Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hello, history fans. I'm Eris James. I'm Tom Crane. And I'm Chris Scull. And we're the hosts of Oh, What a Time, the history podcast which tries to answer the question, was the past as horrific as it seems? Each week, we tackle a brand new subject from life in Nelson's Navy to death in ancient Rome, from maniacal monarchs to Soviet spies to the history of milk.
Yes, this is Oh What A Time, the podcast the Times newspaper described as very funny, if less scholarly than its rivals. Probably fair. And we've got a real treat for you right now. You're going to hear one of our favourite episodes. It's Life At Sea. Yes, today I'm going to be talking about life on a Viking longboat. Pretty tough, to be honest. I'm going to be talking about the history of Welsh pirates. West Walian pirates were world-class pirates, but it's hundreds of years ago, so we can have a laugh at that.
And no Life at Sea episode would be complete without Mr. Christian, sir! A mutiny on the bounty, so I'll be taking you back there just to see how bad it got. That's Oh What a Time, available every Monday and Tuesday on Wondery, with two bonus episodes every month on Wondery+. Here comes a Life at Sea. Enjoy! At this height, 130 feet up, in a wind blowing 70 miles an hour, the noise was an unearthly scream.
"'The high whistle of the wind through the halyards "'and, above all, the pale blue, illimitable sky, cold and serene, "'made me deeply afraid and conscious of my insignificance. "'As time passed, the ship possessed us completely. "'Our lives were given over to it. "'A hundred times a day, each one of us looked aloft "'at the towering pyramids of canvas, "'the beautiful deep curves of the leeches of the sails "'and the straining sheets of the great courses.'
"'listened to the deep hum of the wind up the height of the rigging, "'the thud and judder of the steering gear as the ship surged along, "'heard the helmsman striking the bells, "'signalling a change of watch or a mealtime, "'establishing a routine so strong that the outside world seemed unreal.'
Yes, this week we're talking about life at sea. And I'd like to begin with, you know that expression, worst things happen at sea? I actually think that is the most accurate expression ever said. At no point, if that was my day, would I not be thinking I've made a terrible mistake. LAUGHTER
I should have gone into data entry. A nice, really safe office job. Yeah, absolutely. You know what? Dolly Parton sang 9 to 5. And I'm almost bemoaning it. What a luxurious existence compared to a life at sea. I think the sea is possibly the most overrated destination on earth. Whenever I'm on holiday and there's a choice between beach or pool, I never pick beach.
When you get close to the sea and the seaweed and the stench, and then you get out there and there's jellyfish. I can't... I hate the sea. I love looking at the sea, but I also have an unbelievable fear of the sea. Now, there's a couple of things sort of ground me in this. First of all, my grandfather, who was the captain of the Merchant Navy in World War II, was torpedoed in World War II and went down. He died in...
Bit of confusion in primary school in that I used to go around telling everyone he'd been harpooned. Quite a different story. My mum was always having to correct me. I was like, no, no, no. So today's episode, we're talking about this, a life at sea. That's what we're talking about. It feels early doors, like we might not be the people that are best suited to this. But I think we are, because of my hatred for the sea, I've always been fascinated by terrible stories of stuff that happened at sea. Yeah. And I've always...
I once went on... I got the ferry to Santander once on a holiday, and it was really rainy on the deck, and I was running around chasing my brother, and I slipped, and I just... And I hit the edge of the boat. Like, I was never close to going overboard. But in that moment, like, it really struck me. That was 300 years ago, and I went overboard. You've got no chance. Of course. Absolutely zero chance of pulling through that. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'd land in the sea, and you'd think to yourself...
Someone needs to invent the course guard now. It'd be annoying that you came up with the idea as you hit the go. Why did I come up with this earlier? As a matter of urgency, someone needs to invent the thing I've just imagined. But also the other astonishing thing is that a lot of the time they didn't bother to go back and try and save you. Really? No, that... I've got a real issue with that.
I would be lying there, standing in the water, floating as best as I could, treading water as best as I could, just thinking to myself, this shows a lack of empathy. If everyone on that boat over there, currently sailing away from me, could put themselves in my position, I would really, really appreciate that. Because, I've got to be honest...
I'm frightened now and I'm cold. And I can only see the situation getting worse. Also, like, it's a bit like being sucked out into outer space. But the benefit there is you die instantly, like your head explodes, whatever. In the sea, you've got the ability to keep yourself... Can we fight shitless? Yeah.
Just the head. The helmet stops working when you're stuck. I haven't researched what happens in outer space. But in the sea, you've got the ability to keep yourself alive for potentially days. There's food swimming around you for a start. Yeah, delicious cod. Some delicious cod, Lord's costume, and then some delicious batter, and then a delicious fryer, and then a delicious plate, knife and fork.
Salt, vinegar and kettamale ketchup. We're looking at life at sea this week. So I thought I'd choose pirates and piracy because there's a slightly odd quirk about piracy in that a lot of very world-class pirates happen to be from very near where I grew up.
Yeah, Wales is very good at producing world-class wingers, you write gigs, you're Gareth Bales, and pirates. So three of the characters from Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island were based on the Welsh pirates, Harry Morgan, who grew up in Llandrymni, Black Bart, Barty Lee, as he was known in Welsh,
John Roberts was from Pembrokeshire and Hoel Davies was also from Fishgard which is also in Pembrokeshire. Do the films Pirates of the Caribbean sort of bite a little bit? Should it be Pirates of Pembrokeshire or Newport? I think there's room for Welsh actors in Pirates of the Caribbean. It annoys me that they went for the big Hollywood names. So the golden age of piracy is the 1650s to 1730s
And yeah, we produced an awful lot of top pirates. And the interesting thing, I think, with pirates is that they came from all sections of society. So you might be a landowner's son, but if you weren't the first born and you didn't inherit your old man's fortune, or if you were a farmhand, you just thought, well, it's probably better to be a pirate than to do this. This is rubbish.
So, what I'm really interested in is a guy called John Roberts, Bartholomew Roberts, known as Barty the Black Bart. And, I mean, he was a world-class pirate who stole a lot of ships and stole a lot of stuff. But he's quite a curious bloke because he only drank tea. He was an abstainer.
he was a sabbatarian so he didn't like stuff to happen on a Sunday it's the weird thing I was just thinking about pirates is like having rules because by your very essence you are lawless there should be no rules so to create rules
He allowed no women aboard his ships. Any man who brought a woman on board disguised as a man, that was punishable by death. He allowed no gambling. He was a pirate who didn't like gambling, so he wouldn't allow to gamble at cards or at dice. Right. That couldn't be played for money. He strongly disapproved of that. He had musicians on board, and they were... So every pirate on his ship had the right to demand a tune at any hour of the day. It's like early Spotify. Yeah.
Apart from Sundays, when Spotify was turned off. That's probably more like Napster if it's pirating it. Yeah. Very nice. So... So you could just go up to them and say, I want to hear, what would it be? Yeah, Murder on the Dance Floor by George Wallace Baxter. Get lucky by Daft Punk. Yeah, yeah. And then they would have to get the violins up and approximate it as best as they could. Yeah.
And he really looked the part as well when he was dressed for action. So he was tall, very dark, used to wear a rich damask waistcoat and breeches, a red feather in his cap, a gold chain around his neck with a large diamond cross dangling from it, a sword in his hand, and he had two pairs of pistols hanging at the end of a silk sling that was flung over his shoulder. He kind of looked like a cartoon pirate. But he was a Welsh bloke who used to run chapel services on a Sunday evening.
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