John Yorke takes a look at an enduring classic of children’s literature, The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Published in 1908, The Wind In The Willows is about nature – both human and animal. It is, on the face of it, a children’s book packed with beloved characters. But hidden beneath the bucolic adventures and Grahame’s beautiful evocation of the landscape, there is a desperate longing to escape the stresses of wide world into the peace and freedom of the natural world - a longing that ran through Kenneth Grahame’s life. His life was claustrophobic, the story – like the countryside - offers space to breathe.

Kenneth Grahame said of his own writing, “You must please remember that a theme, a thesis, is in most cases little more than a sort of clothes line on which one pegs a string of ideas, quotations, allusions and so on, one’s mental undergarments of all shapes and sizes, some possibly fairly new but most rather old and patched; and they dance and sway in the breeze and flap and flutter, or hang limp and lifeless; and some are ordinary enough, and some are of a private and intimate shape, and rather give the owner away, and show up his or her peculiarities.”

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless.  As creator of the BBC Writers Academy, he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names.  He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative - including many podcasts for R4.

Producer: Laura Grimshaw
Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael
Reader: Toby Hadoke
Guests: Elisabeth Galvin and David Gooderson
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Programme Hub Co-ordinators: Nina Semple and Dawn Williams
Sound: Sean Kerwin
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4