Baroness Arminka Helić

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BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:42

My castaway today is Baroness Arminka Hellic. When she was sworn into the House of Lords as a life peer in 2014, the upper chamber got a sprinkling of stardust. She was watched by her good friend Angelina Jolie, while Hillary Clinton sent her congratulations. As special adviser to the former Foreign Secretary William Hague, she's credited with persuading him to launch a high-profile campaign against rape as a weapon of war. Her own moral framework comes from personal experience. Born in Bosnia-Herzegovina, she was in her early twenties when simmering tensions erupted in the former Yugoslavia, leading to one of the bloodiest European conflicts in recent history. One of the lucky ones, she fled her homeland in dramatic fashion with only a leather jacket and a can of hairspray to her name.

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She arrived at Heathrow Airport as a refugee in nineteen ninety two, scarred by what she'd seen and bewildered by London. Over the course of the next twenty years she was, in her own words, seduced by politics, and made it her mission to bring compassion and humanity to foreign policy.

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She says, My moral radar is in the right place, and I'm uncompromising on what I believe in. I've been given a chance and the skills to make a difference. It makes me uncomfortable to know that I could help, but I'm not helping. Ominka Hellich, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you very much.

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So it was almost twenty two years to the day between you touching down at Heathrow as a refugee and being sworn in to the Lords. You must have reflected on the contrast between those two moments many times.

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I didn't think about it as something that was telling about me. I thought about that moment as something that was very telling about the United Kingdom. Where else in the world would someone like me that should for every other reason not be there? I mean, if you were to think about me coming in as a refugee, raised up as a little communist pioneer of a religion that was not very popular. You know, my parents are Muslim. or were Muslim. And I never thought I would end up being either a member of parliament or definitely not a member of the House of Lords. I mean, I thought that being in the House of Lords, you have to have a castle and I didn't have a castle. I didn't even have a house. I think you've said in the past that you sometimes suffer from imposter syndrome. How much does it bother you?

Presenter2:58

I wouldn't say there is a feeling of guilt, but there is a feeling of the need to prove that I'm worthy of that seat and I'm worthy of being listened to and I'm worthy of sharing my experiences. William Hagges said you're a fun person to be around. I travelled a lot with William as his special advisor. And because we would be jetlagged, we would go out on a walk around the town in sort of twelve o'clock, one o'clock in the morning, and his protection officers obviously hated that. They all wanted to go to bed.

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And I would always say like, what we should do, we should go and try the beer here. And I would get there, it was like, my God, this is awful. But I just had this desire. I thought if you if you don't know what a pub or a bar looks like, all you see are conferences rooms and you know, you may as well stay behind. It's time to hear your first piece of music, Armenke Helic. Tell me about it. Why have you chosen this? Teresa Kesovje is a Croatian singer. I listened to her a lot when I was probably eight, nine, ten, eleven. I always wanted to meet her. There was this programme on Sundays called Sunday Afternoon.

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And I would watch it, and you could write to meet your favorite person. And I used to write forever, hoping that they are going to pick me up. Never did. I think maybe it was all fixed. Think about it now. It's called Priyatelistarik Dieste, My Old Friends, Where Are You? It is kind of a song looking back at the times where everyone was friend today, the people are dispersed around the world. It's loaded with a meaning for me today.

Presenter4:50

Priya telestadio.

Baroness Arminka Helić4:52

Yes, there can't be always muke Isna tvora, isn't it luke, doxe bieli krilla da le da da da da da da da da da da da

Baroness Arminka Helić5:03

Uh

Presenter5:03

Pia telestar dieste, causra com la dostumi.

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Teresa Kesovia, where are you now? Arminka Helic, you grew up in Gracunica, northeast Bosnia, then it was part of communist Yugoslavia, and you were one of five girls, all of you high-flyers and highly educated. Your father was a military man, your mother ran the house. What do you remember about growing up? As I mentioned, obviously, Yugoslavia was a communist country at that point, and you were in the party youth organization when you were six. It was quite sort of dramatic almost. They would put you in a hall, youth hall. You swear allegiance to Yugoslavia, Social Territory Republic of Yugoslavia, and to the Communist Party.

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And represent Tito as a supreme commander, and you would become a pioneer, and then you'd become a communist. I never became a communist because.

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I was kind of disappointed in it. I was probably one of those ve rare rounds when I was called in and said, You're fourteen. You're a very good student. We have made a decision. You're going to be accepted in the Communist Party.

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And I remember sitting it's so funny, I was s sitting at this long desk with other sort of few people like me, and I was given tea and I said, I can't do that. And the leader of the Communist local Communist party said to me, What do you mean you can't do that? I said, I can't, the party is corrupt.

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And I took my took my tea and I remember I drank it and you could hear tea traveling through my mouth all the way down because everyone was like I wouldn't say shell shocked, but it was like, and what happens now?

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I knew at the time that there were some people were extremely well off, and some people were.

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kind of really working their guts out and they were not in a good place. And people who were making progress were people who were members of the Communist Party. I think I was I had a little bit of a feeling of the right and wrong, and um that was it.

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I I went to high school and then I went to university. Yes, the University of Sarajevo. University of Sarajevo. I went to I initially wanted to study medicine, but then quickly changed it because

Baroness Arminka Helić7:02

It's the University of Sarajevo.

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of a particular song that I liked.

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I discovered English language. And I think that leads us to your second disc. Tell us about it. Ah, my second disc is Cambodia, sung by Kim Wild.

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Who at the time I knew everything about. I was a proper fan. Did you aspire to anything beyond the music? I mean, she had quite a distinctive look.

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Want to have that hair like I actually tried.

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It didn't look anything like it.

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I saw a few pictures. I think you were getting close. I was getting close. What was your method? My method was to combine.

Baroness Arminka Helić7:41

But I was

Baroness Arminka Helić7:43

Fing close.

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But what was the

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Beer and washing soap. And I also invested a lot of money in hairspray. He was tired of face, she was an air force wife. He used to fly weekends, it was the easier life. But then it turned around and he began to change. She didn't wonder then, she didn't think it strange. But then he got a call, he had to leave that night. He couldn't say too much, but it would be alright. He didn't need to pack, they'd meet the next night. He had a job to do.

Baroness Arminka Helić8:28

Flight to California

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Kim Wild and Cambodia.

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Or Minka Helic, your family were Bosnian Moslems then. How big a part did religion play at home?

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Non-existent. I was brought up to think religion is opium for masses and it kind of stayed with me. Had your time been multicultural while you were growing up? Yes, my friends were guys and girls, not names, not religion. And I must say, I'll put it on the record, I think sameness is boring, different is beautiful. If you are able to communicate and live side by side and together with people who do not necessarily come from your background, come from your colour, come from your ethnicity, from your religion, you show who you are, if you can only live with your lot.

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You got a serious problem. I genuinely never, ever thought that it would be possible to suffer at the hands of your neighbors and of your friends until the very

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Moment where you could almost see the tanks. And what was that moment? What what do you remember your first inkling?

Baroness Arminka Helić9:34

Remember that you're fine.

Presenter9:36

This is what happens, basically. You have so-called Yugoslav National Army comes and encircles the town, blocks all the radio and T V stations, so you are completely you have no idea what's going on, marks all the houses of non-Serbs, releases paramilitaries who rape, separate, and kill. And then a badly injured man from Doboy was sent to deliver a message to Gracunica, my hometown, to surrender.

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and he had a list of names of the families that are going to be first to

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be killed. And my family's name was on the list. My father decided that we were all going to leave. He he was going to stay, but we were going to leave. And we were driven to the border with Croatia. The bridges between Croatia and Bosnia have already been blown up. So we crossed on a raft.

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Riversava.

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I got separated with my sister from the rest of our family. We were about to cross, and shelling started. And that was my first sound of war that I heard that wasn't on TV, that wasn't someone telling me what it feels like. And it's a really

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interesting because it goes up

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and you kind of and you and you know someone somewhere has just had it. You're just trying to survive. You you you you see all these and each I just remember looking for a column of people and there is my teacher and there are her children and there is a lady who worked in a shop and there is my mother.

Presenter11:26

And I can see the emotion on your face thinking about that, looking back to that moment, peop faces that you knew from your community.

Baroness Arminka Helić11:31

Yeah.

Baroness Arminka Helić11:32

Faces.

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With scant possessions, whatever they'd been able to grab before they had to leave. And you see that they're humiliated because they're people who are dragging these suitcases.

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They own a raft.

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begging some one to take them over the river.

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That is what I think of when I hear people being negative towards people who are seeking safety.

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I always want to remember that they too had a teacher and a mother.

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And that's when I went to Foreign Office.

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I wanted to bring that in.

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They're not just the numbers. Seventy five million displaced and

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And uh refugees to day. They're not just seventy five million boring people who take our aid.

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There's seventy five million people who have left.

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Cause they couldn't stay.

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And we somehow have

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Lost a bit of humanity to recognize.

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Being a refugee is not a choice. You don't make a choice. You're forced to leave.

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It's time for some more music. Let's go to your next disc. Why have you chosen this one? Tell us about it. It's called Kraitanana Shadravana, and it is a song.

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that I remember my parents listening to. My father would come back from work around three o'clock. We would pack, picnic, and go to the hills where my grandfather had a little cottage. And in the afternoon on Radio Sarajevo there would be

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These old songs, and they would listen to them. And at the time, you can imagine, I just was.

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Yawning from here to Australia basically. But these days I just look at it as like Sicily. That was really quite beautiful.

Baroness Arminka Helić13:20

And I don't know.

Baroness Arminka Helić13:26

Yeah.

Speaker 313:26

Yeah.

Baroness Arminka Helić13:26

Shall be one.

Speaker 313:32

Yeah.

Baroness Arminka Helić13:32

Yes, soul body.

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Boda si

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We walk.

Speaker 313:44

Shit Allah said

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Zayma Mamovich with Near a Tiny Fountain. Armin Kehelic, you made it to Croatia and then a friend smuggled you and your sister into Slovenia. How long did you stay there?

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I was there for a few months, hoping to

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Go back home, but as you can imagine, by that time, that's sort of July, August 1992, Ed Volyami, journalists from The Guardian, Penny Marshall, journalists from ITV, Maggie Kane, journalists from The Guardian have uncovered first concentration camps in Bosnia. And that famous cover, which I still have on my mobile phone, from the Time magazine of men behind a barbed wire. You can see their sort of bones has come out. And you keep that on your phone.

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And you keep

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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To remember?

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I don't want to forget.

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I wanted to be out there.

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Because that is who I am. It's part of me.

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While you're in Slovenia, you wrote to a friend in London. What did you say in your letter? I said.

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I'm worried that because I don't speak Slovene and I can't go out in order not to be picked up, I'm going to forget my English. Would you send me some books? And she sent me a box of books, one of them being Calmile Lawn, still had a copy, and another one was London Fields.

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So the books were delivered in person by Lady Miloszka Nott. She's the wife of the former government minister, Sir John Knott. So she's from Slovenia herself and had set up the Fund for Refugees. So that meant she travelled back and forth between London and Slovenia helping refugees. She found me in Gornja Radgona. I mean that is a dot on the border between Slovenia and Austria. And she brought these books and I looked at it and I opened it. There was a letter, a beautifully written letter, and there was a plane ticket. And I was with my sister and I said, well, I can't go because I can't leave my sister. I've already been separated from the rest of my family. If I get separated from her, we're going to be all over the place. And she left. Three days later, she came back and she said, How about you both come? And she bought a ticket for my sister and the two of us came to Heathrow Terminal Two.

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October 3rd, 1992. That's correct.

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So you'd gone from being in a place you describe as a dot on a map in a very difficult situation.

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Waking up in Chelsea?

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But yes. It must have been a bit like waking up on the moon, waking up in Chelsea, more or less. I remember b there was a Safeways on the King's Road and going to Safeways. And I was standing there and they you know, how they they on the tail and it goes

Baroness Arminka Helić16:47

More or less.

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And I was just standing there and I was like, these people don't know that there is a war going on in Yugoslavia.

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It's time for your next piece of music. Tell us about this one.

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It's um Fast Car by Tracy Chapman. I remembered very vividly when I heard this. I um entered a bedroom that I was given to sleep in. There was a record player and there was a there was a record on it.

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And the first thing being someone who absolutely loves music, I walked towards it and I lifted the little arm and pulled it to the right and put it down.

Baroness Arminka Helić17:34

I remember when we were driving, driving in your car, speed so fast it felt like I was drunk. City lights stay out before us and your arm felt nice wrapped round my shoulder and I

Baroness Arminka Helić17:47

Had a feeling that I belong, I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone.

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Tracy Chapman and Fast Car, the first song you heard in your new bedroom in the UK on Minka Hellich. Life was starting to take shape for you whether you wanted it to or not. You did start to kind of fall into a routine and were living with the knots. And it was then that you got a place at the LSE. How did you manage that and why did you go there?

Baroness Arminka Helić18:18

So happy.

Presenter18:25

I started working in Hagen Das. I loved that, not only because there were thirteen flavors of ice cream, but it was quite a lot of fun. We should say that among your many achievements, you were Waitress of the Year twice? Yes, I was. At your branch? Yes, I was at my branch on King's Road. I was Waitress of the Year. Got two T-shirts. Well done.

Baroness Arminka Helić18:37

Yes, I was at your brother.

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I went to L S C because I tried to, particularly with Sir John Knott, argue.

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the case for intervention. But you you have to remember it's

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1992, they're saying that everyone hates everyone in Bosnia, one shouldn't get involved there.

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I was trying to argue this, and Sir John said to me, completely straight face,

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You sound like a communist apparatchik. You don't know how to argue. You don't know how to present your case. You should really go and get a decent degree.

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Number one, I was upset. I was like, I've got a decent degree, thank you very much. Number two, I was like, okay, I'll get it. Just because you told me that, I'm just going to prove you wrong. I went to LSC. I actually walked into someone's office and said, I come from Bosnia. I need education. And Professor Stevenson, who was teaching international history, said, fine. And I did a master's degree in international history. I was very proud. So tell me about your political worldview and how that was changing. Your interest in politics was obviously really growing. And it sounds like you were having a lot of very interesting debates and conversations. I was very lucky to, through the knots, to meet Lady Thatcher, who is one of the people that really inspired me, because in 1990s, when everyone wanted to wash their hands of the suffering in Bosnia, she was the one who actually very actively and very clearly saw that the major source of instability was Belgrade and nationalist politics of President Milosevic. Very clearly called.

Baroness Arminka Helić19:57

Ah

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for certain action to t to take place. And I had a a few occasions I was privileged to meet her and I joined Conservative Party.

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It's time for some more music. It's your fifth disc today. Why have you chosen this one? It's called Pluni izapia by Moja Yugoslavia. It's a song by Bielodugme. This is a song that came out just before the war, addressed to Yugoslavia that feels the winds of change. And it calls on Yugoslavia to get up and start singing. And those who can't hear it as a song, they'll hear it as a storm.

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It's up everyone.

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Moya Lu Pos

Speaker 221:22

Uh

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My setup.

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In my temple.

Baroness Arminka Helić21:27

Uh

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Let's go.

Baroness Arminka Helić21:28

Got it looked at home.

Presenter21:32

Be yellow dude me with Spit and Start Singing, my Yugoslavia. So Aminka Hellich, your first job at Westminster was in the House of Commons Library, filing press cuttings. And it was there that you were spotted and started working for MPs including Robert Key, Ian Duncan Smith, Liam Fox and William Hague, shadow foreign secretary. What was it do you think that they saw in you? I think they they they saw someone who was

Presenter21:56

Just happy to have a chance and privileged to be accepted and keen to prove that I have something to give back. You became William Hague's senior special advisor in 2010 when he was appointed foreign secretary in coalition government. It was around this time that you heard about a film written and directed by Angelina Joli about a Bosnian woman's experiences in the war called In the Land of Blood and Honey. What was your reaction to the idea at first? I was mad because I was thinking, why does a Hollywood actress who never visited, never lived, never experienced hardship of this kind, why who gives her right to do a film about the most difficult part of the history of the country that I was born in? And then I saw that the film was shown in the Holocaust Museum in DC and I thought, well, maybe there is something in it. So I

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mentioned that to William. And I often mentioned to him that, you know, women in in wars in particular go through some very, very difficult experiences. And some of my friends ended up in uh in what

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infamously became known as rape camps. And I couldn't talk about it, but I I kind of tried to indicate to him that this is something that was going on. Why couldn't you talk about it? I just because out of tho those were other people's experiences I had no right to talk about. And to be honest, I felt ashamed that my country of birth, that my women, Bosnian women,

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Where?

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Treat it that way.

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But then I realized that they don't have a voice. And guess what? I just happen to be the place where someone wants to listen.

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So I went to see William and I said to him, There's this film has come out.

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I'm gonna get it. And I started watching it and I

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I've never seen a film that's so

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Intimately. So...

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Beautifully depicted the pain that my country of birth has been through. And William, we were on the way to Australia and he had a little little laptop, and I kept on putting this laptop in front of him to watch it. And it's such a hard film to watch, and he would watch for ten minutes and then he'll give it to me. I said to him, William, it's two hours and something. You got but we'll see it before we reach Perth. We are going to see it. And he said, We kind of came to the conclusion that we should invite Angelina to show the film in the Foreign Office. And when we all got together in the Foreign Office, we decided under Williams and her leadership to set up Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, and that was in 2012.

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This is a matter of generational change and of attitudes being changed. That is a crime that ought to be punished, not simply swept under the carpet because we are so desperate to have a peace deal.

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Letty, your next track on Minga Helic. What's it going to be? Madonna.

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It's true blue.

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I was at University for Languages, where seventy per cent of the the students were girls. We were matched with the Young Pilots' School. We were going to something like a

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sort of a party, and I was on my way

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With my, I don't know, one million dinars. We had already had inflation then. That was for my ticket. And I was passing by a record shop and in the window there was Madonna True Blue. And I walked in and bought a record. I never went to that party. And I rushed back home and I put it on my record player. Still happy with the choice of missing out on the party? Who knows? Maybe I would have ended up with some pilots somewhere.

Baroness Arminka Helić25:57

But I never knew love before till you walked through my door.

Baroness Arminka Helić26:06

I've heard all the bills.

Baroness Arminka Helić26:10

I have seven thousand ships But no matter where I go You're the one for me, baby this I know Cause if it you

Presenter26:22

True Blue Madonna. Arminka Hellich, the PSVI, held a four day international summit on tackling sexual violence in war in London in twenty fourteen. It was hosted by William Hague and Angelina Jolie. What were your expectations of the event, and did it achieve them?

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My expectations and our collective expectations were to put that on the map, give everyone a moment to talk about what was almost invisible crime. And I think the achievement was to get Secretary John Kerry and William Hague and generals and NGOs and artists and everyone involved. And everyone talked about it. And since then, we have 156 countries who have adopted the protocol for registering these crimes. But this is an ongoing work. There is no moment when you say, well, we fixed it. And I think we are

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Marching forward

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Not full strength, but we are moving forward.

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The summit was criticised. It was described as ineffective and costly. I think The Observer reported that the money spent hosting it was five times the amount dedicated by the UK to tackling rape in war zones that year. There was also criticism about the promises made and whether they were being kept at the summit and beyond it. What's your?

Baroness Arminka Helić27:33

Yeah.

Speaker 327:33

There was

Baroness Arminka Helić27:34

Uh

Presenter27:41

Response to that. Delighted. I was the one who initiated setting up of the Committee on Preventing Sexual Violence. I think you can only achieve something if you are open to transparent and regular measuring of your outcomes. If in twenty, thirty years' time we can look back and say that was the beginning of the end of this being treated as a secondary crime, I would be very, very happy if we see justice for women, not only for women of Bosnia and we have seen some justice, but for women of Kosovo and women for Iraq, Syria, and for Yazidi women, and for women of DRC and Angola and Haiti.

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If we see that for the first time there are successful prosecutions, I would say that we have succeeded.

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Time for some more music. This is your seventh. Tell us about it. Oh, it's Vivaldi's.

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Fall season is my favorite part. I love listening to this because it kind of gives me space to think and I love intensity of winter.

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The first movement of Vivaldi's Winter performed by the English concert with Simon Standage on violin, conducted by Trevor Pinnock. Ominka Hellich, in your role in the House of Lords, what's your focus now? I'm hoping that I can persuade Secretary State for the Department for International Development to dedicate one percent, one small percent of the international overseas budget to fighting violence against women.

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You said earlier that you didn't experience survivor's guilt, but how has...

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The knowledge that it was by chance that you found your way out of it and by chance that you avoided the experiences that the people that you're trying to speak for and represent.

Baroness Arminka Helić30:20

Then

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went through. How does that affect your point of view and your life? Anyone who has left their home and didn't share in blood and tears, maybe in tears, not in blood, occasionally does find it quite difficult and find it something to harbour guilt.

Presenter30:48

But then you can wallow in the guilt or you can try and turn it round and say, Yes, but I do have this knowledge and I have this uh opportunity and one should feel guilty for having your opportunity not doing much about it. What's the first thing you do when you go back to Bosnia?

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Fast thing is a war.

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into my house.

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Breathe in.

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The air.

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And remember my parents? When I arrive first everything looks small. Some things look a bit like they were abandoned years ago, but then as hours and days pass, they become familiar again, and I lose my Englishness and I reacquire my Bosnian spirit and stubbornness. I think we'd better hear your last disc.

Presenter31:49

Yes, my last disc is actually again, it's a singer from Croatia, Josipa Liset, and it's a song about one youth, which I am still working out what it means, but I think in essence it's a story about youth growing up under communism, believing in all the promises, but fearing that the promises may steal the beauty of youth and a time that can never be given back, but living in hope.

Baroness Arminka Helić32:17

Uh Yep.

Presenter32:17

Namla dostan svna de rast.

Baroness Arminka Helić32:23

Tigho Stirtuto.

Baroness Arminka Helić32:52

Pressure

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Yosippa Lisatz with About a Youth. Omi Kehelic, I am casting you away to a desert island very soon. How do you think you'll get on there?

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Provided there are no storms and global warming has not affected sea levels, I think I'll be okay. You'll have two books to keep you busy. You can have The Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Are you happy with that?

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Can I go for Shakespeare?

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So you leave the Bible? Nothing against the religious books, but I would probably go for something different.

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Shakespeare it is. You can also take another book of your choosing. What will it be? A DIY book.

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You can also have a luxury item. What would you like to make your time on the island more enjoyable? Pen and paper.

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I wouldn't need to have a conversation with maybe myself or leave a few traces of my experience for whoever comes next on a piece of paper. And finally, which of these eight tracks, if you had to, would you save from the waves? Disc number three, Zaimima, which Kraitanana Shadravana. I think it would be my parents' favourite song. It would be a song that reminds me of my youth and it would be a song that reminds me of a country that I was born in.

Presenter34:04

Arminka Hellich, thank you very much for sharing your desert island discs with us. Thank you. Thank you for time and thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Presenter34:20

Hello, I really hope you enjoyed that interview with Arminka Hellich. We're going to leave her writing her journal in the sunshine and hopefully harnessing her Bosnian spirit. Like Arminka, Baroness Helena Kennedy is a champion of civil liberties and a staunch defender of human rights. In 1998, she was cast away by Sue Lowley.

Speaker 334:38

Was it acknowledged that that you were clever?

Speaker 334:41

Yes, I think it was. That you were going to do something the rest of the family had never done, which is go to university or.

Presenter34:42

That you

Baroness Arminka Helić34:42

Uh

Speaker 334:45

Oh, well no, b I mean, all of my sisters are clever and and we I think we were all rather clever at school. My older true sisters really were in during their adolescence. Uh it was a very bad time for our family. My father became unemployed and so on. And so

Speaker 335:00

I'm afraid that they didn't get the choices that were available to me because they had to let the you know, they left school because they felt that they

Speaker 335:07

They should. And in fact, came back to education later. It's one of the reasons why I feel so passionately about giving those opportunities to people. But I think that we were all considered to be rather clever at school. What about that early life? How much has it been of use to you in the job that you eventually came to do? I mean, did it give you insights? Well, I certainly knew about not being well off. I knew about hardship and I knew that the struggles that working class people had. I also knew from my father how people were frightened of the law. I mean, he was aware of that being involved with his union, that people were often very anxious about even, you know, suing for personal injury when they were obviously likely to succeed. The idea of becoming involved with lawyers and the law was very intimidating to ordinary folks. Which is why you'd say it would be a foreign country. You understand why people would be intimidated by wigs or the words and vocabulary that's used. Just and the whole business of and the fear of it being expensive and being about people who speak in grand voices and who don't really know about the lives of ordinary people.

Baroness Arminka Helić35:56

Would be intimidated by

Baroness Arminka Helić35:58

Vocabulary.

Speaker 336:12

But your first case, I think, was to defend a woman shoplifter, a mother of three, who ended up being taken away to Holloway and shut away from her children. I mean, that that must have been a terrible experience, understanding what you understand. I went home in the bath and wiped.

Speaker 336:27

It was terrible.

Speaker 336:29

Why did you lose it?

Speaker 336:30

Well, if she was you know, she had, um she was uh

Speaker 336:35

in breach of a suspended sentence, so it was a fairly automatic thing. But I I still remember it very powerfully. I thought, maybe I shouldn't be here doing this at all. Maybe I'm

Speaker 336:44

Maybe I'm not tough enough. Maybe I'm not

Speaker 336:47

Um I can't stand back enough. Maybe maybe I'm not good enough at it.

Speaker 336:53

And so I became determined that I was going to be I was going to become very good at it. Baroness Helena Kennedy talking to Sue Lawley.

Presenter36:59

Yeah.

Speaker 237:16

Hello, I just wanted to tell you about my new podcast. It's called Classical Fix and it's basically me, Clemmy Burton Hill, each week talking to a massive music fan. I mix them a classical playlist. They have a listen, they come in and we just see where the conversation goes. If you'd like to give classical music a go but you haven't got a clue where to start, this is where you start. To subscribe, go to BBC Sounds and search for Classical Fix. Now then, as you were.