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Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of Britain

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of the British Isles

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Open Country: A Year in Roald Dahl Country

A Year in Roald Dahl Country

BBC Radio 4 - Open Country, A Year in Roald Dahl Country

Great Missenden is Roald Dahl country. Helen Mark discovers the writers love of nature.

In dark January Roald Dahl's advice was to have a hot bath and look forward to the delights of nature in the year ahead. Helen Mark finds out what he loved most in Great Missenden.

As a new year begins the countryside can seem a bleak place. The writer Roald Dahl recommends staying in a hot bath and contemplating the joys of the natural world which are to come. Helen Mark visits Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire to see the beech woods which feature in books like 'Fantastic Mr Fox' and 'Danny Champion of the World' and the village itself which appears in 'Matilda' and 'The BFG'. In his last book 'My Year' Dahl looks back on a lifetime of adventure in the countryside, Helen discovers the wildlife, people and places which inspired him in the Chilterns landscape and looks for some of those natural sights which we can all look forward in the coming year.

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