An atmospheric gathering storm of a documentary exploring the extraordinary history of the Beaufort Scale - a system designed to help find language for the wind.Sea like a mirror
Whistling heard in telegraph wires
Umbrellas used with difficulty...In this programme we climb to the top of a lighthouse in the Outer Hebrides, labelled the windiest point in Britain by the Guinness Book of Records, and travel deep into the Met Office archives. With contributions from the writer Scott Huler, author of Defining the Wind; Ruairidh Macrae, the retained lighthouse keeper for the Butt of Lewis and Eilean Glas lighthouses in the Outer Hebrides; Catherine Ross, the library and archive manager at the Met Office; and John Morales, a hurricane specialist and meteorologist with 40 years experience in the field.The Beaufort scale is read by Charlotte Green
Original music composed by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music by Eleanor McDowall
Mix by Mike WoolleyProduced by Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
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The Frozen Light
Once a year, residents of Longyearbyen gather where the steps of the old hospital used to be to witness the return of something they have not seen in months – sunlight. The Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, part of Norway, is as far north as humans can live. This dramatic polar world experiences 24-hour daylight in summer and total darkness in winter.But on March 8th, locals and visitors of its largest settlement, Longyearbyen, wait with baited breath until a single ray of sunshine appears upon the old hospital steps, warming their cheeks for a few minutes before disappearing once more behind the vast mountains that surround the town. Journalist and producer Lara Bullens takes us with her to witness this miraculous moment, but also to understand why people have decided to make a home in a place not meant for humans. Svalbard is a barren frozen land, devoid of trees or crops. The risk of avalanches is always lurking around the corner. Polar bears outnumber humans. Powerful winds and sub-zero temperatures engulf the landscape most of the year. Deprived of sunlight for months at a time, many residents battle depression. The remote landscape is also experiencing vast transitions. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as any other part of the planet, banishing sea ice and opening its waters to the exploitation of natural resources. Coal mining, the industry on which Svalbard’s economy was built, is coming to an end. And non-Norwegians living in Longyearbyen are increasingly feeling less stable here. Yet humans decide to stay, bound together by the eternal cycle of light. Written and Presented by Lara Bullens
Produced by Lara Bullens and Steven Rajam
Executive Producer: Leonie Thomas
Mix and Sound Design: Mike Woolley
An Overcoat Media production for BBC Radio 4
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Lost and Found
When a dog goes missing it can be devastating. It’s every dog owners worst nightmare. Social media is awash with posts about lost dogs, some of them scams, but many are genuine cries for help from distressed people who have lost an animal they love. Between January 2023 and June 2024 almost 5000 dogs were reported missing in the UK.In March 2025, Roger put a lead on his Jack Russell terrier Betty, as he attended to his boat at Buckden Marina in St Neots, Cambridgeshire. With his back turned for a few minutes, she disappeared. In this episode of Illuminated, we join a group of volunteers with St Neots Animal Search and Rescue as they seek to reunite Betty and Roger using all the experience, teamwork and technology available. Colin Butcher is a pet detective based in West Sussex who has been recovering missing and stolen pets for over 20 years. As Colin shares his expert tips for dog-owners, through field recordings from a tiny microphone attached to a dog-collar, listeners are invited to enter the world of our missing puppy.Producer: Peter ShevlinA Pod60 production for BBC Radio 4
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You've Got Worms
Worms are everywhere - in our soils, our seas, and our selves. Dive down a worm burrow on this sound-rich odyssey to meet our most numerous and intimate animal companion.Science writer Jack Monaghan will guide you through gardens and farms, factories and laboratories to look afresh at our wriggling, wonderful world.Producer and narrator: Jack Monaghan
Sound design and original music: Robert Moutrey
Executive producer: Bridget Harney
A Pronk production for BBC Radio 4
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A Walk in Time
Where do we begin to think about time without humans to count it? Chris Gasson spends every spare moment on his local beach, Seatown on the Jurassic coast of Dorset, looking out for fossils and stones that speak of a past and future too vast for us to easily imagine. On his walks, Chris has found countless time capsules - including a mammoth tooth, plesiosaur vertebrae and the remains of an ichthyosaur 190 million years old, now under research by Craig Chivers. 'It's a fantastic find,' says Craig. 'Fossils are a snapshot in time a bit like paintings and writings. Trace fossils that show where a dinosaur once stepped and left a footprint behind, or an ammonite has rolled along the sea floor and left an impression in the sediment, really stir the imagination.' Our walk along Seatown beach is accompanied by readings by geologist and writer, Marcia Bjornerud, Walter Schober Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of Geosciences at Lawrence University, Wisconsin. Her essay Wrinked Time imagines humans as wandering in a vast, labyrinthine library of time. 'We are like squatters living amid the remains of earlier empires, worlds defined by different geographies,' she writes in a work that first appeared in Emergence Magazine. Marcia shows us how fragments from that library still exist in the most synthetic, human-made products like phones and computers if only we have eyes to see them. Produced by Jon Nicholls and Monica Whitlock
Sound design and music by Jon Nicholls
Photograph by Monica WhitlockA Storyscape production for BBC Radio 4For many more creative and surprising one-off documentaries like this, just search for Illuminated on BBC Sounds.
Illuminated is BBC Radio 4's home for creative and surprising one-off documentaries that shed light on hidden worlds.Welcome to a place of audio beauty and joy, with emotion and human experience at its heart. The programmes you will find in this feed explore the reality of contemporary Britain and the world, venturing into its weirdest and most wonderful aspects. This is a chance to meet voices that are not normally heard, open secret doors into concealed chambers and, above all, be transported by the art and inventiveness of the very best programme makers. Just press the switch.New episodes are available weekly on Sunday evenings. Subscribe on BBC Sounds to make sure you don't miss an episode.
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