Time Travellers: Recent Episodes
BBC Radio 3
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough presents a collection of quirky tales from the corners of history, exploring a different theme in each weekly episode.
In this final episode of the series, Eleanor and the Time Travelling team head to the pub - via an almshouse and the Western Front - for some festive cheer, discovering the stories behind the music of Christmastide from across the British Isles. Happy Christmas and a merry New Year!
What links Henry VIII and ice cream vans? Which opera diva got her own (just) desserts? Which Orcadian cake would you not want to eat? Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough tucks into these and other vital questions in this episode exploring the (mostly) delicious relationship between music and food.
Green nail varnish? Tick. Cycling knickerbockers? Tick. Pet giraffe? Tick. Dancing and playing violin on stilts? Tick. Join Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and the Time Travelling team as they delve into the weird worlds of four musical eccentrics.
Don your Sou'wester and join Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough as she sets sail to discover salty stories of music and musicians at sea. From a composer's capsized canoe to a much more tragic shipwreck, from a haunted lighthouse to deserted islands, our Time Travellers explore the seafaring musical stories from the far south to the extreme north of the British Isles. Oh, and there are sheep, too. Soggy sheep.
Blow the dust off your squeezebox and strap on your gaiters as we go searching across the British Isles for the music of ordinary (and extraordinary) folk. Join Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and her band of merry music historians in their discovery of the stories behind British folk music past and present.
From the Arthurian legends of Cornwall to a saintly Viking in Orkney via everyone's favourite nanny, join Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough as she adventures through time in search of gems of music history from across the British Isles and Ireland.
From the plantations of the new world to the pits of County Durham, join Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough as she discovers stories of the power of music in hard times. Each story is located in a specific place in the British Isles, from Shetland to Truro.
They mightn't be sporting spandex suits, but these four musical women deserve superhero status. Join Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough for four stories of musical superwomen from British and Irish history.
From the humble penny whistle to the Mighty Wurlitzer, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough explores the stories behind four intriguing musical instruments and their relationships with locations in Great Britain.
Sensational sopranos, comedy geniuses, and a very popular organist... Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough snoops through the spy glasses of history for scoops on musical celebs from the past. The first in our new series exploring tales of music-making from across the UK and Ireland.
Get your boots on and head down to the River Thames with mudlark Lara Maiklem, as she discovers the history of London hidden in mud.
Cream buns, holiday parks, alcoholic dragons: who doesn't love a festival? Get your marker pen and circle these annual highlights from Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough's historical calendar.
It's time to get ready to face the world: apply your make-up, trim those whiskers and don those fishy angel wings ... and those fig leaves.
People, and elephants, are not always what they seem: Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough has a gallery of figures from history who, not always knowingly, managed to dupe others.
Take a look at some of history's finest collectors' pieces: some desirable, some throwaway, and some downright unusual.
Need a little help making a wish, casting a curse or vanquishing an etheric vampire? Well, then, it's your lucky day - Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and her assembled band of Time Travellers are here to help.
Can you solve these five bite-sized brainteasers from history - or guess the theme that unites them?
Our time-travelling correspondents brave the elements to bring you tales of battles on ice, apocalyptic storms and a historical cloud craze.
Travel through time and enhance your vocabulary with some of our favourite old words. Agnoiology, bartitsu, blackguardiana, palimpsest, telectroscope... what do they all mean?
Here are some tips from the past for the optimum sporting performance: warm up properly, try not to get injured, and absolutely no cheating allowed.
Marvel at the lengths folk will go to in order to make their music heard, as Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough visits some of history's most memorable performance spaces, from a prisoner of war camp to a city under siege to Marcel Proust's bedroom.
Come and join us for a night at the theatre, as we struggle with stage directions, imbibe at the bar, and come away with more than just a souvenir programme.
Experience visions of Utopia, some imagined; some real. Our Time Travellers are looking for a slice of paradise.
This is how they did IT in the olden days. Online dating, virtual assistants, spam mail - it's really nothing new, as self-confessed Luddite Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough has been finding out.
Admire some of history's most ambitious design projects, from wireless electricity to giant dictaphones and an aphrodisiac bed.
1920s rap, space opera and classical composers accused of espionage: it's time for our Time Travellers to get tuneful in an episode devoted to music and inspired by Our Classical Century.
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough serves up a smorgasbord of delights from our foodie forebears - cockney oysters and rotten shark meat, anyone?
If you go down to the woods today... expect heavenly apparitions, blood sacrifice and a very eerie silence.
Relive those carefree days with Viking children's games and rebellious Roman students. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough asks: have youngsters really changed in 2000 years?
If you're looking for the next big trend, perhaps you should consult the history books. From opinionated hairdos to fitness fads, we really have seen it all before.
Picture the weirdest creature you can imagine. Now times by ten. We've got disappearing elephants, magical healing birds and an assortment of canine-flavoured man-beasts.
We're taking a short break while our epoch-hopping correspondents conduct field research for series two. We'll be back soon with more quirky stories gathered from the corners of history.
When in Rome, do you do as the Romans do? Can you blend in abroad? How about in that foreign country that is the past? Our epoch-hopping correspondents share some tips on how to adapt when travelling through time.
Intergalactic PR, desperate lovers, and a time-travelling labradoodle - Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough looks at some unusual communications sent by creative means.
Colour film may only have been around since the late 19th century, but human experience has been captured in colour ever since our ancestors first applied paint to cave wall. Eleanor presents five colourful moments in history, told through the power of pigment.
Enough of big, flashy history: it's time to take a closer look at the detail. From socks to snowflakes, and from little old ladies to a composer's pencil, little things can have a big impact.
Meet the revolutionary oddballs strutting their devil-may-care way through history. Be inspired, but emulate at your peril...
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough heads to the beach to gather tales of unusual happenings on the border between land and sea - from trailblazing mermaids to historic surf encounters.
Put on your headphones and turn up the volume: this is the sound of innovation. Or is it? Our Time Travellers take a look at some fantastic, lost and bizarre audio inventions.
No wee beasties were harmed in the making of this podcast. This edition, our geeky collective turn their attention to animals and their contributions to science.
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough (historian, hiker, knitter, faffer) peruses popular pastimes from history - from mandatory archery and feminist roller-skating right through to, um, sponsored Morris dancing.
Continent-crossing cowboys, space-faring birds, and a polar bear in the Thames: Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough collects tales of the people and animals who missed the memo on international boundaries.