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Poet Daljit Nagra chooses Conversations on a Bench - Falmouth.

Anna Scott-Brown hears stories from people who stop to sit beside her on a bench in Falmouth, Cornwall.

Throughout the programme a specially commissioned work by poet Penelope Shuttle draws on the voices of those passing by – and sometimes pausing on – the bench in Queen Mary Gardens on the seafront.

It is a counter-intuitive approach to the county that gets away from its picture-postcard image, reflecting the poverty and hardship experienced by many in a post-industrial county.

There are stories of love and death, poignantly brought together as Penelope remembers her late husband Peter on whose bench the conversations are taking place.

Hidden lives are revealed and common threads recur as Anna’s gentle but insistent, and sometimes extremely direct, questions elicit poignant and profound responses from those sitting on the bench.

Produced and presented by Anna Scott-Brown.

An Overtone production for Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 4, first broadcast in 2020.