Oxford Biographies | Listen

Geoff Lloyd's Hometime Show (Absolute Radio) | Listen

Holidaying in rural France is a nice way to spend a couple of weeks – I'm writing in the early morning, as swifts whirl and chatter, zooming under the house eaves to feed their chicks – but it does keep you away from national events. I missed the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, and the Lights Out commemoration for the first world war. (Lights are pretty much always out after 8pm around here, so even if everyone in the village was remembering as hard as they could, you wouldn't really notice.)

Still, I have been keeping up with events 100 years ago by listening to the Oxford Biographies. A podcast series born of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the Oxford Biographies are short – usually around 20 to 30 minutes long – and simple: just histories of interesting people's lives, released every two weeks. Ignore the miserly seven episodes offered on iTunes and, instead, go straight to the website, where there are more than 200 to choose from. (This is nothing, by the way: the actual dictionary has more than 59,000 biographies, from Roman times to the present day. Fifty-nine thousand!)

There's everyone from Thora Hird to Dr Crippen, but in honour of the sacrifices made in the first world war, I've listened to the biographies of Wilfred Owen, of Jack Judge (who wrote It's a Long Way to Tipperary, which was one of the most popular marching songs during the early months of the war), and of nurse Edith Cavell, who helped the Belgian resistance and was executed by the Germans. Also those of the Unknown Warrior, buried in Westminster Abbey two years after the war ended, and, most tragically, of Herbert Burden, who was shot at dawn for being a deserter only a few months after he arrived at the trenches. He was just 17.

The Oxford Biographies are careful and slightly dry, read in a well-bred, actorly manner; without dramatic flourishes, but with those little academic facts that shoot light on to a subject, like a torch picking out a detail in the dark. These are invaluable for history dunces like me, who hated The Past at school, in books and in films. Here's one: Wilfred Owen was so religious as a teenager that on Sunday he would rearrange the sitting room to represent a church, dress up as a vicar and conduct a complete evening service for his family, including a sermon. Another: Jack Judge was a gambler as well as a singer, and when he got into debt he promised Harry Williams, a mate who helped him out with money, that if he ever had a song published, he would put Harry's name on there too. And It's a Long Way to Tipperary – which does have Harry as co-writer – was the result of a scam that Judge did in every new town, to get drinking money. He would bet someone he couldn't write a new song overnight, and then just rework an old one. It was a long way to Connemara.

Poor Herbert Burden's biography is brief, as his life was cut off so young. His life is all about his death. He wasn't allowed to appear at his court martial, or be represented by anyone. His only defence was a written statement in which he said he left the trenches to go and visit a friend in another regiment. His commanding officer barely knew him; all the officers who did had been killed in an offensive. Herbert seems to have been executed for being in the habit of wandering off, which seems eminently understandable, given the circumstances. Anyway, as you can tell, I now have a little more knowledge of the Great War, not through the manoeuvres of battle, but through personal histories. (Don't worry, BBC, I am aware of your first world war output, I'll get to that next week.)

If all this is a bit too ancient and upsetting, may I recommend Absolute Radio's Geoff Lloyd's interview with US talk-show host Conan O'Brien? The conversation is slightly comedy geek, but not so much as to be alienating. And what a pleasure it is to listen to two witty broadcasters batting funnies back and forth, without either of them worrying about who actually delivers the killer line. "I like to have fun with people. I'm not someone who fires comedy at you," says O'Brien at one point, and that's just right.