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Last broadcast on Tue, 13 Oct 2009, 15:00 on BBC Radio 4.
Synopsis
Vanessa Collingridge presents the series exploring ordinary people's links with the past. Is the skin that binds a book in Bristol the gruesome remains of a listener's ancestor?
The Head Gardener
Making History listener Virginia Hart contacted the programme to tell us about her paternal great grandfather James who was born in 1885 and became a Head Gardener.
Virginia has recently discovered the letters of reference which James had kept. They reveal a long and arduous apprenticeship but not just at one country house but all over the UK.
We tend to think of workers being immobile in the Edwardian period but these documents reveal a new history of young men travelling the country to get as much experience as possible of different soils and micro-climates.
All this experience was essential because, unlike staff like cleaners and cooks, gardeners could not guarantee to find a job close to home.
Making History consulted the author and historian Anne Wilkinson who wrote "The Victorian Gardener".
Dance Hall Days
Dr James Nott at St Andrews University contacted the programme to enlist your help with a project which he is leading to research Britain’s dance hall culture.
Professor John Walton at Leeds Metropolitan University and Andy Medhurst at the University of Sussex told the programme that the dance halls of the twenties and thirties raised a kind of moral panic because sex was on the agenda as well as dancing.
There was heavy influence from America and radio picked up on the music and turned bandleaders into stars.
Reporter Caz Graham went to Blackpool and met up with Thelma and Barry Band who recalled the heyday of the town’s dance halls.
Your Dance Hall Memories
If you have memories of dance halls in the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties then please in touch with James Nott.
There is a paper questionnaire which he will send to you or he can carry out an interview over the telephone.
Dr Knott’s contact details are:
Email: jjn4@st-andrews.ac.uk
Or write to:
Dr James Nott
School of History
University of St Andrews
St Katharine's Lodge
St Andrew's
Fife
Scotland
KY16 9AL
St Helena
A listener has discovered that in the mid nineteenth century an ancestor went to the island of St Helena and there he served with the St Helena Regiment.
She thinks he was transported to the island because of his Chartist sympathies. Could this be true?
Making History consulted Dr Alexander Schulenburg who is an historian of the island. He explained the island's history as an important staging post for the East India Company and that it had been home to slaves too.
However, he says that British 'transports' never featured in the island's history because the security of the place was paramount.
Useful Link: The St Helena Institute
The St Helena Institute was founded in 1997 and aims to provide a focal point for research into the Island of St Helena and its dependencies, Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha.
Useful Link: Saint Helena Foundation
Welcome to the homepage of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. This is a non-profit-making website managed by volunteers who have an enduring interest in St Helena's social, political and environmental history and the island's current affairs.
Broadcast
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Tue 13 Oct 200915:00
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