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Hardship Britain: Personal Stories of Social Issues Today
Hardship Britain: Personal Stories of Social Issues Today
Oct 9, 2024 2:18 AM

Author:Various,Various

Hardship Britain: Personal Stories of Social Issues Today

Individuals who have experienced some of society's biggest issues tell their stories - and search for answers

From climate change, fake news and vaccine hesitancy to mental health, addiction and domestic violence, there are no shortage of societal problems facing the UK right now. But while we are aware these challenges exist, without personal experience it is hard for us to understand what it is like to struggle with them, and harder still to envision potential solutions.

These compelling documentaries, first broadcast on radio under the title 'My Name Is...', introduce us to a range of individuals who have confronted various hardships, telling their stories and following them as they ask difficult questions and endeavour to drive positive change. Among those we meet are Rachel, who has been sectioned multiple times and seeks to challenge the status quo around psychiatric treatment; Katie, a onetime problem gambler investigating how online gambling firms target the vulnerable; Abi, who almost died at the hands of her violent boyfriend and now helps others stay safe; and Fozia, a doctor horrified by the Covid conspiracy theories that leave patients afraid to come to hospital even when they're seriously ill.

We also hear from others whose stories are less harrowing, but equally absorbing. There's Noga, a 17-year-old youth strike organiser doing everything she can to save the planet; Hamza, a basketball and martial arts coach who believes broadening access to sport can improve opportunities for disadvantaged kids; Lucy, who's looking for love and wondering whether to ditch the dating apps; and 11-year-old Roman, who adores Minecraft and wants to know if his parents' limits on his screen time are fair.

Offering unique insight into the lives of a host of extraordinary people, these fascinating first-person accounts highlight the complexity of the issues affecting Britons today, and provide diverse perspectives on how we can set about tackling them.

Production credits

Presented by Noga Levy-Rapoport, Rachel Waddingham, Katie, Josh Walker, 'Courtney', Peter Trimingham, Beth Miles, Abi Blake, Imogen Rhodes, Fozia Hayat, Natasha Saunders, Lucy, Roman, Niellah Arboine, Jordan Lee, Anna, Elvis MacGonagall, Hamza Malik, Joshua Styles, Anna, Christina Adane, Natalie, Haroon Mota, Sam, Kate Deeming, Bex Wilson, Laura Brothwell, Claire Randall, Chris Fox

Produced by Sue Mitchell, Ben Crighton, Lydia Thomas, Miles Warde, Richard McIlroy, Ben Carter, Eliza Lomas, Kevin Core, Mugabi Turya, Seren Jones, Lucy Proctor, Giles Edwards, Beth Hemmings

Production Coordinators: Anne Smith, Gemma Ashman, Dave James, Sarah Goodman, Helen Surtees, Siobhan Maguire

Editors: Philip Sellars, Emma Rippon, Gill Farrington

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on the following dates:

My Name is Noga 1 April 2019

My Name is Rachel 8 April 2019

My Name is Katie 22 April 2019

My Name is Josh 6 May 2019

My Name is Courtney 27 May 2019

My Name is Peter 6 January 2020

My Name is Beth 27 January 2020

My Name is Abi 3 February 2020

My Name is Immie 10 February 2020

My Name is Fozia 27 July 2020

My Name is Natasha 3 August 2020

My Name is Lucy 17 August 2020

My Name is Roman 24 August 2020

My Name is Niellah 31 August 2020

My Name is Jordan 1 February 2021

My Name is Anna 8 February 2021

My Name is Elvis 15 February 2021

My Name is Hamza 1 March 2021

My Name is Josh 8 March 2021

My Name is Anna 16 August 2021

My Name is Christina 30 August 2021

My Name is Natalie 6 September 2021

My Name is Haroon 28 February 2022

My Name is Sam 7 March 2022

My Name is Kate 14 March 2022

My Name is Bex 21 March 2022

My Name is Laura 25 July 2022

My Name is Claire 08 August 2022

My Name is Chris 29 August 2022

© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.

Reviews

A fearless, young new voice with a huge range, from history to pop culture, with that sense of joy in its own word-music which immediately heralds the start of a poetic and political journey. Along with Hera Lindsay Bird, Tayi Tibble adds excitement to the new poetry coming from New Zealand

—— Carol Ann Duffy

Startlingly evocative, lush, moving and hopeful - this is a powerful and thrilling new voice that will stay with me for a long time

—— Daisy Buchanan

Hurls us into a lush biome of sensual density ... one feels in the presence of a singular, searching mind rigorously excavating its own psychospiritual station. Poukahangatus is one of the most exciting debuts I've read in ages

—— Kaveh Akbar

Tayi Tibble is one of the most startling and original poets of her generation. Her poetry makes doorways of insight into turbulent history. At the end, there we are, all standing together, listening

—— Joy Harjo

Tayi Tibble's Poukahangatus was an incredibly rhythmic and refreshing read! Ripe with dazzling imagery, culture and history, this collection offers readers a tale of identity, cross-generational references and so much more. Tibble's rich language breathes new life into poetry and tethers readers to the history of the Maori people and the lasting impact of colonization. The writing screams, 'I was here before & I'll be back again!' I'd suggest this book to every twenty-something trying to find their way!

—— Roya Marsh

I love your collection [Rangikura], it's so good, I'm so impressed ... You totally encapsulate the heady vibe of being a young woman in New Zealand

—— Lorde , Metro NZ

Tibble's luscious, widely praised debut poetry collection [channels] her Maori heritage and the zeitgeist of her childhood ... Tibble transforms tales of mundanity into spellbinding, melodious
encounters. Boys embroiled in a rugby scrum become gritty and vicious ... A game of Cowboys and Indians is incidentally wounding but also depicted as a sharp indictment of the White Savior Complex ... Tibble's running prose poems bubble over with lush imagery and serve as canny time capsules ... Like the stylistic lovechild of Rupi Kaur and Teresia Teaiwa, Tibble is a poet of effervescent verve and great promise

—— Diego Báez , Booklist

This chatty, winsome debut by a young New Zealand poet mines family history, Maori myth and the residue of pop culture to fashion a striking sensibility

—— New York Times Book Review

Tibble's affinity for poetry was literally written in the stars ... Tibble blends past and present, peppering her poems with pop culture references

—— Serena Smith , Dazed

It makes little sense to approach a character of such extensive and various connections as the bookseller and publisher Joseph Johnson other than via the clubbable sort of method at which Daisy Hay has already proven herself adept... In Dinner with Joseph Johnson, she has again broadened her scope... Hay pursues lines of enquiry with patience and sensitivity to detail

—— Freya Johnston , Literary Review

Highly original . . . engagingly candid [and] thought-provoking

—— Martina Devlin , Irish Independent

I loved this luminous, radical book about bodies in time. It is a deeply personal history, that simultaneously brings medieval myth and poetry to breathing, bleeding life. An education for the mind and the heart

—— Clare Pollard

Fiercely smart, strange, surprising

—— Jennifer O'Connell , Irish Times

Extremely intriguing . . . I found myself completely absorbed. Fascinating

—— Ryan Tubridy

Everything is illuminated, magnified, revisioned: sexual desire, motherhood, family. Her writing is unorthodox, unnerving, and very exciting

—— Tanya Shadrick, author of The Cure for Sleep

An outstanding achievement. Fierce Appetites defies easy categorization, is brilliantly written and simply deserves to be read

—— Darach Ó Séaghdha

I absolutely loved this utterly original book. Immersing myself in Elizabeth Boyle's considerable brain was a true privilege, and the way she uses medieval narratives to unpick her own present was endlessly surprising and beautiful. I read it in two sittings, devouring her perspective on life, love, loss

—— Clover Stroud

[A] marvellous, astonishing, funny, moving, wise, reflective, deeply scholarly, fascinating book

—— Aidan O'Sullivan

All twelve essays are freighted with that fierceness the title trumpets

—— RTÉ Guide

This book is extraordinary . . . a wonderful work of women's memoir

—— Sinéad Crowley

There's been a swell of books about the former German Democratic Republic this year, but this chunky tome might be the best. Historian Hoyer blends large-scale political insights with engaging personal stories

—— Independent, Summer Books

Katja Hoyer’s history of East Germany infuses history with memoir to tell a story of country that will surprise many of us by holding up facts to our prejudices about the place. Through political, economic and social history, Beyond the Wall presents an East Germany that was not as backward as most thought and one that, for all its repression, offered some economic security that today’s east Germans might feel they lack

—— Eoin O'Malley , Irish Independent

Katja Hoyer's monumentally successful history of the GDR is a call to restore the history of East Germany to the mainstream of German modern history ... a feast of vignettes and anecdotes, it is a genuine pleasure to read

—— Roger Moorhouse , Aspects of History

Beyond the Wall recreates vividly what it was like to live under communist rule behind the Iron Curtain. Fascinating and wholly original

—— Richard Hopton , Country and Town House

Through interviews and personal experience, Katja Hoyer brings a new understanding to a country that has now vanished ... A fresh look at what life was like for average people in East Germany ... intriguing and surprising

—— ABC, Radio National

With Beyond the Wall, Katja Hoyer confirms her place as one of the best young historians writing in English today. On the heels of her superb Blood and Iron, about the rise and fall of the Second Reich, comes another masterpiece, this one about the aftermath of the Third Reich in the East. Well-researched, well-written and profoundly insightful, it explodes many of the lazy Western cliches about East Germany

—— Andrew Roberts

Utterly brilliant. This gripping account of East Germany sheds new light on what for many of us remains an opaque chapter of history. Authoritative, lively and profoundly human, it is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand post-WW2 Europe

—— Julia Boyd

A gripping and nuanced history of the GDR from its beginnings as a separate German socialist state against the wishes of Stalin to its final rapprochement with its Western other against those of Gorbachev. Beyond the Wall is a unique fresco of everyday reality in East Germany. Elegantly moving between diplomatic history, political economy and cultural analysis, this is an essential read to understand not only the life and death of the GDR but also the parts of it that still survive in the emotions of its former citizens.

—— Lea Ypi

Superb, totally fascinating and compelling, Katja Hoyer's first full history of East Germany's rise and fall is a work of revelatory original research - and a gripping read with a brilliant cast of characters. Essential reading

—— Simon Sebag Montefiore

A beyond-brilliant new picture of the rise and fall of the East German state. Katja Hoyer gives us not only pin-sharp historical analysis, but an up-close and personal view of both key characters and ordinary citizens whose lives charted some of the darkest hours of the Cold War. If you thought you knew the history of East Germany, think again. An utterly riveting read

—— Julie Etchingham

A fantastic, sparkling book, filled with insights not only about East Germany but about the Cold War, Europe and the forging of the 20th and 21st centuries

—— Peter Frankopan

The joke has it that the duty of the last East German to escape from the country was to turn off the lights. In Beyond the Wall Katja Hoyer turns the light back on and gives us the best kind of history: frank, vivid, nuanced and filled with interesting people

—— Ivan Krastev

A refreshing and eye-opening book on a country that is routinely reduced to cartoonish cliché. Beyond the Wall is a tribute to the ordinary East Germans who built themselves a society that - for a time - worked for them, a society carved out of a state founded in the horrors of Nazism and Stalinism

—— Owen Hatherley

A colourful and often revelatory re-appraisal of one of modern history's most fascinating political curiosities. Katja Hoyer skilfully weaves diverse political and private lives together, from the communist elite to ordinary East Germans

—— Frederick Taylor

Katja Hoyer is becoming the authoritative voice in the English speaking world for all things German. Thanks to her, German history has the prominence in the Anglosphere it certainly deserves.

—— Dan Snow

Katja Hoyer brilliantly shows that the history of East Germany was a significant chapter of German history, not just a footnote to it or a copy of the Soviet Union. To understand Germany today we have to grapple with the history and legacy of its all but dismissed East

—— Serhii Plokhy

Katja Hoyer's return to discover what happened to her homeland - the old East Germany - is an excellent counterpoint to Stasiland by Anna Funder

—— Iain Macgregor

Beguiling and beautifully written, this is the work of an author with a bright future

—— Tortoise

Coruscating originality, emotional potency, astonishing artistic vim... This signals the arrival of a truly breathtaking literary voice... A scintillating tour de force

—— Yorkshire Times

Fierce and accomplished, Assembly interrogates the high cost of surviving in a system designed to exclude you

—— Economist

I was blown away by Assembly, an astonishing book that forces us to see what's underpinning absolutely everything

—— Lauren Elkin, author of 'Flaneuse'

Coiled and charged, a small shockwave... Sometimes you come across a short novel of such compressed intensity that you wonder why anyone would bother reading longer narratives... [Assembly] casts a huge shadow

—— MoneyControl

A masterwork . . . it contains centuries of wisdom, aesthetic experimentation and history. Brown handles her debut with a surgeon's control and a musician's sensitivity to sound

—— Tess Gunty , Guardian

An extraordinary book, and a compelling read that had me not only gripped but immediately determined to listen again... Highly recommended

—— Financial Times on 'Assembly' in audiobook

'As utterly, urgently brilliant as everyone has said. A needle driven directly into the sclerotic heart of contemporary Britain. Beautiful proof that you don't need to write a long book, just a good book'

—— Rebecca Tamas, author of 'Witch'

Every line of this electrifying debut novel pulses with canny social critique

—— Oprah Daily

Devastatingly eloquent, bold, poignant

—— Shelf Awareness

An achievement that will leave you wondering just how it's possible that this is only the author's very first work... Brown packs so much commentary and insight inside of every single sentence... Original and startling all at once. After reading Assembly, I cannot wait to see what Natasha Brown does next

—— Shondaland

[Brown's] work is like that of an excellent photographer - you feel like you are finally seeing the world sharply and without the common filters. That is hypnotising

—— Rowan Hisayo Buchanan , Guardian

A brilliantly compressed, existentially daring study of a high-flying Black woman negotiating the British establishment

—— Guardian, 'Best Fiction of 2021' , Justine Jordan
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