AS A broadcaster, musician and writer, Tim Healey has found himself in some unusual situations, but few as dramatic as that for his latest ‘heartfelt’ venture.

Mr Healey, son of the Labour Party giant Denis Healey, has created a programme for BBC radio themed on the heart. And it started in an operating theatre.

The programme, broadcast to millions on the World Service, saw him observing open heart surgery, and taking a crash course in psychological medicine and spiritual advice from television’s favourite nun.

On the face of it, the heart is not a subject that you might think would appeal to Mr Healey, better known for organising the Oxford Folk Festival, and playing in a 17th century-style folk band called the Oxford Waits.

Sea shanties and Victorian eccentrics, meanwhile, are the kind of things that concern his freelance work, chiefly for Radio 4. For one radio series At Home With Healey, he even allowed his home, an Aladdin’s cave of antiquarian books and ballad sheets, to be turned into a studio.

But the death of his mother Edna, who died in the summer of heart failure, aged 92, affected him profoundly, causing him at 61 to reflect on his own outlook on life and the human spirit.

Even before his loss he had become intrigued about the human heart, after his wife Jo drew his attention to newspaper reports about the outcomes of some heart transplant operations.

Mr Healey, who lives in Marlborough Road, South Oxford, was particularly drawn to the case of 63-year-old American heart transplant patient William Sheridan. “As he convalesced after his operation, he discovered an artistic talent for beautiful landscapes and wildlife scenes he had never possessed before,” he said.

“Mr Sheridan then found an explanation. The man who donated his new heart was a keen artist.”

It emerged that similar reports of memory transference were intriguing scientists in growing numbers. Could the recipient of an organ transplant really inherit character traits from the donor?

Mr Healey’s radio programme The Heart Has Its Reasons, however, goes beyond simple anatomy.

“We were given this model of the heart being just a pump at O-Level Biology. But is that true? If so, why in poetry and everyday speech, do we speak of it as the seat of love and of deep, intuitive truths, as if it possessed a kind of wisdom independent of the brain?

“The heart operation took place at Papworth, the UK’s largest specialist cardio- thoracic hospital.

“When I went in I was told, ‘If you feel light headed, sit down and put your head between your knees. I did not have to do that. But I found I was unable to look closely at the heart itself. You see it on television. But nothing really prepares you for the raw physicality of the procedure going on in front of your eyes and nose.”

He went on to explore spiritual traditions surrounding the heart, helped by Dr Jay Lakhani, from the Hindu Academy, and Sister Wendy Beckett, famous for presenting a BBC series of art history documentaries.

In the programme he claims the heart processes information as well as pumping blood. He adds: “Neurophysiologists have discovered that it has a complex interior nervous system – the intrinsic cardiac ganglia, which act like a cluster of computer terminals and are sophisticated enough to qualify as a ‘little brain’ in their own right.

“Communication between the heart and brain is an ongoing, two-way dialogue.

“It appears that there are neural pathways by which emotions experienced in the heart physically alter the brain’s electrical activity – with very wide-ranging implications for our physical and psychological well-being.”

  • Heart Has its Reasons can be heard at bbc.co.uk/worldservice