Previous Shows

Programme 1:   Listen 12/05/04
The first woman in the series is Egeria, who travelled by sea and overland from Gaul to Jerusalem in 314 AD. She was a great letter writer and kept a fascinating record of everyday things such as the fact that, during the Easter celebrations, an armed guard had to be mounted round the True Cross to stop enthusiastic pilgrims biting off bits of it.

Programme 2:   Listen 19/05/04  
The Hell Raiser: In 1400, Margery Kempe travelled on foot over the Alps down into Venice, caught a pilgrim galley to Jaffa and from there travelled on to Jerusalem. Margery was 40, had been married for 20 years and had given birth to 12 children. Hers is a very modern story, that of a woman in midlife who yearns for something beyond the confines of everyday domesticity. At times, her fellow pilgrims found her enthusiastic hymn singing and exhortations that they should give up their sinful ways so unbearable that they stole her food, her sheets and, on one occasion, left her behind. Margery was an indefatigable tourist/pilgrim, wanting to see and do everything.

Programme 3:   Listen 26/05/04  
The Curious Circus Lady, Sarah Belzoni, was married to the Great Belzoni, a strong-man who performed a circus act which included singlehandedly lifting a pyramid of twelve men with the diminutive Sarah on the top, waving a flag. They performed in England and Ireland (Cobh) before taking off for Egypt where the Great Belzoni hoped to sell his own idea of an irrigation scheme. Sarah became interested in Arab women and travelled on her own to Jerusalem in 1815, disguising herself as a man in order to get into the mosque in Jerusalem, until her dainty red shoes gave her away....

Programme 4:   Listen 02/06/04  
The last woman in the series is the Princess Asmar, from Baghdad. She traveled with a huge caravan through the desert to Damascus and on to Jerusalem. She shared her tent with a bishop - with a curtain decorously hung between them. When she got to London, she scandalised people there by smoking a narghile, although she herself was scandalised by seeing men with their upper lips bare!