By Alex Clarke

We’ve made it to Episode 15 and the Bilgepumps crew have been joined by the one, the only, Laughton Chair of Naval History from King’s College London’s War Studies Department, Professor Andrew Lambert. Or as Alex has called him since he supervised his PhD, Prof!

We are joined by him for an extended show that can best be described as what would happen if you sat four naval history geeks down in a room and gave them endless drinks, snacks, and told them to figure out who was the best admiral of all time for future leaders to model themselves on. Although we’re not in the same room, not even the same time zone, and definitely not the same continent. Alongside our love of naval history, one of us boxes with springy creatures and fights daily battles with ravenous wildlife, another builds model railways, the third’s Australian, and the special guest literally lives next door to an archive.

So after all that what is Episode 15 about? Well the #Bilgepumps team is being topical of course, so with all the problems of modern leadership and the changing world, who is the admiral from the past that best provides a template? Hornby? Cunningham? Nelson? The crew asks the Professor who literally wrote the book on admirals.

#Bilgepumps is a still newish series and new avenue, although it may no longer have the new car smell, in fact more of pineapple and irn bru smell, with the faint whiff of cork, but we’re getting the impression it’s liked. So we’d very much like any comments, topic suggestions or ideas for artwork tweeted to us the Bilge Pumps crew (with #Bilgepump) at Alex (@AC_NavalHistory), Drach (@Drachinifel), and Jamie (@Armouredcarrier). Or you can comment on our Youtube channels (listed down below).

Download Bilge Pumps 15 – Examples of Leadership with Prof. Andrew Lambert

Alex Clarke is the producer of The Bilge Pumps podcast.

Contact the CIMSEC podcast team at Seacontrol@cimsec.org.