Neil Oliver's Love Letter to the British Isles

In this episode Neil travels to the breathtakingly picturesque seaside side town of Lyme Regis. Sitting on the rugged Jurassic Coast the town was home to a determined, fearless woman called Mary Anning who battled the convention of the day to stake her claim in scientific history. The Jurassic coast is famous for fossil dinosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, Ammonites, Belemnites, and plesiosaurus. Often working in foul weather and precarious locations Mary was a fossil hunter extraordinaire whose great skill and formidable intelligence helped further the scientific understanding of the time.To help support this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on PatreonNew Videos Every Week plus an archive packed full of History, Comment & Current Affairs.https://www.patreon.com/neiloliverInstagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letterhttps://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=enNeil Oliver YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g

In this episode Neil strides across the beguilingly beautiful, wild Yorkshire moors to meet three sisters whose brilliance would shape and change the world of literature.Tough, strong-willed survivors, the Bronte sisters laid bare the crippling social conventions of the day with perfect prose. Their own lives were edged with hardship and tragedy, but their imaginations, stubborn genius and dazzling creativity lit up the world. The episode is from the Bronte parsonage in Haworth, west Yorkshire.To help support this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on PatreonNew Videos Every Week plus an archive packed full of History, Comment & Current Affairs.https://www.patreon.com/neiloliverInstagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letterhttps://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=enNeil Oliver YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g

This week Neil spends time on one of the most notorious lighthouses in the world – a place with a profound sense of isolation and a dark history.The British Isles are home to an island race, and to survive and thrive its people have depended on a mastery of the seaways and protection from its dangerous coasts. Ever since King Henry VIII Britain have made lighthouses their own. Dotted around the coastline these engineering marvels have become part of the landscape, sentinels and beacons of hope.In this episode Neil weaves the history of lighthouses, the story of the courageous lighthouse keepers who protect lives at sea, with the tragic events that took place on Smalls Lighthouse, off the Pembrokeshire coast.To help support this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on PatreonNew Videos Every Week and an archive packed full of history, comment and current affairs films.https://www.patreon.com/neiloliverInstagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=enNeil Oliver YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g

In this episode we’re stepping aboard a legend. A ship built from 6,000 trees, 27 miles of rigging and 4 acres of sail. She fought in the American and French Revolutionary Wars and came to symbolise the Britain’s dominance of the world-ocean as she battled to keep them free. But it was in 1805, with Admiral Nelson at the helm, that she sailed into the history books. With her 104 guns fully loaded and at the ready she led the Royal Navy into action at the world defining Battle of Trafalgar.To help support this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverNeil’s Patreon site is packed full of history, comment and current affairs videos.Instagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter - https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=enYouTube Channel is at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g

In this episode we’re walking with a hero of mine, Admiral Nelson – a man with a life full of high drama and adventure, violence and great passion.He was born near the North Norfolk coast in 1758, in the sleepy village of Burnham Thorpe. His father was the local parson and at the ripe old age of 12 he set off to join the Royal Navy and sail the world’s oceans.Horatio Nelson was an ambitious and fearless naval commander always in the tick of the action; he lost his right eye during the siege of Calvi on Corsica, and the use of his right arm three years later at the battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. A master of naval warfare, back on dry land he was swept up by a grand romance to Lady Emma Hamilton before sailing to his most famous victory at the battle Trafalgar in 1805.To help support this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverNeil’s Patreon site is packed full of history, comment and current affairs videos.Instagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter - https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=enYouTube Channel is at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g

In this episode Neil takes us on an emotional journey that affected hundreds of thousands of people and systematically destroyed an ancient way of life – the Highland Clearances. Driven by greed the aristocratic landowners brutally cleared people from what they claimed as their land and replaced them with sheep in one of the biggest mass movements of people in all of British history.To help support this podcast sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverNeil’s Patreon site is packed full of history, comment and current affairsInstagram account – Neil Oliver Love Letter - https://www.instagram.com/neiloliverloveletter/?hl=enYouTube Channel is at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVR-SdKxQeTvXtUSPFCL7g