The TV historian, 56, reflects on the debt he owes to his determined mother, the history of guns, and why the next series of The Celebrity Traitors should be just as good as the first one…

The Vera star on her glam new role… Spanning six decades, A Woman of Substance, adapted from Barbara Taylor Bradford’s 1979 bestseller, charts the rise of Emma Harte from impoverished maid to the worl

10 MARCH

11 MARCH

Do you remember that park you used to take me to as a kid, the one with the red, boat-shaped climbing frame? It wasn’t too far from our home in Hull where we lived. You’d often sit on a bench chatting

Having bid farewell to Vera’s old mac, Brenda Blethyn is embracing power-dressing as Emma Harte, the formidable tycoon at the heart of Barbara Taylor Bradford’s novels