Clear the schedules: man takes bus to Swansea

Thursday's PM on Radio 4 devoted eight and-a-half minutes to an Eddie Mair interview with a listener: a retired man who described his bus ride to Swansea the previous day.

Geoffrey has been suffering from depression and panic attacks and hadn't managed to take the bus for four years.

As part of PM's 'Take a Leap' - in which listeners were invited to do something on 29 February that they had been putting off - Geoffrey had emerged as a star from an earlier interview ahead of the day.

The segment even had its own hashtag, used by one listener like this:

"Oh God; reduced to tears by wonderful, dignified, depressed Welshman discussing #leapforPM on @BBCRadio4. Pure, simple, compelling radio."

And it was.

Mair unfolded the story slowly with Geoffrey, turning it into a mini-epic. There was the son who drove him along the route the day before the 29th. There was the last-minute threat of disaster that night when Geoffrey started "getting the old feelings back", the hints of a coming panic attack, "like someone walking over your grave".

And there was tension on the day: the bus was late.

But Geoffrey managed to climb on board and finally Swansea bus station swung into view "like an airport, huge, spotless, all lit up". You can see the film in your head, and hear John Williams' score.

Then, like in every good film, tension was broken with a comic scene. It turns out that, since he last visited the city, cappuccino, latte and all the rest had arrived, so when Geoffrey asked for a cup of coffee the man "machine gunned these words off that I'd never heard of" and "looked at me as if I'd just landed".

But the man was friendly, Geoffrey got his coffee, and then there were tears when, on the way back to the bus, he encountered his wife and cousin getting off another one. He was punching the air in triumph and "really enjoyed the ride home".

But, just as you might have been starting to think it was time for the credits to roll, the darkness crept back. Geoffrey decided to get off in the village and walk home from there. "The balloon burst" as his started to panic again. He struggled home, shaken, and still sounding shaky as he described it.

It was a case study in a programme having the confidence to go with a marvellous story even if it sounded unlikely.

Everyone emerged well. Geoffrey praised "the way your people have handled me" and credited PM's leap year idea with spurring him on. His son had shown him Twitter with all the encouragement and interest that followed his first interview. So he was determined "not to let people down".

And the BBC put on its most human face, appreciated by a tweeter who commented on the interview, recorded during the afternoon:

"I liked that they let him get away with a pre-recorded 'bullshit' as well. Entirely appropriate and credit to R4/PM."

The interview can be heard on iPlayer, starting at 48.55 into the programme.