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Fi Glover introduces the omnibus edition of Radio 4's new series, mounted in conjunction with the British Library, that captures the nation in conversation.

This week, we meet Beryl and Graham from Hull. Beryl is a twice married grandmother who talks with her grandson about love, loss and how she lost her heart late in life to the man who gave her a lift home in his Reliant Robin; Jean and her daughter Rebecca talk about the difficulties of facing up to failing health and death; Cy tells his granddaughter Lucy about his life as a musician in Liverpool's glory days and Alan and Christine from Stoke on Trent talk about the magnetic hold the town's Spode porcelain factory has had on their lives.

The Listening Project is a new initiative for Radio 4 that aims to offer a sort of snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not 大象传媒 interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Many of the long conversations are being archived by the British Library which they will use to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject.