Showing results by author "Katie Hickman" in All Categories

The true-life story of women's experiences in the 'Wild West' is more gripping, more heart-rending, and more stirring than all the movies, novels, folk-legends and ballads that popular imagination has been able to create. Whether they were the hard-drinking hard-living poker players and prostitutes of the new boom towns, 'ordinary' wives and mothers walking two thousand miles across the prairies pulling their handcarts behind them, all have one trait in common: that of extreme resilience and courage in the face of the unknown.

In this fascinating BBC Radio series, Katie Hickman examines the lives of 'diplomatic women' through their letters and diaries. From the first exploratory expeditions into foreign lands, through the heyday of the British Empire and still today, the foreign service has been shaped and run behind the scenes by the wives of ambassadors and minor civil servants.

Women made their way to India for exactly the same reasons men did - to carve out a better life for themselves. In the early days, India was a place where the slates of 'blotted pedigrees' were wiped clean; bankrupts given a chance to make good; a taste for adventure satisfied - for women. They went and worked as milliners, bakers, dress makers, actresses, portrait painters, maids, shopkeepers, governesses, teachers, boardinghouse proprietors, midwives, nurses, missionaries, doctors, geologists, plant collectors, writers, travellers and - most surprising of all - traders.

1611, after 10 years in the Orient, Celia Lamprey and her husband Paul Pindar have returned to England, bringing with them a legendary diamond despite the curse that surrounds it. An army of carpenters, gardeners and footmen have been summoned to restore Pindar's great house Bishopsgate to its former splendour, but all is not as it seems.

Venedig, 1604. I byens mere skumle kvarterer, blandt kurtisaner og hasardspillere, begynder der at gå rygter om en yderst smuk og sjælden diamant - Sultanens Blå. Paul Pindar, en købmand udsendt af det Ostindiske Kompagni, får nys om den og bliver mere og mere overbevist om, at diamanten har forbindelse til hans elskede Celias skæbne. I den landlige omegn af byen får en gruppe kvindelige gøglere en besynderlig opgave: De skal transportere en stum kvinde og hendes forkrøblede "havfruebarn" til Venedig. Samtidig skjuler en ung kvinde, med en mystisk fortid, sig i et af Venedigs klostre.