You're Dead to Me - Valentine’s Special: Georgian Courtship

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

Greg Jenner is joined by guests Prof Sally Holloway and comedian Caraid Lloyd in the long 18th century to explore Georgian love and courtship. Forget Bridgerton and allow us to guide you through a typical courtship in the Georgian era - a time when penning a love letter was a serious commitment whilst sweets and spoons were considered flirtations of the highest order!Research by Bethan Davies Written and produced by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Assistant Producer: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow Project Management: Isla Matthews Audio Producer: Steve HankeyYou’re Dead To Me is a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are channeling our inner Colin Firth's and emerging soaking wet from the lake of history to bring you a special Valentine's Day guide to love and courtship in Georgian Britain.

And to help us navigate this topic with sense and sensibility, we have two very special guests. In History Corner, she's a Vice-Chancellor's Research Fellow in History and History of Art at Oxford Brookes University, where she studies the history of gender and emotions in 18th and 19th century Britain. Indeed, she's the author of The Game of Love in Georgian England, Courtship, Emotions and Material Culture. Perfect for us is Dr Sally Holloway. Welcome, Sally. Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. Delighted to have you here. And in Comedy Corner, she's a comedian, actor, improviser, author and podcaster, a quintuple threat. You'll know her from the award-winning podcast Griefcast,

which is now a beautiful book, and you'll have seen her on all the telly, including Heaven News For You, QI and Would I Lie To You? But more importantly, you'll remember her from our podcast episodes on the European witch craze, Malleus Maleficarum, and Agrippina the Younger. It's the wonderful Cariad Lloyd. Welcome back, Cariad. Oh, Mr. Jenner, what a pleasure it is to finally be invited to your salon. I blush indeed. My countenance is not so fair. And to meet Miss Sally as well, whose work I have admired from afar, I must confess. It is more than one could ask for on such a fine and temperate morning.

Oh, I'm so excited. We've fully committed. Yes, she is also a member of Jane Austen improv show Ostentatious and will speak like that at any opportunity. I was going to say, this is a reflex for you, right? I mean, Ostentatious, a brilliant improv comedy troupe where you create a new Jane Austen novel every night. I've seen the show twice. I've seen, I think, Mansfield Jurassic

Park was a highlight and an amazing show. But I mean, that means I'm guessing you're already an expert on Georgian social mores. I definitely wouldn't use the word expert, Mr. Jenner, as kind as you are to my expert skills. No, no, I am more of a flitterer of such affections. I know a little bit, but definitely not as much as the excellent professor. So, what do you know? That brings us to the first segment of the podcast, so what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what our lovely listener will know about today's subject, and I'm willing to bet quite a lot listeners will have at least watched one Jane Austen adaptation. They get blooming everywhere.

Maybe you swoon over Rickman and Winslet in Sense and Sensibility, or Colin Firth and his sexy see-through shirt in Pride and Prejudice, or perhaps you're one of the astonishing 82 million people who watched Bridgerton, or the slightly fewer number of people who were charmed by Mr Malcolm's List, still a very nice movie, or maybe you fell for Anya Taylor-Joy's Emma or Dakota Johnson's sort of Fleabag-style mugging in Persuasion. There's Love and Friendship, my favourite, with the very funny Kate Beckinsale. Basically, there's loads and loads of stuff. This is one of the most romanticised eras in British history, and I say romanticised in both meanings of the word. But what were the real rules and rituals of courtship in Georgian Britain? What did a man

of good fortune do when in want of a wife? Well, today we are going to lay out a how-to dating guide. So we're going to crack on, and Dr Sally, basics first for our listeners who aren't entirely familiar with the Georgians as an era. Who, what, when, why, how? All those questions. What are the Georgians? So Georgian Britain, it's the period from about 1714 to 1830. That's when it's ruled by the Hanoverian kings, George I, II, III, IV. And we commonly refer to the era generally as the long 18th century. So it's a time of massive social and cultural change. And we're going to be talking about the typical journey that a so-called ordinary person might go on as they search for a spouse, mainly thinking about the middling sort and gentry, rather than the super rich aristocracy

that you might see in things like Bridgerton. If we're going to have a dating guide, we need to have a couple. So let's imagine our typical middle-class London living singleton, Cariad, what's his name? Oh, Mr. Barnaby Sykes, surely. Mr. Barnaby Sykes. And Barnaby is thinking of finding a wife. It's that time. And what do you think his motivation is for joining the marriage market, Cariad? Well, I can only imagine, dear Mr. Jenner, that he is looking to improve his circumstances somewhat. Normally, that's what it is in Georgia. I'm struggling to keep up the constant Georgian voice because it's quite difficult to answer a question.

Mr. Sykes, well, it depends what his parents do really, doesn't it? And what he needs to get to make sure he keeps where he is or moves upwards. Not entirely to do with love, who's in his circle, that he would think would be a good wife, bearer of children, and hopefully bring in some cash. Okay, so a bit of a game player, you think? I think they all were at that point, right? Because it was like, it was do or die, wasn't it? Again, Pride and Prejudice, often people sort of mock Mrs. Bennet for wanting to get those daughters married. But if you're a mother of that many girls, like that is a huge financial burden.

She had one job to do that was to get those girls married to rich men and it sent her mad because it's a mad way to live it was really survival wasn't it sally are we agreeing with carrie ad's analysis there for the middling sort i think actually it's a lot more about romantic love than you think so like yes it is um it is important to make a strategic match, but a strategic match with someone who you were in love with. This whole ideology of love became much, much more important during the 18th century, particularly for middling and genteel people like Mr. Barnaby Sykes. People like that would have found that love was being celebrated right across culture. In the novels they read, in the poetry they read, in the art they saw, in philosophy.

And it wasn't this sort of frothy idea, but actually something that was really important in revealing your morality and your refinement as a civilised person. Oh, that's interesting. Europeans thought that they married for love, therefore they were refined and moral and compassionate and sensitive people, whereas savages, quote-unquote, were not able to feel those kinds of refined feelings.

Oh, God. Well, we colonialised love as well, didn't we? Yeah. That's also ours, by the way. We own that as well, so. But there is that line from Matthew Bolton, don't marry for money, but marry where money is. That is so funny because it also sounds a bit like a Michael Bolton lyric.

And I'm like, are Matthew and Michael related? Don't marry for love, find where it is. So it's that classic tale, Cariad, of boy meets girl, boy checks girl's bank balance, boy makes prudent fiscal decision to maybe fall in love. How old do you think our bachelor, Mr Barnaby Sykes, is? And what's the age range of ladies that he is seeking to match with? I think he's probably youngish. So I imagine Barnaby being like 21.

And I think girls were sort of on the scene from 17, 18. So yeah, I think Barnaby would be about 21, single and ready to mingle. Sally? No, that's a pretty good guess. Yeah, I mean, women were typically, you know, 23, 24. Men were mid-20s, maybe 26, 27, 28. So I don't have to honk my problematic marriage klaxon, which is good because I have to do that so often on the show. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Really, in the 18th century, marriage is adults who are sort of on a par, similar experiences in life, similar age, setting up a home together. It's quite modern, Sally. Yeah. I mean, when you got married, you were an adult. It meant setting up your own household as this independently functioning economic unit. Even for the labouring classes, the parish could stop a couple from marrying if they were not deemed fiscally stable, if they thought that they might be a burden on the parish. And so for men in particular getting married, they were sort of coming into their masculinity and entering civil society. And for some of them, it brought access to the franchise as well. So in some parliamentary boroughs, if you had your own half

on which you could boil a pot, that was a requirement of having the vote. Wow. Is that why you say literally didn't have a pot, that was a requirement of having the vote. Wow. Is that why you say literally didn't have a pot to piss in? Someone's really poor, they don't even have a pot to piss in. Like they didn't have a hearth to put a pot on. Different kind of pot. Oh yeah, you're right. Chamber pot, yeah.

We did a Georgian election special, if listeners want to check that out, where we talked about the pot voting rules. But yeah, so a man is looking to be not a bachelor anymore. And this is something I found interesting when we were chatting to you before, Sally, when we were having our initial research call, you stressed that the bachelor was a bad thing. sort of effeminate spindly figure who wasn't fulfilling this masculine ideal it doesn't mean that he was you know a great lothario okay so the rake was the shagger and the bachelor was a bit unmanly now where's the cad coming to this is he both of these we need a venn diagram of yeah yeah i know well is a rake, I guess he's promised and then hasn't delivered. That's perhaps because the rake is like, I'm not promising anything. Whereas Cad is like, I will marry you.

Oops, I didn't. I thought there was a romanticised view. I think in your head you're like, oh yeah, they kind of enjoyed, they're like, oh, don't get tied down too soon. Whereas actually, no, you're like, middling would have been like, get on with it, what the hell are you doing? Your job is to get married. Yeah. And so the idea of a spindly, skinny man, which is exactly me to a fault, is unfortunately

not the great look for the 18th century. Okay, so our young romantic hopeful, Barnaby Sykes, has decided to fall in love. But how does he find a date? Is it going to be a Mrs. Bennett-esque ball, do you think? What's your instinct? If you were in the countryside, it was all about a country ball. Particularly in the winter, I've been researching this recently, everyone was so freezing, so you had a ball so that everyone could hang out and be warm in one place. You wouldn't have to all heat these different houses.

So I think balls would play a part, but I imagine it's not quite as, you know, in that debutante ball way of like who's here, especially in Bridgerton. Bridgerton definitely plays that, like who's invited and who's announced whereas i think it might be more in the kind of um when they go to merriton in pride and prejudice and it's like you know the band's there everyone's having a good time mrs bennett's being too loud and actually darcy hates it and that's what's sort of famous about it darcy's like this is so embarrassing and bingley's like this isn't as fun.

So I imagine that's probably more accessible. A pub with music, basically, isn't it? A pub with music and dancing. Yeah. And I mean, what we're talking about with Austin, a lot of Austin's heroines are sort of clinging on to the lower levels of the gentry. Literally. Yes.

Take me, Maggie, please. So yeah, for middling and genteel people, family and friends were really important. And you might meet someone at one of their houses, a group of friends that you were all going to the theatre together. You might... Card party. Card parties, yeah, gaming or visits for tea or cake or dinner. Or you might meet people walking to church and back.

Or if you were much poorer, you might meet someone at a fair. And there's a quote from the historian Joan Perkin has characterised the process. Yeah, this is one of my favourites. She describes it as a sort of willing drift into a suitable alliance. It wasn't completely calculated, but it also doesn't mean that you could do anything you wanted for love. You were just sort of gently shepherded into the right direction, you know, meeting the right sorts of people at the right sorts of venues, thereby ensuring you met the right sort of husband. So it's not quite a meet cute in a rom-com

and it's not quite calculated stalking on Insta. For me, the funniest thing is how much walking they did. Like the walking around the room. It's like when you think of the levels you go to when there isn't a television to watch. And the promenades as well, like going for a promenade in town was such a thing so much walking walking out in public squares walking through town walking around in front of other people yes because then also if you're being gently shepherded what you're saying is i was out walking with barnaby sykes yeah and everybody saw me out walking with barnaby sykes

there's no point walking with barnaby sykes if no one And everybody saw me out walking with Barnaby Sykes. There's no point walking with Barnaby Sykes if no one can see you doing it. Oh my God. Everybody's watching everybody else doing the right sort of thing in the right sort of way. All right. So we've had boy meets girl,

boy makes fiscal decision. Now it's boy meets girl, boy's mother and friends gently waft them towards each other. Are you a natural matchmaker, Cariad? Do you sort of get your friends and line them up and go, you two would get on?

Not romantically. I'm obsessed with doing that thing where you're like, you need to talk to this person because you once mentioned that and they work at a thing and you would have a great conversation. But like Emma herself, I have learnt never matchmake. You can gently waft, gently waft farts or couples, but not severely matchmake, no. We've got our Barnaby Sykes. He's at maybe the fair. He's maybe in the pub with the music playing. The lady he's chatting to is rather boring.

The wafting and the drifting hasn't worked so far tonight. But he spots a hot young lady on the other side of the room. And she is called, Carrie-Anne? Across the ball, he does see past the children squabbling and Mr. Henrickson going on again the finest pair of eyes he has ever set upon

it was of course Miss Lydia Miss Chester ooh okay Miss Lydia Miss Chester we like to do names

in ostentatious that are really hard to remember or say I was going to say I can't remember so for the rest of the show you'll be going Miss Miss

Miss Chester Miss Chester Miss? Miss, Miss Chester. Miss Chester. Miss Chester. Lydia Miss Chester. Okay. Of fine complexion and fine eyes. Although someone told me the other day that fine eyes, she says about Lizzie Bennet, was a euphemism for nice tits. Wow.

Oh. Well, the eyes are the nipples of the face. Exactly. Oh. Well, the eyes are the nipples of the face. Exactly. Exactly. So he spotted Lydia Misschester across the room of Barnaby. And he's like, ooh, hello. Now, in the recent Netflix movie, Enola Holmes 2, it's set in a Victorian era.

So I'm not fully making the link here. But there is a scene where we have our Millie Bobby Brown character flirting with fans. And it's a sort of sexy, suggestive semaphore. And it's literally putting the fan in I fancy you. But I want to know, Sally, is this pure Hollywood myth? Or is there something to it? Yeah, I guess somewhere in the middle, really, because I mean, the language of fans did exist. But it was really just for fun, you know, and you wouldn't have really used it in practice.

It would have been so cumbersome. Can you imagine to be, you know, touching your fan to your eye and then your cheek and then your chest and then your nose when, you know, actually all you had to do was smile. But I mean, it did exist. So you can read, quote unquote, the language of fans in Surviving Fans from the time. So there's one example from 1797 that was titled Fanology or the Lady's Conversation Fan. And this was one that advocated using a different hand position for every letter. That's a lot of hand positions if you think about it. Yeah. It's sign language, isn't it? It's a bit like when you're a teenager and just 17 would be like, if you want a boy to fancy you, you need to do this, isn't it? But like you wouldn't have done those. No, no, it's totally impractical. So there's one called Fan called fanology and then the next year there was another one that was printed that was called the ladies

telegraph for corresponding at a distance and this one had a different it had a different color on the back for every letter so it's like a sort of rainbow conversation guide and really i don't think people would have done it in practice it's part of this process of love being assimilated into the consumer economy as a way to sell things. The one that people most often cite when talking about the language of fans is a Parisian fan seller who's called Jean-Pierre Duveleroy.

Oh, I know him well. Why, his dresses are the talk of Bath. Jean-Pierre. And so he published this whole pamphlet about how to interpret the language of fans in the early 19th century when fans were falling out of fashion as popular accessories. So he's trying to revive this secret language to shift fans, basically. So he said in his language, I love you was drawing it across your cheek or follow me was carrying it in your right hand in front of your face but obviously you know it's only going to work if a man can understand what on earth you're

saying and you know men didn't walk around with guidebooks yeah but just like sally said like i'm sure all the girls knew oh look what she's trying to tell him and then there's just a bunch of men being like i have not read the lady's telegraph uh it's her eyesore she wants me to hide my face hide my face that's it women write about this in their diaries they say oh you know my friend told me all about the language of fans you know it sounds great but i just smiled at him instead the classic use your smile guys i literally acknowledged his existence and now he's in love with me all right i mean carrie ed what would be your secret flirting technology if you had to invent something to to hook her charmer

on the other side of the room well you know i i'm old-fashioned i'd go for talking to them to check that they're not mad how are you selling this what you need here is a product you haven't thought it through sorry a product how about a t-shirt that lists all your hang-ups and neurosis so everyone can just check out before they get really near you know you can get those t-shirts that have like a screen on and it scrolls across the front I think that's too exciting I want a full essay of like these are the things I'm afraid of this is what I get stressed about I'm neurotic about this i'm not fun when this happens and someone takes the time to read not just your tits the entire body and go all right i'll talk

to you like a sort of sandwich board that you wear over your head a tabard a kind of roman tunic full of your worst qualities a veil you lift you put it over your face they read it they like it they lift up they go you're married that moment yeah instantaneously there's mistletoe lowered from the ceiling and that's it you're hitched why mr sight you have lift my veil before reading it sir how forward of you all right so we've got barnaby and lydia they've met across a crowded room and their families are willing to drift them in but what's the next stage of georgian dating then he might sort of open it by offering her some gifts to see how interested she is and how well they're received so if she's like all right thanks he's like oh back away but if she's like

like what is it like brooches necklaces like how much money does he have to spend you've gone big there carry out well i want to know i want to know what well yeah turn out my door well i studied one guy who he offers this woman sweets and she accepts them i am in absolutely brilliant sugar yes absolutely brilliant but then the next day she puts her head down and walks past him on the other side of the street it wasn't a successful offering she blanks him. That's Georgian ghosting right there. Just like, I literally can't see you. That is brutal. You're dead to me.

You're dead to me. There we go. Six series in, we finally found a reason for the name of the show. God, that's harsh, isn't it? Because I feel like for the blokes, they've got to invest a bit here, haven't you, when you're not sure. Sweets is one option, but that can backfire. Cariad's brooches, is that a bit

too fancy, or is brooch good? Only once you're much further in, so you'd open with something quite cheap, like a ribbon, and then escalate towards the end, offering things like rings and jewellery. A new trim for your bonnet, Miss Miss Chester.

Oh, indeed, thank you so much, Mr Sykes, and green to match my eyes you are kind yes that sort of thing but building up to hopefully like emeralds basically the things that you selected varied massively according to social class so if you were poorer you might gift things that you could collect for free like posies of flowers that you collect from a meadow coins that you'd engraved by hand you smooth it to a blank face and then engrave you know someone's initials on it oh wow i've sanded off the king and i'll put i love you on it oh thank you sir so i i'm afraid mr sykes is coming at any moment i must excuse myself

oh my god that's really creepy the coin coin. Sorry, I found that a bit... Is it? I find it quite romantic. Sanding off someone's face to replace a note. That's so weird. Write a note, mate. Just use some paper, write a note. That's the whole point. They couldn't write a note because they weren't literate necessarily.

Of course, how judgmental of me. Please accept my apologies. Oh, Lydia, you fool. You absolute fool. And what about sort of gifts of gloves? you know, fabrics, something like that? Middling and genteel men would gift accessories, you know, things like gloves or garters to tie up your stockings. Oh, saucy.

Yeah, saucy. Garters are very saucy gifts. And they said things like, when this you see, remember me. Oh, wow. Like insider women's skirts, you know remember me. Oh, wow. Like inside a woman's skirts, you know? Right. Oh, my God. That's actually very saucy.

Yeah, that's quite forward. That is the dick pic of the Georgian era. They said things like, I die where I cling. So it's like, right, it's sort of a man, by extension, clinging to the inside of her legs. Oh, my God, they are so saucy, those Georgians. And then stay busks. You'd insert a stay busk down the front of her legs oh my god they are so saucy those georgians and then stay busks you'd insert a stay bus down the front of your corset they'd be engraved with things like hearts and flowers and initials and sometimes some of them have little secret compartments in the back

that you could unscrew and put a lock of your hair bringing the two bodies together the body of the woman who wears it and the body of the man whose hair is in it so two hearts next to each other and then a bit of hair to make it creepy yeah you say two hearts what you mean is a woman's body and some hair i don't find a hair creepy anymore i think i've just studied it for such a long time fair play fair play barnaby and lydia have not had a smooch yet are they holding hands at this stage? Yeah, people hold hands. And, you know, women in their diaries talk about sneaking off to a back room for kisses with men. Oh, OK.

And Cariad, we're going to show you some specific types of love tokens that were gifted by wealthier individuals. And we're going to show you some images now and you can describe them for us and tell us how you feel about them. Oh, I'm excited. I hope it's a lock of creepy hair. Whoa whoa it's not far off a lock of creepy hair wow so it's two well one is a locket where someone has painted very small a mouth but they have not painted anything else so i assume they're saying look here is my lips for you. But it looks super creepy. And there's a brooch where someone's only done an eye and it seems to be surrounded by pearls

and it seems to be crying diamonds. I guess in those times that was romantic, but it looks really weird. It's a disembodied mouth floating. It's sort of emerging from a cloud a little bit. So it's sort of like coming as if it's from a dream, you know. Dream of my disembodied mouth and I will be clinging to your leg later, darling. It's all about bringing two lovers together, bringing their bodies together

symbolically, whether that's a hand, like your hand in marriage or your lips or your eye. I understand like a picture of hands could be quite nice the eye is quite serious it seems to do more of a kind of i'm watching you vibe in a kind of creepy everywhere you go i'll be watching you sting vibe it's about gazing into one another's eyes why is it crying diamonds it's a woman's eye and it's about the purity of her love. Oh my God. I am so pure, Mr. Sykes, that when I cry, diamonds fall out of my eyes. And yet I do not catch them and sell them, which would mean I wouldn't need to marry you. I see, and then she's surrounded by pearls.

Is it equally the purest thing possible? Exactly. And then the lips are for kissing. Do you kiss the locket? Yeah, people kiss their love letters. They kiss their gifts. They kissed, you know, lips in pictures like this. It's all about creating that feeling of being together and creating an emotional bond at a distance,

at a time when you couldn't just send someone a text. Lovely. There's another thing that I love from Wales, which is the love spoon. Oh, love spoon. I've got one right here above my desk. Of course I have. Yes, it's, oh my goodness. Yeah yeah we even get love spoons for very different things depending what's at the top of the love

spoon is the meaning so it could be new baby new house or lovers i think i've got one with bells on which i think is a wedding one that a friend gave me it's not just for a romance the world's last point it's for anything my love okay it's about bringing love into the house it doesn't matter if you love them or not if you fancy them if they've sent you a little picture of their eye or not you could still get a spoon well i mean you could also get love spoons insert with eyes god's sake guys don't put your eye on things it's creepy i'm watching you wherever you are i'm watching you see you making that breakfast i'm watching you bloody hell i mean the creepiest thing was obviously lady caroline lamb sending bloodstained pubic hair to lord byron when he

broke up with her i mean that's the creepiest thing it's not creepy it's a woman who's determined to change his mind it's like i will not accept your answer. I'm not sure that's going to work. No, I'm telling you it will. So we've got various gifts you can give, not necessarily sultry ocular miniatures, but also flowers and sweets and chocolates and ribbons. And I mean, we do that too. This is a Valentine's Day special. So was Valentine's Day a thing 250 odd years ago or in the Regency era? Well, people were Valentine's in the earlier 18th century oh so in the first half of the century you might stage a lottery you'd all go around someone's house and have a lottery and pick your valentine who was a person from a hat oh i'm seeing bowls and names in a bowl i can see where

we're going here sally so you draw your valentine from a hat and then you'd wear the name pinned to your hat or your blouse so everybody knew who your valentine was and then the women would be given lots of presents like gloves and handkerchiefs and garters again and then it's in the second half of the 18th century people increasingly replace this with paper valentines things like puzzles and rhymes and poems that you'd drawn by hand and then towards the end of the 18th century, that's when cards start to become a big thing. You'd go to a bookseller or a stationer and buy a Valentine card and you can see a shift at the same time,

etymologically from Valentine's being your Valentine, a person, to being a Valentine, a card, something that you'd go shopping to buy again it's that commercialization of love isn't it it's the the marketplace of romance it's about the invention of this whole consumer society around love love printed on fans love printed on valentine cards love printed on everything as a way to sell things so the Beatles were wrong you can buy me love but let's move on to another tool of courtship rituals and this is a really big one this is very important actually Cariad if you really fancy someone and you're trying to like lock them down and make this legit what do you do next oh so it's not gift it's a gift of sorts I'm thinking more communicating

your thoughts oh a love letter yeah love letter ah love your thoughts. Oh, a love letter. Yeah, love letter. Ah, love letter. A missive, sorry. A love missive. Yes. Romantic epistle. Sorry. After the gift giving, or perhaps parallel to the gift giving, is the writing your thoughts and feelings and declaring your love on paper? Yeah. Once a couple embarked on a romantic correspondence, that was a sure sign that they were on the road to an engagement.

You didn't just correspond with anybody in that vein. And some dads wouldn't let men correspond with their daughters until they had proven to them that they had the means to marry. He's not coming round here with his letters. Do you know what his intentions are? Keep your second-class stubs to yourself, please, Mr Sykes. My intentions are good, sir. Yeah. Oh my God. I didn't realize. I thought the letters were like casual. It was like the opposite. It was serious. And women in these letters, they described how hesitant

they were to start this correspondence because they knew the degree of commitment that it entailed. So a lot of it is women saying, oh, I'm not sure about this. You've only bought me a spoon with eyes. I'm not sure how serious you really are. I mean, I liked your tiny mouth painted on a small locket, but I'd wish to see the rest of your face one day. Oh my God. I suppose in some ways it's a bit like hiring a solicitor almost, isn't it? It's that level of serious now. Contracts are beginning. It's almost contracts.

We're negotiating the future marriage. So the increase of the letters importance is also to do with rising literacy rates. This is an era where more people can read and write. Yeah. So more people can read, more people can write. It means they can write and read their own letters instead of having to go to a scribe. So it's so much more personal because you're doing it yourself. And also the popularity of epistolary novels. So novels written through letters, which Austen's earlier works were. So letter writing is becoming this really,

really important way of forming a person's identity and formulating their feelings. And the letters could be sent much, much more quickly because of the professionalization of the postal system and improvement of the country's road networks. So it's becoming more immediate and more intimate. The letter itself was a really important sort of gift, just like the tokens we've been talking about. So it had to be written on really good quality paper. So it might be gilded with little gold leaf around the edges, be several pages in length, with loads of postscripts at the end. So at the end of them, it often says, you know, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, PS5,

because you want to give this impression that you just can't tear yourself away from the page. You hang up. No, you hang up. No, you hang up. No, you hang up. PS1 by PS4. Exactly.

Oh my God, that's so interesting. The time you're putting into this letter is the time that you're putting into your lover. It's a material device, you know, through which you're building this relationship. And there's an eroticism to these letters as well. We know of the poet John Keats. Where do you think he keeps his letters

from his lover, Cariad? Up his bum. Sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That was a comedian's answer, sorry. Not entirely wrong. In his skin? Well, how creepy are we talking here? Keats, I know he's an intense man. Very intense.

He stores them between his legs. There you go. I was not far. People put them between their legs, under their pillow. Yeah, under their pillow is fine. Between your legs. How are you walking anywhere? Or are you just shoving it down tight? This is while he was asleep. Oh, I see.

That's why I was like, that is so impractical. Mr. Keats, sir, I see your gait today is a little funny. No, sir, my thighs are full of the love from another woman. Her words must stay constantly between them. What a strange...

I say he slept with them between his legs. Also, I'm very worried about the idea of a paper cut in that very sensitive area. Oh, yeah, true. Amazing how mad you go when you can't just have a one-night stand, isn't it? You can't just have, so it's like, I'm going to make a thing that goes down my bra

with your hair in it. I'm going to write you a letter with gold glitter and pretend I couldn't leave it. You're going to put that between your legs. Now you can just have a one-night stand and be like, actually, I don't think I really am into this guy it's fine like otherwise you end up married to the first one that is paying your attention all right so we've got quite a sort of important script of dating here sally i say script as in it's a big process isn't it do we have here a

sense that people are taking their cues from somewhere where are they learning how to do this are mum and dad explaining it? Are they reading it in books? I mean, to some extent, it comes from literature. So if you were very devout, people made a lot of references to the Bible, Book of Common Prayer, things like Paradise Lost. That was a way to show their piety. And perhaps, you know, have a few theological debates with your lover, you know.

Hot, absolutely, yeah. Not to brag, but I've just finished Paradise Lost. So if you want to chat through some of the main themes, I can send you my essay. It's showing you're clever. It's showing your wit and your skill and your education. You're having these debates in writing. It's showing, are you literally on the same page

with this person or not? You know, are you compatible with them or not? Have you read any Bukowski? Don't want brag i just uh yeah begin to beat poets basically it's that version but some of these examples adam and eve romeo and juliet troilus and cressida abelard and heloise these are all doomed road like these are not good case studies for how to land a hottie and the other thing to mention here carrie is these letters they're not private no i guess not because you always have to have a chaperone right so you even when you're walking someone should be walking a little behind you

older sister or mother or aunt or someone so i guess your letters are being read so is that why then you're going a bit more in code you're hoping the parents haven't read paradise lost they won't know what i'm talking about that's why you're going more bit more in code. You're hoping the parents haven't read Paradise Lost. They won't know what I'm talking about. That's why you're going more in code through the gifts. You can't spell it out in writing because everyone's reading your letters. Yeah. And that's presumably why the letters are not hot and heavy.

We're not getting sexting in the 18th century, really, in letters. If your mum reads your texts, nobody's sexting. That instantly stops. In fact, actually, I think it'd be a great way for us all to act digitally online to think, nobody's sexting like that instantly stops in fact actually i think it'd be a great way for us all to act digitally online to think imagine this person's mum is going to read this should i send this as a woman your friends would read a man's letters your mum might read them your aunties might read them and then they might help you write the response as well and then often you'd send it

unsealed so this was before people used envelopes you'd send it not sealed so then again everyone could open it and read it all through oh wow it's not even secure communication right it's not even whatsapp they're just sending anything the server was completely open wow i've been in pubs where friends have received a text from someone they fancy and they've sort of gone what should i say what should i say what should i say and like everyone sort of goes tell him this tell him that so it's not so different is it the 18th century but the lack of security on the old sending back your message is a bit worrying people said things in their letters like um oh i've got so much to say to you but uh you know perhaps i'll save it for when we're in person because they didn't want to write it down because everyone's gonna you know don't want everyone else to read it isn't it true that

they also you had to pay per page in a way that's why they did that cross hatching they would like write one way and write the other that's right yeah so you can't really go into a lengthy look how much i fancy you you have to be like like romeo and juliet get what i mean like they love each other i love you i'm saying i fancy you p.s p.s p.s p.s but also it's not the person who's writing it that's paying. It's the recipient. That's true. If you're sending it to your lover and she's like, how much?

Oh, my God. Two shillings. How many pages is it? Tell him no, don't worry. Women complained. You know, if they got a letter and it's like five lines long and the rest of the page is blank, women would write back saying, you know, what the hell is this? I paid.

You owe me. Yes, exactly. I just paid a shilling for god's sake have you read paradise lost just put in a few phrases fill it please it's funny you say that actually because the next thing we were going to talk to you about carrie was poetry that's another huge element of the courting here is the either writing your own or quoting your sort of favorite poets quoting bits and bobs and actually we've got a cotton trader called Joseph Strutt, where he's not even really trying to woo the lady he loves.

He's just sort of listing the virtues he's demanding in a wife. He's like, this is what I'm looking for. You must meet all these criteria. Wisdom, virtue, modesty, prudence, all the hot ones. And I feel like a lot of men on Twitter are like that. And they're always single. Funny enough. But there we go.

But Cariad, we thought maybe you'd like to read us Mr. Joseph Strutt's poetry. Oh, yes. Mr. Strutt, cotton trader. Already he's on thin ice morally, isn't he, to judge everybody else for being wise and prudent

and morally high. He's probably quite comfortably well off. On the back of everybody else, yep. But this is his poetry. Would you like to read it for us where's he from Birmingham I think Birmingham like that so young so blooming and so void of art a certain conquest makes of every heart so sweet an air such dignity of mine and I a form so fair is seldom seen but these will fade where's the substitute where of so fine blossom

is the fruit sorry my love your young study with nicest care so make yourself as wise as you are fair good sense you have let virtue be your guide walk hand in hand with prudence by your side let every word and every action show what steps you follow, what paths pursue. And shoo and pursue is how they used to say it. Beautifully done. I love the switch midway through. I thought, to be fair, to the people of Birmingham, I would stop. I just realised after I said that, he's from Derby. Sorry.

So young, so blooming, so void of art. No, we won't do it again. Yeah, so he's writing a sort of list of things he's looking for in his wife. So he's a bit pushy, really. It's not really courting so much as here are the criteria you've got to meet if you want to land a man like me. You think, Mr Strutter, I shall read this poems and forget Mr Sykes? No.

Although you have far more to offer monetarily than he does, my heart belongs to Barnaby and always will. I mean, Sally, what is the value of poetry? Why send a poem? What are you hoping to achieve? It's a key vehicle for wooing. You know, it's men are showing off their literary skill, their education, their verbal agility.

But it's all really underpinned by the cult of sensibility, which sort of emerged around the 1720s or 30s and peaked around 1770s, 80s. He's showing that he's romantic. He's in touch. He's a person of feeling. That's so funny, though, because he's like, picked up on the trend.

I've got to write a poem. It's got to show my feelings. What are my feelings? I need you to be prudent, wise. Those are my feelings, what I want you to be prudent wise yeah those are my feelings yeah what I want you to be I mean Cariad when you're doing ostentatious and you're improvising a story on on the spot do your characters have men controlling the kind of romantic subplots it's hard because we try obviously you know we're modern women and we have a say in the plot

but to be authentically Austin it's very hard as the female character to lead a romantic story so there's a lot of i am here here i am all single and then if the male actor improviser doesn't pick up on that you have to be like how can i make it clear because you can't say for it to be authentically austin you want to keep that romantic sense of a story which means that you as a woman it has to be the utterly lastin you want to keep that romantic sense of a story which means that you as a woman it has to be the utterly last thing you do is declare your love so if they have been so blind that you have to say can you not see sir i am in love with you mr sykes what more could i say i have turned down mr strut despite his poetry i stand here before you a woman begging

for your achievements and your love then you know that hopefully the male improviser will be like, oh, she's... What's weird, and I understand how Georgian women felt, you can only constantly, gently waft and suggest. So it's all about hints and movements and tips because you have to constantly try and drip, drip how they do it but you can't be direct and sally is that is that true for the middling sort in the 18th century the early 1800s are we talking here about men in control women waiting for the letter to come yeah i think the sort of slow drip drip drip of hints and suggestions and gestures is a nice way of thinking about it

i mean men initiated courtship. Men sent the most gifts, not all of them. Men were the only ones who could finish the job by proposing. And that's why in popular culture, courtship was compared to like a hunt or a sort of sport. We've talked about Austen quite a lot,

but there are other big hit novels in the mid 1700s. You know, Samuel Richardson. You're not going to talk about creepy Pamela are you? Yeah yeah Pamela's next on my list. Oh so creepy Pamela and Carissa now I thought are they going to go for the full creep because let's talk about those creepy creepy books. These are big hit books and they have an influence presumably Sally this is best-selling literature. Yeah I mean

they're they're encouraging people to treat their letters as conduits for their innermost thoughts and feelings. And they're also promoting particular gender roles in how people navigate their courtships with women like Pamela, you know, super virtuous and modest and chaste. And, you know, and marriage is the reward that Pamela gets at the end. And then, of course, in the Jane Austen novels, you said at the beginning, Carrie, you didn't think love was necessarily that big a factor, but actually the word love or true love is used a lot in Austen, isn't it, Sally? Yeah, and she's referring particularly to, you know, finding true love and also falling in love as a particular experience. If you tot up the numbers, the word love is appearing in Austen's novels so many more times you know even compared to richardson so the word love is in pride and prejudice 92 times wow and it's in mansfield

park 124 times and it's sort of inspiring these romantic hopes in readers and you can see why people at the time thought that if you're reading too many of these novels you know it might be filling young women's heads with these dangerous ideas about love these dangerous fantasies and we've been talking about barnaby and lydia but i mean the obvious question here sally is do we have evidence of lgbtq relationships of you know ladies who fancy ladies and gents who fancy gents because there are dangers and there are there are perils they're genuine perils but there must have been those sorts of relationships. What do we know of them?

Yeah, I mean, of course there were. You know, we do have evidence of really enormously intense romantic relationships between same-sex couples in this period. So one example is the American schoolteacher Charity Bryant. She was a tailor as well. And she exchanged all sorts of poems and acrostics with women that she was interested in. And they also exchanged accessories, things like jewellery, like hairpins. And they used rings to signify a lifelong commitment as well. And we have, you know, examples in England too. So the Yorkshire heiress Anne Lister is the

most famous one. You know, she's often described as the first modern lesbian. In 1821, she gave her partner Marianne Lawton a gold ring. Wow. This is my favourite bit. She turned Marianne's wedding ring from her husband on her finger. So it was already on there, but Anne turned it around in order to make this new promise of marriage over the top of the one that she'd already made. over the top of the one that she'd already made. So it's interesting because you can see that in some cases they're appropriating these rituals used by straight couples like the exchange of a ring to form a marriage,

even if it didn't have the same sort of legal backing. But I mean, the evidence is much more difficult to find because, you know, so often the letters were destroyed and they're obviously not going to be shared around family and friends in the same way as the ones that we've been talking about and often we do have to rely on evidence in a legal context so things like trials for assault or indecency between men but yeah couples did exchange letters and they did exchange tokens and they did use these in similar ways to to build really intense relationships well we've got barnabyaby and Lydia before he takes her up the aisle.

Wink, wink, that's much. Before they walk up the aisle. We, I guess, need to talk about one of these sort of really fascinating facts that historians of the 18th century know quite well, but I think people are quite surprised to hear. Let's see if you know this one. Cariad, what percentage of Georgian brides were pregnant on their wedding day? Oh, maybe higher than we think what would you think is a sort of normal guess that people might say it's terrible

with percentages like genuinely 40 yeah i think that's about right it's about it's just over a third isn't it i can imagine it was much more common than we like to think. I think, again, we have this idea, like you said, that there were no LGBTQ people. Sex before weddings didn't happen. But they were human. I'm sure there was lots of, even amongst the posher ones, celebrating the marriage and then six months later, a child has appeared. There were contraception, there were condoms, there were pull-out methods, et cetera, et cetera.

But obviously, yes, people were having premarital sex because you can see it in the legal records, you can see it in birth, deaths and marriages, you can see the data right there. It's really fascinating. There are quite a lot of young ladies who maybe are having sex once engaged. But yeah, sex is part of dating. But what would happen if the marriage did not take place?

What if Barnaby pulls out? Although he should have pulled out, but he doesn't pull out. Let's put it that way. Okay, What if Barnaby pulls out? Although he should have pulled out. Let's put it that way. Okay, what if Barnaby doesn't pull out and then pulls out of the marriage? What do you think happens then? Oh, so that's the worst thing that can happen for a lady, surely. Reputation scandalised, you're sent away to go to Bath for a season, but you come back without a baby. I would assume that's the worst thing for someone to happen i guess this is where we get into sort of pistols at dawn type territory sally is that just sort of modern romantic fiction going too far down that line or do we genuinely have

jewels of honor and legal cases yeah i mean the one recourse that she would have had lydia say she became pregnant and then she thought they were about to get married and then he deserted her she could sue him for breach of promise for financial damages for her hurt and it was aggravated by factors like pregnancy he still wouldn't have to marry her though so she'd still be well some sometimes juries could order enormous damages in the hope that that would make them conduce him to offer his hand because he'd think oh my god i'm about to be utterly utterly ruined unless we get married which is a great way to start any union absolutely brilliant forced by a jury of your peers uh it was that or bankruptcy

so i know my darling my dearest darling p.s i will marry you. So Lydia could sue Barnaby even if she were not pregnant, even if they hadn't even had premarital sex, she can still sue him? Yeah. Wow. He'd breached his contract to marry, therefore she could sue him for damages but also for her hurt feelings. Wow. What if Lydia suddenly decides Joseph Stratt actually is the man

that she's going to marry and dumps Barnaby? Can he sue her? actually is the man that she's going to marry and dumps barnaby can he sue her he could sue her but it wasn't as common so like 80 of plaintiffs were women if a man was going to sue a woman he could only do it if she was much much much wealthier than him really and if for example he he might quit his job on the expectation that they was about to marry some super rich heiress and then she'd change her mind and he could sue her. But actually, he wasn't that likely to win anyway. Oh, no way.

Wow. So if Lydia jumps in with Joseph Stratton, then poor Barnaby, he's not got much of a chance in the courtroom. But that's so interesting, isn't it? It's so interesting that you said that mostly it's women who are going no i i banked my reputation on you go walking with me and sending me sweets and sending me letters and now it will be harder for me to find another one whereas we know it's easier for you even all those years ago it's easier for you to walk away from this situation than it is for me to stand here amongst all my friends and family and for another man to be like yes i do find you attractive despite your former alliance

with mr sykes like that's so fascinating i mean the settlements issued by the courts were big i mean they're quite a lot of money aren't they i mean they're 250 quid which was probably two years earnings for a middling person so that's a lot of money to cough up at once. It shows sort of in one sense, the courts are sort of tipping the balance of power towards women. You did have that legal recourse if you needed it. But also it was because of this presumption

that women suffered much more than men from romantic hurt. So men in many ways were expected to get over it, whereas women often biologically incapable of getting over it in some ways in popular culture, because they were so much more sensitive and consumed with feeling. The sort of Miss Havisham effect.

Yeah. Let's assume Lydia and Barnaby have not thrown it away. Love has won out in the end. Hooray! Hooray! And they are, he is going to take her down the aisle. Oi! What's the wedding going to look like, Cariad? Very different to ours. It's not what you expect. It's not the white dress necessarily. And it would be like a nice dress, basically made from perhaps some nice new material if you could afford it. And it wouldn't necessarily be white, it would be flowered and it wouldn't necessarily be like on a Sunday like we

have. And I know that Pride and Prejudice ends with the double wedding. I think that wasn't that uncommon, was it? To like, you shared it it with things what happened on a normal day that you got married it wasn't like this is our wedding everybody needs to clear their schedules you all need to pay five hundred thousand pounds to come and stay in a country hotel that's miles from where you live like it wasn't that kind of fair was it no it's a bit more under the radar a bit more just you a few friends your parents maybe might buy some new clothes didn't have to and if you did you wouldn't just wear it once you'd then continue wearing it afterwards and but you might wear silver and white especially if you're very wealthy towards the end of the

century but yeah it wasn't until the victorians you had this big white wedding quite a lot of marriages were conducted in prison it's quite common debtors jail there was even a guy who was put in prison for conducting illegal marriages who continued doing marriages while in prison. While I'm here. And what about honeymoons, Sally? Do you go on a big honeymoon? Do you go to Paris? Do you take two weeks off to go and tour the counties? Might have a little honeymoon, but it wouldn't necessarily be on your own. The bride's sister often went with her. Nice. Oh, lovely. often went with her oh nice oh lovely just to help sort of ease her into this new role as a wife it was quite a shock to the system i think for a lot of people being completely on your own with

a partner when you only just married them and you know you've got a new family new life new household if you think like mr and mrs rushworth in mansfield park they go on a little honeymoon to brighton but her sister's there too well that makes sense oh who's that barnaby why my sister amelia traveled in the luggage while she is so small. It is not a problem, is it, Barnaby, if she attends with us to Brighton? Barnaby, Barnaby, come back! Well, we've had a lovely old talk

and Lydia and Barnaby have gone down the aisle and they've shacked up and it's a happy ever after. Hooray for that. So it's time now for The Nuance Window. The Nuance Window! for that. So it's time now for the nuance window. The nuance window! This is where Cariad and I fan ourselves flirtatiously and binge on bonbons. And Sally's going to tell us something we need to know for two uninterrupted minutes. I'm going to get my stopwatch up. And without much further ado, Dr. Sally, can we have the nuance window, please?

Okay. I think the key thing to remember about marriage in Georgian England was that for the vast majority of people, there was no way out of it. So that's why it was so important to make a prudent choice that was informed both by sentiment and by pragmatism. So one account of a wedding that was sent from a woman to her friend in the 1770s that I found, she described it as the indissolvable knot which nothing but death can sunder, which is actually really foreboding. You know, the real danger of

matches that were driven too much by lust, like with Mr. and Mrs. Bennett, is that they fizzled out and then you were stuck for the rest of your life tolerating someone with whom you were just fundamentally incompatible. Marriage also completely changed the balance of power between men and women. So during courtship, women were thought to have the upper hand as they sat in judgment of suitors who tried to woo them with letters and gifts. But once the knot was tied, women were then in a much more subordinate position to the patriarch and the head of the household. And some complained in their diaries that they were cajoled by degrees

to lose their liberty during courtship until they had nothing to do but quietly submit. So actually finding a match that ticked all of those boxes, love, rank, religion, similar disposition, comparable fortune, similar age, someone who could make you happy, the stakes had never been higher. Amazing. Thank you so much. Carrie, any final thoughts on that?

I just think it's similar to now, isn't it? Although you can get divorced, divorce is a very painful and difficult, expensive, emotionally painful experience. So it's the same thing as it was thus as ever, like finding someone who not only do you just fancy at the beginning, but you're willing to spend the rest of your life with, literally till death do us part, if you've said that. It's not a simple process. And then I just thought about Emma and Mr Knightley because I still think that's a little bit creepy. He's your dad's friend.

He's your dad's friend. But we always see that as, you know, oh, this terrible romantic novel. So yeah, you know, there's exceptions to every rule. So what do you know now? There's exceptions to every rule. So what do you know now? Time to see how much Cariad has learned.

You knew a lot on the way in, to be honest, Cariad. So I'm imagining that we'll do very well in this quiz. But this is the So What Do You Know Now? This is where we fire 10 questions at you. You are very good at this, historically. I know, but the pressure's on, the pressure's on. 10 questions. Are you ready?

Yeah. That was a real quiet, yep. Here we go. Come on, Lydia, you can do this. Mr Sykes loves you. Question one. What kinds of places did middling people meet and start courting their loves? A fair or a ball or friends' houses, walking along the side church. Yeah, yeah, church, theatre, opera.

Yeah, all the good places. Very lovely. Question two. Why were bachelors satirised as effeminate and unmanly? Well, they were satirised as being skinny, tall little skinny things that didn't get married and couldn't get married and weren't living up to their duty of men.

Yeah, absolutely. Question three. Name three popular romantic gifts in Georgian times for lovers. Ah oui, les of men. Yeah, absolutely. Question three. Name three popular romantic gifts in Georgian times for lovers. Ah oui. Les bonbons. Yeah. Les rubens.

And of course, les gloves. Le gant. Very good. You could have also had creepy weird eye miniatures or love spoons or garters. I wiped them from my memory. Question four. Why were eye miniatures a popular love token?

Ah, to reflect the gaze I am gazing upon you with my one creepy eye that cries diamonds. My weird diamond conjunctivitis. Question five. Besides gift giving, what was another vital stage of serious courtship? Oh, letter writing. Very good. Yes. And poetry too. And poetry, yes. Question six. Why did love letters tend to be light on all the sexy stuff that we really want to read? Because everybody gonna read them. Not just you. It was not a private secure server. It was not.

Question seven. What percentage do we think of Georgian brides were pregnant on their wedding day? Well, I said about 40%. You said about a third, didn't you? Yeah, a third to 40% is spot on. Question eight. How did the Valentines change in the 18th century? In the early start of the 18th century, you actually were a Valentine and you would go to a party and you'd write the names down

and you'd pin it onto your shirt or your hat and that would be the Valentine for the night. And in the later part of the 18th century, it became that you would go to booksellers or stationers and you would buy a piece of decorative paper to send to your Valentine. That's a perfect answer. Question nine. What might happen if a man backed out of an engagement

following courtship? He would be sliced open at dawn. No, he could be sued for emotional damages of her weakened female heart. Yeah, breach of promise, absolutely. I might even have to pay two years' salary. £250 potentially. That's well remembered, yeah. And might even have to pay two years' salary. £250 potentially. That's well remembered, yeah.

And this is the perfect 10 out of 10. Where did the idea of the language of fans come from? Oh, well, various places. It was the commercialisation of love, but there was the Frenchman, Jean-Pierre, who basically had a load of fans to shift. Gary Adloid, 10 out of 10. Yes!

Never in doubt. Flawless run once again. Oh, I'm so nervous. I've got to live up to. Incredible stuff. Honestly, you're so good at this. I love the Georgians. Thank you to Sally for the wonderful lesson.

And listener, if after today's episode, you're desperate for more gorgeous Georgians, why not listen to our episode on the experiences of black people in Georgian England or our election special as well. And if you want more chaotic romances of the romantic poets, check out our episodes on Lord Byron and Mary Shelley.

They're both very messy drama queens. You'll find them all on BBC Sounds. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with your friends, make sure to subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. But all that's left for me to say really is a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner.

We had the amazing Dr Sally Holloway from Oxford Brookes University. Thank you, Sally. Thank you very much. And in Comedy Corner, we had the fabulous quiz queen herself, Cariad Lloyd. Thank you, Cariad. Why, Mr Jenner and Miss Holloway,

it has been more than a pleasure, I must say. And I hope to encounter you again very soon. Delightful. And everyone go check out Ostentatious because it's a fantastic night out. It's so funny and to you lovely listener

join me next time as we form the perfect union of comedy and history with another whirlwind historical engagement but for now I'm off to go and

launch my new dating app The Look of Love where you can only post tiny miniatures of your eyes Bye! You're Dead to Me was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4. The research was by Bethan Davis. The episode was written by Emmy Rose Price-Goodfellow and me

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