Now, I am a great fan of Start the Week with Andrew Marr on Radio 4 and I was not disappointed with today’s edition.
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| Britain & France, 1904 |
It was an excellent ramble through the story of England in the 16th and 17th centuries, Ireland in the second half of the 20th century and how both countries have rubbed along together, as well as a sideways look at how Europe viewed the English state from the execution of Mary Queen of Scots to the trial and public execution of King Charles 1 and the Dutch take over in 1688.
"‘Devil-Land’ – that was how foreign observers viewed England in the 17th century: a ‘failed state’ torn apart by seditious rebellion, religious extremism and royal collapse. The historian Clare Jackson recounts this stormy and radical era through the eyes of outsiders across the Channel. But she tells Andrew Marr that the country’s turbulence also bred great creativity and curiosity about the wider world.
The Anglo-French journalist Benedicte Paviot is the UK correspondent of France 24. She explores how the French view Britain today. From Brexit to the government’s pursuit of ‘Global Britain’ and the new Australia/UK/US defence pact, contemporary French neighbours often look on with hostility and bemusement.
Fintan O’Toole is an Irish journalist and polemicist who has spent much of his career commenting on Britain from the other side of the water. But in his latest book, We Don’t Know Ourselves, he turns his attention to Ireland since his birth in 1958. It’s another story of great turbulence and rebellion, from underdevelopment, domination by the Church and a sectarian civil war in the North, to struggles for intellectual, civil and sexual freedoms.
Producer: Katy Hickman”*
Location; Radio 4
Picture; The Honeymoon Up To date, Dudley Hardy, from the series, A Humourist in France, 1904, 1908,/1909 & 1911/12, Raphael Tuck & Son, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdbpostcards.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=france&commit=
* Views From Across the Water, Start the Week, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0010gfc
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