Showing results by narrator "Alex Tregear" in All Categories

June 1933. Independent, young Kitty Underhay has been left in charge of her family’s hotel, The Dolphin, on the tranquil English coast. But when several rooms are broken into and searched, including Kitty’s own, she quickly realizes that something out of the ordinary is afoot at the hotel. Soon, rumors are flying in the cozy town that someone is on the hunt for a stolen ruby. A ruby that Kitty’s mother may well have possessed when she herself went missing during the Great War.

The East End of London has been devastated by the Blitz and the people are struggling to come to terms with their ravaged city. Rationing bites ever deeper, and and everything that makes life better is in short supply. For the district nurses, the challenges are tougher than ever. Gladys loves her work in the Civil Nursing Reserve, but just when she needs to rely on her sister at home to help out with the chores, she turns into a handful of trouble. Edith is learning to cope with her boyfriend's injuries after Dunkirk but will she have to choose between her love for him and her career?

The three sisters of Victory Walk in East London will face heartache and tears on the home front. As rationing, blackouts and bombs start to bite, life will change forever for the three sisters.

Lou Clark knows a lot of things. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop, and she might not love her boyfriend Patrick. Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live, and now everything feels small and joyless. What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

This history of relatives lost and found was originally broadcast on 3, 10 and 17 May 2011 in the 'Afternoon Play' slot. The first play, 'The Wrong Label', is set in London in 1941. Alice knows that to stop your children from being evacuated is tantamount to siding with Hitler. In 'The Year My...

It’s autumn 1940 and the Blitz has cast its shadow over London. Everyone is doing their bit to help, including the three Harrison sisters of the East End’s Victory Walk. Nurse Rose is snowed under in the hospital tending to victims of the bombings. Her sister Clover is on active duty on the south coast, while the baby of the family, Daisy, is growing up quickly working on the London Underground, now that thousands of people are taking shelter down below. Even in wartime, the sisters find time for a wedding, but the bride is keeping a secret, which threatens to come to light.

Today started off like every other: tedious letters, refilling the coffee machine, unjamming the printer. But then, just as I was about to clock off, for a girls’ night of pasta and wine with my best friends, big news: Michael Hunter is going to be my new boss. Gorgeous, smart, funny (maybe a little too confident) Michael, a.k.a. the man of my dreams.

The compelling new bestseller from the author of The Mersey Daughter and Winter on the Mersey. Alice Lake has arrived in London from Liverpool to start her training as a District Nurse, but her journey has been far from easy. Her parents think that she should settle down and get married, but she...

You know that feeling? When you want something so badly, you almost feel you'd kill for it? Be careful what you wish for.... Kat and her husband Nick have tried everything to become parents, and are on the point of giving up. Then a chance encounter with Kat's childhood friend Lisa gives Kat and Nick one last chance to achieve their dream. But Kat and Lisa's history hides dark secrets. And there is more to Lisa than meets the eye.

November 1933. Amateur sleuth-cum-dutiful granddaughter Kitty Underhay stifles a sigh of boredom as she attends the annual Hoteliers' Association Dinner and Dance on behalf of her grandmother, the proprietress of the Dolphin Hotel. She hopes the company of ex-army captain Matthew Bryant will enliven the otherwise dull evening. That is, until bullish and overbearing local councilor Harold Everton drops dead into his bowl of consommé.

Megan has to climb round and step across the body to get a proper view. What's left is like a chalk white mask in the rough shape of a face. The innocence is still there, and a hint of the cheekiness. But perhaps she is imagining that. Detective Megan Thomas moved to Devon for a fresh start, after years spent undercover. She's staying with her sister and swimming in the sea daily, battling the tides and letting the waves wash her past away. But she can't outrun everything.

The compelling new best seller from the author of The Mersey Daughter and Winter on the Mersey. Alice Lake and her friend Edith have had everything thrown at them in their first year as district nurses in London’s East End. From babies born out of wedlock to battered wives, they’ve had plenty to keep them occupied. As rationing takes hold and Hitler’s bombers train their sights on London, there is no escaping the reality of being at war.

At 28, Lucy is doing well for herself. She's got a great job, her boss loves her, and her friends think she's great. The only problem is she does feel the need to lie outrageously on dates - often with hilarious results. But when Lucy decides that her flatmate and oldest friend, Henry, is in need of a makeover, nothing can prepare them for the surprise results! Before long, Lucy realises that their lives will never be the same again.

Emma and her friends are about to turn 30, and for Emma it's a defining moment. Defined, that is, by her having achieved none of the things she'd imagined she would. She's never jumped out of a plane, hasn't met the man she's going to marry or snogged anyone famous. As Emma hurtles towards her thirtieth, she discovers, with hilarious consequences, that some of them are trickier to tick off than she'd thought....

Renowned novelist and poet Thomas Hardy is best known for his fatalistic, often tragic novels set in the 'realistic dream-country' of Wessex, in south and south-west England. Drawing on his own life, he created some of the most memorable characters and stories in Victorian literature—many of which are included here. In five dramas taken from Radio 4's 'Hardy's Women' season, we meet a few of Thomas Hardy's most compelling female protagonists.

I'm Daphne Wood, the bookseller of Castle Combe. My life was peaceful until the best-selling author Gill Holland moved to town. He bought the house next to mine, the late Bettie's place, and became my new neighbour. The girls from the book club envied my luck. I thought so too, until I started seeing the most disturbing things. They didn't know Gill Holland like I did.

Sci-fi comedy about the bizarre city of Undone - a weird parallel version of London. Edna Turner has moved to London to start a new job at entertainment magazine Get Out! When she arrives, she meets the strange Tankerton Slopes, who claims to come from a parallel version of London known as 'Undone'. Undone is 'where the weirdness comes from': where you can find pet tricks shows, medication designed to make you paranoid and the Undone delicacy ‘troubled eggs’. Weird things flow into London, and mundane things flow into Undone, making them the peculiar places they are.

Sometimes, the hardest part of finding love is keeping a straight face... For Jamie Newman, being a single guy isn't proving to be much fun, especially when confronted with a sexually belligerent divorcee and a goddess so far out of his league she might as well be a different species. Mind you, being a girl in search of love isn't a bowl of cherries either.

Summer 1933. Fresh from the discovery that she has family living nearby, Kitty Underhay has packed her carpet bag, commandeered a chambermaid and set off on a visit to stately Enderley Hall. She’s looking forward to getting to know her relatives, as well as the assembled group of house guests. But when elderly Nanny Thoms is found dead at the bottom of the stairs after papers of national importance are stolen, Kitty quickly learns that Muffy the dog’s muddy paws on her hemline are the least of her problems.

Late summer 1933. After a quarrel with too-plucky-for-her-own-good amateur sleuth Kitty Underhay, dashing ex-army captain Matthew Bryant is nursing his wounds, and a tumbler of brandy, when there’s a heavy knock at the door and he finds himself arrested for murder. The body of aspiring actress Pearl Bright has been found, strangled with one of Matt’s own bootlaces, and the evidence seems to be stacked against him. The local constabulary might have locked Matt up, but before they can throw away the key, Kitty hears the news and hies to his aid, determined to prove his innocence.