Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2018 i History Extra

“It was 100 years ago this month that women were granted the right to vote in British parliamentary elections, although it was another decade before they could do so on an equal basis with men. A century on, debates continue on the prime causes of female enfranchisement. Was it the First World War or the suffrage campaign that played the biggest part in securing votes for women? And how far did campaigners’ violent tactics help or hinder their battle for the ballot? These are some of the questions tackled by a panel of experts in our cover feature on page 26. This issue also includes Diane Atkinson’s evocative survey of the events of 1918 (page 20), while on page 32 Sarah Crook offers her view on what progress towards female…

By the standards of his predecessors, the last French king, Louis-Philippe, was actually pretty popular. Eschewing pomp, he lived relatively simply, presenting himself as a ‘citizen king’ – a man of unpretentious, bourgeois values. “Take away Louis-Philippe the king, there remains the man. And the man is good,” wrote republican Victor Hugo. “He is good at times even to the point of being admirable.” But at the beginning of 1848, the edifice of the monarchy cracked. The mainly middle-class opposition had been holding large fundraising banquets, and in February the government decided to crack down. But the decision to ban the banquets backfired horribly, as crowds poured into the streets calling for the head of Louis-Philippe’s unpopular prime minister, François Guizot. On 23 February, Guizot resigned. That afternoon, fighting broke…

“John Rogers was the first of almost 300 Protestants executed for heresy in the reign of Mary I. Known for editing the Matthew Bible, an important English translation of both testaments, Rogers had been a prominent London preacher in the reign of Edward VI. When Mary came to the throne with the intention of restoring Catholicism, Rogers denounced ‘popish’ teachings from the pulpit. He was placed under house arrest and then sent to prison after committing an act of iconoclasm in his former parish church. Rogers’ execution became highly contested. Many spectators admired his courage in the flames. Some Protestants claimed that they saw the Holy Spirit descending, in the form of a dove, on Rogers at his execution, while Catholic writers caustically responded that a flock of pigeons had…

Last year, 1,041 historic sites were given listed status by Historic England and added to its National Heritage List for England. Among the new additions were Skegness Esplanade and Tower Gardens in Lincolnshire, where Billy Butlin opened his first holiday camp in 1936. There are 400,000 sites on the full list, including: 46 battle›ields 277,026 houses 53 shipwrecks 14,747 churches 39 mosques 1 rocket 710 windmills 7 fairground rides 514 pigsties 262 palaces 43 palaeolithic monuments 445 animal houses 149 artist studios 72 piers 25 Jewish cemeteries 84 working men’s clubs 47 women’s suffrage sites…

Look closer to home Your historians discussing “Why are America’s white supremacists on the march again?” (Backgrounder, November) may need a few lessons in American history. Michael Cullinane says: “The constitution counted an African slave as less than a full person, quite literally designating them as three-fifths.” This is not correct. The “three-fifths rule” only applied to apportionment of the new House of Representatives; the south wanted its slaves counted as full persons, the north not at all. Three-fifths was a compromise, solely relating to allotment of congressional districts between the states. Meanwhile, Manisha Sinha manages to compare America to Nazi Germany: “Unlike Germany, the United States has not yet come to grips with the symbols of its sordid past of racial oppression.” We fought a civil war that cost…

On the afternoon of 27 October 1888, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a shy 18-year-old, stepped foot on British soil for the first time, after a long sea voyage from Bombay. Gandhi had never been to a big city before and, as he made his way to the Victoria Hotel in London from Tilbury Docks, he was stunned by the grandeur, the electric lights and by the experience of going in a lift – a contraption that he had never seen and did not know how to use. “I was quite dazzled by the splendour of the hotel. I had never in my life seen such pomp.” He was also excited to finally reach the heart of the British empire and recorded that he was “all the time smiling within myself”. Gandhi…

Railways were run to meet the needs of the imperial state Railways and the Raj: How the Age of Steam Transformed India by Christian Wolmar Atlantic, 384 pages, £25 Christian Wolmar begins the last chapter of his sweeping, well-researched history of the railways of British India by saying: “There are no empty trains in India.” Railways and the Raj assumes the Indian railway network has always been the subcontinent’s backbone and that it has always been teeming with passengers. He imagines it as a system created for imperial ends, but which has been embraced by Indians as their own, so every seat and carriage was, and is still, full. In fact, there have always been empty seats. There are near-empty trains now, particularly between India’s metropolitan cities, which are connected far…

The Last Battle: Endgame on the Western Front, 1918 by Peter Hart Profile, 420 pages, £25 The story of 1918 remains one of the least understood periods of the First World War, all too often overshadowed by the grim fighting of 1916 at Verdun and the Somme. Peter Hart, a historian with the Imperial War Museum in London, has previously written on this subject with his 1918: A Very British Victory. He is now returning to the subject for the centenary. This new book looks at the final phase of the campaign on the western front, beginning with the Franco-American attack in the Meuse-Argonne on 26 September and continuing until the Armistice on 11 November 1918. For Hart, these battles barely feature in our memory: “Scant details appear in general…

Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe (1958) Long recognised as a milestone in African literature, this remarkable novel by the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, who died in 2013, is as gripping today as it was when it was first published 60 years ago. Set in the 19th century, it tells the story of Okonkwo, a wrestling champion and leader of his Igbo people, who is a tragic witness to the demoralising impact of the arrival of white colonialists on his countrymen and culture. Segu Maryse Condé (1987) Originally written in French, this epic tale set in the African kingdom of Segu opens in the final years of the 18th century. It follows the fortunes of Dousika Traore, an adviser to the king, and the fate of his sons through the decades…

“What’s very revealing is how reliant people were on basic carbohydrates” Back in Time for Tea TV BBC Two Scheduled for 25 February For working-class families striving to subsist in the wake of the First World War, life wasn’t easy. The cost of food typically ate up a third of the household budget, and often this food was stodgy. “What’s very revealing is how reliant people were on basic carbohydrates – potatoes and bread especially,” says Polly Russell, food historian and co-presenter with Sara Cox of Back in Time for Tea. In a departure from earlier iterations of the living history programme, which broadly focused on middle-class diets and London, the emphasis of this series is on the eating habits of working folk, specifically in northern England – hence tea…

As part of celebrations to mark its 250th anniversary, the Royal Academy of Arts is reassembling a significant portion of Charles I’s art collection. In Charles I’s Treasures Reunited (BBC Two, February) Brenda Emmanus explores a treasure trove of artefacts including paintings by Van Dyck, Rubens and Titian, a collection that was partly broken up by Oliver Cromwell. Also look out for Art, Passion & Power: The Story of the Royal Collection (BBC Four, January and iPlayer), in which Andrew Graham-Dixon considers the wider story of the artworks owned by the Queen as sovereign. Also on BBC Four, Ruth Ellis (scheduled for February) tells the story of the last woman to be hanged in Britain, convicted of the murder of her lover, David Blakely. (For more on the case, see…

Dressed to impress EXHIBITION Royal Women The Fashion Museum, Bath 3 February–28 April 2019 - 01225 477789 • fashionmuseum.co.uk The fashions of four royal women – Queen Alexandra, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret – come under the spotlight in Bath this month in an exhibition that explores the sartorial lives and tastes of each of these influential women. The exhibition will examine how the monarchical role played by each woman – none of whom were regnant – was reflected in their fashion choices, as well as their influence on wider clothing styles. Queen Alexandra, the wife of Edward VII, favoured chokers and high necklines – a fashion that was adopted by many British women. However, the style of Queen Mary (wife of George V, and…

Angel cake Like many of our favourite foods, the exact origins of angel cake are tricky to pin down. However, this delicate, pale sponge with a crisp golden outside is generally thought to have gained popularity in 19th-century America. In a time before electric whisks, making the sponge sufficiently light and airy would have been no mean feat: some serious physical labour would have been needed to whip the mixture into shape. In 1865, the prayers of angel cake fans were answered by a new invention – the rotary egg beater. This handy tool made light work of the heavy whisking the recipe required, and the popularity of this delicious and easy to make cake sky-rocketed. INGREDIENTS 115g plain flour 85g icing sugar 8 large egg whites, at room temperature…

Sarah Crook Women’s struggle for equality in 20th-century Britain brought about significant social change. But what was achieved, exactly who benefitted from the changes, and by what means were they finally brought about? • Sarah looks back a hundred years to examine the hard fought struggle for women’s rights on page 32 Yasmin Khan Gandhi had a lifelong relationship with Britain which was intense and contradictory. I’ve spent years studying him but it’s also possible for anyone to read his letters and papers (they are all now available online) and they give amazing insights into his character, experiences and beliefs. • Yasmin looks at Gandhi’s attitude to Britain on page 58 Lizzie Seal The hanging of Ruth Ellis in 1955 endures as a significant moment when anxieties about the death…

The Wellcome Collection in London has acquired this portrait of Barbara van Beck, a 17th-century German woman famous for her thick facial hair. Beck, who was described in 1657 by diarist John Evelyn as having “a most prolix beard, & mustachios, with long locks of haire growing on the very middle of her nose”, is sensitively depicted as high-status and cultured. The painting, whose creator is unknown, will go on show at the Wellcome Collection this month.…

Roman remains found in Greek port Evidence of large-scale Roman engineering has been found during underwater excavations at the ancient port of Corinth in Greece. Among the items discovered is a 2,000-year-old wooden support post, ceramics and maritime items such as anchors. 100-year-old chocolates auctioned A box of Red Riding Hood chocolates, given as a gift between 1910 and 1914, has sold at auction for £230. The chocolates, wrapped in paper clothes and boasting a white sheen due to their age, were originally deemed too pretty to eat. ‘Isaac Newton drawing’ discovered A rough drawing has been found scratched into the walls of Woolsthorpe Manor, Lincolnshire – the childhood home of Isaac Newton. The artwork – thought to be of a nearby windmill – was found near the main fireplace…

England, 1913. A country in the grip of a social revolution and civil war. For the past 18 months, the suffragettes of the Women’s Social and Political Union have been waging a violent and terrifying campaign on the government of the United Kingdom, leaving bombs on trains, in post offices, blowing up railway stations and churches, cutting telegram and telephone wires, and burning down MPs’ houses. By the summer, Newton Heath had suffered a serious attack on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and the police were on the hunt for its perpetrators. They finally arrested Jennie Baines, a well-known and prominent suffragette, and her husband George as well as their son, George Wilfrid, for “wilfully and maliciously” committing the attack. At their home, 762 Oldham Road, Newton Heath, the police…

Thank you to BBC History Magazine for publishing the opinions of a “proud descendant of a Confederate soldier” (Letters, January). These were views I found confusing, but welcomed reading nonetheless. I would have liked to have heard more from Cathy Smith of Arizona, perhaps detailing why she feels pride in her specifically “Confederate” heritage – or what exactly that heritage is when all aspects of white nationalism have been removed from it. As the prewar economy of the south was hugely dependent on the 4 million slaves who lived and worked there, would Cathy have preferred if this practice had continued? And how does she imagine that economy surviving the industrial age or the rise of global economics? She proposed the reasonable explanation for the erection of monuments as providing…

1868 The Capital Punishment (Amendment) Act ends public hanging. 1923 Edith Thompson (left) and Freddy Bywaters are executed for the murder of Edith’s husband (also pictured) amid doubts about her culpability and rumours that her hanging was botched. 1930 A report from the Select Committee on Capital Punishment recommends an experimental five-year period of abolition, but this is not debated in parliament. 1948 Capital punishment is suspended between February and November during debates on a Criminal Justice Bill. But a Criminal Justice Act passes without an abolition clause. 1949 A Royal Commission on Capital Punishment examines whether eligibility for the death penalty should be limited or modified. It doesn’t report until 1953. 1953 Derek Bentley is hanged in January amid public concerns about justice in his case. John Christie is…

1869 Gandhi is born in Porbandar. His father is the adviser to the ruler of a small princely state in western India. Gandhi will become a shy and unpromising school pupil. 1888 –91 During his first stay in Britain, Gandhi studies in London and qualifies as a barrister at the Inner Temple. He becomes active in the Vegetarian Society and meets a number of British radicals. 1893 –1914 Gandhi lives in South Africa and works as a lawyer. He campaigns for the rights of Asians living in South Africa, and develops his political and spiritual beliefs. 9 January 1915 Gandhi and his family return to live and work in India. He is welcomed as a hero for his work in South Africa, but it will be two years before he…

Settlements became city-states, with aristocracies turning into more open societies The Rise of Rome by Kathryn Lomas Profile, 432 pages, £25 ‘Roman history’ takes the story of a small, nondescript Iron Age settlement – datable archaeologically to at least as far back as 1000 – that would BC become known as Rome and, a millennium later, rule most of the known western world. Too often that story excludes Italy. The purpose of Kathryn Lomas’s new study is to fill that gap and locate Rome in its wider Italian context, from its earliest emergence to its conquest of the whole Italian peninsular by 270 BC. She takes the story chapter by chapter, comparing and contrasting developments in Italy with those in Rome. As Lomas’s extensive notes make clear, she is especially…

Blood and Sand: Suez, Hungary and the Crisis that Shook the World by Alex von Tunzelmann Simon & Schuster, 480 pages, £9.99 The Suez Crisis of 1956 is fading to the margins of lived memory. Fortunately for historians, many of the key participants left written records of their experiences. In Blood and Sand, Alex von Tunzelmann draws from this literature to provide a vivid account of a crisis that set the old colonial powers of Britain and France against their Cold War ally, the United States. The Anglo-French conspirators exploited Israeli hostility to Egypt’s president Nasser in order to trigger a new Arab-Israeli war; this in turn provided a pretext to reoccupy Egypt, just months after the last British troops had withdrawn from the country. In the midst of the…

The Pilgrimage TV BBC Two Scheduled for February The tradition of making a journey for spiritual reasons dates back thousands of years, but does it have any relevance in the 21st century? To find out, seven famous faces – Neil Morrissey, Debbie McGee, Heather Small, Ed Byrne, the Reverend Kate Bottley, Raphael Rowe and JJ Chalmers – become modern-day pilgrims, walking part of the Camino de Santiago in Spain over 15 days. Along the way the septet, who stay in hostels and carry all they need, debate theology and belief, and visit historical landmarks. They also find the journey to be much more physically demanding than they could have imagined.…

When asked to describe Chatsworth, one word immediately springs to mind – extravagant. As I approach the house over rolling Derbyshire hills dotted with grazing sheep, its gilt-edged windows glint in the sun, hinting at the opulence inside. Every possible inch of the house’s interior appears to be intricately decorated. From carved oak panelling to ornately stuccoed walls and ceilings hand-painted with scenes of heaven, more is more seems to be the Chatsworth way. Outside, a 105-acre garden dotted with rockeries, ponds and a maze sits within elegant parklands stretching out for 1,000 acres. Its centrepiece is the majestic cascade fountain, a gigantic 300-year-old water feature fed by four lakes. Today, the grounds are meticulously maintained by a team of more than 20 gardeners. On the day I look around,…

Paris is a place where histories and memories lie heavy on each other. In the centre of the city you are never more than yards from a discreetly poignant wall-plaque that reads “Ici est tombé” – “Here fell such-and-such, policeman, fireman, soldier, first-aider, resister, for France, for the Liberation, that France might live…” The plaques’ variations in wording and design signal their local and personal origins after the fighting of August 1944 which they commemorate. In the last two decades, they have been joined, especially in the east of the city, by plaques commemorating an even more traumatic history: the deportation of thousands of Jewish families, down to the youngest children, orchestrated by the Vichy authorities two years before the Liberation. Reading these names, sometimes on the walls of schools…

Henry’s wars Steven Gunn reveals the cost to Tudor England of Henry VIII’s military adventures British socialism Jon Lawrence on how leftwing politics in the UK developed very differently to the rest of Europe Inside the mind of Elizabeth I Helen Castor considers why it’s so difficult to understand the mentality of the Virgin Queen…

On the morning of 4 February 1555, John Rogers was sleeping soundly in his cell at Newgate prison when the keeper’s wife came for him. The son of a Birmingham spur-maker, educated at Cambridge, and a friend of the Protestant scholar William Tyndale, Rogers had long been an opponent of what he called “pestilent popery, idolatry and superstition”. But when the Catholic Mary Tudor became queen in 1553, his preaching put him in danger. In January 1554 Rogers had been detained for denying the authority of the Church of Rome – a brave thing to do, given that Mary was now vigorously turning the clock back towards Catholicism. And now, more than a year later, his time had run out. That morning, dragged before the sheriffs, Rogers was asked to…

What is Handwritten Text Recognition? Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) is the ability for computer software to recognise and interpret handwritten characters. This technology is already used widely in day-to-day life without most of us realising it – for example to automatically ‘read’ capitalised handwritten entries on forms. The long-held aspiration for historical documents has been to deliver HTR across a wide variety of complex handwriting styles. How will HTR benefit historians? HTR offers huge time-saving benefits compared to standard research methods. The analysis of handwritten documents has traditionally required detailed reading of manuscripts by researchers. This will always be an essential element of the archival process. But the ability via HTR for historians to start at the exact word they have searched for, rather than reading through potentially hundreds of…

We’ve got a great year of anniversaries ahead of us. Internationally there’s the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, part of a surge of optimism as the dust began to settle after the Second World War. Here in Britain, people were shell-shocked and weary after the huge war effort, the bombing and privation, and the loss of life. But the British people and their allies had come through – thanks in no small measure to troops from the empire, especially India, Africa and the Caribbean. It was also a time fizzing with ideas and new possibilities. After its 1945 victory the Labour government set out to implement the 1942 Beveridge Report on the ‘five giants’ of want, disease, squalor, ignorance and idleness. Then, in July 1948 came the formation…

February 2018 will see the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act. Which women in history would you like to see given more recognition for their achievements? @laurelworlds Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd ap Cynan (princess of Gwynedd; co-sovereign of Deheubarth) is barely known outside of Wales. Yet she defended south Wales for 20 years against Henry I’s invasion forces @HMoore_Oldham Oldham-born, working class suffragette Annie Kenney put the question to Winston Churchill: “If you are elected, will you do your best to make woman suffrage a government measure?” @CraigMatthews9 Ellen Wilkinson, education minister under Attlee. She raised the school leaving age, played a prominent role in women’s suffrage and helped with air raid shelters. Imagine the role she could have played if she hadn’t died at 55 @Voidfished Mary…

June Purvis is emeritus professor of women’s and gender history at the University of Portsmouth. She has written extensively on the suffragette movement, including Christabel Pankhurst: A Biography (published by Routledge in January) Jad Adams is a fellow of the School of Advanced Study, University of London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His most recent book is Women and the Vote: A World History (OUP, 2014) Julia Bush is a former senior lecturer in history at the University of Northampton. Her books include Women Against the Vote: Female Anti-Suffragism in Britain (OUP, 2007) Fern Riddell is a historian specialising in sex and suffrage. She is a consultant on the forthcoming BBC One documentary How Women Won the Vote…

1 How was the army discovered? In the throes of a drought in March 1974, brothers who farmed a smallholding in the village of Lintong, a day’s ride east of Xi’an in central China, decided to dig a new well. A metre down they reached a solid layer, which they assumed to be an old brick kiln. Then, to their surprise, fragments of pottery began to emerge and, quite suddenly, a life-sized terracotta head, which terrified them. Archaeologists were dispatched to the site – later designated Pit 1 – and, when more objects, including bronze swords, were found, the excavation evolved into a long-term project involving the establishment of a new museum. In May 1976, two further sites – designated Pit 2 and Pit 3 – were discovered near the…

Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi by Thomas Weber Oxford University Press, 448 pages, £20 “History will be kind to me,” Winston Churchill supposedly said, “for I intend to write it.” Of course, history has been far from kind to Hitler, and rightly so, but in Mein Kampf he too attempted to write his own history, particularly the circumstances of his political awakening. It is a story that has proved remarkably durable. Thomas Weber’s new book demolishes some of the Nazi leader’s last remaining fibs. Hitler had good reason to rewrite his past when he penned his autobiography-cum-manifesto in 1924–25. Firstly, he wanted to show his political awakening as having taken place spontaneously, without outside inspiration, in the manner that would befit a genius. But, perhaps more pressingly, Hitler…

Auntie’s War: The BBC During the Second World War by Edward Stourton Doubleday, 432 pages, £20 This highly readable book seeks to explain why and how the Second World War transformed the British Broadcasting Corporation. Auntie’s War captures the peculiar mix of establishment conservatism and technocratic progressivism that shaped the BBC during its first decades, and demonstrates the huge reward in soft power that Britain reaped from its broadcasts to occupied Europe. Though Edward Stourton insists he has tried to remain detached, the book is at its most engaging when he contrasts his own experiences as a BBC journalist preparing for war-zone assignments or editing in the field, to those of his forebears. He successfully brings out the craft that enabled the best radio performers to enthral their listeners. If…

The Music of Time – Jamaica RADIO BBC World Service Saturday 3 February The music of Jamaica is, as Professor Carolyn Cooper puts it, “rooted in a long history of resistance to oppression”. It’s a story that reaches back to Africa – as do the beats that helped sustain the humanity of those transported to the island. Moving forward in time, Cooper’s documentary looks in depth at reggae. Bob Marley – and especially the One Love Peace Concert of April 1978 – is central to the story. As the Wailers played ‘Jammin’’, Marley joined the hands of warring political rivals Michael Manley and Edward Seaga – something nobody other than the reggae singer could have done.…

Eight Days that Made Rome DVD (Spirit Entertainment Limited, £24.99) The history of Rome, argues Bettany Hughes, was profoundly shaped in “single critical moments”. She’s talking about moments such as Hannibal’s defeat at the battle of Zama in 202 BC, Julius Caesar’s decision to cross the Rubicon, and Constantine the Great’s baptism as a Christian – a deathbed spiritual declaration with profound effects. In this series, first shown on Channel 5, Hughes uses these events – and as the title suggests, five other episodes – as starting points to tell the wider tale of how Roman civilisation developed. As you might expect, it’s a frequently gory story. Hughes explores battlefields where no quarter was asked for or given – yet there’s also much here about Rome’s art and architecture and,…

1 Chiswick House WEST LONDON Georgiana’s political hub A Palladian villa built in 1729, Chiswick was another of the Devonshires’ spectacular properties. Georgiana called the house her “earthly paradise”, and used it as a political hub to host parties, dinners and meetings. Whig politician Charles James Fox – who Georgiana had canvassed for so enthusiastically in the 1784 election – died at Chiswick in 1806. chiswickhouseandgardens.org.uk 2 Althorp NORTHAMPTONSHIRE Georgiana’s family home Georgiana was born and grew up at Althorp, home to the aristocratic Spencer family for more than 500 years. Dating from 1688, the current house is home to a significant art collection and sits in 13,000 acres of land. It was later home to another Spencer woman who enjoyed huge celebrity in her day – Princess Diana. spencerofalthorp.com…

BEST TIME TO GO You won’t find Paris lacking in crowds at any point, though at the height of summer you will find the less-touristy areas devoid of quite a lot of their locals, as many Parisians still honour the idea of the long break in the provinces. Paris in summer can be oppressively hot, and horribly polluted; Paris in winter can be simply dank. It may be a cliché, but if the weather forecast looks good, there’s no better time than spring. GETTING THERE You can fly to any one of several airports, all in the general vicinity of Paris, from almost anywhere. If you can I suggest taking the Eurostar straight to the Gare du Nord, to be tipped seamlessly into an absolutely Parisian experience from the off.…

BY JULIAN HUMPHRYS Try your hand at this month’s history quiz 1. What links the early 19th-century dukes of Dalmatia, Elchingen and Ragusa? 2. Why was the ‘Unlearned Parliament’ of 1404 so called? 3. In 1152 Eleanor of Aquitaine (left) married the future Henry II of England. Who was her former husband? 4. Who or what was seized in the Ruthven Raid of 1582? 5. What was originally founded in 1931 by Ninette de Valois? 6. Where is this building? The author of a famous children’s poem published in 1806 as The Star lived here. QUIZ ANSWERS 1. All three were French Napoleonic marshals who fought against Wellington: Soult, Ney and Marmont. 2. Because lawyers were banned from sitting in it. 3. King Louis VII of France. 4. The young…

“He made every word count. A lot of great writers occasionally let a lazy or clichéd description pass by their pen – but not Updike. His descriptions forge the world anew” John Updike was an American novelist and short-story writer. Best known for his Rabbit series of books (1960–90), starting with Rabbit, Run, he is one of only three writers to win the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once. His novel The Witches of Eastwick was adapted for the big screen. When did you first hear about John Updike? When I was studying for an English degree at Cambridge, a lecturer mentioned Updike during a talk about sex, and as a lustful 18-year-old I was immediately drawn to his work! To be serious though, I was just as…