British Life

Learn and improve your English with the BBC. Collected here for the first time are 12 episodes from BBC Learning English's popular 6 Minute English series. Aimed at intermediate level learners of English, each programme examines a different topic which is discussed and explained to help learners increase their knowledge of the English language.

The tragic fate of the British airship R101—which went down in a spectacular fireball in 1930, killing more people than died in the Hindenburg disaster seven years later—has been largely forgotten. In His Majesty’s Airship, S.C. Gwynne resurrects it in vivid detail, telling the epic story of great ambition gone terribly wrong.

"To boldly go where no man has gone before" was a phrase made popular by Gene Rodenberry in a science fiction setting, but it was certainly the creed of countless explorers during the Age of Discovery and afterwards. In fact, as recently as the mid-18th century, a young sailor named James Cook determined to go "farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it is possible for a man to go." And unlike so many others who tried, he did just that.

A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ British Legends series, listeners can get caught up to speed on the lives of Great Britain’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. In 19th century England, few families were as accomplished as the Huxley family, which included prominent figures in the arts, sciences, and literature, but the most famous of them all would come of age in the early 20th century. Aldous Huxley was one of the most unique intellectuals of his age, but he was also one of the greatest. While he was controversial for dabbling with mysticism, a belief in parapsychology and the supernatural, and for advocating the use of psychedelic drugs, nobody could deny his abilities. Having grown up among the Huxley family, Aldous was well-versed in everything from botany to zoology, which helped him write one of the seminal futuristic science fiction novels, Brave New World, which he claimed sprang forth from him because of his experience in "an ordered universe in a world of planless incoherence".

In a world where heroism and self-sacrifice sometimes seem to be in short supply, the exploits of the famed Admiral Horatio Nelson stand out to us as a refreshing reminder. His noble actions serve to show us of what it means to go above and beyond the call of duty and to put petty differences aside for the greater good. Despite the larger-than-life legend that two centuries have brought us, Horatio Nelson was not some swashbuckling caricature, he was a real flesh and blood human being, just as flawed as the rest of us.

The Skripal Files is a remarkable and definitive account of Sergei Skripal’s story, which lays bare the new spy war between Russia and the West. Mark Urban, the diplomatic and defense editor for the BBC, met with Skripal in the months before his poisoning, learning about his career in Russian military intelligence, how he became a British agent, his imprisonment in Russia, and the events that led to his release. Skripal’s first-hand accounts and experiences reveal the high stakes of a new spy game that harks back to the chilliest days of the Cold War.

Discover the remarkable life of Virginia Woolf.... Virginia Woolf ranks among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Embracing the Post-Impressionist times in which she lived, her novels reflect the artistic shift from romanticism to abstract. Plot mattered very little to Woolf. Her writing was a stream of consciousness outside of time and place. Her novels, including her best-known work, Mrs. Dalloway, invariably dwell on gender roles and the concept of reality.

If life were fair, Jam Gallahue would still be at home in New Jersey with her sweet British boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield. She'd be watching old comedy sketches with him. She'd be kissing him in the library stacks. She certainly wouldn't be at The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic boarding school in rural Vermont, living with a weird roommate, and signed up for an exclusive, mysterious class called Special Topics in English. But life isn't fair, and Reeve Maxfield is dead.

With Muse of Fire, Michael Korda, the bestselling author of Alone and Hero, takes a novel approach to World War I by telling its history through the lives of the soldier-poets whose verses memorialize the war's unimaginable horrors. He begins with Rupert Brooke and the halcyon days before violence engulfed his generation—destroying the self-contented world of Edwardian England—and ends with the tragic death of Wilfred Owen, killed only days before the armistice brought an end to a war that took over 25,000,000 lives.

In 1982, war brought The Falkland Islands into the spotlight. When Jennifer and her family put down roots in an unspoiled community on West Falkland, they can’t help but see the unruly climate and the close proximity to a frozen wasteland. How could a place like this be worth fighting for? The Carters quickly learn that the Falklands way of life is friendliness and self-sufficiency. Their new life becomes one of abundant wildlife and growing their own food, but it never strays from the island’s true British identity.

The famous 'Surrender' in Bavaria of the Nazi/NASA scientists, was staged, it has been cited as fact in all literature and film since the war, 76 years! But they just happened to 'surrender' to a translator accompanied by a film crew? This is the real story....

Fourteen-year-old Rachel Marsh is nanny to John and Abigail Adams' children and witnesses firsthand how tension builds in the feisty New England town in the two years before it erupts in the Boston Massacre. Friends become foes and families divide as British troops arrive in 1768 to force the outspoken Bostonians to toe the line and obey the British government.

But the summer days seemed to go on forever – and British families were determined to make the best of their paralysed country. For evacuated children, this meant freedom that is unimaginable today: discovering wildlife, foraging from orchards and hedgerows and swimming in the streams. Elsewhere, country estates were requisitioned for the war efforts. Caroline Taggart shows us how Britons succeeded in keeping spirits up with this entertaining collection of first-hand reminiscences from people who lived through those six long years.

Such is our task, and such lies before us all: Liberty or death. In the summer of 1775, fleeing from a death sentence, Octavian and his tutor, Dr. Trefusis, escape through rising tides and pouring rain to find shelter in British-occupied Boston. Sundered from all he knows Octavian hopes to find safe harbor. But in the midst of war, no place is safe. The city of Boston itself is under siege. What follows is a tale of skirmish and flame, flight and fury, and battle on sea and land.

If you only buy one book to prepare for British citizenship, this is the one. This 2022 bumper edition of the best-selling manual includes the complete official course materials as well as 21 full tests. That's a total of 504 questions with answers to help you learn and practice.

It’s 1942 and as shortages of staff – and goods – begin to bite, young Lily Collins is thrilled to step up to sales junior in her job at Marlow’s department store. But bombs are still falling and Lily and fellow shop girls Gladys and Beryl need a stiff upper lip to wave boyfriends, husbands and brothers goodbye, especially with a baby on the way and grim news on the wireless. When Jim, who works with Lily at the store, seems restless, things are bad enough, but nothing can prepare Lily for the secrets that come tumbling out when her favourite brother comes home on leave....

Annie is single, unemployed and just a bit stuck when her beloved father dies unexpectedly. Furious at his partner’s plans to scatter his ashes somewhere of no emotional significance, Annie seizes the urn and, on a whim, decides to take it on a tour of the 31 sea areas that make up the shipping forecast, which her father loved listening to, despite living in landlocked St Albans. Travelling around the coastline of Britain searching for the perfect place to say goodbye, she starts to wonder if it might be time to rethink some of the relationships in her life.

Last spring, the otters' home flooded. Now the water is high again. Young otter Sedge believes he can save his holt from another flood - but he has to be brave enough travel downstream for help. Downriver, the beaver lodge is also at risk. Silken—who is too small and weak to do the work needed to strengthen the beavers' dam—feels something calling her up the river. As the two animals unknowingly swim towards each other, they are drawn to the spirit of Greenriver, who takes the form of a snow-white otter, Lady River. But will Lady River hear their plea for safety?

Маленькі жінки Луїзи Мей Олкотт — роман, що виховав кілька поколінь юних читачів по всьому світу. Ця книга була перекладена понад 50 мовами, її сюжет покладений в основу шести фільмів, чотирьох телесеріалів, кількох опер та спектаклів. З історії родини Марч, в якій зростають чотири дружні, проте геть не схожі одна на одну сестри, читач дізнається про такі перипетії юності, як дорослішання, дружба та любов. У цьому виданні публікується новий оригінальний переклад з англійської Юлії Шматько.

Killing Goldfinger charts the extraordinary rise and spectacular bullet-riddled fall of John Palmer, the richest, most powerful criminal ever to have emerged from the modern British underworld. Palmer earned his nickname Goldfinger after smelting (in his back garden) tens of millions of pounds worth of stolen gold bullion from the 20th century's most lucrative heist; the Brink's-Mat robbery. Palmer then used his share of the millions to become the vicious overlord of a vast illegal timeshare property empire in Tenerife.