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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: Working with Your Hands

Embracing the Classical

18/09/2016

Working with Your Hands

BBC Radio 4 - Something Understood, Working with Your Hands

Mark Tully asks if it is time to reassess the value of craftsmanship and manual skill.

Gandhi and Tolstoy both championed the benefits of manual labour for all on political and spiritual grounds. Mark Tully considers the contemporary resonance of these ideas.

At a time when many are asking whether there is enough attention paid to developing vital manual skills and practical professions, Mark Tully considers the importance accorded to manual labour by philosophers, poets and composers. 

He asks Matthew Pottage of Wisley Gardens, at 29 the youngest curator appointed by the Royal Horticultural Society, about the problem of recruiting younger generations of gardeners and discusses the satisfaction he still gets from hands on work. 

The readings are taken from Tolstoy, Gandhi and the carpenter and poet Adam White - with music from Wagner, the Ian Campbell Folk Group and The Africando All Stars.

The readers are Adjoa Andoh, Jonathan Broadbent and Francis Cadder.

Presenter: Mark Tully
Producer: Frank Stirling

A Unique 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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