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Short Cuts

Long Distance

Short Cuts

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.8788 Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2017

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Falling from a great height and last words across a telephone line - Josie Long hears stories of relationships stretched across space.

From the crossover between skydiving, Soren Kierkegaard and falling in love, to the final words uttered into the ear of a loved one on another continent.

Rafadan Yumurta Produced by Phil Smith

On Top Produced by Maria Donvang

Alfred and Katie Featuring Dr Alfred Aidoo and Katie Stakolich Produced by Andrea Rangecroft

Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall

A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2017.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello, welcome to the podcast of Shortcuts.

0:02.2

I'm Josie Long, and today's program is called Long Distance.

0:10.2

This is Shortcuts.

0:14.4

Brief encounters, true stories, radio adventures and found sound.

0:20.4

Today, long distance.

0:23.6

You can't hear the noise.

0:25.7

Instead, it's the sensation in the body,

0:28.9

feeling the blood rushing down its paths.

0:31.4

She was far away,

0:32.9

and all she had was a phone to call

0:35.1

and a doctor here to trust,

0:39.1

to do what had to be done.

0:50.1

It's hard to be at a distance from the people you love, to stay intimate and close. You carry an image of them and of what home means around with you, but it doesn't replace the tangible

0:55.0

connection with them.

0:57.5

Our first story is about a young woman away from home, who finds that the country she's left

1:02.6

behind is changing, and that from a distance, it's difficult to feel like you still belong.

1:10.0

I actually don't remember when I first boil an egg,

1:13.6

but I remember watching my grandmother doing it.

1:16.6

And since I really like the consistency of that egg,

1:19.6

I asked my grandmother how she does it.

1:21.6

So she told me that I have to count until 100,

1:23.6

but there is a way of counting.

...

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