Radio 4 Extra sustains a major part of our cultural heritage. Save it from the BBC cuts

Stephen McKenna argues against the axing of the station to cut the BBC’s costs

My father was the actor TP McKenna, who died in 2011. A boon of his years in that great radio studio in the skies is the regular messages I get from friends who have heard him of late on BBC Radio 4 Extra in such programmes as Ballylenon and Baldi. If I tune in myself, it’s as if he’s in the room with me.

Of itself, that’s hardly a reason to save this important channel from plans to scrap it (BBC Three and BBC Scotland TV channels to be shut down next year, 20 October), and yet it is. Not to mention the astonishing roll call of British actors that could be cited, including Paul Daneman, John Moffatt, Robert Hardy, Robert Lang, Richard Pasco, Norman Rodway, Anna Massey, Stephanie Cole, Elizabeth Spriggs, Joanna David, Maggie Steed, Melinda Walker, Geraldine McEwan, and the words of our finest writers from Alan Ayckbourn to George Bernard Shaw. Just a few out of so many.

The fact is, the BBC’s radio archive is to our ears as the National Trust is to our Sunday afternoon excursions. It is a major part of our cultural heritage, and far too important to be stuffed away in some corner of BBC Sounds. An all too pertinent reminder these days that there is hardly anyone remaining in the BBC’s management who was ever a part of its former culture. Stephen McKenna Blackheath, London