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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

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Cornerstones

The Essay: Cornerstones: Episode 1: Quartz

Episode 1

Episode 1: Quartz

Cornerstones

Quartz

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Linda Cracknell reflects on the appeal of the quartz on Ben Lawers, her local Munro.

Walker and writer Linda Cracknell reflects on the luminosity of the quartz she finds on Ben Lawers, one of Scotland's most popular mountains.

Walker and writer Linda Cracknell is drawn to the luminosity of the quartz she finds on Ben Lawers near Loch Tay. It's her local Munro, and is one of Scotland's most popular mountains. The appeal of quartz, she realises, goes back time out of mind. Linda's aware of dozens of decorated quartz pebbles that have been found around Scotland, many of them in Orkney and Shetland. Smooth and comforting in the hand, were these pale, luminescent stones charms of some sort, were they used for healing or slingshots, or were they perhaps part of a long forgotten game? 

Linda's essay is the first of five this week in which different writers reflect on how a favoured location is determined by its underlying geology. 

Producer: Mark Smalley.

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.

Writers reflect on how a favoured location is determined by its underlying geology

Series in which five different writers reflect on how a favoured location is determined by its underlying geology

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Episode 1: Quartz

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