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On All Things Considered this week (Sunday 2 January 2011 at 9.03am repeated on Thursday 6 January 6th at 5.32pm), Roy Jenkins welcomes in the New Year.

"You must meet so many interesting people," listeners tell Roy. It's true.

Any week on this programme, we might be hearing from writers or activists, scientists, musicians, actors, poets, preachers, theologians - or people who have survived the toughest challenges life can offer.

Some have seen their worlds turned upside down by tragic events; others have chosen to work in situations we might prefer not even to know about.

Today Roy recalls just a few of the people we've met during the past year, including Loretta Minghella, the new Director of Christian Aid, Claire Bertschinger the Red Cross nurse who featured in Michael Buerk's harrowing reports from the Ethiopian famine, and Noel Richards, the Welsh singer/songwriter who's one of the Christian church's leading contemporary composers, best known perhaps as the man behind All Heaven Declares The Glory Of The Risen Lord.