Tara and George

In 2018, Audrey Gillan sat down on a doorstep beside two rough sleepers and started documenting their lives. The Radio 4 series Tara and George took us on a sometimes chaotic, often poignant journey and asked what led the couple to the streets of East London.

Last autumn, Audrey was contacted out of the blue by Tara’s estranged brother. He had just been informed by ‘heir hunters’ that his big sister was dead. The family did not know how, when, or where Tara had died or even if she had had a funeral. And so began another journey, this time to discover what had happened to Tara and to ask how - in death as in life - she could fall between the cracks of society.

In Last Rights, Audrey seeks answers to both questions.

Music by Alice Boyd

In the six months since Radio 4 shared the stories of Tara and George, a pair of rough sleepers on the streets of east London, the Government has published statistics that reveal the true toll of being homeless - last year there were nearly six hundred deaths on the streets of the UK and the average life expectancy has fallen again.

Tara and George, as well as being familiar figures in their neighbourhood, are also on the radar of local agencies and charities. George has a regular hostel place; Tara's situation is more complex. But, as they revealed to Audrey Gillan in an intimate series of documentaries last summer, sleeping rough is typically a symptom of myriad other issues.

In this follow-up documentary recorded during the new year's first Severe Weather Emergency Protocol, Audrey catches up with Tara and George to see how they're coping with the cold and she pursues a simple question, prompted by attendance at a memorial service at St Martin-in-the-Fields for those who've died on the streets in the last year - what would it take to prevent the unnecessary deaths of homeless people?

Produced by Alan Hall

Life on the streets is hard and precarious but every soul who sleeps on a pavement has a story. Tara and George is a six-part series exploring the lives of two people in their late forties who sleep rough in London's Spitalfields. It asks the simple questions - what led them there and why do they remain?

Journalist Audrey Gillan has come to know them as neighbours in this diverse and fashionable area of the capital, and has been recording her conversations with Tara and George for nearly two years.

In this final episode, Audrey tries to find Tara's children who she hasn't seen since they were babies. She goes back up to County Durham to talk to the brother who has long believed George to be dead and visits George's estranged - and ailing - father in Derby.

Written and presented by Audrey Gillan

A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

Life on the streets is hard and precarious but every soul who sleeps on a pavement has a story. Tara and George is a six-part series exploring the lives of two people in their late forties who sleep rough in London's Spitalfields. It asks the simple questions - what led them there and why do they remain?

Journalist Audrey Gillan has come to know them as neighbours in this diverse and fashionable area of the capital, and has been recording her conversations with Tara and George for nearly two years.

In this fifth episode, Tara and George endure the hottest summer the country has experienced for years, Tara carries signs of having suffered an assault and George, his health visibly deteriorating, returns increasingly often to his hostel.

Written and presented by Audrey Gillan

A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

Life on the streets is hard and precarious, but every soul who sleeps on a pavement has a story. Tara and George is a six-part series exploring the lives of two people in their late forties who sleep rough in London's Spitalfields. It asks simply, what led them there and why do they remain?

Journalist Audrey Gillan has come to know them as neighbours in this diverse and fashionable area of the capital, and has been recording her conversations with Tara and George for nearly two years.

In this episode, Tara opens up, little by little, about her childhood in London, missing her mum and what led to her three children being taken away from her.

Written and presented by Audrey Gillan

A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

Life on the streets is hard and precarious but every soul who sleeps on a pavement has a story. Tara and George is a six-part series exploring the lives of two people in their late forties who sleep rough in London's Spitalfields. It asks the simple questions - what led them there and why do they remain?

Journalist Audrey Gillan has come to know them as neighbours in this diverse and fashionable area of the capital, and has been recording her conversations with Tara and George for nearly two years.

In this episode, Audrey travels north. Before running away to London on a National Express coach "at the age of 12", as he tells it to Audrey, George grew up in the former pit village of Nettlesworth, County Durham. Still living in a house across from George's family home, Audrey finds his aunt Lillian. In an attempt to capture a sense of what George left behind - and ran away from - Audrey goes in search of other members of his family.

Written and presented by Audrey Gillan

A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

Life on the streets is hard and precarious but every soul who sleeps on a pavement has a story. Tara and George is a six-part series exploring the lives of two people in their late forties who sleep rough in London's Spitalfields. It asks the simple questions - what led them there and why do they remain?

Journalist Audrey Gillan has come to know them as neighbours in this diverse and fashionable area of the capital, and has been recording her conversations with Tara and George for nearly two years.

In this second episode, Tara goes walkabout and George, sitting in his favourite spot on the doorstep of the house lived in by the collaborative art duo Gilbert and George, shares alarming news about his health.

Written and presented by Audrey Gillan

A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

Life on the streets is hard and precarious but every soul who sleeps on a pavement has a story. Tara and George is a six-part series exploring the lives of two people in their late forties who sleep rough in London's Spitalfields. It asks the simple questions - what led them there and why do they remain?

Journalist Audrey Gillan has come to know them as neighbours in this diverse and fashionable area of the capital, and has been recording her conversations with Tara and George for nearly two years.

In this first episode, More Issues than Vogue, named after the wording on one of Tara's T-shirts, the pair introduce us to their world and reveal how they are each other's anchor in a sea of chaos.

Written and presented by Audrey Gillan

A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

Tara and George is a six-part series exploring the lives of two people in their late forties who sleep rough in London's Spitalfields. It asks the simple questions - what led them there and why do they remain? Presented by journalist Audrey Gillan who has been recording her conversations with Tara and George for nearly two years.

Produced by Audrey Gillan and Johnny Miller. Series Producer: Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.