106. Charles Spencer; Historic Monarchs, Worldwide News Reporting and the Ghosts of Althorp

Earl Spencer, best-selling author and historian, has a superb talent for bringing history to life. His new book, The White Ship, explores England’s worst ever maritime and royal disaster, a tragedy that changed the course of European history forever. From childhood trips to an unknown Ibiza, friskings at the iron curtain-era Russian border to covering everything from Cannes to Cairo as an NBC news reporter, the late Princess Diana’s younger brother has fascinating travel tales not least those starting in Althorp, the grand estate the Spencer family have called home since 1508.
 
 
On this episode we cover:
 
The 900-year-old tragedy that shaped British history
The inspiration behind his new book, The White Ship
Henry I and 19 years of civil war
The perils of being intoxicated whilst driving
Sea wolves, sea elephants and sea goats
Drunken oafs chasing away monks
His Queens of England speech at Leeds Castle that inspired the book
Henry I, a great king overshadowed by other Henrys
Stellar reviews of the book
Taking a flash point in an interesting Monarch’s reign
The family homestead of Althorp, in the family since 1508
The stately homes of Britain contributing to national heritage
His imposing and rather terrifying figure of a grandfather
The stately home that was burnt down for one scene in a Hollywood movie 
The 98% income tax scuppering many stately homes
Sleeping in the nursery with flickering candles and the sound of night watchmen
Like being in a museum with a very scary man in charge!
The rumoured ghosts in Althorp
The ancient sound of people being killed in the former weaponry room (!)
Travelling to over 30 countries as an NBC News reporter
From Islam in Malaysia to the Cannes Film Festival
The privilege of being paid to travel the world
The terrible hotel fire he reported on in Cairo
The man living in a small cage in Hong Kong
Interviewing Mel Gibson in Cannes
Don’t mention the diet to the King of Tonga
Lisa’s Dad and the Queen of Tonga
Lisa’s podcast for India and Pamela Hicks
(India was Princess Diana’s bridesmaid
Meeting Captain Cook’s tortoise
Lisa remembering the whole of Tonga being on a diet
People thinking you want your own food when travelling
Baked beans in Fiji, fish and chips in Tonga
Moving to Johannesburg and exploring Soweto and Swaziland
The Scottish man apologizing for slavery
Porpoises by the sea making for a better school run than Northampton
The Peter Ustinov journey that inspired a trip behind the iron curtain
Being frisked at the Finnish-Russian border
His step father ‘being treated better in Nazi Germany’  
Visiting Paris with his father and sisters in the late 70s
His mother taking them to a tiny unknown island called Ibiza
Returning to Normandy to research the book
The conflict of development and over tourism
Canada having the most cleverly persevered places
Civilised wilderness at the lakes north of Toronto
Covid being terrible, but has it addressed over tourism..?
The joys of teenage interrailing to Istanbul, Dubrovnik…
Being kicked out of the carriage somewhere in Romania
Passing fields of Oxen ploughing fields
How the discomfort of travel can create the most memorable times
Sleeping in a Graveyard in Northern Spain
Supertramp, the soundtrack to the foothills of Kashmir and the children who had never seen a Walkman