Short – Boots on the Ground
‘Boots on the ground’: it rolls off the tongue all too easily. But America – and Australia – learned that in Vietnam they didn’t have boots on the ground. They had them in a quagmire. The first Austra...
26 Maalis 33min
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Seven: All Disquiet After the Western Front
Beyond the propaganda about glory, duty and sacrifice, the aftermath of the Great War ushers in a grave new world for my great-grandmother Emma Murtough and her three children. To escape and have a ne...
24 Maalis 43min
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Six: Somewhere in France
My great-grandfather Peter Murtough arrives on the Western Front in August 1915. He is soon plunged into some of the most horrific battles of the Great War. Casualty rates soar in his battalion. Some ...
22 Maalis 41min
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Five: It’s A Long Way to Tipperary
Celebrated high diver Peter Murtough takes the plunge when he marries Emma Hanbury – my colourful great-grandmother. But being a husband and father to three young children doesn't stop him from taking...
20 Maalis 38min
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Four: Nightmare in South Africa
After the patriotic fervour that sends Peter Murtough to South Africa, he and hundreds of thousands of soldiers discover the reality of the Boer War is hunger, thirst, filth and sudden bursts of deadl...
18 Maalis 58min
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Three: Diving & Dicing With Death
In July 1898, my great-grandfather Peter Murtough competes for the title of best diver in the world. But seeking more than the thrills of the life aquatic, he ratchets up the risks to himself – and fu...
15 Maalis 50min
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Two: From Waterloo to the Waters of Life
Having fought the French and beaten the odds, Bernard Murtough’s family goes on to prominence in peacetime, establishing themselves and their mineral water business in Portsea. While raised a child of...
12 Maalis 44min
New miniseries: Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part One: War, Peace & Plague
I recently discovered that my great-grandfather was a champion diver who was active in the very same London scene as the doomed stuntmen who featured in my recent miniseries Death-Defying Death Divers...
9 Maalis 47min
