Oh What A Time... - #95 Trees (Part 1)

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Who doesn’t love a good tree? This week we’ll discuss the awesome spectacle of the American sequoia, the slightly less massive Bonsai tree and the use of trees in political imagery.Elsewhere, the debate is raging: what’s the most ‘off’ thing you’ve ever eaten? And what is the most universal sign of danger? If you’ve got anything on these topics or anything else, do get in touch with the show: [e-mail] you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd 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 xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wandery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wandery Plus in the Wandery app or on Apple Podcasts. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the history pod that tries to decide whether, very simple one this, if a time before boilers and central heating was a life worth living. The reason I say that is because yesterday our boiler exploded and the last 24 hours has been absolute hell. Life without hot water is impossible. I totally agree, our boiler broke a couple of Christmases ago and obviously it was horrible.

The thing I will say though is certainly my parents and absolutely my grandparents remember that time. Yes. So it's so recent that we've got into hot water on demand and central heating, et cetera. I remember a friend, we went to, we had a school holiday to France when I was about 14. One of my friends didn't go because his mum and dad were installing central heating, etc. I remember a friend, we went to, we had a school holiday to France when I was about 14. One of my friends didn't go because his mum and dad were installing central heating. They

said, we can't do both. So you either have a warm bedroom for the rest of your life, or you go to France for a week. Okay, I'll have a warm bedroom then. I'll ask you this question, Ellis. You're right. Our parents and grandparents do refer to that. And then they talk about it. They talk about it like it's a happy memory. Anyway, that's what it was with my grandparents. Oh, it was what it was. There's no feeling of horror. It was wonderful. But also the house was geared towards it. So you had fires in rooms and all that kind of stuff.

That's true. And also standalone heaters, which we don't have. But what I found amazing was when I were by Le Brot a couple of Christmases ago, we've got a thermostat in the hall. It was incredible how cold the house got. Suddenly the house was like seven degrees. And like my son's lips have gone blue. I was like, what the hell is this?

Because I'm so tired, I tell my missus that if we're working from home in the day, like today, the heating is not coming on in the day. But the kids are here, we're going to save that money, you're going to pop a jumper on, you're going to get some thick slippers and you're going to crack on. And then we fight a running battle where she'll go downstairs, think I'm not looking, I'll suddenly be hit two o'clock, I was quite warm in here, feel the radiator, what have you done? Where's your tenner? Where's your tenner for today? You could cook an egg on that. What have you done? Yeah, this is my dad. He would say on Christmas day, you can put the thermostat up by one.

Did your parents do this? My dad did a thing where to save heat in the house, he would close, we might have talked about this, he would close the curtains if you weren't in that room. So whatever room in the house people weren't in, he would go in and close the curtains. So it looked like from the outside that we were just constantly asleep. Basically that's what it was.

Or in morning. Or in morning. Grief Mansions. Can I just throw my wife under the bus again? Another thing my wife will do when it comes to central heating is walk around the house and adjust every radiator almost on a daily basis. So she's like configuring every room today. This room will be a little bit warm. This room over here will turn that one down a bit. So you never know what temperature is the boiler firing off? Is this radiator down? Why is that room so hot today? It's an impossible situation to manage.

Common memory from childhood. My dad asking if I'd been fiddling with the radiators. Oh yeah, dad. You know, teenage boys are like, are you fitting with a radiator probably seven or eight times a day actually. We did have almost a more stressful time about a year ago when the boiler was working fine apart from in our, he was then two, our two year old's room where you couldn't turn the radiator down. It was like the Eden project. It was so hot in there, I can't even, you could grow tropical plants easy, it wouldn't be an issue. And you couldn't change it.

We had the opposite problem, there was an issue with the window, so you couldn't heat the room up. So I felt really bad, I'd put him to sleep, and he had a little, like a grow clock thermometer in his bedroom, and everyone else's AMBO, which is what it should be, and his room was like a sort of deep blue.

And they'd be like, mom, dad, can I come in with you? And I'd be like, no, in fairness, that's an attritional test of a two-year-old's nerve. I remember that temperature gauge, that little egg, that colors, that shows the color of the room. Because I remember having rounds of, again, my wife, about the temperature of the room. Because the egg would say it was blue, but the little monitor would go, it's about five degrees higher. And I would always take the higher number. I feel like this is at least 18 degrees.

You're rounding up. Were those arguments all about the heat Chris, or were they about something deeper? Because often we need to root around. We need to dig beneath the surface to find out what the grumbles are really about. I remember one other thing my dad used to do, which was just another heat saving thing. Every year he would buy temporary double glazing, which was just thick plastic that you would stick around the windows. Every year he would put that up around the house, that would go up. I remember one December he managed to put the plastic stuff up and a cup of tea was left behind the plastic

between the plastic and the window. It just then went incredibly mouldy over the next three months. It was like a museum exhibit which just sat there for months. It was like the Listerus lettuce. Yeah, it's exactly it. Did being between the panes kind of effectively like being, was it like being in a vacuum? Preserved it. Yeah, it was like Toll and Man, Toll and Tea. That cup of tea will be drinkable in 4,000 years time and it'll still be warm. I got trapped in the spinning, what are those doors? Those rotating doors?

Revolving doors. Yeah, the revolving doors at the front of the BBC broadcasting house when I went in for a meeting about five years ago. I went in one of those rotating doors and it jammed. And I was stuck in there for about half an hour and everyone could just see you. Like you are an exhibit in a museum. Like David Blake. I just stood there. Like David Blake. On the fourth blint.

And it was a really hot summer's day and they just couldn't get me out. They had to go get a team to sort this door and I was just stuck there. And it's so embarrassing because you're literally just people just look at you. You can't go anywhere. You're just a focal point in the baking heat. I really hope as you were stuck in the revolving door like an exhibit, you're going, I'm a comedy writer. This is great for me actually. All good stuff for me. I'll probably get a sitcom scene or two out of this.

Thank you. You will be seeing this on telly in a scripted form. I don't do factual. I'm not going to be doing or making documentaries about what's happening in Damascus at the moment. This is comedy. I'm a comedy guy. Living a comedy life. Oh dear me. It's been quite a harrowing memory actually. Right, today is going to be a fun episode I think. Today's episode is entirely on trees. This is one we actually suggested quite recently, wasn't it? I don't know whose idea this was. Did it come from me thinking that in the US there were sort of motorways built through massive trees?

Yes, that's right. We've had some tweets about that. Indeed. In fact, that brings us to our first bit of correspondence. Our first bit of correspondence today is on that very subject. I think it was you who said it and I think I ridiculed you suggesting there's no way people drive through trees. I was ridiculed by the revolving dog guy. By the exhibit cup of tea double glazing man. Well it turns out, Ellis, I was wrong to do that. Let's kick off with this. Laurie

Faggenholm has got in contact with an email that says drive through trees. Are you excited, Ellis? Are you about to be vindicated? Yes, please. I can't wait to be vindicated. Hello history boys. In answer to your musings about roads that pass through trees, they... Drumroll, please....do indeed exist. And we have several here in California. Yes, that's where I've seen it. We are blessed with the giant redwood forests here on the coast, and while I'm not aware of any trees as wide as a highway, many are wide enough for a one-way road. For example, the chandelier tree in Leggett. I'm going to send you this now boys if you quickly...

I have value. I matter. I am seen. I have been seen and I have won everyone's respect and it feels nice. Everyone thinks I'm hot. Yeah, yeah. Everyone wants to sleep with me. I'm attractive. Please look on the WhatsApp group, boys. There you are. That is the chandelier tree in Leggett. Would you not be terrified of driving through that tree? Obviously, it's a red... is that like a red

wood, I presume? That is... Yes. That's going to be enormous, that weight above your head. It is a 276 foot tall post-redwood tree in Leggett, California, with a six foot wide by six foot nine inch high hole cut through the base to let you drive through it. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm driving through it at 100 miles an hour. If that tree's going to collapse and crush me,'s got, you know, a quarter of a second to do it in.

But previously, Chris, they were having to drive up the tree over the top and down the other side again. So it's kind of had to make things much easier. So the listener who kindly sent us that email is an American listener, Laurie. Absolutely, Laurie in California. She says, I adore the pod. It's my current favourite in the world and I'm always overjoyed to see a new episode pop into my feed. Thank you for the knowledge and the last. Thank you for listening from America, Laurie. What is Laurie getting out of this? Always amazes me. No matter what podcast I do, I've got American listeners

and it never fails to amaze me that they're interested in what I've got to say. If you're from Llandailo, Otriguib, yeah, sure. You're going to be like, this guy, finally I have a representative in the podcasting world. But you're from California? Like, you know, Cockney Chris and Tommy Unready. Let's explore that, Ellis, then. So that's your demographic. What do you think Chris's demographic is and what do you think my demographic would be? If you're an East End geezer slash market store trader and you're interested in redwood trees, boys, it's the podcast for you. That guy Tom Skinner who was on The Apprentice. Oh yes.

Yeah. He went out with Tom Skinner on Saturday night. I was out with some of his friends and they did look for a moment that he was going to come out. Ellis, would you like to guess very briefly where Chris was on Saturday afternoon and with whom? This will blow your mind. Okay. It sounded like a joke when he told me and then he sent me the picture and it was real. Okay. Were you on the piss with like, I don't know, Ray Winston and his family or something? Yeah.

You're warm. Oh, shall I give you three options? I'll give you three options. Oh yes, please. Okay. One, did he go on the London Eye with, you know the songwriter Sia? Yeah, yeah. Her sister. Okay. Right, okay.

Number two. Not geezery enough for Chris. Did he go to Legoland with his children and also another family he's become friendly with? Would you like to guess who that family is? Oh, I don't know. Mark Noble, the West Ham players. Correct. That's weird. Yeah, Mark Noble, the West Ham player and his kids, okay?

Option three, did he go to a daytime rave with Joe Cole and also with, who would he go with? Wayne Bridge, with Wayne Bridge. The ex England footballers. Which of those three is correct? Will Barron I'm going to say the daytime rave with Joe Cole. Neil Milliken That is correct. And I can reveal Carlton

Cole was also there. Will Barron Oh yes. Neil Milliken And Tom Skinner nearly joined us. Will Barron Oh my god. Neil Milliken This is the life he leads. Will Barron That's the nexus of East End influence. Yeah, exactly. Someone came up to Joe Cole and said,

anyone ever told you you look like Joe Cole? Quite a lot, I guess. No, I reckon it hasn't happened very much at all because most people go, you're Joe Cole, a footballer who played for England. What always amazes me about, and I mean, Laurie from California is going to get very little out of this, as someone who occasionally consumes Tom Skinner's social media content, his market stall is open at about 5am or something daft. He's always in that cafe that he loves, at like half past four in the morning. Dino's Cafe, not far from my house. Dino's Cafe, the best cafe in the world, yeah. He's so happy to be up at that time of the morning.

Yep. If I was having a fry-up at like 5.08am, I'd start to do it. I am not making content for anyone. I think we're going to need you to explain what kind of content Tom Skinner is making in Dino's Cafe at 5am. It'll be stuff like, Oh, that's some Skinner here. I'm in Dino's Cafe, the world's best cafe, looking forward to another half day of work. It is, look at the old watch, 5.11am and I'm having a barbeque and squid, bright egg, black pudding, beans and a couple of lovely rashes of bacon. And a lovely cup of tea.

What I'm doing today is I'm going to be selling a load of Tamagotchi's, I bought 250,000 of them, and I'm selling them for not one pound, not two pounds, but 50p. Et cetera, et cetera. Hey, watch this. The early starts, I've got a hander to him. Also the cuisine, I would argue the cuisine is slightly more exotic than you've just described because often he will be having like a chicken curry at 5am. At Christmas he did one video, he had a full Christmas dinner at 5am. What is going on in Dino's cafe that they can knock up a Christmas dinner? You can walk in off the street and have Yorkshire puddings and Brussels sprouts at 5am.

When does Dino get in there? Yeah, when's Dino getting there? When does Dino sleep? He starts at 4 o'clock the previous day, it's 5am, the peak hours. I don't understand the business model. Who is the 5am Christmas dinner for? Is that for someone who wakes up on Christmas day and is really excited and just wants to get going on Christmas?

Where's the quickest place I can get a Christmas dinner at this moment? I really wanted to throw myself into the day completely. The pubs in Borough Market have got a special licence. Borough Market's a very, very famous market in South London. It's been there for about 800 years. And the pubs around Borough Market have got a special licence. They're allowed to serve beer at like five or six a.m. So all the people who've worked hard setting the markets up and bringing all the stuff in,

they're allowed to quench their thirst and have a pint. Because I suppose they've done a hard day's work already. They've done a day's work. There's a greasy spoon near me, and they're open at six, but they're closed at three. And it's the same thing, it's all people who want breakfast before they go off for early starts.

Lot of high visfizz in there. Yeah, I think Dino must be... I suppose if you're starting that early, you're going to finish early, and your body clock's going to be all out of whack. So yeah, maybe 5am is Christmas dinner time. My mate quit his job to become a baker, and the hours are absolutely mad. I worked in a bakery for six months, and I used to start at 4am. Oh, starting at 4am.

What time are you finishing? I would finish my shift around about, well, you would finish about sort of 8 in the morning, 9, but probably about 9 in the morning. Is that about right? Yeah, it's quite a long time ago. It was about 19. Maybe that sounds about right. 9 or 10 maybe.

Yeah, that's about right. But the worst one was actually the end of the day shift because here's a little tip. If you buy sliced bread in the supermarket, often that is the bread from the day before. You really want to buy the unsliced loaf that's been made by the supermarket bakery because at the end of the day, this is the worst thing, you would have to slice all of the unsliced loaves and it took so long to feed it through this machine that I was also petrified of because my fingers were so close to these blades. Those are the worst shifts because I would just end up being there like an hour after I needed to be, hour and a half, still

be like half midnight and I'm still cutting these loaves and sort of freaking out with everyone, never calming myself at any point. Although I was given a promotion and I was made head of the breads of the world. That was my title, which meant that I got to put the frozen baguettes into the oven. That must have got you an awful lot of interest in nightclubs with the opposite sex. Yeah. What do I do? I'm head of breads of the world at my local supermarket. Well, Ellis, you come into the nightclub and you smell of baked bread, which is a really nice bread. That's a really nice smell.

Exactly. Then they say, why is that? And then you drop the bombshell. Yeah, yeah. You're not just an avarie baker. You're the head of the breads of the world. Cultured. Do you like pitter bread?

I wouldn't say pitter bread is native to the UK, but I know all about it because I'm the head of breads of the world. I wouldn't say pitter bread is native to the UK, but I know all about it because I'm head of breads of the world. What do you think about Naam bread? Well, I've got access to it because I'm head of breads of the world. Naam bread is actually a different aisle. We don't do that in the bakery actually.

I'd have a small slice of bread poking out my little pocket as well in my suit, like a hanky in a suit. And then it's going well and you say, do you like my suit? It's made of bread. Then you take her home and your car made of bread. Yeah, my great tragedy, I have a wheat allergy. I can't eat any of the produce that I look after. So Laurie, thank you very much for getting in contact with your tree fact. That is a fantastic

fact. And it's actually given me an idea for something I think is quite fun. Laurie has emailed there to say about these incredible trees that you can drive through in California, which is where she lives. What is your favourite bit of kind of, what's unusual history, something unusual about where you live? Wherever you are in the world, something local to you that is a weird thing that you'd only really know about if you live in that local area. Email in and tell us all about it. I would have never known that there were these trees you could drive through unless Laurie had emailed us to tell us about the ones that are around her in California. I want you lot to do the same. What is near you? What can you

tell us about? That's a great idea. Looking forward to receiving those. Do we kick, have we got any ideas we can kick the listeners off with from where we grew up? Is there anything there? So one for me would be growing up in Bath. There's a place called Sham Castle, which is a folly. Do you know what a folly is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, it's the front of a castle, a two-story castle. It looks like a castle,

but there's no castle behind it. They've literally just built the front of a castle, the room at the end. Like a film set. Yeah, exactly. Ralph Allen, who was a very wealthy man in the 18th century in Bath, he wanted to improve the views from his house. This is what people feel. So across on the hills, away from his house, he built the front of this castle so that he could look at this castle from his front lawn. But it's not an actual castle. It's literally, but it's the size of a castle. And if you look at it, as you're walking up to it, you think I'm about to go into a castle,

then you go through the gate and there's nothing behind it. That is quite interesting. But I find Folly's kind of fascinating in general. That's like the set of EastEnders. You think, lovely row of houses. They're all just frontages. Actually, Chris, as I've done, I went around the EastEnders set quite recently. A few years ago, they actually made some of the houses into proper brick houses. Some are actual houses where you can go inside. There's been a bit of change. They're no longer just folly.

Great goss. They are actual houses. Oh, okay. So if there's anything around you, email in, tell us all about it. Brilliant stuff. There we go. So it's no longer half a foul as folly. It is in fact real brick houses in some cases at EastEnders. If you've got anything interesting to tell us about something new where you grew up,

which is of note, which could be a folly, of anything of note where you grew up and anything else on EastEnders, here's how you get in touch with the show. 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 time dot com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at oh what a time pod. Now clear off. Well this week on the show we're talking about trees and later in this episode I'll be telling you all about bonsai trees. I'll be telling you about how apple trees affected

elections in France. Oh and I am going to be talking to you boys first of all about the giant sequoia and the fascination that people have had with it in the past and still do today. Now, are you familiar with the giant Sequoia? Have you seen one? I wasn't until yesterday. And I started reading a book that I might do for our subscriber specials book reviews. Yeah. It's a history of ancient Britain.

And in the introduction, it discusses these Sequoias because they're so old. I mean, some of them are four or 5,000 old. So they're sort of, you know, living things that are as old as Stonehenge. And I'd never heard of them until about 18 hours ago, because I was reading this book just before I went to bed. So curiously, I actually am aware of them now, but if you'd asked me this question yesterday, I wouldn't have been. But what about you, Chris? I do what ever since we suggested this episode, I've been thinking about redwoods and sequoyas.

And that's actually, it's become something I would love to see. Absolutely. It's become a bucket list thing. Yes, yes, me too. It's always otherworldly when you see the images of how huge these trees are. It doesn't feel possible that a plant or a tree could be that size. To put it into context, they are fucking massive. Think of something massive and that doesn't do it justice.

These are fucking massive. It's bigger than that. So the giant sequoia, for those of you who don't know, is the largest tree in the world, okay? And they grow naturally in the world. They grow naturally in the Sierra Nevada range and they're protected as an endangered species by the Sequoia National Park in California, which was established in 1890. If you were to go there now, you would get to see the world's largest tree, which has been named General

Sherman. I think it's quite funny, when you name something, it immediately sort of gives it a character, doesn't it? It's weird that. Here's General Sherman's Dietz. He weighs 2.7 million pounds. Gee whiz. He is 275 feet tall. He is 100 feet wide. And the circumference of his trunk, this is mind-blowing, the circumference of his trunk, if you walked around his trunk, it is 30 meters to walk around the base of his trunk.

Would you like to guess how long he's been alive for? 2000 years. Very close. 2100 years, which is before the birth of Christ. That is bonkers. 2,100 years. He wasn't even a sapling when Christ was around. He was 100 years in. Yeah, absolutely. How do you think you're feeling after 2,100 years of life? Nackered. I'm knackered now. Still enjoying it? Yeah. In the same place as well?

Do you know what I would say? I would say probably after 2100 years, resistant to change. I'd be like, listen, I've got my opinions. With views considered problematic by your... Yeah, yeah. Because they're 2000 years out of date. And you do have to put that into context when I'm talking. Please do bear that in mind before I give you it yet. The one thing I'll say about sequoias, you know when you see very old stuff, like even

some old trees, in fact, I was looking at the oldest bonsai tree when we get to my section we'll talk about that. They all look a bit fucked. Old things look fucked, but not sequoia trees. This one's 2,100 years old. It looks arguably better than ever. What's the secret of its youth? Old British trees always look like they need to come down and soon, don't they? You go, oh yeah, I can see that that's ancient. There's a door at Westminster Abbey that is Britain's oldest door, and the wood was felled after 1032.

So the door is basically a thousand years old. Wow. So I have a question, which is, what did they have there before the door? Was it just sort of open? You know like in the old plastic floating things that would stop flies coming in in the summer. That's what they had. Well it's Westminster Abbey, so I think it's around the time they were building, I don't know how old Westminster Abbey is, but yeah it's a thousand year old door. I'm just looking at it now. It's got a little...

That sort of red and yellow netting thing you get in a Chinese takeaway. One of those strings. It's got a sign outside of Britain's oldest door. That's astonishing. What an amazing claim. That's incredible. Now, although General Sherman is still there, some of his counterparts are not. And of course, unsurprisingly, us lot, humans, have a lot to

answer for there. And one particular human got the ball rolling in regards to the plight of the Sequoia. In 1852, there's a Cornishman called William Lobb, who arrived in San Francisco, ostensibly a tourist, but also amid the craziness of the California gold rush. So he turns up in California. He was also a plant collector. He worked for Europe's largest nursery, which is called the Veach Nursery in Exeter in Devon. And when he heard about the Sequoia trees, he became determined to go see them. He thought, these sound crazy. This can't be possible. So he treks up to the Sierra Nevada mountains, to the Calveras Grove, where he sees the trees and he's just blown away by them. He can't believe what he's seeing and so he busy starts collecting. And keeps shouting these are fucking massive. Oh my god. Look how small I am compared to the tree. Look how small I am. Look

at how small I am. Take a photo. Okay you can't do that yet. Draw me. Draw me next to this fucking massive tree. So he starts collecting seeds, saplings, shoots. He's sticking them in his bag, packing them for transit back to Britain, having convinced himself that he'd be able to launch a brand new craze back here for Sequoia trees. And it worked. Wealthy aristocrats and industrious are kind of fooling over themselves to plant Sequoia trees on their own estates using lobs imported materials. And there's surviving examples of those present in Killerton in Devon and Penryn Castle in North Wales. So there are Sequoia trees here that were planted there. But what is interesting

about this, and this is where the story is really, most people of course couldn't afford to plant their own trees. They didn't have the space to have a tree with a 30 meter circumference. Yeah, the person working at the garden center would have to tell you that beforehand, wouldn't he? Yeah. Now, I will sell you these, mate, but I've got to warn you, when they grow to their full height, they are fucking massive. So how big is your back garden? Let's say you've put one in your back garden, Al. Crystal Palace. At what point are you starting to think this is going to be a problem? I've misjudged this. I think five years in, it's affecting light into the kitchen.

When the shed is on a wonk. The right-hand side of the shed is in the air. When the shed is on a wonk, the right hand side of the shed is in the air. So as I say, most people couldn't afford to plant their own trees, or they couldn't afford to travel to see them, couldn't travel halfway around the world to see one in its natural environment. So our friend Lob, he has a plan. What do you think he did? Did he get one, chop it up, put it on display? Not bad, Chris, not a bad guess.

This speaks exactly to the Victorian experience of entertainment. By the late 1950s, exhibition sequoias have entered the mid-Victorian circus, by which I mean they've been deliberately felled, correct Chris? You're right, they were chopped down by get-rich-quick businessmen such as Lobb with an eye on not for natural preservation or education, but simply for profit. And these trees that have been cut down then went on tour for people to go and see. A big tree live. Do you want to go and see a big tree? What are you doing on Friday? It's a live show. So what happens in the interval? I don't know, but it's a live show. So what happens in this interval? I don't know, but it's life. It's a live show.

The rest is politics. The O2 shocked me, but Big Tree Live. Oh, in about 10 minutes, I think you'd be asking, what does it do? Big Tree Live. What's it going to do? Wembley Arena. Lasers going off like a dance track. Well, they fell it. That's the encore. Well, Wembley Arena is a bad venue because of the roof. It's Wembley. Yeah, it has to be Wembley Stadium.

Exactly. So these big trees went on tour. One such tree was called the Discovery Tree. Now, this was felled in 1853 on the initiative of Captain William Henry Hanford, who was a native New Jersey, moved to California to seek his fortune during the gold rush. It took five men 22 days to cut this tree down. That's how long it took to cut it down. And tree rings showed it was over 1200 years old. It's kind of heartbreaking, isn't it? I feel guilty if you chop that tree down, you count the rings, you're like, when you get into 800s you're like, oh bloody hell. Oh dear.

Have we done something bad here? So when it was down, I don't know why this was a surprise, but they discovered it was far too heavy to move. How could that have been a surprise? I mean that is gawling. What were you hoping? It was hollow? What were you hoping for in that situation?

It's aluminium like a big ladder. Can I surprise you, Captain William, this is heavy. Oh no. So how do they remedy this? This is kind of interesting what they did. Would you like to guess how they remedied the fact that this thing was unbelievably heavy? They didn't chop it up into tiny bits, did they? No, they stripped all the bark from the wood and then whenever the tree was put on display

the bark would be reassembled and stuck back on using scaffolding. So this tree would go round America, it would be stuck up without its bark and then they'd put up scaffolding and they'd stick all the bark back on the tree so it looked realistic. Hanford called this tree his vegetable monster and people absolutely loved it, so much so that he decided to then tour it around the back on the tree so it looked realistic. Hanford called this tree his vegetable monster and people absolutely loved it. So much so that he decided to then tour it around the East Coast of America as well. And in late March, 1854, the tree was bought to New York

and put on display at 596 Broadway in downtown Manhattan. So- He did a Broadway show, a Broadway run. Big Tree Live. Big Tree Live. Oh my god. So the Sequoia Tree, Big Tree Live, happens downtown Manhattan in 1854 New York. You could go and see a Sequoia Tree in central New York at the end of the 19th century. And yet, this is interesting, not long afterwards the tree bark was destroyed

in a fire and American public opinion did start to turn to thoughts of conservation. Unless the vandals are arrested in their work, the destruction of this incomparable forest will probably go on until the last vestige of it is destroyed, thundered the New York Herald in December 1854, adding, let it be the law that this mammoth grove shall stand. But sadly, at that point point the laws weren't passed and lessons weren't learned immediately and where money was to be made, money was made. The discovery tree stump, which remained in California as it does today, was variously then made into a dance floor, a bar, even a bowling alley, and its fate didn't stop other speculators from chopping down more giant sequoias. In fact, the largest one to be chopped down was the General Noble Tree,

which was felled in 1892, almost 40 years later. The excuse being the desire was to display this great symbol of America at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago the following year to mark the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in North America. So another huge one was locked down there. Stop cutting him down! What's the matter with you? I know. This is going to make you feel sad. General Noble was 300 foot tall. He was 95 foot wide.

It took a logging crew of nine men and many days to bring him down. The trunk was then hollowed out and split into 46 sections, each weighing at least four tons. Forty-six sections. weighing at least four tons. Forty-six sections, every section weighs four tons. It took 11 railway carriages to carry that tree from California to Chicago. And when the exposition was finished, the tree was then disassembled, transported to Washington DC, where it formed a new exhibit in front of the Department of Agriculture. And finally, the different elements were turned into the General Noble Redwood tree house. They turned him into a tree house, which remained in place for the next 40 years, when finally, due to decay, General Noble was finally laid to rest.

Now, a final point on all of this, which I think is particularly interesting, this is what our brilliant historian, Daryl, has pointed out to us. And I think this is a really interesting point on this. Why do you think historians like Daryl, has pointed out to us. And I think this is a really interesting point on this. Why do you think historians like Daryl believe that these trees mattered so much to Americans in the 19th century? It's a really interesting point, actually. Is it because America was a young country or seen as a young country? Exactly. Because they gave the United States a sense of history, one that could compete with the kind the classical or medieval ruins of the old world. So the discovery tree, after all, was much older than say Westminster Abbey or Notre Dame in Paris. So nature gave the United States a

history that it didn't have in its writing or its built environment at that point. It's quite interesting, isn't it? That natural history provided something that was lacking at that point. So there you go. That's kind of that's the plight of the Sequoias. You can't cut them down now. So if you're thinking about it, if you've got an axe and six months to spare, don't even think about it. Well, that's it for part one.

If you want part two right now it is available on another slice and on Wondery Plus. If you want to explore those options where you get even more Oh What A Time, two bonus episodes every month, you can go explore your options at owhatatime.com, sign up and become one of the great ones, a full timer. There are some fantastic, I think it's worth saying, there are some fantastic subscriber-only episodes, so many for you to listen to if you do sign up. I'll give you an example, ones we've done recently. We did a special on Spy Catcher and spies, that was yours wasn't it Chris? Do you want to quickly give an idea of what that was about? Spy Catcher, the theory proposed by Peter

Wright that the head of the MI6 in the kind of Cold War was actually a Soviet spy, we explore that one. And Ellis, do you want to talk about your recent Berlin one? I read a book over Christmas called Beyond the Wall, Berlin 1940-1990 by Katja Heuer, which made me look at East Germany in a completely different way, and it was amazingly well-reviewed in the UK, so I discussed that. It's fascinating, a generally brilliant episode episode and I last month did one on the experience of being a Royal Navy sailor in the 18th century.

The point is there's so many episodes for you to listen to. There you go, they're all available. Now you can go to another slice or you can go to WanderA+. All your options are at owhatatime.com Otherwise, we'll see you tomorrow for part two. Bye! Bye! Bye! The Follow Oh What A Time on the Wondry app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. And before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey.