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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: North East Free Thinkers

The Essay: North East Free Thinkers: Episode 2: Gertrude Bell

North East Free Thinkers

Episode 2

Episode 2: Gertrude Bell

Gertrude Bell

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, North East Free Thinkers, Gertrude BellClose menu

Kitty Fitzgerald on the life of Gertrude Bell, author of the 1921 map of modern Iraq.

Kitty Fitzgerald explores the achievements of Gertrude Bell, and archaeologist, army intelligence officer and mountaineer who created the controversial map of modern Iraq in 1921.

Free Thinking 2009

A series recorded in front of an audience as part of the Free Thinking ideas festival. It focuses on free-thinking figures and institutions in North-East England whose ideas challenged their times.

Kitty Fitzgerald gets inside the mind of the enigmatic Gertrude Bell, who was instrumental in drawing up the controversial map of modern Iraq in 1921, the consequences of which still resonate today. She was also an archaeologist, linguist and the greatest female mountaineer of her age. 

Born in County Durham in 1868, she was the first woman to be given an Oxford degree and the first female army officer to work for British Military Intelligence. And yet, she was opposed to votes for women.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Documentaries

Factual: Life Stories

Factual: History

Factual: Politics

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Series on the achievements of significant figures and institutions from the North East

Series exploring the achievements of influential figures and institutions from the North East of England

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The Essay

North East Free Thinkers

Episode 2: Gertrude Bell

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