Last Word

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BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Factual: Life Stories

Radio 4's weekly obituary programme, telling the life stories of those who have died recently

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Last Word: Lord Rogers (pictured), April Ashley MBE, Joan Didion, Ray Illingworth

Lord Rogers, April Ashley MBE, Joan Didion, Ray Illingworth

Lord Rogers (pictured), April Ashley MBE, Joan Didion, Ray Illingworth

BBC Radio 4 - Last Word, Lord Rogers (pictured), April Ashley MBE, Joan Didion, Ray Illingworth

Matthew Bannister on an architect, a transgender pioneer, a writer, a cricketer

Matthew Bannister on architect Lord Rogers, transgender pioneer April Ashley, writer Joan Didion, cricketer Ray Illingworth.

Matthew Bannister on

Lord Rogers of Riverside, the influential architect who designed the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Lloyds Building in London.

April Ashley, the transgender model who partied with pop stars and aristocrats during the Swinging Sixties and campaigned for changes to the law on gender identity.

Joan Didion, the American writer best known for her memoir 'The Year of Magical Thinking' written after the deaths of her husband and daughter.

Ray Illingworth, the Yorkshire-born cricketer who captained England to two successive Ashes victories.


Producer: Neil George

Interviewed guest: Catherine Slessor
Interviewed guest: Ivan Harbour
Interviewed guest: Christine Burns MBE
Interviewed guest: Dr Gary Everett 
Interviewed guest: Tracy Daughtery
Interviewed guest: Susanna Moore
Interviewed guest: Henry Blofeld

Archive clips used: BBC TV, IMAGINE - Richard Rogers Inside Out 26/02/2008; ThamesTv YouTube Channel, Good Afternoon - April Ashley Interview 1970s; Media Archive Central England, What Am I? (1980); BBC RADIO 4, KALEIDOSCOPE - California Dreaming 05/07/1979; F.P. Productions / Universal Pictures, Play It As It Lays (1972); BBC RADIO 3, Words and Music - Less is More 23/02/2020; BBC RADIO 4, Today 23/04/2008; Merlin Television, MMC Masterclass (1994); YouTube, Ray Illingworth Career Review 01/01/2022; YouTube, Ashes Tour 1970-71 7th Test SCG 17/08/2021; BBC RADIO 4, Start The Week 09/08/1980; BBC RADIO 5Live, Ian Chappell Tribute to Ray Illingworth 26/12/2021; BBC RADIO 4, It's Your Line 13/04/1971; BBC Video. Ashes '72 (1988); YouTube, The Ashes 1970-71 Australia v England 7th Test End of Match 31/10/2016.

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Last Word

Lord Rogers (pictured), April Ashley MBE, Joan Didion, Ray Illingworth

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