Thursday 9 December 2010

Sagas and the Embulance on the airwaves

Today was an epic day. While students were massing in London in the run-up to the vote in Parliament to increase university tuition fees (a disastrous, if not unsurprising outcome with the bill being passed by 21 votes), I collected the Embulance keys and took her on her maiden drive from Nene Overland in Peterborough down the A1/A14 to Cambridge. On arrival, I was straight into a live interview outside the BBC Cams studio which was conducted in the back of the van with Sue Dougan for her  Radio Cambridgeshire 'Sue Dougan in the Afternoon' programme. This was followed by some late afternoon filming for BBC Look East outside the Marshall's Cambridge Control Tower. In a pleasing twist of fate it transpires that the vehicle was converted into an ambulance (for the RAF) at Marshall's in the late 1980s...better yet, the designer, Kevin Peacock, still works for the company and came over to reacquaint himself with his creation and to give me the vehicle's original coachworks badge.  

The radio interview is available for the next 7 days here (starting around 18 mins in after some Elvis... a good 12 minutes or so of chat!) 

The Look East segment will be broadcast locally in the East of England after the national news around 18.45 tomorrow (Friday) evening... I'll put a link up to it after it's gone out for those who'd like to see what the inside of the Embulance looks like!

3 comments:

  1. I just heard your story on the local public radio station (KUT) via the BBC World Service here in Austin, Texas. Best of luck with your adventure and research Emily.

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  2. Funnily enough I am in Austin, TX also and heard about your project from the Medievalists.net facebook page. I'll be following your journey and wish you a safe one. Sounds exciting as Iceland is a very intriguing country with a remarkable history!

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  3. This sounds like a fantastic project. I'm an undergraduate photography student (also from Cambridge, incidentally) and I'll be travelling to Iceland in March to document the landscape/industrialisation there. It's nice to know I'm not the only one that finds beauty in such a remarkable country, despite all the negative press it's had recently. Best of luck with your trip, and I look forward to following your findings here! :)

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