After a short break at TTT, enter the world’s largest flying machine.

‘R101’ was one of the most ambitious creations of the airship era. Plans for it began about a century ago in the 1920s. The vision of engineers and politicians was that the 1930s were to mark the start of a new epoch in air travel. R101 was to lead the way. Huge airships were going to glide through the imperial skies, binding together the distant outposts of the British Empire.

In 1930 R101’s story reached its tragic climax when, seven hours into a flight from its base in Bedfordshire, it crashed to the north of Paris. Of the fifty or so on board, only a handful survived the hydrogen fireball.

R101’s story, and the history of the era that created it, are the subject of a new book by the New York Time bestselling author S.C. ‘Sam’ Gwynne. His Majesty’s Airship tells the story of ‘the life and death of the world’s largest flying machine’.

In this episode Sam takes Peter back to see R101 as the moment of disaster nears.

To be in with winning one of two hardback copies of His Majesty’s Airship, just head to the Unseen Histories Instagram page and follow/like this post.

For more, as ever, visit our website: tttpodcast.com. To read an extract and see images from His Majesty’s Airship, visit unseenhistories.com

Show notes

Scene One: 30 June 1930. Royal Airship Works, Cardington. R101 is beset with problems.

Scene Two: 4 October 1930. The departure of R101 from Cardington, Bedfordshire.

Scene Three: 5 October 1930. Near Beauvais, France. The crash, and aftermath.

Memento: R101’s Control Car

People/Social

Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: S.C. Gwynne

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

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Join Peter Moore and Sarah Bakewell for a little walking tour of Fleet Street in London. Instead of three scenes, in this episode they stop off at three locations, as Peter tells Sarah about three of the characters who appear in his new book: the printer William Strahan, the writer Samuel Johnson and the politician John Wilkes.

Peter Moore is a Sunday Times bestselling historian. His new book is Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: Britain and the American Dream. Sarah Bakewell is a prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author, most recently of the history of humanism: Humanly Possible.

For more, as ever, visit our website: tttpodcast.com.

Location One: The Old Cheshire Cheese (William Strahan)

Location Two: 17 Gough Square (Dr Johnson's House)

Location Three: Near John Wilkes's Statue on Fetter Lane

Presenter: Peter Moore

Asking questions: Sarah Bakewell

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_

In 1520 the artist Albrecht Dürer was on the run from the Plague and on the look-out for distraction when he heard that a huge whale had been beached on the coast of Zeeland. So he set off to see the astonishing creature for himself.

In this beautifully-evoked episode the award-winning writing Philip Hoare takes us back to those consequential days in 1520. We catch sight of Dürer, the great master of the Northern Renaissance, as he searches for the whale. This, he realises, is his chance to make his greatest ever print.

Philip Hoare is the author of nine works of non-fiction, including biographies of Stephen Tennant and Noël Coward, and the studies, Wilde's Last Stand and England's Lost Eden. Spike Island was chosen by W.G. Sebald as his book of the year for 2001. In 2009, Leviathan or, The Whale won the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. It was followed in 2013 by The Sea Inside, and in 2017 by RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR.

His new book, Albert & the Whale led the New York Times to call the author a 'forceful weather system' of his own. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Southampton, and co-curator, with Angela Cockayne, of the digital projects http://www.mobydickbigread.com/ and https://www.ancientmarinerbigread.com/

As ever, much, much more about this episode is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com.

Scene One: Nuremberg, home of Albrecht Dürer, at the height of its power as an imperial city, of art and technology.

Scene Two: The Low Countries. Driven out of Nuremberg by the plague and a city in lockdown, Dürer escapes to the seaside.

Scene Three: Halfway through his year away, Dürer hears a whale has been stranded in Zeeland. This is his chance to make his greatest print, a follow up to his hit woodcut of a rhinoceros. What follows next is near disaster, a mortal act. It changes his life.

Memento: Memento: A lock of Dürer’s hair (which Hoare would use to regenerate him and then get him to paint his portrait)

Presenter: Violet Moller

Guest: Philip Hoare

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Colorgraph

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