Bishopsgate Institute Podcast

The Gentle Author of the popular blog Spitalfields Life has gained an extraordinary following in recent years, by writing hundreds of lively pen portraits of the infinite variety of people who live and work in the East End of London. As part of our Spitalfields Life Chit Chats, butchers, Joe Lawrence, Greg Lawrence and Peter Sargent present a lively look at Smithfields Market and life as a butcher from the 1960s up to the present day. If you enjoy listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

The Gentle Author of the popular blog Spitalfields Life has gained an extraordinary following in recent years, by writing hundreds of lively pen portraits of the infinite variety of people who live and work in the East End of London. As part of our Spitalfields Life Chit Chats, fishmonger Charlie Caisey talks about his life as a fishmonger and Billingsgate Market. If you enjoy listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

Rhyming slang can claim to be London’s one truly home-grown language. It may have started around 1830 among the canal-digging navvies, the villains of St Giles or, as is most likely, the costermongers of the East End, spreading over time to Australia and the United States. But it remains the most quintessentially ‘London’ of all slang’s vocabularies. It isn’t a vast lexis, something over 3,000 words in all, but it’s still going strong. Like black cabs and red telephone kiosks it’s not what it was, but like them it’s part of the world’s shorthand for ‘London’. Jonathon Green is the world's leading expert in slang lexicography. His latest work, the three-volume Green's Dictionary of Slang, appeared in 2010. He has continued to amend, improve and expand the database, and the ongoing work is scheduled to be launched online later this year. If you enjoy listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

Following the publication of London: A Travel Guide Through Time, historian and broadcaster join Dr Matthew Green on an historical journey through 800 years of London’s history, from the depths of the Middle Ages, through the time of Shakespeare, the Great Plague and Empire, to the pummelling of the city during the Blitz, and its resurrection in the gloomy 50s. If you enjoy listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

Behind our democracy lurks a powerful but unaccountable network of people who wield massive power and reap huge profits in the process. In exposing this shadowy and complex system that dominates our lives, Owen Jones sets out on a journey into the heart of our Establishment, from the lobbies of Westminster to the newsrooms, boardrooms and trading rooms of Fleet Street and the City. Recorded live at Bishopsgate Institute on Thursday 6 November 2014. If you enjoyed listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

Highly acclaimed crime writer Ruth Rendell looks back over 50 years of Wexford. Recorded live at Bishopsgate Institute on Thursday 30 October 2014. If you enjoyed listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

Lee Jackson explores the secret life of the Victorian metropolis, focusing in particular on the birth of public baths and the peculiar history of the public toilet. Recorded live on 16 October 2014

Tristram Hunt, author of The Frock-Coated Communist and leading UK politician presents a new approach to Britain's imperial past through ten cities that epitomised it. The final embers of the British Empire are dying, but its legacy remains in the lives and structures of the cities which it shaped. Here Tristram Hunt examines the stories and defining ideas of ten of the most important: of 1700s Boston, Bridgetown, Dublin, Cape Town, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Bombay, Melbourne, New Delhi, and 20th century Liverpool. Rejecting binary views of the British Empire as 'very good' or 'very bad', Hunt describes the complex processes of exchange and adaptation that collectively shaped the colonial experience – and, in turn, transformed the culture, economy and identity of the British Isles. Tristram Hunt is one of Britain's best known historians. Since 2010 he has been the MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, and in October 2013 was made Shadow Secretary of State for Education. He is a Senior Lecturer in Modern British History at Queen Mary, University of London, and has written numerous series for radio and television. He is also a regular contributor to The Times, Guardian and Observer. His previous books include The English Civil War at First Hand, Building Jerusalem, and The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels.

Rosamund Urwin of the Evening Standard chairs a discussion about the raunch culture and its impact on modern feminism. Can you still be a feminist if you bare your body for a living? Or has feminism come so far that women now hold the power? Rosamund is joined by Sarah Mathewson from feminist campaign group OBJECT, Barbara Haigh, a former Playboy Bunny Girl and Catherine Stephens, an activist for the International Union of Sex Workers.

Thirty years ago, miners went on strike across Britain to resist the Tory government's plans for sweeping pit closures. The strike remains the longest mass industrial dispute in British history - a war between Margaret Thatcher and the labour movement, and the miners’ union she branded "the enemy within" in particular. The strike’s outcome signalled a profound change in Britain’s social and economic landscape and its aftershocks can still be felt throughout the country today. The Enemy Within, Seumas Milne’s classic account of the miners’ strike and its aftermath, reveals the astonishing lengths to which Thatcher’s government and its security machine were prepared to go to destroy the power of the trade unions. Recently declassified government papers have provided further revelations about the secret war against organised labour and political dissent, reflected in today's undercover police operations. Seumas Milne will be joined in discussion by Arthur Scargill, former president of the NUM from 1982-2002, union organiser Ewa Jasiewicz, Owen Jones, author of Chavs, for a special event looking at the legacy of the miners’ strike and its lessons for the future, chaired by journalist Dawn Foster.

The most notorious novel of the ‘slum fiction’ genre, Morrison’s A Child of the Jago, caused outrage, with its nihilistic depiction of a population of criminals and social outcasts. Morrison claimed that it was an eyewitness account of the real Old Nichol district of Shoreditch. Two years after publication, the rows the book engendered were ongoing in the periodical press. In this illustrated talk, author Sarah Wise (Inconvenient People, The Blackest Streets) explores the real slum that inspired his fantasy vision. Sarah Wise’s book The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum was published by Vintage in June 2009 and was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje award. Her debut, The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave Robbery in 1830s London, was published in 2004 and was shortlisted for the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction. Sarah was a major contributor to Iain Sinclair’s compendium London, City of Disappearances (2006). Her latest book, Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad Doctors in Victorian England was published last autumn by Vintage.

Born on Columbia Road, award-winning author Linda Wilkinson traces the history of the fragrant home of East London’s famous flower market. From the earliest times when the land was pastureland for cows whose milk supplied the City of London, through the influx of the Huguenot weavers and up to the present day, this talk is part historical and part social memoir based on familial recollections. Linda Wilkinson spent the first 25 years of her working life as a Research Scientist with many publications to her name. In the late 1990’s she began writing for the theatre, where her first play garnered a major award. Her first history book won the Raymond Williams Prize. She has written plays for Radio 4 and her stage plays have been performed both in England and Europe. She was Chair of Amnesty International UK for 6 years and continues to be involved in Human Rights Activism. She still lives just around the corner from Columbia Road.

Lesbian fashion. A misnomer? Surely, lesbians don't do fashion. But contrary to perception, clothing and style have been a crucial part of establishing an identity for women who love women. But if what we wear says who we are, can we be sure we're all talking in the same dialect or could we be misread? And is it possible to be outside the language of fashion? Speakers were Campbell X (Film Director/writer) and Dr Caroline Walters (writer/researcher).

A tale of cross-dressing, cross-examinations and a scandal that shocked and titillated Victorian England in equal measure. The alluring Miss Fanny Park and Miss Stella Boulton were no ordinary young women, they were young men who liked to dress as women. As their show trial unfolded, Fanny and Stella’s extraordinary lives as wives and daughters, actresses and whores were revealed to an incredulous public. With a cast of peers, politicians and prostitutes, drag queens, doctors and detectives, Fanny & Stella is a Victorian peepshow, exposing the startling underbelly of 19th century London. Neil McKenna, author of Fanny & Stella, is an award-winning journalist who has written for the Independent, the Observer, the Guardian and the New Statesman. He has also worked extensively in the gay press and is the author of On the Margins, The Silent Epidemic and The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde.

To celebrate the publication of this final volume of his diaries, Tony Benn, in conversation with author, columnist and commentator Owen Jones, reflects on both the public and personal events of the last five years. Covering the fall of New Labour, tireless campaigning against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and passionate commitment to encouraging public debate and demonstrations, A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine also provides a highly personal insight into the challenges of old age, failing health and widowhood. Finally, we share in Tony Benn's hopes for the future based on his experiences, insight and his natural optimism. Tony Benn is the longest serving MP in the history of the Labour Party. He left Parliament in 2001, after more than half a century in the House of Commons, famously saying that leaving would give him more time to devote to politics. He is the author of many books including nine volumes of diaries and the childhood memoir Dare to be a Daniel. This event was organised in partnership with Newham Bookshop.

All boys together? Nudge nudge. The belief that all male institutions are breeding grounds for homosexuality, has been a constant one. But what does go on behind the doors of the executive boardroom or the communal changing room? Is homosexuality the elephant in the room? The serpent in the grass? Or is it all just homosexual wish fulfilment fantasy? Justin Bengry explores all male institutions and their links with homosociality and homosexuality. Speaker Justin Bengry is an Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. His work has appeared in several journals and books including History Workshop Journal, The Queer 1950s: Rethinking Sexuality in the Postwar Years, and in the forthcoming Queer British History: New Approaches and Perspectives. He is currently working on a new book The Pink Pound: Queer Profits in Twentieth-Century Britain.

We open the doors on that bastion of the British entertainment scene, the working men’s clubs. Hear about their development in the mid-19th century to their current period of decline. Why were they set up? What went on in them? And how did women come to find their own place in them? Drawing on personal accounts and experiences of those attending the clubs, this talk highlights the major roles they played and what made them such a central part of working class leisure. Dr Ruth Cherrington attended working men’s clubs from a very young age. She is the author of Not Just Beer and Bingo! A Social History of Working Men’s Clubs and runs a website 'Club Historians' dedicated to the history and development of the working men’s club movement.

The world has always seen protest and dissent but in these difficult and changing times, how can the voices that challenge authority really be heard? How can a message reach the widest number of people? Which forms of resistance have the greatest impact? How can support be generated and who is really listening? From protests, rallies and direct action to worldwide digital petitions and 'armchair activism', our panel of experienced campaigners discuss methods of protest in today's modern world. Speakers included Madeline Carroll (Campaigns Director, 38 Degrees), Trenton Oldfield (This is Not A Gateway), Nadine El-Enany (Birkbeck, University of London and Defend the Right to Protest) and Gobi Sivanthan (Individual activist, Hunger Striker outside London Olympics). The event was chaired by Hugh Muir (Guardian).

Sylvia Pankhurst - Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge of Empire Uploaded 29/05/2013 Katherine Connelly examines Sylvia Pankhurst's life of activism from her teens as a member of the Independent Labour Party, to her time as a leading suffragette before the First World War, through to her socialist, anti-fascist and anti-imperialist campaigns in later years. She will also explore some of the contradictions in Pankhurst's career such as her role within the suffragette movement and why she ended her days under the patronage of the Emperor of Ethiopia. Katherine Connelly is the author of a new biography of Sylvia Pankhurst. She is completing her phD on 'Karl Marx and Parisian popular culture in the 1840s' at Queen Mary, University of London.

In conversation with John Harris, Barry Miles explores London’s counterculture – the creative, avant garde, permissive, anarchic – that sprang up in the city in the decades following the Second World War.