"Three, Two, one, detonation..." a Royal Navy nuclear test veteran remembers (224)
The British Nuclear Test Veterans Association (BNTVA) is the Charity for UK Nuclear Veterans and last year they very kindly invited me to the annual conference. I met many veterans including Peter Lam...
26 Feb 202247min
The Stasi Poetry Circle (223)
In 1982 the East German Ministry for State Security is hunting for creative new weapons in the war against the class enemy – and their solution is stranger than fiction. Rather than guns, tanks, or bo...
19 Feb 20221h 7min
The start of the Cuban revolution & the launch of Apollo 8 (222)
The phrase “history is human” was coined by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian David McCullough. He says “History is about life. It isn't just about dates and quotations from obscure...
16 Feb 202235min
Cold War British Army fighting tactics in West Germany (221)
Frank Baldwin was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1979 and served for ten years, rising to the rank of Major. The first battlefield study he planned was in 1989 for HQ 4th Armoured Division. ...
12 Feb 20221h 5min
The West Berlin village surrounded by the Berlin Wall (220)
When the Cold War split Berlin in half, between East and West, one neighbourhood was trapped in the middle and became a symbol of Cold War tensions. For more than twenty years, the hamlet of Steinstü...
5 Feb 20221h 11min
Tales of a West German football fan in the Soviet bloc (219)
You will remember Karl-Heinz from our episode 218 where he talked about being a signaller on the West German destroyer "Hamburg" in the late 70s. Today we follow his post navy life as a travelling su...
29 Jan 202237min
Serving on the West German destroyer "Hamburg" (218)
Karl-Heinz served in the Bundesmarine as a Signalman on the West German destroyer "Hamburg" in the late 70s. He talks of his training, his role and shares details of manoeuvres in the North Sea and B...
22 Jan 202236min
The CIA director responsible for creating spy devices (217)
After service in the US Army during the Vietnam War Bob Wallace was recruited into the CIA. In the CIA his initial assignments were as a field case officer. He rose through the ranks at the agency an...
15 Jan 20221h 7min
