My Life in Houses

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Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

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Sian Thomas

Margaret Forster

Sally Marmion

Justine Willett

Book of the Week: My Life in Houses: In Need of Modernisation

In Need of Modernisation

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, My Life in Houses, In Need of Modernisation

How a wreck turns into a family home. Read by Sian Thomas.

Margaret Forster's journey through houses she has lived in and how a wreck turns into a family home. Read by Sian Thomas.

The wreck that becomes the family home. 

I was born on May 25, 1938, in the front bedroom of a house in Orton Road, on the outer edges of Raffles, a council estate. I was a lucky girl.'

So began Margaret Forster's journey through the houses she's lived in, from the sparkling new council house, built as part of a utopian vision by Carlisle City Council, to her beloved London house of today, via Oxford, Hampstead and the Lake District. Forster's houses aren't just bricks and mortar, but homes which have all meant something to her and which have all had a profound effect on her - from her writer's 'room of one's own', to the family hub and finally a sanctuary in times of illness. It is also a sideways look at the life of one of the greatest contemporary British novelists.

Read by Sian Thomas. 

Writer: Margaret Forster
Abridger: Sally Marmion

Producer: Justine Willett

First broadcast on BBC Radio in November 2014.

Book of the Week: My Life in Houses

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.

Factual: Life Stories

Margaret Forster's journey through the houses she has lived in and loved.

Sian Thomas reads Margaret Forster's journey through the houses she has lived in and loved.

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