to pay extra but you don't for that. Not for that. Right, okay, thank you for that and thank you for pay extra, but you don't for that. Not for that one. Okay. No. Right. Okay.

Thank you for that. Thank you for all your fantastic emails. I'm shuffling paper. Yes, shuffling paper. He's going off to a new yoga class. I am. We have to get a wiggle on. And I've got a vegan sausage and bean bake that I made yesterday.

Well, you see, that, I can't be honest, that is more appealing as a Monday night. Can I be honest, that is more appealing as a Monday night. I've signed up to this because I just thought I needed to reinvigorate my yoga practice, as I think they call it, Jane. You reinvigorate your yoga practice. And I'll be popping away all day tomorrow on the strength of my bake. Right, have a very, very good evening. So much to look forward to. You have been listening to Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover.

Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Ben Mitchell. Now you can listen to us on the free Times Radio app or you can download every episode from wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget that if you like what you heard and thought, hey, I want to listen to this but live, then you can, Monday to Thursday, 3 till 5 on Times Radio. Embrace the live radio jeopardy. Thank you for listening and hope you can join us off air very soon. Goodbye.