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Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of Britain

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of the British Isles

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Open Country: Eel Pie Island

Eel Pie Island

23/01/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Open Country, Eel Pie Island

Helen Mark finds a rural lifestyle within striking distance of the centre of London.

Helen Mark finds a rural lifestyle within striking distance of the centre of London when she meets inventor Trevor Baylis on Eel Pie Island in the Thames.

Most people who know anything about Eel Pie Island know it was home to traditonal jazz, British blues and some pretty wild weekends for teenagers and art students in the 1950s and 60s. The bohemian days are long gone but the memories live on for at least one islander, the septugenarian inventor of the clockwork radio Trevor Baylis. 

Helen Mark meets him as she tours the tiny island in the Thames and discovers it is possible to have it all - the peace, the wildlife and the community spirit of country life combined with the convenience of being 20 minutes from the centre of London.

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