We don't do bloodletting, no

In this episode we chat to Assistant Community Curator Patrick Bourne about the history of Kirkstall Abbey: the hottest 870 year old you've ever seen.

What's been excavated here? What's been the haps for the last 8 centuries? Where did the monks go for a poo?

We also find out about the ghostly goings on at Abbey House Museum, and write a little love letter to peshwari naan.

The Kirkstall Lives exhibition we chat about is fantastic, and open until December 2022.

If you enjoy the episode, subscribe on all the usual podcast platforms and give us a review on  Apple Podcasts and we'll love you for at least 870 years. That's a promise.

Transcript

Moderator 1: (Moderators introduce the podcast and chat amongst themselves). Pat, thank you for coming on the pod. First thing we ask is, who the flip are you? 

Pat Bourne: I sometimes ask myself that. So I'm the Assistant Community Curator here at Abbey House Museum, also work over the road at Kirkstall Abbey. And I work with, well, anybody, really. We try and get new audiences into the museum in all kinds of different ways, as well as traditional audiences. So I work with a lot of groups. We have a gardening group over the road, we have an old people's group called the 1152 Club. We also do lots of community displays here at Abbey House Museum, which can be on anything, really, that comes to us, from protest and mourning to an exhibition we've currently got on, which is reminiscing about the local area. And yes, it's a really interesting, no 2 days are the same. I can say that about it for sure. 

Moderator 1: What do you prefer, Abbey House Museum or Kirkstall Abbey? 

Pat Bourne: That is a really tricky one. I mean, apart from a few months of the year, when, to be honest, it's not really nice weather outside, Kirkstall Abbey. 

Moderator 1: Does it make you feel like a monk? 

Pat Bourne: It makes me feel very calm, very meditative. And it's just so nice to have, I better be careful about what I say, really. 

Moderator 2: What is it about abbeys? 

Pat Bourne: I can only say that, similar to you, I think just that awe-inspiring nature of the abbey. The scale of it. And I think even a place like Kirkstall, even though, like you say, it's surrounded by traffic, you have planes flying overhead sometimes, for a lot of the time, it is just a very tranquil place to be, meditative place. Whether you are a spiritual person or not. Because I'm not a spiritual person myself, but I think a lot of people just get a lot from that. And the fast pace of life these days, having a place like that, just to step it down a gear, I think is really important. Whether you're interested in the history of the place and actually what went on there. But then, I think it goes back to the reason the monks founded the abbey in the first place, and they chose those sites specifically for those qualities. And yes, there's a lot around it nowadays, but other than that, it's still magical, and it's that sort of unknown, really. 

Moderator 2: Didn't it use to be that the road used to go through the abbey? 

Pat Bourne: Yes, yes. So after, obviously, not when it was a functioning abbey. Because that would have caused chaos. But before, I mean, this road, I'm saying 'this road' like people can see us, but the road that divides Kirkstall Abbey and Abbey House Museum, because Abbey House Museum used to be the gatehouse for Kirkstall Abbey. So now they're kind of chopped in two by the A65. But that only came along in, I think it was the 1820s, something like that. And after the dissolution of the monasteries, the main church for the abbey was the main road into Leeds. And yes, I find that one of the most interesting things. 

Moderator 1: How old is Kirkstall Abbey? 

Pat Bourne: It was founded in 1152. Obviously we're now in 2022, so that's a nice round 870 years. She is looking pretty good. 19th of May was her birthday. So happy birthday, Kirkstall Abbey, (TC 00:10:00) for last month. In lockdown, we did do a, 'Happy 868th Birthday', I think it was. (talking over each other 10.08) 868. 

Moderator 1: What is the most interesting time, do you think, in the abbey's history? 

Pat Bourne: There's a lot to unpick there, isn't there? I mean, if I had a time machine and could go back and see it as a functioning abbey. I just think that would be amazing, just to see it. I think it would be great to see it as a functioning abbey. But like you say, the road running through it would also be a fascinating thing to see. And this is quite cheesy, but I think the abbey as it is now is a really interesting place, the way that it's still at the heart of a community and possibly better used than it's ever been. 

Moderator 1: How did they build it? 

Pat Bourne: Unfortunately, I'm not an expert. But I mean, they purposely built the abbey here after a little bit of a go over the Pennines in Barnoldswick, where things didn't quite work out. Because of the proximity to things like stone and timber. 

Moderator 1: So they realised that it was too far away to take timber to Barnoldswick? 

Pat Bourne: Well, so the original grant of land was from the de Lacy family, barons of Pontefract, to build a daughter house for Fountains Abbey. And the original grant of land was over the Pennines in Barnoldswick. But they managed to upset the local population by evicting everybody, and by pulling down a church that was already there. And things went wrong, bad harvest and whatnot. So the Aire Valley was much better, because there weren't that many people here. But yes, as to quite how it was built (talking over each other 13.04). 

Moderator 2: What is your best room? 

Pat Bourne: So my best room, it is a bit of a toss-up between the chapter house, which is lovely. 

Moderator 2: What's the chapter house? 

Moderator 1: 2 different types of architecture, that one. 

Pat Bourne: And yes, that's a very sedate, calm place. 

Moderator 2: What did they do in the chapter house? 

Pat Bourne: So that was where daily tasks were allotted to the monks. And the reason it's called chapter house is because they would take a reading from the Rule of Saint Benedict. And they would also have daily tasks allotted there, as I said. And punishments would be meted out in there as well. 

Moderator 1: What kind of punishments? Wrapped their knuckles? 

Pat Bourne: Maybe wrapped their knuckles. So that's one of my favourite spaces. The other one, though, is the room inside the visitor centre, the Rose Room. But it's a lovely room now, and we use it for all kinds of events, from mindfulness to inter-faith events, and for our older people's groups, as well as for school workshops as well. But it used to be the toilet block. And if you look up closely, you can see, not a real monk squatting to do his business, but a mock-up of one. And I always think it's just, I don't know if it's my sense of humour, but it's the grandest room in the abbey, but it's also got a very mundane use, original use for it. And it's just a good reminder that we all need to go to the toilet from time to time. So that's a bit bizarre. But no, it's a lovely room. I mean, a lot of the items that were excavated from the abbey are on display there, there's some lovely interpretation in there. It's a very peaceful room. So that's my personal favourite. (talking over each other 15.34). 

I mean, interestingly, it used to be a café as well. So again, it's one of those rooms that has changed over time. As has the abbey, the use of the abbey. 

Moderator 1: What's been excavated? 

Pat Bourne: Yes, so anything, really, from Cistercian ware, and I think some pottery sherds. There's bits of the abbey, basically, and things that were used in the abbey. And obviously, there's been excavations at different times, different parts of the building, so right up to the 19th century and more modern times, and basically rubbish from the Victorian era. Glass bottles, things like that. And you can see some of that on display. It's always been a problem, hasn't it? So yes, it's really interesting to see those out on display. 

Moderator 1: Will we ever be able to excavate more? 

Pat Bourne: I'm sure there'll be future excavations and surveys and things like that going on. Yes. 

Moderator 1: We have photographs in our collection of excavations taking place. So those people then were excavating it, but what they were doing was also historically important to us as an object. That's amazing, isn't it? 

Pat Bourne: Yes, I mean, it is when you think about it. And those people that took part in those excavations, I mean, there were a lot of excavations in the 1950s and 60s. And we think that quite a lot of people did it on a voluntary basis. So obviously, there were the professionals. But alongside those people were the volunteers. And we have tracked down a couple of people who remember coming down and doing the excavations. One lad who was at a local boys' school, and he just used to come down after school with his trowel and do a bit of excavating. So we're hopefully going to talk to him quite soon. And if anybody knows of anybody in those photos, because they are very local photos, then get in touch. Yes, they are out there, I think. 

Moderator 2: I knew you were looking for people, I didn't know that you've found anyone. 

Pat Bourne: Yes, we found a guy. Unfortunately, COVID, things like that, meant we've not got around to interviewing him yet. But he's on my list. To-do list, yes. And there's another chap who remembers, nothing to do with excavating, but remembers the trenches and jumping down into one of the trenches to fetch something that he dropped. So that's all living memory. And as you say, the excavations are important themselves now, as a sort of document, really. 50s and 60s life in Kirkstall. 

Moderator 1: Speaking of 50s and 60s life in Kirkstall, tell us all about it. 

Pat Bourne: I know a few things. I know more than I did 6 months ago. 

Moderator 2: Go on, tell us why. 

Pat Bourne: Because our new community exhibition is called 'Kirkstall Lives'. And we've been chatting to a lot of people about what it means, what it's meant to them, to grow up in Kirkstall. Obviously, the abbey is very important, but there's a huge community around the local area. And we wanted to basically ask people on our doorstep how the area has changed, any stories that they've got to share with us. And that's from the post-war period, really, talking about living memory, to the present day, and what it means to live here today. And we've had a fantastic response. That's come in the form of objects that people have loaned us, lovely photographs of things, well, anything, really, from the Kirkstall Festival, which (TC 00:20:00) has been running for 40 years to the power station being knocked down in the 70s, which seems to have been a really big event. There's lovely stories about people getting covered in dust and then husbands being told to basically clean up before they came in the house, from people who had witnessed the demolition of that. We talked to older people up the road in Hawksworth about their memories of feasts and fairs, and day trips, and pubs and clubs. And about Kirkstall village, and the shops that used to be on commercial road. This is obviously very local. 

Moderator 2: I find it really interesting. So I live in Kirkstall, and this is deeply morbid, but one of my favourite places to go is the graveyard. Because, just walking around and seeing all the name of people on the graves, that's really interesting anyway, but the names are so recognisable to the streets, and names that I've heard through the museum. There's a lot more of a community aspect here than I actually realised before I moved. And the guy who built the houses is buried in the graveyard, and I found him. That's just really cool. There are resources like Leodis that are so amazing for finding out, if you're in Leeds you just type in your street name and you can see loads of photographs of it throughout history. 

Pat Bourne: It's an amazing resource isn't it. I mean, we had a lot of help from these libraries. So one of the main things for our exhibition is ordnance survey maps of Kirkstall. 

Moderator 1: They're so fascinating. 

Pat Bourne: They've got a fantastic amount of ordnance surveys. Out of copyright, I might add, because they have to be 50 years or more. As well as the photos, which I think obviously objects are very important as a museum, that's what we specialise in, but photos are so important for triggering memories. And we have scanned a lot of people's photographs for display. It's a really nice way of interacting with people. Because people don't always keep the big stuff, so it's just one of those things. 

Moderator 2: Some bloke on my street, sorry to keep talking about my street. 

Moderator 1: I mean, you said this podcast was localised, but it's getting really localised, isn't it. 

Pat Bourne: Micro-local. 

Moderator 2: This bloke on my street is called Teddy. He's lived there, on the street, for 80 years. I was talking to him the other day, he remembers it when it was a dirt road. That's mad, isn't it? Imagine living in the same area for 80 years. 

Moderator 1: And we saw him the other day and I was like, 'That man is not over 80, that's incredible.' 

Pat Bourne: We should have interviewed him. 

Moderator 1: Well you still can. 

Pat Bourne: Yes, we still can, yes. 

Moderator 1: I was interested to know what trades came up out of Kirkstall lives, what was popular around here. Because it tends to be quite localised, doesn't it. I know where I live, a lot of the streets are named after the trades, or things people did. Which I think is always really fascinating as well as actual family names. 

Pat Bourne: I think the mega one for Kirkstall has got to be the forge. Kirkstall forge. So many people worked there. We actually did a whole day up at the forge, just interviewing people that worked there, had relatives that worked there. Up until the late 90s at least, it was a massive employer in the area. There's also things like Waide's, the printers. Thomas Waide's the printers. That was quite a big trade as well. As well as little businesses, because Leeds is such a sprawling urban conurbation, but there was what was once upon a time known as Kirkstall village, and there were the local shops with things like Totty's the drapers. People didn't traipse into Leeds, they got their school uniform from Totty's the drapers. Waddington's had a factory down here as well. But people forget, I think in a short space of time, how industrial places have been in relatively recent history, and how quickly their character changes. Obviously there's a lot of retail around now. 

Moderator 1: Still some good pubs, though. 

Pat Bourne: Still some good pubs. We chatted to a few. Kirkstall Bridge, we chatted to West End, we chatted to New George, the landlord there. And people had lots of fond memories of places like The Star and Garter, which isn't there any more. 

Moderator 2: During Covid, The New George had little blackboard outside of it, you know when you could go back into pubs again, had a little blackboard outside of it saying, 'Regulars only.' 

Moderator 1: I love it. 

Moderator 2: And it's literally just 4 blokes that just sit at the bar the whole time. 

Moderator 1: But do you know what, they prop up the bar, don't they? 

Moderator 2: Yes, they really do. 

Moderator 1: Physically, financially, they do it. 

Moderator 2: We've been talking about the industrial side of things, but Kirkstall Abbey is a very important place for nature. And you mentioned earlier that you work with Hyde Park Source. Tell us about that, Pat. 

Pat Bourne: Yes, so I mentioned about the gardening group at Kirkstall Abbey, which is something that we've been doing for about 3 years now. That goes back to the original use of the Abbey. Parts of the Abbey, as far as we know, might have had a botanical garden because of the infirmary where a lot of herbal medicine was used to heal the sick. So that area, around the infirmary, we've now got these lovely raised beds where we do grow herbs, we do grow vegetables as well. And that's in partnership with the lovely organisation called Hyde Park Source. And that's for people's well-being. Mental health and well-being. It's a completely voluntary group, we meet on a Wednesday afternoon, and we tend the beds. The vegetables are there for anybody to pick if they want to, and they also run some beds just above the museum in the walled garden area. And it's one of those lovely partnerships really. It's another way of using the Abbey beyond more formal things like workshops. It's still tying back to the history really nicely of how the monks would have used it. And people get a lot out of it, I think it's fair to say. 

Moderator 2: Less bloodletting though, this time around. 

Pat Bourne: We don't do bloodletting, no. I feel like that should be a sign, 'We don't do bloodletting.' But we've done some nice things like herbal workshops, doing herbal remedies and things like that. And BID, it's a really nice mix of the more formal sort of gardening, weeding, that kind of thing, and then very educational as well. And educational to me, because I must say I'm not very green fingered. So it's been a steep learning curve, but a good one. 

Moderator 1: And what about the big tree? Now Meg's going to make me say this, because I can't say it properly. There's a really big tree but I consistently say it wrong. So it's written down, and is it, 'Gink-go' or 'Jink-go' biloba? 

Pat Bourne: I wish Claire from Hyde Park Source was here now. 

Moderator 2: Just for context, Sara wants you to strut around telling everyone that it was the Ginkgo Balboa. Like it was Rocky's mate. 

Moderator 1: I just got it wrong a few, couple of years, times. 

Moderator 2: It's like the oldest tree in the world or something. It is right? 

Pat Bourne: Really? I don't know. 

Moderator 2: Yes, it's the oldest tree in the world. Not that particular one, but that species of tree. 

Moderator 1: But is there something in that it was thought that that tree would have been there at the time that the monastery was there? I don't know, let's not worry about that. 

Moderator 2: Pat's literally just like, 'Oh God, don't know about trees.' 

Pat Bourne: I should've done my homework. 

Moderator 1: No, don't worry about it. But it is beautiful, and it goes the most incredible colour in the autumn. And all you see is people outside the gates with phones taking photographs of it. And the tree's just like, 'Yeah mate, I'm here, I'm looking beautiful.' 

Moderator 2: I think it's supposed to have medicinal properties, or something. 

Moderator 1: Is it? You know a lot about this tree. 

Moderator 2: Yes, I know more than you, you don't even have to say it. 

Moderator 1: That's alright, I didn't admit to, it's fine. 

Moderator 2: Pat, are there any ghost stories from Kirkstall Abbey? 

Pat Bourne: I don't know of any from the Kirkstall Abbey. 

Moderator 2: Do you know of any from Abbey House Museum? 

Pat Bourne: But, yes. Obviously, Abbey House Museum was part of the Abbey, originally. So the gatehouse. And in the 1930s I think there was reports that made their way all the way to the Daily Mail about ghosts disturbing the occupants of the house at the time. Because it was a museum by the 1930s. But there was a housekeeper who lived here. And I'll just read it out, if that's okay. 

Moderator 2: Go for it, I'm excited. 

Pat Bourne: So this is from the Daily Mail, January 21st 1930. 'The bolted door that opens, shuffling ghost outside a bedroom, woman who treats it as a joke. Between midnight and 2am, someone wearing loose slippers shuffles along the corridor outside the bedroom door. There is the sound of a door being opened and closed, but the door is bolted every night, then the footsteps return. This is a common experience of Mr and Mrs Hadfield, who live at Kirkstall Abbey House, Leeds. But they treat the ghost as a joke. Mrs Hadfield told us, 'Ghosts may walk about as much as they like, so long as they leave things alone. But last Thursday the ghost ventured further, and I heard my bedroom door open and then close quickly again. I jumped out of bed, and went into the corridor, but could see nothing.'' 

Moderator 1: How much do you think they got paid for that story in the Daily Mail? 

Pat Bourne: I've no idea if money was exchanged, who knows. 

Moderator 1: I loved the description of, what did they say, the loose slippers? 

Moderator 2: How do they know they're loose? 

Pat Bourne: It's very specific, isn't it. A bit of creative writing. But yes, there's a lot of interest in this site from a lot of paranormal societies, use us quite a lot. I have to say, speaking personally for myself, I've never seen a ghost. 

Moderator 2: There's still time. 

Pat Bourne: I have scared colleagues with badly positioned mannequins before in darkened rooms. But it's not something I did deliberately. Sounds a bit like a practical joke. 

Moderator 1: This is a thing that actually happens, I think this is like a museum gag. They do this at Temple Newsam, they do it in the cellars, and I screamed once. I was on a public tour and I screamed. And Steve was like, 'Can you not do that please, and disrupt the tour.' 

Pat Bourne: It's an occupational hazard, literally. Ghosts and mannequins, scary mannequins. 

Moderator 2: To be fair, in all of our buildings really. But in here, if I'm ever in one of the back offices at the top, I'm scared that I'm going to get trapped in. Because I'll forget a code, (TC 00:30:00) or a fob, or something to get out, and I'm trapped forever. 

Pat Bourne: We do it deliberately, it's a test. It's like the Crystal Maze, something like that. Not really. I did once get trapped in here, but that's another story. 

Moderator 2: Did you? What happened? 

Pat Bourne: I didn't realise everybody had left for the day. 

Moderator 1: You were so engrossed in your work. 

Pat Bourne: I was so engrossed, because that's how dedicated I am to my work. 

Moderator 1: Yes. So were all the alarms on? Did you set the alarms off? 

Pat Bourne: Yes, I set the alarms off, and ridiculously, the guy who checks the alarms, by complete fluke, he'd been somewhere else very local first. He was in the car park having an ice cream, and just came to the door in about 20 seconds after the alarms went off. 

Moderator 1: He's like, 'What are you doing?' 

Moderator 2: What ice cream was it? From the ice cream van? 

Pat Bourne: I can't remember. From the ice cream van in the car park, yes, I think. But in my distress I failed to note the flavour of ice cream. 

Moderator 2: That would have been my first question. 

Pat Bourne: Very sorry, everybody. 

Moderator 2: Before we get onto our last questions, Pat, I've got 1 last one for you. What is your favourite story from Kirkstall Abbey, generally? Do you have another favourite, not specifically ghostly? 

Pat Bourne: Well it's funny you should say, 'Not specifically ghostly.' Because I do kind of like the macabre. 

Moderator 2: That was a great expression you just pulled. 

Pat Bourne: I mentioned the Chapter House before, and I think generations of schoolchildren, probably not supposed to, but there's stone coffins at the back of the Chapter House, and I think generations of schoolchildren have probably tried to climb in those, and fit themselves. And then when you look round the back, there are actually some coffins in the wall of the Chapter House, and reportedly it's where, I don't know if there's any way of verifying this, it's where some of the old abbots were buried within the walls of the Chapter House. And I know it's not a story, as such, it's more of a fact. But that always slightly creeps me out. And there's nothing in there any more, just to add that, as far as I'm aware. Because they might have been looted for treasure. But I just love facts like that, that really fire the imagination up a little bit. Obviously we've got a lot of the Abbey left, you can see the architecture, but how life was lived there is still one of those slightly intangible things. 

Moderator 2: I think it's funny watching visitors in that room. Because you can see them sometimes, they're going, 'Hang on. Is that- is it- oh it's a coffin, oh God.' And then people are just staring at them. It's really weird, isn't it. 

Pat Bourne: Yes. And obviously it's not disrespectful in any way, because the coffins are empty. But just those customs, and things like that, I find really interesting. 

Moderator 2: Shall we move onto our last questions? Do you have any other questions that you wanted to ask Pat? 

Moderator 1: I could talk about Kirkstall Abbey all day, but I realise none of us are actually archaeologists, so it would just be like, 'Isn't it really good?' I love it. So, no, is the answer. 

Moderator 2: Okay, so Pat, what has been your favourite day at work, ever? It an be anything. 

Pat Bourne: It wasn't getting locked in. I don't know. I have a very recent experience, which was just the opening of the last exhibition. And I know it's kind of cheesy, easy answer. But we invited everybody down who had been involved in this exhibition Kirkstall Lives. And we'd never really done it this way before where we had everybody down across the course of a whole day, as opposed to very traditional private view, speeches, everybody stands up and thanks everybody else, and then you go up, and everybody clogs in a gallery, you can't see anything, and you go home. 'I'll come back when there's less people, thank you very much.' And it was just lovely, I basically just chatted for a day to all the lenders that had made it down. To colleagues about the exhibition. Everybody had as much time as they wanted, ate as much cake and tea as they wanted, and it was a lovely payoff. We talk about community curation a lot, and we talk about it meaning something to the people that help us put the exhibitions on, but actually that was just a really nice, sort of gentle day, to look at what we'd done, to celebrate it. And the fantastic work of the volunteers, because I should have said earlier that the exhibition was curated by 7 wonderful volunteers, and they did a fantastic job. And just to soak that up. And I think sometimes, you know yourselves, it's on to the next thing, on to the next thing, and you don't always get that time to reflect and celebrate what you've done. And I think that's really important. And obviously the feedback from the lenders, and I got chance to speak to them all individually. So that's definitely up there, even though it's very recent, as one of my best days at work. 

Moderator 1: Our final question is twofold. From everything that we've talked about today, what would be a 10 second snippet takeaway for the listeners from your point of view? It can just be, 'Visit Kirkstall Abbey.' 

Pat Bourne: Well, it's on the side of the museum, there's more inside than you might realise. But there's also more ways of interacting with different audiences than you might realise. And we are a living, breathing museum, not just things stuffed in cases. We do try to find different ways to engage people, and bring the museum to life, really. And tell everybody's stories, there's so many stories that are yet to be told. 

Moderator 1: And just to bring it down a notch, what's your actual literal favourite takeaway? 

Pat Bourne: Do you know what, it's probably Indian. 

Moderator 1: What's your order? And which Indian do you go to? 

Pat Bourne: Lamb rogan josh. If I'm feeling a bit flamboyant, probably some bhajis. And maybe a naan, bit of pilau rice. 

Moderator 1: Plain naan? 

Pat Bourne: Sometimes Peshwari, because my wife does like a Peshwari. 

Moderator 2: Do you know what, it's really hard to find someone that likes Peshwari naan. 

Pat Bourne: I was introduced to it by my lady wife. 

Moderator 1: Is that the one with raisins in? 

Moderator 2: Yes mate. 

Moderator 1: No thank you. 

Moderator 2: So delicious. It's like dessert naan. 

Moderator 1: Get it out of my mouth. 

Pat Bourne: Sweet and savoury. It works. 

Moderator 1: Where do you go? 

Pat Bourne: It varies. There's, I think it's Jewel of India, over Guiseley way, something like that. 

Moderator 2: We've not had a lot of Indian. 

Moderator 1: But I would say it's a popular takeaway from a general British takeaway. Good shout. We need to make a list of all of these. 

Pat Bourne: I've just come back from holiday, and I've had so many takeaways in the last week, it's not good, it's not healthy. 

Moderator 2: I get to that point sometimes where I'm like, 'I just need some lettuce, give me some lettuce. A whole big ball of it.' 

Moderator 1: Like an iceberg. 

Pat Bourne: Iceberg lettuce, yes. 

Moderator 1: On that note, Pat, thank you so much for coming to talk to us today. 

Pat Bourne: My pleasure. 

Moderator 2: We've learnt so many things. Hello Sara. Right, what was your best bit from that? 

Moderator 1: That was a really great chat, wasn't it. I really liked talking to Pat, because you can just tell how enthusiastic he is about what he does, which is lovely. But, I was really surprised when said about the Rose Room being his favourite room. 

Moderator 2: Because it's where monks used to do their poos? 

Moderator 1: Because of that, but also because I forget about it, and that's sad, and I have learnt to respect it more now. How about you? 

Moderator 2: I liked his facial expression when he said something about the macabre, and then he pulled a face that I've never seen before, which is really really good. 

Moderator 1: He liked icky things. Fantastic. 

Moderator 2: And then, I selfishly quite liked him telling us about Kirkstall Lives, because I live there. And that's good. And it's nice to know about where you come from. And where you're going to go. 

Moderator 1: Where did you come from? 

Moderator 2: Can't not do that. 

Moderator 1: Oh, yes, and if you want to go and see that exhibition, it is running until the end of the year? Beginning of next year? I think actually it might be March next year. Just check the website, if I'm honest. 

Moderator 2: You can also go to Kirkstall Abbey. 

Moderator 1: Do 2 in 1. 

Moderator 2: Yes. If you're from Leeds, take some form of identification, and you can get in for free. How's about that, kids? 

Moderator 1: Well thanks Alex Finney for our cover artwork, and Tim Benny for our theme tune. 

Moderator 2: And if you had a great time listening to us, if you had a time as good as we did recording, then write us a review, that'd be nice. Or you can rate us on Apple Podcasts. Or you can subscribe, and that's fantastic. You can also get in touch with us, if you want to. And the easiest way to do that is on Twitter, so that's @MuseumMeg, @saralmerritt, and also, @LeedsMuseums. And we actually really do love hearing from you, so if you're listening. Also, if you're listening somewhere that isn't the UK, can you please let us know? Because someone listens to us in Honolulu. I can see it, I can see where you all are. I see you. If you're listening to us somewhere else, can you let us know? Because I need it for my ego. Transcripts on the website, too. If you want to listen to them. 

Moderator 1: You can't, you have to read them. 

Moderator 2: Oh yes, you've got to read them. That's the whole point. There's loads of baby wipes down there, why have we got baby wipes? 

Moderator 1: I don't want to know. 

Moderator 2: What have you got for tea? 

Moderator 1: Oh, excellent question, I don't know. Yesterday I made an asparagus and pea risotto. 

Moderator 2: Fantastic. 

Moderator 1: What about you? 

Moderator 2: I'm going to a service station on the M1 on the way down to Reading, and I'm going to get a Burger King veggie burger. 

Moderator 1: Wow, that's a good shout. 

Moderator 2: So let's wrap this up so I can get on with that. Thank you for listening, hope you've enjoyed it, and we'll see you next time. 

Moderator 1: Have a great day, bye. 

Moderator 2: Bye.