This is Jessie and Lenny Ware from Tablemanners and we're currently sponsored by Deliveroo.

And we've got something important to share with you today. Let's call it a public service announcement.

If you're in a tight spot this festive season and you're in need of a quick gift, say you've forgotten to pick something up for Secret Santa and your friends are due over in the next hour, then Deliveroo is the

place to go. They've got loads of different places to choose gifts from, gift sets from boots or even

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Music The The Why is this special necessary?

That's the key question that trumps all of the others.

If I can't answer it satisfactorily, I may as well pack up my things now and stop before I even begin.

This special is necessary because I'm about to cover an era in-depth whose importance has

mostly been forgotten. What I mean by that is, people know of Victoria, they know of her

dying, her era ending, British deals with France, a few crises,

the Anglo-German naval race, the outbreak of the First World War, and maybe some Balkan

wars before that, but the history from 1897 to 1914 is so much more.

Within those 17 years are stories, anecdotes and facts that will really draw you in, even deeper, to an era you thought you knew.

Pre-war Britain was a fascinating place for a whole number of reasons.

Now I want to show you this by capturing all of it.

The far-flung power of its empire, the force and impression of its diplomacy, the security fears it

held, its ambitions, its plans, its political divides in problems, its social and ideological

...