Archive lectures and events

00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:05.000
And it's over to you, Andy.

00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:11.000
That's lovely. Thank you very much, Fiona, and I hope that my screen is now visible to you.

00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:12.000
It is.

00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:17.000
Excellent. Right, the trip I'm going to tell you about today is A yachting trip, a sailing trip.

00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:25.000
And I thought this picture summed it up quite nicely because it did feel like we actually sailed halfway around the planet.

00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:30.000
But the boat that I did it on was really quite a special boat. She's called the techler.

00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:47.000
She's a Dutch boat and she was built as a herring drifter in 1,915 so she was built in the Netherlands and until the 1,970 she was a working vessel she she sailed around the really quite harsh region of the North Sea.

00:00:47.000 --> 00:01:00.000
Looking for those shoals of herring, to bring them ashore. That then became not commercially viable and so she was laid up for quite a while and in 2,006 she was bought by a family called the Schlok family.

00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:10.000
Now it took me the entire 3 months of sailing to realize how to pronounce schlock properly. But I, I was taught to do that.

00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:18.000
She's a remarkable boat. The Schlump family is, is a mother who runs the office, a brother and a sister and the brother and sister are the 2 skippers of the boat.

00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:28.000
And the sister who is called yet, she specializes in trans ocean crossings. So she actually skippered the first section of the trip for us.

00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:34.000
And then the brother who is called Heis, Heis is a specialist in high latitude sailing.

00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:43.000
And between the 2 of them, they have actually circumnavigated with this boat several times. So she is a quite amazing boat.

00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:50.000
Since I left her, she's actually gone through the Northwest Passage all the way up the Pacific through the Northwest Passage from west to east.

00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:59.000
I did look up this afternoon where she is and she's currently in Greenland and she's about to start heading south back to where I started.

00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:03.000
Which is Tenerife. And so I joined her in Tenerife and we did a passage right down to the Falklands.

00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:13.000
Now it was going to be a non-stop passage, but we were making quite quick time. So we ended up stopping in Brazil.

00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:19.000
The stop in Brazil was in quite a lot of doubt. For quite some time because the skipper said, She would only stop if Bolsonaro didn't win the election.

00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:28.000
So luckily he didn't. And so, we actually, we did stop in Brazil.

00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:35.000
And it's trans ocean sailing so for a lot of that time We just sail 24 HA day.

00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:42.000
You need to find things to do. So this was actually me. Relearning celestial navigation with the sexton.

00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:48.000
But after a couple of months we left middle of October and in December we got to the Falklands.

00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:58.000
And the Falklands if anybody ever gets a chance to visit is the most wonderful place. It's a very special place in terms of wildlife.

00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:07.000
But we were heading on to South Georgia and so What they had to do while we were in the Falklands is they had to do what are called biosecurity checks.

00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:17.000
Now the biosecurity check first of all involved beagles. Beagles as dogs apparently are incredibly good at sniffing out any vermin.

00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:23.000
Potentially on board because the one thing they wanted to make sure we didn't take to South Georgia was any rats.

00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:33.000
So, or any other vermin. So we had to have rat traps on board and we had to make sure before we got to South Georgia that there was nothing in those animal traps.

00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:40.000
So the biosecurity was very, very tight. So the passage across was about 750 miles.

00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:53.000
So it took us around a week and the weather was quite variable, but because you're heading south, it's getting colder and colder and as we approach South Georgia it started to actually get really quite foggy quite a lot.

00:03:53.000 --> 00:04:02.000
But the really significant thing when you're going from the Falklands to South Georgia is that you cross the Antarctic convergence.

00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:06.000
I'm going to tell you a little bit more about that in a second because I found it fascinating.

00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:16.000
I'd never heard of it before. But it's it's essentially a line of water where all of a sudden the water temperature drops by about 4 or 5 degrees.

00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:27.000
And I'll explain why that is in a second, but what that basically means is an incredible wealth of wildlife around that Antarctic convergence.

00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:31.000
I've listed some here and I'll show you some pictures of some of these in a minute.

00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:42.000
Comissance dolphins, outglass dolphins, storm petrels, giant petrels, albatrosses, but the wonderful bird called a fairy preon, which is an absolutely beautiful bird.

00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:46.000
But of course then seals, humpback whales and so on. And that is all thanks to this Antarctic convergence.

00:04:46.000 --> 00:05:03.000
This marine belt that essentially circles in circles the whole of Antarctica. And what it is is that the very cold water coming out of Antarctica and moving north hits the warmer waters.

00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:17.000
Heading south and that causes the Antarctic waters to sink down below the warmer waters. And this mixing and upwelling of water can creates this incredible marine life.

00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:24.000
And it's all elements of the food chain that are coming through at that time. So it's the fighter plankton.

00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:30.000
That do particularly well and are brought up towards the surface. The fighter plankton are eaten by the krill.

00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:31.000
Krill are eaten by. It's it's very like the woman who swallowed a fly.

00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:50.000
It's kind of all aspects of the food chain coming through there. It's fighter planks and krill, penguins, seals, whales, all of them enjoying it and that photo there which is not one of my photos is actually of a krill.

00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:57.000
So that brought us to South Georgia and the the incredible wildlife that there is around South Georgia was evident as soon as we arrived.

00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:07.000
And now all the places that you stop in South Georgia are on that north and east coast of the island on the map there.

00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:14.000
There is nowhere to stop on the West Coast. That's one of the things that Shackleton found out when he tried to stop there.

00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:24.000
Because the West Coast is hit by the very high swells that run round and round the earth in the southern ocean.

00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:30.000
And they hit that west coast. And it's a brutal place to be. But in the east?

00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:34.000
We got a bit of shelter. And so we headed into this beautiful anchorage. Called Rosetta Bay.

00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:43.000
And what you can see on the water there is actually the kelp fields. Now, that makes you think, oh, well, it's seaweed. It's kelp.

00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:49.000
It must be quite shallow. You know, it wasn't. This was about 15 meters deep.

00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:58.000
That kelp is growing up from the bottom up around 12 to 15 meters. It made life very interesting when we were trying to get the anchor up.

00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:08.000
Let's put it that way. But the wildlife that you get around South Georgia is fantastic. I mentioned the dolphins, but you get our glass dolllphins, commonsense dolphins, peals, dolphins.

00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:16.000
You get different whales, sigh whales, humpback whales, thin whales. And seals, you get elephant seals and fur seals.

00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:25.000
So this this is a pod of humpback whales which we saw just off the cliffs of South Georgia just as we were coming along that east coast.

00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:33.000
This is a close-up of One of those humpback whales. And you can see what you're seeing there, that kind of ridge.

00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:47.000
Is protecting the whale's blowhole. And one thing I didn't realise until I went is that actually whale experts actually tell the type of whale from a long distance purely by the nature of the blow.

00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:53.000
Some whales will will have a blow that dissipates and goes up and dissipates very quickly.

00:07:53.000 --> 00:08:00.000
Some whales will have a blow that goes up vertically. And virtue doesn't Yeah, keeps going very high.

00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:10.000
And so absolutely beautiful. These are all photos that were taken either by myself or by another member of the crew who had a slightly larger lens than I did.

00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:14.000
Stunningly beautiful animals, these humpbacks.

00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:20.000
And then penguins. Fur seals. Amazing wildlife there. And the birds are just absolutely fantastic.

00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:29.000
That the there's things like sheath builds, giant petrels. Storm petrol skewers.

00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:37.000
And then, of course, albatrosses, you get wandering albatrosses, black-browed albatross, sooty albatrosses and and quickly We learned to tell the difference between them.

00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:46.000
We were very lucky that we had on board the boat. A, a woman from Tasmania who happened to be a specialist in Southern Hemisphere seabirds.

00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:58.000
And so it became identifying and was actually quite straightforward. And actually on the island we saw some things like pippets and pintails and cape petrels and so on.

00:08:58.000 --> 00:08:59.000
So this is pictures of a few of the birds. This one is called a black browed albatross.

00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:13.000
This is one that looks like it's been watching makeup videos on Instagram. You can see it looks like it's got a dash of eyeliner across its eye at the top there.

00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:21.000
This is the black-browed albatross. This is the wandering albatross. This is another picture of a wandering albatross.

00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:27.000
Now you look at the pictures and you think, wait, yeah, it's a beautiful bird. But it looks a bit like a gull.

00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:32.000
But when you see them, they're not at all. The wingspan on that bird is over 2 metres.

00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:46.000
They are enormous birds and they spend most of their lives at sea. They only go ashore to breed, so they spend most of their lives at sea with this incredible gliding action that they just glide over the waves.

00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:50.000
They use the wind to glide and if there's less than about 7 knots of wind which is fairly rare in the Southern Ocean, and they just land because they use too much energy to fly.

00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:59.000
In less than 7 knots of wind.

00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:08.000
And then we saw Kate Petrels. Again, these are beautiful birds that look like they've sort of fallen in a black and white artist's palette.

00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:15.000
This one is a little pippet, which is the only bird on the whole of South Georgia that had any birds song.

00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:23.000
The others were all completely quiet. And this one is a pintail on South Georgia as well.

00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:25.000
So the second place we we stopped on South Georgia, was very imaginatively called Salisbury Plain.

00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:40.000
You, you can sort of tell a lot about the people that discovered these places in the first place because they named a lot of the the new places after places that they missed and clearly this one they felt was like Salisbury Plain.

00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:47.000
Though I haven't seen that many King Penguins on Salford Plain. And the beach where we landed.

00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:58.000
Was absolutely covered with King Penguins and fur seals. But also it is a fairly brutal environment and I apologize for the next picture.

00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:02.000
Those of a nervous disposition you may like to close your eyes for 10 s. But that is life on these islands.

00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:13.000
That is a king penguin that sadly died and that is a sudden giant petrol that is making the most of.

00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:20.000
The bird that was there. But it's also It's actually quite a difficult environment to go ashore.

00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:23.000
We looked at it and we thought, oh, that's easy, we can just land on the beach.

00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:30.000
But I'll just show you this little bit of video. This is taken with our skipper walking in front there.

00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:36.000
Wisely with a stick and another member of the crew wisely with a tripod. Just the big seals.

00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:38.000
Oh

00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:46.000
There are the males. And the males are protecting their harem. And they will do anything to protect their harem as you will see in a second.

00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:47.000
Hello? Smart! Oh

00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:57.000
The skipper then moved. And the next seal. Really comes for him. They'll come because they see us as a threat.

00:11:57.000 --> 00:11:58.000
There we go. That one had to be given a little warning to back off. And then you watch as we walk through it.

00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:04.000
Okay. Thank you. The

00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:11.000
We're trying to find a route through because we do obviously don't want to disturb them, but we also wanted to get back to our boat, which is moored offshore there.

00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:12.000
And so you see the little baby seals there. The males aren't that one nearly decides to eat my camera at that point.

00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:22.000
Just Oh Hmm

00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:23.000
Who's

00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:24.000
They don't they don't care about the children That's the females that are looking after the children.

00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:32.000
The males are purely protecting their harem. And we were told Don't make eye contact with them.

00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:40.000
That's quite tricky when there's a really very large seal hurtling towards you, not to make eye contact, but we were also told don't run.

00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:48.000
Those seals can outrun a human. They are incredibly fast. So we don't try to outrun them.

00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:59.000
But a lot of this wildlife has come back. Since the days of whaling because the history of South Georgia is really one about whaling.

00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:08.000
And the next place we visited was called Prince Olav's Bay. Prince Olav Spay, you'll notice is named after a Norwegian prince.

00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:19.000
But it's actually an inlet within Cook Bay. Cook Bay was named after Captain Cook who landed in a bay around there in January, the seventeenth 75.

00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:24.000
Now, he wasn't very interested in it, he thought it didn't look a terribly nice place, so he then sailed off again.

00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:32.000
But it was the Norwegians who came back when they realized the potential for whaling and sealing around there.

00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:41.000
And that really is the next phase of the history of South Georgia. 1,904, it was this Norwegian, Captain Larson.

00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:50.000
This is actually a statue that was in the museum at Griffith. And he established the first whaling station and it expanded incredibly quickly.

00:13:50.000 --> 00:14:03.000
By 1912 there were 7 whaling stations on south Georgia Now, the biggest problem was that it turned out that they were rather good at this.

00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:08.000
And the fact that they were rather good at it meant that they started running out of whales to catch.

00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:15.000
And so what they then did is they introduced this system of whaling which they call pelagic whaling.

00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:26.000
Now pelagic is open sea whaling. And from the 19 twenties because they were already had run the whale stocks down so far they had to start using factory ships.

00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:40.000
And these factory ships would go out to sea and would spend months on end. At sea and they would then have kind of they would be the mothership and they would send out the smaller whaling boats and the whales would be harpooned.

00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:48.000
Sorry, this is really delightful this, I apologize but The whales would be harpooned with an explosive grenade that would kill them instantly.

00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:54.000
What they would then do is they would then inflate the carcasses with air They would mark them with a flag.

00:14:54.000 --> 00:15:03.000
And then later they would return and tow them back to the factory ship because once they found a pod of whales They wanted to get take as many as they could.

00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:09.000
This was a brutal industry. It really was. And it, it meant that we just ran whale stocks down so far.

00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:19.000
They, they are starting to come back but we really ran them down so far that it's taken a lot to get them back.

00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:25.000
And it was actually off South Georgia that the largest whale ever taken was recorded and it was a blue whale.

00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:31.000
That was 33 and a half metres in length. Nice, quite unimaginable the scale of that.

00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:35.000
But we saw one blue whale, it was nothing like that size. And we did actually have to change course to miss it.

00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:58.000
We had to change course quite a lot because they are so big. Beautiful animals, absolutely beautiful and it's very sad that that we did that but between 1,904 and 1,965 About 75,250 whales were processed on South Georgia alone at the whaling stations and there were 7 different whaling stations there.

00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:09.000
In the Antarctic region, some 1.4 million animals were taken. I have phenomenally harsh industry.

00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:29.000
But they did adopt a ban, the International Whaling Commission adopted a ban on commercial whaling that started in 1,986 but i think you probably be aware that Japan, Norway and the USSR filed objections so that the moratorium wouldn't apply to them and there still is a lot of controversy about Norwegian and Japanese whaling.

00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:34.000
The Russians I'm guessing there's less of a concern.

00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:41.000
That means that the whaling stations have fallen into disrepair. And this is one of the whaling stations.

00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:51.000
And if you'd see we're just moored off the shore on the right hand side in the bay there and We weren't actually allowed to land at the whaling stations.

00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:57.000
We had to stay at least 200 meters away from them because the whaling stations are no longer safe.

00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:06.000
But To me, the beauty of them and the irony, perhaps of the whole thing, is that the whaling stations have now been taken over by elephant seals and fur seals.

00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:16.000
And so in the buildings that you can see on the left of that picture, the noise was just incredible because it was just seals calling.

00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:25.000
And it was just beautiful to see that the old whaling station has been taken back by by the right people.

00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:35.000
Now, South Georgia, and many of you may know, as a whaling station, but the history of South Georgia is also inextricably linked with this man.

00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:52.000
Shackleton. Now Shackleton You obviously will have heard of he was born in 1,874 in County Kildare and he served 4 years in the Merchant Navy but of course what we know him for is his Antarctic exploration and there were actually 3 key expeditions that he did.

00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:56.000
The Discovery Expedition from 1,901 Nimrod Expedition.

00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:02.000
And then the one which we really know him for is the Imperial Transantarctic Expedition.

00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:10.000
1914 to 1917. Now 1914 is obviously a key date. They set off when war was declared.

00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:21.000
They were given permission by the king at the time to nevertheless go because I, I guess everybody thought the wall would be fairly quick, but they were very conscious that they didn't want to set off if they were required.

00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:26.000
And a large number of the Shackle and Expedition came back and then served in the Navy.

00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:34.000
But I think what a lot of us forget because we focus on Shackleton so much is that this was two-pronged expedition.

00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:41.000
The idea was that Shackleton was going to cross. The whole of the Antarctic. Because, Amazon had got their first.

00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:48.000
Ammonton had found the South Pole. So Shackleton, who had always wanted to be the first to the South Pole, had to find a different record to break.

00:18:48.000 --> 00:19:04.000
So he thought He wanted to cross the whole of Antarctica. So the idea was that the Shackleton expedition would come in from the north from around the Falklands and South Georgia.

00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:12.000
And the aurora. Who left Hope art in December, 1914 would come in from the south.

00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:19.000
To Ross Island and the Ross Sea. Either side. The expeditions were going to set off. And place all these provisions was the idea.

00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:33.000
Depos they used they used to call them and they would lay all the depots so that as Shackleton came back across he could pick up the depots in these fixed locations.

00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:39.000
I think because we focus so much on Shackleton, we don't really pay that much attention to the Aurora.

00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:49.000
And the Aurora had a really difficult time of it as well. They started out and as it says there they lost 10 of their 18 dogs on the very first trip.

00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:58.000
They got stuck in the ice from 1914 through to February 1916 at which point eventually they escaped the ice and they limped back to New Zealand.

00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:09.000
But in fact, they left people behind there and Shackleton actually returned on the Aurora to McDonald's on the Aurora to McMurdo Sound to pick up the survivors in 1,917.

00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:18.000
And I think we often, as I say, forget that half of the expedition because The other half of the expedition was just such a remarkable story.

00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:25.000
This is a map of What happened to the endurance? The endurance left South Georgia in 1,914.

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:32.000
Now Shackleton had already been warned by the sealers that the ice was much further north.

00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:38.000
Than it had been in the past. But Shackleton nevertheless wanted to try to get in through what's called the Weddell Sea.

00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:48.000
You can see it on the right-hand side there. He wanted to get through the Weddell C and through the pack ice there to be able to land as close as possible to the pole.

00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:59.000
And so the original voyage of the endurance is the red line through there and you can see where they've had to weave around to try to get through through the ice there.

00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:07.000
But of course, as we know, pack ice was further north and in 1,915 in February, 1915 as winter starting to set in.

00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:14.000
They got stuck fast in the ice at 76 degrees south. And there's then nothing they can do about it.

00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:21.000
So they drifted through the Weddell C for 8 months. In fact, that was quite a good 8 months for them.

00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:39.000
They had the provisions on board. They knew they were going to get start. They they camped out on the ice if when you read the story there's lots of football matches took place on the ice there's there's things they kept training the dogs ready for because they assumed they were still going to be able to make this this journey.

00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:48.000
But then, of course, They had to abandon ship. October, the 1915 the ice started compressing the endurance.

00:21:48.000 --> 00:22:00.000
And she started healing over to one side and Shackleton made the decision to abandon ship. And they salvaged as much as they could, but what in particular they took was 3 lifeboats.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:06.000
Now, the famous one of those is called the James Cared, but the other 2 were very important to the whole story as well.

00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:17.000
The Dudley Docker and the Stankham Stankom wills. Because it was those 3 lifeboats that carried the crew to safety.

00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:25.000
You can see the remarkable pictures of what they tried to do to get the boat out of the ice. And the ones in front of the boat there, you can see great long ice saws.

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:32.000
And they would actually stand and try and soar through the ice. You can see 2 lines where they've soared through in front of the boat there.

00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:43.000
They would then try and break the ice up so the ship could get through because if they saw called an open lead in front, they would try and get to that lead and get themselves out.

00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:49.000
But they failed as we know. And so they had to abandon ship and initially they just stayed on the ice.

00:22:49.000 --> 00:23:01.000
They called it patience camp for fairly obvious reasons they needed a lot of patience. And that was until 1916 and the plan then was to hit for an island called Deception Island, which I'll tell you about shortly.

00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:09.000
But the weather in that part of the world is brutal. And so they had to change their plans and instead they headed for Elephant Island.

00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:14.000
You can see at the end of the sort of brown line in the middle there, there's Elephant Island.

00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:21.000
And they landed on Elephant Island after 6 days at sea. Now what those 6 days must have been like.

00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:28.000
Is just unimaginable. 6 days in what is the most brutal piece of water on the planet.

00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:37.000
There is nothing that stops the sea in the southern hemisphere. The sea runs round and round underneath Latin America and just keeps going.

00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:47.000
Nothing to stop it. And so it is a very brutal. Part of the sea but There was nobody on Elephant Island.

00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:56.000
And so Shackleton made the decision. To leave most of the crew on Elephant Island and to take the James Cared.

00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:03.000
To try to find rescue. And so they made the decision that they would set off back to South Georgia.

00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:16.000
And they set off April, the nineteenth 16 they rebuilt the James Cared quite a lot they actually they took pieces off the other lifeboats to raise what's called raise the freeboard, which did make the boat higher.

00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:22.000
To try to make it safer because they knew they were going to face. And, but they made it.

00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:31.000
Absolutely remarkable crossing and I would recommend Shackleton's book. It's it's possibly one of the most understated.

00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:38.000
Pieces of of writing. But it does at least help you realize what it must have been like for them.

00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:44.000
But they arrived at a place called King Harkin Bay and this is the group they left behind on Elephant Island.

00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:50.000
Well bearded. But I also love the fact that one of them still got a pipe that a couple have got their pipes.

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:56.000
I don't think they had anything to smoke in the pipes by that stage.

00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:02.000
But the problem for Shackleton, he landed on South Georgia, But I said previously about the west coast of South Georgia.

00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:14.000
Being absolutely, well, you couldn't really land there very safely. And once you got there, there's nobody there because all the whaling stations were on the East Coast.

00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:27.000
Unfortunately, because it was so difficult Once they got to King Harkin Bay They had to leave the boat because the boat had got damaged as they landed in Harken Bay and so they established a camp that was called Peggy Camp.

00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:38.000
Now I'm sure many of you can imagine why the reason it's called Peggy Camp is because they turned the boat upside down so that those remaining could live underneath the boat.

00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:48.000
And that's why they called it Peggy Kemp. And in May, the 1916 in the middle of winter Shackleton, Crean and Wardley set off for Strong Ness on the other side of South Georgia.

00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:57.000
36 h trek. Nobody had ever done this before. It was quite

00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:10.000
Difficult trick would be an understatement. But the quote from Shackleton? That that was the first sound that they heard created by an outside human agency.

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:19.000
And that was the sound of the whalers knocking off from the whaling station. And once they heard that, they realized that they had made it back.

00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:28.000
And sure enough they got back to Strom Ness which was one of the whaling stations and eventually were rescued.

00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:37.000
It's a really remarkable trip, but I love this quote about it from Raymond Priestly, but I love this quote about it from Raymond Priestly, where he says, Scott for scientific method.

00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:43.000
Amundsen, the Norwegian who got to the South Pole first, Amundsen for speed and efficiency.

00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:49.000
But when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.

00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:56.000
And I think that sums up beautifully. The leadership that Shackleton actually showed throughout this trip.

00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:02.000
You know, this tiny boat, this is a replica of the James Cared and you can see the extra planks that they added to it.

00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:21.000
The Sailing that across the Southern Ocean with 3 of them on I sorry 6 of them on board it's it's possibly i think one of the most remarkable tales of human survival that there is The original at the James Cared by the way if anybody is interested can be seen at Dulwich College.

00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:30.000
And because Shackleton was at Dalidge College. And in fact, I'm South Georgia, we actually did a short section of what's called the Shackleton Walk.

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:40.000
We we landed on this beach here and you can see the bay there where we landed and we walked up over this lake which is called Crean Lake.

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:46.000
Now I mentioned Tom Crean earlier. I don't know if anybody's heard of Tom Crean, but on.

00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:52.000
CREAN I think. It's the most unsung hero. Of Antarctic exploration.

00:27:52.000 --> 00:28:03.000
Hey, he was born in 1877 in Ireland. He was recruited to the Discovery Expedition when another seaman had actually had to dessert after striking a petty officer.

00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:13.000
So it was quite by chance that cream came into this, but. Kreen, when the discovery was locked in the ice, he stayed aboard for 2 years.

00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:18.000
He was recruited by Scott for the Teranova expedition to go to the South Pole.

00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:25.000
In fact the story and the book about Creen is actually called the unsung hero that's why I've titled it that.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:32.000
But it's it's such a remarkable read because he saved the lives of Evans and Lashley.

00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:38.000
By doing a solo trek through a blizzard to actually get back to the base.

00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:47.000
They were laying depots for Scott and he actually managed to get back to the base to rescue Evans and Lashley who were on on the point of death more or less.

00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:55.000
Because of the conditions. He was awarded the Polar Medal and You know, he's a real character.

00:28:55.000 --> 00:29:13.000
And he was really one of the central characters of the Transantarctic expedition. Shackleton knew him well anyway from the Discovery Expedition, so he recruited him and he chose Kreen as one of the 6 men to do that trip on the James Cared across to South Georgia because he knew how reliable he was.

00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:19.000
He then chose Creen as one of the 3 men on the Shackleton Walk along with Warsley.

00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:25.000
Now Warsley was the captain of the endurance, so he was doing the navigation across South Georgia.

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:41.000
The other 3 that arrived on South Georgia were not judged fit enough to get across South Georgia. And a lovely quote from Shackleton because apparently on the entire trip of the James Cared, CREAN would just tunelessly sing while he was steering the boat.

00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:48.000
And the quote is he always sang when he was steering. Nobody ever discovered what the song was, but somehow it was cheerful.

00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:59.000
And I think that kind of sums up cream. And the reason that the lake I showed you previously is called Cream Lake is because Tom Creen actually discovered it.

00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:04.000
But he discovered it in a way that he perhaps didn't want to because he fell through the ice straight into it.

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:12.000
And so it's been known as Cream Lake ever since. And then this was the end of the Shackleton trek down into Gritthicken.

00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:21.000
And Gritvicon is is really the center of the whaling industry. Sorry, down into Strong Nest.

00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:31.000
We then moved on to the next place, Griffith and the center of South Georgia really, and it has the government offices, the post office, the museum and the whaling station.

00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:49.000
And and it's also got all the abandoned whaling boats which I'll show you pictures of in a second but It's probably most significant for having the grave of Shackleton because Shackleton undertook another expedition after the trans-entarctic expedition that he actually died on South Georgia.

00:30:49.000 --> 00:31:00.000
He was being shipped back to Uruguay, but when his wife heard that he died, she said, no, he'd like to be buried on South Georgia because that he regarded as his home.

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:03.000
So this is GRIPVIK and this is the museum. This, this is the old whaling boats that are now just abandoned on the beach there.

00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:13.000
You can see us more just in the background. There just to the left.

00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:22.000
And this is the grave of Shackleton. I mean what a remarkable location. With a lovely quote on the back of it from Robert Browning.

00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:30.000
I hold that a man should strive to the uttermost for his life's set prize. Beautiful quote.

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:38.000
So then we left South Georgia. Spotted some humpback whales on the way and we headed to these places called the South Orkney Islands.

00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:45.000
Now this was about 650 miles. It was getting quite cold. We had a lot of folk and we had to keep fog watches all the time.

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:51.000
It was getting quite windy too. Those of you that know about the Beaufort scale. I've said it's up to a force 8.

00:31:51.000 --> 00:32:04.000
Now force 8 is a gale. And we saw our first icebergs. And then we stopped on the way there at this these islands called, I'm sorry, this island called Sydney Island and that's where we spent Christmas Day in Boxing Day.

00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:10.000
And as you can see, it's getting a little bit colder. We needed to wrap up a bit.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:16.000
But what is particularly significant about that I think is that I said they're called the South Orkney Islands.

00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:23.000
You look in the background of this picture. If anybody's ever been to the Orkneys, did you see any of those icebergs?

00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:30.000
They answer is no. But the reason they called them the South Orkney Islands is because they're on exactly the same latitude south.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:40.000
As our Orkney Islands are north. And I think that tells you everything we need to know about the Gulf Stream and the extent to which the Gulf Stream warms our climate.

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:48.000
This is the same latitude south. As our Orkney Islands and yet look at the landscape, it is totally different.

00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:57.000
So we stopped at this place called Signe Island. And this is actually a British Antarctic survey base where they're doing a lot of research and they're researching particularly the mosses.

00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:03.000
In the background you can just about see the greens in the background there. And they've protected the mosses with a fence.

00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:12.000
I don't know if you can see a fence. The fence is not to keep people out to keep seals out because they don't want the mosses destroyed by by the seals.

00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:19.000
And that was where we had our Christmas lunch. Falklands roast lamb and somehow brussel sprouts.

00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:24.000
I have no idea where they came from, but. I think they came out of the freezer.

00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:33.000
And the wildlife, again, stunning. These are actually Adelaide penguins, elephant seals.

00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:39.000
And the elephant seals were much nicer. Than the first seals because they don't chase you.

00:33:39.000 --> 00:33:57.000
As you walk, this is why we manage to get some good pictures of them. As you walk past them, they just sort of open their eyes, these enormous eyes, because they can dive so deep they have to have very big eyes to actually catch enough light to see where they're going and they just open these enormous eyes they look at you and they make a sort of farting noise through their nose and then they shut their eyes again

00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:06.000
and go to sleep because while we were there They're malting. They're losing their coat ready for the summer.

00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:15.000
Season when they'll go back and fish. And the young will be practicing, you know, how to basically fight.

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:21.000
And these seals can be up to 5,000 kg up to 5 tons in weight. That's why they're called elephant seals.

00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:25.000
They are vast.

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:34.000
So from South Orkney Island we went to the South Shetland Islands which was about another 550 miles and that was where we went past Elephant Island.

00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:45.000
And we have to have a constant ice watch at this point. One of us would be stood in the front of the boat all the time looking for little growlers because our radar would pick up the bigger bits of ice.

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:58.000
But the little bit of ice are what can do you the damage and they're called growlers. And we anchored in the South Shetland Islands off off a naval, the Chilean naval place called Arturo Prat naval base.

00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:10.000
We actually went ashore. And quite bizarrely were sat in their main sort of rest area watching a film with Jennifer Aniston which somehow seemed incredibly out of place given where we were.

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:15.000
But beautiful area and this gives you a feel for what it's like. You, I, you can, hopefully you can hear a little bit.

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:24.000
The wind in the background. This was sailing down. Towards there. This was quite a sheltered bit of water.

00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:34.000
But you can see the iceberg. A lot of these icebergs. Are aground and so What's happened is they've run aground.

00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:43.000
And they're just slowly melting because although the water is quite deep enough for us it's not deep enough for the icebergs, 7 eights of which is below the water.

00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:51.000
So an amazing bit of water. And then we anchored our just off this naval base again, watched by penguins.

00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:59.000
And also watched by these southern giant petrels. Now, we spotted these sudden giant petrels fighting in the water.

00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:08.000
And we wondered what they were fighting about. And then we suddenly realized Basically, they were fighting over Gen 2 Penguins.

00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:14.000
The, the chicks, they will go and try to take the chicks from. From their nests.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:20.000
Well, anyway, move on quickly. So then we moved on to Deception Island. Now I mentioned Deception Island earlier.

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:28.000
Because it was where Shackleton was intending initially to head for. Andception Island is quite amazing.

00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:35.000
I don't know if you know, but Antarctica is actually one of the most volcanic regions on the planet.

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:42.000
And there are actually 2 active volcanoes in Antarctica. One is south of New Zealand's called Mount Erebus.

00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:49.000
And the other is Deception Island. And in fact, scientists from Edinburgh University have discovered around 100 volcanoes around Antarctica.

00:36:49.000 --> 00:37:03.000
They're all below the ice and most of them are dormant. But it's all part of this system called the West Antarctic Rift System and as I say possibly the largest volcanic region on Earth.

00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:10.000
But the weird thing about deception island is that Although it's a live volcano. We can sail straight into it.

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:18.000
Because one side of the caldera which is the the crater one side of the crater has collapsed and the sea has flooded in.

00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:28.000
And we actually managed to sail right into this live volcano crater. And we actually anchored in an old whaling station, which you can see there.

00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:53.000
But this is the crater of the volcano. We would see steam coming up off the black sand on the beach there every so often and it was only 1976 I think was actually the last volcanic activity there which was quite serious And it really as you wander around it tells you all you need to about how brutal whaling was in these locations every whaling station would have a

00:37:53.000 --> 00:38:00.000
cemetery buy and these these are young people who had gone to make their fortunes.

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:13.000
The debris is gradually collapsing because of the volcanic activity so you can see these are old whale tanks that are just collapsing in gradually.

00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:22.000
So from there we headed down to the Antarctic Peninsula. So we've been South Orkney Islands, the South Shetland Islands, and then down to the Antarctic Peninsula.

00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:36.000
And And there. Well, it's just absolutely stunning. We went to various places. There's Deception Island at the top there and the further south we got is the place that's marked there called Port Lochroy.

00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:43.000
Port Lochroy I'll tell you a little bit more about in a couple of minutes but that's as far south as most of the boats go.

00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:50.000
Further south than that. You need specialist ice breaking equipment to get further south.

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:58.000
And we went into various harbors. This was one called Murray Harbor. Now, Murray Harbor had a very tight entrance.

00:38:58.000 --> 00:39:07.000
This is actually an entrance through between the icebergs. And this is how close we had to go to the icebergs to actually get in.

00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:15.000
The one on the other side was even closer still. And once we got in We were completely hemmed in.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.000
Absolutely beautiful location.

00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:34.000
And this is our anchorage there. You can see very sheltered. The only problem is the glaciers keep collapsing during the night and so when we woke up in the morning it was like being moored in a bit of a slush puppy with broken ice all around us.

00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:44.000
And this is seals, seals everywhere. This one's posing for his Instagram moment. He clearly wondering what on earth these people are doing.

00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:52.000
And here's the, the collapsing. Icebergs, of collapsing glaciers so that we ended up moored in this kind of slush.

00:39:52.000 --> 00:40:06.000
On the next place we went to from there. Was, called Charlotte Bay and I'll show you a picture of Charlotte Bay in a minute but the reason it's called Charlotte Bay is after this man, I don't know if anybody's heard of the gurlash.

00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:20.000
In Antarctica in terms, de Gaolash is one of the most significant people because the de Gaillash expedition was the very first expedition to win in the Antarctic region to get stuck in the ice in the Antarctic region.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:26.000
And it was led by this Belgian, Adrian, de Gailash, aboard boat called the Belgian.

00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:31.000
Now, one of the crew was a chap called Frederick Cook. Frederick Cook was an American doctor.

00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:37.000
He later claimed to have got to the North Pole in 1,909. That's never actually been verified.

00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:48.000
It is possible he did, but it's never been verified. But the other member of the crew who I think is possibly the most significant you will definitely have heard of is Roald Amundsen.

00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:57.000
Now, Amundsen was obviously the first person to the South Pole. But it was with De Gerlash that he actually learnt a lot of his trade.

00:40:57.000 --> 00:41:09.000
And this was his first Antarctic expedition. And it was after this he went back and he embedded himself with the Inuit in Greenland and places to learn more about travelling through ice.

00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:15.000
But the Belgica itself was very poorly equipped. They didn't have enough food. They didn't have enough winter clothing.

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:22.000
And the biggest problem they then had was scurvy.

00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:30.000
And in fact, Amundsen and Cook had to take over command of the ship because De Gerlash became too ill to command the ship.

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:40.000
And the particular reason was that De Gerlash and half the crew Refused to eat seal and penguin meat.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:47.000
Now, it turns out that eating seal and penguin meat has enough vitamin C to ward off scurvy.

00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:53.000
And so the half of the crew who were prepared to eat this food didn't get scurvy.

00:41:53.000 --> 00:42:00.000
The other half which included the skipper did get scurvy. So it was a remarkable expedition.

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:03.000
There's a lovely book I think they called Madness at the end of the earth or something like that about this expedition.

00:42:03.000 --> 00:42:12.000
I'm ill-fated, but nevertheless fairly remarkable. And so there is the Belgica trapped in the ice.

00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:22.000
And so that was our next stop with this this area called Charlotte Bay. And it's actually named after fiance of the first officer of the De Gerlash Expedition.

00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:34.000
Stunningly beautiful. But the downside our skipper said to us that he has never got far enough in to take a photo like this one before.

00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:44.000
And that is because the ice conditions was so much easier. Than when he's ever been there before and he's been going down there for I think nearly 15 years.

00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:50.000
He said the ice conditions were so much easier that he could get right into the bay and he's never done that before.

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:57.000
Which is kind of worrying for all of us really. And then we stop to this place called portal point.

00:42:57.000 --> 00:43:18.000
But all the time we've got the wildlife that's all around us there's whales everywhere there's orcas this humpbacks there's blue whales we had these seals weddle seals crabby to seals leopard seals this one the picture is a weddle seal The the leopard seals we saw fairly rarely the leopard seals will take penguins.

00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:24.000
I mean, they're kind of like orcas that they're, they're quite vicious and will take penguins.

00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:43.000
These are the orcas that we saw. And we would regularly see families of walkers like they're actually just playing these ones in fact and the the 2 on the left are females with much smaller fins The male fin is nearly twice the size of the female's fin.

00:43:43.000 --> 00:43:55.000
I'm not if anybody actually saw the latest, sort of David Attenborough one with the killer whales up around the Shetlands and further north and you notice that the orcas, the killer whales there, are very, very white.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:44:05.000
Whereas the ones in Antarctica are this kind of browny yellow patches. And the reason is apparently because they absorb the diatoms in the water.

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:08.000
And so they end up with a very different coloring.

00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:12.000
Yeah, these are the humpback whales. We, we would just stop every time there was a humpback whale.

00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:21.000
The skipper would just stop the engine as soon as we heard the engine stop if we were motoring, we would all rush on deck.

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:24.000
And we had one on time where a humpback over the course of 10 min just slowly swam under the boat.

00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:29.000
Whether it was assessing us as a potential mate, I don't know because the boat is painted black as well.

00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:38.000
I hope it wasn't, but we all just stood. With our just jaws dropping really.

00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:59.000
Remarkable animals. The seals I mentioned, but of course penguins everywhere. So you've got g 2 penguins, adelee penguins, chin strap penguins and the birds I've mentioned some of these before sheath bills petrels antarctic turns so this is a sheath bill and you see them wandering around the beaches frequently These are gen 2

00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:08.000
penguins. And and everywhere there's any rock you'll see the gen 2 penguins these are adterly penguins.

00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:16.000
Turns now you can see the turns of fishing for krill and that turn has actually got krill in its mouth.

00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:23.000
We then headed for a place called Enterprise Island. Which was the most unusual place that we'd ever moored.

00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:33.000
Because we moored alongside this whaling ship. This whaling ship was called the Govanoran and it basically had half sunk in this bay.

00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:43.000
And we ended up just tied up alongside it. Which was a fantastic place to be. And the furthest south we made was then ported Lockroy.

00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:49.000
And Port Lochroy, if you've ever come across the Antarctic Heritage Trust they have a base down at Port Lockery.

00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:54.000
They preserve the old, the old huts from Antarctic expeditions and things. And it's the most southern most post office in the world.

00:45:54.000 --> 00:46:07.000
So I did actually send some postcards home from there. The only slightly weird thing about that was when I went to pay for them and brought out cash and they said, no, we only take contactless.

00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:16.000
Which was slightly bizarre given the location. But a fantastic location. And so this this is us anchored off there.

00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:24.000
And that was the furthest south we made. From there we headed back north to, kind of understated named place Paradise Harbor.

00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:40.000
But it really was. Icebergs you just think an iceberg is going to be white but they're blue they're black they're they're all sorts of colors you can see the blue under the water that's there And I mentioned that they're black.

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:48.000
And the black is where the iceberg from the glacier has been travelling over the moraine and it's picked up all the soil on the moraine.

00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:59.000
And then it breaks off into the sea. And eventually melts under the water and capsizes. And when it capsizes, you get to see all the black that's underneath it.

00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:06.000
But these are the kind of icebergs we saw there. Absolutely fantastic. And every little iceboat got a penguin on it.

00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:18.000
But unfortunately the ice is tailing off in Antarctica. The sea ice usually peaks at about 18 million square kilometers, but in 2,022 it dropped by nearly 2 million square kilometers. It's an all-time low.

00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:29.000
And I mentioned before, it's quite frightening really. In 2,023 the ice just kept melting and it reached a new low of 1.7 5 square kilometers.

00:47:29.000 --> 00:47:45.000
So the ice is melting fast and one of the impacts of that has been that thousands of emperor penguin chicks died last season because they need to stay on the ice until they're mature enough to go fishing.

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:55.000
If the ice breaks up while the chicks are on it, They simply die. And I think that graph tells you all you need to know about how fast the ice is vanishing in Antarctica.

00:47:55.000 --> 00:48:14.000
But we left there. We left, we had to more at this chilly and naval base for a short while and then we left and of course we saw another couple of Gen 2 penguin Colonies, gentry penguins always have pink paths.

00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:20.000
Showing where their colonies are and the reason the paths are pink is because Gen 2 Penguins eat krill.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:25.000
And it means that Gentoo Penguin Pooh is pink.

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:31.000
And from there we crossed what's called the Drake Passage. Now the Drake Passage is renowned as one of the most brutal bits of water in the world.

00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:34.000
It's crossing to Cape Horn, essentially. And they call it paying the Drake tax.

00:48:34.000 --> 00:48:43.000
And our tax wasn't too bad, it wasn't lovely, but it wasn't too bad.

00:48:43.000 --> 00:48:55.000
But it took us about 4, 5 days to get across Pass Cape Horn. From there we headed into the Beagle channel the Beagle channel you'll have heard of named after the Beagle channel between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:01.000
And it's 130 miles long separating Chile and Argentina. And there's 2 main settlements there.

00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:05.000
O'shweyer and Puerto Williams and they're the sudden most settlements in the world really.

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:13.000
We had to go into Puerto Williams. The reason being that Puerto Williams is in Chile.

00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:22.000
Oh Schweir is in Argentina. Now because we'd been to the Falklands, we would have been fined €16,000 if we'd gone into Argentina.

00:49:22.000 --> 00:49:29.000
So we had to go into Puerto Williams. And this is the Beagle Channel between Chile and Argentina.

00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:36.000
Amazing Discovery by Fitzroy on board the Beagle. And we finished in this place Pueta Williams.

00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:43.000
And this was a beautiful anchorage that we ended up at. It had been quite an exhausting trip really.

00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:50.000
So I'm just catching up on a bit of sleep towards the end there. And this was where we finished was Puerto Williams.

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:58.000
It's possibly the nicest commute to an airport I've ever done. The building you're looking at in the center there is the the control tower for the airport.

00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:04.000
So we rode ashore by dinghy, we walked across to the terminal. And we took off.

00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:15.000
Wonderful. Thank you very much for that. I hope you found it interesting and enjoyed it. But, it's wonderful to be able to tell the story of, of the trip that, that I did.

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.000
Thank you very much Andy. Well, I think we've had a little treat there. I'm going to go straight to some questions.

00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:38.000
Andy. And now let me just start from the top. No, David was very interested to know you were talking right at the start of the trip before heading to, South Georgia, you needed to set traps for rats.

00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:41.000
Did you actually catch any?

00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:42.000
Okay. Is that right?

00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:51.000
No, we wouldn't have been allowed on South Georgia if we caught any it interestingly we had to be audited on South Georgia and the government officials actually came aboard to check all the rat traps.

00:50:51.000 --> 00:51:03.000
And they they came aboard to completely check us as well. And and it was actually even to the extent that the Velcro on our waterproofs we had to clean the Velcro.

00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:07.000
Because what can happen apparently with Velcro on the water is as you walk you brush past, you know, bushes or whatever and you can pick up seeds on the Velcro.

00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:31.000
And one of the biggest problems they had on South Georgia was the whalers brought in all these alien seeds.

00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:32.000
Hmm.

00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:37.000
And because the whalers were Norwegian, they also brought in reindeer. They're still trying to get rid of all the dandelions on South Georgia because they take over from the native fauna, flora and they have got rid of all the reindeer they have got rid of all the rats and the mice.

00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:46.000
But they're very, very protective of it. They inspected our boots even if there was a single stone in the soul of your boot you wouldn't have been allowed ashore.

00:51:46.000 --> 00:51:52.000
Wow. Okay, I hope that answers your question, David. And this is a question from Sue.

00:51:52.000 --> 00:52:00.000
Obviously, talked a bit there about quailing, which was obviously a big industry in that part of the world.

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:05.000
What was the whale oil actually used for? And was the meat used as well?

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:14.000
They, they, they actually, they were so successful at it that in fact They had to change the rules.

00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:28.000
The South Georgia was governed out of the Falklands because it's a I've forgotten the exact expression but it's it's essentially they're all people from the Falklands and they had to change the rules to make sure that the wayers actually used the entire carcass.

00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:42.000
Because they were taking so many carcasses and they were devastating the whale stocks that they changed the rules in I think about 1919 or 1920 to make sure that the entire carcass was used.

00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:51.000
And so I think the oil was used for lighting, wasn't it, mainly? Somebody else may know better now, but I think mainly it was used for lighting and heating.

00:52:51.000 --> 00:52:55.000
The rest of the carcass, yes, they used the meat, but most of it was processed down for the the blubber was processed down to get the oil and so on.

00:52:55.000 --> 00:53:10.000
So it wasn't actually a vast amount of meat left. They would basically pull the whales up onto these flat areas called cleansing tables where they just attacked them with knife.

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:11.000
Sorry, it's a bit close to supper to be talking about all of this. Apologies.

00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:14.000
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:18.000
Somebody has just put whale or was used for lighting there. I thought it was, Thank you, sir.

00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:26.000
Yeah. Okay, so another question from Francesca. And how many women were on the trip?

00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:34.000
So the first part of the trip from Tenerife to the Falklands, it was 5 women and 2 men.

00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:41.000
And I think if you added together the age of most of them, it probably came to about my age.

00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:47.000
So I was by far and away the oldest on that part of the trip. They were a lovely group.

00:53:47.000 --> 00:53:59.000
The second part of the trip when we got to the Falklands was a change of crew. I stayed on for the next part of the trip and at that point it was I think out of 9 of us it was.

00:53:59.000 --> 00:54:13.000
3 women and 6 men. So it did change slightly at that point. But the skipper who'd skippered us for the first part of the trip, the sister of the family who owned the boat, she stayed on board because she'd never been to Antarctica.

00:54:13.000 --> 00:54:14.000
So she'd crossed every ocean in the world, but she'd never been to Antarctica.

00:54:14.000 --> 00:54:23.000
So she stayed on board with her brother as co-skipper. And so that that was great to still have her on board.

00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:43.000
I did notice somebody said was it for personal reasons or was it actually anything scientific? I'm sorry, it was nothing scientific, it was pure indulgence, but It I think the awareness that it gives you of the the importance of this wildlife and everything else to us was well worth it to me.

00:54:43.000 --> 00:54:45.000
Okay, that was a question I was gonna ask you and you've answered it for me. Fabulous.

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:47.000
Oh, sorry.

00:54:47.000 --> 00:54:53.000
And no, that's great. And now, a question from Barbara, let me just find X.

00:54:53.000 --> 00:55:01.000
I've got so many fabulous comments here. And No. I'm assuming that seasickness must have been a factor.

00:55:01.000 --> 00:55:08.000
This is from Barbara. Heavy seas, obviously. How did you manage that sort of, you know, across the crew?

00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:17.000
I'm I'm very lucky that for some reason I don't suffer from safety weakness and that that really is lucky.

00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:23.000
Interestingly, apart from the skippers who, you know, sail around the world so many times, all the professional crew because as well as the skipper, we would have 3, I'm sorry, skipper.

00:55:23.000 --> 00:55:34.000
A first mate and 2 deck hands. And the first mate and deck hands, all did actually suffer from seasickness.

00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:55.000
And, but they found after about 3 days. They were then absolutely fine. We did have one crew member on the trip, but from Tenerife down to the Falklands who again she suffered very very badly a Canadian woman and she suffered very very badly to the extent that she demanded that she was helicopter off.

00:55:55.000 --> 00:56:20.000
From the middle of the South Atlantic, which wasn't going to happen. But She actually we also had on board a a trainee GP from the Netherlands and she helped her out and she supported her and actually after a couple of days She was fine again and eating fully and everything so you can get used to it I think it's it's not easy and some people don't ever get used to it but most

00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:22.000
of the crew did get used to it.

00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:29.000
Hmm. Excellent. Okay, we'll hope that answers your question, Barbara. Right, we've got a couple more questions and then I think we'll need to start wrapping up folks because we're just about to hit 60'clock.

00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:39.000
And this is a question from Bridget. Where are you actually a sort of integral part of the crew on the ship?

00:56:39.000 --> 00:56:42.000
Or more of a kind of spectator.

00:56:42.000 --> 00:56:47.000
No, they, it's one of the reasons I wanted to go on this boat is because you are, although I was paying for it, is because you are, although I was paying for it, you are an integral part of the crew, you are an integral part of the crew.

00:56:47.000 --> 00:56:54.000
You are an integral part of the crew. She's rigged, apart from using modern ropes and things, she is rigged exactly as she was when she was a herring drifter.

00:56:54.000 --> 00:57:06.000
And that means there are no winches. There, there's nothing mechanical to help us. Apart from one winch to help get the anchor up and down.

00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:21.000
And that meant that we all had to be involved. If there was a sale change, you would always do it at the change of watch because for the way down there were 7 of us and it needed all 7 of us to get a sale down and back up again.

00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:36.000
The crew could perhaps have done it with 4 of them. It would probably have taken them 3 or 4 times as long because there are so many ropes on board and so many different things need to be done for sale changes that every single one of us got involved all the time and that to me that was the appeal of it.

00:57:36.000 --> 00:57:49.000
Yeah, yeah. And, this finally from Dorothy. Can you describe what it's like when you're in the worst part of the sea in the weather?

00:57:49.000 --> 00:57:55.000
Can you give us a bit of an idea of kind of what it was like?

00:57:55.000 --> 00:57:56.000
Yeah.

00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:01.000
It's frightening. It's I think one of the things I've mentioned that we had to stand up the front on Ice Watch.

00:58:01.000 --> 00:58:06.000
And there was one bit where it was blowing a gale and I was stood up the front on Icewatch.

00:58:06.000 --> 00:58:14.000
And the seas were so big that the boat would sort of lift up. And then we just head straight down.

00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:23.000
So you were just looking at the the bottom of The trough of the wave. And you're just thinking, I really hope we're going to come back up again.

00:58:23.000 --> 00:58:37.000
Then at that point I turned round and the the skipper who brought us all the way down to the Falklands was knitting.

00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:38.000
We'll be okay.

00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:50.000
And I thought, okay, they're quite happy. I think, you know, I've got faith in them and they were just so relaxed they have done they've done it all before they knew the limitations of their boat they knew what it could do and although it was frightening for us initially they were so good at giving us confidence in their ability.

00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:54.000
So that was great.

00:58:54.000 --> 00:59:03.000
Well, thank you so much, Andy. What a fabulous and amazing trip and what great images and photos you've shared with us today.

00:59:03.000 --> 00:59:13.000
And I'm sure everybody out there has really enjoyed hearing about the adventure that you had and we've got lots of lovely comments in the chat for you which I'll pass on to you later.

00:59:13.000 --> 00:59:18.000
And just put everybody out there if anyone is interested. Andy talked about the RSS discovery, that, took Scott and I'm,son down to the Antarctic.

00:59:18.000 --> 00:59:36.000
That's actually birthed in Dundee in Scotland. So if anyone is in Scotland at any point and you want to go and have a little look, just head to Dundee on the East Coast and you'll be able to see it there.

00:59:36.000 --> 00:59:47.000
Okay so thank you again Andy.

00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:12.000
Thank you very much, Fiona. I'm just going to share my screen so that we can get started and then I'll introduce the topic.

00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:25.000
Thank you. I suppose the genesis of all of this is double really. In 2,016 when there was some talk about the anniversary of the year without a summer I listened to Melvin Brags in our time and was more and more fascinated by it.

00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:38.000
At the time I was doing a bit of research into the romantics and particularly into Frankenstein and you know there is some relevance there as you will see.

00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:43.000
And then this year when Fiona asked me for another subject, I was thinking about at that time particularly which I think was very early in September.

00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:54.000
Before we had the nice phase of a good run of decent weather that this had been in some ways. A year without a summer.

00:00:54.000 --> 00:01:04.000
Certainly it felt that way if you went on holiday in July. And so it all came together and I started to think again about this this topic, which interests me so much.

00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:10.000
My interest as Vienna said are in literature, not in volcanology or meteorology.

00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:25.000
So, I was going beyond my comfort zone, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but any questions of a technical nature I might have to refer you on to somewhere else but I've read the books and I've got a pretty good grasp I think of what happened in 1,816.

00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:30.000
So it's a year with many gloomy names. We'll talk about what it was like to live through it.

00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:54.000
We'll talk about the acknowledged cause. We now know it was a particular volcano. The effects of that, what we knew then and now and what provides the evidence and what did people believe in 1,816 when quite apart from the fact that they were directly affected by poor harvest that they didn't have waterproof clothing and that they had no idea why this was happening, appalling weather had perhaps a great effect

00:01:54.000 --> 00:02:02.000
on them than we can even imagine. Then to the long term effects including the political and social upheaval that culminated in something we all know about, Peter Lou, and then the positive effects perhaps.

00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:20.000
The creative energy that seemed to be unleashed at much the same time. With what connection we don't really know but the visual arts in 1816 and some art that's been inspired much more recently.

00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:34.000
So not many years get their own tagline, but 1816 is known as the year without a summer or so the poverty year, the summer that never was, 1,800 and froze to death, that's what the Americans tend to call it.

00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:44.000
And of course, because it was Europe wide, we have D Hungary, and the So it's well known as a year that is named.

00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:52.000
Perhaps there's no one that has so many names. And the weather in 1,816 drove the news agenda in the way that it's that comes sometimes now when it causes a disaster.

00:02:52.000 --> 00:03:07.000
The Times editorial said the state of the weather is now as interesting a political topic as can well occur considering the effect which it must have upon contentment and tranquility for a year to come.

00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:12.000
I think that's a very middle-class view. I think the effect was far worse for the poor.

00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:19.000
Then just an effect on their contentment and tranquility. Nobody at the time seems to know why.

00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:26.000
There is an element of puzzlement about these comments. The weather seems to have been equally unseasonable during their whole summer.

00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:31.000
In France it's been as wet as here, the writer says in various parts of Germany and Italy bearing in mind this is the middle of summer.

00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:53.000
There have been extraordinary falls of snow up to the eve of the dog days. I looked in the British newspaper archive which you can subscribe to and there were no results at all for as far as 1,817 for Tambora or Svawa the island where the volcano was situated.

00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:58.000
There was a minor Indonesian volcano on Java in 1,870 and that was the only.

00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:00.000
Mention there was.

00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:08.000
Not even a newspaper apart from the early twentieth century. A century after, 1,860, can account for the weather.

00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:16.000
They give the account of a sharp frost in every month on the fifth of July ice was formed of the thickness of window glass in New York.

00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:24.000
Corn was destroyed in certain sections. They knew what was happening. They didn't know why. Some eminent people recorded their discomfort.

00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:38.000
There's a lot of emphasis on clothes here. John Quincy Adams, I have not yet ventured to throw aside my flung waistcoat, nor as one night to discard the blanket from the bed in London in July.

00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:44.000
David Thomas who wrote a travel book said we shivered in winter dress with great coats and gloves in May.

00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:45.000
The rain continued in torrents, says Mary Shelley, though she was putting that to good use.

00:04:45.000 --> 00:05:02.000
And poor Jane Austen, who was in her last summer. So it really is too bad and has been for a long time, much worse than anybody can bear and I begin to think it will never be fine again.

00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:09.000
She was ill at the time so you know when heart heart bleeds for her really. So what caused these conditions?

00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:17.000
Well, there's no doubt now the current consensus is that it was the eruption of Mount Tambura in Indonesia.

00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:37.000
So that's the culprit and not Sometimes when I've done this as a full course people have thought it was Krakatur, it wasn't Krakatur, that didn't happen until 1,883 the only reason it's more famous is across that communications had improved so much and also because there was this this fiftys film Krakatau east of Java.

00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:46.000
It's actually rest of Java but never mind. It was a very successful firm at the time and very dramatic in Cinerama.

00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:56.000
But no, it was Tamboura, which again is not a household word. It's situated on Zimbabwe near the holiday islands of Bali and Lombok.

00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:59.000
Back then it was administered by the Dutch East Indies, sorry France had that part of Indonesia but the British had a very strong presence.

00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:11.000
It had been involved in that. Colonial way. And the Napoleonic Wars, of course.

00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:20.000
Major volcanoes in Denise and Indonesia. I've circled the Tambura area but those are just sort of life-threatening eruptions since.

00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:25.000
1,900. It's on the ring of fire so volcanoes are by no means unusual.

00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:34.000
But not ones of this destructive power. We can see here that it's definitely the largest eruption in recorded history.

00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:44.000
In prehistory, 75,000 years ago, it's thought that homo sapiens dropped from 26,000 people to 3,000, close to extinction.

00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:50.000
So that one nearly right does that wiped us out. 26,000. I thought, well, I'm familiar with that number.

00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:58.000
It's the population of my hometown. Redford. Which I think probably few of you have ever been to and certainly isn't a significant place.

00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:04.000
So that was the entire population of the Earth at that point.

00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:20.000
We have experienced something of this in 2,010 when a volcano in Iceland, I've built it out phonetically there so that I can say it, having tried many times to master it.

00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:27.000
Caused. Severe disruption to aviation, if you remember, that involved only one cubic kilometre of magma.

00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:39.000
Where is Tumblr stamps at 7? So we can see that only a little, but comparatively, comparatively little can cause a lot of disruption.

00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:46.000
So, Tambora in 1815, there it is in cross section with its explosivity index of 7.

00:07:46.000 --> 00:08:00.000
The eruption reduced it in height from certain level it reduced it by half and you can actually see here that it's nearly a mile less than it was here is the Caldira now which is 3 miles across.

00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:09.000
Again, the size of these things is quite difficult to picture. You can actually go as a tourist to Zimbala and climb this volcano with a lot of effort.

00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:19.000
I think the trek through the check through the rainforest. To begin with take several days and then you have to do the climb but if I were younger I would certainly want to do it.

00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:32.000
It remains active. There have been some smaller eruptions and episodes of extreme increased activity as more as recently as 2,013.

00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:40.000
So what were the immediate effects? Well, the immediate effects were of course catastrophic. Catastrophic, perhaps these people were the lucky ones, the 12,000 who died in the immediate vicinity.

00:08:40.000 --> 00:09:02.000
The village itself was destroyed with all its inhabitants. And of course, starvation then struck starvation and disease struck a further 90,000 and these are rough estimates, different books, say different figures because nobody was really keeping count in Indonesia at the time.

00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:16.000
In 2,015 Indonesia produced a commemorative stamp and perhaps a series of stamps showing some idea of it and it featured in the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk D reduction.

00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:26.000
We are quite used, I'm afraid, to disasters, but they knew very little about things beyond their own country.

00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:35.000
So the eruption of Mount Tom Bora, here are some grooms statistics, the amount of art, lava and ash ejected was 150 cubic.

00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:42.000
How much to cover Great Britain knee deep in volcanic debris. These statistics are usually either on in volcanic debris.

00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:46.000
These statistics are usually either on their football fields or Olympic swimming pools or whales. These statistics are usually either on their football fields or Olympic swimming pools or whales.

00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:56.000
In this case it's the whole country. So, thermal energy drove ash clouds to a height of 25 miles, that's 3 times that now flown by commercial aviation.

00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:04.000
So, you know, 3 times Iceland in terms of the height. And the part of the problem with that was the amount of sulphur.

00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:20.000
In this. Because so for, you know, if if it's lower down it washes out as massive as the brain that's bad enough but the height of the stratosphere that it reached was high enough to reflect back solar energy.

00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:24.000
Which was part of the cooling effect.

00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:32.000
The immediate mushroom cloud again, you know, they must have been amazed to see this. We are used to the idea from nuclear tests.

00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:38.000
Which is formed as the heavier particles begin to fall back. That's been estimated within the size of Australia.

00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:46.000
So we have sort of mega statistics every settlement within 20 kilometers was destroyed every settlement in Indonesia.

00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:55.000
And it took 5 to 6 years for this dust and this effect to fade. At some point I should mention that the First, decade, first and second decades of the nineteenth century were particularly cool anyway.

00:10:55.000 --> 00:11:09.000
We were still within the little ice age and those statistics have some of them first, and those statistics have some of them first, the second, the third.

00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:12.000
Cold is summers recorded.

00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:17.000
So what was known at the time and what's been discovered since? Well, what have we got?

00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:33.000
We've got eyewitness reports. We've got a poem. Comparisons with other volcano sims by people who are scientifically able to do that and with the nuclear explosions we've got tree ring evidence which shows for example that on Java growth was stunted for several years.

00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:40.000
We've got ice cores at the Arctic, the poles and we've got a recent excavation.

00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:54.000
So, you know, we have discovered quite a little since. But at the time, the only witnesses we have are people like Stanford Ruffles, well known of course, as the founder of Singapore, but he was then governor of Java.

00:11:54.000 --> 00:12:03.000
He was quite a young man. He was knighted the following year. He says the first explosions were heard on this island in the evening of the fifth of April.

00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:16.000
They were noticed in every quarter and continued intervals until the following day that Norris was in the first instance almost universally attributed to distant canon, so much so that a detachment of troops were marched from Jakarta in the belief that a neighboring post was being attacked.

00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:33.000
So in time of war, you know, Waterloo remember was just about to happen. This is in 18, 1,850, when the eruption happened.

00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:38.000
They about to think that this is part of, they are bound to think that this is part of a military action, enable action.

00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:46.000
A Dutch official viewed the coast 16 years after the eruption and talked about a horrendous scene of devastation.

00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:53.000
It's bad, not a single person of the phone and not a worm of the flora, not a blade of grass.

00:12:53.000 --> 00:13:01.000
Nothing was left. It is rather like I am. You know, the aftermath of Hiroshima only on a larger scale.

00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:03.000
There's a man who is a witness who is only a name, Lieutenant Dowen Phillips, in charge of relief operations.

00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:25.000
We know that he took rice to the capital. So there was some there was some family relief. Organized by, by the colonial powers in Java and he said the extreme misery to which the inhabitants have been reduced is shocking to behold.

00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:31.000
He says they were still on the road, the remains of several corpses, marks where many others have been interred.

00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:38.000
And he talks about the disease, about a violent diarrhea, probably caused by drinking water in pregnant with ashes.

00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:45.000
Ashes of course containing sulphur and other things that would make you very ill. Horses of course containing sulphur and other things that would make you very ill.

00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:51.000
Horses have also died in great numbers from a similar complaint. I'll get on later to some of the odd.

00:13:51.000 --> 00:14:04.000
Developments in social history that came about from this but I'll mention here because it's come up again the death of so many horses was instrumental in developing a kind of rudimentary bicycle.

00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:13.000
Which they called a hobby horse. It didn't have pedals. There are some very good cartoons of it by the Georgian cartoonists where you just sat on a saddle and pushed your legs along rather like a child scooter but they gradually caught on.

00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:22.000
I think keeps even mentions them in one of his letters.

00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:30.000
The commander of the Benar is talks about ashes beginning to fall in showers. The darkness was so profound throughout the day.

00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:39.000
It was impossible to see your hand when held up close to the eye. Everyone talks about the extreme darkness that would that everyone suffered at the time.

00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:52.000
And that was 240 miles from Tambora itself. The Roger of Sangal, the local ruler, his daughter died at the after effects of smoke inhalation and disease.

00:14:52.000 --> 00:15:03.000
And the epic poem from Bima which is also I'm sorry.

00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:18.000
I thought about everything except disabling the phone. I do a apologize. The writer said the righter wrote in Malay the mountain reverberated around us as torrents of water mixed with ash fell from the sky.

00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:25.000
Children screamed and wept and their mothers to believing that the world had been turned to burning ash.

00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:35.000
And he ascribes this to a wicked deed by the Raja in murder murdering a pilgrim and the venge, vengeance of the gods.

00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:42.000
You know that so it's strangely sort of classical rather like the gods of Greece and Rome.

00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:52.000
There is an illustrator, a modern illustrator of course who has illustrated a whole book about the er eruption of Tambura and he imagines the ocean strewn with pumice as described by witnesses.

00:15:52.000 --> 00:16:01.000
Ships could hardly move for all the floating floating rocks as they thought of them.

00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:13.000
There is also a fiction work called The Year Without Summer by a writer called Guinevere Glassford and she imagines that there was a report in the Times saying that a volcano broke out.

00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:15.000
Near Java, a, the eighteenth 15, the eruption of which was by far the most violent ever happened in the history of the world.

00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:29.000
Far exceeding in the extent of it its effects, any of Vesuvius, Hetna or Helker, which were tending to be the comparison at the time.

00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:33.000
But what the Times actually reported was insurrection. The results of hunger, which was more newsworthy and in any case, you know, they understood this.

00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:42.000
It's a very right wing, interesting, very right wing report, the disaffected to incite the lower orders to acts of riot and devastation.

00:16:42.000 --> 00:17:04.000
We know now that they had every reason to protest about the difference between mission poor they were already agitating perhaps to get the vote, though only 2%, only 2% of the population could vote at the time and of course no women.

00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:08.000
So that was what the Times actually reported.

00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:15.000
On to the twentieth century where a scientist called William Jackson Humphries, a physicist and meteorologist.

00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:29.000
He obtained data from the Krakaturi of eruption where there were more people taking measurements, you know, writing notes and later smaller volcanoes and from this comparison he concluded that the true cause was the eruption of Tambura.

00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:54.000
He was the first to PIN it on Tambura. At that point. Scientists in the fifth there's massive changes in sunlight after nuclear weapons tests and they found that the fine dust created could stay in the stratosphere for years and we've heard about nuclear winter this would have the same effect reflecting the sunlight but instead of being able to come to us on Earth.

00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:03.000
Evidence from ice cores can be dated to 1816 you can see the yellow the sulfur in those in those years in the ISC.

00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:09.000
And then in 18 in 2424, and I've not been able to find out anything more about this Simps.

00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:19.000
They had run out of money but they did excavate. And from the University of North Carolina and in Indonesian directorate of Volcanology.

00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:27.000
They excavated a village on, on, and found quite a lot of things that were very like.

00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:31.000
Pompeii, hence it became called the Pompeii of the East. A woman.

00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:38.000
A woman whose charred skeleton was found was obviously cooking. There was a machete and a melted glass bottle.

00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:45.000
They called another person there. And the the bodies are preserved in much the same way because of the lava.

00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:57.000
Okay. I would love to know more but online at least I can't find anything else out. How about whether they've discovered more, whether it's preserved, whether you can visit it.

00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:05.000
If eventually I imagine you can. So what did people believe then if they knew none of this? What could they believe?

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:21.000
Well, there was A profit called the but not belong your prophecy in Italian astronomer. He predicted that the world would end on July the eighteenth and presumably this was blasphemous that he knew too much and he was starting to prison for a while.

00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:30.000
He thought it was some spots. Again, that's credible and I've seen this chapter in one of my books which says that some spots played their part.

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:38.000
The result of this of course was the kind of pamphlets the kind of broad sheets that went out onto the streets.

00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:43.000
Ballads, widespread, widespread panic and more people were going to church than before.

00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:50.000
So it's sort of. Lent to an upsurge of religious fervour to pray.

00:19:50.000 --> 00:20:04.000
Against the end of the world. In Indonesia they believe that a wedding goddess was having a particularly riotous sorry yes an Indonesian goddess was having particularly riotous wedding celebrations.

00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:17.000
Yes, Devine Roth was quite common. People who knew about Benjamin Franklin thought that his meddling with electricity flying kites and so on to harness lightning was dangerous and was causing all of this.

00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:30.000
The sun spots yes and the imminent end of the world. Again a famous name, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, said this end of the world weather, he calls it, is sadly against me by preventing all exercise.

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:37.000
And he was a man who liked to be out in the fresh air. So he is quite, he's just grumbling really, he's not.

00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:42.000
Literally believing, I don't think, that the end of the world is coming.

00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:57.000
There were some wild theories and this is just satire, Napoleon and the spots on the sun or the regents waltz was a satirical song, the writer claimed that Napoleon had escaped from the island of Saint Helena.

00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:14.000
He had of course escaped from Elba only the year before and invaded the Sun in revenge for his defeat at Waterloo and he suggested catapulting the Prince of Wales, the Prince region into space and he would engage in hand-in-hand combat with Britain's nemesis.

00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:23.000
You were bound to get fantastic ideas and cartoons in an Egypt situation like this. The longer term affects them.

00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:38.000
Well, that shows the extent of the damage, the extent of countries effective. Again, because of the change in ocean currents and the changes in the wind, the normal patterns don't, don't continue.

00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:49.000
It becomes warmer at the poles, for example, warmer in Scandinavia, but countries that are often countries in the Middle East, for example, in Egypt, the eastern seaboard of the United States as well as most of Europe is affected by darkness and cold.

00:21:49.000 --> 00:22:03.000
For 5 to 6 years. It's changes of course, the borders not, the border is not finite, it differs but that's about it.

00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:16.000
So in America, the legends of the eastern seaboard, as they are known, are all confined to the east to Massachusetts and in fact as we saw in New York was affected.

00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:29.000
Livestock, well badly affected. There is one story, again from America, of a sudden, the cloud was suddenly shift and suddenly the temperature in June went up and they were able to shear the sheep.

00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:39.000
They sheared the sheep that night temperatures went back to well below freezing and they had to fit the fleeces back onto the sheep again to prevent the fleeces.

00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:44.000
Sorry to prevent sheep from freezing to death.

00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:55.000
In the Midlands, here where I am. Vicar called John Thomas Swanik because in those days were very often naturalists, meteorologists, biologists and so on.

00:22:55.000 --> 00:23:17.000
A vicar recorded the number of warm days. In 1,816. In fact, between 1810 and 1,820, if you see that you can see that, 1,816 right in the middle has almost no warm days that is 70 degrees or higher that particular year and not that many more in 1817.

00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:27.000
Whereas in 2,022 there were 13 days over 20 degrees in July alone. Don't think there were this year.

00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:39.000
Very indirect. Consequences. Many Americans left New England for the promised lands of Ohio and Pennsylvania, so the population there increased.

00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:42.000
In the Midwest where they were growing a lot of corn, they flourished because they were able to export that and of course profit from it as well as not suffering themselves.

00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:58.000
There is also a connection with Mormonism. Because of people who migrated, migrated westwards and indeed with abolition.

00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:06.000
Where you know liberal ideas traveled when people were trying to escape the cold.

00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:14.000
In Ireland there was a bad outbreak. 65,000 people died. We're told of typhus feeder fever because of the rain and low temperatures.

00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:21.000
It's an early case of the potato famine which was to afflict later in the century.

00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:40.000
Even in India, the first cholera pandemic began in 1816, afflicting first of all British soldiers who of course traveled back and brought it with them and hundreds of thousands of people and for complicated reasons climate change is a major driver of cholera pandemics.

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:46.000
Parts of China were affected by this cold drought and floods and there was a catastrophic rice famine.

00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:58.000
Whereupon they grew what was easier to grow and would grow in rain which was opium. With you know the obvious consequences open wars and addiction and you know the rest is history.

00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:07.000
Again, we do have a surviving poem from the Yu Yang who was badly affected by the Tambour and weather.

00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:30.000
He talks about the clouds like a dragon's breath on the mountains, winds howl, circling and swirling, the rain god shakes the stars and the rain beats down on the world an earthquake of rain water spilling from the eaves deafens me people rush from falling houses in their thousands and tens of thousands, for the work of the rain is worse than the work of thieves.

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:47.000
Bricks, crack, walls for in an instant the house is gone. Of course, when you've got a modern translation of an early nineteenth century poem, it seems much more relevant, perhaps, much more instant than reading the romantic poets.

00:25:47.000 --> 00:26:02.000
He talks about his child he talks about his children and it ends. Harvest through flood drowned fields car this 3 grains for every 10 of a good year and from these 3 grains meals and clothes until next September.

00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:07.000
Every harvest was insurance against the future and they didn't have those harvest. So we think this is one of the causes of social and political unrest.

00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:21.000
Along with lots of other things the war, the aftermath of the war of course. And the effect of enclosures, the effect of the corn laws.

00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:35.000
Long repression, again, because the governments were so frightened of the Industrial Revolution of something similar happening happening in France that any kind of uprising was immediately suppressed.

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:38.000
The process of food though, you can see there, between 1816 and 1817, the price of bread grows up 2 and a half times.

00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:49.000
In an era when people depended on bread. And when. It was steeply controlled.

00:26:49.000 --> 00:27:01.000
Now of course by corn laws as well which protect the rich, which landowners. Sparfield's riots again December, the eighteenth 16 at the end of a bad year.

00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:11.000
People were ready to risk everything in rebelling on the streets. Another one, the aim is to overthrow the government, but they believe the Prince Regent would help them.

00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:16.000
I don't know why they believe that really. I don't think he had any intention of doing anything of the sort.

00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:22.000
Red or blood was the slogan. They tended to blame Millers and Bakers. They always have.

00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:27.000
They always have been scapegoats. But most rural rights, then in the period would converge on the Millers and they would cry bread or blood with a loaf on a stick.

00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:36.000
As a symbol of bread or blood with a loaf on a stick as a symbol of the problem, under way of breaking windows.

00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:42.000
I think they novel that I'm mentioned focuses on a riot in East Anglia.

00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:51.000
The Pentric Rebellion in Derbyshire again people believe that if they marched on London they could get some kind of justice.

00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:57.000
Instead they were infiltrated by government agents and 3 of them hanged.

00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:12.000
However, to get on for the last 10 min or so to something much more positive. The creative energy that seems to have existed at the same time, maybe partially inspired by the weather, who knows, we are affected by the weather.

00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:23.000
So in this time we've got Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, we've got Byron's poem Darkness, the first vampire fiction by John Pollodori and it was with Shelley the Shallows and Byron by Lake Diodati in Geneva.

00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:39.000
Koleridge is Kubla Khan, a fantastic landscape, but again quite violent and not violent at all but very melancholic, very autumnal Jane Austen's persuasion.

00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:46.000
Mentioning Byron, it's worth mentioning that he called Lady Caroline Lamb, his little volcano.

00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:51.000
Again, without any idea of that, and she was volcanic perhaps in disposition. There she is.

00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:55.000
Yes, volcanic perhaps in disposition. There she is, yes. Their affair was long passed in 1,816, but this was the year she published what you might call the first revenge of where she makes him the villain of her of her novel.

00:28:55.000 --> 00:29:07.000
Which is a great success of course as celebrity chat is now.

00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:21.000
Here's his poem then. You says about darkness. I wrote it at Geneva when there was a celebrated dark day on which the fowls went to roost at noon and the candles were lighted as at midnight.

00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:36.000
I had a dream which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished and the stars did wonder darkling in the eternal space, rayless and pathless and the icy earth's run blind and blackening in the moodless air.

00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:49.000
Morn came and went and came and brought no day and men forgot their passions in the dread of this their desolation and all hearts were chilled into a selfish prayer for light.

00:29:49.000 --> 00:30:12.000
Ironically, later in the poem. Mankind gather at the craters of volcanoes just to get a little warmth But he still has no idea that a volcano, apart from being a wonderful symbol for the end of the world, has much to do with the plight therein in Geneva where they are driven indoors when they went there in fact for boating and to live an outdoor

00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:13.000
life.

00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:22.000
So yes, we've read this already. Mary Shelley talks about a wet, ungenial summer, the incessant rain can find us the days to the house.

00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:27.000
The thunderstorms that visit us are grander and more terrific than I have ever seen before.

00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:34.000
One night we enjoyed a finer storm than I have ever before beheld. She underlines enjoyed and of course they did enjoy it.

00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:38.000
It was the sublime.

00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:42.000
Frankenstein has that Arctic framework it starts with the explorer Walton at the at the North Pole trying to find the Northwest Passage.

00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:55.000
Ice was actually shrinking temporarily near the pole. Mary Shelley had bed articles suggesting that the appalling weather of 1816 was caused by the huge masses of ice drifting southwards.

00:30:55.000 --> 00:31:09.000
We know about these now, cooling air temperatures along the way. Fictional Walton however is just as deluded as Frankenstein in creating life.

00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:20.000
He talks about the sun being forever visible in the pole, the region of beauty and delight, snow and foster banished, but instead it was merely a temporary effect of Tambura that made it slightly warmer.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:28.000
There was some melting of ice which made them think they could find the Northwest Passage, though of course they didn't.

00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:29.000
The novel also shows how she observed the effect of cold on starving Swiss peasants around her.

00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:40.000
The monster helps the Hungary family in Switzerland by harvesting their crops. Their crops are frozen in the ground.

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:49.000
He is strong enough to pull them up and to help them and to find firewood for them. Their misery is surely weather driven and he is he's going to help.

00:31:49.000 --> 00:32:04.000
That's the good side of Frankenstein's monster. In fact he becomes a kind of metaphor for suffering for the oppression of which climate was partly there, the inc clemency of the season, the barbarity and man.

00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:10.000
He says these bleak skies I hail, they are kinder to me than your fellow beings.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:16.000
People treat him worse than the weather does. But the weather keeps coming up again and again in Frankenstein.

00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:24.000
Austin's persuasion is a very different kind of gentle rain where Captain Wentworth going to bath, eclipses himself by bringing an umbrella and that was the second sort of very minor.

00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:37.000
Again, you know, we still have on brothers, a very minor consequence was that umbrellas which were fairly new and innovation for France suddenly became very popular.

00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:46.000
Because it was raining so much and their footwear and their work wear their clothes just didn't have that waterproof quality.

00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:57.000
It must have been miserable. 1, 1816. Turner and Constable. Were at the height of their visual powers.

00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:21.000
Things had changed in the eighteenth century the symmetry there we've got the Royal Crescent in Bath the symmetry and the the order a decorum everything was important and now suddenly there are new ways of seeing things so in in prose we went from reason to argument to impassioned emotion and from symmetry in order to a delight in irregular and that included ruins and wild weather.

00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:28.000
Again, the sublime was was king. Turn it. Constable stated, I don't see finish in nature.

00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:38.000
Finish was the standard of excellence for the Royal Academy and he said painting is but another word for feeling and because of this, but another word for feeling.

00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:43.000
And because of this, volcanoes have been an object of fascination for some time in fact.

00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:59.000
This is, this is not a volcano yet, but just to show that the gentle glowing tamed pastoracenes and given way to melodrama the one on the right is a John Martin who first became famous in, 1,816.

00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:06.000
That leads us back to the volcano. So they were very much a subject of the times even though they knew so little about their effects.

00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:27.000
A writer called Gill and Darcy Wood who wrote about the nineteenth century. Said volcanism loomed large in the early nineteenth century European imagination as a ready-made symbol for the wave upon wave of social crises, ordinary people experience first as an upsurge of violence near at hand in dead bodies on the street soldiers pillaging farms or spashed windows in the market square again because of the insurrection.

00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:46.000
The destructive spasms of the erupting volcano seem the most upped image for the unprecedented blood letting and up evil that swept civilian Europe in the decades after 1,790.

00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:48.000
I suppose we could say that our discontent now that the mood of our times has something to do with climate change.

00:34:48.000 --> 00:35:12.000
It isn't all about climate change, but it's always there. So this is Joseph Wright at Derby whose paintings you may know is very always sighted as enlightenment paintings about science, but he was fascinated by Vesuvius and made many such paintings, you know, the effects of light.

00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:17.000
And it spreads to turner. This is the first image of Turner that Ruskin ever saw.

00:35:17.000 --> 00:35:23.000
And Ruskin said between my love of volcanoes and geology and my unconscious sense of real art.

00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:26.000
I used to feast on that engraving every evening for months and he wasn't born until 2 years.

00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:35.000
Well, 3 years after Tambura. But, turn his painting inspired him.

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:41.000
A natural experiment was done, you know, we always suspected that it affected their paintings, but Dr.

00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:58.000
Christoph Ceferos, a professor of atmospheric physics conducted a lot of experiments not only on the paintings then but paintings of several 100 years and indeed, to look at the way volcanic eruptions affect color.

00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:19.000
And he came up with quite a bit of evidence. He said, red to green ratios correlate well with the amount of volcanic aerosols in the atmosphere so the higher amount of air aerosols the higher the ratio of green to red and that gives the kind of gel or golden or orange effect to lots of these paintings.

00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:26.000
So that's a turner. That's the turner. That's the turnout.

00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:34.000
That is, that is definitely dated, 1860 and it's more difficult to perhaps to date some of the others with that very yellow sky.

00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:42.000
They only problem is, and I do have my doubts about this. Constable seemed to be painting mostly the actual weather rather than the sunset.

00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:49.000
This is him on his honeymoon at Weimar. The clouds are very dramatic, but so they are at other times when he's painting.

00:36:49.000 --> 00:37:01.000
And this one, perhaps the most So. Atmospheric red atmospheric painting of turners that I could find was actually painted between 1827 and 1830.

00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:05.000
So I'm not sure that the case has been entirely made. This Lancaster Sands is a different kind of problem.

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:19.000
You may you may remember the Chinese workers who drowned at Morecambe when the tide came in and they used to drive a stagecoach to cottage across it. You can see it there.

00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:24.000
It's fascinating, but though it looks volcanic. It's later, it isn't.

00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:40.000
However, Turner did have a very wet journey to Yorkshire. He was paid 3,000 guineas, believe it or not, to go to Yorkshire and make hit drawings for a history of that county and he reports grumpily, whether miserably wet, I shall be web-footed like a Drake, but I must proceed northwards.

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:49.000
And his sketchbook, which is in the British Museum, has all of this sort of paintings.

00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:59.000
They are fantastic, but you know, they're not necessarily showing anything other than what he regarded. I don't as typical Yorkshire weather.

00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:11.000
This is John Martin's breakthrough work, totally dramatic. This one hung, I think, or one very similar hunt in the parsonage at, so the little Bronte's grew up looking at this.

00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:13.000
Not surprised with.

00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:17.000
Meanwhile, the cartoon is Gilbert, Giller for example, focused on what the bad weather was doing to people at their clothing.

00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:36.000
This is the graces in a high wind. It's actually an earlier year because he was dying I think in that year but you know you can see that the the empire line closed the flimsy cloning was not well suited perhaps to this kind of weather.

00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:40.000
Even now, Chambura inspires creative artists. Here is, a lady called Courtney Blaison who exhibited a year without a summer.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:59.000
In America in 2,016, as you can run imagine, and they all have the ingredients, they all have the ingredients there that I've been talking about plus a lot of others.

00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:11.000
So this one for example, you can see the left hand there, left left hand, and Courtney, no, Lieutenant Phillips who reported on the disaster a representation of the volcano.

00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:26.000
Some of this suffers some of the victims from Indonesia. Some of the things there relate to other Go to, other poets or painters but it's all there in her series of murals.

00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:43.000
Looking at the parallels between 1816 in our recent present. It seems to me that there were quite a lot of close parallels and that one could even look back on 1816 through the lens of 2020 when we were in the middle of COVID.

00:39:43.000 --> 00:40:06.000
Reason had had its day, emotion raged, mobs on the streets cried out against the state. Monsters of politics were now in cage and famous men and women met their fate were worshipped, copied, rose and quickly fell, trolled by the those who had means drank much and they too well, others like Oliver demanded more patterns between them.

00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:20.000
Europe fell apart, the climate bolted ill. Change drooling unto black despair, a sickness of the heart, or art and theatre, poetry and song.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:31.000
And history doesn't work this way but still that's something threatened and and now seems clear. Nature rebelled, and sickness, death and chill.

00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:36.000
Would darken, darken and immortalized the year.

00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:55.000
Again, Gill and Darcy would. Also made a comparison. 2 centuries on, the global ranks of the wretched are set to increase exponentially in coming decades at the hands of our own climate, Frankenstein, a monster who fees on carbon waste and grows more violent by the year.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:07.000
Failure to draw down the carbon emissions and rampant deforestation that drive climate change brings us closer to the traumatized world of 1815 to 1818 lit large.

00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:19.000
I promise fear that I wouldn't press you. I'm sorry to have to end up with this but you know there is always this fascination isn't it on something like this which has such contradictory effects.

00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:28.000
So thank you very much.

00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:29.000
There we go.

00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:32.000
Thank you very much, Judith. And that was fascinating. And let's, let's just go straight to some questions.

00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:43.000
I think so let me start off with, and now this is a question from Kitty. Why?

00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:44.000
Yeah.

00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:45.000
I guess this is kind of an almost a jokesy question. Why was the summer of 1816 affected rather than 1815?

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:48.000
When the actual volcano erupted?

00:41:48.000 --> 00:42:00.000
Yeah. I don't know it's to do with, it's to do with ocean currents, it's to do with with with wind direction, it's to do with the gradual.

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:07.000
A mass thing I think of these sulphate. Molecules, sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere.

00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:15.000
It takes that time, 1,815 wasn't a great year but it was a run of bad years and so we don't think that was Tambora.

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:18.000
We think the Tabura effect. Just effective, 1816.

00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:33.000
Hmm, okay. And another question from Steve. No, this is an interesting one. Did anyone try to exact revenge on either Benjamin Franklin or the Raja that got blamed.

00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:34.000
For the events.

00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:46.000
We wouldn't know, we probably wouldn't know about the Raja and I don't know about Franklin but he did get into a lot of trouble and I believe that his house was attacked at 1 point, though more for his politics rather than for his experiments.

00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:54.000
So while since I read about this, that he was unpopular, certainly. You know action was taken against him at some point.

00:42:54.000 --> 00:42:55.000
Okay.

00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:06.000
Joseph Priestley again was his house was attacked I seem to remember. Scientists were in the ascendant in some ways, but of course not trusted, not much liked.

00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:21.000
Hmm, okay. Right, and a question from Andrew. Are you aware of any comparisons being made between 1,816 and the volcanic winter of 536 AD.

00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:32.000
There's a mention of this, you have to remind me is it Andrew you have to remind me, Andrew, what happened in 5 3 6 AD is that is that

00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:33.000
Oh. Yes, it will. I'll look in the chat. I'll come back to it.

00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:38.000
That will have to go into the chat. Let's come back to that one.

00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:39.000
Yeah.

00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:40.000
Okay, right, let's come back to that one then. Okay, what have we got next?

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:51.000
Now this is a question from Nicki let me just find it

00:43:51.000 --> 00:44:02.000
Yes. Do we know who? Produced the woodblock print in the slide that you showed about Lieutenant Phillips report?

00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:03.000
Yeah.

00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:10.000
I could look it up and I would have known when I when I when I downloaded it but you can probably Google it under images and find it.

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:11.000
Okay.

00:44:11.000 --> 00:44:21.000
Okay. Right, now let's see what we have next. No, this is a question from Lauren.

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:26.000
Now, when you were talking about, you know, started talking about the sort of creative explosion that sort of happened in the wake.

00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:29.000
Yes, yeah.

00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:35.000
Of Tambura. And there was a thought at 1 point of people thinking the bad weather was caught by icebergs coming down from the cold.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:37.000
Yeah, yeah.

00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:45.000
How, how did people know? Sort of about the Arctic and that's sort of stuff at that time.

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:46.000
Hmm.

00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:52.000
There was a lot of exploration going on. I mean, the hump at the Northwest Passage, the most famous one is of course, What was his name?

00:44:52.000 --> 00:45:03.000
He comes from Spilsbury. Well, I live for a while, Franklin. You know who tried and tried and failed and and they found he found his crew and they found some sort of fossilized or frozen bodies from there.

00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:16.000
But I think they would have seen that. Mary Shelley actually spent some time, I think, up in Dundee.

00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:20.000
I know it well.

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:21.000
Yes, that would be right.

00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:24.000
So, talk to some way list? Would that be, would that be feasible? Yeah, and they were reporting things like this.

00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:25.000
Yeah.

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:33.000
So it's all from here say, but a certain amount of exploration. A scientist was giving a talk, I think, to the, to the Geographic Society in London, which was fairly new.

00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:41.000
There was a lot of interest in geology at the time, a lot of interest in that kind of topology.

00:45:41.000 --> 00:45:48.000
The first Do youological map with all the strata and the colours? Was William Smith, is that right?

00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:55.000
I mean, there are people who know this better, but I know it was 1815. It certainly happened at that time.

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:56.000
Okay.

00:45:56.000 --> 00:46:02.000
So I was asking there about Mounts and Helens was that did that come up?

00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:08.000
Hang on, here we go. Oh no, it's a comment here from Anne.

00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:09.000
Yeah. Yeah.

00:46:09.000 --> 00:46:14.000
Top you by 5 3 6 80. It caused the summer with no sun. So we have famine and disease.

00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:15.000
So it sounds quite similar, doesn't it?

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:22.000
Yes, I'm very similar. Does sound very similar. Yeah, which was all kind of a

00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:23.000
No, I feel I should know.

00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:30.000
Not sure. Sure. Okay, now let's have a look here. I'll come back to the the Mount St.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:31.000
Yeah, sure. Yeah.

00:46:31.000 --> 00:46:34.000
Helens question. We'll come to that one. And question from Ruth. Who is it that wrote the poem at the end?

00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:37.000
The 1816, 2,020.

00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:40.000
Oh, I'm afraid that was me.

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:41.000
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:48.000
There we go. There you go, Chris. Okay.

00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:52.000
No, let's see what else we have.

00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:55.000
I think the next one might be Mates and Helens. It is. So this has been Barbara.

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:57.000
Yeah. Yeah.

00:46:57.000 --> 00:47:04.000
The more recent eruption of the Mount St. Helens volcano in U.S.A. caused per summers subsequently.

00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:08.000
I heard at the time that it did so I've always thought that it was true.

00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:10.000
Yes, it did. Yes, it did. And I don't remember that being mentioned in any of the literature, but I do remember it personally.

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:18.000
I remember that the summer was But, and that it was attributed to Maps and Helens, which at the time made no sense to me.

00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:31.000
I do remember that. So yes it did. And that wouldn't have been anything like the explosivity level of Tamboura.

00:47:31.000 --> 00:47:32.000
There's nothing recent like that.

00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:40.000
Hmm. Okay. Alright, let's see what else we have here.

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:52.000
Right, so this is from Valerie. And obviously you were talking about the conditions of 1816 kind of resulting in this new level of creativity.

00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:58.000
She's asking if you could maybe expand on that a little bit, a little bit.

00:47:58.000 --> 00:47:59.000
Hmm.

00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:06.000
Well, it's it's it is quite tendentious because of course these people were able to insulate themselves against the worst of the weather and they could still live pretty much as they had.

00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:21.000
They could go where the weather was better if they knew about it. I have some some correspondence between some aristocrats from Welbeck which is near where I live and they were they had moved to the content.

00:48:21.000 --> 00:48:27.000
Played bitterly about the about the weather and how it was spoiling their holiday but these reminder things compared to the sufferings of the poor.

00:48:27.000 --> 00:48:57.000
The best documented concerning the weather rather than the poor harvests or the political situation or their lack of autonomy or the Cornwall's, the best account is of a later Baroness in Switzerland who fed these people and I again again I can't remember her name but that was well documented that she found people by the side of the road.

00:48:57.000 --> 00:48:58.000
Hmm.

00:48:58.000 --> 00:49:01.000
There were a lot of climate refugees, as we might now call them. So we know about this and that people reduce to eating metals.

00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:09.000
There are details like that. But shamefully, of course. You know, working class history has been very difficult.

00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:17.000
For historians to Extract compared with documenting the lives of the rich, the lives of the affluent.

00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:19.000
On the gentry.

00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:27.000
Hmm. Interesting. Okay, so people would quite like to have a copy of your poem. So that's maybe something we can talk about afterwards.

00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:28.000
If you like.

00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:36.000
And what we can perhaps do is post up a copy of the of the poem alongside the recording. And of the lecture.

00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:37.000
Yeah, Yes.

00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:48.000
And so we can we'll talk about that later in Judith. And Carol, Carol is asking about talking about remembering the volcanic eruption in Iceland.

00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:49.000
Hmm.

00:49:49.000 --> 00:49:51.000
Carol, it was 2010. You couldn't quite remember when it was 2010. When all the flights got cancelled. One of mine did.

00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:58.000
I seem to remember at that time.

00:49:58.000 --> 00:49:59.000
Yeah.

00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:06.000
I mean that's one of the penalties isn't it? Of our technological age we suffer more in some way much less in others. We suffer more in some way, much less in others.

00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:09.000
We didn't go hungry but we couldn't travel.

00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:10.000
Hmm.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:17.000
Exactly, exactly. It was rather annoying. So let's see what else we have.

00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:18.000
Well, right.

00:50:18.000 --> 00:50:25.000
Right, I think we might go through everybody's questions actually. Yes, I think we have. So I think we'll start to wrap up there, I think.

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:40.000
And thank you very much, Judith. Really, really. Interesting topic. I think everyone has has really enjoyed that and it's it's quite heartening.

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:41.000
No.

00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:46.000
To understand that it wasn't all bad. Okay, there were some positive things that came out of a pretty rubbish situation, let's face it.

00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:47.000
Yes. Yeah.

00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:50.000
So. With the sort of flowering about art and culture that came in the aftermath of it so thanks very much.

00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:16.000
Alright, thank you very much, Fiona. Okay, so, yes, I will have seen a few of you before in the previous lectures and possibly some of the classes as well.

00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:26.000
But today what we're looking at is the history of vaccination. Okay and so I will start by sharing my slides.

00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:33.000
Much more interesting than looking at me. So.

00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:39.000
And there was me, I'd set it to start and I've gone and it's not. Here we go.

00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:47.000
Right, there we go. Oh. Well, we just start that first page with the introduction and he was just saying about vaccinations.

00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:55.000
Okay, and it's just in introducing it. So what I'm just going to say is before I start all of the information.

00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:06.000
Found that I have I'm going to display to you in the, in, the slides and with me talking.

00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:19.000
All of that information has come from a few sources. Now there is an associated document of further reading and resource and sources of the facts, available from Fiona if you want it.

00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:32.000
But in in a nutshell, the definitions, the facts have all come from a few places.

00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:42.000
So we've had the World Health Organization. Time Magazine, Harvard University. Our world data and the UN.

00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:50.000
Okay. And also, our government website as well, the British government websites. So that's where all the information has come from and if you want to check back you will be able to find it in one of those sources.

00:01:50.000 --> 00:02:05.000
Okay, so we just thought we'd start with that. This one at the bottom, this is the, is the Oxford dictionary online.

00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:08.000
Okay. And that's why I put this source on the bottom of this. But they were taking up too much space on the side.

00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:21.000
Okay, so we've got definitions. So start with, we have got various definitions. We've got inoculation.

00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:34.000
Vaccination and vaccine. So inoculation really and vaccination these days are interchangeable. Absolutely interchangeable terms.

00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:48.000
Okay, so when you inoculate someone you're immunizing against a disease you're introducing in effective matter or material microorganisms or a vaccine into the body.

00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:58.000
Vaccination is the actual introduction. That's the that's the needle part or the Oh yeah, on the sugar queue part.

00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:08.000
Vaccination is the process of getting that vaccine. Okay. And a vaccine is a substance used to stimulate immunity to particular infectious diseases or pathogens.

00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:21.000
Okay and they're usually prepared from inactivated or weakened forms of the pathogen that causes the disease.

00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:29.000
Okay, so just to start you off with that. Okay, so next slide. Oops, sorry.

00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:36.000
That's my fault. Right. I'm so sorry. It's very, very rare for me to do this.

00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:40.000
And I don't know why, but we're not, won't let me go back.

00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:48.000
So we're just going to miss the. Sounds terrible. So it's very, very, not very professional, is it?

00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:54.000
The last slide when I clicked through by accident because I was trying to move your faces off my screen.

00:03:54.000 --> 00:04:07.000
That one. All it showed you was a timeline of vaccination, okay? And we're going to have another one later on, but particularly what it started with was smallpox.

00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:23.000
The very first vaccination was against smallpox. And then we went through from sort of the 17 well proper crop smallpox vaccination started in 1798.

00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:33.000
That's the gender one and we were looking through to the present day and obviously that led to the kovat vaccine that was produced in very, very short time.

00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:50.000
But what I'd like to do is just say that smallpox is interesting because It is the only, micro or pathogen that we have managed.

00:04:50.000 --> 00:05:03.000
To eradicate in the wild using vaccination. And it's been extremely successful and it took a whole world approach to be able to do that.

00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:15.000
Currently the world we are trying to eradicate polio. We're doing quite well with polio with vaccination around the world.

00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:19.000
But there are certain pockets in certain countries and pockets within those countries where we have just not managed to eradicate it in the wild yet.

00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:31.000
Okay, so I'm going to just start with smallpox. So smallpox is caused by a virus.

00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:41.000
It's a variola virus. Okay. 8 kills one in 3 infected people.

00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:54.000
This is why when Scientists, doctors, governments were trying to look at eradicating certain diseases.

00:05:54.000 --> 00:06:03.000
Smallpox was one that they really, really wanted to to get rid of. Mainly because It kills so many people.

00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:18.000
In the sixteenth, seventeenth centuries, if when a ship ships were trading around the world, you would find that if a ship had smallpox on it then the when they came into port, they usually they were turned away.

00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:29.000
There were there were instances of ships being set on fire. Because people were so scared of smallpox.

00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:39.000
People at that time were so frightened of smallpox because it killed one in 3 of you. So if you had a family of 9, 3 of you would die from it.

00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:48.000
Which is a huge It's an awful lot of people. And it's a very unpleasant disease.

00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:59.000
Okay, it only affects humans and that is part of the reason why it We were able to actually eradicate it.

00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:07.000
There is no animal, sort of sink. For the virus for smallpox because it only affects humans.

00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:17.000
So that made it a lot easier for us to actually. Completely eradicate. Okay.

00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:28.000
The first inoculations for smallpox were surprisingly enough, probably in China. Now I've given the date of the fifteenth century or earlier.

00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:39.000
But they're all reports and I couldn't cooperate them so that's why I didn't put it down but there are reports that't put it down but there are reports that probably in China from the tenth century.

00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:45.000
The, that they were, they were trying, they were inoculating against smallpox.

00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:52.000
Okay. So at that time, you know, China was, an extremely Oh, with thinking, country.

00:07:52.000 --> 00:08:12.000
So fifteenth centuries a long time. What happened though is that we do absolutely definitely know that by the early eighteenth century there was vaccination of a type being conducted in the middle east.

00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:22.000
They're all actual retirement records for that. We know that happened. Okay. So this is the lady.

00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:33.000
She's very interesting. She's one of our female scientists who's, well, she's not really a scientist, but she is somebody who is actually being recorded in history.

00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:44.000
So Lady Mary Wellsley, Montague was of Quite a wealthy family. She contracted smallpox.

00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:52.000
When she lived in England. And she did survive, she was, she was the 2 out of 3 that survived.

00:08:52.000 --> 00:09:03.000
But she had severe scarring. Smallpox generally scars on the face. Most the worst scarring is on the face.

00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:17.000
She lost her And she had red and sore eyes for the rest of her life. Many people who survived smallpox went blind.

00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:27.000
And they lost the site altogether. So as you can see, even if you survived it, it really wasn't a very nice thing to have had.

00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:43.000
Nice. Lady Mary. Married and she and her husband moved to Turkey and she was very interested because she had this terrible scarring on her face and she noticed that in Turkey there were very few people with such severe scarring.

00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:56.000
She saw people who had a little bit of scarring but nothing like hers. And she was interested to find out why.

00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:10.000
And she found that local women were using a very, very early form of anoculation. And the way they did this was, you'll be a bit shocked about this, I'm sure.

00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:23.000
But what they did was, they would have like this, I'm sure. But what they did was, they would have like little, you know, today or, and they would have like little, you know, today or certainly in the last sort of 2030 years, certainly in the last sort of 2030 years, people used to have chicken pox parties, in the last sort of 2030 years, people used to have chicken pox

00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:28.000
parties. People used to have chicken pox parties to do that invite, invite all the friends around because one child chicken box and that's fine.

00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:33.000
Well, in Turkey at that time they would have like, invite all the friends around because of one child chicken box or get it and that's fine.

00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:35.000
Well, in Turkey at that time they would have like gatherings in the autumn for smallpox and all get it and that's fine.

00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:42.000
Well in Turkey at that time they would have like gatherings in the autumn for smallpox and what they would do with the older women in the, would have like gatherings in the autumn, for smallpox and what they would do with the older women in the communities would find somebody who had smallpox.

00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:55.000
They would take plus actual pus from the postules of the smallpox patient. And then what they would do was with the local children.

00:10:55.000 --> 00:11:09.000
They would make a very, very small little cot in the child's arm. They would rub in the actual smallpox pus into that little cut and they bind it up really tightly with a bandage.

00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:18.000
And that child would go on to develop a very very mild bout of smallpox, really mild.

00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:28.000
And then they were immune for life. So, very, very interesting. This is, Lady Montague thought this was very interesting.

00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:32.000
Now the reason that these children did not develop full-blown really really bad smallpox was because smallpox is actually an airborne disease.

00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:58.000
In the same way as colds, flu and COVID. It's an airborne disease. And when it enters the airways because your respiratory system is very moist, it's very surprisingly big, it's got a huge surface area, your lungs, your sinuses and everything.

00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:04.000
If you, if you contract some other pops like that, you get full blown smallpox.

00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:15.000
But when it's just introduced under the skin. Then you do not get all of the symptoms. It's a much, much milder way of developing the disease.

00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:29.000
So she had a little girl and she decided that she'd have her little girl vaccinated. Let's her little boy, sorry, her little boy vaccinated in Turkey by a local woman.

00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:43.000
Obviously people were a bit, you know, worried about this. It's a risky thing to do, but having survived smallpox herself and having known how unpleasant an illness it was.

00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:50.000
But how lucky she was to survive, how lucky she was to still have her sight. She wanted to protect her children.

00:12:50.000 --> 00:13:11.000
So her little boy was vaccinated in Turkey. And then the family moved back to England. And in, 1,700, and 21, she arranged for her daughter to be vaccinated in England by a doctor who had experience of he'd been to the Middle East himself and he knew how it was done.

00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:16.000
So it was an English doctor that did it. But it was the same method. And this generated a significant amount of interest at court.

00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:29.000
And of course, in those days, the people at court, where the wealthy, the powerful, the influential.

00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:44.000
And so many people. In wealthy families started to let their children be vaccinated in this way. Of course it is a risky way of vaccinating because it you're using that actual live.

00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:54.000
And so, you know, there will be some Kash, casualties along the way. But it's better than nothing.

00:13:54.000 --> 00:14:03.000
So. This is timeline for immunisation against smallpox. So obviously it was Lady Mary in the very early 17.

00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:14.000
Sort of twenties. But then, and with Jenna, you'll all know this story, Edward Jenner.

00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:26.000
Discovered that milkmaids were unlikely to get smallpox. Providing they have been infected with cowpox.

00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:39.000
He discovered that if you use cowpox pus as a vaccine, then you would introduce a mild form of cowpox which would give you immunity against smallpox.

00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:55.000
The actual viruses for the 2 are quite closely related. They're similar enough for your body to promote, to promote an, an immune reaction within your body in, within your white cells.

00:14:55.000 --> 00:15:04.000
And that's immunity lasts for life. And this was a game changer because Calpox is generally it's not a it's not a killer.

00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:11.000
It's not a killer like smallpox. But it was safer. It really, really worked.

00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:24.000
And what they tend to do, they didn't really go for the cut, so much, they used to scrape the skin, open up the skin a bit and rub it in like that.

00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:31.000
So that was 1896. That's sorry, 1. 96, a long time ago.

00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:41.000
In the 18 forties and fifties. In many countries around the world, including Britain, parts of the United States.

00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:53.000
Many other countries within Britain particularly within Europe. Smallpox vaccination became mandatory. You had to have it if you wanted to travel.

00:15:53.000 --> 00:16:06.000
And that led to smallpox vaccination certificates and you have to have those for travelling. I'm sure many of you in this call will have a yellow fever certificate.

00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:14.000
For travelling. That used to be, that's mandatory in some countries around the world today.

00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:26.000
By 1958. Smallpox vaccination had been extremely successful and the cases around the world were dropping and dropping and dropping.

00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:37.000
The deaths were dropping. And the WHO, the World Health Assembly, called for the global eradication of smallpox.

00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:48.000
And they decided that we got so far that the end was inside. And if everybody worked together, we would get rid of it.

00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:49.000
I'm sure there are some of you on this call who will actually have a little scar on your arm.

00:16:49.000 --> 00:17:04.000
About the size just just a little bit bigger than a penny. And that will be a smallpox vaccination scar that you may have had.

00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:10.000
And if you haven't got one, I don't have one. But my mother and my father did.

00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:23.000
So it's within living memory that people were actually being vaccinated. Against smallpox. By 1,980.

00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:33.000
The WHO declared that smallpox was actually officially completely eradicated in the wild in the world.

00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:39.000
And that was a huge, huge breakthrough. So we don't worry about smallpox anymore.

00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:46.000
We don't have to worry about it. We're not going to catch it. Even though the majority of us now.

00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:54.000
Have not been vaccinated against it because we didn't need to be vaccinated. I'm a child of the sixties.

00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:06.000
I'm just going to put that out out to you. I didn't get the vaccination because in the UK by the time I was a child I was a baby.

00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:18.000
There's so many people in so many adults in the past generations have been vaccines to get smallpox that smallpox was pretty much eradicated in Britain.

00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:29.000
So, I didn't get a vaccine. They stopped doing the wholesale vaccination of, children.

00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:44.000
Now, this is, an American, graph. This actually came from Harvard University. And this is just to indicate the death rates of smallpox and what a game changer to vaccination was.

00:18:44.000 --> 00:19:00.000
So this is the death rates in Boston. And U.S.A. and as you can see though they fluctuate in the way that all diseases do with diseases often come in cycles you have badgers you have good years you know so on.

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:13.000
But if you have a look at this. When in 1,800 the first tie is first use of vaccine in Boston occurred.

00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:22.000
Many people in Boston were vaccinated from there onwards. And the rates of deaths from smallpox.

00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:30.000
Plummeted. Absolutely plummeted. So you went from, in 1721.

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:44.000
Nearly 8,000 people a year dying 8,000 sorry 8,000 per 100,000 people a year dying from smallpox 2, well, at the worst.

00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:59.000
52.1 there must have been a bit of a blip in between 1937 and 1873 and I don't know what that was I don't know whether it was maybe to do with war or anything I don't know.

00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:09.000
U.S.A. history, but there was obviously a bit of a blip because the cases went up. Having said that, they were still not up to the weights that they had been.

00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:13.000
Before vaccination.

00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:21.000
Okay, so smallpox today has actually been eradicated in the wild.

00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:32.000
All governments have a stock of vaccine. It is a live type vaccine. Okay, it's not dissimilar to the one that Jenna used.

00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:38.000
It's not quite the same, but it's not dissimilar. So it's a live vaccine.

00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:46.000
That means that if you have certain, If you're, you know, compromise.

00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:53.000
You're taking certain medicines. You're not able to have that type of vaccine.

00:20:53.000 --> 00:21:06.000
Okay, officially 2 labs in the world have samples for smallpox. They are in the ones in russia and ones in Atlanta in U.S.A. Okay.

00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:17.000
There are, I know that, Portland Down has got a little stock and I think that is used for We research.

00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:27.000
And what we're really, really, really worried about these days in the world is the fact that smallpox could be used as a biological weapon.

00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:35.000
Because basically there are very, very few of us now in the world who have actually been vaccinated against it.

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:42.000
And so. This is something that we are worried about.

00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:50.000
Because we know it kills people. Okay, right, so we're looking at the development of other vaccines.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:57.000
Now before I get onto that, I am just going to give you a little bit of potted history.

00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:08.000
So in the nineteenth century The biggest cause of death from disease and this is not including heart disease cancer. So this is just.

00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:19.000
To communicable diseases. The ones that you can catch from other people. In the nineteenth century.

00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:30.000
People were dying from TV. They were dying from whooping cough, diphtheria, rabies.

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:45.000
Tatness, whooping cough, all of those things. By 1,900 and flu in the early 19, well, 1919, 1919, Spanish flu.

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:52.000
We don't call it Spanish flu anymore. It didn't originate in Spain. It was just that's the way we all remember it.

00:22:52.000 --> 00:23:00.000
But the big flu pandemic in 1918, 19, there were reasons for that. A lot of it was to do with war.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:11.000
Bit the war and what happened was the war enabled it the spread of it very very quickly. But that was a massive pandemic.

00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:23.000
And I have got figures, 50 million people at least in the world, 50 million people at least in the world died in 1,918.

00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:39.000
And because of flu. 50 million. And just imagine that in those days the population, the total population of the world was significantly lower than it is now.

00:23:39.000 --> 00:24:00.000
As a sort of, you know, comparison. The UN, has estimated that We have had deaths associated with COVID, not due to COVID, but deaths either due to code or due to complications of kovat or associated with kovat.

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:11.000
We think that 15 million people have died in 202-02-0210kay, and those 2 years.

00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:23.000
So that's 15 million. Associated with COVID against 50 million. In 1918 19 with the flu.

00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:30.000
That's that just puts COVID into perspective. And of course there are reasons why COVID didn't.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:47.000
Kill as many it would have done. But it didn't. Okay. And in the nineteenth, twentieth century, flu obviously was a big a big killer because of that pandemic.

00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:58.000
People were still dying of TV. They were dying of children die of diarrhea that happens in countries all over the world today.

00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:18.000
Children were dying of diphtheria. Cholera and twist. No, we don't tend to, what happened with cholera and typhoid was that It was found that they were waterborne diseases and with improvements within sewers, water treatment, piping of water and so on.

00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:31.000
We were able to contain those. Without having to look too much. That's vaccines, although vaccines were were produced.

00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:35.000
Okay, so the reason that we developed all these vaccines was so that people wouldn't die. I mean, it was as simple as that.

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:48.000
Okay. You must remember that in the past, you know, a lot of these, diseases were caused by viruses.

00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:55.000
And it is only quite recently that we've been able to have any treatment against virus at all apart from immunisation.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:04.000
Other diseases that were caused by bacteria but of course pre, 19 forties, we had no antibiotics.

00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:12.000
And so people would die from bacterial infections. So, you know, scientists were looking at ways of trying to reduce.

00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:21.000
Reduce the deaths. By different means. And that's really why vaccines were were being developed.

00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:36.000
So in 1,885 pastor okay and well we've heard about him and we didn't actually it was Jenna but pasta developed a vaccine for rabies pasta was very hot on developing vaccines.

00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:44.000
And 1896 we had typhoid and cholera. In the 19 hundreds. In the 19 forties.

00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:52.000
Game changer, flu vaccine. That was the first flu vaccine was produced and I'll send it theory and polio.

00:26:52.000 --> 00:27:09.000
Okay. My mother remembers. Children dying of dictionary. I think she lost one of her sisters to diphtheria and she just remembers like a membrane at the back of her throat.

00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:17.000
We got to 1,957 and the whooping cough or petosis vaccine was produced.

00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:25.000
I, I remember I was at school with a girl who had, she called whooping cough.

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:31.000
She was, about 1112. She caught hooping cough, she was off school for a month.

00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:37.000
She came back and she couldn't do games or anything for about 3 or 4 weeks afterwards.

00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:47.000
In the 19 sixties we developed vaccines against Okay, Rebella doesn't kill people.

00:27:47.000 --> 00:27:59.000
But if you if a pregnant woman contracts, in the first 3 months pregnancy, and it is associated with congenital birth defects.

00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:08.000
So it was important, although the mum, the pregnant woman wouldn't die, and her baby would have would be altered for life.

00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:22.000
Just because of the Mabela and that's why that was introduced in particular. Okay. I remember having, I didn't have a vaccine against a time, just a little bit too old.

00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:30.000
And, I remember my parents being absolutely scared to death that I would end up blind or deaf.

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:37.000
Or have meningitis. I think, you know, this is what I think.

00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:46.000
But sometimes we forget how bad some of these diseases were. Good. So in the twentieth century, here we go.

00:28:46.000 --> 00:29:02.000
This is, 20 first century. So this is, this is more at the current time. So we developed, pneumococcal vaccines in the 2,000.

00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:10.000
And pneumococcal vaccines. And they prevent the main cause of pneumonia.

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:24.000
And pneumonia kills people or many people, especially when you're older, if you if you develop new ammonia, then you can be very, difficult to get better from it even with modern medicines and modern hospital.

00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:33.000
It can be particularly difficult. And pneumonia can be caused by viruses as well. So the vaccine, for new, a pneumococcal vaccine.

00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:40.000
Helps prevent pneumonia. You only need it the once. It's not like the MMR.

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:51.000
All the rabies that you need to have don't really sorry tennis that you need to have boosters for new macock we have it once and you've had that's it.

00:29:51.000 --> 00:30:03.000
It's done. You're right. You're in. In the 20 tens we developed via vaccines against shingles.

00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:14.000
Rotor virus which is a diarrhea type It causes diarrhea. And a children's flu virus.

00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:18.000
A children's flu vaccine was developed in the 20 times. So it's about it's slightly different to the one that you will get.

00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:33.000
If you have if you're eligible and you get one in the winter, the children's one is not quite the same as the one that, is used for adults.

00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:51.000
So in the 20 tens, I mean you can just see how development of vaccines has really, really speeded up and this is the big thing now you know when the The earliest vaccines, they took a long time.

00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:58.000
I mean, we started in the 17 sort of sixtys with smallpox and things were just gradual, gradual, but now we've got to the 20 first century.

00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:19.000
We are, producing vaccines now much much more quickly. So in the 2010 we also have one against many injocal meningitis.

00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:27.000
HPV, that's the human papillo. I just left it as a HVV because I can't take word and Papillo virus.

00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:32.000
It's the one that is, I can't say a word, and the Papillo virus, it's the one that is, is highly associated with Secycle cancer.

00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:42.000
Okay, I think it's 98% of cases of cycle cancer are linked to HPV virus.

00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:53.000
We've also, introduced, an Ebola. Vaccine and a vaccine against monkey pox which obviously was not only news not so long ago.

00:31:53.000 --> 00:32:05.000
Because that again is so it was spreading very very quickly. So not all of us are going to be given all of these vaccines apart from the HPV now and and the minage cockle babies get that one and HPV is given to teenagers.

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:15.000
They start off just giving it to girls. It is a 3 jab vaccine. You have to have it 3 times.

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:30.000
To get full protection. And they started giving it to just girls, but now it's being, I think it should have always been this way.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:36.000
It's been introduced for boys as well. So teenage girls and boys will get the HPV.

00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:38.000
Vaccine. And that should make in the in the future that should really really reduce the cases of cycle cancer.

00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:54.000
So what we're doing here is we are not vaccinating. We're vaccinating, vaccinating against HPV, but HPV doesn't kill you.

00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:59.000
But the associated cancers can. And the actual fact HPV is also associated with some oral cancers as well.

00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:12.000
And some peanut comes as 2, which is why it's really, really important that boys and girls both have it.

00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:25.000
Okay, and then we get to the 20 twenties Well, 2020. COVID the COVID vaccine and that was produced in a very, very short space of time.

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:34.000
That very short space of time. And we've got some slides coming up. Which I will explain why that one came up so fast.

00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:42.000
Okay. So next one. So we have got various vaccines. Okay.

00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:49.000
And they are. Classified into 2 sorts really. So you have you have live vaccines or attenuated vaccine.

00:33:49.000 --> 00:34:04.000
So a line vaccine is, the, those that are used for smallpox. Polio?

00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:12.000
MMR rotovirus The diarrhoea one, smallpox, I'm sorry, smallpox fries and chicken box.

00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:19.000
Okay, it is possible to get a vaccine against chickenpox. But obviously chicken pox is a generally a mild disease.

00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:30.000
Chicken pox is not caused by a variola virus. Okay, but what chicken pox does do is chicken pox You have it the once, you're immune for life once you've had it the ones, but the virus stays within your body.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:39.000
It lives in nerve cells. It's what seconds itself down. In a little nerve cell somewhere.

00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:51.000
It can be reactivated, reactivated in times of severe stress, severe illness and so on and that is shingles.

00:34:51.000 --> 00:34:56.000
So I'm sure there are more than one of you here in this call who's had shingles.

00:34:56.000 --> 00:35:09.000
It is incredibly painful. And once you've had it the once, it tends to sort of It goes, and you can, there are antiviral drugs you can take for it.

00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:17.000
But if you've had it the once sometimes it will, you know, if you're a bit run down, it'll, it'll reactivate a little bit.

00:35:17.000 --> 00:35:24.000
Okay, so that's really why you've looked at developing, the chicken box vaccine.

00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:28.000
Okay, so.

00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:35.000
Let's get to the next ones. So these are inactivated. vaccines.

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:59.000
Okay, so the last one's were live or attenuated. So live meant life, actually living, attenuated mint just changed a little bit so it wasn't going to cause the disease okay they might just change a little bit of something in the protein code and it would just not cause the disease but would cause an immune reaction from your immune system.

00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:15.000
Inactivated via vaccines are things like the MRN, MRNA vaccines, okay, and that includes COVID vaccine.

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:25.000
You have some which. Have this is complicated but basically what they do is they take one little bit of the actual pathogen.

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:30.000
It might be the coat, if it's a virus, you get a protein coat round it. They might take the protein code, they might take a little bit of the material inside the virus.

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:46.000
What they do is they try and take a little bit of the virus or the back area which is causing the disease.

00:36:46.000 --> 00:37:03.000
And they can. Introduce it into your body but What happens is that the bit that they take out will cause your immune system to, to mount an immune response, you will make antibodies.

00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:12.000
You will make white cells that remember that particular pathogen. But it won't cause the disease.

00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:25.000
Okay, so these are very safe and these types of vaccines can be taken by more people. So they include things like the hip vaccine.

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:32.000
The hepatitis B, HPV, the whooping cough, pneumococcal, minging jockey and shingles.

00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:36.000
Okay.

00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:53.000
. Time There are some vaccines which are called toxic toxoid vaccines. Now these some pathogens produce a toxin and it's the toxin that makes you ill.

00:37:53.000 --> 00:38:08.000
So the toxin you can make a vaccine using the toxin Changing it very, slightly so that A body's immune system recognises it as foreign?

00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:18.000
And if it recognizes it as foreign, it mounts and an immune response. And so you will become you'll get an immunity from it.

00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:34.000
So toxoid vaccines are the dip theory of vaccine and the tetanus vaccine. Okay, so those 2 vaccines are made from the poison, the toxin that the organism produces.

00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:43.000
And it's it will give you immunity. Then you have what are called vile vector vaccine. So that's like COVID.

00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:48.000
19. And basically what they do is they take a little bit of the virus. They take the bits that your body recognizes as foreign.

00:38:48.000 --> 00:39:01.000
The bit that you're immune, your white cells recognize as being foreign. And they put that into a vaccine.

00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:10.000
And then your body recognises this as being foreign. And, and the mean response. COVID-19 is one of those.

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:15.000
Oh, oh my goodness, I finished too early. Oh, that's not very good, is it?

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:23.000
Okay, well, let me just stop the share because what I would like to do because I missed a little bit out at the beginning.

00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:31.000
Because Cause I went through the, yeah, I missed, cause I missed the slide to be honest. It was my fault.

00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:37.000
So what I would like to say is, and this has come from the Office of Natural, National Statistics, and I think this is extremely interesting.

00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:59.000
Is that once immunization was introduced to countries there was a dramatic decline in deaths. Now if you want to go and see the actual figures you go on to the Office of Natural, National Statistics website and have a look.

00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:04.000
I had a look at them and I didn't want to put slides on because they were too complicated.

00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:10.000
You wouldn't have seen them, especially if you're looking on the small screen. Okay, but once.

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:22.000
Vaccines were introduced against polio. Dipheria, tetanus. Whooping cough and measles, mumps and rubella.

00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:33.000
There was a dramatic decline in deaths. From those diseases. And I think sometimes we forget that these these diseases do call do cause death.

00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:44.000
And often disability. Okay. So I think that's it. I'm really sorry that I've finished so early.

00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:48.000
That's got myself. I don't know what I got myself. Oh, so I'm finished too early.

00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:56.000
The other thing. No, that's it. That's it. So Fiona, would we like to go to our any questions that we've got?

00:40:56.000 --> 00:41:06.000
Okay. Yes, we've got some here and thanks very much for that. We'll just go straight into the questions now.

00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:13.000
Let's have a little look. Now. You mentioned this a few times. Diseases being eradicated in the wild.

00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:20.000
What exactly do you mean by that? I would assume that You mean within the general population of the world basically.

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:31.000
Yeah, yes, definitely within the general population. So the thing is, when diseases are, when you catch something, it's because you get it from somebody.

00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:37.000
You know, so say if I, if I catch cold, I will have got a cold from somebody else.

00:41:37.000 --> 00:41:40.000
They, they'll, you know, sneeze coughed, touch something, whatever.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:51.000
I, I would have caught it from them. But if there, if If people have been vaccinated, they will not catch those diseases.

00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:57.000
And if you have, if you have fewer and fewer people who are able to catch those diseases. Then if you have fewer fewer people who are spreading them.

00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:12.000
And so the more and more people who have been vaccinated, the fewer and fewer people are spreading the disease and the disease will just.

00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:20.000
If it can't be, if it can't be. Transmitted. Then it's going to go.

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:26.000
So say say say there was somebody in Hi, mountain cave, you know. Somebody who lived completely on their own.

00:42:26.000 --> 00:42:36.000
And they, They contract, they've gone into town, they contracted smallpox.

00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:47.000
But they went back to their cave. And was ill, they might be ill, they might have survived, they may not have survived, but during all that time they're real because they live completely on their own.

00:42:47.000 --> 00:43:02.000
They're not transmitting the disease, so it's not going further from them. And so the more people who are actually immunized, the less chance diseases have to be transmitted.

00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:03.000
Okay.

00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:08.000
Okay. And that question was from Leslie, so I hope that answered your question, Leslie.

00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:09.000
So, Yeah.

00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:16.000
And, people are asking, would it be possible for to actually see the slide that we missed?

00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:17.000
Is it possible? We launch and let's just have a quick look at it. I think it was a quick timeline, wasn't it?

00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:28.000
Oh yes. Yes, let's relaunch right. And it was a very quick timeline to be fair, but let me just go past.

00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:35.000
I'm sorry about that. It was completely by my fault. That's this one.

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:38.000
There you go.

00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:45.000
There we are. There we go. This is the one we missed. I'm very, very sorry about this.

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:56.000
So basically, it was a nicer picture than the other one. So in the eighteenth century, we were looking at the smallpox vaccine in the nineteenth century we were looking at the smallpox vaccine we were looking at the smallpox vaccine.

00:43:56.000 --> 00:44:01.000
In the nineteenth century, it was typhoid and rabies was developed. In the nineteenth century it was typhoid and rabies was developed.

00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:02.000
The vaccines against both of those were developed. The vaccines against both of those were developed. The vaccines against both of those were developed.

00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:06.000
Okay. And of course in the nineteenth century as far as typhoid, the vaccines against both of those were developed. Okay.

00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:07.000
And of course in the nineteenth century as far as typhoid was concerned as well was in the nineteenth century as far as typhoid was concerned as well was certainly in Britain.

00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:21.000
We started to have much better water, as far as typhoid was concerned as well, was certainly in Britain, we started to have much better water, cleaning, systems and sewage systems.

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:22.000
Well, we're certainly in Britain. We started to have much better water, cleaning, systems and sewage systems.

00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:32.000
So once, we sorted out, our sewage system got water treated and kept our drinking water completely separate, that made a huge difference in itself to typhoid in the UK.

00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:39.000
But there was a vaccine produced because it was a, it kills an awful lot of people to kind of typhoid.

00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:48.000
Then we got to the twentieth century, so we looked at as I said before, we had the flu vaccine and interestingly the this is better slide in the way that it's got some names on it.

00:44:48.000 --> 00:45:06.000
The influenza influenza vaccine was produced by Thomas Francis and Jonas Sulk. Sulk was a name that you will hear and can with vaccines.

00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:19.000
There is a salt vaccine and I've got a feeling. I can't remember what it. What it, he immunizes against now, but it's quite famous vaccines, the Sultan.

00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:24.000
I don't think we use it anymore though. I'm sure it's being superseded.

00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:34.000
So and then TV, TV, I'm sure you're aware TB, it was and still is a disease that is.

00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:45.000
As it kills people. It's often the disease of overcrowding but not necessarily. And it was killing an awful lot of people.

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:55.000
So the vaccine for, tuberculosis was developed in the 1920. And that was the BCG vaccine that many of you will have.

00:45:55.000 --> 00:46:06.000
I've had that one. We don't give the BCG vaccine anymore to children automatically because it is not particularly effective against many of the strains of tuberculosis.

00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:27.000
TB that are circulating. Today. So it's not given routinely anymore. And TB vaccine is usually given to certain groups of people who are more at risk than others.

00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:33.000
Okay. TV is not, it's surprisingly enough, it's not particularly infectious.

00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:51.000
And so you can actually contain TV quite quickly once you have if you have one one case of it it's quite it's not too hard to trace everybody that's been in contact with that person and and vaccinate in small areas.

00:46:51.000 --> 00:47:00.000
Though it's it's more cost-effective but more to the point is that BCG is not Absolutely brilliant.

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:09.000
Helping with the modern strain. So I was convinced I'd be absolutely fine against TV, but apparently I'm not.

00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:19.000
Then you have, TV is still prevalent in the world today. It's still is a lot of people die from TB today.

00:47:19.000 --> 00:47:29.000
We have TB as a bacterial infection. We do have antibiotics for it, but to get rid of TB, you have to take them for about 6 months.

00:47:29.000 --> 00:47:40.000
So you need compliance. And many people stop taking them, once they feel better. And then the TV comes back and then it's it's mutated so the antibiotics don't work against it anymore.

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:50.000
So we have a lot of TB. Now, which are, which do not respond to the antibiotics that we have.

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:58.000
And this is one of the big problems that we have. And this is one of the big problems we have with TV.

00:47:58.000 --> 00:48:00.000
So we really do need, some new vaccines. And this is one of the big problems we have with TB. So we really do need, some new vaccines.

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:05.000
There, there and being made. Here we go, polio vaccine, that's a silkon.

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:08.000
That's the one that you had on the sugar cube. You probably remember that it's an oral vaccine.

00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:18.000
And polio is, is a disease that is spread orally.

00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:26.000
And that's one of the sugar cube. And there is another type of polio vaccine now that one is it's an injectable one.

00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:42.000
Okay, then we had peptide speed in 1,969, MMR in 1,971 it was starting to be given to all children okay so although the measles.

00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:57.000
Vaccine had been available in the sixties in the late sixtys the actual combined jab the MMR was developed in the early seventies and started to be getting to children then.

00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:05.000
77, we had the NUMA cockle vaccine, then hepatitis A, 1995.

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:17.000
And the HPV vaccine that was 2,006 is quite recent is that one. Okay. And then what isn't on this slide and should have been was COVID. I've stuck it on the side.

00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:25.000
I couldn't get it fit on. So they co with vaccine obviously is the most recent one that we are aware of.

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:26.000
Yeah.

00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:31.000
So that was that was the side we mixed and I'm so sorry we missed it because actually it's a really good slide.

00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:32.000
Thanks.

00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:36.000
Good. Okay. And right. Now, what we've got next now.

00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:43.000
And this is question from Anne. Would we, and I say the word all these, this is Anne's words, not mine, would we all days and I think we're talking about smallpox here.

00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:44.000
Okay.

00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:57.000
And would we all days who have been vaccinated still have immunity?

00:49:57.000 --> 00:49:58.000
Good.

00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:01.000
Yes, yes, it's lifelong immunity, the smallpox vaccine. Yeah. Yeah, so in the case of biological warfare, you'd be okay.

00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:02.000
Yeah.

00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:08.000
Excellent. I hope that answers your question. And a question from Sally, and about the MMR.

00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:09.000
I knew this would come up.

00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:18.000
This website is going to come up, I think. Yeah. And so Sally is saying, getting the benefits of vaccines and the eradication of a lot of diseases.

00:50:18.000 --> 00:50:29.000
Why do you think or do we know why? The uptake of MMR is now really rather low causing quite a prevalence of measles in at the moment.

00:50:29.000 --> 00:50:34.000
And why that is a rise in an anti-vaccination movement since COVID.

00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:42.000
Hmm. Right. Well, let's start with the, the first pass that question, which was, what was the first one?

00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:44.000
NMR.

00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:50.000
MMM, right. So why the rates going down? There's I think there were a few reasons.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:51:08.000
First of all, in the 9, the 19 nineties. There was a, very widely publicized, Study, don't, which associated.

00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:17.000
I'm just going to put it like this. Associated MMR with autism. My son was due to have his vaccines, his MMR.

00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:31.000
The week or so after that came out. So obviously I was I was you know concerned and interested and I delayed this vaccine a vaccination because I wanted to find out more about the study.

00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:35.000
And as it happens, that study, although it was reported widely on the television, in the papers and so on.

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:45.000
The study was a study of I think it was 6 children. So it wasn't a valid study.

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:56.000
There were not enough participants within the study to make it statistically, to statistically, viable.

00:51:56.000 --> 00:51:59.000
And I had to look at it. I had a look at other studies. There are many of the studies looking at.

00:51:59.000 --> 00:52:08.000
MMR and autism and the other studies as far as I can find out. Do not show anything at all.

00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:25.000
So my son did have his. Although it was a month or so later than planned. I think a lot of people did not do the research that I did and they just still think that there is a link and I think that's part of it.

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:42.000
And I think the other part of it as well is that, people, I mean, obviously I, older, like, like, you know, some of you, How I said I remember having measles as a child and I remember how worried my parents were.

00:52:42.000 --> 00:53:01.000
Now, my children have no idea what measles is like. They will have no idea what even to look for with the rash and so on and i think that with younger people they just Do not appreciate the fact that measles and mumps.

00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:09.000
Would cause death or disability. Measles is actually the major cause of meningitis. And I think people don't realize that.

00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:17.000
We're all scared of meningitis. But measles is actually the major cause of meningitis.

00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:18.000
So I think that's that's got a lot to do with it. The anti-vax movement.

00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:25.000
I, that's

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:34.000
Are you probably gathered that I agree with vaccination? I'm a scientist and so I do agree with vaccination.

00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:39.000
However, people have a choice. They can decide what they want to do or what they don't want to do.

00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:48.000
I think the media, the social media and so on have a lot to do with the anti-vaccination movement.

00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:55.000
There's a lot of misinformation. Around and there's a lot of misinformation with people with agendas.

00:53:55.000 --> 00:54:05.000
So that's my that's my personal opinion. And that is a bit of a political opinion but that I think is why we have this huge anti-vaccination movement.

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:18.000
And it is driven by certain groups of people with certain ideas. Past the reason that polio is not being eradicated is because of groups in certain countries.

00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:31.000
Who believe that. Okay. I believe that there are. Dark forces involved with the polio vaccination scheme program.

00:54:31.000 --> 00:54:40.000
And and if they if they weren't if they didn't have those particular ideas it would probably be completely eradicated by now.

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:41.000
Okay.

00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:45.000
So I think it's a lot to do with media. Good. That's my opinion. Okay.

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:54.000
Okay, right, let's move on. And now we were talking about lots of different vaccines for lots of different diseases.

00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:58.000
A different An, is asking about scarlet fever.

00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:05.000
Scarlett fever! Yes! Scarlett Faber, as far as I'm aware, because I've got a bit of a look.

00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:09.000
I can't find that there is a vaccine against scalar thief. Scala figures horrible disease.

00:55:09.000 --> 00:55:22.000
I think part of the reason that we maybe haven't developed, a vaccine for Scarlet Fever is that it's a bacterial disease and you can treat it with antibiotics.

00:55:22.000 --> 00:55:26.000
So I rather think that that's probably why there isn't a drive. To develop a vaccine.

00:55:26.000 --> 00:55:40.000
Having said that, we are all aware that our our antibiotics are limited. They are reduced.

00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:56.000
Many pathogens are becoming resistance to them. So I it would be quite interesting to see whether that What they, vaccine is produced for scarlet fever in the next sort of 1020 years.

00:55:56.000 --> 00:55:58.000
I wouldn't surprise me if it did. It's becoming quite common again as well. It used to be quite a rare thing.

00:55:58.000 --> 00:56:08.000
Scarlett fever, but I believe cases are going up a little bit.

00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:22.000
Hmm, interesting. And a question from Celia. This is maybe more of a medical question, so I'm not sure whether this is something you did the answer but she's asking about shingles because it seems to be quite prevalent these days as well, doesn't it?

00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:26.000
I am a recent person that's had it very mildly and it's deeply unpleasant.

00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:27.000
Hmm.

00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:36.000
Painful but it's what Celia is asking is why do we get it? Can it be a stress thing or are there other puzzle?

00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:37.000
What are the causes?

00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:45.000
It can be a stress thing. It can be to do with illness. As I said, it's shingles is caused by the virus that causes chickenpox.

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:46.000
Yeah.

00:56:46.000 --> 00:56:56.000
And once you had chickenpox as I said the virus it finds little place within your nervous system and it will just sit there and You know, go to sleep.

00:56:56.000 --> 00:57:04.000
But sometimes it's Almost woken up by stressful events can definitely reactivate it.

00:57:04.000 --> 00:57:20.000
Illness can often reactivate it some people you have no idea what's reactivated it and my it's a disease more generally of older people, shingles.

00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:29.000
It's very rare for young people to have shingles, but I, my niece actually had shingles as a teenager.

00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:30.000
Hmm.

00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:35.000
Mild case. But that's extremely rare and I don't, we don't know what caused it.

00:57:35.000 --> 00:57:47.000
We don't know she didn't have it. You know, something happened. It just it just appeared, but it's often associated with times of extreme stress.

00:57:47.000 --> 00:58:08.000
Illness and lack of just being run down. You know, my mother-in-law had it after her husband was, admitted to a residential care and that's because she hadn't slept for 2 years, year enough.

00:58:08.000 --> 00:58:11.000
And, she, she was very, very ill with it. But it is that.

00:58:11.000 --> 00:58:13.000
Hmm.

00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:16.000
It is that stress thing, but sometimes you just don't know what's caused it.

00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:24.000
Yeah, okay. Well, I hope that answers your question, Celia. Now we've got a couple of other questions and then I think we'll need to wrap.

00:58:24.000 --> 00:58:36.000
No. Hold on 1 s. Let me just scroll down.

00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:37.000
Hmm.

00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:43.000
Yes, question from Ruth. You talk, it's coming back to smallpox again. I think it was at 2 thirds of people that caught smallpox survived.

00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:44.000
Yeah.

00:58:44.000 --> 00:58:51.000
You mean, why? Were they just generally healthier and stronger or do we know whether there was a particular reason?

00:58:51.000 --> 00:58:52.000
Okay.

00:58:52.000 --> 00:58:59.000
As far as we know, we don't know if those particular reason some people's immune systems are stronger than others.

00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:04.000
It could be that some of those people that survived had maybe had a very mild case of cowpox that they hadn't known about or something like that.

00:59:04.000 --> 00:59:22.000
It could just be that their immune system was able to fight off the disease better. I would think that probably your general health had a lot to do with it if you were well fed and you were warm.

00:59:22.000 --> 00:59:39.000
And healthy then I'm sure that your immune system would have been able to combat the smallpox easier than if you were in living in very, very poor conditions and actually not having enough to eat.

00:59:39.000 --> 00:59:45.000
Because that does affect your immune system if if you know

00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:46.000
Exactly.

00:59:46.000 --> 00:59:50.000
Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you are what you eat. And right, one final question.

00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:55.000
And then I think will wrap up. This is from, I don't know the name, it just says Jay.

00:59:55.000 --> 00:59:57.000
No, this is about It's and HIV. Are there scientists working on an AIDS vaccination?

00:59:57.000 --> 01:00:09.000
I know that there are a lot of work has gone on in terms of tackling the HIV virus.

01:00:09.000 --> 01:00:18.000
I, I think there must be. you know, when, scientists are working on things like this, they keep it.

01:00:18.000 --> 01:00:24.000
Keep it to themselves really until they've got something good enough to be able to publish and be certain.

01:00:24.000 --> 01:00:32.000
I think they're they must be definitely working on a vaccine against H HIV because it's a virus that has spread around the world.

01:00:32.000 --> 01:00:46.000
It's debilitating. It does cause deaths as we know. Obviously now we have developed treatments.

01:00:46.000 --> 01:00:52.000
Changed HIV altogether and you can live a full life as long as you know a full length life now, taking, taking the medicines.

01:00:52.000 --> 01:00:59.000
I mean, you have to take them every day. It's quite a regime. It's not that easy to follow.

01:00:59.000 --> 01:01:17.000
But it's doable and you know your your length of life won't be changed. So I don't know how much money has maybe been going into the treatment and these drugs.

01:01:17.000 --> 01:01:38.000
Against how much money went into finding a vaccine for it just remember HIV obviously we really saw the cases in the eightys in the early eightys was when we started to see it, it would have been around for a little while before that, but we were becoming aware of it in the eightys.

01:01:38.000 --> 01:02:03.000
And If HIV was was just sort of emerging now, I think there would be a bigger push on a vaccine because we have these vaccines now like the COVID one the MRNA vaccines they are easier to produce because all the testing has been, they are easier to produce because all the testing has been done on the the method.

01:02:03.000 --> 01:02:11.000
The way of, presenting the, vaccine itself. So all they change is a little bit of genetic material inside the capsule.

01:02:11.000 --> 01:02:22.000
And that's the only thing that's changed. So the testing regime is much, much easier, much quicker.

01:02:22.000 --> 01:02:23.000
Okay.

01:02:23.000 --> 01:02:29.000
So, yeah, I hope there will be one page, HIV. I think it would be really good if we could get a vaccine for it.

01:02:29.000 --> 01:02:33.000
Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks again, Catherine. That was really interesting stuff.

01:02:33.000 --> 01:02:39.000
I hope everybody out there agrees. I guess it is the subject we all have our opinions on as well and I do hope it's given you all some food for thought to find out a little bit more about it.

01:02:39.000 --> 01:02:44.000
So, and thank you Catherine.

01:02:44.000 --> 01:02:48.000
Thank you.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.000
And it's over to you, Geoffrey.

00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.000
Good evening, everyone. I'm sorry for the technical hitches there at the beginning.

00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:44.000
We're fully into the talk now. So welcome along to the talk on aspects of British agriculture, historic agriculture, we'll be looking at this from a variety of perspectives from an international national regional and local exemplars.

00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:53.000
To how British farming changed mainly in the nineteenth and twentieth century and into the 20 first century. So let's have a look.

00:04:53.000 --> 00:05:01.000
I'm a geography teacher, so we must start with a map. Now you've got to see from this, I've simplified.

00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:08.000
Map show you the physical relief of the country that by and large the north and the west of the British Isles.

00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:20.000
Tends to be a higher wetter area. Mountainless. Rugged they central and eastern and southeastern sides tend to be lower lying.

00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:45.000
Tend to be drier and those 2 aspects affect different types of agriculture that we have. There are regional variations in all of this of course, but by and large to the West we expect to find more grass growing and more catering both for beef production and for milk but also a lot of sheep in the uplands, particularly in Wales.

00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:56.000
Dairy in produces the milk for a whole range of industrial processes, food processing. Central, eastern, southern, eastern areas tend to be more arable.

00:05:56.000 --> 00:06:05.000
And fruit and horticulture. Sunlight, slightly dry climate. But we're going to be looking at some regional variations in all of these.

00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:13.000
And we're going to start out in the northern part. Start out in Scotland. Let me go a lovely image at the top here of some highland cattle.

00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:20.000
And these Highland cattle are being bred for. Mainly meat production and not just for the people in Scotland.

00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:29.000
Southeast of England has the bulk of the population and the industrial north of England, the Midlands.

00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:35.000
And great deal of meat was needed for that. And much of it was brought down on droving trails.

00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:51.000
Coming down from in this case, this particular map showing you from the the West Western Isles and from also from Northern Ireland and South West Scotland, heading down in a whole series of very long-distance drover trails.

00:06:51.000 --> 00:07:04.000
Mostly trying to find their way to the great capital at London, the huge meat market. Now, the north, because it's wetter and cooler climate, particular crops will be grown there.

00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:09.000
And in particular we associate that with oats. It's certainly Scotland with oats in the north of England.

00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:32.000
Oats went into severe decline early in the twentieth century with the loss of horsepower in much of industry and so at some extent in agriculture but have made a big comeback we now see the healthy options that oats give us and read not so long ago that the the acreage of votes in 2022 was equal to that in 1914.

00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:41.000
So there's been a big upsurge. That in 1,914. So there's been a big upsurge, this time mostly for human consumption, although of course we do still have a huge number of forces for leisure purposes.

00:07:41.000 --> 00:08:05.000
And so there's a big market in Oats. Yes, we associate of course Scotland with one of its main manufacturers and dollar owners of providing whiskey and we need a barley for that and so barley a lot of barley grown in southeast Scotland the area of the Lothians and down towards the borders.

00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:13.000
And that is going, something is going into, food production, but the bulk of that, certainly from Scotland is going into whiskey production.

00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:15.000
So we've got the bulk of that, certainly from Scotland, is going into whiskey production.

00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:23.000
So we've got some regionality developing here. If we go to the west of Britain and this is in far northwest Wales on the Fleen Peninsula.

00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:31.000
My apologies, anyone who is Welsh out there, my pronunciation of clean. It's the long peninsula that stretches out beyond Anglesey.

00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:41.000
These are Welsh black cattle. And similar to the Highland capital would be driven in their thousands down through

00:08:41.000 --> 00:09:08.000
From northwest Wales central mid Wales south Wales down through the midlands to the home counties. Process of bringing cattle across Britain hundreds and hundreds of miles means they lose a great deal of weight along the way and so they are pastured down in the in the clay lowlands of Middlesex and Hertfordshire down in the Thames Valley and the Way Valley into North Kent and Northern Sussex.

00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:13.000
And they're they're fat and known. And bought rather more slowly up to the big meat markets.

00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:21.000
In London that would be to the south of the Thames in Southwark. And to the north of the Thames famously in Smithville.

00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:31.000
Now, London. Is an enormous city in the early nineteenth century until 1,921 it's the largest city in the world.

00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:46.000
It's also immensely wealthy and they consume huge amounts of food. But until the end of the nineteenth century there is no effective refrigeration other than ice houses using blocks of imported Scandinavian ice.

00:09:46.000 --> 00:10:01.000
Food has to come in literally on the hoof or it's driven down. From East Anglia, Turkey's and geese, we clipped wings and literally walked into the centre of London, food has grown very close to the capital.

00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:18.000
You know, freezing no refrigeration, it has to be brought in rapidly. Much of it, of course, was dried or smoked or adulterated in a whole raft of ways which as it's approaching dinner time, I won't go into the detail, but you really don't want to be consuming much food.

00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:32.000
No, century. But it is a huge market. For the mates once they're all to bite the horns and hooves them.

00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:42.000
We all go off to be processed in a raft. Industries. That print here shown you old Smithfield market.

00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:54.000
And just the process of bringing large semi wild beasts through the seats of a densely packed city with all the noise and the confusion, sheep, cattle, pigs.

00:10:54.000 --> 00:11:02.000
It must have been, trying time for the drovers and then getting them here and then moving them on.

00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:12.000
Too slaughty yards and other markets. Beautiful image here of the densely packed market at Oldsmith Hill.

00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:16.000
Away from the West of England and the north of England and Scotland and stock production, there was a Please do.

00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:26.000
Yes, could I interrupt just for a second? I do not think people are seeing you transitioning through these slides.

00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:27.000
Right.

00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:31.000
I don't know if you want to stop sharing and re-share again to see if that clears whatever the problem might be.

00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:35.000
Okay. Okay.

00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:36.000
Okay.

00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:40.000
A lot of people are just saying, saying they can see the map, which was quite some time ago.

00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:45.000
Okay, it's not moved on from there. Okay, so we come out of that. We go to share screen again.

00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:59.000
Let's get to that.

00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:00.000
Let's just go back.

00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:04.000
Okay, people reporting they can see, they can see, okay, so.

00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:09.000
Okay, let me just run very quickly. Okay, we've got the map which some of you have seen.

00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:11.000
Yes, yes, just go back to where you were.

00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:21.000
Okay, we go back to the cattle. Oats, darling, down through the Welsh black cattle, the droving trails down into south of England.

00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:26.000
Right, capital of London and it's huge meat market.

00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:27.000
There is a regionality away from that Western, side of Britain, stop greering into other forms of production.

00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:41.000
And a lot of the certainly the lighter limestones in chalks of the south and the east.

00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:47.000
And the coastal plain of Kent, Sussex and Hampshire are big, horrible producers.

00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:53.000
And it's a lovely 1930 view here. Of some very evocative sheaves in a large field.

00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:59.000
This is on the the lower green sand in West Sussex. On the North of that you've got Lincolnshire with its big potato growing.

00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:15.000
Potatoes were relatively localised until the coming of the railways. A bit more about that to allow bulky cheap cargoes to be moved.

00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:21.000
Readily. So here you've got production, you'll notice the women and the children mainly involved in that.

00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:32.000
Aspect of agriculture. Specialized if you go into Norfolk with the growth of mustard. And Coleman's famously based at Norwich.

00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:43.000
Old established firm. Okay, in the West of England over on the Severn Valley, you've got that and around the river Avon.

00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:47.000
You have. Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, great fruit producers.

00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:56.000
Famously for cider apples but I hear around Evesham, the 19 forties map, the number of orchards.

00:13:56.000 --> 00:14:08.000
Okay, Kent, of course, we associate with orchards and with hops. Can't be that much nearer to London had a very vibrant trade in getting fresh food.

00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:23.000
Both overland by Oxford and Horse. Horse and cart but a lot of it went by sea going along the north coast of Kent and up the river Thames into London and big bulky cargoes, a rather nice fifties image here of Kent.

00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:37.000
As the Garden of England. Specialized near to London. What herb and and medicinal plants for a raft of food industries and pharmaceutical industries.

00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:43.000
And there's a clip on the left hand side of the screen from the 1,839 directory for Surrey.

00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:54.000
Showing you under gardeners on that right hand column. Aromatic plants and medicinal herbs and they're all up at Mitchum and Merton, this is South West London.

00:14:54.000 --> 00:15:01.000
And then the image on the right are the car shortened lavender beds. Very nearby you would have had Mitcham.

00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:03.000
You see there which produced a form of peppermint. Mitch and mints were fairly popular one time.

00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:20.000
Lavender Hill, a bit further north in Battersea, where Mrs. Mead was born and you can still go into the deep suburban Hey, areas of Car Shorten in Surrey near to Croydon and see the lap into beds there.

00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:27.000
They were really stated about 20 years ago. And it's a marvelous sight to find your way between suburban bungalows.

00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:31.000
Into huge field of lavender. But you just have to like bees which fill up the space there.

00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:56.000
So there's very specialized especially near to London. More bulky goods away. Now we mentioned about daring being important and of course this advert here for a fried milk chocolate full cream milk from West of England farms and fries based in Bristol ideally placed a collect in the milk.

00:15:56.000 --> 00:16:06.000
Of course, bit further north, cabbage at Bournville. Similar area bringing in milk from the Welsh borderland.

00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:10.000
Okay, on the south coast of England much milder

00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:18.000
Deep rich soils, lot more sunshine generally. This is to the west of Worthing which had a big tomato growing.

00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:25.000
Empire and you can see the glass houses here. These are going to stop from the 1860 s onwards.

00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:47.000
Tomato and cucumber growing was based in the Lee Valley in the east side of London. Borders of Essex and London, but increasing smoke pollution drifting eastwards from the capital meant that growers were moving out from the 18 sixties using the new railway network and moving down to the south coast to get away from the smoke of London and was working tomatoes became very famous.

00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:59.000
And still some evidence of that around. Big extensive glass houses. In West Sussex today.

00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:01.000
It's over well growing potatoes, wheat, moving animals around. You need good transport links.

00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:15.000
Roads particularly in the southeast of England were pretty bad heavy clay thick sands made moving around difficult But by the 18 twenties road making is getting much better.

00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:26.000
You've got Telford in the West Midlands, macadam in the central Belt of Scotland, Stevenson's up in the northeast.

00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:34.000
These are all major industrial areas, so they needed good roads. Roads get better in the south of England.

00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:44.000
If you can cynically say when wealthy people need to get from London down to the seaside to the new resorts which are developing along the Kent, Sussex and Hampshire and Dorset coast.

00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:49.000
And this is a section of the new, 1,825 road from London to Brighton.

00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:58.000
The old road ran away on that winding route away to the east. But by the 1820. Wrote making had enabled a straighter road.

00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:05.000
Which cut the journey time from London to Brighton from 10 h down to 6 h, almost carved it.

00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:13.000
Now, if you allowed rich people to get to the coast, it allowed farmers on those routeways to get their goods to market more readily.

00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:16.000
So that aided farmers.

00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:26.000
In the Midlands and in the North in particular. The development of the canal system. Gay bulk cargoes could be moved around quite readily.

00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:34.000
Nice, early nineteenth century print there on very rural looking pattern and the Grand Junction Canal Basin.

00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:44.000
And on the right hand side a 19 thirties image of a family living on a canal boat in part of the black country to the west of Birmingham.

00:18:44.000 --> 00:19:00.000
And they would be moving. A lot of materials around to food production until the 19 seventys a lot of goods went to the hinds factories in North West London came in by, came in by Canalbert.

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:11.000
It's the railways which really open things up. With no express dairies and that developed someone getting milk from Derbyshire down to London.

00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:16.000
And obviously using the train and taking that as their, as their, name of the phone, their express, dairies.

00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:26.000
On the right hand side, so rural, milk train. And of course that enabled. Highly perishable.

00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:37.000
Products such as your milk. To be taken into the urban areas. On UN refrigerated trains but you had the speed.

00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:48.000
So. Certainly by the middle of the nineteenth century. S have got access. To roads and most of them to railways and many of them to canal transport.

00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:56.000
That cuts their costs down. As we were rapidly urbanising nation, more people are living in fewer places.

00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:05.000
Which means the costs for the farmer distributed to these or the agricultural distributor is also coming down.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:11.000
Having said that, Machu rshaqua culture was still running in a very ancient form.

00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:22.000
This is in 1,907 on the South Downs. To the north of Brighton, very near the University of Sussex, in a village called Falmer.

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:29.000
And here you've got someone rolling a field using oxen. Now oxen have been used since the Bronze Age.

00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:36.000
And in East Sussex it was the last place to commercially use auction. In the country for agriculture.

00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:41.000
The last team worked in 1,922. So just over 100 years ago.

00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:49.000
We were still using Bronze Age technology in agriculture. Daring wasn't too much better.

00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:56.000
I don't have a caption to tell you where this was taking place, but at the same period these are being hand built.

00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:06.000
In Denmark and in Holland. They were using mechanized milking processes which meant they're much cleaner, more hygienic and at greater volume.

00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:18.000
So it's very, very old-fashioned way of farming. This is in the 19 thirties in Essex, not far from London, big wheat fields of southern Essex using horse transport.

00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:27.000
So, farming wasn't keeping up with the technology. It was also labour intensive things like hot production.

00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:33.000
Just take a lot of people to produce hops, takes a lot of people to pick them as it was called.

00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:43.000
Pulling the binds. And traditionally firmly will come out from South London, East London to the Hopfield in Essex and Kent and East Sussex.

00:21:43.000 --> 00:22:01.000
Working holiday for urban families, extra money coming into the into the family coffers. And it would have been seen as the children's bit of a treat, but it was hard work, but again until the 19 sixties it's heavily dependent on manual labour.

00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:13.000
During the night nineteenth century mechanisation was coming in. This is by the artist John Lash showing you a thrashing machine, thrashing was something which kept agricultural labors occupied throughout the winter.

00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:27.000
Once the harvest was in in September it would be stored in ricks and then all through the winter it would be taken into the thrashing yards and gradually the barns will fill up with fresh grain, but it was work for agricultural laborers.

00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:37.000
One of these machines would do a winter's work. In a week and it meant unemployment people were leaving the land and flocking into the cities.

00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:43.000
Nasty places to live, but there was work available and there was relatively cheap housing available. Is why urban areas grew so rapidly in the nineteenth century.

00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:58.000
It looks idyllic in the in this countryside of the UK but it was very hard work and often socially very oppressive.

00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:04.000
People flocked into towns. This is an 1851 image of Brighton. We're not looking at the seaside image of Brighton here.

00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:17.000
We're looking at a gentry scan of houses along the front of the image and then terrorist workers housing a raft of industrial chimneys, big railway station, the top of the image windmill.

00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:26.000
The be some market gardens in that image as well. So. Urban areas, lot of people coming in, they need feeding.

00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:36.000
And a lot of that was done in the urban area. So I made this slide up just from local dairies in Brighton in the nineteenth century.

00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:44.000
Cows were kept in the country, but the difficulty was getting the milk into urban areas. Before the railway, almost impossible.

00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:50.000
So you made it into butter and cheese and you could move the milk that way. You wanted liquid milk.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:24:04.000
Was from urban dairies, town cows as they were called and the image top left hand corner are some tiny back streets in Brighton and the little images within those are cow houses.

00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:14.000
And count houses were taxed differently so they were recorded for bureaucracy. Down below of the bottom left hand corner is one of these cow houses.

00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:26.000
You can see a single cow. And at the top, lovely 1858 image. They aren't any cowkeepers, fruiterers in green grocers.

00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:33.000
That's in a very nice West End area of Brighton, very swanky area then and today.

00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:39.000
But it's this autumny cow keepers. It doesn't mean the cows were ordinary cows like Jersey cows or Guernsey cows.

00:24:39.000 --> 00:25:00.000
Any cow in the backyard was called an orgeny cow in the same way as we all have vacuum cleaners, only some of us have hoovers, but we talk about doing the A cow in the backyard was at Walden Cow and this would have been in London there would have been thousands and thousands of urban dairies producing.

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:03.000
Probably not very good quality.

00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:08.000
You also needed vegetables, not so much in the way of fruit. This is 1832.

00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:15.000
On the very urban edge of Brighton. If I just go back 2 slides. The.

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:28.000
Terraced streets in the middle of this image. The terrace streets you see at the bottom of this image and Brighton is growing out onto its surrounding farmland.

00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:35.000
Which you can see at top of the slide and the belt through the middle where the big 13 number is are a series of market gardens.

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:46.000
One there is called Kensington Gardens. It's still a street name today. North Gardens is to the left hand side of the image, nearby Queen's Garden, Spring Garden, Zion Gardens.

00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:57.000
And these are all referring not to elegant. Gardens as you might see around a big house but to food production in market gardens.

00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:05.000
Big cities create a lot of people needing drink. We talked about Scottish whiskey. Most towns had breweries.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:13.000
Some towns like Bright would have had scores of breweries, both in visitors and for residents, and that requires a lot of crops to be grown for the production of beer.

00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:24.000
So we talked about barley going into whiskey in Scotland, south of England that goes into breweries.

00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:32.000
Thankfully this one still survives. Lewis is the county town of East Sussex and that is still the riverside, the Bridge Wharf Brewery.

00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:38.000
Down by the River Ouse, which still producing very high quality beer.

00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:56.000
The big crop which came into cities was not for food production for humans, but it was food for draft animals and big cities would have thousands of horses both for transport purposes, leisure purposes, military police.

00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:14.000
Mostly in cities with horse buses to run the horse bus networks. Horse buses appear in the 18 twenties in London, 1,800 fiftys in my hometown of Brighton, but certainly in London it was calculated you needed 16 forces.

00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:25.000
Every day for every single route. So if you've got the root number one, you need 16 horses to keep that route running from morning until evening.

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:34.000
Hundreds of hundreds of bus services in big cities. This is a picture by David Cox, the watercolor of the hay making.

00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:54.000
And that was a big job getting hay into. One of the most famous pictures that everybody knows is the hay w and here is the haywain, an empty hayway in this case is probably down to and the quayside on the can now or down to the coast to offload his hay.

00:27:54.000 --> 00:28:11.000
Because here we are down in Essex with hay barges at Mill Reach on the Blackwater River and this would come into mainly from the southeast of England into London and of course where would it go the hay market in London was where it was collected.

00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:26.000
And that is an enormous trade. What went in one end of a horse? Comes out the other end of the horse and so these barges wagons, sailboats would go out laden out with stable when you were to go back to the farmlands.

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:30.000
Around the home counties.

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:41.000
A lot of hate was grown. Very near to London in particular. This is an 1850 s map of middle sex.

00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:54.000
Big fields. Clayland, perfect for, for growing grass and you might notice right here, put my, The middle of the map and down to here.

00:28:54.000 --> 00:29:03.000
I've got my pointer here is heath. Now, many of us know Heathrow, of course, is the big international airport, but this is Heathrow.

00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:26.000
And these big fields would would have been producing into the early twentieth century. Huge quantities of. Okay, this is a part of a 19 forties map of Essex and you can see what's happened to those big fields are covered in housing because after 1911 London transport stops using horses.

00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:33.000
There is no need for hey the Trice of Hayland Clements. And it gets taken up by house builders.

00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:42.000
John Betjeman famously has a poem which is parish of enormous hay fields. Kerry Vale stood all alone.

00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:49.000
And that was very typical. Of you could get 3 hay crops, that was 3 lots of money.

00:29:49.000 --> 00:29:57.000
And so it was profitable just to grow grass, but the grass wasn't needed. Profitable for suburban housing.

00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:04.000
And here's the chart which shows it all. So London Omnibuses, nearly 4,000.

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:17.000
Buses there, horses. Coming in right down to 1911 down to 0. And they stop using them, relentless rise of motor buses.

00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:24.000
And of course trams are on this chart, but give you an idea of what was happening transport technology was changing.

00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:34.000
Affecting local agriculture. Okay. Now, during the nineteenth century, we start to get a regionalization of both crops.

00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:47.000
And of livestock. Selective breeding gives us bigger animals. Animal suitable for wood production or for meat production or leather production and so here we've got a Berkshire pig.

00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:57.000
At the top here, south down sheep which were developed early in the nineteenth century. To produce short stocky animals for wool.

00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:08.000
And for, meat. The top here, we had. South East of England produced a great deal of poultry, Norking fowl, Buff, orpington.

00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:15.000
Fowl and Buff Sussex. And that's a big trade in poultry, all going across to London.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:22.000
And at the bottom, one of my favorite characters This is the beast that won the Fatstop show in 1,936.

00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:31.000
His name is Han Cross Rover. And he was surprised Sussex bull. I showed this image at a farming talk I did a few years ago.

00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:36.000
And it's always frightening to anyone giving a talk when someone jumps up and says, stop.

00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:42.000
And that this little lady said when I was a small girl Hank Cross rover sun was our breeding bull and I haven't seen him since, 1,938.

00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:52.000
She's a rather nice historic aspect. But we've got this selective breeding given us better strains.

00:31:52.000 --> 00:32:01.000
The poultry from all over Southeast England. Geese and ducks from East Anglia, Turkey is from East Anglia.

00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:08.000
Live stop coming down from the Thames Valley, but also I said from Surrey, Kent and Sussex and it is going to one place to let in full market.

00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:18.000
That new market was the big country market. Originally coming up life. With the railways introduction, you can have dead stock.

00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:37.000
In the home counties and then feed that into London. But it was an enormous trade. Okay, it also generated an industry so Nice stuff's poultry here, the champion white Sussex from 1,940, but they are fed using chicken fattening machines.

00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:48.000
Which were developed specifically for the purpose. And here we've got, town.

00:32:48.000 --> 00:33:00.000
In East Sussex as being the brewery also had the big Phoenix I am works they produced, and particularly in the Midlands and East Anglia and up into Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:10.000
And in Scotland local firms producing specific bailiffs. Combines various feeding machines.

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:20.000
Egg production is important, variety of ways, not just for Could, a nice 19 forties map here of Kings Langley in Hertfordshire.

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:44.000
With the oval Team Egg Farm. Our team was one of these new products produced in 19 in the early twentieth century along with rivita and shredded wheat because they all the adverts said grown in Britain makes Britons and Rye Vita was you know British wheat and barley go to make this British product an oval team similarly.

00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:45.000
It said in on that you can see the extent of the egg farm here, for oval team.

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:55.000
So the niche market is not going to change things, but it was another aspect to food production.

00:33:55.000 --> 00:34:02.000
Now, not only to where they, selectively breeding for hens and for sheep, cattle and pigs, But wheat production changed dramatically.

00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:14.000
Now I'm going to take you to a very obscure part of the south of England. Down here, this is a eighteenth century map of West Sussex.

00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:19.000
And this is Chidam Peninsula. Yeah, it's right off the beaten track today.

00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:39.000
It's just one road in and one road out. It's very near Chichester, the county town in West Sussex, but Chidham was famous for Chidam white wheat and during the early nineteenth century they produced a strain of wheat here at Cheddar, which is Beautiful grade one rich soil.

00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:51.000
The farmer noticed that his wheat he was growing was mutating to produce multiple heads of wheat. One stem rather than just one ear, he was getting multiple.

00:34:51.000 --> 00:35:00.000
He had the good sense to save those ears and replant and throughout the nineteenth century children, white wheat is listed.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:10.000
In farming journals and in newspapers as you know the the crop. To grow. It was a big crop, produced a lot of food as the population was growing.

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:13.000
That's all important.

00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:23.000
Yeah, I'm gonna leave Sussex and go to Eastern Europe. So an area we've heard a great deal about over the last couple of years, we're going down to Ukraine.

00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:35.000
And this is a 1912 map I love on here where it says the province of the Don Cossacks, but these are places which are bigger than you, that they Crimea, Care Song.

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:44.000
Kiev during the nineteenth century the big grasslands of southern Russia were being ploughed up for Arab production.

00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:53.000
And by the 1850 s large quantities of East European wheat are coming into Western Europe and pushing down the prices.

00:35:53.000 --> 00:36:03.000
But in the middle of the 1850, SA very obscure war, which we know a little bit more about because part of our culture takes place in the Crimea.

00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:09.000
The siege of Sebastian Pump, the charge of the Light Brigade, Florence Nightingale, things that we remember from school.

00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:16.000
But this cheap wheat is pushing down prices but the Crimean War stops that wheat coming in.

00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:25.000
And so British farmers get a bolster that they don't realize they've got against an agricultural depression.

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:34.000
10 years later colonists are flooding eastwards from the east coast of North America out into the Great Prairies.

00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:44.000
And with the end of the American Civil War in 1,865, the opening up the prairie lands and huge quantities of wheat are coming in from the West.

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:56.000
So Britain is poised to be inundated from the east and the west with cheap grain. Okay, and by the 18 seventies this grain is flooding across.

00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:02.000
I initially thought it was coming with the new railways crossing America in 1,868.

00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:08.000
But I've since learned that railways were very expensive way of moving around. Big consciousness of rain.

00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:15.000
The bulk of it either went to Boston in New York and went by sea. Or incredibly went to San Francisco and was sound right down through South America around Cape B, up through the South Atlantic to Western Europe that way.

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:32.000
But we were flooded with this cheap brain. And the effect of that it just drives grain farmers almost to extinction they just cannot compete.

00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:42.000
And what happens is that Cornland in the south and east of England goes down in value. And farmers from Scotland, Wales and the West of England.

00:37:42.000 --> 00:37:50.000
Moving to the South East to take advantage of that cheap land. And this is the great picture. This is a family of the Cross family.

00:37:50.000 --> 00:38:01.000
Who in the morning of this picture lived in Crewe Kern. In Somerset. When these pictures taken late in the afternoon they are at place called upper beating.

00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:07.000
In West Sussex. About 15 miles from Brighton. And they've moved lock stuck a barrel.

00:38:07.000 --> 00:38:11.000
With all their lives stop all of their kit on the new railway system they've moved into West Sussex.

00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:22.000
Family smooth from the parish I live in which is called Patcham. Was a village on the north side of Brighton.

00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:27.000
In 1,901 there are 5 farms in Patchem, not a single one of them.

00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:39.000
Is owned by anyone born in Sussex. Someone from Cookburyshire, someone from Warwickshire, someone from Dorset, someone got too far away from Surrey and someone else from Devon.

00:38:39.000 --> 00:38:46.000
And they've taken advantage of cheap land to move into the South of Beast and all is going well with them.

00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:56.000
Okay. The sheet numbers boom, this is in the 1930, s at the great cheap fair at Finland in West Sussex.

00:38:56.000 --> 00:39:05.000
It's diminished, some still exist. It's on last week in fact. But this is a great picture show, the sheer amount of sheep coming in.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:16.000
So livestock farmers are booming. At the expense of grain funds. The problem is there's a lot of sheep in Australia and New Zealand and all the time they're on the other side of the world.

00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:27.000
That's not a problem for farmers in the South East. Except in 1881. First consignment, the frozen Australian mountain, leaves Sydney.

00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:34.000
And a rights in the London docks. 10 years before that frozen Australian mutton head left Sydney Harper.

00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:41.000
But the freezer ships consistently broke down. And they were rotting carcasses when they get to.

00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:49.000
But in 1,881 It leaves frozen and it arrived in London frozen and so that's the end of exclusivity.

00:39:49.000 --> 00:39:59.000
For meat farming in much of Britain. And meat farming land. Plummets in price as well.

00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:16.000
Freeze the ships come in. We don't, we use empire preference obviously Australia, New Zealand and Canada, but we also own in places like Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Estancia's owned by British firms.

00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:25.000
Who export frozen South American meat into Britain. So the things we produce. Rain and livestock are plummeting in price.

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:33.000
Okay. You don't have to look at this picture. This is 1921. Sean is a small port on the south coast very near to Brighton.

00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:34.000
Wasn't very big, you can tell by the telephone number of 75 Shoreham.

00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:42.000
But purveyors of high-class colonial beef. Canterbury button and land.

00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:49.000
This doesn't mean Canterbury in Kent. In the South Island of New Zealand.

00:40:49.000 --> 00:41:00.000
So we're getting this hitting even in agricultural areas they're being hit. Not only is that but New Zealand cheese, New Zealand butter things like this.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:08.000
Okay. We produce a lot of fruit, fruit. We saw Evesham and its fruit. Around Cambridge here.

00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:18.000
Essex, Tip 3, Cambridge. 3, fruit farms This is in Kent, it's a lovely orchard in Kent.

00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:25.000
We produce a lot of fruit. But they also produce a lot of fruit around the world. A lot of it in the British Empire.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:35.000
Canning, which arrives in the early nineteenth century, allows food to be moved easily from the other side of the world.

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:50.000
Difficult getting the stuff out of the can. In 1,875 someone managed to invent the tin opener the one we used today many of us and so you could bring in exotic foods from South Africa, Australia.

00:41:50.000 --> 00:42:00.000
Hawaiian pirate apples people don't want Kent apples or Worcestershire plums when they can get these rather very exotic things.

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:06.000
The government of course has a big hand in all of these policies. British government as a cheap food policy.

00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:14.000
We are a heavily urbanized nation. Urban communities riot and rebel. They don't do this in the UK.

00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:18.000
Oh, from the chances for riots.

00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:28.000
Zapine large we are a peaceful nation. We are well fed on cheap food to the detriment of the farming communities.

00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:42.000
It does help that we own a lot of the world. Lovely old school Atlas actually shows you Australia twice on here but all the pink bits, of us remember from school, this is the British Empire.

00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:50.000
The dominions and they send us raw materials in the way food stuffs, we send them agricultural machinery.

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:59.000
Okay, and this is where we shop the home and colonial. The international food stores, the Empire Food Stores.

00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:06.000
That's the shopping high streets of the twenties and thirties right the way through into the sixties and seventies.

00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:16.000
We are taking the advantage of this Okay, we produce a lot of eggs in Britain. We set about the egg production particularly in the southeast.

00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:25.000
Those eggs going in the oval teenage farm. But this is Brighton in 1910. And we have 2 big egg dealers in Brighton.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:39.000
You see a Lemiere and Monsieur Blondell. Because the French have a very advanced system of poultry production and egg production and the ferry coming from Sherbrooke to Portsmouth.

00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:44.000
To New Haven, belonging to Folkestone, Calais to Dover, come in.

00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:54.000
Just been passengers but with millions of eggs. And the south coast of England. And indeed London. Is flooded with cheap French eggs.

00:43:54.000 --> 00:44:03.000
Brighton is pretty exotic place but Lemiere is exotic Okay. It also helps that we have the world's biggest merchant fleet.

00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:13.000
We have sophisticated docks. We have systems where we can unload ships with steam cranes. We have railway lines which come into the Keysides.

00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:17.000
We have Derboats and barges and tugs to distribute this food on the canal system along the Thames to the railway yards.

00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:26.000
So we can move the food around very readily.

00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:31.000
And you only have to look. Now I do have to admit that I failed by O level maths.

00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:40.000
But even I can work out here from this graph that corn return prices are dropping and dropping and dropping and dropping.

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:47.000
Here we are, food, imports, and rising, rising, rising. And farm sale prices are going off the cliff.

00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:50.000
In 1,875 it's a good time to bring a British farm. 20 years later, not a good time to be a British farmer.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:45:00.000
This chart starts in night stops in 1,915 this could carry on until the Second World War.

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:06.000
In a very very similar fashion. In fact plummeting a bit more before the Second World War.

00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:19.000
So bad times for farming. Nineteenth century a period of severe droughts. Which hit farmers series of very very very wet summers.

00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:27.000
Which hit farmers so mother nature is not to get with us. To the extent that it's hising us too hot.

00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:37.000
And then to where and so this is all combining with these sheep imports to force farmers out of business completely.

00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:50.000
That, that, that drops in price. New technology in the way of forced trams, force buses, motor buses, motor cars and now with this new cheap land on the edge of cities to be exploited.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:46:03.000
So this is a huge 1930 s housing state since 1934. And you can push out into accessible farmland which is coming down in price every year.

00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:10.000
Gets to the stage that London transport poster here for across the Colon to Beechy Bucks.

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:22.000
You is seen as a children's nursery place it. This is a farm set. Here is Bo Peep and her sheep and a spotty dog.

00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:30.000
So farming is no longer man's business, it's what children play within the nursery. Okay, it brings in a series of books.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:37.000
This is many of you know the Leftbook Club with the yellow covers. Guess well known the right book club with blue covers.

00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:44.000
Famine in England, tumble down barns, tumble down fences, no crops in the fields.

00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:53.000
Second World War changes that dramatically. We need to produce food. The U-boat campaign is a devastating effect.

00:46:53.000 --> 00:47:02.000
The problem is the land that you grow, the bulk of your arable crops on is perfect for army maneuvers.

00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:16.000
The land that you grow your best Arab crops from in East Anglia. It's gently rolling to flat and is perfect for airfields for our Air Force and after a 1942 the US American air bases.

00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:26.000
Proliferate in East Anglia. So you want to grow more food but the military need a lot of that land for their own purposes.

00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:34.000
We get around that by employing civilian populations, second line job land ahead. Cloud campaign and land army.

00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:43.000
The young lady on this tractor in 1943 was one of my students in education classes. This is Pamela Holt, aged 17 with a beautiful hairstyle driving the tractor.

00:47:43.000 --> 00:47:53.000
And I knew her at the end of her life when she had the same hair style but very very very white hair.

00:47:53.000 --> 00:48:04.000
Beautiful lady and she wonderful stories of being a land girl. British agriculture was coming back in ported American tractors, Canadian tractors.

00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:20.000
American machinery. Government involvement determined we weren't going to go through this again. Okay. When you get through into post war period, there's a lot more intensity in agriculture.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:31.000
There's a lot more technology being employed. Farmers are starting to make money. I, again, we go back to regionalization, things like.

00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:45.000
The polytunnels of fruit production. Become a staple part of scenery. You dry up around the British countryside, summer's evening like we've got certainly we've got here in Brighton summer, the fields will be glittering.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:49:01.000
With, the polytunes. Okay. Huge glass houses in Essex in Kent, the biggest glass houses in the world are out of place called Planet, which is North East Kent, Margate Ramsgate, that area.

00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:20.000
Big complexes around. Chichester Harbor. Where they produce the poly bags, know the big the pillow pack salads that are in every supermarket 85% of them are grown within 5 miles of Chichester Market Cross.

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:25.000
Huge production. Bosom, which many of you, would love in picturesque. Part of the world but this is the center of pillow back production.

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:40.000
So we've got agricultural working on particular ways. The problem with agriculture now it is Very difficult to get.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:55.000
Adequate labour force. Many, if I dare say this these days, indigenous white British people do not want to work in agriculture for a long long time we relied on European labour.

00:49:55.000 --> 00:50:02.000
Do we really need to bring in pastips from Australia? Do we need it to bring in pigeons from Guatemala?

00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:11.000
Thank you Mark Spencer for both of these labels. We bring in food from abroad because we don't have the workforce in many cases to pick it here, okay?

00:50:11.000 --> 00:50:23.000
We were of course part of the European Union. But after Brexit, increasingly difficult. Bicycle, specifically in things like fruit picking, hot picking, which still a lot of that is labour intensive.

00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:34.000
And in salad crop production. I'm very those people who get up very early in the morning and listen to farming today.

00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:45.000
And almost every week there is somewhere on there bemoaning the lack of because I don't want to get any more political than showing you that.

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:54.000
Okay, thankfully. We do have an outlet. Climate change is affecting British agriculture across southern Britain.

00:50:54.000 --> 00:51:01.000
Big sways the chalk downland in Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire are being brought up by French wine producers.

00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:06.000
The biggest growth area, certainly in the south of England, is in vineyards. Here is a vineyard.

00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:20.000
The biggest vineyard in Europe. Is not in the Rhine Valley, it is not in Spain, Italy or in the Champagne region, it is on the South Downs between Eastbourne and Sea Ford.

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:33.000
It's called Ratkini Farm, the biggest single vineyard in Europe. So we've got changes taking place here both in the labour market, the crops we grow and the challenges we have of.

00:51:33.000 --> 00:51:43.000
Of climate change. So look, thank you all very much. I can't have mentioned all the areas that you have lived in or you do live in.

00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:51.000
I've tried to look at it as an international basis. I'm a geographer, I work at scale, so international.

00:51:51.000 --> 00:52:00.000
Down to national down to regional. Down to localities. So I'm going to hand you back to Fiona who's going to take over for the last bit of this.

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:02.000
Thank you all very much.

00:52:02.000 --> 00:52:08.000
Thanks very much Jeffrey. We'll just go straight to some questions. I don't know if you want to just stop sharing your screen so that we can see you.

00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:17.000
Not's great. Okay. And I've got 2 or 3 questions here. And apologies every day that we've run on slightly but obviously that's because of our little delay at the start.

00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:25.000
No, question from Liz. What effect did the corn laws and their repeal have in agriculture?

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:32.000
But it had a big impact, called laws for a government. To keep the price of growing high and farmers were very keen to do that.

00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:47.000
It was subsidized grain prices. Just meant that the big cities where the people were congregating, increasing the nineteenth century.

00:52:47.000 --> 00:52:54.000
Food prices bread which was the staple diet of working glasses was bread bread bread more bread to fill you up was ruthlessly expensive.

00:52:54.000 --> 00:53:03.000
And the repeal of the Corn laws meant that you got cheaper grain.

00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:13.000
Okay, hope that answers your question, Liz. And another question from Madeline. She's asking when did American wheat flood into England?

00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:18.000
She had ancestors who worked on the land in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire but they lost their livings.

00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:27.000
And ended up moving to to London. And so kind of roughly when was that?

00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:28.000
Hello.

00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:48.000
Well, maybe after the civil war ends in Once the Civil War ends in in 1,865 there's this big push westwards out into the Great Plains but it's really the that period of the 18 sixties, the 1870, s you start to increasing shipments of wheat coming into Western Europe.

00:53:48.000 --> 00:54:13.000
A lot of it comes in. Into UK we were a wealthy nation and big fleet. And say the effect of that is that it pushes grain prices down relentlessly but people move to take advantage of the different changing economy and they come in from The West of Britain and the north of Britain down to the East Anglia and the South.

00:54:13.000 --> 00:54:26.000
I have yet to do a talk on agriculture anywhere in the south of England where someone at the end doesn't come up and say, my granny, my great granny, my grandfather moved here from and give me a range of places in the west of Britain.

00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:34.000
Okay, interesting. I hope that helps you out, and Madeline. And another question here, from Yvonne.

00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:42.000
So obviously I started throughout the presentation. You've talked a lot about us importing foods in and from other parts of the world.

00:54:42.000 --> 00:54:48.000
When and what foods did we start exporting?

00:54:48.000 --> 00:55:03.000
We export surpluses as they do today. You often get these stories where there's a famine taking place in Eritrea or Ethiopia and you go into Marx suspensors you can buy Eritrean green beans or you know Kenyon flowers.

00:55:03.000 --> 00:55:15.000
It's always happened across the anybody can get food down to a port and get it abroad. We will always been a wealthy agricultural nation and Northern Europe was pretty disorganized.

00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:19.000
It wasn't in the kind of nation states we see today. They did, they had a pessant agriculture.

00:55:19.000 --> 00:55:31.000
We had a very sophisticated agriculture and we were always exporting grain and vegetables, chickens to northern France and the low countries.

00:55:31.000 --> 00:55:35.000
It's always been a 2 way, but for a long time we were doing the exporting.

00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:53.000
Hmm. Okay, interesting. We've got a question here from Cameron. And he's asking about this whole thing around, you know, people in this country not really being drawn towards the agricultural jobs these days.

00:55:53.000 --> 00:55:58.000
Do we, I think what your thoughts on and why that is.

00:55:58.000 --> 00:56:18.000
I think it's the fact that we consider ourselves to be a sophisticated economy. And agriculture accounts for something like half of 1% of the national workforce and in places where it's heavily mechanized like the south of England, East Anglia, it goes to an even tinier percentage than a half a month percent.

00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:29.000
People just aren't drawn towards agriculture. People don't live in rural areas. It's difficult to get from an urban area to an agricultural area.

00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:39.000
And we could have got out of the habit of field work. Whereas without Just making it quite simple. Many people coming in from less sophisticated economies, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland.

00:56:39.000 --> 00:56:54.000
Quite readily adapt to working in fields area. My grandson And in Sounds crazy. In COVID.

00:56:54.000 --> 00:57:02.000
He got this job working on, on farms, in the west of England. He's a jobography graduate.

00:57:02.000 --> 00:57:10.000
He started out as him. And I think that we're kind of 16 other English people and 90 Romanians.

00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:17.000
After one week, he was the only single English person with 90 Romanians. The other sort just left.

00:57:17.000 --> 00:57:24.000
They just couldn't do the work. Because he did very well. And that was picking lettuce in Shropshire.

00:57:24.000 --> 00:57:31.000
Hmm. Okay, I hope that answers your question, Cameron. And we've got one final question, and I think we'll wrap up folks.

00:57:31.000 --> 00:57:33.000
And Question for from Patricia. Do you think we should be safeguarding productive farmland from development?

00:57:33.000 --> 00:57:41.000
That's quite an interesting question.

00:57:41.000 --> 00:57:44.000
Oh, well that's a very big topic, isn't it? Comes in with issues of housing.

00:57:44.000 --> 00:57:46.000
Hmm.

00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:54.000
Often the land that is very good for growing houses is the land that's very much for growing a range of crops.

00:57:54.000 --> 00:58:03.000
And the land which is not good for housing. Steep, so I mounted tops. Are not good for growing crops.

00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:17.000
So you get this clash. And we've just got to be a bit more, this is where I get to annoy people, we've just got to be very have far fewer people in urban areas than they do on the continent.

00:58:17.000 --> 00:58:19.000
If you go to the Netherlands, they seem to get 5 times more people in a city in the Netherlands which is a pretty sophisticated country.

00:58:19.000 --> 00:58:33.000
That we do in the UK. We just demand semidetached houses, gardens backside and front and we don't have the land to do that anymore.

00:58:33.000 --> 00:58:38.000
We've just got to change our planning.

00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:39.000
That put the cat amongst the pigeons.

00:58:39.000 --> 00:58:40.000
Okay, right one final quick question. One final quick question and then we'll wrap up both. And this is from Allen.

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:55.000
So today, what percentage, this might be a difficult question to answer. What percentage of land feeds animals compared to the percentage that feeds humans directly.

00:58:55.000 --> 00:59:02.000
Okay, 35 years of teaching told me if you don't know what you're talking about say and I do not know the answer to that.

00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:06.000
You go, so you're gonna have to Google that one, I'm afraid.

00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:11.000
Okay, right. Thank you. Thanks again, Jeffrey. That was really interesting.

00:59:11.000 --> 00:59:12.000
And just really interesting to look at farming and food production from all those different angles that we covered there.

00:59:12.000 --> 00:59:25.000
And okay, so I think that's us for today. Thank you very much, Geoffrey.

00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:18.000
Thank you very much Fiona and welcome everyone. I hope you're not sweltering in the heat.

00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:29.000
As we are here in Essex. Anyway, welcome to the talk. I will let you know as I go through the talk when I'm changing slides.

00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:45.000
There's a lot to say about these 2 authors and I've had. Trouble cutting it down really to fit in within the time but questions very welcome at the end because I won't cover anything.

00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:59.000
Everything, Rosa. I will be sharing my screen and I'm going to do that now. So hope that everyone Can see this, okay?

00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:06.000
Great. I hope so anyway. And that's how talk to Victorian novelists, the novelists we're looking at.

00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:16.000
One man, one woman, Mary Elizabeth Braden, Mary Bradden isn't so well known today.

00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:25.000
The author. Novelist is Wilkie Collins. Wilkie Collins, it's fair to say still very popular today.

00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:35.000
Both of them have had their work adapted for BBC TV and for radio. Lots of adaptations and stage.

00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:57.000
Adaptations as well. Just changing my slide now. And, this quote. Was said by Thomas Hardy, famous novelist of Tess of the D'urbervilles and so on and it really applies very much to these 2 novelists.

00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:16.000
Most successful fiction today contains murder. Blackmail, legitimacy. Impersonation multiple secrets suggestions of bigamy and amateur I'm professional detectives.

00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:25.000
Well, all I can say is Wilkie Collins and Mary Bradden's books contain all these and more.

00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:41.000
And some of it came from their own personal lives. So a lot to conjure with there. Right, I'm changing my slide again and here we have pictures of both authors.

00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:55.000
Mary Brighton on the left of course and Collins on the right. Looking quite like a very affable conventional Victorian gentleman.

00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:59.000
Conventional? No, anything but.

00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:22.000
Both of them wrote in the nineteenth century. You can, their gates of birth are on the slide, but Mary Brighton born 1835 lived till 1915 Collins born 1824 he was the older of the 2 and dive in 1889.

00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:36.000
And we'll be looking at each of them in turn. Both wrote what were known as sensation novels and I'll be talking about the definition of sensation novels shortly.

00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:47.000
And as I said, Both their work has been adapted for TV, radio and the stage. Changing my slide again.

00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:59.000
Here we have Mary Brighton. Now both of these authors knew each other. Bye moved in the same literary circles in the nineteenth century.

00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:12.000
They had this lovely expression. Literary lions. Which described authors, famous authors, people like Dickens, Henry James.

00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:22.000
Thackery, Brighton of course. And Wilkie Collins. And yeah literary lines describes them.

00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:29.000
Both were best sellers. Both of them made. Big amounts of money. From their writing.

00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:45.000
At one time, Wilkie Collins was paid even more than Dickens. For his work. So that'll give you an idea of how respected he was and how much money he commanded.

00:04:45.000 --> 00:05:00.000
They were adored by the public. Like most authors in the nineteenth century, initially each of their books was published in magazine format in serial format.

00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:13.000
Mainly in Dickens, magazines, Dickens, as you 2 magazines, all the year round and household words and both of them had their work in all the year round.

00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:37.000
So, every installment would end on a cliffhanger so that everybody rushed out the following week or the following month to buy the next installment and if you were rich of course you didn't queue up you sent your maid or your footman queue up but people would you outside bookshops overnight.

00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:56.000
To be first amongst their circle of friends. To buy the latest copy of the magazine with the latest installment of their books in and of course it then became the thing to say to your friends, oh haven't you read it yet?

00:05:56.000 --> 00:06:05.000
I got my copy yesterday. So, public adores them and they were both highly paid. So what were?

00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:18.000
Sensation novels. How can we just? I quantify what was a sensation novel. Well, they were mainly published in the 1850, s, 1860.

00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:34.000
By about 1870 they begun to become slightly less fashionable. And the plot lines were a mix. Of what was known as Jomestic Fiction.

00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:43.000
Domestic fiction. Was a fiction where the plot was set. In middle and upper-class homes.

00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:52.000
Safe hyphens. Asastians of respectability. Englishman's home is his castle and so on.

00:06:52.000 --> 00:07:03.000
Where you felt safe, you could shut out the outside world. So, safe or were you? Were you safe in your own home?

00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:15.000
Well, the plot lines often centered on the fact that no you weren't safe in your own home because there may be people in your home.

00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:31.000
Relations who have their own agenda. Servants who have a bad intention to ward you. So this was a new and rather startling idea to the Victorians.

00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:43.000
And I really enjoyed these books thoroughly. This domestic fiction was combined with a helping of melodrama and gothic influences.

00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:58.000
So we're talking the supernatural. We're talking the fact that and they were often set in very creepy country houses where there were strange goings on.

00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:14.000
They often involved men and women who had mysterious backgrounds. Pass lives that they kept very quiet although on the surface they appeared the epitome of respectability.

00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:26.000
When you were reading these books. The I of the writers was that if you were sitting in a room on your own and there was a sudden strange noise, you would jump.

00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:38.000
Up in the air. The failing was ice. The feeling of ice. Being pushed down the back of your neck, this shivery failing.

00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:48.000
I'm a feeling of fear and oppression as you read them. Your heart starts to beat faster.

00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:57.000
And the books also included as well as all the things on the hardy quote. Drug taking and fraudulent identity and drug taking was something wealthy Wilkie Collins knew.

00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:15.000
Quite a lot about. They also included theft, often a very valuable objects. The plot lines of these books often reflected what was going on in real life.

00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:28.000
The concerns that the Victorians had about their world. Just to give you a couple of examples of that.

00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:36.000
I think 51 of course was the year of the great exhibition and and people from all over the world.

00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:48.000
Flock to London. To see the great exhibition this fantastic exhibition of art, science and manufacturing.

00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:58.000
And there were great concerns expressed. In the press that people coming from abroad might have dubious intentions.

00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:08.000
And that something very nasty could happen in England because of the number of foreigners that were flocking into London.

00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:26.000
The other concern in the 18 fifties. Was Insanity. There were several high profile cases in the 1850 s of people being wrongly incarcerated.

00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:29.000
In asylums.

00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:38.000
This lady, Mary Elizabeth Braden, who you can see on this slide in an oil painting by the famous painter William Powell Frith.

00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:58.000
A Mary Pratten! Actually brought this in in her work as the Collins. In fact, Collins probably most famous book, The Woman in White, hinges on some poor woman who is locked up in an asylum wrongfully.

00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:13.000
And, her attempts. To, free herself. So it brings aspects of the Victorians concerns into the literature that they're reading.

00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:30.000
Both Collins and Bradden. Were fond of plots containing very strong and independent women. And the kind, Mary Bratton knew all about strong and independent women because of her own.

00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:46.000
Childhood and what happened to our mother, which we'll talk about shortly. It also brought in men and women with dubious paths lives, ladies who seem on the face of it very respectable but hide.

00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:57.000
Their past life. And, that's a particularly famous quote. From one of the books that Wilkie Collins wrote The Moonstone.

00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:03.000
Do you know what a lady is? A lady is a woman in a silk dress. Who has a sense of her own importance.

00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:18.000
Very famous quote, that's been used a lot over the years. So, yes, both of them had slightly troubled pasts.

00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:25.000
And they brought this into their work.

00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:39.000
Sorry that moved. This is Edward Nicholas Braden. Who was or Edward Nicholas Coventry Braden to give him his full name?

00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:50.000
Who was the brother of Mary Elizabeth Broughton? And he at some stage went to Australia did very well for himself and became Premier of Tasmania.

00:12:50.000 --> 00:13:02.000
Now. One of the things that Mary Brighton brings into her work is people who have Gone abroad, not just to Europe.

00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:15.000
Oh no, but long distances away, places like New Zealand, Canada, Australia and she's obviously writing from her own brother's experience.

00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:27.000
So another aspect of her life that she used in her books. This is the theatre in London called the Surrey Theatre.

00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:37.000
It no longer exists anymore. It was in the Blackfriars area of London. And this was really important.

00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:48.000
To Mary Elizabeth Braden or Mary Bradness, I'll call her for short. So she was born in 1835, a very conventional family.

00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:58.000
Father was the solicitor. And she had an older sister and her brother who we've just looked at.

00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:12.000
And all went well until she was about 4 years old. And the counts vary. This an account that her father was.

00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:24.000
In enormous that. Because unfortunately, a real disadvantage for a solicitor, he didn't know the difference between client money and his own money.

00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:29.000
And in time on a tradition he skipped abroad to the continent. And manufactured a new identity for himself.

00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:47.000
Leaving Mrs. Braden. And the 3 children behind him with no visible means of support. And now, account says that the couple split up for a more mundane reason.

00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:57.000
She was having affairs with other women. So, and there's a little bit of uncertainty about so much of Brad and's private life.

00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:13.000
So, Brad and grew up seeing her mother struggle. Becoming a strong independent capable woman. I'm Bradden herself at a very young age some time when she was in her teens.

00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:24.000
Decided to go on the stage. She was a very bright, lively, intelligent child. Fond of stories, loved writing stories, love reading stories or having stories write to her.

00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:38.000
Also very good at singing, dancing and projecting herself. So on the stage she went. She was quite a good actress.

00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:47.000
We're told she never made it to the really big time. But later on in her life she would play down.

00:15:47.000 --> 00:16:03.000
The time she spent as an actress. Because as we know in the nineteenth century it wasn't a particularly respectable career for a young woman, particularly a young middle-class woman.

00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:13.000
So, yeah, her character was formed by watching her mother. And she wanted to earn money for herself to contribute towards the family.

00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:28.000
And their support. So in her book she promotes strong independent women. Toots often flout. Convention as Brighton did herself on many occasions.

00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:36.000
And And here she is. This is a photograph of her. So hopefully a bit more lifelike.

00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:43.000
Than her painting. Photograph taken in about 1858.

00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:55.000
When she was in her twenties she decided she wanted to leave the stage. And she moves into a second career writing short stories initially.

00:16:55.000 --> 00:17:04.000
Now they short stories didn't pay very well, but they were successful. And she then begins to wonder.

00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:17.000
Is there more money to be made if I start to write novels? And there was. And the first novel that was really a huge success for Braden.

00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:25.000
Was published in 18600, sorry, 1861, I should say.

00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:48.000
After initially being serialized in Dickens magazine all the year round. And when the book was published in book form after serialization had ended, the the book was tremendously successful as the serialized installments have been.

00:17:48.000 --> 00:18:00.000
And the title of the book Lady Auldly Sacred. Now interestingly Mary Broughton used part of the Essex.

00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:12.000
Scenery in composing her book. She was staying at Engage Stone Hall in Essex when she had inspiration.

00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:27.000
For the plot line of Lady Audley's secret. And if you read the book today, you won't need me to tell you this is in Gates Stone Hall because if you visited the hole the whole yourself you will know.

00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:36.000
She also in her career became an editor of a magazine and this slide that I've just changed to.

00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:46.000
Is a bound copy of Temple Bar magazine. For January to June, 1874 and Mary Bradden edited.

00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:47.000
This magazine, so she was a busy lady, she's a writer, she's an editor.

00:18:47.000 --> 00:19:11.000
Now being an editor was groundbreaking for a female. In the nineteenth century. Temple Bar? Was described as a magazine for town and country and was very popular in its day, sadly it no longer exists.

00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:16.000
So how many books did Brad and write? Well, at least 70. She wrote a least 70 books.

00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:32.000
That doesn't take into account short stories, articles that she wrote. And she wrote them on any number of different subjects that she thought would appeal.

00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:46.000
In her books, as I've said, she often brings in Caracters who are the victims of parental separation using her own background for that.

00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:58.000
And women struggled. To her money she recognized how difficult in the nineteenth century it was for women to have their own money.

00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:17.000
She flouted convention by living with a married man. When she was in her twenties, she begins living with a very well-known publisher of the day called John Maxwell, an Irishman what living and working in London.

00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:31.000
Brighton incidentally lived in the London area for most of her life. Certainly she was born in London and ended up living at Richmond with John Maxwell.

00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:44.000
John Maxwell was already married. And he had 5 children. By his wife when Braton began living with him and again accounts fairy.

00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:54.000
Some accounts say that the first Mrs. Maxwell, Brad and would like to marry him. The first Missus Maxwell.

00:20:54.000 --> 00:21:06.000
Was incarcerated in a private Asylum in Ireland. Remember what I said about bringing in the concerns of the day.

00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:18.000
Now other accounts say that's not true. Hey, his first wife was actually living in the household when Brad and moved in.

00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:33.000
So they formed this sort of menage at with the 3 of them. So we're not quite sure on that, but what we are sure of is that eventually when the first Mrs. Maxwell died.

00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:47.000
John Maxwell married Mary Braden in the meantime before their marriage. She had 5 children by him. In his original 5 by his first wife.

00:21:47.000 --> 00:22:03.000
Now this was all kept very very quiet. But like Collins, Brad and moved in literary circles and everyone knew that she was living with Maxwell.

00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:16.000
Just changing the side again. Brad and incidentally, supportive women's right, she was always very vocal about supporting women's rights and equality.

00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:29.000
And women's independence, women's right to have their own career to have a job. And of course, a lady, all this secret when it's published in book format is a huge success.

00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:39.000
Makes her lots of money gives you the feeling of ice stripping down the back of your neck.

00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:48.000
And Braden's collection with Essex. Is as I've said, she's stayed at this house on my next side.

00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:58.000
Engage Stone Hall, in Gates Stone in Essex. And she stayed here for a holiday really, it's a holiday retreat for her.

00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:06.000
And she used No, only the interior of the hole, but she used the grounds as well in the book.

00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:20.000
The lime walk which is supposed to be haunted she used that. In Lady Auntly's secret she also used on the next slide the part of the lake.

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:29.000
In the grounds a very gloomy, secluded part of the grounds and she uses that in Lady,ly secret.

00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:38.000
And there are people thrown into wells and meeting a horrible end. And, yeah, all sorts of melodrama.

00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:48.000
Brockham was also a very accomplished horsewoman. And in the early 19 hundreds she bought herself a motor car.

00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:54.000
So she was quite a spirited and independent lady for her time.

00:23:54.000 --> 00:24:03.000
Joe Maxwell predeceased her. He died in the 1890, s 1895 to be exact.

00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:15.000
And this is his memorial in the church of St. Elizabeth of Portugal in Richmond. In sorry.

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:26.000
In 1863. Brighton publishes Aurora Floyd. Probably her second most successful book.

00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:32.000
And again, Aurora Floyd is a woman with a past. Secretly married.

00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:48.000
Well, A Braden would be secretly married herself. When the first Mrs. Maxwell passed away, almost exactly a year later, Brighton.

00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:58.000
Married John Maxwell and legitimised her 5 illegitimate children. It was all kept very quiet.

00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:16.000
However, Your Mack's false brother in law actually wrote the newspapers. Exposing the fact that he had finally married the woman who was the mother of his 5 illegitimate children.

00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:21.000
And who he had been living with whilst. He's first wife was still very much alive.

00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:36.000
Now that caused a ripple of scandal. Braden lived till 1915. She actually volunteered to help.

00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:58.000
In hospitals during the First World War, the early part of the First World War. And her death A curved in 1915 as I've said and this slide it's a commemoration plaque in St Mary Magdalene Church, Richmond, Surrey and it reads.

00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:17.000
Sacred to the memory of Miss Brighton, Brackets Mary Elizabeth Maxwell, a writer of rare and refined scholarship who gave profitable and pleasurable literature to countless readers in her library of 3 score and 10.

00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:21.000
Works of fiction.

00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:33.000
Brandon incidentally once referred to Wilkie Collins. As her literary father and that caused a few eyebrows.

00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:41.000
To be raised, I can tell you. Right, we move on with this slide to Wilkie Collins.

00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:53.000
Or to give him his full name, William Wilkie Collins. His father's name was William, so he was always known as Wilkie to distinguish himself from his father.

00:26:53.000 --> 00:27:14.000
He was a fellow sensation fiction author and his work is still very popular today. This photograph of him was taken in Now Collins came from a somewhat unconventional household.

00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:22.000
He's father William Collins was an artist. He's mother was Harriet Gettys.

00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:34.000
And, he had a younger brother. Now, father on the face of it was a

00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:44.000
Quite successful. Victorian painter, exhibited at the Royal Academy, became a, a Royal Academy.

00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:59.000
But never really made the big time as a painter. He tended to paint rather sentimental Victorian pictures of a dead dog, the family pet.

00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:22.000
And birds on trees. Both on unconventional farming, countryside, they're all all very conventional, very Victorian and what people today regard as typically Victorian, nothing really sensational there.

00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:34.000
He's work does not command huge prices. He's conventional painting was combined with the rather conventional household.

00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:47.000
Mother Harrier was deeply, deeply religious. However, she combined this with a complete tolerance of drug taking.

00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:50.000
And the family home was a very bohemian center for anyone involved in the arts and culture of the nineteenth century.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:29:04.000
So Colin screw up in this rather bohemian household. This is Yishun Kaprata.

00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:16.000
Who followed his father. Into becoming a painter. Now today Charles Alston Collins is probably best known not for his painting as such.

00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:25.000
But for his association with the pre Raphaelite Brotherhood. Incidentally, he aspired to be a pre raffle light.

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:34.000
But they turned him down. They either his work wasn't good enough or there was some other reason why he was turned down.

00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:41.000
Now, Collins, as I've said, was born in London. He lived in and around the Marlebone area.

00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:54.000
So most of his life lived in Harley Street. For part of his life as well. The family traveled abroad with his father so that his father could do sketching and painting.

00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:07.000
Collins went to a private school, was bullied unmercifully at school. When he was about 17, he had to find a career.

00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:14.000
Initially, he wants to follow his father to be a painter, but he was not successful.

00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:23.000
So he turned to working for a tea merchant as clerk. He didn't last long as the clock.

00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:36.000
He then decided he wanted to study lower. And he went to Lincoln's in to study law and in 1851 he was called to the bar as a barrister.

00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:46.000
That knowledge would serve him very well when writing the woman in white, where legal knowledge was needed as the plot line.

00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:52.000
Now the plot of the woman in Y is said to have originated. In the vicinity of the area shown on the slide that I'm on now.

00:30:52.000 --> 00:31:04.000
Finchley Road, Hamstead London. He said to have met a woman very late at night.

00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:13.000
Who was in dire circumstances, fleeing from a man who'd imprisoned and hypnotized her.

00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:27.000
Now, this woman was Caroline Graves. I, and he used this meeting with Caroline Groves who was said to be a widow with one daughter.

00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:46.000
He used This in the plot line of a woman in white, a psychological Terrilla. And I'm John Sutherland, contemporary critic, called it the most sensationalist successful of all the sensation novels.

00:31:46.000 --> 00:31:52.000
This slide has a picture of a modern. Copy of the woman in white. It was a runaway success.

00:31:52.000 --> 00:32:10.000
People loved it. Never out of print. Like Lady Oldley's secret that Brad and wrote, it has never been out of print since it was written and published in 1,860.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:20.000
And the next slide shows possibly the woman in white's greatest fan. Please say, well, Prince Albert, Albert Prince Consult.

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:32.000
Albert read the book he absolutely loved it he sent copies to all his relations in Germany whether they thanked him for it.

00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:36.000
I really do not know.

00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:48.000
Now, Collins just moving on to the next slide, which is a copy of a painting by James Abbott Mcneil Whistler of Whistler's Mother fame.

00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:59.000
Come in to over 30 books, he wrote over a hundred articles he wrote short stories. He wrote over a dozen plays.

00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:09.000
He loved the theater, had a passion for the theater, also wrote essays. And And with Charles Dickens, he produced plays.

00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:20.000
Now the woman in what book? Close an explosion in consumerism. You could spray yourself with woman in white perfume.

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:31.000
You could buy yourself a woman in white cloak. You could if you wished. By the sheep music for your piano of the woman in White Wolves.

00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:54.000
Consumerism exploded in Victorian England. James Abbott Mcneil Whistler was accused jumping on the bandwagon when he produced his famous painting of 1861 62 the white girl or symphony in white number one

00:33:54.000 --> 00:34:03.000
I'm moving on. The woman in white is still adapted today. Here on this slide we have Michael Crawford.

00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:12.000
In the role of the villain of the woman in white, Count Fosco and if you're wondering why he's got a white mouse crawling down his arm.

00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:20.000
This is part of the plot line. Fostco had a weakness for keeping pet mice.

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:36.000
Now another plot line that Collins used that ties in with his knowledge of lower. Is. Story of those who have been denied justice by the mechanism of the law.

00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:47.000
Collins was a qualified barrister. He knew that the law It's an always. Doesn't always make the right decision.

00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:58.000
He knew that you don't always get the justice you deserve. So in his books he portrays a people getting justice by their wits.

00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:06.000
By unconventional means. He knew the law. And he knew the drawbacks of the law.

00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:16.000
He once said, The law is the servant of those with a long purse, in other words, those who are rich.

00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:24.000
And this is probably Colin's second most popular book, 1,868, The Moonstone.

00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:41.000
Probably, probably the first detective novel. Sergeant Cuff! Is a character in the Moonstone and Sergeant Cuff was muzzled on a famous Victorian detective, Jonathan or Jack.

00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:59.000
Witcher and some of you might have seen the the BBC drama of a few years ago. On, on the subject of which are the suspicions of Mr. Witcher, you may have seen that.

00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:10.000
Charles Dickens, great friend, great friend of, Collins. They knew each other from about 1850.

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:23.000
They kept each other's Yeah, little secrets. Dickens had plenty of secrets. Collins had plenty of secrets and they both were very discreet.

00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:34.000
When Dickens died in 1870, he's death. Absolutely devastated Collins.

00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:42.000
Now, I mentioned Caroline Graves and how she was important to the plot of the woman in white.

00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:50.000
Caroline Graves became part of Wilkie Collins secret life. Her background is still shrouded in mystery.

00:36:50.000 --> 00:37:02.000
She presented herself as a woman. Oh, had been widowed. With one daughter. Many, biographers of Collins don't believe that.

00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:16.000
They believed that she was still married to her first husband, Mr. Graves, when she contracted a second marriage to a gentleman called Mr. Joseph Clowe.

00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:26.000
It's interesting that she and Collins began to live together. Collins, it said, refused to marry her.

00:37:26.000 --> 00:37:32.000
And when it became clear he wouldn't marry her, she took off and married Mr. Clowe.

00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:42.000
However, off 2 years she came back. Leaving Mr. Clowe, was Mr. Clow dead or was the second?

00:37:42.000 --> 00:38:01.000
Husband abandoned like the first husband. And some biographers of Collins have said this is the reason why Collins refused to marry Caroline Graves because she suspected that her first husband, Mr. Graves, was still alive.

00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:09.000
So yeah, famous detectives, and the law. Colin springs this in to his work.

00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:21.000
He got a lot of information from Dickens because Dickens was very interested in the work of the new Plain clothes branch of the Met Police.

00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:31.000
Metropolitan Police established in 1829. But the playing clothes are detective branch not established through 1842.

00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:39.000
And Dickens got a lot of his plot lines from talking to detectives.

00:38:39.000 --> 00:38:51.000
When Caroline Graves, I've just changed the side and we're now looking at the second lady in Collins, a private life, Martha Rudd.

00:38:51.000 --> 00:39:03.000
When? Caroline Graves left. Colleagues and briefly for 2 years was said to be married to Mr. Clowe.

00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:14.000
What she didn't know was that in those 2 years he took up with another lady. Martha Rudd, Martha Rudd, was a humble Kitchen servant.

00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:29.000
Said she could neither read nor write. And it was very unusual for middle-class gentlemen. To contemplate setting up and living with a former domestic servant.

00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:36.000
They might have a galliance but they very often Didn't let it go any further than that.

00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:53.000
Collins set up Caroline Graves in one house, Martha Rudd in another house. I'm with Martha Rad he went on to have 3 children Marian Harriet and William William was always known by his middle name, Charlie.

00:39:53.000 --> 00:40:07.000
And he invented this fictitious name for them, Dawson. So they were known as Mr. And Mrs. Dawson and each of the children were given Dawson as a last name.

00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:20.000
Collins refused to marry either lady. Lots of speculation over this. Was it because his mother was very traditional about the church.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:26.000
I'm, he therefore believed that marriage was just a piece of paper. He didn't need it.

00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:30.000
Or was it witnessing? The vitriolic breakdown of the marriage of Charles and Catherine Dickens.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:43.000
I tend to think it was watching their marriage breakdown that caused it. Now, Collins loved Ramsgate in Kent and I've just changed the slide to a picture of Ramsgate.

00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:58.000
You may recognize it if you're a regular visitor. This is one of the locations where Collins pursued his double life.

00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:11.000
Every year he spent at least one holiday in Ramsgate and he would install Martha route in one house with the children.

00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:24.000
He would take a second house and install Sorry, Caroline Graves in the second house. And then he would spend the holiday scooting between the toe.

00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:41.000
There is no evidence that the women knew of each other until after Colin's death. Now I mentioned Collins was born in Marlborough, lived in the London area, part of his life he lived in Harley Street.

00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:59.000
This slide. Is a picture of some of the buildings in Harley Street. I think that if Collins haunts anywhere he haunts Harley straight He would love what goes on in Harley Street.

00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:13.000
Changing their identity, changing their appearance very much in keeping with his plots. Where people alter their appearance in all sorts of weird and wacky ways.

00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:21.000
And I think Harley Street, he would just love it.

00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:32.000
Collins suffered all his life from ill health although he concealed it quite well. He suffered from gout.

00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:46.000
And took industrial quantities of drugs. Huge quantities of drugs. And as the drugs began to take effect, his book started to get more and more bizarre the plot lines.

00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:53.000
But nevertheless, they're still sold because they were written by Wilkie Collins.

00:42:53.000 --> 00:43:05.000
He spent an enormous amount of money, he loved wine, he loved good food, he dressed flamboyantly, he loved traveling a book abroad, he loved socializing.

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:17.000
The public adored him. They didn't know about his private life. When he died in 1889 he died from a stroke.

00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:28.000
There was universal morning. He left strict instructions no more than 25 pounds to be spent on my funeral.

00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:47.000
And his reputation. Had begun to leak into the public arena. And the the side I have on at the moment is Lady Euthemia Millay or Effie Millay, formerly Effie Gray who was married to John Everett Millay.

00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:57.000
The painter. She was a great friend of Collins but she decided not to attend his funeral because of the prevailing gossip.

00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:13.000
So some people stayed away. We're told she sent an empty coach. To the funeral. Of course, after his death, his private life would become linked into the public arena.

00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:21.000
Oh, it's left instructions that He's choice would be. To be buried with Caroline Graves.

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:34.000
Caroline! Survived him, she survived him till the 18 nineties. And, Martha Rad survived him till 1919.

00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:46.000
But it was Caroline who was buried with him. And this slide is a picture of his grave. In Kensal Green Cemetery in West London.

00:44:46.000 --> 00:45:05.000
So yeah, Was a Berry Gaussian on her own and usually there are flowers on the grave because he's still so enormously popular today.

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.000
Just a couple of things to finish with. Fackery, William Makepiece, Zachary, author of Vanity Fair.

00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:23.000
Once declared he had sat up all night. Finish off the woman in white. It was such a nail biter, he couldn't.

00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:35.000
Stop reading it. Gladstone! The Prime Minister once cancelled a very important engagement. So that he could carry on reading the woman in white.

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:45.000
And nearer our own times, TS Eliot. Once commented, Read Wokie Collins, not Edgar Allan Poe.

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:54.000
Wilkie Collins started the whole genre. I, Alan, don't bother.

00:45:54.000 --> 00:46:02.000
Just read Wilkie Collins. Wokey Collins is said to have had an enormous influence on HG Wells.

00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:11.000
As well. So I will finish on that at that point and I will come back.

00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:14.000
Thank you very much. And Margaret, I don't know if you want to stop here. There we go.

00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:15.000
I will stop sharing and return.

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:18.000
We can see you properly now.

00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:21.000
There were questions very welcome.

00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:28.000
Yeah, and we've got one so far. Everybody, if you want to pop your questions in, we'll take a look at those.

00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:43.000
We've got a question here from, do, do we know, where the house is where in Ramsgate, where, Wilkie Collins have installed these ladies as she grew up in Ramsgate, so she very interested to know.

00:46:43.000 --> 00:47:01.000
Cool. Right question, I must confess I don't know Ramsgate well. Oh we know is the description that Collins gave to Dickens and Dickens being a bit of a chatterbox let the cat out of the bag.

00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:11.000
Ramsgate has a bay. Caroline was in a house at one end of the bay.

00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:21.000
Martha was in a house at the other end of the bay. And that's, I'm really sorry, I'm, that's as precise as I can be.

00:47:21.000 --> 00:47:26.000
Hmm. Okay, well I hope that helps you out a little bit, I know. Okay.

00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:27.000
Thanks, Amal.

00:47:27.000 --> 00:47:36.000
We've got, we've got another, it's not such a question, but, a comment that you, you might have some thoughts on.

00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:43.000
This is from Denise. Mary, Mary Braden also had a second home in the new forest.

00:47:43.000 --> 00:47:51.000
Near near lintest they were thought of as celebrities in the area and her only novel set there was vixen.

00:47:51.000 --> 00:47:56.000
I don't know if you can say You have any thoughts on that particular book?

00:47:56.000 --> 00:48:09.000
No, I confess,ixon I haven't read. I've read a lot of, but I haven't read all of it by any means and that's one I haven't read.

00:48:09.000 --> 00:48:10.000
Okay, that could be next on your list.

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.000
So that's It's on my to-do list. Thank you. Thank you for that.

00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:15.000
Yeah.

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:20.000
I will I will make sure it's on the to do's.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:30.000
And okay, we've got another question here from Miranda. Can you remind us who the brother in law was that you mentioned earlier who told the press about the manage.

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:31.000
Tells a little bit more.

00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:41.000
Yes, unfortunately I don't know his name. But he was very vocal in writing to the press.

00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:47.000
To say that you know John Maxwell wasn't the nice man. And the very well respected publisher that he presented himself as.

00:48:47.000 --> 00:49:03.000
Bear in mind in the nineteenth century, publishers were the celebrities. Of their day. They were personalities.

00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:11.000
Who and he wrote to the press and said, look, he's not a nice man. He was living with Mary Bradley.

00:49:11.000 --> 00:49:21.000
Actually, 9 names. She was living with Mary Braden and his first wife was still very much alive.

00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:24.000
And he's a CAD, he's a bounder.

00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:26.000
Hmm.

00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:36.000
So, yeah, I, one of these days I will have to do some work in looking back back copies of newspapers.

00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:49.000
Round about. I'm 1860 ish. And see if I can find. Any information about the letters that he wrote?

00:49:49.000 --> 00:49:50.000
To the price.

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:55.000
And just another supplementary sort of question from Jen. How did they had a row? That might have prompted that actually.

00:49:55.000 --> 00:50:10.000
No! No, no, a not that we know of. Not that we know of. However, nineteenth century publishers are I've said they were the celebs.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:17.000
Of the dye, you know, if there was okay and hello magazine, they would have been in it every week.

00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:26.000
People like George Smear, John Maxwell and John Murray. They were the big guns in publishing.

00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:36.000
It was a cut throat. Industry. Publishers were not known for being Shall we say, always very nice people.

00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:50.000
They poached each other's authors, a mercifully, they would entice and one author away from another publisher.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:59.000
And then after they got what they wanted out of the author, they would say, right, well, I don't want your books anymore.

00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:03.000
Don't bother, you know, coming to me to publish your book. I'm not interested anymore.

00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:14.000
That it was known as a really cutthroat trade. Chomari in particular was known as quite ruthless.

00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:21.000
In fact, very ruthless. He published books by, Benjamin Disraeli.

00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:33.000
And he perceived that Benjamin Disraeli I've done him wrong in some way. And he told Disraeli I am going to ruin you.

00:51:33.000 --> 00:51:48.000
So, I think we need to bear in mind that, you know, in publishing it was very much a A trade where they weren't known for their softness and sympathy and kindness.

00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:50.000
They were ruthless men.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:52:00.000
Hmm. Hmm, okay. Right, what else would we got for you with Margaret? And I can, more of a comment really from Carolyn.

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:15.000
And despair of the morals of so called eminent Victorians. But will press the painter you mentioned, had a menagerie trio and hired he was horrible to his first wife were there some good guys I hope so.

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:16.000
Okay.

00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:22.000
Well, I mean George Smith, a very well-known Victorian publisher, very famous Victorian publisher.

00:52:22.000 --> 00:52:34.000
He published the Bronte. But show up one day's work. And she led a blameless life.

00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:45.000
But most of them, I, I have, I'm gonna sound awful now, but a lot of the male authors had a pass,ackery.

00:52:45.000 --> 00:53:02.000
Had a past dick Kings? Most certainly. Had things in his private life. That I mean Collins would have known all about Dick in separation from his wife Katherine.

00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:08.000
He would have known all about Dickens relationship with Ellen Turner.

00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:19.000
Andackery, his wife. Was an in an asylum. Now rich material there! For Collins?

00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:34.000
You know, all this concern about people being wrongly incarcerated. And while she was in the asylum,ackery was having an affair with his daughter's governess.

00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:35.000
Hmm.

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:43.000
So, you know, a lot of them had backgrounds. That were kept, it was much easier then.

00:53:43.000 --> 00:54:01.000
I mean today you've got social media, they'd never get away with it today. But of course in the nineteenth century they were able to keep their private lives very much under act.

00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:08.000
Okay. Right. Let's see. We've got a few minutes to go.

00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:21.000
No. Oh no, Am I was saying that apparently Wilkie Collins stayed with Martha Raddatz, 14 Nelson Present.

00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:34.000
Thank you very much, Amal. Thank you. I know that when they first met and, I think they began living together shortly afterwards.

00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:41.000
Martha was 19. Collins was faulty too.

00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:50.000
And of course, when if eventually the story was You know, it was out there in the public domain.

00:54:50.000 --> 00:55:01.000
That you know that was very much frowned on and the but strangely more people were critical of the fact that she'd been a kitchen maid.

00:55:01.000 --> 00:55:02.000
You know, there was this snobbery. Oh! Good he associate with the kitchen maid?

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:09.000
Okay, Hmm.

00:55:09.000 --> 00:55:21.000
Hey, there was this awful. Sort of snobbery that perhaps we might think was not unusual in the nineteenth century, you know.

00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:28.000
You, you know, you might have a little bit of a dalliance with the kitchen, but you don't set them up.

00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:38.000
And a house. You just don't do that, but he did. Collins, incidentally, you'd be hard poor.

00:55:38.000 --> 00:55:49.000
Find a biographer that's got a bad word to say about Collins. By all intents, bi, accounts that we have.

00:55:49.000 --> 00:56:06.000
He was a friendly affable. Man and he once said to his friends I have no pride and they all burst out laughing and he said no no you don't understand what I mean He said, what I mean is.

00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:20.000
I just happened to write books. Every man has his occupation. I just happened to write books. That doesn't make me any better than you.

00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:30.000
So, yeah, he was a modest man. He loved the public. And if you met him in the street and you said, oh are you Wilkie Collins?

00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:38.000
He is the last person you would expect to say. Don't you know who I am? There was no snobbery.

00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:44.000
He wouldn't walk to the front of the queue because hey, I'm Wilkie Collins.

00:56:44.000 --> 00:56:49.000
He was, you know, he was a very modest, low-key man.

00:56:49.000 --> 00:56:56.000
Okay, right, we've got some more questions here. Let me just scroll here.

00:56:56.000 --> 00:57:04.000
I guess, that we're talking about here, and Jill is asking, does this foreshadow the current dilemma about people's achievements versus their personal lives.

00:57:04.000 --> 00:57:10.000
Suppose we see that quite a lot in the The places.

00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:13.000
Yeah, I, yeah, I, Jill, I think that is still very much current, isn't it?

00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:26.000
People say, oh well, you know, I think that is still very much current, isn't it?

00:57:26.000 --> 00:57:27.000
Hmm.

00:57:27.000 --> 00:57:43.000
People say, oh well, you know, I used to like him or her until I found out. What ever I mean everyone will make that judgment for themselves but yes, I mean, I can imagine that a lot of their, of Braden and Collins fans if I can use that expression.

00:57:43.000 --> 00:57:52.000
Felt very let down. When it became current gossip. About their private lives.

00:57:52.000 --> 00:58:05.000
And and they you know they they were a bit scandalized it's even said The Braton and Maxwell servants when it was discovered.

00:58:05.000 --> 00:58:18.000
That, they live together before they actually finally made it to the altar and got married. And the servants gave notice.

00:58:18.000 --> 00:58:28.000
Because they didn't want. Anyone to know that lived in an immoral house.

00:58:28.000 --> 00:58:33.000
So yeah. I mean, you know, it's, it is interesting. People, other people will say, well, he's personal life.

00:58:33.000 --> 00:58:56.000
Her personal life has no bearing on other things. But in the nineteenth century, yeah, you, I think it's fair to say you would be charged on your personal life and your respectability.

00:58:56.000 --> 00:59:02.000
Okay, right, I think we've got another couple of questions and then I think we'll need to wrap things up, folks.

00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:03.000
Okay.

00:59:03.000 --> 00:59:06.000
Question from David. I wonder if you could maybe talk a little bit more about how close Collins and Dickens were.

00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:17.000
Apparently there's a blue plaque outside. A hotel in Cumberland saying that Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins stayed there.

00:59:17.000 --> 00:59:20.000
Did they travel together? Did they write together? Well.

00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:29.000
They did. They traveled together, they wrote together, they discussed plot lines together and they produce plays together.

00:59:29.000 --> 00:59:42.000
They produced their most famous play that they collaborated on was The Frozen Deep. Which is about an unsuccessful polar expedition.

00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:52.000
Now, that was attended on the first night by Queen Victoria Prince Albert. And King Leopold of the Belgians.

00:59:52.000 --> 01:00:02.000
Victoria and Albert, as you may know, were first cousins, so they shared an uncle. They shared King Leopold of the Belgians as their uncle.

01:00:02.000 --> 01:00:21.000
And apparently the plague was so moving. The first Queen Victoria burst into tears, then Prince Albert burst into tears and finally King Leopold burst into tears and the 3 of them to quote the newspaper article.

01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:27.000
Soaked themselves speechless.

01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:43.000
So yeah, you're absolutely right. They collaborated. They were great friends. Dickens Mentored Collins and Collins gave it advice and we know from his letters to Dickens.

01:00:43.000 --> 01:00:53.000
That he often gave Dickens advice. On all sorts of things. No, not only his books.

01:00:53.000 --> 01:01:10.000
But Dickens certainly helped Collins out because Dickens was so friendly. With the detective branch of the Metropolitan Police and he would gather all these wonderful stories, he would buy them drinks in the pub.

01:01:10.000 --> 01:01:25.000
After they were off duty. And he would pass on. Some of the stories to Collins. Uncollins would use them in his books because the public were fascinated.

01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:34.000
By the detective branch these plain close officers who mingled with the public.

01:01:34.000 --> 01:01:57.000
So, yeah, they, they were very, very close. And it's fair to say that Collins was devastated when Dickens died in 1870 only 2 years after Collins mother had died in 1,868 so it was a sort of double blow in a way.

01:01:57.000 --> 01:02:03.000
Okay, well I hope that answers your questions, David. We're gonna take one more question and then we're going to wrap things up.

01:02:03.000 --> 01:02:04.000
Yeah, thank you, David.

01:02:04.000 --> 01:02:09.000
And this question, question from Felicity. In fact, I've got another very quick question after that as well.

01:02:09.000 --> 01:02:17.000
But, this is from Felicity. And did he leave the mother of his children financially secure when he passed away?

01:02:17.000 --> 01:02:30.000
He did leave money for both Caroline . One Martha and particularly for Martha because she had his 3 children.

01:02:30.000 --> 01:02:39.000
To bring up. But I have to say that Collins went through money. Very very quickly.

01:02:39.000 --> 01:02:56.000
She was a lavish spender. He enjoyed high life. Enjoy good living. Love could wine, love good food, loved eating out in restaurants, travel extensively.

01:02:56.000 --> 01:03:10.000
Both in the UK and abroad, sometimes with Dickens, sometimes on his own, sometimes with others. But yeah, he certainly spent a lot of money.

01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:14.000
But then he earned a lot of money as well.

01:03:14.000 --> 01:03:22.000
Okay, and one final very quick one from Janet. What book would you recommend for a bit club?

01:03:22.000 --> 01:03:23.000
From the

01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:33.000
I would recommend As far as Collins is concerned, got to be the woman in white and And or the moonstone.

01:03:33.000 --> 01:03:44.000
Brilliant books, both of them. Broughton. Got to be the 2 I mentioned, I guess.

01:03:44.000 --> 01:03:54.000
Lady Audley's secret is a must. Particularly if you're an Essex person, when you read it, you will say this sounds like, in Gates Stonehole.

01:03:54.000 --> 01:04:03.000
It is Engage Stonehole. And she used Ingate Stone Hall as the fictional setting for the book.

01:04:03.000 --> 01:04:17.000
And the second one's got to be Aurora Floyd. Quite convoluted, but Aurora Floyd is a strong independent woman with a past.

01:04:17.000 --> 01:04:29.000
Okay, thank you very much Margaret. Colorful lives these 2 people and Really interesting to learn a little bit about their lives shaping their art basically.

01:04:29.000 --> 01:04:41.000
So thanks very much for that and I hope everybody enjoyed that out there.

00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:23.000
Hello, I hope you can all hear me and see my first slide which is The green title, hominid evolution.

00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:36.000
The origin of modern humans. So I'm using the term modern humans to mean. Homo sapiens, although other people use that term to mean other HOMO species as well.

00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:45.000
But for the purposes of this talk, home, modern humans are homo sapiens. So let's get going.

00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:53.000
Oops, I'm sorry I jumped a slide. So, the kinds of questions that people invariably want to know.

00:00:53.000 --> 00:01:06.000
What is a human? No, I, this is a question close to my heart because as a third year undergraduate I was taking a philosophy exam.

00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:15.000
And the question, the one question on the paper, there was only one. And it said an alien lands on earth.

00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:36.000
And asks what you what you call yourselves and you reply we are humans. And then it said and you have the next 3 h to explain to an alien what a human is which i did and i remember at the end of the 3 h thinking i need more time because I couldn't get it all down.

00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:46.000
Which is where the fascination for evolution comes. You, you know, there are so many levels at which you could answer the question, aren't there?

00:01:46.000 --> 00:02:00.000
Now you could go for physicality or skeletal form or muscle process but what about cognition and thought and social behaviour you could go on forever in in fact.

00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:06.000
So what's a human? Very. Could spend a very long time on that one. What's a hominid?

00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:15.000
Again. We'll come to this, within the slides. But how many it's a human like?

00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:22.000
That's what hominid means, human like. So what were early hominids like?

00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:35.000
And we have some notion from things like fossil remains and tool remains and things and evidence of fire and dwellings and things like that.

00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:50.000
Depictions of early humans. I've chosen this picture on purpose. Sorry. Because the depiction that people mostly come up with is the sort of ape like and hairy, always hairy.

00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:58.000
Which is interesting because How many I haven't really ever been that hairy. It's an odd.

00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:04.000
Folk miss really and homo sapiens is the least hairy hominid of all.

00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:09.000
And thus why we're often known as the naked ape because we have very little hair.

00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:23.000
So how long have we had hominids? On Earth. It's again a difficult question that one because we have gaps in our evidence.

00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:29.000
Millions of years we know that but how many millions of years. Is getting answered slowly actually, but but it's a difficult task.

00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:50.000
Where and when did we? Come from, where do we originate? As an actual homo sapiens that the the human that we know today.

00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:59.000
I think we mostly know where. Where they originate. But it's when it's always the tricky question there.

00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:13.000
And how have we changed? We have some really lovely fossil evidence to work on. That tells us lots and lots and lots, especially now that we can map the human genome.

00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:25.000
We can look at. Dna that's, and you know, occasionally you can derive some DNA from very ancient bones, which is almost a magical.

00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:31.000
Since we've been able to map genomes. And how do we come to populate the entire Earth?

00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:37.000
Homo sapiens, there are, you know, billions of us. Everywhere, every continent.

00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:48.000
So how did that happen? So, These are very big questions. That people are often interested in and I have a very short time in which to try and answer.

00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:59.000
Some of them. So I'll do the best that I can, but it will be, you know a quick answer to those questions.

00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:10.000
So what's the hominid? So homonage means human like, okay. So any species which is human-like.

00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:28.000
Is a It's bipedal what walks on 2 legs. Always walks on 2 legs that means doesn't sometimes walk on 4 and occasionally stand up.

00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:36.000
Treatly bipedal means that the animal never walks on 4, only has 2 feet and 2 hands.

00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:50.000
How many are intelligent? Now we know this from the the size of the skull. And the marks within skulls that show you where the attachments.

00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:59.000
Brain and you know the membrane and the fluid and so on in the head as being so we know that hominids have large brains.

00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:06.000
And we know that that the brain-to-body ratio on the whole tells you how intelligent an animal is.

00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:17.000
So for example, you probably know giant time Tyrannosaurus Rex had a quite tiny brain.

00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:28.000
So the brain to body ratio there. Very different to the brain body ratio of a hominid. Who, who's brains huge in comparison?

00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:40.000
Really? Yeah. Okay, excuse me. So they've been at least a dozen.

00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:56.000
Species of hominid in the last 5 million years, at least a dozen we say because we have some strong evidence for a dozen and some not quite so strong evidence for some others.

00:06:56.000 --> 00:07:04.000
There are big gaps in the data in the evidence that we have. So the best that we can say at the moment.

00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:08.000
Is there have been at least a dozen in the last 5 million years. A 1 million years in evolutionary terms is not very long.

00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:17.000
A 1 million years in evolutionary terms is not very long. A 1 million years in evolutionary terms is not very long.

00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:25.000
Because evolutionary processes are very slow. And evolutionary time is enormous. We're talking millions and millions of years.

00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:44.000
So 5 million years is relative drop in time in evolutionary terms so for that to have been at least a dozen in that time, shows a rapid progression, a rapid, relatively rapid evolution.

00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:57.000
And lots of change. In the species. Other animal species have not had so many versions, if you like, not in the last 5 million years, some have.

00:07:57.000 --> 00:08:06.000
But, a lot of animals, have remained fairly similar to how they were 10 million years ago, but not the hominids.

00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:12.000
So homo sapiens, is, means thinking man. Hello, means man.

00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:24.000
And more correctly, we should be saying human. But Hi, is chosen as the the word to describe man a long time ago and it ought to be human now for political quickness really.

00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:37.000
But homo sapiens thinking man or thinking human as I prefer to say. The only X stant that means still living.

00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:47.000
Species of homeland left on Earth. So where did they all go? So if you have a look at, if I just move your some nails over a little bit so I can see the slide.

00:08:47.000 --> 00:09:03.000
If you have a look at some of the images of hominids. You can see there are a lot of similarities in the body type.

00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:13.000
And the movement as well. And you'll see, on the right hand side.

00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:20.000
Standing more upright perhaps than the others. But the others are all pretty upright too the others.

00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:30.000
So we've got Australopithecus. Afarensis. And then, that means, handyman.

00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:45.000
I beless made tools. The first. The first that we have proper evidence for who is truly erect, truly straight standing.

00:09:45.000 --> 00:10:00.000
And then we know a little bit, don't mean most people know a little bit about HOME, sorry, these are all related very closely to homo sapiens.

00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:21.000
The difference in our genetic makeup is is tiny. Between the Homo species. If I give you an idea down here, I've got a picture of our family tree as it were the Sylogenetic, little bit of the phylogenetic tree.

00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:32.000
And right at the bottom there, it's a tiny picture. But this yellow box at the bottom is our ancestral primate.

00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:40.000
So all of the animals in this diagram are related to the ancestral primate. So we've got lemurs and tasiers.

00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:47.000
New and old world monkeys. Gibbons, Orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and humans.

00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:57.000
Now you'll see, if you can understand the branching. Diagram. That our closest living relative there is the chimpanzee next to us.

00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:05.000
Then the gorilla, then the orangutan. And then the given and so on to the left.

00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:15.000
And the genetic difference between us one of the species of chimpanzee which is extant the bonobo chimpanzee.

00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:26.000
Is about 97 and a half percent the same. That's how similar we are.

00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:33.000
To pan paneschis the pygmy chimpanzee as some people say. And our relatedness to these.

00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:42.000
Homo species in the time above would have been closer. So we would have shared much more genetic material than 97 and a half.

00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:47.000
97 and a half is is quite a lot isn't it but we would have had more in common.

00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:56.000
If those are homo species above. So.

00:11:56.000 --> 00:12:07.000
We are related to all of these species by an ancestral primate. Of about 60 million years ago.

00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:12.000
So 60 million years ago. An ancestral primate. Diversified, if you like, into these groups which are extant today.

00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:28.000
Over evolutionary time very slowly. Undertaking probably around 60,060,000,000 years to do so.

00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:35.000
So, evolution's often. No, not in a hurry. It's often very slow.

00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:46.000
So all species of hominid human-like. That means remember. more closely related to humans than chimpanzees as I've just said.

00:12:46.000 --> 00:13:01.000
So they are our direct ancestors closer to us. Chimpanzees and we split from chimpanzees some you know many millions of years ago.

00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:09.000
And the, come in between. The chimps and us. It's just that they're not on that diagram, they're no longer.

00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:17.000
Alive that they're extinct as opposed to extent. So you've got these major.

00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:23.000
Groups, Australia, Python, you'll have heard of some of these. Paranthrops us.

00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:32.000
Which is not easy. And the homemade genus. Of which, you know, there have been many.

00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:43.000
In the we know from various kinds of evidence that several hominid species lived at the same time.

00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:55.000
So we lived on Earth. Several 100 species lived on earth together at the same time. And it's only relatively recently.

00:13:55.000 --> 00:14:06.000
That we've only been left with the homo sapiens. In evolutionary terms it's relatively recent just to have the one homo species on earth.

00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:15.000
So. The gorillas, chimps, the other, great apes as they're called, where humans are a great ape.

00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:27.000
But there's a bit of a divide obviously between humans and the other great apes. Split about 6 to 8 MY A's 1 million years ago.

00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:34.000
Again, 6 to 8 million years ago is not a huge amount of time in evolutionary terms.

00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:47.000
So if we look at how many generations that is, that it's usually worked out. That every 25 years a generation passes.

00:14:47.000 --> 00:15:00.000
And that gives us about 320,000 generations of go. So if I don't know if that helps you to sort of visualize how how much time or how many.

00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:07.000
Generations of the species that is, but I think it kind of helps me to visualize how, far back that is.

00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:27.000
Strong natural selection, our natural selection will favor. Anything that adds a benefit in terms of survival or a benefit in terms of reproduction.

00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:47.000
Or a benefit in terms of fertility or something, you know, things like that. So evolution will work on whatever is present at the time and if anything offers a benefit to survive it will be strongly selected by evolution.

00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:55.000
I'm making evolution sound like an entity, it's not, it's a process. But, Obviously, there are, you know, changes, genetic mutations all the time.

00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:09.000
They happen all the time. Some of them are good. You know, they may help you survive. Some of them, neutral.

00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:23.000
They, don't. Harm you but they don't help you survive either. And some of them are negative, which means they give you a in inherited disease or life-threatening condition or an inability to cope with something.

00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:46.000
In survival terms and so those babies, children, young people tend to die out. And it's the the people with the genes that actually help them to stay alive or reproduce have more children have more success in reproductive terms than others that obviously pass on their genes.

00:16:46.000 --> 00:17:02.000
So strong natural selection means a lot of you know harsh conditions killing off a lot of Homo, Species, a lot of Homo individuals not making it beyond infancy.

00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:16.000
And my daughter said to me the other day she's studying anthropology and she said you know that all of the innovations of Neanderthals were made by people about 18 years old.

00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:27.000
And I did know that but when you put it that way you think correct goodness all the all the things that were passed on to homo sapiens from the Neanderthals were passed on by teenagers.

00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:34.000
Because there are no real, there's no real evidence for many Neanderthals living beyond teenage years.

00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:47.000
Imagine if all our knowledge was reliant on teenagers. They had to pass on everything it would be a different different matter.

00:17:47.000 --> 00:18:01.000
So, 320,000 generations ago. We became humans if you like. Okay.

00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:11.000
Now, we have to. What has happened in that time. As I said, it's not a huge amount of evolutionary time.

00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:19.000
But a lot has happened in the evolution of homo species has been compared to other species has been extremely rapid.

00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:34.000
Really in many ways. And one of the main things has been a chromosome change. So the other living hominids today have 48 chromosomes.

00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:43.000
But humans, we suspect other hominids but we only know about humans at the moment. Have 46.

00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:49.000
Now we know that we all came from a common ancestor, which would have been here on the diagram.

00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:55.000
This is where our common ancestor would have. Pictured if we knew what it looked like but we don't really.

00:18:55.000 --> 00:19:11.000
So 2 chromosomes are fused together. Into human chromosome number 2 and it's the largest chromosome because it is formed off to ancestral chromosomes.

00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:18.000
And the change happened.

00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:25.000
After our last common ancestor with the chimpanzee lineage. Just think about it for a moment.

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:40.000
What do we understand about Kramer same changes? Well they can change in chromosome a mutation in a crane the same is very very common it happens all the time but some of them can be absolutely catastrophic.

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:48.000
And fatal so that some crane the same anomalies or abnormalities you might call them will cause the death of.

00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:57.000
An infant in pregnancy won't even be born. Because the chromosomes too different, too damaged.

00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:08.000
But lots and lots of chromosome mutations happen. They chromosome mutations will give us all you know possibility of different colored eyes for example.

00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:22.000
You could inherit. Some resistance to a disease, Kramer Somali. And there are people in the world who are resistant to things like malaria because they've inherited.

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:30.000
A version of a Chrome the same which which gives them some resistance. There are some people who are resistant to.

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:41.000
The AIDS virus in the same way. Cream same, inherited. Chromosome mutations come in 4 forms.

00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:47.000
I've written them down so I don't forget either. So they can be deletions where a chromosome lost.

00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:56.000
Now they're usually fatal. That, infant does not usually they could be translocations so they move.

00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:08.000
The change position. They can be duplications so you get another copy of a chromosome or they can be inversions where the crane is same.

00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:24.000
Changes, fall. Excuse me. So for example, an extra copy of, yeah, so a duplication therefore of chromosome 21 causes Down syndrome.

00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:38.000
That's one, you know, that we would be familiar with. We understand how that works. There are other mutations which which allow things like lactose tolerance.

00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:48.000
So humans, homo sapiens have lactose tolerance. A lot of other homelands do not have it, but, human, human sapiens has it.

00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:54.000
Inherited from Neanderthals.

00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:04.000
And we might be resistant to diseases we don't even yet know about possibly. Sometimes you don't find these things out until the disease comes along.

00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:10.000
So there are probably my best guests would be there were probably some people out there who were assistant to COVID.

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:26.000
From chromosomal mutation. So The Kramer same anomaly as it's known that that you know that of the hominids have 48 and the hominids we assume and we know for sure humans have 46 is very very significant.

00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:36.000
The it will have changed. So many things and it's one of the reasons why the change in homemade species has been so rapid.

00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:43.000
Because of the, fusion of those. Ape chromosomes into a large human chromosome.

00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:56.000
That's so just the background sort of notion of why the change has been so relatively rapid in the evolutionary terms and also so It's such enormous change, you know, such huge amounts of change.

00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:05.000
So you see there the orangutan gorilla chimpanzee, 48 chimpanzees.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:17.000
Only the human that we can, as 46 and we assume the other home and it's also had 46 because we're very close related.

00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:27.000
To them much closer than we are to the chimpanzee. So very significant. The Kramer same difference.

00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:38.000
Now this is. Skeletal remains, of an individual who's been called Lucy.

00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:50.000
She was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974. She's about 3 million years old and possibly a bit older, maybe 3 and a half.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:24:01.000
More recent data. It's very hard to keep up with the data and the evolutionary. Things because as we get better at reading genomes and so on, dates change all the time.

00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:14.000
What's remarkable about Lucy is that 40% of her skeleton was found. Now in terms of find, you know, a fossil find or, you know, a skeletal fine.

00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:21.000
That's a very large amount of material. 40% of her is more than we have of anybody else.

00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:31.000
And you can see from the diagram to the left. Which bits of her? We're preserved, you know, what's all found.

00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:39.000
So quite a large amount of the skull. And the Pelvis. And then one of the legs and both arms.

00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:49.000
So importantly what we get from this is a notion of things like how big her long capacity was from the ribs.

00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:57.000
How did she walk? Because we have the pelvis there so we can see where the hip, attachment is.

00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:04.000
And the whether muscle processes. Where there's leave little marks on the bones where the muscles have been.

00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:12.000
So you can you can reconstruct where the muscles have attached and so on, which is how we get these artists impressions.

00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:23.000
They're not made up, they're based on hard evidence. And they're based on you know, that the thickness of the bones and things.

00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:28.000
So you can see that Lucy is sort of a chunky animal. Chunky Pommed.

00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:39.000
And you'll see Good muscle tone or good sized muscles there in the arms. And in the thighs.

00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:50.000
And. A human like head and face. A little bit more ape-like perhaps than human-like.

00:25:50.000 --> 00:26:00.000
But very recognisably hominid, I think. And all of this we can see from the skeleton, so it's an amazing find.

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:01.000
So. You know, a gift if you like in terms of reconstructing a homo species.

00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:16.000
We know for sure she was bipedal because of the way the head, the spine joins the head.

00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:21.000
So if you think about, an animal that walks on all fours called quadripeedally.

00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:29.000
Like a dog, let's say. Think about where the spine goes into the head. It's at the back, isn't it?

00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:34.000
Whereas on a, a bipedal animal, it's underneath, it's at the base.

00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:45.000
It's an absolute. Definitive piece of evidence that she will come to legs. So she is an Australopithecus afarensis.

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:52.000
She is one of our distant ancestors. And she's not so different. To us.

00:26:52.000 --> 00:27:07.000
And her DNA is not so different. To us either. You would. If we could, you know, meet her somehow, I think we would recognize her.

00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:13.000
A hominid species. We would see the similarities. With ourselves.

00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:24.000
So. Who are the first hominids? So we have quite a lot of gaps in the evidence, so we still aren't.

00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:29.000
Definitively able to say.

00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:37.000
Where who or what the first homeland was. But we do have fossil fragments from 5 million years ago.

00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:50.000
And so we have We are able to make what you might call very intelligent guesses about what the gaps may tell us if we ever find them, ever find them more fossils.

00:27:50.000 --> 00:28:01.000
More fossils being found all the time. So it is something to keep up with. You know, it is something to keep checking in on as more data comes in.

00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:05.000
Our understanding improves all the time. Is one of the most rapidly changing areas of study for humans.

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:24.000
And when did homo sapiens appear? You know when did We move on from Neanderthalensis, but when Neanderthals died out.

00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:31.000
You know, how long had homo sapiens been on earth with them? We know that we live together with them.

00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:40.000
We found fossils of the same age. The family Sapiens and Neanderthalances, but how long had homo sapiens been there?

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:48.000
Is it is a difficult question. But we have to assume that they had been there quite some time.

00:28:48.000 --> 00:29:04.000
Before, all the other homo species died out. Because the reason that homo sapiens it's such a dominant or as a dominant home a species it will come to soon.

00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:12.000
Reliant on the fact that they live with other homo species.

00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:23.000
So let's just have a quick look. Is a very brief look because. Again, you could do an entire talk just on these, you know, individual species.

00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:31.000
There were several species in the genus Homo before homo sapiens. We don't know how many.

00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:41.000
And there will be some that we have never found evidence for. Almost certainly and hopefully that evidence will come at some point.

00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:49.000
So the oldest fossil that we have. Sorry, the earliest fossil that we have is Homo, Habelis, handyman.

00:29:49.000 --> 00:30:04.000
2.3 million years, okay, a drop in the ocean in evolutionary time. Call him handyman because we, also found some tools, simple tools.

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:14.000
Not. Highly sophisticated but well used. Tools. Pieces of bone or shaped stone.

00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:23.000
Perhaps not carved into the right shape, but. But they you know perhaps would have found a stone that was already the right shape and used it well.

00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:28.000
Or smashed a bone and used the sharp edge that was created. Rather than carving a knife, they just use things that were naturally sharp, if you like, as knives.

00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:49.000
So there's a difference between tool making. Tool use because lots of several species of animal today will use very simple tools but they don't tend to make them.

00:30:49.000 --> 00:31:00.000
Accepting a couple of exceptions. With with some corvids and various bird species.

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:05.000
So, homo hubilis would have looked something like this. And again, this is not.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:10.000
Made up it's based on hard evidence. So, HOMO, Hibilis is quite hairy.

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:22.000
I think there's me saying then, you know, have not been that hairy. Evidence would suggest, was quite hairy but not as hairy as the ape species are today.

00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:29.000
So for whatever reason, Homo species have not been the hairiest creatures in evolutionary terms.

00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:50.000
Probably because they had the intelligence to get out of the cold. Or make clothes or you know do things that meant they didn't they wouldn't rely on to unfair to stay warm and protected.

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:57.000
And Homo erectus, the the first time my species to stand perfectly erect perfectly.

00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:04.000
Upright. Now we know HOME, Erectus was a toolmaker, not just a tool user.

00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:13.000
Because from Homo erectus, finds. We see the carefully. Carved and flint napped.

00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:21.000
Tools that that we're familiar with from museums and things. Carefully selected stones. Carefully worked into the correct shapes or required shapes and so on.

00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:37.000
And we also know from the finds that they used fire. And this must have been a very significant.

00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:43.000
Thing, the ability to use fire. You think, you know, what's fire good for it?

00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:51.000
Well, it keeps predators away for one thing. Keeps you warm. You can make inedible food.

00:32:51.000 --> 00:32:55.000
Edible by cooking it on a fire or putting it at the edge of the fire. So hard, hard feeds can be softened with heat and so on.

00:32:55.000 --> 00:33:11.000
So you just have more foods available to you. More protection from predators. You wouldn't be so cold in the winter and so on.

00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:18.000
You know, for example, if you put If you kill an animal and you eat all the meat off it and it's really difficult to get the marrow out of the bones.

00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:27.000
But if you put the bones in a fire and they become brittle. Then you can smash them and get the marrow out and eat that as well.

00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:33.000
So it would have almost doubled the food that you got from an animal. Just being able to get the marrow from the bones.

00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:44.000
So fire is a very significant. Development. It would have had almost as much. Change in homemade species as the chromosome.

00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:52.000
Fusion did very significant

00:33:52.000 --> 00:34:00.000
And we have fossils of several other species and we also, you know, we have fossils.

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:03.000
Of unknown species as well. We think that hominid, but we don't, you know, it's really difficult with some of them, especially if you can't extract any.

00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:21.000
Dna from them to work out what they are. Homer, Augusta, Homo Heidel, and famously the one that those people will have heard of or know a little about.

00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:39.000
Hi. A European Homo species extinct now as you know obviously sorry. And we know that they lived side by side.

00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:46.000
I thought probably there, but I should have put did live side by side. With homo sapiens.

00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:59.000
We know this because the are people alive to day. With Neanderthal genes. So we know that and Neanderthalence is spread together.

00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:08.000
Why did they go extinct and Homo sapiens not? The unstoel man is in this.

00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:14.000
Artist depiction here. Massively strong, much stronger than Homo sapiens.

00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:28.000
Much bigger muscle processes indicating a much stronger body. Very human-like. Face facial you know from the the skull fragments that we have.

00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:37.000
You can see, the heavy brow. Phone, which homo sapiens does not have.

00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:43.000
And that's one of the differences when you look at a skull from Neanderthalensis, you can see the heavy brow bone there.

00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:51.000
You don't see that with suck ins. But very human-like. Features. But a lot stronger.

00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:58.000
Then homo sapiens. So you might think That would be a survival benefit being really strong.

00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:08.000
I'm probably really tough as well. But it wasn't enough for whatever reason it wasn't enough and they became extinct and homo sapiens he was slighter.

00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:12.000
Less hairy, less strong, less tough. Went on to populate the entire earth.

00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:23.000
So what happened there?

00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:28.000
So. Homo sapiens. The anatomically modern human as I'm calling them for this talk.

00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:45.000
The oldest fossils that we have are probably up to 200,000 years ish. These are the kinds of things that are found.

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:53.000
Not nice, complete, or almost complete ones like Lucy. But just little bits and bobs, really, little pieces of bone.

00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:58.000
If you're lucky, you get, you know, the bigger bones obviously. Have more information.

00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:06.000
Cause you can tell. How strong they are, where the muscles attached, you know, which you know, depending which part of the body it is, it can tell you different things.

00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:18.000
So we usually find little bits and bobs like this, tiny fragments rather than nice, you know, big.

00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:31.000
Big, finds some rather rare. And we know that from the fossil finds. That's modern humans originated from Africa.

00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:39.000
And we know this for sure now, it was always assumed we originated in Africa, but we know for absolute sure now.

00:37:39.000 --> 00:37:52.000
From the DNA analysis. There's somebody somewhere. Oh, sorry. I keep doing that.

00:37:52.000 --> 00:38:02.000
Somebody somewhere spends their days looking at an array like the one in the bottom picture there. These are DNA sequences.

00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:11.000
And computer programs use them to zip through and look for sort of similarities and matches much like they do.

00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:14.000
With forensic psychology today and you're looking for, you know, the criminal.

00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:21.000
Whose DNA has been found at a crime scene. The same process really, you have some DNA material.

00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:38.000
From a find. And you compare it with other DNA samples. And that will give you an idea what species of how long ago and things like that, how old the bones are done by carbon dating.

00:38:38.000 --> 00:38:49.000
And whether the genes are shared. Any of the genes that you see in the sequencing there are shared by any humans today.

00:38:49.000 --> 00:39:01.000
And we know from that that we do share some Neanderthal genes so we know that we interbred.

00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:10.000
So here's the road map if you like. Of our evolution in Africa and migration to the rest of the world.

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:26.000
So this is all based on the evidence that we have with fossils. With DNA testing of many thousands of of humans today, it's very simple now DNA testing you you just give some saliva.

00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:37.000
And your DNA can be extracted. And and used. In computer terms used to match the samples from all over the world.

00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:47.000
Can tell you where you originate from. So You see the pattern. Of migration.

00:39:47.000 --> 00:40:00.000
Okay. So in Africa, you see the Myration up into Europe. And across. To North America, obviously we'd have a different shaped.

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:03.000
Land masses that many millions of years ago. Even down to Australia. Through Asia and so on.

00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:20.000
And we know that this is the route. Taken if you like just just from these simple saliva test now where we can match the DNA across people's across the entire planet now.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:27.000
Modern humans left Africa about 80,000 years ago, which is not very long. In evolution, but her is long enough to have changed the world.

00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:42.000
No, no less. Because what humans are capable of which evolution isn't is. Is cultural evolution.

00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:56.000
We can change the culture very quickly. Much, more quickly than. Evolution can work.

00:40:56.000 --> 00:41:04.000
So in one of the benefits of.

00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:11.000
And mapping the genome for a human teen is that we are able to follow what's known as the mitochondrial DNA.

00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:19.000
You may, some of you will know, mitochondrial DNA is passed. From mother to child.

00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:30.000
So all all women carry an identical. Marticondral DNA to that of their mother.

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:36.000
And she inherited it from her mother. And she inherited it from her mother and so on and so on.

00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:47.000
So somewhere in Africa. All humans live today can be mapped back through the mitochondrial DNA to one single female.

00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:57.000
Scientists have called her Eve which is not terribly helpful I have to say because she is not the first woman she's not.

00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:01.000
But she is the only.

00:42:01.000 --> 00:42:12.000
The only place at which all the mitochondrial DNA we have converges. And so we can say without a doubt that we are all descended from.

00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:22.000
The same one. Well, one individual as a species. Which is a remarkable thing to say. The same is true of, domestic dogs.

00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:30.000
All the domestic logs in the world are descended from about 12 females. Female wolves.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:43.000
So again, very remarkable. Thing and being able to track mitochondrial DNA has been an absolute miracle in terms of what we can understand.

00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:57.000
Mitochondria tiny intracellular structures. They're within the cell therefore but they're not in the nucleus and when a human egg is fertilized.

00:42:57.000 --> 00:43:10.000
The egg has 50% of DNA from the father and 50% from the mother. But also this mitochondrial DNA from the mother because the male mitochondrial DNA is left outside of the cell.

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:21.000
So only the female. In replica. It doesn't change.

00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:30.000
So how come we're here? How come it's homo sapiens and not all these other homemade species which of which there might have been dozens and dozens.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:38.000
We don't really know. We know that they're have been a few, quite a few, but we don't know how many.

00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:55.000
Modern research on this question. Suggests that we interbred. With other homo species. We know that for sure that we bred with Neanderthals because we have DNA from Neanderthal.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:44:07.000
Samples that matches DNA from modern humans. Neanderthals therefore have contributed to the modern gene pool of humans.

00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:17.000
And we have to assume as closely related hominids that we would have been capable of breeding with other archaic humans as well.

00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:25.000
In much the same way as you know dogs and wolves can still breed because they're still closely enough related.

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.000
Lions and tigers don't come across each other in the wild. But they're genetically related enough to breed still in zoos and things.

00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:42.000
So we have to assume that we bred with other. Humans as well if we did with Neanderthals why not the others?

00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:54.000
So. Some of the genes we would have inherited. We're a mixture of all these other homo species.

00:44:54.000 --> 00:45:12.000
That seems to have been a bit of a leap in. Symbolic expression. And social behavior social connectedness which for some reason homo sapiens developed very rapidly and much more complex compared to the other hormones.

00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:28.000
Which we can derive from samples of you know, their bones and their fire using their tools and so on and they're artifacts like jewelry and beads and things like that.

00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:33.000
And some people have put forward the idea that perhaps it was language. Evolution that allowed homo sapiens to prevail.

00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:45.000
They could communicate with each other better. They could pass on knowledge. They could.

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:52.000
Therefore not have to discover everything by trial and error. So you don't have to come across a saber tooth tiger.

00:45:52.000 --> 00:46:02.000
Somebody can tell you they're really dangerous. You know, you can find a time without having to do it yourself, which would have saved your life in many cases.

00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:10.000
And about 50,000 years ago something happened in in evolutionary terms. Homo sapiens crossed a threshold.

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:21.000
In cognitive ability. For some reason they became more reproductively successful as well. More offspring.

00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:36.000
Living were surviving infancy. Probably because was getting better at surviving. Making clothes, staying out of danger, making weapons, lighting fire.

00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:47.000
Eating more, varied diet, which, would have helped, general well being and so on.

00:46:47.000 --> 00:46:56.000
So homo sapiens about 50,000 years ago becomes unstoppable. Can go to any climate can wear warm clothes.

00:46:56.000 --> 00:47:05.000
Can survive the heat. For example can have dark skin. Or can have pale skin. Can have.

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:14.000
Can be small can be large can be can work out problems can pass on information, can share culture.

00:47:14.000 --> 00:47:24.000
Something happened 50,000 years ago. Probably a series of mutations. Graeme's, will mutations which were advantageous.

00:47:24.000 --> 00:47:31.000
Which we can't easily know just yet. We probably will know eventually.

00:47:31.000 --> 00:47:37.000
Some of the DNA that homo sapiens picked up from Neanderthals at least.

00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:39.000
We're definitely beneficial. So we do know that already there are at least 7 sequences from the Neanderthals.

00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:53.000
Related to skin pigments. So, homo sapiens would have had to evolve paler skin as they went north.

00:47:53.000 --> 00:48:11.000
Because you can only get your vitamin D through the Sun. And if you have a very dark skin you can't, so you would, you would need to use the sun, the sunlight if you like, through your pale skin.

00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:20.000
And the homo sapiens for some reason was able to be a specialist in things like mountains and climbing and rainforests.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:32.000
Or mammoth hunters in the paleoarctic. So they were able to specialize in particular kinds of hunting and existing and surviving.

00:48:32.000 --> 00:48:40.000
Despite the fact they were what you might call a generalist species. So there are a very unusual example.

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:53.000
Of a generalist specialist, which is an oxymoron. Probably we have been able to Gather the knowledge required to live in these diverse.

00:48:53.000 --> 00:49:02.000
Environments by cooperating with others, learning from them. Knowing what to eat, knowing how to survive.

00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:09.000
Knowing whether safe places are perhaps perhaps caves people could tell you where to go and then you'd be safe.

00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:10.000
They didn't rely on just kin groups, not just their own offspring.

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:20.000
They could have shared food and communicated with other homo species. That they weren't related to.

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:29.000
And so, you know, processing culture all the time. How to make clothing, you know, how to do things more efficiently.

00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:39.000
Make better weapons gather more food what's what's safe to eat even. So we owe a lot to our.

00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:51.000
Friends if you like in terms of the DNA that we. Doubtless inherited from them so that the beneficial DNA.

00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:53.000
Oh, so I think I missed out the Neanderthal genes that help with immunity.

00:49:53.000 --> 00:50:10.000
Sorry, I did. So some of our immunity comes from Neanderthals. We have to assume that a lot of the other benefits that we have came from other homemade species too.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:16.000
And I think I might have gone over time, sorry. But thank you very much.

00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:27.000
For your attention. I think the study of hominid species is absolutely fascinating because there's so much we still don't know.

00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:37.000
And humans are so complicated. So all of these things I've listed here incredible. Destructive, creative, innovative.

00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:44.000
Problem solving, lots of positives, lots of negatives, but always complex and always more to learn.

00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:50.000
Thank you very much.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:51.000
Yeah.

00:50:51.000 --> 00:50:58.000
Okay, thank you very much, Joanne. I've got lots of questions for you. So I'm, I don't know if we're gonna get through all of your questions everybody, but as I said at the start, any that we don't get get to, we will take them away afterward and we'll try and get the answers to you.

00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:07.000
And pop them upside the recording of the, the lecture, hopefully tomorrow morning. So I'm just going to start from the talk, Joanne.

00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:20.000
And now, I have to roll up quite a long way to get to the top. Okay, no.

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:30.000
So towards the start of the talk you were talking about the chromosome anomaly and the fact that other humanoids have 40, we have 46 which is quite distinctively different.

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:48.000
And Jane was asking, to what extent can those different groups that you talked about interbreed? So obviously presumably not us with you know, chimpanzees and gorillas because of that chromosome thing but in terms of the others that have a similar have the same chromosome.

00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:52.000
Number. To what extent could they integrate?

00:51:52.000 --> 00:52:09.000
You're quite right. We could, we could not breed with. The other great apes that are on earth now because we don't share the same number of But we have to assume any hominid that have the same number of premises as us.

00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:14.000
Could probably interbreed with us. Yes.

00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:19.000
Okay, excellent. Okay, I hope that answers your question, Jane, in a nutshell.

00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:28.000
And another question here again when you were talking about chromosomes you talked about Neanderthalensis being lactose and tolerant.

00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:32.000
How do we know that? What's the evidence that shows that?

00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:33.000
Oh, that's a tricky one.

00:52:33.000 --> 00:52:37.000
Yeah. Probably a good question.

00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:48.000
Because, if you go from, from the other way around. We know what a human who is lactose tolerance genetic.

00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:59.000
What genome looks like. If you compare that to a Neanderthal genome you see particular alle of genes.

00:52:59.000 --> 00:53:08.000
Absent, and they tend to be the ones to do. With. Tolerance and allergy.

00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:17.000
And that's how we know because, Some of the, so for, for example, there are people today who are lactose intolerant.

00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:22.000
So for example, there are people today who are lactose intolerant. And so we know what a lactose intolerant genetic makeup looks like.

00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:36.000
We also know what a lactose tolerant genetic makeup looks like and we can compare it with Neanderthalensis who did not have the tolerance and had similar intolerance to people today.

00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:37.000
Okay.

00:53:37.000 --> 00:53:40.000
Who will actose in tolerant. So it's about comparison of genetic materials. That we have.

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.000
Yeah, okay. I'm just gonna say you want to take your slides down just so that we can see you and see you a bit more clearly.

00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:47.000
Oh yes, cool, sorry. Of course, sorry.

00:53:47.000 --> 00:53:57.000
And That would be good. Brilliant, perfect. And now, another question from Ruth. Now, you were talking about Hormo, Habilis.

00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:05.000
How do we know that they had lots of body here and supplementary to that? Did Lucy have body here?

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:08.000
It didn't look like it from the kind of reconstruction that we saw.

00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:21.000
Yeah. Is tricky. Again. Make some very intelligent guesses sometimes with gaps in the evidence.

00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:30.000
If you're lucky enough to have any fragments of skin that will tell you how many hairs.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:40.000
Per, you know, centimetre squared or something that that animal had. And we do have some.

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:49.000
Preserved or ancient specimens, usually in ice. That had some hair or skin. Intact.

00:54:49.000 --> 00:55:02.000
So that we can look at the skin under an electron microscope to see very, very closely how many hair follicles and the nature of the follicles as well.

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:08.000
Whether it's you know very fine hair or bristly hair or whisker pair you know that kind of the differences.

00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:19.000
But We also know from mitochondrial DNA from sampling and stuff that because of the, the, you know, the difference between homo sapiens and other homo species is not that great.

00:55:19.000 --> 00:55:37.000
In genetic terms. We have to assume. That hairiness. Is not a, you know, a big trait of hominids, or homo species, I should say.

00:55:37.000 --> 00:55:48.000
Okay. And I hope that answers your question, Ruth. Now, a quick question from Philip. And you talked a little bit about Homo erectus.

00:55:48.000 --> 00:55:54.000
How long ago? That's did homo erectus exist?

00:55:54.000 --> 00:55:55.000
Yeah.

00:55:55.000 --> 00:56:07.000
Oh gosh. That's tricky because the answer varies a lot. It would be It'll be up to 7 to 10 million years ago.

00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:14.000
Depending which evidence you Look at.

00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:20.000
Okay. Right. Okay. And another question from Pat.

00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:31.000
Actually, we're talking about Neanderthal lenses. And you had talked about the fact that they didn't live that long in terms of, you know, they got to be teenagers and probably not much more than them.

00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:32.000
Hmm.

00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:34.000
They looked a lot older than that. This popat was saying, why, why would that be? Again, that's maybe a big question.

00:56:34.000 --> 00:56:50.000
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, when you can tell from the remains, how old an animal, you know, any, any animal bone remains will tell you how old the animal.

00:56:50.000 --> 00:57:05.000
Was when it died. You can also, Get some evidence as well about things like disease, you know, so for example if they had arthritic joints and things you can find you see that evidence as well.

00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:13.000
And we didn't see any evidence of the illnesses of older age that you would see in homo sapiens aged 50 plus.

00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:19.000
And the evidence that we have, the case that they were all kind of below 30.

00:57:19.000 --> 00:57:35.000
And, the, you know, the vast majority were more like 1820. So they You know, harsh climate, harsh life, difficult, you know, difficulties with predators and food supplies and so on.

00:57:35.000 --> 00:57:40.000
Would have. Would have meant, you know, difficult survival.

00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:49.000
Hmm, okay. Right, what have we got next? No.

00:57:49.000 --> 00:57:52.000
Oh, you seem to have disappeared there.

00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:53.000
Thanks. I'm still here.

00:57:53.000 --> 00:57:56.000
Are you still here? You're sharing your screen again. We can see a nice talk. Yeah.

00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:00.000
Hello.

00:58:00.000 --> 00:58:01.000
No, I don't think I am.

00:58:01.000 --> 00:58:04.000
But no you're not somebody else is You're not someday else I've switched that off.

00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:16.000
There we go. Okay, now one, species that I guess we haven't spoken about today is Cromagnan.

00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:20.000
Where does it? Where does that species fit into the sort of hominids? Scenario.

00:58:20.000 --> 00:58:28.000
Oh, I don't know too much about Grey Magnum. I have to say I've, focused an awful lot of study on these older.

00:58:28.000 --> 00:58:41.000
But much more recently. Much more recently in Homo lineage.

00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:47.000
All I can say at the moment without the data before me.

00:58:47.000 --> 00:58:48.000
Cool. Yeah.

00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:54.000
Okay. Okay. That's maybe an area of research for you next day. And okay, now, just keep an eye on the time here.

00:58:54.000 --> 00:59:00.000
A question from David. Obviously you talked about, you know, the fact that We've originated from Africa.

00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:03.000
And spread across the globe from there. Can we, I mean, can we be sort of specific about which part of Africa?

00:59:03.000 --> 00:59:11.000
And David is talking about did we originate from the Rift Valley, which would be modern-day Kenya?

00:59:11.000 --> 00:59:19.000
Do, are we able to sort of pinpoint?

00:59:19.000 --> 00:59:20.000
Yes.

00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:24.000
Yes, we are. It that would be about right. Yes. The Rift Valley, yes, definitely.

00:59:24.000 --> 00:59:28.000
That's the region. Where, where some of the finds have. Indicated from mitochondrial DNA.

00:59:28.000 --> 00:59:32.000
Yes, yes.

00:59:32.000 --> 00:59:38.000
Right, okay, and supplementary to that, there was a question from Karen and Andrew.

00:59:38.000 --> 00:59:42.000
Did all the other hominids originate from the same place?

00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:43.000
Whoo!

00:59:43.000 --> 00:59:45.000
Another big question.

00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:49.000
That's really difficult because

00:59:49.000 --> 00:59:56.000
Without any extant hominids. Of the other homage species. We can't.

00:59:56.000 --> 01:00:03.000
Use the living relatives to track back through the mitochondrial DNA. So it's really difficult to map.

01:00:03.000 --> 01:00:15.000
Exactly where. They all came from. But I think the the quick answer to that is no they didn't all originate in Africa.

01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:20.000
They would have come from other parts. And

01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:29.000
Impossibly, home, it's homo sapiens that's come out of Africa, whereas other homo species may not have.

01:00:29.000 --> 01:00:30.000
Okay.

01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:33.000
Much more difficult to track them because there aren't any living relatives to to use to track back through the DNA.

01:00:33.000 --> 01:00:41.000
Yeah, yeah, of course. Okay. Right, now let's have a look.

01:00:41.000 --> 01:00:48.000
What can we do next? As I say, I think some of the questions we are going to have to take away.

01:00:48.000 --> 01:00:55.000
No, let's have a look. When you were talking about mitochondrial DNA.

01:00:55.000 --> 01:01:05.000
Questions for similar questions from Lucy and from Colin. Do male children also inherit the mothers mitochondrial DNA DNA?

01:01:05.000 --> 01:01:08.000
You talked about mother to daughter but do the male children also inherit as well?

01:01:08.000 --> 01:01:18.000
No, it's, She'll pass on a copy but then that child that male child will not pass that on.

01:01:18.000 --> 01:01:19.000
Bye.

01:01:19.000 --> 01:01:33.000
So he will have it in his self. But if his sperm fertilizes an egg. His mitochondrial DNA will remain outside of the cell.

01:01:33.000 --> 01:01:34.000
Right. Okay.

01:01:34.000 --> 01:01:38.000
Where is the mother's mitochondrial gene will be within it. So no, so yes, she does, but no, he can't pass it on.

01:01:38.000 --> 01:01:47.000
Right, good. I hope that answers your question. And, and, Colin.

01:01:47.000 --> 01:01:54.000
No, let's just have a look because we've got about a minute left. Let's see.

01:01:54.000 --> 01:02:07.000
No, from Jen. There is some of it evidence that humans were able to tell stories and recognize star groups before we left Africa, say, 100,000 years ago.

01:02:07.000 --> 01:02:14.000
With that fit with the cognitive leap. Happening that you talked about.

01:02:14.000 --> 01:02:17.000
Yeah, I mean, that would.

01:02:17.000 --> 01:02:26.000
Yeah, it's one of those mysteries, isn't it? I mean, if you ask people today to, you know, to consider the constellations, they wouldn't be very good at it.

01:02:26.000 --> 01:02:32.000
And yet we know that early humans use constellations to navigate by because they've in some cases has been drawn on caves and all sorts.

01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:42.000
And constellations which are recognizable in the night sky today. Yes, I would think.

01:02:42.000 --> 01:02:50.000
Maybe that is one of the. The leaps being able to know where you're going.

01:02:50.000 --> 01:02:59.000
Yeah. Perhaps navigate where you're going. Might make a huge difference to survival and reproductive success, yes.

01:02:59.000 --> 01:03:17.000
Hmm. Okay. Right folks, I think we're gonna have to leave it there. I know that we haven't got through all of your questions, but what I'll be doing once we've finished is I will pick out all the questions that we haven't answered and make sure that Joanne receives them and as I say, will try and get those answers upside the recording of the website as soon as we possibly

01:03:17.000 --> 01:03:25.000
can. No, thanks. Thanks again for that, that was really, really fascinating. Really interesting to learn a little bit.

01:03:25.000 --> 01:03:35.000
Like pressure.

01:03:35.000 --> 01:03:36.000
Yes. Yeah.

01:03:36.000 --> 01:03:42.000
You know, why we are the only hominids left that remain today. And, and obviously we've only been able to skim the surface today, such a, an enormous subject that, but hopefully it's, it's way to you appetite to try and find out a little bit more.

01:03:42.000 --> 01:03:53.000
And about the evolution of humans. So And so thanks again, Joanne. And I hope everybody enjoyed that.

00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:15.000
Thanks very much Fiona and thanks for inviting me back again. I'm just going to try to find my share screen.

00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:25.000
And Today we're going to. Talk about plastics and the role they have in supporting our lifestyle and the impact they're having on the environment.

00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:27.000
There's quite a lot of technical information, so if it's all new to you, you don't worry about it.

00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:37.000
The slides and recording will be available afterwards. And I'm more than happy to try and answer any questions at the end if you just put them into chat.

00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:51.000
But because there is quite a lot of data and information. It's fairly slide heavy. So I'm just going to share my screen and we'll be working through.

00:00:51.000 --> 00:01:13.000
Through the slides that I've prepared. Okay, so. Couldn't apply that.

00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:26.000
Sorry. Was it right?

00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:31.000
Good beginning. Why is it not working?

00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:35.000
Right. Hopefully everyone can see that. I can. Okay, right.

00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:38.000
Yep.

00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:43.000
Well, let's, let's kick off then. That's my question. Global menace, let's kick off then. That's my question.

00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:49.000
Global menace all miracle material. So any of you who know me or mean know immediately that the answer is going to be both.

00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:59.000
So, thought we just start off by thinking about what you maybe think about when plastic. Comes into your head.

00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:10.000
I you thinking about a pair of tights or more likely a plastic bag? Or even a beer wheel out of an electric motor.

00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:16.000
Or maybe you've got a less positive image in your mind and you're thinking about landfill or turtles getting caught up in fishing nets.

00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:22.000
Or even the Great Pacific. Garbage patch. All of these things are true representations of plastics today.

00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:36.000
So how do we take the good and lose the bad? These are some of the things we're going to try and done pick in this talk.

00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:44.000
So the first thing I want to look at is exactly what is plastic. It's not just one thing, that's for sure.

00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:51.000
So plastics are synthetic or man-made polymers. Polymer coming from the Greek for many parts.

00:02:51.000 --> 00:03:00.000
So a polymer is a long chain of carbon atoms with different functional groups along it. And carbon chemistry is the basis of all life on Earth.

00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:13.000
We wouldn't be here without it. So I thought we just start by looking at some natural polymers.

00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:17.000
So if we start with the polysaccharides, these are polymers of sugars and they can be straight and strong.

00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:30.000
And form plant cells and tree trunks in the form of cellulose or the exoskeletons of insects in the form of chitin.

00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:34.000
Or they can be more.

00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:44.000
Globular like starch and glycogen. So they can quickly break down to release the sugars for energy.

00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:48.000
We've got the polypeptides. These are proteins and they're long chains of amino acids.

00:03:48.000 --> 00:04:03.000
And they actually have the same structure as the polyamides. We use things like nylon. But the difference with proteins is that It's a long sequence of all different amino acids, whereas in something like a polyamide it's just one or 2 monomers making up the long chains.

00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:15.000
Then we've got DNA and RNA on its backbone of sugars and phosphates.

00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:25.000
And more interesting materials such as trees that can make natural rubber which is a polymer of isoprene.

00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:38.000
So over the millennia, humans have been using these materials for all sorts of things. Their clothing, insulation, waterproofing and products such as cones and jewelry.

00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:53.000
We first started playing with the natural materials to change their properties in the nineteenth century. So Charles Goodyear discovered that he could heat rubber with sulphur and make it much harder and heat resistance through the process of volcanization.

00:04:53.000 --> 00:05:02.000
Similarly, celluloid, which was used in early Sydney film but also an early packaging material, was made by nitrating cotton fibers.

00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:14.000
The first truly synthetic polymer was Bakelite in 1,907. This was a thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin and most famous for the old telephone.

00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:22.000
But since then, some 10 billion tons of synthetic polymers or plastics have been made.

00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:27.000
So they came about because in the early twenties and 30, s they were looking for uses really for waste material from the processing of crude oil and natural gas.

00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:41.000
So as we started to use more fossil fuels for energy, then we had a lot of other products that came out of it.

00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:49.000
And one of the most abundant of these was ethylene gas and ICI successfully turned that into polyethylene in 1,932.

00:05:49.000 --> 00:06:03.000
And this was originally used as insulation for radar tables. Other early polymers would do pump nylon in 1935 and Teflon, which is polyteetrafluoro ethylene in 1,938.

00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:13.000
I'm always surprised by how long Teflon's been about. It feels like it's more a space-age material, but was one of the first polymers that, that were made.

00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:23.000
So one of the main distinctions to make when talking about thermoplastics is the difference between thermoceting and thermoplastics.

00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:32.000
If you something like a 2 pack epoxy you get a chemical reaction which forms these cross links between the polymer chains to fix them in place.

00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:38.000
This means the polymer chains can't slide over one another, preventing the material from melting.

00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:46.000
So common thermostats include epoxy resins, phenolics and polymites, which are used in engineering composites.

00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:56.000
But these types of plastics are virtually impossible to recycle because they don't melt. Although waste product can be crushed and added to concrete and other materials as fillers.

00:06:56.000 --> 00:07:08.000
So most of the plastics that we're familiar with are thermoplastic. This means the can be melted and reformed because the long chain molecules can slide over one another.

00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:15.000
They can have a very, degree of this branching which can affect the density and the melting point.

00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:25.000
But fundamentally, they can be. Made into all sorts of different things from fiber to film to car bumpers.

00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:40.000
So at this point I should compress that after graduating I spent 10 years developing plastic packaging. This was in 1979 the first year that globally we made more plastic than steel but packaging was still pretty primitive.

00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:55.000
It was the start of a massive explosion of new materials and structures. And as a scientist, when someone comes along and says, wouldn't it be great if we could make a plastic that can be processed like a can or glass and give food the same shelf life and have all the advantages of being lightweight and easy to transport and decorate.

00:07:55.000 --> 00:08:13.000
And people will love it. Then that's what you try to do, I'm afraid. At the same time, the food technologists were developing ultra processed food that took advantage of these new materials, tasted great and made people want more.

00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:21.000
Somehow we didn't foresee the complete change in food consumption habits and the shift to a throwaway society.

00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:27.000
So as we move through the talk towards the end, then I'll start looking at how we can address some of these problems that us as humans have created.

00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:40.000
But before we start that, I just want to give you some understanding of the materials that we're talking about because there are a lot of them.

00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:48.000
It's not just one thing. So I'm gonna start with the. Polyolphins.

00:08:48.000 --> 00:09:05.000
Okay. So polyolphins. Materials that only contain carbon and hydrogen. The first of these will look at is, is Polyethylene and that can come in 2 forms.

00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:19.000
So, high density or load density depending on its molecular weight and how branched it is. So low density was the material that ICI first made back in the day.

00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:30.000
Whereas HDPE, high density polythene, is very versatile. It's tough and abrasion resistant and used for things like chopping boards, play equipment and packaging for chemicals like detergents and oil cans and probably your milk bottles.

00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:46.000
HD is very recyclable. Unlike the low density version which has a much lower melting point and is therefore more difficult to reprocess.

00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:58.000
But LDP has the advantage of being very cheap and good for all those low demand. Products like bags, squeezy bottles, some pipes and insulation.

00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:08.000
So they have their advantages. On the disadvantages. The other poly, of note is polypropylene.

00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:14.000
This is similar to high density polythene, but the extra methyl group that you can see. On the chain reduces its density, it spreads out those chains.

00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:21.000
So it's even lighter but it also increases its melting point so it has much better temperature.

00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:28.000
It has much better temperature resistance. Dimensionally, it's really stable so it has much better temperature resistance.

00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:36.000
Dimensionally, it's really stable so it can be used in car components like bumpers and it can be spun into very tough fibre for carpets.

00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:48.000
And it's high level of microbial and chemical resistance means it's used in lots of medical applications such as disposable, syringes and even sutures that need to remain in place.

00:10:48.000 --> 00:11:07.000
But it's much harder to recycle. The HDPA. So you'll be familiar from your recycling codes maybe that they they all have these resin codes and actually the higher the number the harder it is to actually recycle that.

00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:14.000
So the next ones to look at are the, those materials that are more commonly made into fibers.

00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:22.000
So polyester. They're a big group of materials that have this oxygen containing group in them.

00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:29.000
The most common and the only one we're going to look at today is PT or polyethylene This semicrystaline resin can be made into fibres for clothing.

00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:40.000
Containers for liquids and foods and formed into shapes. Or combined with glass fiber for engineering resins.

00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:48.000
So it's very versatile and it's become so common because it has excellent properties that can be controlled by the way the crystallinity develops when it's processed.

00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:58.000
It has really good gas and moisture barrier. And excellent transparency and trance and shatter resistance.

00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:06.000
So as a PT bottle. When it's in its purest form. It's the most recycled material.

00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:27.000
And that's why it's number one on its resin code. But it's much harder to reclaim it from a film or when it's spun with cotton to make cotton polyester, which is a shrink resistant and easy care fiber that we're all very used to to using.

00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:36.000
Nylon is, Dupont's brand name for the polyamides. So they're synonymous really.

00:12:36.000 --> 00:13:00.000
You can get different forms of nylon depending on the monomers that you can use. So you can see on the graphic that I suggest 9 1 6 6 6 10 and they're just about the the types of monomers that are used so nylon 6 is just a single monomer that makes the polymer and it has 6 carbons in its.

00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:09.000
In each unit, whereas 6 6 is made from 2 monomers both with 6 carbon atoms in in the unit.

00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:17.000
And uses of nylon are very similar to that of polyester so it's used in fibers packaging and engineering applications.

00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:23.000
So things like those gear wheels that I had on the first slide and most likely nylon.

00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:31.000
It has got a really good gas barrier to things like oxygen, but it doesn't have that same moisture resistance that the polyester has.

00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:40.000
So in packaging you have to protect it in a laminated film with something like high density policy on either side.

00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:48.000
And that again makes it more complicated to, to recycle. And pure nylon fabrics tend to attract static.

00:13:48.000 --> 00:14:04.000
I don't know if you, you know, remember when things were just made of nylon that were terrible, you're always getting, electric shocks from them and they were very clingy and also the tights made out of nylon very easily laddered.

00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:18.000
So it's not often used as a pure fiber these days. It's nearly always combined with cotton or polyester which makes it much more durable and easier to use.

00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:24.000
But nylon fabrics have the advantage of being really easy to waterproof and to make fire retardant.

00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:32.000
So they used in lots of different kinds of materials. Nylon itself is hardly recycled at all.

00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:39.000
So you'll see that it doesn't even have its own category. It appears in the in the miscellaneous.

00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:46.000
Half degree for for recycling.

00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:58.000
So here's some more. Common polymers that you'll be familiar with. Pvc is the third largest plastic in terms of volume produce.

00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:03.000
And when I started work in the industry it was used in all sorts of packaging applications because it has excellent barrier properties to oxygen.

00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:16.000
Water and chemicals. It's gradually being replaced in most applications because of concern over plasticizers that are used to make it flexible.

00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:27.000
And the toxins released when it's burned. But it can be made into all sorts of things from vinyl records to foe leathers to IV bags for medical.

00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:36.000
UPVC or unplasticized PVC. Is rigid and that's the material of choice for drainpipes, windows and doors.

00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:38.000
And this is much more readily recycled. So you can see that it's got a number.

00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:46.000
3 on its on its code.

00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:50.000
Polystyrene comes in a number of different forms. So you've got general purpose which is cheap and cheerful and used for those things like cake trays that supermarkets use.

00:15:50.000 --> 00:16:07.000
High impact polystyrene is co-polymerized with rubber which makes it 7 times more impact resistance than general purpose and that's used in all sorts of applications.

00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:22.000
Like linings for refrigerators, but also in packaging for yoghurt and margarine pots and disposable cutlery and plastic partyware which is currently being like to the gate is also made from polystyrene.

00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:33.000
And then finally you can get expanded polystyrene which is blown with pentane as it's extruded and this creates a material that is 98% air.

00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:37.000
89% there. I'm sure it's not Jake's center.

00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:43.000
Might have that wrong on the on the graph, sorry. It has, Really good shop resistance.

00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:53.000
So if you're thinking about transporting something like, you know, washing machines that you really don't want to get bounced around, they all come packed in this expanded polystyrene.

00:16:53.000 --> 00:17:02.000
As well as it's ubiquitous use in fast food applications, which are something that one would want to get rid of.

00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:11.000
Finally, this is just a list of a few speciality materials that are maybe less familiar, but still really common in everyday life.

00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:21.000
So ABS is another code polymer of styrene, which is strong and rigid and used for phones and luggage and electrical housing.

00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:31.000
Is used for all sorts of flexible tubing where you're not using silicone, so particularly medical uses but also household.

00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:36.000
PTFE. Which is polytetrafluoro ethylene, that's your Teflon.

00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:42.000
That's a fluorinated polymer. But it isn't just used as a coating for pans.

00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:49.000
It's really important in all sorts of medical and electrical and plumbing applications. It's the tape you wrap around when you joining.

00:17:49.000 --> 00:18:03.000
Yeah, steel pipes together. Poly butane that's interesting that's the material that makes all those easy peel seals work on cartons and cold meat packs.

00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:10.000
Polycarbonate you may be familiar with that's 200 times stronger than glass and used in greenhouses and the like.

00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:19.000
Polyfinal alcohol was one of the first materials I started working with. It has really excellent barrier to oxygen and is important in extending food shelf life.

00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:21.000
But it's also water soluble. So at low molecular weights, it's used in things like contact lens solutions.

00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:46.000
But in packaging it has to be well protected by other materials in some form of laminate. And then thermoplastic, a lamp, to, us, or the rubbery things that give bounce to our trainers whilst melamines are used in all sorts of household applications from picnic wear to toilet seats.

00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:55.000
So that's our very brief introduction to the world of plastics. So what are the things that we wouldn't want to lose?

00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:56.000
Packaging for food is obviously really important. Although we may think there's too much packaging.

00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:16.000
In many lower income countries the lack of packaging is a major contribution to food waste. Where you've got largely urban societies we need to be able to transport and distribute food in a way that maximizes its shelf life and ensures its safety.

00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:31.000
By selecting the right combination of materials you can get a packager is lightweight, usually cheap, can exclude moisture and oxygen from products that will spoil and be printed and formed into a protective shape.

00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:43.000
And preventing food waste is one of the biggest impacts we can have on protecting the environment. And the impact of plastic production and handling is much lower than the impacts which would result from food waste without packaging.

00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:55.000
Synthetic textiles also offer some in environmental advantages. Reducing the impact of cotton and replacing lever while providing affordable clothing to many people.

00:19:55.000 --> 00:20:04.000
The issue is how we manage the overconsumption and the marketing of fast fashion. It would be really difficult to remove plastic from health care.

00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:15.000
Again, although there are plenty of opportunities to reduce consumption, we couldn't manage without the plastic tube being the PPE and the components of equipment.

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:23.000
And then if we look at transport all forms of transport, whether trains, cars or buses use a lot of plastic in their construction.

00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:30.000
This makes them lighter and more fuel efficient as well as contributing components to the electrical and mechanical functions.

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:40.000
So hopefully that gives you some idea. Of how useful and important plastics are in society.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:54.000
But we obviously need to look at the impact of plastic pollution. Around the world a million plastic bottles are purchased every minute and up to 5 trillion of those plastic bags are used worldwide every year.

00:20:54.000 --> 00:21:03.000
In total, half of all the plastic produced is designed for single-use purposes. And therein lies the problem really.

00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:11.000
So if we just look at some of the things that happen when waste gets plastic waste gets into the environment.

00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:12.000
It causes multiple problems. Entanglement in debris is a problem for animals and birds on land.

00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:30.000
And in the ocean. Surveys of marine wildlife have shown that 344 species have been found trapped in waste, including all the turtle species and a quarter of the seabird species.

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:42.000
Eating the plastics another problem resulting in starvation because they the animal just feels too full to eat anything else or it can actually damage the gut and disrupt the biochemical processes.

00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:51.000
This great shearwater was found to have 194 different plastic fragments in its stomach.

00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:59.000
And one of the sperm whales that was recovered was found to have 9 meters of rope inside it.

00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:08.000
Plus the very small microplastics can be absorbed by filter feeders and passed on up the food chain.

00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:19.000
Plastic waste can also wreck habitat by leaching contaminants, degrading the environment and attracting animals to unsuitable habitats like landfill.

00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:27.000
And micro plastics can act as carriers for toxins which absorb onto their surface and then move through the water courses.

00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:34.000
And the very small nanoparticles that are shared from synthetic fibers and tires are also a new cause for concern.

00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:47.000
Numerous studies that now showing that microplastics are present in living people having been detected in human blood and lung tissue.

00:22:47.000 --> 00:23:03.000
These growth graphs just show the exponential growth in plastic production and waste. We've not been making plastic that long in 1,950 we were producing too 1 million tons a year and by 2019 we produced 460 million tons.

00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:11.000
And since the eighties, although recycling and incineration have increased, the vast majority of plastic waste is still dumped.

00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:27.000
Recent report from the OECD suggests that the amount of global plastic waste is set to triple by 2060 with almost 2 thirds from short-lived items such as packaging, low-cost products and textiles.

00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:35.000
So what are we actually doing with the stuff? These are some of the current options for managing waste. We've got 3 main routes.

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.000
Recycling is generally the best option, but not always economically viable and definitely not suitable for all plastics.

00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:52.000
At the moment, 9% of the waste globally is recycled. But this rises to about 30% in Europe and other higher income countries.

00:23:52.000 --> 00:24:04.000
Incineration reduces landfill but can be polluting if it's not done properly. It's increasingly popular in Europe, especially in small countries without much landfill space.

00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:25.000
Landfill returns the carbon to the ground. But take resources out of the economy. The worst thing is that 22% of all the waste produced is not treated in any way and ends up in uncontrolled dumps in the sea because the infrastructure is not in place to deal with it.

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:30.000
If we just look at recycling in a bit more detail, it's worth considering what actually happens.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:36.000
I don't know if you actually read what your local authority will take, but it is often limited.

00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:43.000
Most recycling plants can only handle HDPE and PET. So their numbers one and 2 on our resin chart.

00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:44.000
And the rest is sorted and removed and goes back into the landfill or incineration stream.

00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:56.000
Some plants can manage PVC and polypropylene and some of them more complex laminates, but low density policy, polystyrene and the mix of polymers we discussed earlier.

00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:11.000
Are rarely recycled at the moment. This line only first domestic recycling because products such as cars and electrical goods are subject to regulation, about dismantling.

00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:24.000
This is because hazardous chemicals have to remove before the recycling process can begin. And authorized treatment facilities aim to recover 95% of the materials before sending the rest to landfill.

00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:36.000
So it really is the packaging and the text files that are the big. Problem. This diagram shows the principles of mechanical recycling.

00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:39.000
So after the collection's been split into the paper, metal glass and plastic streams it's further sorted into those types into the different types of plastic.

00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:51.000
So this is where the labeling does help for example telling HDPE from polypropylene.

00:25:51.000 --> 00:26:02.000
Which will look very similar. But if a PT bottle has a tamper proof ring on it, then this is likely made of HDPE and would need to be removed before processing.

00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:10.000
So all that has to happen first. And then the clean material is shredded and remelted to reform new granules.

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:19.000
Actual polymer structure in not changed through mechanical recycling, but the molecular weight can be reduced and this affects the performance.

00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:33.000
So material often goes into lower grade applications such as benches rather than back into the food packaging. Or if it is used in food packaging, then it soften has to be skimmed with a layer.

00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:41.000
Those plants that can manage more complex structures use solvents to dissolve out some of the polymers before separation.

00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:50.000
And any material that is heavily contaminated has to be taken out of the recycling stream, which is why they usually ask you to wash your bottles and tubs before.

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:56.000
Collection.

00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:16.000
In Europe about 40% of the plastic waste is ininerated. I mean this is quite good. If it's just replacing fossil fuel because as we've seen you know they're carbon-based polymers and when they're burnt they release energy which can be converted to heat or electricity in the way that a fossil fuel can.

00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:32.000
So, do any relative gain is dependent on the mix of energy that it replaces. So you really wouldn't want to be using incineration to replace renewable energy, but if you're replacing fossil fuels then that's not too bad.

00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:53.000
The problem is when that's not done in a regulated. Of way so studies from countries in Africa and Asia where there's less regulation show that pollution from toxic gases such as carbon dioxide and dioxins is really significant.

00:27:53.000 --> 00:28:00.000
So the third option is landfill and here you can see 2 landfill sites, one from Europe and one in Asia.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:12.000
On the surface they look very similar apart from the mechanization. But the way in which modern landfill sites are treated makes them much better so long as they're properly operated.

00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:25.000
So this diagram shows how they have to be lined with various layers of material to prevent leech, wet, leachate getting into the groundwater and they have to monitor.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:28.000
The groundwater to check that the pollution isn't getting in. And then when they're full they're capped with clay.

00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:47.000
In order to then re vegetates them, so that they're, they can go for other uses.

00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:58.000
So here we're looking at. The main concerns that people have, which is around, the pollution of the oceans.

00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:12.000
So, 82 million tons of large plastic items and 40 million tons of small pieces below 5 are washed up, buried or resurfaced along the shorelines every year.

00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:26.000
Most of this, 80% of this is fairly recent from the last 5 years, but the rest is decades old, are showing how long it takes for large lots of plastic to break down to be low 5 which is what we call the microplastics.

00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:32.000
So the problem is never actually degrade or break down. They just get smaller and smaller and smaller.

00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:40.000
In the ocean, the macro plastic, the big pieces are even older. So they don't break down to the microplastics so quickly.

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:49.000
Thank you back to the fifties and sixties and 75% of the micro plastic that tiny bits in the ocean was made before the 1990.

00:29:49.000 --> 00:30:01.000
So really the ocean is storing up. All our waste. Most of the plastic entering the ocean from the rivers is less dense than water so it floats on the currents.

00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:13.000
And best estimates suggest that 80% of ocean waste actually comes from the land with about 20% coming from the fishing fleets and other sources.

00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:19.000
So what happens is the ocean currents take the plastic waste on very, specific paths or gyres.

00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:30.000
This concentrates the material in these 5 distinct areas. So every one of those circles will have a big garbage patch in it.

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:39.000
But the largest is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is located halfway between California and Hawaii.

00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:44.000
And this is what it looks like. Not very pleasant. It covers an area that's 3 times the size of France to give you an idea of size.

00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:54.000
And it contains about 80,000 tons of material.

00:30:54.000 --> 00:31:05.000
As we've seen, 80% of the ocean pollution is coming from rivers. So finding out which rivers is a really good way to help us start tackling the problem.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:11.000
And you can see from this graph that most of the top 10 polluting rivers in are in the Philippines.

00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:25.000
Which accounts for a third of the total waste going into the oceans. This is because waste management is nearly non-existent in these areas and the paved surface of heavy urbanization allows the plastic just to be washed into the rivers by rain.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:47.000
One real life example compared the river basin in Java with the Rhine in Europe. And although the Java Basin is 275 times smaller than the Rhine and generates 75% less plastic waste, it actually emits a hundred times more plastic into the ocean every year.

00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:57.000
This map just confirms what we've already discussed with packaging and text styles being by far the greatest producers of plastic waste.

00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:02.000
And therefore the obvious place is to look for easy wins in reducing the problem.

00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:12.000
But before we throw the baby out the bath water, it's worth looking at this lifecycle analysis of a grocery bag from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency.

00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:21.000
It shows that comparison between a single-use policy and carry bag and other types of bag that are often deemed more environmentally friendly.

00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:29.000
Because the inputs into producing a plastic bag are so low, you have to use the alternatives and all the lot before you get to the same impact.

00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:33.000
So if we look at the cumulative results, you need to use your organic cotton bag.

00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:40.000
Every day for 6 and a half years before it's better than a single use polythene bag.

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:48.000
That's not impossible. I have bags that are at least 10 years old, but equally I wouldn't use a plastic bag once and then throw it away.

00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:57.000
So I'm not advocating mass use of polythene bags. The 5 p taxes work wonders in reducing usage and we need to do more.

00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:06.000
But equally, we mustn't leap to snap judgments that may seem intuitively correct, but aren't based on the actual facts.

00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:14.000
Another thing that is a lot to talk about the moment is bioplastics. Now this is used confusingly and 2 entirely different ways.

00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:15.000
It can mean polymer that's made from a plant-based feed stock, a bit like biofuel.

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:29.000
So that has similar environmental impacts to biofuels and is not ideal. The other meaning is that the plastic itself is biodegradable.

00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:36.000
Not at the moment. Plastics that are biodegradable aren't durable enough to be useful.

00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:41.000
But lots of magazines and things are now delivered in these compostable bags. Now they're not great if you try and put them in your domestic compost.

00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:54.000
They won't break down. There's lots of studies have been shaped have shown that. And if they get into the ordinary recycling stream, they're a really serious contaminant.

00:33:54.000 --> 00:34:01.000
But if you can put them into your food waste, they will go to a commercial composter and fully degrade.

00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:08.000
So that's where they need to go. Now I'm given to understand that not all local authorities have composting services.

00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:15.000
We have one here. But again, that's a matter of infrastructure. We have one here. But again, that's a matter of infrastructure.

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:23.000
So these things are being sent out as being degradable but again that's a matter of infrastructure so these things are being sent out as being degradable but if you can't get them into the system to actually be composted and it doesn't really help.

00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:32.000
So that's where we are. Plastics are generally useful materials and they account for less than 4% of global fossil fuel production.

00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:47.000
But the problems are caused by the throwaway society that generates a huge amount of waste and the lack of infrastructure for managing that waste, particularly in low income countries, where they actually create less plastic waste per person than we do.

00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:54.000
So what can we do? We're onto actions.

00:34:54.000 --> 00:35:03.000
I start with a really cheery subject because I don't know if you've heard of ocean cleanup, but, it's a great organization.

00:35:03.000 --> 00:35:14.000
They've got a great website that you can look at. The idea came from a young Dutch teenager when he asked his parents why you couldn't just pick the plastic out of the ocean.

00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:25.000
And in 2013 when he reached 18 he actually started his charity with this very intention and by 2,019 he was actually pulling plastic out of the sea.

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:34.000
In the meantime the UN had launched its Clean Seas program to restore the marine environment back to good health and was supporting the project.

00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:35.000
So ocean cleanup works as a research program that develops the technology that can be scaled up and replicated.

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:53.000
And currently on system 2 and soon to progress the system 3. They use these floating booms to create an artificial coastline that tracks the plastic and can then be hauled into the towing boat.

00:35:53.000 --> 00:35:59.000
So far they've removed 246 tons, which isn't a massive impact on that.

00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:06.000
80,000 tons that's there, but they aim to remove 90% of the floating plastic by 2040.

00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:14.000
And I believe that they really can do that. The modeling suggests they need 10 full size systems to clear the great Pacific garbage patch.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:27.000
So really that's a question of investment. The material they pull out all goes through a recycle and recovery process just as if it's been collected on land.

00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:30.000
So here's some of the things that they've pulled out. You can see that it's obviously not just plastic.

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:44.000
It's anything that floats, but the full array of, toys, cutlery, clothing, fishing nets, bottles that you'd expect.

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:52.000
But of course it's no point pulling it out. If we keep putting it back in. So the other thing they're working on.

00:36:52.000 --> 00:37:01.000
Is the rippers. We saw that. You know, very few ripples are creating most of the problem.

00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:16.000
So they're also developing ways to catch the plastic before it escapes into the sea. And they're looking at a range of hi-tech and low-tech solutions for this because rivers vary a lot according to the tide, the width and the depth.

00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:33.000
But again, it's just short-term solution until effective local infrastructure can be put in place. They aim to make themselves redundant once as much plastic as is possible is being cleared and new sources of pollution have stopped.

00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:41.000
The other people that it's worth looking at as the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, they're doing some of the best work in this area in terms of innovation, collaboration and driving policy change to reduce simple useful plastics and the associated waste.

00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:58.000
Their foundings principle is based on the circular economy in which design is used to minimize the waste and keep all resources in the economy.

00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:07.000
Ellen Macarthur was really affected by her solo voyage around the world. And seeing so much plastic in places where humans hadn't ever even been.

00:38:07.000 --> 00:38:15.000
So the ambition of the foundation is to use lifecycle analysis to create a circular economy. For plastics.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:24.000
This involves eliminating plastics we don't need. Enabling sustainable product design. And ensuring proper waste management and collection.

00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:34.000
The plastic that exists already is a global resource. It should be looked after just like any other material.

00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:40.000
So some of the projects that the Ellen Macarthur Foundation support in a small scale social enterprises such as appeal.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:50.000
I'm always hearing people complain about the plastic covering. On a cucumber, but it keeps the oxygen out and the moisture in so extending the shelf life of the cucumber.

00:38:50.000 --> 00:39:01.000
To allow transport from grower to consumer. Appeal is a plant based soil that can be applied to fruit and vegetables to extend shelf life but reduce environmental impact.

00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:13.000
It's an edible coating that you can eat or just wash it off. You still need to consider the bruising damage of fruit and vegetables during transport.

00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:14.000
But as they were already trialling this in Oxford with avocados and oranges.

00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:23.000
So it's definitely going somewhere.

00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:30.000
You may know that Scotland's looking at introducing a deposit scheme for single-use bottles.

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:37.000
And even though it's popular with consumers, it's receiving varying levels of support from industry because they think it's too complicated.

00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:38.000
Well, they might learn something from this innovative idea from a small tech start up in Indonesia.

00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:52.000
They're focusing on reuse of plastic bottles. Before recycling. The bottles they make are designed to be reused 10 to 20 times before being taken out of service.

00:39:52.000 --> 00:40:04.000
As we've seen, Asia has huge issues with plastic waste and 70% of in Indonesia's waste is hard to recycle in it that it's a lot of those laminated pouches.

00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:13.000
The interesting thing about This project is that, and, controls the whole distribution logistics. They get the product to consumers.

00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:21.000
They collect the returns, they clean and biologically test the containers before supplying them back to the brand that fills the product.

00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:28.000
And they do all this with a QR code and an app to track the lifespan of every single bottle.

00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:35.000
And because there is social enterprise, they ensure they work with community out there and pass on the reuse savings to their customers.

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:58.000
And they now have a hundred outlets as well as online sales. So that's really a different approach where you're looking at you can actually tell how long your plastic bottle has been reused and when it needs to come out of the system and get recovered in some other way.

00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:02.000
Chemical recovery is one of the new technologies that's being developed in order to move towards a circular economy.

00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:15.000
We talked about the mechanical, recycling which, which doesn't change the polymer. Something like pyrolysis uses high temperatures and the absence of oxygen to break down the plastic into its constituents.

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:33.000
Impurities such as nitrogen from nylon have to be removed in the refining steps, but the material is processed into a high quality feedstock called NAFTA, which is similar to that obtained from crowd from crude oil.

00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:45.000
So, once it's been produced, it can go back into making brand new plastic resins that can go into high-grade use like food packaging.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:55.000
And it could recycle large volumes of flexible packaging and mixed polythene and polypropylene waste and polystyrene waste into material.

00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:12.000
That otherwise is really hard to recycle. So Europeans to be at an industrial scale with this by 2,025 and hitting its targets for dealing with those hard to recycle plastics by 2,013.

00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:28.000
However, this means investment in 60 to 70 new plants and a secure supply of waste material. So that's the other thing about when you're looking at waste as your feedstock is you've got to collect that material and get it to your plant for the recovery.

00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:35.000
The other thing is that pyrolysis can't deal with the PET because it's oxygen content is too high.

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:45.000
But mechanical recovery is good with PET so at the moment that's less of an issue.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:55.000
Another thing that you see a lot of stories about in the press is using microbes to digest plastics and as a carbon-based product this seems plausible.

00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:00.000
And some microbes have been found in the North Sea that are revolving to feed on those micro plastics.

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:09.000
And it's been proven in the lab that some microbes can degrade some plastics to carbon dioxide and water.

00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:22.000
The main issue is that most of them don't work at low enough temperature and you need lots of different microbes because each one would be specific to a specific plastic and you still be composing something from a non-renewable source.

00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:32.000
So you need to factor in carbon capture. So it's interesting, but probably not going to solve our problems.

00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:48.000
Text files are still the really big knot to crack. The fiveers that are currently recycled are done so by that mechanical dissolution process but they are looking at chemical recovery and Mackinac McKinsey think this could get to as high as 26%.

00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:55.000
By 2030 but this does seem overly optimistic. How's we just seen nylon can be processed through pyrolysis but to recycle polyester they need a completely new hydrolysis system.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:44:25.000
And you know the research is happening but it's going to need major investment. Patagonia, the outdoor clothing supplier, is really committed to reuse and recycling and they're already using over 80% renewable and recycled materials in their new products and they claim that they will reach a hundred percent very soon.

00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:36.000
They also promote second hand or pre loved. And they hit the headlines with that do not buy this jacket advert.

00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:43.000
The second hand and rented trade in close is undoubtedly the best way of keeping these materials in the economy rather than ending up in land.

00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:51.000
And there may be lessons to learn from the wall trade in how to work collaboratively. Collaboratively.

00:44:51.000 --> 00:44:55.000
Preto in Italy is home to hundreds of companies that together they claim to process 15% of global waste clothing.

00:44:55.000 --> 00:45:07.000
And they would claim all of the wool and turn it back into useful fiber. And it might be that something similar could be done with plastic fibers.

00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:16.000
So let's think about the things that we can all do. This is just a short list off the top of my head.

00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:27.000
You're probably already doing most of them, but behavioral change is something that we can lead. The use of reusable drinks bottles and cups has increased enormously, but there's still scope for more.

00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:37.000
But we can't forget that when there's a natural disaster, the delivery of palettes of PET bottles is the quickest and safest way to get drinking water into these communities.

00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:44.000
As I've said, food waste both in the distribution chains and the domestic environment is one of the major problems we need to solve.

00:45:44.000 --> 00:46:01.000
So making sure we don't add to it is something we can all do. Part of this is about buying fresh and local where we can, but also eating more like our grandparents did ditch the ultra process food and you'll be healthier at the same time as reducing that hard to recycle plastic mountain.

00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:18.000
I'm remember to check your local council guidelines for what you put into the recycle stream. Using solid detergents, whether for yourself or use your washing reduces the packaging, the water consumption and the transport emissions because you're shipping less water about.

00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:25.000
Good back to some basic hygiene standards. Covid's made people extra sensitive to risk, especially in health care.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:31.000
But again, it's about the data. If there's no risk, there's no need for the PPE.

00:46:31.000 --> 00:46:40.000
Wearing a face mask won't stop you catching something, but if you have an infection it will greatly reduce the risk if you're passing it on.

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:57.000
The biggest contribution we can make is just keeping using our old stuff, get it repaired, exchange clothes, think before you buy and share these ideas with our friends and family and campaign to our counselors, MPs and retailers.

00:46:57.000 --> 00:47:00.000
So what do we want from our leaders? I think what we need is systemic policies that treat plastic as one of the many resources in our economy.

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:19.000
We want governments to adopt systems thinking rather than a growth mindset and to work collaboratively with each other and NGOs and corporate organizations to invest in solutions.

00:47:19.000 --> 00:47:28.000
A priority must be to support those low income countries in securing infrastructure that prevents the continual flow of plastic out into the environment.

00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:34.000
For many years we were exporting our rubbish to these countries without any accountability for what was happening to it.

00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:48.000
Thankfully, it's mostly stopped, but the legacy remains and needs fixing. One thing that would really help recycling recovery would be standardization about how different products are packed and labeled so that customers understand what has a reasonable chance of being recycled and how to give it the best chance.

00:47:48.000 --> 00:48:03.000
Of that actually being successful because at the moment so much material that goes into recycling just still winds up in landfill.

00:48:03.000 --> 00:48:13.000
And regulation needs to go alongside incentives to encourage people to do the right thing. Reducing landfill by increasing fly tipping just makes the problem worse.

00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:27.000
But the producers and users of packaging must pay to have it retained in the economy. If a full lifecycle analysis was done on all products, then plastics would be a sustainable alternative to glass paper metal in many cases.

00:48:27.000 --> 00:48:36.000
But while we're allowed to throw stuff away without counting the cost in the economics, will not solve the world's environmental problems.

00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:37.000
So that's about all I've got to say, but I'm very happy to take any questions.

00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:44.000
If you have them.

00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:48.000
Thanks very much, Pearl. We'll go straight to some questions. I've got a few for you.

00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:49.000
Okay.

00:48:49.000 --> 00:49:00.000
Let's just start from the top. Thanks for sending in your questions. And so early on in the presentation you were talking about, you know, the dangers of plastic ingestion on animals.

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:08.000
Joe is asking, and what research is being done currently on how plastic ingestion affects humans?

00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:10.000
Do we know?

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:21.000
I think it's at a much earlier. Stage. As far as I know, there is no evidence that it's harming humans.

00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:25.000
That's not to say it isn't, but I just think that that research has not been done.

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:38.000
Certainly there is lots of research that shows that it is present in our bodies. So it's there, whether or not it's causing a problem, is not something that we fully aware of.

00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:53.000
But things like those nanoparticles which get deep into the rump to the lungs, we know that, that nanoparticles coming from diesel or whatever form, we know that those are dangerous to health and will cause cause a problem.

00:49:53.000 --> 00:50:03.000
Whether or not the actual ingestion through the food chain is causing a problem is you know It's an unknown.

00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:15.000
Alright, okay. A question from Nicki. This is an interesting one. I'm much of the house will plastic waste in the UK is shipped abroad.

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:21.000
And at the risk of ending up in the sea or other unsafe disposal methods because you do hear about that.

00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:33.000
Yeah, so it's, It has almost stopped. I don't know know what they, you know, whether there's good local, you know, data to show that it is completely stopped.

00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:38.000
But a few years ago, China can just stopped accepting any exported waste and most countries in Asia did the same thing at the same time.

00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:55.000
So that That's flow of waste. Has been. Paused or stopped. But that's what I say that the problem is that that all went without them having any infrastructure to deal with it.

00:50:55.000 --> 00:51:25.000
So it's like a legacy problem really. So we might not be adding to it but there's still that legacy problem of it all in open dumps and landfill that can still get into the ocean that needs to be dealing with and that's why we need to look at how investment from the West can actually support the you know, the infrastructure that's needed to stop that because it's all very well trying to take it all out

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:31.000
and stop it going in but you've got to do something with it and you can only do something with it if you've got proper infrastructure.

00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:43.000
Yeah, and that was actually a question from. Bridget actually, you know, and which we might as well just tackle that now, you know, it's all very well pulling stuff out of the sea, but what then do we do with it?

00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:55.000
Yeah, yeah, so I mean, I think that, you know, the idea of moving towards a circular economy is that over time there will be a lot less waste produced.

00:51:55.000 --> 00:52:01.000
So that. You know, we'll stop using a lot of the stuff that we just don't, that, you know, we need to reduce is a big thing.

00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:07.000
We use loads of stuff that we don't need to. But you know, there's a very good argument for lots of it that you do need to still be using that plastic.

00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:14.000
And that is where the circular economy needs to come. And in the meantime, we need to be collecting that waste and dealing with it.

00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:32.000
And I think the chemical recovery things offer good solutions because it does return it to very usable feedstock so it's a proper circular process.

00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:35.000
The problem is the, you know, it requires energy to do that. So you need to make sure that you're running those processes on renewable energy.

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:53.000
So that you're not adding to the problem. And the other thing is the the sort of at the moment we've got lots of waste that needs to be dealt with as you reduce it and get to that circular economy then the amount of the waste should reduce and so therefore getting the investment to deal with the problem.

00:52:53.000 --> 00:53:07.000
If you think you've got a deal declining sort of feedstock is. Difficult.

00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:12.000
So none of these things are simple solutions. And that's why I say they need regulation and cooperation and collaboration.

00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:20.000
To to make them work.

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:31.000
Okay, thank you. And question here from Deanna. Do plastics or old plastics give off toxins which get into the air, say for example inside your house.

00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:33.000
Or in buildings.

00:53:33.000 --> 00:53:41.000
Not really, I mean they're all very safe. I mean there's obviously there's this thing now which has really only recently been discovered around the shedding of these nanoparticles.

00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:55.000
And they are everywhere. And then whether or not they do any damage is, Is, is, is, is debatable.

00:53:55.000 --> 00:54:10.000
Is this a bit of an unknown. Some of the materials that they most have concerns about things leaching out of his PVC because to make PVC usable in many of its forms they have to put a lot of these materials called thalates into them and they do leach out.

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:20.000
They're sort of controls around you know sort of how much you can put in and how much you can put in and how much can can leach out.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:42.000
And They've been used for a long, long time and there is not a lot of evidence that they were really damaging but the reason a lot of PVC is being replaced in a lot of applications is for for that reason.

00:54:42.000 --> 00:54:45.000
Other things less, you know, they have less stuff in it. So.

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:54.000
Hmm, that actually leads onto a question from Carol and actually she was asking about Salates. She was asking, is it, phthalates that were removed from babies bottles?

00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:59.000
And can you see anything about what other products are still in and the possible effects which you've touched on a little bit?

00:54:59.000 --> 00:55:06.000
And either other plastics we should be similarly, similarly concerned about.

00:55:06.000 --> 00:55:24.000
Yeah, I mean as I say they're the plasticizers that make the the plastic. Easy to process and to turn into the materials that that you want and there's a lot of but I mean a lot of things have been removed and other plasticizers have replaced them.

00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:31.000
So that's the thing. They said it's always a sort of a moving feast of, of looking for other materials that will do the same job.

00:55:31.000 --> 00:55:56.000
And pose less, less risk. So that development is going on. All the time. I think phthalates are the only things that people have, genuine concerns about because there is some I think they're in that category where they sort of May the terminology is.

00:55:56.000 --> 00:56:09.000
It's always very sort of. Odd but you know they kind of made cause some cancers that There isn't any evidence that they actually do, but potentially from, work that's been done, you know, there is a sort of possible.

00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:27.000
So, so they work quite hard to remove those and certainly out of sensitive things because obviously the thing about baby bottles is that you know if they're going into babies you've got to be you know, sort of a small volume of baby.

00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:35.000
So it's gonna have a, you know, relatively a bigger impact. So we'll see they're really careful about things like that.

00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:45.000
Okay, thank you. Right, here's a question from another budget which kind of really gets to the nub of things here a little bit, it's a little bit of a million dollar question.

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:59.000
Assuming that is a choice for a drink container, you've got a glass bottle, a can or a plastic bottle, which is best for the planet in terms of original production verses reusability.

00:56:59.000 --> 00:57:03.000
Cool.

00:57:03.000 --> 00:57:04.000
Yeah.

00:57:04.000 --> 00:57:05.000
Yeah. I can't pull though relevant life cycle analysis off my head to answer that question.

00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:25.000
But, You know, that's why. They're arguing that that should be the case for every product because glasses high energy to produce.

00:57:25.000 --> 00:57:40.000
It has got quite long reusable. Factors an aluminium can is very high energy to to produce but very good recyclability.

00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:52.000
But those are dependent on actually getting them back. I mean, I think this reuse, so like we've loved, we always used to get your 5 P on your bottle, didn't you, when you bought it?

00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:53.000
Oh.

00:57:53.000 --> 00:57:56.000
I remember that. That was my job when I was little to take the glass bottles back to the shop.

00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:23.000
So in many ways getting back to reuse rather than. Recycling is always going to be good but your inputs are still high right at the beginning so you got to reuse a lot of times i mean that's the thing about plastics is that the what goes into them in the first place is very low energy and very low input.

00:58:23.000 --> 00:58:28.000
That's why they're so good. And it's only what we do with them that's the problem.

00:58:28.000 --> 00:58:44.000
And if you're starting to look at plastic that have 10 to 20 reuses before they go into a recovery process then they start to look quite advantageous because you just look at the sort of the transport costs of you know, sort of moving glass around.

00:58:44.000 --> 00:58:56.000
The reason we went to plastic, you know, I mean, I worked in the industry. We didn't go into plastics because you know We thought nothing, you know, other things were complete rubbish.

00:58:56.000 --> 00:59:14.000
We were generally trying to, you know, reduce the amount of fuel that was used in the transport to make things more accessible and you know, that that's was the starting point with the guy who invented the plastic bag, you know, he wasn't trying to create an environmental disaster.

00:59:14.000 --> 00:59:33.000
He created something that had virtually no input in terms of energy or resource and he produced something that was really useful that you can use time after time after time.

00:59:33.000 --> 00:59:42.000
You don't have to throw it away after one use. So You know, I think a lot of these things are quite complicated and the actual data around which is best under which circumstances will vary.

00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:53.000
According to where you are in the world and what's available and what your distribution systems are like, but.

00:59:53.000 --> 01:00:02.000
You know, we need to think about them and we need to think about how we reuse all of our material, how we use all of our materials and resources, not just one thing.

01:00:02.000 --> 01:00:13.000
Yeah, okay, thank you. Right, question from Sally. Should we be worried about microplastics with polyester clothing getting into the water supply from washing machines?

01:00:13.000 --> 01:00:17.000
Yeah, so I say, I mean, this is kind of quite a new concern. And again, there's not much research about.

01:00:17.000 --> 01:00:19.000
Hmm.

01:00:19.000 --> 01:00:24.000
I mean, what they where they've got to is they've identified that it's happening.

01:00:24.000 --> 01:00:27.000
And they've identified that it's in the water courses and they've identified that it's coming from.

01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:38.000
From the fiber. Now, Again, intuitively you think gosh that's got to be bad but.

01:00:38.000 --> 01:00:52.000
There isn't any data that says that it is bad. So, you know, it's a bit of a cop out, but, I can't answer that question because I don't know if it's bad or not because I don't know if it's bad or not because I don't have the data.

01:00:52.000 --> 01:01:00.000
Okay, thank you. Right, I've got 2 more questions and then we'll need to wrap up folks because we're just beyond and 60'clock.

01:01:00.000 --> 01:01:10.000
Okay, so one from Stuart, question from Stuart. How significant in the school syllabi is the issue of environmental degradation and recycling?

01:01:10.000 --> 01:01:14.000
Do you know?

01:01:14.000 --> 01:01:34.000
I mean, I'm not involved in school education, so I don't know what's, what's in the curriculum so I don't know what's what's in the curriculum but I know there is an increasing emphasis in trying to make science in schools more applied and relevant to you know, sort of.

01:01:34.000 --> 01:02:04.000
Everyday life and the issues social issues. And I think that there's no doubt that environmental concerns are way up the the agenda for for most people, you know, people are concerned, people are worried people are asking questions.

01:02:11.000 --> 01:02:12.000
Yes.

01:02:12.000 --> 01:02:19.000
And that is how things will get get dealt with. And I think young people especially are really worried. You know, they look around and they they see Well, I say that, but I think they're really warm and then I go for a walk and when the teenagers have all been down the field the place is absolutely littered up and you know 3 yards away from a bin so that's the sort without weight making any

01:02:19.000 --> 01:02:20.000
Yeah, okay.

01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:22.000
sweeping statements. So I think it probably goes both ways. I think some people care as some people don't.

01:02:22.000 --> 01:02:23.000
Yeah.

01:02:23.000 --> 01:02:34.000
Right, we're gonna finish off with this question from Sue. Would it help with the super wealthy currently trying to put themselves into space put the resources towards helping with this instead?

01:02:34.000 --> 01:02:49.000
Absolutely. I mean that's why I love Patagonia. I wouldn't normally put, you know, a brand in a, in a talk like this, but, you know, I wouldn't normally put, you know, a brand in a, in a talk like this, but, you know, the billionaire guy who owns Patagonia has just turned back over to a charitable foundation.

01:02:49.000 --> 01:03:03.000
So, you know, all of the profits when you buy, I mean, Patagonia stuff is expensive, but all of the profits go into, you know, sort of environmental products and sustainability.

01:03:03.000 --> 01:03:08.000
And a lot of the, you know, they're using the, the feedstock from the ocean clean-up.

01:03:08.000 --> 01:03:18.000
So, you know, they're making lots of things from this ocean plastic that is, that is coming and they use that as an advertising deploy to kind of try and get people engaged with it.

01:03:18.000 --> 01:03:23.000
And, you know, he buying up vast areas of chilly and rewilding it and stuff with me.

01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:32.000
So You know, I'm obviously you can think about whether they should be allowed to make as much money as they do in the first place.

01:03:32.000 --> 01:03:44.000
But, you know, you definitely think that they should be spending on solving some of the problems.

01:03:44.000 --> 01:03:48.000
That's just a personal opinion. Sorry, I'm probably not supposed to say things like that.

01:03:48.000 --> 01:03:54.000
Probably many of us share your opinion, so. Okay, so thank you very much for that Pearl.

01:03:54.000 --> 01:04:00.000
Really enlightening. But I think all we can see is it's really complicated, isn't it?

01:04:00.000 --> 01:04:02.000
Yeah, like all these things. There's no simple solutions.

01:04:02.000 --> 01:04:08.000
Thank you

00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:13.000
Thank you very much. Lovely to see people. And we have about an hour. To talk about a very fascinating subject.

00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:28.000
I will dive straight in. I'll focus this Marilyn Monroe, I will reference some other Female film stars, I have got a presentation and I've got some short clips.

00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:39.000
I've got to get out of the presentation to show you the clip so bear with me on the technical side when I do that and there will be a slight sort of moment of changeover.

00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:45.000
So let me,

00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:51.000
Get straight into it.

00:00:51.000 --> 00:01:16.000
So. Marilyn Monroe. Has been called a true icon. Like sort of likened to Mickey Mouse or Elvis Presley with a sort of global enduring following and and people still know about her and are very interested in her.

00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:45.000
So we want to take a look at Marilyn Monroe the icon the movie star and what a star is this evening I want to start with a clip so that we can either remind ourselves of what she's like and how we might all have seen her and get us in the mood and see what her persona looked like most of the time.

00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:55.000
In the films she made and then we'll dick into the background. So I have a famous number.

00:01:55.000 --> 00:02:02.000
From How on Hawke's film gentlemen prefer blondes which is from 1,953 which was in many years.

00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:13.000
The year of a sort of the peak of her influence. And success and the number as diamonds are girls best friends are come out.

00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:17.000
And I share the clip with you.

00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:24.000
Okay.

00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:46.000
Alright, D.

00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:57.000
No No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:03.000
No.

00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:10.000
Oh

00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:14.000
No.

00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:19.000
Wow!

00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:29.000
The French One love.

00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:33.000
But I prefer

00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:48.000
And, Expensive. J Kiss on the Maybe quite got to mental but down

00:03:48.000 --> 00:04:18.000
It's best friend a kiss maybe grand But it won't pay the rattle on your humble flat or help you add the And we all lose our But squint Shake these rocks don't shape.

00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:38.000
So there she is in a very famous number. So hopefully that got us.

00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:52.000
Into the mood and knowing what we're looking at this evening. So, as I said, Marilyn Monroe, there's an enduring appeal.

00:04:52.000 --> 00:05:04.000
She's got an Instagram account where you can also purchase things. There is a lot of interest, I think.

00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:13.000
For different reasons and one of the things that always informs when we look at her when she's discussed.

00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:20.000
Is whether she's a feminist icon or whether she's the opposite. This is also reflected in some of you might have either heard of it or already seen it.

00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:38.000
Just the latest in an enormous amount of analysis about her writing about her thinking about her, discussing her is a documentary that's currently on the BBC.

00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:55.000
And in the wider context Some of you might have seen this film. Coming hot on the heels of this Marilyn Monroe documentary is the Barbie film even if you haven't seen it you're likely to have heard of it.

00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:16.000
I have just put together a little selection of all the things that have been written about this film. And of course Barbie in a way she's almost the same age as Marilyn in terms of the peak of Maryland's career, she comes along in the fiftys just like Marilyn Monroe.

00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:28.000
And she has a similar sort of significance and she's being discussed as a figure. As a symbol in a similar way.

00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:38.000
So all of this makes it, I think, very current to have a closer look at Marilyn and what she is about.

00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:48.000
I do not want to dwell for too long on her biography. I just want to share some key facts and figures so that we have a bit of context.

00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:55.000
She was born and bred and lived most of her life in Los Angeles. So born in 1,926.

00:06:55.000 --> 00:07:04.000
Relatively short career because she died of course relatively young she made 29 feature films her deputy was the 1947.

00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:15.000
And and her last film to be released was misfits in 1,961 so really She works mainly during the 1950.

00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:36.000
Just to show a little bit of her impact as a stand, her standing. Twice she won the Henrietta World film favorite female so she won us being the sort of cinemas favourite female personality in 53 and 62.

00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:50.000
In terms of major film awards she only won the one she was nominated a few times for others and she won for some like it hot for best actress in a musical or comedy performance.

00:07:50.000 --> 00:08:06.000
What we also seen though, her huge success in terms of her box office ranking. 53 number 6 54 number fifth If you're interested, you can dig into these statistics more deeply.

00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:14.000
Little bit about her biography and some of you might well know it. She had a really difficult child put.

00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:21.000
Her mother was mentally ill and her mental illness progressed during Marilyn's childhood. She spent a lot of time.

00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:33.000
As a walk of the stage in foster homes and in an orphanage. During World War II, she married her husband, really young, mainly.

00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:39.000
So that she could stop being award of the state and stay in LA. She then became a housewife.

00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:46.000
She almost died of boredom according to herself. So she started working in a musician's munitions factory.

00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:55.000
Not that unusual during World War 2. In this factory she got discovered by a photographer and she started her career as a pinup girl.

00:08:55.000 --> 00:09:03.000
And this career she pursued with great ambition and seriousness. So it isn't the case that she kind of got discovered.

00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:11.000
And then the people who discovered her were kind of building her up and making her big she very, very in a focused way.

00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:25.000
Firstly, Pesuto creates a PIN-up girl and then to become an actress and she took acting lessons and she worked very hard to get into the Hollywood studios and get a contract and start making films.

00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:38.000
And what's really significant what many of you might not be so aware of is that due to disputes with the studios and she wasn't the only actor to have those.

00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:44.000
She found her own production company in the late fiftys. So that's a significant step and shows again her ambition.

00:09:44.000 --> 00:10:00.000
And how serious she was taking her. So also, as I said, She is a star of the fifties and she reflects developments in the fiftys and sixtys.

00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:11.000
Particularly in the fiftys obviously in terms of popular culture of tastes. Social developments and also of what was happening in the movies.

00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:28.000
So very quickly she becomes successful. And as I mentioned, 53, a big year for her and according to Wikipedia by 53 she had become one of the most marketable Hollywood stars.

00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:43.000
And they focus on the fact that she had an overt sex appeal that she also had the star image as a dumb blonde and very significantly the same year that she makes a number of very successful films.

00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:54.000
How new images were used as the centerfold and cover of the first issue of Playboy magazine, which is not something that had she agreed to by the way, but it obviously contributed.

00:10:54.000 --> 00:11:01.000
To the attention that she got and the image that she was beginning to develop.

00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:12.000
And yet, behind that screen persona, behind that incredibly sexy woman and very sort of contemporary.

00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:21.000
Modern in the 19 fiftys sense sexy woman and dumb blonde was a very, very different personality.

00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:37.000
I have just put together a few photos of her that show her reading. None of which are post for they were shots of Marilyn being captured as she's reading and lots and lots of different situations that one of her writing.

00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:46.000
So, her personal, her personality, what she was like as a person was very very different to the image.

00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:58.000
That she had on screen. So how come how was that personality that persona constructed? How did it work?

00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:21.000
I want to show just some very brief clips. Some of her main films and performances they're very very Sean I'm going to play them one after the other all being well that they run and they in chronological order of of these films and again it's for us to kind of get a bit of a, of these films.

00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:29.000
And again, it's for us to kind of get a bit of a reminder bit of a taste of her roles and very typical roles and that persona that she projected.

00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:55.000
So let me aim to get the up and running for you. Give me a moment.

00:12:55.000 --> 00:13:00.000
Good morning, Dr. Fulton. Good morning. Aren't you here early?

00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:07.000
Oh yes, Miss Doxy's been complaining about my punctuation, so I'm careful to get here before 9.

00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:13.000
Mr. Ox is on the telephone. Won't you sit down? Oh, I'm glad we have a moment.

00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:18.000
Something I want to show you. For instance.

00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:25.000
Isn't it wonderful? How big a gun? The no nonre plastic stockings you invented. Oh, the info one acetate project.

00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:35.000
This is an experimental pair. The first pair of the factory. Aren't you proud? Turned out rather well.

00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:38.000
I'll say you can't pair him or snack him or anything. I'm familiar with the pressure.

00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:41.000
How hard you try. You'd be amazed, Doctor. Oh, no, I wouldn't be a maid.

00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:44.000
I've done a lot of experimenting with this kind of thing. Because I'm through with all of that.

00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:50.000
Your good name? Were you gonna meet in May? Eskimos?

00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:56.000
Did you see this fellow I'm with? I saw him. What's he look like? Very nice for a one-eyed man.

00:13:56.000 --> 00:14:01.000
That all he's got? What do you think he's got that patch on for? I didn't know it was a patch.

00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:06.000
I thought somebody might have belted him. Honestly, Paula, why can't you keep those cheetahs on long enough to see who you're with anyway?

00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:10.000
No, no, I'm not gonna take a chance like that. You know what they say about girls who wear glasses?

00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:16.000
Maybe somebody shot him in the eyes. He sounds just wonderful. He hasn't actually curious to know what he looked like.

00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:21.000
Who is he? I don't know that either, but he hasn't mentioned anything under a million dollars yet.

00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:29.000
My guys, real class. Never mentions his wealth. Just refers to it. Oh, Mr. Brewster talks about is what a horrible family's got.

00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:34.000
But I'll say this for him. We haven't ordered anything yet under $5 a fortune.

00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:37.000
If there's anything left over, don't forget to tell the way you want to take it home for the dog.

00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:42.000
We better be getting back before they crew off.

00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:47.000
I do.

00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:54.000
The mission!

00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:59.000
Sort of cools the ankles, doesn't it? Well, what do you think be fun to do now?

00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:04.000
I don't know, it's getting pretty late. It's not that late. The thing is I had this big day tomorrow.

00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:09.000
I really have to get to sleep. What's the big date of mine? Tomorrow I went television.

00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:21.000
You remember I told you about it? The dance of the dollar? Oh, you're getting another one!

00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:26.000
Till me, that's a dent toothpaste. It's funny, you know, I don't think I ever try it.

00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:30.000
You should, it's excellent, toothpaste. Is it? Yes, I use it myself.

00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:40.000
Well, then you do recommend it. I mean off the record between France. Definitely. It cost only a few pennies more than ordinary toothpaste, but a recent survey shows that 8 out of 10 or on hygiene.

00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:45.000
Now you sound like a commercial again. If I believed every commercial I heard. You can believe this one.

00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:53.000
Every word of it. What's that you say on the program? He'll never know because I stay kissing sweet the new dazzled Dent Way.

00:15:53.000 --> 00:16:04.000
Now really. It's true. I'll prove it to you. Oh Well?

00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:13.000
Yes.

00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:19.000
Terribly sorry. It's up to Sweet Sue, you won't tell anybody, will you?

00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:26.000
Tell what? Well, to catch me once more, they're gonna kick me out of the bank.

00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:30.000
Placement but the basin sacks? That's us. And I'm danced me.

00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:36.000
I know this is a Joe, Forget it. I'm sugar cane. I sugar cane?

00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:41.000
Yeah, I changed. It used to be a sugar caval chick. Polish?

00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:46.000
I come from this musical family. My mother is a piano teacher. My father was a conductor.

00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:52.000
Where did he conduct? On the Baltimore, Ohio.

00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:58.000
Maybe you colliding I sing too. Sings, well I don't have much of a voice but then.

00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:01.000
This isn't much of a band either. I'm only with them because I'm running away.

00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:08.000
Running away from what? Oh, don't get me started on that. Hey, you want, sir?

00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:12.000
I'll take a rain check.

00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:15.000
Why would you think I'm a drinker? I can stop any time I want to, only.

00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:20.000
I don't want to, especially when I'm blue. We understand. All the girls drink.

00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:29.000
It's just that I'm the one that gets caught. Story of my life. I always get the fussy end of the lollipop.

00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:39.000
My seems straight! I'll say. We'll see you around, girls. Bye, Sugar.

00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:50.000
Hit the ball! They catch for any? I'll bet you 2 dances can't hit it 10 times in a row.

00:17:50.000 --> 00:18:00.000
Go ahead. Right, away.

00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:08.000
5, 6, 3, 6,

00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:26.000
Poor fire! Right. Great, Thank you. Oh.

00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:33.000
I

00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:48.000
Yes!

00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:58.000
Hey!

00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:04.000
Thank you.

00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:19.000
A few of her biggest films and her most famous performances and some well-known scenes. And you might see that image coming together that she had the typical roles that she played.

00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:33.000
Very often you know these bl blanche bomb shells extremely attractive with a great amount of sexuality.

00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:52.000
That was very very contemporary and sometimes even daring in the 19 fiftys and sort of represented the modern post-war society but there was also kind of dumbness naivety sexual availability and artificiality.

00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:59.000
So a lot of the time she plays characters who are very innocent. We're very sexy without being deliberately provocative.

00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:09.000
To be very kind of blonde form sharing very natural way almost and that was all part of that sort of modern, 1,900 fiftys.

00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:21.000
Image but she also very often played the girl. And we see her that most of her Characters are singers or actors or models.

00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:29.000
Secretaries. So if also women are looked at where women are performing. So, so which is also quite significant.

00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:34.000
So as I said, how, what, how is that star persona created? You know, what made her big?

00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:50.000
What made her so successful and so significant in so many ways? Let me bring my our presentation up again.

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:58.000
And we'll have a look at that. Give me a second.

00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:15.000
Oops. There we go. So there are some concepts. That various writers and film critics and film viewers and academics have explored.

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:28.000
Around somebody like Marilyn Monroe and that is the actor as O'ter. So a term being the person who is significantly involved in shaping a film.

00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:35.000
And what it's like and how we read it. This goes back to the work of a British film.

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:46.000
Analyst Richard Dyer. And the main theory is that the film star is an image, not a real person.

00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:55.000
And that starts constructed. Out of a range of materials as well as the film roles their play, you might very well be familiar with that.

00:21:55.000 --> 00:22:06.000
We discuss it a lot of the time. We discuss it more in the age of what we call celebrity and online celebrity culture and influences, etc.

00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:15.000
But let's bring it to the forefront. You know, how many actors are not simply actors or character actors and we see them in different parts.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:28.000
But they have these personas, their cultural icons, their points of reference. They take on these specific characteristics, typical role, typical personality traits, typical looks.

00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:38.000
Typical personas. And these contribute to how we read a film, how we perceive it, how we look at the characters out there portray.

00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:47.000
And a really good way of looking at that is what's put down here is that you can talk about a John Wayne movie or a Clark Able movie.

00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:51.000
But less so perhaps of a Robert Deval move or a Dustin Hoffman movie who we would see much more so-called character actors.

00:22:51.000 --> 00:23:00.000
They haven't got a fix persona. They haven't got that iconic personality that is utilized.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:12.000
Films to contribute to how we understand them. So Marilyn Monroe is most definitely A star, a film star, not a character.

00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:19.000
Thank you. And how we also see this. In so many ways. You know, what makes a start?

00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:28.000
What makes a culture icon? What makes Marilyn Monroe so enduring is How often she is copied for want of a better word.

00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:42.000
Already during her lifetime and we can think of other. Actors or roles or moments or performances where people have copied her reference her as an or a satire.

00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:51.000
Etc. Etc. And I've got one example of that which is Billy Wilder who made 2 films with her.

00:23:51.000 --> 00:24:06.000
The 7 year itch and some like it. Houghton in 62, met 1, 2, 3, which is set in Berlin and the German actress leaves a lot of pulver and placed the secretary of James Cackney who has one of the main roles.

00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:21.000
So let's have a quick look at an example of how the image of an icon like man in row gets sort of copied and referenced So give me a second.

00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:35.000
Here we go.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:47.000
Right. Here we are.

00:24:47.000 --> 00:25:00.000
Kavanaugh! Help the Bellmeister! More rock and roll! And

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:12.000
And Thank you.

00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:26.000
Hey! You

00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:56.000
You like this, We give you a hundred pounds! I want piffle! And The and

00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:09.000
Would you take new automobile? 1,961 Mosque which hardtop convert the 2 tone?

00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:23.000
You mean that Russian hot rod parked outside? His wonderful car. His exact copy of 1,937.

00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:35.000
And

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:51.000
You

00:26:51.000 --> 00:27:03.000
The

00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:09.000
Right, so it is a lot of both a very, very clearly referencing Marilyn Monroe there.

00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:28.000
And just one example of Marilyn Monroe's influence. Madonna is currently in the news for turning 65 and we see her as somebody who has modeled herself in parts on Marilyn Monroe and her persona.

00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:35.000
So many films stars and we can say this about other ones will be copied and referenced.

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:40.000
And and often over time so to speak.

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:52.000
So let's look a little bit into how the star The concept of the star sort of emerged particularly in Hollywood.

00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:56.000
But I should also mention that the film industry in India, Bollywood, has also got a star system.

00:27:56.000 --> 00:28:16.000
Other industries perhaps less so. So very briefly, the first ever movie star. We can say it was Florence Lawrence, a silent movie star in the very early days.

00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:20.000
The people who were in silent movies and were never referenced with their names because studios were very worried that this could give them ideas which indeed it did.

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:50.000
So Lawrence was always named the biograph girl. She was in 62 company films and 1,909 alone and then she jumped ship to the independent motion picture company and they had a publicity stand to Advertise that they flatter now this big star very popular and they planted stories that she'd been killed in a streetcar accident and then there now she was alive, you know, that had all been a

00:28:54.000 --> 00:29:03.000
mistake that she'd been killed and they gave her star billing. So she's the first movie actor whose name appeared on Posters.

00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:16.000
And so then, We move with in Hollywood as it established itself as an industry in really utilizing the star power of its film actors.

00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:21.000
And so all already in the silent period we see What female movie stars were like, even if this plate slightly different wrong.

00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:44.000
So Mary Pickford one of the earliest biggest movie stars hugely influential co find universal pictures very often played nice neighborhood innocent girls but on publicity shot like the one here she is posing in a rather appealing post.

00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:57.000
We've got Louise Brooks very family working with WD Paps in Germany playing a sort of vanilla siren, very revealing sort of outfits.

00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:09.000
Clara Bow, another silent female movie star you might not have heard of her, you can see her films in an incredibly revealing highly modern, 19 twenties dress.

00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:25.000
And slightly later on the left as Mae West. Who came late into films based on her Broadway shows which were incredibly daring, most of which were censored, some of them got her arrested and banned and all of that.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:39.000
She was a writer, she was a director, she was a very independent woman, very powerful. And yet she was a blonde bombshell and it was very much based on sex appeal and innuendo and men just falling at her feet.

00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:51.000
So from the beginning we see in Hollywood that Female movie stars have something in common. What kind of qualities they have to have, so to speak.

00:30:51.000 --> 00:31:10.000
And we see this here too, and it also illustrates how the movie star image is shaped as I said by varying tastes and times on the left, Katherine Hepburn, one of the biggest stars of the forties, the fortys were full of independent women.

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:22.000
And Katherine Hepburn epitomises this year she's in trousers we very rarely see her in sexy kind of pose a sexy dresses and generally speaking not having a lot of over sex appeal.

00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:33.000
In the fifties then this changes. And we see Marilyn Monroe again in a typical pose with that with that very very bad sex appeal. She's a platinum blonde.

00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:40.000
So was Grace Kenny, another massive start of the fifties. And both of them epitomized the fiftys.

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:53.000
Moving away from the sort of independent strong women of the 4 teeth. And film roles. And stars that appeal to a male audience coming out of the wall.

00:31:53.000 --> 00:32:03.000
And continuing the success of Blonde pinups and and Blonde Benjamin's like Betty Grable who were huge in the war years and for the wartime audiences.

00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:11.000
But Grace Kelly of course hasn't got overt sex appear, isn't dumb, she's cool, she's sophisticated, she's unattainable.

00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:26.000
So we have all of these variations. Yet there is an underlying. Understanding of what even at different times and a different focus these female film stars should be like.

00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:30.000
The kind of image they should project.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:38.000
Connie Woods in the heyday with its studio system, its vertical integration at the studios doing everything.

00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:51.000
Created a star system, they build stars, they manage stars and they're managed all aspects of it and everything about their a listers the big stars was carefully under their control.

00:32:51.000 --> 00:33:11.000
I have got an illustration here of Judy Garland just 2 very briefly. Either remind ourselves or alert ourselves to the fact that Judy Garland who started almost as a child star of course how carefully her image, her star persona, her work was managed.

00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:41.000
So she is. In adverts of course it's an effort about jelly making it fits in with her personality the kind of innocent lovely girl she's only she's normal she's cooking kind of a thing we see the merchandising that was produced there is a doll there is a collage of her photos that got published, the postcards, the material that you could get that you could order from the

00:33:43.000 --> 00:34:05.000
fan club. There is just one of the Hollywood magazines that told stories about the star's screen romance with her on the cover many many others but again she's homely she's with a tub of tomato, so it's nature, it's small town, it's it's healthy.

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:19.000
And she is in a kind of wholesome outfit. And of course there is a shot of her at Mickey Rooney, their peanut on screen together, but her studio created stories that they were romantically linked.

00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:27.000
And of course what we now know is that a lot of this control that was exerted on her, the dieting that she was subjected to, the dictating of how she should live, who she should go out with, what functions she should appear at.

00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:47.000
Really took a toll. And lots of romances between stars were manufactured and Hollywood starts a very often last go out with each other to peer in public together to foster their images.

00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:58.000
So it was really, really part of the Hollywood studio system. To not simply promote their big actors with their biggest successes but to have a whole system around it to really create these star designers to make them even bigger.

00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:07.000
To get people even keener on them.

00:35:07.000 --> 00:35:20.000
And there were other icons and other big stars as we've already seen before Marilyn Monroe and I wanted to show clips of 2 of them.

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:28.000
To sort of contextualize a bit and and remind ourselves of some other big stars. I want to start with Greta Garbo.

00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:48.000
Massive start in the 19 thirties. At the turn of the sound film from Sweden originally of course totally different to Marilyn Monroe she was a dramatic actress a serious actress she played a massive roles tragic figures she was dark but at the same time her remove was that she was mysterious.

00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:53.000
She's a bit like that unattainable female like Helen of Troy kind of a figure perhaps.

00:35:53.000 --> 00:36:05.000
And who famously said, I want to be alone. And even though she played more serious figures, she also is part of the system that as a film star she needs to be alluring.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:13.000
She needs to attract. Be attractive. She needs to attract the interest of viewers, particularly male viewers.

00:36:13.000 --> 00:36:14.000
And again, it was a carefully constructive image, the role she was given, how she performed and how her persona around that was constructed.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:35.000
Alexander Walker the critic as I've quoted her feminine face, her masculine body, and it was very spiritual and her kind of pessimism all contributed to her persona on screen.

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:47.000
I want to show a short clip. From her film Matahari where she placed the famous viewers aspires from the very beginning and it's from 1931 so we can compare contrast to the performances that we've seen off Maryland.

00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:55.000
So let me get this up and running for you.

00:36:55.000 --> 00:37:25.000
Hang on. Here we go.

00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:53.000
You

00:37:53.000 --> 00:38:23.000
See, I dance for you tonight, Mr. Bayer, dance and the sake of

00:38:53.000 --> 00:39:01.000
So he's Greta Gallbo, again performing, we see men being utterly. Utterly fascinated.

00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:15.000
We might fear that some of them might throw themselves at her. Very daring even the 19 thirties she's almost naked you know so it's just one example of another female film star.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:25.000
In a similar kind of setup I want to say. To Marilyn Monroe.

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:31.000
Right, I won't be able to show all of the cliffs because this is all taking a bit longer because of the swapping and changing.

00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:38.000
So let's just let me show you by way of illustration. Some other examples at reference points.

00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:46.000
Read to Hebrew. Marilyn Morona, early career was modeled on her. A guild is a very famous performance.

00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:47.000
You can have a look at the clip of you haven't another moment of where female is performing.

00:39:47.000 --> 00:40:01.000
And she epitomizes the 1,900 fortys femme Veronica Lake is another one.

00:40:01.000 --> 00:40:15.000
Again, extremely alluring very often nightclub singers, dancers, etc. Etc. Extremely attractive, lots of blonde bombshells, but also redheads among them.

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:39.000
It's not just, limited to Hollywood. As I said, it's a little bit less so in Europe perhaps but hot on the heels, I want to say off Marilyn Monroe comes because you, Bardeau, some would say the France's answer to Marilyn Monroe very famously shoots to fame in a Bourgeois.

00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:49.000
And the film and Created Woman from 1,956. You can have a look at her performance and that and it is just like Marilyn, so to speak.

00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:57.000
It's It's just the same sort of thing again. I mentioned Pollywood and even though Bollywood of course is subject to very severe censorship from our point of view.

00:40:57.000 --> 00:41:27.000
Where you can't even show kissing on screen. It has, as I said, a massive star system and Bollywood of course the main genre as the musical so Bollywood stars are performers and dancers and singers and when you look at the biggest female Bollywood stars even they are in extremely what we would say attractive, alluring, daring, sexy, poses for engine sort of standards and this is just one example and

00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:40.000
there are more and even more daring in a way. So even they have to be sort of beautiful and sexy.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:52.000
They on and off screen so to speak. Now, so the star persona or the star system, the star's, the stars that contributes to this, but how come?

00:41:52.000 --> 00:42:07.000
Female actors. Are very often have these particular roles to play. Half that sex appeal. Has to be alluring, have to be attractive and all of that.

00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:14.000
And some people would say there's 2 reasons for that they're interconnected in some ways.

00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:21.000
But of course some of that is down to the sheer fact that the industry continues to be dominated by men.

00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:35.000
And so this is the famous Bestel test developed by a Swedish person which looks at what women on screen in films, how are they, how do they appear, how often do they appear.

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:48.000
And it uses a certain yardstick. It says do fewer than 2 women appear, women don't talk to each other, women only talk about men.

00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:58.000
And as you can see when you look at a representation in movies between the seventys and the 20 tens.

00:42:58.000 --> 00:43:06.000
We still have a system that privileges films about men, men in the lead roles, men driving narratives.

00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:14.000
And being most important, the women sort of being arranged throughout them in terms of the characters and the relationships and the plots and the narratives.

00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:22.000
To illustrate this. Reese with a spoon. Very interesting. She is a modern blonde bombshell, we might want to say.

00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:34.000
Very interesting. Has formed her own production company again very successfully is developing a lot of her own films. There's been a lot of interesting films about powerful women with feminist messages.

00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:46.000
Legally blonde is a great example of that and yet it is about supposedly Marilyn Monroe type character who is a dumb blot who of course goes to Harvard to study law.

00:43:46.000 --> 00:44:04.000
And she in 2,015 when she got a glamour award famously said I dread reading scripts that have no women involved in their creation because inevitably I get to that part where the girl, not the woman, the girl, turns to the guy and she said, what do we do now?

00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:18.000
So there is a dominance of that where women Okay, play a secondary role and their function within films is some people say to be eye catty.

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:29.000
Now, underlying that some people would say, or coming out of that dominance is, and some of you might have heard of that, it's an enormously influential concept.

00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:39.000
And we still use it today off the male gaze. Developed by Laura Malvey, a legendary.

00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:50.000
Film academic from the UK. And she basically said that the majority of film were made by men for men and for their pleasure.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:58.000
And that women were in these films to be looked at through male eyes. To please them to attract them.

00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:19.000
And to sort of be that sexual interest object of desire. In films and said there are many many examples of where this male gaze is at play and interestingly the Barbie film does look at that a little bit and some of you have seen it might have spotted that.

00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:45.000
And it's from an essay called Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema from 1,973 and she was one of the first people who psycho analytical context and feminist context to look at film and and to interpret it and she very strongly comes from feminist point of view that says Western cinema has been structured by the unconscious of patriarchal society.

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:52.000
We could say that there is a male gaze though at play perhaps also in Bollywood and in cinemas from other parts of the world.

00:45:52.000 --> 00:46:05.000
So that's that's an interesting question to pursue. Just to illustrate that before I, oh sorry, that I didn't want to do that.

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:31.000
Before I have to stop for your questions. The male gaze can be illustrated beautifully in what is probably a very also for you a film franchise as we call it now that you very much enjoy James Bond he is, and the first one, so to speak, in order of things in Dr.

00:46:31.000 --> 00:46:37.000
Now, by Terrence Young, May, the, 1962, and I'm sorry, I would have time to show that clip.

00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:40.000
But this is how we meet. And I'm sorry, I'm out of time to show that clip.

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:45.000
But this is how we meet. Ursula and some of you might remember it. James Bond sleeping on the beach. He wakes up.

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:50.000
There is this apparition like a merm It can be argued that her entrance and that we see her singing whilst she's cleaning the seashells.

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:51.000
It does not necessarily all of it drive the plot forwards. A beautiful illustration of the male gaze.

00:46:51.000 --> 00:47:06.000
She is there for the male. So the female viewer. To be looked at and might. And is it still at play in the male gates?

00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:18.000
Well, let's look at. Die another day from 2,002. Hailberry and in some ways this was intended as an almash.

00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:19.000
To Dr. Noe which in the Order of Things was the first one that was released 50 years earlier.

00:47:19.000 --> 00:47:37.000
Here's a very she's actually a female agent yet we get introduced to her as she comes out of the sea in this alluring bikini and James Bond Spotser.

00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:44.000
He actually is in the bar on the beach and he gets a pair of binoculars to see what's going on and this is the figure.

00:47:44.000 --> 00:48:03.000
Who he sees, that's an introduction. And people, as I said, would say this is perfect illustration that the male gates are still at play and when we think back to the clips that we've seen of Marilyn earlier, they're all there for her to be at mired.

00:48:03.000 --> 00:48:12.000
Even as I said, Greta Gabo in the role of Matahari, the female spy, and very often a much more serious dramatic roles.

00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:27.000
There they are performing for the pleasure of male and presumably sometimes maybe always female viewers. So this is just a very quick look at Marilyn Monroe ask.

00:48:27.000 --> 00:48:36.000
And I come as a female and movie star, one of the biggest female stars ever. What makes her an icon?

00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:44.000
What makes her typical as a female star within the Hollywood system? How do stars contribute to how we understand films?

00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:54.000
How are they constructed? How are they? Constructed within the industry and how do we as audiences read female performers?

00:48:54.000 --> 00:49:02.000
How do they contribute to our pleasure to our understanding of cinema and what we enjoy about it.

00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:08.000
That's all. I've got time for, I am afraid. Thank you very much.

00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:16.000
Thank you very much, Ruth. That was fascinating. And let's go straight to some questions now.

00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:26.000
Let's have a little look here. Question from Jane. Although Marlon Munroe was a persona actor, didn't she have aspirations to be a character actor?

00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:32.000
For example attending Lee Strasburg studio classes for example.

00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:39.000
Absolutely. So Marilyn Rise, I said, was very driven, very ambitious. She kind of understood how the industry worked.

00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:45.000
She was very much involved in the shaping of that persona and then at the same time realized it was limiting her.

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:58.000
So she was forever trying to overcome it. A good example is the film bus stop. I didn't have time to show a clip from that, but it's the first film that her production company did and she goes against the grain.

00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:09.000
It's also interesting to consider that some of her earlier parts she is in some thrillers and some kind of serious crime films like Asphalt Jungle and she doesn't play the blonde bombshell.

00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:17.000
So one of one of the strategies I want to say for her was to break out of that persona and Just in her life she didn't manage to get there.

00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:27.000
So absolutely that is the tension that she lived with all through her career.

00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:40.000
Okay, thank you. A question here from Judas. Some directors try to show a new narratives led by women, but so many films still have men as the leads.

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.000
Well, Hollywood change before society in general does.

00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:53.000
Oh, that's a very good question. That could be the subject of another session. I think we are making progress.

00:50:53.000 --> 00:51:10.000
Progress is slow and that is I think also illustrated in the discussions around the film Barbie. And when you look at some female directors films and how they challenge the male gaze, it is discussed a lot again.

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:16.000
So it's I think it's a it's It's kind of Hollywood sometimes running ahead sometimes running behind.

00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:20.000
So yes, we are on a very slow road.

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:29.000
Okay, thank you. I hope that answer your question, Judith. A question from Sue.

00:51:29.000 --> 00:51:38.000
Is it as much about how these women are treated as much as the cultural images they present? And are we all conditioned by the male gaze approach?

00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:43.000
It was everywhere in my youth. And changing now.

00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:54.000
Yes, I think lots of people totally agree with you. And yes, what we, what we see with M in Monroe and with other female actors.

00:51:54.000 --> 00:52:04.000
Us is that they're often treated worse than they may have counterparts. They find it harder to assert themselves.

00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:05.000
They get paint worse. You know, Marilyn Monroe was not paid very well a long time.

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:21.000
Even though she was so massive. So they have a harder time in asserting themselves. And being taken seriously as contributors to the films that they make and how they shape them.

00:52:21.000 --> 00:52:33.000
Most definitely. And yes, and this is why I keep saying, you know, when we talk about the male gaze, you know, we might equally enjoy that and we should ask ourselves as women, how do we wreck to Marilyn Monroe?

00:52:33.000 --> 00:52:45.000
You know, how do we talk about her? You know how do we gutter do we judge her you know and do we recognize some of what she presents on screen and what we hear about how she was treated and how she was struggling to assert herself in her career most absolutely.

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:56.000
And this is also why I think she's such an interesting. Actor and start to look at.

00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:07.000
Okay, thank you, and I hope that answers your question, Sue. And we've got another question here from Carolyn, this is an interesting one.

00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:19.000
And why, although what happens less often, is the female gaze less criticized. Thinking of Levi's adverts, diet co-adverts, that kind of thing.

00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:29.000
Well, that's a very good question, isn't it? I think that, It gets less criticized because it happens less often.

00:53:29.000 --> 00:53:37.000
And I do think and I find this really interesting. I mean, I do think when it happens in films It does very often get discussed in particular way.

00:53:37.000 --> 00:53:48.000
So one of my film classes recently looked at the Clare D. Film of Or Travi, which is about young, a bunch of young men in the Foreign Legion.

00:53:48.000 --> 00:54:01.000
And you see them training a lot in the heat, half naked, I want to say. There's a lot of discussion in the film how we look at them and how they project whether that's okay with their time ever rotten if it's not how is it not.

00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:12.000
So it does get slightly controversial, actually. But we also notice it and I sometimes think we notice that women that we that we are allow the same moment of pleasure.

00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:20.000
That men get and it is very often very challenging and it's interesting when you when you are in films where you have a moment where it's reverted.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:28.000
The How audiences react to it and how men react to it and what that causes. So I think it's part of us.

00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:44.000
Recognising the male gaze becoming aware of it, beginning to challenge it and at some point yes we need to ask ourselves whether it's okay to have the female gaze you know to me so it's a very kind of It's a big discussion at the moment and around that.

00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:53.000
You know, and at some point we probably will end up. In the same place whether it's male or female g but we're not there yet.

00:54:53.000 --> 00:55:02.000
Hmm. Okay, thank you. No, we've got another question here which possibly might be our last one because we're starting to run out of time a little bit.

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:11.000
And obviously Marilyn did pass away in a relatively young age. What happened to her? How did she die?

00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:12.000
I guess the documentary talks a little bit about this.

00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:16.000
Well, Yes, yes, and I mean what I what I'm quite happy to do via Fiona is to send some links.

00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:22.000
A first to the clips that I've shown in the other side I couldn't but also some further reading.

00:55:22.000 --> 00:55:23.000
Yeah.

00:55:23.000 --> 00:55:26.000
The Wikipedia article is excellent, very detailed, but just briefly, Mona was struggling with anxiety and in somenia or her life.

00:55:26.000 --> 00:55:48.000
She became dependent on medication. When she was married to Arthur Miller, they were trying to have children, which didn't work, she had a number of miscarriages and very poor health generally.

00:55:48.000 --> 00:56:00.000
During the last film that she was making and a huge stress. So she died of an overdose of barbiturates and it is believed that it was not accidental.

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:13.000
Because she had tried to take her life beforehand. And there are conspiracy theories. There are question marks we don't know for certain but the circumstances suggest that she took her own life.

00:56:13.000 --> 00:56:16.000
Hmm. Okay, now let me just have another little look just in case I haven't missed anything.

00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:29.000
And there's actually maybe a couple of comments that might actually be worth. Mentioning. Let me see if I can find them.

00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:34.000
Just kind of talking about, you know, the personas that you were talking about there back in the fiftys.

00:56:34.000 --> 00:56:45.000
And and linking that to more modern times. And There's a comment from Len about they still speak of Clara Bowl lips as a shape.

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:47.000
Yeah.

00:56:47.000 --> 00:56:58.000
And also, Jill. From Jill, looking at some of these personas from the past that reminds her of Debbie Harry in the pop world, which you think is quite interesting.

00:56:58.000 --> 00:57:09.000
Yeah. Yeah. I mean when you start sitting down it is interesting how many you can see. You know, to me and, and, It's a long, long line.

00:57:09.000 --> 00:57:10.000
You know, yeah, absolutely.

00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:16.000
Yeah. Okay. Right, well, thanks very much for that. That was really, really interesting.

00:57:16.000 --> 00:57:22.000
And I would absolutely recommend to everybody to have a watch of that documentary that's on and the iPlayer. It's in four-part.

00:57:22.000 --> 00:57:23.000
Yeah.

00:57:23.000 --> 00:57:31.000
I watched it a couple of weeks ago and it was absolutely fabulous. Opened my eyes, I have to say.

00:57:31.000 --> 00:57:32.000
Thanks very much.

00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:11.000
Okay, hello everybody. Good to have a big turnout and I think you know I'd like to think some of that's me but most of it's Newton isn't it?

00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:26.000
He's one of those names everybody remembers everyone you know has some mental picture of even if it's just the idea that an apple landed on his head and he had this bright idea, which is of course far more simple than the reality of it.

00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:33.000
But yeah, we all would struggle to understand the physics but at least we know there is something exciting going on there.

00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:38.000
Now I'm not a physicist by any stretch of the imagination. A lot of it baffles me utterly.

00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:46.000
But how'm interested in the man because he is a very complicated, very peculiar man of his time, which is the late seventeenth century, which is a fascinating time anyway.

00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:58.000
And it's a time when ideas about science and Ideas about sort of superstition are still both in play at the same time.

00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:07.000
And yeah, we'll whizz through. A lot of things about him as a person and some of the areas of interest he had and the fact that basically he hardly got on with anybody ever.

00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:23.000
He was not an easy man to like. And in the end you will be able to think about what your opinion of him as a human being was I think he's an interesting chap but I wouldn't want to necessarily have him around for dinner.

00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:40.000
So he was born in 1643 his father's already dead when he's born and the the only story we have about him from when he's very little is that he apparently later told people that when he was born he was so little, quote, they could put him in a court pot.

00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:58.000
And And so weekly he was forced to have a bolster all round his neck to keep it upon his shoulders and so little likely to live that when 2 women were sent to Lady Packham at North Witham for something for him, they sat down on a style by the way and said there's no occasion for making haste for we're sure the child will be dead before we can get back.

00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:07.000
So a very weak little child then. Don't do anything else about his very early days.

00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:14.000
When he's 3, his mother remarries and marries a local minister called Barnabas Smith.

00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:28.000
And Isaac is sent to live with his grandmother. And if If I were a different kind of psychologist or looked at things in that way I would say some of his many issues in life start right there.

00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:38.000
So he goes to live with his grandmother. He still has plenty of visits back to his mom and his stepdad and his increasing family of other step brothers and sisters.

00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:47.000
But he is sent to, I'll be kind of skipping in and out between pictures and My own face overtime, but he's, he's, this is where he was born, Wolves for the Bat walls.

00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:57.000
There, Wolves thought manner. It's harder to say than you think. And yes, he was still going back regularly there.

00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:08.000
And something that's been found there not that long ago is these pictures. On the wall so these are 2 different images both showing the same sort of shape.

00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:12.000
And then this one has something else that we don't really know what he's actually trying to draw there.

00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:26.000
But it is generally believed that these are pictures by the very young Isaac Newton. We think that because well for one we know he was a wall scribbler as an adult one of his adult friends, as an adult.

00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:31.000
One of his adult friends, later says, the walls and ceilings were full of his adult friends later says the walls and ceilings were full of drawings which he had made with charcoal and ceilings were full of drawings which he had made with charcoal.

00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:36.000
There were birds, beasts, men, ships, plants, they were birds, beasts, men, ships, plants, mathematical figures, plants, mathematical figures, circles and triangles.

00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:48.000
So So, you know, when the idea comes to him, he puts it on a wall. And also we know that when he was young A post mill was built very close to the house and these are pictures of a post mill.

00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:56.000
This is a very young lad trying to understand what is going on with a post mill. Which I think is absolutely marvelous.

00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:07.000
One of them was only discovered quite recently. The angle of the light being spotted. And again, we don't really know anything else until he hits about 12.

00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:16.000
When he's 12, Isaac Newton is sent to live with an apothecary in Grantham called William Clark.

00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:25.000
So we could learn a bit of the trade there, but he's also going to the free grammar school in Grantham so he needs to be staying somewhere close by.

00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:26.000
He does really badly. In school. I think someone with that bigger brain is going to either do really well or really badly.

00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:38.000
He isn't particularly interested in the school lessons. He is far more interested in making his own mechanisms throughout his school days.

00:04:38.000 --> 00:05:01.000
He is making little devices. We know he liked making clocks, for instance. This is a sort of description, contemporary description of the things that he liked to make and I won't try to get you to read all of it but can you see here he likewise made a good wooden clock.

00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:05.000
Went by weight in the usual manner and he's probably about 14 at this point. And the rest of this description is mostly about the clocks that he made.

00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:18.000
But at the top here there is another rather lovely description. To pay a visit to Isaac's.

00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:24.000
Mouse Miller. And the farmers readily supplied him with handfuls of corn. On market days.

00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:34.000
So what's that about? A mouse miller. It appears that he actually made a tiny functioning mill.

00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:40.000
To grind corn that ran on worn mouse power.

00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:45.000
We don't know the mechanism, we don't know, was the mouse going round in circles or was it in a wheel?

00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:48.000
But he had a one mouse power mill. I think that is just beautiful to imagine him creating that.

00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:57.000
I say about 1415 he must have been doing this. We know we had a temper at this kind of time.

00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:10.000
We know that he Put up with people bullying him until he snapped one day and basically pushed the guys, the lads face into the side of the church until he decided not to do that again.

00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:19.000
What he's about 15, his stepfather dies. He has, so he has 3 half siblings.

00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:26.000
Oh, a lot younger and his mother. And his mother calls him back to the family farm.

00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:31.000
No more education for you. You've got to run the farm now, you're the man of the house now.

00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:37.000
So he's, dragged back to Walsall. But he hates it.

00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:45.000
He was, you know, he does not want to be a farmer. He's making devices, not, you know, planning fields.

00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:49.000
He absolutely hates it and I suspect because he hated it he was probably not very good at it either.

00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:59.000
And eventually his schoolteacher persuades his mother. To let him go back to school and just say, you know, he's young Isaac's wasted on this.

00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:05.000
He belongs in education. And that does eventually work.

00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:21.000
At about 16 we start seeing some more of his notebooks coming through. And he writes quite a lot of notebooks and quite a lot of information between sort of 16 and 20 and we get some lovely little insights into him as a human.

00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:30.000
From that era. So we have notebooks like this which are full of instructions and recipes and things like that.

00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:44.000
So we have recipes. For different paints to lay gold on anything. At to melt metal quickly.

00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:52.000
To make a hard glue. And the more fun ones are on this side. You can see here it says to make birds drunk.

00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:59.000
I don't know why he's trying to make birds drunk, but there's an entire page with descriptions about how to make birds drunk.

00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:06.000
Which is not a complicated method, it basically involves putting things with alcohol on the ground for the birds to eat.

00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:09.000
So, putting things with alcohol on the ground for the birds to eat. So to make pigeons, portrait, alcohol on the ground for the birds to eat.

00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:17.000
So to make pigeons, partriages and other birds drunk. Set black wine for them to drink where they come.

00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:22.000
Not complicated. Again. Don't know why he's doing that. It's a bit weird.

00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:30.000
He's also coming up with some awful magic tricks where in order to turn water into wine, what you do is you hide a little bit of logwood, which is a red dye in a pouch in your mouth.

00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:45.000
And you take in the water and around and the dye from the logwood will come out and then you spit it back out again and it's miraculously turned into why you as long as nobody drinks it.

00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:52.000
But you know, this is the sort of thing that a 16 year old lab finds funny. And that's what I love about it.

00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:55.000
He seems to, you know, not be.

00:08:55.000 --> 00:09:05.000
He seems to be fairly well in with society at this point. He has friends, he must do to be doing this kind of thing.

00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:12.000
And then it goes to university. So this starts at 1661 and he is 17.

00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:20.000
And he is studying maths and philosophy. Now, again, this isn't entirely a good match for him.

00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:25.000
Maths? Fine. In philosophy he's supposed to be studying Aristotle mostly.

00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:41.000
He is not interested in Aristotle. He pretty much ignores all of his sessions. On philosophy, gets very low marks for them and he's lucky that he's talent spotted by one of his tutors who realizes that, you know, that's that's clearly just not his thing.

00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:54.000
We need to nurture what he is good at. And again, these these diaries continue to show us some really fascinating things.

00:09:54.000 --> 00:10:05.000
So this is his account book. And it's got a wonderful mix of different things. This is all his his outgoings.

00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:14.000
And some of them are to do with his work. Like here, a magnet compasses glass bubbles.

00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:28.000
My bachelors act as his degree money spent on acquaintances. He seems to lend money out a lot and doesn't necessarily always get it back, but he doesn't seem to mind that.

00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:37.000
He still lends it out to the same people. He's giving cloth to be made into clothes for him.

00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:45.000
He's playing books. The history of the Royal Society, which at that point has a history that's about 10 years long, but someone's still written one.

00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:50.000
To my lawn dress.

00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:55.000
At the right of the bottom there, perhaps my favourite.

00:10:55.000 --> 00:11:01.000
Lost at cards. That's twice.

00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:10.000
So, yeah, he's probably getting on with student life while also randomly buying these, these other things.

00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:15.000
This one on the other side you'll notice you can't make head or tail off because it is written in code.

00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:26.000
And that code wasn't deciphered again until, you know. This century, certainly. And it's written in code because it is the most marvellous thing.

00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:47.000
It is a list of his sins. He writes a list of a confession, if you like. And this is a list, it's so in 1,662, he writes 48 of them and then a few months later he adds another 8 onto that list.

00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:52.000
And you can find the whole of this list online if you look up Newton's list of sins, you will find it.

00:11:52.000 --> 00:12:05.000
It's marvellous, it really does show you the human being. There's a lot of, because he's very religious man of course, he's a very religious lad of at this point, 19.

00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:13.000
But he just keeps getting this urge to do things like Eating an apple, at thy house. Making a feather on my day.

00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:17.000
Did not I made it? There's a lot of lying to people about the other things that he's done.

00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:23.000
Putting a PIN in John Keys hat on by day in order to prick him. Cool jokes.

00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:30.000
Robbing my mother's box of plums and sugar.

00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:37.000
Setting my heart on money, learning and pleasure more than thee. Stealing cherry cobs, denying that I did so.

00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:46.000
It's that sort of thing. And then every now and then it breaks out into severe violence. Every now and then it just gets punching my sister.

00:12:46.000 --> 00:13:00.000
Wishing death and hoping it to some. So yeah, there's a lot going on in there and then it reverts back to, you know, making pies on a Sunday night.

00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:05.000
Missing Chapel, beating Arthur Storer. So yeah, back to the temper again.

00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:21.000
Gluttony. Lying about a louse. So yeah, I really recommend you look up and read the full set of them because It's It can definitely be read for comedy, but it also really gives you an insight into the man.

00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:30.000
So he's gone to. University? He's finished there. Plague hits.

00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:37.000
1,665 6 7. And he's forced from Cambridge by the plague.

00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:42.000
And he spends that time, he's back on his mum's farm, probably should be working on the farm.

00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:48.000
Reading people like Galileo and Kepler. And from that coming up with his own ideas. And he later writes, all this was in the 2 plague gears of 65 and 66.

00:13:48.000 --> 00:14:02.000
For in those days I was in my prime age for invention. Minded mathematics and philosophy more than at any time since.

00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:09.000
I mean, how many 22 year olds would say that? Clearly this is the time that I am most focused on maths.

00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:17.000
The idea that an apple landed on his head at this time comes from a conversation that he had with Voltaire years later.

00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:24.000
And he said to Voltaire, oh yes, I had a breakthrough on gravity when I saw an apple fall from a tree.

00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:30.000
There was never a mention that it fell and landed on his head, but you know, thought about when he saw it fall from a tree.

00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:37.000
It's almost certainly made up. There is a suggestion that he thought that Voltaire was an idiot.

00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:41.000
And therefore the only way he could get Voltaire to understand was to use this metaphor.

00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:49.000
So yeah, probably not true, but it's a nice story. So this is the era that he comes up with.

00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:59.000
A lot of things to do with gravity and the laws of motion. It's also the time that squeamish people look away now.

00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:12.000
He does things like this. Just to see what happens. Sticking a bodkin in behind his own eyeball to kind of mark whether where the colors go and how it gradually heals, what happens when he wiggles it around.

00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:15.000
It's all to do with figuring out how the eye works of course. He also stares into the sun for long enough that he's blind for several days.

00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:28.000
Again, just to see what happens. And to keep track of how his vision comes back. So yeah.

00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:32.000
Not afraid to put himself on the line.

00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:41.000
And then returns back to Cambridge again where he has made a professor of maths. Really not anyone with the talent for teaching.

00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:45.000
Quite the opposite. He wrote a whole lot of lectures on algebra, we still have them.

00:15:45.000 --> 00:16:05.000
But he never checked whether they would be understandable to his students in any way. And one of his Friends later said, few went to hear him and few were yet understood him and off times he did he did this in a manner for want of hearers to read to the walls.

00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:13.000
So, you want to do a lecture, nobody turned up, so we read the lecture anyway. To the walls.

00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:17.000
I mean, I've come close to having. Talks like that.

00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:24.000
The feuds begin. The first one is second longest because it's only 30 years, is with Robert Hooke.

00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:31.000
Now, we don't know what Robert Hooke looks like. We have pictures of all the other early Royal Society members, not Robert Hooke.

00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:47.000
This is almost certainly because Newton when he took over as president of the Royal Society got rid of the picture of Hook because there was a picture of all of the society members in there and that one is just Strangely missing.

00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:55.000
So yeah, a hook. Was actually a really, really clever man who did a lot of things in different areas.

00:16:55.000 --> 00:17:09.000
And he's largely been forgotten probably because he disagreed with Newton. Hookies a bit older and he is I think the problem is he's almost trade.

00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:17.000
He's being paid, he's the first paid scientific researcher in England because he's paid to come up with experiments or Do the experiments that are asked by the other members of the Royal Society.

00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:29.000
So he is very good and he's very good at the hands on bit. But he's being paid, he's just doing the manual bit, not the thinking bit.

00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:37.000
He was actually doing the thinking bit but that was probably Newton's idea. And he thinks light is made of waves.

00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:43.000
Newton thinks light is made of particles. And of course, as we're aware, that's an argument that ran and ran, isn't it?

00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:53.000
And they, they could not agree on this and eventually Newton agreed not to publish and on subject of light until after Hook's death.

00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:58.000
That is many, many years later.

00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:06.000
You does have one friend. In this period. This is a chap called John Wickens.

00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:29.000
And according to Wickens Son gives us some great descriptions. Wick and Son is the one for instance that tells us that his father had told him of Sir Isaac's forgetfulness of food when intent upon his studies and of his rising in a pleasant manner with the satisfaction of having found out some proposition without any concern for a seeming want of his night's sleep.

00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:42.000
He was turning grey, I think, at 30. He sometimes suspected himself to be inclining to consumption and he would make use of balsam so he mixed up his own medicines because he thought he had 2 tuberculosis.

00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:57.000
But didn't notice a lack of sleep. It's also at this era that he comes up with that one famous sentence that if anyone knows, you know, we have the Apple image if you have one sentence in your head, it's probably I saw further because I stood on the shoulders of giants.

00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:05.000
Again, this isn't quite what it looks like and it's actually a dig. This is written in a letter to Hook.

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:17.000
Hook was a very short man and a bit of a hunchback. So when he sang, I am standing on the shoulders of giants, he's saying, I may be standing on the work of some people.

00:19:17.000 --> 00:19:20.000
But not you.

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:30.000
Subtle but you know if you hook probably not that subtle yeah. So yes, we're getting a bit more of a rounded picture here, aren't we?

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:46.000
The second sort of Big battle between Hook and Newton comes in 1684. When Ren Christopher Wren of, of some Paul's fame.

00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:47.000
Hook and Hally of Comet Fame. It's a lot of interesting important people in the Royal Society at this time.

00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:58.000
It's absolutely the brightest and best of the nation. All of whom appeared to have no social skills.

00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:13.000
The 3 of them are meeting in a coffee house Rain has decided to offer a cash prize to anyone who can provide a proof and an explanation of the way planets move.

00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:24.000
Based on the inverse square law of attraction between them. If you have a stationary son, then how does that affect the shape of what's going around it?

00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:31.000
And Hook said, I have proof that all these paths are ellipses, which indeed they are.

00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:38.000
And he'd been working on this for 4 years, but he couldn't quite, he hadn't provided proof of it.

00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:45.000
So Red says, well, okay, give me proof. If you can't give me proof, Hallie, can you give me some proof, you know?

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:52.000
And I'll pay whoever does. Hallie has not been working on it for 4 years, thinks smarter rather than harder, and just goes to Newton.

00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:57.000
And says, Newton, do you know why? And what the proof is that all planets go round in ellipses.

00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:04.000
And Isaac says, oh yeah, I worked that out years ago. I've got it around here somewhere.

00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:10.000
And starts looking in his papers. Disorganised desk and he couldn't find it.

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:16.000
And so,ally said, well, okay, could you try and recreate it? Could you do it from scratch?

00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:26.000
When he forgets about it, 18 months later. By a different method. And actually proving the inverse of what he thought he was trying to prove.

00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:37.000
Or the, the inverse of the proposition He does. And that piece of work is what eventually becomes the print Kippia, his greatest work.

00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:49.000
He makes it difficult deliberately because he says I don't want to be pestered by mathematical smatteras So, you know, I'm not going to make this easy on you.

00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:52.000
This is this is a thing which is full of marvelous wigs as we can see here.

00:21:52.000 --> 00:22:08.000
So here is a Red Hook and Halle meeting in the in the coffee house there. So yes, that's how Principia comes to be written.

00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:20.000
And As I say, it proves the inverse. Later he said that he didn't bother writing down the original version of this because well I mean It's very obvious.

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:30.000
No need, it should be obvious to anyone that can do this sort of thing. In the 80, s he gets a new assistant.

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:49.000
Who gives us some wonderful, again, sort of personal details about the man. We learn here that, He was very meek, sedate and humble, never seemingly angry of, and, and, and, of it of profound thought.

00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:55.000
He always kept close to his studies, rarely went to visiting and had few visitors except 2 or 3 persons.

00:22:55.000 --> 00:23:03.000
I never knew him to take any recreational pastime, either in riding out to take the air, walking, bowling, any exercise whatsoever.

00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:11.000
Thinking all hours lost that were not spent in his studies. So intent and serious upon his studies he ate very sparingly.

00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:18.000
Nay, oftentimes he has forgotten to eat at all so that by going into his chamber I have found his mess untouched.

00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:26.000
Of which when I reminded him he would reply, oh have I? And then making to the table would eat a bite or 2 standing.

00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:36.000
He very rarely went to bed until 2 or 3 of the clock. Sometimes not till 5 or 6, lying about 4 or 5 h.

00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:40.000
At which time, sorry, and also he says that in spring and fall he would sleep even less because he would have experiments going on in his laboratory.

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:51.000
That would need to be permanently tended so one or the other of them would have to be there all the time.

00:23:51.000 --> 00:24:11.000
Humphrey says he very well, rarely went to dine in the hall. Except on some public days and then if he has not been minded would go very carelessly with shoes down at heels, stockings untied, surplus on, and his head scarcely combed.

00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:14.000
When he designed to dine in the hall, he would turn to the left hand. And go out into the street.

00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:23.000
When making a stop when he found his mistake, would hastily turn back. And then sometimes instead of going into the hall.

00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:29.000
Would return to his chamber again. Yeah, it shouldn't be going that way. And then. Straight back to his rooms.

00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:38.000
He's obviously not comfortable. In public. William Stuckley said he had heard Newton laugh only once.

00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:44.000
And that was when Newton had loaned an acquaintance a copy of Euclid's element.

00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:51.000
And the acquaintance said, well, what use is this to me? And Sir Isaac burst out laughing.

00:24:51.000 --> 00:25:03.000
Because to him, it was obvious. Of course, why could you possibly not realize why you clear is going to be valuable in your life?

00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:15.000
In the 16, late 16 eighties, starts getting also more into his occult studies. And this is very important to him and another side that often isn't.

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:27.000
Looked at enough because there's just too much to the mound to give everything enough weight. But he really wanted to uncover lost wisdom as well as doing his sort of new discoveries.

00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:38.000
That included interpreting the book of Revelation. And for instance or looking at the proportions of the Temple of Solomon and trying to apply maths to that to see what the significance was.

00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:52.000
And of course a lot of alchemy. Chemistry is in its infancy, so of course a lot of what he does is actual genuine useful chemical experimentation just explained in very esoteric language.

00:25:52.000 --> 00:26:06.000
He's not actually cutting edge though, Boyle another member of the Royal Society has begun to establish norms of experimental practice in chemistry which Newton completely ignores because that's not what it's about for him.

00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:15.000
For him, it's about hidden truths. We have some records of this but Some of them nobody's been able to figure out.

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:28.000
There are notebooks of his. Which are in such coded language. Partly because it's all this mystery stuff and partly because some of the things he was doing were illegal.

00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:49.000
That yeah it's it's just not been deciphered but we know he was interested in getting gold we know he was interested in the elixir of life But to him there's no division between the scientific and the alchemical because it's all just about understanding the unseen forces of the universe.

00:26:49.000 --> 00:27:09.000
And demonstrating how the universe is tending towards perfection. Because that is God's plan. And that is visible in maths as it is visible, he would say, in the theoretical existence of the philosopher's stone that will turn other things to the perfect metal I.

00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:14.000
Religiously, he's sort of a Protestant, but some of his ideas are a bit heretical.

00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:20.000
He's technically a non-trinitarian area. Which is a bit of a mouthful.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:29.000
And that is a version which makes Jesus the first of God's creations rather than having been inherent from the beginning.

00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:30.000
But then beginning, if it's the very first thing that happens, it's a bit slippery.

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:39.000
Doesn't seem to have believed in an immortal soul as such, which is very unusual for the time.

00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:50.000
And he thought that the universe had been made in such a way that God would need to occasionally get involved.

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:59.000
He thought that things like the elliptical orbs of the eccentric orbits of some planets suggested this, that sometimes God was going to need to personally set things on track.

00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:14.000
Libniz, said that He's understanding of Newton was that he said that Newton thought that God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time, otherwise it would cease to move.

00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:21.000
He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it perpetual motion.

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:26.000
He, he didn't want to be in holy orders because then he would have to have made various oaths.

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:33.000
And you manage to wriggle out of it. It's very unusual being a fellow of Cambridge and not being in holy orders.

00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:36.000
But he managed it.

00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:46.000
The president of the society in the 16 eighties is Because he gets everywhere. Samuel Peeps.

00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:54.000
Some peeps. He's not a scientist, he's interested in a sort of academic way and he likes having connections with interesting and important people.

00:28:54.000 --> 00:29:01.000
He is not a scientist. He admits that he doesn't really know. He doesn't really understand everything the others are talking about.

00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:07.000
He tells on the other hand have connections and miniature stretch of skills and those are very useful to the Royal Society.

00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:17.000
This does not mean he's always making the right choice. So here is a story about the publication of Principia.

00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:26.000
Edmund Halley finally persuades Newton to publish those theories of motion and gravitation that were the subject of that bet.

00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:33.000
And he says, you know, we can get it published. The Royal Society will publish this for you.

00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:45.000
Sadly, there are society earlier that year had spent its entire publications budget. On this. Francis Willoughby's history of fish.

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:53.000
Big, huge, lavishly illustrated book, therefore very expensive. They printed loads of them.

00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:56.000
And, yeah, we've, we've got, we've got no money left.

00:29:56.000 --> 00:30:13.000
For any other groundbreaking works of physics. In the end, Halle bankrolled it himself because he felt he'd made this promise to Newton that we will get this published, trust me I'll make sure it all you know nobody messes with your words or anything like that.

00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:21.000
And yet. When you look at this, the first edition of the Principia Mathematica Whose name gets to be on the front?

00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:30.000
In just as big letters as Newton's. It's peeps. Don't know how we manage that because yeah, Halli had to backer all in himself.

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:39.000
The Royal Society then said, yeah. You know, we've spent all that money on those copies of the natural history of fish.

00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:51.000
Well, they haven't actually sold that well, so that means we can't afford to pay you your salary as our clerk but here have a stack of leftover copies of the book

00:30:51.000 --> 00:31:00.000
I mean, really. Isn't that just staggering? Here, here are a whole load of leftover copies of the book that you don't think should have been done in the first place.

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:06.000
To pay you at a time when you've bankrolled the good book anyway.

00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:13.000
Hook dies in 1,703, which point Newton is able to publish on optics.

00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:21.000
So object 1704 comes out. And Newton at that point becomes president of the Royal Society, which is why.

00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:25.000
Hook's painting does not exist.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:31.000
Backing up and going in a different direction. He also has a massive feud going with a chap called Leibniz.

00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:37.000
And, and, you know, these, these feuds, they overlap. And again, this is lasts over 30 years.

00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:44.000
It basically seems that he feuds with people until they die. That's the pattern. He does not let go of things.

00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:53.000
So Newton is working on calculus, which is how to measure the area underneath a curve on a graph.

00:31:53.000 --> 00:32:02.000
And he's been working on it from the 16 seventys. He doesn't publish it for about Over 20 years, about 20 years.

00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:11.000
So all that time he thinks he's Got it, but he wants it to be perfect. Is working on it at the same time, the same problem.

00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:22.000
And he nearly writes to Leibniz explaining his idea. And then at the last minute, he backs out and writes this.

00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:33.000
Obviously it's Latin, but it says, The foundation of these operations is evident enough. But because I cannot proceed with the explanation of it now, I have preferred to conceal it thus.

00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:43.000
This is a list of how many of each letter of the alphabet the answer would have in it. So there is a phrase which had 6 As, 2 C's, one D and so on.

00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:53.000
In it. This is obviously utterly useless as an anagram and yet he wasn't the only guy to do this in the Royal Society and others at that time.

00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:58.000
That idea that, cause then later he could go back and say, well, obviously I had thought of this all along.

00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:07.000
All you have to do is unscramble that sentence. See? It's my idea really, you can't get any credit for it, cause I wrote you that first.

00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:18.000
And this really backfires because the 2 of them end up fighting over who had what bit of what idea first and who could prove that they had what bit of what idea first.

00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:25.000
And there's a lot of angry letter writing and writings into relevant journals and so on.

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:34.000
This society decides in the 17 tens that it is going to sort out this dispute. By means of an independent committee.

00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:44.000
Well, I say independent. Newton is the president of the Royal Society. He is able to pick exactly who goes on this committee.

00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:49.000
Which I don't think you will be surprised to hear.

00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:55.000
Found that all of those ideas were actually newtons. This does not make Leibniz happy.

00:33:55.000 --> 00:34:02.000
But he dies soon afterwards, so that's Newton off the hook again.

00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:11.000
A few other adventures in different directions start. It becomes an MP. In one. To 90 and in 1,701 he has another shot at it.

00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:25.000
Why he bothered going back a second time? I really don't know, given that it is very clear he had no interest in actually doing it at all.

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:36.000
Hansard that records everything said in parliament. Tells us that As far as we know, he only said one thing in his whole parliamentary term.

00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:46.000
And that was close the window I can feel a draft.

00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:54.000
Then he starts having a bit of a bad time of it. In 1693. He's parted company with Nicholas Fatio de Duer who was his closest slash only friend at that time.

00:34:54.000 --> 00:35:23.000
They'd shared lodgings together for a long time. It's the relationship that leads to speculation about his sexuality, although I, I'm certainly never acted on anything, whether you had feelings or not, you can read different things in, but masculine friendship between academics was a very different thing that we don't really understand now anyway so it's hard to know.

00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:30.000
And I think it's actually quite unlikely. But yes, he had parted company. His mother died.

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:42.000
He may well have been suffering from some sort of chemical poisoning. We know that when he died, because his hair's been tested, His hair has 40 times the normal amount of mercury in it.

00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:51.000
So he may well have mercury poisoning at this time because he's doing even more alchemical experiments then than he does at the end of his life.

00:35:51.000 --> 00:36:12.000
For whatever reason, in 1693, he seems to have some sort of nervous breakdown. He becomes convinced that his friends Well, peeps if you could call peeps a friend but he certainly knows him well by this point peeps and Locke that's John Locke the philosopher are conspiring against him.

00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:15.000
He writes to peeps. I'm extremely troubled at the embroilment I'm in.

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:28.000
I've neither 8 nor slept well. I never designed to get anything by your interest, but I am now sensible that I must withdraw from your acquaintance and see neither you nor the rest of my friends any more.

00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:40.000
He tries to retreat from society. To Locke he says you endeavored to embroil me with women and by other means and there was a design to sell me an office.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:48.000
And because of these things I have wished you dead and I probably shouldn't have. And I'm sorry that I did.

00:36:48.000 --> 00:37:03.000
Cause it only lasts a few days, this particular problem. He later apologizes and blames this state of mind on, sleeping in front of the fire and that being bad for his health and him not getting enough sleep and so on

00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:14.000
But yes, the idea that someone might try to embroil him with women. We have no idea what's meant by that or if it was all just in his head, but it's interesting.

00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:25.000
He's continuing to invent things. He's already come up with different reflecting telescopes, better reflecting telescopes that you can have a smaller telescope that does the job of a bigger one.

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:34.000
He also comes up with something called the reflecting quadrant or the octant. Which is a navigational instrument.

00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:41.000
And looks like that. So in 1,699 he invents this.

00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:47.000
He describes it to Halle. Hallie doesn't say anything to anyone about it either.

00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:57.000
And nothing is known about this till after he's died So that's yet another 3 years.

00:37:57.000 --> 00:38:06.000
Other 28 years so we invented this thing and then sat on it for 28 years. By which point 2 other people have also invented it.

00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:12.000
And then he says, no, no, he doesn't because he's dead, but Hally saying, no, no, Newton came up with this first.

00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:19.000
And this sort of thing is the story of his life, it would seem.

00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:26.000
He's getting to be quite respectable by this point. He's made the warden of the mint.

00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:38.000
He has and actually oversees a whole change in the coinage comes up with a whole different set of coinage which is difficult to forge compared to previous one.

00:38:38.000 --> 00:38:48.000
This is an example of it. This is the the rarest example of it. This is the one that, you know, is a real collector's piece.

00:38:48.000 --> 00:39:09.000
Because it is tiny. It's a quarter guinea. And that would normally be obviously a larger silver coin because this would be real gold and the amount of gold that goes into a quarter guineas worth of gold for a coin, the coin itself is only a few millimeters across.

00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:22.000
And something that that valuable to be that easily lost. Was never going to be that popular I think. But he gets really stuck in to doing this, he's now what in his fifties?

00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:32.000
Yeah, now in his fiftys and he really takes to coining and trying to stop. Clippers and coiners, counterfeiters out there.

00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:40.000
He has a sort of nemesis in the 16 nineties where there's a sort of cat and mouse game with a chap called William Challoner.

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:47.000
Who used to be a forger but claims to have swapped sides but really hasn't but how do you prove that?

00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:59.000
And eventually Newton does get the better of him and he gets hungry on and quartered. In 1705 he is, Newton is also knighted.

00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:15.000
And this is his choice of Coach of arms. Now the crust bones is part of the Newton coat of arms going back in time to earlier gentry Newton's

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:21.000
So it was likely he was going to incorporate that into his design somewhere, but most people at this era would then have, you know, gone big with it.

00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:28.000
Instead, he just says, well, yeah, it's a, 2 cross bones, they'll be white, let's put it on a black background, the end.

00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:41.000
And that is his, his. Coat of arms and this is at the height of the piracy problem in the in these so I don't know if he knew about that.

00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:47.000
Or if it's sheer coincidence, but there you go.

00:40:47.000 --> 00:40:52.000
It gets one final feud in in his sixties and seventies. It's time for just one more feud.

00:40:52.000 --> 00:41:06.000
This is with John Flamsteed who is the astronomer royal. And has got a very nice place to do that and a load of instruments and Newton wants his data.

00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:20.000
He's trying to write a second edition of Principia and he's trying to deal with what astronomers call the 3 body problem which is where the earth and the moon and the sun are all interacting with each other which is very complicated maths.

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:32.000
And he needs the data. But, Flamsteed? Does not want to show anyone the data until he is absolutely perfect and complete.

00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:34.000
Which is, to be fair, the sort of thing that Newton would do, he wouldn't give out his data to it was perfect.

00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:42.000
In complete either but in this case Newton doesn't care about that just wants to know the things.

00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:49.000
And, FUNCTED is also fed up with being taken for granted. You know, he's doing all of this work and someone else always gets all the credit.

00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:55.000
And he, believes he's overworked and underpaid. He said, you know.

00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:04.000
I get the honour of all the pains to myself. But also if I make a mistake I shall have to answer for it but someone else will get the credit if I've done it right.

00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:13.000
So Flamsteed gives the absolute raw data to Neaton. Knowing that this will take Newton a lot of time to make any sense of.

00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:21.000
They write snarky letters to each other. Newton tries to withhold Money spent on the project.

00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:32.000
When Newton's president of the Royal Society, he tries to get the Royal Ordnance to take away Flamstead's instruments saying they need repair work.

00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:37.000
The Royal Ornament says, we haven't got any money to repair astronomical instruments, that's not our job.

00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:52.000
So that backfires. He talks the Queen into confiscating the entire observatory. Farm Steed at this point starts referring to Sir Isaac Newton as sin in all of his diaries.

00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:56.000
SIN

00:42:56.000 --> 00:43:03.000
Newton eventually grabs that star catalog, publishes a short book. Flamsteed complains bitterly.

00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:20.000
This has cost Newton not a single hour's labor or watching. Nor was he at one penny expense in the making of them, but besides my daily labour and watchings, when he was asleep in his warm bed it has cost me about 2,000 pounds out of my own pocket.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.000
He refuses to mention howie by name at all. Because FlavseED also has a problem with Halle because Halle is an atheist.

00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:41.000
See, none of these people get on it's it's real hotbed of things So this book that this short book that Newton produces.

00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:48.000
400 copies. Flamsteed is furious. Flamsteed goes to the Lord Chamberlain.

00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:58.000
And the 2 of them together managed to buy The 300 copies that have not yet been sold and, a, a, farm steed then.

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:07.000
Makes a huge fire, a huge big fire and burns a lot of them. 300 copies of the book that's using his own data.

00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:13.000
Newton goes to his own copy of Principia and takes out every reference to Flamsteed.

00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:21.000
So there's even less proof that anyone else other than himself was involved in this. That's Flamsteed and that's that's the Royal Observatory there by the way.

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:29.000
I'm flamboyant then flumsy dyes. His wife. Publishes his work after his death.

00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:37.000
The introduction to that work is a diatribe against Newton. So, you know, again.

00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:47.000
The feud keeps on going until the other man dies. And that's possibly what kept Newton going for so long because it certainly wasn't his, you know, healthy eating and sleeping habits or the breathing in of the mercury.

00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:55.000
So it is quite impressive given those things that he lives to be, that's some of the data that was he was working on.

00:44:55.000 --> 00:45:03.000
That he lives to be 84. And this is the last picture that he's made of him.

00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:20.000
So yeah, that is going through his entire life. From a sort of slightly odd angle of him as a human, the feuds and the peculiarities and yeah you can decide for yourself whether you'd actually fancy meeting the man.

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:26.000
Like I say, interesting, but I'm not sure I'd want to sit and have dinner with him.

00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:35.000
Thanks. For that, Joe. What a fascinating man, so much more to him than, you know, the character that we think, you know.

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:37.000
That's why I called it the man buying the apple.

00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:45.000
Yeah. Okay, so. Oh, we've got some questions coming in now. So.

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:46.000
Yeah, everybody's been very quiet. Obviously been listening to very carefully. And what Let me just start with one.

00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:51.000
Yes, I wasn't sure if there was nothing there. And Yes, because I'm, so quickly.

00:45:51.000 --> 00:46:03.000
If we're going right back to the start of the lecture when you were talking about some of the weird, slightly humidest things that Newton did as a teenager.

00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:08.000
Guy is saying a for runner to rule dial, question mark. Hmm.

00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:19.000
I would say not because Roald Dahl's things always have that air of whimsy, whereas I don't think Newton ever did anything that wasn't practical.

00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:25.000
I don't think he used a mouse because he thought it was interesting. I think he used a mouse because it was something he could get hold of.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:38.000
And use so I don't think there was any air of whimsy in that. It was I says, the mouse to him was no more or less important or interesting than any of them mechanical bits of his device at that point.

00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:43.000
I can't think of any evidence that he's particularly fond of animals for instance.

00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:45.000
There's there's rumors that he kept a cat. Largely because of a story which says that he invented the cat flap.

00:46:45.000 --> 00:47:11.000
This is, this is not true. But the it's actually a bad joke that some of his colleagues said about him was that oh yeah you know Newton needed a Needed his cats to get in now and he had a cat and a kitten so we built a big door and a small door

00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:16.000
And of course you wouldn't need the small one. Because the small cat could get through the big door.

00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:25.000
So it's, it's somebody laughing at Newton for, you know, he could work out the positions of the stars but he wouldn't be bright enough to realise that the kitten could go through the big capital.

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:35.000
People have read that story and taken from that that he might have had a cat. But I don't think there's any good evidence of that.

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:36.000
Not a

00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:43.000
Okay, I hope that answers your question guys. And another question here from Andrew. And did Newton publish his work based on alchemy?

00:47:43.000 --> 00:47:45.000
No, no, hardly anybody did. You did not publish on your alchemy. It was secret. You kept it in your notebooks.

00:47:45.000 --> 00:48:00.000
You shared it with the occasional. Colleague in the business. As I say, some some of it probably involved getting hold of chemicals that were illegal anyway.

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:08.000
Other bits of it were borderline heretical anyway. So no, you would not go publishing that.

00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:15.000
And as I said, there are notebooks. But we do not understand a lot of them.

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:25.000
Yeah, they're full of symbols and and talk about the rising of the dragon blood and everything is coded.

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:26.000
The.

00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:35.000
Okay. Another question from Madeleine. Good Newton have been, or could Newton have had autism.

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.000
So.

00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:45.000
Having done the history medicine, I'm always a bit loath to, retrospectively diagnosed people.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:56.000
I think it is it is plain that he was not neurotypical. I think if I had to PIN my money on some diagnosis, I think autism is the one that stands out as most likely.

00:48:56.000 --> 00:49:05.000
He certainly from what we know of him, he would take a lot of the right boxes. So we can never be sure.

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:16.000
But I think if we were trying to look for something which was a good fit. For his behaviour and looked at in our terms, I think autism would be the best bet, yes.

00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:23.000
Hmm. Okay, I hope that answers your question, Marilyn. Now, here's another question from Ismay.

00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:25.000
This is a good one. How on earth did you get acceptance by university when his school record was so poor?

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:35.000
Where places bought or given on the back of who won you.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:48.000
Oh, a bit of bit of both, bit of both. The schoolmaster at Grantham was a former Cambridge man himself and probably knew the right people to talk to.

00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:59.000
I'm not aware of money exchange hands but generally yes you would be paying for for your time there, regardless there are no university.

00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:16.000
Grants given at this point unless you're very very exceptional and very very poor. So yes, partly I think they would take in anyone who had the money and the That's the way I'm looking for sort of came from the right sort of background.

00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:22.000
And had had at least some grammar school education and partly I suspect his schoolmaster. Who clearly believed in him having persuaded his mother to bring him back for more education.

00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:37.000
In spite of the fact that he'd rather be doing these other things than his lessons. I think he probably put a good word in because he was a Cambridge man himself.

00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:44.000
Why he suggested go and do maths and philosophy. I think possibly they didn't have a choice at that point.

00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:49.000
The subjects that you studied, you had to do a bit of those and then maybe a bit of something else.

00:50:49.000 --> 00:51:02.000
Hmm. Okay, well there you go, And another question from Sue, I guess is more of a point of clarification.

00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:03.000
Yeah.

00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:07.000
You talked about, Newton being religious. So just clarifies Protestant nonconformists.

00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:08.000
Who was yeah?

00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:19.000
Well, he wasn't, he wasn't part of Any of the nonconformist churches and indeed his the direction of his own sort of personal nonconformity was not in the same direction.

00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:32.000
He never left the Church of England which he had been raised in but if anyone had ever pinned him down and said, you know, do you absolutely swear to every single thing that the Church of England believes in.

00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:40.000
He would have struggled because he didn't. And that's why he wriggled out of actually having to be a churchman.

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:45.000
Because he didn't want to have to or couldn't make that lie work. So he is.

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:55.000
Broadly Church of England but very much on the fringe of Church of England in one particular direction which as I say makes him a non Trinitarian A.

00:51:55.000 --> 00:52:07.000
And he wasn't the only one at that point the intellectual circles were definitely more full of more radical thinkers and people who were coming up with their own interpretations.

00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:21.000
So at the Royal Society he would have been rubbing shoulders with agnostics and atheists and nonconformists and all sorts.

00:52:21.000 --> 00:52:26.000
People who put more faith in their mysticism and the cabala than they did in their church.

00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:42.000
You did at this point have to be a member of a proper church. And if you were not a member of certain things, then certain positions would not have been open to you, for instance, if he had been a Catholic, he would not have been able to hold the positions that he had.

00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:54.000
Because you had to swear roads that you weren't a Catholic to get things like a professorship but yes his own And he writes about it a lot, but it's all in private.

00:52:54.000 --> 00:53:02.000
Lots and lots of letters. He actually writes more on if you combine his works on alchemy and religion and mysticism.

00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:13.000
You write a lot more on that than he ever does on science. So he writes about his own perspective on God in great detail, but he never publishes that because that would just get him into trouble.

00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:24.000
Hmm. Okay. There we go, Sue and I hope that answers that for you. Question from Medi.

00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:28.000
Did not Newton actually steal some of Hooke's work?

00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:32.000
If you asked Newton, it'd say you didn't, if you asked her if you'd say you did.

00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:37.000
As I say, it's all down to this Newton would figure things out, then sit on them.

00:53:37.000 --> 00:53:42.000
Meanwhile, someone else would figure them out and then he would, you know, say, oh no, I came up with that first.

00:53:42.000 --> 00:53:53.000
Like the thing about the gravitational effect as I said the hook said oh no I already know I already have that proof But when Wren said, well prove it then.

00:53:53.000 --> 00:54:01.000
It was Halle going to Newton that brought the information back first. So, Hat Hook already done that work already?

00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:18.000
Depends who you ask. I suspect probably yes. I says I don't think Newton was Averse to taking bits of other people's ideas and just he said that oh you you might have inspired me a little but that's as far as it goes.

00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:27.000
But his idea of what constitutes inspiration there. Might have looked like plagiarism from the other end.

00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:30.000
If you see what I mean.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:37.000
Hmm, interesting. And then, a question from, David, you were just talking about good appetite there. Did I?

00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:44.000
Just like, and discover gravity.

00:54:44.000 --> 00:55:04.000
Other people had previously come up with something similar. Other people had previously realized that the, you know, Well, you drop something it falls and Yeah, there were other people who had worked on some of the broader aspects of it.

00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:15.000
Newton comes up with I think I could be wrong the idea that the Earth also moves towards the apple and that everything is affected by the gravity.

00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:36.000
I think. And he certainly codifies it into maths more successfully than anybody had previously. But it's not completely new, it's just Isaac Newton is very good at kind of taking ideas which almost exist in the intellectual scene around him and pinning them down properly and adding in the maths.

00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:42.000
So discover is a, is a tricky word, but. Sort of?

00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:51.000
Okay, thank you. And I've got another couple of questions here. I'm going to kind of put these 2 together actually.

00:55:51.000 --> 00:55:57.000
Firstly from Madeline what sort of people would have bought his publications And from Sue, how did these various people know each other's findings?

00:55:57.000 --> 00:56:06.000
Was it through publications? Was it through lectures? How did they actually, you know?

00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:15.000
Well, within England, more or less anyone who was anyone was either in the Royal Society or within scientific fields was either in the Royal Society or would know people who were.

00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:28.000
And Some people might have to travel down from Edinburgh now and then because that's the next biggest, intellectual center in that way or from Oxford or Cambridge.

00:56:28.000 --> 00:56:44.000
But yeah, they they would all be in the know. Now the Royal Society met very regularly. I can't remember if it's monthly or bi-monthly, but it is really quite regularly and on the back of that they publish a proceedings.

00:56:44.000 --> 00:56:52.000
And the proceedings is sent out to members. The entire proceedings going right back to volume one by the way is all available online.

00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:59.000
And so you can go and read their earliest experiments and the earliest things that they are talking about and it's really quite fascinating.

00:56:59.000 --> 00:57:07.000
Back to the back to 1,660. When it begins. So yes, they would also do lectures.

00:57:07.000 --> 00:57:10.000
They're not often bothering with public lectures because they're generally of the opinion that the public won't really understand anyway.

00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:27.000
But they will invite selected other people in. So for instance the first woman to experience the Royal Society is Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle who has written several science books of her own.

00:57:27.000 --> 00:57:42.000
But they are all very patronising and snooty towards her. We have a description from peeps and another description from someone else but both of which are sort of oh she was wearing a lovely dress and she seemed to smile and nod a lot which is absolutely doing the woman a disservice.

00:57:42.000 --> 00:57:49.000
She's very clever. But yes, occasionally they would invite somebody in, but generally it is all amongst themselves.

00:57:49.000 --> 00:58:07.000
As the book sails, that would be, well, as I say, only 400 copies were made of one of the books anyway, so it's not a big upset they're going to each other they're going to the university colleges and of course they going to universities around Europe as well.

00:58:07.000 --> 00:58:18.000
Leibniz isn't British. There are a lot of people working in physics in Europe and probably one or 2 in America, not sure, and probably one or 2 in America, not sure.

00:58:18.000 --> 00:58:29.000
Certainly not as many, but yeah, across. North West Europe. There are other centres in Holland and in Denmark and in Germany.

00:58:29.000 --> 00:58:45.000
With top notch physicists in them. And all of these things are also being distributed over there and of course they're all writing in Latin so It's all understandable by everybody Principia is in Latin.

00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:51.000
Fabulous. Okay, well, I think that is probably us. It's just gone 6 0'clock.

00:58:51.000 --> 00:58:55.000
So thanks for all your questions and Jo, thanks very much for a really, really interesting journey through the life of Isaac Newton.