#bbcarchiveon4 — Public Fediverse posts
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Voices of the General Strike
Archive on 4Accompanied by the recorded memories of those who took part, historian David Runciman explores the General Strike of 1926: nine days that shook the nation.
On the 4th of May 1926, millions of workers downed tools and went on strike. They did so in sympathy with coal miners who'd been locked out of work by mine owners demanding longer working days for lower pay. In places, life almost ground to a halt — public transport stopped, docks were blockaded, gas and electricity threatened, food supplies halted, newspapers ceased publication.
For coal miners the strike was an attempt to halt the worsening of their already desperately poor pay and conditions. For the millions of workers who, trusting their union leaders, took the extraordinary step of sacrificing their own pay in support of others, it was a radical hope that collective action might improve a system that seemed weighted against them.
For Labour leader Ramsay Macdonald the strike was a misguided tactic on the road to socialism. For Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin it was a constitutional threat. He said so on the airwaves, in a speech partly rewritten for him by the BBC's General Manager John Reith, who felt that the national schism of the strike threatened the future of the BBC and that a closeness to government was the only way to ensure its survival. With newspapers mostly out of action, the BBC — soon to transform from a private company to a public corporation — gained a new primacy as a source of news.
Meanwhile Winston Churchill commandeered paper supplies to produce a daily propaganda newspaper, called the British Gazette. The TUC countered with their own more modest and often more level-headed publication, the British Worker.
The government instituted emergency measures and across the country volunteers were recruited to break the strike and maintain essential services.
In the background loomed the spectre of the Soviet Union and a fear — grounded in reality or not — of revolution.
Until, on the 12th of May 1926, the TUC called off the strike, having secured no concessions for the miners, who remained locked out of the pits until they agreed to the conditions of the mine owners six months later.
Before, during and after — and almost forgotten amid the drama and febrile politics — is the predicament of the coal miners.
Featuring:
David Hendy, cultural historian, author of The BBC: A People's History
Neil Kinnock, former leader of the Labour Party who grew up in a mining family with memories of the Strike
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, historian, co-author of Women and the Miners' Strike 1984-1985
David Torrance, historian, author of The Edge of Revolution: the General Strike that Shook BritainShow less
Available now57 minutes
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The Last Dance Floor in Chernobyl
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The Last Dance Floor in Chernobyl
Archive on 4The story of a young couple getting married against the backdrop of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Serhiy first laid eyes on Iryna under the swirling lights of the best disco in town. He thought she was beautiful and couldn’t take his eyes off her. He wouldn’t work up the courage to ask Iryna out until a few days later, but once they started dating, Club Edison 2 became a favourite haunt and they looked forward to the weekly discos.
The man behind the decks was DJ Alexander Demidov, a legend on the night life scene, known for his pioneering shows. Club Edison2 quickly became known as the best disco in Ukraine. It was 1986 and DJ Alexander had to have his playlist approved by the Soviet state. Often he would sneakily play banned foreign records that had been illegally smuggled in for a rapturous crowd hungry for anything from the West, from beyond the Iron Curtain, from outside the Soviet Union.
It was risky, but a risk worth taking for this was no ordinary crowd. This was a dance floor full of the brightest and best from across all 15 Republics that made up the Soviet Union. This was a disco for the people of Pripyat, an ‘atom-grad’, or nuclear city, built especially for the scientists and workers at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It was one of the best places to live in the Soviet Union: good jobs, full shops, beautiful scenery and great nightlife.
It’s where Serhiy and Iryna planned their future together, in a city that seemed safe. They planned to get married on Saturday 26th April 1986. But the night before the wedding, they felt the ground shake and heard a booming sound. It came from the direction of the nuclear power plant. On the morning of the wedding, as Serhiy went to pick up his best man from the station, he found the streets full of soldiers wearing gas masks and washing the streets down. Rumours swirled that there had been an accident at the Nuclear reactor, but nothing official was said. They called the authorities who told them they must still hold their wedding. As engineers and firefighters battled an unfolding nuclear catastrophe, the city’s residents were told nothing. Iryna and Serhiy married, smiling for photographs, but stumbling during their much practiced waltz, as unease rippled through the room. By the end of the wedding reception, the celebration descended into chaos. Still in her wedding dress, Iryna ended up running barefoot through the streets as evacuation orders spread, leaving behind her home, her possessions, and the city where their love had begun.
The Last Dance Floor in Chernobyl tells the story of Serhiy and Iryna and DJ Alexander and what happens to them after the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the worst nuclear accident the world has ever seen.
Presenter: Jordan Dunbar
Producers: Phoebe Keane, Neal Razzell
Sound design and mix : James Beard
Editor: Justine LangVoice over actors; Hanna Komar, Oleksandr Begma, Anatolii Panchenko, Gregory Zhygalov
The guests also feature in What Happened at Chernobyl, Directed by Paul Harris, Assistant Producer Ellie Jacobs, Director of Photography Jack Garland, Executive Producer Vara Szajkowski, Location producer Halyna Yakusko. It’s available to watch on BBC iPlayer
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Desmond Morris #DesmondMorris
2026-04-18 2000-21000
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(sixty years of UK chikdcare provision from the years when "milk formula" was provided nationally by government to Covid-era tv programmes for isolated mummies 'n' bebbies)
Landscape For A Good Infant
Archive on 4If we crouch down to the level of the infant, what might we learn about the evolution of the welfare state and its role in the lives of babies, young children, and the people who care for them? How have our attitudes towards it changed from its inception to the present day?
Dr Emily Baughan, historian of modern childhood and mother of two infants, explores how our ideas about infancy, motherhood, and the role of the state have shifted over the last six decades.
Today, formula milk is one of the most shoplifted items in the UK. But if you were born before 1976, your formula milk would have been provided by the state. Known as “national milk”, it is just one example of how the state has shaped different generations’ experiences of infancy. We already understand how the national curriculum and school dinners have produced a distinctly British experience of childhood for older children - but what about the under‑fives?
Drawing on a wealth of BBC archive from the 1960s to today, alongside her own research and personal reflections, Emily takes on this baby’s‑eye view of the state, discovering how it has helped shape generations. She hears how a baby born in 1980 would have spent their first hours in a Perspex crib in a hospital nursery, while a baby born in 2000 would have been delivered straight onto their mother’s chest, rarely leaving her side. A baby in 1985 might have attended one of 300,000 free community playgroups; by 2025, they would be unlikely to find any non‑profit play provision outside a church. Are we, as adults, the product of what the state deems important for infants?
Featuring interviews with Miriam Stoppard, Professor Carolyn Steedman (author of Landscape for a Good Woman) and Stella Creasy MP.
Producer: Eliza Lomas
Editor: Chris Ledgard -
Archive on 4
2026-01-31 2000-2100
Taxi Driver at 50: New York, Then and Now
Archive on 4It’s 50 years since the film Taxi Driver was released in 1976. The story of Travis Bickle, a loner and cab driver, who tries to save a 14-year-old sex worker from the mean streets of 1970s New York was controversial at the time for its violence and sexual theme but is considered a classic today.
Michael Goldfarb tells the story of the film's creation and how New York decayed into the condition which forms the backdrop for the story - and what the city is like today, half a century later.
Producer: Julia Hayball
A Certain Height production for BBC Radio 4