79 Episodes

  1. Partying - Victorian style

    Published: 16/04/2022

  2. Lemonkolly

    Published: 09/04/2022

  3. Several young men in want of wives

    Published: 02/04/2022

  4. Fred dashes back to Sheffield

    Published: 27/03/2022

  5. Fred gains respect, and Emma loses a suitor

    Published: 20/03/2022

  6. From City of Steel to Ironopolis (Sheffield to Middlesbrough)

    Published: 13/03/2022

  7. Q&A Bonus Episode (Season 1)

    Published: 06/03/2022

  8. Season 1 finale: Fred Leaves

    Published: 27/02/2022

  9. Trouble at the steel mill, and divorce at Westminster

    Published: 20/02/2022

  10. 'Artificial Sunshine' at the Seaside, and Sunday Best

    Published: 13/02/2022

  11. Meeting Samuel Plimsoll, and did Janie propose?

    Published: 06/02/2022

  12. Autumn 1879 Secrets, and when Fred beat Aston Villa

    Published: 30/01/2022

  13. City of Steel, and Victorian Selfies

    Published: 23/01/2022

  14. A Seaside Rendezvous, and a Family Scandal

    Published: 16/01/2022

  15. Dramatic Entertainments, and Fred takes us on Holiday

    Published: 09/01/2022

  16. Two sisters, and The Vinegar Valentine

    Published: 02/01/2022

  17. Christmas 1878, and Fred rings in 1879 with some scarily optimistic resolutions

    Published: 27/12/2021

  18. 1878 A bereavement, and the World's first electrically lit football match

    Published: 27/12/2021

  19. Summer 1878, in which we meet Fred, and Jane gets into trouble

    Published: 27/12/2021

4 / 4

Shortlisted for the International Women's Podcast Awards 2024, 2023 + 2022, and the Independent Podcast Awards 2023.  "Ingrid Birchell Hughes presents a charming take on family history via the love letters of her great-great-grandparents Fred and Jane, who exchanged 200 of them between their meeting and their marriage in Victorian Yorkshire. It’s a terrific insight into the lives of two witty working-class people and the times they lived in." — The Times.  This is a true story, a love story, a family drama, all contained within Victorian social history. Ingrid has both sides (extremely rare) of a correspondence spanning 1878 to 1882 that her great great grandparents sent one another. They were ordinary folk, trying to make their way in the world, first in the city of Sheffield and later in the town of Middlesbrough. There is a whole 'cast' of characters too from Fred's industrial innovator of a boss who advanced the steel making process - and took Fred with him, to Jane's sister Emma, who had her life splashed across the newspapers through no fault of her own. Against the background of the dramas going around them, Fred and Jane overcame family objection to their match and through their own will and determination, made a new life together.