Day In The Life Of A Body Snatcher

Summary

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After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

Episode Summary: “Day In The Life Of A Body Snatcher”

Air Date: September 18, 2025
Hosts: Anthony Delaney & Madeleine Pelling

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Overview

In this rich and atmospheric episode, Anthony and Madeleine take listeners deep into the shadowy world of 18th and 19th century British body snatchers, or “resurrectionists.” Through vivid storytelling—grounded by the real diary entries of body snatcher Joseph Naples—they unpick the social, economic, and moral forces at play in the era’s booming “anatomy industry.” Along the way, they bring to life the precarious, often grisly, nighttime exploits that kept the supply of cadavers flowing from graveyard to dissection table and ultimately to the advancement of medical science.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Scene: London’s Dark Underbelly

• Madeleine’s evocative introduction (02:16) places listeners in London, 1812: a city alive with imperial trade and industry by day, but haunted by the nocturnal trade in freshly dead bodies by night.
  • “In the shadows of this booming, busy and changing city, another industry thrives, one that feeds not on coal or cotton, but on the freshly dead.” (02:37, Madeleine)
• The episode’s “day in the life” format, previously used for plague doctors, sets up a narrative exploration of the social history and daily experience of a body snatcher.

Why Body Snatching? Anatomy, Law & Demand

• Anatomical study’s legal framework: From Henry VIII’s time, only executed murderers’ bodies could be legally dissected (06:36–12:31).
  • The rising demand for surgeons and medical knowledge far outstripped this supply, leading to a black market for corpses.
• Class and culpability: Madeleine and Anthony highlight the upper-class anatomists’ demand and their relative lack of scrutiny compared to the working-class snatchers.
  • “But they're demanding the bodies...” (08:34, Anthony)
• Social and religious fear: widespread belief that bodily destruction doomed souls, intensifying family distress (12:31, Anthony).

The Case Study: Joseph Naples

• Joseph Naples’ background: Born c. 1774 in Deptford to a respectable family, Navy veteran under Nelson, eventually a gravedigger turned snatcher for extra income (13:10–15:29).
  • “I am surprised that this is a man who needs to turn to... body snatching” (13:40, Anthony)
• Involvement with the Borough Gang: The organized nature of London’s resurrection trade; key figures (White, Ben Crouch, Patrick Murphy) and “dissecting season” in winter when bodies decompose more slowly (16:07–16:50).
  • “It's spooky. Season is also the dissecting... Season.” (16:09, Madeleine)

The Diary: Gripping Glimpses of Grave Robbery

• Naples’ own brief, stark diary accounts shape much of the “night in the life” narrative.
• Preparation & Planning: Meet-ups on moonless nights, coordination via lunar calendars to avoid detection (24:14–25:00).
  • “Thursday the 5th of December, 1811, did not go out. Moonlight very strong.” (25:16, Joseph Naples diary, via Madeleine)
• Tools & Techniques: Short-handled shovels, hooks to minimize body damage, sacks for transport. Targets were usually pauper’s graves (poorer coffin quality, less surveillance, fewer mourners).
  • “You'd have a sack to put the body into... which gives me the ick.” (26:17, Madeleine)
• Process: Fresh graves (48-72 hours old), fast digging, minimal opening of coffins, discreet removal to avoid leaving telltale damage.
  • “The general requirement was a body that had been in the ground for no longer than 48 to 72 hours, because it starts to be bad then” (16:50, Madeleine)
  • “Got two adults, found them easy to lift.” (29:52, Joseph Naples diary)
• Risks: Facing patrols and graveyard watchmen (often alone, cold, and frightened), protective dogs, and mechanical grave traps (bells, guns, even “coffin torpedoes”).
  • “Met patrol ran, dropped one adult, got away with another.” (33:07, Joseph Naples diary)
  • “Went to Harps. Could not work. Dogs very bad. Came home again.” (34:21, Joseph Naples diary)

Innovations in Countermeasures

• Mort safes: Heavy metal cages protecting graves; rented by “middling” families (35:22–36:06).
• Grave alarms, bells, guns, explosive ‘torpedoes’: Defensive tech detailed, often satirized. The hosts inject humor imagining how easily, in their own lives, they’d trigger such traps (36:13–38:14).

Economic Realities

• Payment: About 2–3 pounds for a large adult body (approx. £250 in today’s money), much less for children or parts. Though significant for the poor, this doesn’t equate to “fortune”—except for successful gangs doing multiple snatches nightly (40:01–41:26).
  • “It does show what you are able to do because the night’s work that you’re doing as a body snatcher is probably equivalent to a week's work...” (41:26, Anthony)

Law, Outrage & the End of Body Snatching

• Growing public horror, leading to riots and pressure on authorities (43:16–43:38).
• The Anatomy Act of 1832: Legalized the dissection of unclaimed bodies, effectively ending the trade in (illicit) fresh graves, but continuing social injustice as still mostly the poor ended up on anatomists’ tables (44:11–44:51).

Psychological & Societal Complexity

• The hosts grapple with the moral ambiguity of the snatchers’ choices, the desperation of poverty, and the mindset that enabled such macabre work to take place in the shadows of early modern society (42:09–43:01).
• Even for the snatchers, the work was viscerally unsettling:
  • “In 1812, he cut three heads for Brooks. Hard work. Tom fainted. I did not.” (45:14, Joseph Naples diary, via Anthony)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the moonlit logistics:
  “Did not go out. Moonlight very strong.”
  —Joseph Naples diary, 05:16 (via Madeleine)

• Cold efficiency:
  “Got two adults, found them easy to lift.”
  —Joseph Naples diary, 29:52 (via Madeleine)

• Near escape:
  “Met patrol ran, dropped one adult, got away with another.”
  —Joseph Naples diary, 33:07 (via Madeleine)

• The human cost:
  “In 1812, he cut three heads for Brooks. Hard work. Tom fainted. I did not.”
  —Joseph Naples diary, 45:14 (via Anthony)

• On the anatomy schools’ guilt:
  “the last layer that’s always missed off ... is the official the culpability of these people that's going on. ... But they're demanding the bodies.”
  —Anthony, 08:34

• Humor amid gloom:
  “Spooky Season is also the Dissecting Season. From now on, that is what we'll be calling it.”
  —Madeleine, 16:09

• Societal shift:
  “Not everyone felt that way. There was, you know, huge abhorrence of this practice as well.”
  —Madeleine, 42:51

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:16 – 04:27: Atmospheric dramatized scene of a body snatching in 1812 London
• 06:36 – 12:31: Why body snatching? The medical, legal, and cultural background
• 13:10 – 16:50: Life and recruitment of Joseph Naples; structure of the Borough Gang
• 24:14 – 25:16: “A Night in the Life”—moon calendars and preparation
• 26:17 – 29:52: Tools, techniques, target selection, and handling the bodies
• 33:07 – 34:21: Encounters with the watch, patrols, and dogs (quotes from Naples’ diary)
• 35:22 – 38:14: Countermeasures: mort safes, grave guns, bells, and “coffin torpedoes”
• 40:01 – 41:26: Payment, economics, and impact on class dynamics
• 43:16 – 44:51: Social outrage and the Anatomy Act of 1832
• 45:14: Joseph Naples’ diary quote on fainting, capturing the job’s grim psychological toll

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Tone & Style

The hosts mix gallows humor and empathetic insight, weaving grisly fact with relatable banter (e.g., asides about triggering graveyard alarms, speculation on historical gender roles in body snatching, and their own fictional suitability for misdeeds). Their conversations remain rooted in historical detail and primary-source storytelling, particularly the diary of Joseph Naples, offering an unfiltered glimpse into life on the margins during Britain’s medical revolution.

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For Further Listening

• “Burke and Hare” episode (Edinburgh's infamous murderers/suppliers of cadavers)
• Anatomy-related episodes with Cat Irving and Cat Byers
• History Hit’s documentary on Burke and Hare (now on YouTube)

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Closing Note

This episode delivers the haunting, cinematic intrigue of the “resurrection men,” reminding listeners of the ways science, crime, and necessity can become tangled in the dark corners of history. The voices of both law-abiding and law-breaking, the rich and the poor, and the living and dead all contribute to this macabre, multifaceted tale.

Transcript

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[Anthony]

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[Anthony]

New sweet and smoky special edition gold sauce is here made for your chicken favorites at participating McDonald's for a limited time. Hello and welcome to After Dark. Now. We are never shy of getting up close and personal with the darker side of history. Obviously, that's the whole remit of what we do. But it doesn't come much darker than body snatchers, grave robbers, or as they're sometimes known, resurrectionists. And I am going to hand over to Maddie now to set the scene for this episode.

[Madeleine]

London, 1812 Nighttime down at the Thames, Docklands Ships Creek at anchor, heavy with tea and textiles brought from across Britain's empire. Along the skyline, the first great factories of the Industrial Revolution are grinding into life, casting black silhouettes against the night sky. But in the shadows of this booming, busy and changing city, another industry thrives, one that feeds not on coal or cotton, but on the freshly dead. Joseph Naples moves quickly through the narrow lanes of Islington, a short handled shovel slung under his coat. Beside him, his gang keep to the gloom, boots muffled on the damp earth as they Slip into the churchyard. The funeral was only yesterday, so the soil is still soft. They work fast, scraping away the top layer, prising open the coffin lid just enough to hook the body within. Then it begins. The toll of a bell, a dog's sharp bark slicing through the darkness. Lanterns flare to life. The air splashes, split by shouts as the night watch surges forward. The figures vanish between tombstones, scattering into the night, leaving the ground raw and open like a wound. And those who guard the dead know that this will not be their only attempt. In a city where the living hunger for the knowledge only the dead can provide the resurrection, men will always return. This is after dark. And this is a day in the life of a body snatcher.

[Anthony]

Bonjour. My name is Anthony.

[Madeleine]

Je m' appelle Madeleine. Yeah.

[Anthony]

And this is. Why are we French, please? I don't know. I just felt it. I felt it, Marianne. I just went with it. We have previously, against our better judgment, spent a day in the life of a plague doctor.

[Madeleine]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

And you guys left comments and comments and comments. I've heard and sent emails about other day in the life iterations. And now, whether we like it or not, we are spending the day in the life with really miserable jobs.

[Madeleine]

Can I also say that when we did the Day in the life of the Plague Doctor.

[Anthony]

Yes.

[Madeleine]

You on socials were a very convincing and historically accurate plague doctor outfit. And there was quite a lot of Internet excitement about this in certain circles.

[Anthony]

Yes. Did you see that?

[Madeleine]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

There were definitely people who. And fair play to them.

[Madeleine]

Anthony was serving.

[Anthony]

Who love a bit of leather.

[Madeleine]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

Who are like, where did you get this from?

[Madeleine]

Also, will you wear that for me at my house?

[Anthony]

Well, the answer is no. I was very uncomfortable and I'm an absolute prude. But it, like, I was, like, shocked by this. Clutching the pearls.

[Madeleine]

Clutching the pearls. Wow. Okay.

[Anthony]

Yeah. So, anyway, look, we are doing other days in the lives of.

[Madeleine]

And they won't be as sexy. I'm sorry to.

[Anthony]

We are talking about the 18th and 19th century here. We're in Britain. We have, you know, George iii fourth. All of the Georges are. This is a time when body snatching really takes off or resurrectionists really are part of the landscape. In terms of anatomy, we're gonna be talking about that as well. But before we begin, Maddie, before you give us our context for the episode. We've had two now. Well, we're about to have two. Plague doctor, graverobber. Why am I even asking you this? You don't wanna be a grave robber, do you?

[Madeleine]

What out of the two.

[Anthony]

Which of the two?

[Madeleine]

Yeah, I mean, it has to be a grave robber. Doesn't has to be. Because who wants to be a plague doctor? I don't wanna be anywhere near the plague. No, thank you.

[Anthony]

I am not gonna dig up somebody's dead granny.

[Madeleine]

Well, I'd rather do that than get plague. Sorry, Granny.

[Anthony]

No, I'm gonna take the risk.

[Madeleine]

Really?

[Anthony]

I did my sexy plague doctor mask.

[Madeleine]

Yes. Okay, tell me what's happening.

[Anthony]

You, as you make your way through the city of London and Edinburgh digging up bodies, what is the context for this, please?

[Madeleine]

Right, so really we need to understand first of all the history of anatomy schools. So why are people digging bodies up at all? It's so that medical people can dissect them to learn about the human body. This is a practice that has its foundations in the medieval and Renaissance worlds. In Europe, there was an anatomical research being done on human cadavers. In England, in 1540, when it was legalised, it was actually granted permission by Henry viii. Just one of them.

[Anthony]

But he gives everything because he's, he like, he's the sodomy guy as well.

[Madeleine]

Interesting.

[Anthony]

Brings that law in.

[Madeleine]

Well, you mean he, you mean he outlaws it. Not, he grants permission, he brings the law in against.

[Anthony]

But here's the thing, there's a lot of conversion of laws going on from ecclesiastical to legalistic things at this time. So that's why Henry VIII is lumbered with so many laws.

[Madeleine]

Yeah. So if you're alive, you can't have sex with a man, if you are a man. But you can anatomize a dead body.

[Anthony]

Okay, I was wondering where that was going. It's like. But what can you have sex with money?

[Madeleine]

Oh, God. Well, probably a big long list of things, let's be honest. So anyway, we are now in the long 18th century, we're in 1812, which is still very much in the 18th century as far as I'm concerned. So from the 1700s onwards, surgeons become a professional body. They become separate from barber surgeons. So people who would cut hair and also performed minor procedures, you know, little cuts and bruises, they would remove things that got stuck in your body, they'd sew you back up, all of that. But surgeons are suddenly a more skilled group. They are hungry for knowledge and to learn more and to kind of fine tune their trade. And also it's no longer associated with the ecclesiastical by the 18th century. So this idea of, you know, being something that's happening within the church is not the case anymore. The demand therefore for bodies in order to expand that knowledge is huge. This is the moment when the British Empire is expanding. People are coming across new diseases, people are getting wounded fighting to expand this empire. There's just a lot of desire, a lot of need for medical treatment of all kinds. So that's what's happening in terms of the anatomy schools.

[Anthony]

Can I just point out here as well that it's one of the things. I'm really kind of glad that you started with that because I think when we talk about body snatching, the last layer that's always missed off, and we've talked about this before, is that official the culpability of these people that's going on. And because this is being professionalized, it is becoming more and more of a, of an upper class status job. After all those distinctions that you were making between barber surgeons and then this professionalization of the skill. But those people are the people that are skimmed off the top. When we talk about body snatchers, we think about those working class men, as far as I'm aware, exclusively men that are scrimping together the money to try and survive. And that's why they're doing this horrendous thing. But you so easily forget about the anatomists who are way more wealthy, often from well to do families by this point. Well, maybe younger children of well to do families, certainly well off, middling families, they just get forgotten about. But they're demanding the bodies.

[Madeleine]

Yeah. I have a couple of sidebars there to say. Were there women who were body snatchers? That must have been equal opportunities. They absolutely should be. We can do whatever 1812 was famous for those. Famous for those ladies. Yeah. So that'd be interesting to know. There's a period drama in that.

[Anthony]

Well, if it exists, somebody needs to do it.

[Madeleine]

Oh yeah, absolutely. The other sidebar was if you want to know more about the culpability of the medical profession in this moment, you can listen to the episode that we did on Burke and Hare. The famous body snatchers of the 1820s who never snatched a body, by the way, if you haven't listened to that episode. But there we go. We also filmed an entire feature length documentary which is you can watch on YouTube now. It was on the history hit subscription channel. It's now available for free on YouTube. Okay, so we now know the context of the anatomy in terms of London itself. Because we are in London, we're not in Edinburgh.

[Anthony]

I always go to Edinburgh with this because of Brooklyn Hare, who did even snatch. But London had a pretty significant craze.

[Madeleine]

It did yes. So Edinburgh was very much the place to go for anatomy in the late 18th and early 19th century. But London also had a huge scene, an anatomy scene, if you will. So there were hospitals, like St. Thomas's St. Guy's Hospital. I was born at St. Guy's Hospital.

[Anthony]

Oh, were you actually in.

[Madeleine]

Yeah. Am I meant to give out personal information like that on the Internet?

[Anthony]

I'm sure they can't do anything about that.

[Madeleine]

I don't think they can, but yeah. I was born on the 13th floor. Oh, lucky or unlucky? Depends whether you're a swiftie or not. Anyway, moving on. I get that reference.

[Anthony]

That'll tell you whether I am or not.

[Madeleine]

Oh, let's not get you started on Taylor Swift weighing in, where you are not allowed to be my friend if you don't listen. Shut up.

[Anthony]

I have. I. I have listened to some of her songs.

[Madeleine]

For anyone who didn't catch this controversy Anthony posted online.

[Anthony]

I'm gonna get that.

[Madeleine]

What did you say?

[Anthony]

Popping off, by the way. Yeah, I said, and I stand by this, that the Brontes would not have listened to Taylor Swift, but Jane Austen would. And that Anne would have been tempted into Swiftland, but that the other two would have drawn her out. And I know what you're gonna say. Cause I've literally had thousands of comments going. They would have loved folklore and they would have loved this. And I'm just like. That shows about your understanding of the Brontes, then.

[Madeleine]

Ooh, ooh, ooh.

[Anthony]

That shows what you think you know about the Brontes.

[Madeleine]

The nails, the claws are out. Wow. Okay, well, that's a whole. We need to. That's a bonus episode in which we angrily debate this with each other because you are wrong. Okay, so we've got Saint Thomas', we've got Saint Guy's. We have Saint Barts as well, which, interestingly, has its own dissection room. So that tells you just how far this profession has moved on. Like, there are professionalised spaces in order to cut people up. There's also the Royal London Hospital, which has a little bit less money and relies on the cheap supply of unclaimed bodies. So there's already a lot of underground trading going on here. These hospitals cannot possibly consume legitimately the bodies. They're allowed because, of course, in this period, the only bodies are allowed are those of executed murderers. Those are the only bodies that are allowed to be used. And it's part of your punishment as a murderer that you are executed. But then also you are destroyed. Your body is destroyed publicly in this way, no other person is meant to be used as a cadaver for these purposes. But of course, so many are.

[Anthony]

And there is a belief floating around at this time that unless your body is intact, that you're not getting into heaven. Basically, unless your body is intact. And it's like, this is therefore really damning for these murderers, but then anybody who is being resurrected, their family, they're going to be really worried about this.

[Madeleine]

Yeah, I agree, exactly. So it's a huge problem. It's really prevalent across British cities, but especially in Edinburgh and in London at the time where these centres of anatomy are really, really building. And now I'm going to introduce you to the person that we're going to be spending time as for this day in the life.

[Anthony]

This is our day. Okay. Yes.

[Madeleine]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

I thought we were doing this.

[Madeleine]

Yeah, this is the format. We are doing the format. We are in a podcast studio. Anthony, you are a presenter of a podcast. Okay. This guy is called Joseph Naples. He's born around 1774 in Deptford, which is in South East London.

[Anthony]

I live near there.

[Madeleine]

Do you? Oh, yeah, of course, yeah, lovely. He is the son, and I think this is interesting, he's the son of a respectable stationer and bookbinder and he serves in the Royal Navy on a ship called HMS Excellent under none other than Lord Nelson himself.

[Anthony]

When I was reading these notes, I was like, I am surprised that this is a man who needs to turn to. I was gonna say bodybuilding, body snatching.

[Madeleine]

I mean, he may well have been doing the bodybuilding. So he does his time in the Navy under Nelson in the 1790s and by 1800, so he's about. Can't do that math.

[Anthony]

Oh, she's trying. You stuck yourself in there 26 or.

[Madeleine]

28, something like that. So this is around 1800, 1802. He becomes not a grave robber, but a grave digger.

[Anthony]

Okay, so still legit.

[Madeleine]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

Even still, I'm surprised he's having to do that, depending on how respectable his background is. Anyway. Sorry.

[Madeleine]

Yeah, I mean, I suppose a lot of people would spend time in the army or the navy for a little bit as young men. They might be wounded and not be able to go back. They might be like, oh, I've seen enough of that to last me a lifetime. No, thank you. Yeah. And you come to a city like London, which is incredibly busy and overcrowded and growing all the time. This period, you take whatever work you.

[Anthony]

Can and you do always hear about people being spat out of the navy, where it's or they leave or whatever. It's just like, oh. And they often become quite poor and destitute, actually. So in that sense, it does.

[Madeleine]

I mean, the one thing I would say is it's interesting that he doesn't become a bookbinder like his father.

[Anthony]

Yeah, that's kind of what I mean.

[Madeleine]

So, like, what's the vibe there? Have they fallen out? Is the father dead? Interesting, because actually he might have been apprenticed to his father, but he went to the Navy instead. So, like, there might be a bit of tension. Anyway, he ends up as a gravedigger at the Sparfields burial ground in Clerkenwell.

[Anthony]

Sounds boo Bougie. Spa fields.

[Madeleine]

Yeah, it does. If you want to be buried anywhere.

[Anthony]

Probably shit, though.

[Madeleine]

It's probably terrible. So he's working as a grave digger. It's all legit. But he is coaxed into the dark and murky world of body snatching, as I imagine so many gravediggers were. You can imagine the fee that someone would slip you to be like, we need to know when this person was buried, how old the body is. Could you either look the other way while we dig it back up, or would you like to be in on the. The cash in that we're going to be doing here and be part of it?

[Anthony]

But that's funny, because you're saying, being part of it. And there is a kind of a formalized gang in London that is doing this.

[Madeleine]

So tell me a bit about that operation. So we've done Burke and Hare. We've done Burke and hare in the 1820s in Edinburgh. So there's a whole generation before the first decades of the 1800s. And it's a gang named the Borough Gang, who are like, could that be any more London? I love that. And there's a man called White who is at the head of this organisation. We're gonna hear a bit more about him. But they slip Naples money, they encourage him to be part of this operation. They work through what is called the dissecting season, which is the colder months, because, of course.

[Anthony]

Oh, it's our season.

[Madeleine]

Yeah. It's spooky. Season is also the dissecting.

[Anthony]

Dissecting season.

[Madeleine]

From now on, that is what we'll be calling it. Welcome to dissecting season. Because it's colder, obviously, bodies are fresher.

[Anthony]

Yeah.

[Madeleine]

There are more frequent corpses because more people in this period are dying in the cold season, especially poorer people. Think about people living on the streets, people living, you know, in real poverty, who can't heat their own houses and Just die of illness or even cold. They are removing, at the height of their powers, two to three people a day.

[Anthony]

It sounds a lot. And it doesn't sound a lot in that two to three is not that many.

[Madeleine]

I mean, two to three too many.

[Anthony]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But a day, that. That adds up pretty quickly. And it also means it gives an indication of death. Numbers of death, like in that area that they're operating.

[Madeleine]

These are all fresh as well. So the general requirement was a body that had been in the ground for no longer than 48 to 72 hours, because it starts to be bad then, and the medical staff don't want to be chopping up those bodies beyond that point. So, yeah, it gives you a sense of how quickly people are being put in the ground and how regularly. So this gang, we know that the leader is called White. He's Body Snatcher. We don't really know that much about him other than he's described as a Scotsman, which I do think is interesting, given the connection to body snatching in Edinburgh, which has already begun in this period. And of course, later on we have Burke and Hare. So I think that's an interesting little detail. It might be that he wasn't from Edinburgh, but I just think there's something. There's an interesting connection either way.

[Anthony]

It's linking it to that center of anatomy again. Right. It's going right back to, oh, this guy is well seasoned, because he's come from the city that everyone in the world looks to for their anatomy lessons.

[Madeleine]

Yeah, exactly. Now I'm gonna tell you the rest of Joseph Naples story.

[Anthony]

Yeah.

[Madeleine]

But then we're gonna go into what a day in his life would be like. We know this because of an absolutely incredible document. He kept, a diary.

[Anthony]

That's ridiculous.

[Madeleine]

It's crazy, right? He kept.

[Anthony]

It's available online.

[Madeleine]

It is available online. It's all digitized. You can read it. I think it's. I think there's a digitized copy at the welcome collection online. Yeah. He literally kept a diary. And it's blunt and brief. There aren't reams. You know, this isn't Silvia Plath. Like, there's. Well, can you imagine if Silver Plath was a gravedigger? There'd be too many. Yeah, I mean, I can. But there'd be too many thoughts and feelings. Like, it would just. Just be too vibious.

[Anthony]

That's probably why I couldn't do it.

[Madeleine]

She'd be caught because she'd just be sat by the grave, like, just crying and like, just Absolutely. Thinking about death and everything. We digress. So Joseph Naples is eventually caught for abusing his job as a gravedigger. What he's been doing has been supplying St. Bart's Hospital with, obviously, cadavers. And importantly for the law, he has also been stealing the shrouds off the bodies and the coffin fittings. And this is important because whilst it was illegal to anatomize someone who wasn't an executed criminal, there wasn't a law saying you couldn't remove a body from a grave because who owns a body? Because who owns a body? But you could not remove the things in the body because they belonged to the dead person. Interesting.

[Anthony]

Yeah.

[Madeleine]

So that's what he's caught for. He's sentenced to two years at something called the House of Correction, which I think is interesting that he. This isn't a capital offence, this isn't something he's going to be sent to the gallows for, but he has to spend two years in this penal institution. And, you know, it's a way of sort of removing people from society for a short period of time. And that is the punishment, essentially. He escapes.

[Anthony]

What?

[Madeleine]

Yeah, it's quite a dramatic story. He escapes. Guess how he escapes? He makes a skylight in his cell. He's recaptured and he's recaptured by someone called Benjamin Crouch, who is in fact a previous resurrectionist. So a body snatcher who has turned informer and is now a thief taker. And we absolutely need to do an episode on thief taker. Criminals in the 18th century who turn informers and then are employed to go out and capture other criminals and bring them back to justice. Obsessed. There's a really famous one in London, I can't remember who's called. He was like the thief catcher. He's a really famous figure. So he's recaptured, he's taken back to prison. But. And this comes into this class system as well that we have here. So there's a surgeon and an anatomist called Sir Astley Cooper, who has been using Naples services, and he actually vouches for him, which is interesting, that he puts his neck on the line. So he manages to get him away from spending too much time in prison beyond that point. But Naples can now no longer work as a gravedigger, which is fair, I think that's. We can all respect that decision.

[Anthony]

Can't trust you with the dead.

[Madeleine]

Yeah, exactly. But this was a case that was reported, you know, across the newspapers. We've got an entry here from the Caledonian Mercury, which is obviously a Scottish newspaper. And it doesn't necessarily mean that this news was just reported in Scotland, but simply that it was reported in London and then repeated in the regional papers. It says, Joseph Naples. These are the words of the judge who convicts him when he is sent to prison. It says, Joseph Naples, you were indicted for stealing dead bodies from Sparfield Burial Ground and also for stealing caps, pillows, shrouds, nails, screws, coffin plates belonging thereto and the coffins wherein they have been buried.

[Anthony]

I love that little list.

[Madeleine]

Yeah, I love the pillows. It gives you a sense of how he has been caught and why he's been punished. And it's not necessarily for the body.

[Anthony]

Structure itself.

[Madeleine]

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[Anthony]

Let'S get to the so this is the day in the life of. We have that man. Now give me well, is it a day in the life of. Or is it a night in the life of.

[Madeleine]

Oh, it's a night in the.

[Anthony]

Well, this is.

[Madeleine]

This is the After Dark podcast. It should be a night of. Okay, so imagine that we are Joseph Naples and his gang and we are going out to snatch some bodies before he's caught and punished. The first thing you would do is you would meet the gang at a prearranged destination. This could be a street corner in Southwark or a nearby burial ground. So they didn't just go to the burial ground where Naples worked. They liked to loosen up a bit and obviously his skills as a gravedigger would come in handy to actually access the bodies. The other thing they did to organise their work, and I'm so obsessed with this detail, is that they organized it via the calendars of the moon. You want to do it on the darkest night possible so you don't get caught. So when the moon is full and high in the sky. Yeah, yeah. I absolutely.

[Anthony]

My kind of romantic vision of this, I had like.

[Madeleine]

Oh, like moon.

[Anthony]

And we're going by that. No, they need a small little.

[Madeleine]

Yeah. Which isn't very gothic because you think of it. It would be like under a full moon. But that is an issue. The first quote you're going to hear now from Joseph Naples diary in 1811, which was the year he started writing diary. Yeah. So he wrote. I mean, he's not very robust. Right. He writes, Thursday the 5th of December, 1811, did not go out. Moonlight very strong. So you really had to be organized by the calendars of the moon. So that's really interesting. Now the other members of the gang that we would be out with include Ben Crouch, who was one of the leaders. He was, interestingly, quite wealthy from the body snatching. But he'd made quite a lot of money off it, which I think is really interesting. These aren't desperate poor people looking to do the job. Patrick Murphy, who was the second in.

[Anthony]

Command, he's definitely Irish name like that.

[Madeleine]

And then of course we have White, who's the Scottish body snatcher. And he was really involved with the recruitment for the gang. So he would kind of, you know, find the most useful people and bring them all together. You would be carrying tools, as we heard at the beginning of this. You'd have a short handled shovel, presumably. Short handled, so it wasn't sticking out of your coat when you're walking down the street. You could disguise yourself just it under your, under your cloak or whatever. You'd have a sack to put the body into.

[Anthony]

Yes.

[Madeleine]

Which kind of gives me the ick. And also it needs to be quite a big sack really. I suppose you could kind of crumple someone up.

[Anthony]

But that's gonna need to be.

[Madeleine]

It's gonna need to be big because.

[Anthony]

Like they shoved you over their shoulders often, didn't they? Like as if they were carrying.

[Madeleine]

Oh like a bag, saying swag.

[Anthony]

Yeah. Or like, you know, sometimes they did. They pretended there was like pigs stuff and they just threw it over their shoulders.

[Madeleine]

Interesting to do that. Okay. Okay. They would also have a hook to open the coffin lid, of course, and to hoik the body out of. They would also have carts and wheelbarrows in case you didn't want to carry these bodies over your shoulder, which kind of makes sense. So that's the setup. Now the gang would have watched in the preceding days to see if a funeral was taking place. So they're keeping tabs on lots of different burial grounds. Obviously you're sending different members of the gang.

[Anthony]

They can do individually.

[Madeleine]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And to report back then you would wait, I'd say at least 48 to 72 hours. I suppose by that point there are going to be no family members coming to the grave site. Everyone's done the initial morning and the body's still fresh. But I suppose maybe people are starting to think, okay, that hasn't been disturbed, that's going to be fine. Like they're fully inhaled.

[Anthony]

How many days is 72 hours?

[Madeleine]

Three.

[Anthony]

Three days. Yeah. You're like, okay, maybe the danger's over now kind of a thing.

[Madeleine]

Exactly, yeah. But they're still fresh enough that you can pop them right out and take them to the hospital. Now they often targeted pauper's graves. Why do you think that Was okay.

[Anthony]

I will guess that it's because. Well, I know that things like mort safes and things start to come in around this time to protect more wealthy families. So there, there are mechanisms that are being put in place in and around graves to, to protect wealthier people. So that's not there in pauper's graves. Also in many cases in pauper's burials there's nothing, not family that's known necessarily. So they're not necessarily standing watch for that long or whatever it is. So I think there's probably just more opportunity in those poorer graves.

[Madeleine]

Yeah, I agree. I think also the coffins themselves were of a lower quality. Right. So it'd be easier to get into. So you've dug down a little bit with your short handled spade. You get to the pauper's grave. It takes about 30 minutes if the soil is fresh. Because this is the other thing. Right.

[Anthony]

30 minutes in total or 30 minutes to dig.

[Madeleine]

30 minutes in total.

[Anthony]

Oh, the whole operation. Okay.

[Madeleine]

Because if you think about when someone's buried and you can't put a gravestone, a stone one anyway, at the head of the grave for something like six months because you have to wait for the soil to settle.

[Anthony]

Yeah, we do like a year in Ireland or something.

[Madeleine]

Oh really? Yeah. Okay. The soil is loose in Those first few 48, 72 hours. So it's easier to dig. So it's not taking them that long. You know, it's just loose stuff. It's not compacted that well. So you get down to the coffin, open the coffin lid, not the whole lid. Cause you don't need to and it's just too much work. Then you start to pull out the body. You can either do that with your hook.

[Anthony]

This is the gruesome bit, I think.

[Madeleine]

Yeah. And I always wonder how much damage is being done to the body, body at this point. Because obviously you want to take to the anatomist a body that is in good form so that it can be cut up how the anatomists want it. So you don't really want to be sticking the hook like in the head.

[Anthony]

How else are you going to do it? I mean this is literally going to be my question because yeah, there's a hook, right. And it is quite a violent. It's like it's a meat hook.

[Madeleine]

It must be going in to the head. It must be going.

[Anthony]

I'm imagining it's going under the jaw, you know, and like I don't know.

[Madeleine]

If that would be strong enough. Bear the weight of the body then I'm thinking, like, the side of the head or the back of the head. That'd be really hard to do.

[Anthony]

It could be that. But the other thing is it doesn't need to necessarily bear the. Now I sound like I've done this. The weight of the body. Because as long as you get them up out of the body a little bit, then you can.

[Madeleine]

That's very true. Yeah. Yeah. So some people were easier to remove than others. So again, we're going to Joseph's diary. On January 1812, he says, got two adults, found them easy to lift.

[Anthony]

Now, I've just thought of something. They couldn't be putting the hook anywhere into the people because they. Then they're leaving physically. So any of the.

[Madeleine]

That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

[Anthony]

Okay. The anatomist will know they've been snatched because remember, these things are lectures. You can't have a thing under the.

[Madeleine]

Chin because it must be somewhere more discreet.

[Anthony]

Yeah. So it's not seen. Sorry.

[Madeleine]

So that's interesting.

[Anthony]

He says he found those too easy to lift. So this is very kind of. It almost feels like Joseph has taken the piss a little bit. Do you know what I mean? In this diary, like, why is he keeping this record?

[Madeleine]

And it's quite emotionless, actually. Like, it's not got two adults. Well, are those men? Are those women? Like, what state were they in? How did they die? Do you feel anything? Did you bury them a few days ago as the gravedigger and now you're seeing them again? Like, how does that feel? There's none of that information. Once the body is out of the grave, though, they strip it. If it's wearing any kind of clothing, which, of course, in a porpoise grave, it might not have been. Or it might have been, you know, wearing the most basic shift or something underneath the clothes they'd worn in life. Because, of course, it's theft, so they can't get done for that. Although, of course, that is how Joseph Naples meets his downfall in the end. But generally, they strip the body naked, they cover it in, then fresh sheets put it into the cloth sack, and they're either carrying it over the shoulder or they're whacking it in the wheelbarrow. And of course, you're doing all of this under the COVID of darkness without a full moon. But as we know from our previous episode on Body Snatching, you are also up against the watch.

[Anthony]

Yes.

[Madeleine]

And in particular, people who are set to watch over the graves of Yards themselves.

[Anthony]

Now, can I just take a second here? I always love this history, I do. And it's. It's this thing of going, can you imagine being. You know, there's a really nice watch house in Greyflowers, the very famous kirkyard.

[Madeleine]

It's stone, isn't it? It's like built into the wall right.

[Anthony]

At the entrance kind of thing. And they would do patrols and stuff. But can you imagine being in there prior to electricity with your little lamp, absolutely shaking your tits off. Because it's like I am so frightened that these people are coming in, despite the fact that I'm here to do this job.

[Madeleine]

And you might be one person. There could be.

[Anthony]

Sometimes it was a couple, but on your own, like, you could be.

[Madeleine]

You would be armed, but you don't know what gangs are coming in and presumably they're going to be armed because they're not going to go down without a fight.

[Anthony]

At the very least they've got a meat hook.

[Madeleine]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

So true. These could potentially be dangerous people. So I just, I always imagine them sitting in the little watch and they're not big buildings, the little Watch, they're tiny little stone buildings, if you're lucky. Stone. There's, you know, at this point, most of them are, because they know there's a need to build them.

[Madeleine]

Yeah. They're like, this is a permanent problem.

[Anthony]

And like there's loads of them all around the country. Loads of them in Edinburgh etc and it's like around Scotland generally. But yeah, just being in that little stone cold, dimly lit, I'd be thinking.

[Madeleine]

Are they really gonna go to the effort of digging someone up when I'm here? They could just bash me over the head.

[Anthony]

Yeah, yeah.

[Madeleine]

And of course, that's what Burke and Hare do, right? They don't ever snatch a body, they just kill people. They cut out the middleman of the graveyard and just go straight from people being walking around. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's what I'd be thinking if I was on watch.

[Anthony]

Making yourself a target. Yeah, yeah.

[Madeleine]

And of course, sometimes, though, the watch does work as a deterrent. Sometimes it does almost catch people. So Naples diary again, from 13 January, this time in 1812. He says, Met patrol ran, dropped one adult, got away with another.

[Anthony]

Oh, my God.

[Madeleine]

Met patrol ran, dropped one adult. So just one cadaver just left.

[Anthony]

And then that watch has to pick.

[Madeleine]

That up and put it back in the grave nicely. Or, you know, and. And if the body's been pulled out just by the head and the coffin lid isn't fully open, presumably putting it back in respectfully is A whole job in and of itself, right? You've got to get in the grave, you've got to dig all around the coffin, you've got to open the lid properly. Do you then need the priest to come and say the words again? What is the deal there? How much admin is that? So you'd be freaked out. It's gross, it's sad, it's upsetting, and it's a pain in the ass. So there's all that. But you can just imagine these gravediggers, like, leave that one. It's fallen. Like, let's go. And then she's running away with this other one in the bag. It's so cinematic. Even those few. I mean, it's the few words that Naples leaves us.

[Anthony]

Adrenaline. Can't you. On both sides of going, yes, we caught one. That's what we're here for. And then on Joseph's side going, hightail it out of here, guys.

[Madeleine]

Yes, let's go, let's go. And it wasn't just the watch that they were up against as well. It was also dogs. So from December 1811, Naples says, went to Harps, which must be a graveyard somewhere. I can't think what that would be. It sounds like an abbreviation of something. I'm not sure. Could not work Dogs very bad. Came home again.

[Anthony]

Could not work Dogs very bad.

[Madeleine]

That's my motto for when I write from home.

[Anthony]

Could not work 18 hours a day. Dog's very bad.

[Madeleine]

Dog's very bad. And, you know, we again, in our moment now and in the 18th century, you know, we keep dogs as pets, but also dogs very much had a function as guard dogs in this moment. And you can just imagine in the dark hearing a dog growling or barking and thinking, oh, dear, time to run. I'm not facing that in the dark. You don't know how big it is.

[Anthony]

This is kind of key to after dark, actually. We truly cannot understand the level of darkness that these people are experiencing.

[Madeleine]

We can't access it now.

[Anthony]

We don't know what that would have been like because, I mean, I'm from the dead of the countryside, so that might be originally. So that is frightening. You start to populate that landscape, as we've said a million times.

[Madeleine]

Your imagination starts to fill it in.

[Anthony]

So that's happening even in cities where there's lots of noises that you can hear. And, yeah, there is a lot more light. It's not that that there's no lights, but, you know, it's not the same level. This is a different type of Darkness. So this is, you know, creepy af.

[Madeleine]

Creepy even when you're not digging up bodies and trying to escape being mauled by a dog or shot by the watch. So we've talked about, like, Mort safes and things like that and how wealthier families could afford the permanent Mort safe. What I always find fascinating is that sort of middling people who weren't living in poverty but also weren't particularly wealthy could actually rent the Mort safe and that could be over the grave for, say, six months, at which point nobody wants to dig up granny. So, you know, you. Then it goes to someone else, which I just think is like such an interesting system. And why do people go to all these economies and rules and ways of preserving the body in the ground. All of this built up and things like building the watchmen's places to stand or whatever. Why didn't the law just change to make this illegal? Is that not easier? No, no.

[Anthony]

We'll start renting out pieces.

[Madeleine]

Yeah, we're going to start doing that. And then also we need to build this stone bit for the guy to.

[Anthony]

Stand and also give him a pistol today.

[Madeleine]

It's human nature.

[Anthony]

It takes so long to get the legislation in place for things.

[Madeleine]

Yeah, so we've talked about those things. But there's also traps and alarms.

[Anthony]

These fascinate me.

[Madeleine]

These, and I love.

[Anthony]

Quite camp.

[Madeleine]

They're quite camp. And you can absolutely picture like a sort of 18th, early 19th century satirical cartoon capturing these. Right, so he would have the coffin Torpedo. Have a guess. What do you think this is?

[Anthony]

Okay, wait, I'm not going to look at the notes. It is in there, but I'm not going to look at it. So coffin torpedo. This is going to be something that I'm guessing torpedo that's gonna fire at the gravedigger. So something triggers some kind of a catch and that releases something that.

[Madeleine]

He's getting technical.

[Anthony]

Listen, I know that schlaps into the face of the gravedigger.

[Madeleine]

Yeah, that's basically it. So it's a booby trap. It's essentially. Right, so it's on.

[Anthony]

I'm a scientist.

[Madeleine]

You've designed a whole new thing. It's on the coffin lid itself. And it's basically a small explosive. So when you disturb the coffin lid, it blasts open. It can injure the body snatcher. And obviously it makes a very loud noise as well. So it alerts anyone to what's going on. Presumably that could only be afforded, though, by wealthy people. You've also got grave guns.

[Anthony]

Is that a thing or are they real guns that people have? No, it's a mechanism.

[Madeleine]

It's a mechanism.

[Anthony]

Grave guns. Is it actual bullets?

[Madeleine]

So this would be either a flintlock pistol or a musket that was positioned on the grave and there would be a tripwire and it would go off if you stepped over the tripwire.

[Anthony]

That'd be just me. That happened to me. I wouldn't be trying to rob a grave and I'd get shot by those things.

[Madeleine]

Oh, my God, 100. You'd be like just hanging out, being spooky, being like, I love a graveyard. Oh, death. Lovely, lovely, lovely. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. Oh, I appreciate that.

[Anthony]

Shot on the knee.

[Madeleine]

100%. 100%. Shot on the knee, fall over, shot in the head by another one from another grave.

[Anthony]

And then a grave robber comes along, finds the money, goes, oh, this is super easy. Take this guy.

[Madeleine]

And then you end up in St. Barts in the dissecting room. Yeah. So there was basically lots. And the other thing that people would do is string wire across the grave with bells on.

[Anthony]

Yes, I know this.

[Madeleine]

Which is a little bit more creepy, though. Creepy.

[Anthony]

Can you imagine hearing that if you were like graveyard or. Yes, exactly. You'd think like, ding a ling. Like, not today.

[Madeleine]

Also, how many people, how many watchmen heard those bells go? And there was no one there.

[Anthony]

Oh, and there was no one there. Yeah, because even the bit of wind would do that.

[Madeleine]

Exactly. And you'd be thinking, has someone come up out of the grave? What's happening here?

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[Madeleine]

You don't like to cook.

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[Anthony]

So you have your body escaped all of these traps?

[Madeleine]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

And now you're taking this to the anatomist, which is where you're. This is the whole reason you're doing this, to get money. What kind of financial exchange is in this for you? It better be good.

[Madeleine]

It was lucrative. So if you brought a large adult. Definition of large, unclear, but I suppose like maybe a large man, for example, you could expect to collect between two and three pounds, which was pretty significant. Yeah, it's about £250 in today's money, which for the exchange of a human body does not seem that much. But at this time, thinking about about £250, the equivalent of. To these people living. If you're a grave digger, you're not being paid that much per day.

[Anthony]

Again, it's very hard for us to understand what the equivalent of £250.

[Madeleine]

And I always quibble slightly in terms of, you know, what did this mean in modern money? Like, it's not really equivalent, but it gives you a sense at least if you bought a small body, so largely something like a body of a child or I suppose a small woman or indeed a small man. You small. Basically small. Just a small person, like equal opportunities for all these small people, you could. Could earn between 10 shillings and a pound. So it's still significant. Now you could also earn extras. And this was not for a whole body, but for limbs or parts of a body.

[Anthony]

So what's happened there? That they've only come away with an arm or something?

[Madeleine]

Exactly. Well, imagine if you've got the hook in the wrong bit, you've come away with an arm or a torso or something. It's not great. But people still wanted these things, right? They still wanted, I mean, totally picture like a hand being dissected with all the tendons and things. You know, you can, you can really envisage that. So people in the medical profession would absolutely accept that as well.

[Anthony]

This is interesting because it does show what you are able to do because the night's work that you're doing as a body snatcher is probably equivalent to a week's work that you're doing in some more legit jobs. And so you really are trying to give yourself a foot up in. You know, it's very easy to just be like, oh, these were ghouls and gruesome people. But actually in a society that wants to keep you down and will do everything it bloody can to do. So, yeah, if you're presented with a way out, I don't know, like, we could never know what's going on. But like it's tempting to get a week's wages in one night. And what if you do that? Five nights or three nights or whatever it is like three weeks wages in.

[Madeleine]

And we know that this borough gang, that members of the gang were incredibly wealthy from this. Right. So it does. And also, I think it speaks as well to. We imagine that everyone in the past, until at least the Victorian era, all believed in God to the same extent and they all subscribed to the same beliefs this day. But actually, I think what you see here is people who, okay, they may believe in an afterlife and that they are somehow disturbing that for these people, they may believe in that to a certain extent, but their needs as the living trump what's happening to the dead. And they're like, these people don't need their bodies anymore.

[Anthony]

That's how the anatomists are looking at it. Yeah, that's definitely how they're justifying it. So why wouldn't the working poor be justifying it in a similar way? Even if they're not thinking in terms of anatomy, they're thinking in terms of finance.

[Madeleine]

Finance, yeah. But of course, not everyone felt that way. And there was, you know, huge abhorrence of this practice as well. It wasn't that everyone saw the practical nature of it in a lot of ways.

[Anthony]

So alongside that kind of public abhorrence, we do then move towards a time where there is a legislative change and this actually is really effective legislation because it more or less stops this dead in its tracks. Not 100%, but it really, really brings it to an end.

[Madeleine]

Yeah. So this moral outcry, I suppose, against the practice of body snatching and specifically actually against the anatomy schools, Interestingly, considering, you know, we talk about how today we've forgotten their culpability, but that was not forgotten at the time. You know, there are riots in London in 1788. The London Borough riot attacked St Thomas's Hospital, ironically a place where Naples is later allowed to work after he's done being a grave digger.

[Anthony]

Oh, well, somebody got him a job there that he knew then.

[Madeleine]

Absolutely. And you know what? He was comfortable handling the bodies. So there we go. And there was a similar anatomy theatre riot in the 1740s. So quite early in Edinburgh. Right. So people are really pushing against this as a. As a practice. And as you say, we do get in 1832, the Anatomy Act. So this basically regulates the dissection of human bodies, medical study and teaching, and it provides a sort of a legal supply of not just the bodies of murderers anymore, but unclaimed bodies, right?

[Anthony]

Yes. So they're legislating the types of bodies and they're giving them more bodies. You don't have to be a murderer anymore. There's just.

[Madeleine]

They're still predominantly poor people, though. They're bodies that have been unclaimed. People who've died in the workhouse, who've died in prison, who've died out on the street. So in the same way that these poor people were the ones that were predominantly being dug up, they're still ending up on the anatomist's slab. But in a way that is now legitimate, the state is legitimising it basically because it sees that this whole system, this whole economy of underground, moonlit or not moonlit activity is just. It's not sustainable in the long run and people as a society at large are pushing against it and it has to stop.

[Anthony]

This has always been one of those topics that, for me, it's because it's so visual and visceral, that's always intrigued me. And also to try and put yourself into the mindset of somebody who is going, I am going to do this. This is a legitimate thing that I am. Well, illegitimate thing that I am going to do. But, like, I just. And then the. The visual of the COVID of Night and they're moving in these different alleyways down.

[Madeleine]

It's so cinematic, you know, it's so.

[Anthony]

Easy to imagine these things. Before we wrap up, I just want to give a taste from Joseph Nabel's diary that Maddie's been talking about. It's just a quick line that says that in 1812, he cut three heads for Brooks Hard work. Tom fainted. I did not. It's just. You need a strong idea, doesn't it? I'm going, ooh, this. Even the people who are doing it don't necessarily have the constitution to do it, but it. I think that kind of sums up the tension that even the people that are doing it are having. This is. This is gruesome, gruesome stuff. But anyway, look, perfect stuff for After Dark. That's why we feature all of these things. And I think it helps us to understand the mindset of people in a different time. So it's a fascinating way to look at this. I don't think I've changed my mind, though, about being a day in the Life plague doctor. I don't want to do that either.

[Madeleine]

But I just do, if I'm honest. I feel like you would not enjoy being a plague doctor because. Yeah, you, you, you would.

[Anthony]

Well, I wouldn't but go on.

[Madeleine]

I feel like that would be a lot of hassle for you and you'd.

[Anthony]

Be hot in the suit and I'd.

[Madeleine]

Be too warm and you'd be like, stop asking me for help. You're all dying and I don't want to be touched.

[Anthony]

But she stayed very distant. Remember the stick.

[Madeleine]

But. Well, that's true. And also, I do think we've talked before how you'd like to be a death doula. And I do think you would enjoy the calm.

[Anthony]

Not that I'd like to be, but that, like, you would be able to do it.

[Madeleine]

You'd be good at that. I do think you'd be good at it.

[Anthony]

We should have a death doula on after.

[Madeleine]

We totally should. That'd be really interesting.

[Anthony]

Yeah, we totally should. Anyway, sorry, listen, that's for another episode. If you'd like to hear a death doula, come on After Dark and talk to us about death doula.

[Madeleine]

You are a death doula.

[Anthony]

Oh, my God. Yeah. If you are a death doula and you listen, then please let us know. Otherwise, you can go back and listen to our Burke and Hare episode. You can watch our Brook and Hare documentary. As Mattie has already said, we have different historical anatomy things. We've got the operating theater with Sarah.

[Madeleine]

Yes.

[Anthony]

We've had Cat Irving on quite a few times. We've had Cat Byers on. There's lots of dead bodies floating around in the back catalogue of After Dark for you to go and listen to. So please do.

[Madeleine]

To go and excavate. Come on, mate. Very good.

[Anthony]

It's like you're presenting a podcast. And if you have any future ideas, I know you've been sending these in already. For any other days in the life. Day in the life of the Prince Regent. That'd be one for me.

[Madeleine]

Oh, I'd like to do Day in life of a soldier in the first World War trenches.

[Anthony]

Get in touch if you have any [e-mail] that's after [e-mail] and until next time, thanks for listening.

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