Hi everybody, welcome to Dance Know's History Hit. That sound you hear in the background of this is the real world. I am out. I'm out of lockdown.

And I'm standing on the east bank of the River Mercy, the giant,

chocolate brown river easing its way out towards the Irish Sea, on the other side the Whirl.

I'm probably only a few miles away from where the army of Atholstan crushed that awesome coalition of Vikings

and other forces assorted from round the aisles to establish the supremacy of Wessex on this island.

I'm sitting under my favourite statue and liveble not of the Beatles, surprisingly enough, but of Frederick Walker,

aka Johnny Walker, the most successful anti-submarine warfare commander during the Battle of Britain.

Are you one not one, not two but three DSOs, Distinguished Service orders in his tireless battle against you boats during the Second World War,

a battle that would eventually destroy his health and kill him. Over on the river, the famous ferry on the Merzios, just left up and watching it,

his name is Snowdrop, so I'm clinging to my phone on which I'm recording this with my sweaty hands, making sure it does not join thousands of years of archaeology on the bed of the Merzios.

I'm here in Liverpool because we're making our massive anniversary documentary about Bismarck.

Next month is the 80th anniversary of that extraordinary confrontation in the North Atlantic, which I have to say folks, I've always known about,

I know that we're researching and making this documentary for history at TV, I'm particularly excited about, I don't want to do it anyway,

belittle the suffering, the terror of the people involved, but it is one of the most remarkable stories, simply put, of the war at sea in the Second World War.

The near misses, the ups, the downs, what was at stake, quite extraordinary, so I'm here in Liverpool,

we're beginning filming on that, that will be on history here, I'm probably not gonna tell you, but I am, it'll be on history here to dot TV next month,

one of the most ambitious documentaries yet, really excited about that, please head over there and subscribe.

But I'm really should be telling you about what this podcast is about, so here goes, it is a crossover episode from our sibling podcast,

the ancients, the Tristorin, will be a big favourite of all of yours now, and in this podcast he is talking to Dr Nick Sumerton,

they're talking about a play, which affects people right across society, caused a big movement of people out of city centres,

huge amount of discussion and opinions, some well informed others poorly informed about how to avoid catching it.

I am of course talking about the plague of the second century, AED, the so-called Antonine plague.

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