Oh What A Time... - #29 Love (Part 2)

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed from yesterday! Valentines Day has reared its head again, which can mean only one thing: this week we’re discussing LUUUUUURVE (love). From the arguably unnecessary Welsh patron saint of love, Mozart and his saucy love letters, to the history of Valentines Day; and the OWAT full timers will get ‘the history of dating’ this week! And how would you go back the past and really REALLY change it? You know what to do, let us know at: [e-mail] If you want both parts in one piece with the bonus bit of history, why not become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - the 4th part of every episode and ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - a bonus episode every month - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). And thank you for listening! We’ll see you next week! BYE! Chris, Elis and Tom x Get an Exclusive NordVPN deal here: https://nordvpn.com/owat  It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's just get on with the show, shall we? So, I am now going to talk to you, lovely boys, about Valentine's Day. Lovely boys. Lovely, lovely boys. The proper Valentine's Day. Let's start by asking this question, okay? Well, Ellis has kind of answered it already. Are you into Valentine's Day?

And what is the most romantic thing you've ever done? I'm just intrigued. Let's start with you, Chris. What's the most romantic thing you've ever done? And are you into it? I knew this intrigued. Let's start with you, Chris. What's the most romantic thing you've ever done? And are you into it? I knew this might come up at some point in this episode. But what I considered at the time

to be the most romantic thing I've ever done, but actually was the most cringeworthy, terrifying thing that ever happened to me. Absolutely. So I want you to picture the scene. It's year eight.

I'm just getting, you know, year eight, you're just getting into girls. I had a crush on a girl. I'll say her first name. Her name was Kelly. She was in my class at school. And I decided Valentine's Day was the day I would make a on a girl. I'll say her first name. Her name was Kelly. She was in my class at school. And I decided Valentine's Day was the day I would make a move.

Okay. When there's the most pressure of all. When there's most pressure at all, here was my plan, right? I was going to send her an anonymous Valentine's Day card. And I would supplement that Valentine's Day card. With 100 quid. supplement that Valentine's Day card. With 100 quid.

However, a rival child had put 110 in his and swung the deal. It's like transfer deadline day. Exactly, yeah. There was an aspect of transfer deadline day to someone who says, I don't have a Valentine. I don't have a Valentine. Quick, who's on the market?

Put some bids in. put some bids out um so i thought yeah what i'll do is i'll give her an anonymous card and i'll tell you what i'll get her a stuffed teddy as well i think it was a stuffed dog actually it was like a tuesday morning and i think we had double science two science lessons in a row the sexiest lesson what i would do is on the first break, when everybody's gone out after the break in between the two lessons, I would get my carrier bag that I'd stuffed in my school bag with the dog and the card and leave it on top of her bag addressed to Kelly. We come back in from the break. What do you think of this plan so far?

I've executed the plan. It's the first break. What do you think of it? Terrible. Sorry to be very blunt. It's a sort of classic year eight plan. If I'd had the nerve and I didn't, it would have been the

same sort of thing, I think. But I think there's an awful lot of margin for error in this plan. And enormous. Any predictions on where it goes from here so how anonymous is it when you've been seen

walking around school for the morning holding a stuffed dog it was I had quite a big school bag at the time so it did fit in I had like a big

Nike hold all like I was on a cricket tour even though that's all I had I'm genuinely fascinated as to how this so what happened so I imagine

this is how what I'm guessing if this had been my school one of the rough kids would have found it kicked it around established to how this... So what happened? So I imagine, this is what I'm guessing, if this had been my school, one of the rough kids would have found it, kicked it around, established from the handwriting that it was you, and then kicked your head in.

Over to you, Chris. So, we get back in from the break. This girl, Kelly, goes, oh my God, look at this! Pulls out the stuff, Teddy. Pulls out the card. The whole class, including the teacher, goes, oh my God! Everyone at this. Pulls out the stuff. Teddy pulls out the card. The whole class, including the teacher, goes,

Oh my God. Everyone comes over to her desk looking through it. I obviously have to join in because I'm trying to be anonymous at this point. Oh my God. And at this point begins what I can only describe as an inquest. Oh my God. Into who has done it. I deny it. I deny it.

Handwriting begins to get matched around the castle. We're like 15 minutes into the lesson. The teacher, say this again. The teacher is joining in in the inquest. Who's done this? The teacher's joining in. It is. Eventually.

Not okay. Bloody Columbo. At some point, I become the main suspect. And at which point, I just stop denying it. And everyone's like, ah, Chris did this. And I was just like, I'm just going to stare forward now into the abyss of this science class. I reckon the whole thing was half an hour of just an inquest. When you could have been fiddling about with Bunsen burners.

There was laughter. I was like, in my opinion, I don't think it could have gone any worse. Now, Chris, I already know the answer to this, but did it end up that you two got together? Yeah, married now, three kids. Oh, that's well. And I would actually go so far. We were good friends before that.

I don't think we ever spoke again. It was tainted. Well, do you know what, Chris? I admire the effort. I genuinely do admire the effort. I admire the effort. What about you then, Al, very briefly? What's the most romantic thing you've done and are you into Valentine's Day? As a teenager, I was

so profoundly terrified of what happened to Chris happening to me. Had word reached you? That all of my... That Chris's story went from East London to West Wales. It went from school to school. Not only crossed England, it went into Wales.

That I kept all my crushes so firmly under wraps. Like, it was like I'd created a vault in my psyche, like a sort of Fort Knox vault, because I couldn't tell anyone because I was just so embarrassed. I thought it would get out and I never thought it would be reciprocated. I remember someone leaving

a sarcastic Valentine's Day card on my bag before a year-line DT lesson. I remember reading it and for about half a second allowing myself to believe a bit like when England equalised in the 1990 World Cup

semi-final and all those English fans thought oh my god it's on we're going to win the bloody World Cup you know or when we got to the semi-final of the Euros in 2016 thinking Jesus Christ we're going to do it just like Greece and then realising very quickly that it was sarcastic and thinking okay in 2016 thinking, Jesus Christ, we're going to do it. Just like, great, so damn it. And then realising very quickly that it was sarcastic and thinking, okay, quell these feelings

and pretend it never happened. Quell, quell, quell, for God's sake. And if it gives you a stomach ulcer, that's fine. You can deal with the stomach ulcer in hospital. Quell, quell, quell. I think age 15, if you wanted to find out who I fancied,

you'd have to have waterboarded me or something. It would have to have been something really intense. I'd have had to have been on fire. Process of interrogation.

Quell those teenagers now. If there's any teenagers listening to this, keep your feelings to yourself. Lock that slab of disappointment deep down inside your gullet. Don't tell anyone.

And yet, certainly when I was older, I wish I'd been a bit braver because I wasn't brave at all. But anyway, in terms of romantic things, I did record Izzy a song once. Oh! Her favourite song. Because I lived with a musician at a recording studio. And I'm a very nervous

singer. I could play the guitar, so the music part of it was fine. It was just the singing. And I think she quite liked that. That's so sweet. But then I became very embarrassed and I just thought, quell, quell, quell. And I've been quelling now for 14 years.

One of Britain's best quellers. Well, on that very briefly, I asked Claire, my wife, if I'd said, do you think I'm romantic? And her response was, and this is a quote, I feel like you've done a lot of romantic things for me, but nothing is coming to mind. Which I would suggest

if I have, none of them have had any real weight or value or impact. But nothing is coming to mind. Okay, let's get into St. Valentine. So to start this discussion, we need to look at who he was. So St. Valentine, as well as being the patron saint of lovers, was also the patron saint of a couple of other things. Now, would you like to guess what these two things are

and how easily they fit with love? It's ridiculous. Is it like the patron saint of theft or something daft? It's in that ballpark of madness. Chris? Violence. So he is the... I'm trying to think of the opposite of love.

He's the patron saint of love. We know that. He's also the patron saint of beekeeping and epileptics. There you are. It's the classic three. The holy trinity. Why do epileptics. There you are. Those are the classic three. The Holy Trinity. Why do epileptics get their own patron saint? It's obviously those three that sit so easily together.

But he's also... You've said something, Tom, immediately. I didn't realise St Valentine was a man. I kind of thought it'd be a woman. Yeah, I always thought he was a woman. Well, to be honest, he's actually a bit of an obscure individual. And who the real St Valentine was is shrouded in mythology of the distant past. Encased in ice?

Encased in ice, exactly. And only love could thaw that ice. But there's a few options. But historians generally believe that he was probably a Roman Christian who lived on the Italian peninsula in the 3rd century AD. He was a man who was beaten to death on the side of a road not far from Rome and subsequently regarded as a martyr and eventually a saint. It's your classic romantic story.

Guy beaten to death on the side of a road. Put that on a card. Exactly. That would be an honest image on the front of a Valentine's card. What the hell is that? It's St. Valentine's. What are all these bees doing around that corpse? However, at that point,

there was no strong association between him and love. Although, and this is quite interesting, Rome did already have its yearly celebration, which was focused on sex, fertility and coupling. Now, this was called Lupercalia and was celebrated on February the 15th. I'm going to take you through it very briefly, see what you thought of this. To begin the festival, Roman priests would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, Remus rather, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa.

OK, so that's the sort of start of it. The priest would then sacrifice a goat for fertility and a dog for purification. They'd then strip the goat into strips, strip the hide into strips, dip them into sacrificial blood, and then they'd head into town and they'd gently slap the women with the bloody goat hide. Oh my good grief. This was their equivalent of Valentine's Day at that point. And the Roman women were very pro this.

They liked it because they believed it made them more fertile in the coming year. Are you feeling romantic? Are you feeling sexy? Well, I've done it and it was horrible. It didn't work. Yeah. You know, I just wouldn't do it again. It is a bit disarming that throughout history,

people just love sacrificing a goat. They're poor goats. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. It comes up a time and again, doesn't it? If you were doing a one-day time machine, for God's sake, don't go back as a goat. Definitely not.

Because all cultures globally ever have been into sacrificing you. You'd last about 10 seconds. Not least because you're cloven in your hooves, which would mean you'd struggle with the controls as well. There's another reason, is you're trying to get back from the past and you can't... Could you use your horn? That's a good observation from Chris.

All over the world, people have been sacrificing goats. Poor sons. Yeah, absolutely. That wasn't the end of it. According to legend, at the end of this celebration as well, all the single women in the city would place their names in a huge urn and the city's single bachelors would then each choose a name and become paired with that lady for a year and these matches often ended in marriage it's kind of like the original married

at first sight sort of vibe at first exactly exactly but you're stuck with them for a year that's basically what happens so you draw a random lot and that's who who you would be with i mean ellis you talk about the idea of suppressing your feelings as a teenager. Maybe that would have made life easier if once a year there was a huge urn that was pulled out in the middle of the playground. I would have taken that any day of the week. Yeah, that's a way better way of doing it. What a win.

I would have been absolutely thrilled with the old urn. The urn system would have been absolutely perfect when I was in year 9 If I'd have been offered that I would be taking that option all day long just take all the stress out of it you've just got one relationship, we'll tell you what that relationship is

just make it work, great, I'm in none of the stress my kids are too young for this kind of thing but when they're teenagers I'm going to go straight to school to the head and say have you heard of the stress. My kids are too young for this kind of thing. But when they're teenagers, I'm going to go straight to school, to the head, and say, have you heard of the Roman urn system? Absolutely. Because if their teenage years are like mine, you'd really, really be doing my children a favour.

So Lupercalia survived the initial ride of Christianity, eventually being outlawed at the end of the 5th century by the Pope as being unchristian. This is Pope Galatius, who at the same time declared February the 14th as St. Valentine's Day. So this is quite interesting. The reason 14th of February was put down as Valentine's Day was partly to sort of distance itself

from this Roman celebration, which they saw as unchristian. However, the connection between love and Valentine's Day would not emerge for centuries. And it came from quite a weird place. During the Middle Ages in France and England, it was commonly believed that February the 14th was the beginning of mating season for birds.

And so people started to associate this Saint's Day with love. So in 1375, Geoffrey Chaucer became the first person to officially record Valentine's Day as a day of romantic celebration in his poem, The Parliament of Fowls, where he wrote, For this was sent on St. Valentine's Day, when every fowl cometh them to choose his mate. So... Do you know what?

Yeah. Animals doing it. It's not a subject we will pick. If you're looking for new episode ideas. That never makes me think. For instance, I live in urban South London, and I hear foxes have sex all the time. When I hear foxes have sex, it never makes me think,

oh, I won't mind a lovely little bit of human sex actually well if the foxes are out in love if the foxes are out in love you can all hear it, love's in the air I once went to a

like an antiques shop with Claire in France and I found this beautiful oil painting, a beautiful oil painting of fields, lovely blue sky, the sun cresting over it. Just lovely painting. And I brought it down to Claire and said, we should buy this.

This is so beautiful. And she said, what are you talking about? Look at the front. And down in the foreground, I hadn't noticed this, there were two basset hounds shagging. One was mounting the other from behind it's the weirdest painting i've ever like really going for it hammer and tongs i so it's such a beautiful huge painting the idea that we'd hung that on that wall and i wouldn't have noticed

at the front in the center of two dogs going at it still Still slightly regret not buying that, to be perfectly honest. But yeah, you're right. You could have had it in the study. And until your children were 16, you could have maybe, I don't know, put a little bit of cloth on it. Put a post-it note over it.

Over that bit. Yeah, absolutely. So this is where the link came from. In fact, it was the beginning of the birds mating season. And by the time Shakespeare came around, the association with mating and love had grown so strong that it even evolved to cover human relationships. In Hamlet Ophelia even sings how if two single people meet on February the 14th they would soon fall in love and so steadily Valentine romance has kind of established itself as a theme for poets and writers. By the 18th century, things are really

starting to hot up. Entrepreneurial writers took up middle-class demand for sentimental poetry and published compendiums and Valentine's verses for men and for women. Now, the idea being that you would just choose one of these things, these verses that have been written in this book, you then put that in the Valentine's card that you'd hand to your loved one. A Valentine's card at that point in the 18th century cost about three pence a time, which is equivalent to £37.50 now, which feels a bit toppy. Oh my God. The 40 quid card. It's too much for a card, isn't it? I mean, that's...

Do you ever do that thing on Moonpe moon pig like if you're buying a card personalized card or whatever and it says like show your love by having a bigger card than a normal size card and i've done that a couple of times and it turns out you're like why did i get an a4 card because you're also the sort of man who buys a stuffed dog and leaves it on their back. In Chris's defence, it was a stuffed toy. It wasn't like a taxidermied dog which would have been the most

harrowing thing. If I could go back into one day time machine, I would swap it for a taxidermied dog. A taxidermied fox. It would really have thrown people off the set. What if said taxidermied dog. Because it would really have thrown people off the scene as to whether it was real. What if it had been, what if said taxidermied dog had been arranged in a position

whereby it could hold a small box of chocolates or something like that? It could be a way that you could use that taxidermy to your benefit. It's a very West Whelan observation. So I'm sorry for all the people

who aren't from West Wales who might not get it, but very old farmers are often into taxidermy. Really? Yeah, whenever I used to go to visit elderly relatives who were farmers, from West Wales who might not get it but very old farmers are often into taxidermy really yeah whenever I used to go to visit like

elderly relatives who were farmers there would often be like a taxidermied scene wow like on the landing and I used to think where are you getting that from

yeah probably best not to ask to be honest yeah yeah do it yourself £37.40 it's quite expensive isn't it

I think I'd rather just have the equivalent in cash if I was given the option between a valentine's card or 37 pound 40 i'll go imagine how big a moon pig card you could get for 37 pounds 50 like the size of a car lay on his side use it as a tent now more general demand for flowers and cards came in the 19th century due to and this is quite interesting, rising consumer spending power, mass production, and another thing. Do you want to care to guess what that is? It's quite interesting why there was this boom in cards during the 19th century.

Like people were more empowered to forge their own relationships? No, it was simply mass literacy. So people could read the card. It's quite important that you open the card and have any idea what it says inside or what it says in the front, for that matter. And with this mass literacy, mass production, the Valentine's Day industry became big business,

as Charles Dickens called it, Cupid's Manufactory. And a few years later, in 1868, Richard and George Cadbury, owners of Cadbury's Chocolate, had the brainwave of creating a heart-shaped fancy box as a Valentine's gift. However, by the early 20th century, Valentine's Day had started to wane with customers losing interest in Victorian habits. They just weren't really interested in the sort of things that Victorians were into by the early 20th century. And as early as 1930, the Daily Mirror newspaper spoke of reviving this old world custom. And in Sheffield, there was talk of the youth of today just not being likely to

indulge in pretty sentiments of Victorian times. But then, this is the final thing, then something changed and cemented Valentine's Day as the fixture it is today. There's a fundamental thing that made Valentine's Day what it is today. Would you like to guess what that was in the 20th century that made Valentine's Day as big as it is today? It's really interesting. Was it film? No, not film. Oh, okay.

It's kind of from the most horrific place, really. Oh, the massacre? No. Valentine's Day massacre? It is World War II in general. Because sweethearts were separated by distance from their loved ones and encouraged to mail a valentine to your man overseas and mail it early, as the Daily Mirror said in 1945.

And dealers were swamped with demand. And suddenly, Valentine's Day cards were hugely popular again and important as a point of connection. So much so that by 1950, Valentine's Day and exchanging popular again and important as a point of connection. So much so that by 1950, Valentine's Day and exchanging with cards and chocolates have been fully revived, basically because of World War II and being apart from soldiers and lovers. And as we know, it's interesting. These days, it's estimated around half of the British population spends money in celebration of Valentine's Day with tens of millions of cards sent each year. And America alone, nearly $26 billion is spent a year on Valentine's gifts. But World War II really is this catalyst.

It really dropped away. And if it wasn't for troops going away from their partners, then we probably wouldn't have Valentine's Day as the way we do today. A friend of mine, her birthday is Valentine's Day. And for years, I mean, she still thinks it. She's like, it's such a shit day to have a birthday. Yeah. Because you can't get a restaurant booking.

It's just full of couples. Yeah. And you go into a pub and it's just full of couples. When she was single, she said it was genuinely horrible. Yeah. And it's just full of couples. When she was single, she said it was genuinely horrible. Yeah.

And it's just a ball lick because you can't do any of the stuff that you want to do. Even at the weekend, because people do Valentine's stuff, you know, on the sort of the nearest weekends of the 14th. Yeah. Yeah. Wow, I had no idea. World War II. And you're right that one of her birthdays was really ruined

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So this week, I'm going to tell you all about love letters, specifically those sent by Mozart. But firstly, have you ever sent a love letter yourself? Ever penned one? What do you mean? A very proto kind of text message, isn't it, really? Like, write a letter, an actual letter to send to your beloved. Well, anonymous.

Well, anonymous or otherwise. I had a long-distance relationship when I was in my first year at university, and we used to send letters rather than emails, incredibly. Did you? It was 1999 and 2000. I used to write probably two or three letters a week because I was mad. Did you enjoy that? Was it kind of, what was that like? I didn't, I used to love receiving them.

I used to hope that she enjoyed receiving them as much as I enjoyed receiving them. Because there actually is something lovely about opening and reading a letter. Absolutely, yeah. I think I might have written letters to Izzy when I was doing gigs in Australia. That's nice.

I think maybe back about 14 years ago. I don't think I have. I've done a mixtape. Does that count? Oh, yeah, yeah. Mixtape, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's something that's put together with thought and care in their handed. It didn't work, to be honest. I don't think I have I've done a mixtape does that count oh yeah yeah mixtape yeah yeah an audio love letter put together with thought

and care in their handed it didn't work to be honest the only albums I owned at that time were the Lion King soundtrack I think I might have talked about this

and what was the other one Woodface by Crowded House I only owned two albums and it was 80% Lion King and I did talk between the songs so I did say anyway like a local radio I just wanted to know that it was 80% Lion King And I did talk between the songs So I did say

Like a local radio It was like that I hope this song means as much to you As it does to me It's the circle of life Obviously it didn't work Alright and here's Tom with the travel Oh yes

Here's me with the travel Everywhere you go You always take the weather with you. Everywhere you go. It's me with the travel. It doesn't matter because I can't drive. I'm 17. Anyway. Got a text in here from Tom who says, have you enjoyed this mixtape?

Got a text in from another Tom. Four seasons in one day. Please, please, please go out with Tom. I don't know what that's regarding. Back to the history, please. Back to the history. So for many hundreds of years, love letters was the way you communicated with your lover

for hundreds and hundreds of years. And the cool thing about those love letters is, in one way, you know, text messages to famous relationships. I'm trying to think of a famous relationship. The first one that came to mind was David Cameron and Samantha Cameron. I don't know why. It's the obvious. But, you know, 200 years ago, their communications to each other would have been via love letters. They're now, you know, they're in history.

You can read a lot of these love letters. And so famous relationships through history, you can see how they kind of evolved over time or what they were saying to each other because those love letters have been retained. I'm reading a biography of Lloyd George, of David Lloyd George at the moment. And they found a lot of his love letters.

And the amazing thing with his wife is that they started going out in the sort of may they were discussing marriage seriously from the august they didn't kiss until the november tom would not let that happen, would he? Kissing would be the first item on the agenda. I really hope that historians of the future don't go through the text messages between me and my wife when we first met each other in some kind of equivalence when they look through these old love letters to work out. It would be mortifying. They're not meant to be read in that way.

What's this aubergine emoji? I haven't said that. Just to be clear, I haven't really said those sort of things. And if I did, it would mean it's a joke. Follow my winky face. Someone reading one of those letters of notes evenings where they read out text messages in a hundred years' time. Aubergine emoji,

splash, splash, splash emoji. What are you doing Thursday? Do you fancy... No worries. Maybe try Friday? Okay, that's not a problem at all. Try next week. What are you doing Thursday? Do you fancy? No worries. Maybe try Friday. Again, it's not a problem at all. Try next week. I'll see if I can get a table at whatever. It's not meant to be red.

Should we go Nando's again? We can't go Nando's again. Well, also, no. If they read our text messages, completely administrative. Cats need feeding and the binzy to be taken out. After Beethoven died, they went through his possessions, his letters. This is how a lot of letters are discovered. After Beethoven died, they went through his possessions,

his letters. This is how a lot of letters are discovered. After people die, they go through their letters and see what's there. Tantalisingly, when Beethoven died, they found a love letter

that was addressed to his immortal beloved. But interestingly, it was never sent. And the identity of the woman has never been discovered. So Beethoven died.

He kept a letter his whole life that he'd written but never sent. If they went through my letters at the end of my life, I think you would see old council tax bills, car insurance documentation from 2007, instruction manuals for kettles I no longer own. Why was he keeping this? They're not sending that letter thing.

We all know what a ball lake it can be to actually get round to going to the post office or to the letter box to be fair to him it was stamps especially in 1750 but one man who wrote a lot of raunchy flirtatious and playful letters was beethoven's fellow composer 18th century genius wolfgang amadeus mozart as a young young man, Mozart was as much led by love as by musical creativity. In 1777, when he was 22, he wrote to his cousin to say that, I beg the youngest one, Fraulein Josepha, to forgive me, say that she must forgive me

for not yet having sent her the sonata I promised her and that I shall send it as soon as possible. So Mozart would go around kind of promising young ladies sonatas. What a thing to have in your back pocket romantically. Yeah, I know. That's going to set you apart, isn't it, from the other lads. Arguably better than the Lion King soundtrack broken up into a 45-minute radio show on tape.

I think I'd say, given the option of the two. If you and Mozart were competing for the same woman and you send her your taped version of a local radio show and he's composing in a brilliant sonata, do you think the girl in question would listen to them one after the other? That would be so humiliating. It'd be a situation where both of them are handed to the same potential lover at the same time.

And it'd just be mortifying. You give her a cassette and she says, how do I play this? These aren't invented for another 180 years. And then you go, all right, well, I'll describe it to you. It's a sort of local radio. Oh, I'm just forgetting. Mind you, Mozart handing over sheet music. What is it? I've got no idea what this is. But it's brilliant. It's brilliant sort of local radio. I'll just forget it. Mind you, Mozart handing over sheet music.

What is it? I've got no idea what this is. But it's brilliant. It's brilliant. Trust me. So Mozart loved to flirt with women, and it didn't stop when he was married, of course. He confessed in a letter to a baroness he'd seen at a concert

that he had been driven to distraction thinking about her until, who peeps into his letters? Alas, alas, alas, my wife. And with that, the urge and thinking disappeared. So that's the dangerous thing about love letters, isn't it? You're writing, you're trying to have a letter affair. You're leaving a lot of correspondence and evidence. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

But when it came to Mrs Mozart flirting with men in a similar way, allowing a young admirer to measure her calves at a party, for instance. To what? Measure her calves? Measure her calves at a party for instance to what measure her calves measure her calves at a party no some things never change it's interesting isn't it that these these old traditions still remain today that's that's how claire and i met i never go to a party without without a ruler if you're going to measure so oh you're measuring the height of the calves you're surely measuring the... Oh, do you think it's circumference, do you?

Okay. I thought it was length of calf. You've been measuring the height of calves. You hold up... Wow. No wonder you're so unlucky in love. Anyway, when Mozart saw someone, a young admirer, measuring his wife's calves, he's known to have become extremely jealous.

On another occasion, he reproached his wife, telling her that a woman must always make herself respected or else people will begin to talk. So Mrs. Mozart was Constance Weber, with whom Mozart fell in love at the beginning of the 1780s. They married on the 4th of August 1782. The nuptials took place in controversial circumstances because Mozart's dad and Constance's mother were both heavily against the union. Constance's mother thought the relationship would bring her daughter into disrepute. She once even threatened to send the police around to Mozart's house, where he was, according to her, living in sin with his bride-to-be,

intending to bring her daughter home by force if necessary. I don't know. I mean, I'm quite fortunate in that I never had that much friction in the start of the relationship with my now wife. It's hard to imagine in this day and age if the mother-in-law's threatening to send around the police that such things would actually proceed. I am aware of relationships where the parents-in-law

or prospective parents-in-law absolutely hated the person. Really? And then, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's awful. You can't ring the police, obviously, but you can put an awful lot of pressure on your son or daughter to say that they're marrying or engaged to the wrong person. Wow.

But yeah, stressful. But also the idea that Mozart would bring someone into disrepute, the greatest composer of all time. Yeah. Who were they hoping for? To be fair, you must hold your daughter in high esteem if you think that, oh, no, the greatest composer of all time. You could do better.

I think you should pick the guy who's doing local radio shows, the cassette. I think he's a safer bet. Circle of Life is a banger. Anyway, after the mother-in-law, Mozart's mother-in-law threatened with the police, Constance and Wolfgang married hurriedly just two days after the threats. And then Leopold, Mozart's dad, he was against the relationship as well. So Mozart, in telling his dad, wrote him a letter because he was scared to tell him to his face. And in the letter he said, who's the girl I love?

Well, don't blow your top. It's Constance. Wow. There you go. So he wrote a letter rather than tell his dad what he'd done. That's so interesting. But fortunately for Constance, Mozart was genuinely in love with her, writing her all sorts of charming epithets in his correspondence.

He would call her dearest best little wife, or dearest little wife, dearest bestest girlfriend, darling wifey, or the more formal but francophone, my dear spouse. All of those made me feel nauseous. My dear spouse. What was the first one? My dear little wife. Was that what it was? Dearest best little wife. The good thing about it is none of them are patronising. My best little wife sounds like he's got more than one.

Yeah, it does. He's a bigamist. You're the best one, though. Into height groups. You're the best one of my wives. Do you know the other thing about Mozart's letters is he was well into kind of scatological humour, like fart jokes

and poo jokes and knob jokes. It's funny, isn't it? Someone I would consider to be so highbrow and so intelligent was still just obsessed with the silliness of kind of fart and poo jokes and all that. So in the age before thirsty

DMs, the love letter was the only way to transmit desire between two people, as we've established. The interesting thing about this correspondence I'm reading you between Mozart and Constance is it is a little frank, but of course it was never meant to be seen with our eyes. It was never meant to appear on this podcast 200 years later, same way as Tom's text to Claire.

You never expect those to see the light of day, but here we are. A few years into their marriage, whilst Mozart was away on tour, a letter arrived for Constance in which the composer told his wife how much he missed her. Oh, how glad I shall be to be with you again, my darling, he wrote. He actually, when he was away on tour, had taken to talking to a portrait of her that he kept in his hotel room. And he would be known to utter some of his pet names for her to the picture,

including Little Rascal and Pussy Pussy. Oh, dear. Also, imagine taking a portrait of the girl you fancied with you on tour. Your big, framed portrait. It would have been nice. The thing about Mozart, if you're arranging Mozart's rider, I guess, you know,

is it more outrageous than, you know, Elton John asking for loads and loads of flowers in the dressing room or a Van Halen with no brown M&M's rule? It's like, oh, Mozart's got a little picture of his wife he's going to talk to. Is it that weird? Yeah.

It's... If someone's taking a portrait round of their girlfriend i'm thinking that's definitely their first ever girlfriend that is someone who's not used to the rhythms of romance he's new to this surely and he's desperate for everyone to know that he's got a girlfriend the other thing is briefly these hotel rooms we have to remember this is this is pre-hotel rooms with televisions and things like that to distract yourself with so you've got to put something up to look at yeah it's quite boring in there i imagine back to mozart so he in his correspondence to his wife while he was on tour

he said things like this in the letter you will get on the first night a thorough spanking on your dear little kissable arse and this you may count upon. No. Mozart wrote that. Mozart wrote that. Bloody hell. In another letter sent in 1789, it's weird reading this out because this is history. It feels like oh, this is boarded in the extreme. Kissable arse made me feel a little bit uncomfortable. So in 1789

he wrote another letter to his wife Constance. It appears he may have crossed the line in decorum because some of this is kind of crossed out and blotted out. No one knows who blotted it out, but this is what it says. Just get another page, mate. Just start again. Yeah, buckle up for this from Mozart. Arrange your dear sweet nest very daintily,

for my little fellow deserves it indeed. He has really behaved himself very well and is only longing to possess your sweetest blotted out. Just picture to yourself that rascal dot dot dot mo can i say i prefer his music of the two i'd rather sit in a concert hall and listen to that to have those read out for an hour it is weird isn't it are we crossing the line in kind of privacy for moza i mean this is all out there is no difficulty translating those euphemisms i just read out with modern sensibilities and i imagine we can guess what was in those blotted gaps oh my god one of the last letters mozart ever sent to his wife a year or so before he died aged only 35 this is what blows my mind all that

stuff mozart did he died at 35 in December 1791. He moved past his physical urges, past the play and the flirting, into a mature love that he felt he needed to express. And this is where we'll end. Dearest little wife of my heart, he wrote, I am as excited as a child at the thought of seeing you again. If people could see into my heart,

I should almost feel ashamed, perhaps if you were me, but as it is, everything seems so empty. Adieu, my love. I am forever your husband, who loves you with all his soul. Oh, Mozart. He can do sweet. Amazing.

He can do sweet. I'll never be able to listen to his music again in the same way, will you? No, neither will I. That's it. Whenever I hear that, I'll be thinking about him talking about kissable arses and stuff like that. And you have no idea what this man was really like. Absolute filth bucket. Next time I'm listening to Classic FM staring out the window,

I'll just think about horny old mozart. Ugh. All right, that's it. This is where we say goodbye to the non-full-timers. Thank you for listening this week. Hope you enjoyed all these history parts we've delivered to you over the last couple of days, from horny Mozart to the made-up St. Valentine's patron saint that Wales has created.

Hope you've enjoyed all that. But there's still more, isn't there? If you want to stick around, you can. Yeah, there's a fourth part. And there's bonus episodes every month. If you want to become an Oh What A Time full-timer and support the show, you can go Yeah, there's a fourth part. And there's bonus episodes every month. If you want to become an Oh What A Time full-timer and support the show, you can go to ohwhatatime.com.

There's all the options there. You get bonus episodes, an extra part of the show, and you help fund the lifestyle of our historian, Daryl, who does such fantastic work in bringing you all this history every week. And Chris, what will we be covering in the fourth part?

What is coming up? Oh, the fourth part is the history of dating. Oh! That's a big one. Buckle up. It's an interesting one. If you want even more history, go on your Apple Podcast app. You can become an Oh What A Time full-timer

or on another site,.com forward slash Oh What A Time. But all the options are on Oh What A Time dot com. We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. bye bye Thank you.