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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Something Understood

Religion & Ethics

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life, taking a spiritual theme and exploring it through music, prose and poetry

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Something Understood: Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey

BBC Radio 4 - Something Understood, Westminster Abbey

A special edition from Westminster Abbey, with the Very Reverend Dr John Hall.

Mark Tully explores the sacred spaces of Westminster Abbey, with the Very Reverend Dr John Hall in this episode of Something Understood from 2010.

In this special edition of Something Understood from 2010, Mark Tully celebrates the 450th anniversary of Westminster Abbey’s establishment as a collegiate church by Elizabeth I.

The Dean of Westminster, The Very Reverend Dr John Hall (now retired), guides us through some of the Abbey's most sacred spaces, and talks about the inspiration he finds in the 'prayer-soaked walls'. Prayer is the main theme of the programme, and The Dean talks personally about how and why he prays, including an admission that before any great State Service involving the Queen, he sends up a quick 'stiffening' arrow of prayer.

The programme includes prayers by some of those who are buried in the Abbey, like Charles Dickens, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Sir Isaac Newton. The music too is by the great musicians commemorated there: Handel, Purcell, Stanford, and Noel Coward, whose moving wartime song 'London Pride' celebrates the spirit of the Blitz. Other readings include an account of Charles II's coronation in the Abbey by Samuel Pepys - as always just as interested in the fine ladies as the spectacle going on round him; and a sharp satire on prayer by John Betjeman. 

A programme which evokes the awe of a very beautiful sacred space - but which is also witty, and lively, never too solemn.

Producer: Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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