Radios 2, 3 & 4 marks Remembrance Week

BBC Radio will be marking Remembrance Week with a season of programmes on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 4, as well as a special show on BBC Radio 3.

Special documentaries and musical guests will make up some of the extra output on the networks.

They include Jeremy Vine profiling five soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Friday Night Is Music Night Forces Special hosted by Paul O’Grady and including a performance by Katherine Jenkins.

Jeremy said: “I have never in my entire career recorded interviews which have been so powerful and so moving. Sons who were only boys, who died on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan as young as 19, are missed as much today by their family as the day they left them.

“It has been an incredible privilege to spend time with these mothers in preparation for Remembrance Week on Radio 2. They describe the lives of their sons through the music they loved. I doubt we will ever hear these songs the same way again.”

BBC Radio 2 will also be broadcasting highlights of the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance as the nation offers thanks and pays tribute to those who risk their lives in the service of their country, not only in the two World Wars but also more recent conflicts.

Bob Shennan, Controller BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music, said: “The week of programmes is very important to Radio 2 and our listeners. I’m especially proud to be bringing much of it into the heart of our daytime schedule.”

As well as coverage of the Remembrance Service from The Cenotaph, BBC Radio 4 will also transmit a series of programmes to mark Remembrance week.

Radio 4’s programmes include The Poppy Factory which looks at the manufacture of the millions of poppies bought every year to mark Remembrance Sunday.

On BBC Radio 3, Remembrance Sunday will be marked with Aled Jones presenting The Choir: Choral Music For Remembrance Sunday. The show will feature For The Fallen by Cyril Rootham – and also a special performance of an ambitious new work for amateur choirs, Rhymes And Charms For Fly-Away Things by Kerry Andrew. The work will be performed by the John Powell Singers.

And all three stations will observe the two minutes silence on Armistice Day on Friday 11 November, and on Remembrance Sunday will broadcast the Cenotaph sequence of chimes, silence and the Last Post.