Marc’s Almanac

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Philip Larkin, To The Sea.

"Everything crowds under the low horizon:

Steep beach, blue water, towels, red bathing caps..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 4th June, 1940, Britain completes the miracle of Dunkirk, rescuing 338,226 stranded troops from France with an improvised flotilla of 800 boats.

On this day: 4th June, 1910, Christopher Cockerell, the inventor of the hovercraft, is born in Cambridge.

Music to wake you up – I Still Believe by Frank Turner

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Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Mark Jarman, Reminder.

"You're here and God's in heaven..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 28th May, 1936, Alan Turing submits his paper On Computable Numbers, setting out the theoretical basis for modern computers

On this day: 28th May, 1908, Ian Lancaster Fleming, the creator of James Bond, is born in London

Music to wake you up – Good Day Sunshine by The Beatles

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Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Thom Gunn, The Hug.

"I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 14th May, 1796, Edward Jenner inaugurates the science of vaccination by infecting his gardener's son with cowpox, protecting him from smallpox. And while the Covid-19 vaccines have understandably dominated this year's news, the successful trials of the first highly effective malaria vaccine by researchers from the University of Oxford has been another piece of enormously good news. Malaria currently kills 400,000 people every year.

On this day: 14th May, 1771, Robert Owen is born in Newport, an important early voice for workers rights but also the father of English socialism, who refused to accept the failure of his more radical experiments

Music to wake you up – It's All Coming Back To Me Now by Celine Dion

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If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Laurence Binyon, For The Fallen.

"At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 7th May 1945, General Jodl signs Germany's unconditional surrender, ending the Second World War in Europe

On this day: 7th May 1952, Geoffrey Dummer gives the first public talk laying out the idea of the integrated circuit, better known today as the microchip, and the basis for all modern computers

Music to wake you up – We'll Meet Again by Vera Lynn

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Billy Collins, Today.

"If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 30th April 1506, the signing of the so-called Intercursus Malus, a notoriously uneven trade treaty between England and the Duchy of Burgundy

On this day: 30th April 1602, the English Merlin, William Lilly, is born in Diseworth, Leicestershire

Music to wake you up – Iko Iko by Justin Wellington

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Lord Macaulay, an extract from Horatius.

"And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 16th April, 1953, the Queen launches the Royal Yacht, Britannia

On this day: 16th April, 1889, Charles Chaplin is born in Walworth, London

Music to wake you up – No I in Beer by Brad Paisley

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Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Ezra Pound, The Ballad of the Goodly Fere.

"No capon priest was the Goodly Fere

But a man o' men was he..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 2nd April, 2020, the world's recorded cases of Covid-19 passed one million. As of yesterday, thanks to an unprecedented effort, more than 31 million people in the UK have received at least one dose of a vaccine.

On this day: 2nd April, 1827, William Holman Hunt was born in Cheapside. A major pre-Raphaelite painter, his religious canvases such as The Scapegoat still resonate today

Music to wake you up – Wade in the Water by Eva Cassidy

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If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by AE Housman.

"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 26th March, 1953, Jonas Salk announces he has successfully tested an experimental polio vaccine on himself and his family. In less than a decade, thanks to mass vaccination, polio cases in the US alone fell from more than 57,000 a year to fewer than 200.

Also on this day: 26th March, 1859, AE Housman was born in Bromsgrove. He became a superb classical scholar, but is best-known today for his poetry, especially the volume A Shropshire Lad

Music to wake you up – Rock Island Line by Lonnie Donegan

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a sonnet by William Shakespeare.

"From you have I been absent in the spring,

When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,

Hath put a spirit of youth in everything..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 19th March, 1982, Argentines, claiming to be scrap metal dealers, land on South Georgia Island, the first manoeuvre in the Falklands War

On this day: 19th March, 1813, David Livingstone is born in Blantyre, South Lanarkshire. After a childhood working 12 hour days in a mill, he became a medic, explorer, missionary and anti-slavery campaigner

Music to wake you up – You're The One That I Want from the musical Grease

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Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Jorge Luis Borges, in a translation by Alastair Reid, The Just.

"A man who cultivates his garden, as Voltaire wished.
He who is grateful for the existence of music..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 12th March, 1710, Thomas Augustine Arne is born in Covent Garden. Arne made his name as a theatrical composer, and is chiefly remembered today for Rule, Britannia! and A-Hunting We Will Go.

On this day: 12th March, 1881, Andrew Watson makes his international debut as the captain of Scotland. The first black person to play association football at the international level, Watson led his team to a seismic, 6-1 victory over England.

Music to wake you up – The Best Day by Taylor Swift

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by John Clare, The Skylark.

"Up from their hurry, see, the skylark flies,

And o'er her half-formed nest, with happy wings

Winnows the air..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 5th March 1756, Thomas Linley the Younger, the "English Mozart", was born in Abbey Green, Bath. Most of his music is lost, thanks to fires and his early death at 22. But not all: here's his Oh Guardian of that Sacred Land.

On this day: 5th March, 1946, Winston Churchill gives his "Iron Curtain" speech in Missouri, also known as "The Sinews of Peace".

Music to wake you up – You've Got a Friend in Me, performed by Randy Newman

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.

"Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 26th February 1564, Christopher Marlowe, poet and dramatist, was born in Canterbury

On this day: 26th February, 1797, the Bank of England introduced the first pound notes in lieu of gold sovereigns

Music to wake you up – Jericho Blues by The Hillbilly Thomists

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Mary Oliver, The Summer Day.

"Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 19th February, 1717, David Garrick is born in Hereford, in the Angel Inn.

On this day: 19th February, 1910, Mary Mallon, known as "Typhoid Mary", is released from her first quarantine

Music to wake you up – Do It by Maggie Rose

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Thomas Campion, Now Winter Nights Enlarge.

"Now winter nights enlarge

The number of their hours..."

From the show:

On this day: 12th February, 1554, Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days Queen, is executed for treason.

On this day: 12th February, 1567, Thomas Campion, poet, physician and composer, is born in London

Music to wake you up – Where Did Our Love Go? by The Supremes

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, Evening, in a translation by Stephen Mitchell.

"The sky puts on the darkening blue coat

held for it by a row of ancient trees..."

From the show:

Opening music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 5th February, 1723, the great exponent of common sense John Witherspoon is born in Gifford, Scotland. Emigrating to America, he became President of the nascent Princeton University, and also a founding father of the United States.

On this day: 5th February, 1811, George Prince of Wales becomes regent, due to the mental decline of his father King George III

Music to wake you up – Be Yourself by Morcheeba

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Susan Cooper, The Shortest Day.

"And so the Shortest Day came and the year died

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away..."

From the show:

Luke, 2:1;4-5

The winter solstice

William's Truthful Christmas by Richmal Crompton

On this day: 21st December, 1117, the birth of Thomas Becket, in Cheapside, London

Music to wake you up – This Year by The Mountain Goats

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush.

"I leant upon a coppice gate

When Frost was spectre-grey..."

From the show:

Ecclesiastes 9:7

Ice in the Bedroom by PG Wodehouse

On this day: 14th December, 1901, the first major ping pong tournament, for men and women, takes place in London's Royal Aquarium

On this day: 14th December, 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team become the first to reach the South Pole, beating the doomed expedition of Captain Scott

Music to wake you up – Santa Baby by Kylie Minogue

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Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Sara Teesdale, A Winter Blue Jay.

"Crisply the bright snow whispered,

Crunching beneath our feet..."

From the show:

1 Thessalonians 5:4-5

On this day: 7th December, 521, St Columba is born in Gartan, Ireland

On this day: 7th December, 1732, the Theatre Royal holds its first performance. Today we know the venue as the Royal Opera House. Get a ticket for its online Christmas concert on 18th December by clicking here.

Music to wake you up – Cuddle Up, Cozy Down Christmas by Dolly Parton

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Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Rowan Williams, Advent Calendar.

"He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind..."

From the show:

Psalm 100: 4-5

Jeeves and the Yuletide Spirit by PG Wodehouse

On this day: 30th November, 1016, Canute the Great claims the English throne

On this day: 30th November, 1667, the great satirist Jonathan Swift is born in Dublin

Music to wake you up – Be A Light by Thomas Rhett

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Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Wislawa Symborska, Children of Our Age.

"All day long, all through the night,
all affairs – yours, ours, theirs –
are political affairs..."

From the show:

Ecclesiastes 11:4

On this day: 23rd November, 1644, Areopagitica, John Milton's great defence of the liberty of the press, is published

On this day: 23rd November, 1963, the first episode of Doctor Who – An Unearthly Child – is broadcast, starring William Hartnell as The Doctor

On this day: 23rd November, 1887, William Henry Pratt is born in Camberwell, better known as the actor Boris Karloff,  in his iconic role as Imhotep in The Mummy and as Frankenstein's monster for the English director James Whale

Music to wake you up – Styrofoam by Ashley McBryde

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Mary Oliver, Wild Geese.

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting...."

From the show:

Isaiah 45:8

The letters of Emily Eden

On this day: 16th November, 2002, the first recorded case of SARS, in Guangdong, China.

On this day: 16th November, 1961, Frank "Know what I mean, 'Arry?" Bruno, heavyweight WBC world boxing champion, is born in Wandsworth, London. A professional boxing career with five losses and 40 wins, 38 by knockout from his powerhouse punches

Music to wake you up – Beers and Sunshine by Darius Rucker

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by John McCrae, In Flanders Fields.

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row..."

Donate to this year’s Poppy Appeal here.

From the show:

John 15:13

Operation Torch sees Allied forces successfully invade Vichy French territories in North Africa, 8th November, 1942

On this day: 9th November, 1985, Gary Kasparov becomes world chess champion aged just 22

On this day: 9th November, 1898, Owen Barfield, the philosopher and Inkling, friend and influence to CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, is born in London

Music to wake you up – Starting Over by Chris Stapleton

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by WB Yeats, The Wild Swans at Coole.

"The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry..."

From the show:

Psalm 69:33

Hot Water by PG Wodehouse

On this day: 2nd November, 1996, the blues singer Eva Cassidy dies aged 33

2nd November was established as All Soul's Day a thousand years ago by Odilo of Cluny. A day to remember all those taken from us, and the talent of Nobby Stiles, Bobby Ball and Sir Sean Connery

Music to wake you up – Together We'll be OK by Cannon and Ball

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by John Donne, one of his Holy Sonnets.

"Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you

As yet but knock..."

From the show:

Song of Solomon 2:14

The charge of the Light Brigade – here's a rare wax cylinder recording from 1890 of Tennyson reading his poem

On this day: 26th October, 899, King Alfred the Great, educator, reformer and warrior, goes to glory

On this day: 26th October, 1977, wild smallpox infects its final victim in Somalia – a hospital cook, Ali Maow Maalin

Music to wake you up – Gimme Some Lovin' by the Spencer Davis Group

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Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Rudyard Kipling, The Way Through The Woods.

"They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago..."

From the show:

Proverbs 17:17

Boswell's Life of Johnson

On this day: 19th October, 1781, Lord Cornwallis surrenders to George Washington at Yorktown, ending the American Revolutionary War

On this day: 19th October, 1889, Arthur Satherley, country music pioneer, was born in Bedminster

Music to wake you up – Living in a Ghost Town by The Rolling Stones

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Christian Wiman, All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs.

"All my friends are finding new beliefs.

This one converts to Catholicism and this one to trees..."

From the show:

Psalm 59:16

On this day: 12th October, 1492, Christopher Columbus lands in the New World

On this day: 12th October, 1915, the nurse and Anglican martyr Edith Cavell is executed by firing squad

On this day: 12th October, 1845, the "angel of prisons" Elizabeth Fry passes away after a lifetime of philanthropy inspired by her Quaker faith

Music to wake you up – Carry You Home by Ward Thomas

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by RS Thomas, A Day in Autumn.

"Having looked up

From the day’s chores, pause a minute..."

From the show:

Proverbs 2:8

Samuel Pepys sneaks a look backstage at Drury Lane in 1667

On this day: 5th October, 1919, the character actor Donald Pleasence is born in Worksop, the son of a stationmaster

On this day: 5th October, 1930, the airship R101 crashes in France, killing the Air Minister and 47 others, ending the British dream of an airship fleet to connect the British Empire

Music to wake you up – Christmas in Prison by John Prine

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Thomas Hardy, The Ruined Maid.

"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!

Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?..."

From the show:

Colossians 3:23

Just William's Luck by Richmal Crompton

On this day: 28th September, 1066, the invasion force of William the Conqueror lands at Pevensey Bay

On this day: 28th September, 1836, Thomas Crapper, sanitary engineer and promoter of indoor lavatories, is born in Yorkshire

Music to wake you up – Why Don't We Just Dance? by Josh Turner

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Seamus Heaney, At The Wellhead.

"Your songs, when you sing them with your two eyes closed

As you always do, are like a local road

We’ve known every turn of in the past..."

From the show:

Joel 2:23

On this day: 21st September, 1819, John Keats writes a letter from Winchester, mentioning that he has composed a new poem on the beauties of Autumn

On this day: 21st September, 1538, the agents of King Henry VIII smash the shrine of St Swithin in Winchester. It will not be restored until 1962

On this day: 21st September, 1937, The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien is published to immediate acclaim. Its sequel, The Lord of The Rings, would not follow until nearly 20 years later

Music to wake you up – Coming Home, sung by Gwyneth Paltrow in the movie Country Strong

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Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Ted Hughes, September.

"We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold:
No clock counts this..."

From the show:

Psalm 27:9

The Code of the Woosters, by PG Wodehouse – first serialised in Britain in the Daily Mail in 1938, beginning on this day

On this day: 14th September, 1752, Britain adopts the Gregorian calendar, leaping to September 14th from September 2nd. Years later, some were still campaigning for the return of their lost "eleven days".

On this day: 14th September, 1804, the ornithologist John Gould was born in Lyme Regis. He would identify "Darwin's finches" and was also a celebrated illustrator of ornithological books, particularly famous for his work on the birds of Australia.

Music to wake you up – Letter to You by Bruce Springsteen

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Louis MacNeice, an extract from Autumn Journal.

"September has come, it is hers
Whose vitality leaps in the autumn..."

From the show:

Lamentations 3:22-23

On this day: 7th September, 1895, the first games of what would become rugby league are played across the north of England

On this day: 7th September, 1533, Elizabeth I is born, daughter of Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII

On this day: 7th September, 1940, the Blitz of London begins. It will continue until 2nd November

Music to wake you up – If Ever I Stray by Frank Turner

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Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Rudyard Kipling, Dane-geld.

"Though we know we should defeat you,
we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away..."

From the show:

Matthew 24:27

The Gardener's Year, Karel Capek

On this day: 10th August, 991 AD, the Anglo-Saxons failed to turn back a Viking invasion at the Battle of Maldon. The defeat leads King Ethelred to pay the first "Dane-geld" – 3,300kg of silver in this case – in an attempt to buy off the victors

On this day, 10th August, 1856, William Willett was born in Farnham, the builder whose pamphlet proposing Daylight Saving Time would bring the idea to British attention

Music to wake you up – Too Darn Hot, sung by Ella Fitzgerald

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Edward Thomas, How At Once.

"How at once should I know,
When stretched in the harvest blue..."

From the show:

1 John 2:17

The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton

On this day: 3rd August, 1914, Edward Grey says "the lamps are going out all over Europe"

On this day: 3rd August, 1803, Joseph Paxton, designer of the Crystal Palace is born in Bedfordshire

Music to wake you up – Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by RS Thomas, The Other.

"There are nights that are so still
that I can hear the small owl
calling..."

From the show:

Ezra 10:4

Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo

On this day: 27th July, 1586, Sir Walter Raleigh introduces tobacco (and potatoes) to the English court

On this day: 27th July, 1857, Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge is born in Bodmin. He would rise from poor beginnings to the heights of the British Museum

Music to wake you up – The Detectorists Theme by Johnny Flynn

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With an extract from Virgil's Georgics.

"So all things are fated

to slide towards the worst, and revert by slipping back..."

From the show:

Song of Solomon 5:2

A letter from John Keats to his brother Tom, written on a walking tour of Scotland

On this day: 20th July, 1304, Edward I takes Stirling castle

On this day: 20th July, 1804, Richard Owen, who gave dinosaurs their name, is born in Lancaster

Music to wake you up – Biscuits by Kacey Musgraves

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Adam Zagajewski, Try to Praise the Mutilated World.

"Remember the moments when we were together

in a white room and the curtain fluttered..."

From the show:

Deuteronomy 31:8

The amazing (and perhaps even lucky) hummingbird hawk-moth

The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse

On this day: 13th July, 1568, Alexander Nowell, Dean of St Paul's, accidentally invents bottled beer on a fishing trip

On this day: 13th July, 1793, John Clare, England's greatest nature poet, is born in Peterborough

Music to wake you up – Going Nowhere by Frank Turner

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by AE Housman, an extract from Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff.

"And malt does more than Milton can

To justify God’s ways to man..."

From the show:

Proverbs, 15:29

The Gardener's Year, by Karel Capek and the Growing Stone of Blaxhall, Suffolk

On this day: 6th July, 1348 – Pope Clement VI issues the first of two papal bulls stating that Jews were falsely accused of spreading the Black Death, then devastating Europe, and that they should be protected, not persecuted

On this day: 6th July, 1934 – Fred Perry won the men's Wimbledon title from Jack Crawford in straight sets. It would be the first of three straight title victories at Wimbledon for Perry

Music to wake you up – No I in Beer by Brad Paisley

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Vagabond.

"Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I seek, the heaven above
And the road below me..."

From the show:

The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald

Isaiah, 3:4-5

On this day: 29th June, 1613 – The Globe theatre, where some of William Shakespeare's greatest plays were first performed, burns down during a production of Henry VIII, or All is True

On this day: 29th June, 1903 – Alan Blumlein is born in Hampstead, London. A brilliant electrical engineer, he invented stereo sound and pioneered TV and radio

Music to wake you up – I've Got the Sexiest Accent in the World by Dominic Frisby

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by RS Thomas, Raptor.

"You have made God small,
setting him astride
a pipette or a retort
studying the bubbles..."

From the show:

Jeremiah 20:9

Sam the Sudden by PG Wodehouse

On this day: 22nd June, 1633 – Galileo Galilei is forced to deny in public that the earth goes around the sun. By tradition, immediately afterwards he stamped his foot on the ground and said "eppur si muove": "nevertheless, it moves".

On this day: 22nd June, 1675 – King Charles II establishes the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, along with the post of Astronomer Royal.

Music to wake you up – Even Though I'm Leaving by Luke Combs

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by CP Cavafy, Waiting for the Barbarians.

"What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today...."

From the show:

On this day: 15th June, 1215, King John sets his seal to Magna Carta, explicitly establishing the rule of law, governing the ruler and the ruled alike

On this day: 15th June, 1911, Wilbert Vere Awdrey was born in Ampfield, Hampshire. An Anglican vicar and railway enthusiast, he would create Thomas the Tank Engine in 1943 to amuse his son Christopher who was ill with the measles.

Music to wake you up – Revolution by The Beatles

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Dale Wimbrow, The Guy in the Glass.

"When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf,

And the world makes you King for a day..."

From the show:

Proverbs 18:21

Weekend Wodehouse: Ice in the Bedroom

On this day: 12th June, 1381 – John Ball preaches to a crowd at Blackheath during the Peasants Revolt. He asks, "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"

On this day: 12th June, 1802 – Harriet Martineau is born in Norwich. Her Illustrations of Political Economy dramatised the case for a free market in everyday terms

Friday film: Band of Brothers

Music to wake you up – In Heaven There Is No Beer by Flaco Jimenez

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With a poem by Robert Frost, Mowing.

"There was never a sound beside the wood but one,

And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground..."

From the show:

Colossians 3:13

On this day: 11th June, celebrating Barnabas the apostle

On this day: 11th June 1578, Sir Humphrey Gilbert receives letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I, giving him authority to colonise north America and begin the British empire

The Love that Lays the Swale in Rows – an essay on technology based on Frost's poem Mowing

Music to wake you up – Kokomo by The Beach Boys

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With a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, Bright is the Ring of Words.

"Bright is the ring of words
When the right man rings them..."

From the show:

Daniel 3:16-18

'William the Reformer' from William – Again, by Richmal Crompton

On this day: 10th June 1540, Thomas Cromwell is arrested and stripped of property and titles at the orders of King Henry VIII

On this day, 10th June 1921, Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh is born in Corfu

Music to wake you up – Sunshine by Bonnie Tyler

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Hilaire Belloc, Tarantella.

"Do you remember an inn, Miranda?

Do you remember an inn?..."

From the show:

Matthew 6:14

St Ignatius of Loyola, author of the Spiritual Exercises and the evening Examen ritual

On this day: 9th June, 597 – St Columba dies, warrior saint, Scottish evangelist and founder of the abbey of Iona

On this day: 9th June, 1549 – the Church of England adopts the Book of Common Prayer

Music to wake you up – Homemade by Jake Owen

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With a poem by Stephen Spender, The Pylons.

"The secret of these hills was stone, and cottages
Of that stone made..."

From the show:

Isaiah, 1:7

On this day: 8th June, 1949 – George Orwell publishes his novel of technological totalitarianism, 1984

On this day: 8th June, 1955 – Sir Tim Berners-Lee OM, inventor of the worldwide web, is born in London

Music to wake you up – Poor Wayfaring Stranger by The Hillbilly Thomists

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Ben Jonson.

"It is not growing like a tree
In bulk doth make Man better be..."

From the show:

Exodus 4: 10-12

Weekend Wodehouse: Something Fresh, a Blandings novel

On this day: 5th June, 1833 – Ada Lovelace meets Charles Babbage for the first time

On this day: 5th June, 1723 – Adam Smith is baptised in Kirkcaldy, Fife

Friday film: Groundhog Day

Music to wake you up – Walking on Sunshine by Katrina & The Waves

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, an extract from Maud.

"Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand,

Like some of the simple great ones gone..."

From the show:

Proverbs 15:1

On this day: 4th June, 1927 – play begins in the first Ryder Cup

On this day: 4th June, 1940 – Winston Churchill gives perhaps his famous speech, "We shall fight on the beaches"

Music to wake you up – The Next Storm by Frank Turner

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Felix Dennis, An English Light.

"9:45 on a fine June night,
I watch from the window and write and write..."

From the show:

2 Corinthians, 3:2-3

William – The Dictator, by Richmal Crompton

On this day: 3 June, 1989 – the Tiananmen Square massacre begins. It will see up to four thousand pro-democracy activists shot, bayoneted and deliberately crushed to death beneath the treads of tanks

On this day: 3 June, 1162 – Thomas a Becket is consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury. His murder eight years later, by men who believed they were following the will of the king, would make Thomas a saint whose veneration would last for centuries.

Music to wake you up – Big Rock Candy Mountain, sung by Harry McClintock

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With a poem by Thomas Hardy, Drummer Hodge.

"They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined – just as found..."

From the show:

A Month in the Country by JL Carr

On this day: 2 June, 1953, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, remarkably similar in its ceremonial to that of King Edgar, which took place on 3 June, 973, almost a thousand years earlier.

On this day: 2 June, 1840, Thomas Hardy, poet and novelist was born in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset

Music to wake you up – Dancing Queen by Abba

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With a poem by William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree.

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made..."

From the show:

On this day: 1st June, 1785, King George extends a grudging hand of friendship to John Adams, first US ambassador to the Court of St James.

On this day: 1st June, 61, the defeat of the Boudiccan revolt by Suetonius Paullinus (more on Rendham's head of Claudius)

On this day: 1st June, 1907, Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine was born in Earlsdon, Coventry

Music to wake you up – Bring a Little Water, Sylvie by Lonnie Donegan

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With a poem by Philip Larkin, an extract from The Whitsun Weddings.

"All afternoon, through the tall heat that slept

For miles inland,

A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept..."

From the show:

Weekend Wodehouse: "Honeysuckle Cottage" from Meet Mr Mulliner

On this day: 29th May, 1940 – the evacuation of Dunkirk continued

On this day: 29th May, 1953 – Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first men to reach the summit of Everest

Friday film: Clueless, starring Alicia Silverstone

Music to wake you up – The House is Rockin' by Stevie Ray Vaughan

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With a poem by TS Eliot, and extract from East Coker.

"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing..."

From the show:

Silas Marner by George Eliot

On this day: 28th May, 1883 – the architect of Portmeirion, Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis is born in Gayton, Northamptonshire

On this day: 28th May, 1936 – Alan Turing submits his groundbreaking paper On Computable Numbers, aged just 24

Music to wake you up – Hand in my Pocket by Alanis Morissette

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Christian Wiman, Prague.

"When I was learning words                        
and you were in the bath
there was a flurry of small birds
and in the aftermath..."

From the show:

Poetry by the remarkable Christian Wiman

Marilynne Robinson's prize-winning novel Gilead

On this day: 27th May, 1679 – the Habeas Corpus act guarantees English citizens against arbitrary arrest

On this day: 27th May, 1897 – John Cockcroft is born in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. He would split the atom and pioneer nuclear power

Music to wake you up – Sunny Afternoon by The Kinks

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by ee cummings, i thank You, God.

"i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees..."

From the show:

Backpacking with the Saints by Belden Lane

On this day: 26th May, 604 – the death of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury

On this day: 26th May, 1868 – the last public hanging in England sees the execution of Michael Barrett for his part in the Clerkenwell explosion, despite questions over the strength of the evidence against him

Music to wake you up – 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton

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Have a lovely day.

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With a poem by GK Chesterton, The Rolling English Road.

"Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,

The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road..."

From the show:

Weekend Wodehouse: Thank You, Jeeves – in which Bertie and Jeeves struggle over the master's banjolele habit

On this day: 22nd May, 1945, the RAF drops the first issue of The Flying Hollander, a propaganda newspaper delivered by air to the occupied Dutch, keeping them informed of the progress of the war.

Friday film: Local Hero, starring Burt Lancaster

Music to raise a glass to – It's Five O'Clock Somewhere by Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett

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Have a lovely day.

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With a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, A Walk.

"My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far beyond the road I have begun..."

From the show:

Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

On this day: 21st May, 1894, Queen Victoria opens the world's longest river navigation canal, the Manchester Ship Canal

On this day: 21st May, 1602, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold of Otley Hall, Suffolk, sights an unexplored coastline covered in wild grapes and names it Martha's Vineyard in memory of his daughter who had passed away

Music to wake you up – Rainbow by Kacey Musgraves

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Have a lovely day.

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With a poem by Alcuin, The School of York.

"To some he made the grammar understood,
And poured on others rhetoric's copious flood..."

From the show:

Just William by Richmal Crompton

Remembering Alcuin of York, who died May 19th, in the year 804. Listen to the BBC's In Our Time episode on Alcuin.

On this day: 20 May, 1772 – William Congreve, second Baronet, was born, inventor of the Congreve rocket

Music to wake you up – Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver

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Have a lovely day.

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With an extract from Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats.

"I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs..."

From the show:

Dunstan by Conn Iggulden

On this day: 19th May, 988 – The death of Dunstan, politician, priest, silversmith and scholar, who pulled the devil by the nose with red-hot tongs

On this day: 19th May, 1649 – England is declared a Commonwealth and will remain a republic for 11 years

Music to wake you up – Here Comes The Sun by The Beatles

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Have a lovely day.

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With a sonnet by William Shakespeare.

"When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state..."

From the show:

Wilding: The return of nature to a British farm by Isabella Tree

On this day: 18 May 1742, Lionel Lukin, inventor of the "unsinkable" lifeboat born in Great Dunmow, Essex

On this day: 18 May 1830, Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower, goes into business with John Ferrabee in Stroud, Gloucestershire to produce lawnmowers commercially

Music to wake you up – When it Rains it Pours by Luke Combs

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Have a lovely day.

Weekend Wodehouse: a visit to Blandings castle with Summer Lightning

On this day: May 15, 1718, James Puckle registers the first patent for a machine gun

On this weekend: May 16-17, 1943, Operation Chastise, better-known as the Dam Busters raid

Friday film: The Dam Busters

Music to wake you up – Happy Does by Kenny Chesney

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Have a lovely day.

The Middle Years, Henry James

Gonio castle, resting place of St Matthias the apostle

On this day: May 14, 1796, Edward Jenner tests the world's first vaccine

(Bonus: the always-excellent In Our Time on Jenner and immunisation)

Music to wake you up – On the Sunny Side of the Street sung by Frank Sinatra

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Have a lovely day.

Winston Churchill takes over as Prime Minister in 1940

On this day in 1842, Arthur Sullivan, composer of The Pirates of Penzance and Onward Christian Soldiers is born 

On this day in 1914, RE "Tip" Foster, the only man to captain England at cricket and football, dies aged 36

Music to wake you up – The Major-General's Song by Gilbert and Sullivan

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Have a lovely day.

William Wilberforce begins his 18-year campaign to end the slave trade in Parliament

King John takes a fateful step down the road to Magna Carta

Music to wake you up – One Mint Julep by Louis Prima

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

The Great Exhibition, 1851

The arrival of the waltz in England

The assassination of the Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval

Byron on the public scandal of the waltz

Music to wake you up – I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair by George Jones

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

Weekend Wodehouse: The Code of the Woosters

Mother Julian of Norwich, author of The Revelation of Divine Love, the earliest surviving book in English written by a woman

Victory in Europe, 1945

Railway Rhymes, from Punch, 1916

Friday night movies: Coco from Pixar and The Straight Story

Music to wake you up – When This Lousy War is Over sung by The Fitzrovia Chorus

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

HMS Victory, launched today in 1765

Robert Browning

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Music to wake you up – Bluebird by Miranda Lambert

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

Anne Boleyn's last days

The battle of Edington, 878

The world's first postage stamp, the penny black

Collected poems of RS Thomas

Music to wake you up – I Still Believe by Frank Turner

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

The Peregrine by JA Baker

Robert "Black Bob" Crauford

Relive Amy Johnson's record-making solo flight to Australia with a daily podcast

Music to wake you up – Lovely Day by Bill Withers

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

All Among The Barley by Melissa Harrison

Melissa's podcast, The Stubborn Light of Things

The Carthusian martyrs of London

Rhode Island is the first American colony to declare independence

Music to wake you up – In The Jailhouse Now by The Soggy Bottom Boys

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

Weekend Wodehouse – Uncle Fred in the Springtime

The tomb of Saints Philip and James the Less

The Act of Union, 1707

Friday film: Seabiscuit

Music to wake you up – Over The Rainbow sung by Eva Cassidy

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe – also a wonderful film

John Wilkes and Liberty

Jerry Lordan, who wrote Wonderful Land for The Shadows, was born today in 1934

Celebrate Walpurgisnight with Cunning Folk

Music to wake up to – Summer Is Icumen In sung by the Oxford Girls' Choir

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

Sweet Danger by Margery Allingham

Catherine of Siena

The 2011 Royal Wedding

Music to wake up to – One Love by Bob Marley

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

The Mutiny on the Bounty

Captain Cook's landing place at Botany Bay

The Sanctuary of Peter Chanel, Futuna Island

Wild Earth virtual safaris

Music to wake up to – Living in a Ghost Town by The Rolling Stones

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

Fitzgerald's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Why Paradise Lost matters, and In Our Time on John Milton

A Vindication of the Rights of Women

The Alde Valley Spring Festival

Music to wake up to – Just a Closer Walk With Thee by The Hillbilly Thomists

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

Weekend Wodehouse: Joy in the Morning

Halley's comet, which menaced the skies in 1066, taken as a portent of the Norman Yoke.

John Graunt, father of epidemiology

Pro Corda's Piano Sanctuary, live from Leiston Abbey, every Friday at 7pm, on Soundcloud

Music to wake up to – Wash Your Hands by Roaring Lion

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett

The tomb of St George, in Lod and Winston Churchill's wartime aeroplane, Ascalon

Why is Shakespeare so great?

Music to wake up to – Making of a Man by Steeleye Span

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

Figurehead of the Sirius in Hull Maritime Museum, and Around the World in 80 Days

Phil May's groundbreaking cartoons

Heaven in Ordinary, Malcolm Doney's Something Understood

Music to wake up to – Spring, from the Victorian Kitchen Garden Suite, by Paul Reade

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, just one of the remarkable novels from her richly-talented family

The Single Petal of a Rose, from Duke Ellington's Queen's Suite

Nub.news – hyperlocal news sites around the UK, sharing Marc's Almanac on its Suffolk sites for Felixstowe and the Shotley Peninsula

A song to wake up to – We'll Meet Again, sung by Johnny Cash

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

John Halifax, Gentleman by Dinah Craik

Leslie Phillips: "Ding Dong!"

The White Cat and the Monk

Art History at Bedtime, read by Dr Bendor Grosvenor

A song to wake up to – The Bones, by Maren Morris

(Listen to the full playlist on YouTube)

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Have a lovely day.

Weekend Wodehouse: The Aunt and the Sluggard

The Canterbury Tales

Henry Vaughan and Philip K Dick

A Canterbury Tale, Powell and Pressburger's meditation on what it means to be English in wartime

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

Songs to wake up to – The Doobie Brothers' Listen to the Music

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The Pilgrim's Progress

An interview with Sir Isaac Newton

Sir Hans Sloane, founder of the British Museum and hot chocolate salesman

The history of Rudyard Kipling's history poem, Norman and Saxon

Roots, by Show of Hands

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Dorothy Wordsworth and her Journal

Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language

Amelia Edwards and the Egypt Exploration Society

Carry You Home, by Ward Thomas

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Recreations of a Country Parson

Virtual tour of the Pitt Rivers museum, Oxford University

Dan Dare and The Eagle – here's the first-ever cover

Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight?, sung by Lonnie Donegan

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The Magician's Nephew by CS Lewis, which contains the sequence where Aslan sings Narnia to life

Beowulf, in a new translation by Seamus Heaney

Tim Brooke-Taylor, singing one song to the tune of another

Sir Stirling Moss

The Book of Numbers, by John Conway

The Best Is Yet To Come, by Bob Dylan

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Weekend Wodehouse: Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey

Save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry

The half-forgotten genius of William Hazlitt

Friday night films: The Secret of Roan Inish and I Know Where I'm Going

July Skies, See Britain by the Train (Pevsner version)

Music to wake up to: If You're Going Through Hell (Just Keep Going), Rodney Atkins

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Have a lovely Easter weekend.

The Cottage Garden

The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

George Peacock, mathematical reformer

Easter services at St Bartholomew the Great: available from Thursday at 7pm, Good Friday 2.30pm, Saturday 7pm and Easter Sunday at 11am.

Lord, I hope this day is good, Lee Ann Womack

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Blake's illustrated poem, The Tyger

The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White

12th-century sword from the Battle of Fornham

Winchester cathedral

When I Get to Heaven, by John Prine

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Sutton Hoo on Twitter, @NT_SuttonHoo

The Best Seat in the House, from the Not Forgotten Association

Tori Amos, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, from the Good Omens TV series

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Three Men in a Boat

Lost in the Middle by Catherine McGrath

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Uncle Dynamite

Discipline, by George Herbert

Return of the Pink Panther

A Canterbury Tale

It's A Lovely Day Tomorrow

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Radar history at Orford Ness and Bawdsey.

Alec Guinness in Kind Hearts and Coronets

Melody Gardot, Morning Sun

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William Harvey's demonstration rod

The Habit of Art available to stream

Castle on the Hill by Ed Sheeran

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The Detectorists

Frank Turner, Going Nowhere

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Stream The Wind in the Willows at willowsmusical.com

Play games like Sushi Go with friends far and near at boardgamearena.com

Donate to feed hard-pressed doctors and nurses at mealsforthenhs.com

Workin' Man's PhD

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The Custody of the Pumpkin

Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth

It is Well With My Soul, performed by a virtual cellphone choir in Nashville

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"Learning in Wartime" by CS Lewis

The Gilgamesh Flood Tablet, first translated by George Smith

@crcuthbert

@seaskycraster (SeaWindowCraster)

Rock Island Line, sung by Lonnie Donegan

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In Our Time on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

NHS Volunteer Responders

How Can I keep From Singing, sung by Eva Cassidy

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Live at the Abbey from Pro Corda

Machineries of Joy by British Sea Power

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Brother Richard on Facebook

The Royal Opera House on YouTube

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St Bartholomew the Great's services on YouTube

The Ash Tree read by Robert Lloyd Parry

Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift

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The St Cuthbert Gospel

Tom Holland on St Cuthbert from St Bartholomew the Great

In Our Time on Alcuin of York

Made in England by The Shires

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Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm. If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

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