The Author Archive Podcast

Richard Fortey - Trilobite

Richard Fortey is a paleontologist with a passion.

As a boy he went on a search for fossil trilobites. He found one and turned his interest into a career. His enthusiasm is hugely engaging.

Philip Hensher - The Mulberry Empire : a fictional look at the British involvement in 19th century Afghanistan

Philip Hensher is an author, academic, critic and a past Booker Prize judge.

I spoke to him when his novel The Mulberry Empire was first published. It's a huge wide-screen historical novel about an attempted British invasion of Afghanistan. 

Although it is fiction the novel puts the plight of the country in an unhappy perspective.

Rose Collis - Colonel Barker’s Monstrous Regiment : A tale of female husbandry.

On April 15th 1929  Colonel Victor Barker was sentenced at the Old Bailey to  nine months imprisonment

Colonel Barker was in fact a woman who earlier in life had married and given birth to two children.

She then adopted several male aliases and married again.

The unbelievable story, that is begging to be made into a film, is told by Rose Collis.

 

Martin Jarvis - Acting Strangely : A memoir

Martin Jarvis is known as the mellifluous reader of many audiobooks, but he has had a very successful career as an actor as well.

Giles Milton - Big Chief Elizabeth : How England’s adventurers gambled and won the New World.

In 1586 Queen Elizabeth became the big chief of a tribe of North American Indians.

The story behind this event is a tale of almost unimaginable vision and courage led by the man who was to become Sir Walter Raleigh

Mark Lawson - Bloody Margaret : Thatcher that is!

The ghost of Mrs Thatcher walks through the Tory party despite the fact she left office in 1990 and died in 2013.

Her spirit is evoked and some emulate her style of dress ..... but when David Freeman interviewed Mark Lawson about his collection of stories, attitudes were very different.

At the time of the recording John Major was Prime Minister and Mark had written a book called Bloody Margaret. It's a satire. 

Paul Britton - Picking up the Pieces : memoir of a criminal psychologist.

Paul Britton advises police forces on some of their most difficult and upsetting cases. A few years ago he found himself in hot water is a situation that was dramatised for a Channel 4 series 'Deceit. As a result of Paul Britton's involvement Colin Stagg was wrongly accused of Rachel Nickell's murder.

David Freeman spoke to Paul Britton long before these things happened  about his book 'Picking up the Pieces. The book is full of horrifying cases, and starts with an occurrence that sounds straight from The Exorcist.

James Attlee - Under the Rainbow : Voices from Lockdown

In this inspiring book James Attlee tells what happened when he rang the doorbells of houses that had homemade pictures of rainbows in their windows.

The simple idea blossomed and grew and James found himself talking about Extinction Rebellion and Black LIves Matter.

This conversation took place on the day after the hottest ever day in the UK.

 

 

Alistair McAlpine - Love Letter to Australia

Baron McAlpine of West Green was a fund raiser for Mrs Thatcher but had another life in Australia. David Freeman met him when his book Bagman to Swagman was first published.

Even if one didn't share his politics, he was fantastic company with amazing stories. 

 

Jonathan Aitken - what happened to a member of John Major’s cabinet who was found to be lying.

Jonathan Aitken was a high profile Tory who was found to be lying.  He ended up serving time in jail. Have times changed?

He told David Freeman his story.