Everything But A Beach

Conjurer, scientist, schemer.

John Dee was the most learned man in Tudor England. An advisor to Queen Elizabeth and an ambitious diplomat who coined the phrase 'British Empire'.

He also had an unquenchable thirst for the occult, conducting secret experiments to speak with angels, using magic to solve crimes and travelling across Europe in search of forbidden knowledge.

Chris, Dean and Yakub discuss the life of this mysterious polym...

"The worst night of violence and destruction suffered by Manchester city centre since the Blitz”, according to a senior judge.

The 2008 Uefa Cup final between Glasgow Rangers and Zenit St Petersburg should have been a showcase for international football - but instead ended up in a night of shame. By some estimates, 200,000 Rangers fans traveled to the match - cited as one of the largest travelling contingents in football hist...

Death was everywhere in Victorian Manchester. In this episode we discuss the dangers of factory life and beyond, as well as the traditions for remembering the dead.

Dean talks about the grim legacy of mass graves around the city, including sites (some now in city parks) where the dead were buried 18 deep. We also look at the Coffin Flood, which saw bodies torn from the ground and float down the River Medlock to the horror of p...

What was life actually like working in Victorian Manchester's cotton mills?

We discuss how young couples might tie the knot in mass 'penny weddings', often with disastrous results.

We'll talk about the immense pride working families took in their homes - and how 'donkey stones' were an essential part of the weekly cleaning ritual.

We'll also delve into the precarious conditions of factory life - and the impossible choices that wome...

Manchester's cotton industry created a blueprint for modern, industrial life.

But who were the men, women and children that lived in the shadows of the city's towering brick factories?

Chris, Dean and Yakub focus on the human stories from inside the mills - contrasting the uncompromising hardship of factory life in Victorian Manchester with the flickers of hope that kept people going.

We discuss how ordinary people enjoyed their t...

James Anderton has declared that AIDS patients are ‘swirling in a cesspool of their own making’. Days later, he makes cryptic remarks that he might be a prophet ‘being used by God’. Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government scrambles to deal with the fallout. In this episode, we discuss how civil servants and fellow police chiefs were openly questioning his sanity - and the documents that show how Mr...

It's Britain in the 1980s. Manchester's police chief is a household name. Satirised on TV comedy shows for his conservative Christian views. Celebrated by government ministers for his robust approach to crime. He is rarely out of the headlines for his clashes with politicians. But the crisis of the Stalker Affair is about to propel both Anderton and his force onto an international stage - threatening to derail hopes for a peaceful ...

God's Cop James Anderton has brought his crusade to the streets of Manchester. His officers have launched a crackdown on pornography, gay bars and clubs, and businesses selling ‘immoral’ material. But the new chief constable faces opposition at every turn. Running battles with the city’s politicians, the unruly threat of National Front marches, the explosive unrest of the Moss Side riots. We to explore the controv...

James Anderton was the most controversial police officer in modern British history. A hero to some. A reactionary menace to others. This is the story of how the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police brought a moral crusade to the streets of 1980s Britain, becoming an electrifying public figure famed for his outspoken views and religious zeal. His outrageous comments about AIDS and cryptic remarks about being ‘used by G...

Buffalo Bill has packed up his travelling show, taking hundreds of performers back on the road. But what legacy has been left behind in Greater Manchester? Historian Dean delves into the truth of whether Sioux performers from North Dakota slipped into the Salford streets and ended up make their homes in Victorian England. Using archive material and family records, we close in on the truth to this enduring local legend - making a su...

American promoter Buffalo Bill Cody brings the greatest show on earth to a racecourse ground in Salford, where an army of performers and crew construct ‘the largest theatre ever seen in the world’. The Wild West show thrills England’s Victorian millworkers and is remembered for decades to come.  But did, according to local legend, hundreds of native American performers disappear into the smog-cloaked streets ...

Which Manc words have survived over time? We look at the work of journalist and poet Samuel Bamford, who created an ambitious collection of words from the Victorian city and its surrounding towns, and we also make some surprising discoveries about expressions that are still used today. We’ll talk about the poets, actors, comedians and singers - from Gracie Fields to Victoria Wood to Liam Gallagher - who have kept Greater Manc...

Are you a choughin-yed? Do you feel wambly? Does someone you know talk too much flother? In this episode, we look back at the language used by 19th century Mancunians, whose dialect was championed by novelist Elizabeth Gaskell in her novels Mary Barton and North and South. We’ll discuss how Gaskell challenged lazy stereotypes about women writers, becoming a literary superstar and important social campaigner. Dean, Chris and Y...

Today Manchester City and Manchester United are sporting superpowers with supporters around the globe. But both clubs can trace their origins to the industrial boom of the late 19th Century and workers craving respite from drudgery of mills and factory life. In this episode, we discuss the early stars, sponsors and business interest that propelled these clubs to professionalism - including the role of tenacious social reformer Anna...

Manchester is home to some of the biggest sports brands on the planet. In this episode, Chris, Dean and Yakub argue the city is also the birthplace of modern football as we understand it. We tell the story of the city's economic boom and the grinding factory conditions which saw the working population turn to sport for recreation and escape. We'll talk about how the city played a key role in pivotal decisions about the early game a...

Welcome to Victorian Manchester, where the streets throb with violence and teenage gangs are waging war. The Scuttler gangs pose a menace unlike any England has seen before. Groups calling themselves the Bengal Tigers and Meadow Lads prowl the cobbled streets, marked by their distinctive clothes and vicious weapons, including brutal brass belts. Battling for status, territory and bonded together by crushing poverty, the gangs of la...

As Britain’s official executioner, Albert Pierrepoint hanged notorious murders, spies and war criminals. But he also lived a seemingly ordinary life as a grocery man and pub landlord in Greater Manchester, balancing his work behind the bar with grim professional duties as a Home Office hangman. As his fame grew, so too did doubts about the death penalty and Pierrepoint becomes unwillingly tangled in some of Britain’s mo...