This is my chronological retelling of the story of the English in regular chunks. It’s been going since Christmas Day 2010, so there’s enough to keep you off the streets for a while and hanging around the local shopping precinct. But look, you can dip in and you can dip out too.

There's all the great trends, events, and drama you’d expect, all set in the context and attitudes of their time; and on that same vein, as often as possible, the series takes some time to set England’s history in the context of her neighbours and the shared culture of Europe. The great and the good are there, because that’s important, but we also walk the highways and byways of ordinary lives and hear their voices - religion, culture, making a living, society and how people lived, globalisation, law - all that stuff

You can listen from start to finish; but do did in and out if you wish. Here's a guide:

• We start with 31 episodes on one of our foundation stories, the Anglo Saxons. • Then there’s 37 episodes on the Normans and Angevins, 1066 to 1215, Hastings to Magna Carta basically. • The Plantagenets are next up, to the usurpation of the throne by those dastardly or saintly Lancastrians – tick as appropriate • From episode 134 we have a real hooley – the Wars of the Roses. We did have fun with the squabbling chaos, death and destruction, very much like a normal family gathering at Christmas really, without the drowning in a VAT of malmesy wine thing hopefully, and we devoted 62 episodes to it all - 1399 to the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 basically. • From episode 196, we are then on to the Tudors, and that’s a monster, 137 episodes on the Tudors so if you are a Tudor lover fill up your boots. • We then reach my personal favourite, the Stuart age at Episode 325, starting the British Revolutions at episode 369

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