For The Love of Radio

Call me old-fashioned, but I love listening to the radio.  Not to the kind of radio where the presenters drone on about themselves and are full of their own self-importance; but to the type of programmes where I can lose myself in a drama or an edge of the seat thriller.

Most recently, I've been listening to programmes which commemorate the centenary of the First World War.    The first season of Home Front started in August on BBC Radio 4 and ran for nine weeks.  I tuned in at regular intervals to catch up with the people of Folkestone in the days leading up to the declaration of war and in the early months following as their lives were changed forever.

This landmark radio drama will run for four years and there will be 500 episodes, each around 12 minutes in length and it will conclude in 2018.  I usually catch up with events in the Omnibus edition which is broadcast on a Friday evening.  I'm looking forward to the second season, which starts next month.

Tommies is another programme marking the centenary of the First World War.  This one is based on war diaries and eye-witness accounts of actual events exactly 100 years prior to the date of broadcast.  I've only managed to listen to the first episode so far, but I'm planning on catching up on this soon.

I listen to the BBC all of the time when I'm at home.  Usually it is a mixture of Radio 2, Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra, which has some terrific older dramas repeated, many of which I'm hearing for the first time.

I find radio more stimulating than television and it's also great when I'm working on something creative, as I don't need to be able to stare at a television screen.

Interestingly, I had been thinking about this post and had even chosen the title when I came across this article (above) about a new book with the very same title.