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Lives in a Landscape

Factual: Life Stories

Documentary series telling original stories about real lives in Britain today

Lives in a Landscape: Series 12

Lives in a Landscape: Series 12: Episode 2: An Occasional Island

Episode 2

Episode 2: An Occasional Island

Series 12

An Occasional Island

BBC Radio 4 - Lives in a Landscape, Series 12, An Occasional Island

In the highest flood in living memory Alan Dein meets the people of Muchelney, Somerset.

Muchelney means 'Great Island' and this village in the Somerset Levels is often cut off. In the highest flood in living memory, and Alan Dein meets the people who live there.

The people of Muchelney, Alan Dein discovers, have an intimate relationship with water. They live on the flood plain of the River Parrett in the Somerset Levels. The name of their ancient village, from the Norse and Old English, means 'growing great island', and, despite the draining of the marshes, it is not unusual for Muchelney to become an island again, and the four roads leading to the village inundated.

Alan Dein visits in a time of flood and finds the villagers take it in their stride: farmer Graham Walker fires up his old tractor, puts a sofa on his trailer, and runs a bus service, ferrying people to the far shore so they can get to work and to school. He picks up food and mail. There's no traffic. People stop and talk. They look out for one another. It's not just the children who love it.

Widgeon, teal, geese, swans and gulls appear in flocks of thousands to the fields that become a lake of tranquil beauty. No one worries, the houses are old, built cannily on land always a few inches above the flood levels - until now.

In November the flood waters rose higher than anyone could remember. The potter John Leach describes how, for the first time, the water coming into his house and kiln. Michael Brown, eel smoker, who has lived by the river for decades, recounts his battle to keep the stealthy enemy out. Thatcher Nigel Bunce is thankful that his son's crying, as the waters approached the child's cot, woke him in time. Shirley Gove's beautiful barn conversion is wrecked. Whenever it rains now, she tells Alan, she will be scared.

Something is changing, and Alan Dein finds that the people of Muchelney, after centuries of living on their occasional island, much preoccupied, and some considering their options.

Producer: Julian May.

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Episode 2: An Occasional Island

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