Oh What A Time... - #10 Jobs

Episode Date: September 17, 2023

Up this week we're looking a collection of absolutely random jobs from history. From the folk who sang the news, to professional knocker uppers plus we take a look at the people paid to clap the arts in 19th century France. And ONE DAY TIME MACHINE is back; is there somewhere in history you'd like to go for a day? You can let us know here: [e-mail] This first series will contain 12 episodes that we’ll be releasing weekly. If there's an episode you'd like to hear, please let us know! Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? (Thus taking heed of our increasingly desperate pleas for reviews). Oh and please follow us on Twitter at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod And thank you toDr Daryl Leeworthy for his help with this week’s research. Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). And thank you for listening!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So what's it like to buy your first cryptocurrency on Kraken? Well, let's say I'm at a food truck I've never tried before. Am I going to go all in on the loaded taco? No, sir. I'm keeping it simple. Starting small. That's trading on Kraken. Pick from over 190 assets and start with the 10 bucks in your pocket. Easy. Go to Kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Non-investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss.

See Kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. I'm going back to university for $0 delivery fee. Up to 5% off orders and 5% Uber cash back on rides. Not whatever you think university is for. Get Uber One for students. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student. Join for just $4.99 a month. Savings may vary.

Eligibility and member terms apply. Looking for a collaborator for your career? A strong ally to support your next level success? You will find it at York University School of Continuing Studies, where we offer career programs purpose-built for you. Visit continue.yorku.ca. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the history podcast that tries to decide if the past was as awful as it seems. I'm Chris Scull. I'm Ellis James. And I'm Tom Crane. And each week on this show, we'll be looking at a brand new historical subject. And today, we're going to be discussing jobs.

From singing the news to waking people up in the post-industrial age to the clackers who are paid to applaud in 19th century France. Your emails have once again been coming in and one day time machine. Do you know what? Let's just fire it up. It's the one day time machine. It's the one day time machine. It's the one day time machine you know what let's just fire it up it's the one day time machine it's the one day time machine it's the one day time machine it's the one day time machine so our first email this week on uh one day time machine which is just to reiterate you have a

time machine you can go back to any point in history for one day what do you do how do you enjoy yourself tell us about it so matt maloney has contacted us to say hi fellas loving the pod i want to offer an expansion on the one day time machine when i find myself in long car journeys with people i often ask them to name a time they wish they could go back to for a day and a time they could go back to to live in for a year i generally get mixed levels of enthusiasm for answering these but i feel this is a space for such questioning i don't know why that feels like a sort of attack on our format point. No, I like that because he implies that with us he's found his people.

Is this an attempt to gain ownership of the IP should it progress? It feels like a bit of a broadside, doesn't it? It's an interesting lens, that, a difference between a day in the past or a year, because I think that would change things a lot for me it's quite cool seeing medieval London for a day but to live there

a nightmare the smell, the threat of tuberculosis and a million other diseases so Matt Maloney does not want to go back to stinky London he wants to go back to ancient Egypt for a day when the great pyramids were being constructed or Florence during the renaissance to live for a year and he's added

here when you leave the time machine you know the language of your location which is quite an important point actually yeah big one that's a big one I've just taken that as a given so thank you I assume wherever I go I can talk to people chris when you involve yourself with time travel you never take anything as a given nothing should be ever you should check read the small print before you get in the machine please like the terminator method of time travel is obviously he turns up wherever he is naked and so the first thing he does at terminator 2 he has to rob someone of their clothes and then yeah a similar sized person as well some of the quite odd proportions uh difficult for arnold schwarzenegger i would say because he's probably the world's most famous bodybuilder

so you'd have to hope you know on the off chance he runs it runs into you ellis yes yeah and he can go wait a second i personally I, personally, if I was the Terminator, I would steal the jeans but not the pants. You've got to give the guy some dignity. He was quite fortunate in that to be time-travelled back to outside a motorcycle bar full of, essentially, Hell's Angels, who not only had his size but also looked quite cool. If he'd gone back to the World Beach Volleyball Championships.

Or a leisure centre. Just some bloke trying to play squash in his lunch break. I'll be back with a pair of pants for your modesty, should be the quote from Terminator 2. My concern here, Matt has said he wants to go back to ancient Egypt when they were constructing the pyramids. I actually think watching the pyramids being constructed would be a little bit bleak yeah the finished product undeniably amazing okay i'm not criticizing we could go on the last day oh yeah we're doing the top bit

tonight three two one heave and there we go right to the pub in in my opinion that calls for a half day. So that's where Matt's going, to ancient Egypt. Sarah has got in contact with... I like this one. It's not quite as deep a jump into history. Hi, lads. I would like to travel back in time to see XTC play. More specifically, I want to travel to the pub in Oxford in 1978 where my husband saw them early in their career and can't remember a bloody thing about it

I would quantum leap into the barmaid and throw him out for not paying attention love the show Sarah that is great and that is my kind of email Sarah that's an interesting question if you could go back to any gig ever in your one day time machine what are you going to? oh that is a interesting question if you could go back to any gig ever in your one day time machine

what are you going to oh that is a good question hendrix at woodstock the problem with woodstock is the toilets yeah woodstock you're only there for a day so you just need to not use the toilet for a day so what's all important is that you watch what you eat the day before you get in the time machine yeah so don't have a curry, anything tickly spicy or heavy. Just be aware of what you're taking in before. Eat some nice binding food for a day. Time travelling back to Woodstock, the day before you had a curry,

so your main concern is looking for a toilet. Some of the most iconic musical performances of all time. And you're like, sorry, is that one being used? Sorry, is that one being... Oh my, sorry, is that one being used? Sorry, is that one being, oh my God. Where's that one being used? So if you have any ideas, do email the show or leave a five-star review. As part of your review, suggest subjects you'd like us to talk about.

You can get in contact with the show via any of these means. All right, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at owhattime.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at owhattimepod. Now clear off. It's a new day. How can you make the most of it with your membership rewards points? Earn points on everyday purchases. Use them for that long awaited vacation. You can earn

points almost anywhere and they never expire. Treat your friends or spoil your family. Earn them on your adventure and use them how you want, when you want. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Learn more at amex.ca slash yamxtermsapply. Breaking news coming in from Bet365, where every nail-biting overtime win, breakaway, pick six, three-point shot, underdog win, buzzer beater, shootout, walk-off, and absolutely every play in between is amazing. From football to basketball and hockey to baseball, whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365.

Must be 19 or older, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you or someone you know has concerns about gambling, visit connectsontario.ca. So this week on the show show i'm going to be talking about the unusual job of the knocker upper and i'll be talking about the people who were paid to applaud or boo in 19th century france and the job i'm going to talk about is the broadside balladeo something i've never heard of uh prior to researching this podcast we've all done it and

we've fallen down a rabbit hole online. So you might look at a YouTube video, and then that triggers a thought, and then obviously it will send up a few similar YouTube videos, and the next thing you know, it's half past one in the morning, your son's woken up twice, and you think to yourself, this is not a way to live. And I think people think that this is a very, very modern thing. I suppose the 1990s equivalent would have been scrolling through the channels. We had far less choice.

You know, it still feels like a very sort of 21st century kind of entertainment, quite a postmodern entertainment. That's not entirely true. I mean, centuries past, these sorts of snippets of news and information came from sources like the Town Crier or the Roman Preco. I'm hoping I'm pronouncing that properly. Performed official stories and announcements for public consumption. Now, if they're any good, these people will attract an audience.

They might be singing their own songs or covering someone else's. They might even have some wares to flog you, like a CD maybe or a link to download tracks on a website. Now, their ancestor, the sort of street performer's ancestor, was the broadside balladeer. Now, the idea of a balladeer is easy enough to understand, but broadside was a word I wasn't familiar with. The broadside was a single sheet of paper that had quite literally broad sides.

And on it was printed songs and stories which could be sold by artists on street corners, and these were designed to be as cheap as possible. it was a form of consumerism that targeted but also crucially informed ordinary people okay can i be thick what's a balladeer just someone who sings songs about news and stuff so people these people would be singing the songs which had a topical quality but they were also selling them the sheet music or whatever it would have been, for it. Imagine on BBC News 24, Clive Myrie singing you the news.

Which, incidentally, I would love. And it would be absolutely how I would sort of take in my news content from this point onwards. So what they did, the Broadside Balladeer basically sang all of the news that was fit to sing. So their ballads could be about almost any subject. So they might tell a story about a historical figure or an event, like Dick Whittington, perhaps, or a coronation.

They might deliver a politically inflected lyric or story, when usually in line with the printer's instincts or the balladeer's own. Or they might treat more mundane things, such as love or sport, or even the kill at the coach station to a ballad wow now a popular theme especially in the 19th century was sport the audiences of football matches were really substantial not everyone obviously could be present so either read the account in the newspaper or you could hear the account being performed by a balladeer so it was like a sort of 1880s match of the day what solace do you think that is by the way when you've you've

missed out on tickets for the cup final? You're going, but at least I get to go and hear someone sing about it in the high street tomorrow. Yeah, I'll get the results sung to me. Now this is from the north of England, right, around the 1880s. The Dewsbury men forced Halifax back in spite of splendid play.

The Halifax four were dribbled immense and their feet were busy that day. Then Scarborough made a splendid run and again they dribbled the ball and chambers succeeded in getting a try but dodd missed kicking the goal at which point if i was in the audience my hand would go up and go okay that's all well and good but just what was the score what's the score i just want to know just was it a draw you haven't given me any of the actual information and And I'm just looking at my fantasy league. Does Chambers get an assist? And I triple Captain Dodd.

Please tell me there's a second verse that covers all this. This one comes from Scotland around the same time. A football match last Saturday I went to see. To have some fun was exactly what I meant, you see. So off I go, like a sporting man so dutiful, to see this game which I reckoned would be beautiful. Once again, no idea as to what the score is. We have some content around the game here, mate.

It's such a weird way of delivering news, isn't it? Because you've almost got to fix the tune in place, I would say. And then if it's a big news, if you've got a crowd, you're having to make a lot of editorial decisions as well as being able to see yeah like i'm just like just like the titanic thousands dead yeah exactly yeah oh my god what melody do you choose for that melody or the death of a monarch or something because there's very very rarely do you get really happy news stories especially kind of but way like 1500 to 1900 you're not

getting i mean maybe the odd birth of a prince but mainly it's gonna be miserable stuff i would suppose sort of naval victories that kind of thing oh okay yeah we've won we've won also were they like bulletins were you like okay the 6 p.m bulletins i've got to get down to the village square everyone go down and sit there what is it what is it like is this throughout the day or is he doing like lunchtime 6 p.m and 10 p.m and then bed i'll do you know what i'll make this gruel after the news also well they're sort of like guardian long read ones well they just go on for ages really long thought pieces thought pieces rather they're like red tops with some more celebrity news. The Daily Sport, which you just can't

believe. I've stuck a packet of quavers up my knob, says man. Did that guy just sing that an alien turned his kid into a fish finger? We need to stand next to a different balladeer. No,

that's the one you're going to, surely. That's the one you're going for, sort of like a long piece about the economy. You know, like 24-hour news channels now just get ever more kind of entertainment-based and shock-based, like Fox News. Do you think that's how it worked for balladeers? They're like, you just, they would realise,

I can get out and draw a bigger crowd with just more sensationalist stuff. Yeah, that's a really interesting point, isn't it? To be honest, it doesn't sound like any of them have been to any of these football matches either. Those songs from earlier, it doesn't sound like any of them have been to them. Never seen a football match. I'm not entirely sure which one it is.

Yeah, because all the detail is about the experience of the match day as opposed to what's happening on the pitch. I walked in through the turnstiles and knocked the stairs. I mean, I hate to say it, Chris, have you read my Guardian pieces? Very little analysis. It's all vibe. The one good use of a town crier in history that I'm aware of is the death of Ian Curtis from Joy Division.

And Tony Wilson got a town crier to history that I'm aware of is the death of Ian Curtis from Joy Division when Tony Wilson got a town crier to announce it. No way. Yeah. It's recreated in 24 Hour Party People and I'm sure I've read it. I felt, bang on, that is a great way of announcing a terrible tragedy and felt very on brand.

Wow. On the day that you sadly passed Chris do you want me to organise that for you? Here ye! Well Chris it is absolutely guaranteed that should you die before me

that is going to happen Guaranteed I League of Gentlemen style I've always wanted a floral bouquet that just spells out the word bastard laughter music music

music music music alright so I'm going to be talking to you about the clacker now anyone who's ever performed All right. So, I'm going to be talking to you about the clacker. Now, anyone who's ever performed on stage, and you two both have,

has faced the prospect of a heckler. With a plumb. Big time. Someone who has a cough at an inopportune moment, who claps between movements of a symphony, boos at the end, or just shouts out nonsense while you're trying to get your job done. Good luck if you try that with Aliceice and i though i will destroy you

i will end you and i will embarrass you in front of your wife and friends i will find the one thing that you are most insecure about and i will root it out and then with a sniper's accuracy, I will dismantle your personality and rebuild it in my own image. And then I'll bring on the first act. I'll bring on the first act. Having caused a horrible atmosphere. Afterwards, I will find you and I will say, I'm so sorry, I did misjudge you. I mean that. I'm going to leave.

I'll have one eye over my shoulder because I'm terrified. What can I mean? I'm going to leave. I'll have one eye over my shoulder because I'm terrified. I once got heckled at a comedy club that Tom definitely did. I think I might have done it with Tom, actually. The Havana Club in Exeter, which is a great combination of chilli con carne and comedy all for a tenner.

Right? Yeah. Chilli con comedy, as I called it. Which is what they should have gone with on the poster. Rather than Havana Comedy Club. Anyway, I got heckled a little bit. A little bit. Let's just say boys will be boys. And I absolutely neutralised my opponent.

He was quite pissed off with me. boys and I absolutely neutralised my opponent. Now, he was quite pissed off with me to the extent that he followed me into the car park, right? No. And, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he wanted to have a scrap and I thought, oh my God. Now, happily for me, whilst Tom Crane

may or may not have been on the bill, I can't remember. We definitely did that gig together. I can't remember if it was that night. The person who was on the bill was a Canadian prop act called Rex Boyd. Oh, yeah. His big closer was he used to juggle with machetes. So I said, Jesus Christ, that bloke in the grey coat, he's coming after me in the car park, Rex. And Rex said, don't worry about it.

I've got these. He pulled his machetes out and brought me back to my car. Oh, that's absolutely amazing. I think I've told you about this, Ellis. I did a corporate that went so badly I got hit on the head with a vol-a-von. Yes, I remember that. Yeah, that was a low one. Thrown from the back.

And I said, stop doing that. You're wasting your food. As a joke. And he said, it's a buffet, there's plenty where that. You're wasting your food. It's a joke. And he said, it's a buffet. There's plenty where that came from. Oh, no. Oh, my God. Isn't that Brian Connolly's catchphrase?

It's a buffet. There you go. Pop culture reference for the kids. Ellis, question. Did I win them round after that? No. Did you win them round after that? No, of course you didn't.

Absolutely not. You better think it got worse. Any sense of authority you had, I don't think you had very much, had gone. It was a really inopportune reminder that there is a buffet instead of this. So, Chris, back to the history.

Away from my show. So, yeah, hecklers, they're often spontaneous, or so you imagine, but if you trod the boards in 19th century France, it's likely you would hear interruptions that were planned and undertaken by professionals.

Wow. I've never heard of this. This has blown my mind. I'm so excited to tell you about it. Have you heard of the clackers? No. You ever heard of these? No.

Obviously, you heard of stooges in the audience. Well, a very professional set these were, the clackers, as they were known, a group of people hired to applaud a performance. So who exactly was the clacker? This is from one French newspaper, Contemporary Source. The clacker is an applauder employed by the management to stoke the success of a piece of theatre or an artist. Wow.

They continued. The clackers constitute, along with the actors and the audience, the three indispensable elements piece of theatre or an artist wow they continued the clackers constitute along with the actors and the audience the three indispensable elements of the theatre today the age of ovation is over the public the real public no longer applauds they do not take the trouble to applaud they are afraid of soiling their trousers or reddening their hands they no longer cry out they murmur bravo instead to avoid growing hoarse. The clackers are the result of these habits. The clackers will howl, stamp their feet, etc. The clackers were massive.

At the largest venues, the entire operation might involve anywhere between 100 to 150 clackers. In smaller ones, 50 to 70 clackers. The least number of clackers was 30 at any one time. Would you have appreciated some of it? When we hit the road with our What A Time live shows, can we get some 30 clackers in there? I think, to be honest, it's imperative that we get 30 clackers. All cheering us in French accents.

I think I'd be a bit hurt if I turned up to do a tour show and the theatre said to me, don't worry, it's 75% clack. We can see how this is going to go. Oh, you'd think, I'm going to absolutely bloody rip this. So the clacks were well organised. There was a boss, the chef d'attaque, who marshaled proceedings and could become very famous indeed.

Below them there were lieutenants who rang brigades that spread out within the theatres and sergeants below them. The man credited with inventing the clack as a method of ensuring appreciative audiences in the theatre was the 16th century poet Jean Durat, who gave freebies to would-be patrons in return for their claps and cheers when the curtain fell such was the success of durat's invention that rivals soon became very

jealous and they too employed clackers for their performances and then it was realized i don't know if you i don't know if you saw this coming i didn't but this is what happened next is incredible they then realized it inevitably that clackers didn't need to what happened next is incredible. They then realised, inevitably, that clackers didn't need to just clap. They could potentially boo as well. They could interrupt as well as applaud. They could harm a production as well as encourage it. All for the right level of financial return.

Can someone smell a protection racket coming on? No. Wow. So they threatened. They said, if you don't pay us, we're going to start booing. Exactly that. I'll move on to that. By the 19th century, the clackers had developed into such a phenomenon within French theatre that they were professionally organised.

What a job. I know. Oh, good to see you, mate. It's been ages. How are the kids getting on? Abigail's studying midwifery, so we're very, very proud of her. Ryan's a clacker Is he? He prefers the booing

If he's totally honest I went to see David O'Doherty At the Edinburgh Festival And I sat next to the comedian Rose Matafail And I know Rose And we sat down and I said I should just warn you i am an incredible audience

member and when he came on i was like yeah you're cracking i'm cracking and occasionally i would david's a brilliant comedian but occasionally i would really laugh and I would look at rules and I would say, see, I'm an unpaid clacker. Well, Ellis, it sounds like you might be a prime candidate for the top job in clacking, which is the chef d'orchestre d'applaudissements, or the leader of the orchestra of applause. I'm not sure my GCSE French is holding up there, but nonetheless. to see French is holding up there, but nonetheless. So one of the most famous chefs was Auguste Levasseur of the Paris Opera House. A larger than life figure, gifted with giant hands.

What do you mean, giant hands? Gifted with giant hands! Yeah, no, we can't rush past that. We need to pick up, how giant were these hands? Well, mate, he's making a job out of applauding. That is like Michael Phelps. Like, he was born to be a great swimmer this geez

has got massive hands yeah i can't go into crochet it's gotta be like wow so he had massive hands well apparently yeah colorful clothes and he was said it was said that he could marshall his troops just as efficiently as the old emperor napoleon could his own on the battlefield and he was paid by the bucket he was paid 20 or 30 000 francs a year fees that were fully in line with the primo or prima on stage and back to the point we made earlier it was from them that he began to extort his money oh my god lise noblet a popular ballet dancer of the 1820s and 30s was said to pay august 50 francs every time she performed every performance for 15 years nearly every artist who performed had a similar contract with sums varying according to status with the audience and position within the company so when I go to watch my friends do stand-up,

actually, whenever I go to watch anyone do stand-up, whether I know them or not, I'm a really, really good audience member. But that is through the goodness of my heart. I could have been earning money if I'd been bucking friends. Well, are you paying for your ticket? Good point. No, usually not. In a legal sense, you might be a clacker.

Oh, my God. I'm a clacker. What a moment. I never realised that. I've always thought you were a bit of a clacker, but it's... What I find fascinating there is that a ballerina is having to pay off someone. Yeah. Because the idea of someone booing a ballerina feels like such... I don't know how that would...

This is the thing in 19th century France. It was plays, opera, ballet, stand-up comedy. It was all these art forms. Anything that required an audience, the clackers could come down and make or break you. We have international audiences, right? We've got listeners all over the world now. I'm assuming we've got listeners in

france i'd love them to be french people as opposed to sort of expats i don't think the standard of stand-up comedy in france is particularly great uh and i'm going to qualify this by we were izzy and i before we had kids we went went to Paris on New Year's Eve about 10 years ago or something. And we watched, it was the sort of equivalent of Live at the Apollo crossed with Houtenani. So in a big theatre, but they were like dancing dogs and there was a choir and a band and then a guy doing stand-up. So I'm assuming that he was of a sort of Michael McIntyre or Kevin Bridges sort of level, you know, like a really, really popular bloke.

And as he's got A-level French, she was able to translate on the go, right? Now, this is New Year's Eve on the French equivalent of BBC One. And his set, which I will never forget, was, oh, when you are with your mistress, it is all, oh, when you are with your wife, it is like this. Where is my wallet? That got a standing ovation

amazing although to be fair to that guy i wouldn't say the fairest reflection of some stand someone stand up is it being translated by someone who speaks a bit of french yeah actually brilliant and there was so much nuance in it a bit of French. I don't think that's the fairest of... Actually, it was brilliant. And there was so much nuance in it. He's the most talented comic in Europe. It's just he happens to be speaking a language I don't speak. And also, in terms of nightmare bills, in terms of where you want to be,

coming on after a dancing dog. I don't know if I fancy my chances either, Ellis. I didn't know you bloody loved the French stand-up scene so much. How defensive you were. Are you invested in it or something? If I went to a gig and you came on after a dancing dog, Ellis, and started doing stand-up, I'd be thinking, why am I not still watching the dancing dog? As no offence, I think you're very funny,

but I'd much rather watch a dancing dog. So, to be fair to this guy, at least listen to it if you speak his language and recognise the fact he's been on after a boogieing two hour. Is he? We still say, where is my wallet? Like quite often.

It's become one of the things we say in the house. So back to 19th century France, if the director of the opera took against you, watch out. This is what happened to a young dancer called Yolande Marie-Louise Devernay, who was unfortunate to possess pushy parents, who insisted during a series of performances at the Paris Opera House in 1831 that Devernay did not need professional claps.

Irritated with this presumption as he saw it, the director told Auguste not to allow his men to clap the dancer under any circumstances. So even after Devonet's greatest routines, there was absolute silence in the Paris Opera House. That's incredible. Sorry, just to reiterate, the director of the theatre, of the performance, took against the dancer, is that right? Yeah, because she felt,

I don't need professional claps, thanks, I'll get my own. And so they told the big hand Auguste, don't clap her under any circumstances. So they just stared down, icy cold, silence. That was suddenly made dancing, I think we've just talked about this before actually, feel so undignified. Because it is quite silly. Doing a dance is quite silly.

It's a skill, and if there's applause at the end, it sort of makes it a talent. But if you dance to silence, then you're just someone who's hopped around a bit for 30 minutes. Oh, you'd feel like such a pillow, couldn't you? Devon A had to move to london eventually but eventually she then went on to earn 600 pounds a month which is now 56 000 pounds every month in today's terms nice not a bad career move so but back to our man big-handed august who's the the leader of the clackers so he was famously studious he would attend rehearsals with devotion he would get copies of the text he would mark them with his plan of attack he'd figure out which line where there should be laughter

where applause should fall how he graduated to an ovation so on um and like a true mafioso he kept his troops in line through patronage doling out free tickets which he extorted from the artists and management of course of varying rates of pay all to maintain loyalty. So he was quite studious. It wasn't just turning up and getting just feeling the vibe on the day. He was doing his homework. This, I have to say, doesn't reflect me in a very

good light. I would just be turning up and clapping when everyone else was clapping louder. I certainly wouldn't be turning up at rehearsals. By the last quarter of the 19th century clacks begun a decline that eventually ended in their demise victor hugo him the author of les miserables led a campaign to eradicate eradicate the clacks from the stalls and a different standard of behavior became emerged in theaters and concert halls as particularly among

mainly middle-class audiences when vaudeville and music halls which appealed to working-class patrons they kind of became way more popular and they were always uproarious and loud and never had to require a clacker and again this comes back to something we've said before if you look at the titanic the really posh people they're having boring tense meals everyone's quite highly strung you You go down below deck, it's a massive laugh. I've performed at the Hackney Empire. Have you ever performed there? I have, yes.

Because it's amazing, but that was a musical. And people like Mary Lloyd performed there and Charlie Chaplin performed there. They were incredible gigs. That's one thing. I don't know a huge amount about musicals, but it just sounds fascinating. A good laugh.

Yeah. So that was kind of the end of the clacker, really. But ironically, the clacker was revived after the Second World War. No. Do you know in what form? I'm not sure. What? Canned laughter in television comedy. Oh, yes.

When the absence of an audience, a canned laughter track told viewers when to laugh, when to cry, when to ooh, when to ah, and what exactly to do when Del Boy leans on the bar and he comes through it. Absolutely fascinating. I kind of just sort of wrap this up. I do sort of feel the idea of pushing an audience to say they're enjoying something does feel kind of uncomfortable.

But if you are enjoying the show, do leave us a five-star review now very good i am going to talk to you today about a really unusual job called the prodder or the knocker up. Now, first question, what are you guys like getting up in the morning? Are you any good? Terrible to the point where I'm beginning to think I have an illness. I once read a magazine interview with John Robbins in which he said something that sticks in his mind whenever he has to get up early, which is an interview he had read with Johnny Vaughan. Yes.

About Johnny Vaughan being told how to get up early. And his advice was, just get out of bed, just get out of bed. And now if I have to get up early for an early flight, like 4am, got to London Luton for the airport, I will think of John Robbins' interview in that magazine, talking about the Johnny Vaughan interview in that magazine. Johnny Vaughan always said, as long as you get in the shower, once you've got in the shower, you're fine.

You won't go back to bed after the shower. So every time John has a shower, he thinks, well, I'm in the shower, so Johnny Vaughan says this is fine. It's weird. The things that stick in your mind. I think about that advice all the time the amount of listeners we've had tell us oh yeah well now when I'm in the shower

I think well John is thinking I'm in the shower and Johnny Vaughan is telling me this is fine but you mentioned there Chris the idea of being up for an early flight my problem there is if I do need to be up early for something and I've set an alarm for let's say 4am I've got to be up for the flight I will not set an alarm for let's say 4 a.m i've got to be up for

the flight i will not have slept because i would have spent the whole night thinking oh no i've got to be up at 4 a.m and more crucially that repeatedly leaning over and checking my phone to see if it's 4 a.m yet what if my phone doesn't go off what if my phone breaks what if my alarm is the only bit of my phone that doesn't work and i haven't realized you know what i will do is if i have to be up and i'm worried about missing it is i'll have three alarms on one phone wife sophie sophie's phone she'll have three alarms the amazon alexa that's going to have a couple of alarms and the house would basically just fucking light up at 4 a.m and then and then i missed the flight because i'm turning all these alarms off

so the entire street has to get up at 4am with you as well so we're not early risers i think we can kind of take that but in the days before alarm clocks it was particularly tricky basically to make sure that you got up in time for anything so there have been public clocks since medieval times usually in churches and marketplaces and stuff like that and by the tudor period clocks were ubiquitous but the accuracy was never certain so basically you turn up at work and you say to your boss look at the clock there on the church i am on time and he'd say yeah but that's three hours behind or whatever they just they looked like clocks,

but they didn't do what a clock was supposed to do. Yeah. Well, this comes back to one of the things I've always thought, which is that to what extent did time matter in the past? Yes. You know, if no one really knows what time it is, are you just kind of going, I don't know, just we'll vibe it in the morning, you know?

In the morning you know well in the morning come here first thing and i know your first thing's different to mine but i'll i can live with that when the sun's about there when that big hot thing in the sky appears then it's probably time to have some bacon and egg and i'll meet you after that oh i can't do that i'm doing intermittent fasting sorry okay fine whatever forget it it's really interesting you say that chris because there was a crucial time when time did start to matter and that was the industrial revolution this was the the big change when time basically became commodified so in during the industrial revolution um everything became more stressful as the As this new widespread mechanization of everything meant that the routines of daily life were subject to computation. So let's say work might start at 5 a.m., not finish till 9 p.m.

For the first time, you were like, well, breaks are now officially 15 minutes. You have to be here at this time. And for the first time, if you were late and you didn't make it for your allotted slot in the industrial revolution basically you wouldn't get paid that's what happened and punctuality became a necessity for the first time we've got the industrial age to thank for the fact we're all on the clock now yeah you really do that is literally what it is and you can see that like in school everything is broken up into into periods of time and really this is the industrial revolution is what kind of that pushed this on us as a society but um it's interesting isn't it because i i guess as a personality i've not you've basically got to

decide are you up for kind of regimented time slots for everything in your life or just you're vibing it the whole time and maybe i'm i think i'm maybe now in a place now i'm in a kind of i don't mind that i'm being on the clock all the time and managing my own time what about you ellis i spent years of my life trying to live a vibing it lifestyle and then as i've got industrial age as i've got older i've come to accept that you know things need to happen at a certain time and obviously now I've got children and they need to be at school so that changes things and

I think I am fundamentally instinctively or naturally a very real night owl but that has changed a little bit as I've got older like before I was effectively in agony until about midday, until I was 35. Like if I saw

morning sunlight, it would be an almost painful reaction. I would just think, this is mad. What is going on here? Whereas now, if someone says, actually, can you be in for half past ten? I'm like, yeah. No problem. I would say a time for you though ellis when time goes out the window is when you are eating because at that point

everything slows down never had indigestion in my life and i'm 43 in november people talk about it i'm like sorry you're gonna have to explain that to me i don't know what you're talking about when you're eating ellis are you loading up the next fourth four as you're going to have to explain that to me. I don't know what you're talking about. When you're eating, Ellis, are you loading up the next fork as you're chewing, which is what most people do. And to be honest, it's probably a bad way of eating. It's what I do. So I'm eating, but I'm also getting the next fork full ready to, you know, buses into a depot, basically.

No, no, no. What are you doing? Stick it on the fork. I have a little thing. Yeah, yeah. It's a wee little chat. Or, even more frustrating for anyone who ever goes out for a meal with ellis you'll be talking about something you'll finish

the point the fork with a spag bol will come towards your mouth an edge of spaghetti will touch the lips and then you'll start point number two and it'll go back down into the Pop it in my mouth. Pop it in the mouth. Have a Google. So, children were also impacted by this. John Wesley was a Methodist teacher who founded a school called Kingswood near Bristol. And every day he woke up at 4am and he insisted that all the boys at his school did the same. The Mark Wahlberg of his age. The school timetable was from 4am till 8pm. He insisted that all the boys at his school did the same. The Mark Wahlberg of his age.

The school timetable was from 4am till 8pm. One of the key proponents of good timekeeping. So if you went to this school, you would get up at 4am, you'd either put your PE kit on, you'd go down to do a bleep test or something like that or whatever. How tired you'd be all the time. And he even published a pamphlet on the duty and advantage of early rising in 1786, which basically suggested that having a lie-in was a sin.

And by his words, by soaking so long between warm sheets, the flesh becomes soft and flabby. So his point of view was that any lying down, any rest like this was kind of a sin and a waste of life. And this started to bleed out into society. And with this new pressure, it became increasingly hard for people to manage. First of all, if you could afford a watch, it still created problems.

Because in factories, basically managers during the Industrial Revolution wanted to be able to manipulate the time in which you were working. wanted to be able to manipulate the time in which you were working so they could decide when your shifts ended and began by telling you it was a certain time when it wasn't really that time so if you were found with a watch you could be sacked at work what in 1857 messed up in 1857 one mill worker from lancashire reported that there was a man who had a watch it was taken from him and given into the master's custody because he had told his colleagues the time of the day so basically you could lose your job for telling people what time it was or coming in with a watch so the factory owners were cheating them they were keeping them there longer than that's exactly it's crazy they wanted to control the boundaries of what your shift were basically and if people lived in

ignorance then you'd get another hour of people scuttling under looms exactly but then when you get home there's a watch at home it's like your dinner's cold it's on the table not a problem for ls he eats cold food all the time i've got no problem with eating cold food it's bothering me in the slightest but the hardest thing of all of course which brings me to this crazy job was getting up in the in the morning that was the trickiest thing of all which is where this job the prodder or the knocker upper came into place and the knocker upper was a guy or a gal who would carry a long stick some 14 foot long and would walk around town tapping on the windows of people who'd paid them to wake them up in the morning, basically.

So you'd pay this person, and in the morning they would come round and they would knock on your window with a 14 foot stick. I have to ask, how were they getting up? That's a very good point. Also, once they've knocked on your window are you allowed to

yell out the word snooze and then they're returning 10 minutes later keep yelling snooze until it's half an hour and you're late for work again also how do you call off the knocker do you do they keep knocking to you over the window go yeah i'm off you know imagine they had so many people to go they probably would knock a couple of times and then that was it was kind of on you, to get up at that point. Yeah, yeah. But then, you know, how are you managing customer complaints? You didn't knock.

Yes, I did. I'm calling in sick. It's my holiday. Yeah. Please. We were on. I don't sleep enough, right? And we were on holiday.

We were all sharing a hotel room. So me and Izzy and the two kids. We were on holiday. We were all sharing a hotel room, so me and Izzy and the two kids. And I had to sleep in bed with my son to try and settle him, because obviously we were in a different place. So I was lying next to him in the dark.

Izzy was in the bathroom reading a book. And this would have been about half past nine. Eventually, I just fell asleep, right? So then I woke up 12 hours later. I've not had that much sleep probably for 20 years. I felt so alert. It was like I'd been electrocuted the next day. You just think, I suppose, also in those days,

there was far less entertainment and also far less light. So the pre-electric light age. That's interesting. You're like, well, what are you going to do? You're going to go to bed, aren't you? So it continued to grow. The 1880s and 1890s saw further growth and expansion in the knocker-up trade so that almost 700 people claimed it as their job by the turn of the 20th century. Some people also did a bit of

knocker upping uh on the side they're the ones i really don't trust yeah the tired ones who are doing it as a sort of hobble as much people say for a bit of your bit of pocket money come on mate but it was in the netherlands that it last died out which is just after the second world war so it lasted that long out there. One thing I think we can agree as parents, in terms of getting up, as parents, I have not set an alarm since my children have been born. No. Because it is pointless in the morning.

They're going to be up ahead of when I need to be up. Occasionally I do. And then when it goes off, it's such a piss take. Yeah. Then what I will do is I'll set an alarm for 8am, but I'll be up at half five. And then I'll be in my third cup of tea, and the alarm will go off, I think. That alternative universe version of me, that's a reminder. I like Tim.

I miss that guy. I hope that guy's all right. Yeah. So that is the job of the Knocker Upper, I remember seeing in a film once I don't know if this is true or not, that people used to tie A string around their toe and gaggle it out the window And then someone would go past and yank on the string

But I have a feeling now that maybe that was just something you had in a cartoon That's a dream That's the dream you've had I can't imagine getting A restful night's sleep With my foot, with my my toe dangling out the window. Also guys, let's be honest there's some weirdo who hasn't tied it to their toe

That's it for this week, thank you so much for joining us hope you learned a lot, I certainly did about jobs and if you've enjoyed this episode i'm running out of ways to say it just feel free to jump on your podcast app of choice and leave us a lovely old review five stars if you can thank you so much it does help and don't forget you can email into the show as well at hello at oh what a time.com we'll see you next week bye goodbye