Barnaby Rudge Ch.XXIV; Breathtaking Beowulf; and Magnificent Maya Angelou.

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*Photograph taken from Swan Auction Galleries

Welcome to today’s spirited and passionate episode.  Walk with me in the old land of the Danes where mounds of land can appear from the swamps, where monsters in the mere are dreaded, and where the joys of life come from the telling and retelling of marvellous feats of honour and glory.  Where glimpses of the past - from an understanding of how a loved King might be buried, to how it was seen as wrong to kill one’s own kinsfolk - are there for us to behold and absorb into our understanding of the past.  We enter that part of Dicken’s fine novel where the cards of the characters with black souls are laid out before us: where all is to play for; where the stage is set for the good-hearted creatures to find safety in a world where there are those conspiring against them.  And finally we turn to hope, courage and joy as Maya Angelou takes centre stage and reminds us that freedoms we see about us today were hard and wretchedly won.  If we are not free, we are not fully alive.  

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Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  

Gretel invites you to accompany her as she navigates the world a day at a time;  the podcast is unscripted, it’s ad-free.

Gretel loves the world and history, architecture, literature and people. And so is determined to walk this path with light footsteps and with humour and warmth.  Let’s gather up the beautiful things and ponder them in our hearts.

Top 10 in Global Rankings according to Listen Notes.  I would be so grateful if you would spare the time to give me a kind review and possibly 5 stars (for effort as I realise it’s not deserved for achievement)🥴

Previous guests include  historian Tom Holland; Actor Enzo Cilenti; Art historian Philip Mould; Writer David Willem; Composer Matthew Coleridge; Vicar Angela Tilby; Author Bijan Omrani; Journalist and Historian Sir Simon Jenkins; Dorset garden hedgehog family, the Venerable Bede and other guests.  

Future guests (all being well) are Tom Holland, John Simpson, Eleanor Parker, Philippa Langley and Katie Channon.  

Unpolished and unscripted but no ads and no requests for anything but your company.  Trying to make the world a gentler place with literature, history and nature.  Please don’t expect to find a...