4:00

told her son that the cause of

4:02

his unique appearance was due to an

4:04

incident which occurred while she carried him.

4:07

You see, Mrs. Merrick had attended a fair,

4:09

as many people might have done in the

4:11

mid 19th century. Only at

4:14

this particular fair, a rowdy

4:16

crowd had accidentally pushed her into

4:18

the path of an approaching animal

4:20

parade. Startled by the

4:22

sudden appearance of a woman on the ground

4:24

before him, the parade's elephant

4:26

had reared in fright and coming

4:28

down hard caught Mrs.

4:30

Merrick and her precious cargo

4:32

momentarily underfoot. The

4:35

fright and resulting pain Joseph's mother

4:37

told him must have caused

4:39

his appearance to change so dramatically.

4:43

This was, most likely, a

4:45

fiction, of course, told to quiet

4:47

an inquisitive child. But

4:49

stories are powerful, and

4:51

if meaningly crafted, might inspire

4:54

comfort and peace. Tragically,

4:57

however, in 1873, when

4:59

her son was just 11 years old,

5:02

Mary Jane Merrick died as a result

5:04

of pneumonia. Later,

5:07

Joseph would call this, the

5:09

greatest misfortune of my life. As

5:12

if the poor boy had not endured enough. What

5:14

happened next, he warned, makes

5:17

for heartbreaking listening. This

5:19

is After Dark, and this is

5:21

the tragic history of Joseph Merrick, the boy

5:23

they dared to call the Elephant Man. Okay,

5:51

this has never happened to me before in After

5:53

Dark, but I've actually teared up, just from your

5:55

introduction. I cried

5:57

writing this funnily enough. Yeah. I'm

6:00

Maddie, by the way, and this is actually... Hello.

6:02

Welcome to the show. This

6:06

one is a doozy. Listen,

6:09

there's probably not a great deal to say. Often we try and

6:11

give a little

6:13

bit of context, but the context is

6:15

emotional, I think, in this. And it's

6:18

hard to sum that

6:20

up, right? Yeah. And I

6:22

think predicting from this standpoint at the beginning

6:24

of the episode that it's really a story

6:27

of two halves. It's a

6:29

story of the cruelty that this

6:31

little boy is going to experience

6:33

through his life, becoming incredibly famous

6:35

and of course known as the

6:37

Elephant Man. But it's also, I

6:39

think, a story of the love from

6:42

his mother that he obviously carries through

6:45

all of his life. And oh God, I'm going

6:47

to go again. No, but he does. He

6:49

does. And we'll see that as we go. He does

6:51

carry that with him. I mean, he's a remarkable man

6:53

by the time we get to the end

6:56

of this history, and we'll see that. But

6:58

what he is able, shouldn't have had to, but

7:01

what he is able to endure and how

7:03

he crafts a place for himself in the world

7:05

is truly

7:08

inspirational despite the fact that the context around

7:10

it is heartbreaking. Now, and I will say

7:12

this, we have covered heavy

7:14

topics on this podcast before. We have seen gruesome

7:17

murders. We've seen horrendous assaults.

7:20

And there is none of that in

7:22

here, but it's

7:25

a very basic human thing

7:28

that we are reacting to, I think, in this, and

7:30

that is cruelty. And maybe,

7:32

I don't know, but I'm suggesting that maybe one of the

7:35

reasons we're reacting so strongly to it is because every single

7:37

one of us are capable of

7:39

cruelty in a way that we're not capable of

7:41

committing some of the, or we'd

7:43

hope that we're not capable of committing some

7:45

of the crimes that we cover on After Dark,

7:47

but this one, we're all capable

7:50

of being cruel. But let me give

7:52

you some of the historical context. We can steady

7:54

ourselves as we get into the context of the

7:56

1860s and the world

7:58

into which Joseph Merrick is born. Victoria, as

8:01

we might assume, is on the throne in

8:03

Great Britain. On 14 December 1861,

8:06

actually, her husband, famously Prince Albert,

8:09

dies aged 42, which leads into

8:11

all kinds of conversations

8:13

around mourning and death in Britain

8:15

at this time. On 20 December

8:20

1862, we have Robert Knox, Scottish

8:23

surgeon, anatomist and zoologist. He dies

8:25

on 20 December in

8:27

that year. Not a huge loss for anyone,

8:29

let's say. Yeah. Maddie and I have been working

8:32

on him for something that you'll see quite soon,

8:34

I would imagine, and he's

8:36

an interesting character, but more on him later.

8:39

Later on in the 1860s, then William Gladstone

8:41

becomes Prime Minister for the first time in 1868,

8:43

and the Suez Canal opens in

8:47

November 1869, linking

8:50

the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. So we

8:52

have these big things happening, and we always

8:54

like to give you the backdrop to

8:56

what's going on, but then we have a single

8:59

brilliant life, and that life

9:01

is Joseph Merrick. Tell me a

9:03

little bit more. You painted the most beautiful

9:05

and touching story of

9:08

his childhood there at the beginning, and we know

9:10

that he has disabilities and

9:12

is visibly different from the other people around

9:14

him. So what is

9:16

the condition that he has that makes

9:18

him stand out from other people? We

9:21

don't know is the short answer. There

9:23

has been some speculation, though. It

9:26

has been suggested that he might

9:28

have been suffering with a condition

9:30

called Proteus syndrome, which is characterized

9:32

by disproportionate overgrowth of limbs and

9:35

multiple hammer atomas and

9:38

vascular malformations. Very

9:40

complex medical condition, as you can probably

9:42

tell. Other people say that they're quite

9:45

confident it wasn't Proteus syndrome. And

9:47

there have been some DNA tests done on

9:49

his hair and bones in more recent times,

9:52

but even they have proved inconclusive. So we

9:54

really don't know. I mean, even

9:56

that, even those tests, and I don't know the

9:58

context for them, but... we're

10:00

still bothering him even after

10:02

his death and people are still trying to invade

10:05

his body and test it and

10:07

try and figure out, I suppose,

10:10

what's quote-unquote wrong with him. And

10:12

there is nothing necessarily wrong with him. There's a

10:14

difference. He has a medical condition, but you

10:17

know, the language around this in our

10:19

own moment and especially in the 19th century, I think,

10:22

is going to be kind of quite a complex thing

10:24

to get our head around. So let's

10:26

talk a little bit about the 19th

10:28

century attitudes towards disability. I think

10:30

we can all guess that they're not going

10:32

to be great, but can you give us

10:34

some specifics of how people would have viewed

10:37

Merrick and people like him? Yeah, and

10:39

you know Merrick's case is kind of unique

10:42

in many ways because he was

10:45

very able-bodied in many ways, but probably

10:47

would have been labeled in the 19th

10:49

century as disabled, though in

10:51

our own time it's difficult

10:53

to know. So for instance, there is

10:56

a charity in the UK called Changing

10:58

Faces and they look

11:00

at how society in which

11:02

anybody is visibly different can live and

11:04

how they live and how they're integrated

11:06

within that society free from prejudice and

11:08

discrimination. We'll put a link to

11:10

that charity in the notes for this show, but

11:13

I suppose today we would call Merrick

11:15

visibly different. There is a visible difference

11:17

in the way he appears. I

11:20

suppose what is key for us to

11:22

remember is that people who are legally

11:24

classified as having severe disfigurements or that

11:26

are visually different often don't feel as

11:28

if the label disabled applies to them.

11:30

So it's important for us to hold

11:33

those distinctions in our mind while we

11:35

talk about this, even if those distinctions

11:37

are modern, but things would have been

11:39

a lot less inclusive in

11:41

the 19th century, shall we say. So

11:43

something that leapt out at

11:46

me from your introduction was this

11:48

moment that Merrick's mother has when

11:50

she's pregnant with her son, where

11:53

she steps in front of an

11:56

elephant momentarily and supposedly the elephant

11:58

stands on her or comes into physical contact

12:01

with her in some way. And we

12:03

know from ideas from the

12:06

early modern period, I guess harking

12:08

back to the medieval period even, there is

12:10

an existent idea, and this is why I've

12:12

latched onto it here because it's surprising to

12:14

see it in the Victorian age in Britain.

12:18

This is idea that women who

12:20

are pregnant might be shocked by

12:22

something, might see something whilst they're

12:24

pregnant, particularly an animal, and it

12:26

will affect them. And I'm thinking specifically

12:28

about the case of Mary Toff, the

12:30

woman who supposedly gave birth to rabbits.

12:34

And part of her story is

12:36

it's claimed within that that she is

12:38

pregnant with a human child, and

12:40

she sees a rabbit or a hare run in

12:42

front of her on a path. And

12:44

that's when she starts to give birth to rabbits

12:46

and that there's this sort of strange

12:49

exchange, almost a magical moment.

12:52

And it's bizarre to me that this

12:54

is cropping up in Merrick's story with

12:57

his mother being pregnant and the elephant

12:59

in this time period. And

13:01

it's funny because there is a tension

13:04

between that type of thinking, bearing

13:06

in mind that that story is invented by

13:08

Merrick's mother, so we don't necessarily know how

13:10

widely accepted that was or whether she just

13:13

told her to come for it to child.

13:15

But certainly it's part of the narrative here.

13:17

But on the flip side, we have then

13:20

Darwinian thinking that is

13:22

used by social Darwinists and

13:25

eugenicists to justify the mass

13:28

institutionalization and killing of disabled

13:30

people that is happening in

13:33

the 19th century because they

13:36

claim that any type of disability

13:38

or visual difference signifies

13:41

a type of genetic dead

13:43

end. Now, this is being totally

13:45

debunked. And more recent scholars like

13:47

Travis Chi-Wing Lao have argued that

13:50

Darwin imagines disability

13:53

not as an evolutionary

13:55

dead end actually in that we have

13:57

misinterpreted what Darwin was saying. Actually,

13:59

what Darwin was trying to say was

14:01

that this disability or visual difference is

14:04

instead of variable adaptation for human survival.

14:06

Now, even some of

14:08

that is controversial, but whatever the

14:11

case may be scientifically, what we

14:13

do know is that people living

14:15

with disabilities or visual difference were

14:17

experiencing two different types of life at this

14:20

time. And I think that's more important than

14:22

how people are trying to classify them, right?

14:24

And those two differences were,

14:27

yes, there's more mass institutionalization.

14:29

So institutions become part of the

14:31

Victorian landscape as well, we know, following

14:34

the 1834 Poor Law Act,

14:36

for instance, 350 new

14:38

workhouses were built, one within

14:40

every 20 miles or so.

14:43

So, you know, the landscape is littered with

14:45

these workhouses. And we have

14:47

asylums, as we know, pulper or

14:49

lunatic asylums, depending on the differentiation

14:52

you're looking at there. And some

14:54

people with disabilities or with visual

14:56

difference did end up in these

14:58

workhouses, some in asylums, but other

15:01

people did continue to live with their families.

15:03

And it's important not to just

15:05

focus on the institutionalized part of

15:07

this history, because there is a

15:10

family history too, that within which

15:12

people with visual differences and disabilities

15:14

are very much included. And there

15:16

are schools dedicated to people

15:19

with disabilities, charitable organizations,

15:21

so, you know, such as the

15:23

Guild of the Brave Poor Things, which is a very

15:26

evocative name. Condescending

15:28

and Victorian. And at the

15:31

same time, very, very condescending and

15:33

Victorian, exactly. And in 1848, a

15:35

religious advice

15:38

pamphlet, because of course, religion can't keep out

15:40

of this matter either, says that some boys

15:42

laugh at poor cripples when they see them

15:45

in the street. Sometimes we meet a man

15:47

with only one eye or one arm or

15:49

one leg or who has a humpback. How

15:51

ought we to feel when we see them?

15:54

We ought to pity them, apparently.

15:56

So pity is one of the words associated with

15:58

people in these situations. Yes,

16:00

and this feels very much like it's

16:03

adjacent to the treatment of so-called fallen

16:05

women in this period who are also

16:07

institutionalised and looked down on and to

16:10

be quote unquote pitied and not given

16:12

any autonomy of their own. And I

16:14

see this being repeated here even though

16:16

as you say the reality maybe

16:19

to individual lives was sometimes

16:21

a little bit more hopeful and

16:23

sometimes probably incredibly bleak. We see it

16:25

in Charles Dickens of course thinking about

16:28

A Christmas Carol and Tiny Tim and

16:30

there's a sort of moralistic narrative

16:33

there about this child who is

16:35

so loved within his family but

16:39

faces a very bleak world beyond

16:41

that, a world full of scrooges

16:43

who won't necessarily help. What

16:46

was Merrick's experience like specifically?

16:48

We know from your

16:50

opening that he had a mother who absolutely

16:52

adored him but she doesn't

16:55

live very long into his life does she?

16:57

No, he has her until he's 11 and that's the

17:00

thing you know we have this thing about people like

17:02

this are pitied or so says this

17:04

religious pamphlet but they're not, they're loved.

17:06

That's the key thing that I came

17:08

away with from Merrick's early life, from

17:10

his early childhood. Unfortunately that changes after

17:13

his mother dies and he feels so

17:15

impacted by this death that he leaves school

17:18

very shortly afterwards because he's being so horrendously

17:20

bullied and this is where this is

17:22

where the cruelty starts to really infiltrate this story

17:24

and it's interesting that it comes around this time

17:26

in his life when he's 11. Have

17:43

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17:46

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leading academics, best-selling authors and world-class

30:00

famous, and has to take on

30:02

a manager named Tom Norman. And suddenly we're

30:04

dealing with this variety act who then has

30:06

to be publicised and have a machine, you

30:09

know, a very rudimentary machine around him. But

30:11

we are left with some posters

30:13

that describe the act. And Maddy,

30:15

in After Dark Tradition, I've

30:18

provided one of the posters here

30:20

for you. And if you just let us

30:22

know what we're seeing in

30:24

there, it is the most intriguing thing.

30:26

But I'll leave it to you to

30:28

describe. OK, so this is a

30:30

black and white poster. And there's some

30:33

very Victorian heavy font looking

30:35

text which says, now exhibiting

30:38

the greatest phenomenon with two exclamation

30:40

marks, in my opinion, it should

30:42

be one or three. Two is

30:44

just irritating. Underneath that is as

30:46

ever seen in this part of the country, the

30:49

elephant man right at the bottom. And it

30:52

also says on there in two different places that

30:54

this is two pence. I assume

30:56

entry, the cost of entry to see him

30:58

rather than the cost of the poster itself.

31:00

But in the centre, the central section

31:03

of this poster, we have a

31:06

pictorial scene. We've got what

31:08

look like Egyptian pyramids in the background.

31:10

And in the foreground, we've got a

31:13

scene framed by palm trees. This is

31:15

a welcome to the

31:18

generic Victorian imagination version of

31:20

an exotic place. This isn't

31:23

specific to a geographical region necessarily.

31:25

And in the foreground at the

31:27

centre, we've got the figure

31:29

that I suppose is meant to, well, it's clearly

31:31

meant to be the elephant man. It is a

31:35

being with the head

31:37

and ears and trunk and tusks

31:39

of an elephant, but the

31:41

body of a man. We know that

31:43

Merrick had some disability

31:45

in one of his arms and

31:48

we see that depicted here. One

31:50

arm is swelled to double, maybe

31:52

triple the size of the other.

31:55

He's shirtless and then he

31:57

has these black trousers on. And what

31:59

look like looks like bare feet,

32:01

but I'm looking a little bit closer and I wonder if

32:03

they're meant to be bandaged in

32:06

some way. Are they meant to be

32:08

elephants' feet? It's unclear and

32:10

I suppose it's that ambiguity about his body,

32:12

right? And I guess in terms of a

32:15

poster advertising this event, you don't want

32:17

to give away what the

32:19

act actually looks like. People are

32:21

coming to be shocked. And so this

32:23

is a light comic version

32:25

of The Elephant Man. This is maybe if you're

32:28

a Victorian walking down the street and you see

32:30

this. This is the sort of thing that you'd

32:32

imagine. And it goes back to what you said

32:34

of this half man, half elephant,

32:37

hybrid being. This is

32:40

a very dehumanising version of what is of

32:42

course a real human being. But I think

32:44

here this is very clever 19th

32:47

century marketing, giving a flavour and a hint of

32:49

what is to come, but really not representing

32:52

much of the actual man

32:55

that people are going to see when they pay

32:57

their two pence to come into the freak show.

32:59

Yeah, you're so right. There's no man

33:02

here, is there? There's no human being

33:04

here. It's another thing altogether. I

33:06

find this really heartbreaking and it seems like such

33:08

an innocuous point but Merrick, from

33:11

his income that he's gaining from his

33:13

appearance in these shows, he is setting this money

33:15

aside so that he can buy his own house.

33:18

That's his dream, that he wants to buy a

33:20

house for himself someday. That's so telling,

33:22

isn't it, that he had such a terrible, well he

33:24

had such a wonderful domestic life to begin with and

33:26

then it all goes so wrong and that he's trying

33:28

to recoup something of

33:31

that from his childhood, I guess. And

33:34

also it would offer him enormous security

33:36

and safety in the age that he

33:38

lives in to be able to own his own property and

33:40

to create that space where he can shut out the rest

33:42

of the world. God, you can

33:45

understand why that's what he craved above

33:47

everything else. Yeah, absolutely. And it's

33:49

so simple, isn't it? Home ownership

33:52

was not given in Victorian times

33:54

but to us it

33:56

seems like such a simple thing and such

33:58

a life-altering thing for him. And

34:00

just to clarify, when I'm talking about shows

34:02

and performances here, America's not doing

34:04

very much. People are literally just, they pull

34:07

back a curtain and they reveal him. That's

34:09

kind of all it is. Do we know

34:11

how he felt about it? Yes, he felt

34:13

good about it. He felt good about it.

34:15

He says himself in his own words, in

34:17

making my first appearance before the public who

34:19

have treated me well, in fact, I may

34:21

say I am as comfortable now as I

34:24

was uncomfortable before. But

34:26

I mean, this is still exploitation. And

34:28

also think about this, America's writing that

34:30

for the public. So he wants

34:33

to appeal to them. He wants to appease them

34:35

and to make sure that they feel they

34:37

have treated him well, because that makes them feel

34:40

good. Yeah. And I think in terms of where

34:42

the bar sits for his experiences,

34:45

it's on the floor. Absolutely.

34:47

So far in his life. So saying he's

34:49

as comfortable now as he has been uncomfortable

34:51

in the past. It's

34:53

better. Yeah. And I suppose we have to

34:55

allow him that autonomy, that this is what

34:57

he said, whether he was trying

34:59

to appease the public or not. We have to

35:02

take his words in terms

35:04

of his description of how he felt privately

35:07

or at least how he projected it in the public. But

35:09

it is hard to imagine, I suppose,

35:11

from our modern standpoint, but also from, you

35:13

know, we know that people did have problems

35:16

with the so-called freak show in the 19th

35:18

century, moral problems. And it is kind

35:20

of hard to fully buy this idea

35:22

that he's having a

35:24

great time. But I suppose he was just thinking

35:27

of the money. So within this

35:29

context that you're talking about, Maddy Queer, the

35:31

moral attitudes are starting to change towards freak

35:33

shows. Merrick's agent, Tom Norman,

35:35

who I mentioned, his shop,

35:38

if you like, was set up across the road from

35:40

the London Hospital. And this is

35:43

where Merrick's fate gives

35:45

a hint of starting to change,

35:47

because a surgeon named Frederick Trevis

35:49

worked at this hospital. And

35:51

he came to see Joseph in

35:53

this so-called freak show and asked

35:55

if he could display him to

35:58

the Pathological Society of London. such

38:00

a really awfully distressed state

38:03

two years later in 1886, 24th of June 1886. I despair

38:08

at the people we encounter in this history.

38:11

It's so grim. I mean, it doesn't

38:13

surprise me that a manager willing to

38:17

exhibit quote unquote freaks for

38:19

money is a bad person. We

38:21

could have all guessed that, but he steals

38:24

the money. And you can

38:26

just imagine the idea that

38:28

Merrick has that he's holding onto this hope

38:30

of his own home of that security. You

38:32

can see that just melting away. And then

38:35

that journey back to Liverpool street from

38:37

Brussels. It's so bleak. Do

38:39

we know anything about that journey? Do we

38:42

know how he was treated, how he survived

38:44

during that time? We don't have specific specifics,

38:46

but we do know that he begged his

38:48

way back. British people,

38:50

particularly that he encountered were relatively

38:52

generous to try and get him

38:54

home. They could see that he

38:57

had been taken advantage of. And

38:59

there were rumors circulating amongst British

39:01

people in continental Europe

39:03

that Merrick was there and

39:05

needed help getting home should one encounter him.

39:07

Because he was famous, right? Yeah,

39:09

exactly. So there was, but I

39:12

mean, imagine just the degradation that

39:14

he is forced to endure because of

39:16

this situation is just so, and then when he

39:18

arrives back, this is the, this is so sad

39:20

as well. He arrives back at Liverpool street, right?

39:23

And because he has nobody tours,

39:25

not an option, the show is

39:27

closed down. He is exhausted. There

39:29

is nobody with him. And all

39:31

he has is the surgeon, Mr.

39:33

Travis's calling card, which he shows

39:35

to authorities and they get Travis

39:37

to come and collect

39:40

him from Liverpool street station. And

39:43

then despite all of this intense

39:46

sadness, finally, after 20 years

39:48

of utter neglect and abuse, there

39:51

is a glimmer, glimmer, glimmer of human

39:53

kindness returning to Joseph Merrick's story. Francis

40:01

Cargom was the director of the London

40:03

hospital and a very privileged man. His

40:06

privilege, however, did not make him blind to

40:08

the suffering of others. When

40:11

Trevis returned with the ailing Merrick to

40:13

the hospital, he carried out further general

40:15

tests to determine his overall health. It

40:18

was quickly discovered that Merrick had developed

40:20

a serious heart condition and would require

40:22

substantial medical attention for the remainder of

40:25

his life. Cargom,

40:27

moved by Merrick's plight and

40:29

Trevis's dedication to him, made

40:31

an appeal to the public in the Times on

40:33

the 4th of December 1886. His

40:37

letter read, Sir, I

40:39

am authorised to ask your powerful assistance

40:41

in bringing to the notice of the

40:44

public the following most exceptional case. There

40:47

is now in a little room off

40:49

one of our Attic wards a man

40:51

named Joseph Merrick, aged about 27, a

40:53

native of Leicester. He has

40:55

been called the Elephant Man on account of

40:58

his terrible deformity. Terrible

41:00

though his appearance is, he is superior

41:02

in intelligence, can read and write and

41:05

is quiet, gentle, not to say even

41:07

refined in his mind. He

41:09

occupies his time in the hospital

41:11

by making with his one available

41:13

hand little cardboard models which

41:16

he sends to the matron, doctor and

41:18

those who have been kind to him.

41:21

Through all the miserable vicissitudes of his

41:23

life, he has carried about a painting

41:25

of his mother to show that she

41:27

was a decent and presentable person, and

41:29

as a memorial of the only one who

41:31

was kind to him in life until he

41:34

came under the kind care of the nursing

41:36

staff of the London hospital and the surgeon

41:38

who has befriended him. It

41:40

is a case of singular affliction brought about

41:42

through no fault of himself. He

41:45

can but hope for quiet and privacy during

41:47

a life which Mr. Trevis assures me is

41:49

not likely to be long. Can

41:52

any of your readers suggest to me some

41:54

fitting place where he can be received? And

41:57

then I feel sure that when that

41:59

is found, charitable people will come forward

42:02

and enable me to provide him with

42:04

such accommodation. Any communication

42:06

about this should be addressed either to

42:08

myself or to the Secretary at the

42:10

London Hospital. I have

42:12

the honour to be, Sir, yours

42:15

obediently, FC Car-Gone, Chairman,

42:17

London Hospital. The

42:20

donations flooded in, and within one

42:22

week of his letter appearing in

42:24

the Times, the London Hospital had

42:26

received enough money to adapt awards

42:28

specifically to Merrick's needs. It

42:30

was there, in the care of the surgeons and

42:32

nurses, that he would live out the remainder of

42:34

his days. Good

42:39

on them that they're able to offer him

42:41

this. It's so

42:43

deeply moving to me that

42:45

he has a painting,

42:47

presumably a miniature, not a giant

42:49

painting on canvas, a little

42:52

miniature portrait of his mother that he's

42:54

been carrying around with him all this

42:56

time. I know she's there the entire

42:58

time. She really weaves through this story,

43:00

doesn't she? It's just nice to

43:02

see him have some kindness in his life again.

43:06

Just an understanding of his humanity, it's kind of

43:08

the first time that we hear somebody beyond himself

43:11

demonstrate Merrick's humanity, that he

43:13

is intelligent, that he has

43:15

great conversation, that he is

43:17

a joy to be with.

43:21

It's the first time we hear somebody else say that, which

43:23

I think is really valuable. It's a

43:25

really satisfying and good

43:27

inversion of earlier on in

43:29

his life when the public

43:31

are asked to pay out

43:33

some money to see him

43:36

and to have access to him and to poke

43:38

at him and stare at him and mock

43:40

him and laugh at him. Here,

43:44

the same public are being asked to

43:46

pay the bill for his care, essentially, to

43:48

do the right thing and

43:50

to come together and show some of

43:52

that humanity that the director of

43:55

the hostel is like, I know this is in all of

43:57

you and you need to get your

43:59

purses and wallets. and cough

44:01

up. And they do, and that's incredible.

44:03

So tell me what the public

44:05

money is used for, because he does spend

44:07

the rest of his life on this ward,

44:09

essentially, doesn't he? He does, yeah. They adapt

44:11

a ward for him in the hospital basement.

44:13

Now, you may be thinking, oh, they're hiding

44:15

him away in the basement, but no, the

44:17

reason they put him in the basement is

44:19

because it has access to the courtyard. So

44:21

they're allowing him to have this access to

44:23

fresh air, as well as the internal comforts

44:25

that he has. So he's given two rooms.

44:28

Upon his request, there are no mirrors

44:30

in either of those two rooms. He

44:33

is visited daily by Trevis. So he

44:35

has that now, again, he has

44:37

a person who he's seeing day by day,

44:39

which is just quite heartwarming, even

44:42

if it is a patient-doctor

44:44

relationship. But there's somebody coming to

44:46

him again and again. Trevis

44:49

introduces him to a woman called

44:51

Leila Maturin, and he thought

44:54

that Maturin was kind woman.

44:56

And by he, I mean, Trevis thought that Maturin

44:58

was so kind and so kind-natured that Merrick would

45:00

enjoy her company and that she would be able

45:03

to visit Merrick without acting shocked

45:05

or without insulting him. And so

45:08

they become good friends too, but, oh, God, another

45:10

little bit of a sad. But this is good,

45:12

sad. When he meets her for

45:14

the first time and he shakes her hand,

45:16

he starts to cry because it's the first

45:18

time that a woman has ever shaken his

45:21

hand. And it seems kind of

45:23

fitting that the only letter

45:25

we have from Joseph Merrick himself is

45:27

to Leila Maturin. And

45:29

it says this, Dear

45:32

Miss Maturin, many thanks indeed

45:34

for the grouse and the book you so

45:36

kindly sent me. The grouse were splendid. I

45:38

saw Mr. Trevis on Sunday. He said I

45:40

was to give his best respects to you.

45:43

With much gratitude, I am

45:45

yours truly, Joseph Merrick, London

45:48

Hospital, Whitechapel. I

45:50

know. Why is it so emotional? It is

45:53

so emotional. This story, honestly, I must be

45:55

a psychopath because nothing in After Dark has

45:57

affected me. I know. I told you. Because

46:00

we forget about him, Maddy. I think that's

46:02

what it is. We forget about him. All we think

46:04

about, when we hear about the Elephant Man, and a

46:06

lot has to be accounted for by the term the

46:08

Elephant Man, it strips him of

46:11

his humanness. He becomes subhuman, even to a

46:13

modern audience, because he's the Elephant Man, but

46:15

he's not. He's Joseph Merrick, and he feels,

46:17

and he wishes, and he hopes, and he

46:20

is smart, and he's tenacious, and that's what

46:22

I love about him. And we see

46:24

that in this letter, right? The only words

46:26

that we have, really, the only letter that we

46:28

have written by him is to

46:30

a person who showed him great

46:32

kindness and respect, well, a normal level of

46:34

kindness and respect that he should have encountered

46:36

with every single person that he met through

46:38

his life, but didn't. And

46:42

he's so eloquent in this letter,

46:44

and you get a sense of

46:46

someone who is so polite and

46:48

who's so intelligent, and that shouldn't

46:50

come as a surprise to us. But

46:52

it's so hard to access the real

46:54

person because of these layers of narrative

46:56

and prejudice that have been placed on

46:58

top of him, and buried him, really,

47:01

since his own lifetime. And

47:03

when we do peel those back, it's

47:05

so moving, and I'm so moved to hear of

47:07

their friendship and to hear that he had that

47:09

kindness because he bloody deserved it. Before

47:12

you go on, because I know what you're going to

47:14

go on to next, because in the notes that I've

47:16

prepared for this episode, we're supposed to

47:18

talk about the next part of his life,

47:20

which of course is his death. But you know what, Maddie, let's

47:22

not. Let's leave it on that note.

47:24

And I don't mean to deny you knowledge, but

47:26

let's just leave him with that, shall we? Is

47:29

that a nice way to part ways with Joseph Merrick?

47:31

But let me tell you, I'll remember my time with

47:33

Joseph Merrick. It was one of the most rewarding historical

47:36

pursuits I think I've ever had, especially on After Dark.

47:38

Yeah, and you did say to me before that you

47:40

were so moved by this, and I can see that

47:42

it's affected you. And I know

47:44

of something of his life, but

47:46

I purposely didn't read that much ahead

47:49

of this episode to try and experience it in

47:51

real time with you. And I feel that I

47:53

have. And what an

47:56

incredible, resilient, brave, innovative,

47:59

and opportunistic, fascinating

48:02

person. And what a brave

48:04

woman his mother must have been, not to be

48:06

able to love him, but to be able to

48:09

go against everything that society would have

48:11

told her about her son. And

48:14

that message, that love that she handed

48:16

down to him, that's what kept him

48:18

going all of his life. And

48:20

I think that's what we need to take

48:22

from this story is that human endurance and,

48:25

oh, we've both become a blubbery mess, but it's

48:28

an incredible story. And I think there are moments

48:30

of real hope to take from it. Yeah,

48:33

we'll leave him with his life and with

48:35

his moments of dignity in the hospital with

48:37

his courtyard, hopefully enjoying a little bit of

48:39

the sun. I think that's the best place

48:41

to leave him. Just a reminder that if

48:44

you've been affected by any of

48:46

the conversations we've been having in this

48:48

episode, changing faces, the UK based charity

48:50

continues to fight for society where anybody

48:52

with visible difference can live the life

48:54

they want free from prejudice and discrimination.

48:56

So please do check them out. Yes.

48:59

And if you want to get in touch with us to

49:01

discuss this topic or any other,

49:03

you can do that at afterdark at

49:05

historyhit.com. See you next time. Summer

49:16

is supposed to be an opportunity to

49:18

slow down, but when you look at

49:20

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49:23

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