Capturing the nation in conversation to build a unique picture of our lives today and preserve it for future generations.
Episodes available:
Indefinitely 
Sun, 19 May 13
Duration:
15 mins
Life with locked-in syndrome, with terminal cancer, without your grandchild, and with a dominatrix called FiFi all feature in conversations from around the UK introduced by Fi Glover
Sun, 12 May 13
Duration:
15 mins
From the appeal of the Morris Minor to an admission of self-harm, and whether to take the test for a cancer gene - all subjects of conversations from around the UK introduced by Fi Glover
Sun, 5 May 13
Duration:
14 mins
Eleven and twelve year olds recorded conversations about their lives and those of their parents and friends for The Listening Project Schools Pilot
Sun, 28 Apr 13
Duration:
14 mins
The perils facing fishermen, Catholicism, ensuring disabled children are cared for after you've gone, and career choices all feature in the converations introduced by Fi Glover
Sun, 21 Apr 13
Duration:
14 mins
Community,changesin Northern Ireland, and memories of the glamorous 1950s are all featured by Fi Glover in this Sunday Edition
Sun, 14 Apr 13
Duration:
14 mins
Swansea City, coming out, delivering your own grandchildren, and second time around marriages are all covered in the conversations Fi Glover presents in this Sunday Edition
Sun, 7 Apr 13
Duration:
14 mins
Teenage sexuality, stepmothers and organ donation are all covered in the conversations Fi Glover introduces between friends, mothers and children in this Sunday Edition
Sun, 30 Dec 12
Duration:
15 mins
Listeners' requests presented by Fi Glover in the Sunday Edition of Radio 4's series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen
Sun, 23 Dec 12
Duration:
15 mins
Babies, Christmas and loved ones remembered: all in the conversations presented by Fi Glover for the Sunday Edition of the Radio 4 series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen
Sun, 16 Dec 12
Duration:
15 mins
Marriage, spiders, frogs, birds, leaving home for university and coming back again: conversations about all of these in the Sunday Edition presented by Fi Glover
Sun, 9 Dec 12
Duration:
15 mins
After Lyn's prison sentence for drink-driving she and her civil partner Mary re-consider their relationship Fi Glover presents.
Sun, 2 Dec 12
Duration:
14 mins
Homelessness on the streets of London: one of the conversations introduced by Fi Glover on the day Radio 4 launches its Christmas Appeal. Also conversations about politics and activism.
Sun, 25 Nov 12
Duration:
14 mins
Fi Glover hears what Professor Dorothy Sheridan of the Mass Observation Archive thinks of the value of The Listening Project to oral historians of all types.
Sun, 18 Nov 12
Duration:
14 mins
Conversations between people helped by Children in Need-funded charities, ranging from theatre groups to those offering support for victims of domestic violence.
Sun, 11 Nov 12
Duration:
14 mins
Fi Glover with conversations about Nepal, love, death - and spaghetti bolognese for breakfast. All uploaded by listeners themselves.
Sun, 4 Nov 12
Duration:
14 mins
Conversations between those who have suffered from psychosis and depression, and those who have stood by them.
Sun, 28 Oct 12
Duration:
15 mins
Fi Glover features men's conversations exclusively in this Edition and proves that, when you listen, it's surprising how far from stereotypical expectations they can be
Sun, 21 Oct 12
Duration:
14 mins
Surprising conversations about dead pets, plastic surgery, retirement, and the impact of disability on family relationships.
Sun, 14 Oct 12
Duration:
14 mins
Two is stronger than one when it comes to meeting life's challenges.Couples talk about how they've survived family crises together.
Sun, 7 Oct 12
Duration:
15 mins
A marriage proposal and conversations about sex, Romany mourning traditions and the weather prove that it's surprising what you hear when you listen as Fi Glover eavesdrops on The Listening Project nationwide
Tue, 26 Jun 12
Duration:
14 mins
Encounters from Scotland, Cheshire and a British Library view of the Project. we meet former Olympic athlete Mark, who remembers his experiences in Moscow and Los Angeles for his daughter Sophie, and civil partners, Nick and Philip from Scotland, who reflect on how attitudes to homosexuality have changed. Jonny Robinson explains how the British Library is saving such conversations for posterity.
Sun, 24 Jun 12
Duration:
14 mins
Fi Glover presents the Sunday edition of Radio 4's series capturing the nation in conversation. Today's programme focuses on the residents of the east London borough which is the focus of BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend - Hackney, with its diverse and colourful community. We hear from Oby and Rebekah about the consequences of their childhood as Jehovah's Witnesses, from Ashley and Raj about friendship in childhood and beyond, and from Gabin and Paul, Kerry and Duncan and Victoria and Nathaniel about their lives - all lived in Hackney. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Sun, 10 Jun 12
Duration:
15 mins
Fi Glover presents the Sunday edition of Radio 4's series capturing the nation in conversation:we meet Sarah Jane and Philip, a brother and sister from Wales who talk frankly about the pressures and problems that Philip's period behind bars caused the family; from London Margaret and Barry, whose son Jimmy was murdered in a knife fight, remember their beloved boy; and a chance to meet David Isay, the award-winning American documentary-maker who came up with the idea of these intimate conversations in the first place. StoryCorps is so successful that the BBC has, with David's blessing, brought it to Britain as ...The Listening Project. Many of the conversations are being archived by the British Library which they will use to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Sun, 3 Jun 12
Duration:
15 mins
Fi Glover presents the Sunday edition of Radio 4's series capturing the nation in conversation: today's programme covers the vital support offered by friendship, and also family life in all its rich variety. Betty, a retired cook from Hull, chats with her daughter, Elaine - a cleaner - about bringing up ten children with lots of love, but not much money. Catherine tells her friend, Liz, about the impact the fact that her parents met when they were a priest and nun had on her childhood, and on her current relationship with the Catholic church. And friends Anne and Steve talk about how each has supported the other through the serious dramas of life: bereavement and the suicidal despair caused by childhood abuse.
Sun, 27 May 12
Duration:
15 mins
Fi Glover presents the Sunday edition of Radio 4's series capturing the nation in conversation: today we meet Jasmit and Jaswant from Lincolnshire, still happily married 34 years after it was arranged. From Scotland mother and son, Lily and Francis, on Francis' addiction to heroin and its terrible consequences. And from Berkshire the dilemma facing dairy farmers,as Michael and Don decide whether to sell their herds. Also, the first User Generated Content to be uploaded to The Listening Project: Sophie wanted to ask her brother Oscar about his experience of living with autism. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Sun, 20 May 12
Duration:
15 mins
Fi Glover introduces Joan and Ray from Merseyside, who only recently discovered they shared a father, farming brothers Gerald and Roland from Lincolnshire, and Michael and Jill, friends from Hull who both lost family members in the 1968 triple trawler tragedy. And she hears from producer David Reeves who recorded two of the conversations.
Sun, 13 May 12
Duration:
15 mins
Fi Glover presents the Sunday edition of Radio 4's series capturing the nation in conversation: today encounters from Cardiff, Lincolnshire and Reading - via Northern Ireland. The Listening Project is a new initiative for Radio 4, offering a snapshot of contemporary Britain. Conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Many of the long conversations are being archived by the British Library which they will use to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Sun, 6 May 12
Duration:
15 mins
Fi Glover presents the Sunday edition of Radio 4's series capturing the nation in conversation: in today's programme we meet 19 year old Afshan, who has left her traditional Muslim home in Manchester for university in London, and her mother, Flavia, who is unhappy that her daughter also seems to have left behind all plans for an arranged marriage. And from Radio Merseyside, a conversation through bars - not prison bars but those of an enclosed convent. Here brother and sister Peter and Mary, priest and nun, discuss their lives and religious vocations. And the producer who recorded this extraordinary Listening Project encounter gives his personal account of the meeting. The Listening Project aims to offer a snapshot of contemporary Britain Learn more by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Sun, 29 Apr 12
Duration:
15 mins
In today's programme, we meet Ciaron and Brendan, Irish brothers whose fraternal bond was tested to the limit when Brendan fell ill; from Radio Berkshire, the story of Jim and John who touchingly remember the biscuity pleasures of working at the Huntley and Palmers factory in Reading which closed in the 1970s, while from Stoke on Trent, the agonising tale of Stevie, the brother to Chris and son to Norman, who vanished while on holiday in Crete. And there's a chance too to hear just how the magic of these Listening Project encounters actually works from one of the team gathering the interviews across Britain.
Sun, 22 Apr 12
Duration:
14 mins
Barbara talks to her best friend Becky about her compulsive disorder and how it's affected her life; Humberside transsexual Michelle discusses living as a woman with her friend Cilla; Bob talks to his son-in-law James about his life of crime and Jim and Joan from Northern Ireland share an intimate conversation about growing old together and the end of life.
Sun, 15 Apr 12
Duration:
15 mins
Mike talks to his adoptive son about how he rescued him as a baby from South Vietnam; Jayne talks to her mother Sally in Liverpool about their life together and the father she never knew; from London, Jamaican-born Monica discusses with her gay son Rikki how coming out as gay was difficult for her too; and in Stoke on Trent Marc discusses with his foster dad Colin about how he's managed to turn his life round after a very difficult beginning.
Sun, 8 Apr 12
Duration:
14 mins
Beryl is a twice married grandmother who talks with her grandson about love, loss and how she lost her heart late in life to the man who gave her a lift home in his Reliant Robin; Jean and her daughter Rebecca talk about the difficulties of facing up to failing health and death; Cy tells his granddaughter Lucy about his life as a musician in Liverpool's glory days and Alan and Christine from Stoke on Trent talk about the magnetic hold the town's Spode porcelain factory has had on their lives.
Sun, 1 Apr 12
Duration:
14 mins
Chick is a former miner from Pontefract in Yorkshire. He discusses his life in a conversation with his granddaughter Lindsay, whose eyes are set on a very different career path. Sasha is a mother from Berkshire whose son Paddy has an inherited heart condition. They talk about life together at home in Marlborough. Alison and Willie are a couple in their mid-sixties from Northern Ireland. They've had a rich life together, but now face the challenges of an uncertain future as old age approaches. And from Tunstall in Stoke on Trent, Paula and Maddie share memories of Paula's comedian father.
Tue, 20 Mar 12
Duration:
5 mins
Capturing the nation in conversation. A BBC Radio and British Library Partnership. The Listening Project is inviting people across the UK to share an intimate conversation. Some of these conversations will be broadcast by the BBC and curated and archived by the British Library building a unique picture of our lives today and preserving it for future generations. What people talk about is their choice. It could be a moment of joy, sadness or reflection. This project is about creating the space for people to have that conversation they always meant to have. Radio 4's Controller Gwyneth Williams is bringing a new kind of conversation to Radio 4, made possible by the unique nature of radio, its intimacy and entanglement in the lives of audiences.
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