麻豆约拍

Libby Purves meets hula hoop virtuoso Marawa Ibrahim; biographer Selina Hastings; horse whisperer Gary Witheford and early music specialist, Dr David Skinner.

Marawa Ibrahim, otherwise known as Marawa the Amazing, is a virtuoso of the hula hoop. She has performed and taught hula hooping all over the world from Nepal to New York. She now runs workshops in London and coaches her hula troupe, the Majorettes. She will appear in the 2015 Guinness Book of records in the category for 'the longest time hooping with three hoops in high-heeled roller skates.'

Writer Selina Hastings has written biographies of Nancy Mitford; Evelyn Waugh and Somerset Maugham. For her new book she turns her attention to her father Jack Hastings, the 16th Earl of Huntingdon. He eloped to Australia where he worked as a jackaroo and to the US and Mexico where he studied with Diego Rivera before becoming an artist. The Red Earl - The Extraordinary Life of the 16th Earl of Huntingdon is published by Bloomsbury.

Gary Witheford is a 'horse whisperer'. After a troubled childhood, he found sanctuary in the world of horses, adapting his skills from the work of Monty Roberts and other practitioners from the US. He has helped many top racehorses such as Derby winner Sea The Stars and Brujo who he rescued from a Spanish abattoir. His book, If Horses Could Talk, is published by Racing Post Books (with Brough Scott).

Dr David Skinner is the Osborn director of music at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. Director of Alamire choir, he has produced The Spy's Choirbook originally devised and assembled by Petrus Alamire, a composer, music scribe and spy for Henry VIII. The Spy's Choirbook - Petrus Alamire & the Court of Henry VIII is released by Obsidian Records. A concert will be performed at The British Library where the choirbook is kept.

Producer: Annette Wells.