Neil Oliver: News, Interviews, History

In this episode the countdown begins; will it be the dawn of a second coming or herald chaos and catastrophe? This week, as the dials turn and the 9s mutate to 0s the new millennium arrives and we’re standing in a landmark building designed by one of the world’s great architects. What does this building tell us about Britain? Hope you’ve got your streamers!

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In this episode Neil comes face to face with the exploits of the Solomon Brown lifeboat crew. With a hurricane battering the Cornish coast, 8 men set sail from Penlee Lifeboat Station in an attempt to save the passengers and crew of the Union Star.

As the Union Star was being violently tossed ever closer towards deadly rocks a helicopter rescue pilot witnessed the bravery of the Solomon Brown crew as they attempted to rescue everyone aboard the Union Star – the helicopter pilot described what he saw and the lifeboat men as, ‘truly the greatest eight men I have ever seen’.  

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 In this episode Neil takes us along one of London’s most celebrated and infamous streets, the place that became a byword for the British Press - Fleet Street. We’re in the midst of the pounding heart of the city with gossip, scandal, exposes and politics ringing in our ears – we’re at St Brides Church on Fleet Street.

Named after the river Fleet upon which it was built. In the C16th Wynkyn de Worde and his printing press set up shop on Fleet Street, and the foundations of a tradition were laid.

In 1702 the capital’s first newspaper, the Daily Courant, was published as the street developed from printing books to newspapers. As the penny-press’s popularity skyrocketed a torrent of words started flowing down Fleet Street as the nation’s obsession with news was fed.

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In this episode Neil takes us to a set of three tiny spellbinding islands, shimmering with crystal clear water and pristine white sand – his ultimate desert island. This is the place he escapes to in his imagination when he needs to get away from the pressures of the world.

In the C17th smugglers made one of the islands their secret hideaway. Another island was home to a self-styled king who swapped gifts with Queen Victoria – a basket woven from seaweed and filled with fresh fish and royal coat made of blue cloth. It’s a place where is still possible to glimpse magic!

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In this episode, as the Cold War and the threat of nuclear Armageddon sends a terrifying chill around the world Neil heads to Orford Ness in Suffolk.

In the early C20th this isolated shingle spit, tucked away from prying eyes, came to the attention of the military who saw it as the perfect location for secret experiments. It was first used as a training base for the fledgling Royal Airforce during the First World War. Later, work on the radar system that would prove to be so vital for the defence of Britain in WWII was conducted here.

The shroud of secrecy, which the military had thrown over this location continued as experiments that would help develop Britain’s first atomic bomb took place in the laboratories here. And in 1967 as Cold War tensions and the threat of nuclear war increased, to counter any Soviet aggression, British and US military scientists started developing a next generation radar system called Operation Cobra Mist.

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In this episode we come face to face with a chilling reminder of just how close Hitler came to conquering Britain. During World War 2 he got a toe-hold on British territory when his army captured the Channel Islands – the first time they’d be wrestled from British control in over 1000 years.

This week Neil travels to Alderney, one of the islands in the archipelago, to witness the terrifying atrocities carried out by the Nazi occupation force. Here they brought in an army of slave labourers to build defences aimed at keeping out liberation from the British. And the horror meted out to them is a satin on all humanity.

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In this episode Operation Overlord is go as Allied troops begin practicing for D-Day.

The plans to invade and liberate Europe are drawn up with amphibious landings on 5 beaches in Normandy - Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. Hitler's defences are well prepared, ready and determined, so allied training rehearsals are vital, and it's crucial they are as realistic as possible.

Neil heads to Slapton Sands in Devon to watch Exercise Tiger unfold - a heady, dangerous mix of live ammunition, miscommunication, German E-boats, secret documents and tragedy.

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In this episode we meet Winston Churchill, a man who has helped define the British Isles: a luminary figure, complex, charismatic and inspirational. Prime minister of Britain during World War II he was a man who inspired a nation in its time of need. Neil travels to Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, where was Churchill was born, and to the village of Bladon next door, where he is buried.

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In this episode we hear the deafening roar of industry and see the spark fly as some of the world’s great ships are built. We’re on the banks of the river Clyde, a river that powered a city; as the say goes, ‘Glasgow made the Clyde and the Clyde made Glasgow’.

At one time the Clyde shipbuilders build a fifth of all the ships in the world - everything from luxury transatlantic flagships that crossed the world’s oceans to the legendary battlecruisers that would soon face a determined enemy in the coming Great war.

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In this episode we set sail with Neil to visit one of the world’s great natural harbours, Scapa Flow in Orkney. This vast harbour is a beautifully bleak, windswept spot drench in drama, tragedy and power. For thousands of years, it played a vital role in maritime travel, trade and conflict. The Vikings anchored in its safe waters in the C11th. The British admiralty enlisted it in the Napoleonic wars. And in the First World War it was home to Britain’s Grand Fleet, before being pressed into service once again in the 2nd world war. In the First World War the entire, surrendered German navy was scuttled here in an extraordinary act of sabotage.

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History & Comment

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