Episode 1

David Suchet reads Kazuo Ishiguro's powerful novel - a moving, mysterious and deeply philosophical book about how societies remember and forget.

“It’s queer the way the world’s forgetting people and things from only yesterday and the day before that. Like a sickness come over us all.”

The Romans have long since departed and Britain is steadily declining into ruin. In this desolate, uncultivated land of mist and rain, people find that their memories are slipping away from them. They live in an uneasy peace but memories of the wars that once ravaged the country are stirring.

In this time of forgetting, one elderly couple - Axl and Beatrice - are determined to hold onto memories of their life together.

Abridged by Sara Davies

Kazuo Ishiguro is also author of Never Let Me Go and Remains of the Day,

Producer: Mair Bosworth

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2015.