Thank you for downloading the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service.

In 1964, Britain stopped using the death penalty. In this programme, Alex Last will use

recordings from the BBC archive to tell the story of Albert Peer Point, Britain's most

famous executioner.

Albert Peer Point was when a Britain's main executioners in the 1940s and 50s when

hanging were still the sentence for murder. It was something of a family profession, both

his father and uncle had been on the official list of executioners. Albert was born in Yorkshire

in 1905 and from a young age he wanted to follow in their footsteps.

And one day at school this was a notice field. I would teach you. He asked all the class to do an essay.

Now I can see all the boys getting down, writing the essay and I didn't know what to speak about.

So all of a sudden I got the notion I'd like to be an executioner and I wrote when I

leave school I get old enough I would like to be an executioner. Why I have to clue. I didn't

tell an executioner what job it was. But I knew my father had been an execution so I

wanted to be an executioner. In 1932 Peer Point fulfilled his childhood ambition and after an

interview in a brief training course he joined the official list of executioners as an assistant.

By its nature being a hangman was part-time work and the home office like to do things on the

cheap so he was only paid by the job. So for the most part Peer Point worked as a grocer

before he took on the job of running a pub. He was very discreet about his other work. He didn't

tell his wife she worked it out. In 1941 he carried out his first hanging as the lead executioner

and it became clear that Albert Peer Point was exceptionally good at his job. He was calm,

kind and very quick. We had to arrive at the present at 4pm in the afternoon and then when you

see the governor and have a word of them after that we go and make arrangements for the morning,

...