A story of memory and place, old age and architecture.

"Otto had felt surprisingly nervous on the plane across from Geneva; not from any fear of flying, but a fear of what he was flying to. [...] Throughout the short flight he experienced a strange inner turbulence. He had a queasy sensation that he was re-establishing a connection with the past; flying backwards into his own memories. He would no longer be experiencing them from a distance, but in the city where they had once been real."

Architect Otto Laird has been living a semi-reclusive life with his second wife in Switzerland. But he is forced to re-engage with the wider world when he learns that his landmark building Marlowe House - a 1960s tower block in South London - has been marked for demolition.

Episode Nine
Sitting on a bench outside the hospital in Queens Square, Otto relives the last months of Cynthia's illness.

Nigel Packer lives in London. He has been a music reviewer for BBC News Online and Ceefax, a reporting officer at the International Committee of the Red Cross and a contributor to various magazines and newspapers. The Restoration Of Otto Laird is his first novel.

Reader: Allan Corduner
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne

Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4. Show less