Oh What A Time... - #97 Walls (Part 1)

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

This week we’re not building walls or tearing them down, in fact, we’re simply talking about them. But what a collection of walls we have: the Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall and the Berlin Wall.And elsewhere, isn’t schooling far more complicated these days?! No one being educated in a Victorian Workhouse ever had to worry about an outfit for world book day - so did that make it easier? (Possibly not). But if you have anything unusual about the area you grew up in then please email: [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.

Wanderi Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wanderi Plus in the Wanderi app or on Apple Podcasts. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time. The History Podcaster asks, were uniforms an enormous part in a global efficiency drive? I love school uniform, I love the fact that you don't have to think about what the children are wearing, I love the fact when I was at school that I didn't have to think about what I was wearing. However, for some reason, even though it's worked for, I don't know, God knows how long, we seem to be playing with the form. For instance, the three of

us, I'm sure plenty of our listeners are the same when you're listening at home. We have children of primary school age and primary school head teachers seem to be disrupting something that has worked for centuries. There's an awful lot of, oh, they're not wearing uniform on Tuesday the 11th because it's dress like a Roman day. Or… It's apricot Wednesday. Yeah. Or you can dress in the colour of apricot or as an apricot.

Sorry, your kids on Friday have got to come to school dressed as a bridge. You're like, what? Any bridge you like. Any famous bridge you like. Fourth bridge. Golden Gate Bridge. The Seven Bridge. It doesn't matter. Any bridge you like. Clifton Suspension Bridge. It's up to you. Adults, parents, guardians, it's up to you. You get to decide. Stanford Bridge. Yes, Stanford Bridge. The Menai Bridge.

It doesn't matter because it's your choice. I just had the inverse version of this. It's World Book Day coming up, which is another big event in the parent canon. And I said to my daughter, what do you want to go as? She said Hermione Granger. She wears a school uniform. Wheels within wheels. Are you just having to stitch a different school's badge onto your daughter's uniform?

That's your normal outfit. Oh my god, great. I would love that. We're the parents who, as you approach the school, and you realise that everyone else is dressed as a character from Doctor Who, that we've missed it again. Yeah, they're HB Pencil Day! You mean your kids aren't dressed as HB Pencils?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, come on, Tom! We're just really looking around in the back seat of the Volvo for something that might provide a nib-based hat. Today, man, it was like space or galaxy day. I thought we'd signed off that Betty, my daughter, would wear her dress with stars on it. They've got to leave at 8.40. Oh, yeah, yeah. 8.38. She's like, oh, by the way, I hate dresses. I'm not wearing that. You're like,

don't do this to me now. Yeah. I'm a, come on man, I'm recording at night and with Chris Skull and Tom Crane, time is money. They're two very important men. I was the child in primary school who always got it slightly wrong as well. So let's say it was galaxy day and everyone else's chest is a planet,

I would be dressed as a bar of galaxy. A chocolate. That is literally what would be happening. It was always slightly off. Or I would get the worst one is when you got the day wrong. And I did do that a couple of times where that was in muff-ty days, we called it, where it was like dressed in your own clothes day a couple of times in secondary school, I turned up. I was the only kid in your own clothes day a couple of times in secondary school, I turned up.

I was the only kid in my own clothes. But I was like that and we've turned out all right. Yeah. That's what I always think. How many times did you miss Muffity Day, Crane, turn up in your school uniform? I'd say I think probably twice. I think something like that.

I remember that. I remember once the other way around turning up. You did it the other way around? I've never heard of anyone doing that. So I did a day where everyone was in their school uniform and I was wearing a t-shirt with a neon DJ on the front with the words Chica Chica written above it. You know, like the sound the DJ makes when he's sort of scratching.

The famous sound. Yeah, and that day was... The famous DJ sound. Horrendous. They let you go to school. I can't believe they didn't send you home. Well, what choice have you got? I mean, that day was horrendous. They let you go to school. I can't believe they didn't send you home. Well, what choice have you got? I mean, that is what it was.

I had, I just was in my clothes. It was just an honest mistake. And then I just had a day of hell, basically. How old were you? So that must have been when I was about 14 or 15. That's too old for that kind of mistake. Wearing a massive pair of blue bolt jeans. Oh my god.

Which had enough material to clothe the Korean army. It was like huge. Huge jeans. Denim was bought by the yard. Yes. Oh man. Absolutely. Where a gust of wind would knock you backwards. A minimum of 10 yards.

Like a wind sock on every leg. Left over fabric from the First World War. Yeah, it really was. Yeah. So are you saying we should get rid of this World Book Day, all this sort of stuff? You think we should just get rid of it? I hate it. I hate it.

The counter argument, does it not foster a love for literature? The love for literature comes from reading books, not dressing like a character from a book. But is that not quite an old-fashioned way of viewing it? Maybe. My kids read all the time. None of it is encouraged by World Book Day. It is just a ballic for parents. If I was a head teacher, I'd be saying, listen, I live in the area. I'm a big part of the community. I see a lot of the kids on Saturday and Sunday.

I would encourage they wear uniforms at the weekend. Yeah. Just uniform us up. I can't believe you'd be passing the opportunity though to dress your son up as Mark Hughes for World Book Day. Like going in with the autobiography of a Wales legend. Of course. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like having to sort of 1987 kit. I remember once there was the Wales

84 to 87, Adidas home kit, which I think is the greatest football kit of all time. A small boys version came up on eBay before I had children. And I remember thinking to myself, I didn't even have a girlfriend. I remember thinking to myself, should I buy this on the off chance that I have kids? Is that weird? Was it, do you say it was a tiny kit? Yeah, yeah, it was a tiny like small boys, aged probably five to six or something. I actually know the person who bought it. I remember thinking, is this odd?

You know, like, like, like we're going into the labor room, going over to the labor board, my girlfriend or wife saying, have you got the stuff? I haven't got the nappies. No, I haven't got the vests. No. Have I got the formula? Absolutely not. But I have got this. It's an original. Wales, Wales Addidas Home 84 to 87.

I think it's the great football kit of all time. As worn by Mark Hughes, Ian Rush, Kevin Radcliffe. And I didn't buy it. It's to my eternal regret. If you had to go to a shop to buy that, do you think you are, assuming you're saying that was online, you saw this, is that right? Yeah, yeah, because I haven't made them for four years. So if you had to go to a shop to buy that, are you talking to the shop assistant with the language that suggests you're a parent?

Are you saying, oh, the little one's gonna love this, he's gonna, oh, this will be, or do you think you're just gonna straight back it, no mention, just buy it? When it came online, I was about 28. Because I remember a mingling about this because they're so rare. Because the thing with England kits from that period, they were bought in such enormous numbers.

Oh, interesting. You can get them. You might have to spend quite a lot of money, but they are available. The Wales kits, in my experience, are just not available. One comes up about every two years on eBay, and then it's a frenzy. Fastest finger first. If it had been in a shop at that age, age 28, I think I would have implied that it was being bought for a niece or nephew. Okay, yes.

I don't think I would have walked into a second-hand... I don't think I would have walked into Oxfam in Swansea or Cardiff and said, I have a child, that's why I'm buying this. Your other option suggests it's for a very, very, very small friend. Yeah. My tiny friend. Robert Earnshaw. Yeah, exactly. But you know the person who bought it. friend. Yeah. My tiny friend. Robert Earnshaw.

But you know the person who bought it. What do you mean? Was it an auction? Because the Wales away scene is very small. It's a very small community. I'm Facebook friends with him and his Facebook profile photo is of his son wearing it and his son's about five or six and I know it must be that one. And you are jealous of that five or six year old? I am jealous of that five or six year old. Yeah exactly, he's not really five or six forever. Well as we talk here about Wales and all its wonders, should we start with a little bit of Welsh correspondence? Oh yes, why not? on all its wonders. Should we start with a little bit of Welsh correspondence? Do we, should we do that?

Oh yes, yeah, why not? Because we've got a really nice email here, which I thought was sort of generally, it's quite a sweet story, which I think you'll enjoy, Al. So this is from someone called Gwyn, and it says, Big Jenks is the email heading. Any idea what Big Jenks might refer to, Al? No, but a classic Welsh nickname. Yes.

I had a lot of my teachers were called Jenks or Jenks. Ah, OK. Well, this is a particular Jenks. So Gwynn says, Shmae boys, love the pod. And I thought I'd get in touch for your question about if there is something unusual about the area we grew up in. Now, I Ellis might already know this but growing up in a town in South Wales called Church Village, I remember after training on Caedra rugby pitch, I'm probably pronouncing wrong, how do you pronounce that? How do you spell it? C-A-E-F-A-E-D-R-E.

Caedra, yeah. There you are, Caedra rugby pitch Rugby pitch, being told by my dad that that's where the magnanimous Neil Jenkins used to spend hours training and honing his unrelenting right boot. A friend of mine from, my friend Chris Cochran, who you know as well is from Church Village, and he used to train with Neil

and used to watch Neil do this. Now Neil, if you're unaware of 1990s rugby union, he played for Wales and the British Lions. If you're somehow unaware of 1990s rugby union, to our American listeners. If you're one of the five people. But he was a big player, right? But what I would say about Neil Jenkins was,

I wouldn't say that place kickers were sort of hit and miss before him, but he was like a metronome. Really? Was just insane. Yeah. Like, he never missed. And he used to play at number 10, the outside half, which is a sort of glamour position. And Wales have always produced very, very glamorous outside

harps. And I wouldn't say he was glamorous like some of his predecessors, but my god, he was just so effective. And I remember Corky saying, just used to watch him practice, like he would do the same kick for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. Well, it's interesting you say that, Al, because this refers to what the rest of the email is. Neil said in an interview that during the Lions Tour in 1997, he would mentally drown out the crowd by thinking back in his mind to the time he was back in Church Village as a kid, hoofing those balls. So the technique that he used, even in top competitions, was to imagine himself back on that small pitch in that Welsh village. And that is what drowned out the noise and

was why he was such a successful kicker. Isn't it something so lovely about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's simplifying, isn't it? And it's getting yourself back to a place of safety and calm and all these sort of things. I completely get that as a way of approaching it. The one moment time machine. Well, to some extent, yeah. But it is, isn't it? I think what helped him was that by the 90s, the balls were much better.

They wouldn't take on water in the same way because if you watch games in the 70s, if it was played in heavy rain, the balls would be really, really heavy. So kicking was affected by, you know, adverse weather conditions and things. It was when Neil, he could rely on better rugby balls. He would kick successfully from parts of the pitch that in previous years no one had even tried. Like it was insane how accurate he was. But I didn't realise that he was imagining that he was back in Church Village when he was doing it playing for the British Lions. That's lovely, isn't it? To be fair, Al, you do a minimum of five podcasts a day. You are the podcasting equivalent to Neil Jenkin, picking that ball over your, you know, you take to the mic

five times a day minimum. Also, and also so Yeah. And I'm trying podcasts from places that people just weren't trying it for. And is it true, El, like when you're doing a podcast like this, there's a decent listenership, you think back to those simple times when you were eight and you were doing your first podcast in your house in Carmartham to just two listeners. You close your eyes and you're back on the wireless. A friend of mine, he came for a sleepover when I was about 11. I was a very, very, I'm a bit like Tom, I was a very, very well behaved boy. Yeah.

And he was a little bit naughtier than me. He wasn't in the, he wasn't in the bloods of the crypts or anything. It's just he was, he was a bit more normal. And he did two things. He bought me some chocolate liqueurs, which had actual alcohol in. Amazing. And so he bought me, he gave me a chocolate liqueur

and I said, what's this? I just doesn't taste like chocolate. And he said, it's booze. We're going to get drunk if we eat enough of them. And I spat it out. Oh. Because it was breaking the law. Oh.

Spat it in his face. And then he said, I bought this radio kit where we set it up and we'll be broadcasting probably over Khmar then, okay? So we need to set it up properly and we can do our own radio shows. So we set it up and he was very technically minded and his dad was an electrician.

He was very, very technically minded sort of boy. So he'd set it up and he got like this little mic. It was like a kit he'd got for Christmas or something. So he started broadcasting and he said, oh, by the way, obviously it doesn't matter, but we don't have a license. So we are technically breaking the law. You got your start in pirate radio?

Yeah, that's exactly what he said. He said, we're currently- Drunk of a chocolate cure he said we're currently broadcasting pirate radio so we are technically breaking the law and I decided on here images of like the power's police kicking the door down. Holding my mum and dad up by the throat and saying, they're too small for each other, they can't just show up to this. I just completely shot myself. Turn it off!

No, I was exactly like that, I completely get that as a child, just the complete spiralling into a point where I go, well, this, I'm going to end up in jail despite the fact I'm eight and doing nothing. I wouldn't say it was a respect for the police. It was a complete terror of the police. Like they were the Stasi. Despite the fact I had no interaction with them at any point. Yeah, I'd never had any interaction with them at all.

I just assumed that I assumed that in the Devil Powers police headquarters that they would have someone monitoring for illegal radio broadcasts for pirate radio. They would find our broadcasts and it just was two 11 year old boys whose voices aren't broken giggling. That's all it was and they'd be able to work out where it was happening and they would do, woo! Blue lights, police van on our drive, right, get out! You know, and all that. And we would just sort of, what's that thing where they bash the doors down, like that

sort of heavy implement. That huge, like mega-sized truncheon. Yeah, yeah. The mega truncheon was going to ruin our front door. Yeah, the mega truncheon. I hear you on. The Megatron-tion was going to ruin our front door. The Megatron-tion. I still have flashbacks to and feel guilty about the time I threw a sausage roll at someone's sunbathing when I was about seven. I went to a wedding and I had some much bigger, naughtier cousins and they forced me to throw

this sausage roll from a balcony. Yeah. And they hit someone who was sunbathing. Didn't injure them, just hit them on the ankle or something. Yeah. And I nearly, I just, I remember going back to my mom and just feeling faint with panic, shame, everything.

Yes. And it still to this day feels crystal clear in a way that I'm not very good at that. A lot of my childhood memories are not distinct like that, but this is a particular event. I just feel like it's yesterday and I feel awful about it. Yeah. Sausage roll game. You've given me such a flashback, Crane. Once I was getting the bus to school and on the top deck, some kids from another school were getting off and me and my friends gave him

the middle finger off the top of the bus, like banging the window, like, ah,. Bus drives off. Get to school. So I'm walking in, the headmaster, not the head of year having a chat by the school gate and he's get, and the head of years we're going, we've just heard a report that some kids have been swearing at kids from other school, our kids. And I was like, as I'm walking in the gate, I'm like, Oh my, my life is over. This is it. I'm going to prison. This is it. I'm going to prison. I'm never gonna see my family again. I've known it. And it's like, and they all find out it's me.

They're gonna find out. I was just waiting. Oh, remember that. Do you have a tannoy in your school? I was just waiting the whole day for my name to get called. I was like, it's over. Did you have a tannoy? Yeah, we had a tannoy in our school, yeah.

More money in your school than mine. Chris Skull, get your possessions. Clear your desk. You have been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Call your parents, say goodbye. Does the word gulag mean anything to you, Skull? Because it will soon. Straight to Siberia.

Doing the visa foothles from another school. Or his middle finger dropped off through frostbite in a terrible twist of irony. You'll never swear again. Well, there are other signs you could do, but you could never flip the third again. So, Gwyn, thank you very much for that lovely email. It says at the end, Ellis, anyway, diach am bobeith. What does that mean? Oh, diach am bobeith. Thank you for everything. I think David Beckham did something very similar. Oh, really?

In the David Beckham documentary, when he takes the corner in the 1999 Champions League final, as he's putting the ball down in the D, he's thinking to himself, or the quadrant, he's thinking to himself, I have taken millions of these corners. And as he kicked Simeone in the... Yeah, yeah. Thought I... And I've been doing this since I was 10.

That's really interesting. But that's a genuinely sweet thing sent in. Thank you very much, Gwyn. I love that. That's such a lovely story. If anyone else has anything they want to send into the show, we're getting lots of emails about stuff near where you grew up, historical, unusual things that people wouldn't know about unless they lived where you live. Do send them in, I love them. There's some great ones coming in. And keep them coming in and we will read them out

if they're good, and they always are. Here's how you get in contact with the show. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] All right, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at earlwatertime.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Earl Watertime Pod. Now clear off.

So this week on the show, we're talking about walls of all kinds and I'll be telling you later in the show about Hadrian's Wall. Which I visited actually, I went on a school trip to that. It's quite small isn't it? Quite low. Yeah, these days yes. A couple of thousand years will do that to a wall. Absolutely, yeah. Time has that eroding quality. What are you speaking about, El? What are you going to do?

I will be talking about the Berlin Wall. Ah, great one. And I, to kick things off, I'm going to be talking about the granddaddy of them all, which is, any guesses? The Great Wall of China. Great Wall of China, exactly. It's too big! I'm excited about this. Just seemingly never-ending Great Wall of China. It's insane how big it is. I don't really know what the Great Wall of China is for.

I know all about it, but I have literally zero idea why you need a wall that long and big. Well, Skull, you've come to the right podcast. I'm excited to be a part of this. Have either of you been to it, wanted to go to it, and do you feel a draw to go to it now? No, no, but occasionally when podcasters, like politics podcasters, discuss things like HS2, they'll say it's going to be a legacy project, it's a great infrastructure project, we don't do these kinds of things anymore. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it would be quite good getting to Birmingham 20 minutes faster. I haven't seen the Great Wall of China. It's fucking massive. That's an infrastructure project.

Yeah. As you'll find out, it is quite a problematic infrastructure project. I don't know anything about it. They weren't hot on the sort of workers' rights during the building of it. I could have guessed that. As you will find out, there's a little bit of blood along the way. Oh man. So for some context, China itself is ringed with ancient medieval and contemporary border walls.

So it's from the Great Wall of Korea, incidentally actually there were two of those, which went up in the seventh century and then was then supplemented in the 11th century right through to the sort of vast 21st century fences and barbed wire installations that separate Chinese occupied Tibet from its neighbor Nepal. So there are just walls around China. They've got a big tradition of walls. Okay. It's their walls and separation. This is where things begin and end. Okay. But the wall that inspired all of this was of course the Great Wall of China. And that was the work of generations. Okay. So let's take you through how this worked.

The earliest section of the Great Wall of China were put up during the reign of the first emperor, which is in the seventh century BC. Isn't that crazy? Wow. Okay. Seventh century BC. It's crazy. That's when they started work on this wall.

What do you think the estimate was when they get that done? At that point? Well, I think what they tend to do with these big infrastructure projects is they say, yeah, yeah, yeah, do it for under a million quid. Yeah, that'll be about fine. Actually it's going to cost about 250 million. Oh, yes, sorry, sorry. Yeah, so I reckon he was probably, I don't know, 20 yen, do it in a couple of years. So is the Great Wall of China a collection of walls that eventually merged? So is 7th century BC the start of one of the sections? Yes. Well, does it get out of...

You know, like it's one of those jobs where you start it and you're like, oh God, what have I done here? I painted my skirting boards in lockdown. Yeah. What a foolish thing to do. Exactly that. It's like L skirting boards. Yeah, yeah.

So many of them. I once just started, you've got to do them all. Or it looks crazy. Why the skirting boards? And why did you stop there? Could you not reach the rest of the wall? What was going on? Why the...

Because they were very shabby and we were going to sell the house and they kept being scuffed by things like buggies. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And scooters and all that kind of stuff. And I thought, so I thought I'll just do the hall. But then it sort of looks daft that you've only done the hall because it's such a different colour to the rest of the skirting boards. And what's the pose you're doing? Are you lying down like a sniper in the bushes? Lying down like a sniper listening to a podcast apologising to Izzy as well? As she routinely steps over you. Yeah.

So, yes, seventh century BC they start building this wall, apparently with the aim of keeping out horse-borne invaders from the northern Mongolian plains and the wider Eurasian steppe. As a defense mechanism, the wall at that point basically had a twin effect. You're asking Chris, why was this built? The reason this initial wall was built was to A, establish a limit to Chinese power, to mark out a boundary between what was and wasn't part of the empire. But also, this is what more recent historians have come to believe, also it had an offensive use. So it served to establish Chinese rule over vast swathes of new territory in the north.

And this is explained by the presence of archeology, which is associated with peoples from outside within the boundaries of the wall rather than exclusively outside. So they've studied the archaeology there and it suggests actually it wasn't simply demarking the edges of the empire. It did have a sort of military aspect of trying to kind of, you know, they would expand use it. It was a place where they could also attack from. Now, the original architects made savvy use of the landscape, it's quite interesting. They mapped their packed earth walls to the contours of the land and wherever possible,

they used natural barriers such as rivers and mountains and stuff like that. However, what tourists now regard as the Great Wall, which is what we see today, What tourists now regard as the Great Wall, which is what we see today, is actually a product of the Ming dynasty and that was completed in the late 17th century AD, the end date normally given around 1681. Yesterday! 1680, well to my mind it's still 1681 to do that. Tommy Walls could have worked on that. 1681 to do that. Tommy Walls could have worked on that. So, 1681 it was built and having expelled the Mongols from the empire in the late 14th century, the new ruling family, which is the Ming dynasty, at first sought to expand their territory to the north, but having failed to do that, at this point they did settle

into a defensive posture and they used the motto, do not let a single horse in. So that was basically the idea of the wall was to prevent horse-riding sort of rivals trying to get into China. Okay. So it's anti-horse. Exactly. I would say a cheaper alternative is the cattle grid in that case. It does feel like a simpler idea. So that's when it was built, but it's not the most interesting part about the Great Wall of China. The most interesting part is kind of the way it was built. So you are right, Chris.

It was not built according to a single central directive. This is kind of what's interesting about it. Most walls you go, okay, let's build this wall. This is what he wanted to be. We'll complete it. It's completely this job. Instead, because it took so long to build, it reflected local initiative and development together with changing needs, basically, of the imperial state over more than 2000 years. So as a result, how the wall was built changed considerably over

time, as did the workforce. And at least four groups were involved in building this. Now, no surprise, it was quite brutal. Shall I take you through how this was built? Yes. Okay. So the earliest- Is this going to be one of those jobs from history that I didn't want? Yes. And I want to get your response to how you're feeling about this. So the earliest group of construction workers were military engineers and sappers, since this was a military installation, and some 300,000 men were tasked by the first

emperor to build this. And it was soon realised that this workforce could be supplemented indefinitely. Now would you like to guess how they supplemented that workforce? Slaves. Their children. Who are they? You're going children, who are you going for? They're capturing people and enslaving them.

Well actually it's broadened that. So by something called exploitation of the Imperial Corvée, which was basically the principle that every Chinese citizen owed the Emperor at least a year of their life devoted to Imperial service. Oh. Okay. So you would be called up. Yeah, National Service for sort of working on a building site.

But you would be called up and your year would be to work on the building of the Great Wall of China. I'm fine with that. I'm absolutely fine with that. It might be a laugh. It's like a gap year. Well, you say that, but there's a few things to consider here, Chris. First of all, the size of China. It's like a gap year that will give you a bad back. The size of China. It's like a gap year that will give you a bad back. The size of China. So, a lot of people died simply on the journey to their national service because China was

so massive, basically. Really? This is not a time of trains and roads in a meaningful sense. What, you're getting on a donkey? Yeah, you'd fly it now, wouldn't you, from Nanning? Yeah, exactly. This is a genuine sort of Lord of the Rings style journey on foot. On foot? Christ. Yes, it would be. It would be for months

for some people to get there. But how do you know where you're going? Or by horse at best. Is it like a trail? You just think, oh, they're like, right, meet here. Meet 400 miles away in four months. Better be there, otherwise we're locking you up. Well, people did make it. You are right, how did they find it? But they did make it. This initial push brought in an extra 500,000 peasants and a new segment of popular culture,

which is basically stories of lost love sent to the wall. Another seemingly inexhaustible supply came from, let's have another guess, where do you think the next inexhaustible supply of workforce came for the building of the Great Wall of China? Slaves. Captured soldiers from other countries. Convicts. Okay.

Since any number of crimes were penalised by service at the wall, there was kind of a benefit to the kingdom. The one catch being that criminals had to be at least four foot six to be able to work in construction. So anyone shorter had to remain in prison until they grew tall enough. So there was a huge mass of convicts that were removed from prison and they were taken to work on the wall as well. And in terms of age, strictly speaking, you had to be 15, but there are loads of records of child workers, some as young as seven, working on the wall. So if you're a tall kid, you're bang in trouble.

Yeah. Now the other thing is, I know a lot of seven year olds. They're not going to be helpful. They're just going to get in the way and mess stuff up. But they like Lego, Al. Is great all the time and not just a massive Lego set. It's the ultimate Lego set. Exactly, yeah.

I was at a cavern complex in Derbyshire that was a lead mine near Cromford last week. And we were talking about sort of child labour and apparently the job that six-year-olds had in the sort of late 17th century was they were the fire setters. So they would light a fire next to the sort of pit face and then they would take pools of water from the underground pond and chuck the water onto the fire, putting it out, and the change in temperature would cause the face to crack. So you'd either crack and then you could chisel away and get the lead ore that you wanted or it would collapse. And I looked at my son who's six and I thought, no offence, I cannot imagine you doing that. And also I don't even let you light the candles

on your own birthday cake. I certainly don't want you setting fires or lighting fires in a lead mine. Until I've seen what it pays. Yeah, yeah. Once I've looked at the contract, we can reappraise. 300 years ago, they just must have been different. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

I think people, we talked about this before, I think people generally were tougher, weren't they? Yeah. I think we're a softer lot now in general than we've already been. I think we are as adults, but I think kids are kids. I can't imagine. Yeah. Like, well, you know, especially when with little kids, you look at little kids and you think,

I don't think that what you like has changed for centuries. But you say kids are kids, but this is 17th century rural China. You're living in a very cold house, probably, because this is obviously way before central heating and all these sort of things. Yeah. They wouldn't be the same soft parenting. They're not reading the book I wish my parents had read or whatever it's called. What those kids liked was watching videos of marbarans on YouTube, just like kids do now.

I know you're right. I retracted. Nothing strange. So there was of course one group of society who could get out of this work. Like to guess who they are? Final question? Rich kids. Not rich kids, rich kids' parents. So if you were wealthy, as has always been the case, there was a way out. The rich could buy out their corvée, pay a fine to escape prison and hard labour, or they could buy a servant who then be sent to the wall in their place. Which feels like that's a brutal thing, isn't it? Being the servant who has to go to the wall, coming into work saying, what would you like me to do today?

Do you want me to do the dishes or the cook a meal? No, I'd like to go and work on the Great Wall of China on my behalf. I want you to walk North West for four months and then build a wall for a year. For a year and then come back. Because by then I'll need stuff doing in the house. By the way, don't die on the way, otherwise I'll have to replace you. My response would be, can we have a look at my day rate? I think we need to look at what I'm on because this is... You've shifted the goalpost massively here.

Wouldn't you rather work on a big Lego set than cook meals for a year? Like, I don't know. At least you're on the outdoors. I often walk past scaffolders working on rooms and think, that's living. You're out there with your chest exposed to the sun. You've got Torque Sport on. You know, you've got talk sport on. You're just messing with tiles. You know, I envy that lifestyle in some respects. You're having some slightly problematic banter and it's fine.

You're on a roof, no-one can hear you. You can get away with it. What's that? You're a king of the world. I'm exactly the same. Top off, talk sport on. I think I'm meant to be on a building site. Actually, you would both be rubbish on a roof. Yes, I know. You'd both slip off within the first half hour.

I'm actually very bad with heights, so yes. You'd both go to work on a roof, which is a fine job, it's a good job. And you'd say you'd be really proud about it and half an hour into your shift, I'd walk past on the way to the shops and you'd both be dangling off the gutter. No, no. Going, get a ladder, get a ladder. I don't know how this has happened. No, I think I think part, I'd fallen apart the scaffolding would go up my bum. Impaled. Yeah, impaled as I listened to Alan Brazile on Talksport. Talk about Marcus Rashford's

career at Villa. Still calling in. Ellis calling in because they're talking about Swansea. I just want to say that I think it's vitally important we get our next managerial appointment right Alan. Because I know that we're not probably not going to get promoted to the Premier League this year but my god it'd be bad for the club if we go down. And what else do you want to add, Al? Call an ambulance.

Well Chris and Al, you say it seems like a nice life. I'm sure that is a nice life. I'm afraid working on the Great Wall was not a nice life. The whole project was essentially one great forced labour camp. It was so dangerous that the wall was gained notoriety as the longest cemetery in the world. That's how it was referred to. Life was harsh, unpaid, highly prone to disease, starvation, death. Just getting to the wall, as we said, was bad enough.

Many workers died on their way there. One official history produced during the Sioux dynasty, which ruled between 581 and 618 AD, puts the death rate during the first emperor alone, this is during the reign of one emperor, at half a million. Oh my god. Historians today reckon it's at least double that figure for that one emperor alone. In all, millions died over the course of the walls constructed.

Is it exhaustion, starvation, are they falling off the wall? It is everything. It's disease, it's starvation, it's falls. Accidents, yeah. Accidents, yeah. And here's a dark bit, their bodies are often incorporated into the wall itself. What? Okay. So they would die and they would use their body figures. Like Harrison Ford in Star Wars.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so it is no surprise to find those serving on the wall just hated the experience. Garrison soldiers were known as floating souls. They themselves complained of freezing temperatures and water, this is a lovely sentence, so cold that it cracks your guts. That's a great sentence, isn't it? What a description. It really captures what they're going through. And this was before reckoning with the often brutal regimes imposed by the military commanders, not least for women. Women convicts were compelled into marriage with single men in the walls workforce, particularly among the military garrison to ensure population growth. So I suppose the final question is really, did the wall work after all of this? Did it work? Sometimes, yes, but other

times it was a catastrophic failure. Notably, at the end of the Ming dynasty when the wall was breached at its eastern end by the invading Manchu, And that was in 1644. And the event led to the collapse of the Ming dynasty and their successors, the Manchu Queen dynasty, took little interest in the war whatsoever. It was instead left to Western tourists to develop the mythology of the things. It was Western tourists that basically had given this mythology. And that was not until the 19th and 20th century. So it's an interesting thing, isn't it? When these tourists are stood there, it's an amazing thing.

You're taking your photos, but actually, yeah, wow. The horror, the loss of life. You're standing on a big graveyard, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It was a work camp. That's essentially what it was. It's construction has, you know, so many lives were lost in the building of this thing.

It's quite dark actually and I had no idea about that. I just thought it was like the biggest construction you could see from space. I thought that was the thing. You could see it from space. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm imagining if you're working on it, they pick you up in a white van at like seven in the morning, you're on site at eight. Yeah, yeah.

Breakfast eight till nine at the gaff. Three of the boys are drinking Stella. Yeah, sausage sandwiches site at eight, breakfast eight till nine at the cafe. Three of the boys are drinking Stella. Yeah, sausage sandwiches, tomato sauce, really strong couple of cups of tea. You're on site at nine. Yeah, yeah, loads of sugar. Lunch at 12 till two and then you clock off at three, you're back home again. Repeat, Vincent repeat.

You're watching Pointless with a cup of tea. Yeah, lovely. Yeah. You're reading The Sun on the wall. It's a great life. That's how I imagine it. So thank you for correcting me, Craig. There you go.

So that's it. That is the Great Wall of China, which I will happily put up there, as we've discussed many times before. I think this is another one of those awful jobs from history that I'm glad I never had to be a part of. I'd be very curious to know what the Chinese think of it now. Yes. Where it stands in sort of Chinese national popular culture.

Yeah. And whether they're proud of it, embarrassed by it, impressed by it, et cetera. Yeah, completely. Yeah, yeah, very, very interested to know. That's the end of part one of Wall.A.L.S. If you want part two right now you can become an O What A Time full timer. You can sign up via owhatatime.com, signing up for Wondery Plus or another slice where you get two bonus episodes every month and both parts at the same time. Why not join up loads of bonus episodes up there right now. Otherwise, we'll

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