Writing a novel where you’re setting it: My time at Cliveden

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BBC, Books, Hilda Matheson, History, Nancy Astor, Podcast

I’ve been woefully quiet on this blog lately.

Part of that is because I’m using my writing time to write my first novel. First?! Ha! That implies there’ll be more.

It’s on the origin story of the BBC (podcast on that here), and a bit part in that is Nancy Astor. I’m more focused on her secretary, Hilda Matheson, who left Astor (begrudgingly – Astor had to pretty much sack her to make her go) to work for the fledgeling BBC, rising to become the Beeb’s first Director of Talks.

Matheson was the highest-ranking female boss of the company/corporation, and helped invent talk radio as we know it – the ‘Radio 4’ style of clever/interesting/diverse people informing/educating/entertaining. Before her, there were rather dry lectures, but she opened it to include debate and added a conversational style, plus her connections brought Britain’s celebrities of the day to the mic – George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Virginia Woolf (Matheson’s own love rival, for the affections of poet Vita Sackville-West). Matheson also worked for MI5 in both World Wars, hired by Lawrence of Arabia during the first one.

I know, right?! What a character. You start writing about the BBC and you end up writing about gay affairs and spying. But then you research Matheson’s pre-BBC boss, Lady Astor… and boy oh boy, keep pulling on that thread.

Nancy Astor, MP, Viscountess, Lady Astor – collector of titles. I don’t know how I’d address her. I’d just curtsy.

Nancy Astor was the first MP to take her seat in the House of Commons, so that’s the chapter of the book I’ve chosen to introduce Matheson and Astor. Nancy was an American divorcee, and you may have seen her name in countless quotes, part of a decades-long mud-slinging roast battle with Winston Churchill. eg.

Astor: “Sir, if you were my husband, I’d poison your tea.”

Churchill: “Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.”

After Nancy Astor’s triumphant maiden speech at the Commons (largely to boos, which was not the done thing for maiden speeches), Churchill was heard to say, “I feel as if a woman has just entered my bathroom and I had nothing to defend myself with, not even a sponge.” Astor apparently replied: “Mr Churchill, you are not handsome enough to have worries of that kind.”

Yet before her parliamentary career, Churchill was a friend to Nancy Astor, joining her lavish parties at her vast country home of Cliveden. After she became an MP – only because her husband rose to the House of Lords (he didn’t want to, and hoped Nancy would only babysit his seat while he got the law changed to return to the Commons) – many politicians snubbed her. Churchill was notoriously cruel with it. When he saw her in a Commons corridor, he’d talk loudly about venereal disease and the like, just to embarrass her.

So while the first Astor/Matheson scene in my novel has them at Westminster, I wanted their second chapter to be at Cliveden, the sprawling estate that Nancy loathed, that her husband inherited from his father William Astor.

I’m en route to a stand-up gig tonight, so pulled into a motorway services to do some writing on the novel. Then realised: I’m not that far from Cliveden…

“I think I’m outside Cliveden” is not what my T-shirt says.

…Cliveden is now a hotel, but the National Trust operate the estate. I sought a tour, and rounded the corner of the house to see a gaggle of tour guides all having their training. What’s the collective noun? A question of tour guides? A gift shop of tour guides? Anyway, there are no tours while the hotel finds its feet again post-lockdown. I left them to their training – early, given there aren’t any till 2022 – and explored the grounds.

It’s not the first time I’ve written part of a book in the place it’s set (although you’ll notice so far I’ve not done much sitting and writing; just some mooching around – still, all helps). When I wrote Hark! The Biography of Christmas, I wrote the chapter on Bracebridge Hall – fictitious English manor house, described by US writer Washington Irving in 1821 as the scene of lost old English Christmases, log fires, carriage rides, games etc – in the same manor house it was based on, Aston Hall near Birmingham. Irving visited Aston Hall as a guest of the Watt family (the lightbulb guy), and was so inspired by their Christmas celebrations that he exaggerated and fictionalised it in his book, which in turn inspired Dickens to write about old Christmas too.

Like Cliveden, Aston Hall is now a place to visit rather than a private property, so I worked on the chapter about its history while sitting in Aston Hall’s very modern cafe – but with a lovely view of the old house, and having just enjoyed an enlightening tour of it.

It really helps get under the skin of what you’re writing if you can visit your setting, let alone be writing about it while you’re there. I’ve read a handful of books and accounts of Cliveden and the Astors, but to visit it and see its scale was quite another thing.

The hotel was for guests only, but I popped my head around the door and glanced at the Cliveden’s entrance hall. It’s not changed much. This was it 100 years ago – the scene that would have greeted Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, and various visiting US presidents:

I popped in here today. Looks exactly the same, only in colour – reds and dark browns. This was it 100 years ago.

The chapel was open for non-hotel guests like me. It used to be a tearoom in the 1800s, but the Astors turned it into a chapel, not for Sunday worship for somewhere to be buried. It’s quite something:

Chapel. Formerly a tearoom.

Nancy Astor was a complex character – heralded as the first female MP to take her seat in Parliament, but better known for what she was anti than what she was pro. Anti-semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-communist – she backed Hitler through the 1930s, and the ‘Cliveden set’ was an upper-class group of appeasement, Nazi-sympathetic toffs who chose the wrong side of history. Nancy regretted her views in 1939, and spent the war trying to atone for her earlier views, helping children and families, just as she had set out to do in Parliament from 1919 onwards – only now she was turning cartwheels and turning her homes into hospitals.

(Some of the above Astor info is from the excellent podcast Gallus Girls and Wayward Women – a great listen.)

Anyway, enough blogging – back to the novel-writing, before I forget all that inspiration and start to write about Lady Astor and Matheson just having a chat in a shop or something. I hope to discover Lady Astor holidayed in Hawaii and had some key plot points happen there – I fancy a trip further afield to write where I’m setting my book…

Nancy Astor and Hilda Matheson are fascinating characters, and I can’t wait to get into them in the novel. If I ever finish it, I’ll let you know all about it here.

In the meantime, my podcast The British Broadcasting Century is telling the BBC origin story – and we’ll get to Hilda Matheson on there… in about 50 episodes time.

Gertrude Donisthorpe: Britain’s first DJ… and one of the world’s first female broadcasters

Tags

BBC, Broadcasting, History, Podcast

Google Gertrude Donisthorpe. I hope you find something.

Because when I just tried it, this is what came up for Britain’s first DJ (in 1917), and one of the world’s first female broadcasters…

…Not a lot. A podcast about her that I’ve just uploaded. An article in the Catholic Herald about her presenting a robe. A TV listing from 1969, when she was interviewed about her work as a radio pioneer. Then it’s genealogy sites for someone completely different.

Yet Gertrude Donisthorpe, one of the first female broadcasters in the world, was arguably the first DJ in Britain, albeit, to begin with, with an audience of just one: her husband.

To redress the balance, here’s a little bit about her, that I discovered researching my podcast The British Broadcasting Century. You can hear much of this on this episode, all about Gertrude Donisthorpe: the Annie Nightingale of 1917.

Gertrude was married to Captain Horace Donisthorpe, and the duo were early radio pioneers. It seems to have been Horace’s enthusiasm, but he quickly swept up Gertrude in too.

In World War I, wireless telegraphy (essentially Morse code) was more common than its upstart younger sibling wireless telephony (ie. speech and, when technology allowed, music). Wireless operators needed training up before heading to the front, so that was Captain Donisthorpe’s job, based near Worcester. Valve radios at the time were very expensive but tricky to operate, so part of his challenge was teaching new recruits how to care for them without breaking them.

After hours, the Donisthorpes would cycle to a nearby field and set up either side of it – to experiment with what this new wireless radio telephony could do. She would speak into a transmitter; he would try and pick up her signals via a receiver across the field. When they couldn’t hear anything, they’d cycle to each other to say so – often missing each other (they really should have set a rule where only one person does the cycling and the other stays put).

She had a test phrase that she’d say, over and over: “A wonderful bird is the pelican, its beak can hold more than its belly can.” One of the first factoids, there you go Steve Wright.

Gertrude would do most of the speaking, and even introduce and play a few gramophone records. So in my mind, that makes her Britain’s first DJ – to an audience of one, across a field, who she’d then cycle to. It was like a meet-and-greet, or an early badly-attended version of the Radio 1 Roadshow.

On Leslie Baily’s Scrapbook for 1917 radio programme in 1967, Gertrude said: “My first broadcast was from a bell tent in a field near Worcester. My part in this experiment was strictly unofficial. I sat on a sugar-box in front of a transmitter, which would now be considered a museum piece. It had a bath of oil for cooling the one and only valve. At first we simply had conversations between two stations, about a mile apart.”

“If I heard nothing, I would take my pushbike and pedal to the other station, where I would often find that my husband had gone on his bike to my base, by a different route! Still, we did quite often make contact over the wireless, and I suppose my husband got quite a lot of technical knowledge from these experiments. Later we broadcast gramophone records, and recitations to amuse the troops at training centres, at Malvern and Droitwich. This was also strictly unofficial!”

As the experiments continued, the Donisthorpes played a few wireless concerts, three evenings a week, for the local military camps. So the audience increased. It’s unknown who spoke for those concerts, but my best guess would be that Gertrude still did much of the talking, as Horace’s interest was in how it sounded: her the presenter, him the producer. Their musical transmissions could be heard in Droitwich, Malvern and Norton. Throughout, they were experimenting, tweaking and trying to perfect the art and engineering behind this early broadcasting – ‘broadcasting’ as a word was yet to come in, for another five years.

Radio at this point was intended to be point-to-point communication, a way of sending and receiving a message between two people. The Marconi Company saw their future in charging for these messages. It was only the technology’s Achilles’ heel – that the transmissions were ‘leaky’, that others could ‘listen in’ – that meant that broadcasting was accidentally invented. Christmas Eve 1906 was the first radio entertainment broadcast for wider listeners, given by Reginald Fessenden (hear more about it on the first episode of our podcast) to ships near Brant Rock, Massachusetts.

A few years after the Donisthorpes, radio amateurs were entranced by experimental transmissions from Marconi’s Chelmsford workshop. To begin with they were recitations of railway timetables, till the ‘listeners-in’ asked for more entertaining tests to take place. Perhaps a newspaper, then maybe a song or two. That would require more nuanced microphones and ultimately more powerful transmitters – but Marconi engineers like Captain H.J. Round and William Ditcham were eager to try.

After a few false starts – including an opera broadcast from Dame Nellie Melba that was so successful that the British government banned radio broadcasts for fear of interfering with military communications – 1922 saw Britain’s first regular broadcast service, when Marconi’s was granted a licence to keep the moaning radio hams quiet. Captain Peter Eckersley was in charge, and when he seized the mic one day and was effortlessly entertaining, radio caught on in a big way. Hear more of his early broadcasts here. Eckersley’s genius and the ambition of his radio rival Arthur Burrows led to the establishment of the BBC; Eckersley became Chief Engineer, Burrows became Director of Programmes.

As for the Donisthorpes, Horace dabbled with the idea of broadcasting the closing night of a West End musical, just as the BBC was forming in the summer of 1922. It was to be based on the popular trend of listening to live performances via home telephone (the Electrophone), that had been popular since 1895. Alas Donisthorpe’s negotiations came to nothing. The BBC formed without him and he joined Marconi’s. He gave the occasional guest talk on the BBC in the late 1920s, on ‘wireless and the sea’ and the effects of an eclipse on radio transmission.

Gertrude was a guest on In Town To-night, a popular radio talkshow (the Graham Norton Show of 1934). In 1953 she contributed to Those Radio Times for the Light Programme, alongside Beryl Reid and Max Bygraves. (Bygraves incidentally is the performer who’s nearest the same age as the BBC – he was born just a few weeks before the first BBC broadcast.)

She gave one TV interview that I know of, for a 1969 BBC2 programme on the wireless entertainments that pre-dated broadcasting, called Yesterday’s Witness: Breaking the Silence. It’s not on iPlayer or Youtube… yet.

As for other early female broadcasters, 1910 saw radio hams such as Mrs M.J. Glass of San Jose and Olive Heartburg of New York. Perhaps the world’s first female DJ was Sybil Herrold in San Jose, who introduced records from 1912 on her husband Charles Herrold’s experimental radio station. The brilliantly named Nancy Clancy was a 16-year-old announcer on WAHG in New York in 1924. On this side of the Atlantic, the early BBC included Cecil Dixon as our first radio ‘Auntie’, broadcasting for children, while Helena Millais was arguably Britain’s first broadcast comedian (here’s a video in which I introduce a recording of her act). Pioneers such as Elise Sprott and Hilda Matheson are BBC names I can’t wait to tell people about on the podcast.

I’m grateful to Dr Elizabeth Bruton, curator of Technology and Engineering at the Science Museum, for furnishing me with the Donisthorpes’ full names (Horace’s is a beaut: Captain Horace St John de Alva Donisthorpe. There aren’t many of those nowadays).

I’m glad she’s helped set the record straight on Gertrude Anne Andrews, who was born 1895 and died 1980, just as Gertrude set records straight, then played them, 105 years ago. I hope the next time I google her, the name of Britain’s first DJ will be broadcast a little more widely.

The British Broadcasting Century Podcast is available from all good podcast outlets.

My new podcast: The British Broadcasting Century… Subscribe now!

Tags

BBC, Broadcasting, History, Podcast, radio

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-qx928-deb1a0

Been a while, podpals!

This is a blatant plea to come and join my new podcast, The British Broadcasting Century. I’ll be geeking out about the origins of the BBC, radio and life as we know it, for a dozen or so episodes (in series 1; then who knows how many thereafter).

This is an extended trailer, with a few bonus clips just for being loyal podcastees here on A Paul Kerensa Podcast/The Heptagon Club.

But to catch the new one, you’ll need to subscribe to it, over at https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-british-broadcasting-century-with-paul-kerensa/id1516471271

and find us on Facebook.com/BBCentury

Stay safe & keep listening…

25 Christmas Special 2018 – The Nonagon Club!

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Christmas, Entertainment, History, Podcast

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-p7xa7-a19517

Ho ho whoa! 9 guests?! In a tribute to the 9 Lessons & Carols, Paul our Host of Christmas Past flies his sleigh back through festive history. There are no live guests a-guesting – instead for our penultimate show, we drop in on influential Christmassy words from:

– Astronaut TOM STAFFORD on pranking NASA 

– Private HENRY WILLIAMSON on sharing tobacco

– Writer CHARLES DICKENS on humbuggery

– Writer WASHINGTON IRVING on Christmas the English way

– Devonian clergyman RICHARD SMART on Christmas the man

– Puritan minister HEZEKIAH WOODWARD on Christmas the heresy

– King HENRY III on Christmas the dinner

– Saint HILARY of POITIERS on the first carol

– Charles M Schulz creation LINUS on the true meaning of Christmas

Phew! One more episode to go, for now. Join us in January. Merry Christmas!

Like us on FB: www.facebook.com/heptagonclub

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Solstice, Yule, Saturnalia and today

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Christmas, History, Rome, Saturnalia, Wassailing, Yule

Today is December 21st, the shortest day, the winter solstice. Solstice means simply ‘sun stands still’… and it was this apparent pause in the sun’s movements that added fire to our ancestors’ midwinter celebrations. So we’ll stand still too and while we wait for the longer days (tomorrow! Summer starts tomorrow! Almost…), we’ll do what they told Donald Trump not to do during the eclipse, and look at the sun.

Yule’s wheel of fire: meant to look like the sun, but doesn’t fool me.

YULE:

Pretty much the oldest midwinter festival we know of is the Norse Yule. In snowy northern Europe, food-sharing at this time of year was a matter of survival – the rise of agriculture meant we could farm a surplus, so the smart thing to do was to use that to get through the winter and share the crops. Winter’s halfway point was the perfect time to pop a cork and celebrate that the days were about to get longer again.

But the festival also had a religious element too – it wasn’t a given that the sun would come back, so to lure it onward, wheels of fire were recreated here on Earth. By celebrating on the shortest day, the leaders were confident that the days should lengthen from there, so any worship would be mystically rewarded with more daylight before long. Some fires – like the Yule log – were burned constantly through the season, to show our defiance of the frosty weather.

 

Io Saturnalia = Happy Saturnalia = Merry Christmas, but in Roman

SATURNALIA:

Yule’s chilled-out southern European cousin was Saturnalia, for the god Saturn. Ciao! Saturn was said to have ruled over a golden era of peace, when bumper crops meant no need to farm, or even for laws to govern people, since everything was in such abundance. Christmas through the ages has always harked back to supposedly greater times, and ancient Rome was no exception. The festivities were an attempt to recreate Saturn’s glory days, all part of the Roman love of nostalgia. They were conservative people with a notion of mos maiorum – the passed-down “way of the elders”. Werther’s Originals for us, Saturnalia for them.

Though the climate was kinder than oop north, the Romans still had harvests, so there was still a festival. The English would later think of a crazy title for such an occasion: “Harvest Festival”.

Saturnalia started with a bit of temple time then a big ol’ feast and games – so not that dissimilar from a Christmas of church then turkey dinner and charades. There were evergreen decorations too – ancestors of our Christmas trees and mistletoe. Perhaps the biggest thing we’ve lost was the topsy-turvy nature of the partying – masters serving slaves, the lowest becoming the highest, that sort of thing. It all made it very popular with all classes, and kept the Roman machine ticking along – keep the slaves happy, keep the world turning.

 

WASSAIL WASSAIL!

Apple tree wassailing in Devon

By the time Christmas came to England in the 600s, another cousin of Yule had already set in. St Bede reported in around 700 that “the Angli began the year on 25 December when we celebrate the birth of the Lord; and that very night which we hold so sacred, they called in their tongue ‘Modranecht’. at is, ‘mother’s night’.” This mother was not Mary, but linked to earlier pagan worship, a maternal festival.

When Augustine brought Christianity to bits of Britain around the turn of the 7th century, Pope Gregory the Great wrote to him advising not to replace pagan custom, but absorb it. So rather than sacrifice animals to old gods, or sometimes even the devil, the locals were encouraged to perform the same actions for the Christian God.

Old England was in love with its trees (anyone who’s been to a National Trust property can testify we still are). Just like the Norse and the Romans, English farmers hoped for the swift return of the nice weather for their crops. So in the west of England on “Old Twelvy Night”, farmers would celebrate with a “wes hal” – Old English for “good health”.

At the turn of the first millennium, “Wassail!” was the equivalent utterance to “Cheers!”, to be responded to with a hearty “Drinkhail!” The wassailing tradition was a crucial part of the farming calendar, and not just because drink and song maketh a mighty fine party. It was more about hopes for harvest and harking back to nature worship. Much of the cider wouldn’t be consumed (although much would), instead being daubed on the oldest apple tree in the orchard, with cries of “Awake from your sleep, tree!”

 

CHRISTMAS, THEN…

As Christianity became THE Roman religion (thanks, Emperor Constantine – he saw the sign of Christ in the heavens before battle, believed, won, and converted the whole empire), Christmas rose and Saturnalia and the other pagan Roman religions went the way of the dodo (which was still very much alive at the time. Probably…). By the fourth century, Christmas had its date of December 25th papally confirmed. As it grew and spread through the centuries like a growing, spreading thing, it gained bits and pieces of Yule, Saturnalia and Merrie Old English wassailing.

So yes, Merry Christmas, and God bless us everyone, but also Wassail, Io Saturnalia, and Yuley McYuleface.

This is mostly adapted from Amazon bestseller Hark! The Biography of Christmas, apart from Yuley McYuleface. That was to see if you’re paying attention.

Paul on Radio 2’s Chris Evans Breakfast Show…

Tags

Books, Christmas, History, radio 2

From this morning, December 20th 2017 – a delve into Christmas past with Chris, Vassos and Lynn:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05rlhy4?ns_mchannel=social&

(Off-air Lynn took me to task for not including the Welsh Father Christmas, Siôn Corn. Sorry Lynn. Will fix for the second edition…)

100 Films Tell the History of the World, pt 3/3 (Gandhi-Zero Dark Thirty)

Tags

Film, History, Movies

Here’s part 3 of 3, of an attempt to tell the history of the (mostly western) world through films. Here’s the last 80 or so years, via what I think to be the 35 movies that tell it best. (And yes there are a lot of WW2 films here, but people keep making them.)

 

66. Gandhi (1982) – 1930s-1940s: A little peace of history.

67. Land & Freedom (1995) – 1930s: The Spanish Civil War, as directed by Ken Loach.

68. Rabbit Proof Fence (2002) – 1930s: Three stolen girls follow the yellow-sand road in the land of Oz.

69. The Battle of Britain (1969) – 1940: In Britain, the Allies take to the skies.

70. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) – 1942-1943: In Burma, POWs battle with what’s right and wrong.

71. Saving Private Ryan (1998) – 1944: In occupied France, D-Day.

72. Schindler’s List (1993) – 1939-1945: In Germany, an industrialist works for his staff.

73. The Pianist (2002) – 1939-1945: In Poland, devastation.

74. Flags of our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) – 1945: In Japan, two sides to the Battle of Iwo Jima.

75. Downfall (2005) – 1945: In the Berlin bunker, the days of Fuhrer past.

76. The Right Stuff (1983) – 1947-1963: The Space Race is ace.

77. Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) – 1953: McCarthy, Murrow, anti-Communist investigations and newscasters who’d smoke.

78. LA Confidential (1997) – 1953: The sign’s not the only thing about Hollywood that’s crooked.

79. The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) – 1955-1967: Che (Guevara)’s the one

80. Thirteen Days (2000) – 1962: A missile crisis: Cuban, heals.

81. Dr Strangelove (1964) – 1960s: Another missile crisis, this one fictitious. But how close we came to: “The bomb, Dmitri…”

82. JFK (1991) – 1961-1966: Garrison does Dallas.

83. American Graffiti (1973) – 1962: A long time ago, in a Californian town far, far away…

84. Platoon (1985) – 1967: Mourning Vietnam.

85. Made in Dagenham (2010) – 1968: “Ford? A Few Dollars More…”

86. Apollo 13 (1995) – 1970: Hanks has a problem.

87. All The President’s Men (1976) – 1972: The Watergate Scandal: Break-in news.

88. The Ice Storm (1997) – 1973: Two families enlighten up.

89. The Killing Fields (1984) – 1973-1979: The Khmer Rouge’s genocide: tough but vital viewing.

90. Dazed & Confused (1993) – 1976: School’s out forever.

91. Goodbye Bafana (2007) – 1980s: The long stay before the long walk to freedom..

92. Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) – 1980s: His war, the Soviets’ war, the Afghans’ war, now our war.

93. The Lives of Others (2006) – 1984: A compelling tale of East German (click) life. Did you hear that?

94. Wall Street (1987) – 1985: Gordon Gekko cleans up, with two Mr Sheens.

95. Black Hawk Down (2001) – 1993: The Somali Civil War: the West intervenes.

96. Hotel Rwanda (2004) – 1994: The Rwandan genocide: the West doesn’t intervene..

97. World Trade Center (2006) – 2001: Towers fall; courage rises.

98. The Social Network (2010) – 2003: Mark Zuckerberg invites old friends to be unfriended.

99. Four Lions (2010) – 2000s: Dad’s Jihad’s Army.

100. Zero Dark Thirty (2012) – 2001-2012: Do not mess with Special Forces…

 

So there you have it. You don’t agree with some choices? Of course you don’t. It’s a list. It’s there to be disagreed with. Just make sure you’ve watched all 100 films before you do though…

History via Films pt 2 (A Man For All Seasons – To Kill A Mockingbird)

Tags

Films, History, Movies

It’s about time I posted part two of this, a churlish attempt to navigate the history of everything (alright, mostly Western culture, especially England, but I’ve only seen certain films.If I’d seen more Scandinavian cinema, there’d probably be more vikings in this) via 100 movies. So here’s part two of three, Henry VIII to Atticus Finch…

     

31.       A Man For All Seasons (1966) – 1525-1535: Henry VIII embarks on his film epic ‘Six Weddings & Several Funerals’.

32.       Seven Samurai (1954) – 1587: In Japan’s warring states, the magnificent Kurosawa.

33.       Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) – 1588: Cate Blanchett doesn’t give a ship, while the Spanish arm harder.

34.       Cromwell (1970) – 1640: Richard Harris as the bowl-cutted royal-rustler.

35.       The Red Violin (1998) – 1681: It begins life in Cremona, Italy, before heading to a Viennese orphanage in 1793, 1890s Oxford and 1960s Shanghai. May contain scenes of violins.

36.       The Crucible (1996) – Salem, 1692: It was this, Witchfinder General, or The Devils. Which witch is best?

37.       Catherine the Great (1995) – Russia, 1729-1796: The lovers of the Russian Queen; a Tsar is born.

38.       The Last of the Mohicans (1992) – 1757: During the French/Indian War, “I will find you.” Makes your hair stand on end.

39.    Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) – 1789: There’s a mutiny, on a ship named after coconut chocolate.

40.    Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) – 1803: During the Napoleonic Wars, Russell Crowe commands his ark. I mean ship. This one was a ship.

41.    Amazing Grace (2006) – 1807: Abolitionist William Wilberforce to be reckoned with.

42.    Waterloo (1970) – 1815: The short fella with the big hat vs the tall Brit named after a boot.

43.    Les Miserables (2012) – 1815-1832: Do you hear the people sing? Course you do, they don’t stop for the whole film.

44.    The Alamo (1960) – 1836: Remember the Alamo. You don’t? Then watch the film.

45.    The Young Victoria (2009) – 1837: Like Eastenders in the 80s, it’s the early days of the Queen Vic.

46.    12 Years a Slave (2013) – 1841-1853: Steve McQueen’s tour de force made him the film world’s greatest Steve McQueen since Steve McQueen.

47.    How The West Was Won (1962) – 1839-1889: …and where it got us.

48.    Gangs of New York (2002) – 1846-1863: The Big Apple was a small pip when Leo DiCaprio took on Daniel Day Lewis and his meat cleaver.

49.    Gone With The Wind (1939) – 1861-1877: The American Civil War, Rhett Butler and frankly my dear, Scarlett O’Hara.

50.    Lincoln (2012) – 1865: The later life of that guy from ‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure’.

51.    Dances With Wolves (1990) – 1870: The West is laid to rest.

52.    The Last Samurai (2003) – 1876: The East is laid to rest.

53.    Zulu (1964) – 1879: “Don’t throw… bloody spears… at me.”

54.    The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) – 1881-1892: The title’s a spoiler.

55.    Wyatt Earp (1994) – 1880s: All is not O.K. at the Corral.

56.    Titanic (1997) – 1912: Near, far, wherever you are, you’re bound to have seen Rose letting Jack go, just after she says she’ll never let him go.

57.    The Last Emperor (1987) – 1908-1960s: Small boy, big throne, a little trouble, in big China.

58.    Doctor Zhivago (1965) – 1912-1923: World War, Russian Revolution and sumptuous snow.

59.    War Horse (2011) – 1912-1918: The armed horses.

60.    All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) – 1914-1918: All is not quiet.

61.    Michael Collins (1996) – 1916-1922: Liam Neeson as the Irish resistance leader.

62.    The Artist (2011) – 1927-1932: They can walk the walk but can they talk the talk?

63.    The Untouchables (1987) – 1931: Al Capone becomes touchable.

64.    The Grapes of Wrath (1940) – 1930s: The Great Depression and the rocky road to recovery.

65.    To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) – 1930s: The Finch job & the lynch mob.

 

Part three will follow, which, yes, will be mostly the last 70 years. Cos that’s what people make films about.