Episode 1

The birds are "never satisfied, never still". Charlie Barnecut reads Daphne du Maurier's chilling classic in three parts.

The novel was famously filmed for the cinema by Alfred Hitchcock in 1963. But don't expect anything like what was on the big screen here. This is Du Maurier's original story. In fact, the author disliked what Hitchcock did to her tale: particularly his translation of her setting from Cornwall - with its small fields and stone hedges - to small-town America.

As this original story opens, with the colder winter weather drawing in, Nat and his family notice the hungry birds are gathering in the village...

Producer: Gemma Jenkins

Made for BBC 7 and first broadcast in 2003.