Poetry Extra: Between the Ears

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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Poetry Extra

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Weekly opportunity for listeners to revisit the riches of the BBC radio poetry archive

A brand new poetry slot on Radio 4 Extra gives listeners a weekly opportunity to revisit the riches of the BBC radio poetry archive

Poetry Extra: Between the Ears - The Milk Way

Between the Ears - The Milk Way

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Poetry Extra, Between the Ears - The Milk Way

Daljit Nagra chooses the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archives.

Daljit Nagra chooses The Milk Way featuring a radiophonic poem by Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch with Welsh dairy workers.  From 2018.

Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Milk Way.

This features poet Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch and composer Nina Perry as they create a radiophonic poem exploring the sounds and stories surrounding the flow of milk out of west Wales while the Welsh landscape flows into the sea.

We hear the voice of the path itself “The Milk Walk” (Y Wac Laeth in Welsh) the route that both the milk and the Cardiganshire dairy workers took to London during the last century. 

We meet Mae, a young girl who took the milk train to work in a dairy in London in the 1960’s, and Jac Alun, a sailor from a local farming family who moved to the city to sell milk during the Depression.

These three monologues are interwoven with personal testimony from those who currently live and work on the edge of the land: 

*  Jon Meirion Jones (son of Jac Alun)
*  Local farmer, Steffan Rees
*  Artist, Lilwen Lewis
*  Marine biology student, Tom Malpas 
*  Nia Haf Jones from the North Wales Wildlife Trust

Stories of migration and milk both past and present are woven into a musical soundscape that paints a picture of humming dairy farms, strange underwater worlds where dolphins echo-locate, coral ticks, and where houses are ‘tippling’ into the sea.

The Path is performed by Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch
Mae the girl by Sara Gregory
Jac Alun the sailor by Matthew Gravelle

Written by Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch

Composed and Produced by Nina Perry

Painting by Lilwen Lewis



An Open Audio Production for BBC Radio 3, first broadcast in 2018.

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