Chalke Talk

The podcast from the Chalke Valley History Festival
Released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings

Latest releases

  • 56. 1821: THE GREEK WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
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    It began as a spark in the Peloponnese and grew to suck in the Great Powers. James Heneage describes an eleven-year adventure full of heroism and unspeakable savagery with a glittering, international cast that included Byron, Delacroix and hundreds of young philhellenes who went out to fight and die. It ended with the last naval […]

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  • 55. DEUTSCHES AFRIKASCORPS KNIGHTS CROSS WINNER
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    Günter Halm (1922-2017) discusses with James Holland and Rob Schäfer his fascinating wartime memories. He was a veteran of the Second World War who fought under Rommel in the Deutsches Afrikakorps, and who won the Knight’s Cross for his part in the First Battle of Alamein in July 1942, and later served in Normandy.  

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  • 54. US FOREIGN POLICY SINCE THE COLD WAR
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    In this lecture to senior school pupils, Dr Christopher Fuller starts with an overview of a 100 years of history in a few minutes in order to understand the decisions made by policy-makers at the end of the Cold War. He covers the emergence of a unipolar age; the ‘end of history’ interpretation; how globalisation […]

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  • 53. START AGAIN: HOW WE CAN FIX OUR BROKEN POLITICS
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    Britain today is divided by generation, education, place and attitude. In this time of tumult, when Britain is wrestling with the question of what sort of nation it wishes to be, its politics is stuck. Drawing on lessons from history, Philip Collins proposes new answers to today’s most urgent questions: questions of education, work, health, […]

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  • CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN THE VICTORIAN COUNTRYSIDE
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    In this talk for junior pupils at the Chalke Valley History Festival for Schools, Jamie Byrom tells of ‘Sarah’s Sad Story’. Using the local records in Devon from the Victorian era, he follows her from early childhood to her first job as a servant aged ten (although claiming to be thirteen) to her incarceration in […]

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  • ARNHEM: THE BATTLE FOR THE BRIDGES, 1944
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    The battle of Arnhem, the great airborne fight for the bridges in 1944, was a courageous strategic gamble that failed. Britain’s best- selling historian Antony Beevor, using often overlooked sources from Allied and German archives, reconstructs the terrible reality of the fighting and questions whether this plan to end the war could ever have worked, […]

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  • THE WOMAN WHO SAVED THE CHILDREN: EGLANTYNE JEBB
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    Eglantyne Jebb not only helped save millions of lives, she also permanently changed the way the world treats children through the foundation of Save the Children. Clare Mulley brings to life this brilliant, charismatic, and passionate woman, whose work took her between drawing rooms and war zones, defying convention and breaking the law, until she […]

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  • CHINA’S WAR WITH JAPAN 1937-45: A STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL
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    In 1937 the ‘Marco Polo Bridge Incident’ plunged China and Japan into a conflict of extraordinary duration and ferocity – a war that would result in many millions of deaths and completely reshape East Asia in ways that we continue to confront today. Professor Rana Mitter explains how Japan’s failure to defeat China was the […]

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  • HISTORY’S PEOPLE: PERSONALITIES AND THE PAST
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    What difference do individuals make to history? Scrutinising the lives and behaviour of great and lesser-known figures of the past, internationally-acclaimed historian Margaret MacMillan investigates the decisions they made that changed our lives irrevocably. What is the concept of leadership? And how, for better or worse, have personalities influenced the way we see our past […]

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  • SAS: ROGUE HEROES
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    The history of the SAS is an exhilarating tale of fearlessness and heroism, recklessness and tragedy. Ben Macintyre, best-selling author of Agent Zigzag, tells the story of David Stirling, the eccentric young officer who was given permission by Churchill to recruit the most ruthless soldiers he could find, thereby founding the most mysterious military organisation […]

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