The National Archives Podcast Series

Emily Ward-Willis explains how to research the local history of an area, using the Mortlake Terrace shops in Kew as a case study.The talk will show how you can use records held by The National Archives, and other archives and local studies centres, to research local history.This talk was recorded live as part of the Know Your Place festival, a celebration of the heritage of Richmond upon Thames. We apologise for any intermittent reduction in sound quality.

Peter Doggett argues that from the birth of recording in the 19th century to the digital age, popular music has transformed the world in which we live. It has influenced our morals and social mores; it has transformed our attitudes towards race and gender, religion and politics.Peter Doggett has been writing about popular music and cultural history for more than 30 years. He is the author of Electric shock: From the gramophone to the iPhone - 125 years of pop music, his history of popular music and its impact on everyday life from 1890 to the present day.This podcast was recorded live as part of the Writer of the month series, which broadens awareness of historical records and their uses for writers.

The 1930s saw a resurgence of interest in local knowledge and traditions, and intense debate about how it might be possible to 'go modern' while honouring the past. Alexandra Harris looks back on her research for Romantic Moderns, remembering how she followed modern British artists and writers as they went 'on pilgrimage in England'. She also shows how that pilgrimage led her far back into Roman and Anglo-Saxon history in a quest to find out how the English weather has been differently imagined across the centuries.Alexandra Harris is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool, a BBC New Generation Thinker, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She won the Guardian First Book Award and a Somerset Maugham Award for her first book, Romantic Moderns: English writers, artists and the imagination, from Virginia Woolf to John Piper. Her literary history of English weather will be published this autumn.

Ross Mahoney's talk is based on sources ranging from operational records held by The National Archives to some of the personal recollections found at other archival institutions and in the memoirs of retired officers. By bringing these together he highlights the difficulties faced by the RAF as it sought to innovate and adapt to the strategic, operational and tactical challenges that it confronted during the inter-war years.Ross Mahoney is the resident Aviation Historian at Royal Air Force Museum. His research interests include air power history, theory and doctrine, military leadership, military culture, military innovation, and the history of professional military education. In 2011, he was made a West Point Fellow in Military History at the United States Military Academy.

Professor Christopher Andrew, formerly official historian of MI5 and author of 'The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5', introduces key files from the release of Security Service files to The National Archives in August 2015.

By taking two men who fought at Waterloo and exploring how different records bring their careers to life, Carole Divall demonstrates the hidden stories that can be found within army records.Carole Divall is a former teacher and now researches, writes and lectures on the Revolutionary Wars.

Drawing on fresh new interviews with Dunkirk veterans - soldiers and sailors - plus unseen private correspondence and diaries, author Sinclair McKay delves into a pivotal historical moment and beneath the myth. The story of how a raggle-taggle flotilla of small boats and paddle steamers set out to rescue the British army from the most formidable war machine the world had ever seen is now a national legend. But what really happened during those nine days and nights in 1940?Sinclair McKay is the bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bletchley Park and The Secret Listeners, as well as histories of Hammer films, the James Bond films, and Rambling.

Jenny Uglow talks about her book, In These Times: Living in Britain through Napoleon's Wars, 1793-1815.This podcast was recorded live as part of the Writer of the month series, which broadens awareness of historical records and their uses for writers.

Nadia Atia is Lecturer in World Literature at Queen Mary, University of London. Her research examines the literature and cultural history of the First World War outside Europe. Her work explores how ideologies of race and empire shaped the ways in which British travellers, archaeologists, servicemen and women from different classes and professional backgrounds interacted with and represented the region now known as Iraq, in the early twentieth-century. In particular, she examines their interactions with the Indian, African, Afro-Caribbean, Egyptian or Chinese workers and military personnel who played such a crucial role in the war, but whose presence is not a familiar one in many accounts of the First World War.

Ten months into the First World War and the feared onslaught on London by Germany's fleet of airships - Zeppelins - had failed to materialise. There was sympathy for those killed or injured in air raids elsewhere, but these were far away and had little impact on Londoners. Then, shortly after 11pm on a Monday night in May 1915, all that changed…Using documents held at The National Archives, interspersed with personal stories of those who experienced that night, Ian Castle explores those terrifying 20 minutes when, for the very first time, London civilians found themselves on the front line.Ian Castle is author of two books detailing Germany's air campaign against the capital in the First World War - London 1914-17: The Zeppelin Menace and London 1917-18: The Bomber Blitz. He also runs a website covering all of the First World War air raids.

Adam Nicolson discusses his research into his forthcoming book about Wordsworth's and Coleridge's year in Somerset. He used documents in The National Archives which relate to the Home Office's surveillance of the poets in August 1797. Some suspected they might be agents for a French invasion.This podcast was recorded live as part of the Writer of the month series, which broadens awareness of historical records and their uses for writers. Writer of the month is sponsored by HistoryToday.Adam Nicolson has worked as a journalist and columnist on the Sunday Times, the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Telegraph and writes regularly for National Geographic Magazine and Granta, where he is a contributing editor.

Jo Pugh reveals the music, lyrics and poetry lurking in diverse records, from Thomas Byrd's pupil, John Bull to songs from Second World War prisoner of war camps.Arts and Inspiration Day is a free event for students thinking of future PhD study which introduces the research potential of The National Archives' collection. This event was held on 17 November 2014.

Rose Mitchell reveals the maps and plans held at The National Archives.Arts and Inspiration Day is a free event for students thinking of future PhD study which introduces the research potential of The National Archives' collection. This event was held on 17 November 2014.

Simon Demissie looks at Propaganda through the records held at The National Archives, including the wartime posters in INF 3 and the 1970s 'Protect and Survive' Public Information Films.Arts and Inspiration Day is a free event for students thinking of future PhD study which introduces the research potential of The National Archives' collection. This event was held on 17 November 2014.Watch the Public Information Films, Action after warnings and Casualties, produced by Richard Taylor Cartoons, with chilling narration by Patrick Allen.

Julie Halls discusses design history and material culture as a potential area for research.Arts and Inspiration Day is a free event for students thinking of future PhD study which introduces the research potential of The National Archives' collection. This event was held on 17 November 2014.

Researcher Tommy Norton introduces some of the 30 documents featured in the BBC 2 ten-part television series, Portillo's State Secrets. He also talks about the background to the series.Originally a journalist on local newspapers and magazines, Tommy spent four years in The National Archives' press office. He is now an independent reesearcher.

Helen Castor in conversation, discussing her new book, Joan of Arc: A history. Find out more about Helen Castor on her website.This podcast was recorded live as part of the Writer of the month series, which broadens awareness of historical records and their uses for writers. We apologise for any intermittent reduction in sound quality.

The National Archives holds a vast collection of railway related material, a legacy passed down by hundreds of railway companies which operated in all corners of the UK from 1825 to 1947. Much of this material provides opportunities for local and family historians to discover something new about the history of their ancestors and the areas in which they lived. This talk provides an overview of the railway records held here at Kew, and explores the different sources for tracing railway workers amongst these records.Chris Heather is currently the Transport Records Specialist in the Advice and Records Knowledge department at The National Archives. He has a particular interest in railway records and family history. Previously he specialised in records of criminals and transportation to Australia.

Rapid Response Collecting is a new strand to the V&A's collecting activity - one that is responsive to global events, situating design in immediate relation to moments of political, economic and social change. Corinna Gardner explores how an IKEA toy wolf, a set of Christian Louboutin shoes in five shades of 'nude', the world's first 3D-printed gun, the mobile game, Flappy Bird, and an all-female LEGO set raise questions of globalisation, mass manufacture, demography and the law.Corinna Gardner is curator of contemporary product design at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Corinna has worked with colleagues to introduce rapid response collecting as a new strand to the museum's collecting activities. Corinna is also co-curating the forthcoming V&A exhibition, All of This Belongs to You, opening on 1 April 2015.

Vanishing for the Vote tells the story of what happened on census night, 2 April 1911. Despite decades of campaigning, no woman had won the right to vote. Suffragettes urged women to boycott the census, proclaiming 'No vote, no census!'. This talk is based on the family census schedules which illustrate the wide diversity of suffrage campaigners - those who complied with the census and those who daringly boycotted.Jill Liddington is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Leeds. Her first book, One Hand Tied Behind Us (Virago, 1978), soon became a suffrage classic. Her most recent history, Vanishing for the Vote (MUP, 2014), is based on the The National Archives' census schedules released in 2009.We apologise for the poor sound quality of this live recording.This talk was part of The National Archives' Diversity Week, a week designed to highlight the ongoing work across the organisation surrounding the representation of diverse histories.