Anglotopia Podcast | Discussing UK British Travel, History, Culture, London, British Slang, and More!

In October 2013, a young Dane named Thor Pedersen set off from his home with a single, slightly mad rule: he wanted to visit every country on earth — all of them — in one continuous journey, and to do it without ever once setting foot on an airplane. Container ships, trains, buses, and a great deal of waiting around. He thought it might take three or four years. It took almost ten. He crossed closed borders and war zones, ran out of money more than once, was stranded for two years by the global pandemic, and served the whole time as a Goodwill Ambassador for the Red Cross. In 2023 he became the first person in history to do it. In this episode, Jonathan Thomas talks to Thor about the whole extraordinary decade — and, this being the Anglotopia Podcast, spends a good while on Britain, which came remarkably early in the itinerary. Thor recounts crossing from Calais to Dover after meeting Syrian refugees at the port, being awestruck by Bristol's maritime heritage, a memorable host in Wales whose front garden contained a toilet lying on its side, a Red Cross officer in Belfast who felt like the James Bond of the Red Cross, falling for the Scottish countryside, buying dodgy Les Misérables tickets in London, a desperate dash for seasickness pills in Immingham, and Hogmanay in Inverness courtesy of a kind bartender. But the deeper story is the one Thor tells in an unusual way: he doesn't sell it as a triumph. He's honest about the loneliness, the setbacks, the cerebral malaria, the migraines, the moments at gunpoint, the two years stuck in Hong Kong — and about the thing that actually got him around the world, which turned out not to be toughness at all, but the kindness of strangers. Links The Book The Impossible Journey — Amazon US The Impossible Journey — Amazon UK The Impossible Journey — Waterstones The Impossible Journey — Barnes & Noble The Impossible Journey — Hachette Australia ⠀ Published by Robinson. ISBN 9781472149763 (hardback) / 9781472149770 (paperback). Thor Pedersen Thor Pedersen — Official Website The Impossible Journey — Thor's Site Once Upon A Saga — The Original Project Blog Thor Pedersen on Instagram Thor Pedersen on Facebook Speaking Engagements & Talks ⠀ Mentioned in the Episode The Danish Red Cross International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) British Red Cross The Adventurers' Club of Denmark The Explorers Club, New York Hong Kong Tourism Board The Danish Seamen's Church, Hong Kong The California Zephyr — Amtrak ⠀ Anglotopia Friends of Anglotopia Club ⠀ Takeaways 1 The idea arrived by email. Thor's father sent him a link about the world's most-travelled people, and Thor — then 34, twelve years into a career in shipping and logistics, and having visited around 50 countries — discovered that roughly 200 people had reached every country, but nobody had done it entirely without flying. He describes it striking him "like lightning." 2 His definition of "every country" was deliberately generous. The UN recognizes 193 sovereign states plus two observer states (the Vatican and Palestine). Thor built on that, splitting the Danish kingdom into Denmark, the Faroes and Greenland, and splitting the UK into England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland — arriving at 203 — precisely so nobody could come back afterward and say "but what about Kosovo?" 3 Britain came very early — country numbers seven through ten, in late 2013, just weeks after leaving Denmark. He crossed Calais to Dover after meeting Syrian refugees camped by the rail tracks, was refused as a foot passenger, and got across by knocking on car windows until a driver calling himself Rambling Rat let him ride along. 4 Travelling only overland and by sea teaches you something you cannot learn from an airplane: how enormous the world actually is, and how gradually it changes. Thor points out that at borders, people wear the same clothes, eat the same food, often share a language — and the plants and animals don't care which side they're on. The real changes happen further inland. 5 He became a Red Cross Goodwill Ambassador early on, which transformed the project. Within weeks he realized it wasn't a country project but a people project. Meeting national Red Cross societies gave him rapid, genuine insight into each country — its economy, its government, whether it was a strong or weak society — and gave balance to a social media feed that otherwise risked being relentlessly, artificially upbeat. 6 Two years in, in Central Africa, everything collapsed at once: he lost financial backing, his long-distance relationship was falling apart, he was recovering from cerebral malaria, he was suffering debilitating migraines for the first time in his life, and his life was at risk more than once. It was the point at which he genuinely broke — and the point at which he first wanted to go home. He still had eight years left. 7 The pandemic stranded him in Hong Kong for two years. He'd arrived expecting a four-day transit stop. Immigration eventually told him he couldn't stay indefinitely as a visitor and offered three options: marry someone, study, or work. He ended up employed by the Danish Seamen's Church as "junior assistant to a reverend who wasn't there," shopping for seafarers trapped aboard their ships and unable to come ashore. 8 Hong Kong was both the worst and best chapter. CNN picked up his story, which went viral and transformed his profile. The Hong Kong Tourism Board nicknamed him "Hong Kong's only tourist." By the end he had two apartments, two cars, a driver's licence, a temporary ID card and a dentist. It remains the place in the world he misses most. 9 He felt no joy at all on reaching the final countries. Sri Lanka, then the Maldives on 23 May 2023 — everything had become "automated and mechanic," and he was working through interviews while everyone else scuba dived and drank martinis. The project was successful in the Maldives, but it was completed when he got home to Aarhus, 31 days later by container ship — 40 container ships in total across the decade. 10 Thor's strongest observation about travel is that most of the world is deeply ordinary. People go to work, go to school, spend time with family, follow their sports teams. He travelled through the Game of Thrones years and found everyone everywhere talking about it. He saw a boy in Libya spinning a Captain America shield fidget spinner. We are, he argues, far more connected than we think. ⠀ Soundbites 1 "I found out no one had accomplished it completely without flying. For most people that would be an uh-huh kind of moment, and then people would move on. But it struck me like lightning." — Thor on the email from his father that started everything. 2 "There's a common phrase where people say it's a small world. It really isn't. If it was a small world, I think I would have been back home a lot sooner." — Thor on what a decade overland teaches you. 3 "Around most border areas, people wear the same clothes. You get the same food on either side. The plants and the animals in the area do not care which side of the border they're on." — Thor on seeing where countries actually meet. 4 "Within weeks I realized that this wasn't a country project, that this was a people project." — Thor on the shift that changed everything. 5 "I was in Central Africa and I was deep in over my head. I lost financial backing. My long-distance relationship was falling apart. I was recovering from cerebral malaria. My life was at risk several times. And I just lost the motivation to continue." — Thor on the moment it broke him, two years in. 6 "If there was a competition within hospitality globally, like the Olympics, we would be on the bench watching the other countries. We are kind and helpful and friendly — but we have no idea how friendly we could be." — Thor comparing Northern European and global hospitality. 7 "I made an excuse that I was going to the bathroom, but really what I wanted to do was go and pay for all of us. And on my way there, they already knew what I was up to and shouted to the cashier — don't let him pay, we will take care of it." — Thor on his host Dafala in Sudan. 8 "So I was hired to be the junior assistant to a reverend who wasn't there." — Thor on how he solved his Hong Kong immigration problem. 9 "I arrived with my hat and my backpack, and when I was at my highest I had two apartments, I had two cars, I had access to the port, I had my driver's licence, I had a dentist. I had a life in Hong Kong." — Thor on two years stranded. 10 "The real story here is that most of the world is such an ordinary place. It is just people getting by in life, making the best of the situations that they have. Going to work, going to school, spending time with family, falling in love, following their sports teams." — Thor on what a decade on the road actually revealed. ⠀ Chapters 00:21 Introduction — One continuous journey, every country on earth, and no airplanes 01:48 Where Does an Idea Like That Come From? — Twelve years in shipping, and an email from his father 03:46 The Lightning Bolt — Discovering nobody had done it without flying 04:30 Did He Know What He Was Signing Up For? — Four years becomes ten 04:54 Two Years In, Central Africa — Where it all fell apart the first time 06:30 THE NO FLYING RULE — What travelling overland and by sea actually gives you 07:20 How Big the World Really Is — Denmark, Texas, Greenland and the skewed world map 08:47 Where Countries Meet — Same clothes, same food, and animals that don't care about borders 09:36 Watching the Landscape Change — Desert to bushes to forest to mountains 10:17 Which Definition of a Country? — 193 UN states, and why Thor's list runs to 203 12:24 THE RED CROSS — How being a Goodwill Ambassador changed the journey 12:50 A People Project, Not a Country Project 13:22 What the Red Cross Gave Him — Rapid, genuine insight into every country he entered 15:08 Balance — Why it mattered to post things that weren't relentlessly positive 16:05 BRITAIN — Country numbers seven through ten, in late 2013 16:44 Calais — Meeting Syrian refugees by the rail tracks before crossing 17:28 Rambling Rat — Refused as a foot passenger, and getting across by knocking on windows 17:58 Bristol — An open-air museum of seafaring history 18:38 Wales — A kind host, a house with grass to the windows, and a toilet in the front yard 19:11 Minimum 24 Hours Per Country — And how fast the early legs moved 19:24 Northern Ireland — The James Bond of the Red Cross, and a city of walls 20:00 "It's Raining a Wee Bit" — Thor's accent problem 20:32 Scotland — Awestruck by the west coast, and on to Glasgow and Edinburgh 21:08 Edinburgh — His girlfriend, now wife, visits two weeks after he left home 21:34 London — Les Misérables, dodgy tickets, and an unexpectedly happy ending 22:48 Back to the UK — A missed ship to Iceland, and an unplanned return via Immingham 23:42 The Pharmacy Dash — Crawling under the shutters for seasickness pills 24:26 Scrabster — And a devastating email about a ship that isn't coming 25:04 Edinburgh Again, Then Inverness — Hogmanay with a bartender who takes in strangers 26:15 CULTURAL DIFFERENCE — Reading what people really think of you 26:50 The Hospitality Olympics — Why Northern Europe would be on the bench 27:40 Dafala in Sudan — Not being allowed to pay for anything 29:07 Poland and Hong Kong — Strangers who cook for you at midnight, and four days that became five months 29:54 "The Guest Is God" — Hospitality in India and Pakistan 31:02 The Arab World — Why you may never know what someone truly thinks of you 31:41 Denmark, Britain and America — Three different ways of masking contempt 33:12 THE UNITED STATES — How he got there and what happened 33:26 Iceland to Greenland to Canada — Crossing the Atlantic by ship 34:21 Immigration at Buffalo — Colin Farrell, a German form, and a very unimpressed officer 35:37 New York at 4 AM — Sleeping under a tree in Central Park 36:39 A Bird, a Beard and Free Wi-Fi — Central Park as a budget traveller's dream 37:04 Washington DC — Free museums, and more homelessness than the movies show 37:56 THE CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR — The train that changed the trip 38:09 Meeting Art — A chance conversation in the queue 38:45 Four Hours in Chicago — A grandfather's grave and a different ticket 40:06 The First Class Surprise — Art's private cabin, bunk beds and meals included 41:00 Communal Dining — Strangers, awkward seating, and solving global politics three times a day 42:18 San Francisco and Onward — To Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean 43:19 WHEN IT GOT HARD — The end of the good energy days 43:32 Naive Expectations — CNN, BBC and Nike were not, in fact, calling 44:49 Central Africa — "That is just a different level of hardship" 45:40 An Astonishing Part of the World — Beautiful, lush, friendly, and extremely hard to travel 46:34 Losing the Thread — Forgetting why any of it mattered 47:24 Migraines and Malaria — What his body did in response 48:40 At Gunpoint — And the moment he grabbed a steering wheel at speed 49:18 Where an Ambulance Might Not Come — The reality of a medical emergency in that region 50:03 MOST OF THE WORLD IS ORDINARY — Game of Thrones, fidget spinners and a Captain America shield in Libya 51:52 THE PANDEMIC — Two weeks' delay in the Solomon Islands, then the Marshall Islands 52:45 Four Days in Hong Kong Becomes Two Years 53:31 Down to the Last Nine Countries — And desperate to go home 54:24 Five Months With One Family — And the need for personal space 55:03 CNN Finds Him — The article that went viral and changed everything 55:38 Hong Kong's Only Tourist — Working with the Hong Kong Tourism Board 56:28 Immigration Runs Out of Patience — Marry, study, or work 57:35 THE DANISH SEAMEN'S CHURCH — Junior assistant to an absent reverend 58:27 Seafarers Trapped Aboard — Suicide rates, shipboard dentistry, and captains who died at sea 59:32 Shopping for the Ships — What Thor actually did for a year 01:00:17 Forty Container Ships — And the satisfaction of giving something back 01:00:27 The Luck of the Delay — Why being stuck in Hong Kong was better than the alternatives 01:01:20 A Life in Hong Kong — Two apartments, two cars, a dentist, and the place he misses most 01:02:04 THE END OF THE JOURNEY — Sri Lanka, then the Maldives 01:02:47 Bureaucratic Obstacles to the Finish Line — Not allowed to leave the ship 01:03:33 Flags, Friends and a Resort Island — And Gunnar Garfors breaking the story 01:04:14 No Joy At All — Working through interviews while everyone else celebrated 01:05:20 Successful in the Maldives, Completed at Home — And why he refused to fly back 01:06:06 The Milan Maersk — 31 days from Malaysia to Aarhus 01:06:46 Windmills in the English Channel — The slow return home 01:07:20 Homecoming — Rain, a crowd at the portside, and his wife 01:07:59 WHAT NOW? — The Adventurers' Club and a secret expedition 01:08:48 Africa, Camels, Volcano — Three clue words and nothing more 01:09:09 Life Today — Speaking engagements, film festivals and book events 01:09:34 Emirates Business Class vs Ryanair — A memorable downgrade 01:10:06 Wrap-Up — The Impossible Journey , out now, and Friends of Anglotopia Video Version

This is Episode 1 of a special six-part Jane Austen series, sponsored throughout by Strictly Jane Austen — Bath's most Austentatious travel company. We talk a lot on this show about the Regency. It's the backdrop to Jane Austen, to Bridgerton, and to a thousand romance novels and costume dramas. But what actually was the Regency? Strictly speaking it was a brief window from 1811 to 1820, when George III's descent into apparent madness meant his eldest son ruled in his place as Prince Regent. And yet for such a short period, it cast an extraordinarily long shadow. To open the series, Jonathan Thomas is joined by Robert Morrison — literary historian, Queen's National Scholar at Queen's University in Ontario, British Academy Global Professor at Bath Spa University from 2019 to 2024, and author of The Regency Years , named a book of the year by The Economist and shortlisted for the HWA Crown Award. Robert walks us through what the Regency literally was, the constitutional crisis that created it, the extraordinary contradictions of the Prince Regent himself, and his bold central claim: that these nine years laid the foundations of the modern world. Along the way — why 1813 saw both Pride and Prejudice published and Charles Babbage begin dreaming of a thinking machine; why Mrs. Bennet's hysteria is really about the Napoleonic Wars; why Persuasion is Austen's greatest novel; and why Bath remains the beating heart of the Regency imagination. 🎀 OUR SPONSOR: STRICTLY JANE AUSTEN This entire six-part series is brought to you by Strictly Jane Austen — Bath's most Austentatious travel company. If this episode has put you in the mood to experience the Regency for yourself, there is no better way than stepping directly into Jane Austen's Bath with an expert guide. Strictly Jane Austen's award-winning tours bring Regency England to life through expertly guided walks, immersive storytelling, and carefully curated itineraries in Bath and beyond. Their guides are avid Janeites steeped in Regency knowledge — and, as Austen herself would have it, genuinely "clever, well-informed people." What they offer: Expert Guided Tours of Jane Austen's Bath — Private walking tours through the streets Jane walked, led by expert Janeite guides Period Dress Hire & Afternoon Tea in Bath — Exquisite Regency costume delivered to your hotel, then promenade through Bath and take a sumptuous afternoon tea in a historic tearoom Bridgerton in Bath — A private tour of the city's Bridgerton filming locations and Regency high society Jane Austen & Bath's Gothic History Twilight Tour — Northanger Abbey, Frankenstein, and the darker side of Regency Bath Discovering Jane — A Three-Night Travel Experience in Bath & Hampshire — The full immersive short break, including Jane's Hampshire home and burial place Escape to Bath by Rail from London — Travel from Paddington to Austen's Bath in style Bespoke Group Tours of Bath & Hampshire — Built for individuals, couples, book clubs, and groups of any size Annual Jane Austen Celebrations — Dance, discussion and Regency merriment at the Gainsborough Bath Spa 🎁 Gift Vouchers — The perfect present for the Janeite in your life Book or learn more at strictlyjaneausten.com · Call +44 1225 333747 (Mon–Fri, 09:00–17:00 GMT) Follow them: Instagram · Facebook Winner, Bristol Bath & Somerset International Tourism Award 2025 (Bronze). Part of ECT Travel, a Bath-based tour operator running successful travel programmes since 1993. Links Robert Morrison's Books The Regency Years: During Which Jane Austen Writes, Napoleon Fights, Byron Makes Love, and Britain Becomes Modern Persuasion by Jane Austen — Annotated Edition, edited by Robert Morrison (Harvard University Press) The English Opium-Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey Robert Morrison at Queen's University Jane Austen's Bath The Jane Austen Centre, Bath Visit Bath — Jane Austen's Bath Guide The Pump Room, Bath Bath Abbey The Holburne Museum, Bath Jane Austen's House, Chawton, Hampshire Mentioned in the Episode Emma by Jane Austen — dedicated to the Prince Regent Frankenstein by Mary Shelley The Royal Pavilion, Brighton — The Prince Regent's Fantasy Palace Anglotopia Friends of Anglotopia Club Anglotopia's Guide to the World of Bridgerton Takeaways The Regency was not just a vibe or an aesthetic — it was a constitutional and political reality. It began on February 5, 1811, when Parliament reluctantly made George III's eldest son Prince Regent, and ended January 29, 1820, when the King died and the Regent became George IV. That gives it a weight, Robert argues, that "the Roaring Twenties" or "the Swinging Sixties" simply don't have. George III's illness was long thought to be porphyria, a metabolic disorder. It is now more commonly believed to have been a severe form of bipolar disorder — with hysteria, hallucinations, insomnia, bouts of violence, and, in his final years, some form of dementia. He spent many days in a straitjacket at Windsor Castle and became a genuinely tragic figure. Parliament had no choice in the matter. Under primogeniture you take the eldest son — you cannot skip to a more suitable brother. Robert's point is pointed: this is precisely why the world eventually decided it wanted democracy and leaders who can be removed. The Prince Regent is a study in extremes: a drinking, gambling, womanizing wastrel hopelessly in debt, and simultaneously one of the great patrons of British taste. He kept a copy of every Jane Austen novel in all of his residences long before the world recognized her, and let it be known she could dedicate her next book to him — which is why Emma opens with a dedication to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent. Robert's central claim is that the Regency is where modern Britain begins — because this is the moment when people across the social hierarchy start to dream of equality and a fairer, more just society, and gather in enormous numbers to demand it. The clearest example is Peterloo, when 60,000 people assembled in Manchester to demand parliamentary reform. The Regency also gave us consumerism, celebrity culture, fashion and gossip in recognizably modern forms. Byron was arguably the first modern celebrity — when he moved to Geneva, people bought telescopes and camped across the lake to spy on him. 1813 is the hinge year: Pride and Prejudice is published, Charles Babbage begins thinking about a thinking machine that becomes the modern computer, and Thomas De Quincey sinks into the opium addiction he would later write about — creating our modern cultural conversation about substance dependence. Robert wrote the book partly to bring those collisions into view. Austen's apparent silence on the Napoleonic Wars is not silence at all. Britain had around one million men involved in the Napoleonic struggle out of a population of just eleven million. Among them were hundreds of thousands who might have made good husbands — and they simply weren't there. That absence, Robert argues, shapes all six of Austen's novels and explains exactly why Mrs. Bennet is so frantic. Robert makes the case that Persuasion — not Pride and Prejudice — is Austen's greatest novel. It begins after the romance has already happened and failed, it's sadder and more impassioned, and it shows men helping women and women helping men, with Admiral and Sophia Croft as perhaps the most successful couple in all of Austen. The one myth Robert would most like to correct: there were an enormous number of very poor people in Regency Britain, and if you were at the bottom of the social hierarchy you lived in appalling circumstances. No modern medicine, no ventilation, no social safety net — it was possible to starve in the streets. But that grittiness, he argues, makes Austen's and Turner's achievements greater, not lesser. Their knowledge was hard won. Soundbites "The Regency is a constitutional political reality as well. It means the structure of the state was changed. And I think that gives it a greater weight than just coining a name for the period." — Robert on why the Regency is different from the Roaring Twenties. "He is in a straitjacket in Windsor Castle many, many days and becomes quite a tragic figure. And if he could have seen what his son was up to, he would have been even more distressed." — Robert on George III. "Jonathan, they didn't have any choice. Parliament couldn't say, well, we're not giving it to William, we're giving it to Harry. It's the system of primogeniture. And that's why the world said, you know what, we need democracy. We need leaders we can get rid of." — Robert on why Parliament handed power to a man they didn't trust. "He's on one hand excess personified, and on the other he's going, 'I saw JMW Turner's painting this morning and I really think he's on to something.' That range is characteristic of the Regency." — Robert on the Prince Regent. "He's betting on horses and he's gambling and he's whoring — and he's also sitting at home reading Jane Austen, Walter Scott and Lord Byron. Byron meets him at a party in 1812 and can't believe how much he knew about Greek poets." — Robert on the Regent's contradictions. "So Babbage dreaming of the modern computer and Austen writing love stories happened in the same year. I really wanted to bring things like that into collision." — Robert on 1813. "To a considerable extent, when we say 'I have fallen in love,' we mean we've fallen in love like Jane Austen describes it. She has defined for more than 200 years what that means." — Robert on Austen's enduring influence. "Why is Mrs. Bennet semi-hysterical? Britain is a country of eleven million and one million men are involved in the Napoleonic Wars. Among those million there are hundreds of thousands who might have made a good husband, but they aren't there. That lack of men shapes all six of Austen's novels." — Robert on the war hiding in plain sight. "Anne says, yeah, well, that's because it's all written by men. The pen has been in your hand. The pen has been in the hands of men. And Austen is writing a history for women." — Robert on the conversation at the end of Persuasion. "If you were at the bottom of the social hierarchy, you didn't want to be in Regency Britain. And I guess the one thing that redeems the Regency for me is this amazing cultural flowering and this amazing ability to protest and to demand something better." — Robert on the myth he'd most like to correct. Chapters 00:21 Introduction & Sponsor — Strictly Jane Austen, and what's coming in this six-part series 01:17 Today's Subject — What actually was the Regency? 02:01 Meet Robert Morrison — The Regency Years, Bath Spa, and Austen's Persuasion 02:55 What the Regency Literally Was — February 5, 1811 to January 29, 1820 03:21 What Is a Regency? — Ill health, incapacity, foreign wars, and a modern hypothetical 04:56 More Than a Nickname — Why the Regency is a constitutional reality, not just a vibe 05:33 Drawing the Lines — Romanticism, publishers, and why a decade is the right frame 07:41 The Book He'd Write Next — The 1960s in Britain, and a nod to Dominic Sandbrook 08:19 How the Regency Happened — George III, sixty years on the throne, and the first bout in 1788 09:24 What Was Actually Wrong with George III? — Porphyria, bipolar disorder, and Princess Amelia's death 10:49 The Politics Behind It — Why Parliament held its breath and enacted the Regency anyway 12:26 Who Was the Prince Regent? — Born 1762, and a lifetime of annoying his father 13:35 Talented and Dissolute — Beau Brummell, impressions, and a marriage that lasted a year 14:20 The Sympathetic Case — Barred from the battlefield, so he decided to have fun instead 15:11 What Was Remarkable About Him — Connoisseurship, Turner, and Austen's dedication in Emma 16:30 The Range Is the Regency — Gambling and whoring and Greek poets 17:02 Why Parliament Handed Him Everything — Primogeniture, and why the world wanted democracy 18:13 Waterloo and the Whigs — The government he kept, and the shockwave he sent 19:02 THE CENTRAL CLAIM: BRITAIN BECOMES MODERN 19:20 Where the Book Began — Waterloo, Turner, Constable, Robert Owen, Mary Shelley 19:55 Dreaming of Equality — Peterloo, 60,000 people, and demanding a juster society 20:28 Consumerism and Celebrity Culture — And the technologies that let it spread 22:16 Jane Austen Defines How We Fall in Love 22:56 Charles Babbage and the Thinking Machine — 1813, the year everything collides 23:35 Beau Brummell, Byron and the First Modern Celebrity — Telescopes across Lake Geneva 24:08 Coleridge, De Quincey and the Origins of Modern Addiction 24:57 Thomas Lawrence, Mary Shelley, Polidori and Turner — Frankenstein and The Vampyre from one circle 26:04 CROSS CURRENTS — Elegance on the surface, turbulence underneath 26:25 Science, Industry and the Luddite Riots — Technology stripping livelihoods, then and now 27:34 The Class Society — Darcy proposes, and Elizabeth says no 29:08 The Reform Bill of 1832 — And what popular protest actually achieved 29:39 British vs. American Democracy — Revolution versus evolution 30:11 Victoria's Discovery — How the monarchy gave up power and kept its grip 31:53 THE DARK UNDERCURRENT — Poverty, colonial conquest, slavery 32:42 Austen's Courage — No university, no marriage, and the cleverest person in the room 33:41 The Gritty Side — Wilberforce and opium, Byron's club foot, the challenges they overcame 34:36 AUSTEN, NAPOLEON AND BYRON — Why put these three side by side? 35:13 The Collisions — Wellington and Napoleon across the same battlefield 36:23 NAPOLEON AND THE WIDER WORLD 36:52 A Million Men — The war on the front page, every day, for years 38:15 The War of 1812 — When Robert's country and Jonathan's country go to war 39:00 The Other Side of It — How people carry on when the bombs are far away 40:17 JANE AUSTEN IN CONTEXT 40:33 Austen Wasn't Popular in Her Lifetime — Walter Scott was the great novelist of the age 41:53 Our Recognition Has Overtaken Historical Fact — Austen's England wasn't Bridgerton 42:34 She Wasn't Ignoring Events — Three daughters, no sons; five daughters, no sons 43:35 Why Mrs. Bennet Is Semi-Hysterical — One million men, and the ones who never came home 44:47 PERSUASION — Why Robert calls it Austen's greatest novel 44:59 The Phone Call from Harvard — And a moment of bravado 45:51 What Makes It Great — Sadder, more impassioned, and it starts after the romance failed 46:58 Admiral and Sophia Croft — Men doing domestic work, women doing business, and the reins 48:11 The Conversation with Captain Harville — "The pen has been in the hands of men" 49:37 Wentworth's Letter — And why Robert can't get through it without cracking 50:04 BATH — Why it looms so large in the Regency imagination 50:44 Walking Austen's Bath — Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and the gravel walk at twilight 51:30 Four Addresses and Six Novels — All of which mention Bath 51:39 Austen Didn't Like Bath — And why that's exactly why she wrote about it 52:16 Bath's Heyday — The 18th century spa town, and what it had become by the Regency 52:36 Robert's Bath Walking Tours — Thirty-five people, three times, and every plaque 53:08 Who You'll Find in Bath — Lawrence, Beckford, Piozzi, Parry, Siddons, Burney, Shelley, De Quincey and Austen 54:50 WHY THE REGENCY STILL GRIPS US 55:08 Reaching for Something That Didn't Exist — Paul McCartney and sunny days in the sixties 56:20 Bridgerton — A class well above Austen, and what you have to ignore to enjoy it 56:55 Poverty Then and Now — And why Austen wrote what she knew 57:22 The Grittiness Makes It Greater — Hard-won knowledge and stories about hope 58:48 THE REGENCY AND AMERICA — Emigration, Keats's brother in Kentucky, and the American dream 01:00:13 The Sticking Point — Slavery, and why it troubled British emigrants 01:01:17 THE MYTH ROBERT WOULD MOST LIKE TO CORRECT 01:01:29 There Were Lots of Poor People — And their lives were appalling 01:02:08 Regency Britain as Preface to the Modern World — The good and the bad 01:02:48 What Redeems It — Cultural flowering, and the ability to demand something better 01:03:06 Wrap-Up & Sponsor — Strictly Jane Austen, gift vouchers, and Friends of Anglotopia Video Version

For over a century, in a building most of us could not name, an organization known only by its post office box number — PO Box 500, London — has been quietly reading other people's letters, following other people's footsteps, and keeping the realm's most closely guarded secrets. MI5, the British Security Service, was founded in 1909 in the nervous run-up to the First World War under the motto Regnum Defende — Defend the Realm. James Bond and George Smiley are the fictions. This is the real thing. In this episode, Jonathan Thomas is joined by Mark Dunton, Principal Records Specialist at the National Archives and lead curator of their hit MI5: Official Secrets exhibition, and Dr. Stephen Twigge, former Head of Modern Collections at the National Archives and a historian of the Cold War and code breaking. Together they've written The MI5 Archive: Official Secrets , a remarkable visual record drawn from the 6,000 files MI5 has released since 1997. They explain what it actually feels like to hold these documents, how MI5 differs from MI6 and GCHQ, how a secret becomes an archive, and how historians work with a record that is deliberately incomplete. Then come the stories: the German spy hanged by a lemon, the last man executed at the Tower of London, the astonishing Double Cross system that invented 27 fictional agents to deceive Hitler about D-Day, the surveillance transcript that records atomic spy Klaus Fuchs stoking his own fire, the truth about MI5's limited role in the Profumo affair, and the handwritten note authorizing a tap on the King's telephone during the abdication crisis. Links The Book The MI5 Archive: Official Secrets — Thames & Hudson The MI5 Archive: Official Secrets — The National Archives Shop The MI5 Archive: Official Secrets — Thames & Hudson USA The MI5 Archive: Official Secrets — Waterstones The MI5 Archive: Official Secrets — Amazon UK The MI5 Archive: Official Secrets — Amazon USA Published by Thames & Hudson in association with The National Archives. 368 pages. Foreword by Nick Harkaway. ISBN 9780500030455. Our Guests Mark Dunton at The National Archives The National Archives, Kew Related Reading Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré Places Mentioned The Tower of London — Historic Royal Palaces MI5 — Official Website GCHQ — Official Website Bletchley Park Anglotopia Friends of Anglotopia Club Related episode: Dr. Chris Smith on the Cambridge Five and The Last Cambridge Spy Takeaways MI5 has transferred over 6,000 files to the National Archives since 1997, and while most government departments operate under a twenty-year rule, MI5 works to an unofficial fifty-year rule. Strictly speaking they are not obliged to transfer anything at all — they choose to. MI5, MI6 and GCHQ are, as Stephen puts it, "brothers from the same mother." All emerged from the Secret Service Bureau created in 1909, which had a domestic side and a foreign side. The two heads shared an office for about a month before going their separate ways. MI5 catches other people's spies at home; MI6 runs Britain's spies abroad; GCHQ, which began as the Government Code and Cypher School under MI6, provides signals intelligence to both. Unlike the famously fractious CIA/FBI relationship in the US, the British agencies get on reasonably well — largely because they're staffed by lifetime civil servants rather than political appointees, and because people move between them (Dick White ran MI5 and then MI6). Less turf war, less budget anxiety. The exhibition MI5: Official Secrets — which ran April to November 2025 and drew over 55,000 visitors — was the first time MI5 has ever collaborated with another institution to tell its own history. The book contains a great deal that wouldn't fit in the exhibition space. Karl Muller, a First World War German agent, was caught because his invisible ink was lemon juice. Two lemons were found — one in his dressing table drawer wrapped in cotton wool, one in his overcoat pocket. He claimed they were for dental treatment. He was executed at the Tower of London. MI5 then kept writing letters in his name, asked the Germans for more money, received a handsome sum, and bought a staff car with it — which they nicknamed "the Muller." The Treasury told them off for unauthorized expenditure. The car was later stolen from outside MI5 headquarters. Josef Jakobs, parachuted into Huntingdonshire in January 1941, broke his ankle on landing and fired his revolver into the air to summon help. He was found with a German torch containing a German battery, a road map of Great Britain, a forged ID card, and a torn-up cipher wheel. Uncooperative under interrogation at Camp 020, he could not be turned — and became the last man ever executed at the Tower of London. The Double Cross System — officially the Twenty Committee, because XX in Roman numerals is twenty — turned virtually every German agent sent to Britain. MI5 then had to invent entire fictional networks of sub-agents to feed the Germans plausible material. Agent Garbo, a Spanish former chicken farmer who hated both chickens and Nazis, worked with his handler Thomas Harris to create around 27 wholly fictional sub-agents, all reporting on a non-existent army group massing in southeast England. Agent Tate convinced the Germans there was a large minefield south of Ireland. On 1 January 1945 British intelligence intercepted a message to all U-boat commanders warning them to avoid the area. That deception kept the Atlantic convoy route safe and saved countless lives. Tate also misled the Germans about where V1 and V2 rockets were landing, causing them to adjust trajectories so the missiles fell in open countryside rather than urban areas. On the Profumo affair, the files actually deflate the conspiracy theories. Contrary to the widespread impression that Stephen Ward was working for MI5 and was then abandoned by them, the files show MI5's involvement was genuinely limited — Ward met an MI5 officer two or three times, and was warned to be wary of Ivanov, not recruited. Director General Roger Hollis wrote that MI5 didn't get involved in that sort of "call girl racket." Stephen's most striking find is a handwritten note from the Prime Minister's office to the head of the GPO during the abdication crisis, authorizing the monitoring of King Edward VIII's communications at Fort Belvedere — alongside Special Branch maps tracking Wallis Simpson's daily movements. Nobody, it turns out, is above surveillance. Soundbites "You're never sure what's going to come next when you turn the page. You get a letter, and it can be quite mundane at times — how are the kids doing from so and so. And it takes you to places you don't necessarily go to in normal life." — Stephen on reading the files. "You get a very real sense that these were records which were not meant for public consumption. It's a bit like the title of the James Bond film — For Your Eyes Only." — Mark on handling MI5 documents. "MI5 and MI6 are, I suppose, brothers from the same mother. The two heads of those organizations shared an office for about a month and then went their own ways." — Stephen on the origins of British intelligence. "It's the first time that MI5 have ever collaborated with another institution to tell its history in this way." — Mark on the exhibition and the book. "There's this riveting transcript derived from a listening device placed in the home of Klaus Fuchs. And it records him moving about, with little details like 21:07, Fuchs stoked the fire. It gives you an almost voyeuristic feeling that you're looking in on this person's life and listening in with the MI5 listeners." — Mark on the atomic spy surveillance logs. "They asked him, what's this lemon for? And he claimed it was for dental treatment for his teeth. Which didn't necessarily go down well." — Stephen on Karl Muller's defence. "MI5 kept sending letters in his name, and in one of them asked for some money. They received quite a handsome amount, and then they bought a staff car with it, which was then called the Muller. Which, even more embarrassing, was stolen outside MI5 headquarters in the 1920s." — Stephen on the most delightful footnote in MI5's history. "He'd been a chicken farmer before the war, but apparently hated chickens. And he also hated the Nazis. And he had such a fertile imagination — together with his MI5 handler they cooked up about 27 fictional sub-agents." — Mark on Agent Garbo. "You get this bizarre wilderness of mirrors, where the German intelligence authorities think they're doing wonderfully well. They've got all these agents around the country feeding them information — but little do they know it's all bogus." — Stephen on the Double Cross system. "There's a letter that authorizes the tapping of the King's phone, which you wouldn't necessarily imagine to be released. It's a handwritten note from the Prime Minister's office. It's a fascinating idea that no one is above the law — everybody is capable of being monitored." — Stephen on the file that stayed with him. Chapters 00:21 Introduction — PO Box 500, Regnum Defende, and the real thing behind the fiction 01:17 Meet the Guests — Mark Dunton and Dr. Stephen Twigge of the National Archives 01:44 What Does It Feel Like to Hold These Files? 02:56 For Your Eyes Only — Mark on a window into a hidden world 04:13 How the Book and the Exhibition Came About — Approaching MI5, and their surprising response 06:11 The Exhibition — April to November, 55,000 visitors, and why the book holds more 07:04 Where MI5 Fits — MI5, MI6, GCHQ and the Joint Intelligence Committee explained 09:51 Do They Actually Get Along? — Comparing British and American intelligence culture 11:19 PO Box 500 — The anonymous address, and how a secret becomes an archive 12:16 What MI5 Has Been Called — Secret Service Bureau, MO5, Security Service, and Military Intelligence Section 5 13:12 Opening Up in the 1990s — Regular transfers and 6,000 files 14:14 Working with a Deliberately Incomplete Archive — Redactions, gaps, PF numbers and the jigsaw 16:11 The 50-Year Rule — Why MI5 files are often less redacted than other departments' 17:49 Outside the Normal Framework — They're not obliged to transfer anything at all 18:37 Do They Only Release What They Want Us to See? — Mark on the Cambridge Spies 19:04 What Makes a Good Exhibit? — Turning a dry surveillance report into something you can feel 20:06 Klaus Fuchs Stokes the Fire — The listening device transcript that lingers 21:33 THE FATAL LEMON — Karl Muller and the First World War 22:11 An Ill-Trained Agent — Latvia, Antwerp, and a very short course in secret inks 23:37 A.E. Free — Lemon juice, a compromised post box, and a German baker in Deptford 25:12 Caught in Russell Square — Lemons, German clothing, and a story about dental treatment 25:58 Execution at the Tower — And what MI5 did next 26:26 The Muller — Asking the Germans for money, buying a staff car, and getting told off by the Treasury 27:07 Two Lemons — Black, shrivelled, and in the collection 27:33 THE SIEGE OF SIDNEY STREET, 1911 27:55 Refugees, Radicals and the East End — The context for a gunfight 28:53 The Gun Battle — Scots Guards, machine guns, and a building burnt to the ground 30:57 Why It Matters — MI5's shift from military counter-espionage to civilian subversion 32:01 Enter Winston Churchill — The Home Secretary who turned up for the cameras 32:47 JOSEF JAKOBS — THE LAST MAN EXECUTED AT THE TOWER 33:03 A Broken Ankle in Huntingdonshire — And a revolver fired into the air 33:42 Camp 020 at Ham Common — Where the parachuted spies were interrogated 34:06 Who Was He? — A dentist, and an exploitative role in Jewish emigration 34:43 Uncooperative Under Interrogation — Why he couldn't be turned 35:38 Shot by Firing Squad — The last execution at the Tower of London 35:59 The Objects — A German torch with a German battery, a road map, a forged ID and a torn-up cipher wheel 36:40 THE DOUBLE CROSS SYSTEM 36:58 How It Worked — An offer they couldn't refuse, and inventing entire fictional networks 38:38 Chicken Feed and Burning Aerodromes — Making the deception plausible 39:15 A Wilderness of Mirrors — And Operation Fortitude 39:47 Why "Twenty Committee"? — XX in Roman numerals 40:28 Operation Fortitude in Detail — Distracting the Germans from Normandy toward the Pas de Calais 41:44 AGENT GARBO — A Spanish chicken farmer who hated chickens and hated Nazis 42:15 27 Fictional Sub-Agents — And a non-existent US Army group in southeast England 42:51 Agent Treasure and Agent Tate 43:26 The Minefield South of Ireland — The U-boat warning of 1 January 1945 44:32 Saving the Convoy Route — And countless lives 44:36 The V1 and V2 Deception — Redirecting missiles into open countryside 45:04 What Happened to Them Afterwards? — Garbo's shop in South America, an MBE, and Ben Macintyre's research 46:18 THE COLD WAR — How MI5's job changed after 1945 46:38 Atomic Spies at Harwell — And higher stakes after 1949 47:20 From War Footing to Peacetime — Reduced budgets and a new focus on subversion 48:18 The Communist Party of Great Britain — An inordinate amount of attention 48:30 A Shadow War — Intelligence as back channel, and why sex scandals made the front pages 50:05 THE PROFUMO AFFAIR, 1963 50:25 The Cast — John Profumo, Christine Keeler, Stephen Ward and Eugene Ivanov 51:40 What the Files Actually Show — MI5's involvement was limited 52:36 Stephen Ward and the Man Called Woods — Warned about Ivanov, not recruited 53:15 Ward Reported Back Conscientiously — And was not working for MI5 53:52 Roger Hollis on the "Call Girl Racket" — And what the files do to the conspiracy theories 54:54 FICTION AND REALITY — Nick Harkaway's foreword, le Carré and Fleming 55:18 What le Carré Got Right — Moles, lamplighters, honey traps, and a vocabulary that entered common usage 55:53 It's Not James Bond — It's people sitting there watching people and writing down what they did 57:09 The Doris Lessing File — Why she was on MI5's radar, and how rounded these portraits are 57:46 Fleming and Naval Intelligence — Special Operations Executive and the daring-do end of the business 58:29 THE FILE THAT STAYED WITH THEM 58:42 Stephen's Choice: The Abdication Crisis — Tapping the King's phone at Fort Belvedere 59:28 Special Branch and Wallis Simpson — Maps of her daily routine 59:56 Mark's Choice: The Lemon — And a "license to peel" 01:01:04 All the Little Twists and Turns — Why the Karl Muller story is the perfect MI5 story 01:01:34 Wrap-Up — The book, publication details, and Friends of Anglotopia Video Version

Recorded on location in Hammersmith at Emery Walker's House — the best-preserved Arts and Crafts interior in Britain, packed with original William Morris wallpaper and once home to William Morris's great friend and collaborator, the printer Emery Walker — this is the September edition of What's On in London. Jonathan makes the case that September might be the single best month of the year to visit London: the summer crush lifts as families return to school, everything is still open on summer hours, the weather turns crisp and golden, hotel prices drop, and the cultural calendar goes into overdrive. He covers Open House Festival (September 12–20, free, 621 listings including 10 Downing Street), Heritage Open Days across England, Totally Thames across twenty riverside boroughs, the London Design Festival in its 24th year, and the Last Night of the Proms — including the trick to getting in for eight pounds on the day. He then runs through the autumn's blockbuster exhibition openings, led by the Bayeux Tapestry's arrival at the British Museum (and the British Museum membership workaround for anyone who missed the sold-out ticket release), Nature and Us at the Natural History Museum in a gallery closed since 1943, the Burberry Trench at the V&A, and How We Lost America at Hogarth's House — curated by the very person who let him record this episode. Plus what's closing and when, live music and theater, family activities, the September weather outlook, and Jonathan's own remaining London itinerary. Not for members and listeners: Due to the timely nature of this episode, I'm releasing it to members and general listeners on the same day, so there won't be a new episode Friday. This is this week's episode. Links Where This Episode Was Recorded Emery Walker's House, Hammersmith — Book a Tour Londontopia's Hammersmith Neighborhood Guide The Londontopia Events Calendar 🗓️ Londontopia London Events Guide — The Full Calendar What's On in London Today What's On in London This Weekend Free Things To Do in London Today Cheap Things To Do in London London Exhibitions Listings London Festivals Listings Free London Events Listings The Full September Guide on Londontopia 📖 What's On in London in September 2026 — The Secret Best Month to Visit London What's the Best Month to Visit London? A Season-by-Season Breakdown The Big September Events Open House London 2026: The Weekend London Unlocks Its Front Doors (and How to Do It) — September 12–20, free, 621 listings including 10 Downing Street Open House Festival — Official Site & Ballot Sign-Up Heritage Open Days — England-Wide Totally Thames Festival London Design Festival BBC Proms & the Last Night of the Proms — £8 day tickets released online at 9:30am Doggett's Coat and Badge Race 2026 — Londontopia Listing The Great River Race 2026 — Londontopia Listing ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026 — Londontopia Listing New Exhibition Openings The Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum — Sold out through the autumn; next ticket release expected October. Join as a member for two tickets The Natural History Museum Is Reopening a Gallery Closed Since 1943 — Nature and Us, opens September 16, free The V&A Is Putting the Burberry Trench Coat on Show — And It's Free — Opens September 21, free A British View of American Independence Comes to Hogarth's House — How We Lost America, September 22 – November 1, free The Imperial War Museum Marks 25 Years Since 9/11 — From September 4, free Secret Treasures from Kyiv at the V&A — Opens September 14, free, running a full year Es Devlin Retrospective at the Design Museum John Constable: Views of Nature at the British Museum — Londontopia Listing Early Netherlandish Drawings at the British Museum — Londontopia Listing Amar Kanwar at Serpentine North — Londontopia Listing Exhibitions Already Running Frida Kahlo at Tate Modern — Until January 3 Winston Churchill the Painter at the Wallace Collection — Until November 29 Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A — Until November 8 Jurassic Oceans at the Natural History Museum — Until January 3 — the best family exhibition in London Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam at the Royal Academy — Until October 25 Henry Moore's Bronzes Among the Trees at Kew Gardens — Until January 31 Ana Mendieta at Tate Modern — Until January British Museum Marks America's 250th with 'Declaring Independence: USA 250' — Free, until November 29 Closing in September — Last Chance Monet and Renoir at the National Gallery — closes September 15 Marilyn Monroe at the National Portrait Gallery — closes September 6 Hepworth in Colour at the Courtauld — closes September 6 Banqueting House Summer Opening — closes September 20 Buckingham Palace State Rooms — closes September 27 James McNeill Whistler at Tate Britain — closes September 27 Star Trek at 60 Trail, Science Museum — closes September 30, free Project a Black Planet at the Barbican — closes September 6 Buckingham Palace Unveils a Once-in-a-Generation Re-hang of Its Picture Gallery Theater & Live Music Michelle Dockery Returns to the Stage in Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy at Stratford East — From September 3 Man to Man with Tilda Swinton at the Royal Court — September 5 – October 24, day tickets released The Last Ship at Drury Lane — From September 22 Hay Fever at Wyndham's / Into the Woods at the Noël Coward — From September 22 Golden Boy at the Almeida / Children at the Lyric Hammersmith Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House Book West End Tickets via Londontopia West End Discounts Family & Free London Transport Museum Depot Open Days, Acton — September 25 & 27 Go Behind the Scenes at London Transport Museum's Depot Open Days London Museum Docklands Mudlarking Weekend — September 26–27 Black on the Square, Trafalgar Square — September 5, free Horniman Plant Fair, Forest Hill — September 5 Anglotopia Friends of Anglotopia Club Londontopia Free Weekly Newsletter Takeaways September is London's secret sweet spot. The overwhelming summer crush lifts as families return to school, yet everything is still open and running on summer hours. You get peak London without peak London visitors — and the weather turns crisp, clear and golden rather than oppressively hot and humid. Hotel prices drop noticeably after the August peak, and the British government's VAT cut on tourist attraction admissions is still running — meaning roughly 20% off admission prices at major attractions on top of the seasonal savings. Open House Festival is the month's headline event: September 12–20, completely free, in its 35th edition and the biggest yet with 621 listings across all 33 London boroughs. Private offices, livery halls, Georgian houses, Brutalist towers, working studios and hidden roof gardens all open their doors at no charge. The single most important Open House tip: sign up for the Open House email list. The most sought-after buildings — including 10 Downing Street — are ballot-only, and you have to apply weeks in advance. Popular non-ballot venues queue from early morning, so pick two or three in one area rather than crisscrossing the city. Three more citywide festivals run alongside it: Heritage Open Days (England's much larger national cousin to Open House, with 25,000+ participating organizations), Totally Thames (a month-long river festival across the twenty riverside boroughs from Richmond to Barking, over 100 events, much of it free), and the London Design Festival in its 24th year, hubbed at the V&A in South Kensington. The Last Night of the Proms is on September 12 this year and sells out annually — partly because Royal Albert Hall seats are literally owned as private property, sold off as real estate to fund the hall's construction, passed down through families and now worth several hundred thousand pounds each. Those owners get first refusal. But there is a way in: 1,000 standing tickets in the arena in front of the stage are held back for every single Proms concert, including the Last Night, and sold on the day for £8. They go online at 9:30am on the day of the concert, with a further allocation sold in person at the box office at Door 12. The Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum is the biggest cultural event in London this year — the first time it has left Normandy in its 900-year existence. But if you haven't booked, you won't see it this autumn: 2.5 million tickets sold in hours-long virtual queues when they were released in July. The next tranche, covering January onward, is expected in late October or November. There is a workaround: a British Museum membership includes two tickets to the Bayeux Tapestry. If you're in London this autumn and desperate to see it, buy a membership immediately and reserve those tickets. September is also when the summer season clears out, often in the first week. Marilyn Monroe at the NPG, Hepworth in Colour at the Courtauld and Project a Black Planet at the Barbican all close September 6; Monet and Renoir at the National Gallery closes September 15; Banqueting House closes September 20; Buckingham Palace State Rooms and Whistler at Tate Britain close September 27. Genuinely now-or-never. Soundbites "I'm recording this sitting in one of the rooms at Emery Walker's House in Hammersmith, which is right on the Thames — and it's the best preserved Arts and Crafts interior in Britain. A genuine time capsule packed with original William Morris wallpaper." — Jonathan on the location. "September is the month that locals quietly know is perfect and visitors often overlook, purely because the calendar says summer's over." — Jonathan on the central idea of the episode. "The crowds have evaporated. The kids go back to school, family holidays end, the overwhelming summer crush simply lifts — and yet everything is still open and running on its summer hours. You get peak London without peak London visitors." — Jonathan on why September works. "If you plan a trip around one thing while you're in London in September, plan it around Open House London." — Jonathan on the month's headline event. "They will open up 10 Downing Street — the home and office of the Prime Minister — but you have to apply for the ballot a few weeks in advance. You're not going to get in there if you don't even apply." — Jonathan's most actionable Open House tip. "When they built the Royal Albert Hall, the seats were sold as pieces of real estate to fund its construction. Those seats get passed down through families or sold, and they're worth several hundred thousand pounds now." — Jonathan on why the Last Night of the Proms is so hard to get into. "If you're canny and you're quick, you can get into the Last Night of the Proms for just eight pounds and experience the glory of it." — Jonathan on the £8 day tickets. "It's the first time the tapestry has ever left Normandy in its 900 years of existence. But before you try and book a ticket — if you haven't already booked, you're not going to see it this September. You're not going to see it this autumn at all." — Jonathan on the Bayeux Tapestry. "If you join the British Museum as a member, each membership gets two tickets. So there's a hack there." — Jonathan's workaround for the sold-out Bayeux Tapestry. "Here's your case for September: the secret best month in London. Fewer crowds, kinder prices, glorious light, and a cultural calendar that rivals any month of the year. Book a little ahead, because word about September is getting out. Don't tell too many people." — Jonathan's closing pitch. Chapters 00:21 Introduction — The September edition, recorded on location in Hammersmith 00:36 Where We Are — Emery Walker's House, the best preserved Arts and Crafts interior in Britain 01:10 A Full Tour Episode Is Coming — Look out for the dedicated Emery Walker's House episode 01:42 Why September Might Be London's Best Month 02:01 Everything Here Comes from the Londontopia Events Calendar 02:25 The Secret Sweet Spot — The big idea running through the whole episode 02:43 The Crowds Evaporate — Peak London without peak London visitors 03:09 The Weather Turns — Warm days, crisp air, cooler nights 03:32 Prices Drop — Plus the ongoing VAT cut on tourist attraction admissions 03:57 Peak Culture Month — You lose the crowds and gain the culture 04:16 OPEN HOUSE LONDON — September 12–20, free, 35th edition, biggest yet 05:00 What You Can See — Livery halls, Georgian houses, Brutalist towers, hidden roof gardens 05:12 The Tips — Ballots, early queues, and picking two or three in one area 05:37 10 Downing Street — Why you must join the mailing list and apply for the ballot 06:05 The Open House Directory — How to plan your days 06:29 HERITAGE OPEN DAYS — England's bigger national cousin, 25,000+ organizations 06:56 TOTALLY THAMES — A month-long river festival across 20 riverside boroughs 07:17 LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL — 24th year, hubbed at the V&A 07:39 Other September Highlights — Made X at the Barbican, Black on the Square, Luke Jerram's Pollinarium, Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court 08:21 Greenwich + Docklands and Summer by the River — End dates 08:28 THE LAST NIGHT OF THE PROMS — The end of the traditional cultural season 09:36 September 12 This Year — And why it's worth planning a trip around 09:43 Why the Proms Sell Out — Royal Albert Hall seats are privately owned real estate 10:17 The £8 Ticket Hack — 1,000 arena standing tickets released at 9:30am on the day 11:10 BLOCKBUSTER EXHIBITION OPENINGS 11:33 The Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum — The biggest cultural event in London this year 12:31 Why You Won't See It This Autumn — Hours-long queues, 2.5 million tickets, October's next release 13:30 The Membership Workaround — Two tickets with every British Museum membership 13:54 Nature and Us at the Natural History Museum — A Waterhouse gallery closed since 1943 reopens 14:19 Secret Treasures from Kyiv at the V&A — Opens September 14, free, running a year 14:38 9/11 at 25 at the Imperial War Museum — Bill Biggart's last photographs, free, from September 4 15:07 The Burberry Trench at the V&A — Opens September 21 15:17 Es Devlin at the Design Museum and How We Lost America at Hogarth's House 15:36 Curated by Today's Host — Lucinda's own exhibition, free, from September 22 15:40 Emma Reece at White Cube and Jenkin van Zyl at Somerset House 16:10 EXHIBITIONS ALREADY RUNNING 16:16 Frida Kahlo at Tate Modern — Jonathan is going later today 16:32 Schiaparelli at the V&A, Jurassic Oceans, Richard Dadd at the Royal Academy 17:02 Henry Moore at Kew, Ana Mendieta, Declaring Independence at the British Museum 17:29 Churchill the Painter at the Wallace Collection — And Jonathan's correction about the ticket price 17:45 WHAT'S CLOSING IN SEPTEMBER — LAST CHANCE 17:56 Monet and Renoir at the National Gallery — Closes September 15 18:09 Marilyn Monroe and Hepworth in Colour — Both close September 6 18:14 Banqueting House — Closes September 20, and Jonathan is booked in tomorrow 18:30 Buckingham Palace State Rooms — Closes September 27, booked back in February 18:52 The Queen's Fashion Exhibition — Sold out, but extended another six months 19:06 Whistler at Tate Britain, Star Trek at 60, Project a Black Planet 19:28 LIVE MUSIC — The Proms, Víkingur Ólafsson at Wigmore Hall, San Francisco Ballet at Sadler's Wells, Good Kid at the Roundhouse 19:59 THEATER & OPERA — The autumn season starts in earnest 20:08 Tilda Swinton in Man to Man at the Royal Court — Sold out, but day tickets released 20:27 Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy at Stratford East — Michelle Dockery and Laura Aikman 20:48 The Last Ship at Drury Lane, Hay Fever, Into the Woods, Golden Boy, Don Giovanni 21:12 FAMILY EVENTS 21:17 London Transport Museum Depot Open Days at Acton — September 25 & 27 21:39 Mudlarking Weekend at London Museum Docklands — September 26–27 21:51 Free Saturday Poetry, Astronomy Photographer of the Year, Horniman Plant Fair 22:05 A Curated Slice — Where to find the full guide 22:20 THE WEATHER — Recorded from London, and what to actually expect 22:52 Everything Is Brown and Dead — London desperately needs the rain 23:12 A Typical September — Pleasant, cool, and it might rain, but rarely all day 23:36 What to Pack — Layers, walking shoes, light rain jacket, umbrella, sunscreen 23:59 IS SEPTEMBER A GOOD TIME TO VISIT? — Jonathan's verdict 24:22 The Case for September — Fewer crowds, kinder prices, glorious light 24:42 The Bayeux Tapestry as a Reason to Plan a 2027 Return Trip 24:52 Thanks to the Emery Walker Trust — And a reminder to book a tour 25:11 Where to Find Everything — The Londontopia events calendar 25:29 Wrap-Up — Friends of Anglotopia and signing off from London Video Version

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas is joined by Dr. Richard Claxton, Chief Executive of the National Garden Scheme, for a conversation about one of the most quietly magical institutions in Britain. On weekends across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands, ordinary people — and some rather extraordinary ones — throw open their garden gates and invite strangers in. You pay around six pounds, wander through someone's private paradise, and then sit down to homemade Victoria sponge and a cup of tea. Every penny goes to charity, most of it to nurses. Richard came to the role by an unusual route: a GP for 23 years in Tonbridge, he became a leading advocate of "green prescribing" — the idea that time in a garden can be genuine medicine — founded the charity Gardening4health, launched an NHS therapy garden, retrained as a garden designer specializing in healthcare spaces, and volunteered as a guide at Sissinghurst. He explains the real clinical evidence behind therapeutic horticulture, tells the story of Elsie Wagg and the 600 gardens that opened in 1927 to fund the Queen's Nurses, walks through how the scheme works today and how visitors can find and book gardens, describes the intensive care roof garden and the spinal unit gardens the charity funds, unpacks what makes an English garden English, tells the love story behind Sissinghurst, reveals his own favorite garden in the scheme, and — live on air — writes Jonathan a green prescription. Note: Cover image is Wordsworth Garden in Cumbria, which I don't think is actually in the scheme, but it is the prettiest picture of a garden I had! Links The National Garden Scheme National Garden Scheme — Official Website Find a Garden to Visit Who We Are & What We Do The National Garden Scheme App — iOS & Android NGS on Instagram Dr. Richard Claxton on Instagram — @richardclaxtongardens Beneficiary Charities Mentioned The Queen's Nursing Institute Macmillan Cancer Support Parkinson's UK Marie Curie Carers Trust Horatio's Garden — Gardens for Spinal Injury Centres Greenfingers Charity — Gardens for Children's Hospices Gardens Mentioned Sissinghurst Castle Garden — National Trust, Kent Knole, Sevenoaks — National Trust Also Mentioned Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways The National Garden Scheme is a charity, not a membership body — a network of around 3,500 private gardens across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands that open to the public on set days each year. Scotland has its own equivalent scheme. Entry is typically around six pounds, and there is almost always cake. The scheme was founded in 1927 by Elsie Wagg, the daughter of a wealthy stockbroking family, who sat on the committee funding the Queen's Nurses — a fledgling service of community district nurses struggling for money in the era before the NHS. Her idea was simple: get as many people as possible to open their gardens and charge the public a shilling. In the first year, 600 gardens opened and raised £8,000. Ninety-nine years later, the scheme has given away roughly £80 million, and currently distributes about £4 million every year. It is now the single biggest funder of many of Britain's major nursing and healthcare charities — including Macmillan Cancer Support, Parkinson's UK, Marie Curie, Carers Trust, hospices, and still, most enduringly, the Queen's Nurses. The charity is tiny in staff and vast in reach: only 13 paid employees, supported by around 600 volunteers who coordinate garden openings county by county across the country. Green social prescribing is not, as Richard is careful to stress, "mumbo jumbo." The evidence shows that ten sessions of therapeutic horticulture delivers benefit for moderate depression and anxiety roughly equivalent to ten sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy — at significantly lower cost — and roughly equivalent to a much longer course of SSRI antidepressants. Gardeners who grow their own produce also show lower rates of obesity, dementia, and several cancers. About half a million pounds a year goes specifically to the charity's Gardens and Health program. Projects include a roof garden on an intensive care unit in London — designed so that ventilated, sedated patients can be brought outside to feel sun and breeze, with all life-support equipment plugged into cupboards concealed within the flower beds — and Horatio's Garden, which builds and staffs gardens at all eleven UK spinal injury centres. Gardens are not selected by contest. Most owners approach the scheme themselves; occasionally the scheme approaches an exceptional garden. A county team member then visits to assess quality, access, parking, and catering arrangements, and to work out when in the year the garden looks its best. Beyond the scheduled open days, many gardens offer "by arrangement" visits — meaning if you see a garden you like the sound of but there's no date listed, you can simply contact the owner directly, explain you'll be in the area, and more often than not they'll say yes and bake you a cake. The classic English cottage garden — densely planted, lush, mixing vegetables and fruit with ornamental flowers timed to bloom in relay across the season — is changing under pressure from drought and hosepipe bans. Richard is seeing a marked shift toward Mediterranean-style planting, grasses, and drought-tolerant species. The National Garden Scheme's centenary falls in 2027. Only about 75 of the original 1927 gardens still open today, but the charity is aiming for 150 to 200 of them next year, alongside gala events, concerts and dinners in gardens, a traveling exhibition, show gardens at county shows, and a full impact report covering the charity's first hundred years. Soundbites "It was the dream ticket for me, because it combined both gardening and health and visiting gardens and garden design and people — and cake. I really am the cat that got the cream." — Richard on landing the job. "I would emphasize I'm not a complete hippie as a doctor. I'm not remotely new age. I was very conventional as a GP. Green social prescribing is simply a way of pointing out, in a holistic sense, a prescription that isn't necessarily in a packet of pills." — Richard on what green prescribing actually is. "Ten sessions will be equivalent in benefit to a course of cognitive behavioral therapy for the same amount of time, and it will cost a lot less. It's not mumbo jumbo. There is real evidence behind it." — Richard on the clinical case for therapeutic horticulture. "She said to her committee: why don't we get as many people as possible to open their gardens for charity and let the public in? And so in 1927, 600 gardens opened for the very first time and they charged a shilling a head." — Richard on Elsie Wagg's original idea. "If I went and saw a movie at a cinema, that would be between fifteen and twenty-five pounds. Or if I went to a large public garden, twenty, twenty-five. These are six pounds a head. And there's almost always cake." — Richard on the value proposition. "I'd literally not even got my feet under the desk and I was being asked to write checks for half a million pounds to these charities. It really brought home to me the value and the impact of what we do." — Richard on his first weeks in the job. "Patients who are effectively on life support machines, ventilated and sedated, can come up and feel the sun on their face and the breeze. They can look into the tree canopy. It's been designed so you can plug in all the equipment that keeps them alive into cupboards buried in the flower beds." — Richard on the intensive care roof garden the scheme part-funded. "All the best gardens are ones where there's a love story behind them. And Sissinghurst is the ultimate example of a love story garden for me." — Richard on why Sissinghurst is his favorite garden in the world. "They lived in squares, they painted in circles, and they loved in triangles." — Richard quoting the saying about the Bloomsbury set. "They set out the garden at the beginning of their married life with a wedding present ask for everyone who came to their wedding: a cutting, a small little plant of yew or box. And from those wedding presents they have grown the most extraordinarily beautiful topiary garden I've ever been in — with twelve-foot-high peacocks and dogs and chess pieces." — Richard on Balmoral Cottage, his favorite garden in the scheme. Chapters 00:21 Introduction — Open garden gates, Victoria sponge, and one of Britain's most charming institutions 01:47 Welcome, Richard — Recording on a bank holiday Monday 01:59 From GP to Garden Scheme — Sweet peas with grandad, gardening through junior doctor years, and a roundabout route 03:26 Twenty-Five Years as a Community Physician — Recognizing that lifestyle problems could respond to time in nature 04:25 Building the Path — A therapy garden for the NHS, founding a charity, and a garden design diploma for hospital spaces 05:00 The Dream Ticket — Gardening, health, gardens, design, people, and cake 05:27 What Is Green Prescribing? — And a firm assurance that Richard is not a hippie 06:19 How It Actually Works — Ten sessions of therapeutic horticulture, and how it compares to CBT and SSRIs 08:12 Preventative Healthcare — Why gardeners are thinner, eat better, and have lower rates of cancer and dementia 08:46 The Bigger Picture — Food security, climate, biodiversity, loneliness, and what gardens can connect 09:13 Volunteering at Sissinghurst — And why they wouldn't even give him a pair of clippers 10:14 What Is the National Garden Scheme? — 3,200 gardens, four nations, and a charity not a membership body 10:44 The Origins — Elsie Wagg, the Queen's Nurses, and 600 gardens in 1927 12:12 Ninety-Nine Years Later — How the formula works today 13:29 Six Pounds and a Slice of Cake — Lemon drizzle, Victoria sponge, and why it's such good value 13:45 Why People Come Back — Inspiration, holidays, meeting family halfway, and buying plants propagated on site 14:59 Not Just Stately Homes — Ordinary back gardens, group openings, and allotments 15:47 What Is an Allotment? — Richard explains a very British institution to an American audience 17:17 How a Garden Joins the Scheme — Not a contest; the county team visit; access, parking, catering and timing 17:38 Thirteen Staff, Six Hundred Volunteers — How a tiny charity achieves such enormous reach 18:36 Finding a Garden to Visit — The website, the app, booking online or paying at the gate 19:08 Is It Only One Weekend a Year? — No: set days across the season, planned around what's in bloom 20:17 "By Arrangement" Openings — How to get a bespoke private visit, and why they'll probably bake you a cake 21:20 Where the Money Goes — £80 million lifetime, £4 million a year, and the charities it funds 22:03 Why These Charities Exist — The NHS, community care, and the charitable infrastructure alongside it 23:43 The Biggest Funder — Hospices, Parkinson's nurses, Macmillan, spinal units, veterans, and the Queen's Nurses 24:39 Every Slice of Cake — The duality of generosity that runs through the whole scheme 25:38 Writing the Checks — Half a million pounds in the first two months on the job 26:03 A Casino in Indiana — Jonathan's tangent about local charitable giving 26:56 Who the Real Beneficiaries Are — Not the charities, but the British public 28:11 Leaving Patients After 23 Years — And why the impact of this job is greater than one-to-one care 29:07 The Gardens and Health Program — Half a million a year, and what it funds 30:18 The Intensive Care Roof Garden — Life support in a garden, and equipment hidden in the flower beds 31:35 Horatio's Garden — Gardens at all eleven UK spinal injury centres 32:06 Smaller Projects — A garden for teenagers with mental health problems in a deprived northwestern area 32:43 What Makes an English Garden English? — The cottage garden style and where it came from 33:53 A Changing Climate — Drought, hosepipe bans, crispy brown lawns, and the shift to Mediterranean planting 35:33 Why Sissinghurst? — All the best gardens have a love story 36:21 Vita and Harold — Knole, inheritance law, a ramshackle ruin, and the tower like Rapunzel's 37:36 A Brilliant Pair — Harold laid the bones, Vita did the planting 38:11 The Bloomsbury Set — Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Keynes, Eliot, and living in squares 39:52 What You'll Actually See — The White Garden, the moat, the herb garden, the lime walk, and the view from the tower 41:14 Lucky Not to Inherit — Why losing Knole gave the world Sissinghurst 41:39 The Centenary in 2027 — Gala events, concerts, dinners, exhibitions, and 200 original gardens reopening 43:40 Richard's Favorite Garden in the Scheme — Balmoral Cottage in Kent 44:41 A Wedding Present Garden — Cuttings of yew and box, and twelve-foot topiary peacocks 46:08 Jonathan Asks for a Green Prescription — Live on air, and slightly off script 46:37 Shinrin-yoku — What a two-hour walk in green space does to your heart rate and cortisol 48:03 Grow Your Own — Nutrition, plot to plate, and why supermarket sweetcorn disappoints 49:03 Gardening as Exercise — Why an hour or two of gardening equals half an hour in the gym 49:51 The Real Advice — Start with a walk; if you like it, get an allotment 50:14 Hadrian's Wall — Jonathan's training walks and what they've done for his health 50:48 Making It Stick — Why the hardest part is building it into your life, and why gardens are just outside your back door 52:09 Wrap-Up — Where to find the National Garden Scheme, the app, and Richard's own Instagram Video Version

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas is joined by Professor Patrick Nunn — geographer at the University of the Sunshine Coast, honorary professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne, and visiting fellow at Oxford — for a conversation that will permanently change how you look at the map of Britain. Patrick's new book, Whispers from Celtic Seas , published this month by Reaktion Books, makes an extraordinary argument: the legends of drowned kingdoms off the coasts of Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany are not fantasy at all. They are testimony — eyewitness memories of real catastrophes, passed down by word of mouth for as long as eight thousand years, which would make them quite literally the oldest stories we have. Patrick explains how a conventionally trained scientist came to take myths as seriously as data (via Pacific island oral cultures and Aboriginal Australian traditions), walks Jonathan through the twelve-thousand-year-old Colinda harpoon dredged from the North Sea in 1931 that first revealed Doggerland, describes the Storegga submarine landslide that severed Britain from mainland Europe 8,200 years ago, and unpacks the real histories buried inside the stories of Cantre'r Gwaelod, Lyonesse, and the sea-crossing giants of the Celtic fringe. Along the way: two islands drawn on the 1360 Gough Map that no longer exist, an eighteenth-century Cornish parson who got there first, why stone circles may have been climate mitigation strategies, and the Welsh mudflats whose name translates as "the place of weeping." Links The Book Whispers from Celtic Seas — Reaktion Books (published August 4) Whispers from Celtic Seas — University of Chicago Press (US distribution) Whispers from Celtic Seas — Blackwell's Patrick's Earlier Books The Edge of Memory: Ancient Stories, Oral Tradition and the Post-Glacial World (2018) About Patrick Patrick Nunn — Official Website Prof. Patrick D. Nunn — University of the Sunshine Coast Academic Publications Places & Things Mentioned The Gough Map (c.1360) — Bodleian Library, Oxford Doggerland — Wikipedia overview The Storegga Slide Cantre'r Gwaelod, Cardigan Bay Isles of Scilly Conwy Bay & Traeth Lafan (Lavan Sands), North Wales Outer Hebrides — VisitScotland North Uist & the Monach Islands Crater Lake National Park, Oregon (Mount Mazama) Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways Patrick Nunn's central argument is that the coastal legends of Britain, Ireland and Brittany — drowned kingdoms, giants, mermaids, land-making witches — are not invented fiction but encoded memories of real environmental catastrophes, passed down orally for thousands of years. His challenge to skeptics is to explain the implausibility of the alternative: that pre-literate peoples had the leisure time to invent elaborate fictions and consign them to the river of history. The moment of realization came in two stages. Working in the Pacific Islands, Patrick listened to elders recount stories for hours as if reading from a book — proving oral cultures can retain and transmit enormous quantities of information with total precision. Then, after moving to Australia in 2010, he encountered 34 separate groups of Aboriginal stories from around the entire coastline describing when the sea was further out and the ocean rose to cover the land — events that ended around 7,000 years ago, meaning the stories must be at least that old. The Crater Lake example is Patrick's clinching argument. When European settlers reached Oregon, the Klamath people told them a mountain once stood where the lake is, that two gods fought, and that the mountain collapsed. Mount Mazama erupted and collapsed 7,600 years ago. There is no alternative explanation for how that story survived. The Colinda harpoon — a twelve-thousand-year-old carved deer antler dredged from the floor of the North Sea by a Lowestoft trawler in 1931 — was the first widespread realization that people had once occupied the seabed between Britain and Europe. That landmass is now known as Doggerland, named for the Dogger Bank fishing ground. At the coldest point of the last ice age, around 20,000 years ago, the ocean surface stood roughly 400 feet (125 meters) lower than today. Doggerland was not a "land bridge" — its inhabitants did not think of themselves as living on a bridge. It was simply a vast inhabited landmass supporting fishing, hunting, and free movement of people, animals, and vegetation between what is now mainland Europe and the British Isles. Around 8,200 years ago, a huge section of the Norwegian continental shelf collapsed into the ocean depths — the Storegga Slide — displacing an enormous volume of water and generating tsunamis that struck Shetland, Orkney, Scotland, and the eastern seaboard of the British Isles. Driving south through the North Sea, it smashed passages through the already-shrinking remains of Doggerland. That event, in effect, created the British Isles. The Welsh legend of Cantre'r Gwaelod in Cardigan Bay — sixteen cities lost when King Gwyddno's steward got drunk and forgot to close the sluice gates — has a genuine kernel of truth. People certainly lived in that area 10,000 to 12,000 years ago when sea levels were tens of meters lower, and those places were genuinely submerged. The drunken steward is later decoration added to make the story entertaining; the submergence is the empirical core. The Gough Map of around 1360 — the oldest surviving map of Britain, held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford — shows two islands in Cardigan Bay that do not exist today. Patrick doesn't believe the islands still existed in the 1360s, but the memory of them was sufficiently compelling that the cartographer drew them anyway. Patrick's explanation for giants is one of the book's most striking ideas. When a memory became too implausible for later generations — people walking across what is now thirty miles of open ocean — the story adapted rather than died. The walkers became giants, and the giants grew larger as the ocean gaps widened. Giants weren't invented; they were brought into narrative tradition specifically to keep true memories credible. Patrick's two recommended places to stand and feel this history: Conwy Bay in North Wales, where the mudflats at its head are called the Lavan Sands, whose old name means "the place of weeping"; and the Outer Hebrides, particularly around North Uist, where 19th-century collectors recorded remarkably detailed stories about the Monach Islands — including the names of the last people to cross the land connection and those who drowned attempting it. That connection was submerged 6,800 years ago. Soundbites "I don't think people five hundred years ago or even five thousand years ago had the leisure time to develop elaborate fictions and then consign them to the river of history and pass them down through the ages." — Patrick on why he takes ancient stories seriously. "When we look at stories of mermaids and giants, we're really looking into the minds of people hundreds, even thousands of years ago — the way they conceived the world and the way they encoded their observations of deep time." — Patrick on what folklore actually preserves. "It became clear to me that people in oral cultures are in fact able to retain and organize and pass on huge amounts of information without the benefits of being able to write them down." — Patrick on the Pacific Islands research that changed his thinking. "These stories by default had to be at least seven thousand years old. And that really blew my mind, as I guess it would that of any conventional scientist. But I was always trained: let the data speak." — Patrick on the Aboriginal Australian stories of coastal drowning. "That volcano erupted seven thousand six hundred years ago. There is no alternative explanation for the Klamath story having been passed on since this cataclysmic event." — Patrick on Crater Lake, Oregon. "Why are you skeptical that a story can be passed down for thousands of years? You're skeptical because it doesn't happen today. We've forgotten, if you like, what our ancestors in oral societies did." — Patrick's response to skeptics. "That event, if you like, created the British Isles. It destroyed the land connection between the British Isles and mainland Europe around about eight thousand two hundred years ago." — Patrick on the Storegga Slide. "We laugh about the drunken steward and the duties he failed to perform. But the essence of that story is that there once existed inhabited places on the floor of what is today Cardigan Bay, and these places became submerged. And of course that's absolutely true." — Patrick on Cantre'r Gwaelod. "Those people became giants because that was the way you could rationalize these stories and make them credible to each new generation. And the giants became bigger and bigger through time because the ocean gaps became wider and wider." — Patrick on the origin of giants in Celtic folklore. "The old English name for the Lavan Sands means the place of weeping. There is so much sadness associated with the loss of land in the past, and some of that sentiment is preserved in place names." — Patrick on Conwy Bay, North Wales. Chapters 00:21 Introduction — Drowned kingdoms, giants, and the claim that these are the oldest stories we have 01:51 Welcome, Patrick — Anglotopia's first guest from Australia, and hello from the past 02:19 The Central Argument — Why these legends are memory, not invention 04:17 From Geographer to Folklorist — What made a scientist take myths as seriously as data 05:04 The Pacific Islands — Listening to elders recite for hours as if reading from a book 05:58 Aboriginal Australia — 34 groups of stories about coastlines that drowned, and what that proves 07:45 From Australia to the Celtic Fringe — How The Edge of Memory led to this book 09:53 The Skeptic's Objection — Does oral tradition degrade like a game of telephone? 12:06 Crater Lake, Oregon — The Klamath story and a volcano that erupted 7,600 years ago 13:46 The Colinda Harpoon — A 12,000-year-old antler spear dredged from the North Sea in 1931 15:37 Doggerland — Naming the drowned world beneath the North Sea 16:11 Life in Doggerland — 400 feet lower seas, free movement of people and animals, fishing and hunting 18:09 The Storegga Slide — How a Norwegian landslide 8,200 years ago created the British Isles 20:01 What Happened to the People? — Drowning, retreat to higher ground, and the normalization of submergence 21:34 Why Every Culture Has a Flood Story — Different events, shared memory of a world transformed 22:23 Lake Michigan — Jonathan wonders about flood legends in his own backyard 23:05 Wales: Cantre'r Gwaelod — Sixteen cities, King Gwyddno, and a drunken gatekeeper 26:13 The Gough Map — Two islands in Cardigan Bay drawn in 1360 that no longer exist 27:37 Cornwall: Lyonesse — The Arthurian drowned land off Land's End 28:01 William Borlase — The 18th-century Cornish parson who took the stories seriously 29:56 The Scilly Isles — Once a single island, now ten, and the trauma of being cut apart 32:08 Giants — Why implausible memories became giants, and why the giants grew 35:28 Method — How to tell a story encoding real events from a good story 37:38 Contemporary Resonance — What these stories teach us about climate change today 40:09 What Else Are We Not Listening To? — Volcanoes, seawalls, and mitigation 41:39 Stone Circles as Climate Mitigation — A genuinely startling idea 43:15 Where to Stand and Feel This History — Conwy Bay and the Lavan Sands, "the place of weeping" 44:46 The Outer Hebrides — North Uist, the Monach Islands, and stories recorded in astonishing detail 46:32 Alexander Carmichael — A tall man wading the fords, and the couplet that moves Patrick most 48:31 Wrap-Up — Whispers from Celtic Seas , out August 4 from Reaktion Books Video Version

This is a special one. Recorded on home soil just days before departure, this is Jonathan Thomas's complete pre-trip briefing before he leaves to walk the entire 84-mile length of Hadrian's Wall — coast to coast across Northern England. It has been fifteen years in the making. Jonathan walks through the whole story: the conversation with his wife a year ago that set everything in motion, the year of training that followed, why he chose this particular trail, and how a long-held someday became a definite date on the calendar. He then goes deep into the logistics — the Macs Adventure app and luggage transfer service, his full ten-stage itinerary from Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway, why he's walking east to west, the "day zero" plan to get the first five miles out of the way, the gear he's packing (and the beloved Ordnance Survey maps he's leaving behind), and the tradition he's borrowing from the Wainwright Coast to Coast. Finally, he lays out everything coming down the line: a ten-episode podcast series sponsored by SplashMaps, social posts from the trail, mini-documentaries, articles, a possible book, a possible revival of the Travels in Britain video series — and the extra week in England afterward, taking in the Settle & Carlisle line, four days in York, a day out in Yorkshire with Tim Barber, Castle Howard, and a final stretch in London that includes Buckingham Palace, the Ceremony of the Keys, the Wallace Collection's Churchill exhibition, and a recording of next month's What's On in London from inside Emery Walker's House. The Anglotopia Hadrian’s Wall Hub — Progress Tracker & All Content Links The Sponsors Macs Adventure — Hadrian's Wall Path Walking Holidays Macs Adventure — Hadrian's Wall Path East to West, 9 Days SplashMaps SplashMaps — The New Hadrian's Wall Challenge Series Map (Anglotopia Collaboration) Previous Anglotopia Episodes Mentioned Episode 70 — Tips on Walking the Hadrian's Wall National Trail with Emily Graver of Macs Adventure Episode 87 — How to Walk Hadrian's Wall with Quintin Lake Episode 82 — Your Travel Guide to Britain in 2026 Tim Barber — The Real Yorkshire Tours Episode Dr. Lucy Davis — Winston Churchill the Painter at the Wallace Collection What's On in London: August — Including the Ceremony of the Keys Anglotopia Background Reading Anglotopia's Big Plans for 2026: Walking Hadrian's Wall and More Training for Hadrian's Wall — The Full Archive Jonathan on the SplashMaps Adventure Habits Podcast Friends of Anglotopia Club — Everything Posts Here First The Trail Itself Hadrian's Wall Path — Official National Trail Hadrian's Wall Passport & Stamps Segedunum Roman Fort, Wallsend — Where the Walk Begins Vindolanda Roman Fort & Museum AD122 Hadrian's Wall Bus Service Cicerone Guide — Hadrian's Wall Path Trailblazer Guide — Hadrian's Wall Path Places on the Itinerary Lumley Castle Hotel, Chester-le-Street Beamish — The Living Museum of the North Tyne & Wear Metro Tynemouth Priory & Castle — English Heritage The Twice Brewed Inn, Once Brewed Northumberland International Dark Sky Park Sycamore Gap — National Trust Lanercost Priory — English Heritage Carlisle Castle — English Heritage Carlisle Cathedral The Week After the Walk The Settle & Carlisle Railway Ribblehead Viaduct National Railway Museum, York Visit York Castle Howard, North Yorkshire Emery Walker's House, Hammersmith Ceremony of the Keys, Tower of London Buckingham Palace State Rooms & East Wing Tour Winston Churchill the Painter — The Wallace Collection Frida Kahlo — Tate Modern James McNeill Whistler — Tate Britain Star Trek at 60 — Science Museum Follow Along The Anglotopia Hadrian's Wall Hub — Progress Tracker & All Content Anglotopia on Instagram Anglotopia on Facebook Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways This walk has been fifteen years in the making. Deep in the Anglotopia archive is what Jonathan calls "the graveyard of my ambitions" — every previous attempt to start training for Hadrian's Wall that never became a trip. The difference now is life stage: what would have been an enormous ask with a young family in his twenties is achievable in his forties with teenagers who can manage without him for two and a half weeks. The trip exists because of a single conversation. About a year ago, Jonathan's wife Jackie told him she could see something was wrong and that he needed to do something about it. What came out of that conversation was a plan: get to England, do something big, and train for it. A year later he's roughly forty pounds lighter, knows he can walk long distances because he has, and says he's been happier this year than he's ever been — before even setting foot on the trail. Two sponsors made it happen. Macs Adventure — a self-guided walking and cycling specialist — planned and booked the entire trip, which is what made it financially possible in the first place. SplashMaps, the fabric map company Jonathan has been a fan of for a decade, came in last May to sponsor the forthcoming ten-episode podcast series, and has commissioned a special Hadrian's Wall map for the Challenge Series in collaboration with Anglotopia. The Macs Adventure app is the centerpiece of the self-guided model. It holds the full itinerary, all hotel and booking details, day-by-day route overviews, downloadable offline GPS mapping, weather, luggage transfer information, and — Jonathan's favorite feature — tips left by other walkers who have done the same stage. Because of it, the treasured Ordnance Survey maps and guidebooks are staying home. Luggage transfer changes everything. Each morning the suitcase goes down to hotel reception by 9am and is moved to the next hotel, meaning Jonathan only carries a day pack with camera, laptop, microphones, water and snacks. This is also why he's traveling carry-on only for the entire two and a half weeks. The route runs Wallsend → Heddon-on-the-Wall → Corbridge → Chollerford → Once Brewed → Gilsland → Haytongate → Carlisle → Bowness-on-Solway, over ten days. Jonathan is walking east to west specifically for the experience of walking out of a city into open countryside — an idea that came directly from the Quintin Lake and Macs Adventure guide episodes. "Day Zero" is the smart move. Rather than face a fifteen-mile first day, Jonathan is arriving in Newcastle a day early, collecting his Hadrian's Wall passport at Segedunum in Wallsend, and walking the first flat five city miles back to his hotel — leaving a more manageable ten miles for day one proper. He notes that even ten miles will be the longest single-day walk of his life. He's borrowing a tradition from the Wainwright Coast to Coast. Walkers there dip their toes in the North Sea at the start and the Irish Sea at the finish. Since the Hadrian's Wall Path doesn't start at the sea, Jonathan is taking the Tyne & Wear Metro out to Tynemouth to dip his toes in the North Sea before beginning — and will do the same at Bowness-on-Solway if the tide is in. There is a great deal of content coming, and almost none of it will be published from the trail. A one-off Macs Adventure episode arrives in September, followed by the ten-part SplashMaps-sponsored series starting in October (after the six-part Jane Austen series in September). Expect two podcasts a week for the rest of the year, plus reels, mini-documentaries, articles, photography, a possible book, and possibly a revival of the Travels in Britain video series — which quietly accumulated half a million YouTube views over the years. The week after the walk is a trip in itself: the Settle & Carlisle railway line and the Ribblehead Viaduct, four days based in York including the National Railway Museum, a full day exploring Yorkshire and Castle Howard with Tim Barber from the Real Yorkshire Tours episode, then London for the Ceremony of the Keys, Buckingham Palace State Rooms and East Wing, the Wallace Collection's Churchill exhibition, a recording of next month's What's On in London from inside Emery Walker's House, and a celebratory dinner with Anglotopia's columnists. Soundbites "This is the last episode that I'm recording on home soil before I leave for Britain to walk the entire length of Hadrian's Wall. Or as I've been telling people who don't know what Hadrian's Wall is — I'm walking across England, quite literally, from coast to coast." — Jonathan opening the episode. "If you go deep into Anglotopia's archive, you can see the graveyard of my ambitions — all the times I tried to begin training for Hadrian's Wall and failed and never went and did it." — Jonathan on fifteen years of false starts. "We had a conversation that was basically life changing. It's the kind of conversation you can only have with somebody who's been your partner for twenty years." — Jonathan on the moment a year ago that set everything in motion. "If I had attempted to do this walk a year ago in the shape I was in a year ago, I probably would have ended up in a hospital somewhere in northern England, which would not have been good." — Jonathan on a year of training. "I'm actually not that interested in the history so much anymore. I'm interested in the walk." — Jonathan on how his relationship with Hadrian's Wall has shifted over the past year of research. "I'm looking forward to starting in a city and literally walking out of a city. I've never experienced that before. And then walking into the open countryside. There's a romance to it that I feel like is really appealing." — Jonathan on why he chose to walk east to west. "They were in the Durham area in a village called Shincliffe. This is the landscape they inhabited, and it's the landscape they left and came to North America and never went back to. So this is kind of me going back and understanding this landscape that they felt like they needed to leave." — Jonathan on the ancestral connection running underneath the walk. "I'm not going to do a few miles and then get on the bus and get to the next trailhead, because that's not doing it. I'll never be able to live with myself that I went through all of this to go do this and then I didn't do it all." — Jonathan on why he's taking the full ten days. "Thank you for talking to me a year ago and making me realize I needed to make some changes and needed to do this — because I have been the happiest I've ever been and I haven't even gone on the walk yet." — Jonathan's message to his wife Jackie. "If you've got something big you want to do, do it. You can just do things. So get on with it." — Jonathan's closing thought before departure. Chapters 00:22 Introduction — The last episode before leaving for Hadrian's Wall 01:25 Thank You to the Sponsors — Macs Adventure and SplashMaps 02:43 Fifteen Years in the Making — The graveyard of ambitions in the Anglotopia archive 03:38 A Year Ago — The conversation with Jackie that changed everything 04:25 Training and Health — Why the walk became a goal worth building a year around 05:02 An Amazing Year — Where the training got him and how he's feeling now 06:09 Why Hadrian's Wall? — Roman history, Game of Thrones, and a frontier where civilization stopped 06:59 What Actually Interests Him Now — Less the history, more the walk itself 07:53 Walking Out of a City — Why east to west, and the appeal of Newcastle 08:27 The Durham Ancestral Connection — Shincliffe and the landscape his family left 09:08 Not a Natural Walker — Hating gym class, and finding walking as the least bad option 10:41 The Indiana Problem — Busy county roads, trail apps, and some surprising discoveries close to home 11:35 Someday Becomes Now — Goals, accountability, and being public about it 12:32 Macs Adventure Comes On Board — When booking confirmations made it real 13:06 Meet Hudson — The Irish setter bought to encourage the walking, and the most handsome misbehaved dog imaginable 14:36 A Bigger Deal Than One Episode — How the walk grew into a ten-part series 15:33 SplashMaps Comes On Board — And the special Hadrian's Wall map commissioned for the trip 16:13 Planning — The library of Hadrian's Wall books built up over fifteen years 16:59 The Ordnance Survey Maps — Laid out across a basement floor, and why they're staying home 17:31 The Macs Adventure Welcome Packet — Luggage tag, guidebook, and what arrived by Royal Mail 17:51 How Luggage Transfer Works — Bag to reception by 9am, day pack only 19:15 The Macs Adventure App — Offline mapping, itinerary, hotel details, weather, and tips from other walkers 21:42 The Itinerary Begins — Flying from Chicago, arriving early, and a buffer day 22:17 Lumley Castle — A 14th-century castle hotel in Chester-le-Street for night one 22:57 Beamish — Squeezing in the living history museum if jet lag permits 23:56 The Geography of the Walk — Wallsend, the Roman line, and where the trail actually runs 24:15 The Hadrian's Wall Passport — Collecting stamps along the route 25:06 The Ten Stages — Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway, stage by stage 26:01 East to West vs West to East — Why the Quintin Lake and Macs Adventure episodes settled it 26:54 Day Zero — Getting the first five city miles out of the way on arrival day 27:41 Ten Miles on Day One — The longest single walk of his life 28:25 Dipping Toes in Two Seas — Borrowing a tradition from the Wainwright Coast to Coast 30:43 The Tyne & Wear Metro — Newcastle's underground, and the train nerd's excitement 31:23 A Boring Walk? — Why Jonathan disagrees with the guidebooks about the Newcastle stretch 32:03 Building a Rough Itinerary — TripIt, research, and accepting he can't see everything 33:19 What He Wants to See — Sycamore Gap, Lanercost Priory, Carlisle Castle and Cathedral, an aviation museum 34:05 The AD122 Bus — Why nothing is truly missed 35:00 Ten Days, Not Four — Taking his time and refusing to skip sections 36:01 The Weather Forecast — Sixties and seventies Fahrenheit, and rain almost every day 36:21 Gear — Boots, walking shoes, waterproofs, day pack, and the Columbia socks he trained in 37:45 Carry-On Only — Two weeks of clothing in a carry-on, and why no walking poles 38:42 The Twice Brewed Inn — Once Brewed, the Dark Sky Park, and hoping to see the Milky Way 39:45 Cameras and Microphones — What's coming in the day pack 40:09 Anglotopia Hats and Green Glasses — And a thank you to his parents 40:42 What's Coming — Content plans for the next year and beyond 41:06 The Macs Adventure Episode — Coming in September 41:52 Why He Won't Publish From the Trail — Lessons learned from Land's End to John o'Groats 43:05 The Ten-Episode Series — Recording twenty to thirty minutes at the end of every day 43:26 Release Schedule — Two podcasts a week for the rest of the year, after the Jane Austen series 44:17 Social Media From the Trail — Instagram, Facebook, Threads and Bluesky 44:34 Mini-Documentaries and Reels — Filming now, editing later 45:08 Friends of Anglotopia First — Podcasts, articles, updates and photography 45:20 A Book? — Undecided, and the problem with middle-aged men writing about walking 46:24 Travels in Britain — The old Rick Steves-style series that quietly got half a million views 47:33 After the Walk — An extra week in England 48:00 Why Jackie Isn't Coming — A tree fell on the house in May and reconfigured the summer 48:57 Leaving the Day Before School Starts — And how that happened 50:11 Making Wine From Sour Grapes — Doing things his wife would hate 50:22 The Settle & Carlisle Line — The Ribblehead Viaduct and one of Britain's great railway journeys 50:54 Four Days in York — Finally doing the city properly 51:33 The National Railway Museum — Enjoying it thoroughly and alone 52:14 A Day Out With Tim Barber — Castle Howard, a ruined abbey, and the North York Moors 53:18 On to London — Staying with a friend 53:38 Emery Walker's House — Recording next month's What's On in London on location 54:07 The Ceremony of the Keys — Finally doing it after years of wanting to 54:22 Exhibitions — Frida Kahlo, Whistler, Star Trek, and knowing he can't do it all 54:43 Buckingham Palace — The State Rooms and the newly renovated East Wing 55:14 The Wallace Collection Churchill Exhibition — Booked months ago 55:29 An Anglotopia Dinner — Meeting the columnists in person 55:57 What He'll Miss — The Bayeux Tapestry press view and a February return 56:31 Closing Thoughts — A year ago this wasn't happening, and now it is 56:44 Thank You, Jackie — The person who made it happen 57:22 If You've Got Something Big You Want to Do — Just do it 58:03 How to Follow Along — Friends of Anglotopia, the Hadrian's Wall hub, and the progress tracker 58:57 See You on the Other Side of the Wall Video Version

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas welcomes back Dr. Chris Smith — historian at Coventry University, author of The Hidden History of Bletchley Park and The Last Cambridge Spy , and a returning friend of the podcast for his third appearance — to explore one of the most remarkable and troubling stories in modern British history: the Cambridge Five. Five young men, recruited at Cambridge in the 1930s, rose to the very heart of the British establishment — the Foreign Office, MI5, MI6, and Bletchley Park — and spent decades passing its secrets to Moscow. Dr. Smith takes Jonathan through the full arc: the political radicalization of the 1930s that made Soviet recruitment possible, the individual stories of Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and Anthony Blunt, and — above all — the fascinating, overlooked figure of John Cairncross, the ironmonger's son from a Scottish mining town who was never quite let into the fold, mocked for his accent, made to fetch the tea, and who nonetheless walked out of Bletchley Park with raw decrypts stuffed in his trousers and fed them to Moscow. The episode covers the Battle of Kursk and what Cairncross's intelligence really contributed, the extraordinary Venona Project that began unravelling the ring, why MI5 couldn't prosecute the men they knew were guilty, how Anthony Blunt accidentally revealed himself by threatening to sue Private Eye, and why the story of the Cambridge Five — class, betrayal, embarrassment, and the establishment protecting its own — still grips Britain seventy years on. Links The Last Cambridge Spy by Dr. Chris Smith The Hidden History of Bletchley Park by Dr. Chris Smith My Silent War by Kim Philby My Five Cambridge Friends by Yuri Modin (better than any spy novel — though not entirely true) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy — John le Carré Anglotopia Podcast: Episode 78 - Did Churchill Know? Unraveling the Myths of the Coventry Blitz and Wartime Espionage Anglotopia Podcast: Episode 86: Codebreakers, Spies, and Secrets - The Truth About Bletchley Park and Alan Turing Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways The Cambridge Five were not recruited because they were ideological fanatics — they were recruited because the 1930s presented them with a genuine political crisis: mass unemployment, fascism rising across Europe, a British establishment incapable of responding, and the Labour Party wiped out in 1931. Soviet communism appeared to be the only organized force willing to fight the Nazis. Kim Philby did not seek out the NKVD — he fell into their hands almost by accident when he went to work with the Viennese underground and met Litzy Friedmann, whose contacts led straight to Soviet intelligence. His recruitment was as much luck as design. John Cairncross was the only one of the five who did not come from the upper-middle or upper class. Born in 1913 in Lesmahagow, a mining town south of Glasgow, the son of an ironmonger and one of eight children, he arrived at Cambridge already primed with a chip on his shoulder — and was immediately reminded by Anthony Blunt and others that he was not quite one of them. Guy Burgess was literally the last person the Soviets wanted to recruit — their own list had him at the bottom. He was a prolific drunk who couldn't keep secrets and would tell people he was a spy when intoxicated. They eventually let him in because he'd worked it out and it was better to have him inside the tent. Cairncross's route into Bletchley Park came through losing his job in Lord Hankey's office when Churchill became Prime Minister and cleared out Chamberlain's people. He simply asked the right person to write the right letter, and was hired to work in Hut Three. Nobody ran adequate background checks — being a Cambridge man was effectively sufficient. Stealing secrets from Bletchley was almost embarrassingly easy. Cairncross would take raw decrypts from the room where they were waiting to be incinerated, stuff them in his trousers, walk out unchecked, get on the train to London, and hand them to his handler. Getting in without a pass was dangerous; leaving was essentially unmonitored. Cairncross's contribution to the Battle of Kursk — providing intelligence that allowed the Red Army Air Force to locate and destroy several hundred Luftwaffe aircraft on the ground — was real, but its precise importance is genuinely contested. The volume and quality of intelligence over years, not any single document, is what made the Cambridge Five so valuable. The reason none of the five were prosecuted comes down to evidence — specifically the Venona Project. The Americans were never going to allow their top-secret ongoing cryptanalytic operation to be exposed in a British criminal court, and without that evidence, MI5 had nothing admissible. The deal offered to Blunt and Cairncross: tell us everything and we guarantee you'll never be prosecuted. Anthony Blunt accidentally exposed himself by attempting to sue Private Eye for insinuating he was the fourth man. To bring a case you have to go public — which immediately told everyone in the journalistic world exactly who he was, and forced Margaret Thatcher to make a statement in the House of Commons using qualified parliamentary immunity. The Cambridge Five story endures because it is simultaneously a great spy thriller, a story about British class and the establishment's habit of protecting its own, and a genuinely embarrassing episode that helped bring down governments. John le Carré based the villain of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy directly on Kim Philby, and the story has never quite gone away. Soundbites "Cairncross was mocked for his accent, made to fetch the tea, passed over — and went on to smuggle raw decrypts out of Bletchley Park stuffed in his trousers, feeding Moscow intelligence that shaped the greatest tank battle in history." — Jonathan's introduction. "In nineteen thirty-one, the Labour party basically gets annihilated in the general election. And for a lot of these quite radical individuals, it seems now that the establishment doesn't have the moral fortitude to address any of these issues with any kind of clarity or energy." — Chris on why Cambridge radicals turned to communism. "Philby literally walks up to a communist lecturer at Cambridge and says, what can I do for the movement? And this guy dispatches him off to Vienna, where he joins the Viennese underground and meets Litzy." — Chris on how Kim Philby's recruitment happened almost by accident. "Guy Burgess is literally the bottom of the list. He couldn't keep a secret, liked to get drunk all the time, and when drunk would literally tell people he was a spy. He would actually do that. And everyone would be like, he's drunk, talking rubbish." — Chris on the spy ring's most problematic recruit. "He just stuffs raw decrypts down his trousers and walks out of the park. Gets on the train to London. That's all it took. Getting in without a pass, you might get shot. But leaving — no one ever checked him." — Chris on how Cairncross stole secrets from Bletchley Park. "It's not the one James Bond, Jason Bourne style moment that we kind of imagine from TV. It's the volume, quantity, and quality over years which makes them so important to the Soviet Union." — Chris on why the Cambridge Five mattered. "The United States are not going to allow you to have their top-secret project come out in a British criminal court case. They haven't got admissible evidence. And everybody involved probably knows it." — Chris on why none of the five were ever prosecuted. "In the act of threatening to bring a case to court, you have to go public. So why would Anthony Blunt be suing Private Eye over Andrew Boyle's book? He basically revealed himself as a spy. And that meant Thatcher had to make a statement in the House of Commons." — Chris on how Blunt accidentally exposed himself. "Novels like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are literally written about Kim Philby. John le Carré had been an MI6 officer in the sixties and knew full well what had happened. It's not only better than fiction — it's also inspired the best fiction." — Chris on why the story endures. "It's about the establishment being untrustworthy. It brings down governments. It literally dogs them for decades. Every time there's a new generation of politicians, this story comes back again. It's the gift that keeps on giving." — Chris on why Britain can't let go of the Cambridge Five. Chapters 00:21 Introduction — Jonathan sets the scene: five Cambridge men, decades of treachery, and the one nobody remembers 02:05 Welcome Back, Chris — His third appearance; previous episodes on Bletchley Park and the Churchill/Coventry myth 02:09 How Chris Came to Cairncross — A PhD on Bletchley Park, a memoir, and a biography waiting to be written 03:03 Who Were the Cambridge Five? — Setting the scene for anyone who half knows the story 03:18 Meet the Five — Philby, Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, and the outsider Cairncross 05:00 Cambridge in the 1930s — The Devil's Decade, the Great Depression, 20% unemployment, and the 1931 election wipeout 07:55 The Soviet Union as the Only Alternative — Why young radicals looked to Moscow when everything else failed 09:43 How Kim Philby Was Recruited — Vienna, Litzy Friedmann, the NKVD, and an accident of love 11:33 Philby Recruits the Others — Arnold Deutsch, picking the fruit from the tree, and why the Soviets got very lucky 13:41 What Motivated Them? — Anti-fascism, anti-appeasement, class guilt, and the case that holds up vs. the one that doesn't 15:39 Enter John Cairncross — Lesmahagow, Glasgow, the Sorbonne, and an extraordinary family 16:20 Cairncross's Background — An ironmonger's father, eight children, five university degrees, and the brother who became chief economic advisor 19:55 Glasgow University — Bursary exams, near-perfect scores in French and German, and the city that films as New York 23:46 Two Years in Paris — Wine, Molière, Nazi refugees, and cycling holidays through Berlin 25:35 Cairncross Arrives at Cambridge — 1934, his brother Alec, and the year he finally becomes political 29:54 How Cairncross Was Recruited — Blunt spots him, Guy Burgess pursues him, Klugmann closes the deal 33:21 Rejected from Academia, Tops the Civil Service Exam — The establishment he hated becomes the one he joins 34:16 Into the Foreign Office — Top marks, third secretary, and Donald Maclean as his boss 38:02 Transferred to the Treasury — Why it turns out to be a goldmine for Soviet intelligence 39:04 Lord Hankey's Office — The MAUD Committee, nuclear weapons, and Cairncross as the first atomic spy 43:11 Cairncross Loses His Job and Gets to Bletchley — Churchill sacks Hankey's people; a letter to the right person; Hut Three 44:11 Background Checks in Wartime — Cambridge, Trinity, a bit of a communist at university — childish stuff, let him in 45:35 Stealing Secrets from Bletchley Park — Decrypts in his trousers, unmonitored exits, the train to London 46:00 Hut Six and Hut Three Explained — The mathematicians vs. the translators, Enigma and Lorenz 48:09 The Battle of Kursk — What Cairncross passed to Moscow, how many aircraft were destroyed, and how much it actually mattered 50:29 Six Thousand Documents and the Order of the Red Banner — Volume and quality over years 50:39 Did Cairncross Harm Britain? — His argument, Chris's verdict, and why the post-war evidence collapses his defence 53:08 Fast Forward: The Cold War Begins — Ally to enemy, and the ring starts to unravel 53:36 The Venona Project — How the Americans cracked the Soviet one-time pad and why it took decades 55:16 Narrowing Down to Maclean — The wife in New York, seven years of analysis, and Kim Philby tipping him off 59:09 Cairncross Confesses in 1963/64 — The MI5 deal, why prosecution was legally impossible, and what he revealed 01:00:47 Why They Couldn't Prosecute — Venona, admissible evidence, and the lawyers' verdict 01:03:53 The Deal Offered to Blunt and Cairncross — Tell us everything; we guarantee you'll never be prosecuted 01:04:46 How Blunt Was Finally Exposed — Andrew Boyle's book, Private Eye, a threatened lawsuit, and Thatcher's statement 01:07:04 Cairncross Publicly Named — Jock Colville, the handwritten note, and Oleg Gordievsky's defection 01:08:09 Cairncross's Final Years — France, TV interviews, memoirs, and death in 1995 01:10:07 Why the Story Still Grips Britain — Class, the establishment, le Carré, Private Eye, Yes Prime Minister 01:12:21 Wrap-Up — The Last Cambridge Spy , Yuri Modin's memoir, and a fourth episode already being planned Video Version

In this monthly episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas returns with his August edition of What's On in London — and this one comes with a personal twist, because Jonathan will be in London himself later in the month. August is London's most contradictory month: the busiest tourist season of the year, a million-plus visitors, packed attractions and carnival streets — and yet simultaneously the month when Londoners themselves flee to Cornwall and France, leaving whole districts strangely quiet. Jonathan covers it all: the Notting Hill Carnival (August 30–31, its 60th anniversary this year, Europe's largest street festival, free entry); the major royal and historic building openings including Buckingham Palace State Rooms, Houses of Parliament summer tours, and the freshly restored Banqueting House reopening August 1st; London's brand new museum, Trent Park House of Secrets — just opened July 21st, telling the extraordinary wartime spy story that was kept under the Official Secrets Act for over 50 years; new West End openings including Jane Eyre the Musical and Kimberly Akimbo; the blockbuster exhibitions still running and closing this month; live music at Victoria Park and Wembley; family-friendly highlights; the VAT tourist discount reducing admission prices across major attractions this summer; and Jonathan's own personal list of what he's booked and planning to see — including the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace's East Wing tour, the Wallace Collection's Churchill as Painter exhibition, and Trent Park. Links The Big One — Notting Hill Carnival (August 29-31, 60th Anniversary) Notting Hill Carnival — Official Website Notting Hill Carnival 2026 Schedule & Info (Sat Aug 29 Steel Band Competition; Sun Aug 30 Children's Day; Mon Aug 31 Main Parade) Royal & Historic Building Openings Buckingham Palace State Rooms — Book Tickets (Open July 9 – September 27, 2026; daily 9:30–19:30 through August 31) Buckingham Palace East Wing Highlights Tour — Book Separately Houses of Parliament Summer Tours — Book Tickets (Reduced prices throughout summer recess; Westminster Hall, House of Commons, House of Lords) Banqueting House — Tickets & Info (Fully reopened August 1 after major restoration; open Thu–Mon 10:00–16:00; Adults £10, under 16s free) London's Newest Museum Trent Park House of Secrets — Book Tickets (Open since July 21; Tue–Sun 10:00–17:00; Adults £14/~$20; Oakwood tube station, Piccadilly Line) Ceremony of the Keys Ceremony of the Keys — Tower of London — Book Tickets (Next ticket release: August 3, 2026 at 13:00; suggested price £30, pay from £10; sells out immediately — set a reminder) Festivals & Outdoor Events Greenwich + Docklands International Festival — Free (August 21 – September 6, 2026; outdoor theatre, circus and dance across Greenwich, Woolwich and Docklands) Greenwich Fair — Free (August 22–23, Greenwich Park — no ticket required) 120 Years of the Piccadilly Line with Tim Dunn — London Transport Museum (August 22) All Points East — Victoria Park, East London (Two weekends; headliners include Lorde, Tyler the Creator, Twenty One Pilots) BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall (Running all month, ends September 12; day tickets available on the door) New West End Theater Openings Jane Eyre the Musical — UK Premiere (from August 28, Southwark Playhouse) Kimberly Akimbo (from August 28, Hampstead Theatre) The Mischievous Team — New spy farce (from August 1) West End Tickets via Londontopia TKTS Half-Price Tickets, Leicester Square Exhibitions — Running & Closing in August Frida Kahlo — Tate Modern (runs to 2027) (Plenty of time — but book ahead) Winston Churchill the Painter — Wallace Collection (until November 29) Richard Dadd — Royal Academy (running) Anish Kapoor — Hayward Gallery (until October) Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art — V&A (until November) Marilyn Monroe — National Portrait Gallery (closing September) (Last chance — closing soon) Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep — Natural History Museum (Great for families) Star Trek at 60 Trail — Science Museum (closing September) (Free) Young Artist Summer Show — Royal Academy (until August 30, Free) Exhibitions Closing in August — See These Now Holy Pop at Somerset House — closes August 9 Patrick Caulfield — Royal Academy — closes August 16 Titanic Exhibition — Olympia — closes August 16 Fairy Tales — British Library — closes August 23 Zurbarán — National Gallery — closes August 23 Hervien Anderson — Tate Britain — closes August 23 David Hockney: A Year in Normandy — Royal Academy — closes August 23 Tracey Emin: A Second Life — Tate Modern — closes August 31 Family Activities Paddington Bear Summer Special — Immersive Experience The Big Dig: Archaeology Adventure (until August 21) Boleyn is Back — Tudor Living History, Tower of London (until August 14) Live Music All Points East — Victoria Park The Weeknd — Wembley Stadium (August 14–19) Practical Resources Met Office App — London Weather Forecast Londontopia London Events Calendar TfL Elizabeth Line — Air-Conditioned Travel Across London Anglotopia Wallace Collection Churchill Episode — Listen Now (Our earlier episode with Dr. Lucy Davis) Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways August 2026 is the 60th anniversary of the Notting Hill Carnival — Europe's largest street festival, free to attend, taking over Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove on August 30–31. The Saturday Steel Band Competition (August 29) requires a ticket; Sunday Children's Day and Monday main parade are free. Arrive early, follow your nose to the food stalls, and keep your wits about you in the crowds. Trent Park House of Secrets — London's brand new museum, opened July 21st — tells the extraordinary story of the WWII intelligence operation where 59 captured German generals were housed in apparent luxury, never knowing the entire house was bugged. Often called "the other Bletchley Park." Tickets are £14 (~$20), open Tuesday–Sunday, and it's on the Piccadilly Line at Oakwood station. Jonathan is going. Buckingham Palace State Rooms are open daily through August 31, 9:30am to 7:30pm — the longest opening hours of the season. Jonathan has booked both the State Rooms tour and the newly opened East Wing tour. If you haven't booked yet, check for remaining availability immediately; the best slots are gone but cancellations do appear. Banqueting House on Whitehall — Inigo Jones's 1622 masterpiece with its Rubens ceiling, the building outside which Charles I was executed — reopens fully on August 1st after a major restoration. Adults £10, under 16s free, open Thursday–Monday. New lift for step-free access. One of London's most underrated experiences. The Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London — the world's oldest unbroken military ceremony, performed every night for at least 700 years — releases the next month's tickets on the first working day of each month. The next release is August 3rd at 1pm. Jonathan got a ticket; it requires an early wake-up and sells out within hours of release. The UK government has instituted a 15% VAT discount on tourist attraction admissions this summer — which means lower prices at major London attractions. If you booked in advance, you may be entitled to a partial refund for the difference; check with each venue. Lower prices also means slightly larger crowds. The Greenwich + Docklands International Festival runs August 21 to September 6 — 17 days of completely free outdoor theatre, circus and dance across Greenwich Park, Woolwich, and the Docklands. The two-day Greenwich Fair on August 22–23 in Greenwich Park is the unmissable centerpiece. No ticket required — just show up. Several major exhibitions close on or around August 23rd — a critical date. Zurbarán at the National Gallery, Fairy Tales at the British Library, David Hockney at the Royal Academy, Hervien Anderson at Tate Britain, and Patrick Caulfield at the Royal Academy all close that day. If you're arriving after August 23rd, these are gone. The BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall run all month and into September — the world's largest classical music festival, with day-of standing tickets potentially available on the door. Jonathan hasn't managed to go yet and still wants to. It's worth trying even if you can't book ahead. August in London is genuinely two cities at once: over a million tourists fill the attractions and the carnival streets, while large swaths of residential London go quiet as locals escape. The wise visitor uses this: the tourist attractions are busy, but the parks, the residential neighborhoods, and the early mornings are surprisingly peaceful. Soundbites "August is London's most contradictory month. Every guidebook tells you it's peak season — and every guidebook is right. And yet at exactly the same time, London kind of empties out. Locals flee to Cornwall, to France, to anywhere that isn't a stuffy office in a heat wave. Whole districts can go completely quiet." — Jonathan on August's strange duality. "The Notting Hill Carnival is that one weekend where London's multicultural and diverse character — which can feel oddly invisible at other times of the year — is front and center. It's loud. It's joyful. And it's entirely free." — Jonathan on why the carnival matters. "They captured high-level German officers and put them all in one place. What the prisoners didn't know was that the entire house was wired with microphones. And hidden in a concealed basement, around a hundred secret listeners — many of them German-speaking Jewish refugees who had fled the Nazis — were recording and transcribing every careless word." — Jonathan on Trent Park House of Secrets. "I have wanted to go inside Buckingham Palace for twenty years. I'm finally doing it this year. I've got my tickets booked. I'm going to do the State Room tour, I'm going to see the freshly rehung picture gallery, and I've booked the East Wing tour. That is going to take a whole Saturday. I cannot wait." — Jonathan on his long-awaited Buckingham Palace visit. "The Ceremony of the Keys is considered the world's longest military ceremony. They say it's been running for a thousand years — I'm skeptical, but at least as long as there's been a Tower of London. I woke up early and managed to snag a ticket before they sold out. Because they do sell out immediately." — Jonathan on booking the Ceremony of the Keys. "Banqueting House. Inigo Jones's masterpiece on Whitehall, with its Rubens ceiling. The one surviving fragment of the old Palace of Whitehall — the very spot where Charles I was executed in 1649. It reopens for the summer on August 1st. That is a lot of history in one place." — Jonathan on Banqueting House reopening. "The government has instituted a fifteen percent discount off the twenty percent VAT for tourists visiting tourist attractions this summer. So this month you will see lower prices at all of London's major tourist attractions. And if you booked in advance, you should be getting a refund." — Jonathan on the summer VAT tourist discount. "I love Star Trek. I have seen every episode of Star Trek dozens of times. You can't see over there, but I'm building the LEGO Enterprise D model right now. And I'm going to go see this exhibition because it's the 60th anniversary and the producers don't seem to want to celebrate it much — but everybody else is." — Jonathan on his plan to visit the Star Trek at 60 Trail at the Science Museum. "Several things close on August 23rd. I'm arriving after August 23rd. So I'm going to miss the David Hockney, the Zurbarán, the Tracey Emin. It's a bit annoying. But it is what it is." — Jonathan on the painful August 23rd exhibition closing cliff. "If you see a slightly sun-birthed Anglophile wandering the food stalls at one of the festivals going on later in August — do say hello. It might just be me." — Jonathan's closing invitation. Chapters 00:23 Introduction & Personal Note — Jonathan is heading to London this August 01:14 Weather Warning — England's driest summer in years, three heat waves, and what to expect 02:35 Episode Overview — Carnival, openings, exhibitions, practical tips 03:16 The Strange Duality of August — A million tourists arrive as Londoners flee 04:05 NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL — Europe's largest free street festival, 60th anniversary, August 29–31 05:28 Carnival Practical Tips — Go early, follow the food, wear comfortable shoes, stay safe 06:37 Festivals & Outdoor Highlights — Greenwich + Docklands International Festival (free, Aug 21–Sep 6) 07:07 Greenwich Fair — Free outdoor theatre in Greenwich Park, August 22–23 07:17 120 Years of the Piccadilly Line — Tim Dunn at the London Transport Museum, August 22 07:50 Edinburgh Fringe Previews & Al Fresco Dining — London venues hosting previews; Soho streets 08:22 ROYAL & HISTORIC BUILDING OPENINGS 08:25 Buckingham Palace State Rooms — Open daily; freshly rehung picture gallery; Jonathan's booked visit 09:31 Buckingham Palace East Wing — Newly opened tour; Jonathan's full Saturday plan 10:07 Houses of Parliament Summer Tours — Westminster Hall, Commons, Lords; reduced prices 10:36 Banqueting House — Fully reopens August 1st after major restoration; Rubens ceiling; £10 adults 11:03 TRENT PARK HOUSE OF SECRETS — London's brand new museum, opened July 21st 11:22 The Story of Trent Park — Philip Sassoon, 59 German generals, hidden microphones 13:03 The Secret Listeners — Jewish refugees transcribing Nazi generals in a concealed basement 14:16 Visiting Trent Park — Hours, tickets £14, Oakwood station, Piccadilly Line 15:43 NEW WEST END THEATER OPENINGS 15:53 The Mischievous Team — New spy farce from August 1st 16:04 Jane Eyre the Musical — UK premiere, Southwark Playhouse, August 28 16:19 Kimberly Akimbo — Tony-winning musical, Hampstead Theatre, August 28 16:32 BLOCKBUSTER EXHIBITIONS STILL RUNNING 16:47 Frida Kahlo at Tate Modern — Runs to 2027; Jonathan plans to go 17:03 Marilyn Monroe — National Portrait Gallery; closing September — last chance 17:13 Anish Kapoor — Hayward Gallery; Schiaparelli — V&A; Richard Dadd — Royal Academy 17:58 Winston Churchill the Painter — Wallace Collection; Jonathan booked since March 18:44 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition — Closes August 23rd; last chance 18:52 Jurassic Oceans — Natural History Museum; Jonathan has never been 19:03 Star Trek at 60 Trail — Science Museum; free; LEGO Enterprise D confession 19:30 EXHIBITIONS CLOSING IN AUGUST — CRITICAL DATES 19:37 August 9 & 16 — Holy Pop (Somerset House), Patrick Caulfield & Titanic (RA & Olympia) 19:54 August 23rd Mass Closings — Fairy Tales, Zurbarán, Hervien Anderson, David Hockney 20:16 August 31 — Tracey Emin: A Second Life (Tate Modern) 20:29 LIVE MUSIC 20:31 All Points East — Victoria Park; Lorde, Tyler the Creator, Twenty One Pilots 20:44 BBC Proms — All month to September 12; day standing tickets on the door 21:11 The Artist at Wembley — August 14–19; Luke Combs this weekend only 21:28 FAMILY ACTIVITIES — School holidays mean packed attractions 21:48 Paddington Bear Summer Special — Immersive experience for younger children 21:56 The Big Dig — Hands-on archaeology through August 21st 22:08 Boleyn is Back — Tudor living history at the Tower, through August 14th 22:16 Young Artist Summer Show — Royal Academy; free; closes August 30th 22:30 JONATHAN'S PERSONAL AUGUST ITINERARY 22:40 Ceremony of the Keys — Booked; how Jonathan got a ticket; arrive at 9:30pm 23:54 What Else Jonathan Is Doing — National Gallery, Wallace Collection, Royal Academy, Natural History Museum 24:49 Star Trek + Natural History Museum Double Bill Plan 25:05 Notting Hill Carnival — In London for it but sitting it out without his wife 25:32 PRACTICAL SECTION — CROWDS, WEATHER & SHOULD YOU GO? 25:37 August Weather Reality — Warm and dry; long days; twilight till after 9pm; pack layers 26:35 Peak Season & School Holidays — Why it's busy even when Londoners leave 26:39 Weather Detail — Pack layers; rain is rare but intense; humidity by the Thames 28:13 THE VAT TOURIST DISCOUNT — 15% off admissions; possible refunds for advance bookers 29:27 Should You Visit in August? — Jonathan's honest verdict 29:52 Top Tip — Don't travel over bank holiday weekend (Jonathan breaks his own rule) 30:51 Wrap-Up — Londontopia events calendar, Friends of Anglotopia, and see you in London Video Version

In this sponsored episode of the Anglotopia Podcast — brought to you by ACP Rail and BritRail — Jonathan Thomas sits down with Tim Roebuck, a man who has spent his entire career in rail travel: station manager, head of BritRail Travel International in New York, senior VP at ACP Rail for 25 years, and one of the most knowledgeable people alive on the subject of getting around Britain by train. This is the episode Jonathan has wanted to make for a long time — a complete, practical, friendly guide to understanding and using the BritRail Pass, demystifying the network for international visitors, and unlocking the kind of trip most Americans never imagine is possible. They cover the history of British Rail and the coming Great British Railways rebrand, how London's multiple terminal stations work, the game-changing Elizabeth line, the best scenic routes in the country (from the East Coast Main Line's North Sea coastal run to the Far North Line to Wick and Thurso), how train ticket types actually work and why the BritRail Pass cuts through all the confusion, the difference between a consecutive and a flexi pass, what the pass does and doesn't cover, seat reservations, luggage tips, apps to use, and Tim's all-time favorite rail journey. Plus: a giveaway. To celebrate this episode, Anglotopia and ACP Rail are giving away a first-class BritRail four-day flexi pass. Enter at anglotopia.net/britrail . Giveaway closes August 15th. Links Sponsor ACP Rail — Buy Your BritRail Pass BritRail Pass Options & Map 🎁 GIVEAWAY — Win a First Class 4-Day Flexi Pass (closes August 15th) BritRail Railway Maps of Britain Planning Tools National Rail — Timetables & Real-Time Updates Trainline App — UK Train Tickets & Times Seat Finder — UK Seat Reservation Tool London Terminals Guide King's Cross Station (East Coast Main Line — York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Aberdeen) St Pancras International (Midland Main Line & Eurostar) Euston Station (West Coast Main Line — Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow) Paddington Station (Great Western — Cornwall, Devon, South Wales; also Heathrow Express & Elizabeth Line) Waterloo Station (South Coast & commuter lines) Victoria Station (Gatwick, Brighton, South Coast) Liverpool Street Station (East Anglia — Cambridge, Norwich) Scenic Routes Mentioned The Settle & Carlisle Railway The Far North Line — Inverness to Wick & Thurso The Looe Branch Line, Cornwall The Ffestiniog Railway, Wales (heritage) The Severn Valley Railway (heritage) North Norfolk Railway — Sheringham & Cromer The Caledonian Sleeper (supplement required with BritRail Pass) Kyle of Lochalsh Line — Inverness to the Isle of Skye Also Mentioned Great British Railways — The Upcoming Rebrand Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways The BritRail Pass is only available to international visitors — British residents cannot buy one — which is precisely why it's such a good deal. It fills otherwise empty seats at off-peak times, giving visitors unlimited flexibility at a price that beats walk-up fares by a wide margin. Britain's railway network was built when towns were designed around train stations, not roads. This means that almost everywhere you want to go, the train drops you right where you need to be — York's station is 30 yards from the Roman walls; Bath's is a short walk from the Royal Crescent; Edinburgh Waverley sits below the castle. You can't say that about airports or motorway exits. The BritRail Pass covers all mainline rail services across England, Scotland, and Wales — including the Elizabeth line, Thameslink, and the Gatwick Express — but does not cover the London Underground, heritage steam railways, or local light rail systems like the Manchester Metrolink or the Newcastle Metro. For the tube, just tap your contactless card. London has seven major rail terminals, not one — and which one you leave from depends entirely on where in the country you're going. King's Cross for the north and Scotland; Paddington for the west and Wales; Euston for the Midlands and northwest; Waterloo and Victoria for the south; Liverpool Street for East Anglia. They're all connected by tube. The flexi pass and consecutive pass serve completely different travel styles. The consecutive pass is for people who want to use the train every day; the flexi pass is for people with a base who want to make specific day trips or journeys across a longer stay. Four flexible days in a month gives you enormous freedom without locking you in. First class on long-distance British trains is genuinely worth considering: fewer seats, more space, and complimentary meals and drinks during the day on mainline services. On short commuter runs, first class is just a different-colored seat with little advantage. The longer the journey, the more worthwhile the upgrade. The single biggest mistake visitors make is over-packing. Cobblestones, station stairs, overhead luggage racks, and the general rhythm of moving between trains make a large rolling suitcase a serious obstacle. Tim's rule: carry-on only. If you need a shirt, you can buy one — and finding it will be an adventure. The BritRail Pass is now digital — it lives on your phone and you validate travel days as you use them. You don't need a paper ticket. Make sure your phone is charged; most mainline trains now have Wi-Fi and USB charging points, but adapters for British three-pin sockets are needed for standard chargers. Tim's most overlooked destination is East Anglia — specifically Ely (fifteen minutes from Cambridge, with a magnificent cathedral and Oliver Cromwell connections) and the North Norfolk coast from Norwich to Sheringham and Cromer. Both are almost entirely unknown to American visitors and easily reached by train. Great British Railways — the new unified national operator bringing together the 26 separate train operating companies back under one brand — is expected to be operating by 2026-27, making an already manageable system significantly simpler for visitors to navigate. Soundbites "Where did they build the railway at York? Right outside the city walls. When you arrive on the train, you walk out the entrance and there in front of you, thirty yards away, are the Roman walls. You're there. They didn't build it to drive cars around." — Tim on why British trains drop you exactly where you want to be. "I found myself being asked to lead a company called BritRail Travel International in New York. And I had the great title of President USA at the time. I have the card to prove it." — Tim on his career highlight. "I always feel as though I never really had to work a day in my life because I've thoroughly enjoyed it all." — Tim on a lifetime spent in rail travel. "You could stay on the train the whole day and that is — the joy of the journey is part of the trip. If you're going along the North Wales coast on your way to Bangor or Llandudno, the joy of the journey is really part of it." — Tim on why the train journey itself is part of the vacation. "The BritRail Pass is very much intended as an alternative to renting a car. Britain is a small country, but it has pretty crowded roads. And of course, you drive on the other side of the road as well." — Tim on what the pass is really competing against. "At the Far North line — Wick and Thurso — you really get the feel that you are at the end of the country. You've gone across moors and through several stations where you can't get there by road. There is only a railway. And the scenery is spectacular and has got a real character to it." — Tim on his most atmospheric British rail journey. "Once you get to Edinburgh, you can carry on. Go to Aberdeen, go through places like Stonehaven — hop off there before you arrive in Aberdeen. I always feel as though when I do that I'm beginning to go on an adventure." — Tim on the East Coast Main Line's northern run. "Don't underuse it. You only need to do two or three long journeys to make a BritRail Pass really worth it. If you're in Bath and you've got an afternoon free, you can get on the train and go to Salisbury and back and see a magnificent town." — Tim's most important practical advice for pass holders. "I'm a big advocate of the carry-on only rule. Don't take something bigger than a carry-on. You don't want to lift a hundred-pound suitcase over cobblestones getting to your hotel. As long as you remember the essentials like your glasses and your medications — hey, if you need a shirt, you can buy one." — Tim on the single most important packing rule. "Going north out of Edinburgh or Glasgow towards Inverness — through Pitlochry and Aviemore — you really begin to feel as though you are going through the Highlands. And when you get to Inverness, you've got three lines: west to the Kyle of Lochalsh, north to the Far North line, or east to Aberdeen. I always feel as though I'm beginning an adventure." — Tim's all-time favorite British rail journey. Chapters 00:22 Sponsor Introduction — ACP Rail, BritRail, and the giveaway at anglotopia.net/britrail 02:48 Welcome to Tim Roebuck — A career that started on the British Rail Management Training Scheme 03:18 From Station Manager to President USA — Tim's journey through British Rail, Dublin, France, New York, and ACP Rail 06:47 How British Rail Travel Has Changed — Privatization, consolidation, and the coming Great British Railways 08:03 Why Britain Is Perfect for Train Travel — Towns built around stations, not roads 09:22 How the Network Is Structured — From British Rail to 26 operators and back again 12:13 Great British Railways — The 2026-27 rebrand and what it means for visitors 12:32 How a Visitor Plans a Journey Across Multiple Operators — And why the BritRail Pass makes it simple 14:02 London's Seven Terminals — King's Cross, St Pancras, Euston, Paddington, Waterloo, Victoria, Liverpool Street 17:37 The Elizabeth Line — How it transformed cross-London travel and why it's included in the BritRail Pass 19:59 The Best of the Network — Tim's top scenic routes and hidden gems 20:19 The East Coast Main Line — Darlington birthplace of railways, Durham Cathedral, Berwick upon Tweed, the North Sea coast run to Edinburgh 22:10 The Settle & Carlisle — Through the Yorkshire Dales on Britain's most celebrated community railway 22:30 Cornwall's Branch Lines — The Looe Branch, St Ives, and why Devon and Cornwall reward slow travel 23:00 East Anglia's Hidden Gems — Ely, the North Norfolk coast, Sheringham and Cromer 23:31 Scotland — Every line is scenic; the Far North line to Wick and Thurso 24:17 How Train Tickets Actually Work — Advance, off-peak, peak, and open: what each means and when to use them 26:57 First Class vs Standard — What you actually get and when it's worth paying for 28:41 Common Gotchas for American Visitors — Luggage, barriers, and why the staff will always help 30:24 The Carry-On Only Rule — Why a large suitcase will make your trip harder than it needs to be 31:03 What Is the BritRail Pass? — The core product explained simply 32:57 The Freedom the Pass Gives You — Last-minute changes, hop on/hop off, one validated day from London to Edinburgh and back 34:41 Only for International Visitors — Why British residents can't buy it and why that makes it a better deal 36:33 Consecutive vs Flexi Pass — How to decide which structure suits your trip 38:37 Regional Passes — BritRail England, London Plus, South West, and Scotland passes 41:31 The Digital Pass — How it works on your phone, validation, and keep your phone charged 42:17 What the Pass Doesn't Cover — The tube, heritage railways, local light rail, and the Caledonian Sleeper supplement 44:40 The Tube — Just tap your contactless card; it caps for the day 45:03 Seat Reservations — Optional but recommended for busy routes, Fridays, and groups traveling together 46:55 The Sleeper Trains — Caledonian Sleeper and Cornish Riviera: supplement required, absolutely worth it 47:06 Rookie Mistakes — Don't underuse the pass; two or three long journeys make it worth it 48:24 Planning a Rail Itinerary — Start with your interests, pick a base, explore from there 50:19 Getting from Stations to Attractions — Taxi ranks, Uber, local buses, and ask someone 51:01 Apps and Tools — nationalrail.co.uk for real-time information and engineering updates 52:17 Weekend Engineering Works — What to expect and how to check ahead 52:50 Where to Buy — acprail.com, all the options, and the giveaway reminder 53:27 Jonathan's Hadrian's Wall Trip — Newcastle on the East Coast Main Line in August 55:01 Tim's All-Time Favorite Route — Edinburgh to Inverness and the choice of three lines at the top of Scotland 56:25 Closing Thought — The railway is your key to unlimited adventure 56:39 Wrap-Up — Sponsor outro, giveaway at anglotopia.net/britrail closes August 15th Video Version

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Jeremy Harte — folklorist, winner of the Catherine Briggs Folklore Award, curator of Bourne Hall Museum in Surrey, and author of Cloven Country: The Devil in the English Landscape and Travelers Through Time: A Gypsy History — to discuss his remarkable new book Treasures on Earth: Buried Wealth in the English Landscape , published by Reaktion Books. Jeremy has spent his career chasing the uncanny side of the English landscape, and in this book he has gathered hundreds of treasure legends together for the first time — organizing them not by region or date but by emotion: memory, ruin, strife, terror, failure, and longing. The result is one of the most original and quietly brilliant books on English folklore in years, and the conversation it generates is irresistible: Why did people surround buried gold with dragons, black hens, and demons? What does the moment a laborer on the River Ribble accidentally uncovered a Viking army's war chest have in common with Oak Island? Why is the folklore always cruelest at the very last minute? What is the real fantasy underneath the search for treasure — not gold, but escape, freedom, and the dream of never having to work again? And what does the figure of Mackenzie Crook's Detectorists , swinging their machines over Essex fields and dreaming of Saxon gold, tell us about the ancient human urge that these legends have always mapped? Links Treasures on Earth by Jeremy Harte (Reaktion Books) Cloven Country: The Devil in the English Landscape by Jeremy Harte Travelers Through Time: A Gypsy History by Jeremy Harte Bourne Hall Museum, Ewell, Surrey The Cuerdale Hoard The Rillaton Cup Detectorists — Mackenzie Crook (BBC/AcornTV) Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways Treasure legends are not really about gold. They are, as Jeremy Harte argues throughout, about the emotions that surround gold — longing, memory, failure, terror, and the fantasy of transformation. The stories survived because of what they did to the people who told and heard them, not because of any actual buried wealth. The Cuerdale Hoard — the largest Viking silver hoard ever found in Britain, unearthed by laborers straightening the River Ribble in the 1840s — is one of the most powerful examples of how real treasure finds retrospectively generate legends. Almost all treasure "traditions" that seem to predict a find are only recorded after the find is made. The classic Anglo-Saxon image of the dragon sitting on a barrow of gold — doing nothing but guarding it forever, sacrificing whatever life a dragon might have — is, Jeremy argues, an early cultural articulation of what happens when treasure takes over a human life. The same psychology drives Oak Island today. Treasure guardians shift with the centuries — dragons and giants give way to fairies, then to demons, then to ghosts — not randomly but in response to what each era finds believable. A legend must sit in the zone between "obviously true" and "obviously made up" to function: too real and it's history,

In this second sponsored episode with Findmypast — the follow-up to our Genealogy 101 introduction — Jonathan Thomas and Jen Baldwin, Research Specialist at Findmypast, go deeper into the records, techniques, and stories that turn a nervous beginner into a confident family historian. The episode covers the extraordinary richness of the 1921 census and 1939 register, why the newspaper archive is the place where ancestors stop being names and start being people, how the Industrial Revolution left its fingerprints across every family tree, the truth about name changes and spelling variations (it was almost never Ellis Island), how to avoid drowning in common surnames like Thomas or Smith, the unexpected discoveries that make genealogy so addictive — including Jen's own Cornish mail-order bride ancestor, an Irish great-great-grandfather with two arrests across two countries, and Audrey Thompson the World War II rat-catching champion — and how to connect all of it to the great currents of British history. The episode also covers parish records, military records, DNA testing, the role of offline archives, and the mindset that keeps family history a lifelong joy rather than a frustrating quest for perfection. If you haven't heard the first episode, Genealogy 101, go back and listen to that one first. Links Sponsor Findmypast — Start Your Free Trial (US) Findmypast — Start Your Free Trial (UK) British Newspaper Archive (via Findmypast) Findmypast Crime & Criminal Records The Family History Of — Findmypast Podcast Was Justice Served? Podcast — Jen Baldwin Also Referenced Genealogy 101 — Previous Episode with Jen Baldwin (listen first) Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways The 1921 census and 1939 register work best as a pair — together they bookend the interwar period, and used in combination they can anchor a family from living memory all the way back through the Victorian era. The 1921 is the most detailed census ever taken in England and Wales; the 1939 register is the only census-style record with full birth dates and tracks maiden-to-married name changes for women. The 1939 register is the foundational document of the NHS — a living document updated for decades after the war, making it uniquely valuable for women's research. ARP warden and Home Guard volunteer roles recorded in its margins bring the home front of World War II vividly to life. Less than 10% of historical records are currently available online. The other 90% live in county record offices, local archives, churches, and museums — and going to them in person, touching the original documents, is an irreplaceable experience that no screen can fully replicate. Names were almost never changed at Ellis Island. Spelling variatio

In this sponsored episode of the Anglotopia Podcast — brought to you by Findmypast, one of the world's leading family history websites — Jonathan Thomas sits down with Jen Baldwin, Research Specialist at Findmypast and a professional genealogist since 2010, for a warm, practical, and genuinely inspiring introduction to British and Irish family history research. Jen specializes in British social history and the British diaspora — exactly the intersection where family stories meet the great sweep of British history — and her own family tree reaches back to London in 1635. In this first of two episodes, Jen and Jonathan cover everything a complete beginner needs to get started: why family history is so addictive, how to interview living relatives before the memories are lost, what records to look for at home, the cornerstone British records (civil registration from 1837, the census from 1841, parish records, military records, and the extraordinary British Newspaper Archive), the common mistakes that trip up beginners, how to track ancestors who came to America via Canada or Australia, the surprising political dramas hidden inside census returns, and three quick wins that any listener can complete this week. A second episode, covering deeper research and connecting your family story to the wider sweep of British history, is coming soon. Links Sponsor Findmypast — Start Your Free Trial (US) Findmypast — Start Your Free Trial (UK) British Newspaper Archive (via Findmypast) Findmypast Crime & Criminal Records The Family History Of — Findmypast Podcast Was Justice Served? Podcast — Jen Baldwin Also Mentioned Birmingham Back to Backs — National Trust The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes — Convict Transportation to Australia Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways Family history research is genuinely addictive — not because of the pedigree chart but because of the moment when a name becomes a person: someone with a job, a neighborhood, neighbors, a dog, and a life that intersects with historical events you already care about. There is no such thing as a boring ancestor. Agricultural laborers, mill workers, sailors, and servants all lived lives of remarkable complexity — moving seasonally, navigating economic upheaval, living through wars and weather — and the records to explore those lives exist and are increasingly accessible online. The golden rule of genealogy is to start with yourself and work backward one generation at a time. "Slow is fast" — taking time to verify each connection saves hours of untangling mistakes later. Talk to your oldest or most vulnerable living relatives now, before the memories are lost. Don't ask them to recite facts — ask them to tell stories. Put a photograph in front of them. Ask about their first car, their father's job, the f

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Jonathan W. Jordan — New York Times bestselling military historian, Wall Street Journal book critic, and now federal judge — to discuss his richly researched new book Ike and Winston: World War, Cold War, and an Extraordinary Friendship . Spanning a quarter century from their first meeting on Christmas Eve 1941 — when Eisenhower was a little-known brigadier, and Churchill was the most famous man in the world — to Churchill's death in January 1965, Jordan traces one of the most consequential personal relationships of the 20th century. Their friendship forged through the pressure cooker of war helped launch D-Day, navigate the terrifying logic of nuclear weapons, and manage the fraught transition from British imperial power to American superpower. Jordan and Jonathan cover the early dynamic between the aristocrat and the Kansan, the strategic clashes over Anvil and Berlin, Churchill's habit of misrepresenting what Eisenhower had told him when he really wanted his way, the moral weight of decisions that killed tens of thousands, their shared love of painting, the goat on parade in Bermuda, and what these two remarkable men can still teach us about friendship, leadership, and bridging difference. Links Ike and Winston by Jonathan W. Jordan Brothers, Rivals, Victors by Jonathan W. Jordan American Warlords by Jonathan W. Jordan Churchill Papers at Hillsdale College Eisenhower Presidential Library Winston Churchill the Painter at the Wallace Collection, London (open until November 29, 2026) Pressure (2024 film on the D-Day weather decision) Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways Churchill and Eisenhower first met on Christmas Eve 1941, three weeks after Pearl Harbor — but Churchill promptly forgot the encounter. In his memoirs, he incorrectly stated he first met Ike in June 1942. Churchill had also famously forgotten meeting a young assistant secretary of the Navy named Franklin Roosevelt years earlier. Jonathan Jordan argues that Churchill's friendship with Eisenhower was ultimately more pivotal to world history than his famous friendship with FDR. Without Churchill's patronage, there is no Supreme Commander of D-Day, no NATO commander, and quite possibly no President Eisenhower. Eisenhower had never heard a shot fired in anger when he was appointed Supreme Allied Commander of the Mediterranean theater in 1943 — and every officer in the room, including Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, had more combat experience than he did. But Patton's observation captures what made Ike perfect for the job: no officer above the rank of colonel should know too much about tactics, or they'll interfere with the people who do. Churchill and Eisenhower lunched together at least weekly during the run-up to D-Day, and met several other times during the week — sometimes for overnight visits at Chequers. Many of their interactions were not grand strategy but practical problem-solving: American drivers going too fast on English roads, landlords overcharging American officers for flats. The biggest strategic clashes were over Anvil (the Allied landing in southern France, which Churchill w

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Professor Paul Robichaud — Professor of English at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Connecticut — to discuss his remarkable new book, Stories of the Stones: Imagining Prehistory in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany , published by Reaktion Books on July 6th. Paul is not an archaeologist but a literary scholar, and his book takes a completely different approach to prehistoric monuments: rather than asking who built them or how, he asks what stories people have told about them across the centuries — and what those stories reveal about us. From the earliest Greek account of a possible spherical temple on a northern island (possibly Callanish), through Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century account of Merlin flying Stonehenge from Ireland, through the antiquarian fantasies of Inigo Jones (who decided Stonehenge was Roman and helpfully corrected its geometry to fit) and William Stukeley (who invented the Druid connection that has never entirely gone away), through the Romantics — Wordsworth's visions of human sacrifice, Blake's prophetic paintings, Turner's atmospheric canvases — to the 1970s counterculture, folk horror films, and our own climate-anxious present, the book traces how five millennia of imagining these ancient places tells us as much about the people doing the imagining as it does about the stones themselves. Jonathan and Paul also share their personal favorite prehistoric sites, including Avebury, Wayland Smithy, and — Jonathan's top pick — Castlerigg in Cumbria. Links Stories of the Stones by Paul Robichaud (Reaktion Books, July 6) Stores of Stones - Amazon Stonehenge — English Heritage Avebury — National Trust Wayland's Smithy, Oxfordshire — English Heritage Castlerigg Stone Circle, Cumbria — National Trust Callanish Standing Stones, Isle of Lewis Stanton Drew Stone Circles, Somerset Newgrange, Ireland The Ridgeway National Trail Albertus Magnus College Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways The word "prehistoric" didn't exist until the mid-19th century. For most of human history, people encountering these monuments had no framework for understanding them as ancient — they were simply there, part of the landscape, and the stories told about them reflected whatever worldview the storyteller brought: giants, biblical patriarchs, Roman engineers, druid priests, or earth energies. Stonehenge is unique among stone circles not because of its age or size but because of its distinctive architecture — upright stones with lintels resting on mortise-and-tenon joints, clearly intentional and clearly extraordinary. Its location on a relatively populated southern English plain also meant it was seen by far more people across the centuries than monuments in Wales or the Outer Hebrides. The Ston

In this monthly bonus episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas returns with the July edition of What's On in London — a complete rundown of everything worth seeing and doing in the city this month. July is London at its most extroverted: Wimbledon fever, the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, British Summertime at Hyde Park, open-air cinema across the city, and a remarkable cluster of new exhibitions opening across the major galleries. Particularly special this month are three America 250 exhibitions viewing the American Revolution from the British side — at the National Archives, the British Museum, and Benjamin Franklin's only surviving house anywhere in the world, just around the corner from Trafalgar Square. Jonathan also covers the ongoing blockbusters already running from June, gives an honest assessment of London's July heat wave (currently under a red weather warning), shares a firsthand account from an Anglotopia friend who was in the city during the worst of it, and walks through the practical survival tips that will make your summer visit not just manageable but genuinely wonderful. Links New Exhibitions — July Richard Dadd at the Royal Academy of Arts (from July 1) Young Artist Summer Show, Royal Academy (from July 14 — Free) Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller Landscapes, National Gallery (from July 2 — Free) Anna Mendieta at Tate Modern In Other Worlds by Liam Young, Barbican (from July 15) Audrey Amis at the Wellcome Collection (from July 9) Art as Witness: The Lying in State of Queen Elizabeth II, Westminster Hall (from July 13) America 250 Exhibitions Revolution 250: America's Independence Story, National Archives (open now — Free) Declaring Independence: USA 250, British Museum (from June 30 — Free) How We Lost America, Benjamin Franklin House (from July 3) Ongoing Exhibitions from June Frida Kahlo & Tracey Emin at Tate Modern Anish Kapoor Retrospective, Hayward Gallery Royal Academy Summer Exhibition Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A Zurbarán at the National Gallery James McNeill Whistler at Tate Britain Marilyn Monroe at the National Portrait Gallery The Queen's Fashion at The King's Gallery (sold out through 2026 — now extended into 2027, book ahead) Inside Aardman: Wallace & Gromit at Young V&A Major Events Wimbledon 2026 BBC Proms at the Royal

In this deeply personal episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas makes a big announcement — he and Mrs. Anglotopia are returning to Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset, the place that inspired Anglotopia itself. As a teenager in Indiana, Jonathan hung a poster of Gold Hill on his bedroom wall and dreamed of going there; it became the reason he fell in love with Britain. After nearly 10 years away, he and Jackie are returning to stay in Button Cottage — a 400-year-old property sitting right on the famous cobbles, painstakingly restored by its owner Melanie Fontana over three years. Jonathan sits down with Melanie to hear the full story: how she and her partner fell in love with Gold Hill on an Easter weekend, found the cottage for sale on their phones, and spent three years stripping away decades of 1970s "improvements" — concrete floors, bitumen tar, plasterboard, blocked fireplaces — to reveal 450-year-old beams, Victorian elm floorboards, a fossil in the grouting, and one of the most atmospheric interiors in Dorset. The episode also covers the history of Shaftesbury, the legacy of the Ridley Scott Hovis advertisement, what it means to restore a Grade II listed building, and why Gold Hill remains one of the most unchanged streets in England. Links Button Cottage — Official Website Button Cottage on Airbnb Shaftesbury Town Guide Shaftesbury Abbey Museum & Garden Historic England — Listed Buildings Listed Property Owners Club Farrow & Ball Paint — Dorset The Original Hovis Advert — Ridley Scott (YouTube) Blackmoor Vale, Dorset Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset — the steep cobbled lane made famous by Ridley Scott's 1970s Hovis bread advertisement — is the place that inspired Jonathan to visit Britain as a teenager and directly led to the founding of Anglotopia. Jonathan and Jackie are returning to stay on the hill for the first time in nearly 10 years. Button Cottage is a genuine 400-year-old property sitting directly on the cobbles of Gold Hill, restored from near-dereliction to authentic period condition by Melanie Fontana and her partner over three years — and it is available to rent on Airbnb. The cottage was comprehensively ruined in the 1970s: beams were covered with plasterboard, the fireplace was blocked and converted to gas, floors were concreted over, and the entire structure was tanked with bitumen tar — stopping the building from "breathing" and trapping damp inside the walls for decades. Stripping back the 1970s layers revealed 450-year-old oak beams still filled with ancient woodworm holes, Victorian elm floorboards underneath later chipboard, layers of wallpaper from the 1950s through the 1980s peeled from the fireplace wall, and a fossil discovered by hand with a pickaxe when the concrete floor was removed — now set into the grouting between the limestone floor tiles. Restoring a Grade II listed building requires using period-appropriate materials throughout: lime plaster (not modern gypsum), limewash or breathable paint, reclaimed stone, and kiln-dried wood for the fireplace. Melan

In this special on-location episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, recorded at the Chicago History Museum on the occasion of His Majesty the King's official birthday, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Richard Hyde — His Majesty's Consul General in Chicago and the senior British diplomatic representative across 14 states in the American Midwest. Speaking just before the British Consulate's King's Birthday Garden Party, Richard explains what a Consul General actually does, why Britain doesn't have a National Day, how he approaches representing modern Britain to the heartland of America, and what King Charles's address to a joint session of Congress meant for the Special Relationship. The conversation also uncovers a remarkable piece of Anglo-Chicago history: after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Queen Victoria and 8,000 British donors — including Disraeli, Tennyson, and John Stuart Mill — sent books to Chicago, directly founding the Chicago Public Library. Plus: the Beatles, Frank Lloyd Wright's Welsh roots, Abraham Lincoln's North Wales ancestry, and why Chicago is Richard's favorite city in the world. Note: We had originally planned to do a 100th Q&A for our 100th episode, but a much bigger opportunity arose last week, which we thought was more fitting. We'll do the Q&A soon! Links British Consulate General Chicago Website UK In Chicago on Instagram British Consulate General Chicago on X/Twitter British Embassy Washington DC UK Government in the USA Chicago History Museum Chicago Public Library Foundation Hawksmoor Chicago Celtic Crossings Chicago Chicago Shakespeare Theater America 250 Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways The United Kingdom is one of the only countries in the world without an official National Day — which is why British consulates abroad use the King's official birthday in June as their annual celebration, conveniently timed to coincide with Trooping the Colour. Richard Hyde covers 14 American states as Consul General — roughly 25% of the entire United States — including 105 members of the House of Representatives and 28 senators, making the Midwest a critical region for understanding where American politics is heading. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Queen Victoria personally led a donation drive that saw 8,000 British donors — including Benjamin Disraeli, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and John Stuart Mill — send books to Chicago, directly founding the Chicago Public Library. Victoria's personally signed copy of a biography of Prince Albert is still in the library's special collection. King Charles's address to a joint session of Congress during his America 250 visit was, in Richard's assessment, a masterclass in diplomatic communication — speaking to shared values rather than political divisions and reminding both nations of the deep historical thread connecting Magna Carta to the US Constitution. Frank Lloyd Wright's family were Welsh; Abraham Lincoln's great-great-grandfather came fro

Did you know that in addition to saving the free world, Churchill was also an accomplished painter? In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Dr. Lucy Davis — curator of paintings at the Wallace Collection in London and co-curator of Winston Churchill the Painter , the first major retrospective of Churchill's art in over 60 years and the first substantial UK exhibition devoted to his paintings since his death in 1965. The exhibition brings together nearly 60 works, roughly half from private collections rarely accessible to the public, and traces the full arc of Churchill's artistic life: from the tentative canvases he made during the darkest moment of his World War I career, through the luminous Mediterranean harbors and Moroccan cityscapes of his mature period, to the bold late works of a man who found in painting one of the greatest solaces of his life. Lucy walks Jonathan through the story of how Churchill came to paint, the three major artists who shaped his style — John Lavery, Walter Sickert, and William Nicholson — the single painting he made during World War II, the extraordinary Hallmark Cards world tour, and why the Wallace Collection is the perfect home for this once-in-a-lifetime show. The exhibition runs until November 29, 2026. Book your tickets now. Lucy is very grateful to her colleagues at Hallmark Cards, Inc. for their research into the World Tour of Churchill's paintings, which she has referenced in this podcast. Links The Exhibition Winston Churchill the Painter — Wallace Collection (open until November 29, 2026 — book tickets in advance) The Wallace Collection, London Wallace Collection E-Newsletter (Over 60% of subscribers are US-based — talks and courses available remotely) Wallace Collection Events & Remote Courses The Wallace Collection at War — companion display (open until end of October) Gallery of Some of Churchill’s Paintings in the Exhibition Books Painting as a Pastime by Winston Churchill — New Edition with intro by Paul Rafferty Winston Churchill the Painter — Exhibition Catalog, edited by Dr. Lucy Davis (Philip Wilson Publishers) Churchill's Citadel by Katherine Carter — Chartwell and the Wilderness Years Churchill Sites Chartwell, Kent — National Trust Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge America's National Churchill Museum, Fulton MO Also Mentioned <ul class

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas is joined by Brendan Dowd — West Point graduate, Iraq War veteran, government consultant, and host of History Nerds United, one of the most respected history book podcasts in the business with over 220 episodes — for a pure, unfiltered book nerd conversation. Both hosts came with a stack of their favorite British history books and took turns sharing their picks, debating the merits, going gloriously off-topic about Darkest Hour , the new Wuthering Heights film, Bridgerton, and Dan Jones's upcoming castles book, and building what amounts to a British history reading list that will keep you busy for years. Between them, Jonathan and Brendan recommend over 20 books spanning Alfred the Great, the Tudors, the Regency, Victorian London, World War II, Thatcher, the Iranian Embassy Siege, and the hidden history of English wolves — plus a peek at what's sitting on each of their TBR piles right now. Links History Nerds United ~ History Nerds United Podcast ~ ~ History Nerds United on YouTube ~ ~ Brendan's Top Episode: Helen Castor on Joan of Arc ~ (update with direct episode link) ⠀ Jonathan's Picks ~ Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson ~ ~ The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson ~ ~ Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts ~ ~ My Early Life by Winston Churchill ~ ~ A Very English Scandal by John Preston ~ ~ London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd ~ ~ Citizens of London by Lynne Olson ~ ~ Empireland by Sathnam Sanghera ~ ~ Empireworld by Sathnam Sanghera ~ ~ The Iron Lady by John Campbell ~ ~ The Last Wolf by Robert Winder ~ ~ The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy by David Cannadine ~ ~ Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh ~ ~ The Regency Years by Robert Morrison ~ ~ Churchill's Citadel by Katherine Carter ~ ⠀ Brendan's Picks ~<