What links zebras to the Second World War? What connects partying to mental illness in Victorian Britain? What ties the bed to the expansion of the British Empire? What鈥檚 the history of hair? Toilets? Oranges? Zombies? Paperclips?
Well, they are all topics that have been explored by Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis in their Histories of the Unexpected podcast series, which has rapidly gained a national following since its launch in September.
Backed by Dan Snow鈥檚 History Hit Network, the series of over 30 - 40 minute shows, recorded as a conversation between the two friends and colleagues, were among the top 15 most downloaded podcasts on iTunes at launch, and have regularly been inside the top 40 since.
鈥淧eople may think there鈥檚 nothing unexpected about the past, or about history,鈥 says James, Professor of Early Modern English History, and Director of the Arts Institute at the University. 鈥淏ut this series adopts a new approach to exploring our past arguing that, in fact, everything has a history 鈥 it is just about unpicking it. It鈥檚 cultural history meets comparative history, a fusion of object biography let us say, with a form of history that requires you to make connections temporally and geographically.鈥
It was Sam, an Honorary Research Fellow in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and an award-winning BBC TV presenter, who first came up with the idea of a history podcast, and in conversation with James, the concept of a series of alternative histories began to take shape. Very quickly they had brainstormed a list of 150 potential topics that covered everything from objects and animals to themes and phrases.
Sam says: 鈥淭o give an example of how these topics arise, we were talking about the Olympics and we began to consider where the phrase 鈥榖lood, sweat and tears鈥 had come from. What does it represent? So we鈥檝e focused a podcast on each one of those three.鈥
鈥淲e pick four topics and then we go off to research them on our own,鈥 adds James, 鈥淲e don鈥檛 tell each other what we鈥檙e doing so when it comes to recording the programme, there is a genuine sense of mystery about what is going to happen. We introduce the topic via a freewheeling conversation around how you might think about an unexpected history. Usually we have prepared two or three case studies, but the rest is improvisation and seeing where the story goes.鈥
Having experimented with various locations, the duo now record their podcasts in a soundproof studio using professional equipment used by Sam in his previous television work 鈥 including programmes such as Operation Grand Canyon, Shipwrecks: Britain鈥檚 Sunken History, Castles and The Silk Road. It鈥檚 an intensive process in which they shut themselves away from family to do four or five episodes back-to-back, each in a single take.
鈥淥ne of the most memorable podcasts was on the history of the box,鈥 recalls James. 鈥淚鈥檇 had a student come up to me with this velvet covered box that had been found on a skip, and inside there were 500 letters dating back to World War II, which transformed it into an archive.鈥
鈥淚 then showed James a picture that I had found of someone lying in a box, holding a rope attached to a bell鈥 adds Sam. 鈥滻t was a safety coffin, something that came into existence during the 18th century, and it鈥檚 fair to say that the conversation took a left-field turn at that point.鈥
