Inside the Migrant Hotel, Train Tracks and In Our Time

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This is an investment that carries risk. CalSheet.com. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. I'm Andrea Catherwood and welcome to Feedback.

There's been plenty of love for the Lord. Melvin Bragg, of course, that is, on news. He's stepping down from In Our Time, along with, pretty quickly, speculation about who's going to take over the role of, in the words of radio critic Simon O'Hagan, Britain's greatest polymath. There is praise for Radio 3's marathon live outside broadcast all the way from Inverness to King's Cross. Presenter Petro Trelawney joins me to give us the inside track. But first stop, the recent Phylon 4 investigates.

inside the migrant hotel. It's a familiar story from the outside. Around 32,000 people are housed in migrant hotels across the UK. Protests outside them have been violent and vocal. You may well be familiar with the work of investigative journalist Sue Mitchell. She's made a number of high-profile Radio 4 podcasts, including the award-winning To Catch a Scorpion, which led to the arrest of one of Europe's most notorious people smugglers.

Her most recent documentary for File on 4 Investigates continued that theme of telling the stories of migrants, and she gained rare access to asylum seekers living in hotels in England while their cases are being assessed. Her reporting coincided with a summer of increasing protests outside those hotels. And while there was plenty of news coverage of those protests, it is really unusual to hear directly from the people, both staff and residents.

inside the hotels. I've spent this summer getting to know a different side of the story, what life inside is like. And I've seen and heard some unbelievable things. The programme gave voice to the experiences of the migrants, some of whom have been seeking asylum for nearly a decade. It also highlighted some of the failings of the system and those made news headlines, like the vast number of prepaid taxis used to...

transport migrants between hotels or to medical appointments. Well, in a moment, I'll be talking to Sue Mitchell about the programme and your comments on it, the majority of which were critical, saying that it was fuel for the protesters. Louise Matraves from Somerset. Radio 4 at it again this morning with File on 4 inside the migrant hotel, shamelessly fanning the flames of racism and division, dehumanising these people.

focusing on the negatives and no mention of the possible benefits that migrants bring and their contribution to our economy and society. I have worked with some of our migrants in my role at a secondary school and without exception have found them to be hard-working, honest and kind people. Traumatised by their experiences in the countries they left and their journey here, but not deserving of your divisive rhetoric. We do not need racism masquerading as journalism.

How about a programme focused on the migrant contribution to our economy and society for balance? My name is Linda George and I live in Hertfordshire. I am incandescent with anger at the shoddy, irresponsible and factually incorrect reporting on what the BBC wrongly described as migrant hotels. In first place, they're not migrant hotels. They are hotels used to house asylum seekers while their claim is being heard.

I volunteer with a charity that helps asylum seekers and refugees across a number of hotels in the home counties. The picture given by the BBC was thoroughly irresponsible and misrepresents the reality and facts. What makes it worse? is that this irresponsibility can have real-life consequences for the many vulnerable people who fled here from persecution and war to ask for the human right of asylum.

My name is Claudia Bolling and I live in the Scottish Borders. I am completely appalled at the programme I have just listened to, Phylon 4 Investigates, Inside Migrant Hotels. I have never heard such poor quality journalism on Radio 4. It was sensationalist and misleading, with no context and a complete lack of any backup data.

The narrative style was straight out of a blatantly partisan right-wing podcast. To broadcast such a program at the moment when emotions are running high on the subject is tantamount to inciting racial violence. Well, there was one positive comment. I'm Angela Singer and I live in Cambridge. It's just struck me how articulate, enterprising, patient and kind are the residents of the migrant hotel on Phylon 4. How much more like.

Typical Radio 4 listeners they are than the thugs demonstrating outside the hotel. That includes the security man who organises fun exercise for the children. Well, Sue Mitchell joins me now. Sue, thanks for coming on to Feedback.

Listeners may have heard you talking about this programme already because it did get a lot of coverage on Radio 4 because it's so unusual to hear voices from inside migrant hotels. It's not that journalists don't try to get in. If you make an official request, mostly it's turned down. So how did you manage it?

Thank you for having me on. And basically, I have a long track record of covering migration issues. So I've done quite a few investigations into how people make the journeys into the UK, especially by small boat. And I've looked into how. smugglers operate.

I spent a lot of time in migrant camps in France. So a few months ago when I was there recording, I'd met quite a few people who had planned to make it to the UK. And I usually give people my number because I'm interested in the journeys they make and what happens to them after. I'd kept up with people. They called when they got here. And as they were being moved into migrant hotels and as they were kind of calling me, telling me what life was like in them.

It gradually evolved as an idea to maybe try and cover some of what they were experiencing. I'd felt for quite a long time that we're hearing a lot in the news coverage about what's happening either on the barricade. So the protests were sort of gaining traction. There was a growing sort of hostility being reported outside the migrant hotels.

And what I really, really wanted to know was actually, what is that like if you're in that hotel and you're experiencing that level of sort of... horror and hatred really coming from outside directly outside the windows and it felt to me that it was really important as a journalist to try and show what was happening inside to give people a voice

Sue, it's so interesting because you know these people very well. As you say, very often you've followed them for a while from France. You know their backstories, probably you know an awful lot more than could be reflected in just one programme. And you've had to gain their...

and very often they've been through traumatic events. And I might have thought that you would have been accused by some of our listeners of being too close to the story, too sympathetic to the migrants, not keeping a journalistic objectivity. And yet... The vast majority of comments that feedback has had have actually been critical in the opposite way. For example, people saying things like...

You're shamelessly fanning the flames of racism and division. You're dehumanising these people and focusing on the negatives. Are you surprised by those comments? I was kind of surprised by some of them because in a way, if you listen to the stories being told by some of the people that I interviewed, particularly I think, I mean, for me, a very significant interview I did was with a 12-year-old. girl talking about her experience of walking past protesters and of

of really of kind of wanting to engage with them, to want to be able to say to them, you know, we're here, we're not put here by choice. We're here at the government's, this is a government initiative, you know, why are you so angry at us? Why are you protesting outside the hotel where we're in? living i was quite surprised really that people wouldn't want to hear that too i mean obviously

People are wanting to make a life here. She had dreams to become a sort of nurse and was talking about it was affecting her education, being moved from hotel to hotel, not able to settle, not able to go to schools. even to be scared of getting on a school bus because of protesters outside. They're just day-to-day realities. There's so much going on inside the hotel that I tried to capture. And I think... It's really important to hear that. So I was quite surprised by some of the comments.

I suppose perhaps it was things like the taxis and the extreme use of taxis that garnered quite a few headlines. And perhaps that's why people listening to it felt that it was slightly dehumanising them. I don't know. in a way that is also really important.

journalistic endeavour as well, because it is a resource question. You know, I mean, that is part of what is fuelling some of the protesters' concern about resources. So obviously that's part of the coverage going in there. And it wasn't just... coming from me actually, a lot of the migrants themselves felt that they were in this position of draining resources when by choice they would never have taken those expensive journeys. I mean, you heard that on the programme.

The migrants were clearly very aware of the protesters that were outside the hotels that they are housed in. But I wondered, did you get a sense that they think that's representative of what British people think in general? I don't know. It's difficult that. I think they've kind of experienced some really good people and there are charities going into the hotel. There are people sort of, alongside the protesters, there are often people from, you know, sending the message.

You know, you are welcome here. There's the other side of it. So they're hearing that it's a mixed message coming from outside on the barricades. They do see the resource question and they do understand the sort of... that there is this protest movement. I think they just wish they could somehow... give their case and say to people, look, we really want to put into the economy. We really want to have this long-term life here. So I think they want to be heard more in the debate.

really the biggest sense I got from them of what their feeling was about the coverage. Listeners have suggested that you should have spoken to some of the charities who work with asylum seekers to get a more rounded picture, people who've got direct knowledge and experience of life inside the hotels. Did you consider that?

As you heard in the programme, there was a charity offering some language courses in, and I briefly just touched on that side of it, that this was an offer, and how keen people are to take that kind of input. But this was never going to be a programme that gave charities a sort of separate platform in it because the programme was just geared to life in the migrant hotels. I've done programmes in the past working alongside charities where...

They've had great input. This is only one part of the BBC's output. So obviously we do so much coverage of migration issues and there is a lot of space within all that output for charities and for charity views. And it's really, really important that we do all that.

But this, I wanted this so, 40 minutes is so tight for time, you know. And it was just so important for me to hear from the people inside who would... you'd never normally hear from that seemed to me the golden opportunity and as a journalist I sort of grabbed it with both hands and just wanted to give it space and air time and give them that ability to participate on air in this way and I think it's generated a lot of debate and it's raised a lot of important issues and the fact it was so

widely picked up showed that there was a need I think for this coverage I think there was a need to hear this kind of side of life and I think it's shaken things up a bit and spurred some action across different realms, you know, from politicians to charities to, you know, people in the community. Yeah, even though some of our listeners have said that it's divisive, I mean, presumably that wasn't your aim.

I never, I mean, obviously the whole issue is very divisive. So basically there's probably no getting away from that. But as a journalist, you're not thinking about that. You're thinking here's an opportunity to actually... cover something that is unique that's going to give voice that's you know that's going to help further understanding of what's happening and we're often accused of you know taking sides or you know spurring this that or the other and the

bottom line is you just set out to do your job and to portray the sort of truth of what's happening in the best way you can. I didn't, I would say it's... actually not being divisive. I think people listen.

maybe attuned to what they want to hear. But there was so much about that programme. There were so many different aspects and there were so many different voices and so much you could absorb. Whatever your views, you might... still hold the same view at the end you might not but you know that i just did my best to give you the chance to at least hear it whatever whatever you do with it then yeah i mean that's up to you isn't it so

Really interesting to hear those voices that we don't often hear. Sue Mitchell, thank you so much. You're very welcome. Thanks. And you can listen to File on 4 Investigates, The Migrant Hotel on BBC Signs. Life tests homes. CertainTeed roofing and siding make sure they're ready. So you're built for stormy seasons. Built for what's next. Built for this. CertainTeed. Built for this.

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Another recurring theme in the feedback inbox is political coverage across BBC Audio. So we're going to take a look at that as the party conference season draws to a close. And if you'd like to comment on that or indeed anything that you've heard, please do get in touch. The simplest way to do that is to send a voice note using WhatsApp. The number is 03 333 444 444. And you can ring that number and leave a message. The number again, 03 333.

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Now, Melvin Bragg once described In Our Time as a programme with a wholly misleading title. He's right, of course, but that didn't stop it becoming one of the jewels in the crown of Radio 4. And when Catch Up Radio was introduced, it was one of BBC's most searched for and downloaded programmes, with a back catalogue beloved by students and indeed anyone with a passion for knowledge.

Hello. Civility, in one sense, is among the most valuable virtues in society. The skill to discuss topics that really matter to you with someone who disagrees and somehow get along. Well, while we were off air, it was announced that Melvin Bragg was stepping down as host after 27 years. He presented more than a thousand episodes of the discussion programme, which he began in 1998.

Radio critic Simon O'Hagan writes for the Radio Times and has a substack with the glorious title, This Sceptred Dial. He's been discussing Melvin Bragg's departure and I'm going to speak to him in a minute. But first, listeners have already been sharing your thoughts on who should take over. Hello, my name is Helen Marston from London.

I think that In Our Time is a superb series, and I'm sorry to hear that Melvin Bragg is leaving, but I want to suggest that the obvious replacement host should be Amal Rajan. He is a shoo-in as far as I'm concerned. His intellectual curiosity and ability to understand a vast range of topics and ideas, as well as his fantastic interview skills, make him the ideal candidate. My name is Tim Collins.

I live in Asheville, in Norfolk. My suggestion will be John Wilson, who I occasionally listen to on this special life, depending on the interviewee, and always seems very well prepared. Meantime, we have Lord Bragg's choices to enjoy. This is Valerie Jablon from North London. I see that the BBC is considering who to have as Melvin Bragg's replacement.

which will be a difficult one, as he did the program so well. I love Nash & D. Haynes' programs about the classics, always informative and entertaining. with a comedian's light touch as well as a classicist's knowledge. She would be a brilliant presenter. Dan Snow is also suitable in terms of knowledge and presentation. And how about Bethany Hughes?

another brilliant presenter who could make any subject interesting. Well, Simon O'Hagan is here with me now. Simon, welcome to Feedback. Hello, Andrea. Before we get on to talking about who should take over this wonderful programme, let's just take a minute to think about Melvin Bragg and what made him such a good host. all-round curiosity across a vast range of topics. His background as a grammar school boy who went to Oxford with a vast interest.

in learning and every historical topic you can think of. He managed to convey a deep interest, not necessarily an expertise because... That's what the panelists were for. But he really grasped hold of those topics and got the best out of his interviewees to enlighten the listener. Our listeners have been very keen to contribute about this.

I was worried, she says, that in our time may suffer now that Melvin Bragg is retiring. I hope you can keep the quality and also the bonkers subjects. Can we please have more programmes that include well-educated people? I just love that phrase, the bonkers subjects. In Our Time is really popular on BBC Signs and it's really popular with the younger listeners as well. That might surprise some people, but I wonder if those bonkers subjects are what brings people back.

I think it's not so much a case of bonkers subjects as the sheer variety, and you never know what's going to come next. So you might have the Sistine Chapel one week and then you'll have the Russo-Japanese War the next week. And that's the beauty of it because it's never been topical. And I think Melvin...

was very keen to keep it non-topical so that it existed entirely in the realm of, if you like, and this is another thing I feel very strongly that he stood for, which was education for its own sake. And you mentioned about its popularity with the under-35s. We keep reading a lot about how university now is very much geared to its efficiency in directing students into work, into jobs. And Melvin stood for...

something else, some sort of deeper value, I think, about education for its own sake. And that's what the program embodied. Simon, you wrote in an article about this, who is now going to be broadcasting's greatest polymath? It's a real accolade. And of course, our lovely listeners have come up with some suggestions of their own. Natalie Haynes, Amal Rajan and John Wilson. But you mentioned the fact that this is a non...

topical time and space programme. It's very much within its own realm. It's unique on Radio 4. And therefore, you thought about some outsiders presenting it. I feel that with Melvin, although he had a huge lead. important and impressive track record in broadcasting. He became synonymous with In Our Time, as In Our Time was Melvin and Melvin alone. You didn't hear him sort of popping up elsewhere, for example. I mean, the names...

that I've thought of. And as I say, they have no more validity than anybody else's suggestions. But I think that one important... point to consider and this is where one suggestion of mine comes in which is that history which is essentially in our time as a history program and history as we know our perception of what history is and who gets to command history That's changed a great deal in recent years. And I think one name I'm...

thinking of, and I have heard it mentioned elsewhere, is David Olasoga. We think of mainly as a TV historian, but he would bring a different kind of perspective on history and might, I think... represents something a little bit more in tune with the way we think about history these days. Someone I've mentioned also, who I like very much indeed, is the former Reith lecturer, Ben Ansell.

who Radio 4 listeners will have heard presenting an excellent series called Rethink, in which he talks to big thinkers about how they would... change society for the better and he has a very nice manner he's an academic I don't think the presenter needs to be an academic but certainly he would be at home with academics and I think he would not intimidate but I think he'd be

rigorous with people. We have to remember that the panelists on In Our Time are often extremely nervous going on because they do have to extemporize. And they know their subjects, but I think they found Melvin... You know, it was a challenge to go in front of Melvin. You know, he may not have known about black holes himself, but he knew when a panellist was drifting off or being a bit vague and he would...

he would certainly bring them back to the topic in hand. I think if we were going to go for a female presenter of In Our Time, then the name I would suggest is Helen Lewis, who... has been presenting a program not dissimilar to Ben Ansell's Rethink, which is called The Spark. And again, she talks to big-brained people about how the world could be made to be a better place, and she's a good listener.

and an extremely good interviewer. And I think she's, again, sufficiently at one remove, if you like, from Radio 4. She's not a new voice on Radio 4, but she comes at her topics from a slightly outsider position. We're not sure of the timescale for a replacement presenter to be announced, but it certainly is going to be a challenge. Simon O'Hagan, thank you very much indeed for joining us with your insights. Thank you, Andrea.

is Train Tracks on BBC Radio 3. Celebrating Railway 200. Now, Radio 3's Petrop Trelawney took a train from Inverness to King's Cross on Saturday the 27th of September, and listeners were able to travel with him in real time. He caught up with fellow Radio 3 presenters along the way, serenaded... by a selection of railway inspired music.

It marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of the modern railway when George Stevenson drove locomotion number one on its inaugural journey from Childon to Stockton-on-Tees via Darlington. It was the springboard for the great Victorian age of the railways. This historic anniversary was also marked on Radio 4, but it was Radio 3's day-long trip on the Highland Chieftain that really caught feedback listeners' attention.

Good morning from Inverness. Welcome to the start of a 500-mile journey to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of the modern railway. My name is Chris Noel and I live in Ledbury in Herefordshire. I've travelled all over this country on the railways and have thoroughly enjoyed Radio 3's programme train tracks today and it's been obvious that they have thoroughly enjoyed their day out on the railway.

Radio 3 will broadcast from key stations along the East Coast mainline, Tom Service at Pitlockery, Tom McKinney at Edinburgh, Elizabeth Alka at Darlington, and as the day ends, I will join Georgia Mann at London, King's Cross. My name is Shirley Joyce and I live in Birchington. One can only listen with awe at the planning, organisation, production and delivery.

It is impossible to imagine the number of people who must have been involved with the different aspects of the day, pulling everything together and bringing it to such a neat end. Which end will we just embarking from? Oh, there he is! Yes, I can hear him. You're there. I'm sorry, we thought we were coming into platform six. I know you did. Where you are, but in a last minute surprise switch of platforms. Oh, yes. We've come into platform one. I'm Dominic from Mitcham in South London.

I thoroughly enjoyed the railway celebration on Saturday, and having followed Petrock's progress down from Inverness, I couldn't resist going up to King's Cross to see Georgia meeting him off the train. Thank you for all the wonderful music and a fantastic day's radio. Well, I'm delighted to say that Petroch Trelawney is back in his studio and here on Feedback. Petroch, lovely to talk to you. Lovely to be with you.

are saying that they are in awe of all the planning that went into this. So just for a moment, take us behind the scenes to give us a sense of what's involved. Well, it took over a year to get it together. Alex Anderson and Sam Phillips, who run Tandem Productions, the independent production company who worked alongside Radio 3 producers and engineers from London, from Salford, from Glasgow.

had 12 months of careful plotting. They did the journey themselves, checking how the signal would work, broadcasting from the train. They had to check out outside broadcast locations on Pitlockry Station, Edinburgh, Darlington. Kings Cross. And then, of course, there was the music plot. I mean, we had 10 hours of music. Funnily enough, there are a huge number of composers.

who were obsessed with trains or who used trains a lot to travel around Europe. Rachmaninoff used to travel around the States with a special private railway carriage with a grand piano in it so he could rehearse. And there's plenty of music written about the railways. but they had to pull from that 10 hours of great railway music to accompany our journey. You had listeners turning up at King's Cross to greet you at the end of the journey. Were you expecting that?

No. And it happened on the whole route, actually. People came to see us off at Inverness. Tom had visitors at Pitlockery. A man got on the train at Haymarket in Edinburgh, came and said hello, and he said, I'm just doing the journey to Waverley, the other Edinburgh station. bought a ticket and made the journey because he wanted to say hello to us. The fact that on Radio 3 we could clear 10 hours of our schedule for this day, something that very few other broadcasters would be able to do.

and that we could do it live. You know, it was as it was happening. Again, you can't do that with a podcast. It takes a good old-fashioned live radio broadcaster to achieve that. Patrick Trelawney from Radio 3's In Tune. Thank you so much for giving us an in.

site into the train tracks day on the 27th of September. And if you would like to go back and listen to that, it is still available on BBC Sounds. But that's all for this week. Please do keep in touch. From me and the team, thank you so much for listening. and giving us your feedback goodbye

Hello and welcome to Nature Bang. I'm Becky Ripley. I'm Emily Knight. And in this series from BBC Radio 4, we look to the natural world to answer some of life's big questions. Like how can a brainless slime mould help us solve complex... It really stretches your understanding of consciousness. With the help of evolutionary biologists. I'm actually always very comfortable. all comparing us to other species.

philosophers. You never really know what it could be like to be another creature. And spongologists. Is that your job title? Are you a spongologist? Well, I am in certain spheres. It's science meets storytelling with a philosophical twist. It really gets to the heart of. free will and what it means to be you. So if you want to find out more about yourself via cockatoos that dance, frogs that freeze and single-cell amoebas that design border policies, subscribe to Naturebang.

from BBC Radio 4, available on BBC Sounds. Bye. From less than a dollar a week for your first year, Read, watch and listen to trusted, independent journalism and storytelling. It all starts with a subscription to BBC.com. Find out more at bbc.com slash unlimited.

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