RADIO CHOICE
THE Nashville-based rock band Kings Of Leon is made up of men from the Followill family. Every morning this week, one of them, lead singer Caleb, joins KEN BRUCE (RADIO 2, 9.30AM) to play his Tracks Of My Years, and to share news of the band’s long-awaited eighth album, called When You See Yourself, which is out this month.
THE long-running comedy panel game
A MINUTE (RADIO 4, 6.30PM)
goes global this evening as Sue Perkins (pictured) presents the show to an audience around the world, hooked up to remote recording technology. Stephen Fry, Paul Merton, Jenny Eclair and Desiree Burch will be poised to unleash a torrent of witty words on a given subject, while avoiding hesitation, repetition or deviation.
n JOHN SUCHET is spoilt for choice as he puts together a St David’s Day selection for THE CLASSIC FM CONCERT (8PM). He features Welsh singers and musicians — including singers Bryn Terfel, Katherine Jenkins, Aled Jones and the harpist Catrin Finch — as well as music by Welsh composers, including Grace Williams’s Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes and Alun Hoddinott’s Folksong Suite. The programme ends with the pure and precise harmonies of the choir Tenebrae, singing Peace, by the Welsh composer Paul Mealor.
PICKING extracts from the diaries of only six people who lived through World War II, Dr Lucy Worsley discredits Britain’s past achievements by saying the Blitz spirit was probably a myth and mainly propaganda. My family lived through the war in Birmingham, which suffered terribly from bombing. My father was an air raid warden and witnessed at first hand the amazing British spirit.
DAVID MORGAN, Shrewsbury, Shropshire.
Dr LUCY WoRsLEY is a wonderful historian and Tv presenter. Her programme about the Blitz spirit was superbly done. But i can’t help wondering if rubbishing the actions of the Government during World War ii and undermining so many of our precious myths really helps the morale of this country as we go through another terrible time.
P. BRANDON, Budleigh Salterton, Devon.
I AGREE with the Mail’s TV critic Christopher Stevens in his criticism of the TV documentary Blitz Spirit. My father’s family came from the East End and were evacuated twice. The archive footage showed what people had to face. Blitz spirit was not a myth, no matter how you try to skew the picture by choosing diarists selectively. Yes, there was discord, but when the chips were down, people did pull together and look out for each other. That Blitz spirit is now the British spirit we have seen during the pandemic with the widespread support for the NHS and fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore.
A. SYMONDS, Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset.
THE true spirit of Londoners during the Blitz told in their own words was sad, poignant and tragic. obviously, as in these times, the Government tried to hide the grisly truth to maintain morale. it was a well thought out, well-told programme.
JANE BASSETT, Lee-on-the-Solent, Hants.
HOW can Lucy Worsley say the Blitz spirit was propaganda? Were the people she interviewed picked to suit her views?
TONY EDEN, Stourbridge, W. Mids.
i DREAD to think what Dr Lucy Worsley was attempting to prove in her latest Tv jaunt, but entertaining it wasn’t. she should stick to dressing up in ridiculous costumes and leave history to the experts.
BRYAN WRIGHT, Greenock, Renfrewshire. CAN you imagine the effect on the Blitz spirit if today’s doom and gloom reporting of the pandemic had happened during the war? If people had been subjected to a constant barrage of the death toll, the outcome of the war could have been different.
DOREEN BATES, Hilton, N. Yorks.