This week we are discussing one of the lesser known Queen consorts of England, Catherine of Braganza. Promoted to princess status at the age of 2 thanks to her dad's efforts to kick the Spanish out of Portugal, little Catherine was destined to be Queen of France. But plans change and new alliances suddenly left Catherine with the prospect of having to sail across the channel to a wet little island to become the new wife of Charles II... which I am sure was just as good.

Guest Host: Evie Heathcote

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This week we are talking about beer, so naturally I have a guest host on board who hates the stuff. The development of porter in Georgian Britain led to a boom time for brewers across the country including the Meux family, who were able to become fabulously wealthy supplying the people of London with the means to forget their troubles.

Unfortunately the chasing of profit above all else does not sit particularly well with good health and safety practices.

Join us as we follow three generations of the Meux family and see how, if you are wealthy enough to begin with, you can ignore all sense of responsibility and consequence. But at least that is no longer true in Britain today...

Guest Host: Emma Heathcote

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This week we discussed what it takes to become a saint, and it was so exciting that I did it twice. That is to say that I thought I had recorded the episode with Emma, but it turns out the recording had cut out after 15 minutes, so we had to re-record with Ollie stepping into the breach.

And what a story it is! covering over 500 years and thousands of miles we follow the four men (possibly 5) who were destined to be remembered evermore in the British Isles as the patron saints of each country...

And an Emma episode will be along presently.

Guest Host: Ollie Green

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This week we are going back to a story we told before releasing our first episode back in August of 2020. The Loch Line was a shipping company set up by two idealistic Scotsmen who wanted to recreate the golden age of sail ships in the grime of Victorian Britain. But while their cause was noble, their business sense (and ability to choose competent captains) left much to be desired. It is less a case of 'will they succeed' and more 'will anyone survive?'

Guest Host: Emma Heathcote

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This evening we invite you to join us for a tale of blood and death as we discuss one of the more unique execution methods ever used in England.

A head chopping machine with a lovely view of the nearby brook, the Halifax gibbet was essentially a business sponsored initiative to reduce the amount of cloth theft in the local area. An obscenely over the top (though arguably very successful) method of ensuring profits were protected, the gibbet was infamous throughout the land for over 100 years, during which time the blade was reportedly never sharpened...

...though at least the people facing the gibbet in Halifax could console themselves that they weren't being executed in Hull.

Guest Host: Ollie Green

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This week we are discussing a man who could be described as the perfect example of a truly British eccentric.

Sir Patrick Moore's enthusiasm for astronomy was a passion so intense that he was able to create a 50 year television institution based on the sheer force of his personality alone.

A man who believed that the truth should never get in the way of a good story, he was more than happy to continually update his own biography in order to increase his status as a national treasure. So join us as we go beyond the monocle and try to sift the facts from the fictions in the life of one of the most successful amateurs of the last 100 years.

Guest Host: Jack Heathcote

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WE'RE BACK!

... and ready to get rolling with the new series of episodes by introducing Evie to the concept of family history via the story of a fellow Heathcote made good.

Hailing from the same area of Derbyshire as the forefathers of Consistently Eccentric, Gilbert Heathcote was the eldest of a set of very industrious brothers who raised the bar for the concept of social mobility. To the point that he was even able to claim ownership of a swan or two. We follow his sometimes rocky rise from an apprentice merchant to the heights of Georgian society.

With a special appearance from an irate Queen Anne.

Guest Host: Evie Heathcote

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This week we are trying to satisfy Emma's need for transport based history by talking about Claude Grahame-White, an early aviation engineer who loved to design planes, oh so many planes.

Convinced that planes were the key to future wars, Claude launched a one man crusade (sponsored by the Daily Mail) to ensure that the British would be the premier European force when it came to air power. Despite lacking both the creativity of the French and the discipline of the Germans. What resulted was a wild decade of creative output with dizzying highs and frustrating 3.3bhp lows.

Guest Host: Emma Heathcote

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In the second part of our discussion of the Darien scheme we cover the voyage to South America and the experiences of the would-be settlers once they arrived. This is a tale of incompetence and bad luck conspiring together to create a the perfect conditions for misery.

Even the endless naive optimism of William Paterson is no match for the sheer amount of reality that the expeditions experienced over the course of two harrowing years that almost bankrupted a country and set Scotland on the path to agreeing to the Act of Union.

Guest Host: Jack Heathcote

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This week we have a story so big that we will not be able to get through it all in one sitting. The tale of William Paterson and his dream of setting up a trading colony on the isthmus of Darien.

He was not bothered by the fact that he had never visited the place. By the fact that he could not get anyone to invest outside of Scotland. By the open hostility of the English East India Company and the lack of support from the King...

William knew that so long as he was in charge everything would be great, and it would only cost the low, low price of half of the totality of the Scottish economy.

Guest Host: Jack Heathcote

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