Falling for Icarus: A Journey among the Cretans - Tapa dura

On a windy afternoon in early spring Rory MacLean fell to earth in Anissari, a village surrounded by white mountains in an ancient corner of Crete. MacLean's mother had died only a few months earlier and he had been engulfed by grief. But an old desire had also taken hold - to build and fly an aeroplane. And so he set off to the land where Daedalus and Icarus had made their maiden flight and settled in to days of eating lamb and drinking wine with his Cretan neighbours and, with their help, attempting to build a Woodhopper from scratch and make it fly.

Rory MacLean is the author of four highly acclaimed and award-winning books. He is a regular contributor to Radio 4 and lives in Dorset with his wife and son.