Extraordinary Stories of Britain

Women and Writing – Their Words Made History

Seven women who changed English literature.   An anchorite who spent 30 years in one room, and became the “mother of English prose”.   A passionate pilgrim known as the first female autobiographer,  two women who can both claim to have written the first-ever science fiction novel, an enslaved woman who was sold four times, and the only female journalist on the WW1 trenches.

History of Men‘s Fashion - Part 1. From the Codpiece to the Three Piece

Hear the story of British fashion,  eight hundred years of menswear -  from medieval to today.  Why did priests try to ban the button?  Why did King Edward IV outlaw pointy shoes?  Hear the saucy story of King Henry VIII’s codpiece.  Discover the origins of the word “bigwig”.  Hear about the rise and fall of the man who invented the suit.   And find out about the most famous menswear street in Britain:   Savile Row  - which has tailored David Beckham, the Beatles and Elton John,  and stitched Michael Jackson’s famous military jacket.  All this,  in part one of our men’s fashion podcast.

Women in Science - How They Changed the World

Women in Science.   Seven stories of women determined to bring their discoveries to the world.    Hear about a pioneering fossil hunter who left us with a famous tongue twister, and the creator of the world’s first computer programme.    Find out about a nurse who stopped hospitals from killing their patients,  and the inventor who saved thousands of soldiers from gas poisoning.   Hear how a brilliant chemist was robbed of a Nobel prize by her colleagues, and listen to the story of Britain’s first,  and only,  female Nobel winner. 

Sick Notes - A History of Gory Medicine

Why are hundreds of skeletons hidden under a London market?   Which disease was cured by frogs? Where can you find the skeleton of an “Irish Giant”?  Why did the Queen's doctor prescribe rooster testicles?   Was there a 17th century inoculation for smallpox?  What was the Soho plague?

Women and War - Stories of Women in Conflict

Which British warrior queen decapitated Nero?    Why did Elizabeth I meet an Irish piratess?   How did England’s 17th century female spy escape from Holland?    Why did Margaret Bulky become a man?  Did a Hindu queen defeat the British army?    Who were the suffragitsus?   Hear the tragic story of the special-ops agent who won the George Cross.

Talking Heads - What Happened to Executed Heads

Discover the gruesome truth about Anglo-Saxon border markers  Find out who was sewn back together after their execution  What happened when a York gladiator was bitten by a lion?   Which Elizabethan courtier’s body part ended up in a cupboard? What terrible sight greeted people entering the City of London?      What horror washed up in the River Thames in Barnes?    Half an hour of extraordinary stories about heads without bodies.