Life

Radio review: Martina Purdy on Talkback

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann is an Irish News columnist and writes a weekly radio review.

Nuala McCann
Nuala McCann Nuala McCann

Talkback Radio Ulster

Here’s the Thing Podcast

The story of a beautiful, sharp, witty journalist who gave up her ringside seat at the cut and thrust of Northern Ireland politics to become a nun deserves its own film script.

And if you happen to know that person a little and if she started off her writing career on these very pages, it seems even more magnetic.

There are a bewildering number of questions... mostly why? A friend of her brother’s wanted to know what she was running away from, she told William Crawley on this special edition of Talkback.

But the answer for Martina Purdy, is simple really. When you have a calling, you know.

She’s still Martina – only she returned to the BBC to present this Talkback in her brown habit with a white veil and a rather huge set of rosary beads.

But for her, this is just right – and she also came back to laughter and a lot of hugs.

“I don’t miss the job, I do miss the people,” she confessed.

There were plenty of jokes – she used to joke that you’d have to wrestle her mascara from her cold dead fingers. But the day came when she gave that up too. Her transformation to becoming a nun is a “makeover in reverse” she said.

And she still loves Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run. Hey!

But the telling moment was when she described going up the stairs in the convent and catching her shadow – the shadow of a nun.

And in those split seconds, the whole wonder and mystery of life shimmers in the darkness and light on the turn of a stair.

Nothing stays the same – as Carly Simon sang – and the world of radio has changed utterly with the podcast. There are thousands out there clamouring for a word in your ear – try The Moth – True Stories Told Live.

The Americans are great at podcasts. Try Here’s the Thing, where Alec Baldwin gets into intimate conversations with the stars.

You’ll feast on a variety of gems like the fact that comedian Amy Schumer grew up in a nude house and that Andy Warhol really did like Campbell’s Soup.

Happy New Year.