Radio 4 deserts the British bird. Shame on them!

A strange coincidence on Saturday night to come back from the cinema, having seen a film about a woman fighting to save her job while suffering from depression and thoughts of putting an end to it all, only to switch on the radio and hear from people who have had suicidal thoughts themselves or who have suffered the peculiar, awful grief of losing someone to suicide. The film was affecting and sensitively done, but after listening to In Memoriam: Conversations on a Bench (Radio 4) I realised how different the impact of radio can be. It was not that the film had in any way glamorised depression, or turned us as viewers into voyeurs revelling in someone else’s misfortune. But listening to the pain seeping through the ether from those who were dealing with grief and loss or from their own black thoughts was so much more powerful than simply watching as the camera lingered on the ashen face of the woman, on her dull-eyed gaze, on her clumsy, laboured, downtrodden walk.