Lives captured in transit

It’s such a simple idea. Take a tape recorder. Hang around at the entrance to a railway station or in the departure lounge of an airport. Look for an intriguing face, an unusual couple, a dashing outfit. Rush up to them (having remembered to switch on the recorder) and ask, ‘Where are you going?’ As Catherine Carr said at the beginning of her programme for the Freedom 2014 series on the BBC World Service at the weekend, ‘Every interrupted journey is a portal into somebody’s life.’

Of course, in Where are you going? (produced by Jo Coombs) we only got to hear from the travellers who had something interesting to tell us, but even so this was an hour of pure radio, with so many vivid snapshots, such compelling stories. It was as if we were given insights into a whole life as Carr’s interviewees told us in just a few minutes before dashing off to catch a train or plane about the journeys they were about to take and why.