The Listening Project - Hotels and Hugs

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Fi Glover presents friends, relatives and strangers in conversation.

This week: as hotels open their doors in England, hostel owner Lee and B&B proprietor Catriona discuss how they've weathered the past year; Mel, a solo motherhood coach who chose to have a child using donor sperm, speaks to Demi, a donor conceived adult, about how a child's life is impacted by the decision to conceive in this way; amateur composer Chris and professional conductor Jonathan compare notes on their approaches to music; and introvert Carol and extrovert Alan consider how the pandemic has impacted their attitude towards socialising.

The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moments of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in this decade of the millennium. You can learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Ellie Bury

Published on Sunday, 16th May 2021.

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We are not the BBC, we only list available podcasts. To find out more about the programme including episodes available on BBC iPlayer, go to the The Listening Project webpage.