Towards the end of 1933, Elgar fell ill and was taken into a nursing home in Worcester. Many thought he would never recover, but on New Year's Day, 1934, he was declared well enough to return home.
Then his daughter Carice and his friend Fred Gaisberg devised a plan: "Ignorant, biased prudes tried to knock out the idea as being morbid and scandalous. I only know it gave Elgar two full weeks of diversion and anticipation." Malcolm Ruthven explains in the last of eight programmes.