Myrtle and Denika: Single Parent Adoption

Available for over a year

Fi Glover hears from Myrtle, one of the first single parents to adopt in the UK, and Denika, who was 5 when she went to live with her; Myrtle was already over 50. After a rather sticky beginning, neither of them would now be without the other. The Radio 4 series proves again that it's surprising what you hear when you listen. The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers 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 and used 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: Marya Burgess.