Chalke Talk

The podcast from the Chalke Valley History Festival
Released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings

Latest releases

  • 140. HOW RUSKIN SHAPES OUR WORLD
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    John Ruskin was the best-known and most controversial intellectual of the Victorian Age. He was an art critic, a social activist, an early environmentalist; he was also a painter, writer, and a determined tastemaker in the fields of architecture and design. In the bicentenary of his birth, Andrew Hill shows how Ruskin’s radical ideas are […]

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  • 139. SPIES AND SECRET AGENTS: IN FICTION AND REAL LIFE
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    Charlie Higson is the best-selling author of the Young Bond series of novels, and Ben Macintyre the author of a number of best-selling books about real spies of World War II and the Cold War. Here they come together with spy novelist Charlie Cumming to discuss secret agents, real and imaginary, in a highly entertaining […]

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  • 137. THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE: THE GREATEST SIEGE IN HISTORY
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    In 1453 the hordes of Islam are at the walls of Constantinople. The fate of all Europe hangs on a heroic garrison who’d answered the call of the last Roman Emperor. Would their courage be enough? James Heneage tells the story of the most thrilling siege in history and explains why catastrophe in 1453 turned […]

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  • 136. TROY STORY
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    Star of BBC Radio 4, Natalie Haynes brings her unique combination of ancient history and stand-up comedy to the story of the Trojan War. The women whose lives the war affected largely remained in the shadows, from the Amazon warrior, Penthesilea, to the priestess who foresaw the war, Cassandra. These women will be returned to […]

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  • 135. THE SHORTEST HISTORY OF GERMANY
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    What is it about Germany? Lying at the heart of Europe, the story of the German peoples is an epic one of empires, wars and an extraordinarily rich culture. Internationally best-selling writer James Hawes gives a thrilling ride through German history from Julius Caesar to Angela Merkel and answers the eternal question: are the Germans really us, or them?

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  • 134. CATASTROPHE: EUROPE GOES TO WAR, 1914
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    Journalist, editor and acclaimed author Sir Max Hastings tells the story of how Europe went to war in 1914 precipitating the first of the twentieth century’s great tragedies. He challenges the view of some modern historians that British participation was unnecessary and concludes with the Christmas truces when the struggle had lapsed into the stalemate […]

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  • 133. ALONG THE LINE: A LIFE IN ARCHAEOLOGY
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    Phil Harding is one of Britain’s best-loved and known archaeologists – a stalwart of the hugely successful Time Team and a man with a long and celebrated career. Here he reviews his own archaeological path and place it within developments as archaeology has become an accepted profession in its own right.

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  • 131. DUNKIRK VETERAN
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    Here the remarkable 101-year-old John Hamilton discusses his extraordinarily varied military career with Major General Andrew Cumming. Over the course of 25 years, he was evacuated from Dunkirk, worked as an instructor at the Recce Corps Training Centre in Catterick, took the German surrender in Norway, commanded the A Squadron of the King’s Dragoon Guards […]

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  • 130. MAN OF IRON: THOMAS TELFORD AND THE BUILDING OF BRITAIN
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    Thomas Telford was a shepherd boy who changed the world with his revolutionary engineering and whose genius we still benefit from today. Julian Glover’s original portrait of the great engineer covers decades of gloriously obsessive, prodigiously productive energy, building churches, canals, bridges and the backbone of our national road network.

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  • 129. THE BRITISH IN INDIA: THREE CENTURIES OF AMBITION AND EXPERIENCE
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    Distinguished historian David Gilmour traces the lives of hitherto unknown British men and women in India. They include soldiers, officials, businessmen, doctors and missionaries, planters and engineers, together with children, wives and sisters. He describes their work and their extraordinarily varied interactions with the native populations, painting a highly original portrait of three centuries of […]

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