I sip a G&T while my eyes dart nervously around the room. I’ve never met a funeral director before. In my mind’s eye, I imagine a character from a Dickens’s novel, dark and brooding, with a keen eye for sizing up bodies to stuff into caskets.

Imagine my surprise, then, when a young man with impeccable fashion sense and a winning smile enters the room and sits down across from me. Jeff is the very antithesis of what one might envision a funeral director to be. He looks to be an all-American boy, the kind that ought to be out playing baseball, or waving a flag at the 4th of July parade. Not preparing the dead for burial or cremation.

He apologizes for his tardiness—he was fingerprinting a corpse so that the thumbprint could be embedded onto a charm for a necklace, he explains. I stare at him, disoriented, trying to reconcile the image before me with the information coming from his mouth. Who knew you could do this?

Jeff, that’s who.

Eventually, we settle back and I begin to probe the deep recesses of his dark and morbid mind. No, not really. He’s perfectly normal, except for the fact that he works with the dead. Here’s what the fascinating owner of Elemental Cremation & Burial had to say about everything from Viking funerals to advanced decomposition.

C.A. Is the term ‘funeral director’ synonymous with ‘mortician’ and ‘undertaker?’ 

J. J. My pat answer is that a funeral director is ‘a wedding planner with a compressed time scale.’  Funeral directing is nothing more than two parts paper pushing and one part event planner.  In short, a project manager.

Modern funeral service titles are based on licensure: funeral director, embalmer and cremationist.  The embalmers are usually ‘dual license’ so that they can actually find a job. (Embalming is going to be a lost art sooner rather than later.) Mortician can be broadly applied to a dual-license although it is a term largely out of fashion. The cremationist, aside from putting people in the cremation chamber has to be a meticulous document reviewer and master of detail.

Funny you should ask about undertaker. It is an archaic term that refers to a funeral director-embalmer, but if you look at the definition in colloquial parlance means ‘one that undertakes: one that takes the risk and management of business: entrepreneur.’

I would put it on my business card, if I thought people would get the double entendre.

C.A. Which cases are particularly difficult?  

J. J. Most people in the business will tell you that children are the most difficult.  I would say that they are tough, but I don’t think that the age of the deceased is what tips me over.  The circumstances of the death, and the dynamics of the family are what make it difficult for me.

C.A. What are some of the more bizarre requests you’ve gotten from families?

J.J. I think the lady that asked me a few weeks ago if I would drain all the fluids out of her body was a pretty good one, although the people that I talk to in the industry seem to be pretty lukewarm on that one being weird.  Here in the Northwest, there’s a fair amount of people that want to do a ‘Viking funeral’ and be burned on a boat set afloat in the bay. I’ve had people call to inquire about Egyptian mummification, burial at sea, sky burial, and wanting to come in to remove the teeth of their loved ones.

I did a viewing one time for a fetus that struck me as a little odd; attendance for that one was markedly light. I had a very wealthy gentleman that wanted to be embalmed so he could switch caskets when he was moved around the cemetery at random intervals.

C.A. Are you working on any projects right now related to what you do as a funeral director? 

J.J. Caitlin Doughty (Order of the Good Death) and I have a little project that will be coming out soon that is called ‘Is it Legal?’ This will address the stranger things that people seem to want to do with their bodies after they die. I think that it’s part of the human condition to think that we are individual and that there is something unique about how we think and feel. The irony is that no-one has much of a departure from ‘normal.’ Even the weird have a lot of company.

C.A. Can you dispel any myths about the dead?

J. J. Yeah. They aren’t very interesting.  You aren’t going to let me off with that answer, are you? Common myths are that the corpse sits up during cremation or embalming; or that people get buried alive with regular frequency.  There’s no sitting up, and the way the modern process works in this country, no one is getting buried alive.  Unless they duped their medical team so they could hang out naked in a 40F cooler for 72+ hours while the bureaucrats record their death certificate, they are all pretty dead before we get them to their destination.

C.A. I have to ask—do you believe in ghosts or spirits?

J. J. You really want me to, don’t you?

C. A. I think many people have a very specific view of what a funeral director looks and acts like. Do you come across a lot of prejudices from people outside of the business?

J. J. I don’t really, but I think that it’s a matter of engaging with people and making connections with them, whether it be in a social setting or professionally.  I don’t know what the stereotypes are out there for funeral directors anymore, if only because I’m in the thick of the industry.  I suppose it’s something like Lurch in the Addams Family, but the olden days of the stodgy old white male are mercifully giving way to a more diverse and distinctly female group. I recently watched Departures, a Japanese film on a guy that cares for the dead, and I was struck by the reaction in that culture to him being ‘unclean’ because of what he does.  I suppose there’s an element of that in our culture as well, but with the crowd I mix with it doesn’t crop up at all.

Wait, are you saying that I look and act like what people expect from the creepy death guy?!

C.A.  Does anything repulse you?

J. J. Yes. If anyone that handles the deceased tells you that advanced decomposition ‘isn’t that bad,’ they are either sick or lying.  It is repulsive, vile, nasty and downright wretched. Every cell in your body is programmed to get away from that.

C.A. Do you think our attitudes towards death are more ‘unhealthy’ today than they were in the past? Do we live in ‘death denial?’

J. J. You bring up an interesting challenge that many people point to when illustrating the shortcoming of our modern funeral practices – the sterilisation of the dying and death process. I’m certainly not a psychologist, so it’s outside my scope to make a judgment as to whether or not our new cultural norms are ‘unhealthy.’ I think that it is a larger discussion that science should address.  How does modern funeral practice help or harm the grieving process?

Willow Casket from Elemental Cremation & Burial

Many people that are in the home funeral movement point to the bygone days of yore when the midwife brought you in and took you out with all of your family wiping the sweat from your brow as you drew your last breath. It is a notion that plays squarely to this idea that the past was an easier, simpler time and that we need to return to it.  To wit, I reply ‘150 years ago most people didn’t have running water, and I have no intention of returning to that.’

The way that we handle and prepare the dead today is better for one simple fact: we have the options at our disposal to facilitate whatever a family wants so that they can have the services they need to heal.  Healing may be best served with embalming so that a Latin American family can have a multiple day visitation and shipping back to their home country. Another family may want to put mom on dry ice so that she can have short term [non-invasive] preservation to have an environmentally sensitive viewing before transport to a conservation green burial ground.

It’s this wide array of process, ritual and product that allows families to make it into something so much more meaningful than just ‘sipping all the fuss.’ My opinion is that the lack of discussion, coupled with the polarised information out there, is what is hurting the families that we profess to be helping.

C.A. Thanks, Jeff, for the fascinating insights into today’s funeral industry! And no, you don’t look like the ‘creepy death guy’… yet.

Become a fan of Elemental Cremation & Burial on Facebook or follow Jeff on Twitter!

With the ‘Death Squad’ – Greg Lundgren, Bess Lovejoy & Jeff Jorgenson (far right)

The campaign for Medicine’s Dark Secrets is now over and I am excited to announce that we have surpassed our funding goal, raising a total of $32,552. I can’t thank you enough for your generosity and support.

While this is a lot of money, we will be filming the feature-length documentary on the strictest of budgets. I, along with the director and cinematographer, will not be getting paid for this project. Any extra money we raise will go to making this production even better—more locations, extra contributors, better equipment.

With that in mind, I’m thrilled to tell you about an upcoming event I will be hosting in London on May 21^st to raise further funds for the show.

Curios by Candlelight will be held in the very exclusive Black’s Club in Soho. When you walk through the doors of the 18^th-century building, it will be like walking back in time. There are no electric lights; just candles and roaring fireplaces.

The night will begin with a specially concocted ‘gothic’ cocktail in the downstairs room of the club. Afterwards, we’ll retire to the upstairs, where I will give a short talk on some of the more shocking specimens I’ll be looking at in the television show. This will be followed by an amazing three course meal, during which time I will come to each table to tell you about the strange and wonderful objects I’ve placed there before dinner. Later in the night, you will have an opportunity to buy these curios for your own morbid collection—and enter a raffle to win other macabre prizes.

George Hornsby—the owner of Black’s—has kindly agreed to lend us what is traditionally a ‘members only’ club for the night to help raise money for Medicine’s Dark Secrets. He is one of many people who have generously helped us during this campaign, and for that, I feel truly fortunate. To this list, I must also add Adrian Teal—author of The Gin Lane Gazette—who designed the amazing poster that you see above, and Lisa Rose, who formatted the typeset to give it that authentic 18^th-century feel.

There are only 45 tickets, so don’t wait too long! I promise it will be a dark, morbid night for all!

Click here to reserve your place!

I have a confession to make. I’m in love.

While recently conducting research on burial shrouds for The Order of the Good Death, I came across some examples of 18^th-century funeral invitations. I have to admit, I wasn’t even aware such morbidly ornate ephemera existed till I stumbled upon one in the catalogue of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

The above funeral invitation dates from 1776. The script—placed at the centre of the design—is flanked by two figures: Death drawing a bow with three arrows and Father Time holding an hourglass. Behind them are black drapes being held up by two cherubs; and at the bottom of the invitation is a funeral scene depicting mourners gathered around a tomb. At the very top of the design is the deceased’s coat of arms.

This got me wondering: when did funeral invitations come into existence? Why? And when did they fall from fashion?

It appears the funeral invitation arose in the 17^th century, and acted mainly as an admission ticket since there would have been limited seating in both the church as well as the funeral feast which followed. Amongst the earliest printed cards were those in which the recipient was ‘desired to accompany’ the corpse, with the end phrase being ‘…and Bring this Ticket with you’ (see left). Pallbearers were often assigned a number on the ticket to signify their position in carrying the coffin.

Early invitations were wood engraved, with the centre remaining blank so the details could be filled in by hand. As technology progressed, however, printers began creating funeral invitations using stock borders and text that could then be adapted to the occasion. Note the second example does not include the deceased’s coat of arms and therefore is a fairly generic design.

By the 19^th century, engraved funeral invitations like the ones above were being replaced with small, embossed memorial cards that were then sent out after the funeral as a keepsake. These were typically white with a silhouette at the centre, surrounded by Classical figures, urns and columns. They would have been mounted on black flock or velvet to set off the design; and were created specifically to be framed.

Which brings me back to my love affair…

For me, there’s nothing like the original design, with its skulls, scythes and hourglasses. Give me a Georgian funeral invitation over a Victorian memorial card any day of the week!

Luckily for me, I have very talented friends. The esteemed cartoonist and 18th-century enthusiast, Adrian Teal—author of the ingenious book, Gin Lane Gazette—has eagerly agreed to design a funeral invitation should I die young…I can’t tell whether this enthusiasm stems from his love of a challenge, or his desire to be rid of me after weeks of calling in favours.

If Mr Teal’s Danse Macabre is anything to go by, my only regret will be that I won’t be around to see what undoubtedly would be a spectacularly morbid and whimsical design!

Perhaps I’ll resurrect a trend. Pun intended.

*We’ve entered the final 48 hours of the campaign for MEDICINE’S DARK SECRETS! It’s not too late to donate! Click here. 

Photo by Tony’TK’Smith

I never feel more alive than when I am standing amongst the rows and rows of anatomical specimens at St Bartholomew’s Pathology Museum in London. In one jar floats the remains of an ulcerated stomach; in another, the hands of a suicide victim. Cabinets are filled with syphilitic skulls, arthritic joints, and cancerous bones. The unborn sit alongside the aged; murderers occupy the same space as the murdered.

For me, history should not be experienced through words alone. It should be seen, felt, heard. I believe interacting with historical objects is just as important as reading about them. Not everyone has access to collections like the ones I do, which is why I want to film MEDICINE’S DARK SECRETS.

Through it, I will take you on a visual journey to a time when books were bound in human skin; when surgeons and executioners shared a common goal; and when body-snatchers could make a killing off the dead.

I don’t believe the past belongs only to historians and scholars. I want viewers to experience medical history in a more dynamic way than they might otherwise be able to do from reading about it in a book. Most importantly, I want to maintain the integrity of this project so it doesn’t just become a voyeuristic journey into the past. I want viewers to remember that the specimens I’ll be examining in the show belonged to people with lives like you and me.

I am excited to announce that we have just met our funding target for MEDICINE’S DARK SECRETS! I cannot thank you enough for your generosity and support throughout this campaign.

While $30K is a lot of money, we will be filming the feature-length documentary on the strictest of budgets. I, along with the director and cinematographer, will not be getting paid.

Any further money we raise over the next 4 days will go to making this production even better—more locations, additional contributors, better equipment. For every $1K we raise, we will be able to film one extra day. So please continue to spread the word.

Too many television programmes these days cater to the lowest common denominator. I promise to make this a high quality production that gives you a better understanding of the dark, macabre underworld that is our medical past without having to resort to cheap tricks and stunts.

If this sounds like a project that interests you, please click here to donate.

*We’ve raised nearly $30k for MEDICINE’S DARK SECRETS!  As a thank you for your support, here’s a short piece on one of your favourite subjects: bodysnatching. There’s 6 days left to the campaign so if you’d like to donate, click here! 

Great Yarmouth, England. 1827.

Thomas Vaughan, a former stonemason, rents a house near St Nicholas Church. He and several other men begin ‘resurrecting’ bodies from the local cemetery on the orders of the famous London surgeon, Sir Astley Cooper—who also happens to be the vicar’s son. Over the next two months, Vaughan and his cronies manage to steal as many as 10 bodies from the small churchyard. In order to avoid detection, they stuff the rotting corpses in cases shorter and narrower than coffins, full of sawdust, until they can be sent by stagecoach to London some 117 miles away.

Then one day, Mr George Black—a local baker—visits the cemetery and discovers the body of his recently deceased wife is missing. What follows is utter mayhem:

[T]he Church-yard became thronged with People who employed themselves in opening the different Graves of their deceased friends or relations. This extraordinary scene continued during three or four days, the result of which was, the discovery of the exhumation of a number of bodies… [1]

Digging up the graves of one’s loved ones may seem like an extreme reaction even for the 19th century; however, incidents like the one in Great Yarmouth were far from unusual. Thirty-two years earlier, in 1795, three men were apprehended in the vicinity of Lambeth burial ground. They had been caught carrying sacks containing the remains of 5 corpses.

As news spread, a mob descended upon the cemetery demanding entrance to the burial ground. Parish officers attempted to hold the crowd at bay, but in vain. Eventually, the angry horde broke through and began frantically digging up the graves of family and friends. The Vestry records state:

Great distress and agitation of mind was manifest in every one, and some, in a kind of phrensy, ran away with the coffins of their deceased relations. [2]

The thought of people running off with coffins may seem comical to our modern sensibilities; and yet, it does illustrate the extent to which people feared the dissection table in the past.

During the ‘Era of the Bodysnatchers,’ a human corpse did not legally constitute property, and therefore punishment for stealing one was not nearly as severe as the general populace thought it should be. In 1832, two medical students in Inversek—a village just outside Edinburgh—were caught trying to steal a body from a local churchyard. After being kept in a private house over night, they were moved to a prison at their own request because they believed it was a ‘place of greater security from the threatened vengeance of the outraged citizens.’ The next day:

…a crowd of several hundreds assembled round the gaol, provided with axes and other implements to break it open, and do execution upon the offenders, who … had been previously remitted to the sheriff. [3]

The general population abhorred bodysnatchers and the surgeons who employed them, and went to great lengths to prevent their loved ones from ending up on the dissection table. Coffin collars, like the one seen on the left, were invented to thwart the inexhaustible efforts of the resurrection men. These was fixed around the necks of a corpse and bolted to the bottom of a coffin, making it nearly impossible to remove the body from its grave.

Cemetery guns, as well, were designed to keep bodysnatchers at bay. These were set up at the foot of a grave, with three tripwires strung in an arc around its position. Those unfortunate enough to stumble upon one in the dead of night may find themselves in a grave of their own.

As ingenious as these devices were, they only protected the dead whose families were wealthy enough to purchase them. It is not a surprise, then, that many of the bodies that ended up in the hands of the surgeons were those of the poor. Making the jobs of the bodysnatchers even easier was the fact that many paupers were buried in pits which would remain open, sometimes for several weeks. One resurrectionist wrote:

I like to get those of poor people buried from the workhouses, because, instead of working for one subject, you may get three or four; I do not think, during the time I have been in the habit of working for the school, I got half a dozen of wealthier people. [4]

Historian Ruth Richardson points out that the depth of pits varied ‘depending on land available, soil type, and the pecuniary interests of those involved in graveyard “management.”’ [5] Some pits were as deep as twenty feet. In St Botolph’s, Aldgate, two men died at the bottom of one such pit from asphyxiation after stumbling into it in the 1830s. [6]

74 years after the apprehension of Thomas Vaughan—and 69 years after the passing of the Anatomy Act which made bodies more readily available for dissection—another scandal broke in Great Yarmouth. According to a local newspaper, the body of Frank Hyde—a middle-aged man who died in Yarmouth workhouse on 11 April 1901—had gone missing from the local cemetery. The editorial alleged that the ‘body was sent to Cambridge for dissection’ by the Master’s clerk, who made 15 shillings off the corpse and staged a fake funeral when the pauper died.

An investigation ensued, and it was discovered (much to the townspeople’s horror) that 26 paupers had succumb to a similar fate between 1880 and 1901. [7]

Yet another example of the debt medicine owes to the bodies of the poor.

1. Qtd in Ruth Richardson, Death, Dissection and the Destitute (1987), p. 84. I am greatly indebted to Richardson’s research in the creation of this article, and highly recommend her book for those interested in a more in-depth analysis of this subject.
2. Ibid., p. 78.
3. True Sun, 29-5-1832. Originally qtd in ibid., p. 85.
4.Qtd. in ibid., p. 60.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. For more on this subject, see Elizabeth T Hurren, ‘A Pauper Dead-House: The Expansion of the Cambridge Anatomical School under the late-Victorian Poor Law, 1870-1914′, Medical History 48:1 (Jan 2004), pp. 69-94.

Thanks to your kind generosity, we’ve raised $18K for MEDICINE’S DARK SECRETS!

We have a little under 3 weeks to go and $12K left to raise.

As a thank you for your support…

Those who donate $75 or above in the next 5 days will automatically be entered in a chance to come on set while the Ravenmaster from the Tower of London teaches me how to tie nooses.

Nooses? The Ravenmaster? ME?! What more could you want? Ok, granted the latter is far less cool than the former two things – but I’ll do my best to entertain. Hopefully the Ravenmaster doesn’t decide to string me up in the end!

Good luck!

The winner will be announced Saturday, April 13th! Click HERE to enter!

*Note: Those who have already donated $75 and above to the campaign will automatically be entered into the contest! The winner will have to make his/her way to set. 

I’m excited to announce that we have just surpassed 50% of our fundraising goal for MEDICINE’S DARK SECRETS! I can’t thank you enough for your generosity and support on this project.

And as a thank you…

Those who donate $50 or above in the next 72 hours will automatically be entered in a chance to win 1 of 2 taxidermy mice created by the talented Shannon Marie Harmon.

Shannon is the London-based creator of Victorian-inspired taxidermy and vintage-inspired fascinators. She owns Forgotten Feline Taxidermy and Couture and teaches various taxidermy courses for the London Taxidermy Academy and the Last Tuesday Society. Having studied mammal and bird taxidermy for the past year and a half, Shannon has created bespoke pieces for performers, stage sets, and fashion. She is happy to take on personalised commissions, and also offers private taxidermy courses. Her thoughts and experiences of taxidermy can be found at her blog: Of Corpse: Adventures in Taxidermy.

Incidentally, I can’t help but notice that this little fellow is mimicking me by holding a skull for his close-up. Well, they do say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery!

The winner will be announced Monday, March 25th! Click HERE to enter!

*Note: Those who have already donated $50 and above to the campaign will automatically be entered into the contest!

It’s true what ‘they’ say: you can’t take it with you when you die. In 1793, the surgeon and anatomist, John Hunter, left behind some 13,000 specimens when he shuffled off this mortal coil. Many of these were not human, but animal.

In fact, Hunter cultivated quite a reputation as an eccentric collector of the exotic. He kept many rare beasts at his rural estate in Earls Court—including a lion, a jackal, a dingo, and two leopards. He was often spotted riding a cart around London driven by three Asian buffalo. Hunter experimented on many of his ‘pets’—both dead and alive—and even implanted a cockerel’s testicle into a hen’s belly!

The talented Adrian Teal—himself a connoisseur of the strange and bizarre—immortalised the anatomist in his book, Gin Lane Gazette. And now you have a chance to own this original cartoon signed by the artist himself!

Those who donate $75 or above to MEDICINE’S DARK SECRETS in the next 48 hours will automatically be entered in a chance to win! Click here to enter!

The winner will be announced on Monday, March 18^th!

*Note: Those who have already donated $75 or above to the campaign will also be entered into the contest. GOOD LUCK!

The other night, my friend’s mother lost her battle against cancer. He is a funeral director and owner of Elemental Cremation & Burial in Seattle, and has dedicated his career to helping families during some of the darkest moments of their lives. He challenges the status quo in the American funeral industry, and looks for innovative and dynamic ways to memorialize the dead. 

This post is for Jeff Jorgenson, in memory of his mother, Judy Burnett.

For those who donate to MEDICINE’S DARK SECRETS in the next 48 hours, I will give 10% of the proceeds to the AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY.

Grief.

It’s something that affects us all. And yet, we are so unprepared when it comes knocking on our own door.

I have often said that as a historian of medicine, I am comforted in the knowledge that we are united with the past in our struggle against disease and suffering. The same can be said of our capacity to grieve, to mourn and to remember those whom we’ve loved and lost.

There are countless examples around the world of places where the dead are immortalised in strange and unique ways. One of my favourites is the Beinhaus [Bone House] in Hallstatt, Austria.

The Beinhaus came into existence in the 12^th century due to the lack of space in the small village’s cemetery. Graves were reopened after 10-15 years and the skeletal remains were moved to a charnel house to make room for the burial of the newly deceased.

Beginning in 1720, villagers began bleaching the disinterred skulls of their predecessors by placing the heads outside in the sun for weeks at a time. In addition to the names of the departed, townspeople would paint elaborate floral patterns on the skulls in the way that one might decorate a grave with flowers today.

Beside the cross in the center of the Beinhaus is a skull with a gold tooth. It belongs to a woman who died in 1983. Her last request was for her body to be disinterred and her skull to be placed in the charnel house. She was the last to enter the ossuary in 1995.

For me, the Beinhaus symbolises our desire as human beings to remember those who passed before us—to hold on, in some way, to the lives that were lived—for those who were buried in Hallstatt, Austria, did not remain so forever.

Far from being creepy, I believe it is a place of beauty; a place of peace; a place of reflection.

And in a world where grieving is often marginalized, minimalized, even medicalized, it is no small wonder that so many people  visit the Beinhaus each year and feel in awe of the way this tiny village has encapsulated so perfectly the phrase: ‘dead but not forgotten.’

Mr Teal arrives promptly despite the long commute into London. He’s dressed like a Georgian gentleman who’s been forced, begrudgingly, to modernise his wardrobe. He wears a waistcoat with shiny, gold buttons and a shirt that balloons slightly at the sleeves. His thick, black-rimmed glasses give him a creative authority that regular specs could never achieve.

He looks every bit the artist, much to my delight.

Mr Teal has a carefree air about him, though you know as a cartoonist he is secretly studying every inch of your face. He admits that he ‘catalogues’ features to use later for his illustrations. I wonder if I’ll inadvertently end up as a hysterical midwife in one of his 18^th-century cartoons, with unruly hair and chipmunk cheeks that my grandmother swears I’ll be grateful to have in old age.

At that thought, I swallow a big swig of gin.

Eventually, we settle back and begin chatting about his book, and where he finds inspiration for his work. We discuss the importance of imagination when talking about history; and how creating a visual past is just as essential as constructing a textual one.

Here’s what the ingenious Mr Teal had to tell me.

C.A. Gin Lane Gazette is such a unique concept. Where did you get the inspiration for it?

A.T. I’d been writing and illustrating Georgian-themed pieces for the QI Annuals, which got me thinking about doing my own illustrated book project. The problem was bringing together all those wonderful but disparate 18^th-century stories in one volume in a coherent and intelligent way. Then I read an excellent biography of the Regency journalist William Cobbett by Richard Ingrams, and it suddenly struck me that a newspaper format would be ideal. I could unite gossip, scandal, celebrity, obituaries, advertisements, and sports reports, which could all stand alone, but which would also be connected to each other in some shape or form, whether in narrative or thematic terms.

C.A. Are all the stories you write about in the book historically accurate?

A.T. Yes. I was clear from the beginning that I wanted everything to be accurate, and I was meticulous in my research. Mind you, the 1700s are so wonderfully bawdy and bizarre that you don’t really need to make stuff up. The only fictional element is my newspaper’s editor, Mr. Nathaniel Crowquill, who prefaces each section of his compendium of Gazette stories with his own thoughts, worries, and misadventures, but real historical characters and places are mentioned here too, so I hope it feels authentic. I felt I needed him, to give the book some structure.

C.A. You write about several incidents relating to medical history in Gin Lane Gazette. Which story is your favourite?

A.T. I like the story of Mary Tofts, who fooled a series of royal doctors and the general public into thinking that she’d given birth to seventeen rabbits. Hers was perhaps the most infamous con of the century. I’m also quite keen on the sad demise of Edward Gibbon, author of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, who died with testicles so swollen that they were said to compare in size to a small child.

C.A. As a historian, I am constantly trying to reconstruct the past through words. You are able to do this through drawings. How important do you think imagination is when talking about history?

A.T. From my perspective, it’s essential. I like to think and imagine my way into history. I don’t really see how else one can do it. Aside from artefacts and locations, history really only exists as words and pictures on paper or vellum; what the historian Greg Dening calls ‘the texted past’. My approach is perhaps undisciplined, and would probably horrify academics, but by immersing myself in the visual and textual world of the 1700s, and then presenting my impressions of the period in the way I have, I hope I’ve captured a tiny bit of the essence of how life was lived in that gloriously exuberant and eccentric century. And I hope I’ve shared my enthusiasm for it successfully too.

C.A. Do you ever draw yourself into your caricatures? What about friends or family?

A.T. I’ve drawn myself very rarely, although I was asked to caricature myself as a Georgian rake for the Gin Lane Gazette’s campaign video, which you can see on the Unbound website. I find it tricky to caricature my family, because I know their faces too well, and caricature is largely about first impressions. The things that stand out about a person when you first meet them are the things you caricature.  I have caricatured many friends as Georgians for the book, though. There’s quite a lot of my female friends’ bare flesh on show, with their gracious permission, you understand, and sometimes at their insistence!

C.A. What was your biggest challenge when creating Gin Lane Gazette?

A.T. I suppose it was getting the look and feel exactly right. I spent weeks agonising over fonts with my designer, Lisa Hunter, and we were clear we wanted to use the archaic long ‘s’, which presented us with more than a few logistical headaches. In terms of the writing, I’m trying to walk a fine line between the euphuistic language of the 18^th century, and keeping the stories rattling along nicely. It took a while to get into my stride.

C.A. I imagine your readers blush quite often while reading some of the bawdy stories in Gin Lane Gazette. What makes you blush?

A.T. Me? Blush? The very idea. In truth, when you’ve been up to your eyeballs in Georgian muck and fun for four years, not a lot embarrasses you. I find it quite tricky to take praise for my work, though. I’m just doing what I love, so when other people like it it’s almost a shock!

C.A. And lastly, if you could travel back into the past, which period would you visit? Who would you meet? What would you do?

A.T. Well, you won’t be surprised to hear I’d pick the 1700s. I’m a bit obsessed with 18^th-century maritime exploration, particularly people like Cook and Bligh, and I’m fascinated by the mutiny on the Bounty. I think I’d have to sign on to the Bounty’s books, and spend some time with Fletcher Christian, whose face I reconstructed in the mid-1990s. He’d have a few yarns to share, I’m sure. Plus, Tahitian ladies in the 1700s were a lot of fun, by all accounts.

Perhaps so, but I reckon they weren’t nearly as fun as a night out in a pub with Mr Teal. Before I left, he surprised me with my own modern Danse Macabre (see below)!

If you want to be shocked, titillated and amused by the Georgians (and I highly recommend you do), you can buy your own copy of Gin Lane Gazette here!

You can also meet the Georgian Gentleman for yourself on April 9th at Danson House and on April 15th at Benjamin Franklin’s House.

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