Thursday, February 24, 2022 at 5:00pm Eastern

Did women really wear ships in their hair in the eighteenth century? When did off-the-peg suits first become available? What are duck’s arses and winkle pickers? And were Stuart monarchs the ultimate shoe fetishists? Join Sophie for a look at clothes, shoes and headgear through the ages. She will use paintings, prints and photographs to examine the role that fashion and workwear have played in the lives of men, women and children. From peasant smocks to George IV’s outrageous coronation gear and from bowler hats to tiaras, what better way to enjoy a little British social history?

Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 5:00pm Eastern

There is nothing that islanders like quite so much as a smaller island, and Britain is liberally supplied with these. Depending on your definition - mud flat? sandbank? populated? - there are thousands to choose from: 200 in the Thames and its estuary alone, seven Channel Islands (or Îles Anglo-Normandes, if you want to be European about it), 900 off Scotland and 50 off Wales. We’re not called the British Isles for nothing. Join Sophie for some gentle island hopping, from black houses in the Outer Hebrides to dinosaur country off the south coast of England, and from rock’n’roll near Twickenham to oyster beds off Essex.