On All things Considered this week, (Sunday17 August at 8:30am, repeated Wednesday 20 August at 6:30pm) there is another chance to hear Roy Jenkins interview with the Welsh novelist, journalist and scriptwriter Rhidian Brook. He talks about his amazing nine-month journey to eleven countries with his wife and two young children.

It may sound like the holiday of a lifetime, albeit a pretty exhausting one, but their destinations were not chosen for their shimmering beaches or glamorous nightlife, but because they are key centres in the worldwide HIV/AIDs pandemic.

They met sex workers in Kenya, victims of rape in Rwanda, families headed by children in Soweto, children of prostitutes in India and farmers who sold their blood for money in China.

This rather unlikely family holiday was in fact taken at the request of the Salvation Army to report on its work in response to the HIV/Aids crisis. Despite its grim subject, the book of the journey, 'More than Eyes Can See', is a book full of hope.

'More than Eyes Can See', by Rhidian Brook is published by Marion Boyars Publishers, ISBN: 0-7145-3142-1