Chalke Talk

Lancaster Bomber Pilot

Rusty Waughman DFC is a former Lancaster pilot flying with RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War. He has incredible recall, and talks of those times with great frankness, detail and consideration for all he and his crew went through. 

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Les Parisiennes 1939-49

How did the women of Paris live, love and die in the 1940s? Why did some Parisians collaborate while others resisted? From saving other people’s children, to embracing Nazi philosophy to retreating to the Ritz with a lover, acclaimed writer, Anne Sebba, examines the many different choices made by the Parisiennes in order to survive the war.

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Lotharingia: A Personal History of Europe's Lost Country

In 843 AD the territory of Emperor Charlemagne was divided between his three surviving grandsons. One inherited the area now known as France, another Germany and the third received the piece in between: Lotharingia, a huge swath of land that stretched from the mouth of the Rhine to the Alps. Simon Winder explains how the dynamic between these three great zones has dictated much of our subsequent fate.

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Masters of the Seas: Naval Power and the First World War

So much of our understanding of the First World War focuses on the conflict on land and yet the nation who controlled the seas also controlled the flow of resources, so critical in such a long and attritional war. In this lecture, one of our most eminent historians Professor Sir Hew Strachan shows why naval power was so critical to the outcome.

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No Cunning Plan

Tony Robinson has spent much of his professional life immersed in the past, whether as Blackadder’s servant through the centuries or with Maid Marion and her Merry Men, or as the presenter of the pioneering archaeology show, Time Team. In this event, he discusses with Tom Holland his history highs, from Baldrick’s cunning plans to some of the most important finds unearthed in over twenty years of archaeological digs.

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Salisbury Cathedral: A Medieval Masterpiece

Over 800 years ago, work started on the new Salisbury Cathedral. Tim Tatton-Brown describes how one of Britain’s greatest cathedrals was built, from digging the foundations in 1219 to the completion of Britain’s tallest spire. Drawing on history, geology and his expertise in architecture, he will show the wider context of the building, situating its development against the background of English politics of successive ages.

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The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of England, Wessex and the Chalke Valley

We speak English today; not Celtic, Latin, nor Norman French. England is England because of the Anglo-Saxon conquest. Yet we know very little about how it happened. This talk describes astonishing new evidence, hidden in plain sight, spread across the whole length and breadth of England. Some of it in the Chalke Valley near Salisbury.

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The Collector Earls of Pembroke: Wilton's History Told Through its Art Collection

Every picture tells a story and nowhere more so than in a private collection, still hanging in the house for which it was bought. The collection at Wilton is one of the oldest in Britain, dating back to the seventeenth century, when the Earl of Pembroke was among Van Dyck’s earliest English patrons. Art historian and broadcaster Helen Rosslyn looks at works by artists as diverse as Raphael, Rembrandt and Reynolds and explores how they came to be at Wilton.

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The Final Taboo: A History of Grief

Death is the last taboo in our society, and grief is still profoundly misunderstood. In conversation with Dan Snow, Julia Samuel, a grief psychologist and Founder of Child Bereavement UK, explores past attitudes to grief and the historical context of death and dying in this country, from the Victorians to the present day, with particular emphasis on the consequences of the two World Wars.

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The Imperial Tea Party: Family, Politics and Betrayal

Before King George infamously denied his Romanov cousins asylum when the Bolsheviks were closing in, there were three extraordinary encounters between the British and Russian royal families. Although well intentioned and generally hailed as successes, Frances Welch shows that these meetings, beset by misunderstandings and misfortunes, were to have far-reaching consequences for twentieth century Europe and beyond.

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