Afternoon Reading - Midsummer Tales - Count from the Splash

A series of new short stories - set variously in Finland, Shetland and Orkney - exploring the magical light, and white nights, of far northern summers. "Count From The Splash" by Helen Dunmore. Read by Tracy Wiles. Produced by Kirsteen Cameron. Midsummer in Finland: a time of feasting and celebration. Maija's husband has been invited to a big party in the countryside by his boss Frederik - who is high up in the television industry. Tiring of the media chatter, Maija goes looking for Anna, Frederik's wife and, along the way, bumps into a friend from her childhood. She hasn't seen Birgit since they were nine and she is almost unrecognisable: badly scarred by years of drink and drug addiction. Walking together around the lake, away from the party-goers, the pair experience long-lost feelings of the excitement and energy of their childhood selves. Helen Dunmore is an acclaimed novelist, poet and children's author. After graduating from the University of York, she taught English as a foreign language in Finland. Her novels include: A Spell of Winter and The Seige. In March this year, her poem "The Malarkey" won the National Poetry Competition. Her new novel The Betrayal is set in 1950s Leningrad.