

One to One
BBC Radio 4
Series of interviews in which broadcasters follow their personal passions by talking to the people whose stories interest them most
Episodes
Mentioned books

Aug 30, 2013 • 14min
Frank Gardner talks to Tim Rushby-Smith
After a life changing injury or incident one of the things that makes a huge difference on how you then move on with the rest of your life is what you can still do and can't do. The BBC's Security Correspondent Frank Gardner regards himself lucky that he was able to carry on doing journalism after being shot 9 years ago in Saudi Arabia by terrorists. Some of those bullets hit the core of his body and damaged his spinal nerve - he can no longer use his legs and is in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. However, being able to return to work and continue with his profession has been one of the biggest factors in his own recovery. In this second programme for the series 'One to One', Frank meets Tim Rushby-Smith who fell from a tree and had to face the fact he would no longer be able to carry on with his profession and livelihood.Producer : Perminder Khatkar.

Aug 20, 2013 • 14min
Frank Gardner talks to Dr Stuart Butchart
In 2004 , the BBC's Security Correspondent Frank Gardner was shot several times by terrorists while reporting in Saudi Arabia, some of those bullets hit the core of his body and damaged his spinal nerve which means that he can no longer use his legs and is in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. This was for him a catastrophic life changing injury. But while he was in hospital he received an email from someone who too had been shot in the back and said- 'I've got some advice and tips on how to cope'. In this first of three programmes for the series 'One to One' Frank Gardner explores how one copes with a life changing injury and begins by talking to Dr Stuart Butchart who gave Frank hope.Presenter : Frank Gardner
Producer : Perminder Khatkar.

Jun 25, 2013 • 14min
Owen Bennett Jones talks to Jake Wood
Owen Bennett-Jones has spent most of his BBC career reporting on armed conflict around the world. On March 2003 he was in Kuwait as the US forces began their invasion of Iraq. While talking to the American writer PJ O'Rourke, Owen said how frightened the soldiers heading into Iraq must be, but O'Rourke replied: "Well, they are off to do the most exciting thing ever known to man: going to war".It was a striking remark. Was he glorifying war? Or just telling a truth? Since humans first started to communicate, they have been telling - and listening to - war stories. And, alongside the empathy and fellow feeling for victims, the accounts of bravery, suffering and cheating death are compelling and perhaps vicariously thrilling.Jake Wood knows the real story of war. As a member of the Territorial Army, Jake completed 3 tours of Iraq and Afghanistan over a five-year period. In the second of two programmes for 'One To One' about the reality of war, Owen asks him about his final tour in Southern Afghanistan and about one day in particular: the 11 August 2007. Jake was at Forward Operating Base Inkerman - a camp with mud walls in the Sangin Valley - when the Taliban attacked.Presenter: Owen Bennett-Jones.
Producer : Perminder Khatkar.

Jun 18, 2013 • 14min
Owen Bennett Jones talks to Mick Flynn
Owen Bennett-Jones has spent most of his BBC career reporting on armed conflict around the world. On March 2003 he was in Kuwait as the US forces began their invasion of Iraq. While talking to the American writer PJ O'Rourke, Owen said how frightened the soldiers heading into Iraq must be, but O'Rourke replied: "Well, they are off to do the most exciting thing ever known to man: going to war".It was a striking remark. Was he glorifying war? Or just telling a truth? Since humans first started to communicate, they have been telling - and listening to - war stories. And, alongside the empathy and fellow feeling for victims, the accounts of bravery, suffering and cheating death are compelling and perhaps vicariously thrilling.Mick Flynn has many war stories. He is the most decorated serving soldier in the British army. He has served in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Iraq and Bosnia and has had three tours of Afghanistan. In the first of a two part series of 'One to One', Owen hears from Mick about one particular day of fighting in Iraq.Presenter: Owen Bennett-Jones.
Producer : Perminder Khatkar.

Jun 11, 2013 • 14min
Clive Myrie talks to Mike Nowak
BBC News presenter, Clive Myrie, presents the last of three interviews on immigration as seen from an immigrant's point of view.As the son of Jamaican immigrants who came to the UK in the 1960s, Clive has a personal interest in this topic. Clive lived abroad as a foreign correspondent for almost 15 years, returning once or twice a year to see his family. After 2004 he noticed how much the UK was changing: the EU had expanded, Polish people were settling here in large numbers and the transformation came as a shock.In the first programme he spoke to Alp Mehmet, Vice-Chair of Migration Watch. Then he met Sylvia Emenike who came to the UK from Jamaica in the 1950s and explored her experience of seeing other immigrant communities settling in the UK. In this, his third and final interview, he speaks to Mike Nowak, a Pole who lived for many years in Britain, but who has now returned home to Warsaw.Mike came to England long before the 2004 enlargement of the European Union, so witnessed the increase in Polish immigration for himself. Suddenly he was able to speak in his mother-tongue all day, every day, and witnessed Polish shops and businesses starting up around him.Recently he made the decision to return to Warsaw. Clive asks what changes Mike has seen back in Poland since he first left, and finds out where Polish opinion stands on further EU immigration.

Jun 4, 2013 • 13min
Clive Myrie talks to Sylvia Emenike
BBC News presenter, Clive Myrie, presents the second of his three interviews on immigration as seen from an immigrant's point of view.As the son of Jamaican immigrants who came to the UK in the 1960s, Clive has a personal interest in this topic. Clive lived abroad as a foreign correspondent for almost 15 years, returning once or twice a year to see his family. After 2004 he noticed how much the UK was changing: the EU had expanded, Polish people were settling here in large numbers and the transformation came as a shock.In the first programme he spoke to Alp Mehmet, Vice-Chair of Migration Watch. This week he meets Sylvia Emenike. Sylvia came to the UK from Jamaica in the 1950s.Clive will explore with Sylvia what her experience has been of living in the UK, but also of the changes she has seen since she moved here and her feelings about the waves of immigration that she's seen from other parts of the world.

May 28, 2013 • 13min
Clive Myrie talks to Alp Mehmet
BBC News presenter, Clive Myrie, takes over the reins of 'One to One' for a three-part series on immigration.As the son of Jamaican immigrants who came to the UK in the 1960s, Clive has a very personal take on this topic. He lived abroad as a foreign correspondent for almost 15 years, returning once or twice a year to see his family. After 2004 he noticed how much the UK was changing. The EU had expanded, Polish people were settling here in large numbers, and the transformation came as a shock to him.In these interviews, Clive explores an immigrant's view of immigration. In the first programme, he speaks to Alp Mehmet, Vice-Chair of Migration Watch. Mehmet came to the UK at the age of 8, he went on to become an immigration officer and Ambassador to Iceland. As someone who was born abroad and has lived and worked in many different countries, what are his views on immigration and have they changed during his time with an organisation which has itself attracted plenty of controversy on the subject.

May 22, 2013 • 14min
Ritula Shah talks to Dr Michael Irwin
In the third of her interviews on the concept of renunciation, Ritula Shah talks to Dr Michael Irwin about the idea of renouncing life in old age or when faced with a terminal illness. Dr Irwin is a retired GP who campaigns for voluntary euthanasia and has accompanied people to the Swiss clinic Dignitas when they have chosen to end their lives. He talks to Ritula about his belief that people should have a choice as to when and how to die and about his thoughts on the end of his own life.Producer: Maggie Ayre.

May 22, 2013 • 14min
Ritula Shah talks to Mark Boyle
Ritula Shah was brought up as a Jain, which has renunciation as one of its central tenets. Ritula has always been fascinated by this idea and in this series she wants to explore what it means to give up something that still has value to those around you. Why do it? Where does it leave your relationships with those people whose choices you will have contradicted or undermined by your own? What happens when you waver (as surely you must)?In this second episode in a series of three programmes, she talks to Mark Boyle who lived without money for almost three years. What did he think it could achieve? Producer: Maggie Ayre.

May 22, 2013 • 14min
Ritula Shah talks to Satish Kumar
Ritula Shah was brought up as a Jain, which has renunciation as one of its central tenets. Ritula has always been fascinated by this idea and in this series she wants to explore what it means to give up something that still has value to those around you. Why do it? Where does it leave your relationships with those people whose choices you will have contradicted or undermined by your own? What happens when you waver (as surely you must)?In this first programme she explores the theory with ex-Jain monk, Satish Kumar. He explains his own personal journey to renunciation of both the material and the spiritual while still a young man and why he ultimately rejected it as a way of improving the world.Producer: Maggie Ayre.


