Trailer
6/15/20262 min
Do you ever stop to think where the stereotypes, social norms, traditions, and beliefs that fill our everyday life come from?
History lovers Alice Loxton and Ben Henderson uncover the origin stories behind all sorts of things - why we dress the way we do, why football is our national sport, why our cities look the way they do.
Where does the idea of Britain’s stiff upper lip come from? And why does our food have such a bad reputation? The shadow of Second World War rationing still looms large.
We’ll explain how stories from history shaped our lives in the present.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAlice Loxton· Host0:01
So Ben, a new podcast, what's it all about?
Ben Henderson· Host0:04
Well, I really think that a lot of people don't realise how much our lives are shaped by big events in the past. I think they view history as a discrete, separate thing to the present day, when actually everything we do, from what we wear, what we eat, how we think, I think, is dictated by the people that came before us, and that's what we want to explore in this show.
Alice Loxton· Host0:27
Absolutely. I mean, I've learned a huge amount just by working on a few of these episodes already. One of my favourite ones was The Cup of Tea, which all came about with Catherine of Braganza and Charles II. But The Norman Conquest, I mean, this all suddenly becomes so much more interesting when you realise how much that has shaped how we speak English today. The weird pronunciations that have absolutely zero correlation with the spellings.
Ben Henderson· Host0:51
Yeah, well, it's fascinating this because I think, you know, when you're young, you learn about the battles and the dates and that kind of stuff, but you don't realise how it actually influences culture today. You know, we've recorded episodes about why women don't have pockets, for instance, and these are events that happened centuries ago that are impacting people every single Friday night when they're out on the town. So it does make a big difference.
Alice Loxton· Host1:11
There are some great topics. Why is the pub so important in our culture? Why does British food have such a bad reputation? Why is football our national sport? And I know one area that you love researching, Ben, was how British people got a reputation for being emotionally reserved. Yeah, it's so interesting.
Ben Henderson· Host1:27
It's something that, you know, it's a character trait that I think a lot