The Essay

Novelist Mark Haddon reflects on the house in Northamptonshire which was his childhood home, until the age of 12: "It was a detached, three bedroom, two storey new-build on a thin strip of reclaimed rubbish dump between the end of a red-brick terrace and the Smarts' bungalow. My father was an architect and although he didn't design the building himself it was, in its modest way, an architect's house, a couple of cuts above provincial 1960s boilerplate." This week's Essays are part of the 70th birthday celebrations of the Third Programme: the network discussed architecture from its earliest days, covering both new initiatives and historic buildings, most notably in talks by Nikolaus Pevsner. Producer Clare Walker.

In 1815 an anonymous author published "Memoirs of an Old Wig" and lamented the influx of French hairdressers to England. From the writings of ETA Hoffmann and Charles Dickens, from Hans Christian Andersen to Balzac and beyond, New Generation Thinker Seán Williams considers the depiction of hairdressers in prints and prose and what it tells us about a transformative period in British and European history. The Essay is recorded in front of an audience as part of Sound Frontiers: BBC Radio 3 live at Southbank Centre celebrating 7 decades of pioneering music and culture. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio. Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

In October 1884 the playwright August Strindberg took a train from exile to face a charge of blasphemy in court. New Generation Thinker Leah Broad, from the University of Oxford, reflects on "the woman question" in nineteenth century Scandinavian countries and what their debates have to say to us today.The Essay is recorded in front of an audience as part of Sound Frontiers: BBC Radio 3 live at Southbank Centre celebrating 7 decades of pioneering music and culture.New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio.Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

In 1912 Freud compared psychoanalysis to using the telephone, an instrument he disliked. Reflecting on this fear of the phone, the poet and New Generation Thinker Sarah Jackson, from Nottingham Trent University, explores the telephone's voices in philosophy and fiction.The Essay is recorded in front of an audience as part of Sound Frontiers: BBC Radio 3 live at Southbank Centre celebrating 7 decades of pioneering music and culture.New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio.Producer: Fiona McLean.

Memories of Partition explored by New Generation Thinker Anindya Raychaudhuri, from the University of St Andrews. He listens to oral histories and looks at film and literature depicting this key moment in history and the shadows it has cast. He reflects on the way people now frame their own experiences through representations of the mass migration which they have seen in news reels, films and fiction.The Essay was recorded in front of an audience as part of Sound Frontiers: BBC Radio 3 live at Southbank Centre celebrating 7 decades of pioneering music and culture.New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio. Applications are now open for the 2018 scheme. Further details and examples of other essays and broadcasts from New Generation Thinkers can be found on the Free Thinking programme website.

From Spanish Inquisition stews and Reformation sausages to pork in French school dinners, New Generation Thinker Christopher Kissane from the London School of Economics explores the significance of food in past and present conflicts over identity. The Essay is recorded in front of an audience as part of Sound Frontiers: BBC Radio 3 live at Southbank Centre celebrating 7 decades of pioneering music and culture. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio.Producer: Luke Mulhall.

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of Radio 3, the network invited five writers with whom it shares a birthday, also turning 70 this year, on a birthday outing. Our contributors chose to visit places that have some personal significance for them where they could look back and reflect on their feelings in this special birthday year.Today, Ukrainian-British Novelist Marina Lewycka, best known for her 2005 novel A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian which won the 2005 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, takes a trip up the Eiffel Tower to reflect on a lifetime of visiting the city and a look at what the future holds for the Europe she loves. Essayist and reader: Marina Lewycka Producer: Simon Richardson.

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of Radio 3, the network invited five writers with whom it shares a birthday, also turning 70 this year, on a birthday outing. Our contributors chose to visit a places that have some personal significance for them where they could look back and reflect on their feelings in this special birthday year.Today, novelist and memoirist Gervase Phinn, a former teacher and schools inspector, recalls joining the pilgrims on a visit to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, to pay homage to the relics of the apostle St James and to the act of pilgrimage itself. Essayist and reader: Gervase Phinn Producer: Simon Richardson.

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of Radio 3, the network invited five writers with whom it shares a birthday, also turning 70 this year, on a birthday outing. Our contributors chose to visit places that have some personal significance for them where they could look back and reflect on their feelings in this special birthday year.Liverpool-born novelist and former politician Edwina Currie returns to her native city for a ferry ride across the River Mersey where, over 50 years ago, in an end of school ritual, she and her peers threw their hated green school berets into the river. Essayist and reader: Edwina Currie Producer: Simon Richardson.

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of Radio 3, the network invited five writers with whom it shares a birthday, also turning 70 this year, on a birthday outing. Our contributors chose to visit places that have some personal significance for them, where they could look back and reflect on their feelings in this special birthday year.Today, poet and broadcaster Michael Rosen visits Eastwood and the childhood home of DH Lawrence, the poet who inspired him to write.Essayist and reader: Michael Rosen Producer: Simon Richardson.