Latest / Ridiculous History / Knocker-Uppers: The Human Alarm Clocks of the Industrial Age

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Knocker-Uppers: The Human Alarm Clocks of the Industrial Age · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always for
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Speaker 1: tuning in. Uh. Maybe a good way to start today's
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Speaker 1: show is with a question. Uh, my name's Ben, and
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Speaker 1: I'd like to know what's one of the weirdest jobs
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Speaker 1: you've ever had? Uh? My name is No. I don't
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Speaker 1: have really a weird, super weird job. I ward your
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Speaker 1: burger king once. That was kind of weird. Um, No,
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Speaker 1: how about you, Ben, You had some weird ones, I believe, Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I did. Uh. I've tried to think because they seemed
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Speaker 1: they seem sort of normal At the time. I had
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Speaker 1: a lot of strange writing gig. I got hired to
1:02
Speaker 1: write horoscopes one time because I told the editor that
1:06
Speaker 1: I didn't believe in horoscopes because I wanted to features.
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Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah, but but but you know, freelance,
1:15
Speaker 1: the world of freelance work, uh, in in any kind
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Speaker 1: of gig economy always seems to lead to some pretty
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Speaker 1: surreal stuff like this is something you might know as well.
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Speaker 1: Super producer Casey Pegram, I'm racking my brain for weird jobs.
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Speaker 1: My weird jobs were just like fixing the computer of
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Speaker 1: the old eccentric man up. And it was pretty pretty
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Speaker 1: mild and the grand scheme of things, you know, I
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Speaker 1: on those on on that tip, Casey, I did once
1:43
Speaker 1: have to go to the actor Kevin Pollock's house to
1:46
Speaker 1: teach him how to use dropbox. There you remember that
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Speaker 1: was maybe it was delightful. He got his bagels um
1:54
Speaker 1: and was a really lovely dude. But that was definitely
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Speaker 1: one of the weirdest one off little Okay, you're gonna
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Speaker 1: go to Kevin alex housand, you're gonna teach them how
2:01
Speaker 1: to use drop box. And these experiences are fun stories.
2:06
Speaker 1: They're kind of a currency of conversation we can exchange
2:09
Speaker 1: with each other later. Uh. It's something that a lot
2:12
Speaker 1: of people are probably encountering now because the pandemic has
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Speaker 1: thrown everything for a loop and people are looking for
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Speaker 1: new lines of employment or new streams of income, even
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Speaker 1: if they already have a job or two. But we
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Speaker 1: wanted to take a look at another very strange job.
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Speaker 1: Today's episode is about that time that human beings were
2:39
Speaker 1: alarm clocks in the UK, and Casey, you know, uh,
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Speaker 1: we we know that you boycotted the previous two episodes.
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Speaker 1: We did part of it. What was it nold was?
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Speaker 1: Was were they just too British? Was that it? Oh? Gosh, Ben,
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Speaker 1: I can't keep track of all of Casey's particularities when
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Speaker 1: it comes to things that he will not cover our
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Speaker 1: touch with a ten foot poll. So it's hard to
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Speaker 1: it's hard to keep trying. But it was definitely something
3:06
Speaker 1: to do with them being British. I think it has
3:08
Speaker 1: to be. If you guys have to ask, you'll never
3:10
Speaker 1: know exactly. Casey on the case bringing down the hammer
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Speaker 1: of justice, on on the ridiculous historians at this at
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Speaker 1: this early morning session, Casey on the Cold Case. Geez, well,
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Speaker 1: to make it up to you, Casey, we have unapologetically
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Speaker 1: doubled down on things that we consider both weird and British.
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Speaker 1: That's how we do. That's I respect it. So pickture
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Speaker 1: this null uh the industrial era, right, it booms, but
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Speaker 1: even industrial revolution, yes, much better phrasing. Uh it booms, uh,
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Speaker 1: but it booms kind of before alarm clocks, right, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean alarm clocks were a thing, but it would
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Speaker 1: have been considered like a luxury item. Um and maybe
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Speaker 1: I don't know, there might have even been like distrust
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Speaker 1: in the technology, which is sort of hilarious to say,
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Speaker 1: and to think about the idea of an alarm clock
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Speaker 1: as being technology, but that there there it was, and
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Speaker 1: you know, either a combination of of people not trusting
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Speaker 1: them to go off properly or people not being able
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Speaker 1: to afford them, and this new kind of ushering in
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Speaker 1: of shift work. You know, it used to be like
4:25
Speaker 1: there were no labor laws and people would just work
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Speaker 1: from sun up to sundown. And now there was a
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Speaker 1: little bit more of oversight of that, you know, with
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Speaker 1: the coming of the industrial revolution, um, and you know,
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Speaker 1: the idea of some semblance of workers rights and you know,
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Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's a bit of a joke when
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Speaker 1: you really dig into it. We're gonna get into some
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Speaker 1: of that here too, but yeah, so they'd be like
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Speaker 1: the morning shift or the night shift and what have you.
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Speaker 1: And furthermore, and so people were getting up at different times.
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Speaker 1: It was no longer like a when the cock crowed situation.
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Speaker 1: Everyone got up, and especially of course in cities and
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Speaker 1: industrial you know, parts of of of London' this is
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Speaker 1: what we're talking about in today's episode. So they had
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Speaker 1: to have like a kind of an elegant solution, or
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Speaker 1: at least like a sort of a blunt instrument solution
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Speaker 1: that involved um introducing human beings into the place of
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Speaker 1: what an alarm clock would do for us today. And
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Speaker 1: this is an interesting term because this has got a
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Speaker 1: much different connotation of American slang. The idea of knocking
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Speaker 1: someone up in American parlance is much much different than
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Speaker 1: the idea of knocking someone up in this Industrial Revolution
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Speaker 1: era England. We think of it. Of course, it's kind
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Speaker 1: of a crass way of talking about getting somebody pregnant. Uh.
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Speaker 1: In this context, a knocker upper was just as as
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Speaker 1: you said, Ben, a human alarm clock that was hired
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Speaker 1: for a meager wage to go around and knock up uh,
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Speaker 1: sometimes more than a hundred people in a morning, to
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Speaker 1: make sure that they made it to the factory on time. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's right, because the rules had changed. The agricultural lifestyle
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Speaker 1: that very closely follows the sun as a measure of
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Speaker 1: time didn't apply to factories where work on something any
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Speaker 1: manufacturing interest, began on the dot and your mining shift,
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Speaker 1: to your point, began on the dot. There was no
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Speaker 1: such thing as show up at six ish. In fact,
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Speaker 1: some of the more unscrupulous factory owners would close there
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Speaker 1: where they would open it like six am. They would
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Speaker 1: close at six oh one and they would lock the
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Speaker 1: doors until six thirty and then they would let the
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Speaker 1: other people, the other employees in after making sure their
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Speaker 1: pay was docked. And they already weren't making much money,
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Speaker 1: so it became extremely important to get up on time,
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Speaker 1: notably before the sun rose for a lot of a
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Speaker 1: lot of these folks. And like you said, alarm clocks existed,
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Speaker 1: but not only were they expensive, they were also pretty unreliable,
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Speaker 1: right you, and you would lose your job if you're
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Speaker 1: if you like, imagine saving for years to buy an
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Speaker 1: alarm clock and then the alarm clock doesn't work and
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Speaker 1: you have lost your job. That's where these knocker uppers
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Speaker 1: come in. They were in Ireland, they were in Britain. Uh.
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Speaker 1: They would go from door to door or window to window,
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Speaker 1: as you said, sometimes hundreds of times each morning, and
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Speaker 1: they would use like this bamboo rod or they would
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Speaker 1: they would literally kind of like blow dart peas at
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Speaker 1: the windows. So like a that's that's that's the best one.
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Speaker 1: That's the most innovative solution, and and really quickly to
7:34
Speaker 1: like the things that you're describing, Ben, we work sort
7:37
Speaker 1: of the the next gen of this, uh, this this
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Speaker 1: knocker upper kind of gear. Initially they would just bang
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Speaker 1: on people's doors, pissed off literally everybody else in the house.
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Speaker 1: Or if it was a you know, a group living situation,
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Speaker 1: you would wake everybody up for that one or two
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Speaker 1: people that needed to get up at you know, the
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Speaker 1: crack of dawn to make it to their six am
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Speaker 1: shift really quickly. I wanted just backtrack, and I I
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Speaker 1: said something a little bit stupid at the top of
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Speaker 1: the show. The idea of labor laws during the beginning
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Speaker 1: of the Industrial Revolution, that obviously didn't become a thing
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Speaker 1: until later in the Industrial Revolution when it was basically
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Speaker 1: demanded because working conditions were so abhorrent and there was
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Speaker 1: there were no child labor laws, and children were working
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Speaker 1: in factories and looms and you know, subjected to horrible
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Speaker 1: conditions and very dangerous conditions. And so it wasn't until
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Speaker 1: labor unions began to form a bit later in the
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Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution that labor laws became much more codified. But
8:31
Speaker 1: at the same time still the idea of shift work
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Speaker 1: was in and of itself kind of an interesting advancement,
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Speaker 1: at least theoretically in like the way people you know
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Speaker 1: worked and the idea of like punching in a time
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Speaker 1: clock and all that stuff that was all pretty new. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and then you know, you may be thinking about households
8:50
Speaker 1: where there are multiple people with multiple jobs. Remember, a
8:55
Speaker 1: lot of those folks are already working or they themselves
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Speaker 1: are sleeping in prep ration for whenever their shift is
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Speaker 1: in the factory, so they don't have someone in the
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Speaker 1: house to wake them up. A lot of these folks
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Speaker 1: when they started out, we're already older people who may
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Speaker 1: have left the workforce proper. And like you had mentioned
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Speaker 1: the first iteration of these folks, they would bang on
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Speaker 1: the door and they often would not leave until they
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Speaker 1: were sure the person they were trying to wake up
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Speaker 1: was awake. Now, I don't know if you guys have
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Speaker 1: any hard sleepers in your family or your friends circle.
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Speaker 1: Do you know it can be a struggle if like,
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Speaker 1: if someone is a hard sleeper, even if they have
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Speaker 1: sworn up and down to you that they will do
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Speaker 1: their best to wake up when you wake them up. Uh,
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Speaker 1: you know that you become enemy number one when you
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Speaker 1: do that. Hey, hey, it's eight thirty. That's that's actually
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Speaker 1: a really good way of I love the gentleness of
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Speaker 1: your wake up routine there, Ben, because with my daughter,
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Speaker 1: if I don't do it in the sweetest, gentlest way,
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Speaker 1: she is an absolute nightmare. Like I have to just
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Speaker 1: be like, hey, honey, time to get up. Wonderful day.
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Speaker 1: I love you so much. Here's a little back scratch,
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Speaker 1: you know. But sometimes I'm just not in the mood
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Speaker 1: and she's just not like cooperating, almost like okay, homie,
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Speaker 1: it's time to get up. You got school in thirty minutes.
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Speaker 1: Do it, and then she hates me for the rest
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Speaker 1: of the day. But we were talking about this off Mike,
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Speaker 1: Ben and Casey. I'm interested in in what your thoughts
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Speaker 1: are here. Obviously, when you're the person responsible the key
10:30
Speaker 1: word being responsible for waking somebody up, that's a lot
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Speaker 1: of commitment there. I mean, you are essentially signing a
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Speaker 1: contract with that person saying I will make sure you
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Speaker 1: are awake. But what happens if they failed? Do you
10:43
Speaker 1: think they just didn't get paid? I mean, we like
10:45
Speaker 1: it seems like an awful lot of pressure. Uh. If
10:48
Speaker 1: someone is like gonna, you know, say yeah, yeah, I'm
10:50
Speaker 1: up and they go back to sleep. Could they like
10:52
Speaker 1: then turn around and say the knock her up or
10:54
Speaker 1: didn't knock me up properly? You know, like, how's that work? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: doo doo doo doo doo, that's pressure, or you know,
11:01
Speaker 1: like you've read my life smiss mcshaughnessy, I never work
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Speaker 1: at the complement at the pepper factory again exactly. But then,
11:11
Speaker 1: but at the same time, they you know, to make
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Speaker 1: any money at all, doing this required a lot of volume.
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Speaker 1: So it's not only they could just hang around and
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Speaker 1: make sure old Mrs O'Grady or I guess not old
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Speaker 1: Mrs Igretty, young Mrs Ogrady was getting up in time
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Speaker 1: to go to her job at the at the shoe factory,
11:29
Speaker 1: like because they would have to, like, you know, they
11:31
Speaker 1: had a narrow window get all this done. I can't
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Speaker 1: imagine how they would have done a hundred you know,
11:36
Speaker 1: they must have started like really really early, look at
11:38
Speaker 1: three or four in the morning, right, Yeah, they probably
11:40
Speaker 1: started really early, and they probably started in densely populating neighborhoods.
11:51
Speaker 1: It's strange the demographic of knocker uppers includes you know,
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Speaker 1: many as we said, uh more elderly women and men,
12:00
Speaker 1: but also members of law enforcement because they were they
12:05
Speaker 1: were already patrolling the streets, so why not make a
12:08
Speaker 1: couple extra pence? Right? This trend took off, by the way,
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Speaker 1: this was an exploding industry and it even started affecting
12:17
Speaker 1: other industries in surprising ways. Gave our research group found
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Speaker 1: the story I thought was really interesting about a moonlighting
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Speaker 1: member of the police who started screwing up his day
12:32
Speaker 1: job in the worst possible way because he was he
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Speaker 1: was busy knocking people up and beamed from the US.
12:41
Speaker 1: I'm always going to find that phrase hilarious, but it's
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Speaker 1: it's gonna get some giggles out of me on that
12:45
Speaker 1: one too. Yeah, I mean in a pretty spectacular way. Right.
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Speaker 1: Another big hallmark of kind of that, you know, really grimy, seedy,
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Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution era London was the story of Jack the
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Speaker 1: Ripper and all of these grizzly murders that were plaguing
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Speaker 1: East London. Um. And if I'm not mistaken, Robert Paul,
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Speaker 1: who was the man who discovered Jack the Ripper's first victim,
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Speaker 1: a woman Mary Nichols, Right, Um, he tells the tale
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Speaker 1: about how he actually reported the crime to a policeman
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Speaker 1: but the policeman was so busy doing his like pre
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Speaker 1: dawn knocking up duties that he didn't really act and
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Speaker 1: he maybe could have caught the killer if he had
13:35
Speaker 1: been a little more quick on the draw, but he
13:37
Speaker 1: was so busy doing his knocking up that he kind
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Speaker 1: of goofed, right, man, Yeah, yeah, like imagine, so we
13:42
Speaker 1: take we know that moonlighting is a thing. I was
13:45
Speaker 1: trying to think of a modern example of this. What
13:47
Speaker 1: if you were in the position of Robert Paul and
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Speaker 1: you find a horrifically mutilated corpse and then you run
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Speaker 1: to the nearest human act video you can find, and
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Speaker 1: it's like road construction and there's a moonlighting police officer
14:06
Speaker 1: as a crossing guard or supervising the construction, or they
14:09
Speaker 1: could be, uh, moonlighting as security at a restaurant or
14:13
Speaker 1: a bar. And you tell them I found this mutilated
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Speaker 1: body and they say, I'm busy, that's what happened, and
14:22
Speaker 1: that's that's terrible. But that just shows you how prevalent
14:26
Speaker 1: this was. This was a real job. And you're right,
14:30
Speaker 1: I did get a little ahead of us when I
14:32
Speaker 1: was talking about the glory days of knocker uppers, because yeah,
14:37
Speaker 1: originally it was someone who would come in and just
14:39
Speaker 1: like bang on your door, Get up, get up, get up.
14:43
Speaker 1: You have to go to the um. Yeah, you have
14:45
Speaker 1: to go to peruke factory, the perukatori um ben I.
14:49
Speaker 1: I would never wear a mass produced peruke, my friend.
14:52
Speaker 1: It's a handmaid only for me, right right, Well, they
14:55
Speaker 1: all become unique once you grow your own ecosystem of
14:58
Speaker 1: life fature. So when they had to move volume, uh,
15:03
Speaker 1: they had to wake people up as quickly as possible. Right.
15:05
Speaker 1: They couldn't wait around for everyone, and they also couldn't
15:08
Speaker 1: go into a house, climb up to the second or
15:10
Speaker 1: third story and knock on that door. Right, So how
15:13
Speaker 1: how did they navigate this? Yeah, I mean that there
15:16
Speaker 1: was this this These folks had to be pretty enterprising
15:19
Speaker 1: because it was literally a profession that kind of sprang
15:22
Speaker 1: up overnight more or less, um because the need was
15:25
Speaker 1: there and it hadn't been before. And you're right, then
15:27
Speaker 1: it started off a little more rudimentary, uh, with just
15:30
Speaker 1: the banging, and that woke everybody in the house up,
15:33
Speaker 1: et cetera. So they had to be able to be
15:34
Speaker 1: a little more selective with their banging. Selective banging, uh,
15:38
Speaker 1: and they would take these bamboo rods that had little
15:40
Speaker 1: kind of scraper finger type things on the end, and
15:43
Speaker 1: they would gently wrap tap tap on the exact window
15:46
Speaker 1: of the bedroom of the person that they were trying
15:48
Speaker 1: to knock up. UM. And that required some you know,
15:52
Speaker 1: some knowledge, like because if they were getting a lot
15:54
Speaker 1: of these in, they had to know which window belonged
15:56
Speaker 1: to whom and who was actually paying them, uh, in
15:59
Speaker 1: order to collect they're there sixpence a week I believe
16:02
Speaker 1: is roughly what the going rate was for a knocker upper. UM.
16:06
Speaker 1: There was there were a couple of different UH. I
16:09
Speaker 1: guess you could say evolutions of this, like if there
16:13
Speaker 1: was a version of it that had a little rubber
16:15
Speaker 1: cap attached to the end of the bamboo pole, so
16:17
Speaker 1: would muffle the sounds, so only the person directly near
16:21
Speaker 1: the window it would technically be able to hear it,
16:23
Speaker 1: and they would I've heard some reports saying they would
16:28
Speaker 1: wait until the person would come to the window, not
16:30
Speaker 1: just not just they would need some confirmation otherwise again
16:33
Speaker 1: they might not get paid if the person claimed that
16:36
Speaker 1: they didn't hear it or it didn't happen, then they
16:38
Speaker 1: might not get paid. They wanted some confirmation because This
16:40
Speaker 1: was absolutely a transactional situation. They didn't want anybody to
16:44
Speaker 1: get woken up for free, after all, right, right, that's
16:46
Speaker 1: why they had to stop banging, because look, it's like
16:49
Speaker 1: stealing your neighbor's cable, right if you're waking up when
16:52
Speaker 1: your neighbor is roused by the knocking service they've paid for.
16:56
Speaker 1: So they got the little rubber caps. Typically there would
16:59
Speaker 1: be something like you described, like a bamboo or other
17:02
Speaker 1: lightweight wooden stick, kind of think of a fishing rod.
17:06
Speaker 1: But then people also use these soft hammers or rattles.
17:10
Speaker 1: I love who doesn't love a Morocca in the pre
17:13
Speaker 1: dawn morning, you know what I mean? And then uh,
17:18
Speaker 1: and then let's see they were also snuffer outers. Those
17:21
Speaker 1: were the things that people used to put out gas
17:24
Speaker 1: lamps when when dawn came, they would extinguish the gas
17:28
Speaker 1: lamps by hand. So if that's already your job, why
17:31
Speaker 1: not make a couple of extra pence by knocking that
17:33
Speaker 1: bad boy on a window. And then we we come
17:37
Speaker 1: to I think the coolest part, right can we just
17:40
Speaker 1: we can't just say her name and introduce Mary Anne Smith,
17:43
Speaker 1: the famous London East End pea shooter, which is Oh,
17:48
Speaker 1: you make it sound like she was like some sort
17:50
Speaker 1: of like serial killer, just a really obnoxious person, like
17:55
Speaker 1: like notoriously obnoxious. You would just pelt you with peace
17:58
Speaker 1: from a distance. You never actually killed anybody, but she
18:00
Speaker 1: just you know, it was a serial nuisance. No, she
18:03
Speaker 1: was actually very effective in her job because she, like
18:07
Speaker 1: we alluded to earlier in the show, um, kind of
18:10
Speaker 1: took this to the next level by making sort of
18:14
Speaker 1: like a almost like a flute or really just like
18:17
Speaker 1: a kind of like a hollowed out kind of tube situation. UM.
18:20
Speaker 1: And she would load it up with literally little ps
18:23
Speaker 1: um and she could be very efficient and required a
18:27
Speaker 1: lot of aim uh and a lot of lung power
18:30
Speaker 1: to keep this up. But it's definitely one of the
18:31
Speaker 1: more innovative examples of of knocking up that we've come across.
18:35
Speaker 1: There are a few, uh, really interesting photos of knocker
18:39
Speaker 1: uppers that have kind of stood the test of history,
18:41
Speaker 1: and you can catch some of these on Vintage News
18:44
Speaker 1: Daily if you search for before there were alarm clocks,
18:47
Speaker 1: knocker ups were paid to wake up their clients by
18:50
Speaker 1: knocking um. And there's a picture of of this woman
18:53
Speaker 1: with her p shooter and it's a delightful image. Uh.
18:56
Speaker 1: Definitely would have required a lot more precision than than
18:59
Speaker 1: just an old like you know, bamboo rod I got.
19:01
Speaker 1: You gotta appreciate the flex there, m hm. And they
19:04
Speaker 1: become a piece of popular culture. There's a children's book
19:07
Speaker 1: about Mary Ann Smith called Mary Smith and It's The
19:11
Speaker 1: plot is essentially her walking around waking up the town everybody,
19:16
Speaker 1: from the guys who self fish in the market to
19:19
Speaker 1: the mayor. Uh. And she is offering people a cup
19:23
Speaker 1: of tea as well, which is a nice touch, but
19:25
Speaker 1: it's it's a children's book. Your description, noal of someone
19:30
Speaker 1: being an obnoxious like serial criminal reminds me of the
19:36
Speaker 1: story of the not one, but two whipping Tom's that
19:41
Speaker 1: were in England in the sixteen hundreds and then later
19:44
Speaker 1: in the seventeen hundreds. The first one was active in
19:49
Speaker 1: Fleet Street, the Strand and Holburn. This is silly now,
19:52
Speaker 1: but I'm sure it was very frightening and unpleasant experience
19:55
Speaker 1: for many people. He would wait until he saw an
19:58
Speaker 1: unaccompanied woman and then he would like grab her uh
20:02
Speaker 1: and then slap her on the butt and then run
20:05
Speaker 1: away yelling spanko, spanko, sp a and ko that was
20:11
Speaker 1: his whole thing. He had a catchphrase, he had a
20:14
Speaker 1: catch phrase, and he was a serious threat. I think
20:17
Speaker 1: nowadays they would probably call that sexual assault, right, Yeah, yeah,
20:21
Speaker 1: I think so. I think so that's that's rough. That's
20:25
Speaker 1: why we we shouldn't do an episode on it. But
20:27
Speaker 1: we're saying there were real characters, uh, and individuals like
20:32
Speaker 1: this fanciful version of Mary Ann Smith were describing and
20:38
Speaker 1: you know, Marian Smith thankfully wasn't a criminal in real life,
20:43
Speaker 1: and her job was not easy. Knocker uppers did not
20:46
Speaker 1: have an easy line of work, you know. And it's
20:49
Speaker 1: just sort of something we were beating around the bush
20:52
Speaker 1: at a little bit, but sort of like where's the
20:54
Speaker 1: responsibility lie? You know, when you when you sign up
20:57
Speaker 1: to do this job, how far do you go to
21:01
Speaker 1: make sure that someone's awake? Probably as far as you
21:03
Speaker 1: need to go to ensure that you're gonna get your
21:06
Speaker 1: your pay. Um. But there was a really well known
21:09
Speaker 1: knocker up. I love I love it. The term is
21:12
Speaker 1: sort of interchangeable between someone being a knocker up or
21:16
Speaker 1: a knocker upper, uh, and I like them both. But um,
21:19
Speaker 1: Mrs Waters was her name. Uh. And in this Great
21:23
Speaker 1: Alice Obscure article. There's a quote from her describing a
21:26
Speaker 1: surly or hot tempered fellow who would growl or knock
21:31
Speaker 1: things about as he came to the window to reply,
21:34
Speaker 1: because again you wanted that like, you know, confirmation like
21:37
Speaker 1: and then you could move on. Um. And his responding
21:40
Speaker 1: rap would sound as peevish as possible. Um. And then
21:45
Speaker 1: you know that she also on the flip side of that,
21:47
Speaker 1: talked about some of the nicer folks that she knocked up.
21:49
Speaker 1: Never cannot stop laughing at that. Uh. You could hear
21:52
Speaker 1: from his very tread that he was grateful even and
21:55
Speaker 1: his reply tap sounded quite musical, and when he spoke
21:59
Speaker 1: and bade you good morning, it was really encouraging. Yeah. Yeah,
22:04
Speaker 1: And so it's a case by case thing, it's still
22:07
Speaker 1: it's customer service. That's what this job is. Another obstacle
22:16
Speaker 1: knocker uppers would run into was keeping track of the
22:19
Speaker 1: client's specifications, their addresses, the times they needed to be
22:24
Speaker 1: woken up. Some knocker uppers would use chalk and right
22:28
Speaker 1: the time outside each client's house. Others with a bit
22:32
Speaker 1: more of uh, with a bit more of an entrepreneurial spirit,
22:35
Speaker 1: would make signs outside of each client's house, kind of
22:38
Speaker 1: like the signs you'll see for alarm companies, uh that
22:42
Speaker 1: are mostly advertisements. These signs would include the time the
22:48
Speaker 1: client needed to be knocked up and also pardon my
22:53
Speaker 1: viewer as a butt head laugh there. And also they
22:55
Speaker 1: would advertise the knocker upp business. And then they would
22:59
Speaker 1: have to make sure that all their customers were kind
23:02
Speaker 1: of in a small geographical area so that they could
23:06
Speaker 1: minimize the time they wasted walking. This meant that there
23:09
Speaker 1: was like a secondary trade of knocker uppers giving each
23:14
Speaker 1: other clients. Yeah, but you got to imagine too, there
23:17
Speaker 1: had to have been some competition or at least rivalries.
23:21
Speaker 1: That I would love to hear a story about rival
23:23
Speaker 1: and knocker uppers encroaching on each other's territory and and
23:27
Speaker 1: like going to war in the streets with their peace
23:29
Speaker 1: shooters and uh and bamboo rods. That that'd be a
23:32
Speaker 1: fun little sketch at the very least. Right. Um, And
23:36
Speaker 1: this this profession, as much as it was, it was
23:38
Speaker 1: definitely news to me and I believe to you as well.
23:41
Speaker 1: It does appear in pop culture uh here and there,
23:45
Speaker 1: in literature and poetry, and it was you know, popular
23:48
Speaker 1: and ubiquitous enough profession that it made its way into
23:52
Speaker 1: into places like Charles Dickens. But there's this fantastic tongue twister,
23:56
Speaker 1: my favorite at the time. Why don't you do it? Ben?
23:58
Speaker 1: This is this is the is so in your wheelhouse.
24:01
Speaker 1: I would I would love for you to do the honors.
24:03
Speaker 1: Why don't we both do it and see how fast
24:04
Speaker 1: we can do it? Okay, we can do it as
24:06
Speaker 1: a competition, but this is this, This answers the question.
24:11
Speaker 1: We'll wait a minute. If he's knock her up? Or
24:13
Speaker 1: is there were no alarm clocks and they people literally
24:15
Speaker 1: had to pay someone to wake them up for an
24:18
Speaker 1: early morning job. Who woke up the person that woke
24:22
Speaker 1: them up knocked up the knocker up? Uh? You want
24:25
Speaker 1: to go first, Ben? Uh? Yeah, let's give it a go.
24:28
Speaker 1: We had a knocker up, and our knocker up had
24:30
Speaker 1: a knocker up, and or knocker ups. Knocker up didn't
24:32
Speaker 1: knock our knocker up, so our knocker up didn't knock
24:35
Speaker 1: us up because he's not up. Very well done, Ben, Again,
24:37
Speaker 1: I think we should do it more slowly, actually, because
24:40
Speaker 1: it's easier to follow. We had a knock her up
24:43
Speaker 1: and our knocker up had a knocker up, and our
24:45
Speaker 1: knocker ups knocker up didn't knock aren't you boy ha?
24:49
Speaker 1: Not even gonna do a redo and that it's back
24:51
Speaker 1: try and our knocker ups knocker up didn't knock our
24:53
Speaker 1: knock her up. So our knocker up didn't knock us
24:56
Speaker 1: up because he's not up. It reminds me of you,
25:00
Speaker 1: how much would would a woodchuck chuck of woodchuck? Would
25:02
Speaker 1: chuck would or my favorite version of it, how many
25:07
Speaker 1: lows would rob low? Rob if rob low robbed lows.
25:11
Speaker 1: That's good, never heard that one before. But that's sort
25:13
Speaker 1: of like a more modern spin on the old on
25:17
Speaker 1: this this this style of tongue twister. Um. But this
25:21
Speaker 1: is a serious question. I mean, maybe not serious, but
25:24
Speaker 1: one that I had. You know who, who's waking up
25:26
Speaker 1: the waker uppers? Uh? And the answer to that is
25:29
Speaker 1: they were more like night shift types, so they slept
25:35
Speaker 1: during the day and they basically hadn't gone to sleep yet.
25:38
Speaker 1: They would probably get off from their night shifts at
25:40
Speaker 1: another job and then just stay up into the wee
25:43
Speaker 1: hours and then literally the early morning and then go
25:45
Speaker 1: to sleep in time for their next day's night shift
25:50
Speaker 1: and that's that that definitely goes for the people who
25:52
Speaker 1: are younger in the in the knocker upper game. But
25:55
Speaker 1: I was thinking about the elderly folks who formed a
25:59
Speaker 1: large a graphic. There's something to be said for the
26:03
Speaker 1: avuncular nature or the grandparents like aspect of an older
26:08
Speaker 1: person gently waking you up if we see this in
26:12
Speaker 1: these contemporary accounts. There's one from Newcastle in n work
26:18
Speaker 1: called Hadrian's Wall by Jesse Mother Soul, and she describes
26:22
Speaker 1: it thusly. Turning to the left long Shields Road, I
26:26
Speaker 1: was amused to see an old woman in a dirty
26:28
Speaker 1: apron and gray shawl going around knocking a much burcurtained
26:32
Speaker 1: windows on the ground floor with a small hammer. Lizzie,
26:35
Speaker 1: it's well nigh six o'clock. Mary, it's time you riz,
26:39
Speaker 1: and so on at house after house. It was my
26:41
Speaker 1: first sight of a knocker up. So it's kind of
26:44
Speaker 1: like it reminds me of have you guys ever we
26:47
Speaker 1: used to just peep behind the curtain, folks, all of
26:50
Speaker 1: us used to have to travel all the time before
26:52
Speaker 1: the pandemic hit and I started using them. The wake
26:56
Speaker 1: up service, in addition to an alarm clock, is very
27:00
Speaker 1: much the same, you know. Yeah, it is nice to
27:03
Speaker 1: have that human touch though. It makes you feel looked after,
27:06
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, It's like someone cared enough
27:09
Speaker 1: to call and wake me up, even though it's like
27:11
Speaker 1: literally their job. I think we buried the leave there
27:14
Speaker 1: a little bit. Then there's some really great English slang there.
27:17
Speaker 1: I believe he said, Mary, it's time he riz r
27:20
Speaker 1: i Z. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Maybe that's where
27:24
Speaker 1: the Rizza got his name. Yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe
27:28
Speaker 1: he when he was starting wu tang he said, we
27:32
Speaker 1: all know what's essential. What hip hop really needs right
27:36
Speaker 1: now is a resurrection of early nineteen hundreds British slang.
27:42
Speaker 1: Uh So, so take that run with it. Tell us
27:46
Speaker 1: what Jessy stands for? Or what what that? What slang
27:50
Speaker 1: that is a reference to? Uh? We We have these
27:55
Speaker 1: different accounts. Like you said, they were found in popular culture.
27:59
Speaker 1: They appeared in dick ends and children's books and correspondence
28:02
Speaker 1: of the time. The practice, you would imagine, eventually disappeared
28:07
Speaker 1: as alarm clocks became more reliable and more affordable. But
28:12
Speaker 1: when did it go away? This is interesting. We know
28:16
Speaker 1: that it died out in many many places by say
28:20
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties, nineteen fifties, post World War Two. But
28:25
Speaker 1: the weirdest part is it didn't completely die out for
28:29
Speaker 1: a very long time, oh man. I mean, the Brits
28:32
Speaker 1: are huge fans of tradition. It's something that I think
28:36
Speaker 1: as as a real it almost takes on like a
28:39
Speaker 1: part of their cultural identity. So it's hard for them
28:42
Speaker 1: to let stuff like that go. And so as late
28:44
Speaker 1: as the nineteen seventies you would still see, uh, some
28:49
Speaker 1: little areas of industrial England continuing to practice knocking up.
28:54
Speaker 1: And even after it completely went away, I mean, it's
28:58
Speaker 1: certainly lived on in things like like you said in
29:01
Speaker 1: Dickens and these nursery rhymes and folk songs. Uh. And
29:06
Speaker 1: this lyric in particular by the Manchester folk singer Mike Canavan,
29:11
Speaker 1: which I think is delightful, really sums up the whole thing.
29:14
Speaker 1: Through cobbled streets, cold and damn. The knocker upper Man
29:18
Speaker 1: is creeping, tap tapping on each window pane to keep
29:22
Speaker 1: the world from sleeping, actually has a little bit of
29:25
Speaker 1: a creepy vibe to it. Now that I'm thinking about
29:28
Speaker 1: the knocker upper Man is creeping. That's a little bit terrifying.
29:33
Speaker 1: Don't sleep and that's where our story ends today, the
29:39
Speaker 1: rise and the fall of the knocker upper industry. How
29:44
Speaker 1: to getting knocked up come to be us slang referring
29:48
Speaker 1: to impregnation. That's a story for another day. Uh, but
29:54
Speaker 1: I think I think this is still instructive for us
29:57
Speaker 1: here in because just like back then, a lot of
30:01
Speaker 1: people have a hard time getting up today. I'm gonna
30:04
Speaker 1: be honest with you, guys. I move mountains to try
30:08
Speaker 1: to not schedule a meeting before like yeah, no doubt.
30:15
Speaker 1: Oh man. Huge thanks to super producer Casey Pegraham, as always,
30:19
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Christopher hasiotis our main
30:23
Speaker 1: man here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, a k a. The
30:28
Speaker 1: quiz Ter, who himself, by the way, is very much
30:31
Speaker 1: a morning person. And of course, as always, thanks to
30:36
Speaker 1: the Queen of England. Uh thanks to Freddie Mercury for
30:42
Speaker 1: under pressure reference. I don't think we did enough of
30:45
Speaker 1: it to get sued or have to pay anyone. And uh,
30:47
Speaker 1: I gotta say you were, you were you were doing
30:49
Speaker 1: the vanilla ice, Yeah, yeah, yeah I was. And most importantly, Casey,
30:55
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for that amazing shirt you're wearing.
30:58
Speaker 1: It's been very hard not to give you a compliment
31:01
Speaker 1: on that this entire time we've been recording. Well, thank you.
31:04
Speaker 1: I think we should just leave it to theater the
31:05
Speaker 1: mind and not describe the shirt, and so that people
31:08
Speaker 1: can just invent their own kind of platonic ideal of
31:11
Speaker 1: a great shirt in their heads. What a shirt? What
31:15
Speaker 1: a shirt? Describe this shirt using your theater of the mind,
31:18
Speaker 1: and tell us about it. On the internet, We're on Facebook,
31:20
Speaker 1: We're on Instagram, We're on Twitter. Yes, we're ridiculous History
31:23
Speaker 1: and all those places. You can also find Ben and
31:25
Speaker 1: I as human beings um doing our human being things
31:30
Speaker 1: on I'm exclusively on Instagram at how Now Normal Brown
31:33
Speaker 1: and you can find me on Twitter where I'm at
31:35
Speaker 1: Ben Bulan hs W, or you can find me on Instagram,
31:38
Speaker 1: should you so desire where I am at Ben bulling up?
31:44
Speaker 1: Oh man? How do we segue to an ended? Usually
31:47
Speaker 1: we just have some sort of banter and you say, well,
31:50
Speaker 1: well you'll say the line. You did it, Ben, We'll
31:53
Speaker 1: see you next time. Books. For more podcasts from My
32:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or
32:07
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.