Did you ever wonder how we got here, and how sometimes tiny pieces of history make up, and have shaped our lives?
Or realised how every day, all of us are making history?
Join me, Sarah Dowd, in exploring what has happened in the everyday lives of people for the better, or at least the experiences that have just make us laugh and say…
This is… History. For F***’s Sake, the podcast that explores untold stories that make a difference.
When the world seemingly shut down for almost two years, what were we doing? We were creating art, making history and crying out of human contact. We were craving our culture.
I’m your host, Sarah Dowd, and I have worked on over 200 history, heritage and arts projects in the last 20 years across the world, everywhere from the Imperial War Museum in London to exploring how we put a fleet of ships in the sky, or bringing wrecks back from Honolulu.
I was recently diagnosed with ADHD which has brought a whole new layer of thinking about creativity and how we get people – ALL PEOPLE – really engaged with our shared history and culture.
Stories. Art. Film. Books. Ships. Music. Museums. People. Joy. Experiences. Humour. Humanity.
Because it’s all History, For F***’s Sake.
Find out more at historyffs.com
What happens when a community has the courage to challenge, the faith to persist, and the nerve to imagine a different future? And what is lost when the buildings that held that community together begin to disappear?
In part two, Sarah Dowd reunites with Chris Smith, Chair of the Historic Chapels Trust, and Steve Pilcher, longtime campaigner for England’s chapels, to take the story further, from nonconformist conscience as a force for reform and public morality, to the harder questions of what comes next.
They also discuss Sunday schools as engines of social mobility, the hard road of repurposing sacred space, fundraising in a pandemic, and a rare positive tale of winding a charity down.
Highlights:
00:00 Why the “nonconformist conscience” changed Britain
01:44 Bethesda Chapel: the power and perils of an iconic building
04:10 Why nonconformist architecture is designed for the voice
08:10 Sunday schools, education, and the struggle for opportunity
16:54 Courage & mutual aid: what builds and sustains a chapel community
18:13 When faith fades, what happens to the buildings?
21:22 The painful art of letting go and the future uses of chapels
28:56 Meeting the modern challenge: inventing new reasons for old places
30:41 The tough decision to wind down the Historic Chapels Trust
41:05 Why buildings are only as strong as the people powering them
54:42 Nonconformity in action: charity, courage, and regulatory reform
57:10 Working with new generations and new energy
61:07 The surprising success of community asset transfers
63:31 Having faith in people, in change, and in impossible things
About Chris Smith:
Chris Smith is Chair of Historic Chapels Trust and a lifelong heritage professional with extensive experience in conservation, planning and historic environment management. Formerly a Director at Historic England, he became Chair in 2019 and has since focused on securing sustainable futures for chapels through community ownership and adaptive reuse. Chris is passionate about heritage as a tool for shaping the future, not simply preserving the past.
About Steve Pilcher:
Steve Pilcher is a heritage specialist and former Deputy Director of Historic Chapels Trust, where he worked from 2003 to 2016. Before that, he spent two decades with English Heritage across industrial archaeology, conservation and policy. A building conservation specialist, Steve continues to support heritage projects and volunteer-led initiatives today.
About Sarah Dowd:
I’m Sarah Dowd – writer, speaker, heritage and arts consultant, producer, and all-around nerd – here to share the stories of our past that make us laugh, gasp, and mutter: It’s History… For F***k’s Sake.
For 25+ years I’ve created immersive, inclusive experiences that bring history alive, from rallying Second World War convoys through London to staging performances between Pearly Kings and Gen Z creatives. My work spans museums, cathedral crypts, pop-up theatres, global brands, and community projects across the UK and beyond.
As a Canadian living between the UK and France (with a late ADHD diagnosis that fuels my curiosity and creativity), I zigzag through culture, history, and big ideas, but never boring ones.
Every week on HistoryFFS, we explore how history echoes through today, make sure you are following the show so you don’t miss an episode.
Connect with Sarah:
Website:www.historyffs.com
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahdowd/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/historyffs-pod/
Substack: @historyffs
YouTube: @HistoryFFSPod
Instagram: @historyFFSPod
TikTok: @historyffspod
Bluesky: @historyffs.bsky.social
What do vintage denim, TikTok nostalgia, and sci-fi optimism have in common? This week on History for F***’s Sake, we mark 40 years since Back to the Future first hit our screens by asking what makes this film and its era so enduringly cool.
Our guest, Louisa Rogers, knows a thing or two about fashion as time travel. Now teaching fashion communications at Northumbria University, Louisa grew up in Brussels with an artist mother (think: scrapbooks, wild collage, and never telling you not to play) and a German father whose mind “ran parallel to the scientist in Back to the Future.” That creative upbringing gave Louisa an outsider’s eye and a curiosity about how we tell and wear our histories.
For Louisa, watching Back to the Future was “surprisingly wholesome…not dystopian, but brimming with hope.” She unpacks the film’s pitch-perfect 1950s tropes, the diner, the letterman jacket, the larger-than-life bullies and the ways nostalgia flickers differently for every generation. On TikTok, retro-futurism is having a field day, think cassette tapes, chunky digital cameras, and a hyper-nostalgia for the Y2K era Louisa can barely believe is “vintage.
The conversation zooms out to generational divides and bridges. Why do Gen Z and Gen Alpha view the future through such radically different lenses? How can museums, creative industries, and education empower young people rather than overwhelm them with stories from the past? Louisa advocates for “world-building” in heritage spaces, blending new tech (hello, AR and VR) with the simple power of stories people can actually see themselves in whether they’re 17 or 70.
And when it comes to the so-called recycling of trends? Louisa sees each wave as one degree removed: “Now we’re revisiting the 70s’ take on medieval, not medieval itself.” It means our cultural memory keeps shifting and sometimes gets muddled but also that a sense of newness can sneak into even the most recycled looks.
The real take-home message? Maybe history isn’t something that just “happened.” It’s personal, political, and more fun (and stylish) when we smash generational boxes and share the storytelling. As Louisa and I agree: intergenerational friendships aren’t just for sitcoms and you’re never too old (or too young) to rock Marty McFly’s denim or Doc Brown’s wild hair.
Find out why the future still needs a dash of 1985, and how you can help build a legacy that’s somewhere between chaos and utopia, welcome to protopia.