Introducing the Historian and the Enthusiast
Welcome to the introductory episode of the Mayday Podcast!
Listen in to hear what this podcast is all about, who exactly Ana and Luca are, how we’re going to deep dive into mysteries and misadventures in history, and how the mayday signal was first created.
For more information on our future episodes and on ourselves, you can check out our website or find us @themaydaypod on Twitter and Instagram. You can also find a transcript of this and future episodes on our website.
Many thanks to our composer and producer Marlon Grunden, who you can find at his website here.
Transcript
ANA: Hello and welcome to the Mayday Podcast, where we explore tales of mystery and misadventure. I’m Ana
LUCA: and I’m Luca, and we’re cousins from Melbourne, Australia. This is the intro episode of our new fortnightly history podcast.
A: Before we begin we’d like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we record today, the Bunurong and Wurundjeri peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation, and we pay our respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
L: So we’ll introduce ourselves, and we’ll start with the actual historian of this podcast, Ana.
A: I’m a mixed Filipino and Australian historian and writer from Melbourne. I lived in the UK for a while, where I studied English and History, and then did a masters in Colonial and Global history at Leiden in the Netherlands. And now I’m back here and love talking about history at times. We’ll cut that bit out
[laughter]
L: Nah I’m going to leave it in, actually
A: No! Fine, it’s not inaccurate is it. Who are you?
L: As long as it’s not inaccurate, that’s the important thing. I’m Luca, who is also here
[laughter]
L: I study economics and finance, and though I don’t have any formal training in history, except for like 2 units in high school, I just really like boats, and learning about what people did in years past.
A: Before we jump into a bit more detail about our future episodes, we’ll tell you a little bit about our name. Luca, you did some research into the history of mayday, right?
L: I did, yeah. So the mayday call is actually super new, it’s not even a hundred years old. It was originally introduced in cross-channel flights between Croydon and France in 1923. It was invented by a gentleman called Frederick Stanley Mockford who took the French word ‘m'aidez’, em apostrophe aye eye dee ee zee – zee?
A: ‘zee’? Are you American?
[laughter]
L: am I American? Zed. And phoneticised it ‘mayday’. This was probably no help to the French pilots who were already using m'aidez because it means ‘help me’ in French. And it’s been used since then in airports and ships and pretty much everywhere else since that year, since it was disseminated across the world.
A: obviously a lot of the expeditions and events that we’re talking about in history happened a bit before or a long time before they used the term mayday but they had the vibes of mayday
L: yeah, someone was in distress that would have been worthy of a mayday call
A: I’m sure they would have liked to use one if it was available to them
L: yeah well I mean interestingly as well, the reason that mayday came about was actually because the original SOS call couldn’t be used across the newly devised radio frequencies, because SOS is harder to distinguish over a radio than the word mayday
A: of course, because the S’s are hisses
L: yeah exactly. What got you interested in this kind of history?
A: well I’ve always enjoyed slightly morbid types of history. So my actual professional topics that I focus on are disease and medical history, as well as the history of science and exploration/maritime history a little bit
L: Spicy
A: It’s so spicy, endless spice, especially because it’s about colonialism so it’s all about that spice trade *clicks fingers* Is it okay that I clicked?
L: That was absolutely the worst pun that you’ve ever made and probably don’t click in future
[laughter]
A: Yeah I realised, I’m so sorry. So a sweet spot where all these things meet is disasters within exploration history, so things like polar exploration, mountaineering disasters, anything on ships, love a good boat, I’m a big fan. Could never actually like sail one, I’d probably fall off and I get quite sea-sick, but you know, theoretically they’re great
L: I also love a good boat, as is well known. I also love a good boat that’s disappeared as well
A: we’re huge fans of boats that disappear. We love to like, speculate on them
L: speculate with education
A: within reason, yes
L: Yeah, fantastic. Anything else you wanted to add there
A: yeah well I also got into the Franklin Expedition first and foremost several years ago, because of a little tv series/novel called The Terror, would recommend, but because I got into that it sort of lead to this interest in other expeditions and tales of misadventure, like our podcast is about. Where people were off in a place and then it went wrong, which is real fun. But how did you get into it, Luca?
L: I just like revelling in other people’s mess-ups
[laughter]
A: Oh my god. Luca they died
L: Look okay, well, that aside. No. The actual answer is that when I was a kid I was super enamoured with the epic scope of history, and when you’re a kid they teach it to you in a very shined-up kind of way, it’s all kings in golden crowns, but when you get older they start introducing the nuance of history. Like I love the fact that throughout history humans have been basically the same. Like society has improved but back in whenever the year Roman times someone was still carving on the temple walls ‘Tiberius was here’, right? I think I love that, I love that people are basically good and are basically as we were all those years ago. And looking at history through that scope, as people that have the same traits as your friends, trying to go on these crazy adventures. Like I love looking at history as the scope of human experience, not the scope of events and timelines.
A: I think there’s something comforting about knowing that people have always been flawed. Yes, these adventures seem incredible and heroic to us and they’ve been presented that way by general history, but then you actually do some digging and realise no these are real people, they did something, they made mistakes, boy did they make mistakes
L: yeah
A: I feel like I like to see when these great imperial figures and famous people of the day, who were lauded both by their contemporaries and by people afterwards, sometimes I enjoy seeing those people revealed as human, and as not as incredible or heroic as they’re portrayed. Particularly because they were doing it for the good of empire and we don’t like empire, here. We’re not such a fan of empire. Sometimes it’s nice to see that taken down a peg.
L: Yeah 100%. I think that really it’s just a demonstration of the fact that rank is just ink on paper, or maybe a bit of charisma, but imperial rank doesn’t make you exceptional. And in many of these cases that was revealed through hardship. And sometimes the opposite was also true, through hardship people rise to those challenges, which I’m sure we’ll also have fun talking about. All of that being said, I think we touched on it already. We will be talking about disaster history, a fair chunk of which will include discussions of colonial and imperial powers, and the ways that they tried to conquer the globe or other people. Let’s just lay out how we plan to approach that. I think it goes without saying, we’re not pro-imperial
[laughter]
A: Yes, empire bad. As said.
L: But at the same time I can also acknowledge that I personally benefit from the colonial ways of the British empire
A: Oh yeah. And exploration history is huge when you’re from Australia, because that’s kind of our ‘origin story’. I was going to say ‘for good or worse’ but worse, hardcore for worse, but it is a big part of the myth and legend surrounding the country. So we do grow up with people like Captain Cook treated like they’re – and maybe it’s more critical now – but they were treated like heroes when I was in school.
L: oh 100%, from prep (which is the first year of school here in Australia) all the way into year 9 every single year in history we did a unit on Captain Cook
A: Really there’s only so much you can say about it if you’re not being critical, and I don’t know how they got so much class time out of that
L: straight up it was just the same thing every year for 10 years.
A: Yeah, dull as rocks.
L: And there is interesting Australian history, some very interesting stuff that we will discuss
A: but we weren’t being taught it
L: Absolutely not, no. No way in hell. Like, to be clear, he did not find Australia for multiple reasons, including that there were already people here, who had a civilisation of their own, and he wasn’t even the first colonial power to arrive here
A: Oh yeah, no, not at all
L: This is all just wrong. But I suppose that’s a good summation of our feelings towards those colonial powers and how we’re going to approach discussing people that personally we may revere at times for what they achieved, but also that they might be doing it for the wrong reasons.
A: Yeah. But we’ll take people, each one with a kind of nuance, we’re going to recognise that yeah they were products of their time, sometimes they did do things that are incredible, and worth acknowledging that. And the way they’ve impacted future expeditions is also often significant, because a lot of this history often speaks to each other. So we’ll just try to come at things with an open mind, with as much good historical backing that we can within reason
L: Yeah, and I think that on that note it’s worth saying that that’s going to be our approach to colonial and imperial explorers going on these specific missions often on behalf of the British government or another colonial power, like the Dutch government or things like that. There’s going to be other times when we talk about disasters and mysteries that are totally unrelated to colonial powers.
A: Oh yeah, we’ll have plenty of episodes that are about completely different figures or stories. But it’s often good to know where we stand
L: Yeah, I think so. And also there’s going to be a lot of boats sinking, and some of them were German submarines, and it was hilarious, and sometimes it’s just Russian hikers going missing
A: Yeah, getting lost in some snow
L: And sometimes it’s going to be about some yetis, I don’t know
[laughter]
A: we love a good yeti, here
L: more specifically we love a good yeti that was used to cover up some other stuff that was happening
A: Oh yeah we love a good yeti that did not exist. But he’s still my friend
[laughter]
L: Yeah a surprising number of serial killers that were attributed to Bigfoot but actually were just fully a guy who was killing people in a wood. And everyone was like, ‘it’s Bigfoot guys!’ There was just, fully a man, just a guy and his knife. So that kind of thing
A: Yeah. And it should be said that the whole way through we will be very clear about where our sources are coming from, any way in which either the historians we’re reading or the first person accounts we’re reading are biased or unreliable, which they so often are. And recognising any biases we may also have, just as par for the course.
L: Yeah absolutely. Even just doing research on our second episode, which I’ll be presenting on the HMS Bounty, I found so often that it’s just a minefield of people coming up with their own random theories and conjectures without any actual evidence. They’re just like: ‘I wasn’t on this boat, I have no written account of this, but I believe this man had bipolar’
A: Oh god. Yeah historians sure do love to say some stuff
L: and you can’t diagnose people who have been dead for hundreds of years, my guy!
A: Especially you, a historian, not a registered psychologist
[laughter]
L: Yeah! Anyway. We will get to that in episode 2.
A: So we’ll give you a general idea of how our episodes will work before we give some detail on which episodes we’ll be doing in future. Our basic structure is that one of us will do all the research and present the topic to the other one, who will hopefully come to this with a blank slate, so we can learn a bit ourselves and react to some absolute nonsense, which is what’s going to happen
[laughter]
L: 100%. And then yeah, each episode will alternate between who does the research and who gets to sit back that week. Hopefully there’ll be some shenanigans in store.
A: Oh there will be nothing but shenanigans. We’ll probably open with most of the actual history, and then we’ll have a little discussion of the reputation that these historical figures or these expeditions or whatever now have, or the reputations they had at the time, immediately after, and to now
L: I’m so down to read some newspaper headlines of you know, things that were terribly reported and just completely inaccurate. And even on occasion we’ll explore some pop culture portrayals of things, like various movies that have been made, and how accurate or terribly inaccurate they might have been.
A: And let’s not forget the occasional fun little musical on these disasters or mutinies that people for some reason felt the need to make, but I’m grateful to it
L: I feel like if you give a musical theatre nerd access to any information they will immediately make it into a musical
A: They are ravenous
L: Even if it is the worst topic to make into a musical, up to and including some of the things we’re going to talk about. As a fan of musicals… No!
[laughter]
A: I just think no theatre should be putting on a portrayal of the life of Alferd Packer, known cannibal, you know? As the musical Cannibal! exclamation mark
L: whoever decided to write that, I don’t know what was going through their head. It was certainly a choice and not one I support.
A: We’re judgemental, maybe it was a really good musical, we don’t know yet
L: Look I don’t believe for a single second that any cannibal musical is going to be a good musical but that’s just me.
[laughter]
A: So speaking of cannibalism, our future episodes…
L: Look, I feel like it should be stated now, here in the introduction, that I am not the weird one when it comes to cannibalism
A: He’s super strange about cannibalism, I don’t get it, it’s just a thing-
L: I feel like I need to specify here that the weird thing I have about cannibalism is that I don’t like it and I find it gross
[laughter]
L: And I feel like I’m the reasonable one in this situation
A: God get woke, Luca, come on. It happens all the time as we’re about to establish in this history podcast
L: There’s just so many times that they ran out of food. I feel like the lesson we need to learn from this is pack a snack guys! And not your crewmate.
[laughter]
A: I think what we’ve mostly learned from this is just never leave your house, ever. Expeditions are a bad idea, you don’t actually need to go to the south pole. It’s not that crucial, there’s nothing there.
L: Very cute penguins
A: No but they are much closer to the coast
L: This is a great point
A: You can hit up the penguins and then not sled to the middle of the continent and then, spoiler alert… die.
L: There were some choices made and some of them were not good
A: They were terrible. Speaking of…
L: That being said, I will defend some of these explorers for a second. Some of the things they did were crucial to our modern understanding of the planet
A: No I actually agree completely. This is going to be a fun thing about the podcast, I think that our preconceptions about a lot of these people will change as we do the research. Having already done a fair bit of the research on episode one, I went into it being very judgy, and am already coming out of it being a bit more grudgingly respectful of what they went through. So that being said, shall we give a general idea of the next few episodes to look forward to?
L: Yeah 100%. We’ll tease some exciting things to come
A: Our first episode will be on the Scott Expedition, the last Scott Expedition to Antarctica
L: That sounds like it ended really well
A: Oh yeah I’m sure that they decided not to keep going there for normal reasons, and not being… dead.
L: And episode two, as was already foreshadowed, will be on the HMS Bounty.
A: Which is also famous for normal nice reasons, nothing bad at all
L: And as I’m learning through my research, famous for reasons that are not the most important reasons in the history of the Bounty. Specifically there’s a lot going on there that is not famous about that ship. So I’m excited to introduce you to all those things
A: I’m so keen, I’m so excited for this. Our third episode is going to be a little bit more recent, it’s going to be about the Dyatlov Pass Incident, what happened and what the general theories are
L: That one is more of a mystery
A: Yes more a mystery than a misadventure. I guess it was kind of an adventure but it was pretty standard, it was a hiking trip
L: Yeah we don’t know what the misadventure was, that’s a key problem here. The only thing I know about the Dyatlov Pass is that it went poorly
A: That’s a pretty good descriptor of most of the things we’re going to talk about
[laughter]
L: And our fourth episode, which I think will be the last one that we will foreshadow, will be on Burke and Wills. I think this one is going to be a little more niche, which I’m excited about. It will be a fun one to introduce to our listeners potentially outside of Australia. Burke and Wills who tried to cross the Australian continent
A: Badly
L: Were not well equipped for the journey and were also not good at their job. And that is a fun one that I did learn a little bit about in high school but not anywhere near as much as would have been fun
A: Yep, leaving out a lot of the funniest details of that whole trip
L: 100%. I feel like they didn’t want us to laugh at Burke and Wills, but I am 100% willing to laugh at Burke and Wills
A: Oh yeah, I’ve been laughing for years.
L: And that will be our first four episodes of the Mayday Podcast
A: Yeah, and we’ll wrap up our introductory episode there. You can find us on instagram and twitter under the same handle @themaydaypod
L: And you can find our producer and sound designer Marlon Grunden at his website marlongrunden.com
A: And we’ll see you in episode one Robert Falcon Scott’s fatal expedition to Antarctica
L: And now we have to think of a sign-off
A: Oh, crackers
[End Transcript]