Great Lives Folgen

Ruth Holdaway - the former Chief Executive of Women in Sport - picks pioneering sports broadcaster Helen Rollason. Helen trained as a teacher, but after stints in community and local radio, moved to the BBC to report for and later present the BBC’s 'Newsround' for children. She kept her hand in with sport and made history in 1990 when she was appointed as the first female presenter of BBC TV’s flagship 'Grandstand'. Sport was largely a male-dominated world at the time and there were plenty both inside and outside the Corporation who would have happily have seen her fail.Helen died in 1999 aged 43. Presented by Matthew Parris.With John Caunt who helped Helen write her autobiography.Plus contributions from:* Clare Balding * James Pearce * Deb CrookProducer: Toby FieldFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2016.

For many piano music lovers, Dinu Lipatti [1917-1950], the Romanian concert pianist, stands head and shoulders above others. Dinu lived during a time of great turbulence, leaving his native Romania for Switzerland at the outbreak of the Second World War. He left behind a wealthy family but they subsequently lost everything under communism.Food writer and former chef, Orlando Murrin explains his love for Lipatti's music and his fascination with his life. It has led him to spending time trying to save Lipatti's family home from demolition in Bucharest.He joins Matthew Parris and the London based Romanian concert pianist Alexandra Dariescu to champion the life and work of one of classical music's greatest 20th century talents.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2016.

Actor Sir Ben Kingsley tells Matthew Parris why he regards Elie Wiesel as his great life. A writer, a Nobel laureate, a holocaust survivor, Elie had to endure the worst horrors of mankind and survive the darkest of crimes. In the Holocaust he lost his mother, his father and his youngest sister. He once said: “To forget the dead would be to akin to killing them again a second time”.Sir Ben Kingsley regards Wiesel as was one the great voices of the holocaust and says he should never be forgotten. This was a promise he made to Wiesel.To help tell Elie’s story, the expert witness is Robert Eaglestone, Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought and an expert in Holocaust Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London.Producer: Perminder KhatkarFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2016.