eight nine ten

For a long time now I've been interested in listening to children. And it seems to me that between the ages of eight, nine and ten there's a kind of special time. Children of this age are conscious of the world, but not too badly spoilt by it. They have something to say, they're prepared to speculate but they'r equally happy to listen to other opinions. The necessity to be right doesn't quite seem to have taken hold yet. I'm looking at this territory in an ongoing way but for now I wanted to share with you a mini edit that I put together as a proposal to BBC Radio 4 - I thought they might be interested in me making a programme that gave just a few young people a voice and offered those of us who are a little older perhaps the opportunity to hear them. The BBC weren't interested. But one day I'm going to make a series of podcasts on it anyway, without having to worry about the squeezing it into anyone else's guidelines. So - here, for now, is an idea of the kind of conversations I'm interested in having with young children.