Broadcasting – TV, Radio & Podcasts

TV

Kathryn’s passion for beach huts has led to multiple television appearances, starting with the first series of the BBC programme Coast (S1 E12, BBC Two, Hunstanton to Dover) in 2005. Since then she has discussed beach hut history with Matt Baker on BBC Countryfile, John Sargent on the BBC The One Show, Irita Marriott on Antiques Road Trip and Dan Snow on Beach Live! In 2023, Kathryn was a resident expert on the Channel 4 series Britain’s Best Beach Huts (Yeti Television), presented by Jay Blades and Laura Jackson.

Kathryn is also regularly interviewed on other seaside subjects and has chatted with Anita Rhani on the beach at Rhyl for Channel 4 programme Britain by Beach (Channel 4) and Michael Portillo at Saltdean Lido for his Channel 5 show Portillo’s Hidden History of Britain. She has joined Ben Robinson for four episodes of the popular BBC 2 series Villages By the Sea, (S2 E2, Thorpeness; S3, Parkgate; S3, Laxey; S5 E3, St Margaret's.). In 2025 she enjoyed being a talking head alongside Anthea Turner on Channel 5’s nostalgic feature-length documentary on Holidaying in the 1970s: Those were the days!

Kathryn has chatted with Tim Dunn about the stations at Ramsgate and Margate for his Yesterday programme The Architecture the Railways Built (S3 E9) and shared the story of the District Line service to Southend with Tim on The Secrets of the London Underground.

Her work on Butlin’s has led to interviews with Arthur Smith for the BBC The One Show, an appearance on BBC Heirhunters and a chat with Emily Atack about her grandfather’s time as a Redcoat on Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC, S20 E6, Emily Atack). Kathryn also provided the historical narrative for a film about holiday camps on Hayling Island made by students of Havant and South Downs College, Memories of Hayling Island Holiday Camps (YouTube).

For media enquiries please contact Kathryn’s agent Nigel Hetherington at Past Preservers.

With Alex Horne on the Harry Hill Visualised Podcast

On Weymouth Sands with Dan Snow for Beach Live! on BBC4

At Thorpeness for BBC2 programme Villages by the Sea

Above the white cliffs of St Margaret’s Bay filming Villages by the Sea with archaeologist Ben Robinson

Kathryn provided expert content for three shows that aired in summer 2023

With Tim Dunn at the London Transport Museum Depot in Acton

Filming with students from Havant and South Downs College for a documentary about holiday camps

Kathryn’s radio programme about plans to rebuild Withernsea Pier

Recording with Pier Productions in their Brighton studios

Radio

In 2021 Kathryn wrote and presented Walking the Plank (BBC Radio 4). It was picked as Choice of the day in the Radio Times:

Piers, says seaside historian Kathryn Ferry, are vital to coastal communities. The small Yorkshire resort of Withernsea, which hasn’t had a pier since 1893 and is now in steep economic decline, is pinning its hopes on Norwegian-born Torkel Larsen. Since 1998, he has campaigned to rebuild the town’s pier. He has now secured £250,000 to build a viewing platform out from the surviving Pier Towers. The remainder of the new pier will be completed in sections. The story of how Larsen came upon plans of the old pier – the 1878 structure was almost completely destroyed after a series of calamaties – is quite wonderful.

Other radio credits include interviews on BBC Radio 4: Woman’s Hour, PM, Broadcasting House, The World Tonight, You and Yours; BBC Radio 2: Simon Mayo Drivetime, Friday Night is Music Night and a one-off documentary Happy Campers narrated by Liza Tarbuck. Kathryn is also a regular on BBC local radio stations.

Podcasts

‘It’s nominative determinism’ says Alex Horne, as Kathryn chats ferries and seaside history with him and the always marvellous Harry Hill on The Harry Hill Show visualised podcast, Alex Horne: Ham Ballads, Urban Foxes, and Wife-Swapping Over Dishwasher Ethics.

Take a trip to Blackpool’s Golden Mile with Kathryn and John Grindrod in his Monstrosities Mon Amour podcast.

Jess Birch is a big Butlin’s fan, so she and Kathryn had a great chat about Skegness holiday camp in her Memory in a Bottle podcast devoted to the Lincolnshire coast.

Kathryn collects postcards and uses them all the time in her research so was delighted to speak to Tom Jackson for his podcast Postcard from the Past (Kathryn Ferry & Victoria Richards – I’ve Done A Bunk).

Lidos and seaside swimming on the Park Date podcast, recorded at the Design Museum: E60 Splash Special! With Chris Romer-Lee And Kathryn Ferry.

From Victorian femininity to toilet roll cover, Kathryn argues that Crinoline Ladies are less boring than you might think on BBC Sounds (The Boring Talks, E47, Crinoline Ladies).

The 1930s were an amazing era for crime fiction and the seaside. Find out more in Kathryn’s chat with Caroline Crampton for the Shedunnit podcast dedicated to Murder-on-Sea.

A chat about heritage and where the seaside fits in with Alexis Nicolaidis for her award-winning podcast Our Built Heritage (S5 E4, In conversation with Kathryn Ferry).

Find out where Victorian architecture meets seaside holidays and why Kathryn loves them both on the Architecture Academy (S2 E2, Kathryn Ferry).