Interview category 1. Robin Taylor (Heart of the Matter) TX: 19/02/2017 Dur: 36’26” Broadcaster: Black Diamond FM Community Radio Station Production Company: David Aird (Heart of the Matter Team) Interview time codes for Dr Robin Taylor's programme. I 1 04:49 - 14:47 I 2 20:30 - 30:34 I 3 33:11 - 42:38 I 4 47:52 - 54:47 Total interview time: 36:24 This interview was placed within an edition of "Heart of the Matter" which lasted 58 minutes and was produced by and for community radio in Midlothian. Each week the team make strenuous efforts to interview someone who has a faith story to tell and this is included in a weekly magazine programme which has been broadcast for over 10 years. This particular interview brings interviewer Ruth Aird into conversation with Dr. Robin Taylor who shares something of his life and experience. He talks about his profession and shares some moving and occasionally humorous experiences as he grapples with what "The Heart of the Matter " is for us all at some time in our life. He shared after the interview that there were a couple of questions that he had never previously been asked or addressed. He personally found the experience challenging and extremely thought provoking as did the many who listened to the broadcast. One of the most moving and honest interviews that we have undertaken recently. 2. Jim Grover (Heart of the Matter) TX: 13/08/2017 Dur: 28’15” Broadcaster: Black Diamond FM Community Radio Station Production Company: David Aird (Heart of the Matter Team) This modern Christian magazine programme produced for community radio in Midlothian uses the testimony and life experience of the interviewee to find out what the ”Heart of the Matter” really is for them living in a modern society. The person interviewed in this edition (Jim Grover, an award winning photographer), began his faith journey as a result of photographing and following an English priest for a year. Over this period he collected over 15000 images, selecting only 40 for the exhibition. He discusses his life and faith in the magnificent surroundings of St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh at the start of the exhibition of his remarkable black and white images during the 70th. anniversary of the Edinburgh International Festival. Ruth Aird brings real warmth and empathy to the interview and as a result Jim is able to share something of how his life has been positively affected by the London priest who shared his own church and life experience with him in a unique way. 3. The Christians in Sport Podcast: Danno meets…Chris Jones TX:02/02/2017 Dur: 33’51” Broadcaster: https://audioboom.com/posts/5563425-danno-meets-chris-jones Production Company: Christians in Sport In the Christians in Sport podcast, Graham Daniels (Danno), speaks to elite athletes about their sporting career and how it lined up with their faith. In this episode, Danno meets wildman turned inspirational youth coach Chris Jones. Although a Welsh junior international, Chris was soon far better known for his violent antics on off the field, which earned him the dubious honour of being banned for life twice. Chris, whose story has been well-chronicled in print, was renowned for carrying an axe in his kitbag and prided himself in being among the hardest men in the Rhondda Valley. Here he speaks of how the culture he grew up in led to him seeking to earn admiration in the best way he knew how – as a thug. Chris’ behaviour came to ahead at the most unlikely of places – the Brecon Jazz Festival – after which his life was turned upside down when he came to faith in Jesus. After his first life ban, a journalist put it to Chris that his influence on the young people of the Rhondda Valley was terrible. Chris’ reply at the time was “I don’t care”. Decades later, he is having a very different impact as he puts his faith into action as Rhondda’s rugby development officer. On becoming a Christian, Chris initially felt rugby was his problem and that he needed to abandon the sport, but then he came to realise how God could use him in the world he once terrorised. 4. Ramadan: In Conversation with Babar Ahmad TX: 21/06/2017 Dur: 37’34” Broadcaster: www.thingsunseen.co.uk Production Company: CTVC Babar Ahmad spent 8 years in UK prisons fighting extradition to the US on terrorism charges. Having allowed his website to host articles supporting the Taliban, about which he now says he was naive, he was eventually transferred to solitary confinement in the US, before pleading guilty to ‘providing material support to terrorism’. He was released shortly afterwards and returned to the UK. In conversation with Mark Dowd, Babar Ahmad talks about how he came to set up the website in question, and how he managed to mark Ramadan in the most difficult circumstances. Despite physical and mental challenges he looks back positively on the spiritual side of his incarceration. 5. Nigel Benn speaks with Gareth Cottrell on UCB 1 TX: 14/06/2017 Dur: 78'00" Broadcaster: UCB1 (www.ucb.co.uk) Production Company: United Christian Broadcasters From the beginning, you're drawn into the conversation between presenter and guest. But, like a good book, you should almost hear how it ends, before it starts, because Gareth always finishes his interviews with the simple question: Why do you believe? And the answers are always very revealing. This is an extended interview with Nigel Benn, a British former professional boxer who competed from 1987 to 1996. He is a two-weight world champion, having held the WBO middleweight title in 1990 and the WBC super-middleweight title from 1992 to 1996. Nigel talks candidly about his upbringing, his life and his faith. And he answers the final question - eventually. 6. Sunday Breakfast with Jon Wright TX: 06/08/2017 Dur: 8'44" Broadcaster: BBC Radio Suffolk Production Company: BBC Radio Suffolk Voyeurism Rector. Sunday Breakfast with Jon Wright is BBC Radio Suffolk's faith and ethics programme, broadcast weekly from 6am to 9am. Earlier on in the programme were interviews with The Venerable Dr David Jenkins is the Archdeacon of Sudbury reacting to the sentence and also the church's safeguarding officer for Suffolk, but I felt the voices of the church members caught up in the story were the most important to hear. It took a significant amount of persuading for them to record an interview, but the result, I feel, is a powerful and sensitive conversation about an issue which has clearly challenged their faith. CUE: A Suffolk clergyman has been given a suspended jail sentence, ordered to complete a 60-day course to address sex offending behaviour... and a further 30-day rehabilitation course.... after he was caught filming people in public toilets. The Very Reverend Martin Thrower was the Rector based at St Mary's in Hadleigh - he was arrested last August - after holding his mobile phone over the top of a public toilet cubicle in Ipswich...filming a 17-year-old boy. Police also found hundreds of other images of different men on his computer. The 56 year old originally denied two charges of voyeurism, but changed his pleas to guilty after the first witness gave evidence at his trial in June at Norwich crown court. This week he was given a 4 month suspended sentence for each offence - to run concurrently. Ahead of this week's sentencing - I spoke to Cannon John Parr - the temporary parish priest placed in Hadleigh after Thrower's arrest... Jim Wilding - the church warden at St Mary's - and Claire Woods the church's administrator..... 7. Heart and Soul: Good Without God? TX: 2/06/2017 Dur: 26’29” Broadcaster: BBC World Service English www.bbc.co.uk/worldserviceradio Production Company: BBC Radio Production North They were a famous father-son team, perhaps the best known evangelical pastors in America. Tony and Bart Campolo spent decades preaching a gospel focused on serving the poor and the marginalised and Bart built a thriving inner city ministry, doing work for Christ. And then one day that all changed. He came off his bike at full speed and as he regained his health he realised that his faith had disappeared and he was no longer a Christian, but he still wanted to serve. Tony tells Jane Little about the actual physical pain he felt when Bart told him he had lost his faith. He set out to create a 'religion for unbelievers' and to prove that you could be good without God. Jane brings father and son together for a rich discussion, which often leads to tension between the two about why Bart left his faith, a faith that had played such a big part in their lives and why Tony stayed, and still prays for his own Prodigal Son to return. 8. Sudanese woman who escaped 100 lashes for adultery and death for apostasy, three years on. TX: 23/06/2017 Dur: 18’18” Broadcaster: WorldWatchMonitor.org Production Company: Julia Bicknell/Mortimer Petre (We Art Films) Three years ago today, a young Sudanese mother was freed from prison after narrowly escaping being hanged, first having been lashed 100 times for adultery. The delay on carrying out Mariam Ibrahim’s double sentence was due only to the fact that she was heavily pregnant: Islamic law (Sharia) required that she first give birth (to her daughter Maya) – while shackled to a prison bed. Ms Ibrahim’s crime? She had held firm to the faith in which her Christian mother had brought her up – after divorce from her Muslim father when Mariam was six.