Not four children

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  Kate Chisholm

  Not four children

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Alexander Larman

What happened to the Rishi Sunak I knew at school?

‘We have not been able to find a successful way of putting a programme for children on an adult-rated station,’ says Four’s Controller. But might that be something to do with the fact that Go4it was scheduled to go out at seven o’clock on Sunday nights, a terrible time for families busy preparing for the week ahead with homework, gymkit, uniforms and swimming gear to find, complete, iron, repair, teach and check up on. You might argue that if the programme had so few listeners, and of a suitable age, why spend money on keeping it going. Why, too, when BBC7 carries CBeebies every afternoon? But do we really want Radio Four to become an adult-only network?

On last Saturday’s Today programme, the former children’s laureate Michael (War Horse) Morpurgo told Evan Davis, ‘I wouldn’t be listening to your programme if it wasn’t for Dick Barton: Special Agent.’ He believes that radio is ‘a habit’, and you have to learn it young. He also recognises the importance of giving children their space in the adult world. It’s an unbalanced society that keeps the generations apart. You only have to think of those parties where the invitation stipulates, ‘No children’. The childish ability to laugh at the incongruous and to be so direct — ‘Why have you got so many lines on your forehead?’ — is a vital ingredient of adult life.

The opposing voice to Morpurgo came from a publisher of illustrated children’s books who argued that children are ‘intolerant of any medium that doesn’t give them the visual’. But surely the love of words comes before a child’s fascination with images? Babies rely on what they can hear from the moment they enter the world, which is why audiology tests have been developed so that all children are now screened at birth to pick up on any hearing difficulties straight away.

Before radio there were always rhymes, songs, stories, told from generation to generation and used to develop vocabulary and imaginative play. When radio began, it took on these aural traditions, encouraging listening not so much as individuals but in concert with others. At school (not so very long ago) we listened as a class to Homer being read to us on Schools Radio during needlework lessons, pricking our thumbs in a frostbound classroom as Penelope sat weaving on her Greek island.

Morpurgo was asked on Today to design a radio programme for children. ‘Make more dramas, at least one a week, and involve all the family,’ said Morpurgo. He’s witnessed ‘the joy in people’s hearts’ when grandparent, parent and child have been brought together by enjoying the same experience ‘in terms of story and theatre’. At a single stroke, Radio Four could enhance our endangered family life and develop in children the vital art of listening.