麻豆约拍

Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from writers reflecting the range of contemporary life in Britain.

Poet and broadcaster, Ian McMillan, embarks on a high summer stroll along the bridle path linking his home with the post-industrial landscape of South Yorkshire, taking in a flattened colliery, a screaming mandrake, Columbo, the X19 bus to Barnsley and a magpie - or is it two?
Journalist and part-time canoeist, Bob Walker, embarks on a "Three Men in a Boat"-style paddle on the river Wye - which for much of its course marks the border between Wales and England. He finds out that, just as in Jerome K. Jerome's time, there is ferocious competition for access among the different users of the water space, with money often at the heart of the wrangling...
As mental health issues finally command greater attention in households, at work and in society generally, Christine Finn returns to her home town of Deal to discover how those managing conditions are being helped by the use of allotments. Along the way, she realises that old-style denial of mental health problems had gone on much closer to home than she had previously thought.
With the nation's gargantuan appetite for soft fruit reaching its apogee, John Murphy journeys to the berry farms of the garden of England to learn how this demand is satisfied and how growers' costs may force radical changes to the way strawberries, raspberries - and all the rest - reach our tables. He also hears how the polytunnels in which the fruit grows can be unexpectedly romantic locations.
And Ayo Akinwolere, presenter of the West Midlands edition of 麻豆约拍 ONE's "Inside Out", ponders how and when the relationship between fathers and sons alters, their roles invert and how well-prepared both are for the change.

Producer Simon Coates