INCEST

King Tut representing Horus - whose parents were siblings… and one was a Zombie.

The way I recall why we stumbled on Incest as an idea for an episode of Making History was because either Producer Alison or Simon thought it would be good to do an episode on pests. How people of the past dealt with rats and bugs… then one of us said, ‘Oh bees!’ and then it became us working on a program about our historic relationships with bugs and insects. Cue a long conference call, with signal dipping in and out and a misheard ‘insects’ turned into us all pitching ideas for ‘incest’ and boom - a programme was made.

Special kudos to Alison on this one who suffered a terrible throat infection yet continued to work so the episode could make the air.

As fascination with genealogy and our own family history has become almost a national obsession, this programme looks at the historical aspects of what makes up a family and how attitudes to incestuous relationships have shifted over time and throughout cultures. From Ancient Egypt to the nuclear family, from the Victorians and the National Vigilance Association to Jacobean literature, how has incest been defined, discussed, outlawed and - occasionally - even encouraged?

I do hope you’re liking the series. You can listen on BBC Sounds and provide feedback by following this link .If you have a moment, that would be excellent of you. I’m dead proud to be part of it!