Letters to Juliet and Saint Valentine’s traditions

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2024

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

We hear about the Juliet Club in Verona, Italy. The club has been replying to mail addressed to Shakespeare’s tragic heroine, Juliet since the early 1990s.

Professor Lisa Bitel talks about the traditions of Valentine’s Day.

Plus, how the small Irish town of Gort became known as ‘Little Brazil’ because it's home to so many Brazilians. The World War Two escape line that fooled the Nazis and the stadium disaster that shocked Egypt.

And the story of the food supplement used by soldiers during the Nigerian civil war that became a drink enjoyed in more than 70 countries around the world.

Contributors: Giovanna Tamassia - daughter of Giulio Tamassia, one of the founders of the Juliet Club. Professor Lisa Bitel - Professor of History & Religion at the University of Southern California, USA. Lucimeire Trindade – resident of Gort, Ireland. Keith Janes – son of captured a British soldier. Christine Lepers – daughter of a French resistance fighter. Mahmoud Al-Khawaga – former footballer with Zamalek. Peter Rasmussen – creator of the drink Supermalt.

(Photo: Giovanna Tamassia from the Juliet Club. Credit: Leonello Bertolucci/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	In 1969, a plan to show support for an anti-racism protest turned the lives of 14 promising
0:07.0	black student athletes upside down.
0:09.8	Amazing sports stories from the BBC World Service tells their story.
0:14.0	Search for Amazing Sports Stories, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
0:18.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service
0:27.0	with me Max Pearson the past brought to life by those who were there.
0:31.6	This week the heroism of the French resistance helping Allied servicemen escape
0:36.1	from Nazi occupation during the Second World War.
0:38.9	He was arrested three times and put twice in prison. The first time was in Marseille and he was brought to the prison where he stayed 17 days.
0:50.0	Also how a malt drink popular in Nigeria during the Biafran War has spread around the world
0:56.7	and why the town of Gort in the west of Ireland is known as Little Brazil.
1:01.9	When I came to Ireland, I learned that women can work as well
1:06.0	and can have their own life,
1:09.0	especially going to the Pope alone without the husband.
1:12.0	That's all coming up later in the
1:14.2	podcast but first as this week has seen Valentine's Day come and go with flowers
1:19.6	and professions of adoration passed between couples we're off to Verona in Italy.
1:25.0	It's a place known throughout the world as being the City of Love.
1:28.0	It's also the setting for William Shakespeare's famous play,
1:32.0	Romeo and Juliet, the story of Star-crossed lovers
1:35.8	from warring families.
1:37.8	And because of that, for years, people have sent letters to the Shakespearean heroine, addressed to her simply in Verona.
	...

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