Two significant anniversaries, each very different but both reflecting the BBC’s mission and the reasons for its continued success. From Our Own Correspondent has been on air for 60 years, reporting on events across the world not just as news but to fill in the back story to the headlines. Instead of bombs and bullets, we might find ourselves listening to a Russian-born piano teacher in Gaza who at last finds a grand piano and begins entertaining her neighbours with Chopin. A single episode might take us from shallots in Mali to the strange ways in which Norwegians celebrate midsummer via China’s new passion for shopping, playing roulette in Russia, and the sorry state of Yemen, where Jeremy Bowen is told that trying to govern is like ‘dancing on the heads of snakes’.
On Thursday last week Owen Bennett-Jones introduced a special celebration of the programme from the Frontline Club in London, a sanctuary for reporters on shore leave.
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