14/09/2011

This week Libby Purves is joined by Carol Mellin, Steve Walker, Lucy Bailey and Molly Birnbaum. Carol Mellin is a sheep farmer and sheep dog trainer. She is competing in the 4th International Sheep Dog Society World Trials, taking place on the Lowther Estate, near Penrith in Cumbria. A total of 240 dogs and their handlers from twenty-three competing nations will take part. It will be shown on More4 this week. Steve Walker is Programme Director of the Ley Community in Oxfordshire, a successful drug rehabilitation centre, where he was treated in the late 1980s and early 1990s. His book 'Steve: Unwanted' tells of his life as a drug addict and dealer before his life was turned around, and saved, by the Ley Community. Steve: Unwanted is published by Short Books. Lucy Bailey is joint Artistic Director of the Print Room which she founded with Anda Winters in 2008. It took them three years to convert a small fifties warehouse into a simple flexible theatre space, seating under one hundred people. This autumn they are joining forces with the Young Vic to stage a double bill of Harold Pinter's work - One for the Road and his black comedy Victoria Station. Molly Birnbaum was an aspiring chef studying at cookery school in America when she was badly injured in a road accident. As a result, she lost her sense of smell. In her book 'Season to Taste', she looks at the science behind olfaction and tells how she gradually rediscovered the scented world. 'Season to Taste' is published by Granta. Producer: Chris Paling.