May 29, 2026 · 25 min · 9 segments
Pathology technician Carla Valentine always knew she wanted to work with corpses. In childhood, she conducted funerals for roadkill. These days, she is curator of the Barts Pathology Museum, and a…
Carla ValentineGuest
Olly MannHost
Matt HillHost
[upbeat music] Now, when did you last see a dead person? I walked over about 100 of them yesterday because I took my son to St.
John's Wood Burial Grounds, uh, now helpfully rebranded as a children's playground.
And, uh, if you can just ignore all the old gravestones that are there, they've got a fantastic slide, and [sighs] that's what we do, isn't it, in the modern world, in the developed world? We tend not to deal directly with death, unless, of course, it's your job, and it certainly is for Carla Valentine, curator of the St Barts' Museum of Pathology, where I went to meet her.
Like, you know the way some people want to go into the priesthood or some people want to go into the army or whatever, and I just knew that I wanted to be the person that assisted a pathologist.
And I knew what a pathologist was because I'd seen Quincy, you know, and I'd, I'd seen sort of some things like that, and I knew that they were doctors.
But I never wanted to train as a doctor because I had s- no desire to train for that long, and I had no desire [laughs] to work with live people whatsoever at all.
So for me, I was like, "If only there was a role where I could help the pathologist but just be trained in the death aspects of it." And then as I got older, I discovered that there was one, so it was like I sort of, you know, preempted this, this role before I even knew it existed.
[laughs] But I had friends, you know, and friends of mine would help me bury animals, and we'd have little funerals for them, and that isn't something exclusive to people like me who are interested in death as a career.
It's actually something to do with children and their sudden understanding of mortality.
They're just left on the side of the road, and we should do something for them," and so we did what we saw on TV.
And for me, with my, the fact that, you know, I was obviously born with a, a strong stomach, I was obviously born very willing to take on challenges, very astute and wanting to solve puzzles, obviously cared about the dignity of people who died, for me, that just gave me a purpose.
[upbeat music] Now, when did you last see a dead person? I walked over about 100 of them yesterday because I took my son to St.
John's Wood Burial Grounds, uh, now helpfully rebranded as a children's playground.
And, uh, if you can just ignore all the old gravestones that are there, they've got a fantastic slide, and [sighs] that's what we do, isn't it, in the modern world, in the developed world? We tend not to deal directly with death, unless, of course, it's your job, and it certainly is for Carla Valentine, curator of the St Barts' Museum of Pathology, where I went to meet her.
Like, you know the way some people want to go into the priesthood or some people want to go into the army or whatever, and I just knew that I wanted to be the person that assisted a pathologist.
And I knew what a pathologist was because I'd seen Quincy, you know, and I'd, I'd seen sort of some things like that, and I knew that they were doctors.
But I never wanted to train as a doctor because I had s- no desire to train for that long, and I had no desire [laughs] to work with live people whatsoever at all.
So for me, I was like, "If only there was a role where I could help the pathologist but just be trained in the death aspects of it." And then as I got older, I discovered that there was one, so it was like I sort of, you know, preempted this, this role before I even knew it existed.
[laughs] But I had friends, you know, and friends of mine would help me bury animals, and we'd have little funerals for them, and that isn't something exclusive to people like me who are interested in death as a career.
It's actually something to do with children and their sudden understanding of mortality.
They're just left on the side of the road, and we should do something for them," and so we did what we saw on TV.
And for me, with my, the fact that, you know, I was obviously born with a, a strong stomach, I was obviously born very willing to take on challenges, very astute and wanting to solve puzzles, obviously cared about the dignity of people who died, for me, that just gave me a purpose.
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