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Is there any annoyance in life that isn't improved by a brisk walk in the sea air? It's a truth Jane Austen would surely acknowledge and even the NHS suggests it to be so even though it is not always easy to get close to the glorious English coast. The King Charles III English Coastal Path is changing all that - taking shape as the longest managed path of its kind in the world. It will take ramblers from the flatlands of The Wash to the fossil strewn beaches of Dorset; past the windswept holy island of Lindisfarne as well as the kiss me quick thrills of Blackpool or Skegness, taking in landscapes that have inspired the finest novelists, composers and poets.

This edition of words and music celebrates the English coast and our long tradition of walking along it. You will hear the words of the Northumberland based monk and historian Bede as well as a contemporary traveller in Sunderland; from WG Sebald’s travelogue The Rings of Saturn and Alice Oswald on the Severn estuary; from Jane Austen on Lyme Regis and Jini Reddy in St Ives. You will hear music from Benjamin Brittan, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Ethel Smyth – music evoking our sea-faring past, beach loving present and the white cliffs in between.

Our readers are Tara Fitzgerald and Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong.

Produced in Salford by Olive Clancy