On 2 July 1958 listeners to the BBC Home Service heard a new kind of radio feature: a programme without a presenter in which actuality, location-recorded speech and working class recollections were carried in a narrative song. This was The Ballad of John Axon about the death of a railway worker in a train accident - an event that occurred in February 1957. It was to be the first of eight Radio Ballads made over a period of six years by radio producer Charles Parker and folk singers Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger.

Marking the 50th anniversary of the broadcast of this first Radio Ballad, Sean Street considers the strengths and legacy of this innovation in feature making. With contributions from Peggy Seeger, Gillian Reynolds and Piers Plowright.