WHO REMEMBERS? The UK Nostalgia Podcast
A nostalgia trip for anyone in the UK who grew up on dial-up Internet, Findus Crispy Pancakes, and playground rumours that couldn’t be fact-checked online. We’re not historians — we don’t do dates, and we barely do facts — but science says reminiscing gives your brain a dopamine hit, so think of us as your weekly dose of hazy memories, childhood flashbacks, and confidently misremembered events.
Expect frequent arguments about who remembers things properly as we rummage through the UK’s collective memory box.
WHO REMEMBERS? The UK Nostalgia Podcast
Who Remembers........The 1914 Christmas Truce
A winter night on the Western Front. Candles on the parapet, Stille Nacht drifting over the mud, and a shouted pledge from the dark: “If you don’t shoot, we won’t.” We wade into the 1914 Christmas Truce to separate letters from legends and understand how enemies chose to be neighbours for a day.
We start with the frontline atmosphere five months into the war—young soldiers, shaky routines, and small daily rituals that hinted at something larger. From there, we trace how carols became conversation, why British and German troops stepped into no man’s land, and what the best contemporary sources say about handshakes, cigarettes, and the exchange of gifts. The football story gets a careful look: were there proper matches or just kickabouts in cratered fields? We weigh historian scepticism against eyewitness accounts from both sides, exploring how myths grow around moments that feel too human to fit official histories.
As the truce dissolves under orders and the war hardens with gas and attrition, we explore what ended this fragile peace and why it never returned. Along the way, we examine the truce’s afterlife in culture—from The Farm’s All Together Now to a controversial Sainsbury’s advert—and ask what remembrance should look like when commerce gets involved. The heart of the episode is simple and stubborn: even in a vast, indifferent war, soldiers found space to sing, smile, and bury the dead together.
If this story moved you—or changed your mind about the famous “match”—share the episode with a friend, subscribe for more UK nostalgia deep-dives, and leave us a review with your favourite detail from the Christmas Truce. What would you have sung across the trenches?
Hello, and welcome to Who Remembers the UK Nostalgia Podcast? And in this week's episode, we are asking who remembers the nineteen fourteen Christmas cruise? Yeah, you need to explain yourself. I think we phased people, didn't we? Um, those who haven't listened yet, yeah, uh, you'll not know what we're talking about. Liam, we covered tonight. Well, well, I'll tell I'll tell you from my point of view. You said you think it'll be funny if I put it's the saviours day in random bits of the uh Ross Kemp episode. And I said, Yeah, yeah, that'd be amazing. I listened back to you. I thought you were in about two or three times. I started laughing my head off at how many times you were using it. Then I then I was like getting quite annoyed, going, What's he doing here? And then I was laughing my head off. It's like I couldn't stop laughing at the end of it. This was the guy's dude.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, it was supposed to be hopefully it's supposed to be funny, then annoying, and then funny again by how many times I'd done it. But if if you didn't get to that last stage, then it was just annoying.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We've had people who think it was that ridiculous, it must have been an error.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, some people have like yeah, some people have actually said um was it intentional? Uh the saviour's day. Yeah, it w we're not gonna be using this for the saviour's day in this. Well, we might do, I don't know, we haven't decided, yeah. When you get your editing, I think obviously you'll you're still you're still ill. You're still ill, as Morrisy once said. So I think you might be having a bit of a fever thing going on. So who knows what you're gonna be putting all over this episode?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, as it stands right now, I'm not intending to put it over, but you know who knows? You might hear some cliff.
SPEAKER_01:But this is about the Christmas truce that took place on the December the 12th century.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah, and we're asking who remembers it. I'd be do you think anybody alive still remembers it?
SPEAKER_01:Well, Webding, actually, uh cynical Webding, uh mess uh he he gave us a message and said, Who remembers something that neither of you can are old enough to remember? But as I pointed out, we don't remember stuff that we can remember. So I don't think it's gonna affect the quality of the show at all.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, agreed. It's it's like a collective remembering, isn't it? We're sort of saying, Do you remember? Does anyone remember?
SPEAKER_01:Does anyone remember who remembers? Yeah, there's a brilliant bit on Limit where he does that. Who remembers? Anyone remember? Do you remember? Who remembers? Yeah, so this is 1940, where an unofficial, an improntuous ceasefire occurred on the Western Front during World War One. The pausing fighting was not universally observed, nor it had been sanctioned by commanders on either side, but along some two-thirds of the 30-mile front controlled by the British expend expenditure force, the guns fell silent for a short time. It always reminds me of the guns fell silent of the when Oasis reformed. I mean obviously this were a bigger thing, but they did literally fall silent for the Saviour's Day as well, didn't they? Yeah, they did fall silent for the Saviour's Day. Yeah, so you know. But Cliff should have done a song about this. I think it'd been right up his right up his wheelbarrow.
SPEAKER_00:Obviously, we'll see how far we get with this. This could be a really short episode. Because I I don't think there's too much to Born Park.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so this this this occurred five months, just five months after war was declared and the hostilities began, which is I think you'll find as we're going along with it. The early days, weren't it? It's very early days. I don't think anyone still really knows what World War One were about. Do you know what I mean? I I don't think anyone obviously World War II. I mean uh the reminds me actually of the uh there's a comment in the Viz poor taste this, but uh there's a comment in Viz magazine where it says this the World War One was known as the Great War, but surely with its much more higher death tolls, the Great War was World War II. So what's that? The Greater War.
SPEAKER_00:Um Yeah, that would a big event, wasn't it? This would have sort of prelude.
SPEAKER_01:This was the I'm not that interested in World War One. You know me, I love my World War II, and we'll do we probably will do a World War II episode, that'll be a laugh. Um soon. But World War One never really grabbed me, I don't know about you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I know what you mean. It's a bit I don't know, it just sort of Yeah, and and obviously we we're making light of the whole situation. We're we're we're very well aware these are horrible events, but it's a light hearted podcast. You've gotta have a laugh. Focus too much. Yeah, it's a lighter part. But yeah, I know exactly what you mean, yeah. I I don't want to sort of diminish anybody who who fought or died in that war, but yeah, I doubt they'd be listening to that.
SPEAKER_01:I highly doubt anyone who were fighting in 1914 to 18 will be listening to this. But yeah, not dismissing the war at all. There's just some wars, some wars are better than others against wars are better than others. But this one I think because there were no evil baddy as well, World War II, it were a bit like Star Wars, weren't it? You've got your you know what I mean, the the obvious evil guy, and it were like a bit of a good versus evil sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00:This was just obviously you're quite into some of your sort of history stuff then. So was being defeated in World War One, is that does that sort of the then become the rise of the the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr.
SPEAKER_01:Hitler?
SPEAKER_00:Mr.
SPEAKER_01:Hitler, yeah. So yeah, a lot of people say World War One and World War II are actually the same war because it all sort of you know it never really resolved itself. Obviously, we had put massive sanctions on Germany, um, which Hitler was.
SPEAKER_00:LOLO, that's World War II, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01:That's World War II.
SPEAKER_00:That's my favourite.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it is better uh World War II. And you've also got Dad's army, which is that is World War, yeah. Who do you think you were kidding, Mr. Hitler? Anyway, the lead up to the truce. By the first of December, a British sold recorded a friendly visit from a German sergeant one morning just to see how they were getting on. Uh that's that's that's what they put. That that's not me just like it's it's in the quote.
SPEAKER_00:I imagine that's funny enough, just mentioned LOL. Do you remember uh Gruber? I imagine it's someone like him like Hello? Is everybody okay over here?
SPEAKER_01:Is everybody okay over here? Uh relations between French and German units were generally more tense. Um, but even there, the you know, the f the same phenomenon began to emerge in early December. A German surgeon recorded that a regular half-hour truce uh for each each side of the trench to recover dead soldiers from for burial was agreed to by uh and even French and German soldiers exchanged newspapers, and this were like on the first of December. So yeah, this is look, I'm getting this off. I don't know where I've read this.
SPEAKER_00:I've got you finished with the sports section.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, ridiculous, but yeah, can you imagine that? Yeah, so anyway, Pope Benedict uh on the 7th of December 1914 said he begged, well, he did beg, not literally begged, for an official truce between the warring governments, and he said, He asked for that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angel sang for the saviour day. Uh but both sides refused, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but in the link of the week at you know I think people thought again we're like very limited uh research. People thought there was a chance this might be over by Christmas.
SPEAKER_01:Did they just yeah, they were always talking about in World War One, yeah. World War One most I think World War II more people had been scarred that much by World War One, they knew they were in for a long haul battle. Yeah, whereas World War One, people said, Ah, we I'm sure there's a famous quote which I can't remember now. It's all oh we're back we'll be back home for Christmas or whatever it were. And yeah, and obviously it lasted for four years.
SPEAKER_00:I'm just gonna nip over there and see if he's got TV guide. Yeah, you reckon it'll finish soon. Do you reckon we'll finish soon?
SPEAKER_01:In the week leading up to the 25th of December, French, German, and British uh soldiers crossed trenches to exchange seasonal great uh greetings and talk. In some areas, men from both sides ventured into no man's land on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs. Someone souvenirs.
SPEAKER_00:My understanding is that this this was triggered, and it seems to be that both sides agree on this by on Christmas Eve the German soldiers started singing some Christmas carols.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, do you know what it were called? Say Silent Night as we know it. Do you know what it's called in German? I'll pronounce this wrong. We should have got Berlin Blade on for this.
SPEAKER_00:Um no, I don't know German. Why would I still not still not? Can't just be that. It is, that's silent night.
SPEAKER_01:Still not. Yeah, I suppose it could be, yeah. Stilnat. Uh voices from the as they were singing that, voices from the Allied lines responded with Christmas carols on their of their own. So we'll have been going, I say was, you know, the the the the British will have been going, I don't know what ding-dong merrily on high.
SPEAKER_00:Ding dong merrily on high seems too jolly, doesn't it, for us all? Ding dong merrily on high.
SPEAKER_01:I can imagine really posh accents as well back then. Ding dong merrily on high.
SPEAKER_00:Uh one usual are ringing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_01:So where I got the uh the research from here, it said it's not it wasn't uncommon for units to sing in the evening, sometimes deliberately, uh, with an eye towards entertaining or taunting the opposite numbers. I love that. You're not singing anymore.
SPEAKER_00:We fight you every week.
SPEAKER_01:Obviously, this would be fun. You could have sing I mean it would be obviously in the future. Two world wars and one world cup, dude, pure speculation, right now. Speculation, yeah. I mean, obviously, and you could have sing the 10 German bombers song, thankfully, uh, then. But yeah, I'd like to know what the chance were because they will have been taught taunting like that. Obviously, I don't you're you're not singing anymore, but what have been said is I'd like to know what football chants have been going around, like in the 1914s, like to what they could be singing. Because I don't know I have this image. I think it'd be stuff like we're a darn sight better than you. We're a darn sight better than you. You're not very good, you're not very good.
SPEAKER_00:I do like that channel actually.
SPEAKER_01:You're not very, you're not very good. By Christmas Eve, some lower ranking British officers uh had begun ordering their men not to fire unless I've fired upon. This policy became known as live and let live. Um and it was uh be adopted on a hot uh hot basis to all ad hot basis.
SPEAKER_00:Uh I thought they were gonna say it adopted in a Duran Duran song who altered it slightly.
SPEAKER_01:Uh Christmas Day, though, itself, and this is what we're here for. Roughly 100,000 Apparently as well, by the way.
SPEAKER_00:So so the Germans because I because I'm guessing we would like to think, oh yeah, no, we sort of triggered it. Apparently they they started singing the carols, but they also put up some Christmas trees.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's right. That's what I'm about to start with, yeah. So it was the Germans who placed candles on the trenches and Christmas trees, and then they continued celebrating by singing Christmas carols, and that's when the the British uh this cannot be true, this cannot have triggered sort of truce along sort of hundreds of miles of trenches or whatever whatever it was.
SPEAKER_00:But I heard I have two different versions. But I saw uh an English soldier and this is like an old documentary, and apparently the what triggered the truce is that a German shouted, If you don't shoot, we won't shoot that that was the trigger. Well Walter Congreve Do you believe that can be possible?
SPEAKER_01:I don't know, I don't know, to be honest. Wal Walter Congreve, uh commander of the 18th Infantry Brigade, he wrote a letter back home saying that the the Germans declared a truce for the day. One of their men bravely lifted his head above the paraffit, and that was uh in in a sort of you know hands-up gesture, like you know, no no problems here, don't want to fight, not interested. And then both sides walked into no man's land, and officers and men shook hands and exchanged cigarettes and cigars. When he put his head up for the first time, he said uh For the Saviour's Day. For the Saviour's Day. One of the captains um said that he smoked a cigar with the best shot in the German army, the latter, the latter no more than 18 years old. Imagine having a cigar with the best shot in the German German armour.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a weird one, isn't it? Because I I I think obviously we're sort of trying to make light of it. I I can't kind of quite grasp that you know, you're at war with these people, but again, a lot of these on the front line were young kids, they didn't really know what was going on or why they were there. Although a lot of this realistic YouTube, I've never heard anyone's pronounce YouTube before YouTube, YouTube, AI man, like YouTube.
SPEAKER_01:I sound like I was saying I man, like AI man.
SPEAKER_00:I read something today on YouTube. Um but yeah, but they seem to think that it almost seems that unplausible that that something sort of grew up around it that almost suggested it was myth, but there is there is enough evidence to say that this this did happen. The the football match itself uh seems a little bit more Well, I'll get on to this now if you want, then.
SPEAKER_01:So British soldiers did write of playing football or or soccer, as it was known. A misconception with soccer, by the way. A lot of people think the Americans invented the term soccer. It was actually the English who invented the term soccer, and it was known as soccer, and then it changed to football. So I'll stop having to go at the Yanks about that.
SPEAKER_00:Well I uh my dad obviously grew up in Ireland and they knew what we would call football as soccer because they played uh Gaelic football.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, do you know who told me that about the soccer thing? Not face to face, but I read it. Um Danny Baker. So yeah, anyway, so British soldiers anyway were out of playing football and sharing food and drink with the men who had uh just been obviously a day earlier, the mortal enemies. Um they the the the accounts say that could could you trust them? I think like you say, the these are young lads realistically, and you I I think because the hostilities had not been going on for that long, and I'd like to think I would be like this, whether I would be, I don't know. But you are I think in war you are aware that the people you're shooting at, it's not their fault. They're not doing any they they are literally, you know, to to quote, um, just following orders. Um but they are like I and I do think that if one of them says I do know what you mean though, can you trust them?
SPEAKER_00:Because I think you're at war, aren't you? This is this is not like the the local pub sort of rivalry where if it spills over like oh god, we've we've got we've got a couple of hotheads, like they have, they they're gonna end up in a fight. This is a war. Like it we kind of admire. And I suppose it shows how sort of if you want to be sort of serious about it for a minute, it it shows how sort of much they probably just didn't want to be there, didn't want to be in this. That they was that they were willing to just fancy a game of football, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. That sounds great. It it it just it just sort of blows my mind that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, he says the account stressed that the men themselves could scarcely believe the remarkable events that were happening, and they recognised even then that there was like a huge historical significance of this. Um and even like apparently on the Christmas truce after after the game of football, no, I'm laughing here, but it seems ridiculous. After the game of football, they buried the dead. Uh they helped each other bury the dead um straight after straight after the kick of it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I saw that. It seemed like it was a kind of really respectful day. I and I know I've seen a couple of different things about kind of how it ended. So some people said it it was the truce for the I and I think you touched on this earlier, there wasn't a universal rule. Some parts of the some parts of the front line just carried on shooting at each other, they didn't buy into it all. Some seemed to have this full truce, some had quite a cagey sort of part truce, and and yeah, I d I don't know, it just seems really I don't know, it's quite what's the word? It it's a very nice story and a horrible thing.
SPEAKER_01:Shrouded in um yeah, mystery, I suppose, yeah. Well I'll go on to that if you're the truth of the accounts I've been disputed by some historians. In 1984, Malcolm Brown uh and Shirley Seaton concluded there were probably attempts to play organised matches that failed due to the state of the ground. I love that waterlogged. No, can't can't play lads, waterlogged, but you'd have a go, wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_00:Um, buddy dug all these bloody trenches in the trenches.
SPEAKER_01:I can't cross from here with this grammar. That's what you're on about. Uh but the contemporary reports, um they do say there were kickabouts uh of made-up footballs such as bully beef tins. Um so they're all and they're all the only references that you find cut from from that time were it's from the British side, and there's nothing from the German side to make it.
SPEAKER_00:Well I'll see I I've seen an interview with a German guy today.
SPEAKER_01:Right, fair enough then. There was a football there. Um, interesting. That's a good point now. Why would there be a football there anyway?
SPEAKER_00:Uh I don't know, I'm thinking of when we went to was it Tenerife or Grand Canaria? An arm mate who plays no football took a ball because he wanted to prove he was a jock.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, he did do that. Yeah, he did yeah, he did do that, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But it weren't really that weren't war. We didn't go to war in Tenerife. There was a heated moment, weren't there, where he stomped off after uh he didn't eat any of his breakfast because he was that angry with you.
SPEAKER_01:You were angry with me. Yeah, I I haven't even done anything. I think I would just be my normal loud self and he he was not in the mood for it at all, and he had to leave his breakfast, didn't I? That's not my fault, uh, you know. I thought yeah. Anyway, Lieutenant Kurt Zemich um of the Saxon 134th Saxon Infantry Regiment said the English brought a soccer ball from their trenches, and pretty soon a very lively game ensued. I bet it were lively as well. He's put he said, How marvellously wonderful, yet how strange. I like you say, do you think there were like big tackles going in? Do you think? I mean, obviously, this is the the the era as well.
SPEAKER_00:You were worrying, wouldn't you? Like uh the wrong tackle.
SPEAKER_01:But I've got a feeling that people in this age, obviously, I don't know uh the the the stereotype of people from this age, and the certainly English people, oh good game, like sportsmen, you know, proper sportsmen, like nope, it's a foul, I'll give it a foul. I don't think you'd need a referee in those days.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I know what you mean. I can imagine though, like someone goes up for an header and like a gun falls out of the sock or something, and everyone's like, Oh, he's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, guy. I just I didn't know. I didn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01:I can imagine, like I I don't know, like one of the Germans putting a tackle in, oh good tackle, young chap. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think that'd be really like and I imagine the Germans would be the same. I used to play football with a guy, actually, who every time he took him on, he used to laugh, he used to piss me off. You were on my team, like someone would say, like as if it were like, you know, like celebrating the like the how good the other guy were. Ridiculous. Can I do you can I can I surprise you? Can you name the one person? Uh well, it's not just the one person, but one person who didn't like the idea of a truce at all.
SPEAKER_00:Um Well, I'm I'm I'm thinking straight away the the big names back in the day. I'm all right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's uh it's the main man, he's here tonight. It's uh Adolf Hitler. Uh he was a dispatch runner for the uh regimental headquarters and he criticised the behaviour of his men in the regiment who opted to join the uh British and no man's land, saying, No such thing should happen in wartime. Have you no have you no have you no German sense of honour? So that's just a a precursor for you know there would be no trucers obviously in World War II. I wonder if that's what pushed him over the edge. Well imagine that. He were a very bitter man. That might that that might have like chipped away at it. He had a massive chip on his shoulder, didn't he, Hitler?
SPEAKER_00:You think he might he might have conceded from a free kick or something, and that was it.
SPEAKER_01:Well that full enough, yeah. I don't know if you've seen that episode of Black Adder where Black Adder uh he recalls playing in a football match and he's really annoyed at having a having a goal disallowed. They do like sort of touch on it from this. Um but yeah, so the football game, like you say, I I think it happened.
SPEAKER_00:I don't think it was as far as just a kick about yeah. It can't have been a match, can it? It just can't have been. I mean what jumpers for goalposts, like fucking the German guys said they put down the caps for goalposts.
SPEAKER_01:Oh the caps? I thought you were gonna say like putting tanks for goalposts. They didn't have tanks then, did they?
SPEAKER_00:Um bullets for goalposts. I don't know if they would have had basic tanks by then. I don't I don't know. Don't know. Yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_01:But in the day following Christmas, the violence soon returned. Um but the officers got involved and said this is unacceptable. They banned it. Yeah, the following year, um basically, yeah, the the commanders pr prohibited any trucers. But by this point, obviously things had got to the point where you were like, This is this is mad now. Like, this is realistically, we've obviously joked about it saying it's a shit war. This is obviously the biggest thing that any anyone at that that's the biggest war that had ever existed.
SPEAKER_00:Well, well, and what I read sorry, what I read and listened to as well said that obviously they started using sort of there were much more deaths and there was sort of mustard gas being used, and it became much more not that it was ever pleasant, but it just became much more ruthless.
SPEAKER_01:It went away from the hey, good child, old chap. Yeah, I mean a bit like do you know uh of Dark Place when Sanchez and Garth Morenga have a fight and he punched him because oh my god, it's been to the gym. I can't remember. I can imagine that. Oh, it's a fantastic shop, man. Like as his as his like eyes coming out or whatever. Um, but yeah, but some some the truce did persist in some areas until New Year's Day. Uh the last living known uh participant of the truce was a guy called Alfred Anderson. Um and he died on yeah, he died in 2005, so decent innings from him, 91 years after the true truce that he died at 109 years old. That's an incredible innings, innit? 109. Would you want to live till 109 though? No way, no way, Pedro. Anywhere near that. Thank you. Well, yeah, that's that's good news, but they are called.
SPEAKER_00:I'm exhausted now. I'm only at four.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I sometimes feel like that. Yeah, I do. Not in a like a I don't know what to make light of it, not in a you know, a depression sense, but sometimes you think, oh yeah, no, I'm I'm not I'm not ready to go, but when it happens, I'll I'll some plus points, yeah. Uh obviously the song All Together Now by the Liverpool band The Farm took inspiration from the Christmas truce.
SPEAKER_00:Um man's like never thought about that, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you well, yeah, obviously I think it would use as the last England song, like official England song, like a re re-released version of it. You don't really get England songs anymore, do you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I've never never really thought about the context of no man's land meaning literally no man's land, has it? What did you think they were saying then? Like Well, as in like in sort of nowhere, like as in we're not it's not our this is not the the green grass of England, this is no man's land. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hang on, let me have a look at the uh the lyrics of that song to see.
SPEAKER_01:So what did you think the song were about overall? Well, just put it on the other side.
SPEAKER_00:I am massively setting you up here. Sorry, go on. I thought it's just just sort of unity, like we're you know, we're together, we're on foreign soil, and we're together. We're gonna be able to do that. So you thought it was just basically a football song? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So the I didn't know this myself, so I am setting you up as if you're an idiot. But the first line is remember that boy that your forefathers died, lost in a million's country pride, uh, never mentioned the trenches of Belgium where they stopped fighting and were won. December 1914, cold and clear and bright. It basically talks about it. Yeah, I've never noticed that myself. And that's a song that I think everybody knows, right? You look at this, it's like the boys had their say, the boys had their say what? The boys had their say, they said no, stop the slaughter and let's go home. I just thought we were about you know, playing fucking.
SPEAKER_00:We'll be there, aren't we? On a in a bar in Paris and it's starting to kick off.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, in no man's land. It's not it's not one of my favourite songs, to be completely honest. No, it's alright, it's alright. But yeah, like I say, that's really it.
SPEAKER_00:What do you make of the Sainsbury's Christmas advert about it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm gonna bring this up actually. It's cause of a lot I I've got to be careful what I say here, but it caused a lot of controversy that um where I worked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because a couple of people who um would probably not like this podcast because we've made making jokes about it, thought it was uh whose grandfathers and stuff had um served in this and had a real strong identity with that, weren't happy that they were basically using Sainsbury's were basically using uh something where loads of people died completely pointlessly to sell chocolate or to whatever it was that they were you know advertising that particular advert.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but that's when the event happened. That that's they're sort of saying people can come together at Christmas, aren't they? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, yeah, they get the thing, but I think this is basically saying that they're playing a bit like we've done in this entire episode, playing down um you know what we're tragedy of war. If you never talk about anything sort of real or something, it shouldn't yeah, but we're not advertised anything. If we like did this, like then, yeah, I can imagine though, like um, and obviously in 1914, um 100,000 people died. Please buy our new CD, which coming out of the bit yeah, it'd be good though, like trying to do an advertisement like in the most serious things. But yeah, it did cause a bit of controversy when I went there.
SPEAKER_00:We should have sort of said all the way through it how like God a bit were cold and wet in them trenches, and God loved to have a scarf and a hat. And then at the end, sort of released that we're we were selling Who Remembers merchandise, and we've got Christmas hats and scarves.
SPEAKER_01:It'd be amazing.
SPEAKER_00:Could have sort of subliminally planted the idea in that you well.
SPEAKER_01:I know uh Phil listens from Glistening Kicks. We should have said, Oh, you know, you imagine they can't run around, obviously, because the ground were that bad.
SPEAKER_00:If only they'd gone to glistening kicks, uh people got in World War One trench foot, didn't they? Where they got like uh sort of rot in the feet because it was so wet. And I tell you what, you will not experience that if you've gone to glistening kicks.
SPEAKER_01:If you want any any if you wanted to advertise anything, if you don't want trench foot, get yourself to glistening kicks. No, but if you weren't to advertise anything that you do, we will you could pick the episode that we you we try and advertise it in. What about that? Free of charge as well. See if we can do it.
SPEAKER_00:Imagine us sort of giving a list of what we're gonna do and glistening kicks. Ah, they're gonna talk about World War One. We we could mention, couldn't we? That you won't get trenched foot with glistening cakes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, with glistening kicks, yeah. Um, yeah, if you if you're not from Sheffield, by the way, glistening cakes is uh I don't know. Yeah, I think that you you you you can get some stuff, type it in glistening cakes, fantastic.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the the this is starting to sound like it's sort of advert, isn't it? This is like we've really planned it, yeah. The uh sort of re reinvigorate your old trainers. I think they also sort of sell stuff they've been gone.
SPEAKER_01:I never thought when we started the Christmas troops of 1914, we'd be ending up talking about the corner, so if you were repainting trainers and rejuvenated trainers.
SPEAKER_00:So if that's something you fancy for the savious day, you're self-glistening kicks, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But there's other things that we can advertise if you've got it. I'm trying to think it's anything else that people might want us to advertise uh where we could get uh World War One related, but uh yeah, nothing really comes to mind at the moment, to be honest. Footballs who you're advertising footballs for Diodora Right. Like I say, should we have a short on that? Because there's that little amount of a solid. Well do you know what we should have done? And we can't go back now, but maybe next year, if we're both still here. Um we probably should have done Cliff at Christmas, to be honest.
SPEAKER_00:Or even just Christmas adverts, and we could have used that as a way of sort of getting into the debate on the 914. We've done Christmas adverts in Mayla. I know, but we haven't done it on this, and and there's more recent ones now that we haven't talked about. I think I remember struggling a bit Christmas adverts last time.
SPEAKER_01:Live by the sword. I think that were that again, your your history hits and your um what they call rest is history and all that. This is a temparter. We've done it half an hour, boom. You know everything that you need to know about the the the There's nothing more to say either, is there? Like that's you know, we've covered it. We've covered it, that's it. So next up, we're doing Christmas as kids, Liam. You're looking forward to that one.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's much more much more free and easy, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01:We've got a lot more to go on that one. And if you have any uh memories of your own that you want to talk about, let us know. Let us know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, if you've got something quite niche, that'd be good to let us know before the next recording. So I suppose it's hard to know, isn't it? Because you only know your own traditions. But if there's something that as you've got older you've thought, I can't why did we do that? Nobody else did that. Yeah, there's a lot of things like that where it's like. Your family swear at each other a lot on Christmas Day, don't they? That's not true. I don't see that as usual.
SPEAKER_01:My nan and my dad'll often get into an argument. Um, but I think that's pretty normal at Christmas, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I suppose so, but you don't start from that, do you? Like you can kind of end up in that position. I think you go out from Um I don't know. I used to go to the pub every afternoon. I suppose that's quite normal, isn't it? No We used to go with Russell Paul Jones, so that's that's not quite so normal, is it? But yeah. People have got I don't think there's any I'll tell you what I did do actually.
SPEAKER_01:Like weird sort of food traditions or stuff like that. Like I'll tell you what I did one Christmas, it was COVID Christmas. So we're on my own because I had COVID and I couldn't leave. Um I couldn't see anybody basically. And I couldn't do anything, and my mum actually gave me dinner like through a door. This was when, you know, when it were peak COVID and everything. This was on the Saviour's Day as well, wasn't it? This was on the Saviour's Day, she'd sort of posted almost like through it like I were in in jail, like threw like my dinner across that floor. And I had nothing to do, and I ended up watching it when the most depressing Christmas ever. I watched loads of All Saint and Greaves. I just like I don't know like a YouTube rabbit hole, and you like just sort of clicking on stuff, and yeah, and I watched loads of all cent and greaves'. Um was it just a one-off? Not a tradition, that was just a one-off, but probably the I once watched Sheffield United 5 Swindon 5 as well on uh Christmas Day. It was just it was just on at my hand's house, uh put it on.
SPEAKER_00:Um I have a cold glass of books fizz in the morning, me and Jerry, but I don't think that's I don't think that's particularly daring. I'm sure there's others who do that. Yeah, people get get get the wine out of, don't they? Yeah, I don't I can't think of anything especially unusual. Like people do weird things as well with the presents, don't they? Where like they open them after dinner and stuff like that. Like zero morning. I mean it was thrown into next episode territory.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, we are. So we're gonna save this for the next episode. But I think this is a mad theory, but I think the later you open your presents, the more middle class you are, or upper class. I think the most working class people get up and can't wait. They're interested in it. Yeah, and I were one of them, and I'm not, you know, I'm sure that I know my cousins, for instance, who um fr from from a uh a tough upbringing, shall we say, much tougher than I've had. Day before they used to open the present. Like, so I think like that started my theory of like the poorer you are, the the earlier you opened.
SPEAKER_00:We used to get to open a single present the night before, and it was always like an annual. So I used to get a beano or a dandy annual, and I could open it. Passes the time though, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01:Passes the time. We're getting on to this anyway. So we've talked about fucking trainers and you know, presents and stuff. We've talked about the truth. Uh get yourself to glistening kicks. Yeah. Right, thank you very much, Liam, and I'll see you next time for the I think that'll be a long episode. Yeah, it should be a lot of fun, I think. Yeah. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to Who Remembers. If you want to get in touch with us, you can find us at Whorrememberspod at outlook.com. If you are a right wing fascist, you can find us on Twitter at Who Remembers Pod. Or if you're a wokener, you can find us on Blue Sky at WhoRemembersPod. Once again, thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time for more remembering.