The Last Post previewed

Some further advance publicity for my Radio 4 show on Wednesday morning. Paul Donovan in the Sunday Times:

Other Armistice Day offerings include Alwyn Turner's melancholic history of The Last Post (R4 FM, 11am), just after the two-minute silence

The wonderful Gillian Reynolds in the Daily Telegraph:

Alwyn Turner tells the story of one of the world's most familiar tunes. Once it was just one of a dozen bugle calls played every day in British Army barracks. In the 1850s it became something played at soldiers' funerals. In the First World War, it gained its greatest resonance. Now it is played internationally to mark the passing of an era or to keep alive the memory of conflicts past and present. It has become the music of loss, an almost sacred anthem in an increasingly secular society.

and again in the Sunday Telegraph:

The Last Post began as a bugle call in British barracks, played to show all was secured at the close of day but, from the 19th century on, has become one of the world's most familiar tunes, played at funerals and state occasions. Alwyn Turner tells its story with the help of men who've played it. Its very simplicity makes it hard to play perfectly but, as we hear, there's something about it that uniquely signals sadness, solemnity, respect.

And finally Liam Williams in the Independent:

It started as just one of a couple of dozen bugle calls played every day in a British Amy barracks - then, in the 1850s, it found a new role, played at soldiers' funerals. Alwyn Turner tells the untold story of The Last Post.

Whoever is responsible at the BBC for promoting programmes is clearly doing a fine job, and I'm very grateful.