Neil Oliver Podcast

In this episode we meet Winston Churchill, a man who has helped define the British Isles: a luminary figure, complex, charismatic and inspirational. Prime minister of Britain during World War II he was a man who inspired a nation in its time of need. Neil travels to Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, where was Churchill was born, and to the village of Bladon next door, where he is buried.To help support the making of this podcast series sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreon.comhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverHistory & Comment - New Videos Every Week Instagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=en Neil Oliver YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we hear the deafening roar of industry and see the spark fly as some of the world’s great ships are built. We’re on the banks of the river Clyde, a river that powered a city; as the say goes, ‘Glasgow made the Clyde and the Clyde made Glasgow’.At one time the Clyde shipbuilders build a fifth of all the ships in the world - everything from luxury transatlantic flagships that crossed the world’s oceans to the legendary battlecruisers that would soon face a determined enemy in the coming Great war.To help support the making of this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreon.comhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverHistory & Comment - New Videos Every Week Instagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=en Neil Oliver YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we set sail with Neil to visit one of the world’s great natural harbours, Scapa Flow in Orkney. This vast harbour is a beautifully bleak, windswept spot drench in drama, tragedy and power. For thousands of years, it played a vital role in maritime travel, trade and conflict. The Vikings anchored in its safe waters in the C11th. The British admiralty enlisted it in the Napoleonic wars. And in the First World War it was home to Britain’s Grand Fleet, before being pressed into service once again in the 2nd world war. In the First World War the entire, surrendered German navy was scuttled here in an extraordinary act of sabotage. To help support the making of this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreon.comhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverHistory & CommentNew Videos Every Week Instagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=en Neil Oliver YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we are walking down Whitehall, one of London’s most famous streets, to remember the dead of the First World War.Fabian Ware joined the British army at the outbreak of the war, but because he was 45 years old, the authorities would let him fight on the front line and put him in charge of a mobile ambulance unit instead.Appalled by the number of casualties and troubled that the dead were not being recorded properly he began keeping note. On account of his efforts, the organization now called the Commonwealth War Graves Commission came into existence. The process of remembrance began.11 November 1919 was the first anniversary of the war’s end. It was marked with the construction of a temporary memorial called the Cenotaph on Whitehall, a march of remembrance and the return of the Unknown Soldier. The outpouring of emotion at this event and the public’s actions demanded that the temporary Cenotaph be made permanent. And across the whole of the British Isles collective grief propelled the largest public art project ever seen as communities took it upon themselves to build their own local memorials to remember all the dead.  To help support the making of this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverHistory & CommentNew Videos Every Week Instagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=en Neil Oliver YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Horatio Herbert Kitchener, the secretary of state for war, declares, Your Country Needs You!The First World War meant that Britain had to raise a new army from volunteers, so the call was raised. Five strong, stout brothers from the Souls family, who lived in the Gloucestershire village of Great Rissington, signed up to join the army and become soldiers. After training they shipped out for France.Albert, the youngest brother, was the first to be killed. Fred was the second brother to die, he was killed at the battle of the Somme. Walter was killed next, soon followed by Alfred.The last of the five brothers alive was Arthur, he was Alfred’s identical twin, and won the Military Medal for valour at the fight to hold Villers-Bretonneux. But during the battle he was fatally wounded.Five brothers from the Souls family, all lost. A snapshot of a war like no other - tragedy writ large.To help support the making of this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverHistory & CommentNew Videos Every Week Instagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=en Neil Oliver YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we’re travelling over the sea to Skye, an island of ancient jagged crags and rare breath-taking beauty, which feels as though it’s washed in heaven’s tears.When the first world war was declared, there was a seismic shift and everything changed forever. All of Britain felt it’s pain and devastation, but it hit the Highlands the hardest. A conflict of such magnitude, billions of spent bullets and millions dead, the sorrow and suffering it cause is impossible to comprehend. I’m in Portree, exploring its impact on one small community, trying to come to terms with the magnitude of the Great War.To help support the making of this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverHistory & CommentNew Videos Every Week Instagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=en Neil Oliver YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we join Neil as he steps aboard the Titanic, one of the most iconic ships in the world. For Neil this a pivotal moment in history, which marks a point when the world changed forever.When the Titanic set sail on its maiden voyage it was the largest human-made object that had ever moved across the face of the planet. 900 feet long (240m), 92 feet wide (28m) and weighing in at 50,000 tons. Built in Belfast it was one of a set of near identical triplets. With 2,200 passengers and crew aboard the Titanic heads out into the wild Atlantic ocean, sailing into tragedy as the band played on.To help support the making of this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverHistory & CommentNew Videos Every Week Instagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=en Neil Oliver YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, powered by their fabulous fecundity and political astuteness, the Stuart family line inherited the Scottish and English crowns and spread their power and influence right across the British Isles.The C19th saw a canny member of the Stuart clan spotted a gilt-edged opportunity in Cardiff. As the industrial revolution swept across the world, iron, steel and coal were in great demand and high-grade coal from the Rhondda Valley in Wales became a very valuable commodity. If you could control the supply of this precious resource, there were fortunes to be made.From his castle in Cardiff, John Crichton-Stuart developed the port of Cardiff, which become the busiest in Britain, and as the coal bonanza boomed, feeding an insatiable global hunger, vast quantities of the ‘black gold’ were ship out and incredible fortunes poured in.To help support the making of this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverNew Videos Every Week Instagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=en Neil Oliver YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we’re putting on our best and strolling along a stylish promenade in Scarborough, the ‘Nice of the North’ to pay homage to the Great British seaside tradition.The tentacles of Scarborough’s history stretch back thousands of years. On it’s cliffs is an Iron Age Fort. The Viking also took a fancy to the place and much later in the C13th Henry III fortified what was then an important port. But it was the Victorians who made it the place we recognise today.Attracted by its restorative spa waters, the Victorians added the cast iron, glass, grandeur and glamour, and it becomes Britain’s first seaside town.Overlooking a stunning long curve of pale sand is what used to be the largest hotel in Europe – built in the shape of a V to honour Queen Victoria and designed to around the concept of time, this week we’re checking into the Grand Hotel in Scarborough.To help support this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverNew Videos Every Week Instagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=en Neil Oliver YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we stride around the Elizabethan battlements of a town held ready for war!Berwick-upon-Tweed is a place packed to bursting with thousands of years of rich history.Celtic Britons made it their home, followed by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons.It was a wealthy, flourishing port before any of the modern nation states – England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland – even existed.Sitting on the border of what became Scotland and England it was coveted and fought over in a deadly tug of war lasting hundreds of years. It’s a place that sharply reminds us, that in the British Isles it’s more often than not the case that local rather than national identities have the deepest roots.To help support this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverNew Videos Every Week Instagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=en Neil Oliver YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.