The radio-podcast all about true stories in Cambridge

Episode 1: ‘Leaving Home’

Kendal is a first-year student at Jesus College. When his mother was fourteen she and an older sister publicly flew the Kurdish flag in Turkey, and were arrested. But the Turkish policeman who arrested them got the colour of the flag wrong in his report and with the help of a lawyer his mother and aunt fled Turkey to Sweden where Kendal was born. Kendal says that if the policeman had not made that mistake, he would not be here today.

Our second interviewee is a final-year language student. On a night out in Nizhny Novgorod, a Russian city where she was living as part of her degree, she met the man who would later become her husband. But it hasn’t all been plain sailing since then.

We then hear from King’s Classics Professor Simon Goldhill. Around 18 months ago, he and his wife decided they wanted to do something to help with the Syrian refugee crisis. Three weeks later, Faraj, a young man from Aleppo, arrived at their home in Cambridge, where he has been living ever since. Prof. Goldhill tells us why more people should be hosting refugees  and then, live in the studio, we speak to Faraj himself, and hear a quick summary of his experiences trying to reach the UK, and his reflections on his new life in Cambridge so far.