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Last Game at Highbury • Bundle Woman of Bow • Bones for Fertiliser • Fenland Salterns • Children's Newspapers [audio 28min]

Sue Cook and the team answer listeners' historical queries and celebrate the way in which we all 'make' history. 1) Nick Baker reported on the historical significance of the last football game at Arsenal's Highbury Stadium."Making History" consulted the architectural historian Simon Inglis, author of The Football Grounds of Great Britain (HarperCollinsWillow, 1987) and editor of the"Played in Britain" series (English Heritage)."Making History" also consulted Amy Lawrence, football writer for The Observer. 2) Listener Rebecca Bentley wanted more information about an ancestor called Clara Grant who was born on the Somerset/Wiltshire border. She later moved to London where she was a teacher and became heavily involved in a charitable organisation called the Fern Street Settlement."Making History" consulted Fern Street trustee the Reverend Michael Peet. 3)"Making History" listener John King asked about a reference in Alan Bennett's play The History Boys to bones being taken from European battlefields in the early part of the 19th century for use in the UK as fertiliser. Did this happen?"Making History" consulted Chris Dawson of the International Fertiliser Society who told us that this is a true story and that bones are good for the soil because of the phosphates they contain. 4) Richard Daniel visited an area to the south-west of Boston in the Lincolnshire Fens to discover more about the numerous small hillocks in the landscape -- spoil from the long-gone salt industry."Making History" consulted Rex Sly, author of From Punt to Plough: A History of the Fens (Sutton Publishing, 2003). 5) Is there a historical precedent for Piers Morgan's newly published First News?"Making History" consulted Dr Kelly Boyd, author of Manliness and the Boys' Story Paper in Britain (Palgrave MacMillan, 2002).
Read entire article at BBC Radio 4 "Making History"