From Our Home Correspondent 22/03/2020
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2020
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mishal Husain presents pieces by writers and journalists across the UK presenting portraits of life today. Garry Owen of BBC Radio Cymru visits Llanelli and Hospital Notes - an amateur choir there comprising hospital and care workers and members of the emergency services. He discovers how its members de-compress at times of stress - when social distancing restrictions permit it - and what benefits they derive from singing together. The writer, Damian Barr, author of the Radio 4 Books of the Week, "Maggie & Me" and "You Will Be Safe Here", takes us to north Lanarkshire and the South Downs in his quest for glow worms. His search is part journey of discovery and part self-revelation. Along the way, he explains the enduring appeal of these elusive insects at this - or, indeed - any time. Andrew Green has journeyed around England in search of the special memorials which are stained glass windows in parish churches commemorating the Fallen of the Great War. From Cornwall to Suffolk, Leicestershire to Devon, he has been speaking with those entrusted with the care of both old and new windows and has heard why they matter so much to local communities. The Edwardian bandstand in the West Yorkshire town of Todmorden is sadly neglected. But, as Andy Kershaw has been discovering, there are plans afoot from local campaigners to restore it. Might they, though, be defeated by local bureaucracy or will this rare structure come to enjoy a new lease of life over a hundred years after it first came into use? And the poet and broadcaster, Ian McMillan, considers how we mark out our lives. For him, it's the regular visit to the same place for a ritual that’s barely altered over the decades. But if the location hasn’t changed the people certainly have…
Producer: Simon Coates
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:04.0 | Thank you for downloading from our home correspondent on BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:09.0 | I'm Michelle Hussein. |
| 0:10.0 | These are strange and difficult times for the country, but our home correspondence |
| 0:14.9 | remind us of life before and beyond the virus. |
| 0:19.3 | One celebrates memorials in stained glass both old and new, and other hopes that his local bandstand in West Yorkshire |
| 0:27.2 | can be successfully restored. We have a unique way of measuring out a life and we're spotting glowworms up against the night sky |
| 0:36.7 | in North Lanarkshire. First to Camarthenshire and at a time when we're all acutely conscious of our dependence on health and care workers, |
| 0:46.0 | what about the ways they've been able to let off steam? |
| 0:50.0 | Gary Owen of BBC Radio Comrie went to see a group that's created new bonds in a hospital community. |
| 0:57.0 | It's practice night in Sanelli, and this choir is warming up with one of its favorite numbers. |
| 1:04.0 | There's laughter and joking, but there's also tension because there's a big concert in the diary. |
| 1:11.0 | It's 30 years since the Prince Philip Hospital opened in the town, |
| 1:16.2 | and these singers are getting ready to join in the celebrations with a gala evening at the local |
| 1:20.7 | theatre. Hospital notes, as the choirs aptly called, |
| 1:27.0 | comprises doctors, nurses, domestic staff, health managers and police officers. This is the only integrated health, |
| 1:35.6 | social care and emergency services choir in the UK. |
| 1:39.7 | All these people work so hard in their day jobs, long hours and a lot of stress. |
| 1:48.0 | This is a creative outlet. |
| 1:51.0 | One of the musical directors, Stacey Harries tells me, |
| 1:54.0 | Some people have a punch bag to get rid of pressures. |
| 1:58.0 | All these here tonight have the choir. |
... |
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