Speaker 01 0:57

Hi, and welcome to Behind the Paddle. On this episode, we're going to talk about the first lesbian marriage.

Speaker 02 1:05

Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 01 1:07

Yeah.

Speaker 02 1:08

So the first lesbian marriage in the UK. In the UK, okay. And also Gentleman Jack and just the kind of story of her life. Oh, okay. Because as much as this started off as can they looking into the first lesbian marriage, oh my god, what an interesting character. I feel like she needs to be the highlight. Okay. Cool. Yeah. So her name was Anne Lister. Since childhood she had been different. She was born in 1791 and was named an unmanageable tomboy by her mother and sent off to boarding school at seven years old.

Speaker 01 1:49

No, no, no. Seven. Seven years old. No. Like, no.

Speaker 02 1:58

How can you not control your kids to the point that like you're sending them off to school at seven?

Speaker 01 2:03

Seven. At seven. But I just feel like if you send your kid to board in school, you just don't like them.

Speaker 02 2:09

Yeah, you just shouldn't have the kids.

Speaker 01 2:11

Because like I look forward to my Won coming home and me picking her up and things. I just like I could not imagine that. Just no.

Speaker 02 2:20

Was that not just like anybody made money back in the day though? They were just like, ugh because it was like privileged. Yeah, they had like wet nurses and like they just never actually seen their kids at all. And then if they were causing trouble, they were just like, bye, bitch, yeah, off to boarding school you go.

Speaker 01 2:34

It's the one those fancy dancy things, I feel that still happens now. Oh god. No. I love my kid. I want to see my kid every day. I can't do that. No. No.

Speaker 02 2:49

So when she started her boarding school, teachers thought she was gonna influence the other girls with her rebellious behaviour. So she shoved her in the attic where she lived in virtual seclusion up in the attic at boarding school from seven years old.

Speaker 01 3:09

Was she taught in the attic or like did she come down?

Speaker 02 3:13

I think she was taught and then she was like put up there like in between.

Speaker 01 3:17

Like that was what what error is this?

Speaker 02 3:19

Like what what so it was like the late 1700s?

Speaker 01 3:23

Right, okay. Um jeez.

Speaker 02 3:26

So when what like 50 years after America started something like that? Which is hilarious, but yeah. Um so because she was on her own for so much of the time, she started a diary and it became our closest confidant. So she wrote in her diary every day, um, and kind of poured her deepest thoughts onto the pages of her journals. Um she was so obsessive about this that no detail was left out, and she Oh, she's got fuck all to do in the attic. Yep. She wrote the time she woke up, how long she'd slept, the letters she'd received and their contents, the days' weather, the time it took to walk into town, and what she'd had for dinner and whether she enjoyed it or not. Um, she also recorded everything that she'd learned that day, including like Greek and algebra and just all the kind of Tory shit that you learn at boarding school. Um she had a voracious intelligence, and at the time women were banned from going to university, but she was determined that she was gonna live her life like any man at the time, and she was gonna dare anything. She also filled the diary with all her sexual exploits involving women. Nice. So her first sexual experience was with a fellow pupil, Eliza Rain, who was also sent to live in the school's attic. Um, she was an illegitimate half Indian daughter of an English surgeon, so she was like an outcast as well. And like, yeah, they just kept putting everybody that they didn't they want like can they harmony the school's image up in the attic, you know, as you do. Yeah. Um, and because at this time they were both 15 and they embarked on a passionate affair right under their teacher's noses in the school attic. I know. More above the teacher's buttons.

Speaker 01 5:20

Could you imagine the bed moving while the teachers are just down there?

Speaker 02 5:27

Um, so the other girl had a diary as well, and they wrote Felix, which means happy in Latin to record their sexual encounters. So this was kind of the beginning of the code that was being used throughout the diaries. Um she created her own code from Greek, Latin, mathematical symbols, punctuation, and the zodiac to disguise her innermost thoughts, and she believed it to be like completely indecipherable. She just wanted to have it all written down, but no one else to be able to read it, which is why it lay dormant for so long because nobody could crack the code, but we'll circle back to that later.

Speaker 01 6:04

It's kind of sad really that she had to do that as well.

Speaker 02 6:08

Yeah. Well, at the time I don't know. So during this time, there was not the word lesbian hadn't been created yet. So there wasn't even a word for what um what they were. So like I don't know that it was necessarily illegal because it hadn't necessarily been like defined yet, but it was definitely frowned upon.

Speaker 01 6:26

Yeah.

Speaker 02 6:26

Um which I think is partly where the secrecy came in.

Speaker 01 6:30

Yeah, yeah. I was about to say, I feel like clearly anything out of the norm, yeah, it it's a no-go.

Speaker 02 6:37

I wonder if that's why they put her in the attic. If they thought she was gonna like pure shackle the people. We'll just keep her away from everyone else.

Speaker 01 6:48

I wanna know like what the attic looked like. I know, I wish there was pictures. If there like was a bed or if it was just bare.

Speaker 02 6:56

I would I think it was like an attic bedroom from what I've read. So I think there was like beds and stuff in it, but it was clearly like I would imagine most boarding schools even now have like shared like sleeping quarters. Yeah, yeah, dorms and like dorms and stuff, so this was like a separate space to that, but was but still probably had the bed and stuff in it. Um so although she was a passionate lover, there was still like a calculating ruthless side to her. So she dreamed of being rich and um had kind of set up this relationship because Eliza was set to inherit a substantial sum of money, and money would allow Anne to enjoy the high society lifestyle she craved without marrying a man. So she wanted to have it all, she wanted to be I don't know necessarily about famous, but she wanted to be rich and have an estate, yeah, sure. But not get married to be so pay, yeah.

Speaker 01 7:52

You don't need a person to be happy, you just need frickin' money.

Speaker 02 7:57

Um so while Eliza was more like affectionate and like and the attention and stuff for Anne, Anne was more business-like in the way that she went about this relationship. That like she still liked the lassey, but she seen more what she could bring to her life than like any relationship. Because that's how I've seen things. She literally wrote like everything she ate and did in a day for her full life. I think I think it's safe to assume, to be honest. Yeah. Like she sounds like a bit asivant, like she pure made up this like indecipherable code to write about her special interest and like yeah, seeing relationships as quite transactional and stuff, which isn't the case for everybody, but yeah, like I I can definitely see that there's something going on in there, there's a wee bit Nudospice in there. Yeah, yeah. Um she then ended the relationship with Eliza because she wanted to sleep with more women.

Speaker 01 9:05

Well the money though.

Speaker 02 9:07

I mean she's still young, she's only 15 at this point. Maybe she's sitting her sights a bit higher. Um so as she described it, um she was coming more confident about her sexuality and her oddity, was how she described it, because there wasn't really like a word for it at that point. Yeah. Um, she decided she wanted to sleep about and rejected Eliza um sending her former lover into a deep depression. This was sad. So she had kept the letters that Eliza had written her and included, and that was the like a sentence, you can little know what pain you have given me. Um she never recovered after school and eventually got committed to lunatic asylum where she spent the rest of her life. Wow man! So last was breaking hearts from quite a young age. Quite a young age.

Speaker 01 10:00

Yeah, I mean what the fuck? To go to the loony bin. Just what the fuck? Yeah. But to be fair, back in those days they were throwing anybody in there, really.

Speaker 02 10:11

But you don't know what's happen do you know what I mean? Like everybody like think about it what it was like in the 60s. This was 200 years before that. Do you know what I mean? Like they were just chucking everybody in there.

Speaker 01 10:21

They could have been like, Oh, you look funny and not peanuts.

Speaker 02 10:23

Exactly. Go back.

Speaker 01 10:26

Fair, fair.

Speaker 02 10:27

So Anne had moved on to the begiling daughter of a local doctor. Oh, she's moving the sights up, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um she would be the love of Anne's life, holding her in a grip for almost 20 years, breaking her heart time and time again.

Speaker 01 10:44

What?

Speaker 02 10:45

So I mean, I don't want to say Karma's a bitch, but like Oh, okay, so this is a Anne's heart, yeah, yeah. So this was Marianna. Mariana, that's a nice name. Yeah, that's pretty. Um cool, so just a wee bit more about her as like a kind of teen and adult. She came across very respectable and quick-witted and spent most of her time like studying um and like reading and stuff. Other than that, she enjoyed walks across the Pennines and leisurely tea-filled suaries with her well-heeled friends. So she was like quite up in high society, right? Um, was kind of attending like high teas and was kinda rubbing shoulders with like the well-to-do of the of the day at the time. Um while all these activities appeared innocent enough, they were the ideal cover for Anne who used them to explore her increasingly insatiable sexual appetite. Um Anne's oddity intrigued her, so a lot of our study were was on like books on anatomy to kinda try and work out like where our feelings were coming from, and just couldn't they find anything about it. So I find it really interesting. I really want to get our books and read them because I find it like it must be so difficult trying to like find yourself with like no influence for anything. Like I feel like we're quite spoiled these days where there's a lot, there's a lot to go. There's a lot in media and and books, and like just I don't know, there's more like guidance there, whereas this was like a trailblazer, she was like out in her in, just making it up as she went along, but still totally confident in herself, like yeah, which is wild. Like there was no even though society was telling her it was wrong, she was like, Well fuck that society's wrong. I'm gonna do my thing, I'm gonna go and like shag a bit basically, but like that's over to her.

Speaker 01 12:41

Um so like did sorry, does she have a job or anything? How did she keep up this money? Was it a partner? So I think this is while she was still at school.

Speaker 02 12:52

I think if she got sent to boarding school, they probably had some money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um this is not necessarily giving me the time this was happening. I would imagine this was just after school. Yeah, yeah. So in our gap here. Um yeah, so she was still kind of trying to work out herself, but had no self-loathing, felt her feelings were entirely natural and believed her God given right. So she was quite religious as well, and actually felt that like if God had created her, like God thought this was right, yeah, like didn't really give a shit about what anyone else had to say about it, which is totally fair. Um, it's quite refresher, actually, it's quite nice, like way to look about it. Um women were usually confused about their feelings for Anne, were typically captivated by her.

Speaker 01 13:43

Um powerful, independent woman, basically.

Speaker 02 13:47

Just gone about and like just take that like spinning heads everywhere she went. Yeah, um literally, she was very promiscuous and moved efficiently from one lover to the next. I feel like we've found we've found that out already, just like but once she met Marianna Belcombe, everything was different. Um, she fell dizzying in love with her. Um she was the Lassie was 21 at the time, I would imagine Anne was roughly about the same age, and Marianna was part of the genteel York society that Anne had charmed her way into. So I don't like Cora Con man, but I feel like she definitely had that kind of vibe about her, like she was just kinda she wasn't a snake, but she slivered her way. Aye, she she talked her way into places, um talked her way into folk's pants as well by the sunset. So um after she'd met Mariana, um they would travel 40 odd miles by horse and cart between York and Halifax where Anstead to see each other. So that's quite that was quite a wee trip back in the day. I don't know how long that would take you on a horse, but probably like a full day. Um when apart they would write to each other every few days and they exchanged rings as a symbol of their commitment. Um so it's saying romantic friendships between unmarried women were not unusual. Parents fearful of pregnancy would encourage young women to form close relationships with one another before getting married. Um, which is really interesting and something that I'm gonna look into a wee bit further because a lot of people um when they're talking about these like platonic relationships back in the day, they were kind of seen as relationships, but there was no word for like lesbian or like two women like having like sexual feelings towards each other or anything, and I wonder how many of these relationships were actually sexual in nature as like essentially a form of contraception, they were almost encouraged, like because she was gone about and like this was happening, like do you know it wasn't like a once or twice thing, like in the covery night. Like she seemed to be quite outrageous and out there with her behaviour and like this was happening like in front of other people and stuff. Do you know what I mean? It wasn't like she was getting like shipped off to jail, she did get shipped off to boarding school, but she was only seven, maybe they were like, Oh, she's a bit young for this, you know. Like you don't I feel like aye, it would be great if there was more writings like this that have lasted so we could get a better idea like what things were actually like back in the day and how much it's all hush-hush now. Yes, um, and has kind of been covered up and changed into something that it was now. But um so she was totally uninterested in society's expectations, but she wanted everything a man could have. Yep, yep, yeah. Um, and that included the wife. So despite the scandal it would have created, she began to harbour hopes that she and Mariana would set up a home together. Um a quote from her diary, surely no one ever doted on another as I did then on her, which is really sweet. Like um in 1815 Marianna announced that she was gonna marry a wealthy widower. Oh um Anne watched the wedding and went to the wedding, um, but was obviously like devastated that like Mariana hadn't kind of followed her her ideas of what what their life was gonna be like together and had kind of succumbed to like society's expectations.

Speaker 01 17:27

So sorry, did uh did they marry a male or female? A male. Oh okay.

Speaker 02 17:34

So that technically a widower's like the male version of a widow.

Speaker 01 17:38

Oh, okay. That just sounds like past tense, yeah.

Speaker 02 17:42

Fair. Um so it was customary for female friends to accompany the bride and groom on their honeymoon. So no man, and one of Mariana's sisters went along and she had accompanied them on their honeymoon while uh her former lover was off with her new man.

Speaker 01 18:01

Yeah.

Speaker 02 18:02

Which that must have been fun. The one pair I mean, probably fair for like Eliza You know, chilling in the mental asylum. A wee bit like fucking come come up in. I don't know, you know what I mean for her, but um on their return, she spilled her rage onto the pages of her journals, accusing her former lover of legal prostitution. Oh wow. Um so basically claiming that she'd only married them for money, which she probably had to be fair. That was kind of what people did back in the day. This is why, like, as much as like it's grim that a lot of her relationships are about money, that was all the what the men were doing back. That's what everybody was doing in high society back in the day. Like people were getting married for status and money, status, yeah. Like, I don't think it's fair to take that out of context today. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 01 20:59

Um totally still to this day we have arranged marriages and things, totally so yeah.

Speaker 02 21:07

Um she believed herself so she wrote about um oh my god, I've forgotten her name. Marianna. She believed herself or seemed to believe herself overhead and ears in love, yet she sold her person to another.

Speaker 01 21:25

See, I'd like to think of myself who would like marry for money, but like that time has passed in my life. Like, yeah, no, no. I would like it if they had money, yeah, but no.

Speaker 02 21:41

That's on the one list, not the two list. Yeah.

Speaker 01 21:44

Sort of the need.

Speaker 02 21:48

So Anne went back to Yorkshire and um resumed their affairs with with the the women of the day, including Marianna's older sister. Yes. Um yeah, like basically just to get back and get in back. Nice, nice. Which is hilarious. So after a year apart, they met again at her parents' house in York. Um, neither could wait to be reconnected, and Marianna was in bed with toothache, and Anne sneaked into her bedroom. She herself suggested a kiss and later wrote, I thought it dangerous and would have declined, but she persisted. Oh. So the affair was reignited. Yeah. Um, and over the next few years they continued like having like clandestine meetings, so like meeting in secret, um, and dozens of emotionally charged letters, all of which are in this book, which I also want to read.

Speaker 01 22:44

I'm honestly surprised she uh survived the fucking two-fake.

Speaker 02 22:49

Yeah. Because back in that day, oh no no no, pretty much you stub your toe in your dead life. Um Anne was still shagging other folk at this point. Of course. Um but Marianna wanted her to be loyal to her. Oh. Even though she was married at this point, yeah. Um Anne wrote they sat up lovemaking one evening and Marianna asked her to swear to be faithful to consider herself as married. What I shall now begin to think and act as if she were my wife, but Anne's hopes were to be dashed again. Um it was August 1823, and Marianna was travelling by stagecoach from Cheshire to visit Anne. Oh no. Anne got way too excited and decided to surprise her en route. Um, armed with water and biscuits, she left the house and walked 10 miles in the pouring rain to meet her on the roads. Um she leapt into the carriage and clambered over the boxes before landing next to her while she was sleeping. She awoke and was like fucking raging because she was like, mate, everybody's way, mate. Like, this isn't a very secret, look fucking dead. Because in the carriage were her sister, a passenger, and the maid as well. Oh, fear and instant would fuel gossip and rumour. She was furious, and the relationship kind of went downhill for there. So a couple weeks later, as they lay in bed, Marianna said she was ashamed to be seen in public with such a masculine-looking woman. Oh, um so it was quite a messy breakup. It sounds like some some insults were fired her way, and Anne was heartbroken. Oh women, women, she wrote, I am always taken up with some girl or another. When shall I amend? I cannot so another quote, I cannot live without female company without someone to interest me. So this is onto the code. So seven decades later, oh sorry, I'm gonna just quickly nip back to the start. Um so as an adult, even in summer, she dressed in thick black coat clothes and boots. So she was like proper goth. Yeah. Um she also had like a little black hat that sat on her black ringlets, so she was like kicking about in like the full Victorian. If they had corpse paint back in the day, I reckon she would have had it. Um she was very educated and confident, obviously, because they'd sent her to fucking boarding school at age seven. So I think like it's quite interesting how things have lined up that she was so much more educated than the majority of women uh run about her because she had been sent away for such a young age and had been taught. Which I never get why they did. Like if they weren't allowed to go to uni, what was no, what was the point? But do you know what I mean? Like if they weren't allowed to work and was it just to be interesting to men? But then they didn't they like women who were smart, so like I don't Aye, I don't understand.

Speaker 01 25:56

I mean it it's like in the nineties. Uh 1900s, is that what it's called? Yes, Victorian times?

Speaker 02 26:04

No. What do you mean, sorry? In the nineties? Nineteens. Nineteen hundreds. Yeah.

Speaker 01 26:10

Yeah.

Speaker 02 26:10

God that makes me feel really old. Yeah, when we were born.

Speaker 01 26:14

Yeah, right. Um, like women would uh go to typewriter classes and stuff, yeah. And it's like what what do you want the jobs to do with it?

Speaker 02 26:30

Jobs for like office work.

Speaker 01 26:31

Yeah. But like just office work. I mean that's what what do you mean? That's what loads of fucked in. Well, not with typewriters, but like the majority of like it was still typing. Like with the same buttons. It was the majority of it was women who went to these classes to do the stipulator work and things, yeah, rather than other high-powered jobs. Yeah, totally. Yes, that was my point. That's what I was getting at.

Speaker 02 27:06

But at least there were still jobs at the end of the. Do you know what I mean? Like that as much as it was grim made sense. Whereas this does new. Like I don't Anyway. So there wasn't a goal of them. There wasn't like a goal. Like it was just to get them out the house for a bit. Get them to meet people, I guess. Like the socialisation point.

Speaker 01 27:26

Oh, well, it might be just going into high society, see if they can actually get into wealth. Wealth.

Speaker 02 27:33

Yeah, that's it. To meet a man. There we go. There we go. It all makes sense now. It all comes crumbling back down to the same old fucking story.

Speaker 01 27:41

Yeah. Because like you want the mothers to be impressed. Uh, on like the man's side, I feel. Yeah. Maybe that's it. Just like, oh, did I need to wear intelligent enough? Yeah, intelligent enough, yeah. I'd done so shite, I would have done so shite.

Speaker 02 28:05

So people in our area often commented on our like boyish appearance. Um, she's wrote, the people generally remark as I pass along how much I am like a man. And this is where the name Gentleman Jack came on. This is what like the locals would shout at her as she walked by.

Speaker 01 28:23

Um I mean, you're a gentleman, I'd be okay with that too.

Speaker 02 28:26

I think she was quite happy with that, to be honest. Um, men also would jokingly like proposition her as she walked by, so like folk would ask her out for a laugh, and um she got mocking and abusive letters from her house anonymously. Oh jeez, man. A practical joker even placed an advert and the Leeds Mercury in her name looking for a husband. So she was like an ongoing joke in our community. She was like proper ostracised. She was in Yorkshire, like Yorkshire. Um So really they should have been like, Where's your farm, farmer? Yeah. She was in quite like a working class kind of area. So seven decades later, in the 1890s, reading by candlelight inside of one of Shipton's many dark oak-panelled rooms, which was our family home. So this is John Lister, who's like her great-great-great grandson. Um or relative.

Speaker 01 29:23

Whenever you say Lister, I just think of freaking Red Dwarf.

Speaker 02 29:26

I just think of Listerine. I'm fighting the urge not to say Listerine every time I'm reading it.

Speaker 01 29:36

Okay.

Speaker 02 29:37

Lister for Red Dwarf. Yeah. I have watched Red Dwarf, but I just can't think who that is. Is that the wee the main guy? Yeah. It's been a while since I watched Red the Wharf. I love Red Dwarf. It's so good. I'm due another watch, though. Um he's staring at the rows of unintelligible squiggles spread across his desk in the book before him. Um him and his friends had decided that they were gonna work out this code um of her diaries. Because obviously they'd read the kind of PG bits, but they had no idea what the rest of it was until they they worked out the code. So him and um his friend who was a school teacher, Arthur Burrell, sat and basically there was like a sentence that was the key to the code You're right, are you laughing at the dog? There was a sentence that was a key to the code for them to be able to work out the rest of it, and they'd got so far, so they'd got to in God is my blank.

Speaker 01 30:41

Is this when she's passed then?

Speaker 02 30:43

Yeah, so she was born in 17 uh 91, so this is a hundred years later.

Speaker 01 30:47

Oh okay, yeah, yeah, bye-bye.

Speaker 02 30:49

Um so there was a four-letter word finished in the code, the last one being hope. So even in like the code that she'd written for her diaries, it was still about God, which is really nice. She seemed to have kept her faith. Yeah even with our adultery and sleep my boot, which fair enough.

Speaker 01 31:08

This seems like a good faith though. Yeah, good believing in God or whatnot.

Speaker 02 31:12

Yeah. So they cracked it, and God is my hope. And with the last four letters um found, they began very late at night to like start to decode the diaries. Um a few hours later, the shopmen learned what Anne Lester had been hiding from the world. Detailed and plentiful accounts of sex with her friends. Nice. Um, hardly any one of them escaped her, and a Paul Tartar player recalled so she was just sleeping with literally everybody. Um he implored his friend to burn the diaries to avoid bringing scandal on the proud Lester name. Oh my god, how rude. Well, there's a kinny running theory that this is what happened. This is why we don't have a lot of accounts from that time. Because if this was like quite standard, but people were discovering these in the Victorian times, which this would have been whenever when they had fucking covers on the table legs because it was too prud, like they were too prud to have their table legs shown. That a lot of these diaries would have been burnt in order to cover up like the family shame. Yeah. But like probably everybody for the most part would have had something like this.

Speaker 01 32:22

Is her family still ongoing? Is there a family shame? Because I'm like, this is out already, like Yeah.

Speaker 02 32:31

Well, this was we could maybe go and look that up. That would have been what like 140 years ago that they found Yeah. 130 years ago, sorry, that they found the diaries and decoded them. They weren't like shown to the world until much later, um which we'll go into any second. But that would be interesting to find out if there's any relatives still.

Speaker 01 32:51

Was there any actual bloody point to burning them?

Speaker 02 32:54

Yeah.

Speaker 01 32:54

If the family line didn't carry on.

Speaker 02 32:56

Well, there's there's an arg not an argument. But there's a theory that the guy, um John, who actually decoded it, was gay himself, and that's why he didn't burn the diaries because there just isn't really anything else left for that time, and people he never had a family. And some of the historians that like um I think there's like a museum and stuff about this, like actually th believed that he himself was gay, and that was why um he didn't uh want to get rid of the history, he just kept it a secret until he was like on death store and then gave it to like a local museum with the code.

Speaker 01 33:31

That's good that they didn't actually the the museum themselves didn't actually burn them and it's good they held on to them.

Speaker 02 33:38

Uh they did hide them for a while, but yeah. So he didn't burn the diaries, he hid all 26 volumes um on shelves concealed behind Shibden's wood panelling where they remained until his death in 1933. Sorry, it wasn't him that gave Well, two seconds. Um Anne's diaries were discovered and gifted to Halifax Library, and Arthur Burrell, who was the friend, was the one that gave the code to the library.

Speaker 01 34:09

Is that the gay one or not?

Speaker 02 34:11

That's the one that they think was gay. Right. Or either of them really, like they wonder if they were together, I think, is the kind of run-in theory, and that's why they kept them. Um so in the decades that followed, a small number of researchers studied Anne's letters and journals. However, a council committee demanded to see their work first to remove any unsuitable matter that academics acqueased decided to like um cover it up and leave the secret hidden. In a room in Halifax Library, the hefty microfilm machine worded into action. In 1982, Helena Whitbread's a 52-year-old teacher, was staring at line after line of tiny unfathomable symbols flashing before her. Um so it was actually like properly decoded in 1982 by this woman, Helena Whitbread. Yeah, because I think it had just been left hidden. It's like the have you ever heard in like the British Museum they had like the pure penis room? Because obviously they stole like artifacts for everywhere and brought them back for the museum, like any that were deemed like um like immoral were put in this room and it was just fully all these like fertility statues and because like the ancient Egyptians were probably like obsessed with dicks, they had dicks on like fucking everything. Interesting, and the vast majority of them all because they believed that um Egypt was created by like one of the gods pure like coming into the Nile. Oh so they used to have like masturbation festivals and shit.

Speaker 01 35:46

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 02 35:46

There's a whole other yeah, anyway.

Speaker 01 35:48

We sadly we don't just do any of this now. Like we covered the Japanese festival, yeah. But what else is there?

Speaker 02 35:55

Aye, I mean like I don't understand like folks still talk about it like the CD life, but that's where a lot of that comes for, like it being like it was in a lot of religions and a lot of cultures and stuff back in the day. But it all got hidden.

Speaker 01 36:08

What is it? I swear there's something. Is it Hercules or something? Uh I don't know if it's in the Bible or it's mythology, but something about sucking milk from a tea and something about breast milk. Yeah. And I can't remember what story that is. Like it's a god.

Speaker 02 36:27

There's loads like that, genuinely. Like Hercules sounds about right. Like I feel like there's something in there.

Speaker 01 36:33

I can't remember quite what that is. I'll have to look it up later. Um, but I just remember something about movie milk and something happening, maybe big and strong. That's why I think it's Hercules, I'm not too sure. Um yeah, there's so many things in the history and mythology of just explicit stuff.

Speaker 02 36:59

Yeah. I mean, it's only really been like we as a nation are quite prude these days. Like Christianity in itself, like quite crude, uh quite prude, sorry. But that I think has been an answer to how like open about sexuality a lot of the religions they were competing with in the beginning were. Like it's so much more commonplace for things to be celebrated in like pagan religions than it is like these days, you know what I mean? So yeah. Interesting. Um where did I go to? So Anne had written 26 volumes and 14 diaries. So it took Helena four decades to actually go through it all, like it was her life's work decoding all this and um finding out about it. Like she was a historian, like she just was like, Oh, why has this not been looked at and took it up on herself? Um so at first there were only like some clues to the nature of Anne's secret. In a coding pat in a coded passage in 1817, Anne had confided she was wearing gentleman braces to hold up her drawers underneath her clothes. Um other hidden sentences were about money issues, Marianna's name began to appear in codes, and while it was obvious the woman had a deep friendship, the true nature of their relationship was unclear. It wasn't until 1817 when Anne was in York to see Marianna for the first time since her honeymoon that her secret was revealed. So she dropped, I took off my pellis and drawers, got into bed and had a very good kiss. She showing all due inclination, and in less than seven minutes the door was unbolted and we were all right again. Wow. Women fucked. Yeah. Um Helena realized that kiss was in fact code for sex, while a cue with a curl denoted a sexual experience. Um she deducted that Incurred Across was a reference to Anne's orgasms, which were frequently marked in the margins with an X. The depth of Anne's relationship with Mariana had become clear. Um she also often referred in detail to grubling or groping, a word that appeared time and time again. Of all the things I thought she was hiding, it wasn't sex with other women, says Helena. I think the feeling was, oh my god, here is an absolute truthful account of lesbian sex. Um after five years spent pouring over diaries written between 1817 and 1824, Helena published a book detailing the fraught relationship with Marianna and Anne's Tangled Web of Lovers Across Yorkshire, which is the book that I want to get because I'm intrigued. It's called When I Know My Own Heart, and it was published in 1988, causing quite a sensation. The 80s would have been very chill. The 80s, I feel like that would have went in not too bad, but probably better than fucking now. Oh yeah, yeah. Um so until then, clear evidence of sex between women had been absent from the historical record. Jeez. Anne's journals detailed a lesbian lifestyle many thought had not existed in the past. Um people think like folk weren't they just like how they are the now? But like all through history, do you know what I mean?

Speaker 01 40:29

Yeah, like you've gotta you've gotta explore, and it's like I I bet you like even the most regious people like kings and queens, they they wanted to try that.

Speaker 02 40:41

Fuck yeah, exactly. Like people like sexuality, didn't they just be born lit in the last 20 year?

Speaker 01 40:49

Like it's it's been around. People wanted to try every flavour, it it's just it it suddenly for whatever reason became shameful, yeah. And it it doesn't really make sense to me because it's like why why would you but it was mm heavily like religious people and things that made it look shameful sadly, yeah.

Speaker 02 41:14

It has it has Christianity's got a lot to answer for. Well no goddamn that really lovely podcast episode about it. I think we should, I think that could be fun. We'll we'll do it how we're doing it like this, and I'll be like, what um so her promiscuity showed not that not only women found her attractive but that sexual lesbian desire had been far more commonplace than was thought because like she wasn't a short ear hole, basically, it wasn't a like like like what I was saying, this wasn't a like one or two instances, this was like pretty much everybody she met, she was shagging, like yeah. Um that's quite a high sex drive, yeah. I mean there wasn't all that much left today these days, was there? You weren't allowed to work, you weren't allowed to go educate yourself like aye, you had a lot of spare time.

Speaker 01 42:12

I mean if you get it done in seven minutes, if you get in.

Speaker 02 42:16

You could fit a lot in, you could fit a lot in. You really could. Um aye, so like this is what I was talking about with the kind of previous thoughty, like romantic relationships between women in the 1800s, it's not all chase handholding, pressing flowers and braiding each other's hair. There was clearly this lends itself to the belief that there was a lot more going on between people than what um we realise or has been historically like actually kept because I think a lot of it's been destroyed, which is a shame. Um cool. So this is back to her life. So after her and Mariana Kenneth split ways, um and went on a more like traditional further gap here across Europe. Okay. So this is when where is she? Ah, she's in Paris. So she felt at home in the French capital and was away in Paris just trying to like get out of her bad breakup, basically. And Paris, compared to Yorkshire, was a lot more free, shall we say? People were a lot more chilled and um it was a lot more like an open atmosphere towards her sexuality, so she just started propositioning other visitors at the guest house she was staying in. Nice. Um when a French woman innocently kissed her goodbye on both cheeks, demonstr demonstrating the European custom, yeah, and pressed her lips straight onto hers. That is Yorkshire, she told her. She had game, she had game, yeah, clearly.

Speaker 01 43:57

Man, that's good.

Speaker 02 43:59

Yeah, some riz, that's nice. Um, so she started learning French, she kind of immersed herself in the culture, and hopefully wanted to meet a sophisticated wealthy woman. She was still very much on the track of wanting to find someone with money that she could settle down with and have a house. Um she met Maria Barlow, who was a widow from Guernsey. Um she wasn't exactly the tilted basically, she didn't have like a lot of money, but she was very ladylike and pretty and she was quite happy to kind of spend a wee bit of time with her. And she started writing like more descriptive uh like passages about her sexual acts. So one of them was I had kissed and pressed Mrs. Barlow on the knee till I had a complete fit of passion. One of her more uh my knees and thighs shook, my breathing and everything told her what was the matter. Aw, okay. So she came on her knee. Right. She went on, then made several gentle efforts to put my hand up her petticoats, which however she prevented. But she so crossed her legs and leaned against me that I put my hand over and grumbled her on the outside of her petticoats till she was evidently a little excited.

Speaker 01 45:23

She's gonna try it.

Speaker 02 45:24

Um she enjoyed a fiery affair where for a number of for for a time and then fucked off back to Yorkshire and left her. She was there for eight months, so I think like I don't know if it was the full eight months, but they had like a a medium-term relationship length, and then she was just like, right, bye bitch, I'm going home. Um she was exhilarated by her so-called wild but delightful wanderings and uh over the next 15 years explored over a dozen countries. So she went I'm saying gap year, gap 15 years, she just went travelling. Um even the death of her uncle James led her, which led her to inherit her ancestral home, Shibden, which is what we're talking about, where the diaries were found, uh, failed to keep her rooted. So she had an estate at this point, but was still just kinda using the money that was made from the estate to travel the world and shag people fate every country. So she was quite snooty and snobbish about like her hometown, which other people have like bullied her full life. Like, I can't really say that that's bad. Like what they they named her gentleman Jack and like chased it about and like asked her out for a laugh. Like, I think it's fair that she thought she was better than that and wanted to like go and live a life that suited her. She was fucking cool, like yeah, yeah.

Speaker 01 46:48

She knew what she won, and that is like really appealing to some people that there is a woman who knows what she wants and whatnot. Totally.

Speaker 02 46:59

Um, so she continued to travel around Europe accompanied by her female friends, including Mariana, who she was still shacking at this point. Um, they had not got back together, but were still just sleeping together on enough. Um she also set her sights on more extreme locations, gone to the Pyrenees, intent on climbing the icy peaks in full skirt and petticoats both metal. Love it. Um she enlisted a smuggler as a guide and with crampons secured to her feet and an iron stick and a map in her hands, ascended the steep icy terrain of the Brecht de Rolland, um which was one of the mountains in the range. She then conquered the Monte Perdido, which is the highest, this third highest peak um in the Pyrenees.

Speaker 01 47:48

Okay.

Speaker 02 47:49

She says the view was magnificent, particularly towards Spain, the perfect solitude, the profound stillness that gave me a sensation I had never had before.

Speaker 01 47:58

Interesting.

Speaker 02 47:59

She liked being by ourselves as well. Yeah. Um so because she had spent her full childhood reading, her ambition was to go and see all the places that she'd read about, um, and kind of spent her 30s doing so, her late 20s and 30s, just travelling and yeah. Um she still felt that high society was her the place that she should be and that she should have money, and that she wanted to live in like a sophisticated world made for someone of her quick wit learning and social status. Um so the listeners at this time were minor gender, so they were no like top dogs in the area, they were still kind of middle class, yeah, mid to high class. Um they kind of didn't have an awful lot of money, so although she had inherited the family home, she still wanted more money to kind of support our luxurious lifestyle, which fair enough. Girl likes to travel and climb mountains and big gothy dresses, fair. Um she through an old friend on York's social scene was introduced to a group of aristocratic women and began to get invited to elegant events in the area. She then met Vere Hobart, who was the sister of the fifth Earl of Buckinghamshire. Right. Um someone quite high up on the social kind of no calendar, what's the word like hierarchy at the time? Yeah, yeah. Um, she was fascinated by her, but was kind of in competition with all the men in the area because she was clearly quite an eligible bachelorette. Yeah. Um she went with her to a British embassy event where there was over 2,000 important guests, and Anne watched jealously as she danced with the son of the future king Louis Philippe. So they were very close, and when Veer proposed to take the friends to an extrent an extended trip to the southern English coastal town of Hastings, Anne jumped to accept this was her chance, which she clearly managed because over the next five months they enjoyed the resort social scene, and Anne began to believe that she might have found the woman who would fulfil her romantic and financial dreams. Yeah. I quote, I have been an icarus, but she'll fall less fatally. So Veer had the looks, breeding, and wealth Anne had thirsted over for years, but society and its expectations once again prevailed, and uh Veer agreed to marry an army officer and left Anne by the wayside yet again. I can run into her life. Anne cried for days. Aww. And her money was running it. It's almost the money as well. Yeah. Uh she wrote in her diary, My high society plans fail. I have had my whim tried, the thing, and pretty much it has cost me. She resolved to go back to Halifax and Shibdon and for the first time in years stay there. I have been an Icarus, but she'll fall less fatally, for I can still live and be happy. Here I am at 41 with a heart to seek. What will be the end of it? Aww. And I think we'll finish up there. Yeah. So that's been Gentleman Jack. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 01 51:22

Yeah. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you for listening to this episode.

Speaker 02 51:27

Um we'll be continuing it in part two about the first lesbian marriage in the UK. Yeah. We just kind of gave the backstory of one of the people involved in that. She is a very fucking interesting character and deserves her own episode.

Speaker 01 51:42

So I also realized I don't think we actually did our intros for this.

Speaker 02 51:47

Yeah, we did. Oh, for our names. Yeah. No, we didn't.

Speaker 01 51:52

This has been Paulson Victoria and Emily Sun. Yeah. Um, you can subscribe to our dark fans.

Speaker 02 52:01

If you want to see us in our amazing outfits. Yeah.

Speaker 01 52:04

And if you want to get humiliated or anything, then just give us a message and I'm sure we can sort something out. Um, you can find us on Apple, Spotify, everywhere basically. If you want to sponsor us monthly, that would be greatly appreciated. Every little helps. And well.

Speaker 02 52:25

Yeah, as usual, there's a wee discount code for you guys. So if you use behind the paddle at the checkout at Sanctuary of this Sanctuaryofsin.com, you'll get a wee 10% discount off your order.

Speaker 01 52:36

Yeah, and there is the uncensored market in December.

Speaker 02 52:41

Yeah, the 15th of December in Glasgow. The tickets are on sale now as well as the workshops we've got coming up, so check that out.

Speaker 01 52:48

Yeah, there's so many good workshops.

Speaker 02 52:50

Yeah, I'm so excited. I wish I could go to them all, but that was I I need to host.

Speaker 01 52:54

So I know you you're busy hosting. You're not volunteering. No, you're hosting. But yeah, this has been this episode. I don't know if there's anything else we need to mention.

Speaker 02 53:08

No, that's everything. Cheers for listening, guys. Bye. Bye.