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Radio

National Poetry Day's mistake: letting normal people do the reading

Plus: ‘the breath of lost countries’ filled the airwaves in Radio 3’s Between the Ears and what it’s like to hear Gandalf read your award-winning short story live on Radio 1?

17 October 2015

8:00 AM

17 October 2015

8:00 AM

Imagine what Brennig Davies must have felt like just before 11 o’clock last Tuesday evening. The 15-year-old was about to hear Ian McKellen reading his prizewinning short story nationwide on Radio 1. The voice of Gandalf broadcasting words that have emerged from your own head must have been a spooky moment for Davies, whose story ‘Skinning’ had just won the BBC’s Young Writers’ Award (organised with the Book Trust).

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