Him to fangirl Friday. It's our show where we talk to
people. We think you might like to know
it's fan, Girl, Friday. That's the theme song.
Hey everybody, it's me. Katie source and welcome to a
new cool thing that we're doing here on infinite Quest called
fan Girl, Friday. So here's the story of fangirl
Friday very quickly before we begin.
So Eric and I have been watching a show called tutor Monastery
farm. And yes, it is as exciting as it
sounds. And basically, there is a
historian on the show. Her name is Ruth Goodman and
Ruth Goodman is just a badass. Is just a badass.
And basically Eric looked at me at some point while we were
watching the show. And he said, I want to talk to
Ruth Goodman someday. And I thought in my tiny pea
brain, I to also wanted to talk to Ruth Goodman.
So, I emailed world famous historian, Ruth Goodman.
And I said, hi Ruth, Goodman. My name's Katie and me, and my
friend, Eric think you're cool. Will you be on our podcast and
Ruth Goodman said, yes. Which Each can we talk about
what a sport, what a sport, all Ruth Goodman is so, yeah.
So one of the things that we always said, from the very
beginning about infinite Quest is that we wanted to expand into
different stuff. Not just talking about education
and about mental health, and that kind of stuff.
But honestly, just kind of sharing parts of our lives.
With all of you, the things that excite us, the things that
interest us and so fangirl Friday is a new installment that
we're going to be doing every so. 10.
We're literally we just bring on interesting people that we want
you to know a little bit more about and we talk to them and so
yeah that's it and and we want to be just really clear that the
reason we can do this is because of the support of viewers like
you as they say on PBS and so if you are interested in getting
more infinite Quest content if you're interested in you know
helping us support our mission of advocacy and education.
You can do that by visiting patreon.com slash info.
Nick Quest We have set a goal this month of having 150 patrons
by the end of April and special episodes.
Like, this are going to be part of how we keep infinite Quest,
going and growing and to all of that good stuff.
So if you're interested in supporting us, it's patreon.com
slash infinite Quest. And so yeah, welcome to fangirl
Friday transition. Dang it.
Hey everybody. Before we start the inaugural
episode of fangirl Friday, I thought it might be useful for
me to give you a little bit of background about our guest Ruth
Goodman. Now, at the beginning of this
episode, I said that she was a historian and so if you were
listening and you thought my goodness how very dull.
Oh, my friend. Oh, my friend, buckling buckling
for such a wild ride, because Ruth Goodman is one of the most
interesting people on this planet and you need to know more
about her. So, Ruth Goodman is a historian
who specializes primarily, In domestic life.
So studying about how people used to brush their teeth, or do
their laundry, or do their dishes, which for a very long
time and honestly, kind of until Ruth Goodman started doing this,
research was a topic that like not a lot of people wrote about
and not a lot of people care about.
And so Ruth, just woke up one day, curious about how people
used to live their lives in the past and out of that she has had
one of the most interesting and spectacular.
Euler careers of anybody that I have ever heard of.
She is a consultant for the Victoria and Albert Museum.
She's worked on movies like Shakespeare in Love, and she's
worked at the Globe Theater. As a costume consultant, she has
been on a bunch of different shows that maybe a lot of you
have seen BBC shows like, Victorian Farm and warning, Farm
tutor Monastery, Farm all the Christmas ones.
So, cool. She was also on Celebrity
MasterChef, which I think was very, very cool, and yeah.
She is, she's just one of the coolest people, she's written a
bunch of books and they're all super super interesting.
A lot of them were books that fun fact.
I read in grad school. So that's how I became a fan of
hers Goodman and she just wrote a new book called The Domestic
Revolution, how the introduction of coal into Victorian homes,
changed everything. And when I tell you that it is
one of the most fascinating books that I've ever read.
I cannot recommend it. Highly enough ruse.
Way of looking at the world is Is just extraordinary.
And so even if you're not like a big history fan, even if you're
not, you know, a big, I don't know domestic history, how did
they brush their teeth fan, listen to this episode because
Ruth's View and her passion and her enthusiasm for what she does
is just amazing. And we're so excited to have
her. We are so honored to have her
on. And so, without further Ado,
here is our talk with Ruth Goodman.
All right, you ready, Eric? Yeah, okay.
Hi everybody. It's me.
Katie Soros and it's me, hey, dude, let's see.
We nailed it that time. That was really good.
And today we have a very special guest.
On the podcast. We have a historian and author
and actor, and just all sorts of cool things.
Ruth Goodman. Hello.
Well, thank you so much for being here.
Ruth, how do trees is really nice of you to ask?
How are you? How are you doing?
How's this? It's marvelous, the sons are,
it's been snowing, but the sun is out.
So this is good. That's fantastic.
It does. It looks like you're having just
the nicest morning that a human has ever had this beautiful like
fluorescent light through the windows and I can just see the
steam like, sort of coming over. And shine and say I love this.
No. Okay.
So here's our first hitting journalistic question.
How do you take your tea? Oh spot.
A milk. Okay.
Okay, any form of tea That's not actual tea and it is good by me.
Whatever is is it like a moral stance?
The sugar? Is it like about it is like a
purity thing like it don't like it.
I don't like sweet drinks. It's our can't be doing all that
Fizzy Pop everybody. Else drinks?
I don't like pop either. I don't like it either.
This is say that we're off to a good start.
This is true. So, this is what everybody came
for Howarth good, takes your teeth.
This is, that's all I can say. So, hey, okay.
So for those of you who don't know what Ruth Goodman does
route to mind like to take it like a couple minutes, just kind
of like explain your. Your job really have a job.
I have a stroke In July, I'm interested in ordering daily
life of the past. I like nitty-gritty, I'm really
couldn't give a stuff about kings and queens they can all go
and I don't know. Drown in Mom's you wine or
whatever. I don't care about General that.
I care about battles, all I'm interested in is how the likes
of you and I clean our teeth. Look after our kids, decide what
to have for dinner. I just all agree, but nurse of
being alive at a Different time and I like to experiment with
that physically. I like to try things out.
I think the most exciting research is when you could
combine literary archaeology. Surviving objects and experience
and if you put them all together it just gets way more.
Interesting. So okay, so I have a, I have a
couple master's degrees in shape, very fancy.
Also probably not as fancy as you but I'm pretty fancy but so
one of the things that I found is when I was stuck like you
were the, my introduction to domestic history and the only
reason that I found out about it because I read your tutor book
for Fun. Like, I just was like, I was
like, oh, it's tangentially related.
I'll read it. And so, I got really interested
in it, but through you. And so, what I wonder is as
somebody who is obviously studied history for so long,
what was it challenging like not giving a stuff about kings and
queens? Like how did you like, did you
have to, like, I don't want to say like combat that but like
how like, what was it? Like being the person in the
room was like, but wait, like how did they how do they brush
their teeth when everybody else is like with King Henry?
Yeah, well, I didn't find it difficult because that's the way
I got into it. In the first place.
I am not clucking you trade. You're the one with the degree
is not me. I've never got any particularly
academically exciting. I didn't study history at
University. I'm self-taught and I'm
self-taught, because I joined Arena and Society.
What really the truth is? I married, my husband and we
were very young, we were 21 very young, and he wanted me to join.
Him in his Hobby and I won't what you want me to do, what I
want. The people were great.
I mean, the people really were great, really welcoming really
friendly really warm and I just got hooked immediately.
I couldn't give a stuff about the Battle sighting, but worth
it wasn't bsea. No, no okay I don't think we
really have that in Britain. We have okay.
Have historical groups but we don't have the creative
anachronism. Oh sure.
Okay, I was like, oh my God, what are we both in the idea?
Excited. I'm really excited bit more like
a Civil War people. Okay, okay.
Obviously it's a lot earlier because I said 17th century, the
quality historical, Jo content, we've come for this day.
Yes, I just got really interested and I could nobody
could give me the answers. I wanted to know.
What did they eat for dinner? Nobody could tell me.
So, I started researching on Going to the library's couldn't
find it. You just had to find it out for
yourself. Yeah, I saw wasn't having to
learn from scratch how to do historical, research from
original sources, and it just sort of snowboard really that's.
So, I never had any problem in editing out the kings and
queens, because they were never there in the first place.
Hmm. I cannot tell you in this
moment. How absolutely goddamn
delighted. I have its I never had to edit
out the kings and queens because they were never there in the
first place. Oh my gosh.
What was what? And what was the the do?
You remember the first question that you couldn't find the
answer? Yeah, I know it's what I've been
working on for years ever since because it remained one of the
most difficult. How did they do the washing up?
Yep. You know because it's a really
basic practical thing you know I'm people are happy to tell you
some of you know what they might have eaten or a bit of cooking.
How did you wash up? After you've got to wash up, you
know, you've got all this stuff coming in guns.
There's no stove. There's no.
What do you do? So yeah, that was pretty much
one of my first questions and it's taking me is taking me
decades to answer implicates. So how okay, so how, so the
mystery question, how do they do the washing up?
What is, what's the process like how do you start finding that?
Like that just kept coming up with dead ends everywhere?
I thought that Information. There wasn't, you know, I you
read it, you get some marvelous book out the library and it's
all about, you know, medieval cooking or something.
Yeah, they don't mention it at all, like, not at all.
And then you think well, they'll be something on women's lives.
Surely the basic notion that nothing?
They're just not there. Doesn't exist there.
Obviously was no washing up in the past.
As far as most know, is the concerns?
What I think, indeed, Because I didn't really know where to
start looking beyond that. But and then things will pop up.
I'd be reading something. And I came across a ballad in,
and these things were rude and popular and they were sold on
printed sheets, really cheap. And they were people sang them
in the streets for money. And they were always, you know,
like real popular culture, they weren't hoping to their real
popular culture, often pray, damn rude and explicit.
I know is this one of, you know, and then align is like that.
It's a nasty misogynistic paste about about a woman, but that
one of the slurs against her is that she screaming for two days
and nights about neighbor stealing half a dish, cloth off
the Hedge, whatever's proof of a dish cause suddenly I've got
reference to a dishcloth and it was like, you know, like putting
together these odd little bits that Turner here and there and
then gradually start to the. Alright, well, that's the sort
of place that might look for more information.
I gradually putting it down on ya and Choo eventually, I
started finding some proper answers.
That's, that's such an adventure.
My gosh, you're like, I'm picturing like sort of Al
Raiders of the Lost Ark style, massive room, and you enable the
small light and you like a Halo dishcloth, I've found it well,
so I'm really curious about specifically when it comes to
cleaning. There were so many processes
that that we now know are very chemically complicated that back
in the day, you know, and this is anything but before I 1800
don't shoot me. I'm not a historian.
They had, they had no idea that these chemical processes were
going on. They just knew that they worked.
So in your, in your, in your intellectual travels, I suppose
what process was the most I guess clever, what was what
process were you most astounded that we figured out so early on
a nice date. Ugly, don't find.
This little British and that's the whole power of wood ash.
And you see in Britain we moved over to Cole really, really
early as our domestic fuel. So, in fact, in London, I've
just written a book about it. We can come to that, but we
touch London changed over to Cole by 1600 by the time of
Queen Elizabeth. The first London become a coal
burning cities and very, very quickly that moved out across
the country. Now, in America as a nation, you
never He went over to Cole some of your cities did but only in
the 19th century but even when the city's did all the rural
areas around in America remained wood-burning.
So this knowledge about the power of wood ash remains within
the American psyche, until living memory in Britain.
Most people are completely unaware because we've been on
coal, so many hundred years before electricity came in.
So for us the shift over to soap happened in the 17th century.
So when I first discovered that wood ash was the cleaning
chemical of the past, it was sort of a big Revelation for me.
It contains? No, it was get this wrong.
I'm rubbish at remembering these.
I think it stasium carbonate. Anyway, it's an Alkali.
All right? It's an Alkali.
It's you say we're gonna just absolutely Really, really
alkaline in nature and that dissolves grease and that was
the basis of cleaning in the past.
So and and then in other parts of the world not written in
other parts of world of remains, the basis of cleaning until
soaked took over in the 19th century but basically you can
take greasy laundry like you know, you soak it in wood, ash
all the grease comes out, easy peasy, dirty frying, pan, same
thing. Just a bit of you know what, Ash
in your frying pan clean cuts, the grease All sorted all
sorted. Yes.
So that was quite a surprise to me and I suspect it wouldn't
have been too much for you. Huh.
Did you think? Well then, do you think that's
what this is? You know?
Does does, does does did America's relatively slow
transition to call have anything to do with its size versus part?
Has to do with size, partly, to do with connectivity?
You know, I mean, there's loads of the railroads in America,
really important, but they're quite spread out that when the
British Well Network, which it was very, very dense, really
dense. You covered absolutely
everywhere in 1880 almost, I don't think there was any where
in Mainland Britain it was more than 15 miles from a rail
station so that, yeah, exactly. It was just like everywhere they
were so by 1840 1850, anybody could you know pick up a cold
from the nearest station was only 15 miles away but actually
the cold have that happened a lot earlier because before the
railway It was the canals here and they deliver coal all over
the place and even before the canals the Inland water system
coming down Cole, would come mostly from Newcastle, straight
onto boats in the sea. Karambit we're an island is
small and then penetrating land in rivers.
So we had like really good transport links for moving coal
around, really early and that was partly luck, partly like
that. Some of the most important coal
Fields within Britain are right on the coast.
So getting it out into that transport system was really
easy, huh? Well, no, what, what sort of
non-traditional event, would you say in the domestic World
throughout the years? What event would you divide
everything? As pre and post, holiday,
definitely the changeover to Coal burning.
It just like Jordan coordinate changes, everything.
It changes your cleaning routine routines.
You suddenly have to start using soapy sudden, you have to start
using hot water, which you have had to bother.
With before it changes the way what you eat.
Now the British I'm very convinced that the British diet
as it is sort of known worldwide.
Is the result of cold cooking. You have to cook differently on
coal and how you cook on would different recipes.
Work, different recipes are easy, different recipes are
difficult so that has a really big impact on your diet.
It also changed like the landscape.
Like, if you don't need to burn wood, then you can cut all the
trees down. Can't you?
And turn it all into Farmland? You do.
Need to keep some trees with you'll never thought of that
Holy schnikeys. That's really again, really
important. So, how people manage their
Gardens, how they manage their Hedges, how they manage?
That little patches of land around them changed how they,
and then, it also impacts on how you live within your home.
Because coal smoke is horrible really horrible to look what's
my you can cope with sort of, but Cosmic is really hard.
So suddenly there's this huge push to have chimneys So the
whole shape of people's homes and how they lived in them
changed the food, you eat change the way you clean change.
It was a massive massive alteration and really sort of
underpins much of what we think of, as modern living throughout
the globe. I'm sorry.
I'll be right now, it's fast. So don't worry about me.
Okay, so okay, I have approximately 1,000 questions,
but before we get to that, okay? So we're going to Go back a
little bit. So my question is, is more about
you than, but what I want to know is, how did you go from
being an interested person? Just wanting to know how, like
cold shaped the world and, and how they did the washing up to,
like, being the, the person, like, being the person who, like
people call. Like, what?
Like, how did that go down? Like what happened?
Tell me your tone. I just It's kinda good.
It's really easy to be a fairly big fish.
If your pond is small enough, it's, you know, don't have to
tell us twice. Yeah.
If by some miracle, somebody wants you to know about cleaning
or whatever. Who else were they going?
To ask is exactly what happened. At.
Yeah. And this you just carved out
your own little niche. Yeah.
Throw how big I'm still working unpaid for donkey's years.
We're help. You know?
I mean that's I often people say to me how do I get your career?
And I don't know how anybody else would get the curry.
I've no idea, there's no courses you can go on.
I just worked for free for museums and all sorts for years
and then for tiny pittance has for, you know, other other
institutions. I mean, I think Apps for us, for
me. And my husband is, my husband's
is equally interesting, although he has a day job that pays the
mortgage and but for both of us, the real thing was, when the
Globe Theater started. I don't know if you've heard of
that. It's a reconstruction of
Shakespeare's, really interesting design on the
artistic director. Really wanted to do it as if it
had been Elizabeth. At the time, they got a theater.
That's Elizabeth it. Why not try?
And But they were really worried, this whole week has
passed decent, it would be nasty, Disney, everybody.
They were really worried and then the designer lady called
Jenny ceremony, who's Lovely by the way, she's very exciting.
She spotted my husband and I dressed in a full to geared of
stuff, and she sort of like initially she was a bit shy
apparently. But anyway, she sighed while
though, What are you wearing under that?
After we showed, are you wearing it all for real?
Yeah it's all hand-stitched. Yeah.
Oh I mean make the thread and we made the and we've done the
cloth and we've made the and we did that and we did this and we
did that. And she just went I need you now
as we work to sort of like freelance advisors at the Globe
Theater and it was the most fantastic.
Stick your variance daughter, she's she does the cording
right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She I mean obviously you know, she didn't get any choice, she
was bored and she was busily re-enacting tutoring us from the
age of five weeks old. So by the time she was eight,
she was really proficient at one of the one of the techniques.
And so we sat there with a designer She's dead zombie
ghosts. But that really isn't 60 my God.
She's really good at it. Yeah, she is.
I want that age. Her first job.
My first commercial commission and she provided the break that
went on one of the actors suits. So we had to sort of strange
thing and I should come home from school.
It'll be like, do your homework, blood, blood blood, and then it
would be breeding tonight. Well done.
She felt like it. She finished the commission.
She made all 17 meters of it, and it went on an actor and the
name was in the program. She was so proud of her short
life. That's amazing.
I like as somebody who has long been obsessed with the globe and
how they do the costumes and every which we're going to do
like a little insert where, like I explain why that's so
significant to everybody but like, it's fine, I'll put that
here. Okay, cool.
Your face for me. I'm not going to put anything
there now, just so there's just so we can hear you do that.
Yeah. Just kind of made your own way.
Like you just you just said kind of.
Yeah, we did. When we when we first started
with the re-enacting, I think that the group we joined, were
very much like it was about having fun, which is good, it
was about big picture stuff. I suppose wasn't terribly
historically accurate. My Really were very more and
more interested in accuracy and we were really driving for that
was. So if we're going to do this, we
want to, we want to really do it really, really good time.
Some people find that a bit much and we're a bit off-put by it
and other people were really inspired and sort of joined us.
And we became a like a little, and we still are a little tiny
sort of Coterie of super enthusiastic.
Oh God, that sounds like the best dinner party I've ever.
Oh my God. Seriously around a table with
all of you. My gosh.
Did you do you find that? Okay, this is and maybe this is
just me being a nerd but do you find that?
Like sometimes like your level of knowledge like kind of ruins
it like because you'll be watching, you know, like, don't
watch anything? Supposedly Hearts?
Oh my gosh, is imagine I just can't.
I just get so cross the whole time.
You idiot. What do you what do you think
was the most common like fit? Well, it's the most common thing
that you see that you make that makes you think they would, they
would never do that, that way. What is the most rare black of
chemises actually needs to be seen word already?
Usually an 18th century word to describe a 16th century.
I don't know anything about anything, that's fun.
I don't know. Yeah, I just I can't I don't
know it all annoys me. It annoys me when they have like
you know even in the background you've got a sycamore tree
presort of before sycamore trees arrived, the wrong species of
bees is that historical dramas tend to put a modern mindset
inside the past. the people, the people, you know, if you The
people think differently they have a different culture and
that culture is completely ignored if you watch a film or
something it you know they might spend a lot of time on getting
the right car or the right badge on somebody's shoulder but
they're entirely modern people. Wearing those things inhabited
in those spaces, they hope they don't have, you never see the
culture of the past, you only ever see the modern dressed up,
and I find that quite upsetting What do you think, sort of
defines the difference between what you would consider the
modern culture versus the old culture?
Is it is God how way that they walk or everything.
I mean, everything is the past is a different country.
I mean, a really, really different country where people
think differently and do things differently, and have different
attitudes and their different approaches and different tool
sets in their heads. Let alone with their hands or in
their workshops. So, you know, when they face a
problem, how they would face it It is completely different.
It's you know, the world has now become quite joined up.
So it's a bit hard to see, just how different, but if you think
of a, you know, a group of people who haven't had much to
do with the Western World, think how differently they approached
everything. And that's how the past is that
pastors people think differently I can't put a finger on any one
thing. It's so many things, everything
is culturally learned from The Way You Walk Destin.
I mean, if you're a people watching if I mean, when I was a
kid I did. Like myself date.
I loved it so much. So Shane was never really good
enough but never mind I loved it.
But what it leaves you with is a lifelong interest in movement
and so I do, you know, if I'm sitting at a cafe or something,
I watch people past and I'm pretty certain I can tell
somebody's nationality. By the way that walk down the
street, it's a cultural thing. And I would say that there are
at least three different American walks.
I can I can identify different cultural groups.
You have a famous for Them are these catalogs somewhere
complimentary I can imagine. Oh my gosh, Sikh gentleman.
For example, if you see a seat somebody who has brought up in
within that culture, gently brought very, very erect spines
that and they tend to sort of walk like as if almost as if
strings are attached to the knees at the front and they lift
each knee up high. They walk at that's completely
different. If you see somebody who's been
living a long time in London from wherever they Come from,
you'll notice that they start to Pivot forward at the hip so that
instead of being upright, the top half of their body pivots
over a little bit like that me so that they're sort of the legs
are doing their thing that. But from the hip Point onwards,
the back and the neck are always slightly leaning forward and
that's much more pronounced in London than it is in the north
where you would find that the shoulders were bent forward.
But the, the waist bit was straight, there's all sorts of
little subtleties like that and different social groups as well.
Walking is something you learn from the people around you.
I mean, basic walking up, stairs are sort of natural thing, but
the style in which you walk you sort of pick up from those who
are around it. One thing that I find quite
upsetting about some Americans walks is that I'm sorry
particularly Midwest, you see quite a lot of people who walk
as if they were a beast, they're not a beast necessarily but they
walk as if they were There's a sort of a wide leg waddle and I
find that very upsetting because that, you know, that's people
who brought up in in an area where most of the people around
them are suffering from obesity and it changes the way you walk
and these youngsters are growing up and learning.
That's that's the style of walking.
I found that quite. Yeah, sad.
That's all. Now I'm going to have to like
walk everybody. Interesting, you know, and like
that sort of level of totally unconscious cultural stuff, is
there has a history, you know, I mean, everybody talks about that
you know that gangster walk with that with the trousers down
around your hips, you know, falling up that supposedly come
from not wearing a belt in prison, you know, that walk has
had a fashion, hasn't it, you know, it's sort of fading out
again and it moved right across the globe.
It started in certain areas of America, very urban, areas
America, and then Moved out often accompanied by certain
styles of music writer, Crown the globe and now that's fading
away again. There's a fashion, these things
come and go. And historically, they were
Fashions of movement so you can follow that.
Sometimes, there's enough information to sort of follow
follow some of those Fashions through.
So, you know, how an actor stands, how an actor takes their
hat off her. They sit how they get from from
one part of the room to another. That is culturally defined and
if you can get it right, Is so convincing.
It's one of the things you used to go was trying to teach those
sorts of movements to access because even if a member of the
audience doesn't know what they mean or doesn't really get it,
they know they've been transported somewhere different.
It's moves looked utterly different.
These work. These people are inhabiting the
space in a different way and you just pick that up unconsciously
as body language. She just absorb it.
So yeah, well I think gosh that's so departing my mind.
My jaw, just like, fall into my desk least this one, just so
people can see your face. Just the perpetually mindflow,
Derek. Well, I think I suppose the the,
at least the the, the aroma of the question that is flopping
around in my head after hearing, all that Obama.
Would you rather me say odor I can check and say, oh I was
going to say stench but I want to have more pain.
I ask you a question, but how much is that do you think has to
do with the Going to the fundamentally different
understanding of time that people had as various
timekeeping devices and various forms of artificial light.
Sort of came to came to sort of just how how significant is how
significantly different were people's understandings of time.
I suppose back in the day, I mean, you studied so many
different eras of time. I don't know which one to
specifically ask. And how might that affect the
way that we walk and stuff? I think it, I think it does have
lots of impacts and like, but I find it a little difficult
because I spend such a lot of time doing these things that I'm
not sure. I have a very good grasp on how
many modern people say, it's that's terrible.
Well, I just hope. My my father worked in New York
when I was when I was growing up as a small child.
And so I I learned to walk for literally from him and he spent
all of his time in New York City, where you have to walk,
Places frequently and you have to get there very quickly.
And so I grew up walking very quickly and so even now, when I
walk places, I feel almost as if I'm in a rush because my body is
behaving as if it were in a rush.
And I'm just I'm I'm sort of put it back by all the all the
implications of of how each individual movement is is formed
by these inventions. Yeah.
This Infinity of cultural things
that I supposed to round us. I was wondering are there in in
sort of The Culinary world are. There are certain other similar
things and the washrooms were, the certain things that yeah,
there's always this sort of subtlety is everywhere and in
everything. And I mean, historically,
sometimes you get a window into it and you can see it if you
look carefully and sometimes you just don't know because the
information isn't there. And the more intimate and
personal you go, the harder it is to find such information.
So although I can be fairly confident on some of the
movement stuff of the aristocracy.
See way back. As far as Shakespeare.
I really have much much harder time resurrecting, say a Plowman
because there's you know, there's just a lot less
information. You get a few things you get you
know, people talk about plan when plodding, but you don't get
much of a description beyond that, you know, you just get the
occasional line reference. Whereas when you're talking
about an aristocrat, there are manners manuals which describe
things are adults, manuals, there are fencing manuals, all
of which have quite A lot of description about body
movements. And then there are also
paintings, which show fashionable posture.
And there are sculptures and, you know, so there's a hell of a
lot more information about some aspects and some areas of
society than there are about others.
So, you know, it's sort of a bit of a mystery often having found
it in some places there. You just have to think there's
probably everywhere else, too. It's just, I haven't got the
right equipment to see it with, you know, haven't got a
telescope that will work. That chain capable if.
Okay? This is like a very silly
hypothetical question. But if you could build a time
machine and, you know, and you could go back, yeah.
What would be like, the one thing that you just like
desperately want to know, like how they did?
Like, what would be the thing that you would go back for?
Like, where would they see hair underneath a cat?
Really. Yeah, I mean I've got fairies.
Feminine hygiene and again I've got theories but you know like
not sure have I got this right? Yeah it's all sure.
I'd really want to check, you know.
I'm not quite sure how you do that when you pop out of your
Tardis that the future. I like to know what you do.
Once a month I read it but it's so interesting that you say that
because like those are the questions that like and I think
one of the reasons may be why I like I've been so drawn to your
Is because like those are the questions that I wanted to know
when I was a kid. Like I remember asking
questions? Like how did they go to the
bathroom? And and then you get in trouble
and they be like none of them about like we're here to learn
about the Civil War and I'm like, right?
But how did they pee like kids you get in trouble, right?
And so like I just I love that that is like I love that.
There's at least one other person in the world who like us,
thought about that and God? No, no I want.
I want to know about that. But okay, so you talked earlier
about Out about inhabiting the past and like and like and and
how that worked. You had the very unique
experience of kind of getting to do that with your work on like
tuner Monastery. Farm and Victoria environment
stuff. How did how did that come about?
Like how did you wind up? Like did the BBC approached, you
did you call them? And go guys, I got an idea for a
show that at least 12 people are gonna like, know they fake phone
me and I said, no, did you again?
I did and then I said, no, again in fact, they say, it's only on
the fifth phone call, I finally gave in it was right at the
start. When people were, I think
they've done 11 program. Had gone out with people being
taken back sort of. I think they called it 1900
house or something. I don't know.
If it ever aired in America, it did not, but a lot of people
here have seen it because oh yeah, it's like, you gotta track
down in a Victorian house and You know, it was sort of
interesting and sort of ridiculous.
And then there was another Series in America called about
the Pioneers which I actually made clothes for did you really?
But this is very silly, but I will tell you the story very
quickly. So the Pioneer show, there was
an article that ran in. I want to say like one of like
the teen girl magazines like 17 or whatever, where they like,
interviewed one of the girls who was on the show and she talked
about how she had Mogul than lipstick in her like in the in
the, in the seam of the Hem of her skirt, she had put in like,
lip gloss or something, and I like, I have remembered that is
lived rent-free as the children say, in my head for years.
And now, I know the person who made the skirt in, which the
lipstick was smuggled, it has all come from Full Circle.
That's it, that's all I need. That's all I have to contribute.
Okay, I've got that far, you know, they when I phoned me and
said, would I go and live on? A farm for a year.
I said, you must be blinking, joking.
I'm a married woman. I got a 14 year old daughter and
a business. I mean, no, I think, I think in
a rather exasperated tone of voice.
I said, you could have one week in for, and that's your lot and
they said, yes. And I put the phone down and I
went, what have I just agreed to?
What changed my television career began?
So I'm curious sort of what, what, what overwhelms me.
Well, I'm watching any of any of the BBC farm shows tutor
Monastery in particular, a lot of it just looks miserable.
Some of it looks pretty fun, some of it looks very dangerous.
Sometimes things look fun and dangerous but some of them just
look miserable. What?
What out of all the tasks that you've recreated, which would be
the one that you would hate to have to do to have be your job
now, Jordan. Watch him.
Look pretty bad. Yeah, it's for me, it's always
about the cold. I think that's the hardest thing
about living in the past, how cold one is for everything.
So laundry in cold water, well, in the summer, that's no big
deal. You go down to the street, beat
it fine. But in the middle of winter, I
mean, and you know, and that sort of grind of dealing with
the cold. That's the thing that I find
hardest and of course, giving up too.
Life so much better. When you've got T brighter that
on a pillow for you. Right?
Which I which tasks did you most enjoy?
Which one did you find? Most.
Look, look forward doable. Gosh, I love making things.
I've always loved making things. So, whatever it is, you know,
that, I think that's actually think it's something quite basic
in human beings that making things.
Makes us feel calmer more into control happier, so making
almost anything, whether that be, you know, a straw hat or
anything, really? I like the making.
I enjoyed quite a lot of the gardening to.
Again, it's very creative gardening.
Yeah, but I never really are you have good days and bad days,
don't you? It's really hard to actually
have a list of favorite some days.
The thing that made you happy one day doesn't quite hit it,
the next day. And that, that constantly
changes I find it quite difficult to give hard to answer
some questions slant. Hmm.
That's such a mood on this podcast, you have absolutely no
idea like that. So yeah, sometimes what is what
is awesome. One day is not good, the next
day and that is, that is okay, yeah.
Also, on the shows on when I say the show, I guess I'm referring
to tutor because that's that's the one that we watch together
Katie but the you make a lot of Remedies and herbal whatnots,
what was the thing that we were most write about in terms of,
you know, bombs that worked and what not and what were we most
wrong about. Did we do something that was
wrong for a very long time before eventually?
Yeah, most of it was wrong. Most of all medicine is
downright dangerous. And, you know, you could be
really, really careful. A lot of it is that there's a
there's a serious body of placebo.
Well, you know, fair enough. As long as it's harmless Placebo
I'm very little that was genuinely as far as modern
science is concerned effective and where they are effective.
It's quite a small scale, you know, I mean elderflower does
contain Glycerine. So if you make a face wash, Us
with elderflower, rub it on your face, it what?
You will get a you know, it will soften your skin but that's not
like, say you think it's it's a minor thing, you know, there is,
there are antibacterial qualities in a range of plants,
which do help a bit, but it's not the same as having
antibiotics. Yeah, I mean generally, all
those remedies are quite small scale stuff.
Mmm. I'm obviously very careful when
I don't know the television. Not to involve anything that is
harmful because, you know, somebody somewhere gets the
wrong end of the stick and ends up poisoning themselves.
I really don't want to be responsible for her talks about
medicine. You know, it.
You have to be so careful because you you say all this up
front, you explain, I guess, you know, explain the systems but
The four humors and the paracelsus and the doctrine of
signatures in the way thinking worked on medicine and he at the
end of it, when it clearly everything you're talking about
is wrong, but nonetheless, at the end of it there's always
somebody in the audience who comes to me for some sort of
medical consultation and that's it.
But the whole point of this I've said, is doesn't work.
You need to go to a modern doctor.
If you've got a real problem, who wants to believe it, people
need to believe I Keep medicines, I think Witchcraft
and Medicine together, a both Superstition, people have a deep
deep desire for it and they will override almost everything in
their brain. Telling them be careful here.
This is not making sense. People just override it all
because they want it so much, I don't know.
It's a it's a complicated thing, past ideas about health and
Medicine. I wouldn't recommend pretty much
anything from the past, you know?
I mean, you're not going to do yourself much harm with a
rosemary tiu and an elderflower face wash yet.
Nice soft, skin. Go for it.
But if a serious time, oh God, sake, don't look to the past to
help, you know. Again, I just have like 10,000
questions. Okay, this is I promise there's
a question in this stinking somewhere, I promise.
So one of the things that I think is really interesting
about what you do is you take this idea of like the very small
scale, like the very like Niche. Like how did we do the washing
up? How did we do our medicine?
How did we wash our faces, all this stuff and and it becomes, I
don't know, maybe for me, and I'm just thinking way too hard
about it, but I feel like what it what it provides for us is is
a sort of like accessibility to the Past.
And this idea of like, we haven't fundamentally changed,
like, people still need to brush their teeth and wash their
clothes, and all of this stuff. What have you I guess like,
like, what is your connection to the people of the past?
Because it's like, on one hand, you can look.
And you can say, like, your ideas about medicine were very
fundamentally flawed and they were kind of bad.
But then at the same time, you know, we see these like
ingenious things like using salt to scrub down and like, and
these kind of things. Like what, what do you what do
you? What is your connection to?
Like just people in general of the past?
I think there was a question in there somewhere.
Yeah and I think you sort of answered it yourself.
We are all people and I think that is what I feel very much
more that more that you're researching rehearse.
What you're what people are doing the more you feel?
Yeah that's fundamentally. We are the same.
We have different cultures but with the same and, you know, I
mean, I really feel it. History is a form of Apology.
And, and that also works in the modern world, we are all one
species and the differences between somebody who was brought
up in the middle of the Jungle in Borneo.
And somebody who was brought up in the heart of New York, a
tiny, they are almost non-existent, we're still human
beings. And yes, we can see the world in
different ways and understand it, in different ways, but we
can also come around to each others opinions.
You know, that culture is very muted.
Mobile and flexible and we can reinvent ourselves in many
different ways. We share humanity and I just
find that very, I don't know, a good thing.
I find it very hopeful and heartening and welcoming and
being part of a much bigger Human family but extends back
into the past and around the globe.
Oh that's not much, that's very nice.
Perhaps Perhaps, you just answer this, but what what is, what is
a Common Thread? If any have you have, you
noticed a Common Thread that goes as back as you as far back
as you've gone and you anticipate, will extend as far
forward as we will go and is what thread of our common
humanity is seemingly constant. I think that's quite a lot of
them aren't there. I mean, the love, the love that
develops between people and particularly between parents and
children or anybody. You care for, whether you're
physically related to them or not, those sorts of carrying
bombs are perhaps the most powerful of human experiences,
and you see them everywhere in all sorts of contexts.
And the way they build. I mean, I often find myself
looking into that very fractured families, you know, death and
sickness and accident happens a lot in the past and people had
to rebuild new families. And you, you see, people
supporting each other, through all sorts, you know, who
actually have no blood relationship to each other.
Tall, you know, so-and-so, married turns have brought three
kids with them, then both parents ended up dead and then,
you know, brother brother-in-law on the one side picks up the
pieces and Carries On and you know, you know what I mean,
people are forever. Making it work finding ways of
connecting with each other and doing that sort of central
caring and I and I think that is, that is perhaps the most
universal humanity and your cuz you see that all the time, don't
you sometimes people go on about earlier break down the nuclear
family to go Was body, blah, made families.
It's nothing new. It's always been like that and
perhaps more. So, in the past, where so Much
Death and disease into the end, Yeah, I think, I think that's
perhaps the most fundamental human thing.
This ability to care for those who are blood relations and to
care for those who are not blood relations, and for it to not
matter, it really doesn't make a difference who you care for is,
who you care for, and we are pre-programmed to do that.
We are a species that is good, but carrying across boundaries
are being Community. I think our current culture
likes to highlight competition between individuals.
A lot of It's talked about tickly on the bigger political
ski. It's is all about the power of
competition as a driver for human society.
And I think we're very good at not noticing how much
cooperation, how much caring how much support goes on, that to
me, is what sets us apart from all other species?
It is this ability to do community, the ability to come
together with different ideas and different cultures and
different to work together to cooperate.
Its cooperation, that allows you to send men to the Moon.
Umm not competition. I mean competition might have
had a part of it but it would be nothing.
If it just competed there would be nothing you need this
competition at this, this cooperation of coming together
and sharing and that is something that you see in the
past. It's something you see in the
future, I think that's the thing that goes forward, we are really
good at caring about each other. That's the nicest thing anyone
has ever said on this podcast. So I think we're probably about
wrapping up but I do I'm asking my question.
Eric, I'm a a diva. I'm sorry.
Okay, okay. Okay.
It's very funny because you literally just like we don't
have to compete with each other. I mean, I have the most
hard-hitting journalistic question that you'll probably
ever be. As I don't wanna brag, okay?
Okay. There's a cooking show on
television. Like, you know, we'll say we'll
say I don't know Gordon Ramsay will say Guy Fieri.
I don't know. Somebody who wins actin or
beaten. Oh, that's easy.
Obviously allies are actin. Oh yeah, thank you.
I mean those are questions for me and you nobody else.
Mrs. Beeton actually copied about a third of her recipes of
straight out of Eliezer act and she just prayed to reister mrs.
Beeton, couldn't cook. She could cheat.
No. Knew she couldn't hurt the
amount of vindication. I feel like she was an editor.
She brought in other people's work and put it all together,
she was rubbish. In fact, she often said herself.
That was when the reason she wrote the book was because she
was rubbish. She needed all the help.
She could get lies your actions, the cook.
I need you to know the amount of vindication that I feel Miss in
this unwarranted medication, and this phone, everybody else was
doing this park. Is me like was so good.
A time out, and I told him about, it's fine.
It's fine, I'm here, I've got my answer, enjoy your Eliezer
action. She's thank you.
Thank you. Okay.
Eric, do you want to do you want to do thing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is funny towards the end of
every year. We both always have that one
question that we're like, I'm gonna ask this.
I don't get like, I got a skit, so, Ruth Goodman.
If you could have just a magic Genie, wish, if you could speak
every language on Earth fluently and eloquently or play every
instrument on Earth masterfully. Which would you choose speech,
speech? Really?
Yeah, it was so quick when was that?
I'm not very musical. I have not a musical bone in my
body. I'm a very weird person.
I don't really get much pleasure out of music.
It's not about which time just not interested, that's really
interesting. Something that that's something
that the kitty. And I talked about when we're
listening to an interview with, you're watching anything that
you were on, is there's such a melody in your voice.
You use such a full range pitch too, but I don't know.
I think there's a little bit of me that's not quite there that
other people have this huge emotional responses to music,
and I'm largely untouched. That's really interesting.
Do you ever get into conversations with your husband
mark? That I know he's a musician, he
is a musician and it's an odd thing, isn't it?
But for him, it's a major passion and really important
part of his psyche. And I know he spent years trying
to involve me and draw me into it.
Well, he's been here is an, I won't, I won't spend.
I won't, I won't try. Now, I had a whole thing.
I was building up in my head. I was like, oh my gosh, if you
heard John doubt one, you know, like, there's no way work as a
gun there before me. They're all the same.
He wrote the same. Same song a hundred times.
It is so weird to be non-musical.
I, we're very, very happy with the idea that somebody might not
be turned on by theater or not be turned on by Visual Arts or
not, you know, almost every other form of creative artistic
thing. It's sort of okay to decide
whether you like it or not, but music, we assume is universal.
Huh. That's really interesting.
That is really interesting. Well, I know there's there been
studies done that apparently far more people will admit to having
having had an intense emotional reaction, to a piece of music,
whatever it is modern or not, then would then have it then
admit to having it having it having had an emotional reaction
on a piece of art or, or I really, yeah, apparently, there
is something fundamentally different about the audible
medium perhaps connected to language.
That's that's, that's my big question.
May well spend the rest of my life.
Yeah. Asking is is the reason we like
music because because of our propensity for language, but but
that's a different episode of the podcast but gruesome as we
wrap up. Is there anything you want to
talk about anything? You have going on that?
You'd like to projects to bring up some projects?
I don't know. No, secret compartments.
You're sowing into two peoples. Garb.
I did, I mean, we sort of touched, on my most recent book
about the Cults, what from wood to Coal earlier and that.
That came out in the states in October and, and I sort of I
would like to sort of pick that up only because I'm really
interested in what other people might think about it.
It was, it was very much a project in which I felt I was,
you know, stepping into the dark wasn't something.
Anybody else seems to have written on and when I was one of
the things sperm is, right? It was one of those books were
just couldn't. Nobody else seemed to be asking
the same questions so it poses a lot of Students about do you
think this might be the reason why we do that?
Do you think this is the reason why you do that?
I think it's a very, very powerful thing that the switch
from wood to coal and I think it has Global impact about many
areas. I think it might have been one
of the reasons we actually had an industrial revolution in the
first place. So it's pretty big questions.
It's just nobody else is really addressed them.
So am I am I am I barking up the wrong tree or is there something
in it? You know.
I think there's something In it. But because there's nobody else.
Nobody else. Very few other historians to
sort of balance it against. I'm really quite hoping people
have a think I would. It's like people to know that
the question were there. Even if they decide I'm talking
bollocks, I'd still prefer that they read it shouted at me.
I think there's some interesting questions so I hope you don't
mind. The book is called the domestic
Revolution and it's full of questions then see what you
think. Go get it and you should go read
it because everything Government has ever done is perfect and
wonderful and amazing. And also, I would just like to
say as somebody who is very famously asked one of the
dumbest historical questions ever and now is Loki famous on
the internet? I don't know if you know this
about me Ruth Goodman but one time one time to talk about this
yet, it's fine. I'm so excited please.
So I had a question that no one had ever been able to answer.
And I had wanted to know the answer for years.
How big was the turkey in A Christmas Carol?
There is some fun and I was like, how big how big could
Scrooge brings the turkey to the cratchit's and it was like a
whole thing and I am and it was a whole thing.
And so so yeah. That's what I wanted to know.
And then, and then I, and then I spent months covered.
It was a ghost. Well, if there's a goose and
there's turkey, there are two different birds.
There are two different birds in A Christmas Carol, and And I
found the answer. I felt it took me almost a month
but I found it. I did the math, I figured it out
and now on the internet, if you look up, hoping it's a tricky to
Christmas Carol, I am the only person who is everyone you all
the souls, I am the only I am the old.
If you ask Google, it goes. Well according to Katie Osborne,
which I think is the funniest thing in the entire world and so
so yeah. So that was that was my
favorite. I was fishing a little Pond
isn't it was? That was my Bruce Goodman
questions that was that. The what the thing that I wanted
to know, so that was it, that was, that's that's, that's all I
have to say about that. So yeah, if any if you're
listening, the reason why I bring this up is because asking
questions, like this is how you wind up, writing a really cool
book because sometimes it's okay to just get interested in a
weird thing. That's all I have to say about
that Eric cause I don't know what I'm doing.
Please close that make this podcast be over well, Ruth
Goodman, thank you so much for being here.
We're both huge fans and this Is the first so many times will
think we should have that person on the podcast but because of
where a mental health podcast specializing in ADHD there's no
real reason to have them on. But then again being interested
in a wide variety of things is very customary video HD we
figured let's just have a segment where we just have
people on that. We're big fans of and just have
a good time. So thank you for being the
inaugural guest on fangirl friendly.
Really appreciate it. Thank you so much for asking me.
It's been great fun. Thank you so much for being
here. We'll do it like a little post
wrap up thing. Anywhere will tell you where to
find all of our school cool stuff.
But we're good man. We just think you're the best.
Thank you so much for being here.
Great. And then we're going to do the
cool thing where we were, we end awkwardly, this will all be in
the podcast. I always act like it's not going
to be all right. Now the podcast is over fan.
Girl, Friday, And that's it. That's the end of our
conversation with Ruth Goodman. Now could I have spoken with
Ruth for like, I don't know another 7 years and probably not
of run out of questions. They answer is absolutely yes,
but that seems like a probably would have taken up an unfair
amount of her time. So here's it's grateful for the
time that you spent with us today.
So huge infinite Quest. Thank you to Ruth Goodman and
hey to all of you and the infinite Quest Community, whose
support and generosity. And just honestly your feedback
and your enthusiasm and your excitement, Is what makes
episodes like today's fan Girl, Friday possible.
We are so grateful for each and every one of you.
And if you want to learn more about Ruth and her new book, and
all of the cool stuff that she does, we're going to put
together a page over on infinite Quest podcast.com that will be
available today Friday, you can check it out, you can visit the
links, you can do all that cool stuff.
So yeah, head on over and check it out.
Oh and also if you have a suggestion for somebody that you
think we should have on fangirl Friday, let us know.
No. Do you know somebody cool do you
know of somebody cool that you want to hear us?
Talk to shoot us an email infinite Quest podcast at
gmail.com? Let us know because we're always
looking for suggestions and we're hoping to make this more
of a regular feature. So the more people we have on
our list, the better that's infinite Quest podcast at
gmail.com anyway. Until next time, thank you so
much for being here. Thank you so much for listening
and remember to be kind to yourself this week.
We'll see you again soon. Bye.