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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Free Thinking

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

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.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Matthew Sweet

Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

Jules Pretty

Andrew Cunningham Scott

Philip Coupland

Matthew Kelly

Jacqueline Smith

Free Thinking: Soil Stories Old and New

Soil Stories Old and New

22/02/2017

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Soil Stories Old and New

Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Jules Pretty, Andrew Scott, Philip Coupland, Matthew Kelly

Matthew Sweet with poet Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, scientists Jules Pretty and Andrew Scott and historians, Philip Coupland and Matthew Kelly, about Soil Culture and Survival

Matthew Sweet talks to poet and writer Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, environmental scientist, Jules Pretty and geologist, Andrew Scott, and historians Matthew Kelly and Philip Coupland about Soil and Culture and Survival Stories
For some Soil is where they come from, for others it is an object of aesthetic beauty, for most of us it is the means by which we get what we need to live. 
Poet and writer Elizabeth-Jane Burnett's forthcoming A Dictionary of Soil explores the lives lived within and through the soil of three fields which constitute the origins of her family's ancestral village. 
Agroecology expert, Jules Pretty says Soil We Can Rebuild It and in an environmentally friendly way and it will continue to feed us. 
Geologist Andrew Scott examines soils from deep time to discover what they can tell us about how the planet and life on Earth evolved. 
Historian Matthew Kelly is interested in the cultural history of landscape and focuses on environmental policy in Britain after World War II and Philip Coupland is the biographer of Jorian Jenks, a man who might have been regarded as the father of the British Green Movement if he hadn't joined Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists.
They join Matthew Sweet to think through our developing relationship with the life-giving dirt beneath our feet and discuss whether a happy ending just might be possible.

Presenter: Matthew Sweet

Guests: Jules Pretty, Professor of Environment and Society, University of Essex author 'The Earth Only Endures' (2007) and 'Agri-Culture' (2002)
Andrew C. Scott, Emeritus Professor of Geology, Royal Holloway University of London author of ‘Fire on Earth: An Introduction’ (2014)
Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, Newman University. Author of Swims (Pennned in the Margins, 2017)
Philip Coupland 'Farming, Fascism and Ecology: A Life of Jorian Jenks' 2016
Matthew Kelly, Professor of Modern History, Northumbria University 'Quartz and Feldspar: Dartmoor A British Landscape in Modern Times' 2015


Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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