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: Lady Betty Boothroyd, Marianne Mantell, John Motson OBE, Sulamita Aronovsky

03/03/2023

Lady Betty Boothroyd, Marianne Mantell, John Motson OBE, Sulamita Aronovsky

BBC Radio 4 - Last Word, Lady Betty Boothroyd, Marianne Mantell, John Motson OBE, Sulamita Aronovsky

Kirsty Lang on a politician, a publisher, a football commentator and a pianist.

Kirsty Lang on politician Lady Betty Boothroyd, publisher Marianne Mantell, football commentator John Motson OBE and pianist Sulamita Aronovsky.

Kirsty Lang on 

The extraordinary Lady Betty Boothroyd (pictured) who went from humble beginnings in a Yorkshire mill town to becoming Westminster’s first female Speaker.

John Motson OBE - the BBC’s voice of football for half a century,

The pioneering New York publisher Marianne Mantell who paved the way for audio books... 

And Lithuanian pianist Sulamita Aronovsky who founded London’s International Piano competition.


Producer: Neil George

Interviewed guest: Julia Langdon
Interviewed guest: Matthew Rubery
Interviewed guest: Ricky George
Interviewed guest: Jonathan Powell

Archive clips used: YouTube/ The Independent, Baroness Betty Boothroyd’s best moments uploaded on 27/02/2023; BBC One, Parkinson 04/11/2000; Central Cinema Company Film, …und abends in die Scala (1958) film clip; BBC News Archive, Betty Boothroyd obituary – clips from speech at House of Commons; Caedmon Recordings, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, A Story and Five Poems – Dylan Thomas TC 1002; Caedmon Recordings, Ezra Pound Reading His Poetry TC 1122; Caedmon Recordings, JRR Tolkein Reads and Sings his The Lord of the Rings TC 1478; Caedmon Recordings, Ernest Hemingway Reading TC 1185; BBC Two, Victoria Derbyshire Show – John Motson interview 06/09/2017; BBC One, Grandstand 07/07/1990; BBC Two, Sunday Grandstand 24/06/1984; ITV News – Bernard Ingham item 24/02/2023; BBC Radio 3, Music Matters 17/06/2019; London International Piano Competition, promotional video from YouTube.

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Lady Betty Boothroyd, Marianne Mantell, John Motson OBE, Sulamita Aronovsky

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