Oh What A Time... - #18 Emergency Services

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

This week we're taking a look through history at the BIG THREE emergency services: Police, Fire Brigade and the Ambulance service (with all due respect to the Coastguard and to a lesser extent The AA). We'll talk through the origins of the police and fire brigade in Ancient Rome, plus how the ambulance developed across Europe's battlefields. All the usual features are back and ONE DAY TIME MACHINE has a twist this week: what three buttons are you choosing for your time machine? Can you better Elis' selections? Also feel free to sketch what your time machine looks like and we'll put the best ones on our instagram. To do any of that, just drop us a line at: [e-mail] Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Oh and please follow us on Twitter at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod And thank you to Dr Daryl Leeworthy for his help with this week’s research. Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). And thank you for listening! We’ll see you next week! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's 2FA security on Kraken? Let's say I'm captaining my soccer team, and we're up by a goal against, I don't know, the Burlington Bulldogs. Do we relax? No way. Time to create an extra line of defense and protect that lead. That's like 2FA on Kraken. A surefire way to keep what you already have safe and sound. Go to Kraken.com and see what crypto can be.

Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See Kraken.com slash legal slash CA dash PRU dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. I'm going back to university for $0 delivery fee, up to 5% off orders and 5% Uber cash back on rides. Not whatever you think university is for. Get Uber One for students. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student. Join for just $4.99 a month. Savings may vary. Eligibility and member terms apply. Looking for a collaborator for your career? A strong ally to support your next level success? You will find it at York University School of Continuing Studies,

where we offer career programs purpose-built for you. Visit continue.yorku.ca. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the history podcast that tries to decide if the past was absolutely rubbish. I'm Tom Crane. I'm Chris Scull. And I'm Ellis James. Each week on this show we'll be looking at a new historical subject and today we're going to be discussing the emergency services. Yes, you know them. The big three. Police.

Fire Brigade. The AA. Deliveroo. Yeah, Deliveroo. The big one. That's the feeding of the people It's definitely the fourth emergency service Isn't it

Well that was the AA's slogan Throughout the 90s wasn't it The fourth emergency service And the coast guard would famously go Err hello Excuse me So not really When it's a bad emergency In a car you tend to ring the police

in an ambulance you you you're more for sort of if if just someone's broken down that's so we're the coast guard i i you know i i cannot i i cannot emphasize that enough do you think the a.a have a huge chip on their shoulder to the extent that when people are on a flight and they go is there a doctor on board? The AA guy's like, oh, hello. Well, I'm the fourth emergency service. Yeah, but I mean, a body's like an engine. Keep it ticking over, is that it?

I can have a look at an exhaust and figure out what's going on. Yeah, I mean, I jokingly referred to STI tests as an MOT to my mates in the pub, so it's basically the same sort of thing. So what periods of history are you looking at? I'm going to be looking at fire in ancient Rome, the fire service in ancient Rome. What about you, Chris? What are you looking at? The start of the ambulance services, right through to the present day,

but we'll start in the late 1700s. I am going to be looking at the development of the police force. Shall we begin, though, with some correspondence? Let's do that. I thought what could be fun is actually to kick off with some reviews. Often our listeners will leave reviews in Latin or in different ancient languages for our fun and we've got another one of those. Would you like to hear it and try and guess what has been written um this one says proclarium est audi thiam siendi sunt ridaculum itami advent automatorium predatorium cognitium consequata securius five cedis you might get that one uh volo erum capulus mensam there you go like to guess what

that says i honestly lost you after the first syllable was it i didn't realize i could love a podcast more than members of my own family until i listened to oh what a time and i became a deep profound part of my life is that what it means it's not far off it's great to hear they know the team is funny thus they helped me to gain a greater knowledge of the past thus it's quite a choice to go to put it in in english with the word thus and then translate it into latin easy five star i wish i had a coffee table there you go um i think though actually i've got to hold my hands up and i'm going to use some latin now i need to do a mayor oh yeah it's our first correction section I've got to hold my hands up and I'm going to use some Latin now. I need to do a mea culpa. Oh, yeah. It's our first correction section.

I think you'll find it's the correction section. Yeah, it's the correction section. Correction section. Correction section. Correction section. Right, I hold my hands up. On the last episode, I can't believe this is our first correction section, I implied that the Americans celebrate Independence Day on the 5th of July.

I now know, of course, it's the 4th of July. We've all seen the Tom Cruise film. Sorry, Tim in Kansas, Olivia it's the 4th of July. We've all seen the Tom Cruise film. Sorry, Tim in Kansas. Olivia Kinghorn, Chris Frampton. Yes, I accept it was the 4th of July. I can't believe we didn't pick you up on that. I didn't even spot it. There's no films like Tom Cruise where they're just doing a big clean-up.

They're putting a load of stuff in black bin bags. I'm amazed we didn't pick you up on that. So apologies to our American listeners. Chris, what's it like to make a mistake? What's that feel like? Because I've seen it happen and I've heard about them,

but I've never... Is it embarrassing? Does it take the wind out of your sails? Confidence has been rocked, I assume. Yeah. I've seen it happen and I've heard about them but I've never... Is it embarrassing? Does it feel... Does it take the wind out of your sails? Confidence has been rocked, I assume. Yeah. My first instinct was that I couldn't have said that

and then I listened back and oh no, I did say it. Actually, on the 4th of July I was at American Independence Day 4th of July 1776 I did do a little bit of googling to try and figure out is there a way I can

lie my way out of this citizen army? Oh, nice. Yeah nice yeah and could i say you know because we're a few hours ahead in the uk when it's fifth oh good show yeah well but the fourth of july isn't actually the american independence day technically because it's the day americans declared independence but it's not the day the british agreed to know you have independence that's the third of september with the treaty of paris so the americans declared with the Treaty of Paris so the Americans declared it the War of Independence and they do eventually

get their independence doesn't really help you out the 3rd of September doesn't help me out to use an American Steve Bannon flood the zone with shit

and that's what I've just attempted to do here is there enough is there enough I've muddied the waters enough that I can emerge from this unscathed

it feels like Alan Partridge when he says suffice to say I had the last laugh. You were desperately looking for your way to beat America. Actually, America, I think you'll find that I'm correct. That would endear us to our American listeners from across the Atlantic, wouldn't it? You're all right. One nil.

Blighty. You're alright One nil Now Elle, have we had Correspondence about the greatest Format point in You know, world podcasting Out of interest We certainly have

Should we hear the jingle? It's the one day time machine It's the one day time machine It's the one day time machine It's the one day time machine This is from Alfie in Liverpool. Hello, chaps. First of all, I would like to thank you for digging up my inner history nerd

that has been buried underneath layers of the corporate world and adulthood. Your podcast is always the highlight of my week. That's very kind of you, Alfie. For my One Day Time Machine, I'd like to go back in time to the Stone Age with as much modern technology as I can fit in my pockets, scare the crap out of everyone with things like alarm clocks and calculators, and finish off the day by finding my ancestors and giving them a solar-powered electric whisk. Fingers crossed when I come back, my family's dynasty has lived on.

We rule the world, or at least for a bit, and I sneak my way into the Stone Age equivalent of the Bible. Nice one, Alfie from Liverpool. The problem is, you'd have to be going back to Stone Age with all of that stuff pre-charged. Because it would be so disappointing to find your Stone Age ancestors and say, look at this, it's an electric whisk. You won't know what electricity is, but you'll be impressed. And then you press the button and just nothing happens. You'd look like such a pillock.

You're getting clubbed over the head in a heartbeat. I do need to point something out. He has described it as a solar-powered electric whisk. So he's got there ahead of you. The other items... That is true, but the alarm clocks and the calculators... The alarm clock is an issue, yeah, unless it's a wind-up. Yeah, you wouldn't be able to plug them in,

so you'd need a wind-up alarm clock. Calculator, the battery, you know, a battery can last years on a calculator. I think my big concern, and I think this is a fair question, is during the Stone Age, what do you need to get up for? What do you need to set an alarm for in the Stone Age Surely sunrise is your alarm That's when you go That's when the attempting to survive starts again

Yes Before you get to sleep and forget about The attempting to survive part of your life Tomorrow can I ever lay in From attempting to survive You know what three meals a day Three meals a day It's a bit of a faff now You make sure your fridge is stocked Or you're out and about you've got three meals a day three meals a day it's a bit of a faff now like you

gotta run it you make sure your fridge is stocked or you're out and about you gotta grab a sandwich whatever uber the fourth you know uber eats the fourth emergency service in the stone age you're waking up and you're like right i've got to scrabble for this first meal and two hours later you go oh scrabbling again you know what an existence every day trying to hunt always having to having to catch breakfast i find it not my sons make me make them pancakes quite a lot and i find that really annoying yeah the idea they said dad can you go and catch me a pig i fancy a hog rose yeah it's seven in the morning i'm running around clapped and desperately trying to find an animal to catch that doesn't trying to get in petting zoo, there's a picture of you behind the desk,

do not let this man in, he's only going to try and steal the pigs. I refuse to make pancakes for my kids. Oh, why's that? It's just too much hassle. Refuse? I'm like, I'll let you eat Nutella out of the jar, sort of as a compromise,

but I'm not making you a pancake. We can Google image them if you want, and you can imagine them. I'm not getting the butter out. No chance. Quick roll call as to the reactions of these different things. You're Stone Age people.

First thing, the alarm clock. Are you particularly interested in that? The noise would freak them out so what you'd have to do, you'd have to do that thing that I haven't done for years where, say the time is 5 past 5 you set the alarm

for 5 or 6 so then you're like, listen lads, honestly this is great, watch this, hang on it's 5 past 5 now no, no, no, in Hang on. It's five past five now. No, no, no, in a minute, an alarm's going to go.

You wait. And then you'd set the alarm for five or six and then you're like, and now we wait. 60 seconds. Do you think if you could communicate with a caveman, you're going back and you go with an alarm clock going, this tells you the time

surely they're going sorry what what the fuck is the time what do you mean the time i had a phone once ellis this is such a bad design point where if you wanted to choose your alarm you couldn't listen to it unless you set it as an alarm so every time you wanted to try a new alarm thing when you would have to choose as you say one minute later and then sit there and wait and then go no that's not the one that's really annoying we'll try again and then you'd set another one for a minute later and you'd sit there in silence on your own in your bedroom waiting to see what green green sleeve sounded like on a nokia um i think i agree with you i think as soon as the alarm goes off, they're smashing it with a club.

I think that's basically what's going to happen. I think that's basically going to happen. Minimum. Calculator? Again. I don't care. Even if you wrote rude words in sort of upside down,

they don't care. I think the one invention a caveman would be well into, a solar-powered fridge. You're like, you can go kill that pig and you can store store the meat it'll be good for weeks it'll cut like don't need to go out hunt fresh meat every day pop it in the

fridge you don't you don't have to you don't have to salt anything to to keep it yeah uh which which which is good for your cholesterol you don't care about cholesterol that's fine i'm going to tell you about cholesterol now so the fridge if they someone had somewhere to plug it in would be a be an absolute game changer free up time for recreation all that sort of stuff more drawing on cave walls whatever they did back then no no no way to plug it in so you're like listen it's uh i've charged it up you were gonna have fresh food for eight hours and then and then back to how everything was before then you just treat it as a caravan after that, just sleep in it.

Take the drawers out and just sleep in it at night. This fridge is cold right now because I've just unplugged it, but it's going to get hotter throughout the day. It's going to start to smell a bit weird in a couple of days' time. And then actually, it's not a gift. It's a burden. It's a problem. I've given you a problem.

One more thing before I go. There's some weird gases in the back that I don't really understand probably don't mess with it you know the other thing a caveman would love, that I can't even wrap my head around an air fryer, I'm here in 2023 I've just got an air fryer, I'm like what is this wizardry

George Foreman Grill there will be a boxer in a few hundred thousand years time and Muhammad Ali There will be a boxer in a few hundred thousand years' time. And Muhammad Ali, he's actually banned from boxing because he's refused to draft. And in the meantime, he has become the one. And it's a golden age for heavyweight boxing. You don't know what heavyweight boxing is.

That's fine. Forget it. I don't know why I bother. Before we move on to our next bit of correspondence i've had an idea for something i'd like our listeners to send us which is i want to know what the one day time machine looks like so people have an idea for what they think it looks like what buttons it has do a drawing and send it to us on our email address or on instagram and we will post them on our email address or on Instagram, and we will post them on social media, our favourite ones. I want to see what does this look like.

Let's find out once and for all. Great idea. Can you kick us off, Craig? Can you kick us off with the first drawing? I will. I will do that this week. Do you know what? You've hit upon such a good format point there. The buttons in the one-day time machine.

Yeah. Because they can do anything. Should we say there's a minimum of three buttons and we want to know what they do? Big question. Is there a big red one that says eject? What are your three buttons, Ellis? Air conditioning. Nice.

I don't even have that in my car. I'd absolutely love that. I'll just pack it up. Electric windows and the hazards you're not putting your windows down while you're traveling through time that's quite a risk your head would get sucked out and you wouldn't know which which era or century you'd end up on the way back to 1500 you he gets sucked out in 1800. When you rush through a portal, it's always like equations and numbers flying around as well.

I get decapitated by the percentage sign or something like that. I'm sticking my head out to see what it looks like. Some bloke's head next to a plus and minus sign because he stuck his head out the electric windows. I can't believe your time machine has electric windows. Like the Ford Cortina of time machines or something. Categorically the worst idea anyone has ever had. And the third button? It can't get any worse.

Let's find out. What's the third button? It's the hazards. Okay, that's fine. Warning, head on the road. When you're parked up in 1250, you're on Temple Yellows. I like it. Well, actually, the hazard is kind of useful if you're going back somewhere in the last 50 years.

If you're only going back to the 70s and you're parking, you know, in Soho, and you, you know, stick them on then. If you're going back like a million years, the land of the dinosaurs, I would imagine hazards are the last thing you want blinking in the night. Because the T-Rex is going, what the fuck is that? It's the bad idea. All of us huddled in the time machine going,

why have you picked hazards as the third party? All right, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at oh what a time dot com and you can follow us on instagram and twitter at oh what a time pod now clear off it's a new day how can you make the most of it with your membership rewards points earn points on everyday purchases use them for that long-awaited vacation. You can earn points almost anywhere, and they never expire. Treat your friends or spoil your family. Earn them on your adventure and use them how you want, when you want. That's the powerful backing of American Express.

Learn more at amex.ca slash yamxtermsapply. Breaking news coming in from Bet365. Where every nail-biting overtime win, breakaway, pick six, three-point shot, underdog win, buzzer beater, shootout, walk-off, and absolutely every play in between is amazing. From football to basketball and hockey to baseball, whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at bet 365 must be 19 or older ontario only please play responsibly if you or someone you know has concerns about gambling visit connectsontario.ca okay well it's the emergency services today and i will be talking about the development of various police forces and i'll be talking about the ambulance. And I am going to be talking to you about the fire service,

and more specifically, the fire service in ancient Rome. OK, would you like to guess what the big difference between the fire service then and now was? Any idea? Less pole-based. It is. They hadn't invented the pole, so they just had to jump through that little hole in the floor And the floor just

Out for the best So many broken ankles Hobbling to a big fire There's got to be a better way I can't help you out the building I'm so sorry My ankles are shot No

There are a number of differences As you will find out as I discuss this. But there's always been an issue. Basically, urban populations have always faced the danger of fire. That's been part of city life ever since it started. So most grey cities have somewhere in the history story of a time where a large part of it burned down. I'll give you some examples the great fire of london in 1666 then a century later in 1776 new york was ablaze and then over 100

years after that in 1897 paris was on fire basically throughout history cities have erupted into flames so uh in ancient rome though uh it was no different. This is the point. It was like, as cities have always been, it was especially vulnerable to fire, Rome. The Great Fire of Rome, which broke out in July 64 AD, burnt for six days, destroyed nearly three quarters of the city, and gave rise to the accusation that the Emperor Nero had fiddled, that's what they said, which was just playing his liar, rather than actually doing anything about it, which actually proved not to be true. that the emperor Nero had fiddled that's what they said which was just playing his liar rather

than actually doing anything about it which actually proved not to be true because I think even from an emperor's point of view who could be arseholes watching your city burn down and going no I've got to finish my music lesson does feel like quite a yeah it feels like a big decision to yeah a big call exactly but in contrast a devastating fire in 6 AD led Nero's predecessor, the Emperor Augustus, and this is what I want to talk to you about, to actually act and do something about it. And he established the first fire brigade in ancient Rome. And these guys were called the Vigils. They were also given a nickname called the Soratali.

Would you like to guess what this sexy nickname stood for? Smoky Boys? It's not far off! It's the Little Bucket Fellows. If I'd worked my way up into this really sort of heroic position, I'd be thinking, surely I'll be getting something.

It's been given to them because of the little buckets they carried water around in. Because the fire brigade or firemen are notoriously sexy. Yeah, exactly. Like that's, you know, strippers dress as firemen. They don't dress as app developers, do they? It's a sort of sexy job. They don't dress as podcasters.

But maybe that'll change ellis maybe in time maybe in 20 years or the currency of becoming an app developer shifts it might be you'll go to people go to a strip club and there'll be a guy in a sort of you know dart ring specs can you imagine how disappointing you disappointed you'd be if on your hen night your mate had organized a stripper and the stripper turned up and he was dressed as a podcaster. Got some plans to do it. Slowly removing the big headphones. Looking you straight in the eye.

So before then, there had been private firefighting teams, but these firefighters were all slave and funded by their patrons but under augustus uh when he set up his first fire service the firefighters would be funded by taxation for the first time and there was a force of six thousands of them now i'll tell you what their job their job is quite weird their job was to walk around rome and try and spot potential fires that's what you you do. So it wasn't like... That's a really inefficient way of firefighting, isn't it? Yeah, it's a really weird job, isn't it? You've just got to get a real skill for spotting an ember.

I don't know what that... I don't know how that works. But I suppose you'd be looking for people who are careless, wouldn't you? It's a preventative measure. Which, if you did it well enough actually would is perfect you don't want your house to go on fire and then be put for it to be put out you want it to be prevent in the first place they'd be wandering around looking for people um i guess sort of smoking and leaning against hay or whatever whatever i don't know what

you do they had a uniform uh they wore helmets that were similar to the helmets that are worn today. And in their arsenal, they also had familiar equipment. They had axes, buckets, ropes, ladders, a form of fire blanket, which comprised cloth soaked in vinegar and even high-pressure pumps. And they even had a fire engine called the Sifo, which was pulled along by horses and had a high pressured pump on the back of it. Now there are various ways in which the vigils had to prevent fire. They had to have an accurate knowledge of where the water was

so they could transport it in their tiny buckets to the fire. And they would also often prevent fire by soaking large blankets and then throwing those across the fire. But there was also one other key way. And this is what's very different to today. Would you like to guess what's the third way you think they prevented fire? And it speaks to the way these cities were built back then. Oh, I don't know.

As a homeowner, you'd find quite annoying. Oh, they'd smash it down? Yeah, in most cases, the best way to prevent flames was to pull down the building with hooks and levers. Oh, my God. I remember that's how they tried to stop the Great Fire of London. They were just pulling down the houses on the outskirts of the fire because that's how you stop it spreading. And then the wind changed, I think.

I think that's what happened to the Great Fire of London. I feel like that would happen to Ukraine. They'd go, right, the house is coming down. Ah, so that... Oh, sorry, wind change. didn't need to do that. But it does, it puts a sort of, it puts a sort of pressure on whether you're going to call out the fire service if you think there's a big risk it's going to turn up

and just yank your house down. Yeah. I'd be tempted to just go at it with some buckets of water myself and hope that doesn't happen. Can we try the water first? Nope, it's coming down. Can we try the water first no it's coming down can we try anything else so they would yank down the house as a way to sort of stop it from spreading but this this was all very different to um the private fire brigade that was previously paid for by marcus linis

crassus who was a patron of Julius Caesar. Now, this is crazy. Crassus was famous for extortion, especially the landlords. And according to sources from the time, Crassus would send his firefighters, which were a paid-for group by him, to the location of a fire. And then he would turn up and offer to buy the burning building from its distraught owner. And only then would he put out the fire so he would turn up with his fire brigade and say i'm going to give you here's a massively cut amount for your building and if you don't take that i'm just going to burn down anyway so you might as well take this deal

grifter that is horrendous that's one of the worst people from history yeah it is but um in a packed field that's pretty cynical isn't it but what augustus um borrowed with this idea of the vigils from early private forces was the use of slaves as firefighters because it was it was brutal work it was physically demanding life expectancy was very low um you had to do all the tasks basically of modern firefighting but with none of the protective equipment so you're basically just running into buildings in your normal yeah a real nutter's job that yeah absolutely in your in your tunic tunic's obviously fame i imagine quite a flammable thing to be wearing as well so you're running in there wearing your normal clothes trying to rescue people from a fire yeah you'd have to be exceptionally brave slash have a screw

loose to be into that absolutely um but by Nero's time most firefighters were freed men rather than slaves and the role came with sort of added benefits for example um you get the possibility of roman citizenship after six years of employment as a firefighter whereas it took 25 years service in the army by contrast which i think would probably worry me going into it if i said i i get the rewards are goods but they they're five times better than the army and that doesn't get quite dangerous is probably what i wouldn't like really yes absolutely that shows you how dangerous this job was that being in the army it would 20 it would take you 25 years to get citizenship being in the fire service you get it in uh in a mere six um before we finish i just want to tell you about this so the way that it

was structured it ran along military lines and there were four key roles within the fire service. I'm going to tell you the names of each of them. I want you to try and guess what they are. The Aquarii. Do you want to try and guess what the Aquarii did? Water. Water. Correct.

Acquired water, aqua. They brought it to the fire. The Siphonari. What did they do? Siphoning water? Yeah. The pumping. They used the pumps.

They shot the water out of the burning building. The emichelari. Can I guess what they were? This is a job you don't want. What, bum wipers? The bum wipers of the terrified. They were the people that ran into the building. Oh, really?

Oh, yeah. And saved the terrified And then the Victimarius This is the job you do want I mean this is ridiculous This is the guy whose job was Maintaining The worship of the cult of the emperor

And the barrack shrine So your job was to just look after the barrack shrine That I can do yeah that sounds like that's an easy you're looking for a cushy job in history that's not bad is it do you imagine that the sort of like social get-togethers he's using the language as if we're all in this together oh it's really you know it's what a tough year we've had yeah yeah yeah me polishing that statue you guys running into buildings wearing just your pants basically yes we're all the same, though, aren't we?

Yeah, tough guys. Yeah, they were pretty tough guys, actually. I kind of look after the shrine bit. Yeah, yeah. Not firefighting as such, but yeah, pretty tough guys. I've done all the training, actually. So it was, people decided it would be best for me to do my job.

You know, where I am. And I agree actually in a way the shine is what's keeping everyone safe so you know I'm it's a weight I'm willing to bear something about your manner Tom that would make you an absolutely fantastic

primary school teacher if comedy goes wrong I know exactly what you're going to do I thought you were about to say make you a fantastic firefighter that's exactly what exactly what you're going to do I thought you were about to say We'd make you a fantastic firefighter That's exactly what I thought we were going to do What are you on about? Your house is on fire

This man is the last thing you want to see You would turn up and go bloody hell What are we going to do with this? Doing that hand movement That people do when they're a bit hot. When the fibre gate turns up and someone says bloody hell, that is a bad sign. All right, so I'm here to talk about ambulances.

And ambulances, as a system, it's come from the battlefield. And I wanted to start by giving you some first-person historical experience. I've actually been to the site of the Battle of Waterloo. They've got a fantastic museum there. And you see all the amazing outfits of napoleon's armies and what the prussians were wearing and what welling you know i think there's even got maybe wellington's boots are knocking about there's all these artifacts they're just sensational and there's one area of this uh of the museum of the battle of waterloo and it's talked specifically about the injuries

that were sustained by the soldiers on the battlefield that day oh god and i think i'm gonna say it i think it's the one of the worst battles for injuries because it's grape shot tiny little musket balls being fired out of cannons loads of them's obviously cannonballs they're the kind of injuries where your legs are getting blown off your tape you know you're getting if it hits your shot i mean if it hits your head, you're gone. But you can't explain these horrific injuries. And you'd just be lying on the battlefield. And in some ways, I think it's worse than World War I

because you're getting machine gun. I think it's so lethal. It's almost like there's less suffering because you're getting gunned down. Right, yeah. At the Battle of Waterloo, there are accounts in the days after it, there were still soldiers moaning on the battlefield, unable to move. And of course, there's no help for them.

Because what can you do? Thousands of people, the reports of the battlefield that night, I remember reading just people groaning long into the night with nobody to help them. And this is really, it's these scenes on battlefields that kind of gave birth to the ambulance. Also, what a mad thing to paint. Because they're very...

There's lots of famous paintings of battlefield scenes. What artist who's incredibly creative thinks to themselves, do you know what? I think I'll just draw loads. I think I'll paint loads of suffering, actually. I think that's, yeah, I'll do that tomorrow. Yeah, that's it.

I'll do flowers tonight and I'll do suffering tomorrow. Do you think that, are they, like, stood on a neighbouring hill with an easel? It's not like that. Are they painting it like a really sort of tough round on watercolour challenge? It's not like that are they are they painting it like like a really sort of tough round on watercolor challenge it's not like that is it are they well actually i would i think when people paint battlefields they're painting like they glorify the battlefield like the charge of the light brigade and paintings like that it's just the scene is like a magnificent thing actually it's really horrific yeah like you don't unless there was sort of a an

understanding then that you didn't attack the painters but throughout the battlefield there were six or seven guys with easels in the midst of it like right in the mixer just painting but do you know um one of the things i remember about the the battle of waterloo that that blew my mind is um back that you've got bands. There's guys at the front of the cavalry, the army marching into the battle and it's got a bagpipe, like the bagpipes.

Yeah. Wow. That's the job. Why do you want that job? It's when the first shot bursts the bagpipe and everyone cheers. Thank goodness for that. No, they don't cheer. They breathe a sigh of relief.

Both sides. It's the one thing that unifies both sides. At least the bagpipe's not playing anymore. It's like a drum at the football. You're like, oh, God, this is the last thing we need. Henri Danon from Switzerland. He's the founder of the red cross he had seen the aftermath of the battle of solferino in northern italy they've been so moved by the scenes of injured and discarded soldiers that he organized the local population to provide

voluntary care and now really i'm going to talk to you about two men both frenchmen both uh part of the kind of napoleonic army the frenchman, Jean-Francois Percy, Surgeon General to Napoleon, inventor of the first padded field ambulance, a mobile operating theatre. The other guy I'm going to talk to you about, another Frenchman, Dominique Jean Larrey, military surgeon in the French Revolutionary Army

and the inventor of the flying carriage, the Ambulance Volante. And this ambulance is just like a little carriage pulled by horses. Okay, I for a second thought you were going to describe a flying ambulance, and I thought, how the hell has this not been mentioned before? Why have they not...

What an incredible leap that was. Of course, as we all know, he invented the hovering ambulance. So, Dominique Jean Leray, he'd been present in paris during the storming of the bastille on the 14th of july 1789 and he'd served as a doctor for the french navy despite being only 23 he put his medical skills to use treating the wounded and used improvised ambulances to ferry the injured to field hospitals so during the revolutionary wars of the early 1790s loray set out improved improvised ambulances he noticed the speed of the gun carriages being pulled by the horse artillery

units and realized this is what we could be doing to pull people off the battlefield and make them better so it's a jury and interesting there's a lot of innovation but as well loray when the napoleon's campaign in egypt he swapped the horses for camels who were better suited to the desert So during, and interestingly, there's a lot of innovation as well. LeRae, when the Napoleons campaigned in Egypt, he swapped the horses for camels, who were better suited to the desert sands. Ah. And I actually thought, Crane, if you were injured on the battlefield, I think they'd go, get this guy a camel,

regardless of where it was. LeRae's ambulance volonté would be staffed by a driver, stretcher bearers and trained personnel from the medical corps who could provide a first response and remove the injured from the battlefield and that his theory was if you get them off the battlefield you you you work on them you're going to improve mortality rates first trials happened in the battle of metz in the summer of 1793 and his following year loray system of rapid removal and treatment including amputation was implemented across the French army. But there's another guy I mentioned right at the start, Jean-Francois Percy. He rose to become Surgeon General in Napoleon's army.

And Percy was more of a military man than a humanitarian man. He thought getting people off the battlefield onto an ambulance, that is the wrong approach. He said we should go to those injured people on the battlefield, that is the wrong approach he said we should go to those injured people on the battlefield prioritize the ones who are not so injured who could potentially be kind of treated and return to the battlefield first and fight yeah fight again oh wow so yeah there was a massive disagreement and there another disagreement between them was that le ray was a massive advocate of amputation he would look at your leg chop it, chop it off. He was known for chopping it like he could remove

a limb in under two minutes. Oh dear. Although, that's what you want. You don't want to be a long drawn out affair, do you? That's a fair point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a fair point. Is he then cauterising it? What's he doing?

How exact is this? That feels like quite an axe job, doesn't it? What's he doing? How exact is this? That feels like an axe job, doesn't it? My knowledge of amputations are almost exclusively from seafaring films like Master and Commander, where it's like right, bite down on this rag and you just see the guy get a sore out. You're like, oh my god.

Thank god for anaesthetic, eh? Yes. So you're saying Percyhetic, eh? That's... Yes. So you're saying Percy, basically, so he was saying that the less injured you were, the more likely you were to be rescued from the... He would look across the battlefield at injured people and he'd go, who's the least injured?

I'm going to go treat that person with a view to getting them back into the battle. LeRae is more humanitarian. Who's most injured? Whose life is most at threat? I will try and... So if you want to get off the battlefield, your best chance is to try and pretend

that your life-altering injury is actually just a scratch. Yeah, exactly. I think it's mainly my thumb, actually. It's just... You know when you get a hand nail, but it's actually quite sore? That is your best chance, isn't it? Wow, okay.

And personally, they're knocking about at the same time. So if you're lying injured on the battlefield, you've got to see who's closer. You've got to figure out quite quickly whether to play up or play down your injury in order to get the best treatment. What you do want is to see the two people who are in charge arguing. Come to a decision quickly! Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, so, I mean, you see the development of the ambulance, really. It comes on the battlefield and it transferred to civilian life in the 1870s

when the Venerable Order of St John, heard of that before, established the St John's Ambulance Association in England and Wales. This is fascinating to me because I never, it's hard to imagine a world without ambulances. It's hard, but in 18, like their mission in 1877 was basically the St. John's Ambulance, the Order of St. John was to go out and teach industrial workers, coal miners, railway employees, how to respond to injuries. So they're teaching the people who are most at risk how to treat for each other and provide first aid and then you know get that

person into such a position that they could then be taken to hospital yeah so ambulance brigades followed around from 1887 when the st john's ambulance brigade was set up and they began to provide ambulance services across England and Wales until the creation of the NHS in 1948. Although some hospitals and some local authorities did fund ambulances of their own. So it's only really since 1948, the development of the NHS,

in the UK at least, you can hit 999, call yourself an ambulance. Well, well, well. I am so glad I'm living now. Yeah, absolutely. One quick question. You say that, obviously,

the development of the ambulance came from the battlefield, from those battlefields. In 1877, they got rid of the camel idea, hadn't they? So if you call for an ambulance in Merthyr, you wouldn't be looking down the high street Waiting for the camel to come over the brow of the hill

Don't worry Nan, it's alright I can see the hump You're going to be okay Oh, he's a double humper I love those ones Yeah, that is what you want, isn't it though To be fair Get slotted between the humps

That feels far more comfortable. If I've got a dodgy hip, I don't want to be on top of a single hump lying over it. Yeah, you want to be slotted between the humps. Slot me in. Like toast in a toast rack. That's where I want to be. Neatly slotted in.

It's going to be all right, Dan. Do you know, have you ever seen in westerns, like, there's plenty of western films, it's gonna be all right now do you know you ever seen in westerns like there's plenty of in western films it's like when guys have been shot and their mate will just throw them over the back of the horse and like yeah right like that's one thing that's a one of those a weird historical fear i've got that i'll find myself in the wild west having been shot and i'll have to sit lay on the back of a horse like bumbling along back to some barely qualified doctor who's also a barber yes it's also it's the smelly end of a horse like bumbling along back to some barely qualified doctor who's also

a barber yes it's the smelly end of a horse yeah let's be honest you're not getting the best real estate there drape me over the front please at least over the neck why am i hanging over the arse of the horse when i'm already clearly in a lot of pain is this to try and keep me awake is this the idea or is this smell's to keep me from drifting off and dying? And I'm allergic to horses. So I'm turning to the doctors in agony. Annoyed because of the smell

and a serious case of the sniffles as well. The tail will be swatting me in the face for a full 40 minute journey. First things first, let's get this man some Pyrrhoton. Stop! face for a 40 minute journey.

First things first, let's get this man some piratons. We haven't invented that. I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. Okay, boot zone. I don't know. Right, let's talk about the long arm of the law, the old bill. Or as my dad still refers to him, the fuzz.

Really? Yeah. Yeah, whenever my mother was driving, he'd say, oh, fuzz, slow down. I thought that only happened in like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. I didn't realise it happened in Carmarthen. I know, yes, weird. My dad worked for Lewisham Council in the mid-seventies, and I think he brought back cockney terms for the police

to Wales. The Romans, of course, they did have daytime law and order enforcers, a quasi-police force called the Cohorts Urbanae, who were the ancestor, really, of the modern-day gendarme or carboneri. But as Roman influence faded during the Middle Ages, particularly in Britain, so too did those ideas of policing. Local policing and unarmed constables has emerged as a counterpoint to the European concept of a national police force. Because we do have a different attitude or historically we have done in the UK.

Because the idea of a national police force, like you had, say, in Ireland or in France or in Italy or in Spain, you know, the man at armsian um uh principles of policing was sort of policing by consent so you know the coppers didn't have guns for instance they just had in the 50s those crap little wooden truncheons oh yeah i should be hit over the head with one of them i've been hit over the head with a rolling pin you You'd be like, piss off, mate. Now, our starting point is with Alfred the Great, King of Anglo-Saxon England in the 9th century. And it was his period that the traditional office of the shireeve, or the sheriff, was created to serve as the official of a local area, i.e. the shire.

And that person was responsible for the maintenance of peace. Now, the king's peace or the queen's peace according to the present monarch in essence it was to assert the king's authority in a divided land but these sheriffs you know they had no police force in the modern sense of their disposal so court officers such as the bailiff the constable they had particular roles to perform they didn't function as a quasi police force either so you know the sheriff it was difficult for them to cope now the way they did it it's not really that removed from hollywood's vision of the wild west and you know deputies having a deputy in time of need so for the 19th century american frontier read medieval britain now in the absence of a police force the sheriff levied and appointed the men of the county to provide unit

strength. Now, this temporary body was known as the power of the county. And, um, the posse... So you're saying that basically he had no official force with which to govern these areas. He had to govern on behalf of the king. Yeah, well, listen to this, right.

Any man over the age of 15, as long as they were able-bodied and not in holy orders, could be called up and they had no right of refusal. No! Imagine being a copper at 15. And also, you don't want to be a copper. Yeah. Against your will.

So the Latin name for this group is the posse comitatus. If you said no to posse duty you run the risk of forfeiting property paying a fine or even serving a period in the local jail now the idea i'd struggle as a copper now at the age of 43 the idea of being a copper at the age of 15 in medieval britain as well when people are tough you'd have such a weird cv as well when you when you went for your first job it would say paper round and copper Those are the two things I've done Also

You're not carrying a lot of authority At 15 Who's listening to you Exactly For some people your voice is in that mid break Excuse me mister You can't do that Oh yeah excuse me mister I've break as well. Excuse me, mister. You can't do that.

Excuse me, mister. That actually brought me out in goosebumps, the idea of being a 15-year-old copper. Anyway. I think it's worth saying, by the way, to any 15-year-olds listening, we're saying this as if any three of us at this point in our life would have any kind of weight or authority if we went out.

I think if I approached someone doing something wrong in the street corner and said something, I can't imagine I'd have any weight. Would you? No. Do you think you'd have a police presence about you? Do you think you'd have that about you? I don't know.

Maybe the uniform adds a certain weight. But I don't imagine the uniform was that good back then. Yeah. But you're 15. Is the uniform going to fit? Is the hat falling off your head? Imagine being a cop in a uniform that was far too big. Oh, my God.

Anyway, the posse had military functions as well as functions related to law and order. So it could be called out as a militia during times of crisis. You know, if there were threats of invasion during the Wars of the Roses or during the struggles between the Roundheads and the Cavaliers during the Civil War. But for the most part, the posse operated as a kind of needs-must police force. So it was always temporary and it was always at the discretion of the sheriff. And sometimes it was armed and sometimes it was not. Again, a 15-year-old copper with a gun.

Yep. A nightmare. And yet in the modern world, the frontline police office, at least in the British tradition, is called a constable and not, you know, a possum. So hence 999 brings a constabulary rather than the posses. So this reflects the decline in the power and authority of the sheriff over time and the emergence of magistrates, you know, justices of the peace, and their constables as primarily responsible for local law and order.

Now, the office of constable, which is still a word we use today, that could be found already in various contexts. And they often are duties that corresponded in part to those of a modern police officer. They were, and they still are in York, Liverpool and Canterbury. Cathedral constables, for example, were responsible for maintaining law and order within the cathedral's grounds, properly known as its close.

That I think I could do, actually. I think that feels closer to my ballpark. I reckon you could have a 30-year career and one incident. And I reckon it would be all right. Now, there were high constables in Edinburgh appointed by the Scottish Parliament to enforce a citywide curfew drawn from 10 o'clock at night

to the following morning. And the high constables, they comprised of merchants and craftsmen, sort of the city's wealthier people. Then you had university constabries in Oxford and Cambridge in the early 19th century. And that was to maintain law and order

amongst the student population to stop them from stealing traffic cones, etc. And then you had nightly curfews within the colleges and university grounds. Eton, as in Eton College, the school, they had their own police force as well.

And that stood apart from the rest of Buckinghamshire County Constabulary between 1859 and 1892. They had their own police force as well, and that stood apart from the rest of Buckinghamshire County Constabulary between 1859 and 1892. They had their own police force until 1892. Wow. Now, even with the advent of professional policing in the 19th century, you still had context-specific constables. So there were the railway police, the harbour and dock police, canal and river police, airport police, market police, parks police. Again, parks police. I reckon I could do that.

Yeah, but in the summer, people lighting barbecues. Yeah, yeah. You're telling people not to play football on the grass. I think I can do that. And if people ignore me, how bad is it? At the end of the day, you're in a nice park It does make me think Actually that maybe being A sheriff in medieval Britain Wasn't as cushy a job as I assumed it was

If you're Having to amass a little Posse of 15 year olds to make sure You keep control of your area And you know that the king is probably going to kill you If you fail to do that Maybe Yeah it sounds like hassle yeah and the one

thing i want to avoid in my life is hassle i'm beginning to think ellis that there is no role in medieval britain that i would happily have taken i felt comfortable in if you've asked me i'd have assumed that oh well maybe sheriff would have been one that i'd have taken and would have given me some kind of sort of yeah i've I've seen Robin in Prince of Thieves. But no, it was all awful. It was all awful. Anyway, that's the end of this week's episode. If you have an email,

if you have any correspondence you'd like to send us, send it to hello at ohwhatatime.com. And also don't forget to leave us a five-star review. Thank you very much for listening. Goodbye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.