Legacy

What were British soldiers doing in Palestine in 1945, between the oranges, the swimming and the bombs?

Why does the Christmas show in Sebastian Faulks's Jerusalem swap Gilbert and Sullivan for Oscar Wilde?

And, how did a novelist who plans everything end up with a twist he never saw coming?

Sebastian Faulks tells Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch how his father's posting, hundreds of hours of soldiers' memories and a much-missed friend became his new novel, Farewell to Eden.

His father was sent from Italy in late 1945 for what the army called "rest and peacekeeping", and was there when the King David Hotel was bombed. Sebastian built the book from the Imperial War Museum's sound archive, a 1949 diary kept by the Uruguayan member of the UN committee that drew the borders, and the memory of his closest friend, the Guardian's Middle East editor Ian Black, who first explained it all to him in their first week at Cambridge. Plus Amos Oz's grandparents, who thought Palestine was "too Asian", a padre's vision on Easter Saturday, the grey "tundra" of post-war Britain, and why Sebastian had to unlearn the idea that happy endings are vulgar.

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[0:00] Oranges, sunshine and a storm coming
[2:22] A boarding school, October 2023 and an old friend
[5:52] His father's "rest and peacekeeping" in 1945
[15:17] The Irgun, a bombing in Rome and no easy sides
[18:53] Faith in the Holy Land, and a Christmas show in Jerusalem
[24:51] The twist even he didn't plan
[26:56] How grim post-war Britain really was
[29:43] Why happy endings aren't vulgar
[33:04] Crosswords, coffee and 1,000 words a day
[38:14] A diary from 1949 and the UN's impossible job

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
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Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Come and join us live! On Monday 16 November, Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch will be on stage at Kings Place in London with the wonderful Elif Shafak.

Her extraordinary new novel, In One Brief Moment All Eternity, tells the story of Gustave Flaubert, the creator of Madame Bovary, through the eyes of the women whose lives shaped his, and whose stories have largely been forgotten. It's about who gets to tell history, whose voices are silenced, and why literature matters, especially in times of turmoil.

The book comes out the day before, so this is a rare chance to hear Elif talk about it, and about history and memory, with us.

Tickets:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/legacy-live-elif-shafak-in-conversation-with-afua-hirsch-peter-frankopan-tickets-2003929321545
Or through the Kings Place box office.

More Legacy Live events are on the way in late 2026 and 2027. To hear about them first, join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
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Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What did a run of terrible Caribbean hurricanes have to do with American independence?

How did a volcano in Indonesia help give us Frankenstein?

And, why were so many of the people fighting for civil rights also fighting for the planet?

In the next part of The Earth Transformed, Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch follow the storms, eruptions and campaigners that changed the course of history.

Why Europeans didn't just build their plantations in West Africa, and how mosquitoes helped draw the line between America's North and South. Hurricane-wrecked islands desperate for food, rope and wood, and American merchants furious that London decided who they could sell to. Then the year without a summer: Mary Shelley's rain-soaked holiday at Lake Geneva, soldiers home from the Napoleonic Wars with no work, and the massacre at Peterloo. Plus a jumbo jet that flew into volcanic ash, Frankenstein at Cold War disarmament talks, and why Coretta Scott King, Rachel Carson and Greta Thunberg belong in the same story.

Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
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[0:00] Hurricanes, volcanoes and the women who fought for the planet
[1:49] Founding mothers, and history without the weather
[3:34] Why not build plantations in West Africa?
[9:29] The hurricanes behind American independence
[13:07] Frankenstein and a gothic childhood
[14:22] Mount Tambora and the year without a summer
[18:02] A jumbo jet, an ash cloud and nuclear winter
[23:38] Civil rights and the climate
[26:55] Rachel Carson and Silent Spring
[27:57] Why women led the fight

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How did a woman lying on a sofa with a Pekingese on her lap write 723 books?

Why did the queen of pink chiffon put shoe polish on her eyelashes?

And, if she sold around 750 million copies, why can't you find her books in a shop today?

Matthew Sweet, author of the first biography to take Barbara Cartland seriously, tells Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch how a Doctor Who audio play about alien bookworms led him to her private papers.

A house left almost untouched since she died in 2000. A father killed in the Great War, two brothers lost at Dunkirk, and two suitors who threatened to shoot themselves if she said no. Then the paradox: a woman who told readers to put their husbands first while working six days a week, a Tory councillor who fought for travellers' rights, and the author of sex advice manuals. Plus Private Eye's cruellest cartoons, bought and hung in her downstairs loo, the Nigerian romance writers who name her as their inspiration, and why Matthew will never sit on her sofa.

Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
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[0:00] 723 books, a Pekingese and shoe polish on her lashes
[4:14] Alien bookworms: the strangest way into a biography
[7:00] Why "The Great Dictator": a lost fortune and a family rebuilt by work
[9:41] Writing from the couch: war, grief and the women left behind
[17:37] The Tory councillor who fought for travellers' rights
[21:21] Nigerian romance writers, and her plan to conquer the world
[25:12] War paint: the lashes, the hair and the dog
[28:33] Private Eye cartoons in the downstairs loo
[31:00] Motherhood, and a family where everyone had to confess
[37:53] Third best-selling author ever, so why has she vanished?

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why were the first cowboys in the Americas from West Africa?

What does it mean in Akan culture when a man "eats from another woman's pot"?

And, could a mosquito be the reason Ghana never became a settler colony like South Africa or Kenya?

In the next part of The Earth Transformed, Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch put Africa at the centre of the story, and find it at the centre of ours too.

West African villages with no walls and no kings, because there was enough for everyone. An ancient Ghana nowhere near modern Ghana, and Mansa Musa's gold. Then food: why a Ghanaian host will never let you leave hungry, the European visitors who resented Africa's abundance, a colleague in Senegal who thought the perfect birthday present was a goat, and the jollof wars. Plus the genetic resistance to malaria that shaped the slave trade, and how the mosquito kept European settlers out of West Africa and sent Afua's grandfather to Cambridge.

Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
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[0:00] Land, food and race: three ways Africa shaped the world
[2:01] Is "Africa" even the right word?
[7:22] Villages with no walls and no kings
[11:01] Two Ghanas, and Mansa Musa's gold
[13:08] Why you'll never leave a Ghanaian home hungry
[17:04] The first cowboys in the Americas
[21:56] A goat for a birthday, and the jollof wars
[25:57] Malaria, genes and the slave trade
[29:50] How the mosquito kept settlers out of West Africa
[32:56] Africans telling their own stories

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.