Many of you will already be familiar with the writings of Riverbend on her blog Baghdad Burning. In an interesting blend of old media and new media, the BBC has serialised her blog entries as Women's Hour dramatic readings.
They are beautiful and evocative, read aloud by actors and actresses who bring the events of Riverbend's family and home and the challenges they face alive. I had forgotten how moving her early, hopeful blogs were from 2003. The reading tonight about cleaning the house for visitors - in competition with neatnik neighbours doing the same - had a freshness and poignancy that took my breath away.
Make yourself a cup of tea and listen in here to Baghdad Burning on BBC Radio 4. The drama is only made available for 7 days after broadcast. Don't miss it.
Baghdad Burning on BBC Radio 4 Women's Hour Drama:
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Two more episodes will be added Thursday and Friday on this page.
I will likely post the whole set again on Friday as this is an amazing thing to listen to from the comfort of Britain. The sound effects, acting and production values bring Riverbend alive to me - and now to hundreds of thousands of others.
That 'Baghdad Burning' is dramatised on Women's Hour is itself significant. The listener demographic is largely women, as you would expect, and if they are brought to understand the harm done in Iraq to families like their own, they will remember. Tony Blair and the Labour Party are already hated for their duplicity in lying to the British public and craven subservience to Bush. The women of Britain won't forget if stories like this shape their emotional perception of war.