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1. 

   11 Dec 2025 · 24 min

   Jane Anderson

   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

2. 

   4 Dec 2025 · 24 min

   Emma Pinchbeck

   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…

3. 

   27 Nov 2025 · 24 min

   Sarah Perry

   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

4. 

   7 Aug 2025 · 25 min

   Jeanette Winterson

   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

5. 

   31 Jul 2025 · 24 min

   Angela Harding

   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…

6. 

   17 Jul 2025 · 24 min

   Antony Gormley

   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…

7. 

   10 Jul 2025 · 24 min

   Charlotte Church

   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…

8. 

   27 Mar 2025 · 24 min

   Raynor Winn

   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…

9. 

   20 Mar 2025 · 25 min

   George McGavin

   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

10. 

    13 Mar 2025 · 25 min

    Sacha Dench

    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…