Latest / Luke's English Podcast / 902. _A Year on the Fosse_ by Rick Thompson (English History _ Wildlife) Dad_s New Book 📕 Out Now(M4A_128K)

Transcript

902. _A Year on the Fosse_ by Rick Thompson (English History _ Wildlife) Dad_s New Book 📕 Out Now(M4A_128K) · Luke's English Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, listeners, Welcome back to Luke's English podcast. This is
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a podcast for learners of English around the world. Are
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: you a learner of English? Are you around the world.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: If the answer to those questions is both yes, then welcome.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: This podcast is for you. So this is episode number
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: nine hundred and two, and it's very nice to be
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: talking to you on the podcast again. It's nice to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: see that recent episodes have gone down well with everyone.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Lots of nice comments on the last couple of episodes,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the one with Amber and Paul, the Long Rambling Conversation
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: episode nine hundred where we talked about the Olympics and
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: sneezing and all sorts of things. People enjoyed that one,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and then there was the Sherlock Holmes episode from the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: previous one, also very popular. They're always popular those episodes,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and plenty of people have been writing in the comments
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: section things like this, saying we love the Sherlock Holmes stories,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Please do more of them. I will. I'll do some
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: more of those, and I'll be doing other story episodes
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: as well come up on the podcast, but this time
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: in this episode, this one is a conversation episode, which
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: means I'll be talking to a guest on the show.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: This is your chance to listen to some free flowing
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: English conversation and you can practice listening to natural English
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: as it is actually spoken. And this time I'm talking
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: to my dad again on the podcast. Now long term
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: listeners will know my dad, Rick Thompson, and often he's
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: on the show talking about politics and news in episodes
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: of the Rick Thompson Report. But also as well as
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: being well as well as being a former journalist, he's
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: also these days a writer and in fact he has
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: written another book. He's written his third book, and as
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: you may be aware, for the previous two books, Dad
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: came on the podcast to talk about what the books
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: are about and also to share some stories and descriptions
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: from those two books. So the previous books were called
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: The first one was called park Life, A year in
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the Life of an urban Park. The second one was
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: called A River Avon Year, the Wildlife and History of
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Shakespeare's Avon. And this third book, this new book, which
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: is available today, it's been published. The publication day is today,
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  Speaker 1: which should be the first of October. If I have
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: managed to get myself organized enough to publish this on Tuesday,
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  Speaker 1: the first of October. The book is now available and
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: it's called A Year on the Foss, The Wildlife and
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: History of the Famous Roman Road. I won't go into
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: all the details now about what the foss is and
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, but plenty of history, plenty of stories,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: plenty of descriptions of wildlife. In this particular book, my
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: dad is following a famous Roman road that runs right
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: through the center of England. And so in this conversation
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: you can just sit back, relax and enjoy listening to
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: my dad talking about some English history, telling some stories,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and also describing some nature. So listen on. That's what
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: you're going to get in this episode, all right, And
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: at the end of the conversation, I'll come back again
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: to do a little bit of a ramble. Okay, So
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: without any further ado, let's now listen to the conversation
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: which I recorded with my dad this morning, and here
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: we go. Hello Dad, good morning, Welcome back onto the podcast.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Luke. It's very nice to be back on
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  Speaker 2: the podcast. How are you.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I'm fine, Well, I'm just as you can hear. I'm
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: just kind of recovering from a bit of a cold,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: so it's affecting my voice. A bit, but I'm doing fine.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: It's nice to talk to you. How are you this morning?
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: I'm okay. Okay, we always just start with the weather report. Well,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: the weather at the point is really horrible. I mean
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: it's incredibly wet. There's some alerts all across the center
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: of England. Fortunately we live on the top of a hill,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: so we're okay. But the you know, the rain has
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: just been relentless and there's more to come, and it's
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: also windy and quite cold. Apart from that, it's lovely.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Okay. Yes, this is a thing that happens in England
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: a lot, isn't it that when we get these periods
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: of heavy rain, rivers burst their banks and you get
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: flooding in a lot of places.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just that we get these things called depressions
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: which come across the Atlantic normally. Though this one's coming
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: in from the north and it's low pressure and it
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: means the rain goes round and around in a circle,
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: excuse me, and it can just get stuck over the
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: middle of the country, and so it just keeps on
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: raining and keeps on raining, and of course, just as
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: you say, the rivers sometimes overflow.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, So that's meant that you haven't been able to
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: go for your normal walk around the park this morning.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Now I haven't been out for my morning constitutional. There's
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: a good word for you. What do you mean by
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: that walk, which is for your health?
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: For your constitution meaning your health? Yes, okay, your your
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: daily constitutional. That's that's quite nice. Yeah, no, I have.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I was just going to say, you wrote a book
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: about your daily constitutional walks around the local park. That
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: was book number one. Then book number two came out,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: and you've done it again book number three. It's a
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: it's a hat trick of books.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: It's becoming a series.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: So you've written another book.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: New book coming out right now.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, and here it is.
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  Speaker 2: Look at that. It's called A Year on the Foss.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: That's for video viewers.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: That's that's a kestrel.
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  Speaker 1: Showing the front cover of the book. Listeners, you'll be
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: able to find a picture of this if you follow
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: the link in the description in your podcast app of choice.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: But yeah, the book is called A Year Hold it
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: up again for me. The book is called A Year
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  Speaker 1: on the Foss. What's the sort of subtitle for the book?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: The Wildlife and History of the famous Roman Road.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, foss No, I don't actually well.
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  Speaker 2: In Latin, fosser means ditch. And the foss Way is
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  Speaker 2: one of the first big Roman roads that they built
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  Speaker 2: after they'd invaded Britain, and they're famously straight, particularly the
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  Speaker 2: foss Way. It runs like pencil straight through the middle
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  Speaker 2: of the country, just near where I live, not far
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  Speaker 2: away it passes by. It's a completely straight road and
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  Speaker 2: lots of people know the foss Way. They signs up
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  Speaker 2: when you're on the foss Way it says it's the
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  Speaker 2: foss Way with a little Roman soldier logo. Everybody knows
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  Speaker 2: is the Fosse Way. It's about three hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 2: kilometers long, so it's a long road, and it goes
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  Speaker 2: from Exeter down near the sea in Devon all the
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  Speaker 2: way through the middle of the country to Lincoln in
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  Speaker 2: the east of the country. So that's the fourth way.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: It goes in a diagonal line, doesn't it basically from
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: the kind of the southwest up to the northeast Ish.
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  Speaker 1: So the foss is it's a Latin word, it's an
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: old Roman word and it means a ditch. And the
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: road we believe was built next to the ditch Hello,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: this is Luke from the Future, just interrupting this while
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I'm editing it. And because I'm an English teacher, I
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: feel like I need to explain what a ditch is.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: It's a small detail, but you've heard the word several
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: times now, so you probably want to know what it is.
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  Speaker 1: A ditch is something that is dug in the ground,
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  Speaker 1: so you dig into the ground. People would dig into
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the ground, and it's so kind of a lot long thing,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: so it's where the ground goes down and it's long,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: so like a kind of a long trench. You might
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: find a ditch by the side of the road. So
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: if you've got a long road in the countryside, there
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: might be a ditch next to the road, so that
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  Speaker 1: the water would go off the road and go into
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  Speaker 1: the ditch. Sometimes farmers dig ditches next to their fields again,
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  Speaker 1: so that water would drain off the field and go
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: into the ditch. Okay, the Romans dug this particular very
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  Speaker 1: long ditch. They dug this deep ditch, like a long trench,
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  Speaker 1: into the ground as a form of defense against people
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  Speaker 1: who could attack them. So it's this long ditch. And
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  Speaker 1: as you're going to hear me say again in the second.
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  Speaker 1: The foss is actually the road that was built next
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  Speaker 1: to this ditch in the ground that.
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  Speaker 2: Is dead right. They had a defensive and a road
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: alongside it, and it was an amazing piece of engineering.
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  Speaker 2: The Romans built the road with layers of gravel and
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: stone and then paved it with slabs of limestone and
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: put a kind of cement in between so that they
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  Speaker 2: could move their troops and wagons with supplies and cavalry
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: and chariots quickly in all weathers. And along the foss
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  Speaker 2: Way they built forts which were garrisoned and the idea
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: was to protect the southeast of England that they conquered,
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  Speaker 2: notably from the Celtic tribes to the north and west.
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  Speaker 2: And amazingly enough, the Foss Way is still where a
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: lot of towns, villages and big cities grew up because
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: the Romans built their forts where there were river crossings
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  Speaker 2: and intersected with other roads, and they've turned into some
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  Speaker 2: of our biggest towns and cities. So it's an interesting
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: journey and I did it as a journey in fact,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: from Lincoln down to Exeter month by month, looking at
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: the wildlife as the season's changed, but also doing the
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: stories of the towns and cities, and there were some
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: interesting curious tales as well.
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  Speaker 1: So your book basically follows, as you said, a year
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  Speaker 1: along the Foss Way, starting up in Lincoln and traveling
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  Speaker 1: all the way down to Exeter in the southwest, month
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: by month, covering the wildlife that you can find throughout
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  Speaker 1: the year, plus stories from the history of this historic
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Roman road. And it's interesting that it goes in that
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: diagonal line because I understand that it represent since the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: border of the land that the Romans had kind of captured.
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  Speaker 1: And as you say, this ditch is Foss where the
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  Speaker 1: road was built next to, as you said, a defensive ditch,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: because this marked, as I said, the border of the
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: land they'd captured, and then the land that was still
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: sort of populated by these Celtic tribes who they had
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: to defend themselves against. I suppose, Yeah, okay.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: That's right. I mean, I can tell you a little
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: bit about, you know, the invasion of Britain. People will
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: know that our islands have been invaded time and time
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: again over the years. If we go all the way
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: back to pre Roman times, we are talking about a
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: number of individual tribes and kingdoms. They didn't always live
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: in harmony with each other, and they called them the
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: ancient Britain's or the Celtic civilization, and we still hang
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: on to some of the Celtic traditions and language in
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Welsh is based on the Celtic language, and there's Stills,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Irish and some Scottish dialects which are based on Celtic.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: So if we go back to pre Roman times that
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: we're talking about the Celts, we're talking about people who
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: worship the sun and their religious memic called Druids and
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: the Of course they worship the sun because we all
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: know that that's where life comes from. They depend on it,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: and civilizations around the world have worshiped the sun. The
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Romans did to a certain extent themselves. Anyway, the Roman Empire,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: built on brilliant military strength, had taken over most of
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: mainland Europe. In fact that its height, it took over
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: the whole of Europe and part of Asia and a
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: bit of Africa as well. Anyway, I had to study
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Latin at school. Did you do Latin, Luke.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: No, I I did know Latin at school. So by
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the time I was at school, basically Latin had been
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: removed from the national curriculum. I just did some French
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and a bit of German. But so you did Latin then,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: But which is an interesting one because obviously people don't
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: actually use Latin these days.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Oh no, Latin is dead as dead can be. First
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: it killed the Romans, and now it's killing me. Latin
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: was is a difficult thing to learn, and I didn't
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: enjoy it at all, but I had in those days,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: a long time ago. In those days, you had to
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: have a Latin qualification if you want to go to
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: some of the better universities to study English, which is
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: what I wanted to do. In fact, I had to
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: study a bit of Latin after i'd gone's university, because,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: of course, if you're looking at the English language, there
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: is an argument that you have to understand a bit
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: of Latin, otherwise you can't understand the language because a
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: lot of it's based on Latin. Anyway, we were taught
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: a little rhyme to remember the dates BC. That's before
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: christ b c. Fifty five, Caesar and his men arrive
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: BC fifty four Caesar and his men. Once more so,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: we remembered that Julius Caesar and his army arrived on
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: these shores fifty five PC, and then he went away
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: and came back again the next year PC fifty four,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: and they forged north up to the River Thames and
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: established some kind of authority over southeast England. But the
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: legions were withdrawn because of trouble back on the mainland
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: gall where you are, France and the local.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: What did you say, Asterix and Obelix, that's right, the Gauls.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: The Gauls. Well, the Gauls were giving the Romans a
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: lot of trouble, so they he Caesar took his troops
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: back to put down the insurrections and the Gorilla war.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: But wasn't there, sorry, wasn't there a kind of a
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: battle with the Celtic tribes in England Queen Boudica, And.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Well that came later, that came a bit later. There
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: were battles, I mean, obviously when this great force came
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: across the channel and landed on the coast, there were
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: loads of battles with the Celts. But the Romans were
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: too strong, no, they so in BC fifty four they
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: withdrew again, and it took another ninety years before the
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: full scale invasion of Britain. And this was Emperor. Claudius
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: was the emperor at the time, and he ordered the
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: invasion of Britain, which they regarded as being underdeveloped and
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: full of useful resources. And the commander of the army
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: was called Clautius, and Cloutius took a huge force across
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: the channel to invade Britain. They talk about the historians.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: They had thousand ships, can you imagine that? And they
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: had troops, but they also had supplies. They had chariots,
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: they had horses, cavalry, all taken over on boats and landed.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: There were a number of series of battles, but they
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: they soon controlled what is now on the southeast side
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: of the Foss Way. Well, you mentioned Boudica. She was
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: the famous queen of one of the tribes, the Icni,
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: and they had an agreement with the Romans, which the
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Romans broke. It was about, you know, they can keep
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: their land and so on. And they also, as it
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: says in the history books, violated her daughters to humiliate them,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: and they whipped Queen Budikir. And it's enraged the Ici
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: so much, and they linked up with a neighboring tribe
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: and they marched on the Roman lines and went into
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Londinium London and burned it down. The Roman troops there
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: were outnumbered heavily, so they withdrew and then Boudica and
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: her her army turned round and headed for another big
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: settlement called Saint Albans, and they were intercepted by the
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Romans who had brought their legions in from east and
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: west along the Foss Way probably, and it was AD
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: that's and I Domini sixty or sixty one, nobody's quite sure.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: That's after Christ.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: This is the invasion was AD forty three, so it
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: was about fifteen years after that, and there was a
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: massive battle called the Battle of Watling Street. Watling Street
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: is another Roman road which headed up north and crossed
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: the Foss Way, and somewhere near there was where this
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: battle took place, and the Britons were very heavily defeated,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: and the local historians, I think it's Tacitus says eighty
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: thousand of them were killed. Well, it's probably an exaggeration,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: but it was certainly a bit of a massacre. And
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: after that the Romans had secured southern Britain and they
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: remained in charge for three hundred and fifty years until
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: the Roman Empire collapsed and they withdrew their legions. So
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, we're going back a long time here, but
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: the foss Whey was key to the conquering of England.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: They obviously went further north and basically stopped at what
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: is now Adrian's Wall, the Big Wall dividing England from Scotland,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: because the Scots and the terrain there was too difficult,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: so they decided that'll do.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it reminds me of I don't know if you've
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: seen the film Gladiator.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Dad, Yes, I did a long time ago.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, there's a scene at the beginning of the
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: film where the Romans are I guess, attempting to invade Scotland.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Actually I just checked and it's not Scotland. It's Germania,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: which I suppose is somewhere in what is now Germany,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: so not actually Scotland, but you know, it doesn't really matter.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: It's more or less the same same kind of thing anyway.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: And there's just a battle in a forest where they're
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: fighting against these Scottish barbarians and it's very impressive. You know.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Of course it's Ridley Scott directing it, so he's very
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: good at doing these historical battle scenes, but it's just amazing.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: You see the Roman soldiers information and then all these
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: barbarians in the forest running out with their big ginger beards,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: you know, and axes and stuff like that, and you know,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: you see a big battle, and.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Its probably the way it was that. We do have
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: an account of the Battle of Wattling Street against Boudica
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: where Tacitus says that Tortius addressed his troops before the
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: battle and Boudica addressed her troops before the battle. And
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: there is a famous statue outside Westminster in London of
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Boudica on her chariot with her daughters behind her, addressing
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: her troops before the battle. And what the historian says
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: is that they were very different. Boudhico went on about
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: honor and how they you know, they're fighting for their
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: culture and traditions and we have been offended and everything else.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: And Plautius simply stuck with tactics, and he told his troops,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: remember what you've learned, throw your javelins, push them over
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: with your shields, and finish them up with your swords.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: That's what he said, and clearly that's what they did.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons why the Romans were so
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: powerful is that they had these military tactics, and they
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: had the technology.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: As Ghama and these great big shields.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and they had you know, the engineering. Going
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: back to the roads, the way that they built their roads.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, the road service on the foss Way. It was
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: called the aga A G G E R. The I'm
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: not quite sure why, but it describes how it has
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: layers and drainage ditches and a bit of a camber
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: and it's beautifully engineered. There are a few little bits
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: of it still remaining down the way, but hardly any
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: of it. And it was an amazing job. They must
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: have had lots and lots of slaves or locals pressed
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: into service because it was such a huge enterprise, such
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: a long, long road. The interesting thing is that the
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: book is about history and wildlife. The Romans quarried limestone
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: from a limestone ridge, which pretty well follows the line
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: of the.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Road they quarried.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Those quarries obviously were exploited later over the centuries. For example, Bath,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: the city of Bath is on the on the Fosse Way,
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: and it's got magnificent stone buildings, and the stone came
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: from a whole number of quarries nearby. Well, these quarries,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: when they were no longer used, tended to flood and
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: they turned into lakes and ponds, and quite a few
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: of them are now nature reserves. So near the False
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Way where the Romans started the quarrying, you have nature reserves,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: which is rather nice and of course they're particularly valuable
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: bits of wild country, well partly whild because they're close
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: to population centers and so, you know, having access to
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: nature when you live at a big city is really important,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: as we now know, particularly to help people with their
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: mental health as well as their physical health.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, and so in these nature reserves you get sort
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: of you know, stretches of fresh water and so on,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and you get all kinds of bird life and animal
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: life that that live there. Very interesting.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Sort of changes over the over the year.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what are some of the highlights of in terms
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: of wildlife that you can see in these sort sort
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: of nature reserves that used to be quarries where the
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Romans dug out lots of stone from the ground.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Well, in the winter time it's they're very very busy
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: with wildfowl that's ducks and geese, and the book starts
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: in January, and we we you know, we see some
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: of the really colorful ducks that are in large numbers
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: on these big lakes, and a lot of them are
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: called whistling ducks because they do whistle. So yeah, you
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: hear them before you see them. Ducks called the widgeon
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: and the teal, our smallest duck, they have a little whistle.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: At the other end of the Foss Way, I got
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: there in December. It's it's an estuary the X River.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: X Exeter is the city on the X River, but
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: just to the south of it there is the X
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Estuary and it's a very very wide estuary.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: An estuary is it's where a river meets the sea
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: and the river the banks of the river become very
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: wide and you become this you get this wide stretch
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: of water where the river goes out into the sea
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: and estuary you do.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: And it's a it's a long estuary and a wide
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: estuary and it's famous for wintering birds, wildfowl and waders
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: in the in their thousands they spend winter on the
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: x Estuary. It's quite shallow and they can feed on
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: the on the on the sandbank and it's shallow enough
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: for them to be and the numbers of birds there
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: are really spectacular. There's a bird called an avaset which
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: is extremely attractive and it has an very unusual bill
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: that curves up and it sweeps it to and fro
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: to get its food. Now, they were very rare when
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: I was a kid. There was great excitement when amsepts
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: nested in this country the first time. Well, on the
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Exces Estuary in winter time you'll get two or three
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: hundred oversets, and a lot of them travel quite long distances.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Some of the ducks come from Siberia, northern Russia, to
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: escape the harsh winters there. They come here. And it's
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: the same with the geese. Some of them come from
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: northern even the Arctic Circle, Spitzbergen, places like that Iceland.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: So they come to the British Isles and the estuary
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: is around the coast in particular, because it would be
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: far too cold where they breed.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of the interesting things about the UK,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and we have such a diverse bird life because a
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: lot of it it's migratree. A lot of birds pass through,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: as you say, either coming from the north to winter
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: in the UK or they come from Africa and other
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: hot places during the summertime to escape the extremely hot weather. Yeah,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: so we end up with this very diverse bird life,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: which is really interesting. This is one of the reasons
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: why in the UK there is a kind of culture
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: of bird watching and a lot of people go out
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: with their binoculars and like to identify different birds and
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: have a look at them, and they're very beautiful. So
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: that's certainly a feature of British life.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: You're quite right, and as you say, in the summer
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: we get all the visitors that are escaping from where
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: it might be too hot and too arid, like swallows
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: of Famously, the book mentions the fact that numbers of
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: these birds are declining mainly because the number of flying
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: insects are declining, and there's quite a lot of scientific
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: study going on about that. It's not just that's the
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: way it looks. It's established that the number of insects
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: is down, including butterflies as well as little flies, and
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: the reasons are not entirely clear, but the main culprit
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: appears to be intensive farming, where the a single crop
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: field is not particularly helpful for insect life, and they
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: use pesticides to kill off the pests, but of course
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: it reduces the number of insects that birds feed on,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: and it's a it's a big issue and rather a
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: depressing one. Anyway, the book touches on what's called the
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: biodiversity crisis. And some of these little migratory birds travel
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: fantastic distances. There's there's one called a willow warbler, little warbler,
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: little brown bird, very small, and it travels here from
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: South Africa each year. And sometimes they go from one
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: of them was tracked with little tracking device from Mozambique
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: to northern Russia and back again. And they're tiny, so
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: quite interesting. How far birds migrade, And as you say,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: lots and lots of species migrade. I would think about
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: sixty percent of birds migrade. Some of them long distances,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: some of them short distances.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: It's amazing that they know the way. How do they
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: know the way?
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: I know, it's the great mystery of migration. How do
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: they navigate? And some birds returned to the nest they
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: were born in, like swallows do how do they find it? Well,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: no one's quite sure, but there is something in a
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: bird's beak which can detect the magnetic field of the Earth.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: So it may be that combination of following the sun,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: or following the magnetic field in a mysterious way, or
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: recognizing landmarks. But it's one of the great mysteries of ornithology,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: is how do they find their way?
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating. Okay, So in the book, then as
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: you follow the Foss Way, I suppose there are a
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: number of different stories relating to things that have happened
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: on that route over the years.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: There certainly are the obviously there are major events like
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: battles in the English Civil War or the wars of
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: the Roses. You must know you know about Richard the Third,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Richard the.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Third King Richard the Third is I mean, we know
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: a lot about him through Shakespeare because of the Shakespeare
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Play and a lot of other things that were written
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: about him. He's an interesting character because we wonder how
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: much of it's true and how much of it is
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: a sort of character assassination by the you know, by
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: the Tudors who replaced him. But what we the stereotype
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: of Richard the Third is that he was an evil man.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: He had a hunchback, and he was ambitious, and he
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: kind of stole the throne from his nephews who had
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: the who had a kind of legal claim to the throne.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: And it's very kind of Game of thrones sort of thing.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: But these two young nephews were the rightful heirs to
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: the throne, and Richard the third, the uncle, the evil uncle,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: kind of stepped in and possibly had them killed and
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: then became king himself, and he was an evil man.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: And then later the heroic Tudor Henry the fourth or
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: something came in and yeah, one of the Henry's, Henry
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the sixth, I can't remember which Henry is is, but
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: one of the Henry's came in and sort of defeated
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: him in battle and.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Fort and the the It was basically families, the Great
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Yorkshire family, the Yorkists was Richard's background, and the Lancastrians
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: the west side of northern England. They were thought they
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: were the rightful possessors of the throne. And we had
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: this so called War of the Roses going on four
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: We were talking about, you know, islands that have been
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: constantly invaded were when the Romans had pulled out, and
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: there was a British Roman kind of administration in certain places,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: but it fragmented. We were invaded from mainland Europe again
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: and mainly from Germany, and that's the Saxons and the
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Anglo Saxons were the Saxons who settled in this country
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: and the Anglo Saxon kings were again different rivals. They
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: were like earls with their private armies. And the most
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: famous the more was Alfred the Great. Alfred was the
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: king of Wessex southwestern England, and through arranged marriages and
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: one another, he sort of merged the Midland Kingdom where
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: I am called Mercia with Wessex, and people say that
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: was really when we'd established something you could call England.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: So Alfred is regarded as being the first king of England.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: And so we go up to ten sixty six, I mean,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: he was around in the nine hundreds. Ten sixty six
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: we got invaded again big time.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: So we go Romans, Saxons, and then fast forward to
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: ten sixty six and then we've got the Normans.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's right. So you know, that was what
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: ushered in the Middle Ages as we call it, which
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: is roughly you know, eleven hundred to fourteen hundred, and
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: then after that it's regarded as being the start of
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: the modern era of Britain. Yeah, so Richard the Third, Well,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: you're quite right, he is characterized as being an evil murderer.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: But there was a woman who was a researcher and
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: she lived in Leicester. The city of Leicester is the
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: capital of Leicestershire, and it's on the Foss Way, whilstway
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: runs right through the middle and she was researching a
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: book about Richard the Third and basically was not at
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: all convinced that he was the evil murderer that had
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: been portrayed by the Tudors and by Shakespeare. So she
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: wanted to find his grave. And we know, all we
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: knew was that his body after the Battle of Bosworth,
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: where he'd been killed, was brought back into Leicester, apparently
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: slung over a horse, and that he was buried and
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: he was taken in by the Gray Friars of religious order,
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: and that was all that was known. Really. There was
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: also a legend that his body had been thrown into
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: the river over a bridge, and that there's actually a
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: plaque on the bridge says that. But she wasn't sure,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: and she had a feeling that he was buried under
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: a car park. She went into this car park, which
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: is where they were roughly where the Gray Fire's Monastery
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: used to be, and had a feeling that he's here. Well,
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: she went away and came back a little late later,
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: and the car park people had painted an R on
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: one of the bays meaning reserved. Okay, but it also
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: means Rex King. It also means Richard. And she stood
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: on this and she said, that's where he is.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Well, how did she know that? Sorry, how did she
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: know that he was buried under that very spot?
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Just a feeling, really, she said, I had this feeling.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: And it's funny that that R was written there.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Anyway, it took a bit of time to get
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: the money together and get the permission the council to
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: dig up the car park do an archaeological dig, and
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: in the end the archaeologists supported it because they wanted
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: to find the Gray Fires monastery. They didn't think there
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: was much chance of finding Richard the Third's Gray But
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: in the first day of the dig they found a
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: grave and the spine was curved, and they did DNA
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: tests and they had some relatives of Richard known relatives
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: and compared it and it was him. Wow, And he
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: didn't have a hunchback, but he did have a condition
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: which was curvature of the spine, and he didn't have
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: a withered arm as Shakespeare portrayed him. And it was
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: a big moment and there was a huge internment in
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: the Leicester Cathedral. Thousands of people came and he paraded
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: through the streets of people cheered Richard the Third And
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: he's now buried in properly in Leicester Cathedral. So the
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: interesting little story. There's lots of stories all the way
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: down these things.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: I should say sorry that the was it a journalist.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: Who Philippa Langley was the name of Philip Langley.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: There's a book. She wrote a book in twenty thirteen
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: which tells the whole story. It's called The King's Grave,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: The Search for Richard I. And a film was made
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: based on the book in twenty twenty two, directed by
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Stephen Frears and starring Steve Coogan, And it's sort of
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: like the film of the story of the book of
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: the Search for Richard the Third's Grave. So you know
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: that's interesting, isn't it.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's called is it called Searching for Richard? Oh?
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: The film is called The Lost King of the Lost King. Yeah,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen it.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: I should yeah, anyway, So there's that. That was an
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: interesting story for a start, but there are some more,
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: other more bizarre stories. I came across. There's a place
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: called Malmsbury and in the Cotswolds. You know what the
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Cotswolds are.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Cotswolds is a series of little, oh little villages, little
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: towns in kind of just to the southwest of the Midlands.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know what wold means though, or cotts. I
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: don't know what the word Cotswolds actually means.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Wold A wold w o l d old fashioned word
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: is a rolling hill, so it's the wold is a
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: low hill. Cotswold is a sheep farm on a rolling hill. Okay,
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: so good sheep country, very much with a lot of
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: towns that became quite affluent through wool. It is to
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: the southwest of Birmingham, and it's very beautiful. It's a
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: sort of heritage site in itself. The stone there is
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: beautifully gold and the cottages are very very attractive. So
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: that in the Cotswold there's a place called Malmesbury, and
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: I discovered that there's there's a there's a grave there
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: of a barmaid and she was the first person in
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Britain to be killed by a tiger. What yes, sorry,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: and I can't I can't remember exactly what it says
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: on her grave, but it's a little little rhyme here
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: it is she was called Hannah, and she was a barmaid.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Hannah twinoy at the white lion in not the white tiger,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: the white lion, And her grave says in bloom of
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: life she snatched from hence she had not room to
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: make defense, for tiger fears took life away and here
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: she lies in a bed of clay until the resurrection day.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: The local menagerie or you know, traveling circus had come
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: to town and they'd parked up in the car part
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: of the pub or the yard of the pub. It
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be a car Parket's we're talking seventeen and we
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: don't know the details, but the rhyme seemed to suggest
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: she was cornered, so she was probably cornered in the bar.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: The tiger got out and killed the poor, poor Hannah.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: There's another story from Marnsbury involving escaped animals. Oh my goodness,
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: this one is about two pigs. The pigs were being
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: transported to the slaughter house to be killed, and they
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: managed to escape and swim across a river and disappeared
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: into woodland and a lot of people, you know, were
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: brought together trying to find the pigs, and the press
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: liked this story, you know, how pigs on the run,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: and they became they became known as Butch and Sundance.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: When was it When was this, Oh it.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Was not so long ago. I think nineteen sixties.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, So they became known as Butcher and Sundance after
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: the after the film. After the film Butcher Cassidy and
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: the Sundance kid about these two outlaws who were escaping
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: from the police, and that's exactly right.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: And you know, they kept escaping from the posse. Sometimes
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: they would be glimpsed, they would disappear again, and the
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: press liked this, and Japanese broadcaster in HK actually flew
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: a reporter in to give them daily updates on Butcher
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: and Sundown. Anyway, in the end, Butch was found routling
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: about in somebody's back gardener. They managed to catch Butch
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: and the next day they managed to find sun Dance,
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: but the bloke who owned them said that we're still
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: going to go for slaughter. Well, they'd become personalities by now,
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: so the Daily Mail newspaper decided it would save them,
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: and that it bought exclusive rights to the pigs. I
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: don't think they realized they weren't going to get a
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: very good interview with the pigs. But they went off
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: to an animal sanctuary and lived happily ever after.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: Oh right, well lucky then.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: So all sorts of stories along this famous road, including
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: some other bizarre ones.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I liked.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: I liked the place called Chippenham, Chippin'ham that's on the
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: edge of the Cotswolds, heading towards Bath. I mentioned King
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Alfred the Great, the famous Anglo Saxon king of Wessex.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: That's where he was when the Danes and we were invaded,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: not just by the Anglo Saxons but by the Scandinavians
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: who took over the north of England, Vikings from Norway
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: and the Danes from Denmark. The Danes were constantly at
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: war with the Anglo Saxons, and they did launch a
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: surprise attack on Chippendham and Alfred and his men had
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: to escape into the marshes at Somerset levels.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: What a marsh's stad?
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Sorry?
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: What are marsh's?
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Marshes are areas of wet ground which are not particularly
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: good for farming.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very soft wet marsh.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Is like a bit of a bog really, a bit
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: like a swamp, a bit like a swamp. Anyway, there's
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: a legend here when Alfred was taken in by some
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: peasant woman in her little house, and she didn't know
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: who he was, and she told him to sit by
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: the fire and watch the cakes which she was cooking
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: on a griddle on the fire. Don't let them burn.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: So Alfred, escaping from the Danes, escapes into this marshland
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: and ends up finding his way into this woman's home.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: He kind of hides in there. She doesn't know who
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: he is, and she says, all right, you just sit
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: there and watch those cakes, make sure they don't burn, right, okay.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: But he was preoccupied thinking about how was he going
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: to defeat the Danes, coming up with a plan, and
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: he let the cakes burn and she scolded him. This
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: is the story of Alfred and the cakes. But whatever
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: it was, whatever it was he was thinking worked because
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: very shortly afterwards there's a big battle of the Danes
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: were defeated.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Right when you say she scolded him, it basically means
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: she she told him off, right, Yeah, I told him off,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: shouted at him and said said I told him off
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: for burning the cakes. And little did she know that
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: this was the king of England that she was. But
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: it worked because they defeated the Danes then, so it
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: actually it worked for him.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, obviously the plan he was hatching worked because
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: there was a big defeat. The Danish leader he was
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: another king, was forced to surrender in Chippenham and the
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: deal was that he became a Christian Christianity and then
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: they they had an agreement where they could go off
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: to east of the country, Norfolk, but they would they
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: could rule there under a Christian law, the Dane law.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: It's it's very interesting, how but there have been battles
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: after battles after battles in our history and you think
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: how many people have had to die and was the
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: very point, But that's the way it was. It was
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: always force of arms that allows people to take over.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: I've got another one for you. In Chippenham, this place
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: in the nineteen sixties, the what was it fifties fifty
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: late fifties. I think there was a car crash on
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: the False Way in it was a world famous rock
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: star called.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Remember Eddie Cochran.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Cochran. Now, younger people won't have heard of Eddie Cochran,
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: but at the time in the fifties, he was really famous.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: And he is an American, and he he wrote and
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: performed songs which captured teenage frustration. So for example, summertime blues.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: There ain't no cure of the summertime blues.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: This guy was one of the key rock and roll
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: artists from the fifties, sort of pre Beatles, a contemporary
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: of Elvis Presley, one of those early rock and roll stars.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: He would have been hugely popular in England around that
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: time because of the rock and roll boom.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: It just come to the end of a tour, a
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: British tour. His last venue was in Bristol and he
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: was in a taxi being driven by a nineteen year
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: old along with his girlfriend and along with gene Vincent,
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: another rocker who was doing the same tour with Eddie Cochran,
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: and the car was going too fast. It left the
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: road and hit a concrete lamppost and Geene Vincent was
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: injured he smashed his legs, but Eddie Cochran was thrown
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: out and died, and it was obviously big news at
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: the time. Now, there's an interesting twist to this little
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: story because his belongings were taken to the local police
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: station and one of the young police cadets picked up
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Eddie Cochran's rather nice guitar and started playing it. And
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: he spent some time playing this guitar. Well, this police
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: cadet decided he wanted to be a rock star, and
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: so he formed a band and it was called Dave D, Dozy, Beeky,
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: Mick and Titch, and that had a number of big
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: hits and he was Dave D.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: How about that really? So, yeah, I've heard of Dave D, Dozy, Beekie,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Mick and Titch. A ridiculous name for a band, but
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: they were really popular in the sixties.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: Learned to play the guitar by basically commandeering Eddie Cochrane's
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: guitar at the police station and then went on to
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: have a successful pop career on the back of it. Wow, amazing,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: isn't it the weird coincidences? Yeah, so all these stories
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: are in your book then.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, and of course that there's lots of you know,
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: more interesting stories. But there is a serious side to
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: the book, and it is about the need to protect
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: our environment, which is you know, has faces multiple threats.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: I mentioned our biodiversity crisis. Well it is one the
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: number of species is declining. The other one, of course
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: is connected, is the climate crisis, and that also affects
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: wildlife quite significantly. And then as a pollution crisis. Our
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: rivers are polluted, the air in cities is polluted, and
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: all these things are of course connected. But there are
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: things people can do to help combat the degradation of
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: our natural environment. And there's quite a strong movement, particularly
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: amongst young people, saying we have to take action to
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: reverse the decline of the natural world. We're in a
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: quite heavily populated country and that of course puts pressure
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: on the natural world. Interesting talk about a road. One
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: of the things I talk about is roadkill. Roadkill is
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: wild creatures that are hit by vehicles. About seventy years
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: ago there were around three and a half million vehicles
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: on roads in Britain. According to the registrations, there are
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: now about forty five million vehicles wow, from three million
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: to forty five million in a generation basically, And of
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: course that means that there's more of a slaughter on
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: the roads because they're much busier than they used to be.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: One of the things that keeps getting killed on the
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: roads our deer. We have a number of escapee deer.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: There are six different kinds of deer in Britain. Only
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: two of them are natives. The others escape from collections
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: and zoos and things and bread in the wild, notably
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: the munk jack.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: Sorry, I should say that a deer listeners is it's
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: like Bambi, right, that's normally if I have to explain
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: what a deer is to my students, normally, if I
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: say Bambie, then people go up right now, I know
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: what a deer is. Also reindeer. Reindeer are technically deer,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: and Father Christmas Santa Claus has reindeer, so deer, he's
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: a deer. You were talking about the fact there are
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: six species of deer in England, munt jack deer. You
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: were just talking about the little ones.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, they're small ones about the side of a big
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: dog gingery and they have expanded a lot. The deer society.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: There is one. They're over two million deer in the country,
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: which is quite a lot. And then jack's are expanding
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: northwards quite rapidly, and you do get them everywhere. We
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: used to get them in the gardener when you were
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: a kid. I remember they teaching the roses. So a
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: lot of munk jacks get hit on the road. I've
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: hit a badger. You know what a badger is?
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: Well, I know what a badger is, but I wonder
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: if the listeners know what a badger is. It's kind
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: of like a fairly large I mean a bit like
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: a small dog, quite low to the ground, gray hair
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: on its face, it's got black and white stripes. It's
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: not a raccoon. It's a badger. They live in holes
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: in the ground. Quite ferocious. Actually if you get on
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: the if you get on the wrong side of a badger,
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: you got to watch out. But yeah, very typical animal
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: in the English countryside.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: And they are hit by vehicles, particularly at night time.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: I've hit a badger years ago. Yeah, going along at night.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Suddenly in the headlights badger bam jump down from the
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: from the hedgerow right in front of the car. Bam.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: Instant death. Yeah, what it must be like to hit
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: a deer, I can't imagine, especially if it's a big one. Yeah,
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: very dangerous, absolutely. Anyway, So I do a little bit
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: about roadkill and it does have an impact on wildlife
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: in a positive way in many ways, in that the
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: number of creatures that live on carrion carryon meaning.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: Dead creatures, animals that have died in one way or another,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: not because they got killed by the animal that's eating them,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: but just animals that have died. So there are certain
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: other animals that live on carrying, and you think of
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: things like crows.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the full name of the crow is the carry
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: and crow. And so there are birds that feed on carrion,
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: and we've had quite an increase in the birds of
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: prey that feed on carrying buzzards and the red kite,
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: which is an interesting story in itself. In Shakespeare's time,
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: kites were everywhere over London and everything else, living on
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: scraps and rubbish. But they were almost eliminated that they
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: had been shot by gamekeepers and only a small population
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: in Wales remained. There's been a reintroduction program.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: I remember we were on holiday in Wales and we
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: took a detour to go to this certain spot where
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: you can see red kites, and we parked, the car,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: went out and we spotted a couple of red kites
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: and it was really special to see these birds that
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: you know, extremely rare these days. It's a totally different story,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: isn't it. Everywhere.
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: Reintroduction of red kites in different places has been highly successful,
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: and of course they do eat a lot of roadkill
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: as well as trying to hunt rabbits, but they basically
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: they're carring eaters nick clean things up for us. Anyway.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: They're very attack at a big bird of prey. And
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: the foss Way goes through the East Midlands which is
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: one of the release areas, and there are kites, you know,
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: very frequently seen over the road. There's another bird of
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: prey that we'd we see along our roads, which is
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: the kestrel. It's the one on the cover of the book,
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: a small gingery falcon that hovers and the kestrel feeds
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: substantially on voles and mice, and they are quite easy
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: to catch along the fringes of roads because there are
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: antony people walking about and often their banks and voles
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: quite like banks, and so you quite often see kestrels
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: along the Foss Way and along our motorways as well.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: It's fascinating when you know these story of how animals
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: being reintroduced into natural environments completely transform those places, and
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: it tells you something about the sort of delicate balance
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: of nature and the way that animals sort of live
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: in a state of harmony.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is true that everything is interrelated, and this
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: thing about the deer population out of control really and
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: it's very very bad for woodland in that they tend
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: to eat young saplings and in a wood it's what's
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: called the understory, which is very important. A lot of
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: birds and animals rely on the understory. And if you
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: just have a bare ground maybe with just a few weeds,
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: tree trunks and then the trees, it's a very empty space.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: There are arguments about reintroducing predators in Scotland, but as
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: you can imagine, the farmers are completely against the idea
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: of wolves. But I think there was a there's a
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: strong argument for the links. The lynx is a big
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: European wildcat and they have been reintroduced in Spain to
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: some good effect, and I don't think they are likely
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: to eat too many sheep. I mean the links is smaller,
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: but it does eat deer. It does catch deer, and
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: so I would be very in motion in favor of
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: retroducing the links.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, so Dad the book then a year on the
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: foss it's available now. I think this episode is being
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: published on the first of October twenty twenty four, which
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: is the actual publication date of the book it is.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: If people would like to read it, where can they
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: actually get themselves a copy of it?
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: Well, it'll be on Amazon, yeah, and there are whether
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: two other online booksellers. I don't know whether you can
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: access them from abroad or not, Hive Books, Waterstones, can you.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: I think that they can, but it might be the
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: case that Amazon is that perhaps the most accessible one.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: It's on Amazon dot Com, which is probably going to
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: be available in most places. Yes, but you know, if
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: it's not available where you are, then that's going to
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: be a bit tricky for you, isn't it. But you know, yeah,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: But anyway, have a look. I'll probably put a link
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: in the I'll put a link on the episode page
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: for this episode on my website where people can actually
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: and see if they can get themselves a copy. But great, Okay,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: fantastic Dad, thanks a lot for telling us some of
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: those stories that are in the book. And it must
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: be very satisfying to have finished, right, to have finished
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: a book, a third book, Yes.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: It is, and I mean I like to think that
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: people will read it and enjoy it. I mean, I'm
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: not going to make a fortune by writing these books
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: about journeys through the middle of England. But I think
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: that it's quite an easy book to read, and people
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: tell me they enjoy it.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you're you know, your way of putting things
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: into words is great. You know, it's so clear the
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: way you put things. You know, you have a way
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: with words, and so I think it would be a
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: great thing for people to read, certainly a good model
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: of English. Was it difficult to write? And this is
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: like maybe my last question for you. Was it difficult
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: to write? I mean three books now you've done. We've
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: written other things as well in the past. But for
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: some people, writing a book is a sort of a
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: torturous process. Was it very difficult to do it? Did
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: you ever experience writer's block or anything like that?
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: Not really, I mean it did take about a year
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: to do. And of course I make a few trips
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: to places down to Exeter for example, to to just
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: travel around talk to one or two people. But I
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: quite enjoyed it, and it's a real mix. You know,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: history and wildlife don't necessarily go together, but I think
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: they do. And then the curious stories like you know,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: the death of a rock star, things like that that
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: have happened along this route. I quite enjoyed finding them.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: And of course you've got the structure which must help
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: the process. The fact that you're following the road and
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: you're also going through the months of the year as well.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: That probably provides you with a nice structure that you know,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: helps you to keep progressing. Okay, fantastic, Well, I hope
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: that people really enjoy it.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much, book, and have a good day.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, listeners. That was my dad talking about his new book,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: A Year on the Foss, The Wildlife and History of
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: the Famous Roman Road by Rick Thompson. It's available now,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: as you heard us saying earlier, and you'll find a
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: link in the description which will take you to the
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: listing for this book on Amazon dot com. You might
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: want to check to see if it's available in your
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: local version of Amazon or whatever. But I hope you
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: can get your hands on a copy of the book
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: and enjoy it. Thanks again to my dad for being
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: on the show, for his contribution and telling us all
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: those stories and things like that. Always nice to hear
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: from him, and I think that the book will be
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: a very pleasant read. Indeed pleasant to read, not too
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: difficult to read, and full of interesting information stories and
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: history and so on. Actually, on that point, the word
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: history and the word story, this is something that I
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: see learners of English getting wrong all the time. So,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: for example, in an episode where I tell a story,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: for example, if it's a Sherlock Holmes story or maybe
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: something like the simulation from a few months ago, that
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: is a story, okay. That's a narrative where you're describing
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: what happened to someone. Right, There's a beginning, a middle,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: and an end. This is a story, okay. And history
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: is something else. History means things that happened in the past.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: So when you're talking about England, it would typically be
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: the kings and Queens of England. This is history, okay.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: The mistake that I often noticed learners of English making
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: is that they will use the word history when they
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: should be using the word story. For example, Luke, that
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: was a really interesting history is what people might say
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: or write, and it should be Luke, that was a
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: really interesting story. Okay, So watch out, don't mix up
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: the word story and the word history. History is an
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: account of things that actually happened in the past, written
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: by historians, written in history books. And you study history
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: at school or at university. Okay. A story is a narrative.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: For example, it could even just be a story about
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: how you know, how you met your wife or girlfriend,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: or how you met your boyfriend or husband. You know,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: how you met your best friend. This is a story.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: For example, I was working in a shop and she
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: came into the shop as my customer, and I got
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: talking to her, and you know, that's a story. Okay,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: all right, then, so I thought that I would have
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: just a little bit of a ramble at the end
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: of this episode here. So this is episode nine hundred
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: and two, and as you can hear from my voice,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: I haven't been very well this month. I mean, I've
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: just had a bit of a cold, but it's been
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: enough for me not to be able to record as
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: much as I wanted to. In fact, September this month,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: I've been a bit under the weather, I have to say,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: kind of come back from holiday, recovered from jet lag
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: and all that, and then sort of like the weather
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: went all terrible, and I've just been sort of suffering
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: or struggling, and as a result, I haven't been able
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: to record podcast episodes as much as I wanted to.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: I was lucky that my dad was available to do
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: this particular episode today, which allowed me to publish something
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: this week. Without him, I don't know what I would
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: have done, actually, And also this is true for premium
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: content as well. I've been writing premium stuff for September,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: but I haven't had a chance to record anything. There
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: was my sore throat, also other things which basically have
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: meant that I haven't been able to record for one
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: reason or another. But there's premium content coming, and I've
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: got plenty of other content which is planned, but just
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: recording has been a bit delayed recently. So I'll tell
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: you what. I do have one thing which I recorded
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: just after I got back from holiday, just at the
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: beginning of this month, but these though, I'm not sure
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: about about publishing it. So you can tell me what
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: you think, all right, You can tell me what you
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: think about this idea. At the moment, I'm sort of
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: reluctant to publish this episode because after having recorded it,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure. So I'll tell you what the
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: episode is. So not long ago, I was going through
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: some of my old stuff and I came across a
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: couple of old diaries that I wrote about twenty three
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: years ago, so notepads full of my writing from a
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: long time ago, before I ever started doing this podcast,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: and they were diaries which I wrote while I was
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: in hospital in Japan. Now, long term listeners will know
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: about this story that I ended up in a hospital
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: when I was living in Japan. I got really really
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: ill and had to go to hospital for two weeks,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: and it was sort of really horrible and frightening experience,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: especially at the beginning, because I didn't really know what
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: was wrong with me, and I was really really anxious
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: and very scared, and I kind of misunderstood my reasons
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: for being in the hospital. I thought they were going
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: to give me an operation. I thought I was seriously ill,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: And one of the things I did during the time
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: that I spent in the hospital was actually to write
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: in a diary almost every day and so I thought
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: it might be interesting to read out the diaries that
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: I wrote and make a podcast episode out of them.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: I thought that could be interesting, and I did it.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: As I said, I did that. I recorded this episode
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: and it turned into quite a long episode, like a
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: lot of my episodes do recent these days, ended up
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: being quite long. But then afterwards, I thought to myself,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure I'm going to publish that, because, you
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: know what, it's pretty much the same story that I've
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: told twice, at least twice before on this podcast. There
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: was the original Sick in Japan episodisode from it was
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: like episode one one hundred and eighteen hundred and twenty
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: something like that from I Guess twenty twelve. And then
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: I did Sick in Japan Live in front of an
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: audience at the British Council, where I told the story
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: in front of a live audience and recorded it for
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: the podcast, and that was published a couple of years ago.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: And I thought that reading out my diary would be
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: an interesting different approach to telling that story. I thought
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: that maybe there'd be some things in the diary that
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: would be kind of funny or different, or that you
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: hadn't heard before, and I think there are I think
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: there are some little anecdotes and other moments that happened
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: that I wrote down that I that I've never talked
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: about before. But for the most part, it's basically the
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: same story that I've told twice before on this podcast.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: And this is why I'm a little bit reluctant to
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: publish it, because I don't want to just I don't
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: want to repeat myself, you know, I don't want to
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: just kind of put out an episode that feels a
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: bit like just a recycled story that I've told twice before.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: But anyway, you can tell me, what do you think
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: I should do? Should I publish the episode where I'm
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: reading from my Japanese hospital diaries, would that be interesting
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: or what? I don't know really, I mean, I'm going
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: to I'm asking you. But the thing as though what's
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: going to happen now is that some of you will say, yeah,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: that would be interesting, and some of you might say,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: you know what, now, it's it's not really worth it,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: Or some of you might think that you might think, ah,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: now we could probably live without it, Luke, we'd prefer
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: something else instead. You might be thinking that, but you
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: might be just too nice and too polite to actually
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: write that to me, you know, so I probably will
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: get responses, if any Maybe I won't get any responses
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: to this at all, but I suppose the responses I
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: will get will probably be nice, because most of the
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: people who listen to my podcasts are nice, and you
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: want to be nice and encouraging, and so you'll probably say, yeah, Luke,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: please publish that. I don't know what I'm going to do,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: but actually I might have to publish it anyway. If
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not able to record anything else in time for
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: next week's episode, maybe I'll just put that up, because
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: to be fair, it's already recorded, half of it's been edited.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: I just I'm in the middle of editing it now,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: so that might be that might come soon, but it's
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm curious to know what you will think. Anyway.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: I've got other stuff lined up. We've got stories, I've
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: got joke episodes. I've got all sorts of stuff that
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: I've just been working on while I can't really record.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: I'm going to stop talking now because I do want
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: to rest my voice because you can hear it's a
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: bit strained. It's a bit hoarse. So I'm going to
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: rest my voice, drink some green tea, and work on
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: podcast content, including premium stuff, which is in the pipeline.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: I've realized I haven't published any premium staff in September,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: but you know, I haven't really been able to do it.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: But it's coming all right, Okay. Anyway, I hope you've
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode and that you you know, if you
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: got this far, what could you what could you say?
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: You know? What?
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: What?
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: What could be the code word for this part? You
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: could Okay, your code word could just be the word diary. Okay,
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: that will prove that you've got to this part of
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: the episode. You could do hashtag diary or simply mention
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: something about my Japanese hospital diary in the in the comment,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: or something about maybe my dad's diaries, you know, because
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: in a way, you know, going through the year and
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: talking about the nature and history from this famous road
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: throughout the year, it's a bit like a diary, isn't it.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: I should also I also wanted to say that in
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: my dad's book, you'll you'll see if you get a
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: copy of it, you'll see lots of illustrations including the
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: illustration on the front cover, and his books all have
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: the same kind of cover. It's an illustration of a bird,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: with underneath a little illustration of the thing that's being
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: described a park, a river in this case a Roman road,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: but particularly an illustration of a bird. And my dad,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: as well as all the other things he does, he's
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: an excellent illustrator and artist, and all the illustrations of
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: birds and nature in his books are all done by him.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: My brother helps my dad to arrange the covers of
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: all of his books, but that's just another nice thing
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: you can get. If you get a copy of the book,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: you can also enjoy my dad's lovely illustrations of birds.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: Very good. He's a really good artist. But anyway, you
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: can write the word diary in your comment if you've
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: got this far, and I'll speak to you in the
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: next episode. It might be the Japanese hospital diary. It
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: might be something else. We'll see how my voice is
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: over the next few but otherwise, in any case, I
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: will speak to you soon. Thank you so much for
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: listening to my podcast. Hope you enjoyed the episode. Look
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: forward to reading your comments. But for now, it's just
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: time for me to say goodbye bye, bye bye, Boe
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: Boe