Professor Sue Black

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 forensic anthropologist Professor Sue Black.

Presenter0:39

She leads a team of world renown with everyone from murder squad detectives to the United Nations knocking on the doors of her lab, looking for answers. Through her painstakingly detailed work, she is a teller of truths, a woman who uses her scientific skill to determine how people often, in the most terrifying and complex circumstances, have met their end.

Presenter1:01

Her interest in the human body started with a brilliant biology teacher and, grisly though it seems, surely it must be the case, that a part time teenage job in a butcher shop inured her to the blood, bones, and viscera that would become her stock in trade.

Presenter1:16

Her work covers an impressive range from helping identify the human remains of the victims of the Asian tsunami.

Presenter1:23

To providing crucial information for the conviction of Scotland's largest paedophile ring, in Kosovo she gathered evidence against Slobodan Milosevich for crimes against humanity, and she's recently been busy deciphering images of torture from Syria.

Presenter1:39

Holding her nerve and keeping her focus then are essential. I say to myself, I did not cause this. I am not responsible for this. I could not have stopped this. I am here to find the answers. So welcome, Sue Black. Before we begin, I think it's worth just letting listeners know that because of what you do, some of what we're likely to discuss this morning is graphic and inevitably, I suppose, centres on the physical nature of death. I quoted you as saying there that you are there to find answers. You find them in the tiniest nooks and crannies of the human body. And that is bamboozling for those of us who know nothing really in detail about the work that you do. It could be about where somebody had tattoos on their body that aren't apparent from the body parts that you have. It could be to do with where their mother lived, for example, things as detailed as that.

Presenter2:34

How on earth do you do it?

Professor Sue Black2:35

Oh, it's great fun to be given the opportunity and the permission.

Professor Sue Black2:41

To open up the skin and look inside and see that every single one is different. And if every single one is different, that says what can you use about the differences that allow you to say that's who this individual may be. It's like being Taggart and it's like being Morse every single day, but using science and using anatomy.

Presenter3:06

In layman's terms, can you give me an example then? I I just mentioned the tattoo, you know, that you might have body parts that don't show you the tattoo, and yet you manage to say this man, this woman, had a tattoo on this part of their body. How can that be the case?

Professor Sue Black3:21

Because it's your anatomy. All you have to understand is your anatomy. So, when you have a tattoo, what you do with the needles and what you do with the dye is you place it between the two layers of skin. And the molecules of the ink are really large because you want them to stay there. You don't want the body to break them down. That's the whole point of a tattoo. It wants to be permanent. But some of those ink molecules are broken down, and you have in your body something called the lymphatic system, which is a system of little vessels that carry away all your tissue fluids and all the debris from your cells. And sitting up in various parts of your body, you've got like the sink trap in your shower that you know catches your hair and everything else. And because the molecules are so big, they sit trapped in the lymph nodes. So, somebody who has a tattoo that is very identifiable, if we've still got those lymph nodes sitting up in your armpit, we will find the dyes of those tattoos. So, I don't need the limb anymore. I can't tell you what the tattoo was, but I can tell you if there's blue dye, and I can tell you if there's red dye, so that at least we get a clear indication that there were tattoos there. So, people

Presenter4:31

Looking for answers in life and death situations come to you. That must be a very stressful job. How do you wind down?

Professor Sue Black4:39

Um I don't, is is the honest truth. Um our youngest daughter, when she was eight, came to us one day and said, Have we ever been on holiday?

Professor Sue Black4:49

Oh, that's really a bad thing to ask, isn't it? So both my husband and I felt really guilty on that. So we went on holiday to to the south of Portugal, which was very nice, but it was very hot and I'm a redhead and really don't cope terribly well with that. And I was so bored.

Professor Sue Black5:03

by day two, that whilst everyone else was frolicking around in the pool I'd written a text book by the time I came home.

Presenter5:09

Professor Sue Black, tell me about your first disc this morning then. What are we going to hear, and why have you chosen it?

Professor Sue Black5:14

We're going to hear You Jacobites by Name, which is by The Corries. And I was born in Inverness and I grew up in a very remote part of the West Coast, just on Loch Arran. And traditional music was still very, very strong. And when I was 11, we moved back to Inverness, and it was right at the height of the Corries. And so having heard all of this traditional music and sung in the Gallic mods, to then come to the dizzy metropolis that was Inverness and find that the Corries were, you know, hugely popular was just fantastic.

Speaker 45:50

Ye Jacobites by day, land an ear, land an ear, ye jacobites by day, land a near, ye jacobites by name, your thoughts are not proclaimed.

Professor Sue Black6:02

My name

Speaker 46:05

Your doctrines I'm unblame, you will hear, you will hear, your doctrines I'm unblame, you will hear what is right, what is wrong, by the law, by the law, what is right and what is wrong, by the law.

Speaker 46:25

What is right, what is wrong, the weaker man, the strong, the short sword and the long, for the draw, for the draw, the short sword and the long, for the draw Ichagawa's fire

Speaker 46:51

Uh

Presenter6:51

That was the Corries and ye Jacobites by name. So, Professor Sue Black, you've been running a department at the University of Dundee since I think 2003, is that right?

Speaker 46:51

Nope.

Presenter7:00

You've opened this new state-of-the-art mortuary. I think that happened just last year. What are you laughing at?

Professor Sue Black7:05

It's just not the kind of thing that's normally said in a conversation you opened a mortuary.

Presenter7:08

You love the

Presenter7:09

Well, I am talking to you. Okay. Yes. So and part of it then is devoted to teaching medics and to teaching dentists too, I think, how better to do their jobs. And they operate on dissected bodies that people have donated to science. And

Presenter7:24

I mean, it's funny that you laugh at the word mortuary, because I don't laugh. I slightly sort of quail at the word mortuary. I mean, for most people.

Presenter7:31

It would be really distressing and unnerving to walk into a mortuary. What do you f what did you feel initially the first time you walked into a mortuary?

Professor Sue Black7:39

Um the f it's very strange because the first place that I walked into was a dissecting room, which is very different.

Professor Sue Black7:47

And so, in the dissecting room in Aberdeen University, what you had were about 40 bodies laid out, embalmed on what at the time were glass tables in what almost looked like a conservatory. So, it was a Victorian parquet flooring with glass ceiling, glass walls, and you got the feeling of a clinical teaching room. But when I became a PhD student, I moved downstairs to my office. And so, to get to my office every morning, you had to walk through the dissecting room, you had to walk through the area where they built the coffins. It was right above where the mortuary was, which was the floor below. And I shared my office with about 200 skeletons.

Professor Sue Black8:30

So it it's just normal life for us. It isn't unusual.

Presenter8:35

Let's have your next piece of music then. Tell me about this. We're going to listen to disc number two, though.

Professor Sue Black8:39

Disc number two is Glenn Miller and In the Mood. My father was such an incredibly important personality in my life. He was a pianist and was the pianist for the local church. Now when I mean local church, we're talking about maybe eight to ten people on a Sunday. And he always wanted to make sure that he was ready for church on Sunday. And I used to go up to the church with him on a Saturday night. And to limber up, he would play Glenn Miller's In the Mood. So you'd have this church in the middle of the West Coast, in the middle of nowhere, Glenn Miller coming out of it on the church organ. And my job on the Sunday was that I had to stand at the front. And when it came to the last verse, it was my job to put my hand down on the pew in front of me. And that was this cue. So if I forgot to do that, we were in trouble because it meant he kept playing and nobody was singing. But In the Mood for me is my father. He used to call it In the Nude, which he thought was terribly amusing.

Presenter10:40

That was Glenn Miller and his band and In the Mood or In the Nude, Professor Sue Black, as your father used to call it. He was a cabinet maker to trade, is he wasn't. He was a cabinet maker upholster.

Professor Sue Black10:43

Professor Su.

Professor Sue Black10:47

He was a cabinet maker, upholsterer and what we call in Scotland a flitter. And a flitter is someone who moves you from one house to another. And you said as you were introducing that last piece of music he was such an important person in your life. My father was not in the least little bit demonstrative. So he was a classic Scotsman of his age. That you knew he loved you, you knew he would do anything for you. I can't remember my father ever initiating a hug, never initiating holding my hand. But he was the product of his mother and his father. And I never knew his father, but my grandmother was singularly the most important person in my life. And your grandmother called you her varsity girl. She did. She came from Glenelg, and for anyone who knows Glenelg, it really is in the middle of the middle of nowhere. Tiny, tiny little village. And she was so incredibly worldly wise. So my varsity

Presenter11:40

Yeah.

Professor Sue Black11:41

Girl, mean my universe.

Presenter11:41

University of a family, yes. So she had you she had you pinned down as very smart from very early on.

Professor Sue Black11:42

University of the United States.

Professor Sue Black11:45

Yeah.

Professor Sue Black11:46

Well, I don't know about being very smart, but she certainly had me pinned down for something. And sh she she had been a very heavy smoker, is that

Presenter11:53

She had easily forty a day. And she died of lung disease. She did. And when people have grandparents that make a big impression,

Professor Sue Black11:53

She had, yeah.

Presenter12:01

It goes deep and it lasts a lifetime.

Professor Sue Black12:04

What was her legacy to you?

Presenter12:05

Yeah.

Professor Sue Black12:05

When they they opened up her chest and they realized there was absolutely nothing they could do, the cancer was so rife, what she said to me and I was I remember being really upset about it, and she said to me, Don't worry, I'm not I'm not going anywhere.

Professor Sue Black12:18

Which I just couldn't understand because I'd been told she was going to die. And she said, Because for the rest of your life, I'm going to sit on your left shoulder.

Professor Sue Black12:26

I'm not going anywhere, and if at any point in your life you want to ask me something, or you want to ask, is that the right thing to do?

Professor Sue Black12:34

Just turn and ask me.

Professor Sue Black12:36

And I find myself right the way throughout my life sticking my head down to my left hand side, thinking, I can't do that. I can't do that because if there is a life beyond this, she's going to be waiting for me at the other end, and she's going to say, I told you not to do that. How old were you when she died?

Presenter12:52

Uh fifteen.

Professor Sue Black12:54

Yeah.

Professor Sue Black12:55

Yeah. So at that sort of age where you are very impressionable.

Presenter12:55

And so

Presenter12:58

And how did you cope at the time? Very well. Did you? Well, she didn't die. She was there. She stayed with me.

Professor Sue Black13:02

Yeah.

Presenter13:04

Yeah.

Presenter13:06

Let's have your next piece of music then. What are we going to hear?

Professor Sue Black13:08

We're going to hear Baker Street by Jerry Rafferty. And why have you chosen this? Well, 1970s, Inverness, teenager, glorious hot summers. That was a really happy time that you probably didn't know at the time just how carefree you were. There was nothing in my life for me to worry about. School was going fine. I was thinking maybe university was going to go. I had a boyfriend that I liked really much. My parents were, you know, not in any way on my case. Life was wonderful.

Presenter13:10

And why do you ch

Speaker 413:39

Winding your way down and bakers

Speaker 413:43

Light in your head and then on your feet well another crazy day.

Speaker 413:49

Drink the night away and forget about everything

Speaker 413:56

This city doesn't make you feel so cold It's got so many people but it's got no soul And it's taking you so long

Speaker 414:06

Find out you were wrong when you thought it held there

Presenter14:12

That was Jerry Rafferty and Baker Street. And memories for you, Professor Sue Black, of those carefree early seventies days. Um were you one of those high flyers in school? Did you love it? Was it a b

Professor Sue Black14:22

I was very lucky. When I was in the West Coast, the school only had twelve pupils. And in Primary Seven, I moved to Inverness, and there were more people in Primary Seven than there had been in my entire school. And I find that such an incredible culture shock.

Professor Sue Black14:37

I then moved into the secondary school and at the time Milburn Academy was just a zoo. It was awful. I hated every single moment I was in that school. It's a good school now, it's a good idea. It's one of the best schools in Inverness now. But at the time it it was a very challenging school. And as a teenager

Presenter14:48

It's a one of the best schools in

Presenter14:54

Working in a butcher's shop

Professor Sue Black14:56

Yeah.

Presenter14:56

I mean a f

Professor Sue Black14:56

Yeah.

Presenter14:57

The back shop in a butcher's is a pretty uh you know, it's a pretty extreme place.

Professor Sue Black15:01

How did you find it? Well, my friend Susan got a a job in the farm shop.

Professor Sue Black15:05

And I thought, what a good idea. You can work and earn money. So can I have a job too? And I lasted one Saturday in the vegetable shop because I really was not the kind of person to sell carrots and cauliflowers. So the other option was there was a butcher shop and I'm, Oh, can I work there? And that was it. And I loved it. Absolutely loved it.

Professor Sue Black15:24

What did you like about it? I liked the order. I liked that there was a specific way around bones that you would remove muscle to produce a particular final appearance. I liked the fact that I could understand where on an animal every single bit had come from. And it was always cold in a butcher shop. And we used to love it when the vans came up from the slaughterhouse, especially if it was on a day when you had liver on board, because the livers always came in fresh. So if you put your hands into liver boxes, they were warm. And so that was great. How aware are you that you're very unusual?

Presenter15:58

Yeah.

Professor Sue Black15:58

I don't think so at all. I think it's perfectly normal, isn't it?

Presenter16:02

Well, you know functional it's not.

Professor Sue Black16:02

Pooh!

Presenter16:04

And you have that slightly challenging look in your eye when you're talking about it. You're daring me to be disgusted by you.

Professor Sue Black16:10

But it isn't, it's natural, it's a butcher shop, you know. Tell me about uh Doctor Fraser then, this inspirational biology teacher. Well, after Milburn, um I was so determined to get out.

Presenter16:16

File

Professor Sue Black16:20

That you had to sit exams, and if you sat exams, then you got to go to the academy, and that was Inverness Royal Academy.

Professor Sue Black16:29

I met Dr. Fraser in biology and he was just such a lovely man and he made everything so completely understandable and we decided that I needed some experience of working and he sent me to Rigmore Hospital to get some work experience as a lab technician and I came back and I said that's what I'm going to be I'm going to be a laboratory technician and I can remember being so shocked because he swore at me and he said don't be so blooming stupid you're going to university and I thought that's what my grandmother had said now if that's the case then maybe I ought to go and

Professor Sue Black17:08

First of all, I applied and didn't tell my parents I was applying because I didn't believe I'd actually get in. And then when I got the letter that said I'd been accepted, I lied and I told my parents I had a full grant, because at the age of seventeen I had decided I knew better that they couldn't afford to support me.

Professor Sue Black17:27

And so I took three or four different jobs while I was a student just to make sure I made ends meet.

Presenter17:33

It's time for some more music then, Professor Sue Black. We're on your fourth track of the day. Tell me a little bit about this.

Professor Sue Black17:38

Now we're going to get sloppy. Go on then. So this is Romeo and Juliet and this is Dar Straits. Tom and I went to university together from Inverness. Tom is my husband. And so I've known him since I was 17 years of age. He is my best friend and this was one of his tracks.

Speaker 417:55

Juliet says, hey it's Romeo. He nearly gave me a heart attack.

Speaker 418:01

He's underneath the window, she's singing, Real My Boyfriend's Mm.

Speaker 418:07

You shouldn't come around here singing up at people like that.

Speaker 418:12

Anyway, what you gonna do about it?

Speaker 418:16

Juliet

Speaker 418:19

Ice was loaded from the star that I paid

Speaker 418:24

Many you exploded in my heart and I forgot

Presenter18:29

Diostrates and Romeo and Juliet, and you chose that Professor Sue Black for your husband, Tom, who you met when you were 17. You were married once before, and it wasn't Tom that you were married to. You got married quite early and had a daughter in your early 20s. That's right. Yes, and so.

Professor Sue Black18:39

So you got rid of the

Professor Sue Black18:44

Yeah.

Presenter18:45

That period when you were just coming out of university, you'd graduated, you were married and you were pregnant. Did you have an idea of what you were going to do work wise? Did you have a career path as our students these days are so encouraged to do?

Professor Sue Black18:56

Not really, no. What I I was very lucky with was that I had a very dear friend, Louise Sharr, in London, and she informed me that there was a teaching job going at St Thomas's Hospital. And so I was just out of my PhD and she said, Come and interview.

Professor Sue Black19:11

And the very last question asked of me was

Professor Sue Black19:14

If you can go into the dissecting room this afternoon, could you teach the brachial plexus? To which I said, Yes, of course. And by being able to answer that, the job was mine. So I really went into the academic side.

Professor Sue Black19:28

By accident. Can you remember the very first time that you dissected a human body? Yes, because it was in my third year in university. And so it was in the dissecting room in Aberdeen.

Professor Sue Black19:39

and that first cut that you make with a sharp scalpel through skin.

Professor Sue Black19:43

is something that you can never repeat twice because it it is only a onetime event. And our students today, you can see their nervousness. And no matter how much you tell them, you're nervous now. In ten minutes you will forget to be afraid.

Professor Sue Black19:58

And it's wonderful to watch because when you go into the dissecting room, there is this heightened.

Professor Sue Black20:03

Fear and anticipation.

Professor Sue Black20:06

And then they forget about it because once you're below the skin, what lies underneath there is just amazing, and you forget to be scared. And of course, we are hot.

Presenter20:14

Yeah.

Professor Sue Black20:15

Wired to be skipped.

Presenter20:15

But after

Professor Sue Black20:16

Yeah.

Professor Sue Black20:17

After you had done it. Would it be too much? To say that it was a sort of life-changing experience? Oh, unquestionably. I think, you know, once you've gone into the human body and you have that responsibility, because this person who's in front of you, when they were alive, they made a conscious decision that they wanted to leave their body so that somebody could learn. And that's a gift that nobody will ever give you again. It's such an honour. So, our very first lecture before they go into the dissecting room says the man or the woman that you are going to dissect was alive a year ago, a year and a half ago. They have sons, they have daughters. Those people have sat in my office and had a cup of coffee with me. These people are there because they want to be there. And the only request they're asking of our students is: I'm giving you this, what I'm leaving behind. All I'm asking you to do is learn.

Professor Sue Black21:09

What do you mean they've sat in your office and had a cup of coffee? So somebody who wants to bequeath their body may say, I want to come in and talk to you. I want to hear what you're going to do.

Presenter21:11

Uh

Professor Sue Black21:17

And they'll come in and we'll make a cup of coffee and they will tell me about their life and they will tell me about their grandchildren and they'll tell me about everything that's wrong with them. And the relationship that we set with these people who are giving us that gift is so incredibly personal.

Professor Sue Black21:35

That it's our job when they're in our dissecting room to look after them. And in May we have a funeral service.

Professor Sue Black21:41

Where the family and friends come along, and we get to meet them, and the students get to meet, these are the families of the people who gave us that gift.

Presenter21:49

Time for some more music, Zublak. Um tell me about this one then.

Professor Sue Black21:52

This is Winter by Love and Money, and I suspect this isn't a band that's terribly well known outside down south of Hadrian's Wall. And when I was writing a textbook with my dear friend Louis Shaw, it took us nearly 10 years to write it. We're not very quick.

Professor Sue Black22:06

Um this was me in my attic in my ivory tower.

Professor Sue Black22:10

being a totally selfish academic writing a textbook, and this would blare out. So for me, this is a really pivotal point in my academic career. It was a textbook that nobody else had written. And the subject was juvenile osteology, so the development of the child skeleton.

Presenter22:25

And the subject was

Professor Sue Black22:29

because identification of children is something that we have an expertise in.

Speaker 422:35

Wish the stream would end

Speaker 422:39

So I'm never gonna begin.

Speaker 422:43

Lord, oh man, I'm my grief.

Speaker 422:48

Love and walk on beach again

Professor Sue Black22:49

Welcome.

Speaker 422:53

Love turns tender speaks as mentors of your trust forgiven

Speaker 423:02

Shine on, shine on in the beauty of the storm I win.

Presenter23:10

That was love and money and winter. So, Professor Sue Black, forensic anthropology, just to be clear, is where you are studying human remains to establish not just the identity of somebody, but also often the circumstances of their death. And it can be as detailed as I mean, I've heard about cases where even things like plant spores being discovered on and about a person can give a clue as to where their body might have been buried before, or somebody's hair can tell you which countries they've travelled to or spent time in, really extraordinary bits of information like that. Can you think of a case, just to give people an example, that has

Presenter23:47

Particularly surprised or delighted or been significant for you in your work.

Professor Sue Black23:53

The significance comes when you get a name.

Professor Sue Black23:57

And so for us, every case is a challenge.

Professor Sue Black24:01

When we don't succeed and we don't get a name for that person, then that is our worst possible outcome, because we just want to be able to put that full stop.

Professor Sue Black24:10

And some of the work that we did in Kosovo was particularly challenging because that was about

Professor Sue Black24:17

Coming to an identification of individuals where there was very little background information. So for example, a particular case where a family were involved.

Professor Sue Black24:27

and a rocket propelled grenade took out the tractor and the trailer that they were coming down to in the village. And dad was snipered in the leg, so he managed to get away, but everybody who was on that trailer lost their lives. And on that trailer was his wife, her sister, their mother and their six children. And the six children ranged from a newborn baby up to two 14 year old boys.

Professor Sue Black24:52

and under cover of darkness he came back and he buried.

Professor Sue Black24:56

Everything he could find of his family. So, for somebody to go through something like that is almost it's almost unimaginable.

Professor Sue Black25:04

We come along about a year later with the War Crimes Tribunal and say we want to exhume this this grave because we think this is evidence against Milosevic.

Professor Sue Black25:14

And I think, you know, for most families it would be a no, I've buried them, you know, leave them. But he was the most amazing man because what he said was I'm really worried that God can't find all of my family because they're all in one place and each one of them needs to have a grave so that God can find them. And so we we we exhumed the the hole in the ground.

Professor Sue Black25:35

And we sent everybody else away in the mortuary that day, and we laid out eleven sheets on the floor.

Professor Sue Black25:41

And we said, we're going to have to try and find a bit of everybody, because this man needs to have a bit of all of his family back.

Professor Sue Black25:50

So his wife was easy to identify, the sister was easy to identify, the mother was easy to identify, and all of the children were until we got to the two twin fourteen year old boys.

Professor Sue Black26:02

Everything that we went through on that body we couldn't tell the boys apart.

Professor Sue Black26:07

and one of the bodies was wearing a Mickey Mouse vest.

Professor Sue Black26:11

And we said to the police officer, go and talk to Dad and ask Dad if any of his children wore a Mickey Mouse vest. And Dad came back and went, Oh yes, that twin boy, he was absolutely obsessed with Disney and with Mickey Mouse. And something that was so totally not related to our science, but so personal, crossed that boundary to allow us to say with some confidence, I can now separate probably what are your two 14 year old boys and we handed all of the bodies back to him. And at the end of that, he came back to the team.

Professor Sue Black26:50

And he thanked every single member of the team for what they'd done. And we were just so uncomfortable and so embarrassed that somebody would thank us for what we'd had to do. But for him it meant everything, absolutely everything.

Professor Sue Black27:04

It's time for some more music then, Professor Sue Black. Yeah.

Professor Sue Black27:08

We're going to go very Scottish again. This is the Lathallen Pipe Band. Lathallen is a school, and my girls were in the Pipe Band. And they used to play Highland Cathedral, and it also became one of my father's really favourite pieces.

Presenter28:50

That was your daughter's, Professor Sue Black, in the Lafallen pipe band, and they were playing Highland Cathedral. We've heard you talk today

Presenter28:59

About the really tragic and gruesome things that humanity is capable of.

Presenter29:06

I'm wondering, as you're down on your hands and knees, collecting the bones or examining them in the lab,

Presenter29:13

What occurs to you about the capability and the state of humanity? What thoughts do you have?

Professor Sue Black29:18

I think much of the time we don't allow ourselves to have those thoughts.

Professor Sue Black29:23

Some of the things that we saw in Kosovo, some of the things that we've seen in relation to the violence that a person can

Professor Sue Black29:34

Can put, you know, can meter out onto somebody else. If you.

Professor Sue Black29:39

If you spent your time dwelling on those.

Professor Sue Black29:42

I wonder.

Professor Sue Black29:43

Just how reliable and how unbiased we could remain as scientists.

Presenter29:48

And do you have?

Presenter29:51

a decompression ritual. I mean, is there you know, i is there a set of things that you will do when you come home when you have been dealing with those particularly horrendous cases that you think

Presenter30:04

This will just cl

Professor Sue Black30:05

Cleanse me.

Presenter30:06

Yeah.

Professor Sue Black30:06

I I try not to ever take it home. You need it to stay within the people who are exposed to it. So if we have a case, we will sit around the table and we will talk it out. And most of the time, by the end of that, we're absolutely fine. We're able to cope. We can move on to the next one.

Presenter30:23

Tell me about your next piece of music. What are we going to hear? We're on your seventh.

Professor Sue Black30:26

Yeah, we're going to hear Cher with if I could turn back time. And the reason for it being is that some of the work that we do, and certainly within Kosovo, was so intense that you needed downtime. You needed time that says we can afford to party a bit. And so we were invited to a party just on the other side of the airport in Kosovo. And to get there, we had to cross Russian lines. So we all hid in the back of an ambulance. And it was the Marines that were having a party.

Presenter30:57

Yes, and that's not Canaster and I think that's what I'm cold.

Professor Sue Black30:59

No, no, absolutely not. So there was a conga line at one point or other. Can I say that we were not involved? Only the Marines. There's not a lot of clothing involved. And the senior officer came and apologised to us. I'm terribly sorry. But we have these Marines doing a naked conga. Which for us was no problem. I'd dissected better. So it's fine. And so we were not at all offended. But this was party time Kosovo, which was downtime.

Speaker 431:32

If I could find a way

Speaker 431:36

I take back those who work when I'll hurt you.

Speaker 431:41

You'd stay if I could reach the star.

Speaker 431:47

I give them all to you.

Speaker 431:52

When you love me, love me, like you used to do.

Presenter32:00

That was Shara, and if I could turn back time. So the spiritual side of Professor Sue Black. I mean, you've spoken not just about your, you know, your dad playing the organ in the church and you going on a Saturday to help him rehearse and how close you were to him, but also your grandmother.

Presenter32:15

You know, saying, I'll be on your shoulder, I'll be there with you you know, d do you believe in a spiritual life, or do you think that once we're dead and buried and decomposed, that's it?

Professor Sue Black32:25

I have been fortunate enough to be at the moment of death with both my mother in law and with my father, and to be there to hold their hand when they take that last breath and the shift that happens.

Professor Sue Black32:43

In that last breath, from being the person that you know,

Professor Sue Black32:48

To there being something gone, missing, is like a light going out.

Professor Sue Black32:54

I have never been

Professor Sue Black32:56

Spooked by the dead. I spent my life with the dead.

Professor Sue Black33:00

They don't hold any fear for me at all. When you leave that shell, you've gone.

Professor Sue Black33:06

I have no idea what's on the other side. I believe in Christian values, but I'm not a religious believer.

Professor Sue Black33:14

Yeah.

Presenter33:14

Let's have your final piece of music, Professor Sue Black. Tell me what we're going to hear.

Professor Sue Black33:18

This is my children. I felt very strongly with all of my girls, I have three girls, that.

Professor Sue Black33:25

There was a prayer that my mother used to make us say every night. Now I lay me down to sleep. And in it it says,

Professor Sue Black33:34

If I shouldn't wake in the morning. And my rationale for my kids was that should they not wake in the morning.

Professor Sue Black33:42

The last thing they should hear before they go to sleep

Professor Sue Black33:45

Is their mother singing?

Professor Sue Black33:46

And so I sang in the Gallic mods and did all sorts of things. And so every day. Oh, no, you don't. No, there's some really bad singing in the Gallic mods, trust me. Oh, yes, there is. There was when I did it. And so for my girls, every night as they went to sleep, it was my job to sing to them. And I had a number of them, including the Corries, but this one, which is a Nancy Griffith song, which is called Turnaround.

Presenter33:49

Oh, you have to be very good to do that.

Speaker 433:51

Uh

Speaker 433:52

Uh

Presenter33:52

Yeah.

Presenter33:53

In the gallery quality,

Speaker 334:14

Where are you going?

Speaker 334:17

My little one

Speaker 334:20

Little one.

Speaker 334:22

Where are you going, my baby, my home?

Speaker 334:29

Turn around.

Speaker 334:31

And you're too?

Speaker 334:33

Turn round, then you're for

Speaker 334:37

Turn around and you're a young girl going out.

Presenter34:43

Hold up the door.

Presenter34:47

That's Nancy Griffith, and turn around. I'm going to cast you away now and give you the books to take with you, Sue Black. You will get the complete works of Shakespeare, you'll get the Bible, and you get to take a book of your own. What are you going to take?

Professor Sue Black34:58

It can only be Gray's Anatomy, and it can only be the Thirty Sixth Edition. Right, that's yours then. And a luxury too. I'm a redhead. I suspect it's going to be hot. I just need a very, very big hat.

Presenter35:12

Ah, yes, indeed a beautiful a beautiful big sun has yours then. And if you could just save one of these discs, which one would it be? It would be it would be Hanc.

Professor Sue Black35:13

Yeah.

Professor Sue Black35:15

Yeah.

Professor Sue Black35:22

Cathedral.

Presenter35:22

Yeah. With your girls in the last one.

Professor Sue Black35:24

With my girls, uh uh and just just the you know, the capabilities of children are just amazing.

Presenter35:31

Professor Sue Black, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. You're welcome.

Presenter36:16

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.