Programmes 2005

 

BBC Radio 4 – UK Confidential

New Year's Day, 1st January 2005

Presented by Sue MacGregor a special half-hour programme feature drawing on extracts from top-secret Government papers from 1974 offering exclusive new insights on many of the political decisions and controversies of that time. Under analysis, the extreme measures taken during the three day week and Energy crisis, how the Government considered using the army during the Miners Strike, and an extraordinary warning from the British ambassador in Baghdad that Saddam Hussain, then Vice President of Iraq could become another Stalin.

 

BBC Radio 4 - We Built the Mersey Tunnel Boys

Sunday, 2nd January at 1.30pm

The building of the Mersey Tunnel, completed in 1934, was not only pioneering in engineering terms, but if offered hundreds of ordinary Merseysiders their first passport to a world beyond the confines of Liverpool. An anniversary tribute to one of the great twentieth century engineering achievements and the 1700 men who brought it about.

 

BBC Radio 4 - Enter the Work House

Saturday, 8th January at 8.00pm

Using rare archives, Tony Burton paints an evocative portrait of life behind the closed doors of the workhouse, with moving personal testimonies and fascinating observations from those who experienced life within their walls.

 

BBC Radio 4 - Three Chords and the Truth

Saturday, 8th, 15th and 22nd January at 10.30am

A smash hit series revealing the extraordinary commercial phenomenon of Country Music. Presented by music writer and broadcaster Nick Barraclough, it’s the first ever genuine exposé of the Nashville machine, including interviews with JJ Cale, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris.

 

BBC Radio 4 - Farewell to Winston

Sunday, 29th January 8.00pm

For many thousands of people the 30th January 1965 saw the final severing of their link with the events of the Second World War. When Winston Churchill was accorded the solemn pageantry of a state funeral - the first (and so far only) non-royal to be given such a privilege since Gladstone, former service-men and women, by now in their forties marked his passing. Forty years on from the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill. Nicholas Witchell remembers the winter's day when the sleet fell and a generation who had lived and served through the war lost an iconoclastic leader.

 

BBC Radio 4 - Gunston!

Tuesday, 15th of Feburary 11.30am

Throughout his formative years, the Australian actor and comedian Mark Little’s hero was a greasy haired, balding television journalist called Norman Gunston. He used to bungle his way through celebrity interviews and had an uncanny way of subverting pompous politicians. Thirty years after he first appeared to shock the viewers of Australian Television with his earthy language and colloquialisms – he’s back. Mark Little reveals the enigma that was: Gunston!

 

BBC Radio 4 - The Number Cruncher

Wednesday, 25th of February at 11am

Premium bonds, the once controversial government investment initiative advertised as “savings with a thrill” are as popular as ever and a staggering 25 billion are held by the public today. Unlike other prize draws where celebrities pick out the numbers it is ERNIE the electronic random number indicator equipment that sorts the winners from the losers. A tribute to this mythical machine which inhabits a crumbling old theatre in Blackpool drawing the weekly winning premium bond numbers using the same basic white-hot technology that it’s used since the 1950’s.

 

BBC Radio 4 - YHA at 75

Saturday, 2nd of April 11am

In the now famous Alan Partridge commissioning editor sketch, the hapless presenter pitches a bemused BBC chief with the idea for a new series: “Youth Hostelling with Chris Eubank”. In this anniversary programme, we square up to youth hostelling’s unfashionable image with a quirky and fascinating look at the YHA, with its culture of drying rooms, dormitory hopping and kitchen sharing. Presented by Ian McMillan

 

BBC Radio 4 - Down the Wires

Saturday, 2nd of April 8pm

Long before the age of radio and TV, a pioneering new form of home entertainment was operating in late Victorian England. ‘The Electrophone’ was the first subscription-only service to relay live music and performances into the parlours of well-to-do Victorian and Edwardian homes via the telephone line. In ‘Down the Wires’ at eight o’clock Matthew Parris uncovers the remarkable story of one of the earliest broadcasting systems which operated in Britain and abroad for a period of almost 30 years.

 

BBC Radio 4 - The Late Mrs. Buggins

Wednesday, 26th of April 11:30am

She invented the family sitcom, helped give advice on rationing during the war, and is still recognised as the most prolific radio writer and adaptor of all time. Mabel Constanduros the creator of the Buggins, and later the Huggets, was one of British radio’s first celebrities and her extra-ordinary ability to change voices at high speed made listeners believe there was a huge cast involved in each programme, incredibly it was only Mable all along. Marguerite Patten, Desmond Carrington and Barry Cryer are among those who pay homage to her genius, the actress Lynda Bellingham presents.

 

BBC Radio4 - Wes Hall Broke My Arm

Sunday, 2nd of July 10:30am

“I will never forget seeing Wes Hall steaming in with rhythmic grace - his shirt flapping and gold chain swaying as he bowled from the Hyams End at Accrington” Russ Cuddihy. Caribbean cricket and the Lancashire League are world apart. One is dominated by images of stylish stroke play in languid beach games played on sun-kissed beaches in the shadow of palm trees, the other is hard-bitten sport in the shadow of the chilly Pennines. In this special feature, Garth Crooks takes us back to an earlier age of cricketing heroics when a clutch of small northern cricket clubs brought star West Indian players into their midst and forged a special, if unlikely, relationship between the Caribbean and Lancashire mills.

 

BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion: 1980 Olympics

Sunday 24th of July 11:15am

In 1979, members of the British Olympic team were in training for the Moscow games when Russia invaded Afghanistan. President Carter, backed up by Margaret Thatcher urged athletes to boycott the games, and the worlds of politics and sport seemed caught in a headlock. Swimmers like Duncan Goodhew, athlete Joslyn Hoyte-Smith, and Rowing Cox Colin Moynihan faced their own personal dilemmas about competing for their country but defying their Government. Team leader Dick Palmer carried the flag alone into the Olympic stadium, and as the hate mail stacked up, coach Frank Dick did his best to shield the athletes from the pressures. They join Sue MacGregor to recall that controversial Olympic year

 

BBC Radio4 - The Reunion: Not the Nine O’ Clock News

Sunday 31st of July 11.15

‘Not The Nine O’Clock News’ was one of the most successful British comedy series of the 1980s, but at the time of its inception, the programme got off to a very shaky start and inexperienced TV comedy Producers, John Lloyd and Sean Hardie were by no means certain they would emerge with such a popular comedy format. As the launch team gather together once more, Rowan Atkinson recalls the bizarre, offbeat comedy sketches that emerged from their improvisations, Mel Smith remembers his shock at the scathing reviews they initially received and Pamela Stephenson talks about her role as the programme’s sole female performer. But for Chris Langham then perhaps the most established comic writer and performer to join the team, the memories are not quite so joyous. In “The Reunion”, he discusses frankly his shock when he was asked to leave the team.

 

BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion: The Abortion Act

Sunday 7th of August 11:15

The issue of abortion has been debated by the British parliament on many occasions, but back in 1967, when the young David Steel proposed a Private Members Bill to legalise abortion, the passing of what has been called “one of the most important pieces of social legislation in the post war period” was set in motion. In this Reunion Sue MacGregor hears from David, now Lord Steel and members of the campaigning team who pushed the issue out into the open forcing MP’s to consider their position on the subject. Also joining them one of their chief opponents of the time, Baroness Jill Knight who did her best to make sure that the Bill respected the right to life.

 

BBC Radio 4 – The Reunion: Japanese Internees

Sunday, 14th of August 11:15

To mark the anniversary of VJ Day, a special Reunion bringing together a group who, as children and young adults, spent the years of the Second World War in Japanese internment camps. Accustomed to the comforts of colonial life, they had to learn to adjust quickly as their familiar world crumbled around them. Battling sickness, starvation and cruelty, they did what they could to survive life inside the camps. Jeremy Gotch, who weighed only 3 stone when he left the camp at the age of 11, recalls the constant hunger, and Rose Raymond, who was forced into hard labour and had to build her own coffin, recalls the poignant experience of listening at night to a young internee singing Ave Maria through the bars of her cell.

 

BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion: Today Newspaper

Sunday, 21st of August 11:15

The Today newspaper, which launched in 1986, was the first national newspaper to be printed without the unions, electronically, and in colour. But the battle to get the first edition on the streets was a long and hard one. Inspired by their charismatic owner Eddie Shah, the Today team was made up of experienced professionals who were tired of the stranglehold that the print unions had over their work, and young intelligent journalists eager to be part of a historic team. Among them were Anthony Holden and Mary Ann Seighart, as well as Jane Reed, its features editor and Brian MacArthur, its editor. With Sue MacGregor, this launch team comes together again to recall the dramatic battles of those early days.

 

BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion: The Seige of Sarajevo

Sunday, 28th of August 11:15

Sarajevo was a sophisticated city at the heart of Europe – a multi-ethnic symbol of how people could and did live together in peace. No one believed that war would come to Sarajevo. But in April 1992 the culmination of many months of conflict between the two main political parties in Bosnia came to a fatal head. Serbian troops encircled the city from the hills above it and mortaring and sniping began. Sarajevo a symbol of stability became Sarajevo a city under siege. In the ssixth programme of the BBC Radio 4 summer series, , Sue MacGregor goes on location to Sarajevo to reunite some of the civilians who became prisoners in their own city from 1992 to 1995 during the longest siege in the history of modern warfare.

 

BBC Radio 4 -The Reunion: Twyford Down

Sunday 4th of September 11:15

For almost twenty years a group of local residents fought a legal campaign to stop the construction of the M3 motorway through a local beauty spot on the outskirts of Winchester in Hampshire. Having failed to make headway with two public enquiries and a high court appearance the residents, in their frustration, decided in 1992 to physically stop the construction as it began. What began as a handful of people camped on a hill soon became one of the most notorious direct action campaigns of the period as thousands of people from all over the country came together to protect the environment. Sue MacGregor brings together five of those involved in the protests, who although coming from very different backgrounds formed a peculiar alliance to campaign against the proposed road.

 

BBC Radio 4 - Miss Lou at RADA

Friday, 9th of September 11am

Affectionately known as Miss Lou, Louise Bennett is - at the age of 86 – a national icon in Jamaica and for Caribbean communities who recognise her as a living archive of the islands cultural roots. Best known for writing and performing in the Jamaican language – a controversial move in 1950s and 60s Jamaica, her wise and witty poetry is about ordinary, working class people. The programme follows Miss Lou’s entry into the post-war world of Britain’s leading drama academy, the first black female student to be enrolled there and traces her meteoric rise to fame. Presented by Yvonne Brewster, groundbreaking theatre director and co-founder of Talawa, Britain’s leading black theatre company.

 

BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion: Edinburgh Fringe

Sunday, 11th of September 11:15

Sixty years ago a handful of theatre companies turned up uninvited at the very first Edinburgh International Festival. More came the following year - and more and more until a journalist coined the term “The Fringe”.. Today the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the largest arts event in the world. In “The Reunion”, we bring together key figures from the history of the Fringe phenomenon. Michael Imison who came to the festival as a student and had no idea what he was starting when he set up the Fringe Society. Richard Demarco who started the Traverse theatre, Alister Moffat, the Society’s administrator, was confronted by an office filled with sewage on his first day on the job but went on to preside over a host of innovations, Scottish comic Arnold Brown the first stand-up act to win the Perrier and Joyce McMillan the theatre critic for the Scotsman who says she owes her whole career to growing up around the Fringe.

 

BBC Radio 4 - Red Wedge

Saturday, 17th of September 10:30am

Twenty years on from the launch of Red Wedge, we tell the story of the musicians and entertainers who joined forces to try to galvanise young voters into voting Labour into power in the 1987 General Election. The programme recalls the idealism of their campaign – as well as its absurdities – and asks whether pop and politics should ever be allowed to mix. And, we remember the sounds of the Eighties, with music from The Communards, Paul Weller, Billy Bragg, Madness, The Smiths and many more. The programme is presented by John O’Farrell, then a Labour party activist whose book ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ tells the story of “Eighteen miserable years in the life of a Labour supporter.”

 

BBC Radio 4 - Bulawayo Boys

Thursday, 15th of September 8pm

As Zimbabwe struggles with a shrinking economy, runaway inflation, and national debts of a hundred and seventy four million dollars, Adam Fowler gets behind the headlines to hear first hand accounts of the pensioners ¬ many of whom with allegiances to Britain, who have been left behind by the current economic crisis.

 

BBC Radio 4 - Looking for Lawrence

Sunday, 8th of October 8pm

Based on rare recordings, interviews and candid personal accounts from the archives of the Imperial War Museum and the BBC, John Simpson, explores the life and legend of T.E. Lawrence “Lawrence of Arabia”. We hear precious recordings from literary luminaries such as E. M. Forster and Siegfried Sassoon who spent much time in Lawrence’s company and hear from his younger brother Arnold - who remembers a man, “In ruins after his enormous over exertion during the war.”

 

BBC Radio 4 - A Pennine Christmas

Wednesday, 21st of December 11am

John Carter visits the ultimate Christmas workshop in Huddersfield, where a family firm dispenses high-tech festive decorations to all corners of the globe, including Dubai and Hong Kong. But now they face the most challenging deadline of them all: their largest installation ever.

 

BBC Radio 4 - Artists Only

19th - 23rd of December 3:45pm

Michael Crick follows up his successful series “Headsrtrong and Proud” with a behind the scenes look at some of our thriving “Artists Clubs”. He travels from the Penzance Arts Club to Liverpool’s Philharmonic and Edinburgh’s Scottish Arts Club, via London’s Soho and Chelsea, to delve into their unique cultural inheritance and to consider with some humour, the unique mix of art, alcohol and satire that these places bring about. Does it fire the artistic imagination? Or is it just a great opportunity to chink drinks and mingle with star names and the elite?

 

BBC Radio 4 - UK Confidential

Saturday 31st of December 10:15pm

At the end of the year, thousands of previously secret government files are released for public viewing. In this special feature Martha Kearney discovers how the contents of these papers shed new light on the stories that made the headlines in 1975. It was to be Harold Wilson’s last full year in office, and with access to Prime Ministerial papers we tell the real story behind the Fall and Rise of MP John Stonehouse, and the eventual release of Dennis Hills the British University lecturer sentenced to death in Uganda by Idi Amin. We also hear how a scandal over a slag heap in Wigan threatened to overwhelm Number 10, and we find out why “those little things that mean a lot” had the Government smiling. In the studio with Martha; the journalist Jon Snow, former political editor of the New Statesman Anthony Howard and Joe Haines, Harold Wilson’s former Press Secretary.