fantastic

loved this, beautifully told and an important topic matter. I'd never heard about this before listening.

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3 people found this helpful

Unique and compelling first episode

I'm hooked. This podcast turned out to be something I wasn't expecting - an intriguing murder mystery.

I'm looking forward to listening to episode 2.

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Captivating!

I found this podcast while on holiday in Rhodes and it was the perfect story for the perfect holiday. The characters were so interesting, the premise of the story very compelling and the emotional dynamics breathtaking. The ending was a bit too moralistic with everyone having an awakening was a bit much. Anyway good story!

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6 people found this helpful

Interesting but falls a little short

A great concept for a true crime podcast but at the end there really wasn't any new revelations or new understandings so it feels a little disappointing.

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Very very good!

Very interesting story and execution! The music, the narators voice and editing were all very good.

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Completely hooked

This was so well done and had me completely hooked which I wasn’t expecting. Definitely worth a listen.

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1 person found this helpful

Review

I found this story began with a strong and enticing start but became increasingly weak. It became predictable and the obvious word pedophile was never used. should have been more honest as that was a dominant theme throughout.

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Ruined by the presenter

This is a good podcast, but is ruined by the presenter who paints a picture of England as if Victoria is on the thrown. Clearly made for Americans who want to engulf themselves in "Little England". Borderline xenophobic.

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4 people found this helpful

Often jaw dropping true crime

I'm not a true crime devotee but I dabble. I thought this one looked interesting as I'm an English teacher. However, I put on the first episode and I couldn't believe my ears, I actually knew one of the people from the book club as he was a consultant at my former job!! Obviously from that point I was hooked!

I found the story telling often lurid and a bit clunky. I also thought some of the questions Gillian was posing were completely inane at times and yet I found the repression of these men and what was constantly left unsaid really fascinating.

I didn't find the characterisation of England offensive because I think these upper middle class academic types do live in a slightly different world to the rest of us. The story at the centre is very very sad in so many ways and well worth telling.

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This is (not) England

I am conflicted. I really liked this podcast. I’d recommend people listen to it. It’s basically a real life Midsummer Murder; well written, well presented and, for the most part, balanced. HOWEVER, the generalisations made about “English people” are irritating. In places the author sounds like she if pitying of the UK as a backward little island that has had to drag itself to enlightenment. I’m English and very much from a working class background. I feel some caveats are needed. This whole podcast is set in a very specific social space and environment that 99% of English people NEVER set foot in. It’s a place of privilege and exclusivity that only the upper classes experience. It is not common for “English people” to be at private schools that cost £60k a year where being poor gets you maligned and bullied. “Schools in England” are all lumped into the same bracket where the emotional well-being of students is ignored and the author congratulates us on our ability to rise beyond that in recent years. Stoke is an exception and Peter is an exception within Stoke. This is what makes the story compelling. It is not common for people to attend Oxford University or to be invited to exclusive book clubs where you are only allowed to air your opinion because the guy that started it has decided you’re worthy. It is also not common in Britain for people to lose jobs due to their sexuality. Being gay may not have been “legal” but that doesn’t mean that up until the point it was decriminalised, all English people were homophobic. Far from it! The changes in the employment laws of the exclusive private college are there because of EU equality laws that were bought in over a quarter of a century ago to offer additional protection for individuals and they basically just formalised the way in which many institutions were already functioning. From a religious point of view, Peter is not just C of E, he is clearly high Anglican which is a denomination of the Church of England dripping in tradition and heavily entrenched in the social strata of the English upper classes. It’s as much about appearance and manners and Draconian models of social proprietary as it is about belief. Stating that English people “get embarrassed easily” which is why no-one discusses their grief is also grossly inaccurate. In this elite academic and social class group, with-holding emotions in a social setting is based on etiquette. It is not indicative of an overall English inability to express emotions. The class element of this story is part of what makes it intriguing and yet there seems to be no acknowledgement by the author that this little village is the exception rather than the rule in the UK. I suppose it’s quite interesting to hear the way in which an American scholar of privilege, who attended private school in the USA and then Oxford University in the UK, views “England”. It’s a stereotypical narrow view which is completely entrenched in tweed and canons of literature and quaffing and etiquette and a dark shame regarding sex. It’s doesn’t depict the England I’ve grown up in, or any of the people I know but I guess, that’s what makes life interesting eh?

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