Professor Dame Lesley Regan

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

Presenter0:45

My castaway this week is Professor Dame Leslie Regan. She has championed the cause of obstetrics and gynecology for over 40 years, and last year she became the first women's health ambassador for England. As a former president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, only the second woman to hold the post in its 94-year history, she shone a light on historically taboo subjects, from period problems to contraception. Women make up over half the population, but, she argues, are often underserved by the medical profession. She has spent her life's work attempting to change things.

Presenter1:19

Her frustration at the lack of scientific research into the causes of pregnancy loss led her to set up the recurrent miscarriage clinic at Saint Mary's Hospital in nineteen ninety one, which is now the largest miscarriage referral centre in the world.

Presenter1:32

Along the way, she diagnosed herself with incurable optimism, which she says often comes in handy. She decided to become a doctor when she was just a little girl and, despite struggling in maths and science, made it to medical school. She says, if you came to visit me, you'd see that the walls are covered with photographs of babies. That's the easy bit to understand. The more subtle reward is realising that you've not just helped the woman deliver a baby, but you've set them up to be independent. You give them the tools to get on with their lives. Professor Dame Leslie Regan, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here. We're delighted to have you. Now, Leslie, I think these pictures on your office wall tell quite a few stories, actually. I'm assuming that the baby photographs come from grateful parents. How does it feel when you receive them? Are you somebody who is emotionally reactive and attached to the result of your work? Yes, well, it's marvellous because they are so excited and so thrilled and so appreciative and then they want to share it. And I think that's what's so lovely. You get to know them very well. I think I've learned a lot about parenthood and motherhood in particular from my patients. What's the biggest lesson? What have they taught you?

Professor Dame Lesley Regan2:05

Uh

Presenter2:41

I think it's really that you you can't take take things for granted and that you also have to be if you've got a problem with miscarriages or stillbirth or whatever then I think what I've got my job is to sort of focus them on thinking about the end. I sometimes say to the ladies I'm looking after, I'm not sure when we're going to get to the destination, but we've got to hang on in there, do everything really methodically.

Presenter3:01

Get to the answers and then we're going to get there.

Presenter3:04

Are you a risk taker? Is that how you see it? I suppose I am. I mean, you know, my current role as the ambassador, there are times when we're talking about something and it's, oh, well, it's a bit difficult, or we don't usually do it that way. And I often turn around and say, well, let's just do it and see. You've got to talk to policymakers, but also the public. And you've done that throughout your career. You know, you've run to television programmes, written books. I think you even changed Davina McCall's coil on screen. I did, yeah. One documentary. She calls me fairy fingers.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan3:28

Yeah one documentary goes.

Presenter3:33

Maybe maybe we'll come back to that nickname later. Uh do you enjoy being f in front of the camera?

Presenter3:39

No, I get very nervous, but if I can be confident and really persuasive, then I know I'm going to make it better for girls and women. And that's what I really want to do. And it sounds you know, I sound a bit messianic when I say that, don't I? But

Professor Dame Lesley Regan3:47

And that's

Presenter3:52

I really do think it's so important because they've had a bad deal for a long time. It's time for your first disc, Leslie. What have you chosen and why? When I was a little girl, my dad brought home a gramophone record, a gramphone player. It was one of those big boxes and the vinyl disc went down and then it started whirring round and you picked up the arm and you put it on. And he adored Edith Piaff and Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra. But the one that I remember that we both really loved to listen to together was Nina Simone's Mr. Bojangles. And Bill Bojangles was a tap dancer and he had worn out shoes. And I used to ask my dad why he kept polishing my brothers and my shoes when we were little to go to school. And he said, well, when he was little, that he'd only had one pair and he had to make sure they didn't wear out. So it's Mr. Bojangles.

Speaker 34:44

I knew a man, both jangles, and he danced for you.

Speaker 34:50

Walling out shoes.

Speaker 34:56

With silver hair, a ragged shirt and baggy pants

Speaker 35:03

Your soup shoot.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan5:03

Uh

Speaker 35:10

Jump so high.

Presenter5:13

Java

Speaker 35:13

Uh Uh

Presenter5:14

Uh

Presenter5:14

Nina Simone, Mr. Bojangles. Leslie Regan, you were born in London in 1956, the eldest of two children, and your dad, Jack, worked in newspapers in circulation, I think. He'd had quite an extraordinary life himself. Yeah, really extraordinary. So, um.

Presenter5:31

And I'm so grateful to him because he believed in educating girls and I often reflect how different my life would have been if he hadn't had that conviction because it wasn't the norm for kids from my background to necessarily go to school after the age of 16 but he was determined. But what had happened to him is that, and I think this was possibly why he was so passionate about it, is that he was at school and he was 12 years old and his mum, who was quite badly disabled, picked him up one day and said, we're going. And she left Cardiff and the slum they lived in and she left her other child behind.

Presenter6:06

And they went to London to start a new life. And what I think was extraordinary about that is how brave she was because she was a devout Catholic and she knew that she'd be excommunicated and she was. She left her husband. Were they running away? Yes, they were running away and I think it was an abusive family. And she was very unhappy, and I think she wanted my dad to grow up somewhere different. So he started a new life in London at 12. Did he have to go straight to work? He went straight to work. And the story goes that he got a wheelbarrow and he sold handkerchiefs on North End Road Market. And he must have done rather well because he then moved his mum into a house and then he went off to night school when he was about 15 or 16 and then all the rest is history. But I think that the education passion for him and making sure his eldest child, his daughter, was educated was because his mum was illiterate.

Speaker 36:38

Uh

Presenter6:55

He sounds like an extraordinary man and you credit him with becoming the person that you are today. Tell me more about that. I mean he shaped you by giving you the opportunity to learn and emphasising the value of education but I mean in terms of your character and the support he gave you as well as a person. Well he just told me that there was nothing I couldn't do if I didn't try, well if I tried hard enough. And he paid for me to go to school. Like God knows where he got the money from, because we weren't wealthy. And he took the gamble that if he paid for me to go to this private school in South London between the ages of eight and eleven I would get a an 11 plus scholarship as it was called in those days and I did.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan7:32

And there's

Presenter7:34

But um the only time I really saw Jack furious, really, really angry

Presenter7:39

was when he came to the

Presenter7:41

Parents' evening when I was doing my A-levels, and I was really, really struggling with physics and maths. And they said, Oh, well, Mr. Regan, we don't think that she can get to medical school. And he was so angry with them. He said, You're meant to be encouraging my daughter to fulfil her dreams. What are you talking about? And he just said to me, You're just going to have to carry on and do it yourself. Well, we'll find out exactly how you did in a moment. But next, Leslie, we'd love to hear your second disc. What have you gone for?

Presenter8:08

So this is the Adaggietto, which is the fourth movement from Mahler's A Fifth Symphony. I didn't really know much about Mahler until about fifteen years ago, when I started going to the proms on a regular basis. And I remember hearing this and being completely spellbound, and that evening I came out of the Albert Hall.

Presenter8:26

And I thought, Oh, isn't this wonderful? This concert hall's just for me and I looked up, and the Albert Memorial was all lit up with lights, and I thought, Oh, I may put the statue on and lit it up just for me.

Presenter9:40

The adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

Presenter9:47

So, Leslie Regan, we've heard about your father, to whom you were very close, as you said, but how would you describe your relationship with your mother?

Presenter9:55

Well, it was tricky. She she had a lot of mental health problems and we were often at war with each other, but she was unwell a lot of the time. So your mother was Dorothy. She had those problems back then. Well, I think she had very bad depression, and I think it was recurrent.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan10:05

Yeah.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan10:07

Am I

Presenter10:09

And she spent a lot of time in hospital. She divorced from my father when I was at medical school and then she remarried and she they went out to Africa to live for 25 years and she had a very second a happy second life. Well I'm glad to hear that but during your teens Dorothy's problems became more severe. What was the impact on you and family life during that time?

Presenter10:29

I just felt a bit different from the other kids because they were all doing sort of yummy mummy stuff and she wasn't like that and she wasn't there. I mean what was she? Well she was she was I think she was just very wrapped up in being very depressed. And she do she just goes very, very angry and

Speaker 310:37

What was she like?

Professor Dame Lesley Regan10:38

Uh

Presenter10:46

And it was distressing. And she sometimes called school and uh and she would just say I'll say goodbye um and I never knew what that meant and uh so she would send a message she would ring school and say to tell Leslie goodbye.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan10:53

She was

Professor Dame Lesley Regan10:55

With wings.

Presenter10:58

So that was devastating. And I think my brother, who was a lot younger well, not a lot, he was a few years younger than me, and he used to be very confused about it. And that's really one of the reasons why we were so close, I think, because

Speaker 311:06

Not

Professor Dame Lesley Regan11:06

Yeah.

Presenter11:09

I used to feel that I always had to look out for him. He was devoted to me and I was devoted to him. We looked after each other. Did you feel a bit old beyond your years? I mean I suppose so, yes. There was a bit of my life that missed I missed out in my teens because I was just doing other things, like organising yeah, being a bit of a housekeeper. Did you worry about your dad?

Presenter11:28

Yes, but he had this inborn optimism that it's going to be fine, and he was so terribly proud of the two of us that I think he thought that was enough. But anyway, it's it's gone. I think that she was an unhappy woman, and I'm glad that she found a bit of happiness later on in life.

Presenter11:42

It's time for some more music, Leslie. This is your third choice today. What have you chosen and why are you taking it to the island with you? This is a little piece of the Bach B minor Mass, which I love, and it's Eston Davis, the counter tenor, singing it. And I didn't really understand about classical music at all until I went to Cambridge. And my friend, who's a midwife and still a great friend of mine, and I used to go along to Evensong at one of the colleges. And Yestin Davis, I just think, has got the most extraordinarily beautiful voice. What I realised subsequently, when I heard this at the Proms with him as an adult, was that I worked out from his biography and his Wikipedia that he was one of the choristers at St John's College when Lynne and I used to go to listen to the B minor Mass on a Sunday evening. So I thought that was a rather lovely connection.

Speaker 312:43

It all is here.

Speaker 313:01

We truly

Presenter13:35

Agnes Day from Bach's B minor Mass performed by Yestin Davies with the English Concert conducted by Harry Bickett.

Presenter13:44

Leslie Regan, you decided to become a doctor when you were just a little girl, about seven apparently. How did it happen? What's what was the story? Do you remember? I told my dad apparently on my seventh birthday I was going to be a doctor and we had no role models in our family. Nobody was in health care at all.

Presenter13:59

But I'd had to go from the age of about three or four, I'd had to go and see the doctor, the G P every week, because I had the most appalling hay fever, which would mean I really couldn't see. And so I was part of this sort of experiment of desensitizing young people with these week and I had to have these weekly injections.

Presenter14:17

And I just thought he was a very nice man. I remember him, he was Dr. Braybrooks and he had this nice surgery and he obviously smoked a pipe because he always smelt of tobacco smoke in there. But he was just a very kind, lovely man. And it was interesting actually because I never worked at St Mary's before I went there as a consultant. But with retrospect, I realised that it was the allergy department at St Mary's where I was taken to see this extraordinary guy, Dr. Franklin, who was a real pioneer in allergy.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan14:30

Mm-hmm.

Presenter14:45

And the first time they did the scratch testing on me for all the allergens and the grass wallens. Yes, they do sort of a little dot of everything on your skin and then cover it up so you can see what you're in. Well all mine came bumping up and they all coalesced and then Dr Franklin, Professor Franklin, then said to me, oh he says, you're very allergic, aren't you? Do you think you could come back? And I think probably said to mother, could you bring her back next year at exam time and we can show her to the students? So I used to go and do that. So perhaps I thought I was part of that experiment.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan14:50

Grass pollen.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan14:52

Everything on your skin and then cover.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan14:55

Well

Presenter15:14

Tell us about school and how did you get on there? You're obviously very able, but it doesn't sound like actually the sciences were your natural mér. No, they really weren't. Biology was okay, but the chemistry and the physics, I mean, I remember going to the physics A level, opening the paper and thinking, I don't know what they're talking about, I don't know what they're asking me, it was awful. And the reality was that I plowed the physics and the maths and it was very shocking because it was the first time I failed at anything and I didn't take it too well and I went stomping off the end of the A levels. I thought school was rubbish and they hadn't been supportive. In fact, I went off and I started hitchhiking around Israel and Palestine and then I just pulled myself together and I thought, oh come on.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan15:43

Yeah.

Presenter15:57

And I went back home and I went to Kingston Polytechnic. Okay, and how did you find that? Well, it was what what helped me because I met the most wonderful chemistry teacher there, who was an X boxer,

Presenter16:10

And he just stood watching me doing this chemistry practical one day and he said to me,'You don't know what you're doing, do you'? I said,'No, mister Master, I don't' And he said,'Well, why are you here'? I said,'I've got to get into medical school' and he said,'Well, if that's the case, then I'm the person to help you get there.

Presenter16:26

And he did. Did he ever get to see how well you did? Did he ever find out what happened? Well he did because when I graduated in nineteen eighty I had two tickets given to me for my parents and my mother was away in Africa, so I invited my dad and mister Mercer to come to my graduation.

Presenter16:42

It's time for some more music. Your fourth choice today. What have you gone for? Well, this is a track by Katie Mellewer. It's called I Cried for You and I love it because well, it's a tribute to all those miscarriage patients I've had over the years because they were so brave in coming to talk about their stories and to share those with me and I feel that

Presenter17:02

Without them, we would be much further behind in our understanding of miscarriage. So it's my thank you to them.

Speaker 317:10

Cried for you, and the sky cried for you.

Speaker 317:16

When when you went, I became a hopeless drifter.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan17:17

When I became a home

Speaker 317:24

This life was not for you, though I learned from

Speaker 317:32

The beauty need only be a whisper.

Presenter17:39

Katie Mellower, and I cried for you. Leslie Wiegan, in nineteen seventy five you got a place at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School. Why did you choose obstetrics and gynaecology?

Presenter17:50

Well, it was a done deal because almost as soon as I got to medical school, I met this wonderful woman called Luba Repstein, who was an obstetrician and gynecologist. And she was absolutely passionate about her topic. And every year, she would pick two or three of us and make sure that we followed her. Oh, why did she pick you then, do you think? Well, probably because I was nosy and asking a lot of questions. And she was an extraordinary woman. She'd been refugeed twice, once from Russia, once from Berlin. And she arrived on a Polish passport in 1939, 1939, from Berlin. And a few months later, the Polish School of Medicine was evacuated to Edinburgh.

Presenter18:31

And she got on a train and she went and she registered at the Polish School of Medicine and she paid her way through medical school by playing poker. Oh wow. Okay. So you can imagine. She was a very prolific whiskey drinker as well. So she was great fun. She was great fun. Did she put you in charge of her accounts? Well it wasn't all her accounts but she liked me to sort out the spending money and she was a bon viveur and she loved going to the Gavroche for dinner. Oh wow that's very special. She always seemed to have a special table. It was always available for her and she used to say to me, just see how much fun money we've got and then she'd say right we're going to have champagne and we're going to go to the gavroche so she was a wonderful woman. So obstetrics and gynecology it was. You became a registrar at Aden Brooks Hospital in Cambridge and while you were there you started to become interested in why women miscarried. Now was there a particular incident that triggered that?

Professor Dame Lesley Regan18:55

Oh wow, that's very sweet.

Presenter19:22

Well, it was the first time I'd sort of been in charge on my own at night and I was just rather overwhelmed by these poor women who were crying and distressed and asking me always the same question, why did I miscarry? I don't understand why I miscarried. And all anyone said was that, oh, well, it's probably due to genetic abnormalities, which it usually is, but there are other reasons. And I thought that just telling them, well, that's it, wasn't okay. So the first part of my thesis, my MD thesis, was actually working out pathways about sort of the epidemiology and the social side of that, of miscarriage. And then I got very involved in the immunology of pregnancy, which is a complex, complex area. Did you feel like you were obviously exploring a new frontier that other people had neglected, but also busting a taboo? Did you come up against it? The taboo thing was really, really important. It was about getting rid of the myths and getting people to understand that this was such a common problem that we needed to be able to talk about it. And so the advocacy and the education, I think, was really, really important. And that's where I got my excitement, I think, about women's health as opposed to specific diseases and problems.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan20:02

Yeah.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan20:09

Did you come up against any prejudice?

Presenter20:33

It's time for your next disc. What have you got for us, Leslie? Well, I've chosen a piece by Maria Callas in memory of Luba because Luba always used to love listening to Maria Callas. So this is Casta Diva from Bellini de Norma, and we would listen to this in her front room, always with a glass of champagne.

Speaker 320:52

Host of Him of

Speaker 321:00

Lost the origin.

Speaker 321:21

Is this soul?

Speaker 321:27

Chastis of

Presenter21:49

Casta diva from Bellini's Norma performed by Maria Callis with the Teatro Alascala Orchestra conducted by Tullio Seraphin.

Presenter21:58

Leslie Regan, throughout your career you've often been the only woman as part of the medical team you're on. What kinds of reactions have you had from your male colleagues over the years? I wonder whether that kind of being the only one in the room has ever caused difficulties for you?

Presenter22:14

Well it did. I mean before I went up to Cambridge I did a surgery job for a while, for a year. I went to the East End and I had a very very busy job. I did you know was operating almost every day. Three or four male surgeons who really thought it was a bit odd. They'd never had a female before, female SHO. And one of them just wouldn't talk to me. He used to communicate with me via the ward sister or the theatre nurse.

Presenter22:39

Even in surgery. Yes, yes. He said to the scrub sister one day, in the middle of an operation, Well, I don't suppose our SHO would be capable of passing her surgical fellowship. And behind my mask and in my pyjama suit,

Presenter22:51

Right, I'm going to show you.

Presenter22:53

And I passed my surgical fellowship and he'd put a bet on with the sister so I that I wouldn't pass it. So when I got back I insisted that he give the sister the twenty pounds. It must have been a real shock to the system to encounter these kinds of attitudes having had so much support from your dad and then through medical school. How did you deal with it?

Professor Dame Lesley Regan23:11

Medical school.

Speaker 323:13

Yeah

Presenter23:14

Well, just you know

Presenter23:16

I just felt, well, I've got to change this. Wanting to change it and realising I've got to get in there, demonstrate that I'm good at what I do and then I can change how other people behave.

Presenter23:25

By 2010, while you were working at St Mary's Hospital in London, you had a light bulb moment during a talk given by the epidemiologist Sir Michael Marmot. So he said health was determined less by medicine and more by social inequality and access to education. How did that change the course of your own work? The light bulb moment was thinking, well, rather than be interested in this tiny part of pregnancy, I need to think about women across their life course. And I think sometimes in the past, well, in the past, let's say, women were viewed as maternities. So, for example, when I came out of medical school, women disappeared at the age of 50 from view because they were post-reproductive then. Whereas now, I'm conscious of the fact I'm probably going to live longer as a post-reproductive woman than I was reproductive. And therefore, understanding what can be done to improve the health of women in their latter life as well is really important because although women live longer than men, they spend a disproportionately larger interval of their life in poor health. And that can be avoided to a certain extent. In 1992, you gave birth to your daughters Jenny and Claire. You've said that on their arrival, you felt both lucky and guilty. Why guilty? They were born prematurely at 33 weeks and they had to go to special care for a month. And I had a real insight because I knew an awful lot about obstetric complications and neonatal care, but I knew nothing about being the mother of these little vulnerable things that just weighed a bit less than four pounds and were all wired up for sound. I used to get hysterical if they were moved and I didn't know where they were. So you felt that fear even though you understood what was going on. Absolutely. How did that change your practice after that as a doctor?

Professor Dame Lesley Regan25:02

And then you understood what was

Presenter25:07

Well, sometimes I think we focus on so many issues and problems in pregnancy that we forget the purpose is to have this baby. When I was still doing regular obstetrics, I used to insist that on the ward round, that we always went and visited the babies that were gone to special care. And I always wanted to know from the junior members of my team, so what happened to Mrs. X's baby and how are they today?

Professor Dame Lesley Regan25:29

Yeah.

Presenter25:30

And I used to get quite fierce if they didn't know because I would think, well, I know what that was like to have a baby up on special care and to not really understand what's happening to them.

Presenter25:40

What's your next piece of music, Leslie?

Presenter25:42

Well, this track is for Jenny and Claire, my wonderful twins. They are Simply the Best, the best thing that's ever happened to me. And this is Tina Turner singing Simply the Best. We play it at birthdays and at celebrations, and we always put it on if we're having a party.

Speaker 326:00

It's simply the f

Speaker 326:24

I hate on every word you say.

Presenter26:31

Tina Turner and the best. Leslie Regan, you've held a number of important roles during your career and last year you were appointed as the government's first ever women's health ambassador for England. Now why did you want that job and what did you hope to bring to the role? I had to apply for it because it's the first time that the government in this country have prioritised women's health and I just thought it was an opportunity that was so important to try and reset the dial and provide women with better access to services. And I believe that the health hubs that I've been promoting in the last 15 months since I've had that ambassador role are really going to be able to do that. And the DHSC team, the Women's Health Strategy Team, they are lovely. They are so committed. Obviously the incurable optimism that I mentioned in the introduction must come in very handy when you're dealing with policymakers and trying to affect change. But I know that you've described yourself as a bit impatient. You're always on the target. How do you manage that then?

Professor Dame Lesley Regan27:23

Oh, I'm terrific.

Presenter27:26

Well, it's a question of persistence. You mentioned about me being impatient. Now I am because I think, oh, come on, you know, we've got to get on with this, but you just have to keep going. And I think it's, you know, I've got this big thing about contraception, which I've been talking about for years and years and years, that, you know, this is just an own goal that we don't do this properly and we don't look after women who've got painful, heavy periods, which incapacitate them. I just keep going back and saying, well, and then also doing the personal story. Well, how would you feel if the woman in your life or the people that you care for in your life who are female, how would you feel if they had these problems and they met these barriers? Do you think you receive less understanding from men when you're having those conversations? No, I don't actually. And I think that if you can have that conversation and ask them that question and personalise it, they can be very receptive. But you have to frame it in the right way. You have to frame it in the right way. But that's the whole power of storytelling, isn't it? And we've got to find a way that this becomes something that they want to be part of.

Presenter28:26

It's time for some more music, Leslie. Your seventh choice today. What are we going to hear next and why?

Presenter28:32

Very few people will have ever heard this, and it's a track called Metamorpheme. And it's a eulogy, if you like, to my brother Martin, who died 30 years ago in a freak swimming accident. And it was written by his friends Owen Jones and Pete Milson. We were also devastated when he died, which was about only nine months after the girls were born. And I was absolutely distraught about the fact that they weren't going to have the opportunity to get to know this very quirky younger brother of mine. He was the complete opposite of me. He used to tease you about it, I think. Yes.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan29:03

Peace.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan29:04

Yeah.

Presenter29:05

And he was quiet, whereas I'm very noisy, he's incredibly bright. He went to Oxford.

Presenter29:12

to read English, which of course he did brilliantly well. And we both ended up graduating the same year and then we shared a flat together in Kentish town for some years. So he was travelling when he died? He was travelling, he was with friends in in Indonesia and I just remember it makes gives me a sort of fe cold feeling comes over me of picking up the phone on a Wednesday morning, I d I remember this, and being told that he died in this accident. And then my parents who were separated then but

Professor Dame Lesley Regan29:20

Pentest

Professor Dame Lesley Regan29:30

Picking up

Presenter29:39

They were both distraught, and so I just think

Presenter29:42

I just got worn out by the whole thing. It was very sad. This song's about him, though. Yeah, the song's about to end up. And also the artist totally, I mean, you know, Shakespeare and the Bible, a very familiar phrase to me and to our. Well, and I didn't know until I contacted Owen Jones some weeks ago saying would it be okay if I played this track that Shakespeare and the Bible, their band, were named because Owen was always trying to work out which eight discs he would take and which one he would save when you'd given him Shakespeare and the Bible.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan29:47

He has

Speaker 329:47

Don't end the

Professor Dame Lesley Regan29:47

About to interact with the

Professor Dame Lesley Regan29:54

Well and the

Speaker 330:12

Uh

Presenter30:12

Well, I hope that's called Metamorpheme. This was the code word for the crossword solving group that my brother had with these great friends, childhood friends of his. And every year he used to compose crosswords and give them to them as a gift. And they used to spend the rest of the year trying to work them out. They used to call him Planet Brain, as you'll hear in the track.

Speaker 330:33

I filled in all the letters, but I don't understand.

Speaker 330:39

You'll have to explain it someday.

Speaker 330:45

As I never was up in your intellectual plane.

Speaker 330:57

Oh, but your heart was more than a match for your planet's

Presenter31:04

Yeah.

Speaker 331:04

Yeah.

Presenter31:06

Shakespeare and the Bible, with metamorphine.

Presenter31:09

Leslie, you say that you've got no plans to retire. What keeps you working in this field? Where does your personal satisfaction come from?

Presenter31:16

There's always another challenge. Also, the other reason is that my daughters say that I would be impossible if I retired. So what are you, what are you like on holiday? What do you like when you don't have a holiday? Well, you know, I'm good on a sort of an adventure holiday or a sightseeing holiday. I'm a bit twitchy on the beach. This doesn't bode well, does it?

Professor Dame Lesley Regan31:27

Uh

Speaker 331:31

Okay.

Speaker 331:34

It doesn't bode well, doesn't it?

Presenter31:37

I can be a bit twitchy on the beach, but then I I'll find a project. I'll find a project. I mean are you practical? Would you be able to start by knocking up a shelter and all of that? Well no no no I think I'm quite practical yes. Used to du I used to do a bit of a DIY. I'm not so good with a drill. I find those

Professor Dame Lesley Regan31:43

Please stop. No.

Speaker 331:51

There's no drills on the other.

Presenter31:53

No, no, no, I'll be quite practical and I can always think of how to repurpose stuff that I find. Okay, flottom and jettum. Yeah, absolutely, yes. I'll be going around picking stuff up and seeing what I can do with it. Well, we'd love to hear one more track before you go. What's your last piece?

Professor Dame Lesley Regan31:59

Okay.

Speaker 331:59

Flotteman.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan31:59

Yeah.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan32:01

Yes, I'm gay.

Presenter32:08

This is a part of Mozart's clarinet concerto. It just gives me such hope that when I've sort of got too many deadlines that I've actually managed to get to the end. I'm not very good at saying no to people and sometimes I start the day and I think, oh my goodness, how on earth are we going to get to the end of this? The balls are going to drop or the plates are going to crash and I just think this piece of music takes me to a place where it's just so calm and so positive and it just soars away. And I think it's a little bit as well about the patients that I've looked after and who are so thrilled when they finally have a alive take-home baby.

Presenter33:47

Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major, performed by Karl Leister with the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karian. So, Leslie Regan, I'm sending you away to the island. I'm giving you Shakespeare and the Bible, and you can also take one other book. What would you like?

Presenter34:03

Well, if I may, I'd like to take the complete works of George Eliot, the most effective feminist and a beautiful, beautiful writer. You can also have a luxury item. What'd you fancy? I just wondered whether it was going to be possible for me to access an archive to the proms because one of the things I've really enjoyed doing in my time is singing in a choir. And that wonderful feeling at the Albert Hall that I had the first time I sang The Handel's Messiah was just so wonderful. Well, Leslie, I'm devastated to tell you that we can't give you the archive of the problems because you've got your eight discs here. I mean, of course, you can sing along.

Presenter34:39

Well, if I can't have the problems and I've got to sort of sing to these eight, then I think I would like to ask for a non ending supply of Marmite. Ah Now you're talking. It cures everything.

Presenter34:50

Lashings of butter and toast. Okay, well I'll even throw in some butter for you. Thank you. I'll get as long life as I can find. I don't know how long it'll last, but enjoy it while it lasts. Thank you. Marmite on toast it is.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan34:56

I think how long it lasts.

Presenter35:01

And finally, which track of the eight discs that you've shared with us today, Leslie Regan, would you rush to save from the waves if you had to?

Presenter35:09

Well, I found this so challenging to find eight discs, but I have no doubt and no hesitation about which one I'd save. I would have to save simply the best, because it just epitomizes my girls. Professor Dame Leslie Regan, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure.

Presenter35:40

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Leslie and I'm sure she'll find a project to keep herself busy on the island. We've cast away many experts in women's health, including the midwife and campaigner Edna Aden Ismail. Leslie's childhood allergy consultant Dr. Bill Franklin is in our archive too, along with the epidemiologist who brought about her light bulb moment, Sir Michael Marmot. You can find these episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and through BBC Sounds. The studio manager for today's programme was Emma Hart, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky and the producer was Paula McGinley. The series editor is John Gowdy. Next time, my guest will be the singer and actor Leah Solonga. I do hope you'll join us.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan36:36

It was about two thirty in the morning.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan36:40

And every time in that moment of waking, I would see the man standing in the corner.

Speaker 436:46

It's here. Uncanny. Season 3. She was just walking, non-responsive, without talking, without blinking. It seemed like something had just taken over.

Speaker 436:58

Terrifying real life encounters with the supernatural.

Speaker 437:02

What I saw in that house frightens me and I wish I had never seen it.

Speaker 437:08

Listen on Beepsy Sounds, if you dare.