'Mad'' Jack Mytton, hailed from a long line of Shropshire squires stretching back more than 500 years. When his father died, at the age of two, he inherited his family estate, including Halston Hall and an annual income equivalent to over £1.7 million.

Raised by his “amiably weak and indulgent” widowed mother, Mytton’s education was entrusted to his rather ineffectual uncle, William Owen. Though they spent most of their time hunting and sleeping with horses.

Expelled from prestigious public schools like Westminster and Harrow, Mytton very nearly attended Trinity College, Cambridge, on the understanding that he would never read anything more taxing than The Racing Calendar.

Finally, though, Mytton threw over these ‘studies’ to embark on a Grand Tour of Europe, leaving behind the 2,000 bottles of vintage port he’d sent up to his suite of rooms in preparation.

In 1816, Mytton joined the army. Where he spent most of his time stationed in France, drinking and gambling. But, just before his 21st birthday, he resigned his commission and returned to England. Whereupon, he inherited a further fortune of £60,000 and estates worth £18,000 a year.

As a proper grown-up – with an alcohol problem and everything – he naturally wanted to become a parliamentarian. Though his daily intake of vintage port (and bottles of Eau de Cologne) might have made him seem a bit over-qualified.  

Mytton won his seat in parliament by ambling about his constituency wearing a flamboyant coat festooned with £10 notes – and giving them out to anyone offering him support. After spending a cool £10,000 on his electioneering, he became MP for Shrewsbury. And, having been sworn into the job, never went anywhere near Westminster again.

However, his reputation as a daredevil sportsman grew – with his name becoming synonymous with stupid recklessness. He was known for endurance hunting (performed naked and in snow), shooting rats on ice skates, and getting into high-speed traffic collisions.

When he wasn’t riding around on the back of a bear, dressing as a highwayman to terrify local clergymen, losing money out of carriage windows, and getting into fights with burly Shropshire miners, he was generally worrying the livestock.

Finally, he fled to France to escape his creditors, where he set himself on fire to curb a particularly annoying bout of hiccups.

Mytton ended up in a debtors’ prison in London, described as a “drivelling sot”. He passed away at the age of 38 – remembered for his generosity and fun-loving nature. Impressively, he managed to squander a fortune equivalent to about £20 million in today’s money, mostly on booze.  

This is a bonus episode made especially for Patreon subscriber – and all-round good egg – Lisa Highton.

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William Buckland was born in Axminster in 1784, only a few miles away from the fossil-rich coasts of Dorset and East Devon.

Buckland was elected to the Royal Society in 1818, and the same year managed to convince the Prince Regent to endow an additional Readership upon him. This time, in what he termed ‘undergroundology’ – later renamed ‘geology’. He was the first holder of the new appointment.

To make his lectures more interesting, Buckland brought in his adopted pet bear, Tiglath Pileser to prowl about the stage whilst he talked, dressed in a cap and gown. And performed some questionable bird impressions.

As the first Professor of Geology at Oxford University, Buckland spent a considerable amount of time digging around in mud and sand – and was, consequently, responsible for excavating the world’s first recorded dinosaur fossil. Though the term ‘dinosaur’ had yet to be coined, in 1824 Buckland published a monograph entitled Notice on the Megalosaurus or Great Fossil Lizard of Stonesfield.

Sunday lunch at the Buckland household comprised of some very odd dishes indeed – ranging from exotic meats shipped from abroad to things he and his son dug up in the garden. Meals comprised of such tasty treats as panther, rhino, elephant trunk, earwigs, slugs, and…erm, puppies. Mice on toast was a favoured amuse-bouche in the household. Buckland said later that he thought that mole was the most unpleasant thing he’d ever tasted – until, that was, he sampled stewed bluebottles.

During a dinner at his friend Lord Harcourt’s house, the guests were treated to an intimate viewing of the strange object – the mummified heart of the late French King Louis XIV. In what seems to have been the work of a moment, as the object came into his grasp, Buckland remarked: “I have eaten many strange things, but I have never eaten the heart of a king before.” And with that, he snapped the box open, grabbed the heart, and swallowed it whole.

This is a bonus episode made especially for my Patreon master – and brother with the same mother – Gaston Fulano.

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Donald Sinclair was the unwitting inspiration for Basil Fawlty – the irascible protagonist of the hugely-successful BBC comedy series Fawlty Towers.

Before the Second World War rolled around, Sinclair was an officer in the Royal Naval Reserve. Consequently, in 1939, he was called up for military service. His naval career was dramatic – and he was torpedoed several times. Which probably didn’t do much for his mood.

In April 1946, Sinclair, now a salty old sea dog with a well-earned reputation as a disciplinarian, returned to Blighty. Having achieved the rank of Lieutenant Commander; as an officer with his own bagman, he was used to giving orders – and having them carried out to the letter.

Arriving in Torquay, his wife Beatrice somehow persuaded him to give up his Naval career in favour of the safer option of running the hotel she’d just bought. Though he grudgingly agreed, he was not a man well-suited to the service industry.

Sinclair managed the Gleneagles with only the very keenest reluctance, treating anyone checking in as a source of considerable irritation. Marching about the hotel, swathed in his dressing gown, he would angrily berate guests – and interpret any interaction with them as the most unforgivable imposition.

In May 1970, the comedy troupe of the BBC sketch show Monty Python’s Flying Circus were filming for their upcoming TV series in the nearby town of Paignton – and, by chance, found themselves booked into the Gleneagles.

John Cleese became instantly fascinated by the hotel manager, describing him later as ‘the most wonderfully rude man I had ever met.’

Though the rest of the Pythons soon relocated to the Imperial Hotel, Cleese decided to stay on – and even sent for his wife Connie Booth to join him – and the pair set about observing Sinclair and gathering material that would later be used to create Cleese’s most enduring comedy creation, Basil Fawlty.  

This is a special bonus episode made especially for my Patreon – and sometimes Film Crowd – bestie, Mark Vent. Long may he prevail.

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