1 00:00:01,480 --> 00:00:03,880 haven't just happened because of kings and queens, 2 00:00:03,920 --> 00:00:07,000 but because of a lot of ordinary people at the bottom of the heap 3 00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:08,720 getting their hands dirty. 4 00:00:08,760 --> 00:00:12,960 This week, the human taxis who carried Charles I to his trial, 5 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:16,680 the women who had to prod and poke plague victims for a living, 6 00:00:16,720 --> 00:00:18,360 and find out 7 00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:21,520 what working up to your elbows in sheep entrails has to do with music. 8 00:00:22,560 --> 00:00:25,960 These are just some of the worst jobs from the Stuart period. 9 00:00:49,080 --> 00:00:51,720 Some of the most memorable events in our history books 10 00:00:51,760 --> 00:00:53,600 took place during the Stuart period - 11 00:00:53,640 --> 00:00:57,600 the Great Fire of London, the Great Plague, the Civil War, 12 00:00:57,640 --> 00:01:01,600 and one of the most famous assassination attempts of all time, 13 00:01:01,640 --> 00:01:03,600 the Gunpowder Plot. 14 00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:09,320 Guy Fawkes and his mob tried to blow up King James I 15 00:01:09,360 --> 00:01:12,800 and the Houses of Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder, 16 00:01:12,840 --> 00:01:16,520 but he was foiled by a tip-off and executed. 17 00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:20,120 So what's the connection with a milk float? 18 00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:23,200 Well, my first worst job is the saltpetre man. 19 00:01:23,240 --> 00:01:26,840 His task was to collect the basic ingredient for gunpowder, 20 00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:28,880 which was saltpetre. 21 00:01:28,920 --> 00:01:31,280 In the 17th century, 22 00:01:31,320 --> 00:01:35,320 the most common way of getting saltpetre was by processing urine - 23 00:01:35,360 --> 00:01:37,000 lots of it. 24 00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:39,680 So, in 1625, in London, 25 00:01:39,720 --> 00:01:42,640 they established this crazy kind of milk run. 26 00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:45,680 But instead of leaving milk on people's doorsteps, 27 00:01:45,720 --> 00:01:49,560 they went door to door collecting urine that people left out for them. 28 00:01:54,280 --> 00:01:56,440 Back then, they would have had a horse and cart 29 00:01:56,480 --> 00:01:58,200 with a barrel on the back. 30 00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:01,040 They did their rounds every other day in the winter 31 00:02:01,080 --> 00:02:04,160 and every day in the summer, when it was a hot, hard slog, 32 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:06,160 not to mention sticky and smelly. 33 00:02:07,720 --> 00:02:11,880 Urine can be processed to produce potassium nitrate - saltpetre. 34 00:02:11,920 --> 00:02:13,920 And every drop was crucial, 35 00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:17,680 because the Gunpowder Plot kicked off a whole century of violence. 36 00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:21,800 It was the saltpetre man who fuelled every musket and cannon. 37 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:25,720 But the insatiable demand was so high 38 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:28,400 that most of his work was much harder. 39 00:02:34,320 --> 00:02:38,200 Britain's leading expert on the job took me trudging through the cold 40 00:02:38,240 --> 00:02:42,640 to a happy but smelly hunting ground for a saltpetre man. 41 00:02:44,800 --> 00:02:47,800 Why do they bother coming out to the country with their barrows? 42 00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:50,440 Why didn't they just use the urine they got in the towns? 43 00:02:50,480 --> 00:02:53,560 What they needed was the much higher levels of nitrates 44 00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:57,840 that you get when it's all rotted down into manure like this. 45 00:02:57,880 --> 00:03:01,720 How would they know where to look for it? It wasn't just dung heaps was it? 46 00:03:01,760 --> 00:03:03,760 Dung heaps were a really good place, 47 00:03:03,800 --> 00:03:08,080 but anywhere where you've got faeces, urine...basically... 48 00:03:08,120 --> 00:03:10,840 - So outside people's houses? - Oh, and inside. 49 00:03:10,880 --> 00:03:13,680 In fact, they dug absolutely everywhere. 50 00:03:13,720 --> 00:03:16,880 If you came to my house looking for dung, I'd tell you to push off! 51 00:03:16,920 --> 00:03:18,600 Well, you could try that, of course, 52 00:03:18,640 --> 00:03:22,360 but the commissioners had the right - rather like the VAT man today - 53 00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:24,400 to dig absolutely anywhere. 54 00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:27,920 They were accused of digging in...people's chambers, 55 00:03:27,960 --> 00:03:31,040 in bedrooms, even in the house of God. 56 00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:34,800 So, not only were you breaking your back shovelling manure all day, 57 00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:37,560 but people hated you for invading their privacy. 58 00:03:37,600 --> 00:03:41,560 Contemporary reports indicate that, although they were state sanctioned, 59 00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:43,640 saltpetre men were often bully boys 60 00:03:43,680 --> 00:03:46,720 who had no qualms about bursting into people's homes. 61 00:03:47,760 --> 00:03:49,760 Who are the blokes who did this work? 62 00:03:49,800 --> 00:03:52,720 They were real rabble. Real nasty people, probably. 63 00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:56,680 There's a lovely reference to "Rough Ralf" and "Welsh Will," 64 00:03:56,720 --> 00:04:00,560 they're often referred to in the papers as "the rabble". 65 00:04:00,600 --> 00:04:02,920 So, did they make much money out of this? 66 00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:05,200 Well, the people who did the shovelling didn't, 67 00:04:05,240 --> 00:04:07,240 cos they were on the bottom of the heap. 68 00:04:07,280 --> 00:04:09,680 But you can get some idea of how much money was in this, 69 00:04:09,720 --> 00:04:12,400 when the guys that employed "the rabble" as it were 70 00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:15,440 were paying something like 1,700 71 00:04:15,480 --> 00:04:18,440 for the privilege of being able to go and get the saltpetre. 72 00:04:18,480 --> 00:04:20,200 If that wasn't bad enough, 73 00:04:20,240 --> 00:04:22,880 you still had to get the nitrate crystals out of the muck 74 00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:25,400 by swilling it through with water and boiling it up, 75 00:04:25,440 --> 00:04:27,240 making an even worse stench. 76 00:04:27,280 --> 00:04:29,280 That'll do. 77 00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:33,000 Once purified, saltpetre was combined with two other chemicals - 78 00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:36,840 sulphur and charcoal - to make the black powder Guy Fawkes was after. 79 00:04:36,880 --> 00:04:38,880 We did make an official request 80 00:04:38,920 --> 00:04:41,760 but, unfortunately, the Government politely declined. 81 00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:43,960 So we're not going to be able to blow up 82 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:46,960 even the smallest part of the Houses of Parliament, 83 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:50,800 but I don't want to disappoint you, there is going to be an explosion. 84 00:04:50,840 --> 00:04:54,960 Underneath this car is... three kilograms of powder, 85 00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:59,280 which is roughly one five-hundredth of the amount that Guy Fawkes used. 86 00:04:59,320 --> 00:05:04,680 To demonstrate the efficacy of even a relatively small amount of gunpowder, 87 00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:06,720 here we are. 88 00:05:06,760 --> 00:05:10,800 Just to make sure I'm not completely deafened by the blast... 89 00:05:14,160 --> 00:05:16,160 Two, one. 90 00:05:25,320 --> 00:05:28,280 Look at that! It's amazing, that hole. 91 00:05:28,320 --> 00:05:31,080 It really has actually just punched it through, hasn't it? 92 00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:33,920 You wouldn't get much for that on the second-hand car market. 93 00:05:33,960 --> 00:05:35,960 It's like a giant has just gone boof! 94 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:40,720 What it would have been like 500 times that much amount of explosives 95 00:05:40,760 --> 00:05:42,760 inside the House of Commons... 96 00:05:42,800 --> 00:05:45,280 In the bottom of the building that it was in, 97 00:05:45,320 --> 00:05:48,640 it would've just taken the top of the building off. 98 00:05:48,680 --> 00:05:52,800 How much dung would we need to get rid of the House of Commons? 99 00:05:52,840 --> 00:05:55,600 Something like between 50 and 75 tons of it. 100 00:05:55,640 --> 00:05:57,640 So, in saltpetre man terms, 101 00:05:57,680 --> 00:06:00,200 that means that "Rough Ralf" and co 102 00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:03,760 would have had to shift 1,500 wheelbarrows full. 103 00:06:04,840 --> 00:06:08,240 Gunpowder was also used in one of the other big Stuart events, 104 00:06:08,280 --> 00:06:10,280 which was the Civil War. 105 00:06:10,320 --> 00:06:14,480 They had muskets and cannons and the much lesser known petard. 106 00:06:14,520 --> 00:06:16,600 The guy who used the petard 107 00:06:16,640 --> 00:06:19,200 got far closer to explosions than we just did. 108 00:06:20,840 --> 00:06:23,420 109 00:06:23,540 --> 00:06:25,180 110 00:06:32,740 --> 00:06:35,460 Between 1642 and 1646, 111 00:06:35,500 --> 00:06:39,820 the lives of workers all over England were thrown into bloody disarray 112 00:06:39,860 --> 00:06:41,860 by the Civil War. 113 00:06:41,900 --> 00:06:44,500 On one side, King Charles I and the Cavaliers, 114 00:06:44,540 --> 00:06:47,020 on the other, Oliver Cromwell's Roundheads. 115 00:06:48,180 --> 00:06:50,900 For the ordinary men who were pressed into joining up, 116 00:06:50,940 --> 00:06:54,740 being maimed and killed became daily occupational hazards. 117 00:06:56,940 --> 00:06:59,260 This is Tutbury Castle in Derbyshire 118 00:06:59,300 --> 00:07:01,980 and it was one of the last Royalist strongholds. 119 00:07:02,020 --> 00:07:04,100 The King himself took shelter here 120 00:07:04,140 --> 00:07:08,180 and it only fell to the Roundheads after four years of guerrilla warfare 121 00:07:08,220 --> 00:07:10,220 and a really long siege. 122 00:07:10,260 --> 00:07:12,260 It's the technology of the siege 123 00:07:12,300 --> 00:07:14,900 that gives us one of the riskiest jobs of the war. 124 00:07:14,940 --> 00:07:17,700 The man who used a type of bomb called a petard 125 00:07:17,740 --> 00:07:20,300 to blow the castle gates down. 126 00:07:20,340 --> 00:07:24,020 A petard was the precursor of the modern hand grenade, 127 00:07:24,060 --> 00:07:26,580 except you didn't chuck it, you picked it up, 128 00:07:26,620 --> 00:07:29,420 ran along with it under your arm like a rugby ball, 129 00:07:29,460 --> 00:07:31,540 and delivered it in person. 130 00:07:32,580 --> 00:07:35,500 By exploding a device against the gates, 131 00:07:35,540 --> 00:07:38,620 you aimed to punch a hole in the weakest link of the fort's defences 132 00:07:38,660 --> 00:07:41,140 and gain entry for the rest of the troops. 133 00:07:41,180 --> 00:07:43,540 - So you fix it onto your door. - That's it. 134 00:07:43,580 --> 00:07:46,260 Then...how do we know it's going to go in that direction 135 00:07:46,300 --> 00:07:48,020 and not that direction? 136 00:07:48,060 --> 00:07:50,060 Forces are equal and opposite, 137 00:07:50,100 --> 00:07:52,820 but there's a wooden backing board and it's open. 138 00:07:52,860 --> 00:07:54,780 That means when the explosion goes off, 139 00:07:54,820 --> 00:07:58,140 this nice iron container pushes all the explosion that way 140 00:07:58,180 --> 00:07:59,980 and punches a hole through the door. 141 00:08:00,020 --> 00:08:02,020 - And what's in here? - A fuse. 142 00:08:02,060 --> 00:08:04,340 Made of wood, filled with a composition. 143 00:08:04,380 --> 00:08:08,060 It just goes in there and that gives you some time to get away. 144 00:08:08,100 --> 00:08:09,900 So what's this made of? 145 00:08:09,940 --> 00:08:12,700 That one would originally be made of cast iron or bronze, 146 00:08:12,740 --> 00:08:15,180 inside which, 10lbs or 12lbs of gunpowder. 147 00:08:19,300 --> 00:08:21,860 - Who'd have made it? - Petardier. 148 00:08:21,900 --> 00:08:25,820 He's employed purely to make these things to blow in walls. 149 00:08:25,860 --> 00:08:27,940 And he'd run up, fix it to the wall and...? 150 00:08:27,980 --> 00:08:31,380 No. Far too valuable. You're going to have an assistant for that job. 151 00:08:31,420 --> 00:08:33,540 That's the dangerous part of the work. 152 00:08:33,580 --> 00:08:37,380 Petardier makes this up on site, gives it to the assistant, 153 00:08:37,420 --> 00:08:39,420 because he's disposable. 154 00:08:39,460 --> 00:08:42,060 He's the one that has the job of getting up here, 155 00:08:42,100 --> 00:08:44,220 putting it in place and setting it off. 156 00:08:44,260 --> 00:08:47,220 One petardier's assistant was George Cranage. 157 00:08:47,260 --> 00:08:49,780 He had to blow off the doors of Oswestry Castle. 158 00:08:49,820 --> 00:08:51,820 And his preparation for the ordeal? 159 00:08:51,860 --> 00:08:54,660 Getting completely drunk on sacke - a type of sherry. 160 00:08:55,700 --> 00:08:58,260 Cranage was lucky. He survived. 161 00:08:58,300 --> 00:09:00,300 But the job was virtual suicide, 162 00:09:00,340 --> 00:09:03,620 so the assistants did all they could to improve their odds. 163 00:09:03,660 --> 00:09:05,980 You'd try and do this early in the morning, 164 00:09:06,020 --> 00:09:09,020 or in the dusk, so that you've got a bit of cover for that one. 165 00:09:09,060 --> 00:09:11,060 Get the element of surprise, 166 00:09:11,100 --> 00:09:14,420 so you're going to try and leg it wearing very little armour, 167 00:09:14,460 --> 00:09:18,500 or put lots of armour on and walk slowly, but feeling better protected. 168 00:09:18,540 --> 00:09:21,940 Then knowing they're going to try and shoot you, drop things on your head 169 00:09:21,980 --> 00:09:23,980 and otherwise try and spoil your day, 170 00:09:24,020 --> 00:09:28,580 and light the fuse and get away while they're still trying to kill you. 171 00:09:28,620 --> 00:09:31,980 What would he be lighting it with? Would he be fumbling with matches? 172 00:09:32,020 --> 00:09:35,420 He's going to have a piece of burning cord called slow match in his fingers 173 00:09:35,460 --> 00:09:38,740 which really is cord soaked in saltpetre. 174 00:09:38,780 --> 00:09:40,740 You dry it out and you light it. 175 00:09:45,420 --> 00:09:48,060 Your return journey was just as dangerous. 176 00:09:48,100 --> 00:09:50,100 Petards were so unpredictable 177 00:09:50,140 --> 00:09:53,420 assistants were sometimes blown up as they tried to run away, 178 00:09:53,460 --> 00:09:55,420 hoist by their own petards. 179 00:09:56,740 --> 00:10:00,580 But what were the chances of getting hit by a musket or missile 180 00:10:00,620 --> 00:10:03,460 while running from your own lines to a gate? 181 00:10:03,500 --> 00:10:05,900 I wasn't prepared to die for the programme, 182 00:10:05,940 --> 00:10:09,100 but I wanted to analyse just how risky it would be. 183 00:10:10,180 --> 00:10:12,740 We're conducting a bit of an experiment. 184 00:10:12,780 --> 00:10:17,900 I'm going to see whether I can get from here right to those gates there, 185 00:10:17,940 --> 00:10:20,740 without being hit by musket fire. 186 00:10:20,780 --> 00:10:23,300 We've got four musketeers up on the walls, 187 00:10:23,340 --> 00:10:26,580 who've exchanged their muskets for paintball. 188 00:10:26,620 --> 00:10:29,020 I'm going to be protected by two flankers - 189 00:10:29,060 --> 00:10:31,580 this is Dave and Andrew from our production office. 190 00:10:31,620 --> 00:10:33,340 Thanks, mate. 191 00:10:33,380 --> 00:10:35,020 Cos in Stuart times, 192 00:10:35,060 --> 00:10:38,300 the petardier would have had soldiers running alongside him. 193 00:10:38,340 --> 00:10:41,220 But not only have I got to try and avoid being killed, 194 00:10:41,260 --> 00:10:44,820 but I would have had to have placed my petard strategically 195 00:10:44,860 --> 00:10:48,020 to ensure that I actually blasted the door off its hinges. 196 00:10:48,060 --> 00:10:50,780 I don't want to create a little hole about 4' up 197 00:10:50,820 --> 00:10:53,100 that would have been of no use to anybody. 198 00:10:53,140 --> 00:10:55,100 Can you do my mask for me? 199 00:10:57,180 --> 00:10:59,460 Okey-doke. Right. 200 00:10:59,500 --> 00:11:02,180 - Ready, Andy. - Ready. 201 00:11:02,220 --> 00:11:04,180 (Klaxon) 202 00:11:06,340 --> 00:11:08,300 (Clicking of paintball fire) 203 00:11:17,540 --> 00:11:19,860 Adrenaline carried me through to the gate 204 00:11:19,900 --> 00:11:22,900 and, as there weren't going to be any real explosions, 205 00:11:22,940 --> 00:11:24,940 I had a flare to show that I'd made it. 206 00:11:24,980 --> 00:11:27,020 Done it! Done it! 207 00:11:27,060 --> 00:11:29,060 Well done. 208 00:11:29,100 --> 00:11:31,100 Well done, mate. 209 00:11:31,140 --> 00:11:33,460 - Wahey! - You didn't do it. 210 00:11:33,500 --> 00:11:36,180 - What do you mean? - Well, look down your leg. 211 00:11:36,220 --> 00:11:38,380 Down your arm. You didn't make it. 212 00:11:38,420 --> 00:11:40,540 They got you about half way in. 213 00:11:40,580 --> 00:11:44,420 You're not dead, but you're bleeding to death out there. 214 00:11:45,580 --> 00:11:47,580 Oh, but it felt so good. 215 00:11:47,620 --> 00:11:49,940 You know what was extraordinary about it, 216 00:11:49,980 --> 00:11:52,900 - I thought you'd be ducking around. - You can't. 217 00:11:52,940 --> 00:11:56,980 When you're under fire like that, you get your head down and you go. 218 00:11:57,020 --> 00:11:59,060 - Absolutely. - It does hurt like hell. 219 00:11:59,100 --> 00:12:00,780 All the way down this side. 220 00:12:00,820 --> 00:12:04,500 That's where they got you from that right-hand side as you came in. 221 00:12:04,540 --> 00:12:06,860 Look at the petard as well. Look at that. 222 00:12:06,900 --> 00:12:09,660 Would that have exploded if it had been hit by a musket? 223 00:12:09,700 --> 00:12:11,300 No, it wouldn't do, 224 00:12:11,340 --> 00:12:15,060 but they may well have gone straight through the board and into you. 225 00:12:15,100 --> 00:12:17,100 And that was against your chest. 226 00:12:17,140 --> 00:12:19,700 - I'd just be lying there bleeding. - I'm afraid so. 227 00:12:19,740 --> 00:12:21,700 - Good attempt though. - Yeah. 228 00:12:22,940 --> 00:12:26,740 I think we proved just how vulnerable the petardier's assistant was 229 00:12:26,780 --> 00:12:29,100 in Stuart times, but then so was the King. 230 00:12:29,140 --> 00:12:33,460 When the Parliamentarians broke the siege of Oxford in 1646, 231 00:12:33,500 --> 00:12:37,180 Charles I was put on trial and eventually beheaded. 232 00:12:38,620 --> 00:12:40,620 But he wouldn't even have got to the dock 233 00:12:40,660 --> 00:12:43,420 if it hadn't been for the two nameless men who took him there. 234 00:12:43,460 --> 00:12:47,980 Not in his usual regal carriage, but the Stuart equivalent of a black cab, 235 00:12:48,020 --> 00:12:50,020 the Sedan chair. 236 00:12:50,060 --> 00:12:53,380 Being a Sedan chair bearer was a really tough job. 237 00:12:53,420 --> 00:12:57,220 They weren't just cabbies, they had to be the engine and the wheels, too. 238 00:12:57,260 --> 00:12:59,060 For wealthy Stuarts, 239 00:12:59,100 --> 00:13:02,300 Sedan chairs became the most fashionable way to get around town. 240 00:13:03,420 --> 00:13:06,020 You could either hire them from set taxi ranks, 241 00:13:06,060 --> 00:13:08,500 initially in London and then further afield. 242 00:13:08,540 --> 00:13:11,420 There was one under or around the statue of Charles I 243 00:13:11,460 --> 00:13:13,460 in Trafalgar Square today. 244 00:13:13,500 --> 00:13:17,020 Or you could book one for going to a performance in the evening. 245 00:13:17,060 --> 00:13:18,980 - Could you hail it like a cab? - You could, 246 00:13:19,020 --> 00:13:22,220 but it would only be available if it was being carried the reverse way. 247 00:13:22,260 --> 00:13:24,740 - Why? - You had to show that it was empty. 248 00:13:24,780 --> 00:13:28,020 - I see. Like having the light on. - They carried it backwards. 249 00:13:28,060 --> 00:13:29,380 Yes. 250 00:13:29,420 --> 00:13:32,780 - They're pretty heavy, aren't they? - Well, this one is quite light. 251 00:13:32,820 --> 00:13:35,460 In fact it's um...about 66lbs. 252 00:13:35,500 --> 00:13:37,540 - That's quite a lot to carry. - Which, er... 253 00:13:37,580 --> 00:13:39,420 What's this thing for? 254 00:13:39,460 --> 00:13:41,460 These are the straps. 255 00:13:41,500 --> 00:13:43,500 Couldn't you just carry them like that? 256 00:13:43,540 --> 00:13:46,820 You could carry an empty one, but probably only about 200 metres, 257 00:13:46,860 --> 00:13:50,020 then you start pulling your arms off. The straps take the weight. 258 00:13:50,060 --> 00:13:52,780 And your arms, used for negotiation, 259 00:13:52,820 --> 00:13:55,540 round the corners, hailing people... 260 00:13:55,580 --> 00:13:58,700 Must've been difficult to manoeuvre this with poles this long. 261 00:13:58,740 --> 00:14:01,060 In the next century, they got another foot longer. 262 00:14:01,100 --> 00:14:03,500 - Why are they so long? - Well, really... 263 00:14:03,540 --> 00:14:08,140 When they converted from the original portable chair and they enclosed it, 264 00:14:08,180 --> 00:14:10,860 the person on the back couldn't see where they were going. 265 00:14:10,900 --> 00:14:13,420 You needed to stand further back so that you could see, 266 00:14:13,460 --> 00:14:17,340 for instance, if you're looking at a flight of steps or some obstacle, 267 00:14:17,380 --> 00:14:19,060 where it actually is. 268 00:14:19,100 --> 00:14:23,060 Sedan chairs were particularly popular during bad weather, 269 00:14:23,100 --> 00:14:26,220 so the bearers had to trudge through the wet and the cold. 270 00:14:26,260 --> 00:14:28,020 Slipping on ice was a real risk, 271 00:14:28,060 --> 00:14:30,820 so householders used to chuck their ashes onto the cobbles 272 00:14:30,860 --> 00:14:33,460 to provide a foothold - but there were worse dangers. 273 00:14:33,500 --> 00:14:36,780 There was also aggro from the footpads of the day, 274 00:14:36,820 --> 00:14:39,140 the street robbers - the carjackers of today. 275 00:14:39,180 --> 00:14:40,860 They'd try and mug the chair man? 276 00:14:40,900 --> 00:14:43,700 If it was a private one, you had to tackle the chair man first. 277 00:14:43,740 --> 00:14:47,260 If it was just a taxi, we would stand back and almost open the door 278 00:14:47,300 --> 00:14:51,940 and let them mug the person inside for their jewellery, their watches... 279 00:14:51,980 --> 00:14:55,580 So these guys are trotting along, someone comes, opens the door, 280 00:14:55,620 --> 00:14:57,460 - "Give us your..." - That's right. 281 00:14:57,500 --> 00:15:01,140 There's one instance of someone being skewered with a sword 282 00:15:01,180 --> 00:15:03,180 right through the leather here. 283 00:15:03,220 --> 00:15:06,140 I've really got to have a go at this. Andrew? Tim? 284 00:15:06,180 --> 00:15:09,140 From the Oxford Uni Rugby Club. 285 00:15:09,180 --> 00:15:11,300 - How much do you weigh? - About 17.5 stone. 286 00:15:11,340 --> 00:15:13,020 About 16.5. 287 00:15:13,060 --> 00:15:16,100 I chose the right people. You can go in. You're the lighter one. 288 00:15:16,140 --> 00:15:19,020 - Are you going to get on the back? - Certainly will. 289 00:15:19,060 --> 00:15:21,060 Right. 290 00:15:21,100 --> 00:15:23,500 So, presumably, I have to lock this bloke in. 291 00:15:23,540 --> 00:15:24,740 Indeed. 292 00:15:24,780 --> 00:15:26,980 Right. There you are, Tim. 293 00:15:27,020 --> 00:15:29,020 Have you got your strap on, Andrew? 294 00:15:29,060 --> 00:15:31,060 - I have, Tony. - Right. 295 00:15:31,100 --> 00:15:34,300 - Is this the right way round? - Yeah. Just put that over. 296 00:15:35,420 --> 00:15:37,540 Hang on, Andrew. Just getting my straps on. 297 00:15:37,580 --> 00:15:39,580 OK. 298 00:15:39,620 --> 00:15:41,300 - Are you ready? - Yeah. 299 00:15:41,340 --> 00:15:44,220 One, two, three. Lift. 300 00:15:44,260 --> 00:15:46,300 - It's not as bad as I thought. - Er... 301 00:15:46,340 --> 00:15:48,340 Hang on. I'm having a talk. 302 00:15:48,380 --> 00:15:51,940 You've got the weight on the shoulders, rather than the hands. 303 00:15:51,980 --> 00:15:54,420 Right. It's a sort of trot, really, isn't it? 304 00:15:55,460 --> 00:15:57,580 Right, we're just coming to a corner. 305 00:15:57,620 --> 00:15:59,620 - Watch the bollard. - Right. 306 00:15:59,660 --> 00:16:02,300 Did these things have lights on them for after dark? 307 00:16:02,340 --> 00:16:05,260 Oh, yes. You used to carry them on the side of the pole. 308 00:16:05,300 --> 00:16:09,020 If you were wealthy, you could employ a boy to carry them at the front. 309 00:16:09,060 --> 00:16:11,060 He's going faster than me. 310 00:16:11,100 --> 00:16:12,820 Slow down a little bit. 311 00:16:12,860 --> 00:16:15,500 They always push hard from the back unless you ask them. 312 00:16:15,540 --> 00:16:18,100 Not half. Was it the same fare, 313 00:16:18,140 --> 00:16:20,140 whether someone was fat or thin? 314 00:16:20,180 --> 00:16:22,780 Oh, yes. Yes, you had to pay the same fare. 315 00:16:22,820 --> 00:16:24,820 And uphill or downhill? 316 00:16:24,860 --> 00:16:26,700 They changed that in Bath. 317 00:16:26,740 --> 00:16:28,740 Uphill was more expensive. 318 00:16:28,780 --> 00:16:31,820 We're coming to a main road now. Hang on. Turning left. 319 00:16:32,900 --> 00:16:34,740 It's a bit like... 320 00:16:34,780 --> 00:16:36,580 having a ladder, isn't it? 321 00:16:36,620 --> 00:16:39,140 With a swing. You've got to swing round. 322 00:16:40,420 --> 00:16:42,500 I don't want to go out in the road. Ohh! 323 00:16:42,540 --> 00:16:45,060 You're doing well. You're doing well. 324 00:16:45,100 --> 00:16:47,100 I'm starting to flag now. 325 00:16:47,140 --> 00:16:49,620 It's all right. London - London's 52 miles. 326 00:16:49,660 --> 00:16:53,060 When they were introduced in 1625, 327 00:16:53,100 --> 00:16:55,580 there were only 40 bearers in London. 328 00:16:55,620 --> 00:16:58,420 Within a century, there were thousands. 329 00:17:00,260 --> 00:17:02,340 It really is the most knackering work 330 00:17:02,380 --> 00:17:04,700 and if you were wealthy and stupid enough, 331 00:17:04,740 --> 00:17:08,340 you could even pay to have someone carry you from London to Bath. 332 00:17:09,380 --> 00:17:12,420 That's like giving someone a piggyback for 120 miles. 333 00:17:15,900 --> 00:17:17,860 Then we go down. One, two, three. 334 00:17:20,980 --> 00:17:23,500 But however sore their backs and feet became, 335 00:17:23,540 --> 00:17:27,580 at least the Sedan bearers didn't have to get their hands round these. 336 00:17:29,820 --> 00:17:32,420 Huge wigs became emblems of the Stuart period. 337 00:17:32,460 --> 00:17:36,900 Charles II's wigs were as famous as his affair with Nell Gwyn. 338 00:17:38,020 --> 00:17:42,500 Big wigs made from real hair often contained unwelcome sitting tenants. 339 00:17:43,540 --> 00:17:46,500 Evicting them was the task of my next worst job - 340 00:17:46,540 --> 00:17:48,540 the nitpicker. 341 00:17:48,580 --> 00:17:52,380 If I call someone a nitpicker, I mean someone who's fairly pedantic, 342 00:17:52,420 --> 00:17:55,420 but in Stuart times, it was a real profession wasn't it? 343 00:17:55,460 --> 00:17:57,460 It was and it was an important job. 344 00:17:57,500 --> 00:17:59,700 People had nits and lice on the body 345 00:17:59,740 --> 00:18:02,660 and nits in the hair and we had to get rid of them. 346 00:18:02,700 --> 00:18:06,380 There's lots of evidence of people who worked in families, 347 00:18:06,420 --> 00:18:08,180 or would go from house to house 348 00:18:08,220 --> 00:18:11,140 with the specific job of getting nits out of people's hair. 349 00:18:11,180 --> 00:18:13,620 Right. I'm a Stuart noble. 350 00:18:14,700 --> 00:18:16,860 How do you get the nits out of my hair? 351 00:18:16,900 --> 00:18:19,620 What's difficult about it is there's curls here. 352 00:18:19,660 --> 00:18:22,980 And these curls will hold the little tiny eggs that nits make 353 00:18:23,020 --> 00:18:25,020 and we've got to get them out. 354 00:18:25,060 --> 00:18:27,780 - Here we've got a lovely... - It's a nit comb, isn't it? 355 00:18:27,820 --> 00:18:30,940 It's like the ones we used to use when my kids were at primary school. 356 00:18:30,980 --> 00:18:33,380 This early style is the same exactly as now. 357 00:18:33,420 --> 00:18:35,420 This one's made of bone, however. 358 00:18:35,460 --> 00:18:39,100 The little, tiny teeth work exactly the same way, because, guess what? 359 00:18:39,140 --> 00:18:41,660 They're the same nits, laying the same size eggs 360 00:18:41,700 --> 00:18:43,700 and we've got to draw them out. 361 00:18:43,740 --> 00:18:46,060 You get all the eggs all the way along there. 362 00:18:46,100 --> 00:18:51,900 And we also used lavender oil in the hair and that also is still used. 363 00:18:51,940 --> 00:18:54,580 Oh, it is a beautiful smell. 364 00:18:54,620 --> 00:18:56,780 That's part of the job of the nitpicker - 365 00:18:56,820 --> 00:18:59,660 getting out the nits, rubbing the hair afterwards - 366 00:18:59,700 --> 00:19:03,860 or the shaved scalp - with lavender oil in an attempt to deter it. 367 00:19:03,900 --> 00:19:07,220 Of course, it leapt from wig to wig and wigmaker to wigmaker. 368 00:19:07,260 --> 00:19:10,980 - What's this disgusting stuff? - This is as disgusting as it gets. 369 00:19:11,020 --> 00:19:12,740 What is it? 370 00:19:12,780 --> 00:19:14,780 Eugh! It's lard or something, isn't it? 371 00:19:14,820 --> 00:19:17,100 It's pig fat. It's disgusting, isn't it? 372 00:19:17,140 --> 00:19:20,940 The Stuart people would put a little blob of this - this was an idea - 373 00:19:20,980 --> 00:19:24,460 and then put it round their neck in a silver filigree basket... 374 00:19:24,500 --> 00:19:27,300 - They wore lard. - Yeah, attractive, isn't it (?) 375 00:19:27,340 --> 00:19:32,460 The idea is although lice and nits are dependent on blood to live, 376 00:19:32,500 --> 00:19:34,500 they also live on dead skin. 377 00:19:34,540 --> 00:19:38,580 Sometimes wigs were treated with flour and baked, 378 00:19:38,620 --> 00:19:40,620 or other treatments on the wigs 379 00:19:40,660 --> 00:19:45,060 so they couldn't get into the scalp and take the blood to make them live. 380 00:19:45,100 --> 00:19:47,180 So they'd climb down and get the lard. 381 00:19:47,220 --> 00:19:49,220 We tried to draw them - 382 00:19:49,260 --> 00:19:52,060 the Stuart people put this thing here with the idea 383 00:19:52,100 --> 00:19:54,100 that this would go into the basket. 384 00:19:54,140 --> 00:19:57,060 But, despite the lavender oil and the lard necklace, 385 00:19:57,100 --> 00:20:01,540 surely your wig would get jam-packed full of nits and things, wouldn't it? 386 00:20:01,580 --> 00:20:05,620 Samuel Pepys writes at one point in one of his diaries how furious he was 387 00:20:05,660 --> 00:20:09,660 that his barber had sent him a wig that was absolutely thick with nits. 388 00:20:09,700 --> 00:20:13,020 It vexed me, he said, that it would be sent in this condition. 389 00:20:13,060 --> 00:20:15,060 It had to be sent back to be cleaned. 390 00:20:15,100 --> 00:20:18,300 Very poor people - wigs were very fashionable, remember - 391 00:20:18,340 --> 00:20:20,020 couldn't necessarily afford a wig. 392 00:20:20,060 --> 00:20:23,380 To walk round with a shaved head, which in itself was cleansing, 393 00:20:23,420 --> 00:20:25,940 was still a bad thing to be seen on the streets. 394 00:20:25,980 --> 00:20:28,100 So people went along to the barber shop 395 00:20:28,140 --> 00:20:31,260 and there would be a box and you'd put your hand inside the box. 396 00:20:31,300 --> 00:20:34,740 Thruppence. You knew it was wigs, but you didn't know what they looked like 397 00:20:34,780 --> 00:20:37,780 and you took your lucky dip - we think that's where it came from. 398 00:20:37,820 --> 00:20:41,340 You'd pull out a wig and if it was disgusting and covered in nits, 399 00:20:41,380 --> 00:20:44,380 then you could, for a penny ha'penny, have another go. 400 00:20:44,420 --> 00:20:47,900 Nitpicking was disgusting, but it didn't damage your health. 401 00:20:47,940 --> 00:20:50,860 There was another, more dangerous pest control job. 402 00:20:50,900 --> 00:20:55,420 Fumigators had the choking task of purging houses by burning sulphur. 403 00:20:55,460 --> 00:20:58,340 The fumes were supposed to prevent infestations 404 00:20:58,380 --> 00:21:01,060 and infections such as the plague - they didn't. 405 00:21:01,100 --> 00:21:03,940 In fact, they just ruined the fumigator's lungs. 406 00:21:05,140 --> 00:21:09,140 Sulphur could also be mixed up into a disgusting emulsion for the walls. 407 00:21:10,220 --> 00:21:14,460 So we've got lime in here and the sulphur and an egg. 408 00:21:14,500 --> 00:21:16,100 That's right. 409 00:21:16,140 --> 00:21:18,260 - Anything else? - We're going to put urine in. 410 00:21:18,300 --> 00:21:21,420 Of course we are. If it's a worst job, it's got to be urine. 411 00:21:21,460 --> 00:21:24,980 - Then we...tosh it onto the walls. - That's right. 412 00:21:25,020 --> 00:21:28,060 - And what does it do? - This acts as a protection 413 00:21:28,100 --> 00:21:32,380 against burrowing insects particularly and was painted on walls 414 00:21:32,420 --> 00:21:35,140 in an attempt to prevent these insects coming in here 415 00:21:35,180 --> 00:21:37,780 that we know obviously bring great disease with them. 416 00:21:37,820 --> 00:21:39,420 This is a form of pest control. 417 00:21:39,460 --> 00:21:41,700 Professional builders would put this on walls. 418 00:21:41,740 --> 00:21:45,260 We know how sulphur was used to disinfect houses in another way. 419 00:21:45,300 --> 00:21:49,460 There was a man called James Angier who brought over a recipe with him 420 00:21:49,500 --> 00:21:51,900 for something he believed was very important 421 00:21:51,940 --> 00:21:54,020 in disinfecting against plague. 422 00:21:54,060 --> 00:21:57,500 And that was amber, saltpetre and sulphur. 423 00:21:57,540 --> 00:21:59,740 And he toted this recipe all over Europe 424 00:21:59,780 --> 00:22:04,060 before bringing it before the Privy Council of Charles II in this country 425 00:22:04,100 --> 00:22:08,380 who granted him licence to use it for the purpose of fumigation. 426 00:22:08,420 --> 00:22:11,340 Fumigation, of course, is a dangerous business. 427 00:22:11,380 --> 00:22:13,380 Now, here's the powdered sulphur. 428 00:22:13,420 --> 00:22:16,700 I'm going to ask you to vaporise some of this into the flame 429 00:22:16,740 --> 00:22:21,540 to give us the proper feeling and smell of what this would've been like 430 00:22:21,580 --> 00:22:23,580 when we were fumigating a house. 431 00:22:23,620 --> 00:22:26,220 And that's why you've put us in a different room 432 00:22:26,260 --> 00:22:28,380 because it does smell so much. 433 00:22:28,420 --> 00:22:31,420 And also because it's dangerous to fabrics, furniture and to us. 434 00:22:31,460 --> 00:22:33,100 We need to be very careful with this. 435 00:22:33,140 --> 00:22:35,820 - I just put it in here like this? - That's right. 436 00:22:35,860 --> 00:22:37,860 It's very toxic. Sulphur dioxide. 437 00:22:37,900 --> 00:22:40,900 - See the fumes going now. - Can you see it going? Yeah. 438 00:22:40,940 --> 00:22:44,060 (Coughs) I'm getting fumes down my throat. Quite tight. 439 00:22:44,100 --> 00:22:46,100 Oh, yeah. Yes, I just get - yeah. 440 00:22:46,140 --> 00:22:48,140 - Whoa! Oh, it's going. (Coughs) 441 00:22:48,180 --> 00:22:50,820 Drop it in there quick. Come on. Let's get out. 442 00:22:50,860 --> 00:22:54,220 I think we ought to get out actually, cos it's really stinky, isn't it? 443 00:22:54,260 --> 00:22:56,260 - Are you all right? (Coughs) 444 00:22:56,300 --> 00:22:58,260 (Splutters) 445 00:23:01,260 --> 00:23:04,020 (Splutters) It rather took everybody by surprise, I think, 446 00:23:04,060 --> 00:23:06,060 certainly the crew. (Coughs) 447 00:23:06,100 --> 00:23:11,780 I think you'll understand why they took such extraordinary precautions 448 00:23:11,820 --> 00:23:15,860 when you see the kind of diseases that they could contract. 449 00:23:15,900 --> 00:23:17,900 Are you all right? 450 00:23:17,940 --> 00:23:19,580 (Coughs) 451 00:23:19,620 --> 00:23:21,300 Only just. 452 00:23:21,340 --> 00:23:23,300 453 00:23:28,395 --> 00:23:32,035 In the Stuart period, there was an enemy far more terrifying 454 00:23:32,075 --> 00:23:34,795 than an army or household vermin - 455 00:23:34,835 --> 00:23:39,515 the deadly Yersinia pestis, otherwise known as the plague. 456 00:23:40,195 --> 00:23:42,675 Epidemics had come and gone over the centuries, 457 00:23:42,715 --> 00:23:45,435 but in 1665 there was a double whammy - 458 00:23:46,075 --> 00:23:50,275 extra virulent forms of bubonic plague carried by rats 459 00:23:50,315 --> 00:23:52,275 and the airborne pneumonic plague. 460 00:23:54,475 --> 00:23:56,475 The symptoms were horrific. 461 00:23:56,515 --> 00:23:59,515 The glands swell up to form the characteristic bubos 462 00:23:59,555 --> 00:24:04,075 in the armpits and groin, which later burst and ooze fetid pus. 463 00:24:04,915 --> 00:24:08,955 The blood vessels rupture and leak under the skin, causing dark bruises. 464 00:24:09,555 --> 00:24:13,635 When the infection enters the lungs, the victim coughs up a bloody froth, 465 00:24:13,675 --> 00:24:15,835 spreading the disease through the air. 466 00:24:16,555 --> 00:24:20,155 The only compensation is that you could be dead within hours. 467 00:24:21,875 --> 00:24:23,875 The plague was so infectious 468 00:24:23,915 --> 00:24:26,755 that a third of the population of London died. 469 00:24:26,795 --> 00:24:30,475 A whole army of people were employed to try and contain the disease. 470 00:24:30,995 --> 00:24:34,115 My first job is the seekers of the dead. 471 00:24:35,595 --> 00:24:38,595 Despite the title, finding the dead wasn't the point. 472 00:24:38,635 --> 00:24:40,955 The seekers or searchers role 473 00:24:40,995 --> 00:24:43,995 was to examine the corpses and decide how they'd died - 474 00:24:44,035 --> 00:24:45,995 like a form of untrained coroner. 475 00:24:48,435 --> 00:24:51,115 Who were these women who were searching for the dead? 476 00:24:51,155 --> 00:24:53,155 Ordinary old women like you and me! 477 00:24:53,195 --> 00:24:56,515 Ordinary old women in the village or the town. 478 00:24:56,555 --> 00:24:59,555 Probably pensioners. People dependent on charity. 479 00:24:59,595 --> 00:25:02,715 And to be the searcher of the dead - which is what the title is - 480 00:25:02,755 --> 00:25:04,835 would mean that they got extra money. 481 00:25:04,875 --> 00:25:07,675 So, would we say, "Right, this is a plague victim"? 482 00:25:07,715 --> 00:25:09,635 I think we'd be very tempted to say so. 483 00:25:09,675 --> 00:25:12,075 She's got typical blackish purplish blotches 484 00:25:12,115 --> 00:25:14,115 on her face and further down. 485 00:25:14,155 --> 00:25:17,235 But what's most characteristic, diagnostic of plague 486 00:25:17,275 --> 00:25:20,515 is that she's clearly had some kind of abscess under her jaw, 487 00:25:20,555 --> 00:25:23,275 probably in the lymph glands - that's the plague bubo. 488 00:25:23,315 --> 00:25:26,875 But we'd have to spend time talking to other people in the household. 489 00:25:26,915 --> 00:25:30,555 You find out what the person went through, what form the illness took. 490 00:25:30,595 --> 00:25:33,715 They wouldn't just look at the bodies and say this is this or that. 491 00:25:33,755 --> 00:25:35,635 They would take the time to ask around 492 00:25:35,675 --> 00:25:39,195 and see what other evidence there was of why the person had died. 493 00:25:39,235 --> 00:25:42,435 How would these people have been regarded in the village? 494 00:25:42,475 --> 00:25:45,475 With a mixture of sort of respect and perhaps fear also 495 00:25:45,515 --> 00:25:47,635 because they have quite a lot of power. 496 00:25:47,675 --> 00:25:49,675 They can come into your house 497 00:25:49,715 --> 00:25:52,195 and pronounce on what the person has died of. 498 00:25:52,235 --> 00:25:55,195 I think anybody's cautious about making a plague diagnosis 499 00:25:55,235 --> 00:25:57,435 because it has implications for the family. 500 00:25:57,475 --> 00:26:01,435 It means shutting the house up and preventing other people from leaving. 501 00:26:01,475 --> 00:26:04,035 Might we have been tempted to take a few bob 502 00:26:04,075 --> 00:26:06,075 just to say they've got the plague? 503 00:26:06,115 --> 00:26:09,995 Given that it would have such consequences for the household, 504 00:26:10,035 --> 00:26:12,035 we might just be a bit fuddled 505 00:26:12,075 --> 00:26:14,435 or a bit careless about how we noted it down. 506 00:26:15,955 --> 00:26:19,635 The seekers of the dead gathered information for bills of mortality, 507 00:26:19,675 --> 00:26:22,675 the lists of weekly deaths and their supposed causes. 508 00:26:22,715 --> 00:26:25,555 From them, parishes could spot new outbreaks 509 00:26:25,595 --> 00:26:27,595 and try and prevent them spreading. 510 00:26:27,635 --> 00:26:29,755 But it was a pretty imprecise science. 511 00:26:29,795 --> 00:26:33,595 VANESSA: The bills of mortality is not modern diagnostic medicine. 512 00:26:33,635 --> 00:26:35,955 A lot of it is simply describing the symptoms. 513 00:26:35,995 --> 00:26:38,515 So somebody might be said to have died of a cough 514 00:26:38,555 --> 00:26:41,955 or of rising of the lights, which means a kind of suffocation, 515 00:26:41,995 --> 00:26:44,715 or of dropsy or timpany - swelling of the abdomen - 516 00:26:44,755 --> 00:26:48,715 or of a thought or a stroke or planet struck. 517 00:26:48,755 --> 00:26:51,555 A whole range of things that tell you what happened 518 00:26:51,595 --> 00:26:54,275 but don't, to us, explain why it happened. 519 00:26:54,315 --> 00:26:57,115 Why would they do it? Why would you be poking around 520 00:26:57,155 --> 00:27:00,355 with people who could give you diseases that could kill you? 521 00:27:00,395 --> 00:27:04,075 If you're paid fourpence for viewing a corpse, that's worth having. 522 00:27:04,115 --> 00:27:06,395 And sometimes you don't have any choice. 523 00:27:06,435 --> 00:27:09,875 If you're an old, poor person, then you don't have much option. 524 00:27:14,395 --> 00:27:16,475 But far worse than examining corpses 525 00:27:16,515 --> 00:27:19,155 would have been actually having to pick them up 526 00:27:19,195 --> 00:27:21,155 and carry them off to be buried. 527 00:27:21,715 --> 00:27:24,035 Imagine handling rotting bodies 528 00:27:24,075 --> 00:27:27,115 and trying to avoid the pus oozing from the burst bubos. 529 00:27:27,795 --> 00:27:30,755 At the very least, it was tough physical work. 530 00:27:32,475 --> 00:27:35,755 Inside the city of London, they used to have guys with carts 531 00:27:35,795 --> 00:27:37,915 who'd fill them up with the dead bodies 532 00:27:37,955 --> 00:27:41,195 and then ride with them through London at night 533 00:27:41,235 --> 00:27:44,835 so that they could avoid contact with the rest of the population. 534 00:27:44,875 --> 00:27:49,955 Where they didn't have carts, they might use a canvas holdall like that. 535 00:27:49,995 --> 00:27:52,435 Or, particularly when there slopes, 536 00:27:52,475 --> 00:27:55,235 they'd use a hay sledge like this one, 537 00:27:55,275 --> 00:27:59,275 which they would...pull by hand. 538 00:28:05,635 --> 00:28:09,315 Initially, everybody got a proper burial. 539 00:28:09,355 --> 00:28:12,915 But after a while, when there were so many dead bodies, 540 00:28:12,955 --> 00:28:15,315 they just used to dig a big pit 541 00:28:16,235 --> 00:28:21,235 and then they'd throw the bodies in and cover them with lime... 542 00:28:23,355 --> 00:28:25,355 ..and chuck earth on top of that. 543 00:28:25,395 --> 00:28:29,755 It was a nightmare of a job being one of these buriers for two reasons: 544 00:28:29,795 --> 00:28:33,115 firstly, because you were forced to live inside the cemetery, 545 00:28:33,155 --> 00:28:35,755 and secondly, you could only work when it was dark, 546 00:28:35,795 --> 00:28:39,475 so it must have been impossible for them to see what they were doing. 547 00:28:41,835 --> 00:28:45,755 But I could probably just about handle being a plague burier, 548 00:28:45,795 --> 00:28:49,235 and a seeker of the dead I could possibly do. 549 00:28:50,075 --> 00:28:54,315 But there's one plague job I couldn't touch with a bargepole. 550 00:29:09,355 --> 00:29:12,715 (MEWS) Yes. Aren't they gorgeous? 551 00:29:12,755 --> 00:29:15,155 There's nothing like that little mewing noise 552 00:29:15,195 --> 00:29:18,675 and the warm, soft fur of the nation's favourite pets, is there? 553 00:29:19,555 --> 00:29:24,315 But during the plague they were thought to carry disease. 554 00:29:24,355 --> 00:29:27,395 Which brings us to our next worst job. 555 00:29:28,315 --> 00:29:34,155 The parishes of London hired dog and cat killers. And they had a cull. 556 00:29:34,195 --> 00:29:40,035 40,000 dogs and 80,000 cats and kittens were put to their death. 557 00:29:40,795 --> 00:29:44,355 At rates of pay between one- and twopence a carcass, 558 00:29:44,395 --> 00:29:46,195 the killers were on their way 559 00:29:46,235 --> 00:29:49,755 to earning the national average wage of a shilling a day. 560 00:29:49,795 --> 00:29:52,115 Mind you, they didn't use humane methods. 561 00:29:52,155 --> 00:29:54,595 They used anything they could get their hands on. 562 00:29:54,635 --> 00:29:58,075 Knives, logs of wood, clubs, mallets. 563 00:29:58,915 --> 00:30:01,635 But it was all a tragic waste because we now know 564 00:30:01,675 --> 00:30:04,075 that these are exactly the kinds of animals 565 00:30:04,115 --> 00:30:06,595 that could've kept the rat population down. 566 00:30:06,635 --> 00:30:09,195 And plague is carried by the fleas on rats. 567 00:30:09,235 --> 00:30:10,475 (MEWS) 568 00:30:10,515 --> 00:30:15,555 So poor little Bobo and little Truffles lost their lives in vain. 569 00:30:17,435 --> 00:30:19,435 They say never work with animals, 570 00:30:19,475 --> 00:30:21,475 but it was a tip completely ignored 571 00:30:21,515 --> 00:30:23,635 by the people who did my next worst job. 572 00:30:23,675 --> 00:30:26,915 They were in the business of advertising quack medicines. 573 00:30:27,475 --> 00:30:30,355 The gimmicks they used were as dodgy as the products. 574 00:30:33,755 --> 00:30:35,755 This is a toad. 575 00:30:35,795 --> 00:30:38,475 He's quite harmless unless you try to eat him, 576 00:30:38,515 --> 00:30:41,635 in which case he exudes this foul-tasting liquid 577 00:30:41,675 --> 00:30:44,595 which makes you feel pretty ill. 578 00:30:44,635 --> 00:30:47,635 And yet in Stuart times there was actually a job 579 00:30:47,675 --> 00:30:51,675 which involved putting one of these little things into your mouth. 580 00:30:52,715 --> 00:30:56,115 Welcome to the weird world of the toadeater. 581 00:30:58,435 --> 00:31:02,035 Popping down the market was the nearest thing ordinary folk had 582 00:31:02,075 --> 00:31:04,675 to nipping down the doctor's for antibiotics. 583 00:31:04,715 --> 00:31:07,115 For stallholders in search of a quick sale, 584 00:31:07,155 --> 00:31:09,875 it was a matter of putting your money where your mouth is. 585 00:31:10,955 --> 00:31:12,915 Why on earth did people eat toads? 586 00:31:13,835 --> 00:31:17,155 It's money. I think it comes down to money in the first place. 587 00:31:17,195 --> 00:31:20,315 These are people who are the sidekicks of a quack doctor, 588 00:31:20,355 --> 00:31:22,955 someone who's trying to sell their medicines. 589 00:31:22,995 --> 00:31:27,075 And he's employing someone to either swallow or pretend to swallow a toad 590 00:31:27,115 --> 00:31:30,115 as a means of demonstrating the powers of the medicine 591 00:31:30,155 --> 00:31:32,475 that the quack doctor wants to sell to his public. 592 00:31:32,515 --> 00:31:35,755 If you see someone swallowing a toad which is meant to be poisonous, 593 00:31:35,795 --> 00:31:37,955 and seem to be recovering, 594 00:31:37,995 --> 00:31:40,035 then, wow, that's quite sensational. 595 00:31:40,955 --> 00:31:42,835 TONY: Toadeater, or toady, 596 00:31:42,875 --> 00:31:46,155 became the nickname for any kind of servile creep or crawler. 597 00:31:46,195 --> 00:31:48,195 In return for a few pennies, 598 00:31:48,235 --> 00:31:50,435 people were even prepared to eat tapeworms 599 00:31:50,475 --> 00:31:52,475 or dangle snakes round their necks. 600 00:31:52,515 --> 00:31:55,795 What kind of lives do you think these toadies would have lived? 601 00:31:55,835 --> 00:31:59,635 Along with the doctor who employed them, I'd think they were itinerant. 602 00:31:59,675 --> 00:32:01,675 A lot of quack doctors moved around. 603 00:32:01,715 --> 00:32:05,275 One, to get away from the scene of the crime - dissatisfied clients. 604 00:32:05,315 --> 00:32:09,195 The other thing is you moved from fair to market around the region 605 00:32:09,235 --> 00:32:11,555 because that's where all the custom is. 606 00:32:12,915 --> 00:32:14,915 It's starting to get a bit frisky. 607 00:32:14,955 --> 00:32:17,275 Do you think they really did swallow them? 608 00:32:17,315 --> 00:32:20,995 This is the question. In all the information we have, it's unclear. 609 00:32:21,595 --> 00:32:25,035 You get doubting comments in diaries in the 17th century saying, 610 00:32:25,075 --> 00:32:27,995 "Do you know someone who's eaten one of these toads?" 611 00:32:28,035 --> 00:32:30,115 "Well, so-and-so told me he'd eaten it." 612 00:32:30,155 --> 00:32:32,155 So there's various options. 613 00:32:32,195 --> 00:32:37,355 One is they ate the toad and suffered an upset stomach - which you would. 614 00:32:37,395 --> 00:32:39,475 You're not going to die from eating a toad, 615 00:32:39,515 --> 00:32:42,715 but certainly the toxins in the skin would make you upset. 616 00:32:42,755 --> 00:32:45,475 Perhaps they'd regurgitate it, that's another option. 617 00:32:45,515 --> 00:32:48,195 My own feeling is it was a con trick, sleight of hand. 618 00:32:48,235 --> 00:32:50,435 - It's got to be, hasn't it? - I think so. 619 00:32:50,475 --> 00:32:55,355 It's just not worth the pain...for the toadeater indulging in this, 620 00:32:55,395 --> 00:32:57,395 when, perhaps, you know, 621 00:32:57,435 --> 00:33:01,115 practice and a bit of sleight of hand will do the trick just as well. 622 00:33:01,155 --> 00:33:04,035 TONY: But modern science knows what the Stuarts didn't - 623 00:33:04,075 --> 00:33:06,475 that maybe a toad slipping down your throat 624 00:33:06,515 --> 00:33:09,155 wasn't as dangerous as the toadeaters made out. 625 00:33:09,795 --> 00:33:13,395 It wouldn't kill you, so the trick was safer than you might think. 626 00:33:13,435 --> 00:33:16,155 Right, I'm surrounded by curious onlookers. 627 00:33:16,995 --> 00:33:20,075 They all want this little thing to disappear inside me. 628 00:33:20,115 --> 00:33:22,395 Do I swallow it and throw it up afterwards 629 00:33:22,435 --> 00:33:24,395 or do I just palm it? 630 00:33:26,915 --> 00:33:28,875 This is not a very nice idea but... 631 00:33:43,755 --> 00:33:46,435 In 1666, following the great plague, 632 00:33:46,475 --> 00:33:49,755 London was wiped out by another natural disaster. 633 00:33:50,315 --> 00:33:54,035 The great fire swept away huge swathes of the city 634 00:33:54,075 --> 00:33:56,555 and left the old St Paul's Cathedral in ruins. 635 00:33:58,475 --> 00:34:01,235 In its place they commissioned Sir Christopher Wren 636 00:34:01,275 --> 00:34:03,235 to design a magnificent new cathedral. 637 00:34:03,275 --> 00:34:05,275 It was to be his masterpiece 638 00:34:05,315 --> 00:34:08,795 and a bold new statement to hail in a new London and a new century. 639 00:34:09,795 --> 00:34:12,235 It's impossible to imagine London 640 00:34:12,275 --> 00:34:14,475 without St Paul's Cathedral, isn't it? 641 00:34:14,515 --> 00:34:16,315 It's a defining landmark 642 00:34:16,355 --> 00:34:19,275 and the climax of the career of Sir Christopher Wren. 643 00:34:19,315 --> 00:34:21,315 In fact, on his tombstone it says, 644 00:34:21,355 --> 00:34:24,315 "If you want to see my momument, look around you." 645 00:34:24,915 --> 00:34:28,195 Although, of course, it wasn't just Wren who built this place. 646 00:34:28,235 --> 00:34:31,435 It was built by thousands of people whose names we don't know. 647 00:34:31,475 --> 00:34:34,955 For instance, have you ever heard of James Thornhill? 648 00:34:34,995 --> 00:34:38,915 Probably not, although he was one of the most famous artists of his day. 649 00:34:38,955 --> 00:34:41,755 Famous and yet unfortunate 650 00:34:41,795 --> 00:34:47,315 because his worst job was to paint the inside of that entire dome. 651 00:34:51,995 --> 00:34:54,275 But this worst job is a complete one-off. 652 00:34:54,315 --> 00:34:56,315 And Thornhill's tragic story 653 00:34:56,355 --> 00:34:58,835 shows that you don't have to be knee-deep in muck 654 00:34:58,875 --> 00:35:00,835 to have a terrible time. 655 00:35:01,675 --> 00:35:04,275 The cathedral took 35 years to build 656 00:35:04,315 --> 00:35:06,315 and originally a French artist 657 00:35:06,355 --> 00:35:09,355 was commissioned to paint the murals inside the dome. 658 00:35:09,395 --> 00:35:12,875 But the colourful designs were too flamboyant and Roman Catholic 659 00:35:12,915 --> 00:35:15,195 for the new Church of England cathedral. 660 00:35:15,235 --> 00:35:18,275 So the commissioners appointed James Thornhill instead. 661 00:35:19,595 --> 00:35:22,075 He painted in a style called grisaille, 662 00:35:22,115 --> 00:35:24,635 which used muted greys and browns 663 00:35:24,675 --> 00:35:28,155 to depict a much more restrained, Protestant series of scenes 664 00:35:28,195 --> 00:35:30,155 from St Paul's life. 665 00:35:34,675 --> 00:35:37,555 There's loads of reasons why this is a worst job, 666 00:35:37,595 --> 00:35:40,435 but one of the most obvious is the walk to work. 667 00:35:41,475 --> 00:35:44,875 If you work in one of those office blocks, even at the very top, 668 00:35:44,915 --> 00:35:46,915 then you have the luxury of a lift. 669 00:35:46,955 --> 00:35:50,715 But Thornhill would have had a three-quarter-of-an-hour trudge 670 00:35:50,755 --> 00:35:52,715 before he even got to here. 671 00:35:53,795 --> 00:35:58,955 Now, normally...if I went through this window, 672 00:35:58,995 --> 00:36:03,035 I'd end up as a rather nasty splodge on the floor below. 673 00:36:03,835 --> 00:36:07,155 But not today because St Paul's is undergoing 674 00:36:07,195 --> 00:36:09,195 a unique restoration project, 675 00:36:09,235 --> 00:36:13,035 so we've got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the inside... 676 00:36:14,075 --> 00:36:16,235 ..just as Thornhill would have seen it. 677 00:36:18,115 --> 00:36:21,035 The restoration team have suspended a huge scaffold 678 00:36:21,075 --> 00:36:23,195 from the lantern at the top of the dome, 679 00:36:23,235 --> 00:36:25,715 which virtually fills a quarter of the space. 680 00:36:26,515 --> 00:36:30,115 Thornhill wouldn't have had the benefit of such a stable structure, 681 00:36:30,155 --> 00:36:33,835 which is mind-blowing when you think of the scale of the building. 682 00:36:33,875 --> 00:36:36,675 We're really starting to get a sense of height now. 683 00:36:36,715 --> 00:36:40,755 We certainly are. Time to see the first of the Thornhill schemes here. 684 00:36:40,795 --> 00:36:43,515 - This is Thornhill? - It's all original Thornhill. 685 00:36:43,555 --> 00:36:45,235 So what are these rings? 686 00:36:45,275 --> 00:36:49,155 We think they relate to a mid-19th century restoration that occurred. 687 00:36:49,195 --> 00:36:51,195 But it reflects very much 688 00:36:51,235 --> 00:36:55,195 what we think may have been the means of access for Thornhill. 689 00:36:55,235 --> 00:36:56,955 These were for the scaff? 690 00:36:56,995 --> 00:37:00,355 Wooden poles would have butted to the wall and be located to these rings. 691 00:37:00,395 --> 00:37:02,915 with a 10 or 20ft extension. 692 00:37:02,955 --> 00:37:06,155 The end of the pole being picked up by a cable running down. 693 00:37:06,195 --> 00:37:08,595 And then boards linking between the poles. 694 00:37:08,635 --> 00:37:11,955 We don't know much about this scaffolding that he may have used, 695 00:37:11,995 --> 00:37:15,835 but we think probably it was a fairly opened scale system. 696 00:37:15,875 --> 00:37:20,315 There is this wonderful story of Thornhill almost falling to his death 697 00:37:20,355 --> 00:37:23,795 that was only avoided by his loyal manservant, Bentley French, 698 00:37:23,835 --> 00:37:27,115 who threw a bucket of paint at the wall to attract his attention 699 00:37:27,155 --> 00:37:29,155 and duly saved his life. 700 00:37:29,195 --> 00:37:32,195 TONY: It's easy to see how you could topple over backwards 701 00:37:32,235 --> 00:37:34,315 as the walls lean right out above you, 702 00:37:34,355 --> 00:37:36,315 pushing you towards the drop below. 703 00:37:37,235 --> 00:37:41,115 Thornhill would have had to overcome stomach-churning pangs of vertigo 704 00:37:41,155 --> 00:37:43,155 just to get the job done. 705 00:37:43,195 --> 00:37:47,355 It's an extraordinarily bizarre sense of scale that you get up here. 706 00:37:47,395 --> 00:37:52,115 If you look down there to that goldy thing, that's the Whispering Gallery. 707 00:37:52,155 --> 00:37:56,035 And then you've got the same distance below that to the floor 708 00:37:56,075 --> 00:37:59,275 and you've got all the tiny, tiny little people like ants. 709 00:37:59,315 --> 00:38:02,235 Whereas up here, you've got this bloke 710 00:38:02,275 --> 00:38:05,715 who's got a head three times as big as ours. 711 00:38:05,755 --> 00:38:09,035 How on earth did Thornhill manage to get the scale right 712 00:38:09,075 --> 00:38:11,875 - on this curving shape? - That's a good question. 713 00:38:11,915 --> 00:38:15,155 We think he may have used a technique involving a grid 714 00:38:15,195 --> 00:38:18,915 and transferring from an original master drawing that was gridded up, 715 00:38:18,955 --> 00:38:20,715 a grid applied to the wall. 716 00:38:20,755 --> 00:38:23,755 By that means you can actually transfer quite accurately 717 00:38:23,795 --> 00:38:27,155 the layout of your figures, correctly proportioned and in scale. 718 00:38:27,195 --> 00:38:29,115 How much wall did he have to cover? 719 00:38:29,155 --> 00:38:31,155 About 140,000 square feet. 720 00:38:31,195 --> 00:38:33,195 So it's a vast space. 721 00:38:33,235 --> 00:38:36,755 TONY: Just imagine how many cans of paint they'd have needed. 722 00:38:36,795 --> 00:38:40,835 Thornhill would have had to haul them up, ready mixed, from ground level. 723 00:38:41,435 --> 00:38:43,715 There's almost no natural light up here, 724 00:38:43,755 --> 00:38:46,035 so he'd have been working by candlelight. 725 00:38:47,235 --> 00:38:50,195 It's incredibly claustrophobic at the very top 726 00:38:50,235 --> 00:38:52,595 as the murals seem to press heavily down on you. 727 00:38:52,635 --> 00:38:56,435 To paint this bit, Thornhill would have been precariously dangling 728 00:38:56,475 --> 00:38:59,195 75 metres above the marble floor below. 729 00:38:59,235 --> 00:39:01,835 It must have been so difficult working up here. 730 00:39:01,875 --> 00:39:03,475 Incredibly difficult. 731 00:39:03,515 --> 00:39:07,115 It is an enormous acreage of painted surface, 732 00:39:07,155 --> 00:39:09,835 working under some very difficult circumstances. 733 00:39:09,875 --> 00:39:12,435 Teetering on the edge of some rickety scaffolding, 734 00:39:12,475 --> 00:39:16,275 very low light levels, having to work with finely detailed gilding - 735 00:39:16,315 --> 00:39:18,035 an immense achievement. 736 00:39:18,075 --> 00:39:20,035 How many of them were there? 737 00:39:20,075 --> 00:39:23,675 Records have it that, in addition to himself, he had only two assistants, 738 00:39:23,715 --> 00:39:25,315 which seems extraordinary. 739 00:39:25,355 --> 00:39:27,355 - How long did it take? - Two years. 740 00:39:27,395 --> 00:39:30,675 I'm sure Thornhill was working flat out for that entire period. 741 00:39:31,355 --> 00:39:34,235 But Thornhill must have been quite prepared to risk 742 00:39:34,275 --> 00:39:37,675 plummeting to his death every day for his magnificent painting. 743 00:39:37,715 --> 00:39:39,715 Indeed, he was so proud of it, 744 00:39:39,755 --> 00:39:43,115 he incorporated his very own portrait into one of the murals. 745 00:39:45,115 --> 00:39:47,115 But there's a sting in the tail. 746 00:39:47,155 --> 00:39:52,155 Thornhill worked up there hour after hour, month after month, for his art. 747 00:39:52,195 --> 00:39:55,515 But he was comforted by the thought that when he'd finished, 748 00:39:55,555 --> 00:39:59,275 that place would be regarded as the British version of the Sistine Chapel 749 00:39:59,315 --> 00:40:02,995 and it would be as much a monument to him as to Sir Christopher Wren. 750 00:40:03,035 --> 00:40:05,635 But, ironically, by the time it was completed, 751 00:40:05,675 --> 00:40:08,795 the new, frivolous rococo fashion was all the rage, 752 00:40:08,835 --> 00:40:13,315 and suddenly Thornhill's work looked really drab and old-fashioned. 753 00:40:13,355 --> 00:40:17,595 So he did all that hard graft and he never got any of the glory. 754 00:40:17,635 --> 00:40:20,155 That's what, for me, makes it a worst job. 755 00:40:20,955 --> 00:40:23,195 Although not quite the very worst. 756 00:40:24,915 --> 00:40:28,080 757 00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:29,880 758 00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:34,360 I'm putting myself through some of the worst jobs in history. 759 00:40:35,240 --> 00:40:39,000 So what job's on the very lowest rung of the Stuart period? 760 00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:42,320 Sedan-chair bearing may have been physically demanding, 761 00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:44,400 but at least you ran your own business. 762 00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:47,480 Swallowing toads wouldn't have been as unpleasant as it sounds 763 00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:49,960 if you'd mastered the techniques of sleight of hand. 764 00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:53,400 And a saltpetre man's lot may have been smelly and unpopular, 765 00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:56,760 although you weren't likely to get blown up by your own explosives, 766 00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:58,800 like the petardier's assistant. 767 00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:00,880 But for me, the very worst job 768 00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:03,640 comes from the underside of the world of culture. 769 00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:05,680 The violin-string maker. 770 00:41:05,720 --> 00:41:09,600 Now, you might be thinking, "Oh, violin-string maker. Very nice job." 771 00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:14,000 Well, you'll understand why it isn't when you see what's involved. 772 00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:16,040 The Stuart period was pivotal 773 00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:18,560 to the development of the violin as we know it 774 00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:21,880 because of technological advances in violin-string making. 775 00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:25,840 It wasn't just virtuoso violinists that made Vivaldi famous. 776 00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:29,240 Oh, no, it needed something just a little bit earthier. 777 00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:32,000 The guts of a sheep. 778 00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:37,960 The 17th century was the golden age of string making 779 00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:40,120 because of the development of a string 780 00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:42,880 short enough to fit a violin and play low notes - 781 00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:45,960 giving us the four-stringed instrument we have today. 782 00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,480 String makers were precision craftsmen, 783 00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:52,640 often trained on the job in a family-run business. 784 00:41:53,960 --> 00:41:58,520 Although known as catgut, strings are actually made from sheep intestines. 785 00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:00,560 Unlike the modern string maker, 786 00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:04,360 300 years ago they had to get hold of their own raw materials, 787 00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,840 which meant a series of unimaginably gruesome tasks. 788 00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:10,600 And that's where I start my apprenticeship. 789 00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,200 - Morning. - What do I cut this open with? 790 00:42:14,240 --> 00:42:17,040 You need a knife. Best to start off with a small one. 791 00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:20,360 What I'm worried about is these sleeves are so long and droopy... 792 00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:24,280 That's for keeping warm. Take the outer layer off and it'll be easier. 793 00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:26,080 - Can you give us a hand? - Yep. 794 00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:29,840 - How long has this one been dead? - Not long. He's still warm there. 795 00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:32,000 - Right, where do I plunge? - Ah, now then. 796 00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:34,640 You're trying to kill a man if you're doing that 797 00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:36,680 and you finish up with bits everywhere. 798 00:42:36,720 --> 00:42:39,040 You need a pinch and go through on the side. 799 00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:42,000 - Just towards me? - Just so you've got an incision. 800 00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:43,840 - That's him. - Yeah. 801 00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:47,400 Now we can find that spot. You're going to cut down, like so... 802 00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:50,560 - That's not the sharp side. - Bits of nipples in the way. 803 00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:52,600 That's always... Don't go deep. 804 00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:54,640 Because if you penetrate the guts 805 00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:57,440 we're going to finish up with grass soup inside. 806 00:42:58,240 --> 00:42:59,720 Ooh! Oh, God. 807 00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:01,960 That's just blood that's pooled in the belly. 808 00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:03,880 Now we're heading down. 809 00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:07,400 You've got to find your way down to the anus and cut round there. 810 00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:10,720 If you're taking the guts out, that's where it's anchored at one end. 811 00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:13,400 (HISSING) That's the gas in the belly. 812 00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,000 - Eurgh. - That's basically a fart coming out. 813 00:43:17,240 --> 00:43:19,920 Ooh! I think that's sucking at the other end now. 814 00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:22,440 That's deeply unpleasant. And it's smoking. 815 00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:25,200 (TONY COUGHS) - Steam rather than smoke. 816 00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:27,320 OK. 817 00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:31,480 What you're doing is pulling his rectum back through his belly. 818 00:43:32,720 --> 00:43:34,720 There we are. 819 00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:35,840 Yuck. 820 00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:38,400 That's going to take some sorting out down there. 821 00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:40,440 We'd better go and get it all cleaned up. 822 00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:44,360 The really unpleasant bit is getting the excrement out of the inside, 823 00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:46,600 so that it's clean to work with afterwards. 824 00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:49,680 - So we've done the pleasant bit. - This is the easy bit. 825 00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:59,640 - Which bit are we after? - The smaller bit of the intestine. 826 00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:01,680 So that's going to be this section. 827 00:44:01,720 --> 00:44:05,520 It's all coiled up in itself. There's probably 30 yards of it in here. 828 00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:08,880 We've got to first of all just strip it away from everything else 829 00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:10,920 that the membranes attach it to. 830 00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:12,960 Like that. Just keep pulling it. 831 00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:16,280 If you rupture it, you'll get all the excrement from the inside 832 00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:17,960 plastered all over yourself. 833 00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:20,000 I can feel that with my fingers. 834 00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:22,880 Not to mention that you won't get a decent tune out of it. 835 00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:24,920 Let's break an end off for you. 836 00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:27,480 The next thing you've got to do - here's a bowl - 837 00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:29,520 just milk it down into there. 838 00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:32,320 Milk it? Oh, look at that! 839 00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:35,240 That is very, very, very unpleasant. 840 00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:37,320 Eugh. Look at that stuff. 841 00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:39,360 'Remember the fumigator? 842 00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:42,840 String makers had to endure the stench of burning sulphur too, 843 00:44:43,240 --> 00:44:46,320 while they fumigated racks of finished strings in a pit 844 00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:48,360 to produce a whiter colour.' 845 00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:51,600 Pop it on to there. And I'll just pour... Put that on the bench. 846 00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:54,640 I'll start pouring the water. You can have the grotty job. 847 00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:56,440 Thank you very much. 848 00:44:57,120 --> 00:44:58,920 Ooh, look at that move. 849 00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:02,800 I'm cold, I'm wet, I'm covered in gunk. 850 00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:05,440 It stinks. There's nowhere to wash. 851 00:45:05,480 --> 00:45:09,600 And presumably there'd be people doing this 12 hours a day. 852 00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:12,040 At the time they need to get new supplies in, 853 00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:14,880 string makers would be doing this pretty solidly. 854 00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:17,040 It's all still twisted, isn't it? 855 00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:20,400 - Keep an eye on that bowl. - Oh! It's falling out of the bowl. 856 00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:22,600 - (LAUGHS) It's gone everywhere. - Yep. 857 00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:24,400 - Oops. - Don't wave it at me. 858 00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:27,000 I'm not, it's still wriggling. (LAUGHS) 859 00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:30,320 There, that's the...first foot done, isn't it? 860 00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:33,160 - Mm-hm. - Only another 29ft to go. 861 00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:45,040 If it hadn't been for the man who was prepared to rip out a sheep's guts 862 00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:47,760 and turn them into ultramodern violin strings, 863 00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:50,400 the violin would have remained the humble viol 864 00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:54,320 and the works of the great composers like Bach and Beethoven 865 00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:56,480 would never have existed at all. 866 00:45:56,520 --> 00:46:00,560 Join me next week as I swill out the underbelly of the Georgian period 867 00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:03,840 to explore some more worst jobs in history. 868 00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:09,160 I'll be finding out about baring your soul for other people's art, 869 00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:12,000 the boy monkeys who helped beat Napoleon, 870 00:46:12,040 --> 00:46:14,000 and literally going through the mill 871 00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:16,240 to put shirts on the backs of the nation. 872 00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:18,240 ITFC Subtitles 873 00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:34,560