Two brilliant interviews in this episode (I’m allowed to say that because Jenny and Terry do all the work!) – the first with Rachel from Citizen’s Advice, and the second with an archaeology expert discussing Dorset’s long-running archaelogical dig affectionately known as Duropolis. And we”re thrilled to have Dr Jane Goodall’s Random 19 answers, too.
In an engrossing interview, Paul Cheatham, the geophysical survey director responsible for the archaelogical digs at Dorset’s ‘Duropolis’, effectively gives us a personal guided tour of the site that was discovered in 2007, and what the team have found in the subsequent 12 years of digs as they explore the hillside.
He admits that everywhere the team survey they find a new settlement to explore – whether Iron Age, Bronze Age or Roman, from the Mesolithic to the late Roman era, the Dorset hillsides are covered in remnants of early communities. During the medieval period people moved into the valleys and finally left the high grounds, but counter to perceived wisdom, Paul explains that early man did not in fact choose hilltops for defence purposes – and he also talks Jenny through Iron Age fridges.
Rachel Rogers provides some specific advice around what to do when a package holiday goes wrong! Talking to Terry, she provides an interesting look at the work of Dorset’s Citizen’s Advice – no longer the CAB, the organisation does a lot more than is widely understood.
Admittedly a chimpanzee-studying lady in Africa may not have been everyone’s childhood hero, but for editor Laura – an animal-obsessed girl growing up in a big Essex town – the life of her dreams was being lived by Jane Goodall, the renowned ethologist and inspiring conservationist. Even at 89 Dr Jane Goodall remains a powerhouse of action, and her answers to this month’s Random 19 questions are everything you could hope for – from Lord of the Rings to an evocative stream of memories of a life lived in the wild (there’s also a controversial opinion on biscuit dunking).