Midweek - 22/07/2009

Lively and diverse conversation with Libby Purves and guests Ben MacFarlane, Chris Barber, Maurice Gran and Rosalind Wyatt. Ben MacFarlane is a doctor who started carrying out medical repatriations in 2001. His book Holiday SOS follows him as he flies around the world, patching up Britons in need and bringing them home. It includes stories of the distraught woman in Cairo whose romantic break turned into a nightmare when she got explosive food poisoning, the 78-year-old grandmother who mistook ecstasy for aspirin in Ibiza and performing life-saving surgery in the aisle of an aeroplane, during turbulence. Holiday SOS: Sun, Sea and Surgery is published by Hodder and Stoughton. Jazz trombonist Chris Barber celebrates his 60th year as a bandleader in 2009. Inspired by the King Oliver Creole Jazz Band, Chris formed his first Barber New Orleans Band in 1949 at the age of 19 and in 1954 he formed Chris Barber's Jazz Band, which has been one of Europe's most successful traditional jazz bands ever since. This year Chris Barber, Kenny Ball and Acker Bilk reunite for their first live performance in 10 years at Indigo at the O2 and release the album Boater, Bowlers and Bowties on Universal. Maurice Gran is one half of the successful writing partnership of Marks and Gran, with Laurence Marks. The pair created hit television comedies and other classics including Shine on Harvey Moon, Birds of A Feather, The New Statesman, Goodnight Sweetheart and Love Hurts. Their latest work is the new musical Dreamboats and Petticoats, based on the hit album featuring some of the greatest hit songs of the rock 'n' roll era. Dreamboats and Petticoats is at the Savoy Theatre in London. Rosalind Wyatt is an artist who works with calligraphy, textile and collage. She has a life-long fascination with text, words and handwriting and her latest body of work, The Stitch Lives of Others Parts 1-3, features three garments chronicling the lives and loves of three generations of her husband's family, the Tukes. She will is exhibiting in the A21 International Art Exhibition at the Harada-no-Mori Museum in Kobe, Japan.