The Queen of Rats

In one of the strangest recent episodes at the Houses of Parliament, the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II led to a huge surge in the rodent populations of London. Rich Bunn looks at the fascinating, underground story of the Rats of Westminster. 

Transcript

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The Queen of Rats. One of the things that almost certainly happened when the Queen died, and this is gonna sound borderline sacrilegious, but I don't mean it to at all, is a massive upswing in the rat population of London. This is Unseen Parliament. Stories from inside the Palace of Westminster. I'm Rich Bunn. If you think about it, it's fairly obvious because you've got lots of people who are just in the city who wouldn't otherwise be paying their respects. And all of those people are eating and using public facilities and putting an unexpected amount of stress on the bins, and there's only so much municipal collection or whatever you can do, so those bins are probably overflowing. And what you're unintentionally doing is creating a lot of food for rats and pigeons. But what to me is interesting about the Queen's death particularly is that that meant those visitors were going along a specific route, which is the route that the Queen herself passed as she lay in state. So it's not just that the rat population increased in London, but that it specifically increased in the areas where the Queen was. I mean I know at Buckingham Palace that they had an enormous problem with what actually is a very cute tribute in that Her Majesty had been in that very recent and very loved sketch with Paddington Bear. So a lot of people brought marmalade sandwiches and left them at the gates. And I and I imagine a lot of that was collected up, but I also imagined, given British weather, that a lot of it had degraded to a point where it was tough to collect. And that those bits were probably eaten by rats. After all, that is a great source of sugar and carbs, and one I might have myself for lunch later. I um started working at the Houses of Parliament sadly just after the Queen had laid in state. Um and I say sadly because it was a shame for me not to get to be a part of that. It's a bit of a once-in-a-lifetime thing to be a part of. But I do remember that when I started, there was a huge legacy problem with Vermin. Um mostly, I think, due to the sheer number of people that were visiting her and enabling those visits to happen. I mean, Westminster Palace was at capacity, the hall, Westminster Hall, probably I would imagine, for the first time in a long time, for that room to be absolutely full to the brim. You know, you're talking about um Henry VIII and the the great hall of Richard the Lionheart in full use with tens of thousands of visitors coming to see the Queen every day. And if you're queuing for twenty-four hours, well, you've got to eat somehow, and it wasn't just them, it was all the guards and the security and the cleaners and just a lot of extra people doing shifts there. I can tell you as someone who's very much seen the secret back passages of Parliament that the whole building is absolutely perfect for rodents. It's a mixture of Victorian and Norman. It's got loads of nooks and crannies and crevices and bits that have been plastered over or papered or have lost the plans, and it's next to a river and it's above a tube station. And and I can remember colleagues of mine just talking about, particularly on the night shift when there's no one around and it goes quiet, just a kind of black wave arriving um over the flagstones. Anyway, the the point I'm actually trying to make is not a negative one. And this might sound strange, but to me there's something wonderful, almost mythic, about that idea. Something evocative of of pagan magic. For me, um this concept that when the monarch of Great Britain dies, there's this huge upsurge in primal life force in the city. And and that it's in rats particularly, which to me do have associations with folklore and with fairy tales, a kind of Pied Piper of Hamlin. But you know, there's also London specific ones, of course, isn't there? Dick Whittington and his cat and all that kind of stuff. And I personally think it's pretty cool. And I'd be interested to know if that life force extended to humans. You know, were a lot of babies born during that time? I just I find something primal and kind of magical about the idea. Thanks so much for listening through to the end. I'm Rich Bunn, and if you've enjoyed this podcast, please think about subscribing or sharing with a friend. They're published every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye.