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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.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Greg James digs into the BBC's archives, using current stories as a portal to the past.

BBC Radio 4 LW

Rewinder: A Business of Ferrets

A Business of Ferrets

BBC Radio 4 - Rewinder, A Business of Ferrets

Greg James loses himself in the BBC's vast archives.

Greg James heads into the BBC archives to dig out rare, prime audio using stories of the week and listener requests as his launch-pad.

Greg James, host of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show and proud radio nerd, heads into the BBC archives to deliver a selection of prime audio, using stories of the week and listener requests as his launch-pad.

As Christopher Nolan's blockbuster Oppenheimer opens in cinemas, Greg finds some extraordinary recordings of the real J Robert Oppenheimer, the man in charge of the secret laboratory at Los Alamos where the atomic bomb was invented. We hear Oppenheimer's reaction to the testing of the first ever nuclear bomb in 1945, as well as his thoughts on the bombing of Hiroshima. He was invited to give the BBC Reith Lectures in 1954, and then in 1956 his security clearance was stripped from him by the US Government during a trial which the BBC reconstructed verbatim in a strange programme broadcast in 1970.

Following on from Greg's enthusiastic search for old radio jingles last week, listener requests lead him to more memorable melodies, including jingles for paraffin and the decimalisation of Australian currency. 

Greg also marks 40 years since vandals broke into the Blue Peter garden. He unearths some letters sent in by young viewers with offers of help, some more sinister than others.

And a clip of legendary director, actor and writer Ken Campbell on Radio 4's Midweek in 2002 sends Greg down a ferret hole where he explores Blue Peter's strange obsession with ferrets over the years, and finds the man who held the world record for keeping ferrets down his trousers. 

Producer: Tim Bano

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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