The priest behind a new airport and Agatha Christie
The History Hour
BBC
4.4 • 913 Ratings
🗓️ 24 January 2026
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.
Our guest Sugandhi Jayaraman, lecturer in air transport management at the University of Westminster, discusses the changes in airports over time. We hear about the Irish priest whose dream of air travel in a remote part of West Ireland became a reality.
And we travel back to 1943 to one of the most audacious hoaxes of World War Two. Plus the Challenger Shuttle disaster where a member of the public had been chosen to join the experienced astronaut crew.
We also commemorate Agatha Christie and we go back to 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini flew back to Tehran from Paris after being exiled.
Contributors:
Pearce Concannon - firefighter at Knock airport
Sugandhi Jayaraman - lecturer
Roger Morgan - amateur historian
Barbera Morgan - trained alongside the Challenger team
Mathew Prichard- Agatha Christie's grandson
Mohsen Sazegara - worked for the Ayatollah
(Picture: Cabin crew with Monsignor James Horan at Knock Airport. Credit: Independent News And Media/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Hello, I'm Greg Jenner, and good news, |
| 0:09.5 | Your Dead to Me, is back for a new series. |
| 0:11.6 | Here we go. |
| 0:12.1 | Yes, we'll explore Emperor Nero's notorious reign with Professor Marybeard and Patton Oswald. |
| 0:16.9 | I would not want my daughter having the remote control, not alone an empire. |
| 0:38.6 | We'll dissect the decadent life of Philippe Duke-Dolion with Tom Allen. I've often tried to pretend I'm an aristocrat. I'm being very quickly knocked down. And there'll be so much more with comedians like Olga Koch, Mike Mosniak, and Rihelina. I'm excited. You're dead to me. The comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:45.0 | We did something that no one else had ever done. There was such a excitement and energy about this moment. It opened the door for everything that rapidly followed. Witness history. |
| 0:50.4 | History as told by the people who were there. I was walking in space. |
| 0:55.0 | The first man ever to do so, |
| 0:57.3 | I felt almost insignificant, |
| 0:59.5 | like a tiny ant compared to the immensity of the universe. |
| 1:03.8 | Witness History from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:06.6 | Listen now. Search for Witness History, |
| 1:09.5 | wherever you get your BBC podcasts. |
| 1:17.2 | Hello and welcome to The History Hour from the BBC World Service with me, Max Pearson, the past brought to life by those who were there. |
| 1:24.7 | This week, Operation Mincemeat, the Second World War hoax involving secret documents |
| 1:29.8 | and a washed-up body. Well, it really all started through a wild idea of Georges, |
| 1:35.0 | had one of those subtle and ingenious minds which is forever throwing up fantastic ideas, |
| 1:40.0 | sometimes quite brilliant in their simplicity, and sometimes useless. |
| 1:43.6 | Also, the return of Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran in 1979, |
| 1:48.7 | and the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. |
... |
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