Episodes
| Episode | First Broadcast | Repeated | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 20210315 | George Szirtes reads his award-winning memoir about his mother, Magda. Her turbulent life reflects the drama of the 20th century.
She survived incarceration in two different concentration camps during the Second World War and then settled in Hungary - but fled with her family in 1956. Arriving as a refugee in London, serious illness forced her to abandon professional work and to live at home as a housewife, where she began the process of `Englishing` her family.
The Photographer at Sixteen reveals a life told backwards, from the depths of Magda's final days to her girlhood as an ambitious photographer in Budapest. The woman who emerges is beautiful, energetic, direct, warm and passionate. It is a book born of curiosity, of guilt, and of love.
In this first episode, George Szirtes describes his mother's dramatic last dash to hospital, and reflects on the strong, indelible marks she has left on her family.
`Shortly before she died she made a tape in which she sang us happy birthday for the future. Not once but several times, once for each birthday, until her voice gave ou | |
| 02 | 20210316 | George Szirtes reads his award-winning memoir about his mother, Magda. Her turbulent life reflects the drama of the 20th century.
She survived incarceration in two different concentration camps during the Second World War and then settled in Hungary - but fled with her family in 1956. Arriving as a refugee in London, serious illness forced her to abandon professional work and to live at home as a housewife, where she began the process of `Englishing` her family.
The Photographer at Sixteen reveals a life told backwards, from the depths of Magda's final days to her girlhood as an ambitious photographer in Budapest. The woman who emerges is beautiful, energetic, direct, warm and passionate. It is a book born of curiosity, of guilt, and of love.
In this second episode, George Szirtes describes his mother's attempts to make her family fit in, once they arrive in England.
`We were Englishing ourselves as best we could. But my mother's firm ideas about dress could be hard on us. She abhorred the way the English dressed their children: the long flannel shorts, the sloppy woollen socks. We had to wear white sandals and white socks. Your shorts will be short, continental length, she decided. We were a laughing stock, but not to he | |
| 03 | 20210317 | George Szirtes reads his award-winning memoir about his mother, Magda. Her turbulent life reflects the drama of the 20th century.
She survived incarceration in two different concentration camps during the Second World War and then settled in Hungary - but fled with her family in 1956. Arriving as a refugee in London, serious illness forced her to abandon professional work and to live at home as a housewife, where she began the process of `Englishing` her family.
The Photographer at Sixteen reveals a life told backwards, from the depths of Magda's final days to her girlhood as an ambitious photographer in Budapest. The woman who emerges is beautiful, energetic, direct, warm and passionate. It is a book born of curiosity, of guilt, and of love.
In this third episode, George Szirtes tells the dramatic story of his family's escape from Hungary after the 1956 Revolution.
`Martial law was declared. People with rifles and pistols were roaming the streets. There were bodies in the streets and people hanging from lamp-posts. We walked under the barrel of a Russian tank, but the Russians did not stop u | |
| 04 | 20210318 | 20210319 (R4) | George Szirtes reads his award-winning memoir about his mother, Magda. Her turbulent life reflects the drama of the 20th century. She survived incarceration in two different concentration camps during the Second World War and then settled in Hungary - but fled with her family in 1956. Arriving as a refugee in London, serious illness forced her to abandon professional work and to live at home as a housewife, where she began the process of `Englishing` her family. The Photographer at Sixteen reveals a life told backwards, from the depths of Magda's final days to her girlhood as an ambitious photographer in Budapest. The woman who emerges is beautiful, energetic, direct, warm and passionate. It is a book born of curiosity, of guilt, and of love. In this fourth episode, George Szirtes uncovers the painful history of his mother's time in the concentration camps. After the War, she returns to her home city of Cluj in Romania to try to find her family; but discovers that her old neighbours don't want to know her. `Returning home was not a simple matter. Magda's real bitterness was not evident in the immediate aftermath of the camps but followed the discovery that all her family had perished, and that their perishing was greeted by either indifference or pleasure by those who had previously seemed good-natured and neighbourly.` George Szirtes is a poet and translator who escaped to Britain with his family after the 1956 Hungarian uprising. He's the author of some 25 books of poetry. The Photographer at Sixteen won the 2020 James Tait Black Prize for Biography. Read by the author, George Szirtes Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4 George Szirtes reads his award-winning memoir about his mother. George Szirtes reads his award-winning memoir about his mother, Magda. Her turbulent life reflects the drama of the 20th century. She survived incarceration in two different concentration camps during the Second World War and then settled in Hungary - but fled with her family in 1956. Arriving as a refugee in London, serious illness forced her to abandon professional work and to live at home as a housewife, where she began the process of `Englishing` her family. The Photographer at Sixteen reveals a life told backwards, from the depths of Magda's final days to her girlhood as an ambitious photographer in Budapest. The woman who emerges is beautiful, energetic, direct, warm and passionate. It is a book born of curiosity, of guilt, and of love. In this fourth episode, George Szirtes uncovers the painful history of his mother's time in the concentration camps. After the War, she returns to her home city of Cluj in Romania to try to find her family; but discovers that her old neighbours don't want to know her. `Returning home was not a simple matter. Magda's real bitterness was not evident in the immediate aftermath of the camps but followed the discovery that all her family had perished, and that their perishing was greeted by either indifference or pleasure by those who had previously seemed good-natured and neighbourly.` George Szirtes is a poet and translator who escaped to Britain with his family after the 1956 Hungarian uprising. He's the author of some 25 books of poetry. The Photographer at Sixteen won the 2020 James Tait Black Prize for Biography. Read by the author, George Szirtes Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4 George Szirtes reads his award-winning memoir about his mother. |
| 05 | 20210319 | George Szirtes reads his award-winning memoir about his mother, Magda. Her turbulent life reflects the drama of the 20th century.
She survived incarceration in two different concentration camps during the Second World War and then settled in Hungary - but fled with her family in 1956. Arriving as a refugee in London, serious illness forced her to abandon professional work and to live at home as a housewife, where she began the process of `Englishing` her family.
The Photographer at Sixteen reveals a life told backwards, from the depths of Magda's final days to her girlhood as an ambitious photographer in Budapest. The woman who emerges is beautiful, energetic, direct, warm and passionate. It is a book born of curiosity, of guilt, and of love.
In this final episode, George Szirtes goes back to his mother's early years as a photographer in Budapest, at the beginning of the great age of magazine photography. He reconstructs the moment when she is seized by the militia, and taken away to concentration camps during the War, as a Jew.
`What I would like to present to somebody is the voice and energy, not of someoe sick and dying but of a woman in her prim |