One of the advantages that podcasts have over the scheduled array of programmes is the space that can be given to a subject, turning what would have been a one-off into a whole series sometimes three or four hours long. This can be offputting. Who has the time to give so much to one programme? Even more so now when there’s so much else on offer to distract and entertain. But in the case of the new podcast ‘dropped’ this week by the Beyond Today team those three hours (in six half-hour episodes) have been used to best effect, allowing the story to build, the voices to become clearer, the families and the horror of what they have experienced to become more real.
Claire Read’s series, Deadliest Day (produced by Heidi Pett), takes us back to 2009 and the war in Afghanistan and to one day in particular on which five members of a single platoon of infantrymen were killed and several badly injured. But that’s not the end of the story, says Read. Two more members of 9 Platoon, C Company, 2 Rifles have died since that day in July 2009. Read wants to find out why. Could those additional deaths have been prevented? Has the army done enough to help them?
Kevin Holt was getting ready for a weekend away at a special centre for soldiers who have suffered from PTSD when he died last year from an overdose of morphine (he had testicular cancer and had been prescribed morphine tablets to help with the pain). ‘He didn’t come home’ [from Afghanistan], said his sister. ‘It completely messed with his head.’ But at the inquest into his death the given verdict was ‘death by misadventure’.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in