This week the Books podcast goes to the seaside, with Patrick Barkham setting sail for Aldeburgh, where he meets the author Ronald Blythe.

Blythe returns to his early days on the Suffolk coast in the 1950s, where he worked for Benjamin Britten and met Imogen Holst, EM Forster and a thriving artistic community. He recalls how Forster pushed a note under his door suggesting they meet up for a drink, his puzzlement over Forster's drab clothes, and how Blythe never dared mention his own writing.

We hear how Britten was a very literary composer, a little about artists' love for the sea, and why 50s writers are now unjustly neglected.

Reading list

Akenfield by Ronald Blythe (Penguin Classics)
The Time By the Sea by Ronald Blythe (Faber & Faber)