BBC Radio 4

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

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.

BBC Radio 4 FM

Radio 4 (FM)

Balm of Hurt Minds

Clare Wigfall

Sian Thomas

Julian Wilkinson

Balm of Hurt Minds: Spinkej by Clare Wigfall

Drama: Historical

Spinkej

Spinkej by Clare Wigfall

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Balm of Hurt Minds, Spinkej by Clare Wigfall

An exhausted mother contemplates her sleeping newborn baby in Czechoslovakia in 1945.

4 Extra Debut. An exhausted mother contemplates her sleeping newborn baby in a clinic in Czechoslovakia in 1945. Read by Sian Thomas.

Three short stories on the theme of sleep and rest specially commissioned for Radio 4. 

Spinkej by young British writer Clare Wigfall: An exhausted mother contemplates her sleeping newborn baby in a clinic in Czechoslovakia in 1945.  Ludmila, a young girl falls unwittingly pregnant after a brief relationship with a German soldier. She is sent to a mother and baby unit where she is kept until the baby is born. In her naivety, she is totally unprepared for motherhood, but as she watches the sleeping child a bond begins to form. It is a bond that the staff at the clinic and her mother do not wish to support. When Ludmila, now exhausted, herself falls sleeps what will happen? 

Clare Wigfall is a young British writer living in Prague and Berlin. Her first collection The Loudest Sound and Nothing was published by Faber and Faber in 2007 to critical acclaim. 

 The reader is Sian Thomas and the producer is Julian Wilkinson.

BBC Radio 4 Extra

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

Drama

Three commissioned short stories on the theme of sleep and rest.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Balm of Hurt Minds

Spinkej by Clare Wigfall

Contributors

Genres

Series

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4