Helen Castor on Richard II
Today's great life is possibly more famous as a Shakespearean character - King Richard II who was deposed by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke in 1399. He's been chosen by historian Helen Castor, author of...
15 Sep 202527min
DJ Deb Grant on John Prine
DJ Deb Grant picks US mailman turned country-folk singer John Prine, whose beautiful songs captured the world in which he lived. Bob Harris, who first met him on the Old Grey Whistle Test, adds to th...
8 Sep 202526min
Sir Seretse Khama, first president of Botswana
Seretse Khama was born in 1921 in Bechuanaland when it was still a British Protectorate. In 1966 he became Botswana's first president. In between he married a white Londoner, Ruth Williamson, was exil...
30 Juni 202527min
Emily Williamson, co-founder of the RSPB
For over a hundred years no one thought too much about the origins of the RSPB, but among its founders was a woman in Didsbury opposed to the use of feathers in fashionable hats. Emily Williamson was ...
23 Juni 202527min
Tina Turner
Rock Icon Tina Turner proposed by the actress and author Rebecca Humphries. Tina Turner began life as Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee, joining Ike Turner's band in St Louis at the age of 17. H...
16 Juni 202527min
Raymond Blanc on Professor Nicholas Kurti
The chef Raymond Blanc nominates his mentor and friend, the physicist Professor Nicholas Kurti. Kurti was born in Hungary but fled to Oxford when Hitler came to power. Pushing the frontiers of low-tem...
9 Juni 202527min
Dervla Murphy, author of the classic Full Tilt
At the age of 10 Dervla Murphy was given an atlas and a bicycle, and so began an adventurous life. Her account of a journey to India became a classic called Full Tilt but she also went to Cuba, Ethiop...
2 Juni 202527min
Ned Ludd mythical leader of the Luddites
We don't even know if Ned Ludd was real, but perhaps that was the point. "You could say he was everyone and no one - and that's what made him so terrifying for the authorities." Leader of the Luddites...
26 Maj 202527min
