Despite the all-pervading influence of television an astonishing ninety per cent of people in Britain still listen to the radio, clocking up over a billion hours of listening between us every week. It’s a background to all our lives: we wake up to our clock radios, we have the radio on in the kitchen as we make the tea, it’s on at our workplaces and in our cars. Most of our lives can be measured in kilohertz.

In Last Train To Hilversum Charlie Connelly explores the place of radio in our world, taking stock of the history of the medium and celebrating its role as one of the very few genuinely shared national experiences. He explores some of the geniuses, crackpots and charlatans who helped to give us the radio we know today, talks to some of our great contemporary broadcasters from Corrie Corfield to Cerys Matthews, visits Britain’s smallest commercial station and amplifies the voices, personalities and programmes that have helped to form who we are as individuals and as a nation.

Part nostalgic reverie, part social history, part travelogue, Last Train To Hilversum is Connelly’s love letter to radio, exploring our relationship with the medium from its earliest days to the present in a journey from the wireless to wireless.