´óÏó´«Ã½

Mark Tully considers our sense of touch and how we take it for granted. Somehow our other senses seem more active, even more important to us. We might fear the loss of our sight, or our hearing, but seldom do we worry about losing the ability to touch. But how would we cope without being able to feel anything through our skin? Or, indeed, how would we function if we could not feel our limbs? Tully relates the case of Ian Waterman who had to face life without the sense of touch when he lost all sensation below the neck at the age of nineteen.

He also looks at different cultural attitudes to touch, from the reserved Anglo-Saxon handshake to the more "touchy-feely" ways of greeting in Latin countries. What do our ways of touching, or not touching, say about us?

The programme also considers the notion of inappropriate touch, but at the same time explores the dangers of avoiding touch for fear of being accused of wrong-doing. Tully quotes from author, Judy Rigby, who maintains: "All too often, when we hear about touch, it's in the context of pornography, abuse and violence ... we are afraid of touching because our actions might be misinterpreted. Hence children are deprived of appropriate touch at a very early age. Our response has been analogous to that of a person, who having eaten some bad food, decides that the best course of action in the future is not to eat at all, rather than ensuring what is eaten is healthy."

With poetry from John Betjemen and Michael Ondaatje; and music from Irving Berlin, John Dowland and Rachmaninov, Mark Tully wonders at the seeming simplicity of touch, but its power to transmit and transform. And he celebrates the fact that we need to go on touching if we are to go on caring.

Producer: Adam Fowler.
A Unique Production for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4.