Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Down to a fiver for the apocalypse! (with David Olusoga)

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Whether you're storming down the road like Fi or falling off the kerb like Jane, we hope you'll be safely seated for this episode. Jane and Fi chat about the dangers of pouffes, normal-sized partners, family vaults, and Zimmer frame world records. Plus, historian David Olusoga discusses his current tour 'History's Missing Chapters' and appearing on The Celebrity Traitors. We've announced our next book club pick! 'Just Kids' is by Patti Smith.You can listen to the playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3qIjhtS9sprg864IXC96he?si=uOzz4UYZRc2nFOP8FV_1jg&pi=BGoacntaS_uki.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hold your hands the next time we're walking. You'll take me down with you. Well, unfortunately, the speed at which you walk is not something available to me. I'll tell you what, I hope I live long enough to see you on a Zimmer going, breaking the world Zimmer frame record. Can I just say this because I completely forgot to the other day and then I think I made a bit of a hash of doing it anyway. We're launching our...

I've got the house to myself, Spotify playlist, challenge. But this time round, because Rosie did find that she had to dedicate a whole month of her working life to getting the last one done. It's first ten entries only. Candy Staten would be my choice, Young Hearts were I'm free. So you've got the house to yourself, the kids are out.

Your husband, partner, girlfriend or whatever has gone. The pets are somewhere else being looked after. You just got, you want to put on a playlist that just goes, Vomf me, baby. What's yours? Weirdly, because I don't particularly like the place, Odyssey and Native New Yorker. I'm a native New Yorker. It's a great one.

Yeah. You can't actually replace New York with Slough, unfortunately, can you? I'm a native. Well, you could do, I'm a native Crosbya. I'm a native Scarser. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great one. Two bangers to get you started.

And actually native New Yorker opens with that lovely kind of roo-roof, doesn't it? Yeah, just go, won't. Okay. Two great tracks, and there will only be room for another eight tracks. We're just going to do ten, so it's not complicated. And get them in now, Jane and Fiat Time's not really. Thank you. And the theme is, I've got that house to myself.

All flat. All apartment. Caravan. Rented accommodation. Bedset. Student bedset. I think my son's accommodation was described as... Bijou?

What was it? It was... I think it was economically sized. Is it small? I think, is it? And the thing is that they're all quite kind of big teenagers, aren't they these days? Well, mine weren't, in fairness. I have heard of another university.

I mean, let's just name it, the University of Manchester, which affords students the opportunity to choose a seven-foot bed, because there are so many over six-footers. And actually it's really unpleasant, isn't it, if you're six-foot-six to try and sleep on a six-foot-long bed. Why did you pick that height? Don't. No.

I wouldn't know. I've got a normal-sized boyfriend. It was the first. I haven't even got one. So I'm not a fine one to talk. It was the first thing that our lovely, lovely shared friend of Anita said to me. when I met my current partner I see normal

I'm okay you can proceed yes right well I think it's all got a little bit it's got very silly very quickly very quickly welcome aboard let's move on but isn't it wonderful that they are accommodating and presumably does the same institution offer the shorter person

and economically a little cot some sort of cot facility where the shorter in leg would also find a degree of comfort. My kids are pretty minute. The taller one is the one I use for getting things off shelves and she's five foot five. But she's moved out. No, no, that's the old, that's the younger one. Oh, the younger one. Okay, sorry. I don't know, you're not necessarily the tallest if you're the oldest,

are you? No, it's very, it's very true. Because I'm very old and very small. Anyway, yeah, no, they didn't need this. They didn't need the longer mattress. Anyway, right, welcome to whatever this is, as we always say. And thank you very much. I've had some very, very lovely emails about mum's breaking hips. And I'm very grateful to all of you, actually, who've told me about what's been happening to you and about the people you care about.

Thank you for taking the time. It does make a difference. My mum's making a bit of progress. So look, you just don't know, do you? These things, there's no kind of, well, we just don't know where it's going to go. I mean, obviously, we know where it's going to go eventually, but that applies to all of us. we don't know whether this rate of progress will continue because hospitals are complicated

and occasionally challenging environments but things don't look too bad at the moment but thank you very much keep them coming and you don't mind updating us from time to time when it's appropriate actually because also I think it is very it's wrong to assume that everybody wants to bring their personal life to work and sometimes work is a lovely place when you're dealing with a whole load of rubbish at home to just be able to go and do something else with your mind. And I think particularly what we've done all our working lives is that we have immersed ourselves in the outside.

We've looked outwards, haven't we, at let's face it, some of the harrowing events going on all over the world, and we've told other people about them. And without a shadow of a doubt, and I'm sure this applies to you too, it does put your own challenges into perspective, doesn't it? Very much so. Because you see and hear so much about, what's going on in some of these global situations that are desperate, absolutely desperate.

And those stories, especially the personal stories that you hear from people who have suffered an unbelievable tragedy, they stay with you. And I know that an awful lot more work has done these days on how deep people take their work experiences and, you know, traumatic incidents and stuff like that. But back in the day when you and I've done most of our work actually, it was just what you took on, wasn't it, as a journalist or an interviewer? And undoubtedly, it's parents who've lost children, parents who have had to bury their children. Every single one of those stories will stay with me forever. I remember the names of the children who died. I have tried to keep in touch, actually, with some of the parents, because everybody's got their own terrible Achilles heel, and that for me is mine.

And I do find that the older I get, the less I am able to put a distance between myself and those stories and actually sometimes when I've been talking to parents I've felt myself go a bit and I don't know whether that's just being a bit kind of more worn down by life or maybe because we are allowed to share our personal thoughts and experiences a bit more I don't know do you find it because it could go the other way you could spend so long in your job that actually you become incredibly anured to people's experience yeah I don't I suppose it depends on your personality type I mean, I was thinking, obviously watching some of the nurses and healthcare assistants going about their work last week.

You do... How do they do it? Well, I don't know. I don't know how they do it. And I don't know. And, you know, not everybody in that line of work is perfect, because that's just not possible. But they are doing very important, very intimate work

with people at their frailist and most vulnerable. And to actually see it and be aware of it and be around it is incredibly humbling. It just is. And I'll just be honest with you, one of the healthcare assistants told me that he'd had a pay rise recently and I, you know, I said, oh, right. And he said, he's hoping to get a mortgage approved. And I said, right. And he said, well, I'm going to get 25 grand now. And I said, right. Okay. It's not enough, is it? Well, it just, it does, it does make you think. And it should make you think. Very much so. And I still think it's wrong that after everything that are, nursing and staff and doctors went through in the pandemic they weren't rewarded for that

specifically i just think they should have been i mean i know it would have gone against the grain of you know the independent bay review body and yada yada yada yada but actually they especially the nurses they had to tell so many people that their loved ones had died and that they were the person who was with them when they died and of course you're going to take that home with you forever and ever and ever and ever well no you really are i'm actually one of the many things i'm grateful for is that what's happening currently didn't happen, let's say, four years ago. Chrissy says my mum had a hip replacement done very promptly, but she found eating and sleeping in hospital very challenging.

It was also so hard trying to maintain contact with her in hospital as it was December 2021. And the hospital had a strict policy of only allowing the same visitor because of COVID. My brother took on that role as he'd always lived at home with her. as well as fretting about my mum my daughter had to rush her 18 day old third baby to hospital with suspected sepsis

and she wasn't allowed visitors either thank goodness for WhatsApp but you can imagine the stress levels in the family for those few weeks actually Chrissy I can't that sounds absolutely horrendous and I'm so sorry you and the rest of the clan went through that but thank you

for telling us about it she does say that her mum was 93 when she broke her hip completely unforced, self-inflicted error as she was as she was peeking out of a front room window when she tripped over the poof, restrain yourselves. She says,

poofs are dangerous, aren't they? They are actually. Well, you know, when you're with the elderly, you just see potential... Well, it's like when you have a toddler, isn't it? Yeah, exactly that. Sharp edge tables, things that could tip over. All of that.

And of course, inevitably, and forgive me, if I mentioned this yesterday, did fall over a walking frame on the ward last week. It's the only thing that made the entire place laugh. Don't you go down as well. That wouldn't help the situation. The nurses are saying, I know there's a spare bed, but you it's not, that's not for you. If I may say,

I'm amazed that you haven't broken a bone. Well, I don't know. I haven't spent quite a lot of time with you for the last 10 years. You do just have a tendency to sometimes just walk into things and just off things. It's kind of like there's a curb there, Jane.

562 people have navigated that in front of you. Down she goes. I walked into a filing cabinet. Only about an hour ago. Oh, well, I'm not so. Is it the new? The big one? Yes, I didn't know that was there.

That's just ridiculous. It's in the corridor area. I don't think that's right at all. Health and safety. Get in here right now. All the best coming in from Katie. I wanted to add something to the conversation in Tuesday's episode about a listener's mother

adding her own anecdote in response to something shared by her daughter. I started a new role about a year. ago and have a lovely group of colleagues that I enjoy chats with during the workday. Two colleagues in particular just cannot wait to share their stories and experiences on hearing something that I've shared. And sometimes they're so keen to add their tuppence worth that I haven't even finished the sentence and they're talking over me. I am by no means a psychologist. However, I think there is something going on here around attempting to show empathy and commonality with this sort of chat, i.e., I understand what you're saying because it happened to me.

This can come off as just listening without hearing. Sometimes, as I think is the case with your listener, we just want someone to receive what we've said and not necessarily respond with anything other than, oh gosh, that was rubbish or great or sad. I trained as a yoga teacher several years ago, and one of the best things I learned was that it's okay to leave students in silence.

As a teacher, just because you're leading a session, you don't have to fill all the time with sound, and it's actually really beneficial to let people be quiet, something hungry Paul would doubtless encourage to. I'm not sure if my rambling has made much sense, but I really wanted to let the listener know that I get it too. Well, Katie, I think you'll bang on the money there because the art of actually listening to somebody in conversation

I think has been challenged by modern times, and I don't really understand why that is, but I think it is true. What do you think? I've drifted off, I'm sorry. it was such a cheap shot it is interesting you know when someone when someone does

tell an anecdote about their own life I do I know I have a tendency to grope for something in my own mental locker it's 2025 and you shouldn't go to bring to the conversational party and sometimes obviously there are some terrible things in life

that I have heard about but never experienced and I'm very grateful for that so obviously I don't I hope I'm not crass in those situations But it is just human, isn't it, to want to be able to give something of your own experience of an experience when someone is telling you about something they have been through? As long as you can be helpful.

I mean, it's no good saying, for example. Oh, yeah, my mum was in that hospital. And then she died. Yeah, that doesn't help. No. But I think something has changed just in the kind of harmony of conversation. And I think it probably is to do with our. heightened sense of individuality

where we are me, me, me, me, me all over Instagram, social media, Facebook, whatever it is and we're encouraged to be that, aren't we? Because you spend all day telling people about your life with nothing coming back and you think it's important to other people because they press a little button that says like. But actually a lot of the time they're doing that

because they simply don't want to fall out with you and they feel a bit embarrassed if they don't press light but they don't like it at all. Or is that just me? But when we were doing the listening project, fabulous thing, it definitely was allowed to get a bit too tired around the edges, I think, at the BBC, but I was enormously, enormously sad that they didn't continue it. It was a fantastic thing, and it only worked

because you asked people to really listen in conversation with someone that they knew and cared about to the responses before giving your own. So it provided this incredible balance on topics that, often people found have been a bit rushed over because they hadn't been listened to and 99% of the people who came into the project loved the experience

because it was a new thing for them to be heard and to really, really listen to what somebody else was saying to them. It was fantastic, Jane. And it remains in the archive at the British Library forever more and forever more. But I kind of hope actually that somebody maybe one of those great big philanthropists when they have a crisis of conscience

and they've developed all their penis-shaped rockets they might spare a little bit of money for something as valuable as that to be started up again. Was there ever a book connected to that? Well, we were based on StoryCorps, which is the American Institution, which is doing exactly the same thing in America, building up this incredible bank of chat

under the auspices of a guy called David Isay, and he's brought out lots of books and I think the real kind of bestseller was listening as an act of love I'll just check, I've got the title of that right but they've done, they've transcribed lots of their conversations

and then story call is absolutely vast it's stored in the Library of Congress and I think they've got you know close on 80,000 conversations in there but we didn't have a listening project book in this country no I think it works better as actual hearing people

yeah but it was definitely just a different pace of conversation that you're not hearing in the modern world? No, there's a lot of hot air out there at the moment, isn't there? And a lot of very unpleasant, extreme opinion at every end of every spectrum, it seems. And sometimes we just need to take a breath and just, as you say, just hear what somebody else is saying, properly take it in. Yeah, there was some terrible reaction immediately, wasn't there, to the stabbing on the train, in Huntington where people just let to these conclusions about what might have happened

and what might have been the motivation. And I haven't been on X for quite a long time. Did you look? Well, I had to go back on it to find somebody, actually. And so I did look at some of the reaction and it's just astonishing that what people think that they're allowed to say. Well, the thing is they just not.

Well, they still say it, don't they? So I suppose they are allowed to say it. Yeah, but yeah, Isabel Oakshot, I'm watching you. well what did she say just a very mild interest if you want to make our railways safe how's about closing our borders irrelevant and arrest has been made of a British citizen

and also she lives in Dubai so you know when you say our borders what do you mean yeah I mean you're right it's just people leaping to say the most incendiary and unhelpful thing imaginable when I'm a afraid you have to bide your time. Wait to see what has actually happened. Yeah. Shut up. Shut your bloody gob.

This is from Chris who actually, this is something I now am going to do, Chris, but thank you for alerting me. I've got elderly parents. I had, I do apologize, she says, I too had elderly parents in the 90s and nursed my husband with end stage Parkinson's. Here are a few tips that help me. Have a bag packed for yourself and your parents ready to go. It really does save that frantic few minutes of what do I need. The Lions, who are a charity, they've got a medical history sheet that you fill in, you put it in a supplied tub and you keep it in the fridge. You have a sticker place somewhere that the emergency services can see and they will know that that tub is in the fridge. Write down taxi and Uber numbers and put in a bag as well and put

a drinking bottle in the bag as well. Chris, thank you very much for that. I mean, it's all, it's so obvious except it isn't obvious really and I should have actually have had a bag packed in London to go and I didn't Well I'm amazed that you don't you've had a go bag before what's happened to it? Well that's my

emergency in fact it's now been revealed that the children have been taking the cash I've put in my under the bed power outage emergency box they've just been in and pilfering the money for various local establishments that shall we say

prefer cash. So I'm now, by the way, down to a fiver in my emergency cash box. It's not going to last you very long, is it? It's not, is it? But you know, you're right. I mean, I should, of course I should have done. Do you know, I was, this is a terrible thing. I'm just being honest. The thing I was most grateful for is I did remember to take my HRT. That's important. Bloody hell it was certainly was last week. Oh my God. I think in the event of a fire, I'd take my HRT and my favourite cat. I'm not going to tell you which one. No, they're all listening. You're very unfair.

No, because I always forget which one's dead, so I don't want to chance a name. Oh, they call us a friendship. It's very challenging. Actually, we should say that during the course of today's recording, two news events have occurred. Dick Cheney's died, and David Beckham's been knighted. So just bringing you up to date there.

Dick Cheney, we were talking about that film. Vice. Vice, that's that, yes. And it's quite compelling, but disturbing, isn't it? It's brilliant. Yeah. Yes. And as far as I know, there was no litigation following it,

so we can assume that an awful lot of it was true. Brilliant performance by, but you reminded me earlier who it was. Christian Bale. As Dick Cheney. Yeah, but the extent of commercialisation of a battlefield... Well, the arms industry was just mind-boggling. Yeah. Disturbing stuff.

It'll probably prompt lots of people to re-watch that. a couple of emailers about things that we're watching and things that we've been talking about hello ladies from Karen have you seen Down Cemetery Road on Apple TV well we did talk about this yesterday and it's a very unfortunate title for what's going on at the moment

but you said that yesterday I wouldn't have dreamed of saying I'm really kidding you know one of the funny things was on the way to the hospital we went past the cemetery and I think it was my mum's cousin said oh your great grandmother's buried in there And I think, right, okay. Thanks very much.

We're all going back to where we started, don't we? Have you got a family vault? Is it marbled with ionic columns? Yeah, which it should be. Actually, what, I always think family vaults are ridiculous because no family gets on, really. Well, they're trapped for all eternity. Trapped for eternity in a sarcophagus with, you know,

anti-whatever it was, who always, picked on you and you simply couldn't stand. What a hellish destiny. It is, you're right, it is peculiar. This one comes in from Louise, who says not quite a household item, but my mobility scooter

is called Brian. It's such a great name. It's been so long, we can barely remember why we named him that, but he is ostensibly named after the snail in the magic roundabout, even though he can actually get up to speeds off, wait for it, nine miles per hour. Steady.

Hardly snail's pace, I'm sure you'll agree. When my son, who's now a strapping 14-year-old, was little. He used to sit on my knee, and we went out on many adventures on Brian after many years of life with several Bryans. And be careful who you tell that anecdote to, Louise. We now don't even find it odd anymore that we treat him as part of the family. But I will say I've had the odd funny look when I've said to my husband, I'm just popping out to ride Brian.

Here is a photo of me sitting on Brian, another phrase which has raised eyebrows. at a recent summer festival. Brian, you are my legend, and my life would be much poorer without you. Louise, that is absolutely delightful. And I wonder whether your strapping 14-year-old ever says just as a little bit of a joke, but with reality at the heart of it, can you just give me another ride on your lap?

There's something that is so adorable about the age when kids can come and sit on your lap. And just occasionally with my great big, enormous teenagers. and one who's in a couple of weeks time won't be a teenager anymore, we do try it and it's just really funny. We should actually keep a kind of wall of images of that just that person sitting on your lap

from the very, very start right to the end. It's certainly ridiculous. Well, my daughter and I tried in a photo booth the other day and we just both fell off the stall. She's so much taller than I am now. But you miss it, don't you? That just kind of... There's always a time, isn't it?

When they're... They're happy to hold your hand one day in the street crossing the road and then all of a sudden they don't. No. Oh dear. Don't hold your hands the next time we're walking. You'll take me down with you. Well, unfortunately, the speed at which you walk is not something available to me.

I'll tell you what, I hope I live long enough to see you on a Zimmer going, breaking the world Zimmer frame record. Quite extraordinary. It really is. Now, who's our, we've got a good guest today. We have David Olusuga. That's right, but we'll get on to him in a minute. I am about to interview, hopefully after I've eaten a Christmas sandwich,

I am quite peckish, Petula Clark. Petulia, Clark. Well, no, that's Eve calls her petulia. I have to say, and I didn't know a lot about it, some of her songs are properly brilliant. Downtown is a really great song. And you'll be able to, we hope, to hear this interview on the podcast next week. She's had quite the life.

I mean, she really has. She's worked with everybody. and what I didn't know about her was that she's been famous all her life she was a child star from the age of seven or eight so just quite extraordinary How old is she now? She's 93

She's coming in, isn't she? Yeah, she's coming in So that's quite the story, isn't it? Well, if you say so I don't... Honestly. No, I don't... Because I don't want to be rude about the woman at all

but I can't quite put my finger on her more recent hits Well, what I will say Okay, we're trying to sell the podcast here for she's on next week What I will say is that she... I'm feeling a bit sorry for David Olissoga We just got completely marched. No no we're going back to him

But I just, it was just because I finished Reading her memoir last night And actually it was really entertaining So I wouldn't have expected it to be I've got to be honest No, absolutely I mean it was interesting Props to her

But to me She hasn't done an all credit to her No she hasn't done the She doesn't seem to have needed To be out on the legend stage Glastonbury. For the last kind of two decades of her life.

Funny enough, she probably could have done that and should have been asked to do it. She did play the, is it the bird woman or the bird lady in Mary Poppins on stage only three years ago?

Whoa. When she was 90. Whoa. Yeah. Is it the bird woman? I don't know. Tuppens a bag? I don't know.

The one in St. Paul's Cathedral where she stands outside the cathedral and feeds the birds. No, I don't know. David Olasoga. David Olusoga has a new legion of fans through his appearance on The Traitors, where he's proving to be a probing questioner,

thoughtful observer, and like the rest of the faithfuls, absolutely rubbish at playing the game. He remains totally top of his game in the real world, though, where he will shortly be bringing us a series called Empire on the TV, and a brand new talk called History's Missing Chapters, all about the people that history is left

behind, and what that void does to our true understanding of what's gone before, and therefore where we are now. As a professor of public history, he takes his work seriously and has received an OBE for services to history and public understanding. And now he gets to call out Alan Carr and marvel at Jonathan Ross's huge tweed cape and matching ego. We started with the real work, though, and a look ahead to next year's touring talk,

which features some quite shocking props on stake. Yeah, I'm going all around the country with a big bunch of guns, historic firearms, from a flintlock musket from the early 18th century, all the way up to a Tommy gun and a Maxim machine gun. And to have the guns on stage is because what I want to argue in this tour is that guns are a real part of our social history. They're not just military history. They're part of what changed the world.

They're part of the lives of our ancestors. And of course, we in Britain, because we have proper sensible gun laws, unlike some countries, we don't come into contact with guns. So it is about trying to understand these objects as part of social history rather than military history. How did you feel the first time that you held a gun that you must know had at some point been fired at another human being and probably taken that life?

Well, that's what I found really disturbing about guns. Now, some historians, and I've written books about the First World War, some historians collect guns and they have them in their homes and I'm not judging anyone. I just, I'm too squeamish for that. I've never collected guns. I don't like guns. I'm not comfortable around them.

And in some ways, I think that's a kind of normal attitude. But however, at the same time, I think if we're honest with ourselves, we're fascinated by them because they're a bit mysterious to us in Britain because they're not part of our lives. We don't live in a society awash with guns the way many people around the world do. So there is something repellent,

but also something magnetic about guns. And that's what makes them so interesting. These are terrible objects, but just look at the, go to the cinema, look at the movies that we watch. You can see that guns are also, think something that we are really, have a dark glamour.

Yeah. I mean, you're so right to kind of shock people with the reality of guns because in this country we do now largely see guns just in fiction, don't we? Where there is very, very rarely any realistic portrayal of the damage that that weapon might do. I mean, it's quite absurd when you pause to think about it for longer than a nanosecond. It is. And our culture glamorises guns. And in some ways, they are glamorous objects. And I mean, they shouldn't be, but there's no point pretending that they're not. So our culture does glamourise them and wants to brush to the margins what they do. And I try in this tour without getting too graphic to remind us of that. But also to talk about how these machines have changed the world, how they had unintended consequences, how they had strange histories, how very often what they meant, their significance. was not fully understood at the time. The great revolutionary guns,

and the most important here is the maxim machine gun, the first real machine gun. There's a 30-year lag between that gun being invented and people understanding that it absolutely changed the world. You are an extremely busy man. You've got another tour.

Am I right in saying history's missing chapters should also focus our attention? Yeah, I'm also doing a tour which is a lecture and essay I wrote earlier this year, which is about how certain and how and why certain aspects of our past get written out. And it's an appeal for us to build an inclusive history. And I mean, that's all kind of sounds lovely and lefty. But I mean, I really mean it

in all sorts of ways. I mean, one of the stories I talk about is how I didn't understand, despite having done GCSE and then A-level history, I didn't understand Britain's relationship with Ireland until I had Irish friends, which was for the first time at university. I wasn't really studying Ireland at university. But what I realized, was I knew almost nothing. I'd done a tiny bit to get through past the exams and get to do history at a British university. But that long relationship between Ireland of Britain

and the island of Ireland, I really didn't understand it. And so we can't really have an inclusive history unless we understand, never mind the history of the empire, the history of the four nations that make up the Britain and Ireland. And how do you think that we will ever be able to really rectify that? because I think you're absolutely right for such an extraordinary, difficult history

to have such close proximity to us in terms of time, in terms of politics, in terms of geography, but to be so largely ignored, I mean, you know, the people you've wanted to be airbrushed from history have claimed quite a victory there, haven't they? I think in all sorts of ways, our historical imagination has been quite limited. It's been quite channeled.

I don't think curriculum very often have helped. I'm not sure that the stories that have been promoted by popular history, by historians writing books, have always been as inclusive as they could. But that really has changed in the past, maybe 50 years. There is an incredible appetite for history at the moment. You just need to look at the number of history chores and lectures, the number of history festivals, the history podcasts as well as documentaries, and a number of books being published. I mean, this is a country with a real passion for history. And what I'm detecting, and I've been doing this a long time, is a growing appetite from more. more history, broader history, more inclusive history.

We want to know the stories of our ancestors who were maids and servants. We want to understand the wars that this country went through from what it was like to be a soldier, not just what it was like to be a general. We want a broader, more international, more inclusive version of our history. And that appetite for the past just never ceases to kind of humble me. I'm amazed by how much people love engaging with the past. A great example, if I may, is the National Trust. I mean, it's five and a half, five point six, seven million members.

the biggest membership organisation in Britain. And it's a history and heritage organisation. Some of it must surely be about our own sense of individualism because now we have social media. I know that there's a whole wealth of evidence that says it's rubbish. But actually what it has done, David, is to give us each a feeling that our voice can be heard. So when you start to consider that in your own life,

would you agree that you look back to history and you actually do want to know more about individual lives. Is that playing a big part, do you think? Well, I think the Internet's really critical here because for all of its flaws and the things we absolutely should be worried about, about particularly social media and the algorithms. The other thing that the Internet has done is it's made millions of people into historians. One of the biggest activity online is genealogy.

People used to have to hire historians to help them do that research or they felt intimidated because they didn't want to go into archives. There are now platforms and there are research tools where literally millions of people are doing that kind of magical thing when you click on a document and you see your ancestor's signature on a document. Or you see the face of somebody who lived and died before your birth, who you're related to. And millions of people are engaged in that kind of magical connection with their history. And I think history can never go back to just being about great men when so many of us. We really want to know what was that like for our great grandparents or what? happened in the house that we live in today? Was that affected by this event or that tragedy?

Are you consulted at all about what the history curriculum should be and could be in schools? I've had some conversations with a few exam boards, but the thing I'm much more interested in doing is trying to put tools in the hands of teachers to be useful. I write history. The most useful thing I can do, the most useful place I can be is here at my desk writing books. I've written books for children. I've written lesson plans with my oldest sister, Yinka, who is an academic in education. And I'm committed to sort of trying to make stuff available for teachers rather than tell them that they're doing it wrong, which they get a lot of,

not just from historians, but from everybody. Yeah. The monarchy has played such a huge part in the history of these aisles. David, deference has been almost unwavering by comparison to other countries and cultures who've kicked out the monarchies. And I wonder where you think we are now, because undoubtedly what has happened over the last week or so with the stripping of the titles of Prince and H.R.H. for Andrew, have marked a real historical change, haven't they? I think they have. I don't think we'll understand it for a few years, the level of significance of it. I'm always cautious about sort of predicting the decline of the British monarchy

because it seems to survive every historical age and every crisis that's thrown at it. But this has not been a good week, and it isn't a good look. And, you know, I've always been open that I'm a Republican in the British sense, not the American sense, I should stress. And it is a, I think, an antiquated form of institution. But it is what we have. And because it is what we have,

and because our king is our head of state, I want it to succeed. So, you know, there's a certain amount of sadness watching what's happened. I think what's happened is entirely appropriate. And I think a few people would argue with that. But it doesn't seem that this is a very specific moment of crisis. And I think when with the passing of the queen, I think a lot of us suspected that crisis was on its way.

She was an incredible figure of solidity and continuity. And that her absence, I think, has been felt more. greatly this week than any week since her passing. It was always going to be difficult, and I think it is proving difficult for the monarchy to adjust to the passing of the longest reigning, the longest living monarch in our history. Do you think her reputation suffers at all, David, because Prince Andrew, Andrew now, Mountbatten, Windsor, it'll take all of us quite a long time to stop. I can't quote work out what it is yet.

It's beginning to need to that. Mountbatten, Windsor. It's been changing over the past week. It's been evolving. Yes, it still remains a bit of a mouthful. But anyway, Andrew was said to be her favourite son. I mean, she undoubtedly helped him out enormously in terms of where he lived and how he lived. And I know that she is said to have wanted to censure him after the Newsnight interview. But actually, don't we come to realise that everybody within that family must have really been able to, see Andrew in the light that we see him in now for a very long time? I think it is sad that it has taken the emergence of all of this evidence for the institution. You know, we call the palace, but it is a group of people that are their advisors to act.

I think it would have been far better if this had been done many years ago. And this is something that the Royal Family is going to have to reckon with. But in some ways to go back to my earlier point, the Royal Family have been through so many crises. And it is a sort of braver historian than myself. we would sort of predict the end of an institution that seems to weather every, every storm. This is entirely, in my view, appropriate. I think it would have been far better, as I say, if it had happened earlier. But the monarchy seems to be able to survive.

The question is, are the attitudes of younger people that seem to be quite profoundly different than their parents and their grandparents on this institution? Is that longer-term risk, in some ways, more significant than this short-term, you know, quite appalling crisis. Sure. And presumably all of this plays into what you are telling us in history's missing chapters that actually our obsession with some people at the top in terms of royal households and people who find themselves in leadership positions obscures the really interesting and valuable lives of so many other people. I think so. And there is a big shift which has been taking place over many decades away from history just being the stories of great men,

this Victorian Thomas Carlyle idea that really history was a series of biographies of great men. And that is it's not to say that significant figures don't have this colossal impact. I think the impact of Donald Trump will be something people will be talking about for centuries. But I think we are drawn as a people increasingly to a form of history that is more expansive, more inclusive, more about us and the lives that people like us live through rather than what happens in palaces and parliaments. We've done extremely well, David, because we have been talking now for a good almost 15 minutes and we haven't talked about traitors, but our audience would really not forgive me if I didn't ask you something about traitors.

I mean, it's just such a monumental hit, isn't it? You can't tell us anything about what's going to happen across the course of this week. But tell us about your experience in there. It looks incredibly intense, is it? well I think one of the strange things obviously programs are edited I mean the drama is real but the drama is accentuated by editing I mean it was interesting the one thing that I think I hope comes across is how well we all got on together I mean round tables are built to be stressful I mean it is a stressful thing but for the most part I mean out on those missions we we bonded every day I love being there because I love being with those 18 remarkable people and I think one of the reasons I mean is many reasons why we were terrible, particularly myself at this game, was I think it was largely because every day we went out, we did something amazing together, something totally out of normal life.

And we bonded and we sort of came back. And then we had to sort of banish one of ourselves. And it was the opposite, that what we had to do in the evening was so out of step with this kind of lovely communal experience of the rest of the day. So certainly the round topos can be stressful. But for the most part, it was joyous. What about the egos, David? I mean, there were some whoppers.

that castle? You know, I didn't feel that so much. I just loved, I found so many people so funny. My big memory is just of laughing the whole time. And it's an incredibly funny, amusing, entertaining people. I mainly remember giggling as well as kind of things like pushing a Trojan horse up a hill. It was hysterically funny. And obviously the round tables are stressful. They're these dramatic events. But it was also incredibly lighthearted and funny and silly. The breakfast, David, have you all had a decent breakfast before you go into the breakfast? Because nobody really seemed to do any eating of the breakfast. And you had a very busy day ahead.

I think we're too busy being shocked by who has or who hasn't walked through the breakfast door to sort of focus on the croissons very much. There's too much drama in those morning breakfasts for the croissons to get top billy. Right. And I've always wondered why there's just so much floral display on that table. What's going on with that? It looks lovely that, doesn't it? I mean, it looks lovely, but I mean, nobody... It's like a wedding setting every morning. Well, exactly.

Nobody has that on their breakfast table. David Olusoga, not as prolific as Petula Clark, but still a very welcome guest. Actually, he is, isn't he? So he's got those two tours on the go at the moment, one which is currently doing the rounds, and then the one about all of the guns is one that you could book for in a time of the future.

But I'm quite fascinated by that because there is something very, very... strange about knowing that you are in the presence of machines that have killed. And I've never held a gun. Have you ever held a gun? No. No. I never want to either. But I think it's such a clever conceit to take us through history using muskets, rifles or whatever it is. Because it would clarify your thought, wouldn't it? Yeah, it really would. It's interesting, isn't it? I was going to say, Of course I've never held a gun. Do people, I mean, is there a section of society where you would,

I suppose if you do boys at school, they do the combined cadet corps, CCF, cadet force, whatever it was? Girls never did it in my day. I presume now that girls would do it if they can't. There's no way they couldn't offer it to them. No, it would be available at all in a co-ed school. So you might hold a gun then, I think if you have a more rural upbringing, then you would be around guns.

I mean, certainly if you. you grew up on a farm, you know, an awful lot of farmers have licenses to have guns, to shoot pests and all of that kind of stuff. But in fact, I don't think we celebrate often enough the fact that this country has remained relatively gun-free because of the very swift action that was taken after Dunblane and after Hungerford as well. So we actually changed laws so that guns didn't proliferate. And I know that they are in this country, but, you know,

we have by no means the same problems that open, carry states have in America and all of that kind of stuff. But, yeah, I think it would be very interesting. David Olusuga is just so thoughtful on traitors. I think he's done himself massive TV celebrity favours by staying true to himself on that show. And as Hugo said, he's always managed to deliver

Hugo Rifkin, I've said that as if we're best mates. I mean, I'd like to be. He said that he's always incredibly thoughtful and precise and dedicated to working out the cause and he's always completely wrong. And he has been wrong. It's all the way through. They've all been wrong.

Well, not the rugby guy. Joe, well, yeah, Joe Marlow was on to it right from the start, wasn't he? Yeah, is he. Do you think people dismissed him because he doesn't, he doesn't look like he's got a PhD in ancient English literature? He looks like a rugby player, doesn't he? Yeah, and he really does.

And he's very keen on the short, I don't think I've ever seen Does he have long trousers? No, I don't think he does No, he's a big unit So maybe he just can't get them And he's got the cauliflower ears Hasn't he

Which I'd like to get up close to those Have a better examination of them Yeah Yes, he's quite a presence But he's not a public intellectual Unlike ourselves for example You see? There we are

Right, okay Thank you so much for whatever that was And join us tomorrow Take care now Congratulations. You've staggered somehow to the end of another off air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do it live every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4, on Times Radio. The Jeopardy is off the scale. And if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case.

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