Gretel le Maître Ponders

Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities. She shares with you passages from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.

Gretel invites you to accompany her as she navigates the world a day at a time; the podcast is unscripted, it’s ad-free. It was started to help cope with the imminent death of her mother, and has continued after the grief sadly started in February of 2024. It was a path of solace and remains a path of solace, peace and kindness.

Gretel: ‘while looking outwards and finding the beauty in the world to observe and appreciate, it allows the loose ends within us to knit together. Wounds are soothed and - with an honest and open heart - shame, sorrow and despair can be lifted. There is a whole world out there, including our past, which is fascinating’.

Gretel loves the world and history, architecture, literature and people. And so is determined to walk this path with light footsteps and with humour and warmth: ‘Let’s gather up the beautiful things and ponder them in our hearts’.

Top 10 in Global Rankings according to Listen Notes. I would be so grateful if you would spare the time to give me a kind review 🤗 We’ve reached 91,000 downloads. Thank you!! 🙏

There are no fees required, thought voluntary subscription is of course, welcome.

Previous guests: Historian Tom Holland (who has kindly agreed to be the podcast’s Honorary Patron); Sir Richard Eyre; Actors Guy Henry and Enzo Cilenti; Art historian Philip Mould; Writer David Willem; Composer Matthew Coleridge; Vicar Angela Tilby; Aerial photographer Hedley Thorne; Author Bijan Omrani; Clair C from Dorset, Rory Bremner; Journalist and Historian Sir Simon Jenkins.

Future guests: Tom Holland (again), John Simpson, Kevin Stroud, Philippa Langley (again), Salley Vickers, David Crowther, Philip Mould (again), Sir Simon Jenkins (again), Melanie S from Kent, Laura Cumming and Aidan Ridyard

There are two qualities Gretel looks for in her guests: kindness and curiosity.