Olly Mann is a broadcaster, writer, journalist and a forerunner in the world of podcasting. He co-hosted the Sony Award winning podcast Answer Me This! with Helen Zaltzman which had over 30 million downloads and ran from 2007 to 2021. Olly has presented hundreds of hours of radio, most recently as host of Radio 4's The

Anna Della Subin takes a journey with a man once worshipped as a living god. Anna Della has been writing a book about people inadvertently turned into gods, and in this bewitching talk she describes a journey across Morocco with one of them. She discusses what prompts people to regard others as gods, and what it might

Sarah Gristwood is worried that the vogue for tidying will make history harder to uncover. Sarah is an historian herself, and in writing her books has relied heavily on documents which might easily have been discarded. But that's not all: she wonders, too, how her successors will access our digital clutter in 500 years

As a special Christmas treat for you, my listeners, I have done something a bit different for this episode of Past Matters. Instead of asking a museum, gallery or historic house what their most underrated item is, I have instead asked historian Nicola Tallis, what historical object she thinks is underrated. Her choice?

Clare Pooley was a working mum and loved a bottle of wine...or three. Her love of drink began to get in the way of her love of life. The realisation that alcohol was no longer her best-friend caused her to break up with it. This wasn't easy she says in a society that celebrates, commiserates and procrastinates using al

After a career freelancing behind the scenes in TV, Olly Mann has found himself in the media limelight. Found? Or put himself there? Olly's a writer for major publications, a national radio presenter, TV panelist and part of the podcasting elite. But how did all of these doors open for him? Not without knocking. And th