This Natural Life - BBC Radio 4

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Welcome to This Natural Life

Thursday, November 21, 2024 • Duration 02:02

A new interview series where Martha Kearney takes people to a favourite place to explore their passion for nature.

Professor Kathy Willis

Thursday, February 6, 2025 • Duration 25:04

Martha Kearney meets Kathy Willis, Professor of Biodiversity at Oxford University, at Kathy's local stamping ground of Port Meadow, the protected common land in the heart of Oxford, to hear about how her love of the natural world has shaped her life.

Growing up in London, Kathy has always been someone who spends a lot of time outdoors - whether in city parks, rural campsites or cycle trips abroad. Her mother instilled in her a deep respect for nature, teaching her the local names of plants from a young age. Kathy shares how she carried on this passion into her degree, and later PhD in palaeobotany at Cambridge. She's since researched how ecosystems help protect us from climate change and floods, and more recently has been exploring the relationship between nature and health in her book, Good Nature.

Kathy chats with Martha about the scientific evidence about why interacting with nature really does make you feel better, from sight, smell, sound and the hidden sense - your microbiome. They wander around this special, wintery meadow close to where Kathy lives, with its glorious open views stretching into the distance, and reflect on the myriad of benefits it brings to both humans and wildlife.

Producer: Eliza Lomas

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Martin Clunes

Thursday, February 6, 2025 • Duration 25:02

Martin Clunes is best known for his roles in the long-running TV series Doc Martin and the 1990s sitcom Men Behaving Badly. He's also known as an animal lover, but few people are aware of the wider importance of nature for him. In this programme Martha Kearney travels to his Dorset farm to meet Martin and find out more about his love of the natural world. She learns of the sanctuary it provides for him from the hectic life of an actor. Together they take his five dogs for a walk, including the retired guide dog Martin gave a home to after hearing about her on a radio programme. He introduces Martha to his horses, as he prepares one of them for a show the next day, chatting to her while on his hands and knees shampoo-ing the horse's fetlocks. He explains how horses were the reason why he came to buy a farm by chance.

Producer: Emma Campbell

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Delia Smith

Thursday, February 6, 2025 • Duration 25:09

Martha Kearney meets much-loved cook and writer Delia Smith for a winter walk around her garden in Suffolk. She speaks of her lifelong love of nature, and her deep concerns for the environment in the face of climate change. She tells Martha about her childhood growing up in the Greater London suburb of Bexleyheath, climbing trees and digging up vegetables in her Grandfather's allotment. Then, in the early days of marriage, Delia and her husband Michael decided to leave London for a tiny hamlet in the country, where they have lived ever since. At the bottom of the garden is a field that Michael bought her as a surprise birthday present, which they have now turned into a wildflower meadow with a duck pond at the centre. Even in winter, the place is a hive of activity. Delia gives Martha a tour of the pond, past a memorial tree with special significance, and into her treehouse where she wrote many of her best-selling cook books. Their walk winds up in her kitchen garden, where the sprouts are growing in time for Christmas, and where the winter herbs are soon to be picked to make stuffing.

Producer: Becky Ripley

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Hamza Yassin

Thursday, February 6, 2025 • Duration 25:01

Martha Kearney meets wildlife cameraman Hamza Yassin in a bird hide overlooking reed beds and marshes at the London Wetland Centre in Barnes. He speaks of his childhood growing up in Sudan on the banks of the Nile, with a large extended family and a pet monkey, before he then moved to the UK. He tells Martha about his decision to turn down the chance to study for a dentistry degree in order to become a wildlife cameraman, a dream that led him to move to the west coast of Scotland, where he lived in the back of his car for nine months. He talks about his role as Ranger Hamza (or "Ranger Hamster") for CBeebies, and his admiration for all the children he gets to meet along the way. He also speaks fondly about his time on Strictly Come Dancing, how his dyslexia helped him to learn the moves, and how his dances were inspired by the natural world. As birds fly past hide window, with the London skyline stretching beyond, Hamza speaks of hope in the face of all the difficulties facing our natural world.

Producer: Becky Ripley

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Richard Mabey

Thursday, February 6, 2025 • Duration 24:54

Richard Mabey has been described as the godfather of British nature writing. Over the last half-century, he has written more than thirty books. His first, 'Food for Free', was published in 1972 and has never been out of print since; the most recent, 'The Accidental Garden', came out earlier this year. Martha Kearney joins Richard and his partner Polly on their beloved boat on the Norfolk Broads. She hears about Richard's childhood in the Chilterns and finds out how he first became fascinated by the natural world. Together they spot grebes, terns, and even see a bittern in flight.

Producer: Emma Campbell

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Cate Blanchett

Thursday, February 6, 2025 • Duration 24:56

In the first episode of this new series, Martha Kearney meets Hollywood star Cate Blanchett. She finds out about Cate's relationship with the natural world and explores the significance of nature and wildlife to her, as they walk around the Royal Botanic Gardens at Wakehurst in Sussex - where Cate has recently taken up the role of ambassador. Both Cate and Martha are bee-keeping enthusiasts, and they put on protective bee suits to visit the garden's bee hives together. Cate explains why the wildlife of both the UK and her native Australia are so important to her, and praises the work of the Millennium Seed Bank which is also based at Wakehurst.

Producer: Emma Campbell

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Adjoa Andoh

Thursday, February 20, 2025 • Duration 24:54

Adjoa Andoh has played lead roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, and is a familiar face to fans of Casualty and Doctor Who. She is probably best known as Lady Danbury in Bridgerton, the hit Netflix series. Her roots, though, are firmly in the countryside. She grew up in the village of Wickwar, just north of Bristol, where she and her brother were the only black children in the area. In this programme she tells Martha Kearney about her rural childhood and the lasting love of the natural world it instilled in her. She takes Martha on one of her favourite walks on the South Downs. Together they spot birds, stop to admire sweeping views of the sea, where Adjoa swims year-round, and talk about landscape, religion and the restorative power of nature.

Producer: Emma Campbell

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Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Tuesday, March 4, 2025 • Duration 25:18

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a chef, broadcaster, author and campaigner. His 'River Cottage' series ran for more than ten years on Channel 4 and he has written more than twenty food and cookery books. In this programme Martha Kearney catches up with Hugh at an event at the Abergavenny Food Festival. He tells her how his love affair with the countryside started at the age of five when his parents left London and moved to a farmhouse in Gloucestershire. He recalls a fascination with the natural world in his early years, remembering a childhood spent roaming the fields and collecting birds' eggs, and recounting an incident in which he accidentally squashed a lizard while trying to put it into a biscuit tin. As a student he intended to work in wildlife conservation and had hopes of becoming the next David Attenborough, before a job at River Café set him on a different path. The natural world still fascinates and inspires him today. He tells Martha about the emotional hold it has over him, describing a time during lockdown when he was moved to tears of joy by seeing the blue flash of a kingfisher.#

Photo copyright Abergavenny Food Festival, photographer Tim Woodier.

Producer: Emma Campbell

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James Dyson

Thursday, March 6, 2025 • Duration 24:52

Sir James Dyson is one of the UK’s best known inventors and businessmen. His Dyson vacuum cleaners, hair dryers and air purifiers have sold in their millions, both in the UK and around the world. In 2013, Sir James turned his attention to farming. He now runs the biggest farming business in the country, and owns 36,000 acres on which he produces potatoes, peas and strawberries. In this programme, Martha travels to his farm near Bath to find out more about his love for the natural world. She learns of how his early years growing up in Norfolk helped inspire him not just in business, but also in farming. He talks about the impact losing his father at a young age had on him, his experience of working on farms as a teenager and his hopes for the future of farming in the UK. Martha also gets to see the Dyson approach to farming, where robots are being taught how to identify and pick strawberries which are grown in one of the UK’s most technically advanced greenhouses.

Producer: Ed Prendeville

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This Natural Life – Details, episodes & analysis

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This Natural Life – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify