Panel announced for Any Questions?
BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions? will be broadcast from the New Earswick Folk Hall on Friday (5 October). The names of three of the four panellists for Friday’s live broadcast have been announced by the BBC. They are: Yvette Cooper, Minister of State for Housing and Planning; William Hague, Shadow Foreign Secretary; and Simon Jenkins, journalist and author. A fourth panellist will be announced nearer the time of broadcast.
People from York greeted the news that Any Questions? was coming to the Folk Hall with great enthusiasm and all the tickets were snapped up within three weeks of being released.
The broadcast will take place on a very significant day for the Folk Hall –marking exactly 100 years to the day since the hall was officially opened by the Quaker philanthropist Joseph Rowntree.
When Joseph Rowntree built New Earswick he wanted to create a community in which people on modest incomes could afford to rent decent homes and live in a healthy and attractive environment. He also wanted to create a lively, thriving community, in which the residents played an active part. In October 1907 he opened the Folk Hall, his gift to the village. He said: “If a Village is to have a united life and a common interest in things affecting its welfare, it is almost necessary that it should have a place for meeting.”
Julia Unwin, Director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “The broadcast of Any Questions? is a very fitting way to mark 100 years since Joseph Rowntree opened the Folk Hall. He would have been proud to see that the meeting place he built for the community is now being used for national debate as well as local activity.”
