Hear my voice

Not too many people's careers take off again when they are in their eighties but this is what happened to Philip Evans, a delightfully modest man with a mind like a razor.

Philip's life changed dramatically in the early 1980s when he met Mike Carrington Wood, whose Stroud-based company, Westwood Sound, produces recorded books. Philip, who had long combined a career in industry with writing scripts for BBC radio, was tailor-made to abridge the written word into a suitable form to be recorded.

Mike and Philip have worked together on more than 150 audio books of authors ranging from Enid Blyton to cancer victim and writer John Diamond, for all the leading publishers.

Their joint talents received the recognition they deserved when their adaptation of Forgotten Voices of the Great War won the Audio Book of the Year award for 2003 and also the coveted Nibby Prize, awarded to only one audio winner per year.

This 12-hour narrative, researched by Mike and structured by Philip, was made for Random House Audio from recordings made in the 1960s and 1970s and subsequently left in the Imperial War Museum's archives.

In 2004 they produced Forgotten Voices of the Second World War, also for Random House, in which Philip gives his own wartime reminiscences. "I was in the army and served in every theatre of war, but I never heard a shot fired in anger. The only bomb I heard dropping was over the telephone when I was talking to my mother in Bristol. It's hard to believe, but it's true," he says.

This prolific duo's latest work, Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust, the powerful oral history of over six million "non Ayrians" who fell victim to the Nazi regime, is now on the audio bookshelves, and they are currently working on Forgotten Voices of the Blitz.

This burst of activity coincided with the death of Philip's beloved wife, Queenie, after a long illness. "Without working for Mike I wouldn't have made it mentally after she died," he said.

Philip, who was born and brought up in Bristol, met Queenie at a dance in the city. Love at first sight led to a marriage that lasted almost 60 years, despite Philip, who had contracted TB during the war, being given three years to live when they married.

Most of their life was spent in their house between Painswick and Cheltenham, with magnificent views of the Vale of Gloucester. From here Philip worked for animal feed company BOCM for whom he became regional manager and he also wrote scripts for BBC Radio for stars like Tony Fayne and Joan Sims.

But when the BBC tried to persuade him to turn professional he turned them down. "I couldn't excahnge what we had in the Cotswolds to go and work in London," he said.

But a completely different part of their lives gave Philip and Queenie their greatest joy. In 1952, as part of the Help a Child for Christmas campaign, they went to the Gyde Children's Home in Painswick. They ended up having six children in their home for weekends and in the holidays and it became their life.

Philip produced generations of the children in plays that won prizes and in 1979 some of them took part in the celebrations for the International Year of the Child at the Albert Hall.

And their love and generosity was returned. A group of those children became the family they never had and are still part of that family today. How Philip, whose health has never been robust, has managed to do all these things, as well as being a magistrate for many years, is a mystery but it is also a tribute to the man himself.

He has never been afraid to use his particularly lively mind to its best advantage - even at an age when many people feel their lives are winding down. "It's never too late to change your career," he says.

Random House Audiobooks can be viewed on www.randomhouse.co.uk/audio and can be ordered and delivered to your door. Their address is Random House Audiobooks, PO Box 29, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM99 1BQ. Telephone: 01624 677237.