RADIO CHOICE

IN 1851, Titus Salt built a textile factory and a village for his workers and their families. Saltaire village, near Bradford, provided decent housing, schools, safe drinking water, a billiards room, reading room, concert hall and all kinds of other amenities for the workers. OPEN COUNTRY (3PM, RADIO 4) joins Helen Mark at Saltaire and hears from the family who now look after this remarkable place.

CLAUDE DEBUSSY’S mother fled Paris with young Claude in 1870, when the city was under siege during the Franco-Prussian war. They settled in Cannes, where Claude took piano lessons. He became a brilliant pianist and sight reader, but his real interest lay in composition. His innovative, impressionistic style is instantly recognisable. Claude was to die, painfully, of cancer in

1918 in Paris — with the city again under siege. Catherine Bott picks some of Debussy’s most popular works, including Prelude A L’Apres Midi D’Un Faune, for THE FULL WORKS CONCERT (8PM, CLASSIC FM).

JENNIFER EGAN’S recent book Manhattan Beach is set in America and has as its main protagonist one of the female divers used by the military during World War II. Jennifer (pictured) is on tonight’s FREE THINKING

(10PM, RADIO 3) to talk about her research for the book with Rana Mitter; they also discuss the legalities of exploring historical wrecks.