Trapped History

We ask all our guests to nominate someone for the Trapped History Hall of Fame. Someone we've not heard of but should have. In this Season Four opener, please meet Mishal Husain's nominee: Fatima Jinnah, known as Madr-e-Millat or 'Mother of the Nation', a woman who broke the rules and the barriers as Pakistan emerged from the chaos of Partition. She became the conscience of Pakistan, who as opposi...

Mishal Husain joins Oswin and Carla for a truly special Season 4 opener, telling the tale of her family's journey through the stormy waters of Indian and Pakistani independence. It's a story of joy and freedom, but also one of fear, loss and terror. Shahid, Tahirah, Mumtaz and Mary live through Empire, world war, independence and partition. They meet the people who will shape their future, men lik...

With Jeremy Corbyn announcing that he’s standing as an independent in the upcoming general election, we thought we should revisit his time in the Trapped History studio. This all-new ‘director’s cut’ contains golden nuggets on the French and American Revolutions and on Charlotte’s campaigning for animal rights. It’s a real treat! On top of that, the former leader of the Labour Party was really exc...

Guitars, light shows, psychedelia . . . Any idea who might unexpectedly be making their way into the Hall of Fame? Tune in to hear Martin Gutmann's nominee. We guarantee you'll have heard of them before but not necessarily for Martin's reasons. It's a truly fascinating listen which might change the way you think about bands, friends and music. This podcast uses the following third-party services f...

He's the greatest explorer the world has ever known – the first to navigate the fabled North-West Passage, the first to reach the South Pole, the first to the impossible North. But how much do we really know about Roald Amundsen? More precisely, how much do we want to know? Surely, the tangled heroics of Scott of the Antarctic and of Ernest Shackleton make for more exciting reading than the carefu...

We ask all our guests to nominate someone for the Trapped History Hall of Fame. Someone we've not heard of but should have. Most of our nominees are long gone – but Dee Jarrett-Macauley follows in the footsteps of Pete Paphides and nominates someone who is well and truly alive and kicking: the great publisher and writer Margaret Busby, whose Daughters Of Africa anthologies changed the way poetry w...

Poet, playwright, publisher. Campaigner, broadcaster, journalist. Six people in one, but if we've heard of Una Marson, it's usually because of her brief shining moment during the Second World War when she became the voice and face of the Caribbean through her pioneering work at the BBC. Tune in to hear about the six lives of Una Marson as Oswin and Carla are joined by her biographer and Orwell Pri...

We ask all our guests to nominate someone for the Trapped History Hall of Fame. Someone we've not heard of but should have. Most guests nominate someone who's, well, dead. But Pete Paphides joins Polly Vacher in nominating a living legend. In this case, the mesmeric Paolo Conte, Italy's answer to Tom Waits. Listen to Pete's nomination exclusively here. This podcast uses the following third-party s...

See if you can join the dots – Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, The Beatles. Well, there’s one man who sits at the centre of it all, and it’s more than likely that you won’t have heard of him: Jackson C Frank. A damaged, wounded singer-songwriter who wowed the British folk scene and presaged psychedelia and punk, Jackson only produced one album – but its infl...

Every episode, we ask our guest to nominate someone for the Trapped History Hall of Fame: someone we haven't heard of but really should have. Today, it's the turn of @that.spitfire.bird, instagram's very own Jo Rogers. We take a quick detour into Tilly Shilling's orifice – no, really! – before finding out what a Messerschmitt 108 turned up when it taxied into Jo's life. Find all about the magnific...

The Battle of Britain is at its height. Spitfires and Hurricanes urgently need to get from the factories to the airfields and into the hands of ‘the Few’. Step forward Pauline Gower, a pioneering pilot of the 1930s, who alongside the 168 women who she brought into the Air Transport Auxiliary, would help ferry over 300,000 planes from where they were built to where they were needed. Tune in to hear...

Every episode, we ask our guest to nominate someone for the Trapped History Hall of Fame: someone we haven't heard of but really should have. As it's the holiday season, today we have a twofer for you: first, there's Peter's light-hearted nomination of the explorer Richard Burton, in all his magnificent messiness. And then, hear about the courageous Father Stanley Rother, a missionary among the Tz...

In 1880, the SS Jeddah was steaming across the Indian Ocean when her captain abandoned ship. He told his rescuers the 1,000 passengers had mutinied and that the ship had sunk. But this was a lie and the case became a cause celebre of British disregard – because the Jeddah ’s passengers weren’t any ordinary passengers. They were Indonesian and Malaysian pilgrims – Muslims on their way to Mecca to p...

Every episode, we ask our guest to nominate someone for the Trapped History Hall of Fame: someone we haven't heard of but really should have. Tune in this week to hear Jeremy Corbyn's nomination – the quite brilliant Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a Mexican writer, poet and philosopher from four centuries ago, variously known as The Phoenix of America and The Tenth Muse. Her's was an astonishing life...

She was a super-rich romantic novelist, sister to one of the most famous men in late-Victorian England. And then, out of nowhere, Charlotte Despard suddenly finds her true calling. Over the next 40 years, she is a suffragette, a socialist, a peace campaigner, an animal rights activist and an Irish nationalist. So who better to help Oswin and Carla tell her story than the Charlotte Despard of the 2...

Evelyn Dunbar was the only full-time female war artist in World War II. She recorded an almost exclusively female experience of war, painting Land Girls and members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force going about their work. Meticulously, quietly and with an air of supreme concentration. Join Oswin, Carla and the art historian Frances Spalding as we delve into Evelyn's life and art, understand life...

He was a war hero but never felt that he was. Ben Ferencz was sickened to the core by his experience of battling through Europe in 1945 – and of uncovering horrific evidence of war crimes, atrocities and genocide. And so he decided to do something about it. Tune in to hear the compelling story of the last of the Nuremberg prosecutors in the company of the great historian of our post-war world, Kei...

John La Rose is one of the most important – and most overlooked – cultural icons of the last 60 years. Helping to forge a Black British identity, he set up dozens of political, cultural and community organisations and campaigned for justice for the victims of police brutality and of the New Cross Fire. So earlier this year, it seemed obvious – and right – to name a street in his honour. But the fu...

You're falling through the sky above Belgium after your bomber has been hit. It's August 1941 and you're an RAF front gunner. Who will save you when you land? Who will look after you, hide you, keep you safe? Who will get you home? Meet the women of the Resistance, Dédée, Tante Go and countless others – the women of the Comet Line. Join Carla, Oswin and our special guest the historian Anne Sebba w...

Meet Cornelia Sorabji, an Indian woman who broke through barriers – the first woman at an Indian university, the first woman to study law anywhere, the first woman to plead a criminal case in a British-run court. And yet, Cornelia was also an arch-imperialist, extolling the British Empire, castigating Gandhi and dismissing the Indian independence movement. Join Oswin, Carla and our very special gu...

With Eurovision upon us, join Oswin and Carla in a special episode of Trapped History as we take a look back at the song contest's history and lift the Iron Curtain on Eurovision's big brother: Intervision and the incredible Sopot Song Festival. Tune in to hear the Northern Soul Legend Sam Jones tell us all about the time she won Sopot – and what John Lennon, Frank Sinatra and others thought about...

Thrill to the story of the boys and girls who took on the richest men in America: and won. It's 1899, we're in New York and the 'newsies' – the boys and girls who sell papers on the city's streets – have had enough. Join Oswin, Carla and six young people from today as we time travel 125 years to find out about Kid Blink, Joseph Pulitzer and how news has changed – or remained the same . . . And lis...

Tune in to hear Clare Mulley's nomination for the Trapped History Hall of Fame. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy Head over to www.trappedhistory.com to sign up to the award-winning podcast, get our newsletter, bonus episodes and much, much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In earlier episodes, we have featured women who have flown the world and men who have flown for freedom. But what about the courageous, pioneering women who powered the Nazi war machine? Join Oswin and Carla as we learn about the troubled and troubling lives of Hanna Reitsch and Melitta von Stauffenberg. The acclaimed historian, Clare Mulley, guides us through this knotty moral, ethical and histor...

It's Hall of Fame time! Tune in to hear an extended nomination from Sums of Anarchy's wonderful Dominique Miranda. This has everything: revolution, freedom and poetry, with a smattering of maths thrown in . . . This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy Head over to www.trappedhistory.com to sign up to the award-winning podcast, get our...