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Grim & Mild Presents

Bedside Manners 8: Heartwrench

Grim & Mild Presents

iHeartPodcasts and Grim & Mild

History, Society & Culture

4.8821 Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Poets have been writing about the madness of love for thousands of years. We love to be in it; we hate to be without it. But what if this wasn’t just hyperbole, and there is something indeed bigger happening to a brain in love? Where does love and madness meet? And, perhaps, where does one end, and another begin? 



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Transcript

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0:00.0

Richard Renison returned home from a funeral only to find no less than eight anxious young

0:10.1

couples waiting to see him. Many had ventured the short mile over a newly constructed toll road

0:15.9

between England and Scotland, gunning for the tiny town of Gretna Green as their final destination.

0:22.4

They had all heard about him. In fact, Richard was somewhat famous, a gregarious, tall-tail

0:28.0

teller and yarn spinner who had been at his post for decades. He moved here to do an important

0:33.2

job, and a pretty infamous one at that. Richard came to Gretna Green, Scotland, in 1936, after hearing

0:40.3

about a very special job vacancy. A saddler by trade, he took up a post as the town's resident

0:46.0

Anvil Priest, a title and distinction entirely specific to this small slice of the world.

0:52.3

All of these young couples were here to get married, and Richard was going to be the one

0:56.6

to officiate.

0:57.7

They had traveled over the border to see him, many of them in secret, and many quickly.

1:03.3

This was often the nature of his work.

1:05.8

To many, he was a hero.

1:07.1

To others, he and those who came before him were a walking-talking loophole that defied the

1:12.0

sanctity of marriage and was a thorn in the Church of England's side. The Marriage Duty Act

1:17.2

1695 put a stop to the marriages of small parish churches that were conducted by local clergy

1:23.1

without the proper marriage licensing. A legal loophole was found, though, and the clergy,

1:28.5

or those who said they were clergy, realized they couldn't be prosecuted for shotgun weddings

1:33.9

should they take place on the grounds of fleet prison. And over the years, these amounted to the

1:39.8

thousands. A whole cottage industry popped up, and the church became horrified at the potential erosion

1:46.1

of personal morals and the country's social fabric.

1:49.6

These marriages often were without licenses or public announcements, performed under the

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