Kate Chisholm

Last suppers

Plus: why Radio 4’s fascinating new series The Patch could become a long-running favourite

You don’t need headphones to appreciate, and catch on to, the unique selling point of radio: its immediacy, its directness, that sense that someone is talking to you, and you alone. In fact, if anything, headphones take away from radio’s ability to reach out to the isolated and the lonely, to create that connection between you, the listener, and that someone else, the person behind the mic. With headphones the voice gets inside your head, but it’s not like having a conversation. That USP also explains why listening in the car works so well, creating a companionship while driving alone along a road empty of human contact, surrounded by fast-moving machines. You need that voice to reassure and remind, keep you focused and aware.

Behind the wheel is also where you’re most likely to experience the serendipity of switching on and hearing something that suddenly speaks directly to you, the words moving beyond just hearing into a much deeper connection, a resonance. The other day, for instance, on a routine run home from the shops, I found myself inside an American prison and listening to the cook who had spent years preparing food for those on death row.

The cook, Brian Price, was talking on Short Cuts, Radio 4’s series of short documentaries that tell a story, take us into another life, curated by Josie Long (and produced by Eleanor McDowall). Price had been assigned to the kitchen on arrival at the Walls Unit prison in Huntsville, Texas, and was taught his craft by a four-star chef. (How, one wondered, had both Price and the chef ended up in prison?) In 1991 Price took over the job of making meals for those about to be executed and did it for the next ten years, preparing 189 last meals.

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