In this special episode of A Life in Sound from The Listening Planet, Martyn Stewart returns to England for a journey that is at once deeply personal, profoundly nostalgic, and unexpectedly historic. Fresh from receiving an OBE from King Charles at Windsor Castle for services to nature, Martyn joins Amanda for an intimate conversation about honour, homecoming, and the soundscapes that first taught him how to listen.
The episode begins with the extraordinary story of the award itself: the mysterious phone calls Martyn initially dismissed as a scam, the family intervention required to convince him the honour was real, and the surreal experience of arriving at Windsor Castle to discover that it would be the King himself conducting the investiture. For Martyn — a Birmingham-born son of the council estates who built a life documenting the disappearing voices of the natural world — the moment is almost impossible to comprehend. It is moving, funny and deeply human, revealing both his humility and his enduring disbelief at being recognised in this way.
But this episode is about much more than ceremony. It is also a return to origins. Together, Martyn and Amanda journey back through England’s landscapes and through Martyn’s own memories: to the dawn chorus of his childhood, the bluebell woods that offered refuge and solace, and the rivers, forests, marshes and moorlands that shaped his earliest recordings. With extraordinary vividness, Martyn evokes the robin before dawn, the wren, the blackbird, the song thrush, the curlew, the kingfisher and the bittern, revealing not just what these places sound like, but what they mean.
At the heart of the episode is Martyn’s idea of sound as a time machine. His vast archive allows him to travel back decades and hear the world as it once was — a world richer in birdsong, quieter in its human footprint, and more alive to the subtle textures of the natural world. When recordings from 50 years ago are set against contemporary returns to the same places, the contrast is both fascinating and devastating. The result is an episode that captures the beauty of England’s living soundscape while also confronting the losses brought by development, habitat change and modern noise.
Travelling from the bluebell woods of Birmingham to the Peak District, the Wye Valley, Thetford Forest and the Norfolk Broads, Martyn builds an auditory map of England through memory, wildlife and wonder. Along the way, he reflects on the craft of sound recording, the patience it demands, and the heightened awareness required to truly hear what nature is saying. This is not only a story of birds and places, but of perception itself — of learning to listen beyond the obvious, and of what becomes possible when we do.
Rich with humour, feeling and hard-won wisdom, this is an episode about belonging, recognition, loss and reverence. It is a portrait of England as heard through one of the world’s great wildlife sound recordists, and a reminder that the sounds of home can shape an entire life.
