Nelson's Caribbean Hellhole

[anteros_lmc]

More naval telly on BBC AoS...this time it's Nelson's Caribbean Hellhole: An eighteenth century graveyard uncovered. Nelson's Caribbean Hellhole?! *sigh* Anyway, blurb below.

Human bones found on an idyllic beach in Antigua trigger an investigation by naval historian Sam Willis into one of the darkest chapters of Britain's imperial past. As archaeologists excavate a mass grave of British sailors, Willis explores Antigua's ruins and discovers how the sugar islands of the Caribbean were a kind of hell in the age of Nelson.

Sun, sea, war, tropical diseases and poisoned rum.

The programme is on tomorrow night on BBC4 at 21.00 and presumably will appear on the iPlayer shortly after.

Comments

[esmerelda-t.livejournal.com]

Are you sure it's not a holiday programme where the hotel doesn't change the towels every day?

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Kinda sounds a bit like that doesn't it?

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I cannot watch it from here. I am interested in what they find though. I look forward to your review. It usually just turns out to be: 'OMG he had arthritis and bad teeth!' (quel suprise, right?)

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Actually it wasn't too bad. There were a few instances of over dramatically stating the blindingly obvious but there was enough proper archaeology to keep it interesting. They were investigating a burial site revealed by hurricane damage at the head of English Harbour and also trying to establish why the death rate among Europeans was so much higher in Antigua than in other the Caribbean Islands. Apparently it was poisonous rum and a particularly virulent strain of yellow fever wot dun it.

Funnily enough I had never come across poisonous "new rum" (the first crude distillation form the still) before but it cropped up in a book I'm reading just the other day. Apparently the Governor of St Lucia requested permission to move the garrison to the north end of the island because so many of them were dying from new rum poisoning Morne. It must have been nasty stuff if is was capable of killing sailors who probably had rum in their veins to start with.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

It's worth a watch if you get a chance. Despite the title, it's not a bad programme.

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

That's coz you iz a girlie. Ew.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Sadly I think you may be right.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

I'm recording it right now, while watching Scott and Bailey.