Alistair Campbell

In fact, we got rather a nice email from a Trip Plus member who'd been stranded on a small Yemeni island asking for an explanation of what's going on.

So Yemen, people remember, is a big chunk of territory below Saudi Arabia on the edge of the Red Sea.

And it was two countries through to 1991.

There was a southern country, which was traditionally a British colony around Aden.

Older listeners will remember Aden, a place that people used to stop on their way to India.

Do you remember that one, yeah?

It's very, very, it's a lovely tune.

It's a really lovely tune.

And actually, it took me a long time to work out what Aden was.

It was only when I finally got to Yemen I could put the pipe tune together with the place.

Anyway, these two countries came together.

That and in the north, a very different type of place up in the northern highlands, which was connected to a branch of Islam, Zaydi Islam, which is a complete exception

maybe a little bit more Shia than Sunni or has become a little bit more Shia than Sunni under Iranian influence recently, but really quite an exception with its own charismatic religious leadership.

Anyway, two things come together in 1991.

On we go.

And then in the Arab Spring, 2011, the Houthis who are up in the north, who are these Zaydi Houthis who are Iranian connected, begin to advance south.

And I remember visiting the British ambassador in Yemen,

We were just north of Sana'a.

And suddenly the body, you know, the way the security team comes running to you.

And the story was the Houthis had come.