Jane Somerville

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.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the cardiologist Jane Somerville. Now an Emeritus Professor in her discipline at Imperial College London, she has gained a world wide reputation for her pioneering work on congenital heart disease.

Presenter0:49

She began studying medicine in the early 1950s, when only a very few women were admitted through the doors of med school. It's really just as well they let her in. She's been responsible for groundbreaking advances in cardiovascular treatment and founded the hugely successful World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology. She had something of a role model in her mother, a hard working, very clever, successful woman too. And her early years as a pupil at a boys' school in Wales must surely also have prepared her for making her way in such a heavily male-dominated profession. She has a reputation for being straight talking, and her late husband used to urge her to be more prudent. But she says it wasn't fun to be prudent. It's much more fun to be mafioso and naughty. Now, mafioso and naughty, Jane, probably not the two words that people would associate with somebody in your profession. Tell me more about that characteristic.

Jane Somerville1:45

Oh, well I think those who know me well would know the naughty part, because I think that I've always been rather anti-establishment and also rather blunt, because I never thought I had much time to make my points, so I did it quickly and, as my children say, rudely. You had to be very naughty if you were with naughty boys at school. If you weren't naughty too, you didn't get noticed, or you certainly didn't get your points over. So I think the training came at boys' school during the war.

Presenter2:14

As recently as, I don't know, thirty odd, maybe forty years ago, nine out of ten babies born with heart defects died in childhood. Today, eight out of ten live. How does it feel to be in a very large part responsible for the fact that there are thousands of people walking around this earth who wouldn't otherwise be here?

Jane Somerville2:31

Well, I think I'm not responsible. It's really the cardiac surgeons who are responsible. I always wanted to be one, but I never made it, as I'm completely unconnected head to hands. But I think I've looked after a lot of patients who've grown up and survived, and tried to help them live as normal lives as possible.

Presenter2:50

I'm wondering about the unit specifically that you set up for teenagers and adults. Why did you see that there was care that needed to be done there, that wasn't being taken care of?

Jane Somerville2:59

When I was briefly a cardiac surgeon for a year at Guy's with Sir Russell, then to become Lord Brock, I realized that whatever they were doing, if they did survive, that there was an awful lot of abnormality left in the heart. So way back I was worried as to what would happen to the patients if they were lucky enough to survive the surgery, leave the hospital and even grow up. And I didn't really think that the surgeons understood. They thought that that was it finished. They had, in fact, totally corrected.

Speaker 43:12

Yeah.

Speaker 13:26

I've

Jane Somerville3:29

Well, most of the things they don't totally correct at all. They leave a lot of abnormality behind. So that thought came into my head.

Presenter3:36

Is it true that at one point in your consulting room you had a leopard skin chaise long?

Jane Somerville3:43

I think you're actually pony skin, but it's more or less true. Yes. I had it in my office and used to lie there thinking.

Presenter3:49

You are now officially retired, uh, given that you're you're eighty years old now. I want to know what you do with your months then. Are you sort of gardening and sitting with your feet up?

Jane Somerville3:57

No, I certainly am not. I'm running around the world giving lectures. I love travel. I'm hungry to know more things and train more people.

Presenter4:05

I've been told that you say to women who you have inspired and who may want to follow in your footsteps that rule number one is never iron a shirt.

Jane Somerville4:14

Certainly that is a rule. I don't think we have time to be running around feeling guilty iron men's shirts. Some one else can do that, as I made clear to my beloved husband when he produced a shirt. So I plonked the iron on it and burnt the sleeve. So that was that. No more were given to me.

Presenter4:32

Time for some music, then, Jane Somerville. Tell me about your first one this morning. What are we going to hear?

Jane Somerville4:37

Well, I hope we're going to hear the Habanero, which has everything Amazing and I remember first hearing that at the boys' school when we had an hour once or twice a week where we listened to music.

Jane Somerville4:50

And I can remember thinking, This woo, this is something else, I I love this, and that was my first introduction to what I think is strong romantic music.

Speaker 15:12

Three.

Speaker 15:14

Peace be all over

Speaker 45:26

A parlo bialotracer. Je profero y noria ni maisi.

Presenter5:57

The Abenera from Bizet's Carmen sung there by Leontine Price. So, Jane Somerville, you were born in Kensington in nineteen thirty three. What are your earliest memories of life at home?

Jane Somerville6:08

Well, we lived w in a house which is now the Prince's Trust, and I can remember sort of walking down. I had a governess don't ask me why I didn't go to little school, and when I complained that we should get a taxi and not walk I've never liked walking anywhere, she said, You've got taxi legs and it's time they were used and I can remember going to Major Sulk, it's one of my earliest memories. And then I remember when the war started, the searchlights, because I was there in the beginning, just before all children were ordered out of London.

Presenter6:40

And tell me about your mother. I said in the introduction, you know, she for her generation, rather untypically, she was a working woman. What did she do?

Jane Somerville6:47

She was one of these school refusers and went to about thirteen schools until my grandfather said you educate yourself so she got a scholarship to Bedford College to read Saxon on her own and mathematics. And then she saw an advertisement and went off to help establish women's army services in the First World War behind the lines, where I think there was considerable fun and games, and then into the roaring twenties, and she became assistant to the editor of Vogue, which came out. And her job was to get the copy out of Aldous Huxley.

Presenter7:20

And she knew Aldous Huxley well, didn't she? I think extremely well. Yes, I was going to say there was more than copy passed between them.

Jane Somerville7:26

Oh, I think think so. They wrote The Geoconda Smile together and I think he dedicated Chrome Yellow to her.

Presenter7:33

Those were her achievements. What was her character like? How would you describe her character?

Jane Somerville7:37

Highly intelligent.

Jane Somerville7:39

Tolerant, very witty, very sharp tongued.

Jane Somerville7:43

and knew where she was going.

Presenter7:45

If she I mean, obviously if she was working, she wasn't in the house all of the time. Did you feel that when she was there you sort of had to work to get her interest?

Jane Somerville7:52

Probably,'cause I didn't apparently eat my food until she came home, so I imagine there was some attention seeking then. She'd come home at five or six o'clock, and find me still eating my lunch with an insistent nanny.

Presenter8:05

And where was your father?

Jane Somerville8:08

Well, I think that he sort of left. I was quite interested to meet him, and never did.

Jane Somerville8:13

I was in Guy's hospital with my medical school, and he wrote me a postcard and we agreed to meet. I remember very well at Fortnum and Mason's. I've always liked that. And uh he didn't turn up and I thought, Right, that's that. Here the mafiosa I I will not have anything to do with that man, even if he wants to. So that was the end of that. It didn't rank in my life at all.

Presenter8:33

And does that matter?

Jane Somerville8:35

Not to me, but I suspect in some way you know, I don't do with psychobabble, but it might have started the rather ribald attitude I have to men, and it might have also influenced me to marry a mature man, as some sort of substitute which I never thought I wanted.

Presenter8:53

Let's have some more music, Jane Somerville. It's time for your second disco.

Jane Somerville8:56

This was another listen at school. I probably didn't listen, was probably playing with my friend Gillian, my best friend, and we're still best friends. And I heard this horn concerto.

Jane Somerville9:06

And ever since then I have loved the the sound of the French horn, and I remember asking for my birthday for the record.

Presenter10:10

That was the rondo from Mozart's Horn Concerto No. four in E flat major, performed there by Dennis Brain. So, Jane Somerville, you were round about six, I think, when you were told you had to escape the bombs of London. You were despatched, along with one of your cousins, to a prep school in Portmerion, in Wales. How did you feel about that at the time?

Jane Somerville10:29

I think I'd been brought up in a way that with a stern governess that you went where you were sent and also, you know, it was emergency awful leaving mother behind and

Jane Somerville10:40

On the occasions when we came home one had to go back from Paddington on the troop train, and I can remember being told you must get up if there's a soldier in the corridor and let him sit down he's going to fight for you.

Jane Somerville10:52

So then we went up to Wales, and the war was forgotten.

Jane Somerville10:55

There were all sorts of interesting people staying in Port Murion, hibernating from the war, or whatever. It was a lovely place.

Presenter11:02

And in the school itself, mostly boys, of course, it was a boys' prep school. Yes. How did you get on there?

Jane Somerville11:05

It's pretty much

Jane Somerville11:07

I thought it was the best thing ever. We had five or six girls in one dormitory, and the boys were extremely naughty. And why not join them? I thought.

Jane Somerville11:18

They were rather dismissive of girls, but, you know, one learnt that they are rather dismissive of girls until they find they have a use. But we played cricket, and we had to wear those horrible little hairy Harris tweed shorts, which I thought were quite ghastly, chafing your legs. It was great fun. I had a great war up there three years, and then I think the headmaster thought enough girls, and so I came back to London.

Presenter11:42

And of course the war would still have been on. How was it to come from the calm of Wales back into water?

Jane Somerville11:44

How was it to count in the

Jane Somerville11:46

Rather dramatic. The flying bonds were flying about, and uh I remember taking the seventy-three bus from Kensington, and you had to get off the bus when you heard this

Jane Somerville11:57

And it was a bit hairy, but I dunno and just got on with life.

Presenter12:01

When you were thirteen you used is it true you used to read medical books on your holidays?

Jane Somerville12:05

Yes, it's true. I was sent off in school holidays to an aunt in Saffron-Walden. Rather boring, I thought. Anyhow, I'd be there, and I saw these books in the shelves, dusty books, so I thought, ooh, what's that? I must have a look at it. It looks interesting. So I would concentrate on certain parts of the anatomy, and I learnt a lot. I thought, whoo-hoo, I'm going to be a doctor. I'm going to know all this stuff. So that's how it began.

Presenter12:27

Did your mother talk to you about what you should do with your

Jane Somerville12:30

Never She was so relieved that I knew. And to her surprise,'cause I was quite young, I got into medical school at Guy's Hospital, interviewed by the one eyed dean with the black monocle. It was terribly exciting, and he said

Jane Somerville12:44

You're very young. Do you think you can cope with all the men around? I said, Oh yeah, I'm used to that. It's no problem for me. Is it true that his monocle popped out? Yes, it did. Do you think he's left an empty socket? He'd been wounded in the First World War. It is true.

Presenter12:53

Do you think you just do it sort of

Presenter12:55

Yeah.

Presenter12:58

Um, it's time for your third piece of music. What are we going to hear now? Why have you chosen this?

Jane Somerville13:02

When I first went to the London Theatre I remember mother taking me to Lady Behave. Of course it was quite marvellous, and I thought, ooh, this is something else with all the plush velvet and then the next show I completely fell in love with was me and my girl. And it ends happily. I like romance to end happily.

Speaker 413:19

One suit downland both ways.

Jane Somerville13:21

Wait, how

Speaker 413:22

Every evening, every day, you'll find yourself

Speaker 413:27

Marines are landfall.

Speaker 413:28

Anytime you'll land the play, any evening, any day, you'll find a dog come on.

Speaker 413:39

I have the different

Speaker 413:41

Yeah.

Speaker 413:45

I just love a phone.

Presenter13:49

That was Lupino Lane and a chorus from the audience, I think, performing there The Lambeth Walk from Me and My Girl. You you mentioned as we went into that, Jane Somerville, that you do like romances to have a happy ending. Let's talk about the happy beginning of yours. When did you first meet the man you would later go on to marry?

Jane Somerville14:06

Oh, when I

Presenter14:06

Uh

Jane Somerville14:06

How's it school?

Jane Somerville14:08

He had digs lower down in Edward Square, with a rather mad landlady, and he used to eat at my next door neighbour's, and I used to climb over the garden wall and eat there too, in the way one was sort of rebelling against one's own family.

Jane Somerville14:22

And that's where I met him.

Presenter14:23

So you would have been how old?

Jane Somerville14:26

Oh, I was sixteen. He would have been thirty six, just come back from the war, and working in Hammersmith in the postgraduate school there.

Presenter14:32

Uh

Jane Somerville14:32

Uh

Presenter14:33

So you were sixteen and you were sweet on him and he what did he sort of tell you, Don't be a silly girl?

Jane Somerville14:38

The first encounter was I said I wanted to do medicine, so he said, Well, you really ought to go to Oxbridge, and I didn't get in. He said, And then you should go to Guise or Barts. There are only two sensible teaching hospitals. I still have that letter that he wrote to me from Paris.

Jane Somerville14:53

And then we didn't meet again. He used to take the girl next door out, and I used to go and let my bulldog out and and disturb the romance in Edward Square. But anyway, I didn't meet him again till I was just qualified.

Presenter15:05

Is it true that he was so handsome that he was asked to screen test for MGM?

Jane Somerville15:09

Yes.

Jane Somerville15:10

In New York, yes it is true.

Presenter15:12

Did

Jane Somerville15:12

No, he said I want to do medicine.

Presenter15:13

Peace.

Presenter15:15

So he had these matinee idle looks

Jane Somerville15:17

Yes, yes, he had matinee I don't know, matinee, depends what matinee, doesn't it?

Jane Somerville15:24

Yeah, he was good looking, and his children are good looking.

Presenter15:27

And were you one of those young women who thought, one day that will be the man I will marry?

Jane Somerville15:32

Wasn't it? I had plenty of men around for one reason or another. I thought he was the best of them.

Jane Somerville15:39

And you were I didn't think about marriage, I only thought about my career. So any man had to fall in with that and pay for the necessary. I knew that then.

Presenter15:48

Yeah.

Jane Somerville15:48

You became a medic

Presenter15:48

Medical student then at Guy's Hospital with

Jane Somerville15:50

I did in my second year, so I was qualified by the time I was twenty one.

Presenter15:50

I did, and I was so

Presenter15:54

How many girls had they lettered?

Jane Somerville15:55

Uh

Presenter15:55

Uh

Jane Somerville15:55

Nine percent, by order of the government.

Jane Somerville15:58

And the senior physician, who was a real woman hater and all that went with it, who trailed around with his retinue of boys, would swear as you passed them in the park, there's another of those women. I better not swear on uh the radio, but he did. And you'd hear it. I used to just cock my nose in the air and say poof.

Presenter16:12

Yeah.

Presenter16:13

We get it.

Presenter16:18

You begged to be taken under the wing of Sir Russell Brock. Now, for those of us who haven't spent a life in medicine, tell us who he is and what his reputation is.

Jane Somerville16:25

Boy, he was one of the great surgeons who moved to cardiac surgery. So he did the early blue babies because of this connection with Alfred Blaylock, who came to lecture at Guy's.

Jane Somerville16:37

And I completely became entranced with this matter of blue babies no, they weren't babies then blue people being turned to pink people by Blaylock's operation, and I said, That's for me.

Presenter16:49

More in just a minute, Jane Somerville, for now that we must fit in the music. It's time for your fourth.

Jane Somerville16:54

Well, there were these wonderful shows. There was Ivan Novello, there was Noel Card. You know, I witnessed Noel Card introducing Marlene Dietrich at the last performance. I had a boyfriend. We used to go to the Café de Paris. And it was very exciting. All these romantic things going on and all these marvellous people making great songs. And I love Noel Card. I love the wit.

Speaker 117:17

When he bellowed, Cape Bella, Signorina Sheer ecstasy at once produced A wild shriek from Mrs. Wentworth Brewster, changing her whole demeanour.

Jane Somerville17:20

BEAL

Speaker 417:32

Yeah.

Speaker 117:33

When both her daughters and her sons said, Please come home, mamma, She answered rather bibulously, Who do you think you are? Nobody can afford to be so lardy bloody dar In a bar on the pickle of Marie

Presenter17:49

That was Noel Coward and a bar on the Piccola Marina. So tell me a bit more, Jane Somerville. The phrase you used was turning blue babies to pink babies, which is not just wonderfully descriptive, but of course makes it sound rather simple. You were at the pioneering front of this sort of surgery when you were working with Sir Russell Brog.

Jane Somerville18:08

What was it like working for him? It was fantastic. It was like one long episode of MASH. It was incredibly exciting. Every day something new, because that was late fifties, was cardiac surgery was beginning to emerge. It was a bit of a nightmare. We'd be all day in the theatre and one didn't really know what was going on and there was no book to help you and there was no intensive care and you slept in the ward and Brock would arrive at seven o'clock in the morning and say how's the patient and you didn't dare tell him.

Jane Somerville18:35

So the whole thing was incredibly exciting, but after about a year I realized my hands were not connected to my head.

Presenter18:43

Can you give me an indication of outcomes at that time? You know, the amount of people.

Jane Somerville18:46

Awful. Yes. I remember we did eleven or ten blue children. The first one survived, I think really by chance. And the next eight or nine died. It was absolutely awful.

Jane Somerville18:58

But somehow when it was successful it was so amazing one knew one was really trying and the actual outcome of the patient retaining the same disease without surgery was also very bad.

Presenter19:11

So tell me then about setting up this Paulwood special adolescent unit at the National Heart Hospital. You you were given the space to do it, but you weren't given the funding.

Jane Somerville19:21

When I got on the staff of the Heart Hospital, that was a bit of a battle. But anyhow, I got on as a physician for congenital heart disease, which was lovely'cause I could have children and adults. And then we had the need for adolescents'cause in Great Ormond Street they were getting lots of survivors.

Jane Somerville19:37

And Dick Bonham Carter, who was very smart, realized that they needed care, that they had residual things, and so on and so forth, so he'd send them to me.

Presenter19:45

How did you fund this war?

Jane Somerville19:47

By chance, you know, if you take advantage of chance, it was given by an anonymous donor who I was introduced to by actually my husband when we were having a glass of champagne, eats smoked salmon. He said, Do you need money for your work? And I said, Oh, yes, I do So th the generous donor gave us about sixty thousand pounds.

Jane Somerville20:08

which was quite a lot in nineteen seventy five.

Presenter20:10

You qualified at the age of twenty one, as you mentioned. You weren't made a consultant until you were thirty eight. Why do you think that was?

Jane Somerville20:17

I think for several reasons. Firstly, I didn't have a Y chromosome, you know, not male, so I never got on a short list. The second thing is I was mad about congenital heart disease, so I was half an adult cardiologist and really half a pediatric cardiologist, and really not accepted by either. The pediatric cardiologist didn't accept me'cause I hadn't done pediatrics. I mean, what do I need to know about changing Nappy's eczema and all that stuff, I felt. So I decided I was going to design my own specialty. And then there'd only be me, and that more or less is what's happened.

Presenter20:50

Was it your impression throughout those years that the the medical establishment wanted you out?

Jane Somerville20:57

I thought there was prejudice against me, who was very mouthy and upset a lot of people rebel with a cause I was, not a rebel with no cause.

Presenter21:07

Didn't you ever think about buttoning it in order to get further?

Jane Somerville21:12

Walter would encourage that, but by then I had children. I was running round like a baby steam engine, running between children and husband.

Jane Somerville21:20

Yeah, I did think about it, but one's thoughts don't always get to one's mouth.

Presenter21:25

In a

Jane Somerville21:25

Yeah.

Presenter21:25

Ain't that the truth? Right, let's have some more music. We're good.

Presenter21:29

We're on your fifth disc. Tell me about this choice.

Jane Somerville21:32

Well, by the time I discovered the Russian national anthem this would be in the eighties I was rushing to and fro round the world and giving lectures in between the rest of the things one was supposed to do in a hysterical way.

Jane Somerville21:47

And I discovered Moscow, which was the most exciting place.

Presenter22:45

That was the Red Army choir singing the Russian National Anthem. So, uh, Jane Somerville, you used a great phrase a moment ago, running around like a baby steam engine. Uh you had this very, very demanding job.

Presenter22:58

You had a husband who also was flying in his career, doing very well as a cardiologist, too, and you had four children. Women these days are preoccupied with the life work balance. What was your life work balance like?

Jane Somerville23:09

Disordered. I think that I was rather hysterical and bad tempered when I got home and hungry runs in the family we get rather low blood sugar. And so the children did suffer a bit, but they were tolerant. And I had a wonderful housekeeper called Maggie, and she sort of kept Rule of the Roost. And then we had nannies, a number of them, some of them mad, some of them bad, and some of them rather sweet.

Presenter23:33

And were you the sort of mother who was able to turn up at prize-giving days or sports days or?

Jane Somerville23:38

Well, I occasionally did, but I think my children would say not too often. Sometimes they'd come and talk to me. I had a step made in my bathroom where I spent a lot of time in the bath, so the kids would come in and sit on the step and tell me their troubles, and I might tell them mine. Or actually, the World Congress thought was born in the bath. I can't have had any children around. Yes, this was a

Presenter24:00

This was a genuine Eureka moment in Lafar. There was. Anyway, when the children.

Jane Somerville24:04

Anyway, but the children could say they suffered because I wasn't a very hands-on mother fussing about everything and giving them everything they want.

Jane Somerville24:11

I think these children who are over indulged in the end will suffer because actually life doesn't provide all that for you. So I think mine are a little bit hardy. They went off to boarding school. We were sent away. We weren't given mother's milk. I hear this. You know, we had one sock, and I don't listen to all that.

Presenter24:28

They were all right. Let's talk about your eureka moment then. You were in the bath and you saw, you just thought, yes, I'm going to start the World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology.

Jane Somerville24:36

It was more complicated than that. It was so exciting, the specialty. And there were all these advances all the time, you know, and lots to talk about. The adult cardiologists weren't interested in what we had to say at all. They got turned off, so we didn't get space. So I thought, right, the only thing to do is to have our own Congress. And I got out of the bath.

Jane Somerville24:56

And it took place in nineteen eighty. It took us five years to get it together in Wembley, the most ghastly conference centre man could invent. But it was fun and we galloped around and people came from every part of the world

Speaker 125:02

Duh.

Jane Somerville25:09

I think thirteen hundred delegates came.

Presenter25:11

Can you give me an indication of the the change, the sort of graph, if you like, in outcomes between, you know, forty years ago and now?

Jane Somerville25:19

Oh, well, of course it's amazed. As as you started off, I mean, the natural history of people born with heart disease was perhaps fifteen per cent with le adolescents, now nineteen ninety five. Even the most severe lesions can now be operated on.

Jane Somerville25:34

A number of them need long-term care. That's why the need for grown-up congenital heart specialty is very.

Jane Somerville25:41

Important now, because we've got so many survivors.

Presenter25:45

Let's have some more music then, Jane Somerville. We're on your sixth piece of the morning. Tell me about this.

Jane Somerville25:51

Well, this is part of the romantic era of when Walter and I were meeting. We married in nineteen fifty seven and we went dancing, and I loved cheek to cheek.

Speaker 426:02

Uh

Jane Somerville26:02

Yeah.

Speaker 426:02

Uh

Jane Somerville26:02

Uh

Jane Somerville26:04

I'm in the

Speaker 426:04

Uh

Speaker 426:07

And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.

Speaker 426:12

And I seem to find the happiness I seek when we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.

Speaker 126:13

Yeah.

Speaker 426:25

Yeah.

Presenter26:27

That was Fred Astair singing cheek to cheek from the movie Top Hat. So, Jane Somerville, we've heard about how important Walter Somerville, who went on to be your husband, was in your life, himself an eminent cardiologist. He he died in two thousand and five.

Presenter26:42

Given your long and happy union, how how have you coped without him?

Jane Somerville26:47

Well, I've always been hungry for many different things as well as food, and so there's been a lot to do, and I still run round the world and I see my unicorns. I've trained a number of people, and they're all around, and they want to see you.

Jane Somerville27:05

And

Presenter27:05

Yes, tell me why they're called the unicorns, this bunch of people.

Jane Somerville27:08

Because I used to say to them, You've got to have an imagination. Would you recognize a unicorn if you saw one? Can't you just think?

Jane Somerville27:17

And use your imaginations. We're dealing with new medicine. We're dealing with things we haven't seen before.

Jane Somerville27:22

They are very diverted, and people come and go through the house.

Jane Somerville27:27

as they always have done, much to the resentment of my children, who found all these foreign people at meals. And life has gone on, and it was quite clear, with twenty years between us, that I was going to be a widow, so I always decided if I was, I was going to be a merry widow.

Presenter27:44

None of your children have followed you in to medicine.

Jane Somerville27:48

They grew up with all this at breakfast, lunch and tea. They got fed up with Walter and I discussing this, that and the other and the interesting things, and I think they were turned off it.

Jane Somerville27:57

They're all would have made good doctors. They're amazingly knowledgeable and sensible. But the the heritage has really stopped. The Health Service is not what it was, although I once upon a time loved it. It's appalling, except lovely in bits.

Speaker 128:02

Yeah.

Presenter28:11

You worked in the NHS for for more than half a century, and you just said there it's appalling. I mean, that's very strong terms. What do you think is appalling about the NHS?

Jane Somerville28:20

Well, I think this erratic care I think Staffordshire is not alone.

Jane Somerville28:26

I think there are some wonderful things that happen in the Health Service, and it should always be free at the point of entry.

Jane Somerville28:33

And I think it's been ruined, I regret to say. Initiated by Margaret Thatcher, who thought she could run it like grocery stores, and introduce managers. We've lost the matron we've lost the senior sister.

Jane Somerville28:46

Also, machines have taken over, so they're not trained the art of medicine has been lost.

Presenter28:51

We have seen unmatched numbers in terms of funding going into the Health Service, though, in the last fifteen years.

Jane Somerville28:57

Absolutely. Going in the wrong place and employing managers. Running round with clipboards, not understanding clinical priorities and interfering with them. I personally think doctors should decide on clinical priorities.

Presenter29:09

Uh tell me more about the art of medicine then. What what do you think there is to celebrate in good medicine well practised in our NHS?

Jane Somerville29:16

Well, I think you have to be knowledgeable, but I think the art of medicine is to understand what's the matter with the patient. Some attempt should be made other than asking a machine.

Presenter29:26

Let's have some more music. You're seventh. What are we going to hear?

Jane Somerville29:30

Well, this is important. This is part of my latter life since I was spending time in Paris. I met Thomas Hampson and I loved his voice. And then of the past I just adore Cole Porter. It was all part of the romantic musical talent that I have always adored.

Speaker 429:52

You are the one.

Speaker 429:56

Only you beneath the moon and under the sun

Speaker 430:04

Whether near to me or far, it's no matter, darling, where you are, I think of you

Presenter30:19

That was Thomas Hempson singing Night and Day. Um, Jane, you said an intriguing thing a moment ago. I'm determined to play the Merry Widow.

Presenter30:27

Are you very

Jane Somerville30:28

Very merry.

Jane Somerville30:29

Perhaps not in the way the Merry Widow was, in a private friend's layer, but

Jane Somerville30:34

I enjoy my life. I think I'm only here once.

Jane Somerville30:38

I enjoy my children now, particularly now they're grown up and not squawking. I love being with them all perhaps not at the same time. I love going round the world to lecture in funny places and in lovely places.

Presenter30:50

I'm very, very lucky. I noticed at the beginning, when we started talking this morning, that you were loath to take

Presenter30:57

It's interesting, isn't it? Too much credit for anything really. But I'm going to force you to to sort of look at your career, look at the contribution that you have made and try to think of the single best development in cardiac treatments that you think

Presenter31:10

I think I made quite a difference there.

Jane Somerville31:13

Well, I think I made a difference to the uh specialization that people had to realize. They had to look after people with congenital heart disease who grew up.

Jane Somerville31:22

And I think I've taught perhaps more than one generation really about conducting medicine and looking after patients. Patients are my passion. I felt very sorry for them when they were born with these things that went on.

Jane Somerville31:35

And I've had a lovely family, so I've made a few contributions that I'm very, very proud and pleased with.

Presenter31:41

Did your mother uh live to see the the career you were building for yourself?

Jane Somerville31:45

No, she didn't.

Jane Somerville31:47

No, she didn't, but she always believed I would if I wanted.

Jane Somerville31:51

I have always had this rather gritty, obstinate determination, so I think she knew I would.

Presenter31:56

Yes. What do you think she would have made of your life?

Jane Somerville31:59

I think she'd be very pleased. She never went on about things too much. There was never all this oh, how marvellous you've got your homework right and you got an A star. None of that occurred. Just get on and do it.

Presenter32:09

Given the sort of person you are, I'm wondering how you are with your grandchildren. I mean, when they come in and say, Grandma, I got an A star. Do you sit with them on your own? No, no, no. I'm fairly.

Jane Somerville32:16

No, no, no. I'm a fairly hopeless grandmother. I like them when they grow up. You don't leave small children with me. I always got, as my eldest son says, staff. Always somebody looked after there.

Presenter32:18

Uh

Jane Somerville32:27

Nonsensis. I don't like this repetitive please do this, please don't be rude. I can't be dealing with all that. And actually I tell them I like the dog best.

Presenter32:38

On that note, let's have your final piece of music. What are we going to hear?

Jane Somerville32:42

You're going to hear my friend Jesse Norman, who has influenced me a lot in the last twenty, thirty years. We've had a good, good friendship.

Presenter32:51

And she sang at a very uh a very special occasion for you. Tell me about that.

Jane Somerville32:55

Ah, she sang not this, but she sang when the ward was named after me in a moment of Brompton charm. And she sang at Walter's Memorial Service as a friend.

Speaker 433:19

Give the strength Here watched him all.

Speaker 433:39

Street is of my heart touch of

Speaker 433:45

Opening more ladies and men.

Speaker 433:51

Oh, let us take down.

Presenter34:06

That was Richard Strauss's Zu Ayaknung, sung by Jessie Norman, with the Givanta Hauser Orchestra Leipzig, conducted by Kurt Masseur. So I'm going to give you the books now, Jane. You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get to take another book along. What would you like to take?

Jane Somerville34:23

I want the whole volume of Baroness Orks's scarlet pimpernel. And a luxury too.

Jane Somerville34:29

Well, if I can't have a hot bath every day, I'll have Frette sheets.

Presenter34:33

No, we can manage a hot bath every day, yes. Any sort of special oils, or ungents, or bubbles, or do you like a plain bath?

Presenter34:39

Oh, I like Rose Geranium by Flores. Ah, well, we shall give you that too. And one track to save from the Eighth. I think I'd save Jessie. Right, it's yours. Jane Somerville, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you for asking me. It's wonderful.

Presenter36:06

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 4.