10/06/2012

Available for over a year

Fi Glover presents an omnibus edition of Radio 4's series capturing the nation in conversation: in today's programme, we meet Sarah Jane and Philip, a brother and sister from Wales who talk frankly and, as only siblings can, with affection too, about the pressures and problems that Philip's period behind bars caused the family; from London Margaret and Barry, whose son Jimmy was murdered in a knife fight remember their beloved boy; and a chance to meet David Isay, the award-winning American documentary-maker who came up with the idea of these intimate conversations in the first place. He called it StoryCorps, and ten years on, it's become a US sensation; an initiative so successful that the BBC has, with David's blessing, brought it to Britain as ...The Listening Project. The Listening Project is a new initiative for Radio 4 that aims to offer a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Many of the long conversations are being archived by the British Library which they will use to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject Producer: Mohini Patel (Repeat).