Five years after his return to live at King's College, Cambridge, where he had been a student, EM Forster is shown in his rooms and other locations around the town as he talks about his life and writing. Forster describes how Cambridge played a significant role in his origins as a novelist and emphasises the importance to his writing of leaving the area and seeking out new people and experiences. He dismisses the idea that he is a great novelist, but does talk about the aspirations he has for his work, namely that it reflects the high value he attaches to personal relationships, tolerance and, perhaps most importantly, pleasure.

Forster was a life-long champion of humanist, liberal values. He was a conscientious objector during World War I and, instead of fighting, worked with the Red Cross to trace missing soldiers. In the 1930s, he was part of the intellectual movement, which opposed the rise of fascism and sought to safeguard liberal values. Once World War II had broken out, Forster broadcast radio talks for the BBC. These attracted huge audiences, who listened to his arguments for freedom and tolerance and his pleas that the post-war world would be free of bitterness and revenge.

↗ Originally broadcast 21 December 1958.