Dorothy Byrne

Presenter0:01

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. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:42

My castaway this week is Dorothy Byrne, the head of news and current affairs at Channel 4. For almost 20 years, she is the trailblazing, award-winning grand dam of television journalism. She's spent a lifetime breaking stories, many of which would otherwise have gone untold. Her recent commissions include the Channel 4 News investigation into the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the Michael Jackson Expose Leaving Neverland, and For Sama, the BAFTA-winning documentary about one family's life under siege in Aleppo, which has also won an Oscar nomination.

Presenter1:14

Last year, she made headlines herself at the Edinburgh Television Festival when she used her platform as keynote speaker to issue a clarion call in support of broadcast journalism as a pillar of our democracy. She demanded that politicians should submit themselves to scrutiny and that journalists and broadcasters should stand up and speak out when political leaders lie. At a time of mistrust and disinformation, she is a firm believer in the importance and power of mainstream news. She says, We hold power to account, and at our best, we investigate wickedness so it can no longer damage society and individuals. We should be really proud of what we do. Dorothy Byrne welcome to Desert Island Discs. Well, thank you for this extraordinary honour.

Presenter1:58

The newsroom has changed enormously over your tenure since you joined the profession. I mean, obviously, we now have twenty four hour news, rolling news of a type on social media. Are we better informed as a result of these changes, do you think?

Dorothy Byrne2:12

I think there's a role for all sorts of news.

Dorothy Byrne2:16

Journalists have a tendency to share the same agenda and

Dorothy Byrne2:22

That agenda can be really very narrow.

Dorothy Byrne2:25

We have a strand, for example, Unreported World, which literally does what it says on the tin. It covers stories that other journalists are not covering. I think all journalists, when they're all talking about Brexit, that concerned me because there were so many other things happening in the world that I felt were not being covered. And we need to do a better job.

Dorothy Byrne2:53

Brexit has shown us that the different parts of society and of our country don't understand each other well enough, and that's a a task where we as journalists have to improve.

Presenter3:08

We've got so much to talk about today, Dorothy, and we're going to do more of that. But of course, we have your discs to hear too. So I think we should start with your first. What's it going to be and why have you chosen it?

Presenter3:18

My

Dorothy Byrne3:19

First is John Grant. I'm the greatest mother something in the world. I don't normally swear, but in this song there is a point to swearing. We won't hear the swearing version. I love this because it's beautiful and absolutely hilarious.

Dorothy Byrne3:39

You can't listen to this without bursting out laughing.

Dorothy Byrne3:43

I also think

Dorothy Byrne3:45

that when John Grant describes himself

Dorothy Byrne3:48

It reminds me a little bit of me.

Dorothy Byrne3:51

And sometimes when I listen to John Grant songs, I think, I wonder if John Grant is my

Dorothy Byrne3:57

long lost identical twin, because we have certain similarities about our bad points. But maybe also he says in the song he has a good point too.

Speaker 44:08

You could probably say I'm difficult I probably talk too much

Speaker 44:21

I overridalize and overthink things Yes, it's a nasty crush

Speaker 44:35

I'm usually lonely waiting for you to stop talking so that I can

Presenter4:45

John Grant and Greatest Living Creature. Dorothy Bird, you've uh subtitled your recent book, Trust Me, I'm Not a Politician, as A Simple Guide to Saving Democracy. Do you really think that democracy's in peril?

Dorothy Byrne4:57

Yeah.

Dorothy Byrne4:58

I do, yes. It doesn't seem to people as if it's in peril because we've just had a general election and we've got a clear winner and we should congratulate them because it was a fairly fought election. But I am concerned by the public's low opinion of politicians.

Dorothy Byrne5:21

In fact, journalists don't share the public's low opinion of politicians.

Dorothy Byrne5:27

Because we meet them and we know that in fact they entered politics because they thought that they had something to give to society.

Dorothy Byrne5:39

Back.

Dorothy Byrne5:40

When politicians

Dorothy Byrne5:43

Don't

Dorothy Byrne5:44

come on to television, the most trusted medium, and explain their policies and hold themselves accountable and

Dorothy Byrne5:53

allow themselves to be challenged, I think that that is bad for democracy because the people who elected them want to hear them justify their policies and want to hear them stand up to scrutiny.

Presenter6:09

Tune.

Presenter6:11

As I said, your McTaggart lecture at last year's Edinburgh T V Festival made headlines, particularly when you called Boris Johnson a liar. Were you surprised by the reaction?

Presenter6:21

Yeah.

Dorothy Byrne6:21

My job is to speak truth to power, and my concern about

Dorothy Byrne6:28

politicians not telling the truth is not some eccentric view of my own. It's one shared by the British people. It was really depressing when we surveyed

Dorothy Byrne6:41

2,000 voters in the election campaign, and only 10% said that they believed that candidates were generally telling the truth.

Dorothy Byrne6:51

And I think politicians have to listen, not just to me, but to the voters who are saying, we don't trust you, because if the people stop trusting the politicians, they will lose their trust and faith in democracy. We've seen that happening in America. So if we want to preserve democracy, we have got to get people to trust the politicians.

Presenter7:18

Once again. It's time to take a break for some music, Dorothy. What have you chosen as your second disc?

Dorothy Byrne7:25

Sometimes when you feel really wild and the world is jangling, you might imagine that the sort of music that you should listen to would be calm, peaceful music.

Dorothy Byrne7:38

bark or something.

Dorothy Byrne7:40

I find when the world is wild and you feel that you're jangling, you should listen to wild and jangling music and the best one that I recommend is Perubu Non-Alignment Pat.

Speaker 47:57

It is another history.

Speaker 48:00

I wanna make a deal with you, girl. You look and dance round the world. Where you smart, not a line of heart.

Speaker 48:10

Manoha, better shallow.

Presenter8:22

Peruboo and Non-Alignment Pact. Dorothy Byrne, let's go back a bit. You're Scottish, but you were only there for the first eight years of your life. What are your memories of being brought up there in Paisley and I think

Dorothy Byrne8:34

Edinburgh for a little

Presenter8:34

The while.

Dorothy Byrne8:35

Well, the happiest time of my childhood was actually li living with my grandmother in Edinburgh.

Dorothy Byrne8:42

We didn't go to school. Our great-aunts lived next door. They were retired teachers, and we got up at school time.

Dorothy Byrne8:50

And we went next door.

Dorothy Byrne8:52

I think they taught my older sisters more. I remember just sitting in the corner reading this children's encyclopedia, just starting at A, B, C. Why weren't you going to school?

Dorothy Byrne9:06

My mother wasn't very well, so we went to live with my grandmother for a bit. I think they thought it would be more stable for us.

Presenter9:15

Tell me then about your parents. They met in the civil service and they were both Catholic. Was it quite a religious household?

Dorothy Byrne9:20

Yes, it was religious and I was very religious when I was a small child, yes. When I was nearly nine we moved to England, and our whole family life was quite unhappy at the time.

Dorothy Byrne9:38

And I became more and more unhappy and

Dorothy Byrne9:43

For some reason.

Dorothy Byrne9:45

I became obsessed that I'd committed lots of sins.

Dorothy Byrne9:51

and that I was a really bad person and that I had to die.

Dorothy Byrne9:55

And

Dorothy Byrne9:57

The only way I could think of dying

Dorothy Byrne9:59

because there was no internet then, thank God, was to starve myself to death, but nobody noticed and also I kept getting hungry, so I did get thin, but I didn't starve to death, but I was so unhappy.

Presenter10:18

vivid for you, then. What's the legacy of that?

Dorothy Byrne10:21

I am now a happy person, because I realized that I had borrowed the unhappiness of the people around me, but sometimes when I am watching television

Dorothy Byrne10:32

and I see a little girl talking about

Dorothy Byrne10:36

maybe having anorexia or bulimia or feeling really unhappy.

Dorothy Byrne10:43

In that moment, the terrible feeling that I used to have, the pain of it, was like this terrible pressure.

Dorothy Byrne10:51

inside me as she talks about it, I suddenly

Dorothy Byrne10:56

feel it again. It makes me want to reach into the television and say to that girl.

Dorothy Byrne11:03

It can get better. You think you can't become happy again. But you can be happy. It's possible to be happy.

Presenter11:11

Yeah. Time for small music.

Dorothy Byrne11:13

Your third desk

Presenter11:13

Then

Dorothy Byrne11:14

Well, one of the first pieces of music I ever had when we got a small record player as a child was Handel's Messiah.

Dorothy Byrne11:22

And

Dorothy Byrne11:24

Although I don't know that my Redeemer liveth.

Dorothy Byrne11:27

I love the music, I know that my Redeemer liveth, because I think it's about the

Dorothy Byrne11:36

spirit of hope that is within human beings.

Presenter12:42

I know that my Redeemer liveth from Handel's Messiah, performed by Dame Jones Sutherland with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Bolt. Dorothy Byrne, you attended a Catholic school as a teenager after your family moved to Pulton Lafylde, just outside Blackpool. One of your claims to fame is that you won the English-speaking Union National Schools Debating Competition, which must have been quite a big deal.

Dorothy Byrne13:06

The Nuns they didn't think they had themselves the wherewithal.

Dorothy Byrne13:12

to teach me. So a man was brought from the Christian Brothers School up the road.

Dorothy Byrne13:20

And I went into a room alone with him that would never happen now and he told me to stand on the table. So I stood on this big Victorian table and he gave me a subject to start speaking about. And as soon as I started speaking about it, he started shouting and swearing at me, saying words I couldn't possibly say here.

Dorothy Byrne13:45

And I at once stopped, and he said, You don't stop, you don't stop. It doesn't matter what anybody says to you, you have to keep going.

Dorothy Byrne13:55

And it obviously worked because I won the competition and uh work

Dorothy Byrne14:02

Over the years sometimes horrible men have sworn at me and called me dreadful sexist names, and I've said to them, I'm sorry.

Dorothy Byrne14:13

It has no effect.

Dorothy Byrne14:14

I'm trained. It doesn't matter what you say, I will just carry on talking. However, that has its downsides as well. Sometimes I should stop talking.

Dorothy Byrne14:26

It's time for your next track. What are we gonna hear?

Dorothy Byrne14:28

Well, I after university was a

Dorothy Byrne14:32

Teacher in Nigeria, and I think there is nothing more spectacular in the world than.

Dorothy Byrne14:40

Dancing in Africa.

Dorothy Byrne14:43

When I first arrived I danced incredibly quickly, and I was also very bad at dancing, so the girl next door

Dorothy Byrne14:54

took me and

Dorothy Byrne14:56

said you're a really bad dancer and taught me to dance. So the music that I've chosen is Velakuti Teacher, Don't Teach Me Nonsense. It's actually about

Dorothy Byrne15:10

Colonialism and corruption in Africa, but really it's just great music to dance to.

Speaker 415:34

T-Shaw, T-Shot, Mini-Lecture, I'm sick of the teacher.

Speaker 415:41

I told you that you freaking

Presenter15:47

Fellakooti and teacher don't teach me nonsense. So Dorothy Byrne, after university you went to Nigeria with VSO as a teacher, but you had to come home after just eighteen months due to a broken leg.

Dorothy Byrne16:01

What happened? I fell off my motorbike and was flown home.

Dorothy Byrne16:06

and I was putchin' full length plaster for a year.

Dorothy Byrne16:11

So I ended up in the ward for old ladies that I used to visit as a volunteer. As a volunteer.

Dorothy Byrne16:18

And at night I can't describe it.

Dorothy Byrne16:23

They would cry and howl, and they would beg the nurses to bring them bedpans. But the nurses were really cruel to them.

Dorothy Byrne16:33

and didn't come and shouted at them. A lot of them had broken their hips. I have since discovered that hip replacements were available in that period, but they didn't get them. They just lay there and as far as I could make out, they didn't receive any

Dorothy Byrne16:54

physiotherapy or other occupational therapy, they just lay there and eventually

Dorothy Byrne17:00

They died.

Dorothy Byrne17:02

After the operation a doctor came to me and said

Dorothy Byrne17:07

You will

Dorothy Byrne17:08

Almost certainly never walk normally again.

Dorothy Byrne17:12

You will definitely never work again, but we won't know for a year, because you'll be in full length plaster for a year.

Dorothy Byrne17:19

If I think about that now, that was

Dorothy Byrne17:23

A terrible thing to see. I mean, people with no legs work. I mean, that was just ridiculous.

Dorothy Byrne17:30

But it was a hard time.

Dorothy Byrne17:33

When I came out of plaster I couldn't walk very well, but gradually I started to walk a bit better.

Dorothy Byrne17:44

It was very depressing because all my friends were starting their great jobs and I was on invalidity benefit.

Dorothy Byrne17:52

I feel

Dorothy Byrne17:54

Great sympathy for other people where things go wrong in their life. They

Dorothy Byrne18:01

get some form of disability and they can't find ways to get back into work. I think it's so easy to

Dorothy Byrne18:10

blame people who aren't working and who are living on benefits and disability benefits, but having lived like that, I know how difficult it is. And this idea that everybody wants to employ you, if you suddenly say as a disabled person, Yes, now I've decided I'm well enough to work and they'll want to employ you, it isn't like that. I moved to London. I thought I have to get away from Blackpool.

Dorothy Byrne18:40

and lived in a bed sit. I'd been told I could by one person I could live on invalidity benefit for the rest of my life. So one day I went to get my invalidity benefit and I said to the man, Have you got any jobs here? and he said, You don't need a job, you're on invalidity benefit. And I said, No, but I can't stand it. I want a job. So the first job I got after breaking my leg

Dorothy Byrne19:04

Was working on the new benefit for people who had one child.

Presenter19:11

Yeah.

Dorothy Byrne19:11

The Two.

Presenter19:11

Take another track, Dorothy, and we'll talk more about that in a moment. What are we going to hear before we do that?

Dorothy Byrne19:16

I think self-pity is a really important

Dorothy Byrne19:22

part of surviving as a human being.

Dorothy Byrne19:25

And this is Dido's Lament by Purcell. Now,

Dorothy Byrne19:30

If Dido had been my friend, when Aeneas left her, I'd have said, Look, you're really good looking.

Dorothy Byrne19:36

put a bit of make up on, put the crown on, that'll be very appealing to men. Get yourself on a website, put yourself on Tinder, stop the whining. But I have to say,

Dorothy Byrne19:50

There is no better self-pitying piece of music that I've ever heard than this.

Speaker 420:16

It's a

Speaker 420:22

Don't forget my friend.

Presenter20:46

Dido's Lament from Dido and Aeneas by Purcell, sung by Jesse Norman with the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Raymond Lepard. So you talked about getting yourself a job at a benefit office in Hounslow, and also by night to make extra money. I read that you were ripping up dead people. What does that mean?

Presenter21:06

Yeah. Well

Dorothy Byrne21:07

There was overtime available.

Dorothy Byrne21:10

that you could work at night.

Dorothy Byrne21:14

Tearing up the files of benefit claimants who died.

Dorothy Byrne21:19

There weren't shredders then, but I was desperate for money.

Dorothy Byrne21:24

And it was in this tower in Hounslow, so I would sit looking out over the darkness of Hounslow, tearing up

Dorothy Byrne21:33

all these files of people who had died

Dorothy Byrne21:37

And you couldn't

Dorothy Byrne21:39

Hello

Dorothy Byrne21:40

reading bits of them or some of the letters would drop out.

Dorothy Byrne21:45

And the people would say things like, My mother has temporarily gone into hospital, and you'd think, It's not temporary, mate.

Dorothy Byrne21:54

She's doomed because

Dorothy Byrne21:56

When you looked at the letters you knew that there was nobody there who hadn't died. It was depressing beyond belief. It was grim

Dorothy Byrne22:09

Definitely one of the lowest points of my life. Yeah, what kind of headspace were you in? I was really worried that my life would never start up again.

Dorothy Byrne22:18

I started applying to journalism traineeships.

Dorothy Byrne22:24

And I kept getting letters back saying

Dorothy Byrne22:28

You're twenty-four, so you count as an adult entrant, but you're not trained, and therefore we have to pay you more, and we're not prepared to do that.

Dorothy Byrne22:38

Anyway, I thought

Dorothy Byrne22:41

What should I do? And at that time Reader's Digest used to send out unsolicited mail saying

Dorothy Byrne22:50

Dear lucky reader, you have won, you have won, you have won. This is what you will actually receive.

Dorothy Byrne22:58

And I wrote to fifty newspaper editors, saying, Dear lucky editor, you have won, you have won, you have won.

Dorothy Byrne23:05

You have won the trainee journalist of a lifetime. This is what you will actually receive. And then I described myself.

Dorothy Byrne23:15

And forty-nine editors ignored that, but Rex Pardu of the Waltham Forest Guardian contacted me and said

Dorothy Byrne23:23

That was really funny, and he gave me a job. It's time to go to the music. Your sixth today, Dorothy. What are we going to hear and why? From local papers, I managed to get into television, and I managed to get a job on World in Action, which was nearly as good as being on Desert Island Disc. It was.

Dorothy Byrne23:44

I I couldn't believe that I was working on this programme that I had admired all my life, full of brilliant men. At the time I joined it I happened to be the only woman, which was slightly strange, but it was thrilling.

Dorothy Byrne24:03

Even before working on it, when I heard the music of World in Action, I felt that I was tingling all over. And this is a version, in fact, played by the brilliant Matt Berry.

Presenter24:46

The theme from World in Action performed by Matt Berry. So Dorothy Byrne, after spells in various newsrooms, as you said you got what should have been a dream job at Granada T V. It was, however, a dream job with some downsides. You spoke about sexism and harassment in your McTaggart lecture. What sorts of things were going on?

Dorothy Byrne25:03

Uh

Dorothy Byrne25:04

Well

Presenter25:05

Uh

Dorothy Byrne25:05

Some men of power

Dorothy Byrne25:08

regularly assaulted women, and everybody knew it, and knew who they were.

Dorothy Byrne25:14

I don't mean that all the men were dreadful at all. You know, most were

Dorothy Byrne25:20

Fantastic, but there was a level of sexism and sexual assault that was accepted.

Dorothy Byrne25:28

Subject matters for proper current affairs were regarded as being things like the CIA or nuclear power.

Dorothy Byrne25:38

And I think what a group of us as women across current affairs T V programmes at that time did was

Dorothy Byrne25:50

change the definition of what was regarded as a suitable subject for current affairs. When I was promoted to being a producer director, I said that the first film I wanted to do was about rape and marriage, which was then not a crime.

Dorothy Byrne26:08

And one very senior person told me that that wasn't really a suitable subject for

Dorothy Byrne26:16

television current affairs. It was more suitable for morning T V, which would be a bit surprising, watching a programme about rape and marriage with your toddler. And one other man told me

Dorothy Byrne26:31

But that's not a story. And now

Dorothy Byrne26:34

Subjects like domestic violence against men and women and subjects about women's everyday lives are accepted as being

Dorothy Byrne26:45

At the heart of what current affairs should be. Let's have some more music. What are we going to hear next?

Dorothy Byrne26:50

Well.

Dorothy Byrne26:51

I am one of those women who

Dorothy Byrne26:54

Nearly forgot to have a baby, but luckily I remembered.

Dorothy Byrne26:59

Just in time.

Dorothy Byrne27:01

And I went to a clinic and

Dorothy Byrne27:06

I didn't think I would get pregnant.

Dorothy Byrne27:09

because I was nearly forty five.

Dorothy Byrne27:12

But I did, and it was like a miracle.

Dorothy Byrne27:16

You know, the day they told me I was pregnant

Dorothy Byrne27:21

I I just I lay on my bed and I laughed and laughed and laughed.

Dorothy Byrne27:28

And I thought I'm going to have a little girl.

Dorothy Byrne27:32

and she'll be called Hetty, and we'll be happy all our lives. And when my daughter was very small, I would tell her that story, and she would say, And the amazing thing is, I am called Hetty.

Dorothy Byrne27:50

My mother didn't think it was so good.

Dorothy Byrne27:52

At first

Dorothy Byrne27:54

She even said to me, What will the neighbours think?

Dorothy Byrne27:59

And I said, funnily enough, when I decided to try and get pregnant,

Dorothy Byrne28:03

I wasn't thinking about your neighbours, but in fact

Dorothy Byrne28:08

The Queen neighbour, Queen of the Coffee set, when she met Hetty, said Well, if this had been available when I was young, I wouldn't have bothered with a husband.

Dorothy Byrne28:21

It was hard being a single parent and the editor of a T V programme. I had to go back to work five and a half weeks.

Dorothy Byrne28:30

And

Dorothy Byrne28:31

driving Hetty round on my own when she was very young, with nobody else to entertain her.

Dorothy Byrne28:38

There was for a long period just one piece of music which would

Dorothy Byrne28:45

Keep her quiet.

Dorothy Byrne28:47

I hated it, but it would definitely remind me of her.

Speaker 428:51

Da da da da da.

Speaker 428:53

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round, The wheels on the bus go round and round, all day long.

Speaker 429:13

Just one on the bus

Speaker 429:17

Beep, beep, beep.

Presenter29:19

Wheels on the Bus, performed by Leonard Piercy and Mary Thomas. Dorothy Byrne, alongside your career as a campaigning journalist, you've also been a health campaigner as someone who's experienced giant cell arteritis. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Dorothy Byrne29:34

as I was diagnosed with.

Dorothy Byrne29:36

Two related autoimmune conditions, polymyograumatica and giant cell arteritis.

Dorothy Byrne29:44

With giant cell arteritis, if it's not diagnosed and treated in time, you can lose some or all of your sight.

Dorothy Byrne29:55

And every year because doctors don't diagnose it quickly enough and then don't refer

Dorothy Byrne30:04

people to hospital quickly enough. Hundreds of people lose some of their sight.

Dorothy Byrne30:10

This is absolutely preventable and it's also irreversible. It affects women three times more than it affects men.

Dorothy Byrne30:21

And what we need as people with GCA is a fast track for treatment. So you're looking for something similar to what has been done with strokes quite recently? Yes.

Dorothy Byrne30:31

some hospitals and

Dorothy Byrne30:34

Health areas have achieved this and

Dorothy Byrne30:37

They could all do it. I have interviewed women

Dorothy Byrne30:41

who have gone completely blind because they lost their sight because the doctors didn't diagnose and treat them in time. And what are the symptoms, Dorothy? You often get very tender scalp and terrible pain that you might mistake for being

Dorothy Byrne31:05

terrible earache or terrible toothache, and then your jaw may stop moving. And this is because the giant cells in your artery are inflamed and that inflammation is moving up your head and is

Dorothy Byrne31:22

Potentially going to press onto your eye and you will lose your sight. And you need absolutely urgent treatment, and a high dose of steroids given immediately will save your sight. And my sight was saved. It's time for your final disc. What's it going to be?

Dorothy Byrne31:43

Well

Dorothy Byrne31:45

The first time I heard this piece of music

Dorothy Byrne31:49

I cried in a concert hall, and you're not even meant to breathe in a British concert hall. So that was.

Dorothy Byrne31:56

quite embarrassing. It's the People United will never be defeated by Zhevski, and it was dedicated to the people of Chile who had fought Pinochet.

Dorothy Byrne32:08

Why it is so moving is that at the beginning you can hear that the people are walking forward in glory and then the music tells you that everything goes wrong and you feel that everything is destroyed. But then at the end the theme begins again and you realise that the people united will never be defeated and that's what makes you cry.

Presenter33:36

The People United will never be defeated by Frederik Zzzewski, played by Igor Levitt. So, Dorothy Byrne, I'm about to maroon you on your desert island. How do you picture the place?

Dorothy Byrne33:48

Well, I'm a bit worried about it because of the rising oceans, so I'm slightly concerned that I may just end up hanging on to a palm tree, but let's hope not. You'll be given the Bible.

Presenter34:02

What?

Dorothy Byrne34:02

But

Presenter34:02

Books of Shakespeare to keep you company. Which other book would you like?

Dorothy Byrne34:06

I would like some physics textbooks because I never really studied

Dorothy Byrne34:12

Physics at school, and I think if you're going to be on a desert island.

Dorothy Byrne34:18

It would be a good use of your time to find out all the secrets of the universe. What about a luxury item? My.

Dorothy Byrne34:26

Luxury

Dorothy Byrne34:27

is the voice of Melvin Bragg.

Dorothy Byrne34:31

If I can't sleep.

Dorothy Byrne34:33

I find that if I put on Melvin Bragg,

Dorothy Byrne34:37

particularly talking about papal infallibility.

Dorothy Byrne34:41

His voice has got a certain sound to it and then I I I I float away

Presenter34:47

Well we're not really supposed to give you communication devices or anything like that, so I can't give you a radio as such, but as we have provided people with, for example, the back catalogue of the Archers in the past, I can give you the back catalogue of In Our Time, which I have to say is hugely popular, one of the most downloaded programmes. Millions of listeners can't be wrong. It's yours. Enjoy. And finally, Dorothy, if the tide threatened to wash away your eight discs, which would you dive into see?

Dorothy Byrne35:17

Dave, do you think?

Dorothy Byrne35:18

I know that my Redeemer liveth, because that is the piece of music that would give me hope that at some point perhaps that little Greta sailing to some climate change conference would come by and rescue me. Oh, I would love to see that. Dorothy

Presenter35:35

Ben, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Dorothy Byrne35:39

Well, thank you. It's just been such fun.

Presenter35:52

Hello, I really hope you enjoyed that interview with Dorothy Byrne. There are some fascinating journalists in our archive, including Alex Crawford, John Pilger and Kate Eady. I enjoyed meeting veteran journalist Hella Pick at the end of 2018. She told me about her amazing career, reporting on some of the most pivotal moments in world history.

Presenter36:19

Pablo Casals The Song of the Birds with Pablo Casals on cello and Mieczys Wafoszzovsky on piano, recorded live at the White House on november thirteenth, nineteen sixty one, with Kennedy in the audience, Halapik, who you met.

Speaker 436:35

Well, meeting is some slight exaggeration. I got to know quite well Pierre Salinger, who was Kennedy's spokesman, and he invited me to join them all in Hyannisport, their holiday home for a party. And Pierre took me up to Kennedy, and somehow I managed to stumble and fall straight into his arms.

Speaker 436:58

But it is a very brief encounter.

Presenter37:01

While in the US you reported on the 1965 Selma march, led of course by Martin Luther King to Montgomery, Alabama. Tell me about that experience.

Speaker 437:10

Well, in many ways, unforgettable. It was such an event that March. And, you know, in retrospect, I realised that I could very well have been murdered on that day, because I was lucky enough to be able to rent a car. And I had walked part of the way, but always went back to the car. And at the end of the first day's march, I was talking to one of my colleagues from the Washington Post, and he was black.

Speaker 437:39

And I said, let me give you a ride back, which we did. And of course, that was, you know, an invitation to be shot, because at that time, you know, people were shot because white woman, black man in the car sitting together was simply not done. But we got back. But when we got back to the hotel, when we went to the bar, they asked him to leave.

Speaker 438:06

And I covered quite a lot of the other civil rights events during that period and, you know, it was nasty. And I mean the whole March of the end, you know, you knew something had changed. You know, life was never going to be quite the same again.

Speaker 138:15

Come on.

Presenter38:22

Hellipic, speaking to me back in November 2018. Her programme is available to download now via BBC Sounds. Next time, my guest will be the author and illustrator, Chris Riddell. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 138:46

Hi everyone, Russell Kane here. I've got just a few seconds to tell you about Evil Genius, our hit podcast, 2.5 million downloads in 2019, top 10, where we take people from history, Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, John Lennon, and detonate fact bombs around their reputations. It's stuff you don't want to know, but you really do want to know. At the end of a lively debate, my panel of esteemed guests all have to vote Evil or Genius. There's no grey area. This is cancel culture turned into an innovative format. Subscribe to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds now.