TALKS

On 8 October 2022, Jane gave a talk called A Morning of Scandal in the beautiful library at Belton House, Grantham, Lincs on her book TANGLED SOULS Love and Scandal among the Victorian Aristocracy in which Belton features.  Although the estate has been part of the National Trust since 1984, prior to that it was owned by the Brownlow family – Earls, then barons – from the 17th century. From the 19th century until the 1920s, the Brownlows also owned Ashridge in Hertfordshire, where Jane spoke in March  2022 (see below).

               

 

 

In May and June 2022, for the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, Jane was invited to give talks on her earlier book PRINCESS The Early Life of Queen Elizabeth II. She also gave one in September 2022 at the University Arms Hotel, Cambridge which had been booked as part of the Jubilee festivities but in fact fell a few days after the Queen’s death. The talk proceeded as a commemoration of the Queen’s early life.

 

 

On 8 and 10 March 2022, Jane talked at ‘An Evening of Scandal’ at Ashridge House, Hertfordshire about her book TANGLED SOULS Love and Scandal among the Victorian Aristocracy. The house, formerly home to the 3rd Earl Brownlow, features in the book.  

                                                     

                                     

TELEVISION & other visual

PRINCESS The Early Life of Queen Elizabeth II was used as a source for a documentary for which Jane was filmed. Our Queen in Wartime was made by the BBC for ITV, where it was broadcast on 22 April 2020. It was also shown (as The Queen in Wartime) on PBS on 5 May 2020 and on subsequent dates.

                                         

In August 2018, Jane was filmed by the Anglophile Channel, the American TV channel for lovers of British culture and entertainment,  in interview with Marlise Boland.  They talked about her book  PRINCESS: The Early Life of Queen Elizabeth II. The location was the Intercontinental Hotel, Park Lane, London, which stands on the site of the Queen’s first home, 145 Piccadilly, to which her parents moved in June 1927. Watch here : ‘PRINCESS’ interview

RADIO INTERVIEWS, PROGRAMMES & PODCASTS

Tangled Souls: Love and Scandal Among the Victorian Aristocracy

4 February 2022: Jane was interviewed live about her book  by broadcaster and former politician, Michael Portillo, on his evening show on Times Radio: listen here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/show/20220204-11981/2022-02-04

14 February: interview with Babs Michel on BBC Three Counties Radio, discussing Tangled Souls with reference to the grand houses in Hertfordshire that feature in the book (at approx. 2.13.05): https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0bkbpxx

27 January: interview with Sharon Edwards for BBC Radio Lincolnshire, discussing the book’s links with the county, eg. Belton House, Stamford and Grantham (the ‘Margaret Thatcher connection’) (at 1.46.36): https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0bgj8z4

 Podcasts

– In June 2021 Jane appeared on Shaun Attwood’s royal special podcast (with her agent & fellow biographer Andrew Lownie) to talk about the Queen’s early life in relation to current issues within the royal family, with reference to her book PRINCESS The Early Life of Queen Elizabeth II.  Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyGD6uJ8fQ4

– She featured in the Better Known podcast in May 2019, talking to Ivan Wise about six things that should be better known.  Her choices included two trailblazing women from the 19th/early 20th cent. (including Lady Dorothy Mills, nee Walpole) and The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley. Listen here:  Podcast

Other Radio

 – In October/November 2019, Jane presented the first series of The Book Programme for North Herts Radio, in which she chatted to fellow writers from the Society of Authors (Hertfordshire branch). Novelists and non-fiction writers talked about their work and played music which had impacted on them. Here (below left) she’s recording the first programme, War Zone, with Allan Esler Smith & Hugh Bicheno, and the last programme (below right), with JD Davies and Patricia O’Sullivan, The Pleasure & the Pain of writing Non-fiction, in which Jane also talked about her own work.  Other programmes were Writing Historical Fiction; Poetry Today; and A Story in the Making.

             

In early 2020 (just before the pandemic) Jane was involved with the second series, which was broadcast in August. She presented a business programme – ‘Get that business going – it’s easier than you think!’  – in which she talked to three experts who’ve written books on the subject. (Below left, from front: Claudia Roth, Allan Esler Smith, Chris West, Jane.) Jane was also a contributor to the programme ‘The Craft of Writing,’ (below right), with presenter JS Watts, and Chris West & Jane O’Reilly.

       

– On 10 July 2018 Jane was interviewed live by Selina Mackenzie for Talk Radio Europe, to talk about PRINCESS. Link here

–  She was interviewed live on BBC Radio Suffolk on 10 November 2015 as a sofa guest on Lesley Dolphin’s show and invited to talk about her life and her books, which at that time were The Voice from the Garden and Duchesses: Living in 21st Century Britain. 

– Jane has also written features for and presented on BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Service) in Gibraltar.

BOOK FESTIVALS 

 – In February 2020 Jane was delighted to speak at the Bexley Book Buzz Literary Festival (below). Her venue was historic Hall Place, in the area in which she was brought up, and the room was the beautiful Tudor Kitchen, where a scene from The Crown was filmed – most appropriate because her talk was called From Bexley Girl to Royal Biographer.

       

               

 – Jane was a speaker at the Berwick Literary Festival (below) in October 2018 on Royals, Rebels & Aristocrats: The Pleasure & the Pain of Writing about Britain’s ‘Blue-Blooded’ families.   

                                                                                    

 – She spoke at the first Hitchin Literary Festival, OpenBook on 29 July 2017, held at the British Schools Museum, which was opened by the Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire. Her talk was Royals, Rebels and Aristocrats (below).

OTHER TALKS

After going through their audition processes,  Jane was accepted by the Federation of Women’s Institutes (WI) as an approved speaker for Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, and has enjoyed fulfilling many engagements. 

Jane has also given talks to other organisations, including libraries. In 2018 she spoke at Croxley Green and Hitchin libraries, on Other People’s Lives: The Thrills and Spills of Being a Biographer, and during 2019 at Buntingford and Hertford, on Royals, Rebels & Aristocrats. She has also given talks to PROBUS and other social groups. 

OTHER EVENTS

 – On 13 January 2020, the Queen held ‘summit talks’ at Sandringham on the proposals made by the Duke & Duchess of Sussex for their new roles. The same day, Jane’s letter to The Times was published  (written in response to a column by a Times journalist).

 – As author of the Suffolk-based book The Voice From the Garden: Pamela Hambro & the Tale of Two Families Before & After the Great War, Jane was invited by the Mayor of Ipswich to attend the grand reopening, after restoration, of the orangery and stable block at Holywells Park, Ipswich (the Cobbold brewing family’s former estate), which took place on 18th July 2015.

(Above) The author with Pamela Hambro’s (nee Cobbold) great nephew, Major Philip Hope-Cobbold (on left), and Anthony Cobbold of the Cobbold Family History Trust. (Below) Left: the restored orangery.  Right: the redesigned stable block, where Pamela Hambro once kept her beloved horses.

 

 – In December 2014, Jane was a speaker at a Yorkshire Post Literary Lunch, held at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate, where she talked about Duchesses: Living in 21st Century Britain (below):

 – Also in December 2014, Jane attended a joint book signing event with the Duchess of Northumberland, one of the duchesses she interviewed for the book,  at The Alnwick Garden at Alnwick Castle, Northumberland (below):

 – In September 2014 Jane was invited to give a talk and book signing at Waterstones, St Albans for Duchesses: Living in 21st Century Britain  (below).