Reg Rogers - Matt 1963

great‑great uncle/great‑great nephew

It’s a striking truth about the First World War: a huge proportion of British and Commonwealth soldiers who died have no known grave. Many were buried where they fell, lost to artillery, or laid to rest in makeshift cemeteries that vanished as the front moved. Today, hundreds of thousands are either commemorated on memorials to the missing or lie in graves marked simply as “A Soldier of the Great War — Known Unto God.”

One unexpected email can redraw a family map. When the Commonwealth War Graves Commission reached out about an “unknown” Royal Marine from the Somme, Matt followed the thread from inbox to headstone and watched a century‑old mystery turn into a name, a ceremony, and a living legacy. What Matt & his family first assumed was spam quickly became a masterclass in how careful research — war diaries, graves reports, precise mapping — can identify a single company sergeant major among thousands of the missing.

When I speak with Matt, he takes me back to the moment the news landed: the indirect route the MOD used to track down living relatives, and that first drive through a landscape where cemeteries appear around every bend. At the rededication, a Royal Marine bugler, a Major, veterans, a chaplain, and a representative of the British Embassy in Paris—a Royal Navy attaché, a Captain—stood with the family as Reginald Clarence Rogers MM was honoured. A serving company sergeant major from Lympstone (Royal Marine Commando Training Centre) even came on his own time because he holds the same rank today—a detail that seemed to collapse the distance between 1918 and now. We also explore Reg’s life: born in Kent, service across the empire, rapid mobilisation in 1914, a Military Medal for guiding units to the jumping‑off line at Gavrelle, and his final days on the River Ancre.

Beyond the ceremony, the story widens. We talk about museum barns filled with unearthed relics, a local collector with binoculars engraved with Reg’s name, and a family long tied to the Royal Marines — from a grandfather who served with Churchill to a son now eyeing military service. What emerges is a clearer sense of what remembrance really requires: stewards, records, places, and people willing to show up.

If you’ve ever wondered how an unknown grave becomes a person again, or how a single headstone can change the way a family sees itself, you’ll find the proof in this conversation.

If this story moved you, follow the show, share it with someone who loves history, and leave a review to help others find it.

"Churchill's Batman" refers to the orderly or personal attendant for Winston Churchill

BBC Story: Graves of lost World War One soldiers found

Reg Rogers
DoB: 18/03/1889
DoD: 26/03/1918

Send us a text

“Follow Longtime Ago People wherever you get your podcasts.”

Copy this RSS feed and paste it into your podcast app.

https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2503597.rss

Instagram: @longtimeagopeople

Blog: longtimeagopeople.com

Have a story echoing through time? I’m listening—300 words or fewer.

"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."

David Bowie - Rupert 1957

ziggy stardust/fan

Starman on the radio. Ziggy on the screen. A youth rewired in real time. In this episode, I dive in with Rupert to explore the moments where Bowie didn’t just soundtrack life — he edited it. We trace that rush from Space Oddity to Starman, the glam years that made risk feel normal, and the Berlin experiments that taught us how silence, texture and pulse can move you every bit as much as melody. It’s a listener’s journey through eras, not a museum tour: the missed tickets at Earl’s Court, the summer of Station to Station, the cigarettes and shirts we copied without thinking, and the way “Heroes” can still lift a room with a single line.

We talk about why the 70s remain such a creative apex — Low’s fractured beauty, “Heroes” as both anthem and art — and why the 80s deserve a fair hearing. Let’s Dance didn’t just top charts; it proved Bowie could bridge art rock and pop without losing his nerve. Along the way, we revisit films like The Man Who Fell to Earth, the shock of The Next Day arriving out of nowhere, and the stark brilliance of Blackstar. That final album feels like a coded letter — mortal, inventive, and deeply alive — with Lazarus turning farewell into craft.

Across favourite tracks and deep cuts — Life on Mars?, Rebel Rebel, Always Crashing in the Same Car, Joe the Lion — we keep circling the same truth: Bowie turned reinvention into a discipline and made curiosity a habit. His influence is everywhere: in fashion, in stagecraft, in the confidence to shift lanes when the work demands it. Press play to walk through the eras with us, remember the gigs, and maybe find a new doorway into a song you thought you knew. And if this conversation sparks a memory of your own, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and tell me your gateway Bowie track.

Send us a text

“Follow Longtime Ago People wherever you get your podcasts.”

Copy this RSS feed and paste it into your podcast app.

https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2503597.rss

Instagram: @longtimeagopeople

Blog: longtimeagopeople.com

Have a story echoing through time? I’m listening—300 words or fewer.

"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."

Jim & George - Ian 1947

grandfather/father/son

A family line can stretch across continents and still feel like one village street. In this episode, I sit down with my second cousin Ian, and we unspool a life that begins in Windhoek, runs through Cape Town and “East London”, South Africa, and eventually finds its footing back in Sussex after his father’s illness forces a return none of them expected. The grief in that chapter is real and immediate, but what follows is practical, determined, and brave: his mother retraining at night school, finding work in Portslade, and rebuilding a home almost from scratch.

What gives Ian’s story its heartbeat is his grandfather, Jim — a restless Sussex character who auctioneered cattle and furniture, bought the Three Tuns, and, by moonlight, muffled horses’ hooves to haul French brandy over the Downs. He rented out his bathroom on Fridays, posted auction bills from a black trade bike, and taught two wide‑eyed boys to fish eels from the River Adur, pluck chickens, and turn allotment rows into dinner. These scenes of rural English life sit beautifully alongside Ian’s sharp memories of South Africa: Manikin Cigars flying from a carnival float, a grassfire racing up a hillside, and a beach lagoon walled off against sharks.

Years later, Ian and his brother return just before the COVID shutdown, driving the Garden Route in a Mercedes van, weighing up Cape Town property by wind and elevation, and confronting East London’s uneasy streets lined with wire and idle youth. Somewhere in the middle of all this, an almost‑career in aviation gives way to a calling discovered by chance in a sixth‑form classroom — a reminder of how a single opportunity can quietly redirect a life.

If you’re drawn to family history, migration stories, and the quiet heroism of starting over, this conversation blends memoir, social history, and the kind of details you can smell and taste: mackerel teas, blue paint on your hands, and the hush of horses crossing the Downs.

Send us a text

“Follow Longtime Ago People wherever you get your podcasts.”

Copy this RSS feed and paste it into your podcast app.

https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2503597.rss

Instagram: @longtimeagopeople

Blog: longtimeagopeople.com

Have a story echoing through time? I’m listening—300 words or fewer.

"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."

Wiggy, Doris, Mick, Peter & more - Sean 1965

grans & uncles/grandson & nephew

In this episode, I sit down with Sean to share vivid snapshots of Wiggy, A grandmother named for her hair, the Londoner who never quite forgave leaving the city, and Ron, the quiet man who gave up inheritance for marriage and then left for war. What starts as a conversation about a beloved gran becomes a richer look at class, place, and the grit of making a home when everything moves faster than your heart can follow.

We trace the years from a teenage pregnancy before the war, through a bungalow built in haste, to Sundays filled with warm egg sandwiches in a house mysteriously heated by fan blowers. The reveal—Ron’s cheeky electric rewire—lands like a family legend: practical, daring, and just a little bit unlawful. Alongside Wiggy stands Doris, Sean's maternal gran, another Londoner who rode the bus back to dance halls every weekend—proof that some places never stop calling.

The conversation shifts to time and its tools—how older hands meet modern screens. Teaching an iPad to a parent becomes a window into empathy, patience, and the wonder of seeing a face across oceans. We talk about Uncle Mick, the young man who left for South Africa and flew high before life tempered the gloss, and how his path shaped the next generation’s sense of risk and return.

Through grief, humour, and the stubborn details of memory, we make a case for why grandparents matter: they are our first lessons in loss, and our clearest proof that ordinary lives carry extraordinary weight.

Pass this episode to someone who still remembers the smell of Sunday tea. Your memories might be the chapter someone else needs.

Send us a text

“Follow Longtime Ago People wherever you get your podcasts.”

Copy this RSS feed and paste it into your podcast app.

https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2503597.rss

Instagram: @longtimeagopeople

Blog: longtimeagopeople.com

Have a story echoing through time? I’m listening—300 words or fewer.

"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."

David 1967

Well scout, wildcatter, mentor & mate

A £99 suit, a borrowed tie, and a last-minute interview kicked off David’s career—a journey that leapt from the North Sea to Wall Street, and eventually to long Napa weekends after 4 a.m. starts. In this episode, I trace that unlikely arc with him: a teenager who didn’t know oil from Brent crude becomes a well scout by asking sharper questions, then pushes his way from drilling updates into mergers and acquisitions, and finally into institutional equity sales, guiding billion-pound pension flows.

The scenes he describes are nothing short of cinematic. Helicopters slamming onto offshore platforms in the freezing North Sea, a noddy suit zipped to the chin. Paper tickets on the London floor giving way to algorithms and dark pools. A finance director expecting a kid in LA and instead getting Wolfgang Puck at Spago. Kiefer Sutherland opens with a compliment, Oliver Stone debates the soul of Wall Street, and Keanu Reeves glides through a tiny Santa Monica room with calm, generous grace. These aren’t name-drops—they’re field notes on how to meet anyone with poise: don’t perform, don’t fawn, just be human.

What underpins it all is mentorship—and the inches you can reach. A boss who takes a chance sends him to Houston. A wildcatter teaches range and risk. Jerry Jones threads through the decades, from an eight-person meet-and-greet to a long Napa lunch where stories roll and the tip matches the legend. David’s philosophy is simple: life is won in small increments—the six inches in front of your face. Ask for the next challenge before you’re ready. Keep your true friends to ten, and care for them well. Let legacy be kindness, not monuments.

If you’re navigating a career pivot, fascinated by oil and markets, or searching for a mental model that holds under pressure, this conversation offers practical insight and hard-won perspective. Subscribe, share it with someone who might need a nudge of courage. What's the best advice a mentor ever gave you?

What inch are you fighting for today?

Al Pacino - Any Given Sunday - "Inch By Inch"

Send us a text

“Follow Longtime Ago People wherever you get your podcasts.”

Copy this RSS feed and paste it into your podcast app.

https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2503597.rss

Instagram: @longtimeagopeople

Blog: longtimeagopeople.com

Have a story echoing through time? I’m listening—300 words or fewer.

"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."

Russell 1961

husband, father, son & supporter

A red jumper at a community centre disco. A chapel aisle, some said, he shouldn’t walk. A bus to the wrong end of a cup final and a long, cold trek home from the station after a night in a cell. When I sat down with Russell, I found a life textured by central Scotland in the sixties and seventies—steelworks grit, Friday pay packets, and the tidal pull of Rangers versus Celtic—alongside the quieter courage of choosing love over the lines others drew.

We begin with the culture of sectarian identity and football, where schools and pubs marked allegiances from birth. Russell reflects on how that world shaped him, then walks me through the romance that crossed the divide: marrying Katie, the youngest of a large Catholic family, and navigating the fallout with humour and resolve. From a near-miss at a professional football career to the hard lessons of gravel pitches and hot tempers, he shows how discipline is forged in the small moments no scout ever sees. Work anchors the story as we move from a boutique sales floor to a filthy, formative steelworks apprenticeship, redundancy, and an unexpected pivot to Prudential—where trust, doorsteps, and a thick book of names turned into a top-performing agency.

Our conversation deepens around family and drink: a father who worked hard and drank harder, a mother who held the home together, and a son who asked the right question at the right time. Russell’s answer—that he would choose not to drink—becomes a practical compass, echoed in his son’s turn to CrossFit and Taekwondo. Along the way, you’ll hear the soundtrack of Clyde Valley weekends, the clatter of pool tables, and the comic-serious tale of being stitched up at Hampden. What emerges is a candid, grounded portrait of identity and endurance: the parts we inherit, the parts we refuse, and the parts we build with our own hands.

If Russell’s story resonates, please follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who’s wrestled with identity, rivalry, or sobriety. Your support helps these lived histories reach the people who need to hear them.

Send us a text

“Follow Longtime Ago People wherever you get your podcasts.”

Copy this RSS feed and paste it into your podcast app.

https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2503597.rss

Instagram: @longtimeagopeople

Blog: longtimeagopeople.com

Have a story echoing through time? I’m listening—300 words or fewer.

"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."

What happens when we pause to truly listen to the stories that shaped us? As Season One draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on ten conversations that revealed how seemingly small decisions can dramatically alter the course of family destinies across generations.

When I began this podcast a few months ago, I had no clear destination—only a quiet curiosity about the turning points tucked inside ordinary lives. I started with my own family, and soon discovered how my grandfather’s move from smoggy 1930s London to the Isle of Wight—on a doctor’s recommendation—completely changed our trajectory. Had he not made that move, my mother would never have met my father. The recordings I made with my aunt (now 89) and my mum have become even more precious, especially as both have faced health challenges since we spoke.

From there, the journey widened. I listened to stories of adventure, loss, and unexpected legacies. Gary left the rat race behind for rhinos and solo Pacific crossings. John unknowingly fulfilled his late father’s dreams in Spain. Moray shared the complexities of growing up with a jazz legend for a dad. I revisited school dormitories with Bas, proving that some friendships truly never fade. And I honoured lives cut short—like Andy’s brother Simon, whose everyday kindness left a quietly profound legacy, and David’s father, remembered through fragments of wartime heroism passed down through generations.

Each conversation reminded me that memory isn’t just about preserving the past—it’s about what we choose to carry forward. These ordinary yet extraordinary lives show how the smallest moments and choices ripple through time.

Thank you for listening. Please subscribe wherever you get your Podcasts.

Send us a text

“Follow Longtime Ago People wherever you get your podcasts.”

Copy this RSS feed and paste it into your podcast app.

https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2503597.rss

Instagram: @longtimeagopeople

Blog: longtimeagopeople.com

Have a story echoing through time? I’m listening—300 words or fewer.

"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."

Llewelyn Williams - David 1955

father/son

What remains when a father disappears from a child’s life at the age of seven? When I sat down with David Williams, I found the answer lay not in grand gestures, but in fragments—sausages sizzling on Stanley Beach in Hong Kong, bowling club outings, and the fading images of a man he barely knew, yet whose extraordinary life continues to echo through the decades.

In this episode of Longtime Ago People, I journey through memory and history as David pieces together the remarkable story of his father, Llewelyn Williams. Born in 1922, Lew volunteered for the Royal Air Force at just nineteen, becoming a navigator after an officer famously told him, “Any bloody fool can drive a bus. It takes brains to get it there and back.” The odds were harrowing—more than half of Bomber Command airmen never returned home. Yet Lew flew around thirty missions before being shot down over France in June 1944.

What followed reads like a wartime thriller: the sole survivor of his seven-man crew, rescued by the French Resistance, captured by the Gestapo, imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp, transferred to Stalag Luft III (the site of the infamous “Great Escape”), and finally liberated as the war drew to a close. Tragically, the chemicals used to delouse prisoners would later cause the cancer that claimed his life in 1963.

But David’s story isn’t solely about wartime heroism—it’s about how we preserve the memories of those we’ve lost, how family stories sustain us, and how love finds a way to endure across generations. Through vivid recollections from relatives and his father’s friends, David has assembled a portrait of a man he barely knew, yet whose legacy shaped his life in profound ways. And when a loving stepfather named “Binks” entered the picture, David experienced what he describes as “a very privileged upbringing… because there was a lot of love going around.”

This conversation is a moving exploration of family history, resilience, and the powerful ways our ancestors remain present in our lives—even in their absence.

Send us a text

“Follow Longtime Ago People wherever you get your podcasts.”

Copy this RSS feed and paste it into your podcast app.

https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2503597.rss

Instagram: @longtimeagopeople

Blog: longtimeagopeople.com

Have a story echoing through time? I’m listening—300 words or fewer.

"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."