Seriously...

The sound of music flying through the air, carried on the tails of pigeons.

"I knew it was a noise maker, but it was the only thing in the museum that I had no idea what it might sound like. Because it works in a way no other instrument does. No other instrument physically moves around you in space, flying overhead, and that seemed like magic".

Inspired by the Chinese pigeon whistles in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, Nathaniel Robin Mann decided he wanted to revive the ancient art of pigeon whistling, a tradition possibly thuosands of years old, in which tiny flutes are attached to pigeons in flight. His experience with birds, however, was limited and he needed a bird expert.

Enter Pete Petravicius, Nottinghamshire ex-miner and steeplejack. A life-long passion for pigeons makes him the perfect trainer to teach the birds how to fly with their unusual musical attachments.

We follow Nathan and Pigeon Pete as their friendship, and their understanding of the pigeon whistles grow. From the gloomth of the Pitt Rivers Museum, to the creation of a modern day 3D-printed whistle for Pete's pigeons.

Finally, we hear a pigeon's flight described in sound across the sky, creating a haunting, undulating chord cloud, accompanied by Nathan's hypnotic voice, singing songs he has discovered about pigeon culture.

Producer: Sara Jane Hall

About the presenters:

Nathaniel Mann is a composer, singer and performer. As Sound & Music's Embedded Composer in Residence at the Pitt Rivers Museum and Oxford Contemporary Music, he discovered the world of Pigeon Whistles, and started to explore their potential, supported by PRSF, a foundation helping new musicians make new work.

Pete Petravicius is unique in that he is the only man in the UK who trains his birds to return to a mobile pigeon loft. The birds can thus travel across the country, flying in formation and returning to their small motor home/coop. He's also an ex-miner and terrific raconteur who loves his Birmingham Rollers.

The Pigeons are cared for in strict accordance to guidelines and regulations laid out by the DEFRA & the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA). The use of Pigeon Whistles has been deemed as not causing stress or harm to the birds by independent animal welfare advisors and Pigeon Fancing experts.

3D Pigeon Whistles modeled and printed by Joe Banner at Printrite, Nottinghamshire.

About the music :

The Pigeon Bell

The Pigeon

The Pigeon Chase

What is life like for nuns and monks today? With a lack of new blood coming into the traditional monasteries and convents, Bishop Martin Shaw supports some of these aging communities in their painful final days as they are forced to leave their homes. His role as an official visitor, is also to receive the vows of any new nuns and monks joining religious orders, and to hear the concerns and complaints from each community. Sister Giovanna, Sister Clare and Brother Samuel, who are all from different religious communities, recount what life is like for them today. They also share their experiences of dedication over the years - from that first day in the chapel and hearing Gregorian Chant to outside keeping bees and pigs in the orchard, from teaching young children in inner cities to supporting the bereaved in hospitals. We get a glimpse of life in this unique and rarefied world of devotion and commitment, and hear how these communities have changed over the decades. Bishop Shaw has also witnessed these changes, but although monastic life as it has traditionally been lived is unlikely to survive, there are signs of new religious life beginning to emerge within the Church.

Produced by Luke Whitlock.

999 was the first emergency telephone number in the world when it was launched on June 30th, 1937. Within the first week, more than a thousand calls were made to the service with one burglar arrested less than five minutes after a member of the public had dialled 999. Impressive stuff. But there were teething problems...

In the early days, only those wealthy enough to own a telephone could hope to avail of the service. Exchange room operators complained of stress caused by the raucous buzzers which alerted them to 999 calls. Advancing technology connected with the system began to alter the relationship between public and police. Almost unbelievably in hindsight, the 999 service wasn't made fully available across the nation until 1976.

Exactly 80 years after it was introduced, Ian Sansom dials up the remarkable story of our three digit emergency number. Between rare archive, real life-or-death emergencies and interviews with call handlers on the front line, Ian takes a personal look at the evolution of 999 and asks what the future holds for this pioneering British institution.

Producer: Conor Garrett.

Actor Michael Sheen explores the history of Port Talbot's Plaza Cinema. A beautiful art-deco building , first opening in 1940, the Plaza was the heart of cinema entertainment for the people of Port Talbot for decades - a place where Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins watched everyone from George Formby to Bogart and Cagney and where, growing up in Port Talbot in the 1970s and 80s, Michael Sheen had his early encounters with the film industry in which he would thrive.

But as well as charting the onward march of the multiplex which lead to the Plaza's eventual demise, and talking to the last projectionist and cinema manager who fought so hard to make it viable, Michael Sheen explores the importance of places like the Plaza to towns and communities all over the UK. Is it possible to turn it around, find a new use or even see crowds return to the elegant interior, or is the Plaza now only a monument to a past life , rich in nostalgia but which can no longer provide what a modern community needs ? Michael also hears from two other Plaza goers and children of Port Talbot - Rob Brydon and the Opera Singer Rebecca Evans.

Producers: Joanne Cayford and Tom Alban

Photographs: Copyright John Crerar.

Aleks Krotoski takes her seat at the table to explore the amazing world of fictional food made real.

Food is not a new force in fiction, but increasingly fictional food is finding its way onto the table. And fan communities from the new breed of modern cultural canon aren't just nibbling on Laura Esquivel's devastating quail in rose petal sauce from Like Water for Chocolate, but also tucking in to fried squirrel and raccoon from The Hunger Games, Sansa's lemon cakes from Game of Thrones, or downing a frothy glass of butterbeer from Harry Potter.

Now Aleks gathers together three people who know a lot about fictional food to discuss its appeal for fans, authors and food creators alike. Together, they will make, and eat, a meal of food from fiction, and discuss some of the interesting questions it raises.

Joanne Harris is author of several novels where food is almost a character in its own right - most famously Chocolat, which was turned into a film of the same name; she also co-created a cookbook, The Little Book of Chocolat, for the many fans desperate to make the concoctions they had read about in her novels. Sam Bompas is co-founder of creative food studio Bompas & Parr, who recently helped create Dinner At The Twits, inspired by Roald Dahl's book. And Kate Young brings together her passion for food and literature in her blog The Little Library Café, where she creates recipes for food found in fiction, and many of them will be included in her first cookbook, The Little Library Cookbook.

The programme also includes music played on the flavour conductor - a working cocktail organ, conceived by Sam Bompas for Johnnie Walker. The music is composed by Simon Little.

Producer: Giles Edwards.

Laura Barton explores the little known story of a pioneering group of women who unknowingly challenged conventional notions of femininity and their working roles. The Pit Brow Lasses worked within the collieries of 19th century Wigan, Lancashire. Their unique re-appropriation of men's 'breeches' worn underneath hitched up skirts was originally adopted as a functional response to working within mines. These early adopters of trousers reached a similar degrees of notoriety that street-style stars do today.

When Women Wore the Trousers explores the history of trousers in the workplace and in fashion and discusses the impact that this every day garment had on society. Women were liberated by their work in the munitions factories and on the land during both World Wars but there was a fear that these 'new men' would continue donning trousers and become too independent. Coco Chanel famously appropriated sailors tops and trousers to create work-wear in its most elevated form and the fashion for utilitarian clothing continues to thrive today as discussed by fashion designers Faye and Erica Toogood. What do modern working women wear in the work place in the 21st Century? Chef Angela Harnett wears a uniform of a white shift and baggy trousers in her restaurant kitchen but it is a look that could be seen as fashionable in a different context.

With readings from the actor Maxine Peake, a discussion with Pit Brow Lass, Rita Culshaw about her choice of clothing in the pits and interviews with fashion curators Amy de la Haye and Fiona McKay and Wigan historian Alan Davies, we discover how women have worn trousers as a means of empowerment and the enduring appeal of work-wear in contemporary fashion.

Producer: Belinda Naylor.

The story of how one woman offered refuge to leading intellectuals fleeing from the Nazis, helping transform the cultural and intellectual landscape of Britain and the United States. Shortly after Hitler came to power, an organisation was set up in Britain to help academics who were being thrown out of their jobs in Nazi Germany. It was called the Academic Assistance Council. The council's assistant secretary, Esther Simpson, became its dynamic force. She called all the refugees she assisted her 'children'. Sixteen of them ended up as Nobel Prize winners. Many would later admit that they owed their lives to her. David Edmonds tells the unknown story of Esther Simpson and the brilliant minds she saved.

Just two centuries ago, no one had a clue where the borders of the USA actually were. Hemmed in by the Atlantic, the Appalachian mountains and Canada to the north, early Americans could only dream of the massive territory Donald Trump and his government control today. So why is the border with Mexico where it runs today? For that matter what fixed Canadian border? The answer to both questions is war.

Misha Glenny and producer Miles Warde travel across Texas and into Mexico to find out what defined the USA in the south. This is fringeland where multiple cultures collide. Local response to the President's wall proposal is not what you'd expect. With contributions from Andres Resendez, Kate Betts of the Bullock State Museum in Austin and Clive Webb on the history of the line in the south; plus Margaret MacMillan, Kathleen Burk and Alan Taylor on the numerous wars that shaped the frontier in the north.

Is it fair to find your own kidney donor on the internet? UK patients who need new organs are using social media to advertise their plight and appeal directly for a Good Samaritan who's willing to share their spare kidney with a stranger.

As Lesley Curwen discovers, the development of such appeals on social media has caused consternation among some in the transplant community. They fear a competition to attract donors amounts to an unsavoury beauty contest, in which only the most plugged-in and tech-savvy can participate.

But for Nicola Pietrzyk from Leicester, turning to social media and Facebook was a no-brainer. Her 11 year old son, Matthew had been spending 12 hours a day on dialysis, waiting for years for a possible donor from the NHS list. She's convinced that if she hadn't launched A Million Likes for a Kidney for Matthew, a kind-hearted stranger would never have offered her son a new kidney, potentially saving his life.

The campaign prompted several prospective donors who weren't a match for Matthew to go on to donate to others and Alison Thornhill tells Lesley Curwen why she went on to do just that.

But the likelihood that individuals, motivated by a particular story on social media, will in fact be a match for their intended recipient is slim, and Lesley hears from transplant teams frustrated that NHS resources are sucked up by high profile campaigns that attract many volunteers, all of whom need to be tested, most of whom won't turn out to be a possible match for the recipient.

Dr Adnan Sharif, consultant nephrologist at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, was closely involved with several high profile media campaigns and he admits that he and his team were at times completely overwhelmed by the demands that multiple volunteers, each offering to donate a kidney to a named individual, placed on the unit.

While he acknowledges that such social media campaigns are legal and after the guidelines were changed, were accepted by the transplant community, he admits to mixed feelings about the outcome. He and his team are delighted for the individual who has a new kidney, but uncomfortable about diverting resources from patients who are waiting for an organ through the traditional routes, from deceased donors or through the NHS Living Donor Scheme where altruistic donors place their trust in the transplant authorities to pick the best match for the kidney they've donated.

So the transplant community in the UK has come to terms with social media campaigns for organs from strangers, even though there's a clear preference for the NHS altruistic donor scheme. But Lesley discovers another internet innovation: websites that allow kidney patients to advertise for a prospective donor, have been frozen out as clinical teams have voted with their feet and refused to deal with them.

An American website, matchingdonors.com, launched in the UK in 2012 and sent policy makers and clinicians in the organ transplant field into multiple huddles.

But as Lesley finds out, in five years, not one transplant has happened through this website. Patients told her their transplant teams simply refused to deal with it, and the former chair of the ethics committee of the British Transplantation Society, Professor Vassilios Papalois, argues that clinicians have autonomy and if they're not comfortable with the idea of a matching organ website, they're under no obligation to proceed. He finds the idea of a matching website ethically objectionable, he tells Lesley, and he wouldn't personally sanction it either.

Frances Stonor-Saunders explores how the young Donald Trump stormed into Manhattan from the outer boroughs in the late 1970s and headed straight for New York's most outrageous nightclub. He didn't dance, didn't drink, and didn't take drugs. So what was he doing in the cocaine-fuelled hothouse of the Disco revolution? And what was the link to Roy Cohn, infamous attack dog of the McCarthy era, go-to Attorney for the Mob and the man Trump was happy to call his mentor?

Producer: Fiona Leach