Storytellers: How Many Miles to Babylon?

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Storytellers: How Many Miles to Babylon?: Episode 1

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Episode 1

How Many Miles to Babylon?

BBC Radio Ulster - Storytellers, How Many Miles to Babylon?, Episode 1

Awaiting his execution, Alexander is allowed pen and paper.

Awaiting his execution, Alexander recalls his life before the First World War; the memories of his wealthy cold Anglo-Irish family and the joy of his friendship with a local boy, Jerry.

As a child Alexander, heir to the big house and only son of a bitter marriage, formed a close friendship with Jerry, a village boy who shared his passion for horses. In 1914 both enlisted in the British Army - Alexander goaded by his beautiful, cold mother to fight for King and Country, Jerry to learn his trade for the Irish Nationalist cause. But amid the mud of Flanders, their relationship is tested by an ordeal beyond the horror of the battlefield...
How Many Miles to Babylon? by Jennifer Johnston has never been out of print since it was first published in 1974. Against the backdrop of the First World War, Jennifer Johnson masterfully takes you back in time to the depleted battlefields to tell  the truly remarkable story of a friendship.
Jennifer Johnston remains one of Ireland’s most prolific writers.  Johnston established her reputation with a series of short prize-winning novels: The Captains and the Kings (1972), which won the Evening Standard Award for Best First Novel; The Gates (1973); How Many Miles to Babylon? (1974); Shadows on our Skin (1977), shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction; and The Old Jest (1979), winner of the Whitbread Novel Award. Later novels include: The Invisible Worm (1991) Grace and Truth (2005), This is not a Novel (2002) and Foolish Mortals (2007). 

Read by Andrew Scott (Sherlock, Fleabag, His Dark Materials, 1917) 

Producer  Gemma McMullan



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Andrew Scott reads Jennifer Johnston's poignant 1974 novel about an unlikely friendship.

Andrew Scott reads Irish writer Jennifer Johnston's poignant 1974 novel about an unlikely friendship, set against the backdrop of the First World War.

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