It’s February and Lent is almost upon us …. We have a brief Lenty chat where Holly & Darren share what they might be doing, or not doing, for the season. (And what about you, dear listener? Are you giving Lent up for Lent? What are your practices? Let us know.)

And in the dark days of winter, what better than to talk about than …. death! But bear with us, we have a book review of the extremely well-received book by author Sarah Perry, about the illness and death of her father-in-law, David. The book covers a very short period of time, after a very late diagnosis of oesophageal cancer, during which time Perry and her husband move into David’s home to look after him. It was an experience so intense that Sarah Perry felt like she had been “picked up and put down in another place”.

Death of an Ordinary Man, was published in October last year to great praise and it won the 2026 Nero Non-Fiction Award, announced just last month. The paperback is due out very soon, so Holly & Darren are very happy to provide their review in advance of that.

As ever, we’d love to hear from you and to know what you thought about the issues raised in the podcast. You can comment here on this website or contact us on Facebook or go to our Substack and chat with us there.

Links

This podcast was recorded on Thursday 5 February 2026. Available from Apple Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, and via your favourite podcast App. Theme music and stings by Nicolai Heidlas. Duration:  51’06 minutes.

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Happy New Year faithful listener! We hope that 2026 has good things in store for you. Well, we sort of hope that for all of us, as things are looking a bit scary out there just now. But in the winter gloom, we’re delighted to welcome Kelvin Holdsworth along to the first podcast of the year, and he chats with Holly & Darren about his predictions for 2026. Kelvin is Provost of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, a prolific blogger and friend of the podcast.

We also delve into experiences of the ‘Quiet Revival’, picking up on recent reports about church growth here as well as in the USA, especially amongst young men. Are the reports overblown? (Yes.) Is there something really going on? (Yes.) Lots of interesting stuff to mull over. Oh, and this in from Holly: “The Bible is really strange … and that’s ok!”

Links for this podcast

This podcast was recorded on Thursday 8 January 2026. Available from Apple Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, and via your favourite podcast App. Theme music and stings by Nicolai Heidlas. Duration:  47’07 minutes.

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It’s starting to feel a lot like Christmas, and Holly and Darren have a selection box of festive good things for you in December’s podcast. They are joined by the power of the audio clip by a host of, well, not quite angels, but some of the lovely people who have been our conversation partners over the last year or so, PLUS our very own roving reporter, Margaret. They have all deliberated and shared with us their Best Christmas, Favourite Nativity Story, Best Christmas film, and their hardest Christmas…. Holly and Darren also chew over all the traditional stuff – When is too soon to put up the lights? Is Die Hard even a Christmas film? And some less traditional musings – What do you do when the Three Wise Men turn up in your Advent reading? How do we walk in faith with the little light we’re given?

We wrap up the podcast with a fantastic song – really a prayer – from Blue Rose Code, ‘Peace in Your Heart’.

Thanks so much to Gavin, Laura, Margaret and Roz, we couldn’t have got there without you.

Links from this podcast

This podcast was recorded on Thursday 4 December 2025. Available from Apple Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, and via your favourite podcast App. Theme music and stings by Nicolai Heidlas. Duration:  48’56 minutes.

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Image of candles by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Welcome to our latest ‘small voice’ feature where we seek out people and organisations which are small but make a big difference …

Every year in Scotland, the third week in November is designated as ‘Prisoners Week’ and Margaret took the opportunity to devote this edition of smallVOICE to work relating to prisoners. Bethany Christian Trust provides the stories of two projects they run: an arts project allowing prisoners’ voices to be heard through drama, including the play, Insiders, performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2025; and Connect to Community, which supports churches in offering a welcome and friendship to those who want to rebuild their lives after they have been through the criminal justice system.

Margaret talks with Sam, who encourages prisoners to write and create, and David, who connects churches and volunteers with those who are looking for a friend to support them. Both of them are doing a job they love, sharing God’s love and helping to make a difference.

Links for this podcast

We’d love to hear what you think … You can leave a comment on this website or get in touch on Facebook. You can also subscribe to our Substack email and chat with us there.

Perhaps you have a suggestion for a ‘small voice’ who we can feature?

The smallVOICE podcast is available from Apple Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, and via your favourite podcast App.

Duration: 33’03 minutes. Theme music by Nicolai Heidlas.

Mr ‘Bad Christian’ himself, Dave Tomlinson, is our special guest for November’s podcast! We’re delighted that Dave was able to join Darren and Holly to discuss some of the, well, frankly, more worrying things that have been happening recently in the world. Learn how good conversations might help us stave off despair. Can we actually repair the world? Would a bit of righteous anger be ok? How can we find our posse? Remember, “Hope is defiant imagination in the face of despair.”

And we had a few laughs too …

Links for this podcast

This podcast was recorded on Thursday 6 November 2025. Available from Apple Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, and via your favourite podcast App. Theme music and stings by Nicolai Heidlas. Duration:  49’12 minutes.

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Welcome to our latest ‘small voice’ special feature – where our roving reporter, Margaret, finds people and organisations which are small but make a big difference.

Margaret says, “Protests against asylum seekers seemed to be on the rise over the summer of 2025, but they were all in far away places – until a protest arrived in Central Scotland, on my own doorstep. There were no riots but a lot of shouting and flag waving. However, there was also a counter-protest, also with flags and a number of cardboard signs with the general message that ‘refugees are welcome here’.”

Margaret decided to find out the background to the counter protest, which included a number of Quakers holding the banner ‘Quakers for Peace’.She discovered that the story of the organisation Friends of Scottlsh Settlers, or FoSS, which is part of the counter protest, goes back much further than the arrival of the asylum seekers in Falkirk, and spoke to Jessica and Cath about their involvement.

Links

This podcast interview was recorded in September 2025. Theme music by Nicolai Heidlas. Available from Apple Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, and via your favourite podcast App. Duration: 26’12 minutes.

Please consider rating the smallVOICE podcast in your podcast app (if you like what you hear!) as it helps others to find us. Thanks!

It’s October, and in this podcast, Holly & Darren review the smash-hit true crime podcast, Wisecrack. Amazingly, it’s a true crime podcast that’s been topping the podcast COMEDY charts. (Spoiler: murder is not at all funny.) It’s an intriguing format which raises lots of interesting questions: Can people own their own stories? Does meaning get through in the gaps between what is said and what is not? Is there a cost to telling certain types of story?

Wisecrack is a production of Tenderfoot TV and iHeart podcasts in Association with Starwhite Productions. The podcast is hosted by Jodi Tovay and written by Charles Forbes.

We’re also delighted to play a bit of music! Steve Butler has remastered his 2004 album, Clear, and we think it’s a cracker. For this podcast we feature his song, Barriers, with many thanks to Steve for permission to play it. Have a listen, it’s great!

Links for this podcast

Wisecrack podcast

This podcast was recorded on Thursday 9 October 2025. Available from Apple Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, and via your favourite podcast App. Theme music and stings by Nicolai Heidlas. Duration: 39’31 minutes.

Please consider rating the smallVOICE podcast in your podcast app (if you like what you hear!) as it helps others to find us. Thanks!

In this September podcast, Holly and Darren review not one, but TWO recent political biographies – one by Nicola Sturgeon, former First Minister of Scotland and the other by Jacinda Ardern, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand. As far as politics is concerned, ‘kindness’ might be the aspirational touchstone of one of the narratives, and ‘resilience’ the key word for the other. Either way, what can we learn from these accounts of recent events half a world away from each other, but touching at so many points?

And, because it really can’t be avoided, we take a deep breath and chat some more about current events in the world and our responses to the dizzying kaleidoscope of what’s going on – even looking for causes for optimism. Believe it or not.

Links for this podcast

This podcast was recorded on Thursday 18 September 2025. Available from Apple Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, and via your favourite podcast App. Duration: 52’27 minutes.

Theme music and stings by Nicolai Heidlas.

Please consider rating the smallVOICE podcast in your podcast app (if you like what you hear!) as it helps others to find us. Thanks!

Our roving reporter, Margaret, had a good few days out at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, and one of the shows she saw was the inspiration for this ‘small voice’. Searchlight Theatre Company aims to be “a light on the Fringe” and with seven plays over two weeks, they had a lot of good stories to share at Palmerton Place Church in Edinburgh’s West End. Margaret met David Robinson to find out about the people whose lives they have brought to the audiences in August 2025.

Searchlight Theatre Company

In our podcast for August, we discuss the new book, Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever: A New Generation’s Search for Meaning by the writer and journalist Lamorna Ash. It came out earlier this year and has, it has to be said, made quite the splash in Christian church circles. Also for August: a big ‘welcome back’ to Roz as our conversation partner! Roz is Assistant Chaplain at the University of Glasgow and she joins Holly and Darren to discuss the book and then for a wider chat about some of the themes and issues raised by the book.

We ponder: are all the answers in the back when you do an Alpha Course? Can woolly Christians do mission? What the bloomin’ heck is the Quiet Revival?

Have you read Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever, dear listener? If so, join in the conversation and let us know what you thought!

Links for this podcast

This podcast was recorded on Thursday 7 August 2025. Available from Apple Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, and via your favourite podcast App. Duration: 69’14 minutes. Theme music and stings by Nicolai Heidlas.

Please consider rating the smallVOICE podcast in your podcast app – if you like us! – as it helps others to find us. Thanks!