Some of the Original Radio Ballads can still be heard and downloaded from the BBC server(s):

Paste these links into Real Player:

rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio2/radioballads/johnaxon.rm

rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio2/radioballads/singingthefishing.rm

rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio2/radioballads/songofaroad.rm

Whilst they play you can capture the sound using Audacity and Stereo Mix (XP has SM configured, for Win 7 you'll have to do this - Google search "configuring stereo mix windows 7"). Then you csn do a Save As ... MP3 (192 kbps is recommended).

Or you can simply download them by using Right-mouse-click / Save As ...

Or use Orbit which will download them, and which is restartable if the connection fails.