This episode contains references to drug use.

Raves, drugs, and a youth culture revolution. In Milton Keynes?

Anouska’s hometown of Milton Keynes (or MK to the locals x) isn’t known for being particularly cool… But in the nineties and the noughties it was home to a warehouse venue at the centre of UK club culture. From 1992-2004 the Sanctuary Music Arena hosted events that welcomed thousands of ravers every week.

What happened when house music and MDMA collided to create UK rave culture in this era? And as someone who has constantly been told that the only exciting thing about Milton Keynes is its roundabouts, will this piece of rave history make Anouska more proud of her hometown?

For the last episode in this series, join History Hun (Anouska Lewis) on her homecoming trip to Milton Keynes as she speaks to locals at the site of The Sanctuary Music Arena (now a blue and yellow furniture shop), chats to Happy Hardcore DJ Billy Daniel Bunter about his memories there, and visits a local Drum and Bass venue that hosts Sanctuary reunion raves.

History Hun is on a mission to prove that no hometown is boring. Because everywhere has a history and history’s never boring!!

She’s spotlighting hidden histories from misjudged places across the UK and supplying you with a few history-hun-facts along the way x

Hometown Boring? is a Mags Creative production for BBC Sounds Audio Lab

LGBTQIA+ history doesn’t just exist in London, Manchester and Brighton. It’s everywhere! Including Plymouth!

The I in LGBTQIA+ stands for intersex – those born with variations in their sex characteristics. And unfortunately, their history has often focused on their medical records rather than their lives. But this episode celebrates the ordinary everyday moments within Intersex History through one person’s story.

Mark Weston was born in Plymouth in 1905. Raised as a girl, he discovered he had variations in his sex characteristics in the 1930s and decided to undergo surgery and change his name to Mark. His small local community consistently supported him, and he settled down with his wife a few streets away from his childhood home.

As already somewhat of a local sporting celebrity known as “the Devonshire Wonder”, how did the newspapers react to his change of identity? And what’s the wider context of twentieth-century Intersex History in Britain?

Join History Hun (Anouska Lewis) on her trip to Plymouth as she delves into the local archives to explore Mark Weston’s story, is taken on a LGBTQIA+ heritage walking tour of the city, and discusses Mark’s life with intersex people today.

History Hun is on a mission to prove that no hometown is boring. Because everywhere has a history and history’s never boring!!

She’s spotlighting hidden histories from misjudged places across the UK and supplying you with a few history-hun-facts along the way x

Hometown Boring? is a Mags Creative production for BBC Sounds Audio Lab

Standing up for yourself is difficult. It’s even more difficult if people assume that you ‘won’t make a fuss’. From 1979 to 1980, the mostly South Asian and female workforce of a bubble gum factory in Slough stood up for themselves in the face of unfairness. The strike at the Chix Confectionery Company confronted stereotypes at the time that viewed South Asian women as passive.

But this wasn’t the first time the British public was surprised to see strikers in saris. How is Chix connected to other resistance movements led by South Asian women in this era?

Not only does this episode highlight how women confronted the stereotypes they faced, but it questions another stereotype… Is Slough as “boring” as we’ve all been told?

Join History Hun (Anouska Lewis) on her trip to Slough as she searches for the site of the Chix strike with a young historian, discusses the importance of intersectionality with an activist and academic, and has tea with a community worker in her eighties who shares her first-hand experiences of discrimination at work in the 1970s.

History Hun is on a mission to prove that no hometown is boring. Because everywhere has a history and history’s never boring!!

She’s spotlighting hidden histories from misjudged places across the UK and supplying you with a few history-hun-facts along the way x

Hometown Boring? is a Mags Creative production for BBC Sounds Audio Lab

Lots of us dream of becoming professional footballers. Especially playing for our country. One person who lived that dream was Eddie Parris. In 1931, he became the first Black footballer to represent Wales internationally. But what was professional football like between two world wars?

Scouted as a 17-year-old at Chepstow Town FC, Eddie played as a winger for various English football clubs including Luton, Bournemouth and Gloucester City, before his career took an abrupt pause with the onset of World War 2. 100 years since he played there as a teenager, has his life left a legacy at the local club that launched his football career?

Eddie Parris’s hometown of Chepstow is best known for its Medieval castle, and the old bridge over the River Wye linking Wales and England. But what do residents know about Chepstow’s role in Black Welsh History? Is there a monument to his story?

Join History Hun (Anouska Lewis) on her trip to Chepstow as she visits the cottage where Eddie Parris was born, explores his life with a historian of Modern Wales, and practises her goalie skills with the next generation of Chepstow football stars.

History Hun is on a mission to prove that no hometown is boring. Because everywhere has a history and history’s never boring!!

She’s spotlighting hidden histories from misjudged places across the UK and supplying you with a few history-hun-facts along the way x

Hometown Boring? is a Mags Creative production for BBC Sounds Audio Lab

No one wants their hometown to be labelled as dismal. But 13 miles outside of Glasgow, Cumbernauld is the only place to have won an award for being ‘Scotland’s most dismal town’ – twice. Its huge Brutalist shopping centre is an iconic feature of the town’s skyline. Yet in 2023, North Lanarkshire Council announced plans to demolish Cumbernauld Town Centre and start again.

What makes these plans intriguing is that in 1967 the town won a prestigious prize for its innovative architecture. How does a town centre go from pioneering to demolition in less than 60 years?

Cumbernauld was built as part of the post-war New Town movement, which aimed to create new places for people living in overcrowded areas of big cities like Glasgow and London. Their designs were pretty futuristic, featuring new concepts like multi-level indoor shopping centres (Ooooh!). Cumbernauld Town Centre was a bustling mall in its heyday. But nowadays, the corridors are lined with buckets and the penthouse apartments belong to the pigeons. The building has changed since its golden era, how’s life changed for the people who moved here as kids?

Join History Hun (Anouska Lewis) on her trip to Cumbernauld as she gets lost in the megastructure, speaks to residents who moved here in the New Town’s glory days, and visits a community garden in a space that could represent Cumbernauld Town Centre’s future…

History Hun is on a mission to prove that no hometown is boring. Because everywhere has a history and history’s never boring!!

She’s spotlighting hidden histories from misjudged places across the UK and supplying you with a few history-hun-facts along the way x

Hometown Boring? is a Mags Creative production for BBC Sounds Audio Lab

Written, produced and presented by Anouska Lewis

We all deserve a lil' treat to perk us up in the day. But have you ever stopped to think about the history behind your fave sugary snacks?

In the 1800s, ordinary Brits developed a sweet tooth. And one market town 12 miles northeast of Liverpool made use of it. Ormskirk became famous for its gingerbread recipe and the working-class 'Gingerbread Ladies' who sold the snack out of wicker baskets. These Victorian girl-bosses were savvy entrepreneurs who established businesses they passed down to their daughters and nieces.

But what's the wider backstory of Ormskirk gingerbread? Ingredients have huge histories of their own, and the British Empire is pretty significant when it comes to the history of sugar and spice and all things not so nice. How do we grapple with the way that colonial history is intertwined with everyday British life? Follow the crumbs that link this market town in Lancashire to countries across the Atlantic...

Join History Hun (Anouska Lewis) on her trip to Ormskirk as she tastes some gingerbread at a local bakery, explores the history of Demerara sugar with a Caribbean historian, and discusses the sinister shadow of this snack with locals at the annual Ormskirk Gingerbread Festival.

History Hun is on a mission to prove that no hometown is boring. Because everywhere has a history and history's never boring!!

She's spotlighting hidden histories from misjudged places across the UK and supplying you with a few history-hun-facts along the way x

Hometown Boring? is a Mags Creative production for BBC Sounds Audio Lab

Written, produced and presented by Anouska Lewis

History Hun (Anouska Lewis) is on a mission to prove that no hometown is boring!! Because everywhere has a history and history’s never boring x

She’s spotlighting hidden histories from misjudged places across the UK and supplying you with a few history-hun-facts along the way…

Anouska explores the links between the British Empire and a local recipe in Ormskirk, unpacks the story of a soon-to-be-demolished Brutalist shopping centre in Cumbernauld, visits the birthplace of the first Black footballer to represent Wales in Chepstow, discovers a little-known strike led by South Asian women in Slough, highlights the I in LGBTQIA+ History in Plymouth, all before returning to her hometown of Milton Keynes to reveal its connections to 1990s rave culture.

So whether you’re already history-obsessed or you hated history in school, come along and hear how the past relates to your life wherever you live x

Hometown Boring? is a Mags Creative production for BBC Sounds Audio Lab