The studio centre at Radio Tirana, Albania, originally located on Rruga Ismail Qemali. This image was used on correspondence cards sent to listeners.
Voice from the East.
Between 1970 and 1991 a woman, never named and with a sonorous antipodean accent, could be heard broadcasting some of the most extraordinary communist propaganda ever heard amongst the radio stations of the former socialist countries.
Radio Tirana broadcast from Albania - at one time Europe's most secretive and closed country.
The transmissions were the source of enormous fascination for one 13 year old boy who listened to the programmes at bath time, with increasing amazement.
53 year old journalist John Escolme was that 13 year old.
We join his journey to track down the mystery broadcaster who not only recalls her life on-air, but her own extraordinary personal story - one that took her from remote New Zealand to an eccentric Stalinist regime rarely visited by anyone from the west.