Rebecca Franks

Rebecca Franks is a freelance journalist and editor, working for titles including BBC Countryfile and BBC History magazines. She is a classical music critic for The Times and the former managing editor of BBC Music Magazine. She loves walking, swimming outdoors and seeking out the places where the arts, history and nature meet.

Recent articles by Rebecca Franks

American singer-songwriter, author, and visual artist Bob Dylan at Newport Folk Festival, 28th July 1963. (Photo by John Byrne Cooke Estate/Getty Images)

10 greatest folk songs of the 1960s that defined a generation

Featuring Dylan, Baez, Cohen and more, here are the timeless folk classics from the decade that changed music forever.

A group of girls and boys dressed in Regency style clothing dancing in a ring, probably to the nursery rhyme Ring a Ring o' Roses. From “Kate Greenaway’s Birthday Book for Children” with illustrations by Catherine ‘Kate’ Greenaway (1846-1901) and verses by Mrs Sale Barker. Printed by Edmund Evans and published by George Routledge & Sons, London, 1880.

10 darkest nursery rhymes ever: The chilling stories and eerie hidden messages behind some of our most popular children's songs

Did Romans bring lions come to England

Did the Romans bring lions to England to maul criminals and prisoners of war to death for gruesome entertainment?

Lions are for their presence at the Roman colosseum, but did they ever make it to Roman Britain?