BBC Radio 4 FM

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

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Losing Margaret

Documentaries

Factual

07/02/2017

BBC Radio 4 - Losing Margaret

Hunter Davies reflects on his life with Margaret Forster, a year after her death.

Documentary. A year after her death, Hunter Davies reflects on his 60-year relationship with novelist Margaret Forster, their prolific careers, and how he is coping without her.

Novelist Margaret Forster and writer Hunter Davies were together for sixty years. In this moving tribute a year after her death, Hunter tells Roger Bolton about their life together, their prolific careers, and how he's coping without her.

Meeting as teenagers in Carlisle, the pair shared a fierce intelligence and a determination to escape their tough working class backgrounds. Both achieved early success with novels made into films in the mid-1960s - Forster's "Georgy Girl" and Davies' "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush". Soon after, Davies wrote the only authorised biography of The Beatles.

Forster went on to write 25 novels and 14 biographies, including award winning portraits of Daphne Du Maurier and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, as well as social history and journalism. She died of cancer on February 8th 2016.

In recordings made in London, Carlisle and the Lake District over the last six months, Hunter tells his friend and fellow Cumbrian, Roger Bolton, about Margaret's last days, clearing out her desk and selling their house of the past 30 years. In his 80th year, he has also had three books published and written three regular columns. 

Inter-cut with archive recordings of Margaret and readings from her books, the programme provides not only an intimate portrait of a famous literary couple, but a poignant portrayal of loss.

Producer: Deborah Dudgeon
A Whistledown 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.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Losing Margaret

Genres

Formats

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4