Lost & Unusual Jobs Quiz

Answer: A long pole, or a pea-shooter. Until around the 1920s, in Britain's industrial towns, these human alarm clocks went round before dawn tapping on windows. They only moved on once sure the customer was up. Cheap mechanical alarm clocks made them disappear.

Answer: In the National Assembly and the Senate, for the official verbatim record of debates. Debate reporters take turns in the chamber for a few minutes at a time to note every speech, then write it up. Despite audio recording, their work remains the official record. Shorthand lets them keep pace with speech using abbreviated signs.

Answer: The spindle and the distaff. The distaff held the mass of fibres, and the weighted spindle turned to twist the thread. This motion, practised for thousands of years, gave English the term 'distaff side' for the female line of a family. The spinning wheel, then mechanical mills, sped up production.

Answer: By carrying heavy sacks on his back, or emptying them through a chute from the street. His face and clothes blackened with dust, he often carried 50 kg sacks. Many Paris coal merchants came from the Auvergne and also ran cafés, the 'bougnats'. Oil, gas and electric heating made the trade disappear.

Answer: Each was responsible for a stretch of road called a 'canton'. Created in the 18th century, the job involved filling potholes, clearing ditches and breaking stones to surface the road along a few allotted kilometres. Little roadmen's cottages still line some French roads. Highway workers have taken over.

Answer: About 20 to 30. The best went well beyond this pace in competitions. Operators could often recognise a colleague by his 'fist', his personal way of keying. In wartime this signature was even used to identify an enemy operator or spot an impostor.

Answer: Frederic Tudor's ice trade, earning him the nickname 'Ice King'. In winter, workers sawed blocks from frozen lakes and stored them under sawdust. Insulated this way in the holds, they crossed oceans without melting completely. Tudor, mocked at first, made a fortune. Refrigeration ended the trade in the early 20th century.

Answer: The law required it, because of the smell. They climbed down into the pits to shovel out the excrement, then carted it out of town. They had to live apart and could only move about after dark. A thankless and dangerous job, it was nonetheless fairly well paid.

Answer: As it cooled, the iron shrank and clamped all the wheel's parts tightly. Heated red-hot, the tyre expanded just enough to slip around the wheel. It was immediately doused with water: as it shrank, it squeezed hub, spokes and rim into a very strong whole. This spectacular operation often needed several men.

Answer: Isolation, storms and relief made impossible for weeks made life very hard. Keepers spoke of 'paradises', lighthouses on land, 'purgatories', on an inhabited island, and 'hells', on an isolated rock such as Ar-Men or La Jument. Swells sometimes kept keepers stranded well beyond their shift. The last staffed French offshore lighthouse was automated in 2019.