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Neil Reynolds comments:

"The programme 'Westall's Garmouth' was produced as the final practical project of my MA in Radio Production and Management which I completed in October 2007 at The University of Sunderland. It has been produced in the style of a Radio 4 documentary feature and follows the conventions of that particular network in regard to subject matter, use of music and interview material, presentation style etc.
I chose Robert Westall as a subject because I wanted to produce a programme that would be possible to produce locally, but that would also be relevant to listeners on a national level.
I first read 'The Machine Gunners' as an 11 year old and really identified with the people and the local settings in the book. Like Robert Westall I grew up in North Shields, so the people and places in books such as 'The Machine Gunners' and 'The Watch House' are familiar to me, as 'Garmouth' is actually an amalgamation of North Shields and Tynemouth. With my programme I wanted to look at the real life locations which featured in Westall's childhood and inspired much of his writing in later life.
When I was researching the documentary I came across the notes for the Robert Westall Trail and I decided to use the walk within my programme. I discovered that the walk is no longer available as a guided walk and it occured to me that an audio version which could be downloaded to an mp3 player would be a great way of allowing people to do the walk without the need for written notes. This format also allowed me to include readings from some of Westall's books which would be read to the listener when they were in the location where the action was taking place in the book."