46 episodes
From the Library With Love Kate Thompson
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- Arts
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4.7 • 6 Ratings
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Welcome to my library of interviews...Librarians, bestselling authors and our wartime generation sharing their love of books, reading and some extraordinary stories . #Hidden History #Forgotten women #Bibliotherapy #LibrariesINTRODUCTIONWelcome to From the Library With Love. A podcast for anyone whose life has been changed by reading. I’m Kate Thompson. Wonderful, transformative things happen when you set foot in a library. In 2019 I uncovered the true story of a forgotten Underground library, built along the tracks of a Tube tunnel during the Blitz. As stories go, it was irresistible and the result was, The Little Wartime Library, my seventh novel.Bethnal Green Public Library, where the novel is set was 100 years old in October 2022, and to celebrate the centenary of this grand old lady, funded by library philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, I set myself the challenge of interviewing 100 library workers. Speaking with one library worker for every year this library has been serving its community seemed a good way to mark this auspicious occasion. Because who better to explain the worth of a hundred-year-old library, than librarians themselves!I wanted to explore the enduring value of libraries and reading. I quickly realised that librarians have the best stories. My research led me to librarians with over fifty years of experience and MBEs, to the impressive women who manage libraries in prisons and schools, to those in remote Scottish islands. From poetry libraries overlooking the wide sweep of the Thames, to the 16th century Shakespeare’s Library in Stratford, via the small but mighty Leadhills Miners’ Library. This podcast was born out of those eye-opening conversations, because as Denise from Tower Hamlets Library told me: 'If you want to see the world, don't join the Army, become a librarian!'I’ll also be talking to international bestselling authors and some remarkable wartime women about their favourite libraries, stories, the craft of writing and the book that helped them to view the world differently. Come and join me as I delve into the secrets behind the stacks.Podcasts edited by Ben Veasey at media-crews.co.uk Image by Julie Price
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On the 80th anniversary of D-Day, veteran Mervyn Kersh shares his extraordinary experience of the Normandy landings and his role in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Send us a Text Message.Mervyn Kersh recently celebrated his 99th birthday. Nearly a century of life on earth and what a life he has had. The hair may have turned silver, but he still has the same twinkle in his eye that he had as a young man.I went to visit Mervyn at his immaculate home in Cockfosters, which he shares with his two cats, and over a cup of tea and ginger biscuits he told me his remarkable story. In this episode you can listen to his experiences of the D Day landings, ente...
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The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe: Reader, Bibliophile and Library Lover
Send us a Text Message.98 years ago today, Norma Jeane Mortenson was born in California. She went onto become the legend that was Marilyn Monroe.No one knows more about Marilyn than writer Michelle Morgan who has dedicated her life to peeling back the layers of this fascinating woman. In this conversation Michelle shares the lesser known sides of Marilyn and reveals a warm, funny woman who loved reading and nothing more than browsing dusty book shelves. Monroe was a passionate book...
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The Women Who Ruled the East End: Remarkable Tales of Wartime London
Send us a Text Message.The BBC’s period drama “Call the Midwife” made an eccentric, lovable community of nuns and nurses famous the world over. But what of the formidable East End mothers whose babies they delivered? Join me, Kate Thompson and Smithsonian historian Alan Capps as we delve deep into the social history of some truly remarkable women.During the 20th century, London’s history-rich East End, in common with all working-class communities, was a fiercely matriarchal society. Women in ...
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85 years on from the end of the Spanish Civil War, author Maggie Brookes uncovers its hidden heroes. Plus the extraordinary war story she found in a lift!
Send us a Text Message.Maggie Brookes is an ex-journalist, BBC TV producer and creative writing lecturer, now full-time novelist and poet. She was born in London and has been writing stories and poems since she was six. Maggie says: "The principal theme which recurs in my work is the strength and courage of women in adversity. I am drawn to stories which take place in wartime because because of my parents’ experience in the second world war. My dad was a prisoner of war...
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99-year-old Holocaust survivor and US Army veteran George Leitmann on the emotional search for his father, the day he discovered a concentration camp and how he kept his cool interrogating Nazi war criminals.
Send us a Text Message.99-year-old Professor George Leitmann is a unique man. He is both a holocaust survivor and a WW2 US Army veteran who helped to liberate Nazi occupied France and Germany. Nazi persecution of Jewish people forced George and his family to flee their home in Austria and emigrate to the USA. Tragically, his father Josef was unable to get a visa to join them. Initially the family received Red Cross Messages from Josef but by 1940 these had stopped.As soon as he was old e...
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Sent away by sea: the forgotten history of WWII’s ‘seaevacuees'. Meet the heroine at the heart of an astonishing survival story.
Send us a Text Message.In this episode, award-winning historical fiction author, Hazel Gaynor remembers the World War Two ‘seaevacuees’, the children sent away from Britain by sea to escape the bombings at home. This is an often-forgotten part of the history of the war, overshadowed by more familiar events, and it inspired Hazel to write her new novel, The Last Lifeboat.Here she shares the heroine at the heart of this survival story, how she researched it and why these women and children dese...
Customer Reviews
Much Needed Podcast
Kate, I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed listening to your podcasts. Looking forward to many more. Best wishes on this new journey.
From across the pond,
Laura K Aiken
Laurakaiken.com