More Jam Tomorrow – Details, episodes & analysis

'Oh, bugger orf!' We all know Received Pronunciation when we hear it. But what makes this accent distinctive? Why do people still pay to learn how to speak RP – and does it really bring the advantages it used to?

Ros Taylor talks to voice coach and actor Alix Dunmore and Professor of Phonetics Jane Setter about how to spot an RP speaker – and how the accent has changed over the past century.

Speeches by Lord Brabazon of Tara and Lord Wedgwood are taken from a Lords debate in 1943 and are voiced by historian Seth Thévoz.

Alix Dunmore runs Alix Dunmore Accent Coaching.

Jane Setter is Professor of Phonetics at the University of Reading. She is the author of Your Voice Speaks Volumes: It's not what you say but how you say it, the Cambridge Handbook of Phonetics and the Oxford Handbook of Language and Prejudice, as well as co-editor of the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary.

Queen Elizabeth II's 1957 Christmas speech is available at the Royal Family YouTube channel. Prince William' interview is here. 1943 BBC Archive audio is on Facebook, as is Daniel Craig reverting to Scouse. The BBC has investigated how Queen Elizabeth's accent changed during her reign. Stephen Fry, an RP speaker, hosted an entertaining episode of Fry's English Delight about spoken English.

No one dies of diphtheria or polio in Britain any more. Since World War Two, we've virtually wiped out the diseases that used to kill tens of thousands of children every year. But rolling out a vaccine isn't always easy.

Ros Taylor talks to public health historian Gareth Millward and Stuart Blume, the author of Immunisation, about jabs and why some people refuse them.

Gareth Millward is an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense and the author of Vaccinating Britain: Mass vaccination and the public since the Second World War.

Stuart Blume is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Amsterdam and the author of Immunization: How Vaccines Became Controversial.

Diphtheria Immunisation and Big Whoop are on YouTube. Surprise Attack is at the Wellcome Collection. Polio Diagnosis and Management is at the BFI.

I also drew on the National Library of Medicine, the Science Museum and the Office for National Statistics.

Queen Victoria loved a curry, but it took the entrepreneurial efforts of South Asian migrants for it to become part of the British diet. How did it go from Windsor Castle to M&S ready meals and Dishoom?

Ros Taylor looks at how curry got political with historian Shrabani Basu and Professor Anand Menon of King's College, London.

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Show Notes

Anand Menon is Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King's College London and the director of The UK in a Changing Europe.

Shrabani Basu is the author of Victoria & Abdul: The Extraordinary True Story of the Queen's Closest Confidant.

Lord Soper's speech is on Hansard.

I am also grateful to Nishah Malik for the extract from London Life magazine. 

Episode 1: Channel Tunnel

How did the Channel Tunnel get built? And why has it not quite lived up to its promise?

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Show notes

Jon Worth blogs about European rail.

The opening speech is from Shakespeare's Richard II. 

I am grateful to Terry Gourvish, the author of The Official History of the Channel Tunnel (Routledge) for insights into the long process of getting the tunnel built.

How John Bull Lost London is available at the Internet Archive. I also drew on The Churchill Project, BNP Paribas' Origins of the Channel Tunnel 1957-87, Peter Keeling's essay at Public Domain Review, material from the National Archives and INA footage from 1975. Politicians' speeches are from Hansard.

The 1998 Eurostar ad features Antoine de Caunes.

How did it feel to watch the Channel Tunnel breaking through? The NHS made dentistry free – so why were British teeth still so bad? And what did police find at Club Eleven in 1950 that would change how we saw the world?

All this and more in season 4 of MORE JAM TOMORROW. Subscribe now to get every episode.

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It's built for cars. The buses are baffling. But it's got the most energy efficient housing in Britain. What did it take to build a city from almost nothing? And a university where there are no students on campus? 

With architectural historian John Grindrod, Ros Taylor tells the story of Milton Keynes and the Open University.

With thanks to John Grindrod, the author of Iconicon, Concretopia and Outskirts and the presenter of Monstrosities Mon Amour. His forthcoming book, Tales of the Suburbs, on LGBTQ people in suburbia, is out in February 2026.

Seth Thévoz read Lords speeches by Baron Richard Mitchison and Lord Gerald Gardiner, both in Hansard.

Milton Keynes: Shopping as it Should Be and an ITN report from 1967 are available on YouTube. Clips of Harold Wilson and Jennie Lee are at the Open University Digital Archive, which explains the OU's founding. This was an invaluable source of OU history. I also drew on the vast resources at the Milton Keynes Living Archive and the original Plan for Milton Keynes.

It was silly. It was addictive. For decades, millions of kids would gaze at the same people and laugh at the same jokes at the same time. How did children's TV shape their minds? And what will it look like in a world of unlimited digital content? 

Ros Taylor talks to Anna Home, who joined the BBC in the 1950s, and screenwriters Chitro Soundar and Angela Salt. 

Anna Home was an English TV producer and executive and is the chair of the Children's Media Foundation. She is the author of Into the Box of Delights: A History of Children's Television.

Chitra Soundar is the author of Nikhil & Jay and a writer for children's books, TV and theatre. 

Angela Salt is a screenwriter for international children's TV.

Herbert Morrison was speaking in the Commons in 1952 about the BBC charter.

The BFI and the Science and Media Museum have useful resources on early kids' TV. This is the first episode of Play School. Episodes of Grange Hill, Jackanory, Basil Brush, Thunderbirds and many other series are available on YouTube. The BBC interviewed people about Grange Hill in 1980.

More Jam Tomorrow is taking a two-episode break. We'll be back in less than a month, on 28th August.

In the meantime, I have one big ask.

Please let me know if you would support a fifth series of Jam.

Just go to morejamtomorrow.com and hit the link at the top of the page that says "Have Your Say on Series 5." Or just click here: https://tally.so/r/wv85Xd 

See you on 28th August, when we'll be back with episode eight.

Pound for pound, fish is small fry for the British economy – but it has long been vital to our sense of sovereignty. From skirmishes with Dutch boats to the Cod Wars and Brexit, Ros Taylor finds out why fish matter so much to us. Maritime historian Richard Blakemore and marine biologist Bryce Stewart join the show.

Richard Blakemore is an Associate Professor in social and maritime history at the University of Reading. He's the author of Enemies of All: The Rise and Fall of the Golden Age of Piracy, published by Pegasus Books.

Bryce Stewart is a senior research fellow at the Marine Biological Association.

Voiceovers are by Seth Thévoz. The MPs quoted are James Johnson (Kingston-upon-Hull West), Patrick Wall (Haltemprice) and John Prescott (Kingston-upon-Hull East).

The extract from the Shipping Forecast is from a five-hour YouTube compilation.

I drew on The fishing industry (Commons Library), The Cod Wars Explained (Imperial War Museum), Rethinking Sovereignty and Security at the Maritime Frontier (Coventry University), Fisheries Management in United Kingdom Waters After Brexit (Robin Churchill), Eaux britanniques: les poissons de la discorde (France Culture), and The Sovereignty of the Sea (T W Fulton).

MORE JAM TOMORROW was written and presented by Ros Taylor. The producer was David Turnbull. Music was by Dubstar. MORE JAM TOMORROW is a KTC production.

"No matter how hard you work or how capable you are, you can't do it all yourself. You have to seek reliable help." Those were Margaret Thatcher's words in 1990. Who are the 'help'? How did they enable women to have successful careers? 

Ros Taylor talks to Lucy Delap and Emma Casey about how the servant died out after the two world wars – but domestic help never went away.

Lucy Delap is Professor in Modern British and Gender History at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Knowing Their Place: Domestic Service in Twentieth Century Britain.

Emma Casey is the author of The Return of the Housewife: Why Women are Still Cleaning Up. She is a reader in sociology at the University of York.

Voiceovers were by Seth Thévoz.

The Hoover ad (1987) is at The Laundry Lab YouTube channel.

The Findus Crispy Pancakes ad is part of a YouTube compilation.

I drew on Lucy Delap's 'Yes ma'am: domestic workers and employment rights', Mistress and Maid at the Wiener Holocaust Library, Helen McCarthy's chapter on feminism, family and work in The Neoliberal Age: Britain since the 1970s (UCL Press, 2021), Margaret Thatcher's Pankhurst Lecture (1990), Silvia Federici's Wages Against Housework (1974), and the University of Aberystwyth's Domestics - Refugees from National Socialism in Germany.