Radio Four has been described as 'the greatest broadcasting channel in the world', 'the heartbeat of the BBC', and a cultural icon of Britishness. In this first major behind-the-scenes account of the station's history, David Hendy draws on the BBC's vast archives and interviews with key personnel to tell the compelling inside stories behind its best-loved programmes like Today, The Archers, Gardeners' Question Time, and the Shipping Forecast. From its birth in 1967, Hendy. explores the station's struggle to justify itself in a television age amid passionate disputes with its fiercely loyal lis