Chalke Talk

Marjorie Clark with the SOE in Italy

Tim Clark and Nick Cook, co-authors of Monopoli Blues, talk to Tim’s mother, former SOE/FANY wireless operator, Marjorie Clark, about her wartime experiences and those of her husband Bob, whom she met when they served with the SOE in Italy. Part tale of derring-do, part wartime romance, it is also the story of Tim’s journey to uncover his father’s ill-fated ‘Clarion’ mission behind enemy lines in 1944.

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Empress Dowager Cixi

Best-selling author of Wild Swans, Jung Chang gives a panoramic depiction of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of the most important woman in Chinese history. One of the Emperor’s concubines, she launched a palace coup to become the Empress Dowager Cixi, the absolute ruler of a third of the world’s population who overcame huge obstacles to bring a medieval empire into the modern age.

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Elizabeth I: A Study in Insecurity

In the popular imagination Elizabeth I is the symbol of monarchical power, the Virgin Queen who ruled over a Golden Age. But the image is as much armour against reality as it is a reflection of the truth. Dr Helen Castor shows England’s iconic queen in a revealing new light, shaped by profound insecurity that was a matter of both practical politics and personal psychology.

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Lawrence of Burma: Dadland

Winner of the 2016 Costa Biography prize, Keggie Carew, recounts how, as her ageing father descended into dementia, she undertook a quest to learn about his past. In World War II Tom Carew was parachuted behind the lines into France, then Burma where he fought with Burmese guerrillas helping not only to defeat Japan but win their independence. In peace time domestic life was more challenging!

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D-Day

The Allied invasion of Europe involved years of painstaking preparation and mind-boggling logistics, including orchestrating the largest flotilla of ships ever assembled. In addition to covering the Allies’ build-up to the invasion, Peter Caddick-Adams examines the German preparations: the formidable Atlantikwall and Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's plans to make Europe impregnable. This talk reveals precisely what lay in wait for the Allies.

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A History of Sporting Genius

Why are some touched with sporting greatness? What is it that lifts mortal men to achieve sporting pinnacles? And why is it that so many sporting greats are also touched with self-destruction? In this discussion, we were thrilled to bring together three experts and a passionate observer to delve deep into the lives and brilliance of some of our best-loved sporting geniuses.

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This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World

Professor Jerry Brotton turns his expert eye to Elizabeth I’s little-known relationship with the Islamic world, following her excommunication by the Pope in 1570. He reveals that England’s relations with the Muslim world were far more extensive than has ever been appreciated and that their influence was felt across the political, commercial and domestic landscape of Elizabethan England

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The Peasants' Revolt

In 1381, England erupted in a violent popular uprising. The Peasants’ Revolt was the biggest armed rebellion against Church and State in English history and for a short time, it looked as if all would be swept before them. Broadcaster and author, Lord Bragg vividly portrays this epic struggle between the powerful and the apparently powerless.

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Henry VIII and the Men who Made Him

Henry VIII is well known for his tumultuous relationships with women, but his relationships with the men who surrounded him reveal much about his beliefs, behaviour and character. Tracy Borman provides a new perspective by analysing Henry through the men in his life. His cruelty and ruthlessness are infamous, but his fierce loyalty towards those he trusted indicates that he was never the one-dimensional monster of popular belief.

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