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John Julius Norwich - A sudden change of destination (116/136)

881 views · Published 3 October 2018 · 1:46 · Indexed 26 September 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2018 · Science & Technology

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John Julius Norwich (1929-2018) was an English popular historian, travel writer and television personality. He is the author of histories of Norman Sicily, the Republic of Venice, the Byzantine Empire and 'The Popes: A History'. [Listener: Christopher Sykes]

TRANSCRIPT: There was a terrible one, this was long ago with my dear friend, Ken Shepheard, which was sad. It was towards the end of my television career, such as it was, and I was asked to go and make a film about the antiquities in Ethiopia, which were... was a UNESCO project. So I thought, lovely, I've never been to Ethiopia, this'll be fun. I went off to the London Library, as I always did, and started mugging up about Ethiopia. A week before our departure, the BBC rang me up and said, 'I'm sorry, we've got rather bad news for you. We forgot to ask the Emperor for permission and we just have and he said 'no', so we can't do it. But everybody got, we've got camera crews there already, so we're going to do it in Iran instead.' So, I mean, you know, so then I had to go back and start doing it on Iran. I only had a week by then. And I didn't... Ken Shepheard was not available and they gave me a young man, I can't remember what his name was, Daryl something, I think, and who had never been abroad. I don't think he'd ever been as far as Boulogne, and suddenly he found himself in Persia, couldn't speak a word – I mean, in Persia French takes you more or less everywhere – couldn't speak a word.

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