Summary
A portrait of singer, songwriter and truck driver Will Beeley.
The myth of the road is deeply rooted in America - it's the thing that delivers escape, promises freedom, fuels new hopes and, once upon a time at least, thoughts of a new nation. And it provides its own opening onto the vastness and variety of the country today.
The distances can be dizzying. And these days Will Beeley spends more time on the road than he does at home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a city in the desert, with Route 66 running through its heart.
In another life Will Beeley was a musician - a singer and songwriter - an anxious romantic at the end of the 1960s and a smooth-voiced folkie ten years later. He played gig after gig, made records and, for a while at least, hoped for the big time.
But now, like a different road taken, a different stop along the way, he spends his life behind the wheel of a hulking truck, sharing the driving with his wife, as the highway and the days blur by.
It's a unique vantage point. And as America spools past outside, framed by the huge windscreen, does he - like all of us now and then - think of times gone by, of unfinished business, of what might have been? Or is his attention fixed ahead on the road as it rolls towards him, flowing beneath his wheels?
Producer: Martin Williams.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the Maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.0 | This is the BBC. Hi, I'm Riana Dylan, and this is seriously. |
| 0:47.0 | The cafe table seems so empty. Today I'd like you to meet Will Beley. |
| 0:59.0 | Today I'd like you to meet Will Beley. |
| 1:04.0 | And I muttered sign to my pillow. |
| 1:07.0 | An empty reach for you seems like it just can't be. |
| 1:12.0 | I stopped to describe myself as a musician or a songwriter I guess in 89. |
| 1:18.0 | I took about, I don't know, 20 or more half-written songs that were already in my guitar case and put my guild |
| 1:26.7 | D50 in the case and locked it. |
| 1:29.9 | Can't pretend much longer. |
| 1:33.0 | They're failing so much stronger than before. |
| 1:37.0 | Wills in Albuquerque, New Mexico. |
| 1:40.0 | He's a man with a history, a story to tell, but there are still roads to travel and a future unfolding. |
| 1:48.0 | I picked up my guitar less than 75 times to play it. I just don't play anymore. But life has a |
... |
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