Given all four Pepys Mysteries to date take place during, or in the immediate aftermath of the Great Fire of London, it’s been remiss of me not to post an image of this devastating conflagration.

And I’m yet to do so, since this woodcut illustration dates from 1612, at Tiverton in Devon, not far down the A30 from me. But it shows 17th century firefighting methods, which were necessarily basic. Far left, you see two chaps up a ladder – a wooden ladder, next to the flames – tipping buckets of water. There’s someone lowering another from a window. There’s a man with raised arms, cajoling someone on the second floor to jump – which would seem reasonable, were the illustrator’s proportions not wildly off. Three men are seen using firehooks, which look like grappling hooks here, to demolish the building, so depriving the fire of fuel (since the houses were wooden).

Most tellingly, at the head of a queue of people (far right) doing absolutely b*gger all to help douse the flames, is a holy man praying.

Be grateful you live in the 21st century.