Oh What A Time... - Ep2: New Year Extra Part Specials

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

We’re off on our Christmas / New Year break at the minute so while we’re off being festive, please enjoy two of our special 4th parts that were available for subscribers last year. In this ep you’ll hear bonus parts from:#22 Big Projects#23 ChristmasAnd pop it in your diary: we’ll be back with some brand new OWAT on Monday 13th January 2025!If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before (including ALL the 4th parts from last year), 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).Happy New Year to all our listeners!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 back to Oh What A Time. We are on our Christmas slash New Year break at the moment, returning on Monday the 13th of January. So instead what we're doing to keep things on your feed and to keep you occupied, we're dropping in fourth parts that we did early last year that have never been heard before in the main feed.

We've got two more for you today, big projects and Christmas 22, 23 23 an extra part that you can enjoy right now and if you want access to all these extra parts of which there are loads and loads this is just a tiny amount of the full total of fourth parts we did last year then you can go to oh what a time calm and become an oh what a time full-time and they're all contained within this within one episode that we have called a mega so that is several hours long. Nevertheless, here you go, enjoy this. This is the fourth part from Big Projects

and Christmas Today, off we go. Hello subscribers, you're our favourite people. Hope you're well. Our absolute... yeah, you're the ones who will pay for Tom's tomb. Sorry, Tom doesn't want us to talk about his tomb because he finds it too upsetting, but Chris and I are now going to talk about his tomb every day for the rest of his life. But I actually have such high regard for these O'otl time full-timers. I'd be alright with them coming to my table laying flowers and shedding a tear. Oh yeah, laying flowers at Tom's tomb.

But I only want to be in that tomb when the time is right, which to my mind would be when I'm at about 102. That feels about right. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. You've got a good 60 years left. And I want any subscriber to know that I will, we all will be podcasting until our deathbeds. Okay?

So if you're worried that you're going to subscribe and that the content's going to drop off, no, we're going to, even when we're wired up on those final moments and the beeps are getting slower. Well as AI is improving, fingers crossed we'll be able to podcast forever. Makes you think, doesn't it? It does. Now we take electricity for granted in the 21st century. It's always there, it's always on, it powers everything, do you wanna charge something? Yeah, sure, plug it in, not a problem. But in large parts of rural Britain and Ireland, the lights have gone on only within living memory. And it's still one of the great post-war

infrastructure projects and one that's still largely unknown. Now by 1945, the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, outside of larger towns in the city of Inverness that is lacked an electricity supply. So in numerous remote communities and difficult terrain to cross it had long been thought too expensive to supply electricity to every household in northern Scotland. Wow. But imagine how cheated you'd feel.

Yeah. You know, oh God if I moved to Inverness I'd have electric. Now enter the Labour MP and Secretary of State for Scotland, Tom Johnston, who decided to use his power to do something. His connection scheme was launched in 1943. It began physical work in 1945. Chris, Tom, have a guess. When do you think it was finished?

Electricity, bringing electricity to the remote areas of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. I'm going to be optimistic simply because the idea of these people living without electricity for too long feels too sad, so I'm going to go with... he pulled it off in five years. 1950, Chris? I reckon this is a trick question that's probably still going on now. No, 1975. Although this reminded me of a big new story from 2008. There's a remote mountain village in Gwynedd called Abergeirw. And they were put on mains electricity in 2008. What?

God. Yeah, yeah. This was a big news story in Wales at the time. I vividly remember the news report. So they were using generators, but the thing with generators is they were noisy and they could be quite unreliable. That's incredible.

There's only nine houses in Abergaerwes. Like it's not a big place. But what was weird, I reacquainted myself with a new story last night. There are a few different ones. The one on the BBC, Mary Margaret Jones says, people might think we used to live in the dark but it wasn't like that at all. We had our fridge, we had a freezer, we even had a dishwasher. All we had to do was get the generator running and make sure it had fuel. Whereas if you read news reports in other places,

they're like, yeah, it was unreliable, it was crap actually. I'm so glad. I am so glad. Does a generator store energy that you can use when it's not running or do you have to keep it going? I think you have to keep it going.

Because I read about, I think it's on Lundy, this small island off North Devon, I think it is, where until recently the generator would go off at night. So it was basically there was no electricity at night. So you'd have electricity during the day, but then during the night, you'd just be plunged into darkness. You'd have to read your books by candlelight, whatever happened.

Yeah, so as Mrs. Jones says, when everything was on the generator, if you went to bed and left the light on you knew because the generator wouldn't switch off until everything was off. Now if you leave the light on that's it. It can be on all night and we wouldn't know because it's so quiet. Imagine being in 2008 chuffed that your electric is quiet. You can hear your telly. Anyway, a team of 12,000 workers employed from Scotland, Ireland and parts of Europe, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, completed 50 dams and hydroelectric power station facilities such as Loch Sloe on the banks of Loch Lomond, opened in 1950, and store locks in the Isle of Skye, which opened in 1952, 400 miles of road and 20,000 miles of cabling. So workers took on the task

of building infrastructure in some of the most difficult conditions anywhere in Britain and Ireland. They were remote, prone to horrific weather and poorly connected to the outside world, so life was lived in temporary camps. So these laborers, this sounds hard, are to dig tunnels and construct the dams and all in dark and often very dangerous circumstances. Several died and others suffered serious injury. And the songwriter Dominic Behan wrote Crooked Jack, a song all about the effects of this work. I cursed the day I went away, says the narrator, to work on the hydro dams. As one Glasgow newspaper observed in 1936, although conditions little changed in the lifetime

of the post-war scheme, the cicado bark of the drills became louder. My boots were heavy with mud and the air vibrated. The atmosphere grew heavier with sulfur fumes. Then we came upon the borers suddenly. the noise was appalling." So it's just, now obviously if you were staying in that part of Scotland, you would take the electricity for granted, but it was an enormous undertaking, and it was dangerous, and it was hard, and it was expensive. That's interesting isn't it, when you talk about the idea of taking something for granted, it's normally just in relation to the idea of how hard life would be without it. But actually, it's also, as you say, the human time,

effort, danger that has gone into providing these things. Also, like, if you before that age, that pre-electricity age in the far north of Scotland, that is basically, you know, you've got the same infrastructure as you've had for the previous 50,000 years, haven't you? Like, you are completely out on your own. The other thing is I remember reading about the filming of the Holy Grail, the Monty Python film. And they filmed that, or a lot of it, in northern Scotland.

And it was really cold. But all the cast and crew were staying in the same hotel. Because obviously now we have combi boilers and things. So a lot of modern houses, not all modern houses, but a lot of modern houses have hot water, whenever you wanted, for as long as you wanted. It was all done on cylinders and immersion heaters and stuff in hotels

in Scotland. I remember reading it to John Cleese where he said, you were running back to the hotel because we were all freezing. We all wanted a bath, but there was limited hot water and not everyone. So not everyone could have a bath or a shower. So imagine getting back last and you're like, oh, never mind I'll just just go to bed then don't worry about it it's fine don't worry about it my granddad my grand my dad's dad my granddad was born in the 1920s and um and in the 80s one of my cousins went to move in with him for a little bit and my my granddad and my grandmother, and they would insist when my cousin moved in that he had to share my granddad's bath water.

This is in the 80s. My grandmother was like, no, right, your granddad's going to have a bath, then if you want to wash, you've got to jump in and use that water. This is Dagnam in the 80s. Will Barron A mate of mine in the 70s from Liverpool, when he was a kid in the 70s, they didn't have an indoor bath or shower in their house. They were living in Walton in Liverpool. So their dad constructed, it was basically a watering can outside and they would shower in the yard in the winter in cold water. And his dad is insistent that's why he's never had a cold. He's like, I haven't had a cold for 60 years. Well, he might be right because everyone's going on about cold water, isn't it?

These ice baths you've got to take in the winter. Yeah. Like, they were on to something. Yeah. I remember once, actually my dad, when he would use the shower, I would always hear him for the first 15 to 20 seconds go, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, go in the shower? He goes, well, it's just, it's just always so cold for ages, isn't it? And then until I pointed out to him, you could just wait for it to warm up and then step in.

And it blew his mind. Absolutely blew it. Oh yeah. And it was like, so for like five years, he'd had this horrific... It's like, oh, yeah, of course. That's great. You're really into that Wim Hof thing, aren't you, Ennis?

I do, of course, show us, yeah. I'm one of those people who's trying to live forever. I'm like that sort of tech billionaire. And fingers crossed I'll be injecting myself with my son's blood plasma. As soon as he's old enough to consent. Now there was a parallel endeavour in Ireland beginning in 1946 and completed in 1978 and that saw 50,000 miles of cabling, 1 million electricity poles erected, most of them imported from Finland and 100,000 transformers

installed. So nearly 300,000 customers across rural Ireland finally had electricity. So to promote the scheme, the Irish Minister of Industry, Seán Límás, quipped in 1945, I hope to see the day when a girl gets a proposal from a farmer she will inquire not so much about the number of cows, but the number of electrical appliances. Imagine now, will you marry me? Have you got a toaster? Yes? Go on then. General question, if you've lived in a small cottage, no electricity, you've just got it, what is the first electrical item you're buying? Heater.

Yeah, it's got to be heater hasn't it? It's got to be heater. Heater and telly I think. Yeah, I think so. heater hasn't it? It's gotta be heater. Yeah heater and telly. I think yeah, I think I think so kettle Toaster but kettle toast. Yeah, you got the grill. It's heater. Oh, hang on toasted sandwich maker because that would double as a radiator Yeah, it's heat it's absolutely heater Tamagotchi Now the battery-powered Tamagototchi which is what Ellis is going for. Governments in both countries use public information films and travelling exhibitions

to encourage families and farmers to take up domestic power without compromising a rural way of life. One central office of information film produced in 1946 to support the Scottish scheme began with a farm and his wife milking cows by lantern light. Primitive, says the omniscient narrator, wasting energy, wasting time. This was the old way of doing things, the new way involved electric machinery and greater self-sufficiency. It also meant the installation of domestic technology that those in towns already took

for granted. Washing machines, refrigerators, cookers, food mixers, kettles, electric immersion boilers and eventually of course television and central heating. So not unsurprisingly because there was an emphasis on reduced domestic labour, women were often keenest and most regularly attended information evenings and in larger numbers than the men. These promotion schemes were necessary because it was not guaranteed that once offered, families would take up the opportunity of being connected to the electricity network.

Some even said yes and then changed their mind. In Ireland, these people were known as backsliders because the decision. This happened occurred to me wasn't always straightforward. It cost money to have a house wired. It was also a concern about future energy bills and customers had to pay a connection fee. So often the reply from households in rural Ireland was no funds.

Others came to regret agreeing to electricity, especially when the brighter light produced by an electric light bulb revealed the shortcuts taken with the housework. So people are like, hang on a second, that is absolutely rubbish but you wouldn't have worked it out with a bicandel light. Now in Galway, 100 watt bulbs given to households for free were removed by customers complaining that they made them sick or they were too hard on the eyes and in some cases put out the fire.

I mean just think about when 5G came in and everyone was like oh it's going to be making us all sick and yeah you know that is less of a kind of like a revolutionary step than electricity. People must have been so suspicious. A 100 watt bulb is bright. So if you'd survived your entire life without hundred watt bulbs I think you could be forgiven thinking what this is, what is that or this? I think I'll go back to candlelight actually. Have you ever seen Mark Rylance in the brilliant BBC drama Wolf Hall, the adaption of the book obviously, and he plays Thomas Cromwell, the advisor to Henry VIII. It's a brilliant, I recommend it,

because it's one of the best dramas I've ever seen, but the director made the choice to have all the lighting authentic to how it would have been at the time. So it's only lit by candles. The night scenes are all candlelight. And so you really get the set, you can see what it would have been like

around the time of Henry VIII in these meeting rooms and in these castles and these... Yeah, very horrible. And it's depressing and you can't see nothing. Yes, exactly. Everything is... Like, the satin... Sitting in front of the fire is pretty much the only thing you can do.

Yeah. Well, there was major support, obviously. So the switching on days attracted high-profile attendees, large crowds of locals, so Locksloy power station was opened by the Queen Mother. By the late 70s almost everyone was connected to the grid in Britain and in Ireland. For those who weren't, usually elderly or very poor, often living alone in difficult circumstances. The absence of even a single electric light or a cooker or a kettle.

In retrospect, it's heartbreaking, isn't it? So one old lady living in the west of Ireland wrote to the head office of the electricity supply board in Dublin to tell them, "'I do wish you'd get the light sooner for me. "'I'm living on my own, so it's lonely for me. "'I'm nervous living on my own and not having the light. "'I'm sure you know how dangerous it is.

"'Please, would you try and get it sooner for me? That was in 1977. So that's less than 50 years ago. That's heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking. Yeah, so it's just, you know, we're living in the future. It's extraordinary to think that was the 1970s. But anyway, bringing electricity to rural parts of Ireland and Scotland, There you have it.

Fascinating. I have a genuine question. Sounds like a silly question, but it's not meant to be. You talk about sitting around the fire with Henry VIII and we talk about homes without electricity. Were people's bedtimes earlier? Yes. They were, were they?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there was less to do in the evening and you couldn't see your book anywhere. Yeah and also you you woke up with the dawn and your rhythms were often based around, especially in rural areas, based around animals. So you were going to bed earlier and you were waking up earlier and as a night owl I would have struggled because I really come alive at about half past ten. I'm sluggish and grumpy until 10.30 p.m. and then I'm great. So let's say it's winter, you're in Henry VIII Court, how are you spending your evening then, Ellis? If you want to stay up until midnight, what are you doing with those entirely dark hours?

I'm tapping my thumb, I'm sort of twiddling my thumbs until about 10.25 and then I'm like, here we go! Anyone fancy opening a bottle of mead? Whey! Oh you're all going to bed? Sod you then. Welcome to the subscribers our favourite people. The people who allow us to make this podcast. The oh what a time full timers.

The oh what a time full timers who are putting their hands in their pockets. And I just, I love that because it allows us to come to places like Spotify to record. We're making videos, which is going to be very, very exciting. Yeah. So thank you very much for your love and support. This is the fourth part of the show. The best part.

Exactly. Oh, we've saved the best stuff to last. I just realised there's a wide shot going on here and I've got quite scruffy shoes on. Me too. How are you feeling about that? I wish my shoes weren't in shot. I'm in exactly the same position because these are the shoes I used to cycle with, solid, covered in oil and dirt. And it looks like I can't be bothered to make an effort.

But even though I can. Chris however has freebie shoes that were given to him by JD Sports after he did a thing for West Ham. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very fresh big kicks. Box fresh. Box fresh, exactly. You're embarrassing us, Chris. Okay, shall we move on to the final section? Yes, please. Would you like to know about Christmas 1914 and the Christmas truce during World War I? This

is interesting to me because I know a little bit about World War I, but there's always been some debate about whether or not it happened and I Died it was quite a big big war. It was I'm sure I'm sure it really shaped the Changed the shape of europe. It's a sign. Yeah, it definitely happened. Yeah Well, I mean you wouldn't have had hitler without it thing is I follow matt leticia and he said there's no videos of it Yeah, exactly they make films about it grip uh, no To continue there's been always been a bit of a debate about whether or not it happened Yeah, exactly. They make films about it, Griff. No, to continue.

There's always been a bit of a debate about whether or not it happened, and I've been intrigued about it when we were doing this episode. I was like, I'd love to know about the Christmas Truce. So I've held off a lifelong interest in this particular subject, and I don't know anything about it until you're about to tell me. So one of the most remarkable images of World War I, as most people will know, was this so-called Christmas truce. When soldiers left their trenches on Christmas night 1914, suspended fighting, they sang songs, they shared cigarettes and gossip, and they also played a game of football.

This is what has been talked about. This is what people believe. I heard there were multiple games of football. Yes. Well, do you believe that this is out of interest what's your feeling? Have you always felt this was real or have you felt this is sort of like a tale that spoke to the idea of sort of... I believe the game of football happened and I think the Germans won 2-1. You know the score? Yeah I read that on the BBC website. Penalties heard, no doubt. Penalties.

Really ruthlessly taken penalties. So, documents from the time do suggest that it was very much real. Okay, so for example, on the 25th December 1914, the commanding officer of the 25th Infant Regiment of the French Army, whose troops were stationed not far from Arras recorded a simple summary of the day's events in his official war diary writing Christmas Eve singing in the French and German trenches. And that's it. There's no suggestion of fraternisation, no mention of football or anything else, just singing. There's that great Blackadder joke that's near where they talk about the football match. A black outer says, I can't believe it was disallowed, I was never offside.

Imagine when a goal is disallowed, they're drawing lines on no man's land, bar style. Stockley Park trying to work out this clear daylight between you and some German soldier. Some referee brought in from a peaceful country that has no interest in either side of the battle. I don't know if he was not involved in it. He never gives us anything that guy. That guy from Uruguay. So the French reports are at pains to suggest that their soldiers did not involve themselves

in this. They just simply heard it. Even when, as a commander of the 99th Infantry Regiment put it, a large number of Bavarians left their trenches and made the sign of, don't shoot. And then they came to no man's land and struck up conversation with our men. So think about this.

How bored do you have to be with a chat of your own colleagues in the trenches that you're thinking, I'm going into no man's land to feed you chat. It's a big, it's such a big shout. It is. Shall we ask if they won a game of football? Yeah. Like if we were in the trenches together and I suggested that surely you'd be going Chris you're a maniac. They're trying to kill us 364 days of the year like is it gonna be that difference today? So incredibly peace did prevail for several days past New Year's and into the first week of January 1915. So there was this period of peace starting

from Christmas Eve 1914. Some of the German soldiers even sent over postcards in which they thanked their French comrades, wished them a happy New Year and a mercy bouquet for the tasty bottle of brandy that they'd shared on Christmas Day. Would you trust brandy that had been passed over from the NME? Because my initial reaction would be, this is at best a bottle of piss. That is my... At worst, poison. At best a bottle of piss would be my reaction. Do you know what I would think? They'd say, would you like some brandy?

And in my head I think, don't really like brandy. Have you got any cans? It's gotta be better than this war I'm in. Got any cans? They're warm literally. They've got no refrigeration. Wine? Anything? Appetise? Would you want to be pissed in the Somme or whatever? You fancying that? I think if I'd been in the Somme I'd have wanted to have been absolutely frowned on all the time. It's wasted! It's not going to make that much of a difference is it? That's mad.

But I'd be interested about the senior kind of leaders, the sergeants or whatever, surely they're going, well don't befriend them, you've got to kill them next week? Well you say that, well there was a shift after this when they moved into 1915 the following year. Basically they didn't want this to happen again so it was banned any fraternization any kind of conversation between the two sides was seen as sort of almost treasonous whatever the phrase would be to go against your country so it was banned so this was this is kind of although

there were little events of it this this this one Christmas 1914 was the important time when it was basically allowed to happen. So shared brandy however was nothing compared to what happened between British and German troops. In a letter which appeared in the Manchester Guardian at the end of December 1914 a football match was described in No Man's Land where they improvised a ball with a bully beef tin. How do you think your touch would be with a tin in No Man's Land? How do you think you're playing with that?

Well, when we record Fancy Football League, when we do the Phoenix and the Flames section where we recreate incidents from football, the props department has to work very hard to find a completely unbranded ball. And it's rubbish, this this ball and even that affects my touch and that's an actual ball a tin of bully beef I would find it so hard to... You're not getting so annoyed by it you're just regretting it you're just going I wish we weren't doing this I'm not playing with this! I'm going back to the trench! It's such a shame that they didn't have a ball

He was a good player but can he do it on a rainy night in Passchendaele? Also I mean I've seen some dodgy pitches in my time but no man's land as a pitch. Absolutely. Horse, corpse ears in the 70s. Shell holes. Well, you talk about the quality of the game, it wasn't all cans. Elsewhere an actual football appeared. Ernie Williams, a private in the Cheshires, told an interviewer from the Imperial War Museum years later, it was a proper football but we didn't form a team. It wasn't a team game in any sense of the word, you know, it was just a kickabout. Everyone was having a go, it came from their side, it wasn't from our side where the ball came. What I've been imagining that is

all the German troops walking off to war, heading to the trenches and one guy's got a football under his arm and they're like, what are you? What are you doing? You'll know you'll go just you wait. Yeah I don't think this will be over by Christmas And if it isn't have I got nothing the thing for you. One guy in full kit. I love football. I love watching it, I love talking about it, I love reading about it, I love playing it. I'm playing tomorrow night, in fact.

But I would never take a football to a war. No. You never get it back. You think it's hard getting a ball back from your neighbour if it goes into the Nazi trenches. You're not getting that ball back. A really good ball has been shot. Bullets gone straight through it. Bayonets everywhere. That's going to get punctured isn't it very very quickly.

I mean I don't even like playing with my footballs on concrete. Would you take like a nice mitre ball or would you if you were going to take something would you go for a cheap one? One of those ones you get from the beach that fly away. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, with 10p flyaways. I'd buy this year's match issue Champions League ball. It's 130 quid. Because if we're gonna have a game we're gonna do it properly. And it might be your last game as well. Yeah, exactly. Other letters told of swapping cigarettes, buttons, toffees, cakes, wine, even photographs and other souvenirs. As one English soldier put it, I smoked German cigars all day and I ate German chocolate

all night on duty so I didn't do so badly. And among the many soldiers caught up in the Christmas truce, and this is the guy you want for the football game, was Herbert Herbie Smart who was an inside left for Aston Villa. That's who you want. That's your ringer, isn't it? When you come out to no man's land. It's all right. We got a guy who plays up front for Villa. I did my MA on football during World War II specifically in South Wales and I interviewed an ex-POW from Cardiff and he'd been in a prison of war camp in Germany and a guy who he got to know quite well had played in midfield for Celtic and they used to play games of football regularly which the guards would watch because the standard was very high and he said I just used to pass to him he was absolutely brilliant.

That's amazing. He was a professional footballer. So yeah you want to be in with the ringers. Exactly. His letter, this was a Herbie Smart's letter, published in early January, described not only the happy exchanges, but also the willing decorations of the trenches. Now this is interesting. The Germans had a Christmas tree and Christmas lanterns along the top of a parapet. You'd love this Chris. Oh yeah, I would. Come over, said one German soldier. I want to speak to you We didn't know how to take it at first But one of the nuts went over and there's no harm befell him the others followed I went out myself and the German I spoke to you had been a waiter in London and he couldn't you he could use our

Language a little and he said they do not want to fight So basically no one wants to go over until one of the nut jobs on the British side was like, you know what? I'm going Off the trench and into no man's land just for a chat. It's so crazy the bravery the bravery of that. That's it for this episode today just a reminder we are on our Christmas slash New Year break and we'll be back on Monday the 13th of January with more brand new Oh What A Time. But don't forget if you want brand new episodes of Oh What A Time

that you've never heard before, two bonus episodes every month, you can become an Oh What A Time full-timer. For all the links go to ohwhatatime.com Otherwise, we'll see you again very soon. Bye! Follow Oh What A Time on the Wondry app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. 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.