Episode 15. Alec Hunter
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Richard Hunter about the Hunter family, childhood memories of Thaxted and his grandfather Alec Hunter, Morris man, friend of Conrad Noel and Director of the St. Edmundsbury Weaving Works
Episode 14. Participation in the Second Wave Folk Revival
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the folk singer and curator of the Singing Landscape project, Yvette Staelens about her childhood in multi-cultural Gloucester, her career and her mother’s childhood memories of Thaxted.
Episode 13. West Gallery Music
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Jacqueline Patten about the Bob and Jacqueline Patten English Folk Music Collection, and West Gallery Music.
Episode 12. Morris Men: Dancing Englishness
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Dr Matt Simons about his 2019 thesis on the subject of Morris Men and English identity, which features a pioneering academic consideration of Alec Hunter, the inaugural Squire of the Morris Ring, 1934-36.
Episode 11. The Seeds of Love: Opus Anglicanum
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the engraver and expert on plain chant, John Rowlands-Pritchard, about his career, Morris dancing and Opus Anglicanum’s CD The Seeds of Love.
Episode 10. Percy Dearmer: Family Recollections
Dr Simon Machin in in conversation with Juliet Woollcombe and Timandra Nichols, the grand daughters of liturgist and Christian Socialist Percy Dearmer about the Dearmer family, including war poet, Geoffrey and Percy’s second wife, Nan.
Episode 9. Father Basil Jellicoe and London’s Slum Priests
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Father Paschal Worton, team vicar of St Mary’s, Eversholt Street, NW1 about London’s slum priests, including the housng reformer Father Basil Jellicoe and the Christian Socialist, Father Charles Marson.
Episode 8. Holst’s The Planets, and its Transcription for Church Organ
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the organist Simon Johnson about his musical career and his recording of the organ transcription of Holst’s The Planets at St Paul’s Cathedral.
Episode 7. Holst Among Friends
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Alan Gibbs about his book Holst Among Friends and the Thaxted Whitsun Festivals
Episode 6. Daisy, Countess of Warwick
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with local historian Maggie Stevens about Edward VII’s mistress and socialist convert, ‘Daisy’ Countess of Warwick and the Red Vicars of Essex.
Episode 5: Thaxted Church Life
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Peter and Sybil King about church life in Thaxted under the Red Vicars Conrad Noel and Jack Putterill.
Episode 4: Mary Neal and the Espérance Club
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Lucy Neal about her great great aunt, the social reformer and instigator of the Edwardian folk revival, Mary Neal.
Episode 3. Charles Marson and The Seeds of Love
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with David Sutcliffe about The Keys of Heaven, his biography of Charles Marson, the priest who helped start the Edwardian Folk Revival. through his friendship with Cecil Sharp.
Episode 2. Red Vicars of Thaxted: Conrad Noel and Jack Putterill
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with long-time Thaxted resident, Bruce Munro about Conrad Noel, the Red Vicar of Thaxted and Father Jack Putterill, Conrad’s son in law, and life in post-war Thaxted.
Episode 1. The Transformative Potential of the English Folk Revival
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Dr Katie Palmer Heathman about her 2016 doctoral thesis which places the Christian Socialist priests, Conrad Noel and Charles Marson as progressives within the late 19c/early 20c folk revival.