The Sunday Night Drop

A look at the lives of children from divorced parents who travel between parental homes.

Every Sunday - in service stations, lay-bys and car parks - children pass from one family to another. For a few hours these children exist in a no-mans land between two parental homes, bridging the distance between their parents' broken relationships. Most of Britain is unaware of how far some families have to travel to spend time with each other.

It's a sign of our times. Nearly half of divorcing couples in England and Wales have at least one child aged under 16 and 4 million British children now live in separated families. In England and Wales, only 10% of divorce cases go to court, which means that the majority of parents might have found arrangements that work for them and their families.

The Sunday Night Drop focuses on the living and loving in modern fragmented families - sharing 'quality time', keeping up appearances, being together yet also alone. It's a glimpse at how families today are managing complexity, difficulty and difference in a way that wasn't necessary in the past.

Producer: Emma Colman

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.