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Episode details

Radio 3,16 Oct 2019,44 mins

The Woolly episode.

Free Thinking

Available for over a year

From Sean the Sheep & Damien Hirst to a knitted bikini. Shahidha Bari with a woolly episode talks to writer and knitter Esther Rutter, shepherd Axel Linden, medievalist John Lee and cultural historian Alexandra Harris. Esther Rutter is the author of This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History. Shepherd Axel Linden farms in Ostergotland county in the south east of Sweden and has written On Sheep - Diary of a Swedish Shepherd. Professor Alexandra Harris considers sheep in art and literature including works by Andy Goldsworthy, Damien Hirst and Holman Hunt. John Lee is the author of a book about cloth making in the late Middle Ages called The Medieval Clothier. Producer: Paula McGinley

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