Oh What A Time... - BONUS EPISODE! 4th Parts from #32 Escapes and #33 Conflict

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

Just when you thought it was safe to relax, we surprise you with a bonus episode featuring a couple of excerpts from our legendary 4th part megasode for OWAT: Full Timers - that famous episode which contains multiple never-heard-before on the main feed 4th parts to some of our earlier episodes.Today we’re delighted to present two 4th parts from:#32 Escapes#33 ConflictAnd if you fancy hearing the full 4th part megasode PLUS a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not 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).Hope you enjoy the bonus ep!Chris, Tom and Elis 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 and welcome to a special bonus episode. Today you're going to hear fourth part from number 32, Escapes, and number 33, Conflict. These are special fourth parts that were added to earlier episodes that have never been heard before on the main feed so please do enjoy this but don't forget if you want even more Oh What A Time including all the fourth parts two bonus episodes every month ad free listening episodes ahead of everyone else and much more you can become an Oh What A Time full timer you can get a subscription

via another slice or Wandery Plus for all of the links head over to Oh What A Timer. Enough chat, enjoy these two extra special fourth parts from number 32, Escapes, and number 33, Conflict. ["Fall With Winders Love And Rift"] Hello you lovely, lovely full timers. Thank you for joining us. You sound like Tom Skinner, that guy from The Apprentice that works in the market. Hello you lovely, lovely people, bosh!

I met him this week. Did you? Did you? He's a big West Ham fan. West Ham fan, yeah. Well I didn't meet him. I said, I've got mutual friends with him. But I was like, all right.

OK. But I'm really, I will be spending more time with him over the next few weeks. I'm really excited. He's hilarious. I think he has. He's one of the few people from the East End, Chris, who makes you sound like Peter Usnov. You're usually the most cockney man I know.

Doesn't he, not Peter Usnov, doesn't this chap from The Apprentice have breakfast in the same... Yeah, Dino's. Yeah, same as you. It's not far from you. Dino's Cafe. Is it? Dino's Cafe every morning and often Dino's Cafe. Every morning.

And often he'll have like a pie and gravy at 7 in the morning. Oh yeah. Earlier than that. Yeah, he's had a Christmas dinner at like 5 AM in October. I don't understand this place, Dino's Cafe, because you can order whatever you want at any time. It doesn't make any sense. Where are they getting this food?

Yeah. Christmas dinner at 5am. Why have they got a turkey knocking around in October? The other thing, he can have like a curry, yeah. He can have like a massive curry at like 5am. Before a day of grafting. Yeah. Bosh. Yeah. We'll go and check it out. Okay. Should we crack into the final part of today's episode, which is on the subject of great escapes? Okay.

You up for that? I love it. 100%. Okay. I'm far more up for listening to you do it than trying my own escape. Because having done the first three topics, I know if I go to prison, I'm staying there for the whole shebang. I'm doing there for the whole shebang. I'm doing

my time. It's also great to have an escape that we all know was successful and also not prisoners. Yes, exactly. Although to be clear, the people at Starlink Luft 3 were, in my eyes, innocent. Yes, 100%. Just to be clear. So I'm going to talk to you, as mentioned earlier, about the Chilean mine rescue of 2010. So just to remind you where this occurred, this occurred at the San Jose Golden Copper Mine,

which was owned by the San Esteban Primera Mining Company and located in the Atacama Desert of Chile, which is about 500 miles north of Santiago. It's an extremely arid territory that's been farmed since pre-Inca period. Now I've been thinking about this. As scary jobs go, it's up there, not just mining, but this one particularly, because you're mining in the extreme heat underneath a completely waterless desert. So the humidity and the heat is even more extreme than it normally would be. Mining is horrific as it is, but this is completely arid, sun-beaten land. How do you think you're dealing with that sort of job? Have you got any of the mindset that could deal with that? Terrible miner. I would be a terrible miner. In closed spaces, heat, like I'd get so claustrophobic.

I'm constantly on LinkedIn looking for notes. And you can't get any reception down there either. You're trying to update your profile. There's nothing. I mean, you're a bit more compact though, Ellis. Maybe you'd be a bit more suited. The coal mine is in my family and I'm the perfect shape for it. What a big, strong, powerful bum I've got. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've got a collier's bum, but... You could really wallop the coal. I can imagine you can get some heft by now. I haven't got the right mentality, shall we say. So the collapse in this mine, which I'm sure most people remember, occurred at 2pm on August 5th 2010 following warnings of disturbances earlier in that day.

And there had been numerous earlier incidents in this mine before. It was a real recipe for disaster this place, including an explosion in 2007 that killed three miners. But nothing had been done since that or since any of the other incidents to improve the conditions at this mine. In fact, here's a staggering fact, check this out. Across Chile, an average of 34 people have died per year since the year of 2000 in mining accidents in Chile. So every year on average 34 people die in mining accidents in Chile. So every year on average 34 people die in mining accidents in Chile. Such are the safety measures that are carried out there. It's just not a safe place. Obviously mining is not safe anywhere but in this particular part of the world the

measures are not quite what they should be. Yeah and it's safer in some places than others obviously. Exactly. So and inside the mine at the time of the collapse, there were 33 workers. There were 32 Chilean workers, one Bolivian worker. And the area of the mine in which they were trapped, and this is staggering, was at 2,300 feet below the ground. Wow, that's two feet. So to give you an idea, that is three quarters of the height of Mount Snowdon. So, flip that on its head and that depth down is how deep they are. That's freaking me out. Yeah.

Yeah, it is exactly my reaction to that. There's a visceral reaction to being that deep down in tunnels. It's amazing to be able to control your fear, to manage that as a human, to go down there and go, I'm going to work down there. It's just incredible. Obviously, necessity, all this sort of stuff, we're lucky that we don't have to do that, but it's just incredible that people are able to do that. I just find it staggering.

Initially, after the collapse, the miners tried to escape through ventilation shafts, but unbelievably the ladders required by safety codes to get up to the escape routes were missing. They just weren't there. Oh my God. What? They went to the shafts where the ladders should have been and they just weren't there. So it's just shafts, it's just an escape route with no ladder.

Couldn't get out. Just yeah, exactly. This is, this is a level of precaution that was happening. It's just incredible. That is why health and safety rules exist. Yeah. And they are ebolic. But it's, it is, it's for, it's for this stuff like this.

Yeah. It is for situations like this. That is why you went on that course, mate. Yeah, exactly. This is why pen pushers exist. This is why, you know, because you need that attention to detail. I saw a clip the other day of, it was a blue Peter, I think it was blue Peter in the 70s. And one of the presenters goes off to see how Big Ben is cleaned. And if you might have seen this

clip. No, it's Peter Purves. It was Peter Purves and they're just on ropes and a slat of wood and they dangle off. It's not Peter Purves, it's John Nookes and he climbs Nelson's Column basically in a pair of platform shoes and he's just climbing up a ladder and you think, okay, that's insane and then he cleans the top of Nelson's column and then you think the cameraman's there as well and he's off probably wearing platform boots and he's holding like a big 70s camera the whole thing is terrifying then he did the floodlights at Loftus Road and again he's just going up there in a pair of flares and he like

mate John this is crazy but they're just doing ropes, just doing ropes, a little piece of wood. He did like bobsleigh as well. Like I saw on a bobsled when he's going down at some ridiculous speed. And again, just in a jumper. John, please. It's kids' telly. No one cares. To give you an idea of how impossibly different I am to my eldest brother Noel, who was a

climber, Noel is the first person to free climb Nelson Column without ropes. My brother. Yeah, that makes me sick. If you go on the Wikipedia of Nelson Column, my brother is listed. There was a free Tibet thing and he climbed up there without ropes. He climbed up Nelson Common without ropes and flew the flag up there. That's mad, isn't it? Isn't that incredible? He went up the side of the electricity thing, the thing that takes the lightning strike. And he climbed up the side of that to the top of the... Yeah, we're quite different, my brother and

I. He's amazing. I mean, I hated you, Tom, you're one of my oldest and dearest friends. However, you know the bit in Twins where Danny De Vito looks at Arnold Schwarzenegger and says, you telling me that I'm the genetic crap? You are the genetic crap in your family. I'm quite pleasant genetic crap. I'm quite warm. But yeah, genetic crap. I'll tell you who wasn't genetic crap. Yeah, bloody hell, you're brother. I'm just reading the Wikipedia. Your brother's up there. Is he there? Yeah. 13th April 1995.

Wow, man. Fair play to him. Pretty cool. What a nutter. How far up Nelford's Column did you get if you tried? I'm bad with heights. Where are the soles? Yeah, pretty cool. What a nutter. How far up Nelford's Column would you get if you tried? I'm bad with heights, so five feet. Do you think you would get higher than your own height?

No. You could jump and tap a little bit. I'll jump and tap, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Whenever I can jump and tap. I'll put my Fr, yeah. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Whenever I can jump and tap. I'll give you a tap. I'll put my Frida Bet flag there. What a sticker do, with a sticker? Does it have to be a flag?

Sticker, I'll jump and tap a sticker. You could take a stepladder down, would you go to the stepladder and just tap wherever that needs to be? I'll take my two-stepper, I've got a two-stepper. As I say, I tell you who was not, what was the phrase you used? Genetic crap.

Genetic crap was Louis Usua, who was the shift supervisor when this collapse in the mine took place. So this guy just, he's awesome. This is my favourite part about this escape is this guy and his mindset and his ability to help others is just staggering. The first thing Lewis did was he gathered everyone together in a place called a refuge. A refuge is an emergency shelter which is installed in mines in case of disaster. So the refuge in this particular mine had 50 square meters, had two long benches on

which people could sit. They also had access to two kilometers of open tunnels in which they could do a bit of exercise or maybe get a bit of privacy. But that's what the situation was. I remember that guy running. Do you remember that guy who used to jog there? Yes, exactly. So they did things to try and keep themselves fit and moving. And from there, Ozua tried to install basically a philosophical acceptance of fate so that they could accept their situation and focus on the essential task of survival. So I find that fascinating. The ability to tell your group, okay, we just need to accept where we are and focus on what we can do.

On the little things. Absolutely. And some of the miners who come out, they basically had an agreement of silence about what happened in the initial days there, because it clearly was just raw panic set in, especially with the younger miners apparently, and they've agreed not to talk about it. A couple of them have spoken about it in sort of slightly vague details to the press afterwards, but in general, there's certain things at the beginning they don't want to talk about, but I think it's basically around the idea that there's just panic. There's panic, yeah.

And what are we going to do? We're not going to get out of this, whatever. But Azua managed to control them, calm them, and focus on what they could do and giving themselves the best chances of survival, which is amazing really. In terms of rations, the supplies were really limited. The emergency shelter was only stocked with of rations, the supplies were really limited. The emergency shelter was only stocked with enough rations to last two or three days, which seems remarkable for when you're that far down. If something goes wrong, it's clearly going to take ages.

Why is there only two or three days? However, Louis Ozuah implemented careful rationing with men only eating basically once or every other day, which meant they were able to make those two or three days of rations last for a full two weeks and they only ran out just before they were discovered. So it's incredible really, literally just before they were discovered. What sort of leader do you think you are in that sort of situation? Are you this guy who's getting people to calm down? What's your... I very rarely boast on this podcast. I am quite good in, I'm quite calm in a crisis.

In the main. Yeah, that's good. Okay. I tend not to outwardly panic. So I don't know, but I mean, I've never ever, ever been in a situation, anywhere near that. I would say it's small things in general that make me stressed, but actually bigger things in life. Yes, of course. I think that's quite common actually. A lot of my friends are like that. It's weird. They're good when it comes to a big crisis. They're bad when their pen leaks.

Mine would be like any sort of like life admin will really stress me out. Something to do with mortgage or whatever. Yeah. I just don't understand. I just go into an absolute ball. But then when bigger things have happened with bereavement, all this sort of stuff, I'm quite whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kids, I'm kind of a bit calm. I don't know why that is. It's a strange thing.

But he was incredibly calm. He implemented a one man, one vote democracy down there. So he decided we need a democratic system to make sure that we can all maintain the mine, look for escape routes and that everyone's voice is heard. So he installed a democratic voting system down there. One of the miners… How much time has elapsed? Like they're setting up a parliament. I thought this was over in a few days.

How long has this gone on for? It's like Lord of the Flies. Very quickly he put this stuff in order because he realized it was necessary. One of the miners, a chap called Mario Sepulveda, is quoted as saying, we knew that if society broke down, we would all be doomed. And each day a different person took a bad turn. People were getting ill, basically often because of the humidity. And every time that happened, we worked as a team to keep morale up. Now one of the main ways... But they were down there for f***ing... For...

69 days to an hour. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. God. Yeah. Apparently one of the major ways they kept morale up was humour. Al, how do you think your stand-up's going down in that situation? I think I'll have to write a new set. I think your stand-up's going down in that situation. I think I have to write a new set. Hahahaha!

Change the observation? Yeah, yeah. You've been very tunnel-based, my new set. Yeah, yeah. That could be quite a nice thing to do. Work on a stand-up. You're allowed, they go, Ellis, you can go and sit somewhere else for three days. And just work on a stand-up set. And we'll have that to look forward to in three days, and then you can come back with 20 minutes

on mining. So in terms of the rescue, an initial local emergency squad attempted to rescue the night of the collapse, but that wasn't successful. So the Chilean government ordered the state-owned mining company, Codelco, to coordinate the rescue attempt. And the very next day, rescue workers began drilling holes through which they sent these listening probes in an attempt to try and discern signs of life. However, and it's remarkable, once again, these are the things I find most staggering. This search was further complicated by the fact that all the maps of the mine structure were completely outdated. Oh my god.

They hadn't been revised to represent what the mine was actually like. That's crazy. I would feel so angry. Also I didn't realise that they didn't have any contact with the outside world for the very start. I thought they were always in contact so they've got no idea what's going on. Exactly. So... Let me just check when they went down. So, August 5th is when the collapse happened,

and these probes eventually came through on August 22nd. Wow. So, there has been 17 days without contact. That is long enough that you think no one is coming. Yeah definitely. Absolutely. You would assume that everyone assumed that they were dead. Yeah. Completely. And one of these probes made it through and when they drew it back up there was a note which read, and I'll probably get the pronunciation completely wrong, Estamos bien en el refugio los 33,

which means all 33 of us are all right in the shelter. I was thinking about this, what this must have been at both ends. First, when the probe comes down for them, that moment of contact, you can't even begin to imagine what that must have been like. Yeah, wow. When you're trapped in the dark and you've been down there for 17 days and you, I imagine you're, as much as you're trying to keep control and calm, your resources have just run out as well, it's worth mentioning they had literally just run out when that point of contact came through. You can't even imagine what that must

have been like. And at the other end as well when you pull up again and it's like they're alive, it's just absolutely incredible. The next day, nutrient gel, water and communication devices were fed through holes to the men. A team of experts ranging from mental health specialists to NASA scientists all descend on the site above. And as the days progressed, solid food was passed through the channel, as was first aid supplies, exercise routines, lighting devices, all these sort of things. And above ground, three separate

drilling rigs were brought onto the site. Two were things called raise bore machines, which drill a small hole and then widen it. And one was a piece of equipment normally using oil and gas prospecting that could drill one really wide hole. And as the drilling commenced below, the trap miners were split into three groups, this is incredible as well, each working eight hour shifts to remove the debris that was caused by the vibrations and they had to reinforce the mine because of course the panic was that this drilling would then cause yet another collapse. Yeah, pick-collapse, gee whiz. So they did these eight-hour shifts in rotation to stabilise the mine that they were in as the drills were coming down. And although the men were initially expected to be trapped until December,

on October the 9th a drill finally completed a tunnel connecting to an accessible chamber. And two days later this shaft had been lined with metal tubing in preparation for the ascent of the men in specifically designed metal capsules. And just after midnight on October the 12th, the first worker was drawn to the surface. Wow. And by that evening, the final man was rescued. And any guesses who that final man was? Oh, was it the former? Louis Ouzar, of course, who stayed right until the end, the final man to leave. It would be horrible being the final one on your own, I reckon. Absolutely.

I think first up and last would be horrendous because first up, is this going to survive the journey is the thing. Of course. And then he stayed till the end. Wow. What a good guy. Yeah, he really, yeah, absolutely. What a good guy.

So, that is the story of the Chilean miners. It's staggering for me just the way these huge company like that can have such a disregard. Oh, yes. For the life of the people that are working for them. These countless mistakes. It's just staggering. They had such a feeling of or such belief in collectivism, while they were still trapped in the mine, the 33 of them chose to collectively contract

with a single author to write the official history so that none of the 33 could have individually profit from the experiences of others. That is incredible. Yeah, yeah. So it was a proper, we're in it together. So when it comes to things like the documentaries, the money's all, it's divided between the 33 of them so that not one of them became a, you know, a star for want of a better word.

That's, what an incredible story. It's so mad. Yeah, well there you go. Hopefully that doesn't provide nightmares, but that is, that's the end of Escapes. I've really, this has been one of my favourite episodes. I've loved it. It's repeatedly told me that I will be useless in all of these situations. I got, during an evening service, I once got locked in the very old toilet, outdoor toilet of a chapel in Pembrokeshire. And I thought I was a goner.

I thought, this is me now. And obviously, it's pre-mobile phone age, so I didn't have access to a torch. I'd have been eight or nine, and the handle of the door came off in my hand. I'd gone there for a wee, and I remember thinking, this is it. This is where I die.

This is it. This is me. And eventually, I sort of, I fell with a knock, and it came loose. thinking this is it this is where I die this is it this is me and eventually I sort of I fin with a knock and it came loose and I just have my parents I even realized I'd gone but when I came back I just styled it out but I was terrified about two days when Claire and I lived in Canterbury a few years ago, we had a cleaner who would come to our house once a fortnight. On her first day, we'd never had a cleaner before, we just weren't used to it.

I said goodbye to her and I went off to work. When I came back at half five, having been in a writer's room from nine to half five, it turned out that I'd locked her in our house all the time. Oh God. Yeah, I didn't realise. I'd basically been so used to just leaving and locking the door and going off because I'd never had a clean up. I hadn't thought about it. It wasn't like, I'm quite thick.

So I just went, obviously I'm very apologetic and made it up to her and all this sort of stuff, but it was, yeah, that is the worst time I've ever felt. And obviously nothing happened, but she was actually, she was a modern day Alice Tankerville, wasn't she? She was the most beautiful woman in England. Exactly. I think the thing about this episode is it's reminded me never to go to a Chilean mine. Yeah. I'm still striking that off the list.

Do all your mining in Blighty Chris. Oh yeah. And hello, welcome. Oh what a time, full timers. Thank you for supporting the show. How you been? Do let us know. Hello at owhatatime.com.

If you've got any ideas for topics we could cover, that's always interesting. Yes, that's a good idea. And actually let us know when you email in, say I'm an Owhatatime full-timer and we will give your, we're going to say it, we'll give your email special treatment. There you go. And if you want to suggest an episode for our bonus episodes that we do every month, hey, that is a power we are now giving to you. So the bonus part this week is on Tommy Atkins. Do you know who Tommy Atkins is? I didn't really know who Tommy Atkins is.

I've heard of the British Tommy. I've never heard of Tommy Atkins. I thought Tommy Atkins, yeah, British Tommy is just sort of, to my mind, a phrase that described the low level troop. heard of Tommy Atkins. I thought Tommy, yeah, British Tommy is just sort of, to my mind, a phrase that described the low level truth. A normal squaddy. Exactly, normal squaddy. That's what I thought. Yeah. I didn't realise the British Tommy had a surname, but it is Tommy Atkins. I'm going

to begin with an 1890 poem by Rudyard Kipling. Not one of the Rudyard Kipling poems I'm familiar with, which let's face it, is just the one with Yard Kipling poems that I'm familiar with. Yeah. But this one's called Tommy. That one about Apple place. Yeah. If you do X, Y and Z, this'll happen. That one.

If you do X, Y and Z, this'll happen. Yeah. You know the one. I know that you can always, when you reduce or distill anything beautiful down to its bare bones, it sounds ridiculous, but you've done a really great job of absolutely destroying a beautiful poem there. If you do X, Y and Z. Can you imagine?

That's his first draft. Yeah. And also try these lovely apple pies. They come in packets of six. I haven't had one of those in years. It's almost impossible not to eat all six at the same time in my experience. I used to have a Kipling every fortnight. I haven't had one for years. They're still around. Yeah, they were big businessmen as a child in the 90s, weren't they? Yeah, we were a Kipling family. Yeah, angel slices and apple pies.

Well, we talked about that. God, I love that. We've absolutely slammed the cream egg filling. I would like to do the opposite and really put my force behind how good the filling was in the Kipling apple pie. That was a good filling, you see. That was nice viscosity, lovely sweetness. Lovely chunks of apple.

If you can keep your head when all about you and losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you but make allowance for their doubting too. Rudyard, considering that the first draft you submitted was if you can do X, Y and Z, then this will happen. This is a great improvement. Double thumbs up.

Well, to be fair, Ellis, This is a great improvement. Double thumbs up. Being a writer who's taught me anything is it's all about structure. That's really what that's what makes something sing. Succession, poetry, haikus, it's all structure. Whatever it is, it's all structure and then you add the balance. So to be fair Chris is on to something. Right, tell us about the British Tommy. Anyway, 1890, Roger R. Kipling's got another poem. This one's called Tommy, and it's written in a prose that will read very well from my lips. I went into a public ass to get a pint of beer. The publican-y up and says, we serve no redcoats here.

The girls behind the bar, they laughed and giggled, fit to die. I outs into the street again and to myself says I, oh, it's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy go away. But it's thank you Mr. Atkins when the band begins to play. The band begins to play my boys, the band begins to play. Oh, it's thank you Mr. Atkins when the band begins to play. So in that poem, like Tommy Atkins,

in peace time, he tries to go to the pub and get a pint of beer, he can't get one. But when it's war time, when the band begins to play, oh, it's Tommy, thank you, Mr. Atkins. And this is what- That's really interesting. Tailor's oldest time. The American Cribblet would be G.I. Joe.

Yes, of course. Which is, itself, an update on the old Johnny Doe boy. Yeah. That's cool. Cooler than Tommy Atkins in a G.I. Joe. Good action figure. Tommy Atkins. But the thing with you talking about Tommies, it was sort of, it was used less frequently.

It's like a 19th century, early 20th century things. Yeah, exactly. So the peak of the term Tommy Atkins was during the First World War. They tend not to use World War II, they tend not to refer to soldiers in World War II as tanks. Exactly that. It declined sharply as a term after the Battle of the Somme, so much so that by the Second World War, Tommy Atkins was a term on the lips of the older generation, not the generation who were going off to fight. Tommy Atkins became, this idea of Tommy Atkins became a really powerful propaganda tool at the start of the 20th century, especially with the conflicts in South Africa.

And you get a sense of that powerful propaganda tool when you think about the Michael Caine film Zulu, for example, highlighting the exploits of the British Tommy. That is your kind of classical historic view of the British Tommy around the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. There's no consensus really on where Tommy Atkins as a term comes from as the image for kind of an ordinary squaddy. They know it predates the 20th century and there's evidence of its usage as a metaphor as far back as the mid 18th century and hints of an even older lineage. There is a pop. Mid 18th century? Bloody hell. There is a theory. There is a theory that is worth discussing, which is that Arthur

Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, he saw apparently a private Thomas Atkins being incredibly brave at the Battle of Boxstall in 1794. He saw this private Tommy Atkins mortally wounded and overheard him saying, it's all right, sir, it's all in a day's work before dying. Wow. So Wellington picked the name as a tribute, as a generic term for the British soldier in 1843. But that's encrypted. That is not what I'd be saying. I'd be saying it's not all right.

It's not all right. It's anything but all right. All in a day's work, sir. I'm not sure. I read that German soldiers would call out to Tommy across Norman's land. Ellis, will you stop reading out my research ahead of me getting there? Oh, sorry, because that is incredible. That's amazing.

I'll get there. You're a couple of paragraphs ahead of me, but I will get there. The other theory about why this name Tommy Atkins emerged is that it was definitely used as a generic placeholder name in 1815, showing soldiers when they needed to sign and mark their names in the soldier's account book or a soldier's small book. Oh, that's really interesting. So it was listed as a placeholder name like Tommy Atkins. And that's 1815. 1815. 1815. So it's like the early version of those yellow stickers with an arrow that you get nowadays on a contract, that sort of thing.

Yeah. Which is weird. That's such a freelancer's observation, Tom. Jesus Christ. On the old documentary. I guarantee you that will really resonate with about 4% of our listeners. There is some guy who's a freelance copywriter going, he's so right, that's exactly right. Possibly punching the air. So yeah, Tommy Atkins with a poet appeared as a placeholder name in the soldier's account book,

and in time the soldiers began to take on that name for themselves. In the Great War is where Tommy really begins to have a special place in the popular memory. It was so ubiquitous that as Ellis says, in a cold, like silent night, you would hear Germans calling for Tommy across no man's land if they wanted to speak. Oh really? Tommy? So they're like even the Germans knew.

I'm sorry, I can't believe I just did a sort of an LOL German accent then. I apologize for that. I was like when I read that, I thought it's quite creepy isn't it? It's quite evocative that. You can imagine the cold silent night in the north of France hearing Germans calling Tommy over no matter what they wanted to speak. And the soldier in the Great World War, the Tommy in World War I was going over the top. This is the classic image running into the clack, clack, clack of machine gun fire. And it's really seared into the historical consciousness of the time. And Tommy, Tommy Atkins, this is the image that people conjure when they think about the British Tommy in the First World War.

Also, the First World War was when conscription was introduced in Britain for the first time. So what had been once a tool for showing largely, though not entirely, a literate volunteer army how to fill in paperwork, now took on a more general role as the identity for a nation at war. So we needed that image like a GI Joe for propaganda purposes really. That's really interesting. To make people on the home front patriotic citizens, to make them think, to personify the British soldier at war and we're encouraged to think of Tommy Atkins, poor

old Tommy Atkins, sleeping in trenches on chilly nights, sacrifice something by sending Tommy Atkins your blankets to the front. Why not send a few packets of tobacco to Tommy Atkins who's down there in the trenches. And then Tommy Atkins became this big cultural figure as an ideal that you could go to the cinema. You could watch Blanche Forsyth and Jack Tessier in Tommy Atkins, which was a wartime thriller. At the theatre, you could go see a Tommy Atkins play. At the music hall, there were songs about Tommy Atkins and these were recorded and sold for home consumption on the gramophone. Military and garrison communities such as Aldershaw came to be known as a Tommy Atkins town. Well, well, well. So Tommy Atkins was basically, he became this ideal almost a bit,

you know, like kind almost like Uncle Sam. He's no longer an individual soldier. He's became the patriotic image of the every man in uniform. In any war, I suppose, less so when there's ordered conscription, selling the idea of what you represent is so crucial in terms of forming an army and what they're willing to give you. I suppose that's the case anywhere, isn't it? It's the way, it's the story around it, storytelling and what part you're playing,

what you represent as you say for your country. That's absolutely fascinating. It's kind of marketing to some extent. That's really what it is, isn't it? It is, isn't it? I think we kind of stumbled on a propaganda device, didn't we? That was actually quite good. It personifies war and the British soldier. And in the British mind, Tommy Atkins, he's honorable, brave, dedicated, inventive and loyal, good hearted, so on. And it's an image, the British Tommy that survives to the present day, but he's just kind of lost the surname since the second world war. I read Clem Atlee's biography by John Boo, which is absolutely excellent.

Did you just call him Clem? Clem Atlee? It's called Clem, yeah. Oh, I thought you just nicknamed him because you knew him personally. They're very close. No, it's just called Clem. I have to call him Clem. And it's a great book.

He fought in World War I. And I was reading Lloyd George's biography as well. And it's, I read lots about that period. I find that period really interesting. So Tommy's, it often crops up. It just makes me so sad that it's just a waste. It's just a complete waste of a generation of young men who had no say in the matter.

And that sort of nickname that was used for propaganda purposes, you just think, bloody hell, it's, I don't know, there's something very profoundly, it's a heartbreaking thing. But fascinating because I thought it was a World War I thing. I didn't know it went back to the sort of 18th century. I find that extraordinary. And it died out as well by the Second world war, no one really referred to them as Tommies in the second world war. Yeah. Just to quickly go back on one thing that came up, what do you

think your dying words would be in war? Oh, mine would be shit. I know Dean Martin's last, I don't know many people's last words off by heart, but for some reason I know the singer Dean Martin's, which is, that was a cracking game of golf fellas. Really? Yeah. Was, did he have a heart attack on a golf ball?

I think he had a heart attack, yes. Yeah, okay. It wasn't just really outstretched. Oh my God. Was that second thing to hear, he heard someone yell four and he was hit on the back of the head with a golf ball, or had he had, what was the situation? We do need to look this up very, very briefly before we end. That'd be terrible if I've got that wrong.

I'm sure that's right, Dean Martin's last words. I think, do you ever have this? Like, my uncle, I used to have this, a book of people's famous last words. Yeah, yeah. I think that's where I've got that from. It's the kind of thing dads have in the toilet. Yeah, exactly.

I think it was my uncle's toilet. He had famous last words. And that was a father of two. I'm thinking, should I buy one of those books? Yeah. Do you know, the book my dad had in the toilet growing up was Mike Reed, AKA Frank Butcher's Autobiography. And I read Mike Reed's autobiography

exclusively on the toilet. Also just general books of famous quotations. Yeah, absolutely. We had a funny graffiti book once. That was quite good. I enjoyed that. It's always nice. If you're going through hell, keep going. This is all pre-iPhone isn't it? It's a different time. Exactly, different worlds. Rubbish. Well, that was fascinating, Chris. I absolutely love that.

I can tell from the pause that you failed to find out whether D Martin died on a golf course and where that sentence came from. Oh mate, sorry. It was Bing Crosby's. Okay. It was Bing Crosby's. There we go. Exactly.

This is one of your free wheel through history like we often do. Mistakes will be made, but I'm more than happy to correct. It was Bing Crosby's last words. There you go. Hope you enjoyed this special bonus episode. Don't forget, if you want even more Oh What A Time, all the fourth parts plus two bonus episodes every month, There's now a huge archive of bonus episodes plus ad free listening, early release episodes and much more. You can

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