Why I'm starting a Substack

If you’re a writer who believes in getting the story ‘right’, it usually takes years to bring a book from idea to publication.

It was nine years between my fourth, Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening, and my fifth, The BBC: A People’s History. Right now, I’m working on number six. It’s about the tangled, secretive lives of Britain’s wartime propagandists. And for reasons that will become apparent later, it’s going to be called The Circus.

Now, having left full-time academia I’ve got the luxury of being able to research and write full-time. Turnaround time has shrunk. Even so, The Circus won’t be in the shops until 2026.

That’s a long time to be in self-imposed isolation. And when things happen in the world - things that relate to your own interests - it’s hard not to be able to contribute in some small way to the public debate. I used to try to do that through Twitter. But we all know what’s happened there. So, here I am.

If you’re even vaguely interested in the BBC - its past, present and future, or more precisely how aspects of its past can help us to understand its present and future - then I hope you’ll find something of interest here. But my Substack will probably wander more widely. I’m interested in the history of media more generally, the history of ideas, the history of the senses. In the past I’ve written about sound, radio, the voice. I’ve presented radio programmes about Langston Hughes, chess, 1920s psychology. I’ve even written a play for Radio 3 about Oliver Lodge, the Victorian spiritualist and scientist. And since my current work is on the men and women - many of them German or Austrian refugees - who lived largely secret lives helping to wage psychological warfare on behalf of the Allies, and about the sometimes traumatic personal consequences of their wartime work, I’m now taking an extended deep-dive in the worlds of deception, national security, and peace-building.

So, yes, there’ll be plenty of posts here about the BBC. But other stuff too. Expect the unexpected.

I’ll be trying to post weekly - usually on a Thursday. But that might vary depending on, well, life. And it might take me a while to work out how to ‘do’ this properly.

Finally, do, please, let me know what you think. Do subscribe - and do, please, feel free to invite others you think might be interested.

David

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