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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: The Team Photo

The Essay: The Team Photo: Episode 1: Stella Rimington

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Factual: Life Stories

The Team Photo

Episode 1

Episode 1: Stella Rimington

Stella Rimington

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Stella Rimington, former director-general of MI5, considers a team photo from her past.

Stella Rimington considers a photo commemorating a cricket match between the ladies' team from the British High Commission and the ladies of the Roshanara Club in Delhi, 1966.

Most people, at some point in their life, will have been a willing or reluctant member of a team. Whether it was a college year, an army regiment, a business team, a cricket match, am dram theatricals, the pub quiz or the Girl Guides, group photos are our souvenirs - fond or grim reminders of a previous way of life and the people who shared it. In this series, five writers take out a team photograph from their past and take a forensic and philosophical look at the shared strangeness of a moment preserved. 

Stella Rimington considers a photograph commemorating a cricket match between the Ladies team from the British High Commission and the Ladies of the Roshanara Club in Delhi, 1966. 

Stella Rimington lived in India between 1965 and 1969, having travelled out there with her husband John Rimington, when he was appointed First Secretary (Economic) for the British High Commission in Delhi. She joined the Security Service (MI5) in 1965 and was appointed Director-General in 1992. She was the first woman to hold the post and the first Director-General whose name was publicly announced on appointment. Following her retirement from MI5 in 1996, she became a non-executive director of Marks and Spencer and published her autobiography, Open Secret (Arrow 2002). Her first novel, At Risk, was published in 2004.

Produced by Emma Harding.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Writers discuss a team photo from their past and consider when one is captured in a group.

Five writers take out a team photo from their past and consider the moment when one is captured not as an individual, but as part of a group

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