Alistair Cooke's Seasonal Letters from America

Synopsis

This is a BBC Radio 4 series presented by Justin Webb, featuring eight seasonal letters from the great broadcaster. This selection contains eight of Cooke's "Christmas and New Year Letters from America", broadcast in December and January over the five decades of his career and covering a range of festive topics from the light-hearted to the sombre. Starting with his December 2001 Letter - broadcast in the wake of 9/11 - he remembers introducing Leonard Bernstein to Handel's Messiah, muses on the creation of "A Christmas Carol" and shares his memories of two friends who died in 1977, Groucho Marx and Bing Crosby. Here, too, are Cooke's reflections on Christmas in Vermont, the early days of television in the USA, cigarette advertising and sport, the Millennium Bug and the Nixon family's first days in the White House. The Letters are introduced and linked by the BBC's North America editor, Justin Webb, who sets them in their historical context and adds his own observations. 'Cooke's debonaire, transatlantic tones are unmistakable...' - "FT Magazine".