Flying Legend: World Record Holding Test Pilot & War Ace
Recording from CVHF 2013: Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown in conversation with Rowland White, Saturday, 29th June 2013.
Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown is an extraordinary man, whose career stretched from the pre-war days of the biplane to supersonic jets. Captain Brown visited Nazi Germany before the war, flying with General Ernst Udet, flew with the Fleet Air Arm early in the war, had an escort carrier sunk underneath him, then became a pioneering test pilot. He was the first person to land a two-engine Mosquito on an aircraft carrier, flew every single one of the German experimental jets at the end of the war, interrogated Göring, and was a key figure in the post-war Jet Age. No man has ever flown more aircraft types. Charming, amusing, and with a mind as sharp as ever it was, this is a rare opportunity to hear one of Britain’s true flying legends talk about his life and times.
Churchill: Finest Years, 1940-1945
Recording from Max Hasting’s talk, ‘Churchill: Finest Years. 1940-1945’ for CVHF, Sunday, 30th June 2013.
Max Hastings is one of the foremost chroniclers of the Second World War. Here he talks about Winston Churchill, our greatest war leader. Always forthright, Sir Max looks at the triumphs and the tragedies, the successes and the failures, whether it be the extraordinary rallying cry of 1940 or the impulsiveness that often drove a wedge between him and his generals and even Britain’s allies. He also touches on some of the lesser-known features of Churchill’s war leadership. This is an affectionate and vivid portrait, but also an unsparing one, in which he is willing to challenge some of the myths that surround our view of Britain’s wartime performance.
War Memorial
Recording from Clive Aslet’s talk, ‘War Memorial’ for CVHF, Sunday, 30th June 2013.
Who were the men and women whose names are immortalised on war memorials around the country? Where did they live, and how and why did they die? Such questions usually go unanswered, but in this talk Clive Aslet unravells the story of just one war memorial – that of Lydford, a village on Dartmoor – and tracing the stories of the twenty-two men and one woman who made the ultimate sacrifice. Lydford, of course, speaks for any village in Britain, but in this touching, poignant and moving talk, he shows how one small community produced many tales of endurance and bravery from otherwise ordinary people who, but for the war memorial, would be forgotten.
The Borgias
Recording from Sarah Dunant’s talk, ‘The Borgias’ for CVHF, Saturday, 29th June 2013.
Sarah Dunant is one of our most widely read and acclaimed historical novelists, gave a talk on the subject of her latest work: the Borgias. Possibly the most notorious family ever to have lived, the Borgias not only dominated the Papacy but also the Italian Renaissance world of the late15th and early 16th centuries. In this talk, Sarah Dunant shared her research and insights into this extraordinary family and not least offering new perspectives of that most beautiful but vilified women, Lucrezia Borgia. Rich in human drama, this was a thrilling insight into a world of deceit, murder and incest, recounted by one of our master storytellers.
The Criminal Conversation of Mrs Norton
Recording from Diane Atkinson’s talk, ‘The Criminal Conversation of Mrs Norton’ for CVHF, Tuesday 25th June 2013.
Critically-acclaimed author Diane Atkinson tells the story of one woman’s fight for the rights of women everywhere. On the morning of 22nd June, 1836, crowds were gathering at the Court of Common Pleas to witness the case of Caroline Sheridan who had been accused, by her violent bully of a husband, of having a ‘criminal conversation’ (an affair), with the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. The woman accused was not only a talented poet and songwriter but beautiful and notoriously flirtatious as well. But although she was acquitted, her husband’s revenge was savage. Having become a laughing stock, he cut her off (as was his legal right), refused to let her see her children and left her destitute. This is a fascinating insight into Victorian morals, prejudice and hypocrisy as well as Sheridan’s campaign for women’s rights.
The Fishing Fleet: Husband Hunting In The Raj
Recording from Anne De Courcy’s talk, ‘The Fishing Fleet: Husband Hunting in the Raj’ for CVHF, Thursday 27th June 2013.
When the British Empire was at its height in the mid-nineteenth century, legions of ambitious young men were sent out from England to rule it. With the beginning of steam travel and the opening of the Suez Canal, a new breed of Englishwoman, anxious to find an eligible husband after failing to find one at home, followed them. Most discovered a social whirl of parties, picnics and gymkhanas with men in the Raj outnumbering women four to one. But once married off, life often changed dramatically for these women of the Fishing Fleet: whisked off to a remote outpost with few other Europeans for company and with disease rife, they found it a far cry from the social whirlwind of their first arrival. This is the story of these women and it is one of courage, desperation, hope and a great deal of humour.
The Watchers: Spies & Espionage in the Reign of Elizabeth I
Recording from Stephen Alford’s talk, ‘The Watchers: Spies & Espionage in the Reign of Elizabeth I’ for CVHF, Tuesday 25th June.
In this gripping talk, Stephen Alford tells the story of Elizabeth’s spies, code breakers, ambassadors and confidence-men, who battled constantly throughout her reign to protect their queen. For while she was a ruler who radiated power and purpose, most of Europe, from the Pope to Philip II, conspired to destroy her. Her reign required endless watchfulness – of the coasts, of the Catholic seminaries, of Elizabeth’s own subjects. The stakes could not have been higher: priests coming secretly ashore were hunted down and executed, and assassination plots, real and imagined, sprung up everywhere. Drawing on extraordinary secret files, Stephen Alford brings to life this shadow world, where nobody could be trusted and where a single mistake could have changed England’s history drastically. This is a dark, surprising and utterly compelling talk of an extraordinary reign.
The Legacy of Rome: When Did the Roman Empire End?
Recording from Tom Holland’s talk, ‘The Legacy of Rome: When Did the Roman Empire End?’ for CVHF, Wednesday, 26th June 2013.
In AD 476, Romulus Augustulus, emperor in line to Augustus, Trajan and Constantine, was deposed by a German chieftain. It is an event that in most history books is identified as marking the end of the Roman Empire. But did it? Tom Holland explores whether the Romans themselves had any comprehension that their empire could possibly fall, traces the surprisingly obdurate survival of a Roman imperial identity across the centuries, and identifies the moment in history when the Roman Empire definitively came to an end. Told with his enormous knowledge and wide-ranging understanding of history, this was a hugely entertaining, provocative and utterly absorbing talk, proving why Tom Holland has become one of our foremost authorities and scholars of the Roman Empire.
The Vikings
Recording from Neil Oliver’s talk, ‘The Vikings’, for CVHF, Saturday, 29th June 2013.
The Vikings were wild-looking marauders, bent on rape and pillage and notorious for taking no prisoners – or so the myth would have it. Much of this is the fault of the Vikings themselves who never wrote a word of their history. But in this talk, Neil Oliver shows the Vikings as a people that came back from the brink of destruction to travel half way around the world and build an empire that lasted 200 years. From their Scandinavian roots, the Vikings set out on an epic voyage of trade and discovery that would take them from America to Baghdad. Theirs is a riveting story told by a brilliant presenter who has uncovered new facts and theories to bring these Norsemen alive once more.
The Peninsular War
Recording from Peter Caddick Adam’s talk, ‘The Peninsular War’, for CVHF, Tuesday 25th June 2013.
Acclaimed historian Peter Caddick-Adams brought his vast knowledge and his experience of walking the ground to bear in this talk about the Peninsular War, a long and drawn-out campaign, in which the combined British and allied forces gradually ground down and defeated Napoleon’s French armies. Notable for the reputations made and ruined, and for the numerous battles and sieges fought across Portugal and Spain, this was a brutal and bloody campaign. From Sir John Moore’s retreat to Corunna, through the Lines of Torres Vedras and the siege of Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo to the battles of Salamanca and Vitoria (recreated at the Festival on Sunday 30th), he told the tale of this six-year campaign with all his usual enthusiasm, expertise and empathy for those who fought, from the lowly rifleman to Wellington himself.
