Today's guest is an historian of the Burma campaign and equine experience in the World Wars - Lucy Betteridge-Dyson. Lucy is a PhD candidate and Burma Star Memorial Fund Scholar in the Department of Defence Studies at King's College, London. She didn't start out in history but instead was an audio engineer, earning a BEng (with honors!) in Audio Systems Engineering from Queen Mary University, London. Her interest in history, however, was always present and through her social media engagement she was noticed by documentary production companies, leading to several historical documentaries, including one in which she rides an unfamiliar horse at Waterloo and dresses in full Tommy kit at the Somme. She's appeared on the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are, National Geographic's World War II Secrets from Above, and PBS's Military Masterminds, among others. Like many of our UK guests, her grandfather served in the Second World War-a commando in Burma! Her first book, Jungle Commandos: The Battle for Arakan, Burma, 1945 (Osprey) came out in 2025. Along the way, she earned an MA in First World War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, and is now working on her PhD thesis at King's titled "More than Muscle: Equines and the British Army, 1918-1945."

Another fun one - We'll talk riding Western style in the UK, the difficulties of breaking into documentary TV production, raising a 9-month-old (who participates in the pod!), The Ramones, Inside No. 9, Sylvia Syms, getting your academic history chops, Paul Weller, tattoos, and the indispensable support of a spouse, and more. You'll enjoy this one!

Rec.: 05/14/2026