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Episode details

Radio 3,11 Feb 2020,14 mins

SeriesStrange Strolls

Michael Donkor - On Wandsworth Bridge

The Essay

Available for over a year

As an injured soldier under house arrest, Xavier de Maistre staved off boredom by imagining every step around his drawing room was a step across a country; Virginia Woolf’s writerly wandering around central London to buy a pencil exposed the city's transformation in darkness. Inspired by these ironic quests and symbolic expeditions, five contemporary writers embark on walks of entertaining eccentricity. Writer Michael Donkor continues these imaginative journeys by traversing, south to north, across Wandsworth Bridge – perhaps the Thames’ most neglected crossing, but for him a conduit between adult responsibility and childhood memory. Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

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