The Adventuress

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2020

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the 1930s Lady Lucy Houston was one of the richest women in England and a household name, notorious for her virulent criticisms of the government, but politics had been far from her mind when, as young Fanny Radmall, she had set out to conquer the world. Armed with only looks and self-confidence, she exploited the wealth and status of successive lovers to push her way into high society. Seeking influence in national politics, Lady Houston financed the first flight over Mount Everest, backed secret military research, and facilitated the development of the Spitfire aircraft. She even purchased a newspaper. Seeking to expose the Prime Minister as a Soviet agent and promote Edward VIII as England's dictator, Lucy was loved as a patriot but loathed as a troublemaker. Historian Teresa Crompton talks Dan through the life of a once famous woman, now totally forgotten.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello History Hit listeners, as you are listening to this right now at this exact second I am
0:05.8	currently on an epic cross-country road trip of England. 600 miles and 1 million years of history
0:14.4	from the first humans through to Stonehenge, Dovercastle, Hastings up to Ironbridge in the
0:19.3	Black Country and to the northeast where I'm visiting a Cold War bunker in York.
0:25.0	I want to hear from you. I want to do more stops. Tell me when I should stop. Any local tips or
0:29.8	hints that you want to share or you want to see me report on on my social media channels and Twitter
0:34.1	and Instagram etc. just send me a message ds.hh at historyhit.com. That's delta Sierra.
0:41.4	. hotel hotel at historyhit.com or tweet me at the History Guy. You can keep up with the road trip
0:47.4	this week on Instagram and Twitter at the History Guy on both and then you can hear the whole thing as a
0:52.1	podcast series next week. Thanks and enjoy this episode.
1:02.3	Hello, I'm Mark and Dan Snow's History Hit. I'm just in Coventry at the moment. I'm inside
1:07.5	the new Cathedral that I'm believable like how and as mighty new Cathedral it is one of the most
1:12.2	remarkable bits of public architecture of the 20th century. I now learn belatedly it's situated
1:18.9	right next door adjacent to the medieval Cathedral which the only Cathedral destroyed during the
1:23.3	Blitz. Gutted when King Emperor George VI stood near this spot around Stanley now he wept. He wept
1:30.6	because he saw the results of the Blitz on Coventry in November 1940 80 years ago this November.
1:38.6	Two-thirds of the city's buildings damaged or destroyed. A catastrophic scene
1:44.3	of which prompted Joseph Gerbels hit this propaganda minister to invent a new word.
1:48.0	They're basically Coventryd meaning to reduce a city to rubble. This was the start of a story or
1:54.0	towards the start of a story that would end in Dresden, Tokyo, in a Roshima Nagasaki.
2:00.4	I'm here making a program for history. In fact I'm here doing else things. I'm making a program
2:03.6	for history at TV. You can check it out. It's the new Netflix for history. If you used to code
	...

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