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Poetry, bikes, dementia...
Poetry, bikes, dementia...
Where were you when the child was crying, mourning a loss not yet hers, but near, an inevitability? Were you safely tucked away in a cocoon of comfort, one where ignorance could be a justifiable excuse for your indifference? Etchings of fear lashed across her…
There’s a crow sitting on the telephone wire that arcs from pole to pole from where I’m writing this at Crosshands, loops up the road to Hints and beyond to Clee Hill. The two are connected: as the crow flies our village is only 19…
I’ve been working in Liverpool and Manchester the last few days and it’s painful to see how two, once mighty and proud industrial cities have been brought to their knees. I’m not deceived by blue skies, Instagram filters or rose-tinted spectacles. I realise life in…
In the last of his current series celebrating Clever Trees Richard Uridge visits the National Arboretum at Westonbirt in Gloucestershire, England. Please note that this and other programmes in the Clever Trees series were first broadcast on BBC Radio 4. As a result they contain copyright material so they…
I’m woken by the Dawn Chorus. Not yet the full orchestra. A solitary blackbird playing oboe (chirping is too unrefined a word for it) from the uppermost branch of the wind-stooped apple tree and the dot-dot-dot-dash-dash refrain of a wood pigeon playing Morse code in…
In the penultimate programme of his five part series on Clever Trees, Richard Uridge finds a headache-inducing specimen in the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Please note that this and other programmes in the Clever Trees series were first broadcast on BBC Radio 4. As a result they…
I’m sitting face to the sun like a Spring flower listening to the sounds of south Shropshire. A wedge of cold air – a thin blue arrow at the horizon and as tall as the stratosphere itself above my head – has lifted the rain…
There was three things in Civvy Street wot gave me untold pleasure, Me Boston cut, me Windsor knot, and me creepers made to measure. On me first day in the Army, though, they gives me quite a scare, For a moosh they calls the Provost…
In the second of his programmes celebrating clever trees, Richard Uridge travels to Australia to investigate two apparent paradoxes: the tree that’s wet when it’s dry; and the clever idiot tree. Please note that this and other programmes in the Clever Trees series were first…
Of all the clever things that trees can do telling the time has to be one of the smartest. In this episode Richard Uridge travels to Malaysia in search of the Simpoh, a tree which, according to legend, flowers at precisely the same time every day.…
In the first of five programmes on arboreal “intelligence” Richard Uridge visits George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon to meet two conjoined holly trees. Please note that this and other programmes in the Clever Trees series were first broadcast on BBC Radio 4. As a…
“This train is for Cardiff Central.” Blokes in ones and girls in twos. Some in boots and some in shoes. “All tickets please.” Punk with nose ring. Ginger hair. Babe in arms. Collapsed pushchair. “The next station is Stockport.” Kids with phones. Teachers with papers.…