Baroness Hollins

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:36

My castaway this week is Baroness Sheila Hollins. An emeritus professor of psychiatry, she has specialized in the health and welfare of people with learning disabilities, advising on policy and influencing attitudes. She started off as a GP, turning to psychiatry after finding seventy percent of her patients were suffering from emotional and social problems. Significantly, her personal experience shaped her professional ambitions. One of her four children has a learning disability.

Presenter1:04

She says Sometimes having vulnerable people in our midst brings out the best in other people. So, Schilahohnz, you have an eminent career then in medicine. You're the mother of four now grown up.

Presenter1:15

Children, and you are about to become the President of the British Medical Association. Clearly a highly motivated person. What is your driving force, do you think?

Baroness Hollins1:24

Dear, what a difficult

Presenter1:25

First question I'm sorry about that.

Baroness Hollins1:26

Yeah.

Baroness Hollins1:28

Do you know, I think I would have to say that it probably goes back to my parents because they always encouraged my sister and myself to believe that we could do things and encouraged us to have an education and indeed to assume that we would go to university, even though it was not that common when we were growing up. So there was just always an assumption that we could. People always appall

Presenter1:54

But

Baroness Hollins1:55

Apologize for being a single.

Presenter1:55

Uh

Baroness Hollins1:56

Psychiatrist.

Presenter1:57

Okay.

Baroness Hollins1:57

What is And that is

Baroness Hollins1:59

I remember when I was a GP and went to a party, people would always ask me, could I give them advice about this or that physical complaint? But when I became a psychiatrist, people immediately changed mode and would say, Oh, I've got a friend who's got a problem. What advice would you give? And during the conversation, often it would they would slip into the first person and you knew that they were really talking about themselves, or they would suddenly rush away, they've suddenly remembered somebody else they needed to talk to. And I can remember changing what I said when I was asked what I did at a party to say I was a housewife rather than have to go through the pain of other people's attitudes.

Presenter2:37

The performer Ruby Wax took her show Losing It to the West End, where she was very open about her own psychological struggles. Is that something that somebody in your profession would welcome? The idea that yes, let's just open it up, let's just say this is normal.

Baroness Hollins2:49

Absolutely. Anybody who speaks out about their own mental health problems publicly helps to break down the

Baroness Hollins2:59

The exclusion and fear which leads to people with mental health problems being shunned by society.

Presenter3:05

Uh

Baroness Hollins3:05

Yeah.

Presenter3:05

Yeah. Music, Baroness Hollands, your first track today is what?

Baroness Hollins3:09

My first track today is from The Loving Spoonful and it's a day for a daydream. Why have you chosen this? Well, when we had parties, we were a young family and we would have friends round on a Saturday and we'd spend the day cleaning the house and preparing the food and getting everybody sort of all dressed up. And then when my husband put this track on, everybody knew the party was about to start. So it's very atmospheric for me. It means the family are ready to welcome whoever's going to arrive and the children loved it especially.

Speaker 43:37

What a day for a daydream.

Speaker 43:41

What a day for a daydreaming bowling And I'm lost in a daydream

Speaker 43:50

Dreaming about my bundle of joy

Speaker 43:54

And even if time ain't really on my side

Speaker 43:59

It's one of those days for taking a walk outside

Speaker 44:03

I'm blowing the day to take a walk in the sun And follow my fits on some of this new mode

Presenter4:10

That was the Lovin' Spoonful and Daydream. So, Sheila Holland, you become President of the BMA in the summer of this year. Amid all the health service reorganisation that's proposed, your skills, I'm imagining, as a thoughtful listener, will come into play more strongly than ever. How are you preparing for the role?

Baroness Hollins4:27

Well, the role of President is really very much on the professional side of the BMA's work, not the trade union side. And it's an opportunity for me to raise awareness of some of the issues in medicine which particularly concern me. And although I haven't finally decided where the emphasis will be, it will definitely be somewhere about mental health and learning disability.

Presenter4:50

Yes, I mean the the problem is uh along with probably geriatric care, your area of of specialism in the one is the one that is probably most uh neglected and least glamorous.

Baroness Hollins5:01

Hmm.

Baroness Hollins5:03

Yes, I can remember when I took up my first post in learning disability, one of my former consultants commiserating with me and saying, My dear he actually said, I'm so sorry to hear that you're going into subnormality, which was a term which was out of date even then. I trained as a child psychiatrist and a psychotherapist and then I started working with people with learning disabilities because my son has a learning disability and I became aware of the issues that families face and aware of the fact that my own experience was experience that I wanted to be able to use in my professional working life.

Presenter5:39

I said in the introduction that you were working as a GP when you found that seventy percent of your patients were coming to you with emotional and social problems. That seems an astonishing figure to me.

Baroness Hollins5:47

Hmm.

Presenter5:50

Yeah.

Baroness Hollins5:50

I certainly hadn't been prepared for it as a medical student, and it's the reason why I first went into psychiatry, because I thought that if I spent a few months in psychiatry that I might learn the skills that I thought that I might need to go back into general practice, but I stayed in psychiatry because I enjoyed it so much.

Presenter6:08

Um you worked on a series of uh very well received they're picture books really, in essence. These books that help people with learning disabilities deal with the complexities of life. You worked with those with your your son, I understand it. He he advised you.

Baroness Hollins6:17

To the

Baroness Hollins6:22

Yes. And it started really because my son had a lot of difficulty learning to speak. And I can remember when he was seven or eight he was going on an adventure holiday and he was getting quite anxious and clearly didn't understand what was going to happen. And we drew a sort of little picture story for him to explain that he was going to go away, that each day there would be a new activity, whether it was ab sailing or horse riding or canoeing, and that he came back home again at the end and he folded it up and put it in his pocket and went away quite happy. And then it was when I worked in learning disability services as a psychiatrist, I came across a man who had no speech and who had started self-injuring. And it turned out that his father had died, but nobody knew that his father had died. And I said that this man must be grieving his father. And I began to find some pictures to explain to him. And it was out of that really that the series began. And my son is an advisor. And what's lovely at the moment is that it's actually my son's support worker who started it. She told me that they'd started a book club and Nigel was going to a book club and I said, What are you reading? And she said, Well, your books, of course. So now book clubs are the thing.

Baroness Hollins7:37

I love it as my hobby.

Baroness Hollins7:38

Let's have some more music then. What are we going to hear now?

Baroness Hollins7:41

Alfred Brendel playing Beethoven's fourth piano concerto. This recording belonged to my mother and she played the piano. When I was a child we didn't have a piano, but I was learning the clarinet at the time and I saw a classified ad in the local newspaper for a piano, rang up and found out that it was only twelve pounds and would it be a good idea, you know, because then we could play together. And so we duly went and bought this piano.

Baroness Hollins8:09

And I was just very aware of my mother's love of piano music and the fact that she'd not been able to to play since she was a child because she hadn't had access to a piano. So I chose it and it reminds me of her.

Presenter9:19

Alfred Brendel, playing the end of the final movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto Number Four with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hans Wahlberg. You said there that as a twelve year old then, Sheila Hollins, you had gone and looked up the small lads in the newspaper and phoned up and found out that there was a piano for sale for twelve quid. Quite a go ahead girl then, even at twelve.

Presenter9:38

Uh

Baroness Hollins9:38

I don't know, but I seem to have had some ideas and be able to carry them out.

Presenter9:43

Mm-hmm.

Baroness Hollins9:43

Uh

Presenter9:43

Her mother, then, what what sort of person was she?

Baroness Hollins9:46

She was a very warm person. She had left school at sixteen at her father's insistence. He didn't want her to be a blue stocking, and met my father, married.

Baroness Hollins9:57

And

Baroness Hollins9:58

After we'd all been born, she wanted to train as a solicitor, but her father was absolutely horrified. No daughter of his was going to be a working mother, made quite a fuss about it, and so she gave up that opportunity. She was a very talented person, but she she didn't pursue a a career herself. But she went on to become a magistrate and she did sort of advanced French and played the piano at home and was a uh just a a lovely person to have around.

Presenter10:29

But if her father wasn't supportive of her ambitions, was your father, her husband, supposing

Baroness Hollins10:33

Oh yes, absolutely. And I'm sure that experience was one of the reasons why they were so supportive of my sister and myself.

Presenter10:40

Your father had been badly injured during the D-Day landings. You found out actually it was friendly fire that that injured him. What sort of injury did he have?

Baroness Hollins10:44

But injury.

Baroness Hollins10:46

Well, he had an injury to his chest and he had a serious injury to his leg, and he actually died of his war injuries fifty years later because he kept getting infections in his injured leg, which actually led to his death when he was eighty.

Presenter11:01

And what did he work at? What was his talk? He was a lawyer.

Baroness Hollins11:02

He was a lawyer.

Presenter11:04

So you were the second of four children, and was the feeling in the house then, given that your mum, although she did clearly have a fulfilled life,

Presenter11:12

Do you think within the household they were really encouraging their four children to aim high?

Baroness Hollins11:16

We never felt pushed at all. I mean, I was never allowed to see my school reports, for example. I never felt pushed. What do you mean we were never allowed to see? My father just didn't believe that we should see our reports. I always assumed it was because they were too bad, but it could equally have been that they were too good. I've no idea.

Presenter11:24

What do you mean?

Presenter11:25

My f

Baroness Hollins11:34

I never remember any pressure, any criticism. I remember when I was doing physics A level and it became apparent that it wasn't going well, that they arranged me to have some extra tuition, which probably led to me getting an O level pass at A level physics, where all the other girls in the class failed and the physics teacher was sacked. But, you know, at that time in a girls' school, science wasn't particularly well taught. We thought that we weren't very bright because we were coming out with quite low grades, whereas my sister and her friends, who were doing English and French and history, all got A's and did really well. And we thought that was to do with the fact that they were the brighter ones. But I think it was probably the quality of the teaching.

Baroness Hollins12:21

Time

Presenter12:21

Uh

Baroness Hollins12:22

Some music.

Presenter12:22

Uh we're on our third disk. What is it?

Baroness Hollins12:25

Stranger on the shore, Acabilk.

Baroness Hollins12:27

Why do you like this? Well, Strange on the Shore was the first tune that I played on the clarinet at a school concert and I was offered the chance to have clarinet lessons. And I didn't have traditional music lessons. He was a bandleader and he taught me jazz clarinet and jazz hot licks and so on. But I began with Strange on the Shore.

Speaker 413:13

Uh

Speaker 413:23

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 413:29

Have fun.

Presenter13:49

That was Ackerbilk and Stranger on the Shore. Um you weren't allowed then to see your school reports, Sheila, and your father your father sounds like quite a quirky man in some respects.

Baroness Hollins13:59

I would never call him quirky. I think he was quite a stern person. I mean, quite traditional in his views in some ways. I mean, he didn't allow me, for example, to wear lipstick until I was sixteen. And I can remember going to you know a school dance and we'd go and sort of borrow somebody's lipstick and then on the way home have to sort of rub it off before the inevitable inspection when we got home.

Presenter14:21

Is it the case that later on in your life, when you were getting married, your father didn't want you to look in the mirror on your wedding day? Yes.

Baroness Hollins14:28

Yeah.

Baroness Hollins14:29

Yes, he didn't. He was um Come on, come on, we're going to be late.

Presenter14:32

Was it about, do you think, the sort of fripperies, the trivia of life that he found interesting?

Baroness Hollins14:36

Possibly. And I think also I mean what I didn't understand until quite close to his death really was that he clearly had what today we would call post-traumatic stress disorder. And he had nightmares and flashbacks to the time when you know most of the men that he was leading, he was a captain, most of the men died. And I think the guilt of being the survivor was very hard. I think also that the kind of world that his children were then living in, I'm sure that he wanted it to be a world that had been worth fighting for.

Presenter15:10

Sounds like he gave you and uh your brothers and sisters some very good advice about finding the right partner. What was his benchmark on the

Baroness Hollins15:17

Well, things like as a girl that you should always go Dutch and that when you're asked what you'd like to drink then half a pint of beer was fine but definitely not a gin and tonic. And to the boys he would say when you're taking a girl out make sure you take her for a walk in a muddy field and see if she can climb over a stile because she's not going to be much good to you if she if she can't do that.

Presenter15:40

And just to be clear on the gin and tonic, wha why could you not have a gin and tonic, but you could have a p half pint of beer?

Baroness Hollins15:45

Uh because the gin and tonic was more expensive.

Presenter15:47

Ah.

Baroness Hollins15:48

Uh

Presenter15:48

Of course.

Baroness Hollins15:49

Yeah.

Presenter15:49

Yes. So did you take his advice then? Did you always go Dutch and did your brothers always see

Baroness Hollins15:53

Yeah.

Baroness Hollins15:55

No, not really. But I mean, I was always it you know, it certainly made me aware of

Baroness Hollins15:59

Yes, his perspective.

Presenter16:00

And when it came to the eleven plus then, you had passed. Did people think you weren't likely to pass? Was there a bit of doubt about that?

Baroness Hollins16:08

Yes, the nuns at school told my mother that unless I went on the school pilgrimage to Lourdes, I would never have a chance of passing the 11 plus, and so she said definitely not. And I've never been to Lourdes, probably because of that. My mother taught me to read because the school didn't think that I would be able to learn to read. I remember her being told that it was a good thing I had blonde hair and blue eyes because, you know, at least that would get me through in life. Yes, thank God for that then. Yeah.

Presenter16:34

Chris

Presenter16:36

Let's have some more music, Baroness Hollands.

Presenter16:39

What's next?

Baroness Hollins16:40

Well, it's going to be Angelique Kidjo, Sound of the Drums. When I left school at 18, I went as a VSO to Nigeria and I fell in love with Africa. I couldn't not include African music and drums in my choices. And I met my husband through VSO, because he was also a VSO, but he was a VSO in Malawi. We met through a Return Volunteers organisation.

Speaker 317:07

Having away for so long I wonder

Speaker 317:12

Even some of the dark sea scribes.

Speaker 317:17

Having away for Solanda, I wonder

Speaker 317:23

If I sound like the drumstills cry.

Speaker 417:29

Les misce prevo, tebor ricidor engal

Speaker 417:34

Echi nu mi da nu contonte dia.

Speaker 417:46

You a ready or sierge no go away maybe no zeta, maybe no zeta, maybe the no go away

Speaker 417:56

Buck, though, thump, fuck, thump.

Speaker 317:57

Uh

Speaker 417:58

Yeah.

Speaker 317:58

I've been away for so long that I wonder

Presenter18:03

Angelique Kidjo and Sound of the Drums to remind you of your time uh as a volunteer for uh VSO. You headed off to Nigeria. Can you remember what your first impressions were of the country?

Baroness Hollins18:14

How hot it was It felt as if somebody had forgotten to turn the central heating down. And the sounds, there was the sound of the crickets outside, which was very loud, and I found it impossible to sleep because of the sounds. You were only eighteen, though.

Presenter18:27

I mean, as as I understand it, the farthest you'd been with your parents was on holiday to France. Did did they did they worry about sending their precious daughter off?

Baroness Hollins18:34

When I look back, I think how on earth did my mother cope? Because unlike when, you know, my daughters went off to do gap years, when they had mobile phones and we could keep in contact all the time, there was no possible contact at all.

Baroness Hollins18:49

I was in a very remote part of Nigeria. I was given the job of being head of science in a girls' school. It was a newish school and I had the job of equipping the the science laboratories and basically sort of creating and implementing the curriculum. And I mean the people were so welcoming, they were so lovely, so warm and friendly and I very, very quickly felt at home there.

Presenter19:13

You'd been head girl at your school, but even I mean, for an eighteen year old, even if they are suffused with a fair amount of confidence, that seems like quite a big task, to be setting up the curriculum, setting up the laboratories, implementing a whole new system of teaching. Were you ever overwhelmed by that?

Baroness Hollins19:27

Uh

Baroness Hollins19:28

I think when you're put into that situation, you know, you just get on with it. I had a week's course by VSO before I left. They taught us very useful skills like how to make test tube holders out of a wire coat rack. I didn't have any test tubes for quite a long time, but when I did get some test tubes, you know, at least I had something to put them in. I mean, looking back, I think that I was the one who gained most from that year. I mean, it was a transformative year for me. In what respect?

Baroness Hollins19:57

Bringing an awareness of a world which was so much bigger than the world that I had started out in.

Baroness Hollins20:05

I suppose that I'd developed a can do attitude.

Presenter20:08

It was much later that when you were President of the Royal College of Psychiatry.

Presenter20:14

You were asked then by the Department of Health to contribute to this debate on changing the law on assisted dying.

Presenter20:20

I know that you have a strong Roman Catholic faith, and I'm wondering if there was any conflict there between what you felt your professional and thorough duty was and what your personal belief system dictates.

Baroness Hollins20:32

As President of a secular organisation, I wouldn't let my particular religious views interfere with that, although I think people find that quite difficult to understand. I think the point is that what you're trying to do is bring to bear on the issue that you're advising on your professional expertise and the scientific expertise. And I think that that's one of the aspects of professionalism, which we learn to do as doctors. I think people sometimes think that because you're a Catholic, that therefore you have to say something because it's the party line, and I don't think that's right. What we were trying to do in drawing up a statement about assisted dying was to understand what the psychiatric issues were in that and to be able to present those fairly. And that's what we try to do.

Presenter21:21

Is it your personal belief that sick people need help to live, not help to die?

Baroness Hollins21:27

Yes, I do believe that. My own hope is that when somebody feels that their life is no longer worth living, that actually there will be people around them who will help them to really believe in life rather than to believe that it's time for their life to end. I think as a society there's a lot of fear of death, but there's also a lot of fear of disability. And if we were much more kind of open about the effect on our lives of disability, of impairments, of pain, of vulnerability, that we would find it much easier to support each other when that happens. And what I would like to see is a society where we become much more aware of each other's vulnerabilities and are still there as friends supporting each other.

Baroness Hollins22:14

Let's have some more music, Baroness Lovins.

Baroness Hollins22:17

Well, Wordsworth Sonnet on Westminster Bridge, arranged by Sarah Jewell and performed by the River Singers. And my daughter Catherine is one of the river singers, and it was performed by them for my birthday last year. And it was a very special birthday. I didn't know they were going to sing it. The reason for Westminster Bridge is being so important is because I went to medical school at St Thomas's, which is across the river. My husband was a student north of the river, and I was a student south of the river, and he used to chase me on his bicycle. I had a motorbike. So it's just been quite a sort of significant place.

Speaker 422:51

The river blinds.

Speaker 422:57

At his own sweet well

Speaker 423:03

For if I dance

Speaker 423:09

But it is all sweet will

Speaker 423:18

Dear God, the very houses seem asleep And all that mighty hull

Speaker 423:26

Is lying still

Speaker 423:31

It is lying still.

Speaker 423:38

Is life.

Speaker 423:45

Still

Presenter23:50

Wordsworth's sonnet On Westminster Bridge, arranged by Sarah Jilles and performed there by The River Singers, a group which includes your daughter Catherine. Indeed, she was the soloist that we heard there, Sheila. You've got four children. You you seem a remarkably competent and a very calm person. Given that your mother was always at home, I'm wondering if you've ever felt that

Presenter24:09

You're doing both things not maybe not badly, but not quite as well as you'd like to. I'm meaning as a mother and as a professional.

Baroness Hollins24:16

Well, I worked part-time, which meant that I was always the one to take the children to the hospital creche and then primary school and always the one to collect them at the end of the day, so that seemed very important. But you know what was brilliant was that my husband was a schoolteacher and that just made all the difference. And we've always shared childcare.

Presenter24:37

You've spoken, of course, about your son Nigel having a learning disability. Was was that a gradual realization as he didn't hit milestones, or were you given a definitive diagnosis at at quite an early stage?

Baroness Hollins24:45

You know, we it was a gradual realization. Right. I became concerned, but I had no um.

Baroness Hollins24:52

You know, doctors don't get very much education in learning disability. Again, that's something which, having realised that, you know, I made a point of trying to change that in medical education and certainly medical students at St George's will all learn a lot about learning disability and what it means. But no, I didn't understand what it meant and it was a a hard lesson to learn.

Presenter25:15

Ern.

Presenter25:16

Um did you find it frustrating, then, coming up against those attitudes that either didn't really seem to want to engage with Nigel's problems, or just said, Well, you just need to cope with it on your own?

Baroness Hollins25:27

I kind of expected that because he had special additional needs that there would be additional help, and what I found to my horror was that doors seemed to close to him rather than new doors to open for him.

Baroness Hollins25:41

And I think it's the lack of familiarity, but then other things happened that have proved to be wonderful for him. For example, he became a scout, and his years in the Boy Scouts were just so rewarding for him. But of course, he would slow the group down. And there was an occasion when the Scout Master had decided that he would be moved between groups at camp so that none of them were penalised. And the first group he was with refused to let him go and said, No, he's one of us and he's staying with us. And I felt that it sort of raised issues about the values that we have in society about whether coming top is more important than being able to be inclusive and to have empathy for the other people in the group. And I think that's what changed for us as parents as well, because you know, I became much more aware that rather than wanting our children necessarily to pass this exam or to get into this school or whatever, that what was much more important were the kind of social skills and the emotional skills that they acquired, which were going to equip them through life. In many ways, I've always thought that our children are always going to be different to any expectation we had of them, and that really the joy of parenthood is discovering who your children really are. So, time for some more music now. What are we going to hear next? Miles Davis. And why have you chosen this? Well, my husband and I both always enjoyed jazz, and when we were first married, we used to go and listen to jazz in pubs in South London, and it's just been part of our lives.

Presenter28:14

Myles Davis and So What? So, Baroness Holland, six years ago one of your children, Abigail, twenty six years old and pregnant at the time, was stabbed and left paralysed after being attacked while she was uh pushing her child in a buggy through her village in Surrey. I I'm wondering how you heard about the attack.

Baroness Hollins28:33

I was at a dinner at the Royal College of Psychiatrists and um

Baroness Hollins28:37

My phone was on and rang.

Baroness Hollins28:40

During the dinner.

Baroness Hollins28:41

and it was her husband telling me that she was critically ill.

Presenter28:45

Yeah.

Presenter28:46

Yeah.

Presenter28:48

How did you deal with it immediately?

Baroness Hollins28:51

I ran out of the room to talk to the doctor, who was also on the phone, and was imploring me to get myself to St George's as fast as possible, to persuade them to admit her, because they had apparently agreed to offer her a scan, but had not agreed that she should be admitted, feeling that the clinical picture was um too critical.

Presenter29:15

Do you believe that if another family in the same position had not had somebody at the front of it like you, who has the clinical background, who has the knowledge of the health service, who has the articulacy in expressing your case, the outcome for their child might have been quite different?

Baroness Hollins29:31

Well, Abigail's husband is a very strong person and he was there and he was fighting very hard for her survival, and I think my presence was a huge help.

Baroness Hollins29:44

There was a young doctor in the first hospital who took the view that this was a young woman who had got fight in her because she was in and out of consciousness when she first met her, and she fought really, really hard to get her to the neurointensive care unit. But there was a sense in which this whole question about the boundary between life and death was one which was a value judgment, which could easily have gone you know, one way or another. And it I think is probably is one of the reasons why I feel so strongly about the law on assisted dying not changing.

Presenter30:22

You've recently testified to the Levison inquiry on press standards about the considerable and apparently unrelenting intrusion of of newspapers and the press in general throughout what must have been an unimaginably awful time for your family. What were the worst moments of press intrusion?

Baroness Hollins30:41

Well, to begin with, of course, the press were helping with the police inquiry, and so the police had encouraged us to give them statements and to cooperate with the press. But we began to realise quite quickly that the stories that they would tell were stories that really could hardly be said to be in the public interest. And I mean, just I think it was she was stabbed on a Wednesday. On Sunday morning, the News of the World published a story about her being pregnant, and she was only five weeks pregnant. And I felt that for the whole world to know that you were five weeks pregnant was something that no woman would

Baroness Hollins31:13

normally disclose. We didn't know how they knew that, and we felt hugely invaded. Just I mean, going on the tube, my daughter Catherine and I were travelling and there were four people sitting opposite us, each with a different newspaper, each with the front page having a photograph of

Baroness Hollins31:31

of my daughter.

Presenter31:32

Take a look at the

Baroness Hollins31:32

Uh

Presenter31:32

Ten days after Abigail's uh attack, there was a a moment of great clarity for your family. Te tell me what happened.

Presenter31:39

Uh

Baroness Hollins31:39

Well, she she couldn't talk, but we'd taught her to express her thoughts by blinking to different letters of the alphabet. And my husband had been composing haikus, and Abiel had always, you know, shown some interest and talent in poetry, and and so one day when he was sitting with her, she started to blink out a haiku which she'd composed in her head. It went like this.

Baroness Hollins32:03

Still silent body

Baroness Hollins32:06

But within my spirit sings, Dancing in Lovelight.

Baroness Hollins32:12

And we knew she was all right.

Presenter32:13

Yeah.

Presenter32:15

We're on uh your seventh choice of the morning, Baroness Hollins. Tell us what we're going to hear now.

Baroness Hollins32:21

We're going to hear

Baroness Hollins32:22

Cleo Lane on a clear day. If I could sing, I would love to be able to sing like Cleo, but then I'm sure an awful lot of people would. And also because she was married to Johnny Dankworth and my daughter Catherine had been to a summer school which they ban and we went to hear her playing saxophone in a concert at the end of that summer week. And I've just always been a huge fan of both Cleo Lane and Johnny Dankworth.

Speaker 432:47

On a clear day, rise and look around you.

Speaker 432:54

And you'll see who you are.

Speaker 433:00

On a clear day, how it will astound you. Let the glow of your being outshines every star you feel part of. Every mountain sea and shore you can hear from far and nearer what you've never heard before. And on a clear day.

Baroness Hollins33:27

Yeah.

Speaker 433:29

On a clear day you can see for

Speaker 433:40

Uh

Presenter33:43

Clear Lane and Johnny Dankworth and on a clear day, I wonder if you think um having Nigel as a brother for for for Abigail and I'm sure actually of course for all your children had had a significant impression on how they viewed life and its possibilities.

Baroness Hollins34:00

Oh, I'm sure the point is that it's the life that you live which matters. And Abigail is a wonderful mother and.

Baroness Hollins34:08

The fact that she's paralyzed really is not kind of the central

Baroness Hollins34:12

Aspect of her life or her family's life. And I think for any mother to see a daughter turning out to be a good mother is a joy.

Presenter34:21

I noticed that, along with Abigail and her family, you were named among the hundred most influential lay Catholics in Britain. Were they right, are you?

Baroness Hollins34:30

Well, recently, I've been to a speaking at a conference in Rome. That certainly seemed to be quite significant because I was speaking about the effect of sexual abuse on victims, the mental health effects.

Presenter34:46

What do you make of how the Catholic Church has dealt with this issue to date?

Presenter34:51

Well

Baroness Hollins34:52

I think that conference was a huge sign of hope. It was an international event designed to try to learn from the mistakes of the past. I think that the church, just like most institutions in society actually, have been very slow to understand the reality of abuse and that we need to be incredibly alert to it so that we can protect children.

Presenter35:15

Of course, in the past they haven't been just slow. I mean they've been dismissive, and also in some very particular cases that you'll be aware of they seem to have colluded in covering up these past atrocities.

Baroness Hollins35:26

That's right. And I mean what is very clear is that the Vatican has given instructions to church leaders from around the world that they must fully cooperate with civil authorities. And that clarity has taken a little while to come, but I think there's no doubt that it is there now.

Presenter35:42

You've taken time, I understand, to embark on a silent retreat.

Presenter35:46

How did you find that? It was wonderful.

Baroness Hollins35:49

Uh

Baroness Hollins35:49

How long were you silent for? Seven days. I'm comfortable with silence. I find a little bit of silence every day is a very good way to.

Baroness Hollins35:59

Just be calm and centred. Thinking about the

Presenter36:03

the island you probably will cope

Baroness Hollins36:07

Two.

Presenter36:07

Well Uh Think Uh

Baroness Hollins36:08

Uh

Presenter36:08

Being on your own?

Baroness Hollins36:09

Um

Baroness Hollins36:10

When you asked me what my luxury is, I first thought I'd like to ask for a Man Friday because I thought that I would find it quite difficult to get away from. Well, you can't have it. But I'm just wondering about the solid nature, yes. I don't think being

Presenter36:17

But you can't have but I'm just wondering about the solitary nature.

Baroness Hollins36:22

I know, I do value company hugely. I think that if I can have all of this music and all of the memories that go with the music, that would sustain me for a while. But I think after a time I would get very lonely. Let's have your final piece of music then, Sheila Hollands. What are we going to hear?

Baroness Hollins36:37

Sancti Deus from Sperminalium. It reminds me of my brothers, particularly my brother Hugh, singing in the school choir, and I find that

Baroness Hollins36:48

I share a a love of this kind of music with several family members, perhaps particularly Emily, my third child. And it reminds me also of Worth Abbey and the Lay Community of St. Benedict, which we've a close relationship to as a family.

Presenter38:04

Sanctideus from Spermina Allium by Thomas Tallis, sung by the Talis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips. So it's time for the books The Bible, the Complete Works of Shakespeare, and what's your book going to be?

Baroness Hollins38:15

It's going to be 100 masterpieces of art by Marina Vezy. Having pictures which tell a story, helping us to understand complex ideas that one can reflect upon and look at time and again would just serve so many purposes, really. What a very good idea. I shall give you that. And a luxury, too. Oh, the luxury will be my clarinet. Ah. I haven't played it for quite a while. I sold my original clarinet to pay the gas bill when we were first married and didn't buy another one until Catherine was ready to learn an instrument. But it seems to me that it would be timely for me to be able to teach myself again, and I could learn from some of the the C D's that I've got with me. It's yours. And if you had to save just one of these eight discs, which one would you save?

Presenter39:02

Yeah.

Baroness Hollins39:02

I think it would be the Brendel. It's got a lot of sort of playful trills, a lot of joyful and triumphant music. It's got lots of different moods within it. Yes, it would have to be the Brendel.

Presenter39:15

Right, the Beethoven is yours. Sheila Hollins, Professor the Baroness Hollins, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, Kirsty.

Presenter40:24

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash radio four.