logo
episode-header-image
Oct 2024
13m 44s

The Lucan Obsession: 5. The Tinderbox Ho...

Bbc Radio 4
About this episode

Many relationships have tricky patches, with couples struggling for money or over the children. But there’s a spark in this story that takes us from the Lucan’s glamorous society wedding to Sandra Rivett being murdered, Lady Lucan attacked and the children swept away. And it grips us.

Alex von Tunzleman hunts for what triggers this story, delving through a box of Lucan’s possessions not seen for decades. As she discovers cheque stubs, invoices and letters from the bank, she sees the reality of what life was like behind the Lucan’s veneer of respectability: a world of debt and alcohol, gaslighting, late night calls and stalking.

Producer: Sarah Bowen

Up next
Oct 2024
The Lucan Obsession: 6. The Golden Hour
<p>With Sandra Rivett lying dead in the basement, Lucan must decide whether to face the police or run. </p><p>And so begins the second mystery that has made this case so compelling. </p><p>Where did Lucan go that night?</p><p>Was he being sheltered by his friends who the police n ... Show More
13m 53s
Oct 2024
The Lucan Obsession: 7. The Investigation
<p>Police traipsed through 46 Lower Belgrave St on the night of Sandra Rivett’s murder, but did they contaminate the evidence?</p><p>The police files are still closed. Where there have been unanswered questions, enticing myths and conspiracies have filled the void. </p><p>Alex v ... Show More
13m 54s
Oct 2024
The Lucan Obsession: 8. Speculation and Suspicion
<p>The nation was spellbound by the inquest into Sandra Rivett’s death.</p><p>For the press the story was a dream. A tale of the aristocracy, gambling, debt and murder was a welcome relief in an era of shortages and strikes. They salivated over the grim details.</p><p>Alex von Tu ... Show More
13m 50s
Recommended Episodes
Oct 2025
Who’s Going To Win The Future? Dan Wang on China’s Engineers vs. America’s Lawyers | GoodFellows | Hoover Institution
<p>One great power (China) has a relentless thirst to build that comes with a terrible human cost, while its main rival (America) is a more lawyerly and free society that’s prone to stifling ideas both good and bad. On the 76th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic ... Show More
1h 7m
Oct 2025
The Cold War
For decades after the Second World War, the Soviet Union and the United States of America were locked in a conflict of ideology that took the planet to the brink of catastrophe. Known as the Cold War, it was an era of paranoia, fear and mutual suspicion, where the contest for sup ... Show More
57m 50s
Nov 2025
Xi Jinping’s World of Treachery and Sacrifice
<p>Last week’s meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping may have brought a respite in the trade war. But it hardly touched the more fundamental drivers of U.S.-Chinese rivalry, a rivalry that has come to shape more and more dimensions of geopolitics, the global economy, and be ... Show More
56m 45s
Oct 2025
Starmer ally: Come clean on relations with China after spy row
It’s been a week where the politics of the Middle East and Britain’s relations with China have loomed large over Westminster. For all the backslapping and goodwill of Sharm el-Sheikh, will the ceasefire and exchange of hostages and prisoners in Gaza pave the way for a political s ... Show More
31m 34s
Feb 2024
A life in the American century
<p>With the United States’ presidential election just a few months away, the stakes go far beyond domestic politics. The results will decide the future of American foreign policy, at least for the next four years. In the corridors of power in Washington, US policymakers will need ... Show More
37m 6s
Oct 2025
88. China vs Google: When Beijing Took on Silicon Valley (Ep 1)
"Like many other well-known organisations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis." This was the striking public statement from Google's chief legal officer in January 2010. What began as a major security incident - a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack ... Show More
41m 52s
Dec 2018
Daniel Kurtz-Phelan on George Marshall’s China Mission
Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, the executive editor of Foreign Affairs, is the author of the recent book The China Mission: George Marshall's Unfinished War, 1945–1947. George Marshall, World War II hero and creator of the Marshall Plan, spent 1945-47 drinking baijiu with Mao and playing c ... Show More
55m 44s
Jul 2024
Taiwan’s 100-Year Rise From Japanese Colony to Monopoly Producer of Microchips
When global supply chains were shut down in 2020 and messily rebooted after COVID lockdowns ceased, one island nation emerged as the most important player in getting critical components to factories around the world. That was Taiwan, which produces 90 percent of the world’s advan ... Show More
43m 5s