6 minute read
Diary: What to see and do this month
Commandos on HMS Hermes during the Falklands campaign. Many veterans remain troubled by their experiences of the war
WATCH
A f ter the guns fell silent
In April 1982, Margaret Thatcher sent British forces to the South Atlantic to retake the Falkland Islands from Argentina. For many Britons at the time, this represented a proud story of national success: a war won within a few weeks and with relatively few casualties.
The British troops who were on the frontline saw the Falklands War differently. They were men who fought in hand-to-hand battles where the ground was won with bayonets as well as bullets. These are the kinds of experiences veterans rarely discuss, but a new one-off documentary gathers together the unflinching testimony of 10 men who experienced both the adrenaline of conflict and the horror at first hand.
For some of the troops, who have had four decades to process these events, their service in the Falklands has become a badge of honour. Others remain deeply troubled by their experiences. All were changed forever by what they saw. The documentary also serves as a reminder of how our understanding of trauma has evolved over recent years.
GET T Y IMAGES/ALAMY/JOE BASS Falklands: The Frontline Story (title TBC)
BBC Two / Expected to air Sunday 12 June
WEEKLY TV & RADIO
Visit historyextra.com for weekly updates on upcoming television and radio programmes
Anthropologist MARY-ANN OCHOTA tells us about her new radio series exploring the European Green Belt, and explains how nature has become intertwined with postwar history along its course
What is the European Green Belt?
In 2002 a group of naturalists proposed the idea of creating the world’s longest wildlife reserve along the line of the former Iron Curtain. When you imagine the border between countries, you imagine a single fence, but actually in many places it’s two fences with this strip of dead ground in between.
But it’s not actually dead ground; it’s ground that’s left alone, and that is where the potential for wildlife and habitats exists. So you’ve got this green ribbon that runs right across the landmass of continental Europe, from the Finnish-Russian border to the Greek-Albanian border.
Has there been a formalised process to create the green belt?
Not along its entire length. The Germans have been good at this, but in the Balkans it’s a bit more chaotic – although actually that’s where some of the most interesting stories are to be found.
Can you see evidence of recent history as you travel the green belt?
There are places where the legacy of history is writ large. In Trieste [a city state between 1947 and 1954, when the port and its surrounding land were divided between Italy and Yugoslavia], there a ere warehouses where Italian refugees left their belongings as they were fleeing land that had become part of Yugoslavia. And their belongings are still there – not forgotten, but no one wants to open that box of skeletons.
Then there are things like satellite communications arrays that are rusting and faded, very much of the Soviet era, but which still dominate the skyline. They ’ ve become memorials of this period, and are still objects of fascination. But human history affects the wildlife too. There are stories of deer herds that remember where the barbed wire fences were and don’t cross those lines. I thought these stories were apocryphal, but they’re true.
at nd d b t e r
It’s hoped the green belt will help heal
divisions, but is the conflict in Ukraine
causing problems on the Finnish- Russian border?
Yes. The Finnish countryside after the Second World War became something of an industrial area: they were mining, cutting down forests and over-hunting. But on the Soviet side of the border the land remained much more wild. There was lots of co-operation between conservationists on the two sides of the border to help things like rare pearl mussels and reindeer, but sadly now the Russians aren’t talking to their colleagues in Finland.
The Compass: Walking the Iron Curtain will be broadcast on the BBC World Service from Wednesday 22 June and available via BBC Sounds
Stitched into history
From sumptuous silk and raffia creations to bold protest posters, the V&A’s newest exhibition is a visual delight with a political punch. Examining the recent history of African fashion, the display’s ground floor documents the creative explosion in clothes design, music and more during the African liberation years – the mid-late 1950s to 1994.
Elsewhere a section is dedicated to cloth, and the politics that are bound up in the fabric, considering how the choice to create and dress in indigenous cloths was a powerful political statement.
More than 250 artefacts make up the exhibition, with work from 45 designers on display. As well as showcasing the creations of iconic 20th-century African designers such as Chris Seydou and Alphadi, the work of contemporary designers who are pushing boundaries today also features.
Africa Fashion
The V&A, London / Opens 2 July / Booking required / vam.ac.uk
Naima Bennis, an innovative Moroccan designer. She’s one of 45 creatives who feature in the V&A’s new exhibition dedicated to African fashion
L I S T E N
When power slips away
Septimius Severus (AD 145–211) was Rome’s first African emperor, and his reign took him to Britain. Born in Leptis Magna in what’s now Libya, he died in Eboracum (known today as York) after falling ill while he was campaigning to conquer the region of Caledonia.
So how did Septimius rise to such power? And what should we make of his reign? These are questions that lie at the centre of a new drama by Paterson Joseph and David Reed. The show introduces listeners to the emperor (played by Joseph) on his deathbed, where he angrily rejects advice from his physician, Sammonicus (voiced by David Mitchell), that an amputation may be necessary because of his gout.
In order to placate his patient, Sammonicus asks Septimius to talk about his adventures in Britain. What follows is a self-serving tale of a family man who sees war as a way to protect the empire’s borders, and thus its citizens.
The truth is rather more complex. Septimius has grown paranoid and has even banned his wife, Julia (Adjoa Andoh), from entering his chamber – and as we discover, he has good reason to be worried.
Severus
BBC Radio 4 / Monday 4 July
An early thirdcentury bust of Septimius Severus. His dying days are the focus of a new BBC radio drama
L I S T E N
Above the law?
On 10 May 1924, J Edgar
Hoover (left) was appoint-
ed acting director of the
Bureau of Investiga-
tion, the forerunner of the FBI. Made permanent director a few months later, Hoover was a kingpin in the US domestic law enforcement system until his death at the age of 77, in 1972. Over these years, he became arguably the most
powerful figure in 20th-cen-
tury America. But he was a divisive figure, a man who broke laws he was supposed to enforce, worked against political dissidents and accumulated secret files to blackmail senior politicians. All of this should give Emily Maitlis ample material for a series tracing Hoover’s influence on America via 10 extraordinary encounters.
The People vs J Edgar Hoover
