Oh What A Time... - #57 Health & Safety (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed from yesterday! On the show this week we’re going mad for health and safety. We’ll be discussing what health and safety looked like in Ancient Rome, the various procedures in place in medieval monasteries and also, we’ll be talking about Peter Duncan cleaning the clockface of Big Ben in 1980 armed with only a mop, a plank and a rope. Lots to discuss elsewhere this week too: does buying a single toilet seat mean you’ll be buying toilet seats constantly forever? Was landfill the golden age of rubbish? And what animals could a human theoretically breed with? If you want to contribute to the conversation on this, one of Britain’s most popular history podcasts, you know what to do: [e-mail] If you're impatient and want both parts in one lovely go next time plus a whole lot more(!), why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - two bonus episodes every month! - ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - 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 also 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). Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm going back to university for $0 delivery fee, up to 5% off orders, and 5% Uber cash back on rides. Not whatever you think university is for. Get Uber One for students. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student. Join for just $4.99 a month. Savings may vary. Eligibility and member terms apply. It's a new day. How can you make the most of it with your membership rewards points? Earn points on everyday purchases. Use them for that long-awaited vacation. Points never expire, so use them how you want. That's the powerful backing of American Express.

On eligible cards, terms apply. Learn more at amex.ca. Hello, this is part two of Health and Safety. Let's crack on with the show. So today I'm going to talk to you about health and safety in medieval monasteries. Now, I don't know about you, but generally I don't really imagine the medieval world as a place particularly concerned with health and safety. Do you? Not medieval. No. No. To me, I imagine there's just like

just no concern for people's health or heights or sharp things. Get on with it, and if you die, it is God's will. And to be honest, I think a lot of people are just thinking, I quite fancy this being over and done with anyway. If I fall off this and land on my neck, so be it.

It means I'm no longer going back to my mud hut and eating turnips. It's fine. Take me. On the surface, compared with many environments at that time, the monastery did seem to be quite a safe and healthy place. However, if you dig a little deeper, you discover, basically, the medieval monastery was, in fact, a health and safety nightmare. It's really quite funny, okay? So if you wanted to sort of fact a health and safety nightmare it's really quite

funny okay so if you wanted to sort of live a long and safe life you did not want to be a monk in a monastery as a general point i'll give you some sort of overarching themes here monks constantly complained and this is in records of sleep deprivation overwork illness physical disablement mental distress and of injury and if they if they were ever allowed any time off by the abbot there was kind of very clear rules about how they were supposed to spend that so this is what it says in one cambridgeshire priory's rule book it says they may walk in the gardens they may take their meals with those in the infirmary they may absent themselves for a short time from study and from cloister and so by repose diet and

recreation regain before long their former state of health so they were allowed little breaks from this slightly arduous life but it had to be in a very strict confined manner but the question is and this is what i'm going to talk about today is why were they falling ill what were these accidents that were happening and why did they need this time off? Well, one of the main issues at that time in monasteries were injuries caused by fire. So do you want to guess why fire was such a problem as a starting point in monasteries?

A lot of candles, a lot of oils maybe that were flammable? Yes, that's exactly it. Because monasteries were basically entirely reliant on candlelight. So in many monasteries, candles were the main source of internal light after dark. And the thing I've sort of thought about is living in a time where nighttime was meant proper darkness. Yeah, I wouldn't like that. What that must have been like, especially in a monastery, a huge, spooky, echoey stone building like that. And all you've got is little flickering...

Do monks find things spooky? Do they? Are they so in touch with the dead that they find it normal? Have you ever seen Mark Rylance's version of Wolf Hall? I can't remember if I've talked about this before. No. The director on that version. I've seen his version of it, Bing.

If you watch Wolf Hall with Mark Rylance, the director made the decision to shoot it only with candlelight. There's no other lighting going on. So when the whole thing is shot in candlelight at nighttime and you're left thinking, this is so depressing to have lived in this time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every evening scene has to be around a fire because that's what people did. There was nothing else to do. and you're left thinking this is so depressing to have lived in this time yeah yeah yeah every

evening scene has to be around a fire because that's what people did there was nothing else to do get cold and be in the dark or sit around a fire yeah i think it's that's interesting chris that idea of cold for me is also part of the not fear but an idea of how unpleasant it would be the idea of cold stone and a little flickering light in the depth the deep darkness is just something that i find yeah really unsettling in the pre-patagonia cottage as well yeah exactly exactly because i'm also the sort of person if i wake up in the middle of night and there's something draped over a chair in the corner of my room and it's quite dark i will assume that thing is a bad thing and it's look it's it's probably going to attack me. I'm that brief moment of, oh, my God, it's a wolf.

I just for some reason have that mindset, which is unlikely in East London. And how it's got in when I've double locked the front door, I don't know. But it's still irrational fear whenever I see any shape at night. But this is all they had. They had these little flickering candles. And crucially, these candles had to be put out at a designated hour. However, sometimes novices or monks who were just knackered because they were always doing their monkish duties would forget. So deadly fires in monasteries were commonplace. They were happening constantly. And so there were deaths and injuries often in

monasteries because parts of the building would go up in flames because people hadn't put out the candles at night. This is just an opening little gambit for the things you're having to deal with. I'm not having a go at the monks, at medieval monks. I am, actually. You'd think if it had happened once. It's the kind of mistake you don't repeat.

Am I wrong in thinking that? Oh, well, you know what happened to the monastery down the road? They forgot to put the candles out tonight, and then they all died. Should we put the candles out? Yeah, I think that's that? Oh, well, you know what happened to the monastery down the road? They forgot to put the candles out tonight and then they all died. Should we put the candles out? Yeah, I think that's a good idea, actually. It's only a small community of monks. Surely the word gets around. Also, I suppose if you are so knackered, why are the candles still on?

Just turn up and just go to sleep. Blow them out and go to sleep. Rather than reading the Bible again for the 50th time that Tuesday. Just give yourself a break, have a good nap. It hasn't changed. Right, but fire wasn't the only danger at night. So there's so many things that caused injury and death in monasteries. Would you like to guess what an even greater issue was at night in a monastery?

What caused even more injuries? It's quite funny, this. At night? Not covering up a grave. Nope. Sleepwalking maybe but not quite it is

simply this was one of the this is the main cause of injury in monasteries tripping over stuff in low light which is an undeniably funny image

because it's a monk why is it funnier that it's a monk those Birkenstocks really lend themselves to tripping over stuff anyway oh and you'd stub your toe

as well what a pain in the arse that would be so lend themselves to tripping over stuff anyway. Yeah. Oh, and you'd stub your toe as well. What a pain in the arse that would be. So people were constantly tripping over stuff in the monastery at night, so much so that they had to put rules in place. At Westminster Abbey, for instance, only older monks were allowed to use bedpans or potties at night because younger monks were constantly leaving them lying around and people were constantly tripping over them,

spilling everything everywhere. They sound like bloody students. This is so different to what I imagined. Yeah. Oh, leave it. It's just a bowl of piss. Oh, come on! I mean, in terms of unpleasant things to happen,

tripping over a bowl of piss in a cold monastery at 2am when you can't see anything must be so annoying. That clattering sound. All the other monks are sitting up going, oh, come on, Steve. Come on, Friar Steve. Not again. Trying to bloody clean it up by candlelight.

You can't find the matches. Having to mop it up with your cloak. Yeah, yeah, your big cassock. Oh, no. I'll drive back tomorrow. Oh, fuck it. A lot of monks muttering, fuck it. Oh, fuck it.

Echoing around the monastery. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. These rules that they tried to put in place for the smaller instance like this, however, could do nothing about more serious injuries. And they happened in a variety of ways. For example, bell ringers in the monastery were constantly becoming a cropper. They always. At Canterbury Cathedral, the bells were so huge, there were five of them, it took 63 people to ring those five bells.

And even then, the monks constantly complained of back pain there were back injuries and back pain i think i'd be embarrassed to sort of complain about back pain in medieval britain for some reason i think i'd find that a little bit it feels a bit of a modern complaint doesn't it yeah and they weren't getting any targeted ads either so they couldn't do anything about it murefin plus and worse still in the 12th century at Durham Cathedral a young monk pulled on a rope and rather than the bell making a sound the whole thing collapsed

struck him on the head and leaving him fighting for his life reports go on to say that he was then taken to the infirmary, they prayed for him he did survive but he lived the rest of his life with a dent in his head I used to go bell ringing in uh primary school as well yeah yeah we were next to a little church and about once a year we would go bell ringing first

time i did it i didn't realize this is how strong the rope is it really whips you up in the air and i hit my head on a um there's a shelf holding some bibles and i went up and bumped my head on it generally very very painful but you know i was i was brave i probably didn't let it show in my face how high were they like six foot up it would make your feet i think in my mind i went 12 feet in the air that's how i'm imagining it bell ringing is one of those things i haven't done that i would love to do yeah it looks like a lot of fun. It was quite fun, to be fair. It is quite fun. It's an amazing sound as well.

It's also quite exciting because you know everyone can hear this. Yes. The entire village can hear it. Yeah, but it means your mistakes are amplified to the village. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a medieval DJ, isn't it? Paul Oakenfold of the medieval world was on bells.

I played Dr. Dreay if you're interested really pretty cool some really cool tracks i played that okay so this wasn't however the main cause of injury in the monastery uh would you like to guess now what the main cause of injury in the monastery was and i think it's even funnier than people falling over in the night bible landed on the people's toes yes that's exactly right so at that time volumes of scripture were growing larger and larger and more ornate because of that they were getting heavier and there were so many reports of back injuries broken bones and other injuries from dropped bibles so i'm gonna say i think if you're having to bend bend from the knees to pick up a book the book is too big i think that's i think that's a fair point as well so they were constantly dropping these

bibles on their feet and they're really seriously injuring themselves you know the issue they've got there and i've thought about this is the fact they always do those stupid or stupid ornate first letters at the beginning of a yeah yeah if you that, your book could be far more condensed. You don't need it. I'm really glad we got rid of that as a thing, by the way. It's not something

we're still having to do when you write a letter to someone. Primary school kids like to do it. Do they? Yeah, yeah. It's coming back.

How time consuming would it be? You're doing your shopping list. Doing a massive R. For rice or whatever at the top of the shopping list. It has massive R. For rice or whatever the top of the shopping list has to be. Ellis, why are you taking so long? Get out and do the shop.

I'm sorry. I need to do the big C for couscous. And then I'll be on my way. Where are the colouring crayons? I need to colour in the doves. Right. So they're dropping scripture on their feet. They're breaking bones as they slip on potties.

But that arguably isn't the main problem with living in a monastery. And I'm going to close with this. The main issue of living in a monastery in terms of health and safety and your mental welfare were basically the effects of communal living, of living with lots of other monks so they're students exactly so the final band of health and safety rules in medieval monasteries are probably the most important of all and they dealt with these consequences of living in close quarters for example monks who woke in the middle of the night to say vigil prayer so they had to

wake up in the middle of the night to pray, which incidentally is, that's so annoying. What an annoying thing to do. Oh, yeah. Do it in daylight. Yeah, exactly. Just do more. Just do six or seven in the morning and get your day done. They complained of the struggle of trying to get back to sleep in the communal dormitories because of snoring and sleep talking.

This is all written down from other monks. Snoring. I'd love to know what that sleep talk is about. Doing another bloody sermon in your sleep. Yeah, yeah. Hang on. Has he taken a vow of silence? Does that count?

Ellis, do you remember one of your birthdays years ago? Do you remember this? On that subject, where I turned up a little late and I had to sit down the other end of the table and I was sat opposite one of your friends and I introduced myself to her. I said, hi, I'm Tom. And she slid a note across to me.

Remember this? And on the note, it said, I am doing a one month sponsored silence. And at your birthday, I was sat next to someone who couldn't speak to me and every time i chatted she would write down the response and slide it across the table what how long sponsored silence for a month you can't live like that for a month well she did and i was sat next to her at your birthday i'm sure she was very nice but it's not sustainable i'd love to a written conversation

sorry yeah sorry that was back in cardiff that was a long time ago though the people who were annoyed about sleep talking however should count themselves lucky because there was something far worse happening one abbott wrote how he slept apart from his fellow monks to spare them from the offensive eliminations that came from his ongoing digestive problems constantly breaking wind during the night and this was a huge issue wind and flatulence was a big issue in the monastery. Others complained of constipation and other bowel troubles that came from enforced fasting or their bland vegetarian diet. And do you know why they had a bland vegetarian diet for a point?

Well, St. David was a vegetarian, so it must be something to do with sacrifice. I don't know. Well, it was actually thought that a frugal vegetarian diet would reduce the libido and suppress other desires within monks to keep it all simple meant that you wouldn't be so horny. In fact, anyone found breaking this would find themselves eating just cabbages and onions by way of punishment,

which I can say confidently is not helping the wind problem. Yeah. which I can say confidently is not helping the wind problem. Yeah. That is making the wind problem worse. And also, we talked about echoes earlier, the idea of a really loud fart echoing around a monastery. It's the distance.

And also, a lot of naked flames. That's not great. You've got it, Chris. This is the combination. One windy monk who's forgot to put out a candle is responsible for the death of 2,000. They sound like whingers. Yeah. Yeah.

They really do. And as a closing point, you'll be glad to hear they had official rules in place for that sort of stuff, for the breaking of wind, for the sleep talking. A very basic set of guidelines allow for the removal of snorers talkers and the flatulent to other less comfortable quarters within the monastery the

idea being that it might encourage them to change their behavior imagine being so windy that you are moved to your own separate room in the monastery with other farters that's an undignified room but you also can't you can't change your behaviour, can you? Our farter who art in heaven. I knew you'd like that, Tom. Very good. Generally very good. I'm annoyed I didn't come up with it.

That would be a really horrible room to sleep in. And boring. Absolutely. Do you think it would smell like a thousand years later? I bet it would. Yeah, absolutely. Although when you light a flame, doesn't the methane extinguish? So maybe that is what it is.

Once a day, someone would have to just basically, like a grenade, you chuck a candle in close to the door, there'd be an explosion. With all the candles taking away the smell, it was just comic. It was like whoopee cushions. It was just funny.

All the time they're having a right laugh. I know what they'd be sleep talking about. Some monk lying in the middle of that stinky room going, why won't someone invent the clothes peg? right now i'm about to discuss something that i have discussed uh on the socially distant sports bar and i know for a fact that chris has seen i don't know if Tom has seen it. On the 25th of September 1980, viewers of the BBC's long-running children's television programme, Blue Peter, which I was a big fan of, watched with anxious wonder

as the adventurous 26-year-old presenter, Peter Duncan, he is my hero, I was a big fan of Duncan, joined a team of steeplejacks as they set about giving the clock face of what is now the elizabeth tower formerly since stephen's tower big ben basically at the houses of parliament a deep clean now you've seen it chris it is absolutely petrifying it's also exactly what i imagine the 70s were like yeah yeah yeah yeah so viewers were anxious i watched it on YouTube quite recently because we covered it on Distant Pod because he's 96 metres

up in the air with no safety harness of any kind and he's sat on this tiny plank and a rope tiny small little

wooden plank attached by ropes to the roof above right so one wrong move and Peter Duncan and his mad cameraman

Butch Calderwood, who doesn't get the credit he deserves, I don't think, or any of the other workers could have fallen to their death. As Duncan told reporters, it was a really hairy experience and something I wouldn't like to do again. I thought I was going to die, but it was safe, really. Wow. When I looked down, I froze.

I was so scared I accidentally knocked my foot against the minute hand and it shot forward. I was amazed it moved so easily. Imagine being so keen to make good telly that you're thinking, I thought I was going to die, but still sticking with it. Well, him and John Noakes, the 70s one, because Noakes cleaned Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square

and just goes up a ladder in a pair of platform boots and flares and he's like yeah fine I'll clean that and it's hundreds of metres up, it is absolutely it's daft right so this is what Duncan goes on fortunately I didn't have my own watch with me so I put it to what I thought was the right time I was surprised to see it was running

four minutes slow on the dial I was on I must say I found the whole thing a bizarre sensation. I'm bad with heights anyway. There's a great bit when, like, the hour hand goes up his bum. It's really, really good stuff. It is great television. Is that true, by the way?

It does brush his butt. It is honestly worth watching, because the lack of safety equipment is, to modernise it, chilling. It is honestly worth watching because the lack of safety equipment is, to modernise it, chilling. It is absolutely chilling. It gives me the sensation of falling. You know that feeling you get when you watch it? Yes, me too.

Yeah, yeah. I had a stomach ache when I was watching it. I just thought... Yeah. On the plus side, and I hope this was some solace, if he did fall, you would know the exact time of death. Yeah. The exact time of death is about four minutes before what big ben says because duncan had been fiddling with it i'm constantly by the way whenever anyone mentions big ben trying to suppress my urge to say my big ben fact that

everyone knows about big ben which is that big Ben is actually the bell, it's not the tower. It's the Queen Elizabeth Tower. And everyone calls it Big Ben. Come on! You're not getting implored it's corner for that. No. I would at a primary school. If I went to visit a primary school and gave a talk in London, they would love that. That's mind-blowing. Only that guy knows that.

Actually, kids, does anyone know what Big Ben actually is? Is it the bell? Is it the bell? Yes, it's the bell. Actually, kids, does anyone know what Big Ben actually is? Is it the bell? Is it the bell? Yes, it's the bell. Alright, fine. Do your own bloody talk then. Sorry, I won't say bloody again. Sorry, sorry. Now, the technique involved

had not changed since the early 20th century when it was first decided that the clock faces should be clean. So at that time, the decision was taken not to erect scaffolding, so steeplejacks, with the agility of sailors, had to use the innovative Palmer's travelling cradles instead, so they were servicing the clock from above rather than below. So one of the workmen involved in installing the system recalled later, with my second in command, I was going below one clock face when the rope

ran through his hands. He lost control of his end of the cradle. When I looked at my end, I found there were just two feet of rope between us and a fall of 160 feet. What? Oh, for God's sake. This is the thing. They're lowering Duncan down. He's enormously trusting.

This is just horrendous. Yeah. My heart's going. I find that the very idea, I find heights difficult to even just hear about. So just as in 1980 with blue peter newspapers were endlessly fascinated by the sight of fly like figures on the clock face adding that stiff necks of the rule at westminster bridge just now for almost every passerby stops and tilts his head to a painful angle so as to watch the face of the

big ben being cleaned small almost fly like figures in mid-air in a travelling cradle about the size of a matchbox, it seems. They make tiny dabs with invisible brushes at the 400 square feet of opal glass, bare of the left, our hand and the 16-foot minute hand, which have been swung up and away from the west face, now being cleaned by a roughly constructed

crane. Now and then the watching crowd see the cradle swing across the great pendulum. This is not due to the wind but to the men's own adjustment of the cradle as they shift it to another part of their work. So yeah, he's sort of kicking himself across, Duncan, to clean other bits. It is just

mad. Bloody hell. You know, Noakes is the one everyone remembers as being crazy. Duncan did some mad stuff. The one where he's on a bobsled. He's's on a bobsled. He's got on a bobsled about 70 miles an hour and he's trying to imagine Biddy Baxter, the producer,

saying, Peter, will you go down a bobsled with only like a jumper for safety protection? Yes. Good. Well, you're doing it tomorrow. If you die, you die.

Now, the steeper jacks who worked on the clock faces in the run up to the First World War. Servicing took place every two years. Soon got used to the heights and the manoeuvres involved. So much so that they became quite adept at having their tea break and eating their lunch on the cradle. No chance.

Absolutely no chance. This is what Fred Dibner used to do, I remember. He would take his lunch. He'd basically be up there all day because it was too much of a faff to come down to eat lunch and come back so he'd eat his whole lunch he's having his lunch up there he's smoking cigarettes up there although as one observer noticed when there is a strong wind the men have to dodge

drops of scalding tea falling from the tin can you imagine that extra bloody concern you're like I'm high up in a tiny wooden cradle anyway nothing's holding me on there's no safety harness to speak of. And now Jeff, who's six feet above me, is

dropping scalding hot tea on me. Come on! I'd be really pushing just like orange juice with your lunch. I'm thinking it's got to be a cool drink. I'm sorry. This is a hot drink freezer. Have a fruit shoot. Do you remember that picture of the workers,

I think it's the Rockefeller building, your gore having their lunch? Everyone had that in the noughties from Ikea. Yes. But I guess for them, if you don't have a fear of heights, it's just a lovely way to have lunch. Yeah. As someone who does have a fear of heights,

it is an anxiety dream. Now, in the 1930s, the decision was taken to use a scaffold instead of the travelling cradles, this time to get rid of years of soot, dirt, pigeons, dead, alive, or decomposing, and to paint the hands of the clock back to slow down discolouration of the original

blue, so they've since gone back to blue again. And to paint the hands of the clock black to slow down discolouration of the original blue, they've since gone back to blue again. So the scaffold allowed the team to welcome guests to the servicing work, including Prince George, the Duke of Kent. He went up and had a look. From a modern health and safety perspective,

this was no less anxiety-inducing than the travelling cradle used by Peter Duncan, so as a journalist for the Scotsman newspaper put it. During the ascent, the prince had to climb up steep ladders from which, when glancing down, he could see nothing between himself and the ground. In many places, the scaffolding upon which he had to walk consisted only of a couple of planks.

Get out of it! Wow. You're the bloody, you're Prince George, you're the Duke of Kent. Say you've got to go to a corporate event. You've got to open a Lidl. Yeah. In Southport. So are you saying within Big Ben,

it's essentially just planks? You know, that's all it is, but it's saving you from a drop. It's as simple and rudimentary as that. Yeah, yeah, very simple scaffolding. Oh my goodness me. So fast forward to 1980 then. So by this time, the work was undertaken

by Terry and Reg Dossel of Harlow in Essex. They are on Peter Duncan's video. They'd gone back to the travelling cradle system and were able to clean all four clock faces in just five days, for which they were paid, as the Daily Mirror reported at the time, 800 quid, or £3,328 today. That's not enough. Not enough. Not enough. Yeah, yeah28 today. That's not enough. Not enough. Not enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The fee had been a mere £30 in 1906 or £735 in 1980 or £3,057 today. So it's gone up slightly even when you account for inflation. Imagine cleaning. I know obviously it's inflation but imagine cleaning Big Ben,

the clock face and then being given £30. Thank you. I'd go up there and make it dirty again. I'd be so livid. I would take my lunch or whatever I hadn't finished and Ken's tea and I'd throw it across the clock face. Hang on, has he been rubbing Kit Kats

into the clock face of Big Ben? What is that? I've never told you I used to work in an office and the guy who ran the office, he was quite tight. So the cleaner wouldn't come before everyone would start work in the office. He would turn up in the middle of the day. And the cleaner's name was Keith. And we used to call him a dirtier

because he would turn up with these dirty rags and wipe everything down. But he would leave more dirt after the wiping than was there prior to it. And we used to say, we must be the only company to have hired a dirtier. Keith, Keith the dirtier. And he'd have a catchphrase, which was, you all right, Keith? He would always say, I'm all right. It's the rest of them every day. I like that.

I like that. I quite like that. One for the listeners. Still, the feat earned Peter Duncan the title of Daredevil and he readily established himself as the worthy successor to his predecessor, Christopher Wenner, who'd abseiled down the side of Television Centre in May 1979 and then went off to become a war correspondent

and to Blue Peter's original action man. I mean, made such entertaining television, but my God, he had nerves of steel, John Noakes. Mad. Absolutely incredible. And I guess they still clean it now, don't they? Yeah. This is controversial.

It's a lot of work cleaning those hands and all the numbers and stuff. Is it time to change it to a digital thing? Get Apple to do it. Which could be sprayed from the ground with a hose. Yeah. And then it's done. It's like a big iPhone.

It's mad that Blue Peter could have been the first big health and safety incident in TV and maybe Bobby Davro wouldn't have fallen off the stage from those stocks all those years later. Yes, very good point. Crazy to think. That Bobby Davro video's still being used in health and safety videos at the BBC. That is, I think, the most night still being used in health and safety videos the BBC

that is I think the most nightmarish example of health and safety oh terrifying I mean they put the man in stocks if you haven't seen

it don't go watch it yeah it's on YouTube if you want to see it but Bobby Davro put in stocks in a TV show

had his trousers pulled down in front of Jim Bowen and Lionel Blair, and he plunges off the stage headfirst because he's literally in stocks that are not well put together. It's the way Lionel Blair goes,

Oh, Bobby, oh, Bobby, no. Oh, Bobby, no. Oh, no, oh, Bobby, no, Bobby, no. If you've always wondered what Lionel Blair would look like in a crisis, there's your answer. And that's it for this week. Hope you've enjoyed that.

What a lovely old listen it was. Health and safety. I'm going to say it. I'm all for it. If you want to get even more Oh What A Time and support the show, you can become an Oh What A Time full timer for £4.99 a you get episodes earlier than everyone else ad free both parts together and two bonus episodes a month if you want to sign up you can go to oh what a time.com and you can subscribe via another slice apple and spotify we'll see you next week bye Thank you.