Season Seven -Trapped History Podcast: Stories Of The Forgotten

 Trapped History has a distinct take on history, explaining that "History is how we think about the past. It’s how we speak of it. And the way we speak of it today will be different to the way people spoke of it a century ago and to the way people will speak of it in a hundred years’ time. History is not about long gone people and ideas – it’s about you and me, all of us, right here, right now. It’s about how we manage the past, how we explain it to better understand the present and prepare for the future." 

The podcast is an independent show, professionally produced, and acts as a reminder that history is not simply "what was," but more often the way things are now.

 On June first, the award-winning Trapped History podcast returned for its seventh season, with special guests' broadcaster Charlene White, astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, chef Claire ‘5oclockapron’ Thomson, journalist Alex Renton, pop culture commentator Mark O’Donnell, writer Joe Dunthorne, and World Cup winning Red Rose Rachael Burford.

Episodes will drop as follows:

01/06/2026 How Windrush Made a Nation: Charlene White on war, family and community

15/06/2026 The Woman who Taught a Nation to Cook: Claire "Five O'Clock Apron" Thomson on Marguerite Patten

29/06/2026 My Great-Grandfather Made Chemical Weapons for the Nazis: how Joe Dunthorne rewrote his family history

13/07/2026 The Women Ignored by Nobel: Jocelyn Bell-Burnell on pulsars, dark matter and imposter syndrome

27/07/2026 The Name’s Bond. Queer Bond: Mark O’Connell on 007’s gay past

10/08/2026 My Family Owned Slaves: Alex Renton discovers how slavery powered Britain

24/08/2026 The Women Who Changed the Face of Sport: Rachael Burford on rugby’s heroines.

Co-hosts Oswin Baker and Carla O'Shaughnessy explain: "We’re going big this season – our opening episode with broadcaster Charlene White starts with a small story of love and hope on the Empire Windrush and ends with a huge panorama of modern
British life. We then enjoy some wartime recipes with 5 o’Clock Apron as we take in the logistics of feeding the nation in World War II, before diving into one family’s disturbing history of Nazi
collaboration as told in Joe Dunthorne’s Children of Radium. Working with the Nazis is one thing. But owning slaves? That’s centuries of family history which have been warped out of shape. So join Alex Renton as he tries to unpick and unpack what it means to rethink everything you thought you knew about your past."

Trapped History has an interesting and unique origin story. 

"Trapped History's starting point – and our very name – comes from something the great writer and activist James Baldwin wrote: 'People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.' We want to break people free from those stories," says co-host Carla O'Shaughnessy.

Carla continues: "That's why Oswin started up the successful @trappedhistory Instagram account during lockdown. It now has an established and dedicated following, and it soon became clear that people really want to hear about these forgotten people. And that's when the Trapped History podcast was born - it launched in December 2022."

The co-hosts are Oswin Baker, the founder of Trapped History and Carla O'Shaughnessy, with engineer MK Lee. The show focuses on the interstices of history. The stories you don't know and aren't told. At times, this podcast presents heroes as villains and villains as heroes. Unlike the current whitewashing of history in the United States, this podcast doesn't align history with political ideology. 

The show has won such international awards as the Lovies and Signals last autumn, Trapped History has recently been recognized at the Webbys and in Ear Worthy’s list of the Best Indie Podcasts 2026.

Carla says with pride: "We’ve also broken into the top 1% of podcasts by downloads – not just history podcasts, not just British podcasts, but all podcasts worldwide. With over 50,000 listeners, 50,000 Instagram followers and 10,000 newsletter subscribers, Trapped History is truly one of the ‘podcasts to watch’ in the history sector."

The co-hosts are Oswin Baker, who studied history at the University of Edinburgh, where he researched post-war British politics. He has spent the last 30 years gathering and hearing the stories of people who have been forgotten and ignored by society, firstly at the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence, then at the homelessness charity Crisis before working at the pollsters Ipsos MORI.

Oswin has headed up research departments in the NHS and at Dr Foster, a healthcare data agency, and for the last decade he has run his own social research agency, Rockpool Research, where he has worked with charities, social enterprises, government departments and local authorities. Throughout, Oswin has sought to understand and bring to the fore the lived experiences of people who are all too easily written out of history. 

Carla is an audio producer, voice actor and PR consultant based in Bristol, UK. She formerly worked as a freelance producer on BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show (the most listened-to current affairs radio programme in the UK) and is now part of the team producing John Darvall's morning show at BBC Radio Bristol.

As a voice actor, Carla works across narration, commercials and characters and has voiced projects for brands including Airbus, LEGO, Hasbro, Barclays, PwC, Bupa, Astra Zeneca and Nurofen. Prior to working in audio, Carla worked in PR for brands across financial services, retail, leisure and entertainment. 

Carla has co-presented the Trapped History podcast with Oswin Baker since its inception and loves discovering and telling the stories of amazing unsung heroes, particularly incredible women whose stories deserve to be told.

Along with engineer MK Lee, this team brings the gravitas necessary to narrate these tales of history either forgotten, never known, or neglected. The show also "chapters" its episode interviews, using music to segment the interview, which enables listeners to catch a breath and absorb the tenor of the show. It's almost always a smart strategy for interview podcasts, and isn't used enough as a narrative tool. 

Oswin Baker, Trapped History’s founder, explains:"The one thing we know about our listeners is that they’re curious about the world. And that’s what Trapped History is for – to tell stories which you won’t find anywhere else, which will make you think and which you’ll want to share with your friends."

Mr. Baker continues: "They’re often ‘small’ stories – like that of Alford Gardner, who sailed from Jamaica to join the RAF in the war and then afterward came back to Britain on the Windrush. Alford was ‘just a guy.’ He didn’t save a baby from a burning building, discover the secrets of the universe or write the greatest love song. But Alford’s story is our story – that most human of stories, of how a community is forged. That is what Trapped History is for – to find the heroic in the ordinary."

Trapped History tells the stories of the forgotten – of people who have been ignored by the history we’ve been taught in school. Each stand-alone episode lasts around 40 minutes and tells one
hidden story. The co-hosts don't just interview guests about history, they work collectively to bring that hidden history to life. 

The hosts also have the guest nominate a person for the Trapped History Hall of Fame. That person is someone we don't know anything about, but should. My favorite so far has been the Hall of Fame nomination for the women of the death camps. Hilde Grunbaum's life is a truly emotional one as both she and dozens of other female musicians would make up the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz. It was a lifeline in the midst of horror. 

What makes Trapped History unique and so ear worthy is that the co-hosts ask a devastatingly simple question that appears to evade the consciousness of entire nations: Does history teach us anything? Looking around the world today, can we say that we have learnt from the past?