Latest / Ridiculous History / Why are Chimney Sweeps good luck at weddings?

Transcript

Why are Chimney Sweeps good luck at weddings? · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Well,
0:27
Speaker 1: this is going to be an obnoxious beginning. Jerry O. Hello,
0:31
Speaker 1: welcome to Ridiculous his Story. It's I'm not going to
0:34
Speaker 1: do that voice the whole time. Hi, I'm ben Hi,
0:37
Speaker 1: I'm no chim chim cheru to you as well, my friend. Yes, yes, uh,
0:42
Speaker 1: there's our there's our super producer, Casey peg Rib who
0:46
Speaker 1: is tolerating these terrible accents. Chim chim cherie to the
0:50
Speaker 1: chim chim fellows. I was, you know, over the weekend, guys,
0:55
Speaker 1: I rewatched Mary Poppins for the first time in a
0:58
Speaker 1: long time. It was research though, right, I mean, like,
1:00
Speaker 1: come on, yeah, it was. There was a lot of stuff.
1:02
Speaker 1: There were a lot of plot points in there that
1:04
Speaker 1: I kind of missed when I was watching it as
1:07
Speaker 1: a child. And one of the things that I missed
1:09
Speaker 1: is they kind of we'll see it. They kind of
1:12
Speaker 1: glamorized chimney sweeps, don't they. They sure do a sweep
1:15
Speaker 1: is as lucky as lucky can be. Um. They occasionally
1:18
Speaker 1: slip into interdimensional animated realms and kick it with penguins
1:23
Speaker 1: and dressed up as waiters and what even is his
1:27
Speaker 1: relationship with Mary Poppins. Are they like lovers? Are they
1:31
Speaker 1: just pals is paling around? They have a you know,
1:34
Speaker 1: the entire film brims with this sort of will they
1:37
Speaker 1: won't they? And there's there's a past with Bert the
1:40
Speaker 1: Chimney Sweep was, Yeah, played by Dick Van Dyke legend
1:45
Speaker 1: in his time. Uh, there's a past between Burt and
1:48
Speaker 1: Mary Poppins. We're not sure what it is, but there's
1:50
Speaker 1: definitely a deep, a deep vein of affection between them
1:56
Speaker 1: and sexual tension. If I might add, yeah, that's will
2:00
Speaker 1: they won't they? Then I'm talking about right, or will
2:02
Speaker 1: they won't they? Again in front of these kids. I
2:05
Speaker 1: think there's also a strong implication that the Bert the
2:08
Speaker 1: Chimney Sweep is imbued with some sort of magical power
2:12
Speaker 1: similar to that of Mary Poppins. Yeah. Yeah, like if
2:16
Speaker 1: she's a cosmic superhero power level, he's like street level superhero.
2:20
Speaker 1: He saw the Daredevil to her Captain Marvel, which uh,
2:23
Speaker 1: which is cool. Uh. You don't see a lot of
2:26
Speaker 1: nitty gritty chimney work on Bert's parts, Uh, but you
2:31
Speaker 1: kind of assume it goes on in the background, like
2:33
Speaker 1: the construction background. You can hear in today's episode. That
2:37
Speaker 1: was a great segue bed and like you said, power
2:39
Speaker 1: through it today. Such is uh the nature of recording
2:43
Speaker 1: under quarantine. But no, it's true. I don't think you
2:46
Speaker 1: see him if I don't think a single chimney is
2:48
Speaker 1: swept in the whole of that film. He's just kind
2:52
Speaker 1: of goofing off with the kids, Like, how's he making
2:55
Speaker 1: a living? Yeah, it must be his his off season,
2:58
Speaker 1: or maybe he is occupied with some of the other
3:03
Speaker 1: social duties of chimney sweeps which have nothing to do
3:07
Speaker 1: with chimneys at all. This was a weird thing for
3:10
Speaker 1: us folks. Uh, we didn't know this, right, I didn't
3:13
Speaker 1: know this. But apparently it's good luck to see a
3:17
Speaker 1: chimney sweep on your wedding day, and it's also good
3:21
Speaker 1: luck to shake their hands or have them kiss you.
3:25
Speaker 1: And it's also good luck to just like lay hands
3:28
Speaker 1: upon a chimney sweep early in the morning. This is
3:32
Speaker 1: this is weird. They have this, uh, this sort of
3:34
Speaker 1: folkloric association with good luck. Yeah, I mean most of
3:39
Speaker 1: that's laid out in the delightful song chim Chimney, chim Chimney,
3:42
Speaker 1: chim chim Cherie I don't know if that's exactly the
3:45
Speaker 1: official title, but you know, he says the sweep is
3:47
Speaker 1: as lucky as lucky can be. Good luck will rub
3:49
Speaker 1: off when I shake hands with you. I guess the
3:51
Speaker 1: implication is the luck is the soot. I don't know.
3:55
Speaker 1: It's interesting, but like I said, Dick Van Dyke's character
3:57
Speaker 1: in that movie definitely seems to be a low tier superhero.
4:01
Speaker 1: And there's there's other little kind of spins on this tradition. Um.
4:05
Speaker 1: At one point, it was actually customary for the town's
4:08
Speaker 1: chimney sweep to carry a pig around through the streets
4:12
Speaker 1: on New Year's Day. Pigs are also a harbinger of
4:15
Speaker 1: good luck, especially in Asian countries, if I'm not mistaken
4:18
Speaker 1: man yet. The issue here is that this was a terrible,
4:22
Speaker 1: terrible celebration for the pig because people paid the chimney
4:26
Speaker 1: sweep a small sum topench or whatever, and the chimney
4:30
Speaker 1: sweeper then allow them to make a wish while pulling
4:33
Speaker 1: a hair from the pig. So this is a terrible
4:36
Speaker 1: New Year's Day for the poor pig. Yikes. And and
4:40
Speaker 1: like you said, Bert, Dick Van Dyke's character in Chim
4:45
Speaker 1: Chim churry. He makes several references musically to these long
4:50
Speaker 1: standing traditions, but where did they come from? That's that's
4:56
Speaker 1: what we're looking at today. There are a couple of
4:58
Speaker 1: different legends and maybe Noel Casey. At the end, we
5:02
Speaker 1: can ask ourselves which seems most likely. But you know, uh,
5:07
Speaker 1: no harm, no foul if we if we can't definitively
5:12
Speaker 1: you know, nailed down the correct answer. Just as long
5:14
Speaker 1: as we get through this without Jonathan Strickland a k a.
5:17
Speaker 1: The Quister showing up, Uh, then I think we're in
5:20
Speaker 1: a good spot because you know that he will do
5:22
Speaker 1: all of Mary Poppins. Who will just do all of it? God,
5:27
Speaker 1: I can't imagine a cringe at the thought, but that's
5:30
Speaker 1: the true There. We have a regular old history mystery
5:33
Speaker 1: on our hands. So let's let's let's do the thing
5:35
Speaker 1: where we kind of weigh the possibilities and then at
5:38
Speaker 1: the end we'll we'll kind of maybe decide which one
5:40
Speaker 1: we think is the best. Um So. In ten sixty six,
5:44
Speaker 1: King William of Britain was supposedly rescued by a sweep
5:50
Speaker 1: who um actually pushed him out of the way of
5:54
Speaker 1: an oncoming carriage. Superhero move. I'm exactly um. And so
6:00
Speaker 1: the king believing that you know, obviously, the rescuing of
6:04
Speaker 1: the King in and of itself is like an act
6:06
Speaker 1: of good luck that should have tendrils that extend into
6:09
Speaker 1: you know, the rest of society. UM, because he, after all,
6:13
Speaker 1: is like, you know, a god on earth. Um. He
6:16
Speaker 1: believed that the chimney sweep brought him luck, and he
6:20
Speaker 1: um invited the sweep to his daughter's wedding on this
6:24
Speaker 1: the day of his daughter's wedding. And if it's good
6:27
Speaker 1: enough for the King, then it's good enough for you, right, folks.
6:30
Speaker 1: That's why I Ever since, according to this theory, it's
6:33
Speaker 1: been considered to be tremendously good luck to have a
6:36
Speaker 1: chimney sweep at your wedding or really any special events,
6:40
Speaker 1: or have them visit your house, not just to clean
6:42
Speaker 1: the chimney, but to sort of, um a phrase I'll
6:45
Speaker 1: make up now, chimney bless you. Uh. In addition, I
6:48
Speaker 1: just want to add that, for a long time, as
6:50
Speaker 1: a kid, I thought the word I was pronouncing the
6:52
Speaker 1: word chimley, and no one corrected me. Well, there's actually
6:56
Speaker 1: a song by the band the Decembrists called the chimney sweep.
7:00
Speaker 1: So I don't think you were alone in that, And
7:02
Speaker 1: I think it maybe is uh perhaps a what's the
7:06
Speaker 1: word colloquial is a colloquial um kind of way of
7:09
Speaker 1: pronouncing Yeah, chimpley is a legitimate sort of dialectical variation
7:16
Speaker 1: of chimney. But I didn't even have the B. I
7:18
Speaker 1: just thought was chimley. No one said anything, but anyway,
7:22
Speaker 1: mispronunciations dialects aside. Uh No. The weirdest part about this
7:27
Speaker 1: is that in this theory it said that the king
7:30
Speaker 1: was so taken by having his life saved that not
7:33
Speaker 1: only did he have this guy at his wedding, but
7:36
Speaker 1: he said, you know what, not just you hashtag Yes,
7:39
Speaker 1: all sweeps, all chimney sweeps are lucky. Uh And if
7:42
Speaker 1: your chimney sweep, you can only wear a top hat
7:46
Speaker 1: and nothing else. I think they wore clothes as well,
7:50
Speaker 1: claw or maybe the strategically placed top hat. They didn't
7:53
Speaker 1: say it was on their head. Well, I have a
7:55
Speaker 1: question for you, but if if all these chimney sweeps
7:57
Speaker 1: are doing all these wedding gigs, who's sweeping the dang chimney? Well, there,
8:01
Speaker 1: there's probably sweepy then like when they get to the
8:04
Speaker 1: wedding and then they make a little stop in so
8:07
Speaker 1: that you have that nice soot. Yeah, they had kind
8:10
Speaker 1: of a uniform. They wore these top hats um, which
8:15
Speaker 1: was actually like sort of like a special dispensation like
8:18
Speaker 1: from the king, because top hats previously had been reserved
8:21
Speaker 1: for royalty and landed gentry. Right then, in another twist
8:26
Speaker 1: of superstition, um, the sweeps were thought to be luckier
8:32
Speaker 1: if they wore thirteen buttons on their jacket, thirteen being
8:36
Speaker 1: a lucky number. I always thought thirteen was an unlucky number.
8:39
Speaker 1: Thirteen is an unlucky number in Western culture, which is maybe, maybe,
8:43
Speaker 1: if we're speculating, it's sort of the good luck power
8:47
Speaker 1: of the sweep canceling out the bad luck power of thirteen, right, maybe,
8:53
Speaker 1: But the legend has it that a sweep can cancel
8:55
Speaker 1: out any bad luck in general. So like if you're
8:58
Speaker 1: strolling down the streets of mary Old to England, you
9:00
Speaker 1: walk under a ladder or a black cat crosses your path,
9:03
Speaker 1: and you're the superstitious sort, your next move immediately is
9:08
Speaker 1: to go to a chimney sweep and say like, hey,
9:10
Speaker 1: can I give you some money to to rub you,
9:14
Speaker 1: I guess, or to pull a hair from your pig
9:16
Speaker 1: if it's New Year's Day. That's legend one ben um.
9:20
Speaker 1: Not to get too off track, And I'm sure you
9:22
Speaker 1: know this, being a cat person, but did you know
9:24
Speaker 1: that a lot of like black cats are abused and
9:26
Speaker 1: at the very least not adopted as frequently as other
9:30
Speaker 1: cats because of that superstition. Yes, it's terrible. But as
9:35
Speaker 1: we continue to peel back the onions or scrape away
9:41
Speaker 1: the soot of this legend, we find another another theory. Uh,
9:46
Speaker 1: And yet again it has some of the same tropes.
9:48
Speaker 1: A chimney sweep saves the life of a king, but
9:51
Speaker 1: this time it's George the Second or George the third.
9:55
Speaker 1: People aren't sure. Yeah, it was said that during like
9:59
Speaker 1: a roy ill parade a procession, a hound bit the
10:04
Speaker 1: legs of the King's horse. I gave him a little nip,
10:07
Speaker 1: and the horse got spooked. His horses do. And then
10:10
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, this chimney sweep emerges from the crowd
10:14
Speaker 1: uh and and soothes the animal um and then vanishes
10:19
Speaker 1: as quickly as he appeared. Less sexy of a story
10:22
Speaker 1: than pushing the king out of the path of a
10:24
Speaker 1: runaway carriage, I would argue. But still, you know, it's
10:27
Speaker 1: a very similar trope of like the mysterious sweep just appears,
10:31
Speaker 1: saves the day, and then vanishes into the crowd. And hey,
10:35
Speaker 1: it may have been his dog too, that might be
10:38
Speaker 1: why I vanished. Such a good point. So this one
10:42
Speaker 1: has a little bit more of a motivation for the King,
10:47
Speaker 1: I think, because there's a great Atlas Obscura article about this,
10:51
Speaker 1: the many possible reasons British people hired chimney sweeps for
10:54
Speaker 1: their weddings, according to some speculation, because the King is
11:00
Speaker 1: not able to identify this individual sweep personally. He said,
11:05
Speaker 1: forget it. You know, I'm busy ruling. So just every
11:09
Speaker 1: sweep is lucky, go go forth through the land. Every
11:12
Speaker 1: sweep shall be the luckiest of the trades. Indeed is
11:17
Speaker 1: an act of benevolence or laziness. That's for history to
11:21
Speaker 1: decide if it even happened. True. Also a very good point.
11:25
Speaker 1: So in this article we've got the account from one
11:28
Speaker 1: Liz Lyster about the research she put into this, and
11:32
Speaker 1: she says, my study has found no written royal decree
11:36
Speaker 1: to give us the true facts, and there's some confusion
11:40
Speaker 1: as to which King George the credit. So the story
11:43
Speaker 1: with the horse, she says, happened sometime between seventeen thirty
11:46
Speaker 1: and seventeen forty, so that would be King George the
11:49
Speaker 1: second seventeen to seventeen sixty, but the top hat came
11:54
Speaker 1: around in the seventeen seventies, so she understands why people
11:58
Speaker 1: think it might have been and George the third. Interesting,
12:02
Speaker 1: that's a that's a good clue right there, I would say, um,
12:05
Speaker 1: all right. Legend three, the falling chimney sweep. Oh, this
12:10
Speaker 1: is good. This is a what do they call it?
12:12
Speaker 1: Rum comes? This is a meat cute. I love him.
12:14
Speaker 1: I love a meat cube, Ben love a good meat cube.
12:17
Speaker 1: What happened? What happened late on it? Yeah, so a
12:20
Speaker 1: a chimney sweep. In the execution of his sweep lee duties,
12:25
Speaker 1: Um lost his balance and and took a tumble from
12:29
Speaker 1: a gutter. And then a woman inside the house that
12:32
Speaker 1: he was sweeping saw him and pulled him inside the safety.
12:36
Speaker 1: So he, I guess, like was like dangling or something.
12:40
Speaker 1: And then she opened a window and gave him a
12:42
Speaker 1: helping hand and pulled him in, and um, it was
12:45
Speaker 1: love at first sight, the two fell in love and
12:48
Speaker 1: we're married. Uh, you know, according to this legend, instantly, Um,
12:53
Speaker 1: you know, take that with a grain of salt. But
12:56
Speaker 1: that's where the idea of having a chimney sweep at
12:59
Speaker 1: your wedding, um and giving him a little peck on
13:01
Speaker 1: the cheek or to you know, for the bride is
13:04
Speaker 1: considered a sign of a good omen you know, fortuitous
13:08
Speaker 1: things to come m And that one comes to us
13:12
Speaker 1: from our very own how stuff works, which we can't
13:16
Speaker 1: recommend enough. So shout out to the author, Deborah Ronka.
13:19
Speaker 1: Why is it good luck to shake at chimney sweep's hand?
13:27
Speaker 1: This is the thing Before we go to the other theories,
13:29
Speaker 1: I just want to ask, doesn't it seems strange that
13:34
Speaker 1: a job and I'm not going to be like micro
13:37
Speaker 1: dirty jobs about it, but doesn't seem strange that it
13:39
Speaker 1: becomes good luck to physically engage with someone who you
13:44
Speaker 1: know has a lot of dirt and soot on them.
13:47
Speaker 1: It's it's odd, and maybe the counterintuitiveness is part of
13:51
Speaker 1: why the legend stuck around. I don't know, it is odd,
13:55
Speaker 1: Ben and um, I'll tell you another quick aside story
13:58
Speaker 1: that's also odd. Are you familiar with the European Christmas
14:04
Speaker 1: character Black Peter. I already know, yeah, yeah, yeah, And
14:10
Speaker 1: folks that aren't as familiar. Um. He essentially is sort
14:14
Speaker 1: of like considered in in in Santa Claus mythology to
14:17
Speaker 1: be like a demon that Santa Claus has tamed, and
14:20
Speaker 1: he sort of acts as like a hand servant or
14:23
Speaker 1: whatever to Santa Claus. But he uh is traditionally considered
14:28
Speaker 1: to be a more from Spain, so a black um
14:33
Speaker 1: person from Spanish descent um, and is often portrayed by
14:39
Speaker 1: white people wearing black face and bright red lipstick and
14:42
Speaker 1: this kind of little Jester's outfit. And it's you know,
14:45
Speaker 1: been a tradition in Europe for for many many years UM,
14:50
Speaker 1: and it's you know, obviously become very problematic, especially in
14:55
Speaker 1: the last you know, decade or so, if not, I
14:58
Speaker 1: mean obviously it's been calling them than that. But there's
15:01
Speaker 1: a um sort of a petition or maybe like a
15:05
Speaker 1: petition to make an alternative version of this character called
15:08
Speaker 1: such Smudge pete um, which I guess it justifies the
15:14
Speaker 1: black face or implies that it's something else. But then
15:17
Speaker 1: I looked into because I only bring this up because
15:19
Speaker 1: I heard this on NPR the other day about Smudge Pete,
15:23
Speaker 1: and so I assumed maybe that black Pete was always
15:28
Speaker 1: supposed to kind of that was sort of always the thing,
15:30
Speaker 1: and people were just getting bet out of shape. But
15:31
Speaker 1: that's not the case. Um, But I thought maybe he
15:34
Speaker 1: was like, you know, essentially Santa Claus's chimney sweep, like
15:37
Speaker 1: on hand that would like go ahead of him and
15:40
Speaker 1: the chimneys and clean it out so Santa wouldn't get
15:42
Speaker 1: his like, you know, nice white shiny duds all smudgy.
15:45
Speaker 1: But that's just me thinking creatively. I guess, yeah, I
15:49
Speaker 1: like where your head's at. Yes, vote Pete is the
15:53
Speaker 1: That's how people would know it in Dutch, right, Uh,
15:56
Speaker 1: that's right, this this guy. First off, the people dressing
16:00
Speaker 1: up this way look just as al Jolson and offensive
16:04
Speaker 1: as you might think. Yeah, but the there there is
16:07
Speaker 1: an interesting intersection, possibly with chimneys, because you can link
16:13
Speaker 1: this to the Nordic the Nordic idea of the wild
16:18
Speaker 1: hunt of Odin. Think about it. Another very powerful old
16:23
Speaker 1: white guy is flying through the air on the wild hunt. Uh.
16:26
Speaker 1: He's accompanied by his white horse, sleep Near, but he's
16:30
Speaker 1: also accompanied by two Ravens, Hugen and moon In. I
16:34
Speaker 1: think that's thought and memory. Somebody checked me on that,
16:37
Speaker 1: and they would they would listen at the chimneys of
16:40
Speaker 1: homes they visited to tell Odin essentially who was naughty
16:45
Speaker 1: and who was nice, who was behaving well and who
16:47
Speaker 1: was behaving poorly, and Zavarte Pete maybe doing some of
16:52
Speaker 1: the same things. So I don't think that's off base
16:54
Speaker 1: at all. I do think that proposed solution of what
16:57
Speaker 1: was it, smudge smudge Pete. Yeah, I don't know if
17:01
Speaker 1: that fixes it. Oh, I don't think it does either.
17:02
Speaker 1: And the last thing before we move on with chimney
17:04
Speaker 1: sweeps um so about to Pete is also of a
17:07
Speaker 1: longstanding German tradition of Santa Claus having some sort of
17:11
Speaker 1: like boogeyman that accompanies him that like will basically punish
17:16
Speaker 1: the bad children. Uh. And it's something to strike fear
17:19
Speaker 1: into the hearts of children to make sure they behave
17:22
Speaker 1: so they make sure they're on the nice list. What's
17:25
Speaker 1: a crampus? That's tramps or bell Schnickel was another one
17:29
Speaker 1: you might remember from the episode of the Office where
17:32
Speaker 1: Dwight portrays Bellschnickel and they'll like whip you with reads
17:36
Speaker 1: if you're if you're a bad little boy or girl.
17:38
Speaker 1: And now we see war explanations. So I like that
17:43
Speaker 1: we're building in a mythological aspect here because a lot
17:47
Speaker 1: of obviously I think a lot of people know this now,
17:50
Speaker 1: but quite a few, quite a few modern traditions that
17:56
Speaker 1: seems somewhat inexplicable do descend from ancient mytho pology and
18:00
Speaker 1: ancient folkloric beliefs. Uh back in one and a story
18:05
Speaker 1: named Philip Brown came up with another idea about chimney
18:10
Speaker 1: sweeps and good luck and weddings, and he went he
18:14
Speaker 1: went deep. First off, he went through all the three
18:17
Speaker 1: legends we discussed and their variations, and he didn't like them.
18:21
Speaker 1: So he said it might have something to do with
18:26
Speaker 1: He had a couple of he had a couple of pitches.
18:28
Speaker 1: He said it might have something to do with ancient
18:32
Speaker 1: Roman associations between get this soot and fertility, because he
18:37
Speaker 1: points out Vulcan, the god of the fire and the forge,
18:40
Speaker 1: the blacksmith god, was married to Venus, the goddess of love.
18:44
Speaker 1: And there was also that tradition of sweeping out the
18:46
Speaker 1: fireplace on New Year's Day for good luck, I applaud
18:50
Speaker 1: you know what if I was his professor, A plus
18:53
Speaker 1: for thinking outside of the flu. There we go. That's
18:56
Speaker 1: a part of a chimney. But here's the thing. Um,
18:59
Speaker 1: all of this sounds very mystical and whimsical. And to
19:02
Speaker 1: see old Burt and Mary Poppins dancing around, you know,
19:06
Speaker 1: with the animated penguins, you'd think that the chimney sweeps
19:09
Speaker 1: life was charmed, especially with all this talk of luck
19:12
Speaker 1: and all of that. But uh, the actual life of
19:16
Speaker 1: a chimney sweep, as you can hear in the lyrics
19:19
Speaker 1: to that um that December song I mentioned earlier, was
19:23
Speaker 1: actually a pretty bleak. I'll give you a quick reading. Um,
19:27
Speaker 1: I am a chimbley sweep, a chimbley sweep, no bed
19:30
Speaker 1: to lie, no shoes to hold my feet. Upon the
19:32
Speaker 1: rooftops in dead of night. You'll hear me cry. I'll
19:36
Speaker 1: shake you from your sleep to hear me weep. Your
19:39
Speaker 1: day will come. Indeed, for I am a poor and
19:42
Speaker 1: a wretched boy, a chimbley chimbley sweep. I am an orphan,
19:46
Speaker 1: an orphan boy. I have no no love, I've seen
19:49
Speaker 1: no mother's joy, A dirty doorstep, my cradle laid, my
19:53
Speaker 1: fortune's made, I'll shake you from your sleep. Yikes, sounds
19:58
Speaker 1: pretty bleak. It sounds to me as though like the
20:00
Speaker 1: the job of a chimney sweep was like the bottom
20:03
Speaker 1: of the barrel, dirtiest job that only the lowliest of
20:06
Speaker 1: the low could it could attain um and it was
20:10
Speaker 1: they were lucky to have any kind of employment at all.
20:12
Speaker 1: It was sort of like a step up from being
20:14
Speaker 1: on the streets. Yeah, the bottom of the fireplace. Indeed,
20:17
Speaker 1: I do also want to point out whenever somebody says
20:19
Speaker 1: bottom of the totem pole, if you want to be
20:21
Speaker 1: one of those actual people at parties, those actually people, uh,
20:25
Speaker 1: you should point out that the the individuals identify on
20:28
Speaker 1: the bottom of the totem pole are the most important.
20:30
Speaker 1: It's actually the ones on the top that are the
20:32
Speaker 1: newest and least important. As a good actually man that
20:36
Speaker 1: was actually, but this this is true. Life is terrible
20:41
Speaker 1: for many chimney sweeps, especially beginning in the late sixteen hundreds.
20:45
Speaker 1: That's when that's when people due to the Great Fire
20:48
Speaker 1: of London, which destroyed so many ancient buildings, people started
20:51
Speaker 1: building newer buildings with skinnier chimneys and adult sweeps began
20:56
Speaker 1: hiring children, often orphans young boys, to scuttle up inside
21:01
Speaker 1: the chimneys to clean them. And these kids had to
21:05
Speaker 1: work off like some of the bad families, and they
21:07
Speaker 1: were just trying to supplement their family's income. But then
21:10
Speaker 1: orphans or abandoned children came under the care of something
21:15
Speaker 1: called the poor law, which is as callous as you
21:19
Speaker 1: might imagine it. But most of them were put into
21:22
Speaker 1: the care of employers who said, you know, I'll give
21:25
Speaker 1: you room and board, a crust of bread at a
21:28
Speaker 1: corner in the in the barn if you work like
21:31
Speaker 1: a dog for me, work like a turnspit dog or
21:35
Speaker 1: or a turnspit boy. Yeah. And I like, I want
21:39
Speaker 1: to emphasize this. We're talking kids. We're talking children as
21:43
Speaker 1: young as four years old are forced into having a
21:47
Speaker 1: job with someone who may not necessarily care about them,
21:51
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. They're just like you are
21:53
Speaker 1: another tool that I use, utterly expendable because they were
21:58
Speaker 1: the perfect size to kind of you said, um, shimmy
22:01
Speaker 1: their way up into these super tight, dangerous and uh toxic,
22:06
Speaker 1: you know, brick chimneys, um and sweep them out. They
22:11
Speaker 1: would have to just literally kind of, like I said,
22:14
Speaker 1: shimmy up there using their bare knees and elbows and hands,
22:18
Speaker 1: and they would often be you know, stripped raw um.
22:22
Speaker 1: And God only knows what kind of infections you could
22:24
Speaker 1: get in that situation, I mean, just gross stuff. And
22:27
Speaker 1: they would you know, inevitably become covered and callouses and scabs,
22:31
Speaker 1: and they'd be inhaling all these toxic chemicals and smoke
22:34
Speaker 1: and dust and god, it sounds like an absolute nightmarish situation. Um.
22:39
Speaker 1: These exposure to these conditions would cause irreparable lung damage
22:45
Speaker 1: like black lung disease. UM. And you know this sounds
22:48
Speaker 1: so horrible and callous to say, but it's just absolutely true.
22:52
Speaker 1: The smaller you were, the better. Um, you would be
22:55
Speaker 1: considered a much more desirable chimney sweep if you were
22:59
Speaker 1: very very young or very very small. Yeah, and by
23:03
Speaker 1: the time you reach the age of ten, you were
23:04
Speaker 1: washed up as far as this profession was concerned. Another
23:10
Speaker 1: extra tidbit of terrible nous. Some kids got stuck in chimneys,
23:15
Speaker 1: or some got frightened of climbing up inside these dark
23:18
Speaker 1: things because their children. Right, and there's a lot of
23:23
Speaker 1: not hard proof, but There's a lot of anecdotal evidence
23:26
Speaker 1: that their bosses, whomever the fagans were, to these Oliver twists,
23:30
Speaker 1: might light a fire underneath the kids to uh incentivize
23:36
Speaker 1: them to climb out of the chimney. The sides of
23:39
Speaker 1: chimneys also are very unhealthy places, and many of these
23:43
Speaker 1: kids ended up with, as you said, doing respiratory disease,
23:47
Speaker 1: also burns and irritation or the first occupational cancer ever
23:53
Speaker 1: diagnosed in history, chimney sweeps cancer. It's a type of
23:57
Speaker 1: scrutal tumor that sounds like what it is I imagine, yeah, exactly,
24:03
Speaker 1: chimney sweeps cancer is a euphemism at best. We wanted
24:07
Speaker 1: to mentioned one last thing. I should have mentioned it
24:09
Speaker 1: when we were talking about the size requirements. Uh. This
24:12
Speaker 1: was often leaned into by the you know, sweep masters
24:16
Speaker 1: or what you or whatever you want to call them,
24:18
Speaker 1: um and the kids were often underfed with the intention
24:21
Speaker 1: of of like stunting their growth or just keeping them
24:25
Speaker 1: skinny enough they could get up in those chimneys. So
24:34
Speaker 1: this is terrible, you might be saying, Ben Noel Casey,
24:37
Speaker 1: why did you trick me into hearing about the horrors
24:40
Speaker 1: of child labor well because it's important, but also because
24:45
Speaker 1: there is a bit of a happy ending. This is
24:48
Speaker 1: not the case with the chimney sweeping industry today. Back
24:51
Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundreds, the UK Parliament passed a number
24:54
Speaker 1: of restrictions on child labor, but they didn't really start
24:59
Speaker 1: enforcing the until the nine like eight nineties or so. Uh.
25:05
Speaker 1: They in the eighteen thirties Parliament started carrying about the
25:09
Speaker 1: exploitation of child labor in general. And that's why that's
25:13
Speaker 1: part of why the Chimney Sweeps Act passed in eighteen
25:16
Speaker 1: thirty four. Here's what they did. They said, Look, if
25:19
Speaker 1: a kid is under ten, you can't be sticking them
25:23
Speaker 1: up chimneys, and if they're under the age of fourteen,
25:26
Speaker 1: they can't be climbing up the chimneys. Yeah, you would
25:29
Speaker 1: think that the law that was in place earlier that
25:32
Speaker 1: was so horrible um for these kids, called the poor law,
25:37
Speaker 1: would have been one that was like benefiting the poor,
25:39
Speaker 1: like to you know, give them some protection. But not
25:41
Speaker 1: the case. But at least here we're starting to inch
25:43
Speaker 1: into some modicum of like protection for at least the
25:47
Speaker 1: smallest child. How how was it organized now, ben Like,
25:50
Speaker 1: how was it structured in terms of, like, you know,
25:53
Speaker 1: was it still this level of indentured servitude or was
25:56
Speaker 1: it more like I'm gonna apprentice under a chimney sweep
25:59
Speaker 1: at fourteen and become, you know, a professional sweep. Well,
26:03
Speaker 1: it has it probably varied on a case by case basis,
26:06
Speaker 1: you know, because this is still a this is still
26:09
Speaker 1: a means of livelihood for a lot of kids who
26:11
Speaker 1: were abandoned or orphans. So it really depends on the
26:17
Speaker 1: approach and attitude of whomever their mentor is or their
26:21
Speaker 1: their sponsor. Right. Uh, this clearly still didn't quite cut
26:26
Speaker 1: the mustard, didn't quite clean the chimney for parliament. So
26:31
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty there was a revised Chimney Sweeps Act
26:34
Speaker 1: that said, okay, okay, j K, everybody calmed down. Were
26:38
Speaker 1: raising the minimum age of apprenticeship to sixteen. And then
26:42
Speaker 1: of course this was also ignored because these laws we
26:47
Speaker 1: have to be super transparent about this. These laws were
26:51
Speaker 1: affecting the poor, which meant that was it was on
26:55
Speaker 1: the establishment to enforce these laws. Didn't happen. What I'm saying,
27:00
Speaker 1: children under ten, we're still being uh made to climb
27:03
Speaker 1: up chimneys their health be damned until until weirdly enough,
27:09
Speaker 1: a novel comes out in eighteen sixty three, that's right. Uh,
27:13
Speaker 1: the delightfully named The Water Babies, which is a novel
27:15
Speaker 1: by Charles Kingsley. Um, and it, you know, among other things,
27:20
Speaker 1: chronicle the absolute abysmal treatment the children were seeing in
27:25
Speaker 1: this type of job. And that is through the eyes
27:28
Speaker 1: of the novel's protagonist, Tom, who is a child chimney
27:33
Speaker 1: sweep And that's this is this is a great example
27:36
Speaker 1: of the power of literature, like things like The Jungle
27:39
Speaker 1: by Upton Sinclair, you know, pointing out to horrible conditions
27:42
Speaker 1: in meat packing industry. Um. And it's something where when
27:45
Speaker 1: enough people hear about it through literature, even if it's fiction,
27:49
Speaker 1: if it represents something real, it is the kind of
27:51
Speaker 1: thing that will cause a groundswell of support and can
27:54
Speaker 1: actually change laws. So I mean that's you know, I
27:57
Speaker 1: think that's really an amazing testament to the power of
27:59
Speaker 1: art um and literature. So Parliament did respond, um, and
28:03
Speaker 1: they created something called the Chimney Sweepers Regulation Act um.
28:08
Speaker 1: And it meant well but didn't do a whole hell
28:11
Speaker 1: of a lot. Right, Yeah, you read my mind, because
28:14
Speaker 1: I was I was looking back at this as well
28:16
Speaker 1: with um with Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which is a
28:21
Speaker 1: fantastic book, even though it's written in nineteen o six.
28:24
Speaker 1: I think the message is impactful and it's well worth
28:27
Speaker 1: reading today. I have not at this point read The
28:30
Speaker 1: Water Babies, but if you have, ridiculous historians, let us
28:34
Speaker 1: know if it's if it's worth the read. As you said, no,
28:38
Speaker 1: this does impact legislation, and this legislation actually gets enforced today. However,
28:46
Speaker 1: your local chimney sweep may well appear at weddings as
28:50
Speaker 1: a side hustle because this concept of the lucky sweep
28:55
Speaker 1: survived all the all the real world legislation and all
28:59
Speaker 1: the real world concerns. You can see lucky chimney sweeps
29:03
Speaker 1: and Mary Poppins, of course, but you can also see
29:07
Speaker 1: lucky chimney sweep in Ulysses by James Joyce, which I
29:12
Speaker 1: enjoyed very much. But it's it's a book that is
29:16
Speaker 1: some work to read. Yeah, that one's kind of got
29:19
Speaker 1: the stream of consciousness kind of vibe to it, right,
29:22
Speaker 1: most most of Joyce does after that period. Uh, it's
29:26
Speaker 1: still once you get into it, it has these these
29:30
Speaker 1: beautiful moments. There's one moment where, and this is not
29:32
Speaker 1: really a spoiler because of the way it's written, there's
29:35
Speaker 1: one moment where these two guys are pretty inebriated and
29:41
Speaker 1: they're like standing with their backs to each other and
29:43
Speaker 1: they're peeing outside of some horrible adventure, and it's like
29:47
Speaker 1: one of the most beautifully written scenes ever about who
29:51
Speaker 1: you are, where you are in the universe. Anyway, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
29:54
Speaker 1: you're right. Those stream of consciousness can make them sort
29:57
Speaker 1: of inaccessible. But there's a minor carrot your in Ulysses
30:01
Speaker 1: who talks about invoking soots luck, which is clearly Joyce's
30:05
Speaker 1: reference to uh to this chimney sweep luck. And then
30:10
Speaker 1: Prince Philip uh at right, like on the morning of
30:14
Speaker 1: his wedding in seven to Queen Elizabeth now Queen Elizabeth,
30:20
Speaker 1: he walked outside and like founded chimney sweep and shook
30:23
Speaker 1: his head. Since he was the Prince, I imagine they
30:25
Speaker 1: set him up with one in advance, right, Do you
30:27
Speaker 1: watch that show The Queen on Netflix? Ben? I do not,
30:30
Speaker 1: do you mean? I'm sorry? The Crown, The Crown is
30:32
Speaker 1: what it's called the Crown. Excuse me, but I love
30:34
Speaker 1: the I love the actors in it. I do too.
30:37
Speaker 1: The the casting is bonkers. Uh and and in the
30:40
Speaker 1: new season, I think they've kind of caught up more
30:41
Speaker 1: to like, you know, the era of of that monarchy
30:44
Speaker 1: that maybe we grew up remembering with Princess Dae and um,
30:49
Speaker 1: Charles and all of that stuff and Camilla and all
30:51
Speaker 1: that um. But it makes me want to check it out.
30:55
Speaker 1: And I gotta wonder, like if in the dramatization of
30:57
Speaker 1: Queen Elizabeth's marriage to Prince Philip, they have this chimney
31:00
Speaker 1: sweep momentum right in let us know and right now
31:04
Speaker 1: if you are getting if you're getting married in the UK.
31:08
Speaker 1: I don't know how common this is in the US,
31:09
Speaker 1: but if you're getting married in the UK, for about
31:12
Speaker 1: a hundred pounds, you can have a chimney sweep show
31:17
Speaker 1: up to your wedding. They'll shake hands, they'll kiss the
31:20
Speaker 1: bride or the groom or you know, the partners, whomever
31:23
Speaker 1: is getting married. It's they'll take photos and then they're
31:27
Speaker 1: like they'll spread, they'll spread what's described as uh sootie
31:32
Speaker 1: cheer and chimney sweeps. Love this. They're not forced to
31:35
Speaker 1: do it. It makes for a solid side hustle in
31:38
Speaker 1: the summer, because, like we said at the top, chimney
31:41
Speaker 1: sweeping is somewhat seasonal and summer is the slow time
31:45
Speaker 1: for them. So Liz Lyster and her husband, the folks
31:48
Speaker 1: who mentioned earlier, they say they do about one wedding
31:51
Speaker 1: a week from April through September, so that's like a
31:55
Speaker 1: regular part of their business. Pretty cool, Pretty cool. It's funny, man.
31:59
Speaker 1: You know. Obviously in the United States we have chimneys
32:02
Speaker 1: a plenty, but I don't really ever think of the
32:05
Speaker 1: chimney sweep as being like a singular profession. It seems
32:09
Speaker 1: to be like it would be something wrapped into another
32:12
Speaker 1: type of like, you know, all service kind of workman scenario.
32:15
Speaker 1: But maybe I'm wrong there. But I did look up
32:17
Speaker 1: modern chimney sweeps in the UK, and obviously they don't
32:21
Speaker 1: wear the old top hat and thirteen button coat anymore.
32:24
Speaker 1: Um they're you know, much like you would think of
32:28
Speaker 1: someone who would you know, get on a roof and
32:30
Speaker 1: um replace shingles or like you know, gutters and things
32:33
Speaker 1: like that, more looking like construction type workers. But they
32:36
Speaker 1: do have these specialized tools, these very long brushes. I'm
32:39
Speaker 1: sure that's improved over time as well. Um, but yeah,
32:42
Speaker 1: very much still alive and well as a profession. I
32:44
Speaker 1: gotta wonder, though, Ben, when they go to the weddings,
32:46
Speaker 1: do they think they wear like more of an old
32:48
Speaker 1: timey thing? Is that in some ways sort of I
32:51
Speaker 1: don't know, not poking fun at the professional They obviously
32:53
Speaker 1: choose to take the gig and everything, But how do
32:55
Speaker 1: you feel about that, knowing the history of it and
32:58
Speaker 1: knowing how troubling some of this gacie is. Yeah, yeah,
33:01
Speaker 1: it's I mean, it's a good question. I wouldn't fault
33:04
Speaker 1: the Chimney Sweeps for participating in that tradition. It's it's
33:09
Speaker 1: a good gig, and it's not them condoning child labor.
33:14
Speaker 1: And definitely it's you know, it's an air brushed version
33:19
Speaker 1: or a clean swept version. I'm killing it with these today,
33:21
Speaker 1: a clead, swept version of history for them to uh,
33:25
Speaker 1: you know, to dress this way. But we also have
33:28
Speaker 1: to consider for a lot of these Chimney Sweeps, they're
33:32
Speaker 1: trying to differentiate themselves from the other folks. They can
33:35
Speaker 1: be hired for a wedding, so they want kind of
33:37
Speaker 1: a memorable costume. Some are even giving away bags of
33:41
Speaker 1: genuine soot, which is weird. Uh. They'll even do a
33:44
Speaker 1: little bit of theatrical stuff. They'll work with a wedding
33:47
Speaker 1: party to make it seem like, Oh, I'm a chimney sweep,
33:50
Speaker 1: I just happened to be here, congratulations on your wedding. Uh.
33:54
Speaker 1: We do have chimney sweeps, of course in the US. Uh,
33:58
Speaker 1: they don't maybe have quite the same place in society traditionally,
34:05
Speaker 1: but that's because of one of my favorite old saints.
34:08
Speaker 1: In Europe, two miles is a long way. In the US,
34:12
Speaker 1: two hundred years is a long time. There were just
34:15
Speaker 1: more chimney sweeps around for a longer time. And speaking
34:19
Speaker 1: of time, it is time for us to depart. As
34:24
Speaker 1: you know, we're in a challenging economic era. So I
34:26
Speaker 1: am looking for a side gig. Uh maybe I don't know,
34:31
Speaker 1: maybe chimney sweeping. It feels like it feels like it
34:34
Speaker 1: would be unethical null for me to be a chimney
34:38
Speaker 1: sweep who just appears at weddings. I feel like I
34:41
Speaker 1: have to actually do the chimney stuff, you know what
34:44
Speaker 1: I mean? Oh, totally yeah, Ben It It does make
34:47
Speaker 1: me question like, are these really chimney sweeps? Like, who
34:51
Speaker 1: are doing this like for their profession doing a side
34:54
Speaker 1: gig or they do a little soft shoe at a
34:56
Speaker 1: wedding like this, It strikes me as very uh desparate
35:00
Speaker 1: skill sets, if you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah,
35:03
Speaker 1: So if you're a Chimney sweep, right in and let
35:06
Speaker 1: us know, do you also do weddings? What other special
35:10
Speaker 1: events do you do? We would love to hear from you.
35:13
Speaker 1: You can find us all over the internet. We're on Facebook,
35:15
Speaker 1: We're on Twitter, We're on Instagram, that's the one. We
35:19
Speaker 1: are not on Chimney Graham yet, but we'll have to.
35:24
Speaker 1: We'll have to get have to get an account started there.
35:26
Speaker 1: You can also find us as individuals. Boy can you ever?
35:30
Speaker 1: You can find me on Instagram exclusively where I am
35:33
Speaker 1: at how now Noel Brown? I like to post memes
35:37
Speaker 1: and you know pictures. I got a new cat band.
35:39
Speaker 1: Did I tell you about Karome? You did? Yes? You did? Yeah,
35:42
Speaker 1: Well you can see pictures of my and my daughter,
35:45
Speaker 1: mainly my daughter's new cat. She's a sweet tuxedo two
35:49
Speaker 1: year old adult cat that we adopted and she's taken
35:52
Speaker 1: to my house like a like gangbusters and really happy
35:55
Speaker 1: to have her I'm exclusively indoor this time. I think
35:57
Speaker 1: I've mentioned I've had indoor outdoor cats in the past
36:00
Speaker 1: and never again, and she's not too much of them.
36:02
Speaker 1: The hour really enjoy her. What about you, Ben, We're
36:04
Speaker 1: can folks see pictures of your amazing felines? First congratulations
36:08
Speaker 1: NOL to you and your daughter you can't and to
36:10
Speaker 1: your cat, your new family member. You can find me,
36:13
Speaker 1: folks on Twitter where I'm at Ben bullyin h s W.
36:18
Speaker 1: I'm currently let's see this morning, I was asking people
36:22
Speaker 1: what kind of awards they would receive if we had
36:26
Speaker 1: a post pandemic quarantine awards ceremony, which I think we
36:30
Speaker 1: should call the Quarries. Oh that's good then, thank you man.
36:33
Speaker 1: You can also find me on Instagram at Ben Bulling,
36:36
Speaker 1: just keeping it simple, hide and plain sight. Thanks as
36:40
Speaker 1: always to our super producer Casey Pegram live and in
36:45
Speaker 1: full effect. UH. Let's all make sure the three of
36:48
Speaker 1: us and and those of us listening to UH to
36:50
Speaker 1: give Chimney sweeps the respect they deserve when we see them.
36:54
Speaker 1: I think personally be weird to walk up to someone
36:56
Speaker 1: while they're at their job and be like, hey, can
36:59
Speaker 1: I touch you? We're kiss you. That seems like an
37:02
Speaker 1: hr nightmare waiting to happen. Can I pull a tuft
37:05
Speaker 1: of hair from your pig from your big right oh man?
37:10
Speaker 1: But thinks it's always of course to some of the
37:12
Speaker 1: hardest working people in podcasts, not just Noel Brown, not
37:16
Speaker 1: just Casey Pegram, but also Alex Williams, who composed this
37:20
Speaker 1: banging track that you heard at the top and you're
37:22
Speaker 1: about to hear at the end. And congrats to Alex
37:24
Speaker 1: Williams on his new uh new to him anyway eight
37:28
Speaker 1: track task cam multi track tape recorder. I for all
37:32
Speaker 1: the nerds out there and know what I'm talking about.
37:34
Speaker 1: It's a big deal. Did you get that one from Lauren?
37:37
Speaker 1: No he got. He ordered one on eBay and it's
37:40
Speaker 1: like the same, the same, very close to the same
37:42
Speaker 1: model I used to have growing up, um when I
37:44
Speaker 1: was getting into multicheck recording. But his does eight tracks,
37:47
Speaker 1: meaning you can record eight separate things on separate you know,
37:50
Speaker 1: individual tracks that you can then mix. Mine only did four, um,
37:54
Speaker 1: so uh, fifteen year old Noel is super jealous of
37:58
Speaker 1: modern day Alex. And big thanks of course to Jonathan Strickland,
38:02
Speaker 1: a k a. The Quister, who I am sure is
38:05
Speaker 1: doing a British accent somehow related to Chimney sweeping right now,
38:11
Speaker 1: just on his own. He's that kind of dude. Thanks
38:14
Speaker 1: also to Ease Jeff Coo and to Christopher Haciotis, and
38:18
Speaker 1: to double down on Thinking Chris. He has been Johnny
38:21
Speaker 1: on the spot lately setting us really cool ideas in
38:23
Speaker 1: our company UM group chat situation. So you might see
38:26
Speaker 1: some of those on upcoming episodes. UM what else so
38:30
Speaker 1: we have? I don't think that thinks about it. In
38:32
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you want to reach out to us, uh,
38:34
Speaker 1: you can do so on Facebook, where you can find
38:37
Speaker 1: our group Ridiculous Historians to share historical memes and just
38:40
Speaker 1: you know, pal around with your fellow ridiculous Historian's a
38:43
Speaker 1: lot of fun, really good group of folks there, and
38:46
Speaker 1: you can get into that by just naming one or
38:48
Speaker 1: two or three of us, UM and you're in. Okay,
38:52
Speaker 1: it's all we got. That's it. Jim chim churry, Chim
38:55
Speaker 1: chim churry. To you, Ben and to you and yours
38:57
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians. We'll see you next time. For more podcasts
39:08
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app
39:10
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.