'Vital mental medicine' - on radio

Thanks to Denis Hayes for the welcome news that through this link you can listen to a half-hour BBC radio documentary, by musician Tim van Eyken, on the banjo that accompanied the Shackleton Antarctic expedition of 1914-16. The banjo, which was owned and played by Leonard Hussey (left; 1891-1964), the meteorologist taking part in the expedition, is now preserved in the National Maritime Museum at Falmouth, Cornwall.

Plenty of banjo music of the period can be heard during the programme. As the original instrument is now too frail to be played, a banjo from the collection of English banjo authority and bluegrass pioneer Pete Stanley was used.