Five decades on, Laura Barton looks back at the creation of Our Bodies, Ourselves - a revolutionary text in the history of women's liberation.

Written and published by a group of women who met in 1969 at a Women's Liberation Conference, and who later formed the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, it discussed sexual health, sexual orientation, birth control, abortion, pregnancy, childbirth, menopause, consent and abuse. Interweaving women's personal stories with practical, clearly written information, it encouraged women to not only get to know their own bodies but to enjoy their sexuality.

It became one of the best-selling feminist texts of all time, updated repeatedly across the decades with the most recent edition coming out in 2011.

In this Archive on 4, we hear new interviews with some of the Our Bodies, Ourselves founders - Miriam Hawley, Wendy Sanford, Norma Swenson, Jane Pincus, Judy Norsigian and Vilunya Diskin - alongside vivid recordings from the feminist movement at the time and archives from the project over the decades.

We explore the freedom that can come from self-knowledge - the power in knowing how we work, on not having to defer to others for explanation of our pain or our pleasure and delve into how the text has been adapted across borders with current OBOS board member Diana Namumbejja Abwoye. We also hear from sex educators and writers inspired by Our Bodies, Ourselves, as Laura examines what factors can shape our access to information.

With archive from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, WDEE and WAMU

First broadcast 24th April 2021, BBC Radio 4
Presented by Laura Barton
Produced by Eleanor McDowall

Our Bodies, Ourselves

Two species of pipistrelles were hunting under a cherry tree in a fruit garden in Northern France for about half an hour every evening in early September.  I caught them with my new ultrasonic mics and heterodyned the track at three different frequencies: 20, 42 and 50 kHz for social calls, Pip pip and Pip pyg respectively. You can recognize the Pip pip for its slower pace and the social calls. This is a 3 minute excerpt of the recording.

Headphones recommended.

Tascam DR100 MKIII @192kHz sampling rate. XLR electret ultrasonic mics, stereo AB 15cm. Heterodyned using SoX, mixed in Audacity, upload 16bit/48kHz.

Pipistrelles under a cherry tree - 2022/09/04 - Bayeux, Normandie, France

Us and them is a thought-provoking exhibition of specially-commissioned work in a collaboration between award-winning portrait and social documentary photographer Emma Brown, and disabled artists from Freewheelers Theatre and Media Company, and Kings College London. Oral history and audio production support is being provided by On the Record.

The Freewheelers have co-created portraits exploring visual representations of physical disability and mental illness in Surrey, past and present. The portraits have been created using a traditional Victorian ‘tintype’ technique, which creates a photographic image on a thin sheet of coated metal.

The Us and Them artwork has been inspired by reviewing nineteenth-century archive photographs of patients taken on admission to the ‘Epsom Cluster’ of psychiatric hospitals. The hospitals also housed people with learning disabilities, epilepsy and Down’s Syndrome, which were classified in the same way as mental illness at that time.

The new portraits are provocatively paired with the original Victorian photographs, to provoke public conversations about discrimination and how disability is understood, especially through visual representations.

This striking new collection of images highlights the diversity of disabled artists, celebrates commonality, and unsettles the differences between ‘Us and Them’.

Us and Them has been supported by Surrey History Centre and with funding from King’s College London.

'Us And Them' - an audio documentary

A noisy exploration of the world of British Roller Derby. In this documentary we skate alongside the London Roller Girls to catch a glimpse of a dynamic new expression of female identity.

First broadcast in May 2011, BBC Radio 4
Produced by Eleanor McDowall

Photo by Derek Bremner http://www.derekbremner.com/

Roller Girls

As dusk falls, the first Noctules come hunting. Seven minutes later, they are followed by a large number of Leisleri's and a single Serotine bat. No wind, a perfect night for bats. The hunting goes on for more than an hour. Here are the first twenty minutes. 

Tascam DR100MkIII, self built ultrasonic mics, baffled. 192/48 wav. Band passed from 15-24 kHz and heterodyned to 20kHz (Noctules) and from 24-35 kHz, heterodyned to 27 kHz (Leisleri's and Serotines) - mixed after heterodyning and exported as 48/16 Flac.

Use headphones and enjoy!


Noctules, Leisleri's and Serotines - 2025/06/10 - Witrijt

Why do some old 7-inch singles sound so good, when slowed down to 33rpm? An experimental feature for ABC RN's Radiotonic.

45s At 33

clip from audio version of The Weight, old personal film docu project

Forty years ago, Route 66, the highway that ran the 2448 miles from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California, was formally decommissioned, usurped by a more modern, high-speed interstate. But the road has lived on in the collective imagination — a symbol of freedom, adventure, and new beginnings, of America's concept of itself.

In this meditation on the Mother Road, as John Steinbeck christened it, Laura Barton explores 66's shifting identity, from migratory route to America's Main Street.

With contributions from Angel (the "Angel of Route 66") and his daughter Clarissa Delgadillo in Seligman, Arizona; Mike Cowen who set up his own Historic Route 66 museum in Williams, Arizona; Leigh Anne Isbell of the Devil's Rope Museum in Texas and Candacy Taylor, who's written about Route 66 in relation to The Green Book.

Written and presented by Laura Barton
With extracts from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath read by Corey Johnson.
Location recording producer, Diane Hope

First broadcast 14th September 2025, BBC Radio 4
Produced by Alan Hall

Where The Distance Shimmers

LexMix

Join sound artist Katharina Smets on an intimate journey through the Polish language in this short sonic exploration. Together with musician Tim Vandenbergh, they create a personal alphabet that transforms Polish from unfamiliar sounds into a poetic and musical landscape.

Through voice, rhythm, and melody, this quirky abecedarium weaves together words, legends, objects, and customs – connecting images to memories of food and strange folk songs, all brought to life through Tim Vandenbergh's musical interpretations. 

Artists: 🎙️ Katharina Smets - Polish-Belgian radio producer & audio storytelling professor at Royal Conservatoire Antwerp 🎵 Tim Vandenbergh - Belgian contemporary musician (bass guitar, double bass)

A unique blend of linguistic exploration and musical storytelling that bridges cultures through sound.

#Polish #Language #RadioArt #ContemporaryMusic #Storytelling #Belgium #Poland

Sounds Like Polish

Seven Seconds Of Countryfile

new audio storyteller; sharing doodles, shorts, class assignments, snippets of WIPs; listening; 9/22

clip from audio version of The Weight, old personal film docu project

Lynn