BBC Radio
I have presented several arts features for BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4, as well as contributing occasionally to cultural review programmes like Kaleidoscope, Night Waves and Front Row. Between 2009 and 2012, I wrote and presented three 30-min features with the producer Julian May – ‘The Wreck of the Alba’ (first broadcast 2009), ‘Lanyon’s Last Flight’ (2011) and ‘The Flower Fields’ (2012) – as well as ‘Land and Sea and Sky’, an edition of Radio 3’s The Essay. All of these we recorded on location, mostly in Cornwall, and the subsequent sessions in the studio – scripting links, mixing, fine-tuning the audio atmosphere – were true creative collaborations.
Frost–Heron
First broadcast BBC Radio 3, June 2017; latest repeat 11 August 2021
A Sunday Feature on the artists Terry Frost and Patrick Heron, and their unlikely friendship, founded on a passionate belief in the power of abstract painting and rooted in the art-life of post-war St Ives.
This was a Whistledown Productions programme for the BBC, recorded with producer Karen Pirie.
The Flower Fields
First broadcast Radio 4, October 2012; latest repeat 24 May 2025
A mysterious, dense network of overgrown fields covers the south-facing coastal slopes between the Cornish village of Mousehole and Land’s End. ‘The Flower Fields’ uncovers the history of these tiny fields, or quillets, and the survival of the Cornish flower-growing industry from Victorian times to today.
‘Michael Bird’s lovely atmospheric piece’ (John Mount, Radio Times ‘Critic’s Choice’)
‘The Flower Fields’ was radio ‘Pick of the Day’ in the Daily Telegraph, The Times, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and Independent.
The Wreck of the Alba
First broadcast Radio 4, July 2009; latest repeat 11 December 2024
The story of the night in January 1938 when the steamship Alba foundered on a headland at St Ives in Cornwall. The old self-taught painter and sometime mariner and scrap-dealer Alfred Wallis lived just yards away. He painted the wreck compulsively, and the programme centres on one of these paintings, now in the Tate collection.
Local people recall how townsfolk turned out in the storm to save the crew from drowning. The Alba‘s cargo of Welsh coal was on its way to Mussolini’s Italy. The programme makes connections between the wild night of the wreck and the wider history of the Appeasement era.
Lanyon’s Last Flight
First broadcast Radio 4, March 2011; latest repeat 1 October 2024
The story of artist Peter Lanyon’s passion for gliding. Lanyon died aged forty-six, following a gliding accident in 1964. ‘Lanyon’s Last Flight’ explores the influence of gliding on his later work. With contributions from his sons Andrew, Matthew and Martin, and memorable archive recordings of Lanyon himself and friends, including the American artist Mark Rothko and Scottish poet W.H. Graham.
A Walk of One’s Own: Virginia Woolf on Foot
First broadcast Radio 3, August 2015; latest repeat 24 July 2024
This was the third episode in a four-part series presented by Alexandra Harris – other episodes followed immediately Woolf’s footsteps in London, Sussex and Spain. Alexandra and I walked and talked round ancient fields and footpaths near Zennor, the garden of the Woolf family’s summer home at Talland House in St Ives and Porthminster Beach, where Virginia and her sister Vanessa once paddled and played.
Royal Literary Fund ‘Collected’ audio
All RLF Fellows have the chance to record short audio pieces for the ‘Collected’ archive. These focus on particular aspects of our practice and experience as writers. Here are a few of mine …
