TODAY’S RADIO

KEN BRUCE

9.30AM, RADIO 2 HHH Lorraine Mcintosh, one of the vocalists with Deacon Blue, is also an actress. She has worked on a number of films and served her time, like so many Scottish thespians, on Taggart. She joins Ken this week to pick her Tracks Of My Years, and to talk about her acting and singing careers.

BESSIE SMITH

9.45AM (FM), 12.30AM, RADIO 4 HHHH

‘The first time I saw Bessie Smith, it really was like finding a friend.’ The Scottish poet Jackie Kay was a black girl growing up in a white family in a white neighbourhood. When young Jackie first saw Bessie’s face on a blues album, she felt a shock of recognition and a sense of kinship. All this week, Jackie tells Bessie Smith’s story, and explains how the long dead blues singer showed Jackie how to be a ‘gutsy girl’.

MY NAME IS

11AM, RADIO 4 HHH

Rural crime is on the up, much of it the work of gangs. Fly-tipping, poaching and the theft of farm machinery is done on such a scale that it’s turning country life into misery for some. Richard, a gamekeeper and special constable in Hertfordshire, talks about the problem, and shares ideas on combating this tide of theft, vandalism and violence.

DAVID BOWIE IN NEW YORK

2.30PM,

RADIO 4 EXTRA HHHH

In a rehearsal room in New York, just a few months after the 9/11 attacks, David Bowie was working on his album Heathen. Radio 4’s John Wilson came to interview him, and found Bowie in pensive mood. We listen in as Bowie talks about recurring themes in his work, including despair, fear, isolation and the prospect of death, which weighed heavily on his mind. SJ

David Bowie (2.30pm, R4 Extra)