Podcast · Tech & Science
by BBC Radio 4 · English · Tech & Science
Martha Kearney explores the importance of the natural world in the lives of her guests. Each person she meets takes her to a location which means something to them, and describes the role nature has played in their life, explaining how it has shaped, influenced or fascinated them. In the process s
13 Aug 2026 · 24 min
The adventurer and author Phoebe Smith takes Martha Kearney to her favourite mountain, Tryfan in Eryri, also known as Snowdonia, in Wales. She grew up near the mountain but never went into the countryside until a decision by her mum ended up changing the course of her life. Producer Beth O'Dea
6 Aug 2026 · 24 min
Where once she had a reputation for wild living, the artist Dame Tracey Emin introduces Martha Kearney to the place where she says her wildness comes out today. Since having life-saving surgery for bladder cancer in 2020, she swims almost every day in the sea in Margate. The waves and the landscape hold many memories for her going back to her childhood, but today it is the place she says heals her - the place where she says she feels invincible. Produced by Polly Weston
30 Jul 2026 · 24 min
The nature writer Patrick Barkham takes Martha Kearney on a butterfly-spotting trip in Foxley Wood, Norfolk. This is Norfolk's largest ancient woodland, which has been undergoing restoration since the 1980s. Seven summers ago, it saw the return of the rare purple emperor butterfly, which had become extinct in the region. Patrick tells Martha why this place is so special to him, connecting him to his late father, an ecologist who played a key role in helping to save the wood. He reflects on how they shared a deep bond through butterfly spotting together and how the final years of his father's…
23 Jul 2026 · 24 min
The writer and structural engineer behind The Shard, Roma Agrawal, takes Martha Kearney to Kilburn Grange Park in north-west London. The park was an oasis for Roma during some of the most difficult periods of her life. Roma shares how she sees the world through the lens of a structural engineer, reflecting on materials, society and the ways we organise our cities. She tells Martha about her upbringing in Mumbai, India, and the natural world that surrounded her there, comparing it with the landscapes she experiences in the UK today. The pair also visit a special spot in the park – the rose…
16 Jul 2026 · 24 min
Aardman Animations co-founder Peter Lord takes Martha Kearney to the magical mediaeval Whitcliff Deer Park in Berkeley, Gloucestershire. It's his favourite place to walk in nature and watch the wild fallow and red deer herds that live there inside the old walls, on land that's been left wild for centuries. Producer Beth O'Dea
9 Jul 2026 · 24 min
Judi Dench is one of the nation's best loved actors, but she is also well-known for her love of trees. In this programme, Martha Kearney meets Judi at her woodland garden in Surrey, where she learns that every time a friend dies, Judi plants a tree in their memory. Judi gives Martha a tour of the woodland, and talks about the many references to the natural world which can be found in Shakespeare's plays. She points out some of the trees in her woodland which hold special significance for her. Producer: Emma Campbell
1 Jan 2026 · 24 min
Comedian Kiri Pritchard-McLean grew up on a farm on the island of Anglesey in North Wales. In this programme, she tells Martha Kearney about her connection with the natural world and explains why the mountains and sea of this beautiful landscape mean so much to her. She takes Martha to visit Llanddwyn, a tiny island off Anglesey, explaining why it's such a special place for her. She describes her childhood on the farm and tells Martha what brought her back to living in rural North Wales - a life very different to the glitz of the city comedy clubs she made her name in. She talks about her…
23 Dec 2025 · 25 min
In this special edition of This Natural Life, His Majesty The King tells Martha Kearney about his lifelong passion for nature and the environment. As they walk together through the walled garden at Dumfries House in Ayrshire, the King reflects on how his love of the natural world began in childhood and discusses topics ranging from school farms and marine conservation to the art of topiary and the joy of secateurs. Martha also talks to young people and tutors on educational schemes based at the two thousand acre estate, which is owned by the King’s Foundation. Photo courtesy of the King's…
18 Dec 2025 · 24 min
Dara McAnulty, a 21-year-old Northern Irish naturalist currently studying at Cambridge, is home for the winter break. He takes Martha Kearney to one of his favourite places nearby - the Murlough National Nature Reserve in the Mourne Mountains. This special landscape of ancient forest, sand dunes, and a colony of seals lies on the edge of Dundrum Bay, framed by the Mourne Mountains. Dara shares his deep connection to this place and explains why he loves visiting in all weathers. He reflects on his journey into the natural world, beginning with his early years in Belfast and growing up as an…
11 Dec 2025 · 24 min
Martha Kearney meets Jane Anderson, one of the UK's leading physicians in HIV medicine, to learn about the living library of plants at Chelsea Physic Garden. Since childhood, Jane has always been a huge lover of plants and their many remarkable uses - for food, for medicine, for health and wellbeing. As they walk around the medicinal plant beds, she speaks about human health and planetary health, and how they are both completely interconnected. Producer: Becky Ripley
4 Dec 2025 · 24 min
Emma Pinchbeck is the Chief Executive Officer of the Climate Change Committee - the independent body which advises the government on emissions targets and the impacts of climate change. She grew up in the Cotswolds, where Martha Kearney meets her to hear about her love of the Gloucestershire countryside. Emma talks about her childhood in the Stroud valleys, where her family roots go back twelve generations and where she is now bringing up her own children. She explains how deeply-rooted her connection to the natural world is - influencing everything from her choice of college as a teenager…
27 Nov 2025 · 24 min
The Essex Serpent author Sarah Perry takes Martha Kearney to see the great rook and jackdaw roost at Buckenham Carrs in Norfolk. At dusk thousands of birds descend to settle in the trees for the night, a sight that Sarah finds both magical and comforting. She explains the role that nature plays in her novels, as active as any other character. Sarah Perry is the author of After Me Comes the Flood, The Essex Serpent, Melmoth, Enlightenment and Death of an Ordinary Man. Producer: Beth O'Dea
7 Aug 2025 · 25 min
The author Jeanette Winterson grew up in Accrington in Lancashire, but has made her home in a village in rural Gloucestershire. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of her best-known novel 'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit'. In this programme she talks to Martha Kearney, giving her unique access to the garden of her cottage, where she grows her own fruit and vegetables. She explains why nature, wildlife and life in the countryside are so important to her, as she gives Martha a tour of her veg patch. Producer: Emma Campbell
31 Jul 2025 · 24 min
Martha Kearney travels to one of Britain's most isolated islands where the illustrator of books by the likes of Simon Armitage and Isabella Tree seeks her inspiration among the seabird colonies of Fair Isle. Angela Harding's lino-cut prints are an integral part of the recent boom in nature writing. Dynamic birds or mammals dominate the foreground while abstract interpretations of landscape set them in the context of wild shores and woodlands. Martha catches up with Angela as she searches for fresh inspiration on an artist's retreat on Fair Isle, a tiny island halfway between Orkney and…
24 Jul 2025 · 24 min
Lira Valencia grew up in Croydon, the daughter of refugee parents from South America. In this programme she shows Martha Kearney around the Walthamstow Wetlands nature reserve in London, where she now works as a ranger. She tells Martha about the passion for wildlife which she has had ever since she was a small child. Growing up in a flat with no outdoor space, her favourite place was her grandmother's back garden in Streatham, where she discovered a fascination with snails which endures to this day. She talks about the barriers which she had to overcome in order to work in the conservation…
17 Jul 2025 · 24 min
Antony Gormley's sculptures on Crosby beach are one his best-known works. In this programme, he shows Martha Kearney around the sculptures, and talks about his relationship with the natural world - especially the sea. The artwork in Merseyside consists of one hundred male figures cast in metal, and based on Antony's own body. As they are submerged with the rising and falling tides, their form evolves and changes, and they become rusty and encrusted with sealife. He describes one of them as "a participatory artwork made by me and a whole community of barnacles." As they stroll along the shore…
10 Jul 2025 · 24 min
Charlotte Church rose to global fame at just eleven years old, renowned for the extraordinary purity of her singing voice. From growing up in what she describes as a working-class household in Cardiff, her career took her to the world’s grandest stages, performing for audiences which included the Pope and the U.S. President, and releasing best-selling albums. But that early fame also came with its own set of challenges, some of which, she explains, she is still "not quite grateful for, yet... but what teaching!" Today, Charlotte’s preferred concert hall is something entirely different: the…
27 Mar 2025 · 24 min
Author of The Salt Path Raynor Winn takes Martha Kearney back to walk part of it: the south west coast path from Polruan in Cornwall, where her story ended and where the new film of her book is set. She talks about what nature means to her and how it effectively saved her life, and that of her husband, Moth. They set out to walk the 630 mile coast path when they lost their home and livelihood, and Moth was diagnosed with a terminal illness. They walked through it all and came out at the other end with renewed hope. Raynor Winn is a long-distance walker and writer whose first book, The Salt…
20 Mar 2025 · 25 min
George McGavin is an entomologist, author, academic and television presenter. In this programme he shows Martha Kearney around the university research woodland at Wytham, just outside the city of Oxford. He explains how the natural world came to take on such a significance in his personal and professional life. He tells Martha why insects hold such a fascination for him, and together they explore the flora and fauna of the woodland. Producer: Emma Campbell
13 Mar 2025 · 25 min
Conservationist and adventurer Sacha Dench tells Martha Kearney about her love of the natural world. She explains how she came to fly a paramotor along the whole length the 4000-mile route that migrating swans take from the Russian tundra to the UK – leading to her acquiring the nickname ‘The Human Swan’. As they watch birds together at the Fernworthy reservoir in Devon, Sacha talks about her childhood growing up in Australia, where she says the beach and the bush were her playgrounds. She tells Martha about the paramotor accident which left her seriously injured and from which the sights…
6 Mar 2025 · 25 min
Sir James Dyson is one of the UK’s best known inventors and businessmen. His Dyson vacuum cleaners, hair dryers and air purifiers have sold in their millions, both in the UK and around the world. In 2013, Sir James turned his attention to farming. He now runs the biggest farming business in the country, and owns 36,000 acres on which he produces potatoes, peas and strawberries. In this programme, Martha travels to his farm near Bath to find out more about his love for the natural world. She learns of how his early years growing up in Norfolk helped inspire him not just in business, but also…
4 Mar 2025 · 25 min
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a chef, broadcaster, author and campaigner. His 'River Cottage' series ran for more than ten years on Channel 4 and he has written more than twenty food and cookery books. In this programme Martha Kearney catches up with Hugh at an event at the Abergavenny Food Festival. He tells her how his love affair with the countryside started at the age of five when his parents left London and moved to a farmhouse in Gloucestershire. He recalls a fascination with the natural world in his early years, remembering a childhood spent roaming the fields and collecting birds'…
20 Feb 2025 · 25 min
Adjoa Andoh has played lead roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, and is a familiar face to fans of Casualty and Doctor Who. She is probably best known as Lady Danbury in Bridgerton, the hit Netflix series. Her roots, though, are firmly in the countryside. She grew up in the village of Wickwar, just north of Bristol, where she and her brother were the only black children in the area. In this programme she tells Martha Kearney about her rural childhood and the lasting love of the natural world it instilled in her. She takes Martha on one of her favourite walks on…
6 Feb 2025 · 25 min
Martha Kearney meets Kathy Willis, Professor of Biodiversity at Oxford University, at Kathy's local stamping ground of Port Meadow, the protected common land in the heart of Oxford, to hear about how her love of the natural world has shaped her life. Growing up in London, Kathy has always been someone who spends a lot of time outdoors - whether in city parks, rural campsites or cycle trips abroad. Her mother instilled in her a deep respect for nature, teaching her the local names of plants from a young age. Kathy shares how she carried on this passion into her degree, and later PhD in…
6 Feb 2025 · 25 min
Martin Clunes is best known for his roles in the long-running TV series Doc Martin and the 1990s sitcom Men Behaving Badly. He's also known as an animal lover, but few people are aware of the wider importance of nature for him. In this programme Martha Kearney travels to his Dorset farm to meet Martin and find out more about his love of the natural world. She learns of the sanctuary it provides for him from the hectic life of an actor. Together they take his five dogs for a walk, including the retired guide dog Martin gave a home to after hearing about her on a radio programme. He introduces…
6 Feb 2025 · 25 min
Martha Kearney meets much-loved cook and writer Delia Smith for a winter walk around her garden in Suffolk. She speaks of her lifelong love of nature, and her deep concerns for the environment in the face of climate change. She tells Martha about her childhood growing up in the Greater London suburb of Bexleyheath, climbing trees and digging up vegetables in her Grandfather's allotment. Then, in the early days of marriage, Delia and her husband Michael decided to leave London for a tiny hamlet in the country, where they have lived ever since. At the bottom of the garden is a field that…
6 Feb 2025 · 25 min
Martha Kearney meets wildlife cameraman Hamza Yassin in a bird hide overlooking reed beds and marshes at the London Wetland Centre in Barnes. He speaks of his childhood growing up in Sudan on the banks of the Nile, with a large extended family and a pet monkey, before he then moved to the UK. He tells Martha about his decision to turn down the chance to study for a dentistry degree in order to become a wildlife cameraman, a dream that led him to move to the west coast of Scotland, where he lived in the back of his car for nine months. He talks about his role as Ranger Hamza (or "Ranger…
6 Feb 2025 · 25 min
Richard Mabey has been described as the godfather of British nature writing. Over the last half-century, he has written more than thirty books. His first, 'Food for Free', was published in 1972 and has never been out of print since; the most recent, 'The Accidental Garden', came out earlier this year. Martha Kearney joins Richard and his partner Polly on their beloved boat on the Norfolk Broads. She hears about Richard's childhood in the Chilterns and finds out how he first became fascinated by the natural world. Together they spot grebes, terns, and even see a bittern in flight. Producer:…
6 Feb 2025 · 25 min
In the first episode of this new series, Martha Kearney meets Hollywood star Cate Blanchett. She finds out about Cate's relationship with the natural world and explores the significance of nature and wildlife to her, as they walk around the Royal Botanic Gardens at Wakehurst in Sussex - where Cate has recently taken up the role of ambassador. Both Cate and Martha are bee-keeping enthusiasts, and they put on protective bee suits to visit the garden's bee hives together. Cate explains why the wildlife of both the UK and her native Australia are so important to her, and praises the work of the…
21 Nov 2024 · 2 min
A new interview series where Martha Kearney takes people to a favourite place to explore their passion for nature.
Martha Kearney explores the importance of the natural world in the lives of her guests. Each person she meets takes her to a location which means something to them, and describes the role nature has played in their life, explaining how it has shaped, influenced or fascinated them. In the process s
This Natural Life is a English tech & science podcast from BBC Radio 4. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.
"Lecture-casts"- A Lecture Series on General Chemistry
D.J. Ferguson
"The Cognitive Revolution"
Erik Torenberg, Nathan Labenz
#Railnatter
Gareth Dennis
'Mind the Kids': an ACAMH podcast
The Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health
(don't) Waste Water! | Water Tech to Solve the World
Antoine Walter
.NET Rocks!
Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell
The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.
