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1:04

Hello,

1:04

and welcome to We Are

1:06

History. I'm Angela Barnes, and with

1:08

me in the studio is comedy writer

1:10

and history

1:11

nerd, John O'Farrell. Hello,

1:14

Angela. Thanks for having me on. I'm really excited

1:16

to be here. It's really going to make me confused,

1:18

new listeners. What's

1:19

going on? John,

1:22

you've chosen a listening subject,

1:24

haven't you? And it

1:26

was

1:27

quite a conscious choice to go for

1:29

something, let's say a little bit lighter,

1:32

wasn't it? Yes. So

1:34

far in this series, I have chosen the Race for the Atomic Bomb,

1:36

which ends with the death of 100,000 people of Hiroshima. Then

1:40

I did the Haiti Slave Rebellion, which

1:43

was so bloody and brutal that,

1:45

frankly, I'm not surprised there's never been a sitcom

1:47

about it.

1:48

So this week, John, you've

1:50

chosen, and I want to stress that, you've

1:52

chosen to do nudity.

1:55

Is that right?

1:56

That is right, yes. I mean, how did

1:58

you research that? Did you just... type

2:00

nudity into Google and see what pops

2:02

up? No, Angela, I read

2:05

an academic book on the subject because

2:07

that is the sort of serious historical

2:09

researcher I am. The book is

2:12

called A Brief History of Nakedness

2:14

by Philip Cargom. And it was very

2:16

interesting from a sociological and historical

2:19

point of view. Yes, John. I did not

2:21

choose the subject for cheap laughs or

2:23

schoolboy giggles. I studied

2:25

the history of nakedness and nudity and they're different

2:27

things because I'm very interested in social

2:30

history and how attitudes evolve.

2:33

But I will say this book has got colour

2:35

photos and you can see everything.

2:38

You're

2:39

such a slutty little boy. There it is,

2:41

two minutes in, he's already reverted

2:43

to being a 12 year old. We've

2:46

already done a very specific episode

2:48

on nudity, haven't we? Some people are going

2:50

to say we're obsessed, John. Maybe,

2:52

maybe. Yes, it was my first episode we ever

2:54

recorded, actually, Angela, and it was on nudity

2:57

in communist East Germany, which I

2:59

think sort of set the tone for the following 100 episodes,

3:02

really, because Angela got to talk about East Germany

3:04

and the Cold War. And I got to do loads

3:06

of jokes about bare bottoms.

3:08

It was both of us playing fast drinks. I think

3:10

that's fair to say. It was, it was. So

3:12

what's different then, John, about this episode? Why

3:15

are we back to people with their kit off?

3:17

Well, apart from me wanting a break from

3:19

everyone killing one another, I just I

3:22

saw this image of a sculpture of Napoleon

3:24

from when he was Emperor of France and ruler

3:27

of most of Europe, and it was in the nude.

3:29

And I just thought, is that what he wanted?

3:32

It just shows you how much attitudes change.

3:35

Imagine today if they commissioned the sculpture of Rishi

3:37

Sunak, and he was in the nadim and you

3:39

could see his little Willy peeping out. Oh, stop it. It's

3:42

not something you want to dwell on, is it? Rishi Sunak's

3:44

Willy.

3:44

Stop making me think about it. You're

3:46

thinking about it again now, Angela, aren't you? Stop

3:48

it. Yeah, it's not sort

3:51

of making this not really associated with Straits

3:53

of Power now, is it? I mean, maybe

3:55

it was a big misunderstanding

3:57

with Napoleon. Maybe he ordered

3:59

a.

3:59

a classical Roman style

4:02

statue of himself. And this is just what came back.

4:04

And he's

4:04

too big to pay for it to be redone. I

4:06

mean, it wasn't flattering, was it? Yeah, I

4:08

mean, I haven't thought about the Willier Torsensen, but

4:11

it reminds me, when I was at university, my

4:13

girlfriend was studying art, and she

4:15

asked me if I would do a nude portrait as she

4:17

could do a painting naked. And I said, okay,

4:20

no problem. And I stood there in this student flat, and

4:22

she did this live painting of me. I didn't

4:24

think any more of it. And then she had a degree

4:26

show, and everyone was there with a glass

4:28

of wine and the cheesy pineapples looking at

4:30

all her paintings. And that

4:32

is how I met her parents. No! It's

4:35

like, oh yeah, with them looking at a picture of

4:38

me in the nude. Oh,

4:39

there it is, my daughter.

4:42

Oh no!

4:42

Yeah, that's

4:45

how mum looked at me up and down going, okay, well,

4:47

all right. That reminds

4:48

me of when I was a student nurse.

4:51

And I had to go for a smear

4:53

test. And because I was a student

4:56

nurse, obviously, I knew

4:58

that it's important for students to be able

5:00

to see medical procedures. So the nurse

5:02

in my local GP practice said, do

5:05

you mind if I have a student come

5:07

in? I said, no, no, that's fine. And of course I

5:09

completely forgot that my GP practice

5:11

was in exactly the same area where I

5:13

was training. So

5:14

just involved one of my mates. I was like,

5:16

oh no, no, no, not you! Don't get out, you

5:18

can't sit.

5:20

Oh, too much, too much. Yeah.

5:23

So going back to the episodes,

5:26

how far back has your research gone? I

5:28

mean, Adam and Eve,

5:30

very famously in the nude, weren't

5:32

they?

5:33

Apart from the old fig leaf, yes. And

5:36

their nakedness, of course, was a symbol of their

5:38

innocence. It was only after Eve tasted

5:40

the apple of knowledge that they felt the

5:42

shame of their nakedness and had to quickly

5:45

find some clothes from lost property. And

5:47

their shame has sort of set the tone for thousands

5:50

of years

5:51

when they went from naked to

5:53

nude.

5:54

So Angela, you're the linguist, and explain

5:56

the origin of those two words for me.

5:59

Well, the word...

5:59

nude comes from the Norman French

6:02

and the word naked comes

6:05

from the German.

6:06

Nacht is German for naked.

6:08

Right. And

6:10

as is so common in our lovely

6:12

wonderfully rich language, they

6:14

mean subtly

6:15

different things. Naked is

6:17

sort of innocent and just being one's

6:20

original self. Whereas nudity

6:22

is more of a statement, it's a choice to

6:24

be nude. And for most

6:26

of history,

6:28

that choice is quite a provocative one, really.

6:30

Yeah. So we don't really know when humans started

6:32

covering themselves up. The

6:34

historical evidence from 1960s

6:37

dinosaur films is that cavemen

6:39

wore mammoth skin boxer shorts and

6:41

the women all had furry wonder bras.

6:43

Yeah, I'm not sure how accurate

6:45

that Raquel Welch film is, John. Just

6:47

in terms of using it as historical research source,

6:50

I don't know. There were no dinosaurs and

6:52

humans at the same time,

6:53

John. Remember? Don't be so sure, Angela.

6:55

Don't be so sure. Look at the Flintstones. You can't argue with that.

6:59

In fact, the earliest possible evidence for clothing

7:02

in ancient humans is stone

7:04

tools found at archaeological sites

7:06

in Spain and Germany, which

7:08

may have been used to prepare animal

7:12

hives. There. I skipped a difficult name.

7:14

I've

7:14

got to tell the listeners what just happened then, because

7:17

I'm laughing too much. So that's the second

7:19

time John's taken that paragraph, because in the

7:22

first time, he named

7:24

the places. And you actually did a very good job of it,

7:26

John.

7:26

Thank you. But I know

7:28

you've lost confidence, so you decided just to say

7:31

Spain and Germany instead. Fair

7:33

enough, mate. You're the linguist. You're

7:35

the linguist, Angela. So

7:38

anyway, yeah, 780,000 years ago is the first evidence.

7:41

Wow. So actually, if you listen to

7:42

our episode on the origin of Homo sapiens,

7:45

you'll find out more about that period and probably

7:47

the same jokes about the Flintstones that John's made

7:49

in this episode. Could neither of us remember

7:51

what we said

7:53

yesterday, let alone in any previous

7:56

episode. So are

7:58

there evidence that there...

8:00

have from the fossil record is that,

8:03

and this is pretty grim,

8:04

that clothing lice began

8:07

to diverge from head lice about 170,000

8:10

years ago. So that's a nice way of

8:13

looking at it, isn't it? It had to be clothes then,

8:15

because the lice diverged.

8:17

Yeah, I think that occurred to me, there was a difference. I

8:20

don't think we've ever had clothing lice in our family.

8:22

We had the whole head lice thing in the kids'

8:24

hair when they were at school. And

8:26

there's always one bloody hippie parent, it was like, we

8:29

don't use chemicals in our children's hair,

8:31

we use natural herbs.

8:33

Yeah, it's given my kids lice again.

8:35

Exactly. There was one time

8:38

I remember when the jacket I were both squatted

8:40

over our

8:41

two kids, just really painting

8:43

stage, looking for these tiny, tiny lice.

8:46

And I said to Jackie, oh, it's this

8:48

one. What she didn't know is I put a four

8:50

inch long plastic praying mantis

8:52

on top of his head. Hang

8:55

on, hang on, let me look. And she looked across and went, ah,

8:58

let that rest in this giant

9:00

monster. It was funny. Oh, being

9:03

married to you sounds like a lot of fun, John.

9:06

Jackie's a lucky lady.

9:09

Oh, what a laugh we've had. So

9:12

the need for covering up your nakedness at this

9:14

point must have been just a practical

9:16

necessity, I suppose, to keep out the cold

9:18

as the old ice age is advancing.

9:21

Yeah, it was like, further in, there the height

9:23

of fashion, because otherwise you're free to death.

9:25

Yeah. And in fact, it's

9:27

thought, isn't it, that we might have nicked

9:28

the idea of wearing furs off the

9:31

Neanderthals. Yeah. I mean, we've all borrowed clothes

9:33

off our mates and then accidentally forgotten to return

9:35

them, haven't we? Exactly. Oh, am

9:37

I still with your brontosaurus skin jacket? Oh,

9:39

I'll drop it round. I definitely won't forget to do that.

9:42

Except it wouldn't be brontosaurus,

9:44

John, because dinosaurs were not around

9:46

at the same time as humans.

9:49

Well, that's what you say, my sources

9:51

say otherwise. Anyway, other

9:53

things that anthropologists believes we

9:55

use to cover our bodies were leaves with

9:58

tree bark, even weirder. and woven

10:00

grass. Uncomfortable if nothing

10:03

else. Yeah, scratchy, yeah. I mean

10:05

it sounds stupid now but it was fashionable at the time and all

10:07

fashions are a bit daft you know when you look back. There's

10:09

no weird enough flared is it when you think about it?

10:11

No, exactly. Flared woven

10:14

grass. By

10:17

around 40,000 years ago we were using

10:19

needles and awls made out of bone

10:21

and stone to create sewn

10:23

fitted clothes to keep us warm.

10:25

But John this isn't a history of clothing is

10:28

it this episode? That could be an interesting one

10:30

to do one day. This episode is

10:32

about attitudes to nakedness, so how that

10:34

change can evolve. And we really don't

10:36

know where and when

10:37

covering our bodies went from being

10:40

a practical necessity for keeping out the

10:42

cold to becoming a

10:44

sort of social requirement. When did

10:46

the very first dad take off his fur pants

10:48

and his teenagers go, oh dad that's disgusting.

10:52

Well, I mean you know in terms of

10:54

the written record we have the book of Genesis

10:56

which was probably written about three and a

10:58

half thousand years ago. I didn't know

11:00

Phil Collins was that old.

11:01

Oh, good visit.

11:04

You're on fire. And that

11:06

is when the whole sort of modern Judeo Christian

11:08

notion of covering the shame of your nakedness probably

11:11

got started in western culture. It

11:13

was only when Adam and Eve acquired knowledge as

11:15

I said at the beginning that they looked at one another and there was something

11:17

like, oh I'm naked this is so embarrassing.

11:20

There was another Hebrew text actually from the time

11:22

that says, he who stands naked

11:24

by a lamp will be an epileptic

11:27

and he who cohabits by the light of

11:29

the lamp shall have epileptic children.

11:32

So bad luck if you

11:34

had epilepsy back then. You can blame your parents for

11:36

cohabiting by the light of a lamp.

11:39

And when they say cohabit they mean

11:41

shagging, right? So that's their way of going,

11:43

don't do the lights on your pervs. That's

11:45

what that is or your kids will get epilepsy.

11:48

Yeah, so the ancient Jewish were

11:50

pretty prudish about nudity and the Christian tradition

11:53

sort of comes in a direct line from this attitude.

11:56

That said a Jewish baptism would

11:59

have been done in a nude so Jesus

12:01

would have been naked when he got ducking

12:04

by John the Baptist. And

12:06

the Jews were appalled by the immodesty of

12:08

the Greeks and their tendency towards

12:10

nudity. Oh yeah, the ancient Greeks loved

12:13

stripping off, didn't they? Famously for the Olympics.

12:15

All the athletes in the ancient Olympics

12:18

competed in the nude. And that's where we

12:20

get the words gymnasium and gymnastics

12:23

from. It comes from the Greek word gymnosis,

12:25

which means naked. And I always found

12:27

it interesting because the German word for

12:30

grammar school is gymnasium,

12:32

which I always thought was middle. Oh wow. Yeah.

12:37

So male nudity was celebrated to a great degree,

12:39

then in pretty much any culture before

12:41

or since. One Greek poet

12:43

suggested that farmers should sew naked, plow

12:46

naked and harvest naked if you

12:48

wish to bring God's fruits in

12:50

dew season. Oh sorry John, I've drifted

12:52

off

12:52

a bit there. It's a sort of rural

12:54

ancient diet

12:55

coke break. Get those hollies in my head. So

13:00

yeah, nudity became a ritual costume associated

13:02

with the power of the gods.

13:04

And Spartan women would

13:06

sometimes be naked in public

13:08

processions and festivals, but it

13:11

was the naked male form that was held

13:13

up as this holy ideal.

13:16

Wow. Different times, John. Different times.

13:18

Different times. I think with that image in our

13:20

head, we should take our first break.

13:22

And before we find out whether the Romans really

13:25

kept their togas on at toga parties. See

13:27

you after this.

13:39

Welcome back. We're talking about nakedness

13:41

and nudity throughout the centuries.

13:44

We've got to the Romans, Angela. They

13:46

had very different ideas.

13:48

Well, we had to get there, didn't we, John? Because you're

13:50

a man. And if memes on

13:52

TikTok are to be believed, you think about the Roman

13:54

Empire about once every three minutes.

13:56

This is about a tenth time today

13:58

I've thought about the Romans.

14:01

While homosexuality

14:03

had been celebrated by the Greeks, Romans

14:06

and Jews had been much less tolerant, and the

14:08

Romans were actually paranoid about effeminacy,

14:11

and so admiring the naked male

14:13

form was frowned upon.

14:15

The Roman poet Enuis declared,

14:17

exposing naked bodies among citizens

14:20

is the beginning of public disgrace. We

14:22

touched on this a bit in our history of swearing

14:25

episode, I remember, about that

14:27

sort of effeminacy and nakedness

14:29

being insults. And

14:32

the Roman toga itself

14:33

was a sort of symbol

14:35

of the status of a Roman citizen,

14:37

wasn't it? So the fact that their enemies,

14:40

the Celts, would run into battle,

14:42

start bollock naked, that was another

14:44

reason for them to think of nudity as

14:46

barbaric and vulgar and beneath

14:48

them. So these negative connotations

14:51

of nudity included defeating

14:53

war, since captives

14:56

were stripped and sold into slavery,

14:58

slaves for sale were often displayed

15:00

naked to allow buyers to inspect them

15:02

for defects, and symbolised

15:05

that they lacked the right to control their

15:07

own bodies. So there was all these negative

15:09

associations

15:10

of nudity and nakedness. Yeah,

15:12

weirdly, Roman art regularly

15:15

features nudity and mythological scenes,

15:18

and sexually explicit art

15:20

appeared on ordinary objects, such as

15:22

serving vessels, lamps and mirrors, as

15:25

well as among the art collections of wealthy

15:27

homes. It's a bit weird, isn't it, having porn on

15:29

your dinner plate? Oh, lovely

15:32

new bars, lovely pictures. Yes,

15:34

yes, we've just got this from the antique market, look, they're doing a

15:36

doggy style on this side, and a reverse

15:38

cowboy on the other side, it's pretty lovely.

15:43

The only real exception to

15:45

this disapproval in Roman society

15:47

of public nudity was at the

15:49

public baths, of course,

15:52

because you can't really bath with your clothes on,

15:54

can you? Unless you're shrinking your dream. Yeah,

15:57

so early on in the Roman Empire, these... bath

16:00

houses were exclusively for men,

16:03

obviously. Oh, here we go. I suppose that's

16:05

sexist, is it? Yeah. And

16:07

then they had eventually two buildings,

16:09

one for men and one for women. And

16:12

the smaller one was usually for the women.

16:14

Oh, I suppose

16:14

you're going to complain about that as well now, are

16:16

you? Bloody hell, you've got your own bath house, you're still

16:18

not satisfied. So

16:21

later, men and women mixed at the bars, although it's

16:23

not recorded how the women felt about this, gender-neutral

16:26

bath houses.

16:27

I bet they were just trying to save building costs and dressing

16:30

it all up as being progressive and modern. Yeah,

16:32

I can imagine there was some safety concerns there

16:35

as well for Roman women in those

16:37

places. Yeah, quite sure. Yeah. In

16:39

fact, the Roman bars of Somerset were rebuilt

16:41

after the fall of the Roman Empire. And they were used

16:44

by both sexes without garments until

16:46

the 15th century, which I thought was interesting. Wow,

16:48

that's, yeah, quite assumption. Yeah. And

16:52

though I always presumed it was much older,

16:54

the Cern-Abbess giant probably

16:57

dates from this post-Roman period.

16:59

For

16:59

those who don't know, that is the big

17:02

figure cut into the chalky

17:04

hillside in Dorset,

17:05

which features a 55-metre-high-nated

17:08

man with a massive erect penis.

17:11

Yeah, in case you're interested, his penis is 11 metres

17:14

long, including the testicles,

17:17

which sort of feels like it's cheating. You can't include

17:19

the testicles in the measurement, John. Well,

17:22

that's what the internet told me. Nobody's quite sure

17:24

whose idea it was to carve a massive

17:27

erect penis into the side of an English hill.

17:29

Maybe it was some drunken students in Rag Week, but

17:32

because it's old and historic, it's

17:34

been allowed to remain. If it was a modern

17:36

image, you could never be allowed to put a picture

17:38

of a massive prick on public display. Just on

17:40

the side

17:40

of a hill. It is weird, isn't

17:43

it? Unless it's a poster of Johnny Depp advertising

17:45

perfume,

17:46

of course. That's not a massive prick, you'd

17:48

go anywhere. In

17:51

the Middle Ages, it seems like it was acceptable to

17:53

appear naked together. We have pictures of

17:56

communal bathing

17:57

ceremonies in which naked bodies parade at

17:59

festivals.

17:59

And of course, most of the population

18:02

lived in very close quarters, so

18:05

nakedness was often a practical necessity.

18:07

Yeah,

18:07

I guess when you're, you know, you have massive families

18:10

all in one room, you can't model your

18:12

heads out the window, doesn't it?

18:13

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

18:15

yeah. Yeah. However,

18:17

by contrast, there is a record from the 1400s at the same time

18:20

of a maid being prosecuted

18:23

for spying on her mistress as

18:25

she disrobes. So it's

18:28

that sort of two levels

18:31

of society, again, is it's fine for the common

18:33

people to be naked and

18:34

convorting about together and, you

18:36

know, but the rich could never be revealed

18:38

as being the same as the rest of us.

18:41

They can't be vulnerable or ordinary. Their

18:43

fine clothes give them status and that's

18:45

what sets them apart from the peasants

18:47

running around with the bollocks out. Yeah.

18:50

Yes, yes, thank you for that nice image, Angela. You're welcome.

18:53

We're also expensive, of course. So if people

18:56

were working in the fields in the midday sun, peasants

18:58

would strip right down to the bare minimum rather

19:01

than be hot and also rather than get their woolly

19:03

vest ripped by all the brambles and everything.

19:05

Yeah. And this is, of course, why

19:07

a suntan

19:08

was so unfashionable back

19:09

in that historical period,

19:12

John, that we know as the

19:13

olden days. We're experts.

19:15

Yeah.

19:16

I can't believe people don't think we're real historians,

19:18

wouldn't it? But

19:21

it was never fashionable until recent times, wasn't it,

19:23

to have a tan because it shows that you had to work, you

19:25

had to be outdoors, whereas pails in meant

19:27

you were privileged enough to be indoors

19:29

all day.

19:30

Yeah, quite. Today it's obviously

19:32

a tan now means you're going to be floored to fly to

19:34

the Maldives. Pallid white skin

19:37

means you're sat on your sofa all day watching Jeremy Carle.

19:40

Well, that's a nice current reference there, John. It's

19:43

been a whole pandemic since Jeremy Carle

19:46

was last on the screen. Sure. That's

19:48

not how I watch daytime TV, I'm sorry.

19:51

So there were parts of Europe where

19:54

it was traditional

19:54

to go naked, to encourage

19:57

crops to grow as part of the sort of folk.

19:59

law of particularly flax

20:02

apparently which is the main crop used for making

20:04

clothes, ironically, to cover the body.

20:07

Yeah, I mean I don't think it's any coincidence, I think it's

20:10

part of the psychology of it. In part, in Germany,

20:13

women would wander naked in the flax fields

20:15

on St John's night and urinate in the flax

20:18

fields urging the crops to grow as

20:20

high as their breasts, whereas

20:23

in Transylvania, men would walk

20:25

naked through the flax fields chanting

20:27

flax, flax, grow as high

20:29

as the scrotum.

20:31

Not quite as ambitious in Transylvania.

20:33

No, no, no, I

20:35

mean, yeah, breast height, okay,

20:37

scrotum high, frankly a bit disappointing

20:39

if you're used to breast height. I think these measures

20:42

have all gone out the window since decimalisation,

20:44

if I'm honest.

20:45

So in Christian

20:48

Europe, the parts

20:48

of the body that were required to be covered

20:51

in public

20:51

didn't always include the female

20:54

breasts, they weren't always seen as rude,

20:56

I suppose, yes, rude. For example,

20:58

in depictions of the Madonna from

21:00

the 14th century, Mary

21:03

is often shown with one bared breast,

21:05

which is symbolic of

21:07

nourishment and loving care.

21:09

I mean, I'd argue that one bared breast

21:11

is weirder than both, but you

21:13

know, somehow it's just in, isn't

21:15

it?

21:16

Yeah. Yeah, by the way, that's the Madonna we're

21:18

talking about, not Madonna, she comes much later.

21:20

Yeah, yeah. In the Middle East,

21:23

the wearing of veils by women predates

21:25

Islam. And in fact, there are no strict rulings about

21:28

the dress of women in the Quran. Originally,

21:30

veiling only applied to the wives of Muhammad.

21:33

And then it was adopted by upper class women after

21:35

his death and became a symbol of Muslim

21:37

identity. And as the

21:40

Byzantine Empire was conquered by

21:42

the Ottoman Empire, Roman baths were kept

21:44

in use, but mixed bathing was

21:46

halted and Muslim women could not

21:48

appear naked in the company of non Muslim

21:51

women.

21:52

Meanwhile, in Europe, public attitudes to nudity

21:55

were of course set by the church. Of course.

21:58

Yeah, even though some pagan habits.

21:59

lived Old Angela, who tradition has done

22:02

a bit of practicality.

22:03

Artists continued to produce

22:05

images of the naked human form and

22:07

the church continued to cover them up. There

22:10

was a naked image of Eve that had a skirt

22:12

painted on it centuries later. Michelangelo's

22:16

statue of the risen Christ portrayed

22:18

Jesus in the nude, and then after he

22:20

died they added a

22:21

loin cloth. Spoilsports.

22:23

Yeah, it is worth mentioning that Christ was originally

22:26

portrayed naked on the cross, as was the habit

22:28

in crucifixion, but as attitudes

22:31

changed they started to add a loin cloth.

22:33

It's political, correctness gone mad Angela.

22:36

Yes,

22:36

mind you, you could have done with a loin cloth in that

22:38

picture your ex-girlfriend

22:39

painted, couldn't you? Yeah, of which you could have

22:41

painted one on afterwards, I would have appreciated it.

22:44

Then when the Renaissance came along, it helped

22:47

shift attitudes a bit as they rediscovered

22:49

the arts and writings of ancient Greece, and

22:51

that offered an alternative tradition of unity

22:54

as symbolic

22:54

of innocence and purity, which

22:57

could be understood in terms of the state

22:59

of man before the fall.

23:01

And attitudes to nudity in Europe were also

23:03

affected in the 1500s by reports

23:06

of naked inhabitants in the Americas,

23:09

and the African slaves brought initially

23:11

by the Portuguese.

23:13

Yeah.

23:13

Female slaves were naked

23:16

when purchased and then would be clothed

23:18

and baptized

23:19

by their new owners, which just

23:21

so hypocritical, isn't it?

23:23

Both slavery

23:26

and colonialism were the beginning

23:28

of this modern association of nakedness

23:30

with what they would have called savagery.

23:34

Yeah, then the Reformation comes along and

23:36

people got really prudish. I mean the

23:38

Puritans were not like, hey everyone let's

23:40

strip off skinny dippies, get the sun-sineated

23:43

body, it's so natural and healthy. Oh,

23:44

bloody Puritans, they've got so much to answer

23:47

for. There's virtually no

23:49

English laws mentioning or banning

23:52

nudity around this period, which

23:54

suggests it wasn't an issue. It probably

23:56

came under common law, but the social

23:59

conservatism of

23:59

the age was dictated by the church anyway.

24:02

So, you know, and they would have frowned

24:04

on nudity, and people were frightened of the church. They

24:06

probably didn't challenge it. They probably

24:08

did as they were told.

24:10

Absolutely. You can get a measure of the negative

24:12

association of nudity from its association

24:14

with witchcraft. It probably wasn't

24:17

worth going skinny dipping with your friends if

24:19

you risked being declared a witch. So

24:22

whenever witchcraft was described, they

24:24

always include salacious descriptions of

24:26

them cavorting naked in the moonlight.

24:29

Disgusting it was, let me describe it

24:31

a bit more so you can understand exactly

24:33

how disgusting it was all these naked young women were

24:36

running around in the moonlight.

24:37

We've done, I mean, we've done episodes on,

24:40

you know, the whole

24:41

witch

24:42

thing. And how it's just a way

24:44

for men to get off really, I'm talking about

24:47

women that weren't pure,

24:49

or it's pretty grim. Yeah.

24:51

Yeah. It's slightly

24:52

ironic as well that, yeah, if you

24:54

were caught skinny dipping, you were

24:56

then dipped again as a witch. But

24:59

there you go. At

25:01

the time of Shakespeare, of course, there would have

25:04

been no question of any nudity

25:07

on stage. However bored

25:09

either language or sexually suggestive

25:11

the text might have been.

25:14

But that hasn't stopped making performances of Shakespeare

25:16

in the

25:17

last century or so. Yes, yes,

25:20

yes. I saw more willies than I needed last

25:22

time I saw King Lear, if I'm completely honest.

25:24

I

25:24

went with my school when we were doing A-levels,

25:27

we saw Peter Hall's famous 1994 production

25:30

of Hamlet and the Gilgood, where Stephen

25:33

Delaine very famously got naked. And of course,

25:35

we were a load of

25:38

grammar school girls who have sort of how old

25:40

would I have been then 16. And we were obviously

25:42

very chill about this full frontal nudity.

25:44

Very chill about it. Yeah. Something

25:47

to talk about on the way home.

25:51

So during the Enlightenment, taboos against nudity

25:53

continued to grow. And by the Victorian

25:56

era, public nudity was considered

25:58

obscene.

25:59

In addition to beaches being

26:02

segregated by gender,

26:04

bathing machines were invented

26:06

and they were used to allow people who

26:08

had changed into bathing attire to

26:10

enter directly into the water.

26:12

Those things are insane aren't

26:15

they? To go through that much trouble

26:17

just to avoid getting a glimpse of someone's

26:19

kneecap.

26:20

Just struggle under a towel like

26:22

the rest of us do when we're at the beach. Absolutely.

26:25

To get into completely higher big wooden carts.

26:28

A thing on wheels. Yeah,

26:31

I mean even when my dad was a kid

26:33

in Ireland before the war they had separate

26:35

bathing areas in the sea in Galway

26:38

for male and female. It's amazing really. He

26:40

separated the sea.

26:41

Yeah, yeah, no. Victorians

26:44

were insane about bath flesh. A glimpse of ankle

26:46

was considered shocking.

26:48

Remember my English teacher at school

26:50

saying his grandmother covered up the legs of her dining

26:52

room table. She just thought it was a bit

26:54

rude to reveal that much leg. I don't think he was joking.

26:57

Even the loo roll covers had

26:59

floor length skirts, John, if you remember.

27:02

That's right, that's right. So

27:04

meanwhile of course, if there were no

27:06

women about, the Victorian men were

27:08

swimming naked in the sea and having lots of jolly

27:11

healthy outdoor fun. It was

27:13

all right for them as long as they couldn't be seen

27:15

by the delicate eyes of ladies. Meanwhile

27:17

these poor delicate ladies are stuck in

27:19

these boiling hot long dresses with a

27:22

million layers of petticoat. Absolutely

27:24

odd that. Yeah,

27:27

those society in general frowned about

27:29

exposing too much flesh. In the coal mines

27:31

of course, the work was so hot and dirty

27:34

that the men at the coal face and women and

27:36

children who pulled the carts or whatever, they often

27:38

stripped completely naked while they worked.

27:41

Yeah, some of the objections from

27:43

the reformers at the time

27:45

trying to reform what was going on in the mines

27:47

and in industry and stuff, they mentioned

27:50

this nudity below ground as being

27:52

one of their principal objections

27:54

like, oh, this is terrible. They might be encouraged

27:57

to indulge in carnal lust. It's

27:59

like they're just taking a

27:59

It goes off because it's hot and sweaty.

28:02

Oh yeah, nothing turns you on like 12 hours crawling

28:04

on your hands and knees through cold dust, does

28:06

it? I

28:07

mean, geez. Yeah, I

28:09

mean, weirdly, the Victorians still have naked paintings

28:12

in their art galleries, though very

28:14

idealized images of the female form.

28:17

Famously, the artist John Ruskin first

28:19

saw his wife Ephie's naked body on their

28:21

wedding night. He was so horrified, he

28:23

thought she'd be completely hairless

28:26

down there, that he failed to constrain

28:28

the marriage, like ever, out of relationship.

28:31

So let's take another break as we approach the

28:33

20th century when things start to take a very

28:35

different turn.

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29:48

Hello

29:52

and welcome back to We Are History, where we are talking

29:55

about everything nude, nutty, naked. And of the prudish

29:58

Victorian period, And

30:00

that's when we start to get the first

30:03

organised nudist organisations.

30:06

Yes, now we can do a whole episode on nudism

30:08

and the naturist movement in Britain, Germany,

30:10

elsewhere, but I will just give you the

30:13

the bare essentials. Oh,

30:16

John, you're so pleased with yourself there, aren't you?

30:18

I've waited here, I tell you. You really

30:20

are. Bare essentials, you get it?

30:22

Get it, John, the naked

30:24

truth. Very good. So,

30:29

yes, the first recorded organisation

30:30

dedicated to being naked, the first

30:33

in the Western world at least, was

30:35

in British India, where a small

30:37

group of officers formed the Fellowship

30:39

of the Naked Trust.

30:42

Yes, they wanted to challenge the false

30:44

shame of our bodies and they

30:46

believed the naked body is God's noblest

30:49

work and it is good for everyone to gaze

30:51

upon such beauty freely.

30:53

For a start, John, I'm not sure about the naked body

30:56

being God's finest work, if I'm

30:58

honest. If you were looking

31:00

at some of the beautiful views in the Lake

31:02

District, and then some naked bloke came and stood in

31:04

front of you, I'm not sure you'd say, oh, that's better. And

31:07

also, you know, these guys were in British

31:10

India, I think, was that their noble

31:12

aim or was it just they were British people and they were

31:14

hot?

31:15

That was probably it. It was probably a big part of it. But

31:17

this, all I'll say is, you know how I like to say

31:19

it, British did it first. This predates the foundation

31:21

of equivalent organizations in Germany. Is

31:24

it always the way that Brits have the idea and the

31:26

Germans go and do it much better than us? They

31:28

are good at that, it has to be said. So

31:31

the Fellowship of the Naked Trust movement was very

31:33

short-lived, maybe it's just nowhere to pin

31:35

the badges, I don't know. But

31:37

soon, Germany was the country

31:39

that took to nudism more than any

31:42

other at the turn of the century. Yes,

31:44

Richard or Richard, probably

31:47

Ungerwitter

31:47

in 1906, published

31:49

his best-selling book Die Nachtheits, which

31:51

means nakedness. And this

31:54

launched a whole movement in Germany, which for a few

31:56

decades looked like it was unstoppable.

32:00

called the FKH on the fly

32:02

curve

32:02

culture, which just means free body culture.

32:05

Yeah. But you know what happened Angela? Do you know what stopped

32:07

it? Go on. Nazis. Yeah.

32:10

They spoiled everything those guys, didn't they?

32:11

Yeah. I mean, maybe stopping Germans being

32:13

naked on the beach is the worst thing

32:15

they did, but you know, it's up there. And

32:18

the Catholic Church in Germany had been very opposed

32:20

to all this prancing around in the nuddy.

32:23

So it's an easy way for Nazis

32:25

to get their support. A bit like Trump

32:27

from banning abortion.

32:28

He doesn't care about the issue of abortion.

32:31

It just helps get him more power. So

32:33

he supports it. We saw the Nazis do that in

32:35

our episode on the glamour boys. They

32:37

were fine with homosexuality until

32:40

that

32:40

became a problem in the eyes

32:42

of the, you know, needing votes or whatever.

32:45

So yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

32:48

I mean, nudism still had its supporters in other Western countries, of course.

32:50

In 1924, the Sunshine League

32:53

was launched in London's Piccadilly. I'm

32:55

guessing they didn't all go naked there. H.G.

32:57

Wells was a supporter and George Bernard

33:00

Shaw. But in this country, it did sort

33:02

of get filed under harmless cracks.

33:05

George Orwell famously wrote, socialism

33:08

draws towards it with magnetic

33:10

force, every fruit juice drinker,

33:12

nudist, sandal wearer, sex

33:14

maniac, Quaker, nature

33:17

cure, quack, pacifist and feminist

33:19

in England. Thanks, George. Welcome to the Labour

33:22

Party. He

33:22

just invented the woke-er-arty. Is that...

33:25

Yeah, it's just like, I love the way he put feminists

33:27

and pacifists on those. It's like,

33:30

OK, you know, nature cure, quack.

33:32

OK, they're annoying. And maybe

33:35

a nudist is a bit eccentric. But feminist,

33:37

is that a really good... Yeah.

33:40

I like, mate. Lighten

33:43

up, George. Yeah.

33:43

So the spread of the movement

33:45

in the UK included some areas

33:47

that might not seem quite as appropriate

33:50

today. For example, the headmistress

33:52

of Pinehurst

33:53

School in Heathfield, just

33:55

down the road from where I am in Sussex here, it

33:58

offered boarding facilities. For

34:00

a start, it offered boarding facilities to boys and

34:02

girls from the age of three. Imagine you

34:04

said it, you're

34:05

three year old. To

34:07

a boarding school. That is, I

34:09

mean, horrific. That's posh people, isn't

34:11

it? Yeah,

34:12

isn't it? From three to 12. And

34:14

they announced that in their 26 acres,

34:17

the children run around naked. And

34:19

on days when it rains, the children have

34:21

an air and rain bath and thoroughly

34:24

enjoy this. Do they thoroughly enjoy

34:26

it? Oh my God. They started secondary

34:28

school being absolutely terrified

34:31

that they were going to make us take showers together. And

34:33

they didn't at our school.

34:34

Oh, I remember doing that.

34:35

But we didn't have to. But because their

34:37

communal showers were there in the building, when

34:39

we went on the open day and looked around, I was

34:42

like, I don't want to go there. Wow. Like

34:44

kids are, you know, shy

34:46

of their boys. Yeah, self-conscious. We

34:48

used to have communal with boys showers. I hated it. Oh

34:51

God. I was very late to puberty. I'm

34:54

so embarrassed. Yeah. And

34:56

I've seen that painting of you, John. I'm not surprised. Yeah,

34:58

exactly. It's really late. It

35:03

seems that naturism was quite a middle class

35:05

pursuit, I should say. Whereas

35:08

the posh man, of course, had never worried too much about being

35:10

seen naked by their servants. When

35:13

Churchill was staying with Roosevelt, the

35:15

American president came to visit Winston in his

35:17

rooms and found Winston

35:19

start naked, dictating something

35:22

to his assistant. So FDR

35:24

beats his hasty retreat. And

35:26

Churchill calls him back and says, the British

35:28

prime minister has nothing to hide from

35:31

the American president. Didn't

35:33

Churchill conduct

35:35

quite a lot of meetings and things

35:37

from the bar?

35:38

I'm pretty sure. Yeah. So

35:40

he was obviously

35:41

not bothered about it. And actually he was a bit of power play

35:43

as well, isn't it? That's a bit of a... I think so.

35:45

Yeah. Yeah.

35:47

So in 1934, we saw the

35:49

launch of the magazine Health and

35:51

Deficiency. And this featured

35:53

black and white photos of people in nudist

35:56

camps of all shapes and sizes

35:58

and ages and uses.

35:59

you're playing ping pong or volleyball?

36:02

Exactly. I actually remember this

36:04

magazine, you get passed around to the school. And

36:06

it was the first magazine to show pubic hair.

36:09

But of course, immediately afterwards,

36:11

all the poor mags followed suit. So before 1969,

36:14

Playboy and Penthouse

36:16

and all those mags would drape a bit of cloth around

36:18

a woman's groin or a sudden mist would descend

36:21

or a large houseplat would happen to be in the way.

36:24

But by the time the 1960s come along, being naked was

36:26

all part of being modern and unsquare

36:29

and rejecting the stuffy Victorian prudery

36:31

that had sort of

36:32

emotionally crippled generations before. Yeah,

36:34

so there's these lucky young secretaries

36:36

at the White House who are encouraged to go skinny

36:38

dipping with JFK in

36:40

the White House pool and sometimes Bobby and Teddy

36:43

would join them and they're probably just interested in their

36:45

views on national security and there was nothing

36:47

wrong

36:47

or weird with that.

36:49

I'm sure. I mean, the sixes

36:51

were supposedly the death of shame. And

36:53

that's the title of the relevant chapter in Philip

36:56

Cargom's book. But you

36:58

know, so often when we talk about the sixties, that doesn't

37:00

apply to everyone.

37:01

Yeah, there's that subculture,

37:03

isn't it really of hippies who embrace nudity

37:05

and dance in the mud at Woodstock

37:08

or the Isle of White Festival and topless

37:10

sunbathing became fashionable in the south

37:12

of France. But your average, you know,

37:14

woman working in the piping pool and going

37:16

on holiday to Blackpool wasn't getting her bits

37:18

out for the lads. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I

37:20

mean, the rest of the world was taking a while to catch up.

37:23

I've got this strong memory of being a holiday in Italy.

37:25

It must have been the late sixties. I was quite young

37:27

and I was walking into town with my dad on this scorching

37:29

summer's day. My dad was just in shorts

37:31

with a bare chest and he got stopped by a

37:33

policeman who came across blowing his whistle and

37:36

told my dad to cover himself up or he'd arrest him.

37:38

Wow, just over his chest? Yeah, yeah,

37:40

for a man with his bare chest. So dad went into

37:42

a shop and bought a shirt. Oh,

37:44

wow. You know, men

37:46

had been arrested for being bare chest

37:48

on the beach in America in the 1930s. And it was

37:51

not till the end of the 30s. It was legal to be bare

37:53

chest on a beach in America. Well, I think we

37:55

should bring that back some of the yeah, I live

37:57

in Brighton and as soon as the sun gets

37:59

out down here on the beach I would happily bring that rule

38:01

back. No, I don't mean that, all

38:03

bodies are beautiful and some

38:06

are slightly more beautiful than others.

38:08

Some are more beautiful

38:09

than others. So in the late

38:11

1960s, nudity was finally

38:14

permissible on the stage. So

38:16

you might remember in our episode

38:18

we did on the Profumo affair, nudity

38:20

was only permissible in a frozen tableau

38:23

in a theatre, but it's all changed in 1968.

38:26

And there was the famous musical Hair,

38:28

in which the cast appeared

38:31

completely naked, but not

38:33

for very long. Blink and you miss it. It was so brief

38:35

and the lighting was so dim that the comedian

38:37

Jack Benny was heard asking, did

38:40

you happen to notice if any of

38:41

them were Jewish? In

38:43

the early 1970s there was a craze for streaking

38:46

that I remember, reaching its peak when I was about 12.

38:48

And people would run naked through public places or

38:50

at sports events. There was even this novelty

38:53

hit about it, I remember, it was like, oh yes,

38:55

they call him the Streak, Bugadee Bugadee,

38:57

he likes to show off his physique. Don't

39:00

look Ethel, you probably don't remember that. I'm

39:02

too young John. I

39:04

remember the phenomenon of streaking was a really

39:07

big thing, wasn't it? And

39:08

Britain's first streaker at

39:10

Twickenham

39:10

produced that famous photograph

39:12

with a couple of policemen

39:14

apprehending him and one of them using

39:16

his helmet to cover up the modesty

39:18

of the streaker. Yes, yes,

39:21

that couple was called Bruce Perry

39:24

and he said it was cold, he didn't have anything

39:26

to be proud of. The

39:28

streaker had been bet 10 quid that

39:30

he wouldn't make it across the pitch to touch the other side

39:33

and when he told the policeman that, the copper let him

39:35

touch the advertising hoardings so he won his bet.

39:38

But the magistrate fined him the same amount on

39:40

the Monday morning and that helmet is now

39:42

on display at the Twickenham Buggan Museum. I

39:44

like that he broke even though, I think that's

39:47

quite nice.

39:48

And since those days it seems

39:50

like nudity has pretty much lost its power

39:52

to shock.

39:53

You might have

39:55

heard of the puppetry of the penis show, I mean that

39:57

was in the 90s, that started, I remember

39:59

that taking the edge of Festival by

40:01

storm when I was going up there in the 90s not

40:03

that I ever watched it. I did meet one

40:06

of them in a bar once and he would sort of

40:08

add it out and doing these tricks in the bar and I

40:10

thought in the bar yeah I

40:13

was like that's not cool

40:15

no. Yeah that's just a

40:17

decent exposure. Yeah he did do one called

40:19

the hamburger and it really put me off my point. Well

40:24

yeah I mean so nudity now is like

40:26

you know you see it on television my American co-founder's

40:29

wife they were watching British TV but they were over here and

40:31

they were like what the hell is this show naked

40:33

attraction you would never get that in the USA.

40:36

It's insane. Oh it's weird as

40:38

well there's no pubic hair on it it's really disturbing.

40:41

I've never watched it actually I don't know I don't record it yeah

40:43

you know. Yeah all right I'll believe you.

40:47

And yet on the other side of the coin the sun

40:50

have been pressurized and ceased publication

40:52

of the daily page three go. Well rightly

40:54

so you know it's

40:55

not an expression of their you

40:57

know right to be naked in public

40:59

places it's purely for the titillation of men

41:03

isn't it that. Yes

41:04

exactly so we're sort of as progressive

41:06

people would say people have the right to be naked on the beach

41:08

if they want but don't serve up young

41:10

women's breasts for men's pleasure you know

41:13

on a daily basis as a disposable item.

41:15

Yeah just as a without anyone asking

41:17

for it without any you know it's just it

41:19

was so base and must have

41:21

made us look absolutely insane

41:23

in other countries.

41:25

They did they did they were like they did they just pay for

41:27

you to hear American stand-ups talk about it. You

41:29

open the paper and wow that's like what's that

41:32

yeah it's sort of bizarre really look back about

41:34

it. So

41:34

that sort of comes out

41:36

of that repressed Victorian

41:39

stuff like we talked about with saucy postcards

41:41

and all of that you know British

41:44

smut thing from

41:45

the 20th century there's a real hangover

41:48

from

41:49

the reaction to the Victorians wasn't

41:51

it and we just got it really wrong. Yeah

41:54

yeah but nakedness is now much more

41:56

sort of tolerated and accepted.

41:58

Yeah didn't you do something? Yeah,

42:01

so in July, it's only

42:03

a couple of months ago from when we're recording

42:05

this, I took part in

42:07

a naturist comedy. Now,

42:09

well, I'll tell you

42:11

the story, John. So I got an email a naturist comedy

42:13

event.

42:13

Yeah, I got an email from my agent

42:15

and the subject line said, you

42:18

have to do this for the lols. And

42:21

my first thought was, well, lols don't

42:23

pay my mortgage. I'll probably do it for

42:25

that if the money's right. And

42:27

I owned it and it was. So

42:29

there's an event called nude fest.

42:32

They do this week long festival

42:34

in Somerset on a campsite in Somerset.

42:37

And

42:39

they put on entertainment on different nights on one

42:41

of the nights they put on a comedy

42:43

night and I was asked if I wanted to come

42:45

and

42:45

headline it. And actually my

42:47

dad was a naturist. And

42:50

so nature is something I, you know, understand

42:52

a little bit about, although I'm not a naturist. And

42:56

so I said, Yeah, I'll come and do that. And the

42:58

proviso was that we

43:01

the comedians on stage

43:02

got to be closed. That's

43:04

what everyone listening is. Everyone

43:06

is thinking they're waiting for you to go into wearing

43:08

clothes or not get to that bit. So we

43:11

had the option like could have gone naked and we

43:13

could and, and you know what, I, I

43:15

would have done only that. It

43:18

only takes one person to take

43:20

a photo and then that goes on

43:22

Twitter or whatever. When you've got a little bit of public

43:25

profile, you know, out of context,

43:28

I don't want my picture anywhere. So that

43:30

was the only reason I didn't. And but

43:33

the, you know, the naturist themselves,

43:35

the night was incredible. And I've got a brilliant

43:38

photo of it that will tweet out when this episode

43:40

goes out of me on stage.

43:42

Oh my god, not too graphic. I

43:44

know it's not and it was, it's

43:46

hard to explain the philosophy of it, but it was such

43:49

a warm, welcoming

43:52

place. There was some weird things. So I

43:54

arrived, I sort of drove on to the campsite.

43:58

And in my head, I was sort of giving myself the little

44:00

talk going, you know, everyone's going to be naked.

44:02

Don't be British about this. Like, you

44:04

know, just nothing to

44:06

see here, you know, just kind of try

44:09

and... But what really shocked

44:11

me,

44:11

or not shocked, but surprised me maybe,

44:14

was that I got there. The show was

44:16

about eight o'clock in the evening. It was in July. And

44:18

so started to get a little cool in the

44:20

evening. And so people

44:22

were putting on tops to kind

44:25

of, you know, because it was chilly. But

44:27

they weren't covering the bottom. So I was having these conversations

44:29

with these men that were wearing t-shirts, but

44:32

they'd sort of gone for the Winnie

44:33

the Pooh approach. Like, me

44:35

for the way...

44:36

And that was weirder somehow than them

44:38

being fully naked. Completely naked.

44:40

Like, talking to these giant toddlers.

44:43

That's what it felt like. Oh,

44:46

God. I did the show. And the show

44:49

was absolutely brilliant. Like, they were really... And

44:51

they were quite happy to take, you know, because

44:53

it was a... It was a weird feeling

44:55

to be the only closed person

44:57

in a room. And somehow you're the weird one.

45:00

You know, you're the pervert. Somehow she felt

45:02

a bit voyeuristic.

45:03

But they were

45:05

very sweet and they were able to take jokes. But like, at

45:07

one point, these two women got up

45:09

to go to the toilet and I said, OK, no more

45:12

than two at a time. Otherwise, I'll think I'm getting a round

45:14

of applause, you know, things like that. And

45:16

then... That's funny joke. Yeah, thanks.

45:18

And there was one point where

45:20

I have a routine

45:22

about how I always get

45:25

food down myself when I'm eating and I was

45:27

just doing that routine and I was like, oh, suddenly

45:30

your way of life makes sense to me. Like,

45:32

just do away with clothes and I won't get my food down

45:34

myself. And this woman shouted

45:36

out, take your clothes off. And

45:39

I was like, in any other comedy

45:41

club, that would get you removed. Shout

45:44

in that meal. Right. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But

45:46

in this room, I was like, in that

45:48

moment, I almost did it. And it was only because of

45:50

that fear of someone taking a

45:52

photo and putting it somewhere else. But

45:55

in that room, I felt completely safe

45:57

to have done it. I would have felt completely empowered.

46:00

And it was such a wonderful thing. And

46:02

then at the end of the show, John, this is the funny

46:04

bit. They gave me a standing ovation

46:07

and I will never unsee it. Just

46:10

some 500 naked men and women stood

46:12

up and I was like, oh, my eyes.

46:14

That's too much. That's

46:16

too much. You were still, that was better, but you're

46:18

moving around now. That's a bit much. But I did

46:20

get, and I will tweet out a picture

46:23

of this as well. I've got it here, but we haven't got the

46:25

cameras on at the moment. There

46:27

was a woman in the audience who came up to me

46:30

afterwards and she was a ceramicist. And

46:32

she said, can I give you this? I really enjoyed your show

46:34

and I made this and I want you to have it. And

46:37

it's a little mug and it's got gold

46:39

plated breasts on it. So

46:42

that was my

46:42

little gift I was given at the end of that show. Fantastic.

46:45

There you go.

46:46

That's great. Well, that's a good, very positive

46:48

sort of conclusion to this episode. But

46:50

I mean, it has to be said, you know, naked

46:52

stand up gigs aside, five thousand

46:54

years after the book of Genesis was written, it's still socially

46:57

unacceptable to walk down the road naked. But

46:59

at least now you won't get burned as a witch. So

47:02

there we are. That's our long look at

47:04

nudity, as it were. You pervert. Nobody

47:06

died, Angelo. No

47:08

massacres, no wars, no torture,

47:11

no famines or plagues. Unfortunately, the search

47:13

history of my computer is now on nudity,

47:15

nudes,

47:16

naked, naturism, nudism. You

47:18

say that like it wasn't like that before you

47:20

researched this podcast, John.

47:22

So I walked into that one. So

47:25

if you

47:25

feel like giving us a rating on

47:28

Apple podcast, I think Five

47:30

Stars is our favorite one, isn't

47:31

it? It is. Yeah, I love that one. By the way, I'm not talking

47:33

about to go straight from nudity

47:36

to asking for reviews is I mean, ratings

47:38

on the podcast. Let me make that clear. Yes, yes.

47:41

You can, of course, follow us on social media,

47:43

Twitter or X, whatever you want to call it. Insta,

47:47

which is my favorite because it's just

47:49

nicer than the others. So that's at

47:51

We Are History, Claude on both of those. Or if you're

47:54

John on MySpace. He's the only

47:56

one left on there, him and Tom. It's quite sweet,

47:58

really.

47:59

back.

48:01

Thank you to all of our Patreon

48:03

supporters.

48:04

Oh Angela I've got a special one I read out. Can

48:07

I read out a special one that we got? Oh yes please

48:09

do. Yeah it says hi John and Angela my

48:12

wife and I love your podcast and wanted to let you

48:14

know that subscribing to your Patreon today was

48:16

our 21st wedding anniversary present

48:18

to each other as we always listen to the podcast

48:20

together. Isn't that nice? It's a bit cheeky but

48:23

could you maybe give a shout out to our friend CF

48:25

who also loves it. All the best Storm

48:27

and Ali.

48:28

Oh hello Storm and Ali and your friend

48:30

CF and I mean that's lovely

48:32

that you bought us as an anniversary present but if my

48:34

husband did that I'd leave him. But yeah

48:38

that's lovely. Thank you so much.

48:40

We've got some other Patreon shout

48:43

outs to do so let's say hello to

48:45

Rachel Blanchard, Tony

48:47

Eagleston, Holly Fegan,

48:50

Colin, just

48:51

Colin, and Dunstan Vavasor.

48:54

I'm hoping I've got that right. If you want

48:56

to join our Patreon it's patreon.com

48:59

slash we are history and you get all

49:01

sorts of perks and bits and bobs, exclusive

49:03

episodes, merchandise, the

49:06

link will be in the show notes.

49:08

And you help us make this show so thank you very

49:11

much. We'll see you next week. Bye!

49:13

Put your clothes on John. Bye!

49:15

Oh god I'm freezing I'm putting something on.

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Got you a coffee, oat milk. Cappuccino,

50:00

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50:04

you've got a really, really great

50:07

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50:10

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50:12

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50:15

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