A year of discoveries on the beach. Jean Sprackland meditates on objects revealed by the shape-shifting sands, or washed up on the wild beaches between Blackpool and Liverpool.

Recorded on location on Ainsdale Sands, 'Strands' is a book about what is lost and buried, then re-discovered; about all the things you find on a beach, dead or alive, natural or man-made; about mutability and transformation - about sea-change.

In today's episode, Jean experiences a very physical brush with the past, when she places her feet in the prehistoric footprints of humans from the Late Mesolithic to mid-Neolithic period, which are revealed briefly by the tide.

Read by Jean Sprackland

Abridged by Miranda Davies

Produced by Emma Harding

About the author: Jean Sprackland is the author of three books of poetry and a collection of short stories. Her most recent poetry collection, Tilt (Cape, 2007), won the Costa Poetry Award. Hard Water (Cape, 2003) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and was shortlisted for both the T S Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Award for Poetry. She was chosen as one of the Next Generation Poets in 2004. Show less