Sounds On from Manx Television Ryan Burgess

Communities across Britain are enlisted to raise funds for Spitfires.

The struggle against the Nazis has to be fought by ordinary people as much as by the army and air force. Communities across Britain are enlisted to raise funds for Spitfires. Villages, sports clubs, trades unions and churches devise money-making stunts and give their names to individual planes and whole squadrons.

In August of 1939, a busload of men and women of various European nationalities and diverse talents was driven from Broadcasting House in London to Wood Norton near Evesham in Worcestershire. On arrival, they plunged at once Into a demanding round-the-clock routine.

'It was something worth doing that I could do ... lovely job.'

'The atmosphere was hectic but rather cheerful ...'

'A tremendous experience, humanly, professionally, politically...'

'An extraordinary experience, like being in a new planet...'

Alvar Lidell narrates the story of the BBC's Monitoring Service during the Second World War.

Script: Norman Longmate; Interviews: Robert Rowe; Reader: Sean Arnold; Producer: Barbara Crowther.

©1981 British Broadcasting Corporation. ©1981-2020 Hampton Media Television Corporation, Plc.

First broadcast on 14 January 1981 on BBC Radio 4 UK.

The Supermarine Spitfire factory was a priority target for German bombers. The workers endured raid after raid. If vital Spitfires are going to continue to be built, then a plan is desperately needed.

©2020 BBC Studios, Ltd. ©2020 Hampton Media Television Corporation, Ltd.

Something is coming. Can America's friendship with Iran survive? In the first episode of the nine-part drama, US President Jimmy Carter visits Tehran in December 1977.

©2019 BBC Studios, Ltd. ©2020 Hampton Media Television Corporation, Ltd.

Racing driver Vicki Butler-Henderson recalls one of sport's most intense rivalries as swashbuckling British playboy James Hunt took on Formula One World Champion Niki Lauda, a man who by the August of 1976 would be fighting for his life in a German hospital.

  Motorsport legends Murray Walker, journalist Nigel Roebuck and Niki Lauda himself tell how Hunt, in his British McLaren, chased the Austrian's scarlet Ferrari in a 200mph season-long duel from Brazil to Japan. It wasn't long before the handsome, blonde, badly behaved Hunt became Britain's number one sporting hero, filling the front and back pages of international newspapers in the scorching summer of '76 with his outrageous car control and equally outrageous personal life.  Thrilling archive and first-hand testimonies from three-time world champion Lauda and famed Austrian commentator and author Heinz Pruller tell how, in the August of that year, Ferrari's golden boy crashed heavily at the notorious Nurburgring circuit in Germany. His car burst into flames, and left Lauda, stricken with terrible burns, to receive the Last Rites.  What followed remains one of sport's most heroic chapters as Lauda went from death's door to returning to the track, battle-scarred and bleeding, taking the fight with Hunt to the final race of the year and setting up a gladiatorial showdown amid monsoon conditions at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Andrew and Iain are reunited for the latest edition of The Cut at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship where the Race to Dubai winner will be decided.

  Tyrell Hatton, fresh from his victory in Turkey the week prior, joins them to talk about finishing that round under the floodlights and whether he needs anger management. Plus Ian Poulter pops along to talk Tiger Woods and the future direction of golf, plus Andrew grows concerned he’ll be in the sights of Greta Thunberg.