recommendations – Maddie Grigg

As well as consuming books as if they were chocolates, I am also an avid listener of music, podcasts and watcher of television.

One of my Christmas presents was a set of wireless headphones. You can’t imagine how delighted I am to be working at my laptop, playing my electronica full blast without anyone saying: ‘I’m sorry, but what kind of music is that?’

To be honest, you probably can imagine how delighted Mr Grigg is at not having to listen to my musical choices. I think if he has to hear one more minute of BBC Radio 6 Music, he’ll probably take a short walk off a long pier.

It won’t surprise you, then, to learn that he’s the one who gave me the headphones.

They are very handy for listening to podcasts of my choice.

This week, I’ve been glued to the BBC’s Intrigue: Million Dollar Lover, which tells the true story, in real time, of an 80-year-old rich woman and her 57-year-old companion, who turned up penniless and homeless in her Californian beach town, became her gardener and then her lover.

Hats off to the reporter, Sue Mitchell, who, with the couple’s consent, began recording them, just because the idea of their relationship piqued her curiosity. Little did she to know that an incredible story – with equal elements of love, dark secrets, family discord and manipulation – was about to land in her lap.

You can listen to the entire series on BBC Sounds.

I’m not giving anything away but I thoroughly recommend this podcast, which was scripted by the always reliable Winifred Robinson.

I’m now into Episode 3 of June: Voice of A Silent Twin, which tells the strange and tragic story of Black twins June and Jennifer Gibbons, who in 1982 were sent to Broadmoor after a crime spree in rural Wales. At the age of 19, they were the youngest women to be incarcerated at the notorious secure unit.

It’s a fascinating and sad story with which I’m familiar, but what makes this different is hearing directly from June herself, who now lives a quiet life in Wales. Jennifer died at just 29, not long after the sisters were moved from Broadmoor to a more open clinic in Bridgend.

The series is currently unfolding on BBC Sounds.

On the telly, I’ve been watching, open-mouthed, Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, which has been on ITV every night this week, with all episodes available on ITV X. It’s very uncomfortable to see how a once much-loved British institution completely wrecked the lives of hardworking sub-postmasters and mistresses across the land.

A great British cast and efficient script plonks the viewer firmly on the side of the underdog. How could the Post Office treat people so badly? And doesn’t it show that if you work in isolation, with no-one on your side to turn to, how destructive corporate bureaucracy can be?

It’s an astonishing true story of arrogance and incompetence and now, thanks to television, millions more people know about this terrible injustice. The repercussions are still being felt.

I’m hoping to catch Wonka in the cinema before Timothee Chalamet disappears behind his chocolate factory gates. The BBC says it’s ‘relentlessly wacky and over the top’, which, to be fair, sounds just like my kind of film.