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London Made a Train for the Dead · Ridiculous History

• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Choo too. Two friends and neighbors all aboard. We want
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the train to run on time. My name is Ben.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: We are going off the rails on a train of
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the dead on My name is Nolan. This is ridiculous history,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: that's right, that's right. No, Uh, we are looking into
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: something relatively morbid today. I would say even more so
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: morbid than ridiculous. We're looking at a very particular railway
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: in London, that's right. From eighteen fifty four to nineteen
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: forty one, London Necropolis Railway was operational. Uh. It took
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: mourners and they're dearly departed on a forty minute, twenty
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: three mile ride to a very specific cemetery outside of
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: London Town. Yes, the Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, which at
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the time was the largest cemetery in the world, or
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the largest acknowledged, and it came about through the efforts
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: of something known as the London Necropolis Company. They were
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: established in eighteen fifty two by an Act of Parliament.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Because it turns out this wasn't just some grizzly macab lark.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: There wasn't you know, some creepy like Adams Family type
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Gomez figure who wanted to cart dead people around. London
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: was in the grips of a crisis, a aial crisis. Yeah,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: that's right. It was actually a twofold problem because around
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: about the mid nineteenth century, the cemeteries in London proper
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: were just absurdly overcrowded because of a booming population that
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: more than doubled from the early eighteen hundreds to the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds. Um, not to mention that there was
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: a pretty serious cholera outbreak. Uh So London nurse were
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: burying in the neighborhood a fifty thousand dead every year
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: before the cholera epidemic. The cemeteries were so overcrowded that
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: it was impossible to find a new grave without running
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: into an older grave. So when the cholera epidemic hit
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: in eighteen forty eight and killed almost fifteen thousand people
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: from cholera alone, the bodies were left stacked like cordwood
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: waiting to be buried, and people were exhuming even recent
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: graves to make room for new corpses. Yeah. There's a
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: fantastic article from the BBC by Amanda Rigary, and she
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: says that one way of dealing with this is pretty grizzly,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: was actually digging up bodies and cremating them under cover
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: of night. And the only way that you could escape
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: this potential fate of your loved ones was if you
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: had all the money. That's just all the money. Oh gosh. Yeah,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: we are going to encounter some very strange issues of
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: class and social hierarchy here. So as the city falls
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: into this crisis, they're trying to figure out how to
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: address it. And there were a couple of different ideas
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: that were tossed around, of varying degrees of plausibility, but
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the one that one out was the idea of transporting
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: the new deceased, the you know, the recently passed on
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: from London proper to an area outside of it that
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: would be Brookewood Cemetery or the London Necropolis. Is Noel mentioned, Uh,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: this isn't too far out of town thirty seven kilometers
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: or so. Yes, that's exactly right, twenty three miles or
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: thirty seven kilometers outside of London. And this was all
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: done in tandem. The railway was built at the same
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: time as the Brookwood Cemetery to deal with this overcrowding
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: because you know, the folks that came up with this
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: idea thought this would be a pretty elegant solution because
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: it was not very efficient to take a horse drawn
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: hearse with a single body thirty kilometers out of town.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: That would just be a prohibitively long trip and just
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: you know, how would you even accommodate all the people
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: that wanted to go along and for the procession, And
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the train was sort of a combination of that, where
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: you could have many people going at predetermined times each
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: day that this train made this journey um and it
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: was kind of on all encompassing, for lack of a
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: better term, kind of a package deal, right, It was
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: the total package because not only did the mourners get transportation,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: there were even um snacks provided You could have these
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: homemade sandwiches and things called fairy cakes, which are sort
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: of the English equivalent of cupcakes, yeah, specifically ham sandwiches,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: and then take the same train back returning to London
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: mid afternoon at three thirty p m. This was an
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: efficacious solution, but as you might imagine, folks, it was
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: a very controversial one for a number of reasons. The
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Bishop of London testified on the proposal before a House
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: of Common Slight committee in eighty two, and he said,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I consider it improper at present, we are not sufficiently
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: habituated to that mood of traveling, not to consider the
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: hurry and bustle connected with it as inconsistent with the
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: limnity of a Christian funeral. So he thought, you know,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: it was disrespectful to the dead and not blasphemous, but
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: not proper in terms of the Christian religion. Do you
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: think he was it was because of the noise, you know,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the the noisy engines, and just the nature of traveling
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: by train, the fact that it was kind of considered
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: newer technology. Maybe what I wonder what his beef was.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: It's hard to tell specifically from that quote, don't you think? Yeah, yeah,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I think he I think you're on the right track, though,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: on the right rail, because he did seem to feel
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: that the technology was impinging upon the traditions, the rituals
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: of burial. And when we were looking into this earlier,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I was wondering if it would be comparable to something
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: like having someone skype in at a funeral today, like
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: that would be controversial to some people. Right, That's a
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: really good parallel. Ben I kind of that's a really
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: good way to look at it, and I think we've
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: kind of hit on what this bishop's problem really was.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: But you know, the company that put all this together
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: really did try to make it a solemn and comforting experience.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Folks on the train were treated to some quite resplendent views,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: including Westminster, Hampton Court and Richmond Park. And you know,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: typically people that plan train routes looking for the most
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: efficient path, not necessarily the most scenic um. But this
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: was a completely different animal, wasn't. Yes, absolutely, There's there's
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: a book on this called the Brookwood Necropolis Railway by
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: an author named John m Clark, and in there he
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: details some of the amenities that were available to the
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: living and one of the other controversies that may be
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: surprising for us today, which is that in addition to
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: concerns about religious editions, there were class concerns. After you
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: had a relative or a loved one pass on, you
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: could buy them a ticket for their coffin to go
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: to Brookwood Cemetery. But you could buy one of three
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: types of tickets. And we had the prices attached for
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: this travel, right, like the fancy one first class that
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: would be a pound. Is that correct? Yeah, it was
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: a pound, and it was divided up. You know, you
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: had to pay for the living and the dead as well.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: That makes sense. So live passengers were charged six shillings
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I believe for first class, so it was less expensive
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: to transport the living, probably because of space. To be
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: honest with you, we know it was five shillings for
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the dead and second class, a little over two shillings
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: in third class. And we did some of the math here,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: so in eighteen fifty four one British pound from eighteen
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: fifty four today would be about eighty six pounds, so
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: this was not an insignificant expense. This was still a
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: pretty pricey endeavor. Yeah, funerals to this day totally still are.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I found a review of a BBC for Extra radio
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: documentary about the the Necropolis that has some interesting references
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: to the signage one might have seen Um laying out
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: these these different classes and prices, and it's referred to
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: here as uh corpses artisan five shillings, corpses popper two
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: shillings and sixpence. That's that's some pretty strong language, right, papper.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: That's what they call third class popper and artisan. I
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: guess that would be like the mercantile class. I don't
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: know artisan. I always think of artisans like artisanal Jesus right, right, especially,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're in a fancy boutique of some sort.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: We don't usually associate the phrase artisan or artisanal with corpses.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I guess you could have an it is an artisanal
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: coffin though, right, like a handmade bespoke coffin. Yeah, totally,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: you absolutely could. We're just not used to thinking of
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: actual human remains that way. And I'm glad that it's
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: weird in this day and age, because isn't death supposed
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: to be the great equalizer. This leads us to one
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: of the concerns that baffled us, the social class idea.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: One of the worries that people had was that different
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: social classes might mix. For that reason, there were separate
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: carriages for each class, and this was the custom at
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the time, and so even though you know, a titan
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: of banking and a very poor family could ride the
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: same train and arrive at the same station, they would
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: be segregated. And the cemetery itself, how ever, was not
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: divided by class or status. It was divided by religion.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: You know, once you're in the ground, we're all equal,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: right the not if you're Anglican. They had their own spot,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: that's true. But at the same time, you could have
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: that tightened of industry buried next to a pauper that
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: was in his same religion, unless you were such a
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: tightened of industry that you could afford a private plot
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: somewhere like Highgate Cemetery, which was a very exclusive and
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: very expensive And today in eighteen is Noel and our
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: superproducer Casey Pegram and I record this. People in the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: West tend to keep death as far away from us
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: as possible, right, But at the time, especially when this
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: city is literally getting crowded with corpses, people were much
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: more intimately familiar with the concept of mortality. And during
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: its peak, London's Necropolis Railway transported more than two thousand
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: corpses per year. Uh that's you know, if we count
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: the live mourners, then the number of bodies reaches the
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: tens of thousands. This was a very successful thing. Also,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: there were bars, did you find that too, Yeah? Yeah, well,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, like you know, the the concessions were licensed
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: to serve alcohol and pints, so you know, if you
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: opted to do that instead of a nice lemonade and
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: a cupcake or a fairy cake as it were, you could, uh,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: you know, get smashed, which you know happens sometimes it
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: wakes and other funereal rights for sure. UM. It's interesting
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: that John Clark, who wrote the book you mentioned, um,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the Brookwood Necropolis Railway's overall he's he's it's a railroad historian. Um.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: He seemed to think that this was pretty forward thinking.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: He referred to it as pioneering, revolutionary and it's quoted
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: as saying, as far as I know, it was the
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: first use of the railway for a dedicated service from
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: one private station directly into a cemetery at the other end.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And a man by the name of George Nash were
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: in an essay called Pomp and Circumstance Archaeology, Modernity and
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the Corporatization of Death. He notes that discretion was very
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: important because the biggest railway station in London at the
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: time was Waterloo Station, and the York Street station was
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: built just far enough from that station. York Street was
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: where you'd get on to catch the Necropolis train was
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: just far enough away to be separated from normal commuters
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: in their day to day route. So it was all
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: about kind of segmenting that while also making it accessible
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: and speaking of being pioneering in terms of the technology,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: these trains had to be specially outfitted to store these coffins.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: They had leather straps um and in fact, Parliament mandated
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: that the fares be capped, so it was even though
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: it was a little pricey, the you know, poor people
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: and rich people alike couldn't be gouged. Right. Yeah. These
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: were known as Hearse vans, and the Necropolis Company had
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the locomotives and passenger carriages on loan, but it owned
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the Hearse vans outright. In the beginning, each van had
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: twelve partitions in two rows of six. Each of those
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: spots could handle one coffin. In the later vans had
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: around fourteen coffins guests per van. Uh. They were fitted
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: with these partitions to divide first, second and third class
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: coffins because God forbid that the poor and uh, the
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: wealthy right the same train. Even as remains and they
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: continued to evolve these Hearse vans. It was an example
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: of I don't want to say bleeding edge technology, but
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: it was an example of ingenuity because it became a
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: matter of numbers. They are literally, you know, moving bodies
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: and calculating how much they make per unit. And the
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: location was a big part of it. To um. In
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: that BBC article called the Passenger Train Created to Carry
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: the Dead, author Amanda Riggary mentions that Waterloo had these
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: railway arches that were able to temporarily store these corpses,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: so there was I'm gonna go through the way she
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: describes in the article um. She says, quote, most families
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: have their loved ones picked up by a horse drawn hearst.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: The funeral procession would end at the station. There the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: coffins would be lifted into elevators that would carry them
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: up to the platform level and onto the train, and
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: those railway arches offered temporary storage if needed. And here
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: we see another controversial point. So we had social class
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: right and we had the solemnity of religion. Both were
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: seen as very valid points at the time. The third
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: issue was that, according to Clara, most people aspired to
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: be buried near where they lived and worked, so the
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: idea of varying someone miles away from central London was
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: a large and significant choice to make. Yeah, it was
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a tough pill to swallow, but again we know that
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: there just wasn't space, so I'm not sure how best
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: to handle that. This seemed like a pretty elegant solution. Um.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: One final taboo that we haven't even mentioned, this kind
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: of staring us right in the face, is this idea
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: of the living occupying the same vehicles as the dead.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was concern of things like odors from
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: the dead and potential transmission of of diseases even and
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: so that was something to be considered as well. Um.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: And like you said, Ben, it was seemingly successful with
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the amount of dead and mourners that were transported on
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: this rail, but it didn't quite take off in the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: way that the creators hoped it would write. Clark says
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: this in his book. The original aims of the company
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: to effectively offer economic and sanitary burial well beyond the
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: city limits forever if necessary. That could have been achieved,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: but the public, having the choice of burial place, decided otherwise,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: And it all came down to that issue of not
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: wanting to be buried so far away from their home
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: base thirty miles outside of town. That was a stretch
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: for a lot of people. And two other events influenced
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the fall of the Necropolis train, One which we cannot
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: emphasize enough was the introduction of the motorized hearse in
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: nineteen o nine. This started out slowly, but by the
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenties it became more popular than the horse drawn hearse,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: which again, as as you point out, was pretty expensive,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: and the training itself, which had its own sort of
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: issues of propriety versus efficiency, it's too And there was
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: also that issue of timing because as we know, the
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: trains run on a very specific schedule, and um, a
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: lot of folks couldn't take off work to meet these
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: So unless the funeral or even you know, wanting to
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: go visit a loved one took place on a Sunday,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: you have to take off work. And as this started
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: to wane in popularity, which did happen, the frequency of
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: these runs started to dwindle. But the true death knew
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: for this particular railway came in during World War Two.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: The London terminus of the Necropolis train was damaged by
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: a German V two rocket and when this damage occurred
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: during the London Blitz, there had already been a couple
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: of near missus, and the train had already been kind
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: of winding down the frequency of trips. And in addition
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: to that, the trips that did have scheduled were occasionally
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: canceled because there was enemy action somewhere else on the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: rail line. So in April of ninety one, and one
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: of the last major air raids on London, bombs repeatedly
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: fell on the Waterloo area and the cars or what's
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: called rolling stock in the train world. Uh, the cars
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: were burned. The railway arch that Noel mentioned connecting the
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: main line was damaged. The building itself was okay, but
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: again the cars were on fire. Yeah, it caused more
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: than two thousand fires, as it turns out, and um
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: in the neighborhood of a thousand people lost their lives
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: in that blitz. Um And you know, faced with the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: choice of rebuilding or just walking away, the company decided
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: to do the ladder and just ditchit. And so there
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: ends the strange story of London's Train of the Dead.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: But if you want to check it out, I believe
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: that you can still see remnants of the station today. Right.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: It's true, it's gonna be a weird date, but if
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: you want to take somebody, just let them know what
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: you're getting into. And the facade of the building is
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: is almost the same, exactly the same as it was,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: minus the signage identifying it as the London Necropolis Railway.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And I have to ask, no, it's it's always a
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: tricky thing for us to put ourselves in the position
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: of someone in the past. But I want to know
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: your take. If you were conducting your funeral for a
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: loved one in this day and age, would you take
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the train? Does it do any of their concerns seems
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: strange or off putting to you in the modern day.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's cliche to say, but it was a
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: different time then. My modern mind just can't wrap itself
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: around this notion, you know. Plus funerals give me the
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: creeps anyway. I'm not a fan. Who is I mean,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Harold from Harold I knew you were gonna say that. Yeah,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of the of the same mind. It's just
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: if we existed back then. I keep having some voice
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: in my head of some you know, hypothetical relative saying
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I can't believe you're putting our darling Esmeralda in the
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: ground with Annikins or something like that. You know, I
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: say that overall this was a smart solution and was
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: a crucial one for the time in which it existed.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: And this is only scratching the surface of strange funeral
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: and burial customs around the world. Yeah. For a deeper dive,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: check out John Clark's book on the Brookwood Necropolis Railway
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: or the essay from George Nash Pomp and Circumstance, Archaeology,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Modernity and the Corporatization of Death, both of which you
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: can find with a cursory Google search. And on that note,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: we would like to hear from you, what are some
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: of the strange? Do you hear that? Yeah, but I
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: was gonna ignore it. We were really trying to power
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: through that ending, weren't she thought if we sewed it
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: up quickly? Gentlemen, Jonathan Strickland, the Quister. It is I
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: the Quister returned at last to plague you with questions
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: about fact and fiction? Do you have an English accit?
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Some sometimes it comes and goes, I've been in this
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: room a really long time, guys. Yeah, yeah, how long
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: have you been here? Like? Pretty sure it's been weeks,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: So you know, I hide here ready to spring at
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: a moment's notice. But you, guys recorded in the other
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: studio like across the way the last couple of times,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: and I mean the light was on. I'm not going
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: to come in with the lights on, right, So I
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: just had to keep waiting until you came back in here.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: So uh, but that is beside the point. Now you
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: are quick and fear as you face a little quister.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: The most cringe worthy segmented all the podcasting. Now out
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: you were talking about James K. Polk and so mind
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: we did that one already like weeks ago. What in
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: together studio? Right? I knew it. I knew it, guys,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I hit here to give you the perfect Why did
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: you talk about today? Those other dead stuff? It might work?
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: We talked about the Train of the Dead in the UK,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: still thematically irrelevant. So I will pose to you a query,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and as you know, I always come up with rules
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: of arbitrary nature for every single query I posed to you. Yes, yes,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: And so you must before asking me any questions about
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: the scenario, which I shall lay so graciously before your feet,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: the phrase woo spooky spool, guys are on you. And
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: then trust me if you don't give me a sincere
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: who spooky. You will not like what you get, so
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: don't phone it in. Do not, by any means phone
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: it in. I mean put your back into it. I wanna.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I want to see spooky waves of spookiness from you.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Before you ask me a question, right, I will not
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: give you an answer. Well, quister, you have set the rules,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: as I believe, we have three minutes, that is correct,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: three minutes to ask me any questions before you tell
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: me whether or not the scenario I give you is
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: true or fiction. Now I will tell you when to
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: start the timer. This one's a bit of a long one.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: So when I tell you, then you hit go. That's
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: very you know, for a villain that is tremendously courteous.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I just I find I find that it that it
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: won't be as as as wonderful victory. I won't be
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: able to savor it if I cheat you of some
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: of your precious spooky time. So here we are Shakespeare
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: familiar with him? M yeah, I wrote a few plays. Well.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: He was buried. First of all, spoiler alert, he's dead.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: He was buried in the cemetery adjacent to the Church
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: of the Holy Trinity. In Stratford upon Avon, but in
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: seventeen twenty six his bones were moved from that site
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: to Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey. Shortly thereafter, the abbey
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: reportedly was the site of several misfortunes, and the cause
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: was attributed to a curse Shakespeare had laid upon his
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: own grave, and the bones were thus dug back up
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: and replaced in his original grave at Stratford upon Avon.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: A statue of Shakespeare was erected in seventeen forty one
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: in Westminster Abbey, and that just had to do start. Okay,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, uh, I don't know, man, I remember
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: reading some stuff about Shakespeare posthumously. Well, I remember here.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I definitely remember the epitaph it was. It was kind
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: of like a creepy little poem, a bit of a spoon.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Oh keep christer. What was the epitaph that that Shakespeare
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: had inscribed on his too much excellent question? Noel, very well,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: good good, too spooky too. Here you go, good friend,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: for Jesus sake, forbear to dig the dust enclose it here.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Blessed be the man that spares these stones, and cursed
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: be he that moves my bones. That sounds like Shakespeare.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure, that definitely rings sure. I remember that
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: from school. Um, okay, but I've got I've got one,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I've got one. You got who spook possible? Then go ahead,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: we're selling you so much. Okay, alright, fine, quister? Is
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: is it possible that some of this is true and
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: some is not? Sure? It's also possible that I have
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: a golden Cadillac at home. I don't see what the
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: point of that is. Do you mean, do I make
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: something out of whole cloth? Or could there be elements
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: of truth woven into a lie? The matter? Yeah, I could.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: If that sounds like me, it could happen. Okay, I'm
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: thinking yes, because I definitely remember that epitaph. That sounds
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: completely accurate. Uh. It seems like something that would have happened.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: The whole Westminster Appey thing. What do you think that
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: I'm going with? True? Westminster Abbey is is historically a
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: place for the interment of very significant people in its
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: corner is a thing. That's that's the whole thing. Uh,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with true. All right, let's go with it.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: We lock it in, let's lock it in, true. True,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: I when your streak of victories has come to an end.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: You'll you'll streak two is a streak here in Atlanta.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: As it turns out people who aren't familiar with Atlanta sports,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: two is a streak. I have claimed victory from the
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: jaws of defeat. You were bamboozled. So here's the real story.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: His body was buried at Strafford upon Avon. That is,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: in fact his epitaph on his gravestone. He was never moved,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: although in the eighteenth century there was a fellow named
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: John Rich who was the a theater manager in London,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: very very influential man, who actually suggested that they move
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Shakespeare's bones to Westminster Abbey, and the abbey said, no,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: we're cool. Uh So Shakespeare's statue is there, but Shakespeare's
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: bones are still at Strafford upon Avon. You can find
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: other dead poets over at Westminster Abbey, including Chaucer, Spencer,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: many others all over in that corner. I remember jumping
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: up and down on Thomas Hardy's grave myself to a
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: corner like where you hide in the podcast studio. I
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: mean no, because that's a corner the poets corners, the
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: corner on the ground and I always stay in the
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: one in the upper right part of the ceiling that was, yeah,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna need to replace some tile. Yeah. Well, also,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: you know you can't blame the guy, because God knows
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: gonna be tough to keep your grip up there. But
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: fair is fair. And because you finally won this round,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Jonathan and your incarnation as the quister Noel Casey, and
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I must award you this badge that says winner. I
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: have literally never been this happy, Jonathan. You are you?
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Are you crying? Shut up? You're crying. So what this means,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I think, is that you might have won the battle
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Old Nemesis, but you have not won the war. No.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: I will return and I will quiz you yet again,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: then again, then again for all eternity. But until that
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: time comes, I think we're gonna have to go drown
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: our sorrows uh elsewhere. Um, that's gonna be it for
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: today's episode of Ridiculous Story. I am admittedly quite bummed.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I thought we had it. Yeah, it felt it felt right,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: but now it feels so wrong. I have never been
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: so upset about getting a badge that says winner back,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: not even in like fourth grade when that stuff really mattered. Hey, folks,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: if you want to write us us some consolations and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: help us to feel better about ourselves, please do so.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Please do so. We need it, We need it. Send
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: it to Ridiculous at how stuff works dot com. You
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: can also console us on social media, which we are
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: ridiculous history on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We would of
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: course like to thank Lori l. Dove her fantastic article
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: London how to Train for the Dead provided some inspiration
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: for this episode. Are super producer Casey Pegram along with
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams who composed our theme, and begrudging thanks to
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Jonathan the Quister Strickland for tormenting us you get again.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: You guys are going to be in the studio again
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: next time, right because I mean, like, I've got snacks
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: up there. You know what I don't know right now.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: I don't just I think that Nolan, I uh, I
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: need to break. We need some time to heal. Yeah,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: that's that's fair. Thanks so much for listening, folks, and
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: let us know if you would have been fooled by
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: that Shakespeare thing. We'll see you next time. M