Andrew Hunter-Murray

It was a huge thing.

Which bit of planes?

First World War, big user of whale oil.

So British soldiers would rub their feet with whale oil

because it helped probably helped with things like trench foot yeah yeah so a single battalion which is about a thousand men would get through 10 gallons a day of whale oil and it was used to make nitroglycerin it was used for soap you would smear your face with whale grease basically if we didn't have whale oil the first world war might not have happened so it's the whale's fault really

They're incredible.

They're incredible animals, sperm whales.

They're really fantastic.

Okay.

I'm still thinking about a mince pie, though.

But my mince pies contain whale meat.

Yeah.

Oh, is it for mincing up a whale?

That's what I mean about it being a good news story.

A century ago, this was just completely par for the course.

Loads and loads of people just worked in the business of killing whales and chopping them up.

Have you heard of waken?

Have a punt.

Is it woke bacon?

That sounds woken.