Oh What A Time... - #11 Adventurers

Episode Date: September 24, 2023

This week we're discussing Adventurers; each with varying levels of success, to put it mildly. From the race to the South Pole, to Maurice Wilson's somewhat bizarre plan to scale Everest, right through to that know-it-all William Morris and his trip to Iceland. There's more ONE DAY TIME MACHINE once again and if you've got anything else you'd like to share, you know what to do! (Email: [e-mail]) 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 to Dr 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

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I'm Chris Scull. And I'm Tom Crane. And each week on this show, we'll be looking at a brand new historical subject. today we're going to be discussing adventurers from the man who won the race to the south pole to the incredible story of morris wilson to william morris's trip to iceland great and speaking of adventurers some of our listeners are adventurers and in their mind they are taking advantage of the globe slash universe's hottest ever podcast feature one day time machine tom do we have some more One Day Time Machine emails? We do, but before that, we have a hell of a jingle. 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. Kicking things off today with the world's hottest format point is Graham Greaves, who has emailed the show to say, Hey guys, time travel. I would take an invisible drone to see a historic battle. Hastings, Agincourt, Romans, anything pre-canons.

Because I just can't imagine what it would have been like. And I don't really believe the portrayals in the films. Surely no one really wanted to get, and I quote, in the mixer. I reckon it was a bit like a football riot a bit of aggro some songs some people chucking stuff around but when it comes down to it there's only a few nutcases who really want to get involved everyone else is just trying not to die i've been enjoying the new podcast very much great i uh i think he's probably onto something there because i do think when you hear trying to imagine those battles it's probably onto something there. Because I do think when you hear, trying to imagine those battles,

it's probably just little pockets of lunatics getting in the mixer. I don't imagine it's too organised in those early battles. I've got to be honest, referring to a medieval battle as the mixer, like it's the penalty box in some sort of Premier League relegation six-pointer is so funny. Yeah, William the Conqueror on the touchline with a Bluetooth headset going, get in the mixer! Chewing gum viciously.

Shell it! Launch it! It's an interesting point, the idea of not getting involved. I mean, in those sort of battles, do you think you'd be standing away, watching and sort of saying supportive things, or would you be in the mixer? I've had this discussion for years. I remember a friend of mine at university, when I did my history degree, we were talking about this.

I remember him saying, surely if you're just out of breath, you can stand on the sort of, to continue with the football analogy, on the touchline, just sort of go. What would be the etiquette in like 1066 to stand there with your hands on your knees? I don't think that's sort of a good thing. Or saying you've got cramp. You know at the end of like 90, after extra time in a match,

someone's stretching out your leg because you've got cramp. Saying I will be getting back into it, believe me. Even hands on your hips like you've just conceded a goal and you're about to walk back to the halfway line. I went to the battlefield of Culloden when I was on holiday in Scotland. Really, really interesting. I didn't know much about the Battle of Culloden. And they have, you can go into a room

and they filmed a reenactment. And it's quite gory, actually. You're warned if you've got young children. This is, you know, it's quite violent, this film. I told my kids, they were like, we want to see it, we watched it, we loved it. In that battlefield reenactment that they filmed for the tourist centre, got to be honest, people were getting involved.

The next set was full of people getting stuck in. Is that because it's a reenactment? And they were like, well, I want to look hard in the reenactment. I don't want to be one of the wimps. Yeah. Everyone's reenacting the wimp. If there are any medievalists who know, please let us know. But I went on a school trip when I was young to,

I don't even know what museum it was, but they made the point that the chain mail and the armour that a soldier in Agincourt may have worn was really heavy. And we were invited as kids to try on a bit of chain mail and try on a kind of helmet. And it was so heavy. I mean, I was a child. It was so heavy. The idea, I was a child. It was so heavy.

The idea, like even now, getting into the mixer, but sans really heavy chain mail, that is quite a challenge. I remember going to Big Pit, which is genuinely fantastic. So if you're in South Wales or near South Wales, they take you down to a coal mine, and there's ex-miners doing it who are the tour guides. One of the first things they do

is you've got to put on the sort of miner's helmet with lamp. And unfortunately, I have a podcaster's neck. Right. I was like, this is too heavy. I went through a battle reenactment, I remember when I was about 12,

and one of the roundheads was wearing Converse All-Stars and it stuck with me it completely broke the whole thing I was really enjoying it then I noticed these Converse All-Stars and I was like, well it's obviously now the spell is completely broken so that's Graham Greaves, we'll go with one more

we've got so many of these by the way, thank you so much for sending in your ideas for One Day Time Machine if you have any, do keep sending them in because they're so much fun. Adam Barrett has got in contact with the show. Now, this is quite interesting because it does relate to someone claiming this has happened in real life. So it says, hi, guys. Love the pod and it helps me get to sleep, which feels like a compliment, but inadvertently feels like a slam. It is the most soporific listen out there on Apple Podcasts.

I've never got past the introduction, but I'm sure the rest of the show is good. He said, first, a bit of context. In 1997, a newspaper clipping, which I've attached as an image in this email, which is true, went viral. It read as follows. Wanted somebody to go back in time with me.

This is not a joke. P.O. Box 322 Oakview, California 93022. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before. In the newspaper. And Adam said, I would use the one day time machine to find the owner of this advertisement and then use their time machine to solve this bizarre mystery or more likely debunk it. I wish I'd chosen something Would you reply to that? Would you be interested? What's the sort of part of me being intrigued about it?

If I didn't have other stuff going on, if I was on my year out or something, I think I might as well find out what's going on here. The problem is I watched The Fly, the Jeff Goldblum version. That's quite a formative age. So I'm terrified of getting in a time machine with a fly. Yeah. And then I get back to Agent Cor, the Butler Bosworth,

and I've got, oh, these are thick hairs growing on my back. I don't feel particularly well. And you're really drawn to faeces. You have an incredible hunger for faeces. The battle's over there. You're like, where is everyone shitting? So there you go. Some fantastic emails regarding our sensational

one-day time machine feature. Don't forget as well, if you want to follow the show on Twitter and Instagram, where you can see some fantastic historical pictures, you can go to Oh What A Time pod. That's on Instagram and Twitter. And if you want to email the show, here's how you can go to oh what a time pod that's on instagram and twitter and if you want to email the show here's how you can get in touch all right you horrible lot here's how you can stay in touch

with the show you can email us at hello at oh what a timecom. And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at owhwhattatimepod. Now clear off. Breaking news coming in from Bet365, where every nail-biting overtime win, breakaway, pick six, three-point shot, underdog win, buzzer beater, shoot out, 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.

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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. How you want, when you want. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Learn more at amex.ca slash yamxtermsapply. So coming up on the show today, I'll be talking about the race for the summit of Everest and the man who tried to take a shortcut. I'll be talking about the great William Morris and his trip to Iceland. So I'm going to be talking to you guys about a chap called Roald Amundsen

and his mission to be the first person to reach the South Pole. OK, so I'll give you a little bit of context about who this guy was. He was born in Frederikstad in Norway in 1872. He was the son of a ship owner. And in 1893, he abandoned his medical studies at Christiana University and instead signed up to be a seaman on a voyage to the Arctic. Christiana University and instead signed up to be a seaman on a voyage to the Arctic. So, Alice, very briefly, and Chris, how would you feel if you'd spoken to your parents, made way through your degree and said, I'm giving it up. Instead, I'm just going to go to the Arctic on a boat. How would you feel if your kids did it? Worried.

It's such a specific thing that you would have to think there's got to be a grand plan. Yes. This has to be a great idea because it's so mad. Would you first reassure them by going, it's by the by the way Roald it's ok if you're not enjoying sociology you can change course this doesn't have to be the answer my mother would have said whatever makes you happy as long as it wasn't trying to become

the first person to reach the north or south pole I can imagine a point where Nesta would also insist on coming with you if you really were insisting on going she'd go well, well, in that case, I'm coming with you, dear. When Graham Coxon, who was studying at Goldsmiths, when Blur was signed, I think he was studying art or fine art. I think he went to his lecturers and said, I've been asked to do this big tour and we've been signed by a big record label. Is that all right? And they went, yeah, yeah, fine.

Go off and do your thing. And whenever you want to come back you can come back it feels bigger yes to try and get to the north of the south pole arguably risky doesn't it it feels like you really are saying to university it feels like you're saying do you know what not really into the course to tom's point would it be embarrassing if you went to the south pole but you did it with your mum? Yeah. Your mum accompanied you because she was worried. She held your hand across the ice. And all the pictures of you at the South Pole, your mum's holding your hand.

She's definitely got more stamina than me. I mean, she does Zumba three times a week. But he clearly had this sort of lust. Some people are drawn to the sea, clearly. That is a thing. There's a guy called Francis in my primary school who is now a shipbuilder in India. And he loved water and sea so much that after school every day, my school was by a canal, he would swim home along the canal.

Again, more evidence that Tom went to school in the 1800s. Who went to school with someone who became a shipbuilder? His mum would walk along the towpath next to him as he swam along the canal. And now he makes ships in India. So he had that. He was drawn to water. Did he not constantly have?

Biles disease. Like dysentery or, yeah. Maybe that's why he did it. He'd just skive off and go, I need another poo. I've had diarrhoea for six years. My breaststroke is incredible. That is insane.

I know, it's incredible. This chap then rolled Adler, so he dropped out. He joined on this initial journey to go to the Arctic. And then from there, over time, he rose up the ranks, basically. But it wasn't initially his plan to go to the South Pole. This is kind of the crucial thing. His dream was to go to the North Pole. This is kind of the crucial thing. His dream was to go to the North Pole. That's what he really wanted to do.

Why are people obsessed in the 1920s about going to the South Pole and the North Pole? It's so arbitrary. Who gives a shit? And then when they did it, you know, like even Everest, like someone would do it. And they're like, well, I'm going to be the first to do it without oxygen. Well, I'm going to be the first to do it in my pants. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I suppose it's this idea of legacy, isn't it?

Set up a website then. Write a blog. The moving pieces I write for The Guardian about Welsh football are my legacy. And that will be around, literally, available online forever. Yeah. I once got a terrible review at the Edinburgh Festival.

A really bad review. Worst review I've ever had. And I told you about it, Tom. And you said, well, the good thing is Alice it'll only be around until they replace the internet with something else and there will be a point where the internet is just inside everyone's

heads as well so that review will be in everyone's heads wherever they go on their eyeballs, well 15 years on they haven't replaced the internet with anything else yet. So I'm still waiting. So he didn't want to go to the South Pole. He really wanted to go to the North Pole. That was his thing.

But he started raising funds for this mission to go to the North Pole. So he got backing from the government, backing from the Norwegian king. He even, I like this because it's just such an everyday thing, he remortgaged his own house, which is quite funny. He went to NatWest, cap in hand. He sold his snares. Put a few things on Vinted and Wallop. He's away.

And crucially, he managed to convince his friend. Now, the guy called Fridtjof Nansen, who was a famous Norwegian explorer and owned a ship, a polar exploration ship, and he convinced him to lend it to him for this journey. The ship was called the Fram, and his friend lent him a ship, a polar exploration ship, and he convinced him to lend it to him for this journey. The ship was called the Fram, and his friend lent him the ship. I have memories of lending friends DVDs, and the DVD's never coming back. The idea of lending someone my ship feels quite stressful.

Have you ever got a book back? Absolutely not. And neither have I returned a book that I've ever been lent. So he was lent this boat he was going to set off when suddenly, in 1909, disaster, because word came around that the North Pole had been reached. So his dream was over, leaving only one trophy left to claim, which was the South Pole. But he was so worried that his financial backers wouldn't support him and also that he'd have to return the boat. wouldn't support him and also that you'd have to not you'd have to return the boat he decided to keep his new plan to go to the south pole complete secret including to his crew so he didn't tell

anyone on his crew they were no longer going to the north pole that is bonkers how did he explain the fact that it would have taken way longer to get there well they set off in june 1910 with his crew still thinking they were going to the North Pole. And he only told them when they got to their final stop off in Madeira in Portugal. But there's reports that basically it was a really tense journey, this journey to Madeira. No way. Because the crew kept asking questions about what they were doing. He was really vague with the answers consistently. There's writings on the tension on the ship

because he never was able to give them the honest answers, but he weren't going in the right direction. Right. Okay, Tom. A little thought experiment. You run a branch of Snappy Snaps. Yes. And you've been asked to sponsor an expedition to the North Pole. A week later, the explorer

says, actually, I'm not going to the North Pole. I'm going to the South Pole. Do you go? Well, I'm not going to the North Pole. I'm going to the South Pole. Do you go? Well, then definitely not. I remove my sponsorship. The North Pole I like, but the bloody South Pole, you're having a laugh, mate. They are so different. Yeah.

As if. I mean, is there any difference between them? I'm sure people will know. I mean, is it that there's penguins on one of them and not on the other? I think not from a sponsorship point of view a pole's a pole just take photos and claim it's the one that they want the you know say this is a sound this is a whatever i was gonna look at those photos hang on hang on it's upside down it's that's full of you know what i think would be really disappointing if you went on an expedition to either pole you'd get there and in And in my head, when I was a kid,

I thought it'd be like you see on Santa Claus movies with a little red and white striped pole. You'd be like, there it is. There's the pole. But the reality is, it's just going to be a barren wasteland. And you're like, oh, it's about here. Yeah, yeah.

All right, should we just turn around now? Yeah. Well, let's take a photo. Should we do a video? Oh, I was looking like an idiot in a video. Let's just do a nice photo. With a mountaintop or something like that, you get a lovely, lovely picture.

What are you getting with either pole? There's nothing there, right? They never look happy in the photos either, do they? It's always eight blokes looking more miserable than you could possibly look. With huge beards. A bunch of knackered dogs in the background. In the pre-Burghaus North Face Age as well.

Which is very much what this was, as you will find out. So he took a crew of 19 on this boat, including three naval lieutenants. The one that sticks out most is a guy called Hjalmar Fredrik Jertsen, who despite, I love this, lacking a medical background, was made the expedition doctor and was sent on a lightning course in surgery and dentistry. So just before they set off, would give it a sort of really quick flash course on how to perform surgery and dentistry which i think a if i was also on that boat i'd have a problem with i'd say yeah and i also like

to think if i was him and i was offered that job i'd probably say i think you should probably find someone with actual medical training absolutely absolutely i wonder how much how much extra is there though back then? How much extra are you learning outside of the crash core? Eventually they land in the Antarctic in January 1911. They set up a base which they named Franheim in a natural ice harbour

in a place called the Bay of Wales. Now six teams of dogs. And do the crew know where this is? Yes they do. From Madeira to there they know where they're going which is some solace hopefully. And they get there, they set up this huge hut for them to live in. They also bring in all the supplies, including 200 seals that have been brought to the base to be eaten. We think, oh good, after that long journey, I get to have a lovely bit of seal. For what feels like the rest of my life. Yeah, exactly. But the main reason that he was so

unbelievably prepped over these things is because he'd experienced disaster in the past. In 1898, Roald had been aboard a ship called the Belgica, which got trapped in pack ice and was then held fast for an entire year. It's the first expedition to spend in a complete winter in Antarctic waters. It was a period that the writings about it say, were marked by depression, understandably, near starvation, insanity, and scurvy amongst all the crew. However, at Munster, this gives you an idea of what he was like, Gerold,

he remained dispassionate throughout, recording everything and using experience as an education in all aspects of polar exploration techniques, particularly AIDS, clothing, and diet. So he just wrote about it in his diary and just was quite sort of removed and detached from the whole situation, which is not how I would be. I think, I mean, how would you guys be trapped in pack ice for a year? Do you know what? Until quite recently, I'd have tried to have been the positive guy. Yeah.

But I now think you've actually got to follow the vibe. And if everyone is depressed because they've got scurvy because they've been trapped in back ice for 12 months, if everyone else is depressed, you've also got to be quite sort of low-key. Yeah. Even if you're secretly locked, you can't let on. You can't be like a Butlin's Redcoat after 12 months of being trapped in back ice. Don't get the banjo out again, Ellis, please. I don't want to, please.

Your improv's on. Oi, ei! I'm going to quickly take you through the equipment and stuff they had in this camp um they had a hundred north greenland sledge dogs they chose dogs rather than horses so traditionally horses were used for this they chose dogs because they could navigate through the mountains easier and also it's a bit less fun they could be killed and eaten when the time came so they're not dog lovers they lovers. Well, they claim they are in their diaries afterwards, but I think if you've eaten your dog,

it probably goes against what you claim. More of a dog user, I would say, than a dog lover. And you mentioned North Face earlier. They had worn clothing, but it was made of seal skin from Northern Greenland, clothes fashioned after traditional garments of the Nesilic Inuit from reindeer skins, wolf skin, garbadine,

and also, this one you'll love, this is a football fan, Burberry Cloth. They were wearing Burberry out there, like they were football hooligans. South Pole away, naughty fixture. Headbutting a seal. They also had alcohol, they had wines and spirits for use as medicine

and on festive and special occasions, and they had forms of entertainment, because Roald was so mindful of the loss of morale on his previous ships and journeys. He provided a library of 3,000 books, a gramophone, a large quantity of records and a range of musical instruments. Wow. Imagine doing the South Pole with a hangover because it's been Easter weekend. With all that in order, it meant they could get the real prep going ahead of their attempted walk to the south pole which i'm going to warn you is not a fun walk first they did short trips returning to camp each time and what they did was quite interesting this is they'd go a little journey and lay out a reserve of food and then return back and then go and further journey leaving more seal meat and stuff like that and

then they'd return back so that when they did the actual journey you wouldn't have to carry as much stuff with you and i managed to do this before winter set in and then on april the 21st the sun set over the camp and it did not appear again for four months so they were completely in the dark in this camp for four months during which time roald became so panicked that Scott and the British team would get there first. He decided that as soon as the sun came up again, they're going to go. We're going to leave. As soon as the sun comes up, we're going. And everyone else is going, this is a mistake. You canal mistake. As he describes it in his diaries, the breath of men and dogs freezes the moment it hits the air. And the temperature fell from 8 degrees centigrade to below 49 degrees centigrade. And in their wolfskin and reindeer skin clothing, basically they could deal with it and they were moving. But as soon as they stopped, they suffered and they couldn't sleep at night. The dogs' forepaws became frostbitten, and they eventually halted at night the dog's four paws became frostbritten and they

eventually halted after only four nautical miles and they were forced to return to camp and this time they did wait until the 19th of october and the first hints of spring although i can't imagine those hints of spring are much of a hint a gesture throwing open the curtains and going oh it's lovely it's t-shirt weather daffaffodils and an Easter egg hunt. Eventually, as I say, in October, five men, four sledges, 52 dogs begin the actual journey. And they're covering more than 15 miles a day at that point. To combat the dangers of scurvy, twice a day they ate seal meat. The cook, Lindstrom, supplied vitamin C intake with bottled cloudberries and blueberries,

provided wholemeal bread made from fresh yeast rich in vitamin B. So that is what they did to try and prevent scurvy. Okay, so they eat better than my kids. That's good. And those are pesto pasta as well. And then they reached the Transantarctic Mountains on November 17th, which they had to find their own route through because it was a really complicated bit. And after climbing 1,500 feet, the party found what appeared to be a clear route. This was like a steep glacier, which is 30 nautical miles long,

leading upwards to the plateau they needed to get to. And after three days of difficult climbing, they eventually reached the glacier summit, which was good for them, not so good for the dogs. Because of 45 of the dogs who'd made the ascent, only 18 would go forward because the remainder was slaughtered for food. Oh, my God. They called this place the butcher's shop. And Adminson recalled, there was such depression and sadness in the air,

we had grown so fond of our dogs. At what point, do you ask, is it worth it? Yeah. I'm already past that point. At what point do you ask is it worth it yeah i'm already past that point at which point are you are you ordering an uber you go you get i'm out of here you're getting your phone out i mean to be honest as soon as i found out it was it was south pole not north pole i was already questioning what we're doing here though they've slaughtered the dogs in the butcher shop so name and then they set off in final leg so first marching across an area full

of ice with and loads of crevasses which adverton called the devil's glacier and then after that an area where the crevasses were concealed under layers of snow and ice which gave an unpleasantly hollow sound apparently you're walking along you didn't know where the drops were oh my god he named that area the devil's ballroom so it was devil's glacier and the devil's ballroom i think i probably asked him to stop naming things after that point yeah you're gonna stick with this devil's thing put a positive spin on it exactly so so you want us to walk across the fun zone yes make it sound like a soft play center they eventually approach the pole they're all panicking that they're going to see any markings. Another

expedition has been there first. And there's one thing which is written about which really made me laugh. On the 12th of December, they were momentarily alarmed by a black object that appeared on the horizon. And they thought it was the British team who'd made it there first. But it proved to be their own dog's droppings off in the distance magnified by a mirage.

How big are these dog droppings like the triceratops dung in jurassic park yeah well seemingly so they make it eventually on december the 14th 1911 and just before they get there adminson says to his team do you mind if i go ahead because i'm i'd like to be there first. And they're like, okay, fair enough. Whatever, mate. Whatever, yeah. Whatever keeps you happy. I really wish after all that, someone had yelled shotgun and then ran past me. Bugsy me.

Exactly. And they get there, they plant the Norwegian flag and they name the plateau King Hakon VII, named after the King of Norway. And he said, Adverson later reflected on the irony of his achievement. Never has a man achieved a goal so diametrically opposed to his wishes. The area around the North Pole, Devil, take it, had fascinated me since childhood. And now here I was at the South Pole.

Could anything be more crazy? So he made it with his men and they survived. And of course, sadly, the British team did not. They did not make it back after getting to the South Pole. And what was interesting actually about that was that the way that Edmonton's achievement was received in Britain, it wasn't received as a great achievement. Actually, the press covered it as someone who had sort of cheated his way to this victory. You cannot cheat your way to the South Pole. Yeah, well, if you'd read the British press, he was seen as a scoundrel.

Yeah, yeah, so was Roy Keane. Robbie Savage. The guy won Premier League after Premier League. Another man who looks like he's just walked to the South Pole, isn't it? Yes, good point. What's interesting is that captain scott and his exhibition yeah the shadow of it looms quite large in in british life i know quite a lot about yeah captain scott and oats and you know i'm just going outside and maybe some time and all that kind of stuff and i'm losing out to the norwegians i know very little

about the norwegian expedition so this has been really interesting because i've always seen it from the British perspective. I vaguely knew that they were beaten by a Norwegian, but the way you started that story made me think that this can't possibly be the story of the first successful journey to the South Pole. That's insane.

It shows you what's required, doesn't it? It's the unbelievable bravery and resilience. Can I surprise you? I haven't got it in me. So there you go. That is Adamson and his team making it to the South Pole. I've been reading a lot about Mount Everest recently,

how dangerous it is, the depths on the mountain, the body still lying there that you have to walk past in order to be able to get to the top, which just blows my mind. Yeah, yeah. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to reach the summit on the 29th of May 1953. We all know that. That was actually the ninth attempt by the British to get to the top of Everest.

Wow. Fascinating, because Edmund Hillary is from New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay obviously is from Nepal, and yet seen as a British triumph. Commonwealth, I guess. Because of the Commonwealth. Okay, got you. Many had failed to do it before in British expeditions, George Mallory being the most famous. He was actually spotted very near the summit before he died in 1924, 29 years before Edmund Hillary made it. And there's a lot of questions and debate about whether Mallory did in fact make it to the top of Everest. He was spotted climbing near the summit. And his body then wasn't found until 1986,

62 years after he died. And reading about Everest, what's so fascinating is that many people think he had a camera with him. And obviously, if he's getting to the top, he would have taken a picture with that camera, but the camera's never been found. It may have been Mallory. He may have already done it.

That's amazing. Well, no one knows, but Mallory did fall down the mountain. They found his body way down from the summit, and his legs were broken. And they do think there was claw marks on the ground. They think he probably did survive that fall. Oh, my God. Oh, no.

What a way to go. Talk about questioning your life choices at that point. Wow. Yeah. You'd be thinking to yourself, I should have just got a job in an office. They're always posh blokes. You could have been like, I could have been a civil servant.

And do you know what was interesting when I was reading about Everest? The British press really lauded these mountaineers and these adventurers as real heroes, but they didn't add much around how difficult it was and how horrific these conditions were and how terrible the fate of these people who failed to do it like george mallory was and so they were held up as heroes and when this gets written about in the press obviously people start reading it and one person who read the story of all these great british adventurers who were trying to climb mount everest was maurice wilson

so maurice wilson is a man with no mountaineering experience. Oh, dear. He was an incredibly brave man. In World War I, he was awarded the Military Cross for single-handedly manning a machine gun post against advancing Germans after everyone else in his unit was injured in the First World War. So he fought them off, got a Military Cross for it. Again, people from the past, incredibly hard.

After that incident. So hard. Absolutely. Imagine manning a machine, like today. Imagine if I spent today manning a machine gun. If I was the remaining person, I would turn that gun on myself. I'm not doing that, but there is no way that I wouldn't put the gun down and try and charm them. You don't want to take me hostage.

Oliver Kahn, good player, good player. We quite like beer and sausages and whales, actually. And that would be Ellis' mistake, going back in one day time machine to that day and then trying to charm them with football references from the late 90s. Michael Ballack sort of ended his career at Chelsea. You will like him if you survive this

so later in the war maurice wilson is injured in yipra and after the war he found some tremendous success he became relatively quite wealthy wealthy for the time but like so many in that post-war generation really struggled in the transition to civilian life and was always looking for that extra buzz looking that's really adventure and so in the 20s when the efforts of mallory were hitting all the papers he romanticized about the idea of being the first man to climb everest and he came to the conclusion essentially this is what he was put on this earth to do now this is where it gets interesting he decides he's going to climb everest what do you think the most difficult thing is about climbing everest altitude

sickness yeah altitude and lack of oxygen at the top or Or maybe an avalanche. Yeah, I'd put all of those answers under the bracket of having to actually climb the thing. Right. So what he decided to do was, well, I'll learn to fly a plane. I will crash land the plane under the upper summit of Everest and just go for a jolly little walk up to the top. On paper, great idea. Great in a cartoon. Yeah. You could definitely do that in a cartoon. Tom and Jerry could get away with that.

Very briefly, what's his plan then to come down again if he's crashed the plane? Well, that's a good point, Tom. I will go back to one of the first things I said. He has no mountaineering experience. Right. But now you know his plan is to crash the plane into the top of Everest and walk the rest of the way up.

I will also tell you this. He had no experience flying either. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Maurice Wilson decides, well, I'm going to crack on with this. He goes out. He buys a small airplane, a two-seater light training aircraft. And he begins trying to get his pilot's license. He's described by his tutors as a

very poor student it takes him twice the time of the average student to get his pilot's license but he does eventually get one of course he does hasn't still has no mountain morris you can't land this safely and he says that's not really an issue don't worry don't worry about the landing aspect you just pass me for the flying give Can you give me two thirds of my badge? So again, he had no specialist climbing equipment with him when he went to tackle Everest. He didn't learn any of the basic kind of mountaineering skills, but he did do a little bit of training.

He spent five weeks walking around the Lake District. The guy's thick. I haven't been to Everest, but I've been to the Lake District. And the two, if you just look at pictures of those two things, Everest is covered in snow. Yeah. The Lake District, like most of the, only at the very top peaks do you get icy kind of conditions. So even if you're going up the top, you're going to get nothing like Everest. That is incredible.

Okay. So he's back to the Lake District, but bear in mind, it's 1924. Yeah. And he's in the UK. He's got a light aircraft, which he's bought. His plan is to fly to Tibet. and he's in the UK. He's got a light aircraft, which he's bought.

His plan is to fly to Tibet. That is an incredible challenge for even the most skilled pilots in the 20s. But the other thing that starts happening around this time, the government start getting wind of what he wants to do. So the air ministry ban him from leaving the country. Nonetheless, he's able to fly all the way to Cairo where the British consulate catch him and at that point say, you can't fly to Tibet, because it means flying over Persia.

You are banned. We're forcing you to turn back to Britain. So Morris says, fine, I'll go back. They draft a flight plan for him to fly back to the UK from Cairo. His plane takes off, and immediately he thinks, fuck this, and chucks a right and goes on to India. And he flies nine hours. I think their main mistake there, Chris, is letting him fly back.

That feels like the basic mistake there, doesn't it? And you promise you're not going to fly. No, I'm not going to. I promise you. Do you think about the British consulate? It probably was still on the runway going, right, there he goes. And then they're going, he's chucking a right. Uh-oh.

But we told him. I asked him. I specifically asked him to go in that direction. Oh, my God. All on the tarmac, trying to do big hand gestures, pointing the other direction. Yeah, yeah. That way.

Oh, nice one. He manages to make it to India right at the very end of what the aircraft is capable of in terms of the amount of fuel i had on board he touches down in india with an empty fuel tank he manages then to travel across to east the east of india where eventually he's apprehended he's caught and they take the plane off him at this point like go home but the thing is because he's in the east of india he's not that far to tibet at that point so with his plane impounded he makes it to everest he makes it to the base

of everest and once he's there he basically thinks once again fuck it and he starts climbing everest on his own so he's abandoned the plane scheme he's just going to start training remember no mountaineering no crampons no ice so no equipment no equipment and he starts he starts climbing it oh no which is again insane because no one would successfully climb Everest on their own until 1980. Most of what happens next comes from his diary. He got lost constantly. Because of course he did.

Can you imagine how demoralising that would be? I'm not even sure I'm on Everest anymore. I think I'm on one of the other big ones. A bit where he gets, like, ten metres from the top and then takes the wrong turning and suddenly he's at the bottom again. Oh, no. So he's constantly going back on himself. There's this bit in his diary where he finds a pair of abandoned crampons,

which could really help him, you know, those pointy shoes that help you climb up ice. He doesn't really know how useful they are, so he throwing them away carries on five days of climbing on his own and eventually he writes in his diary the weather's beaten me what damned bad luck yeah it's the weather mate oh no yeah wow so then he spends four days climbing down the glacier four really tough days he arrives back at a local monastery snow blind exhausted he's got war wounds which absolutely ache and then he rests for 18 days and when that 18 days was up what does he do he tries again what a mania this time he gets the

he gets help from two sherpas he gets to at which point he is confronted with an icefall that was just beyond his climbing abilities. The Sherpas at that point beg him to come down the mountain, but he refuses. And many people think he refused because he would rather have died on the mountain than return back to Britain and face the people who said he couldn't do it.

So eventually, one year later, they find his body in 1935, another British expedition. And then along with it, they find his diary in which there's a final entry marked on the 31st of May, off again, gorgeous day.

And his body is still on Everest to this day. And then when I read the accounts from the mountaineers that found him, there was a tremendous respect for him because even though he had no like no idea about mountain climbing he still was an unbelievable achievement to get that far and the determination he showed and this is the thing i guess you know madness and bravery they're not that they're not too far apart what a maniac what was his name again maurice wilson maur Maurice Wilson. Surely the terrible cold weather must have affected the standard of his handwriting, because I can't even write legibly if I'm on a train.

Well, today I'm going to be talking about William Morris. I've got a question for you both. How bad do you feel about your achievements thus far? Whole life. Is this anything to do with the history pod? It is. We're not recording, Ellis. So how bad do I feel about my achievements in life up until this point? If you're on your deathbed, looking back, would you think that you'd maybe fulfilled your potential? I think a great achievement in life is to end up with a Wikipedia page

that has three completely different sections. I was on Ronald Reagan's the other day. You've got a whole acting career in there before he's president. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I suppose Arnold Schwarzenegger is similar, isn't it? So he's Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia and then... The sign of a Wikipedia page where life well lived is when there's a drop-down section labelled personal life.

I think that is the one that everyone goes to first. Yeah, and an awful lot of links in red. Yeah, exactly. The section you want to avoid is controversy. Controversy. Yeah, exactly. The section you want to avoid is controversy. Controversy! Yeah, yeah. William Morris is a genuine, I mean, he's a genuine polymath and a genuinely extraordinary bloke.

Now, for a long time, I think I knew him first as a poet. And then when I was at university studying politics and history, I knew of his socialism, his campaigning background and his socialist writings and his pamphlets and stuff. Obviously, there's William Morris wallpaper, very famous wallpaper, posh wallpaper, because he was a textile designer. That was actually my entry point into William Morris.

Well, I could not believe it was the same book. I was just so stunned. Even if you just look at the first page of his Wikipedia, I was so gobsmacked that he was the same person. William Morris was a British textile designer, poet, artist, fantasy writer, and socialist activist associated with the British arts and crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production his literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre while he helped win acceptance of socialism in fin de ciclo great britain his socialist writing is still really really relevant that the stuff he was writing on

left-wing causes do you think he was sort of struggling to work out what he actually wanted to do with his life because it feels a bit like that, doesn't it? He went to Oxford. He studied classics, which he found boring because he was so clever. I guess every now and again in history, a dude will pop up at Oxford that is just way more intelligent

than anyone who could possibly teach this guy anything. You're at university. You're the best university on the planet. Boring! Like this. Okay, right. I get it. He was influenced by anarchism in the 1880s,

became a committed revolutionary socialist activist. He founded the Socialist League in 1884 after involvement in the Social Democratic Federation, but he broke with that organisation in 1890. He founded the Calum Scott Press to publish limited edition illuminated style print books. Wow. He devoted his final years to that. When you look at the sort of campaigning groups,

like things like the Socialist League and the Social Democratic Federation, he was in loads of those. He was routinely the treasurer or the secretary. So you're just thinking, Jesus Christ, he's also doing petty cash. Do you know what this feels like? It feels like when you ask your partner what their ex did and then you regret it and they give you 3,000 credible things. That is exactly what I thought. And I was reading, obviously there's loads of biographies about him and I've read quite a lot about William Morris.

Each time I read stuff about him and he's done more incredible things that would warrant a Wikipedia page on his own, you think think can you imagine this guy being your wife's ex it would be absolutely

horrific oh is he is he oh did he of course he had great oh yeah yeah what he profoundly

influenced interior decorations throughout the Victorian period did he I ordered that sofa from made.com yeah he sounds

like a top bloke I like him, yeah. William Morris' life really reminds me of Forrest Gump, where you think, if William Morris, there's a film of William Morris, he'd be doing things in that film, you're just like, this is unbelievable, that a guy would be that good at this thing

and that good at that. So how is he winning the World Ping Pong Championships? One minute. Yes, exactly. But William Morris is real. Yeah. That's the thing. Not that I compare myself to William Morris very often.

I occasionally think, well, he didn't have an iPhone, did he? So he wasn't constantly scrolling. You know, he wasn't on Twitter. So he didn't waste time on Twitter, for instance. Yeah. However, I'm not going to talk about his socialism. I'm not going to talk about the amazing wallpaper he designed. He also, he went to Iceland

and he spoke Icelandic, of course he did. And he produced a series of English language translations of Icelandic sagas. All right, mate. Give it a rest, mate. To be honest. Stop now. But if you're his agent, do you go,

your time could be better spent here? You need to focus. When I first read about this, because of the research, obviously, that's provided for us so kindly by our historian, Daryl, I hadn't realised that Iceland was actually a relatively popular tourist destination in the 19th century. Oh, really? So he wasn't the only guy to have gone to Iceland.

And he was taught Icelandic by someone who worked, I think he was like the sub-librarian at Cambridge, someone we met who taught him icelandic and then they went over there because they wanted to translate these sagas right now william morris he was a man who loved his creature comforts but he did have a very poor taste in companions okay he found himself in 1870 in an unfortunate tryst with his wife jane and his friend dante gabrielle rosetti now jane and rosetti were having an affair but unfortunately for william all three lived in the same house okay it's a tale as old as time i must admit it's probably bad but i went when i read that i went! It does sound to me, though, Ellis, like he wouldn't have had much time for the relationship

if he's doing all of those things. And I think we all agree, for a healthy relationship, you need to put some time into it. So I imagine his wife saying, can we go for a walk on a Saturday? Let's put something in the diary. You've got no space for that. Oh, yeah, and when do I design my wallpaper and write socialist pieces,

write socialist works that are going to live on 140 years after my death? So when do I do that? I know you want to go and have dim sum, but I have to translate this Icelandic text. I've also got to write a poem, which will be studied at GCSE or possibly A-level. I think he entirely had himself to blame. Do you think if you're the wife as well,

you can't be mad because you're going, oh, you've got to write a poem, have you? And then she sees the poem and she's like, yes, it's beautiful, it's brilliant. Yes, it's the best thing I've ever read, but... I Google imaged him and there's just like a really beautiful self-portrait that he drew.

Oh, no. And you're like, okay, the guy can draw. I get it, fine. Yeah, amazing. Anyway, no. And you're like, okay, the guy can draw. I get it, fine. Yeah, amazing. Anyway, so to escape this horrendous situation where he's living with his wife and his mates and they're having an affair, he went off to Iceland on an adventure in 1871. He wanted to see the country and its landscape. Now, he travelled first by train from London, Scotland, then by ship from Edinburgh, by

the Faroe Islands, arriving in Reykjavik on the 14th of July, 1871. His journal, which was not published until 1911 after his death, some 15 years after his death, in fact, revealed the inner turmoil that he felt and the experiences that he had whilst on this great journey. I felt as if I'd left everything behind, he wrote. Yeah, as if I myself should be left behind, yet now it would have seemed unbearable to sleep in London another night. It's quite interesting because often I think diarists in the past often held a lot back. So it's quite interesting because he didn't know this was going to be published.

So you're getting a real insight into how he felt. Can I ask you a quick question before you continue on? How would you feel after your death if someone published your diary and you hadn't planned it? Awful. But you had you had no plan for it to be a published work and then 11 years is not long enough tom if someone published my emails i'd be absolutely devastated

i would buy that a copy table book of every email you've said in the last five years i'd soak it all up you're amazing i went out with a girl and her mother was a poet and she used to have to hand her diaries into the National Library of Wales every year what?

why? because they knew they were going to be studied at the end of they knew they were going to be studied at the you know after she died

I think about that in terms of like imagine being a president where you know you are subject to history your life is historic and everything you do is of interest

to future generations. And things like that, diaries, if you're keeping a diary and you've got that kind of profile, are you putting in it, God, the washing machine is so fucked. I'd really make myself sound amazing. Did 5,000 sit-ups this morning. I'm too honest.

Lost at squash again. The plumber has fucked our house. He's done half a job. Hang on, all these diaries are just complaints about tradesmen. The skull diaries. The boiler. It sold me a dud. Over the course of my life, I've probably got four diaries that go until the 3rd of January. Yes, me too. I'm exactly the same.

Yeah. And I wouldn't even want to read those. The 2nd of January, I got bought a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles diary. Christmas 1990. And I make it to the 3rd of January 1991. And it is something like the 2nd of January, Mum asked if I wanted to go shopping and I said no. 3rd of January, I've got nothing to write.

4th of January, that's the final entry. I've never written a diary. I do have in my phone notes, though, about 3,000 sitcom ideas that were not strong enough for me to actually start work on. So people can publish that if they want. Yeah, they can restructure your life from that. I'm going to write a Welsh language stand-up show next year, 2024. I'm already thinking about it, and I'm already a little bit worried about it.

I had a night out in Edinburgh at the Edinburgh Festival with David O'Doherty, the Irish stand-up. And I had a few drinks. We had a really, really good night. And that night I dreamt that David learnt Welsh and he was going to help me write it, OK? So he turned up at my house and he'd learnt Welsh and we were riffing and stuff and it was great.

I was writing all this stuff down and he was speaking Welsh and I said oh my god you know I'm so grateful that you've learnt Welsh and you're helping me with all these great ideas because I'd had a drink, I woke up for a piss at about like 3am

midway through the dream I thought oh my god he's done it, I've dream written the show. I've got to write as much of this town as I can remember. So I'm in the toilet writing an iPhone note. It is absolute rubbish. I cannot explain to you how unfunny this is. Well done. Nice one, mate. I cannot explain to you how unfunny this is.

Also, Ellis, how patronising would that be for David Ducati to turn up at your door and go, I've learnt Welsh, I'm going to help you with your show. I was so concerned about the quality of your forthcoming tour that I've learnt a new language to make sure it's not terrible. Well, talking of learning new languages, right? Now, Maurice had learnt Icelandic. So his first Icelandic trip, taken of learning new languages, right? Now, Morris had learned Icelandic. So his first Icelandic trip, taken when he was 37,

marked a turning point in his life. He took seriously the study of Icelandic with a view to translating the sagas into English. In the 1890s, which was the last few years of his life, he completed his saga library. Imagine doing that when you're dying. Yeah, wow. Yeah.

Yeah. You all right up there, William? Yeah. Just hang on there, William? Yeah. Just hang on just a little bit longer. You've got three pages left. Can I have another quill? Yeah. They served to amplify the status of the saga text in late

Victorian Edwardian Britain. A copy of one of Morris' translations of the Bolsunga saga, first published in 1870, was purchased by a 22-year-old J.R.R. Tolkien using prize money won in 1914. That's cool. Now, for those not familiar, the Volsunga Saga contains the story of Sigurd

who kills a great dragon who has been guarding a cursed golden ring. Oh. So you're like, all right then. Okay, fine. You've influenced Lord of the Rings as well. All right, I get it. I read quite a lot of it. I was trying to look for weak points.

I was thinking, is he sporty? Like, if he turned up at five a side, would he be able to pull his weight? Would he be good at arm wrestling? Yeah. Now, I read a long sort of story about his time in Iceland. So I'm going to read this to you, which made me really, really laugh, okay?

The land spirits and ghosts of the saga age are likely to have had a limited frightening effect on Morris because they belong within the fantastic literature-inspired expectations that he carries with him into the land. In stark contrast to such literary cool-headedness, however, Morris records how being moved by silly traveller's tales tales he experiences a fear so strong that it extinguished curiosity the first time he is invited into a bonder's house for coffee right since he's been a local sort of icelandic person the house was of turf of course with wooden gables facing south all doors very low and the passages very dark what is the source of his concern morris writes that my flesh quaked with fear the fear of an obnoxious animal,

refraining even from calling the horrifying creature by name. The source of his terror is the spectre of the louse, assumed to haunt the typical farmer's abode. The episode concludes comically with Magnusson, his mate who had taught him Icelandic, accidentally firing his gun while unloading it, very nearly shooting their host in the head and touching a bullet in the door beam above him. How has that happened?

Sorry, does it explain why he shot his gun? Because he was trying to unload it and he got it wrong. So he fires it by mistake. Bang! Almost blowing his host's head off. Can you imagine doing that? As some bloke is showing you around an Airbnb.

That's incredible. So that's the boiler. That's all done by remote control, doing that? As some bloke is showing you around an Airbnb. That's incredible. So that's the boiler. That's all done by remote control, actually. We changed it a couple of years ago. You probably, you won't need to change the settings. And also we can tell if you're doing it. So if it is too cold or too hot, send me a text and I can do it for you.

Bang! Oh my God! And that was the grandfather clock. It doesn't show the time anymore, I'm afraid. Also, Morrison failingly records his tendency to lose things. From the strap that tied a beloved tin panikin, which made such a sweet, sweet tinkle, to his saddle bow, to the panikin itself,

ill-tied to the piece of string, who's not come undone, to a slipper hastily shoved into a pocket and subsequently dislodged panikin and slipper, both a miraculous return by the good Icelanders who later happened upon them. Right, yeah yeah but true is that it beat me may i mention that i had a stomach ache to begin with as some excuse see we talked earlier about the idea of this being the the perfect x of your partner this would have to be the thing you'd focus on you'd have to constantly go yeah but he's always forgetting stuff.

Let's not forget the slipper incident. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he gets stomach aches, so he didn't see a really nice swoop. Exactly. One all, I think. Likewise, Morris recalls that his explanation to a priest who has joined them on an excursion, that he is winded from hiking because he is heavily clad and booted. He's met with a tap on the belly and the response stated very gravely,

besides, you know, you are so fat. So he might have needed to have lost a couple of pounds. Who knows? He's a big guy. When you see pictures of him, he's a big, he looks like a goalkeeper, like a kind of 1980s goalkeeper. Yeah, yeah, like a big bearded goalkeeper.

But I mean, what a talent. So yeah, that's the story of William. The thing with William Morris, I mean, you could devote a series to William Morris with the stuff he's done. Such an interesting, what a talent. So yeah, that's the story of William. The thing with William Morris, I mean, you could devote a series to William Morris with the stuff he's done. Such an interesting, fascinating bloke. And he's going to pop up again, isn't he? Yes, absolutely.

One brief thing that comes to mind, just a memory of my dad, when you were talking about Lord of the Rings there in the movie, in the franchise, my dad, who's sadly passed away now, when he was alive, we were watching the Lord of the Rings movie together and he turned to me and told me it was a bit far-fetched.

And that's always stuck with me. It's such a weird description of Lord of the Rings. A bit far-fetched. That's my problem with it. A fantasy work of fiction. It's just a bit too much, isn't it, really?

Just a bit. Yeah, yeah. A touch. Just a bit too much, isn't it, really? Just a bit. Yeah, yeah. A touch. Just a bit. And there you have it. Thank you very much for downloading Oh, What A Time. It's that time of the podcast again where I ask you for your ratings because it does genuinely help. So if you'd like to leave a five-star rating and a positive review,

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