Illuminated

In 1939, Emma Freud's mother Jill was evacuated from London to the suburbs of Oxford. After staying with Lewis Carroll's friends the Butler sisters for a few years, she arrived at her next designated accommodation clutching a small suitcase and a copy of her favourite book, The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. It was just a few weeks later, after she spotted several copies of that book on a shelf, that she realised she was actually living with CS Lewis himself.

In this telling of Jill's fascinating story, Emma hears all about her mother's love for CS Lewis, known to her as Jack. How she cared for him, how he paid for her to go to drama school and how a big, old, wooden wardrobe became part of her story...

Illustrated with readings from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Emma captures these precious memories as she sits down with her mum to hear her magical story.

Readings of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by Olivia Williams.

Presenter: Emma Freud

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis © copyright 1950 CS Lewis Pte Ltd.

Lady Jill Freud, April 1927-November 2025.

Like so many people at a similar time of life, the poet Paul Farley is facing up to the fact that he might need hearing aids. His wife has been asking him to turn down the volume on the telly for years, and has given up shouting downstairs for him because he never hears.

Out in cafes and pubs, Paul can no longer really follow what people are saying to him, and so he often turns down invitations knowing he can’t turn up the volume. Even worse, for Paul at least, is the fact he can no longer hear the high frequencies of his beloved birdsong.

Now, though, all that could change as he heads for a test at his local opticians to get his own NHS hearing aids fitted. He also speaks with Gabrielle Saunders, Professor of Audiology at the University of Manchester, about the past and future of hearing aids, and also the truth about the supposed connection between dementia and hearing loss.

Paul also visits the near total silence of Salford University’s anechoic chamber so that he can hear himself think properly - and looks forward to a time when he might once again be able to listen to the birds.

Presented by Paul Farley

A Naked production for BBC Radio 4

From Rock-a-bye Baby to Brahms to AI…Has the lullaby become a lost art?

Matt Edmonds is trying to sing his child to sleep. It’s not working. As his baritone produces My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean for the 19th time and his toddler says 'Dada, stop!’, he drifts into a parallel reality. Could AI do bedtime for him? Surely it would be simpler? And he would be spared lying on the floor of his child’s bedroom.

What is a lullaby? What gives it its magic? The tune? The words? The rhythm? The very act of delivery? In this programme, we join Matt Edmonds - writer, musician and father - as he falls down a rabbit hole, chasing the lost art of the lullaby. In this dreamy, musical 'sleeper hit', Matt encounters people with stories that explore the power of the lullaby.

During Lullaby Hour at a neonatal unit, Matt hears first-hand the impact live lullabies have on premature babies. He talks to Roxana Vilk, whose lullabies project gathers songs from all over the world, to see if she can help. And he meets his friends, musicians Johnny and Lillie Flynn, to hear what musical tricks they use to compose and sing lullabies.

Full of fresh wisdom, Matt returns to his child’s bedside, his baritone hoarse and sleep-deprived, to test if the ancient art of the lullaby still has legs.

This programme is richly designed with a soundscape woven from recordings of Matt’s own attempts at lullabies, the sounds of the locations he visits, and music from Matt, Mica Bernard, Bex Ashford and from Johnny and Lillie Flynn.

Presenter: Matt Edmonds

With special thanks to Dr Aniko Deierl and Irena Meza for their contributions

A Sound & Bones production for BBC Radio 4.

Emily Berry leads us on an exploration of agoraphobia: a poetic journey through the lives of people who don't like going on journeys.

Agoraphobia is elusive and elastic – and it's very probably not what you think it is.

Poet Emily Berry was diagnosed with agoraphobia over ten years ago, a condition which limits her ability to travel. And so she's setting off in a different way: on a journey into the life of the mind, guided by a chorus of fellow agoraphobics. What does it mean to come up against the boundaries of the self and how might those limits be breached through the power of the imagination – in the words of poet Vasko Popa, "the little box which contains the world."

Featuring Graham Caveney, Charlotte Levin and Peter Ruppert.

Includes extracts from a BBC interview with Dr Claire Weekes.

Graham Caveney's memoir is called On Agoraphobia (Picador)

The Piano Boat, the floating concert hall where world-renowned concert pianist Masayuki Tayama played, sits empty. His wife, Rhiana, is left with a boat with no captain and a Steinway she was never allowed to play. We join her as she processes her grief and considers the future of The Piano Boat without Masa.

Rhiana and Masa commissioned the boat in 2019 and planned to run concert cruises, on board the boat, along the inland waterways. It was a dream project for both of them – a life designed for two.

But, in 2021 Masa was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and although the chemotherapy turned his fingers numb, he relearned his technique and kept playing. In August 2023, a week after what would be their final round of cruises, Masa was hospitalized for the last time. He died two weeks later.

Will Greenwood, who has seen the boat from creation to present day, journeys with Rhiana on the waterways and as she rebuilds her dreams while coping with her grief. She shares her honest audio diaries, the highs and lows. She is surprised by sorrow and joy as she starts to fill the boat with music once more. Beginning with playing Masa’s piano – something she had never done before.

Craig Terry, Director of Steinway & Sons UK, tells us about the piano and meeting Rhiana and Masa for the first time. Concert Pianist and one of Masa’s former colleagues, Graham Caskey, and music academic, Kris Worsley, talk on the intimacy of The Piano Boat, and show us how the pieces we hear don’t need words to tell a story.

Presented by Will Greenwood

There are so many problems in the world. For the past three years, Estonian clown Julia Masli - armed with a microphone taped to a mannequin leg - has been trying to solve them.

So far, during the performances of her live show ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, where Julia asks audience members their problem, she has recorded 1574 problems. A few people feel homesick, some worry about the collapse of society, and many lament their retreating hairlines. But we are not alone with our problems: Janet is not the only one with a broken fridge. Simon shares his back pain. Alexandra might feel lonely, but Aisha does too.

This clown might not be able to solve all of our problems, but she’s going to try.

Photo: Cameron Whitman

This is a story about a community on the north east coast of Scotland that talked to plants with miraculous results.

Established in 1962, the Findhorn community gained international recognition for 40lb cabbages, 8-foot delphiniums, and roses that bloomed in snow.

With seemingly no gardening experience, community founders Peter and Eileen Caddy and their friend Dorothy Maclean transformed the barren sand dunes surrounding the 30-foot caravan they were living in, into a modern-day garden of Eden.

The public wanted to know how this was possible. What was the source of this horticultural miracle?

People flocked to Findhorn from around the world to witness this incredible transformation first-hand.

An extraordinary story began to emerge. Peter, Eileen and Dorothy - along with Scottish writer and supernatural enthusiast Robert Ogilvie Crombie (ROC) - attributed their success to one thing: collaboration with the ‘intelligence of nature’.

They claimed they had pierced the veil of the nature spirit realm, and were regularly receiving guidance from fairies, floral spirits and angelic forms Dorothy called 'Devas' - the ‘architects’ of the natural world. Moreover, they had been called upon by these entities to transform the Findhorn Garden into a centre of spiritual light.

What started with a single family in a caravan quickly grew into a thriving international village of hundreds of people united by shared social, spiritual and ecological values.

Inspired by the media's enduring fascination with Findhorn's supernatural origins, sound designer Jonathan Webb travels to Findhorn in search of transmissions from the nature spirit realm.

Trawling through the archives, in conversation with community elders, and in pursuit of sonic traces of higher elemental worlds, Jonathan brings into focus the echoes and reverberations of Findhorn’s strange and magical past.

Produced, Edited & Sound Designed by Jonathan Webb

A Bespoken Media Scotland production for BBC Radio 4

Additional field recordings by Brenda Hutchinson.

With grateful thanks to Jonathan Caddy, Judy McAllister and Karl Jay-Lewin, whose kindness and generosity made this programme possible.

Thank you to the Findhorn Foundation for providing access and permission to use recordings from the Findhorn Foundation archive.

The Findhorn Garden includes excerpts from ‘The River’ by Lark Batteau and ‘Love One Another’ by David Spangler and Milenko Matanovic, performing as The New Troubadours (Findhorn community band, 1970-1973)

Jonathan Webb makes no claim to authorship or ownership over any of the quotations or repurposed recordings used in the production of this work, and for practical and artistic reasons it has not been possible to reference and cite them individually. Jonathan Webb’s authorship is in the overall conception, arrangement, treatment and presentation of this audio artwork in its context.

Clint Buffington spends his time where land meets sea, searching for a very specific treasure - messages in bottles that have drifted across oceans. Over the past 20 years he has recovered more than 140 of them, each carrying a clue - sometimes decades old - waiting to be discovered.

Finding a bottle is only the beginning. The real mystery unfolds when Clint carefully extracts the fragile paper in his Utah home lab. He first teases out the faint, salt-blurred words, deciphering a message damaged by years at sea. Only then does Clint begin tracking down the person who sent it, often many years after they let it go. Each investigation is part detective work, part conversation across time.

The messages reveal remarkable journeys - a German sailor who cast a note into the Bermuda Triangle on his birthday in 1979, three French women who paddled across the Atlantic to set a world record, Puerto Rican students at a crossroads, even a pair of tiny dolls wrapped in a spell.

Join Clint on his search and the unexpected revelations it sparks - a reminder that across vast distances and years at sea, the quest for human connection is timeless.

A Sound & Bones production for BBC Radio 4

On the 75th anniversary of the iconic comic strip Peanuts, psychoanalyst and author Josh Cohen shares how Charlie Brown and the Snoopy gang have become his constant companions—and how they can help us navigate the frustrating squiggle of life.

Charles Schultz’s daily newspaper comic strip is perhaps the most enduring, beloved and iconic cartoon ever penned. Even if you’ve never read the strip itself, you are unlikely to have escaped its famous characters’ journeys across the decades and the globe. The round-headed, wobbly mouthed Charlie Brown and his dog Snoopy, often found snoozing atop his kennel, have been emblazoned across t shirts, crockery and pretty much every other conceivable piece of merchandise. They have inspired TV shows, pop songs, and even been the namesakes of Apollo lunar modules.

Far from just a bunch of cutesy doodles, as many have come to see it, Peanuts’ cross-generational appeal is down to its spot-on depiction of the complex emotions that follow us all from childhood into adulthood. From Charlie Brown’s humiliation on the baseball field to his frenemy Lucy’s unrequited pining for her piano-playing crush, and her brother Linus’ desperate attachment to his security blanket, the strip reflects the everyday pain and frustration of being human. And, with warmth and wit, offers its readers a way to live with it.

In fact, Peanuts deals so much in the intense emotional experiences of its young protagonists that one of its most recognisable recurring gags is Lucy’s booth offering ‘PSYCHIATRIC HELP 5¢’.

Stepping out from behind his analytic couch and taking a seat at its cartoon simulacrum in that famous booth, Josh unpacks the psychological truths illustrated in the comic’s four main characters - Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and Snoopy. Hooked by a copy of Peanuts Jubilee aged five, they were his contemporaries. Today, after 50 years of avid reading, he’s on the other side of the two-way channel between childhood and adulthood that Peanuts opens up. He investigates the emotional pull of the comic for him and for so many of us - including the other writers and thinkers we hear from who share his passion.

Presenter and Writer: Josh Cohen

Alan Dein takes to the road to explore the social and cultural resonances of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn.

The music begins the way journeys begin: with a clunking car door and churning ignition, before rolling onwards on a warm rhythmic throb - a 23-minute conceptual road-trip of swerves and curves, gentle gradients and blaring horns, tarmac-rumbling rhythms and doppler-shift effects that simulate the sensory whoosh of passing vehicles.

Kraftwerk's lyrical paean to the possibilities of freedom via the German motorway system is fifty years old. It was released in late 1974 and became popular worldwide in 1975. These were years in which a new West Germany was being created, one in which a more overt reckoning with history was possible, and in which a new characteristically German culture could be asserted, free from -- and implicitly in opposition to -- that history: new art, writing, cinema, and, with Kraftwerk, among others, music.

The autobahn wasn't an innocent choice of subject for Kraftwerk. It connected them back to the 1930s, when the autobahn system was begun and became an integral part of the infrastructure of the Third Reich. After the war it became a symbol of the West German 'economic miracle'. Beginning in darkness, the autobahn could be conceived as a road that drove towards progress and optimism.

'Wir fahren, fahren, fahren auf der autobahn': 'We’re driving, driving, driving on the autobahn.'

Alan Dein is on the autobahn as well – driving, driving, driving – in Kraftwerk’s wake, and tuned in to the cultural world of West Germany in the 1970s.

Featuring:

With grateful thanks to Dietmar Post and Uwe Schutte.

Photograph shows Emil Schult and Alan Dein. Behind them is Schult's painting, used as the original cover of Kraftwerk's Autobahn album.