Professor Patricia Wiltshire

Professor Patricia Wiltshire0:01

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Presenter0:02

Music

Professor Patricia Wiltshire0:03

Radio podcast.

Presenter0:04

Popcasts

Professor Patricia Wiltshire0:04

Yeah.

Presenter0:04

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 castaway to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:46

My castaway this week is the forensic scientist Professor Patricia Wilcher. Her career path is unique, as is her approach at a crime scene. If you saw her there, eyes closed, apparently lost in thought, you could be forgiven for wondering whether a feat of science or imagination was unfolding before you. Indeed, she's known for her uncanny ability to use both. She's a forensic ecologist, using the evidence of plant life from the scene of a crime to reveal the truth of a case, often in astonishing detail. She trained as a botanist and then worked as an environmental archaeologist, using her skills to help evoke ancient landscapes. Then, in 1994, she got a call asking her to help with a murder investigation that had reached a dead end. A new chapter began, one which has led her to work with every police force in Britain and helped solve some of the country's most notorious murders. She says, you've got to be at the cold face if you're going to do the job properly. Crime scene, mortuary, court, you've got to have fortitude. You've got to have grit. You've got to be able to say, I'm so tired, but I've got to carry on. Patricia Wilcher, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Presenter2:00

Thank you for having me on your programme. We are delighted to have you, Patricia. Now you're a botanist, Patricia, but specifically a palynologist. That's someone who studies pollen. How does it work exactly and how much pollen is around us? I mean, in winter, for example.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire2:15

Oh, there's lots even in winter. I mean, there are always things flowering in winter. Have you noticed how early the hazel catkins come out? I mean, really, very early. But not only that, you've got last year's pollen as well, because when the wind swirls up the fallen leaves, they're swirling pollen back into the air. So you have secondary circulation, secondary deposition. And people forget that. And it's something that a forensic scientist must keep in mind because they say, Oh, you can tell the time spring, summer. It's not that easy because you do get this recirculation and you see things.

Presenter2:53

But it's that seeing, I think, that people find hard. So you can you will often stand at a crime scene and you will close your eyes to imagine what happened there and to kind of read the evidence that's around you. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire3:09

Yes, I can. So often though, people will say, Oh, is that all it was? That easy and say, Yes, but you couldn't do it You know. Yes, if you go to a crime scene, the first thing I like is a bit of quiet, which is quite difficult to come by because there's so much going on.

Speaker 13:24

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire3:27

And I don't want anything disturbed at all because the perpetrator, someone who has committed a crime, has left their mark on that place. And it may be very, very subtle. So you're looking for little impressions, impressions in leaves and little broken twigs, like a tracker. You know the old Indian tracker. There's a lot of sense in

Presenter3:48

That and there's a bit of that in it. And then sometimes you're reverse engineering because you're imagining a landscape from a microscopic piece of evidence. Yes.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire3:58

It's not just one microscopic piece of evidence, though. Basically, there are a whole profile.

Presenter4:02

So it's it's but it's looking at a plant profile. Yes. Uh

Professor Patricia Wiltshire4:05

Uh

Presenter4:05

And then you can kind of see a landscape in your

Professor Patricia Wiltshire4:08

Well you can because the plants first of all, if you've got the pollen, you know what plants are there. And you can't always get to species, but you've got a good idea. If you've got the plants, you can really rather guess what the climate is like within reason, what the soil is like. If you've got the soil,

Professor Patricia Wiltshire4:27

then you've got a a reasonable idea of what the geology is like. If you've got a geology map, you can eliminate places straight away. I'm always rearranging the data and all of a sudden a pattern comes out and you think, gosh,

Professor Patricia Wiltshire4:40

Yes, I can see this place, and sometimes you can see it quite clearly. Other times, it's a more generic thing. You get, well, it's this kind of place. And because of that, very often I've said to them, when you're looking for bodies, for example, I'll say to the piece, look, I can describe it, it's this sort of place, but it's in the north of England. And then the local ecologists, oh gosh, I know a place like that, or I know more than one place like that. And then you can go around and eliminate them. And then they can take me to those places and I can say, no, this isn't quite right, and that isn't quite right, but this is a possibility.

Presenter5:15

We've got so much to talk about today, and of course, we've got your music to share, your discs. Tell us about your first choice. What have you gone for?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire5:23

Well, it's Chopin's Nocturne in D-flap major, played by Arthur Rubinstein. I have a great love of Chopin, it's very beautiful, and we had a piano at home, and my mother used to play by ear, and she loved Chopin's music, and there was this piece of music with Chopin's silhouette on it. My mother's father died when she was twelve, so I never met him, and I had a picture of him.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire5:50

And they looked the same to me. And I was convinced that Chopin was my grandfather. And I went to school and told all the teachers, and my grandfather was Chopin, and they all thought I was a funny little girl. But I conflated them, you see, and I was convinced of it. But all the sounds are so wonderful and plaintive and beautiful.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire6:11

And of course I tried to play it myself. And then of course when the real difficult bits you fudge a bit and you

Speaker 46:17

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire6:17

Well, I do. I think, oh, it's coming, it's coming, the difficult bit is coming, and then I make a mess of it.

Presenter7:22

Chopin's Nocturne in D-flat major, performed by Arthur Rubinstein. Patricia Wilcher, you were born as the eldest of two in Kevin Forest, a mining village north of Cardiff, and your father Tom, he was a miner. When you think back, how do you remember him?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire7:38

Very charismatic.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire7:40

Although he was a coal miner, very self-educated, he could talk about anything and he read a lot of books. There was a big culture of that in Wales, yeah.

Presenter7:47

Oh yeah, so with the the the in mining institutes

Professor Patricia Wiltshire7:50

Well, this is it. The uh the Welfare Miners Institute in Kevin Forest was wonderful, fantastic library. But my father was charismatic and he was handsome. And I'll never forget talking to my cousin saying, we were talking about our favourite film stars and I said, oh mine is Errol Flynn, Robert Taylor, Clark Gable. And she said, you know who you're describing, don't you? No, your father.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire8:18

Oh, he sounds great. Yeah, he had a little moustache. Very volatile. But.

Presenter8:19

So

Presenter8:24

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire8:25

Yes, and he had a marvellous voice.

Presenter8:26

So he sounds very passionate. Passion is about education, but you also use the word volatile. So was that in his personality, in his relationship with your mother, perhaps?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire8:32

Tell me

Presenter8:38

I was

Professor Patricia Wiltshire8:39

I was born of two charismatic, attractive people who were also very selfish.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire8:46

And they were married very young. My mother was eighteen, my father was twenty two, and I was born when my mother was nearly twenty two. And she was frantic because she was des everybody had to have a baby, didn't they? And she didn't have one till she was twenty nearly twenty two. But I think that as soon as I stopped being doll-like, she lost interest.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire9:09

And I really gravitated towards my grandmother.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire9:13

Uh

Presenter9:13

So she was more nurturing towards you.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire9:15

Oh yes, my grandmother, my mother.

Presenter9:16

Your maternal grandmother? My mother's mother, yes. Tell me a little bit more about your parents' relationship. You said they were both charismatic but selfish, so it sounds like they would have been in in conflict a lot.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire9:29

Oh, yes, a lot of conflict. And I describe my early life as being.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire9:35

If it was a graph, it would be peaks and troughs and peaks and troughs, all brightly coloured, and it was difficult. The only rounded, soft parts were when I was with my grandmother.

Presenter9:46

So she was Vera May and obviously very uh nurturing and loving for you. Very strict. She was strict too, okay. So did she introduce you to your love of nature? Does that go back to your time with her?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire9:47

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire9:57

Oh, yes. She used to take all the t they had to go picking blackberries and all the rest of it and she'd bottle them for the winter and she understood the hedgerows and she understood plants and animals. She'd show me birds' nests and she'd show me where to look for things and to show me how you you could actually eat young hawthorn leaves and they're quite nice and and so on.

Presenter10:20

So that became your happy place, I mean, particularly given the fact that home wasn't where you felt most comfortable.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire10:26

Hey.

Presenter10:26

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire10:27

Yes, I admired my mother, you know, and I admired my father, but I didn't like them very much. It's a terrible thing to say. I had very little rapport with them. Better with my father than my mother. I think I had more affection for him. And why was that? What did you have in common? I think he was more interested

Presenter10:44

Is it in me as a person?

Presenter10:47

Patricia, it's time to hear your second disc. What are you going to play for us and why are you taking it to the island?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire10:53

Well, this reminds me of my father so much, because when I hear this voice, it's my father's voice, and I remember I spent so much of my childhood ill in bed. I was a sickly child.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire11:06

And he used to come into my bedroom and I used to say, No, I don't want you to sing to me in here, it's too loud. Go out and sing to me properly and he used to go out onto the landing and sing properly. And Billy Eckstein's voice is my father's voice, so it makes me go sort of weepy-ish when I hear it. It's my foolish heart.

Speaker 411:27

An eye is like a loblito

Speaker 411:35

Beware, my foolish heart

Speaker 411:42

How would the ever-constant move?

Speaker 411:49

Take care, my food.

Presenter11:56

My foolish heart, Billy Eckstein. Patricia Wilcher, when you were just seven, you had a terrible accident at home.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire12:03

Yeah.

Presenter12:03

What exactly happened?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire12:04

It was a lovely summer's day and I had a beautiful dress on and I rushed home from school because it was Friday and Friday was fish and chips and the hall was in front of me and there was a I hit against the one wall. My mother didn't know I was there and she had cooked the chips and she carried this pan of fat through to the cold pantry you see and I went boo.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire12:33

So you knew she was there and you wanted to surprise her? I always wanted to surprise her I went, boo and up went the fat, and I remember it flying up in the air, all coming down on my head and arm and so on, and screaming and screaming. And it removed the hair from the front top of my head.

Speaker 112:35

Uh

Professor Patricia Wiltshire12:50

And my head was in bandages for two years. Oh, two years ago. Oh, two years. It was very, very bad. And then I became ill after it, and I never looked back. I was always ill after that. How did it affect your schooling? How long were you off school? Well, I hardly was ever at school. And I used to love that school. It was the most wonderful school. And I remember my parents bought me.

Speaker 412:53

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire13:12

A set of encyclopedias, offer me encyclopedias. I went everywhere with those encyclopedias and when I did go back to school I always had an encyclopedia under my arm.

Presenter13:22

Uh

Professor Patricia Wiltshire13:23

So a different volume. Yeah, different volume, yeah. They were wonderful books. They taught me to, I taught myself to knit, the rudiments of music, flags of the world, all the mythologies, stories about Rumpelstiltskin and religions of the world. And what those encyclopedias and all the reading did for me was take me out of myself, yes, engage my interest and attention. So I couldn't dwell on just being in bed because the thought of doing nothing is awful. How disrupt.

Presenter13:58

Did was your schooling? You said you became ill after you had your accident. How many illnesses did you suffer from?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire14:02

You had

Professor Patricia Wiltshire14:05

Well, when I recovered from the accident,

Professor Patricia Wiltshire14:09

I got pneumonia and then I would get pleurisy, then I would get bronchitis and then it wouldn't be very long before I'd have pneumonia and there were no antibiotics and so it damaged my lungs irreparably really. These repeated infections damaged my lungs and eventually had most of my right lung removed. But the thing is, you just have so what? You just have to carry on. You can't wallow in it. You've you know, you'd have no life.

Speaker 114:22

This

Presenter14:36

Yeah, and I I think that actually you moved to Ryl with your grandmother for for a change of scene at one point.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire14:40

For a change.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire14:41

Yeah, tell me about that. Well, of course, in South Wales, we weren't that far. We were down the valley from it, but from Ebouvale Steelworks. And I remember at night time, when they opened the furnaces, the sky would go all red. And do you know that Ebu Vale used to have its own acid rain cloud? It created an acid rain cloud. And it was an unhealthy place to be. And my parents sent me with my grandmother up to her cousins in Rhyl in North Wales. And I was there with them. And I went to school near Rhyl. And it was idyllic. We used to go to the beach. And oh, I used to find all sorts of things on the beach. What did you find? Oh, shells and cockles. And I always wanted to see the inside of cockles. And I remember bashing them open. And now I would never do a thing like that. I think about the poor little cockle inside. But in those days, I was desperate to see what was inside. Horrible little child. No, you're just trying to.

Presenter15:36

Bye.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire15:39

Understand

Presenter15:39

How long were you there? Few years.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire15:41

Also the quality of the

Presenter15:42

Quite a long time, did your parents

Professor Patricia Wiltshire15:43

To come up to see you? Well, of course, they didn't have a car. Nobody had cars in those days. And I did see them. I can't remember what happened, but I did. It's a long time ago, you know. Patricia, it's time to hear your next disc today, your third choice. What have you gone for? Ah, well, who can ever forget Bill Haley and the Comets? I mean, when I was in my mid-teens, I remember going to Kevin Forrest Miners' Welfare Institute Hall. And first of all, it was all ballroom dancing, but they eventually gave in to the rock and roll. And I remember having a fantastic time. And I remember it being played in the cinemas, and people were dancing in the aisles. And it was fabulous.

Speaker 416:24

1, 2, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock, rock. 5, 6, 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock, rock. 9, 10, 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock, rock. We're gonna rock around 10 o'clock tonight. What's up? Join me home. We will have some fun. When the clock strikes one, we're gonna rock around 10 o'clock tonight. We're gonna rock, rock.

Speaker 416:44

What they love, more bad old tonight.

Presenter16:50

Bill Haley and his comets rock around the clock. I'm just imagining that. Scandalizing the Institute, Patricia, when they played it. Fantastic. So, Patricia Wilcher, you eventually went back to school and you passed your 11-plus exam, which must have been no mean feat given that you'd missed so much time in education. How did you get on at grammar school?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire16:56

Well they played it.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire17:12

Ah well, Neil Kinnock was in my year, would you believe, at the boys' school. And um I remember him too in the Sixth Form dances.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire17:22

Anyway, did you ever dance together? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, I didn't. I didn't fancy him at all. But there we are.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire17:29

But the school, I think I can honestly say I hated it.

Presenter17:33

Oh, why?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire17:34

Right. Well, I learnt a lot there, but all the teachers were not all of them, they were one or two nice ones actually. They were they'd lost their lovers in the First World War, and it was a girls' school, and um they made it quite obvious they didn't like girls, and it was so strict. I couldn't wait to get out. I just couldn't wait to get out.

Presenter17:54

Yeah. How did you get on? Did you do well?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire17:56

I got my O levels and then I left halfway through my A levels. I couldn't stick it. I what what with my mother and that school, I had to get away. So you were having a difficult time at home? Difficult time at home. My parents had got divorced. I then had my mother to myself, which

Presenter17:58

And then I'll let you know.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire18:13

I sh I shouldn't say nasty things about my mother. She had so many good points. She was very funny and so on. But she and I didn't hit it off, and I had to get away. And I did get away. I was nearly eighteen. I wasn't I was seventeen and a half, actually.

Presenter18:29

So you left home at seventeen. So so tell me a little bit more about your parents breaking up then. They'd always had a volatile marriage. What how do you remember when the breakup happened? What was the.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire18:30

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire18:36

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire18:39

Yes, I do.

Presenter18:40

I do for

Professor Patricia Wiltshire18:42

I went to cha I used to love chapel, I used to go to chapel, it was a Baptist chapel, and it was on a Wednesday night, and I used to go in the week as well as on a Sunday.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire18:52

And she'd sent some one to tell me not to go home, because she'd left my father, and I had to go to my great aunt's.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire19:00

How old were you at this point? I was sixteen and I was nonplussed by this. And then my mother disappeared. I didn't see her for ages. And when your mum did come back, she found somewhere else for you both to live. So where did you go? We moved to a village not far away.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire19:17

But she wouldn't let me see my father.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire19:20

It's so sad, isn't it? Isn't it sad? So you left home at seventeen. Where did you go? I got a job at the Charankas Hospital and trained as a medical laboratory technician.

Speaker 119:24

Yeah.

Speaker 119:29

So,

Professor Patricia Wiltshire19:31

So that must have felt like a huge move to come to London at such a young age. Oh, my God Well, you see, everything was different, and much more reserved and aloof and not very personable. But I coped. I thought I'll have to put up with this this is it, I've got to get on. And that was it.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire19:49

Yeah.

Presenter19:49

Patricia Wilcher, it's time for your next choice today. What are you taking to the island next and why?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire19:55

It has to be some Bach, doesn't it? Who could live without Bach? I couldn't. It's so difficult to choose a piece. But I have chosen something from Brandenburg Concerto No. 4. And you know, the one thing about that grammar school was it did give you appreciation of all sorts of things. And we used to have prayers every morning. And before the headmistress came in, we'd all stand there like soldiers. This highly polished floor, the navy blue and white uniforms all very deferential. And they used to play classical music every morning.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire20:32

And it was a joy that was really joyful. And I remember I remember summer with the the sunshine coming through on the polished floor and listening to the Brandenburg concerto. It's so strong in my mind.

Speaker 420:49

Yeah

Speaker 421:10

In the middle of the

Presenter21:44

Part of the first movement from Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, performed by the Orchestra Mozart conducted by Claudio Abardo.

Presenter21:54

Patricia Wilcher, as we've heard, you've got a job as a lab technician at Charing Cross Hospital, and then you did a number of jobs while you studied for your A levels at evening class. How did you end up choosing to pursue a botany degree?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire22:08

Do you know, I've always loved plants and I decided to go to evening classes to learn botany and the teacher said to me, You should go to university. And I said, Oh, I've got a full-time job, I'm married, it's not out of the question. So you'd got married by that point? Oh, yes, yes, I was married. And he said, Well, come and meet the prof.

Presenter22:22

So

Professor Patricia Wiltshire22:30

So I went along, I met the prof, and I turned up in I remember my suit, it was Prince of Wales's Grey Check.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire22:38

And I had purple accessories, can you imagine?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire22:42

Yeah.

Presenter22:43

It sounds very cool. But this is the swing in 60s, so you must have looked very pulled together.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire22:46

This was this was yes, this was sixty nine, sixty eight, sixty nine, something like that. And I had false eyelashes and I was all dolled up and I went went into the department and all these scruffy kids there, you know.

Presenter22:50

Talk about that.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire22:59

So

Presenter22:59

Double the hip

Professor Patricia Wiltshire22:59

Yeah.

Presenter22:59

Is it There you go

Professor Patricia Wiltshire23:00

Yes. I felt, Oh, do I fit in here? Anyway, I went in to see the prof and had a little chat, and he talked to me. I said hardly anything, and then he said, Right, well, I'll see you in October.

Presenter23:00

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire23:12

So you're in? So that was it? I found my niche at last at last. Because you could do anything. So I did zoology, parasitology, geology.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire23:24

Biogeography, mycology, bacteriology, all theologies and oh gosh, I loved it and I it wasn't hard work because I loved it so much. What about the false lashes that you mentioned? How did they survive in the lab? Oh they didn't survive long. For one thing I never had time to put them on but the other thing was I persevered for a bit but when I tried to look down a microscope all I could see were spiders.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire23:50

So I had to ditch those pretty quickly and the um looking back on it, it was a bit darf.

Presenter23:56

After you graduated you became an expert in palynology, studying the ancient pollen left behind at archaeological sites. Then in 1994 you got a call from a police officer who wanted you to help with a murder case. A man's charred body had been found in a ditch. The police had some suspects and a car and they needed to prove that the car had made tire tracks near to where the body was found. How confident were you that you could have

Professor Patricia Wiltshire24:21

I didn't have a clue. I said, I've never done anything like this before. He said, well, Kew Gardens say they can't help us, but you could. I said, well, I'll give it a go. And the person that had thought of it is a good friend now. He was the SIO, the senior officer on the case. And I don't know how it came to him, but it had been a maize field. And he thought there may be maize pollen on the car.

Speaker 424:41

Mm.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire24:49

First of all, I said I don't think there will be, because this was too early for its flowering. I said also, it'll be a very well plowed and fertilized field, full of bacteria, and they would be decomposing the pollen. So he said, Will you try anyway? Well, I got the car.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire25:06

I took it to bits, I analyzed everything and lo and behold I got a profile that I recognised and it was just like something out of archaeology. It was a very very species rich hedge and then field edge vegetation. So I said oh this is a field edge and they said yes, do you want to come and see the place? And I said I'd love to. So when I got to the field it was a huge field I remember with hedges all the way around and they said we'll show you where it was and I said well I'd like to test myself. Can I just go with you and tell you where it was? Up we went quite a long way and all of a sudden that profile in my mind was there in front of me and I said this looks like the place and they said yes it was.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire25:55

And I think that gave them confidence and it gave me confidence. I didn't know what happened after that, but it was a Chinese triad gang case and they killed this man. How did your evidence then help to secure the conviction? They used it to show that that car had been in that field. They'd already had tire tracks, but that's not enough. And from then, of course, they asked me to do another case, and then another case, and so on, and that's how it grew. Well, we've got to make a bit of...

Presenter26:23

Room for the music, too, among all that, Patricia. So, disc number five: what's it going to be?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire26:25

My law nap

Professor Patricia Wiltshire26:29

Sung by the Triorki Male Voice Choir. And what is wonderful about this? There are these strong men singing with this wonderful gentle voice. I mean, that's very seductive, isn't it? It's wonderful. I don't like machoness for the sake of it. It's this gentleness accompanied with strength.

Presenter27:22

Mavanoi, the Trioke Male Voice Choir. Patricia Wilcher, in 2002 you were asked to help with the Sohem murders case. This was a very high-profile police investigation. The bodies of two 10-year-old girls, Hollywells and Jessica Chapman, they'd been found in an irrigation ditch in Suffolk. How did you go about helping the police to build a case against their main suspect, the school caretaker Ian Huntley?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire27:49

Well, it was decided that when the girls were found I would be first into the ditch because I'd be looking for these little clues. And when we got to the scene it was very quiet. There was a tent there.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire28:02

And they said, What we want to know is how the perpetrator, how the murderer, got into the ditch, because we can't find a path in. The nettles were up chest high.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire28:14

So I walked carefully up and down, and immediate well, not immediately, but very soon, I could see two pathways. One was towards the top end, but I knew it wasn't an important one, because it went down into a ditch, and there was just it was full of so full of twigs, the whole thing was full, and it was very, very, very faint. And then at the other end, very close to where they'd put their cordon, actually,

Professor Patricia Wiltshire28:38

I found another one which was much more obvious. So what were you seeing, Patricia, that that the police couldn't? Well, they were mostly stinging nettles.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire28:47

And they had been trodden, but of course they had recovered. So it was the regrowth that you were looking for? When you tread on a plant, you disrupt the hormonal flow from the tip to the rest of the plant. Now, when you disrupt that flow, all the side shoots are not controlled, and so they start growing, and then their own tips would be control at the back of those. So you're kind of seeing a disruption, but also a timeline there. Yes, yes, very much so. Yes. And there was grass. Hedge woundwort and nettles, in particular, that had all done this. And from experience, you know, because I keep nettles in the garden for butterflies and so on, and you tread on them. I looked at the little side shoots, and it's the number of places where the leaves come off. It's not the length, because length is variable, it's the number. And I thought, this has taken about two weeks to grow. And I said to the police, yes, it's about two weeks. And I showed them where we now know it's Huntley, had got into the ditch.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire29:52

and I found Jessica's hair on a twig.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire29:55

And basically he must have put her over his shoulder, and her hair had got caught on that twig.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire30:02

Yes. Um so I'd found the approach path, which is important because there might be clues in there. So the police can then do their fingertip searching along that path.

Presenter30:11

That two-week timeline that you identified proved to be significant because the girls had been missing for that length of time.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire30:18

Yes, well they had been missing for about two weeks, you see, because one thing that's important is were they kept anywhere else? Or had they been put straight in the ditch after disappearing? Well, I'd said to the police, this is about two weeks, and I went away and did some experiments at a local field center. And we walked in and out of Nettles.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire30:40

And then the warden photographed them every day. And when those side shoots got to the same stage as the ones I'd photographed at the scene, I said, Well, I think that's it and that shows it's about two weeks and it was exactly thirteen and a half days. Anyway, it turned out that the girls had been put in exactly thirteen and a half days before

Presenter31:00

I wonder about the the mix of emotions when your evidence helps with a successful conviction like that. Are you able to experience a feeling of satisfaction? And what else is in the mix? Because it must be quite complicated.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire31:15

I suppose there is a sort of satisfaction that you've solved a puzzle. And it's really nice that you've been proved right. That's the good thing. Oh, yes, now I can use that information because I know what that's told me. I can use that in the future. And you must learn case to case, absolutely. Oh, my word. Everyone is different. There's always a new puzzle. There's always a new challenge.

Presenter31:38

Patricia, you had to give evidence during Huntley's trial at the Old Bailey. What do you remember about that day? How did it feel to stand up there?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire31:48

Well, I wasn't looking forward to it, although I'd been in court many times before. And the old bailey's pretty daunting, you know. And you go through a black curtain and then you're in full court. It's really quite dramatic. And there was Huntley and Maxine Carr in this gla what looks like a glass box. Behind them was the press. All the lawyers were in front of me. And um yes, I was I was daunted, but it's a job, you have to get on with it. And everybody deserves a fair trial. So if you haven't got the strength to go in and be battered, don't bother. You've got to have the guts to go in and do it.

Presenter32:25

In two thousand two you worked on the case of Michelle Bettles. She was a twenty two year old sex worker whose body was found in Woodland. No one's ever been convicted for her murder, and her case has stayed with you, I think. Why?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire32:40

That was very interesting, because she was found in a very pretty woodland.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire32:45

And I felt so sorry for that girl, and again I got this incredible profile from her, and it did not match the woodland. Well, put it this way, the woodland was superimposed on it. Yes, I got the woodland, but there was this incredible profile of somewhere else, and it involved a pond.

Speaker 133:00

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire33:02

and a big honeysuckle and I kept saying to the piece, I need a big pond where is there a big pond? Anyway, they did find a place, and it was some miles away.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire33:14

And I walked around this building.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire33:18

There was a big pond, and there was a huge honeysuckle hanging over a balcony, and what they'd done is dredged the pond, and I think they must have lain her on the dredgings, and then they'd taken her off and dumped her in another woodland.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire33:34

I mean th those

Presenter33:34

Cases like that and having been close to the body of someone who's been through something so awful, they must stay with you. How do you deal with that?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire33:46

Well, there are some that uh have affected me, I have to say, and poor Michelle did affect me. She had a drug habit. She was supporting her pimp and and these children that she didn't want to give up. And when you think of that girl's misery and suffering And nobody was charged.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire34:04

No.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire34:05

I mean, that must be very difficult to to walk away and and carry that with you. That that that's difficult, because if we'd had the right artefacts, if we'd had shoes, car, I could have put him there perhaps. I can't say I could have, but perhaps I could have.

Presenter34:08

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire34:20

Patrols.

Presenter34:20

It's time for your next track. What have you chosen and why are you taking this with you?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire34:25

Who could do without Mozart?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire34:28

I couldn't live without Mozart. This is piano concerto number 21, but not the popular Elvira Madigan part, which is very lovely anyway. But I want the joyful part. I don't play very well, but I love Mozart. I love playing Mozart. The intricacy and the patterning and the colour and the joyfulness in Mozart.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire34:51

Even in his Requiem, the beauty of that is incredible, and the colour in that is beautiful. I couldn't live without Mozart.

Presenter36:00

Part of the last movement from Mozart's Piano Concerto No. twenty one, performed and conducted by Murray Pariah, with the English Chamber Orchestra.

Presenter36:10

Patricia Wilcher, sadly, your own life has been touched by loss. You lost your daughter, Sean, many years ago. She was just a toddler, and it happened not long after you were married. It must have been a heartbreaking time for you. How did you cope?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire36:23

Yeah.

Presenter36:25

Uh

Professor Patricia Wiltshire36:25

I never have coped, really. I don't think you cope with the loss of a child. Even after all these years she's there every day. And it's very, very difficult to put into words because I don't have words. They're all feelings, you see. I always say to people when they're bereaved, it's very lonely. Nobody can help you with bereavement. Nobody can help you with bereavement. It does get easier over time, but it never goes away. And I think there are no platitudes. You can't say anything. The loss is the loss. I wonder if

Presenter37:00

I wonder if understanding the extent of a loss like that helped you in your own work. You're helping families who've been through a terrible, inexpressible loss find justice, perhaps find closure.

Presenter37:14

That must have meant a lot to you as somebody who understood what it means to lose a child.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire37:19

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire37:20

Yes, I always feel for the mothers and the fathers and the family, and the one thing this work has given me, I think, is a great measure of compassion.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire37:31

I can feel empathy for these people and.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire37:36

I I think I come over to very many people as being sharp and quite hard.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire37:43

But underneath I don't think I am very hard. I'm very assertive.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire37:47

I tell people off all the time if they, you know

Presenter37:51

I'm sure they deserve it, Patricia.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire37:51

I'm sure

Professor Patricia Wiltshire37:52

Well, you know, I'm always yeah, people laugh at me because it's you know, they know there's no malice in it, but I won't I don't like fools and I don't like vain people and silly people and greedy, stupid people. I'm sorry, I just don't like them. So I don't bother with them. And um so you're tough. But I think I am tough. I think I'm incredibly robust in myself. Not physically, I'm not very physically robust. But I think I think I learned a lot from my grandmother. My God, she was robust. And she always used to say to me, Stop crying, stop whinging and get on with it. And I think that's my mantra. But it is hard sometimes. And yes, I do feel very, very much for people that have lost their loved ones.

Speaker 138:33

Brahm.

Presenter38:40

There's also a a sense in which you become tough because you have to be to get through what life has thrown at you.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire38:47

Yes, you do. You have to you have to be tough. Otherwise you'd go under, wouldn't you? You would. You'd crack and you'd go under. I am not going to go under. I am going to survive. And if people think I am sharp and prickly, well, that's their problem, sorry.

Presenter39:03

And you obviously have such faith in nature, in the wisdom of nature. It comes through in your writing. I wonder if that's helped you find meaning when it can be very difficult to do that in life. As you say, terrible things happen and sometimes we don't even get a reason why. And actually, you know, there is a

Presenter39:22

seeing ourselves as part of a bigger cycle.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire39:25

Yeah.

Presenter39:25

It can really help.

Presenter39:26

What?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire39:27

Well, everything you're made of, which you have received from the environment, will go back to the environment. So you will be recycled. And I will be recycled. We'll all be recycled. And that's very healthy. That's very sensible. So it's comforting to have that perspective.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire39:46

I think it's incredibly comforting. You know, my ashes are going to be sprinkled with those of my cats and my other animals that I've I've had cremated and put put in the woodlands, and I am going to be recycled along with them and I will be reincarnated. That's true reincarnation because my molecules will be used and they'll be reincarnated as a tree or a bluebell or a

Presenter40:09

Or a beetle.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire40:11

Yeah.

Presenter40:11

You've seen some terrible things in your line of work, Patricia. Does it affect your faith in people?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire40:17

I think I prefer some bacteria to some people. And that's true, actually.

Presenter40:23

Yeah. Let's go back to the music. Your seventh choice today, Patricia. What are we going to hear? Well, it's got to be the Beatles, hasn't it? Oh, yes.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire40:30

I mean, the Beatles were very much there in my youth and I bought their very, very first recording and I had all the Beatles recordings. Still got a lot of them, of course. And I love her. How romantic is that?

Speaker 440:46

I give her all my love

Speaker 440:50

That's all I do

Speaker 440:54

And if you saw my love

Speaker 440:58

You'd love her too. I love her.

Speaker 441:06

She gives me everything

Speaker 441:11

And gender be

Presenter41:14

Uh

Presenter41:15

The Beatles and I love her. So Patricia Wilcher, you said you loved the romance of that track. So I'm going to ask you about romance in your life. Your first marriage ended after many years, and then you met David, the two of you married, in two thousand nine. And I think the meeting happened over a mushroom.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire41:32

Am I right? I think it did, yes. I was taught at King's College by a genius, Francis Rose. Anyway, he was a colleague of David's and they'd published together quite famous works actually. And Francis died and I thought, well, this is one memorial service I can't miss. So it was at Wakehurst Place. This is the Kew Gardens place where the seed bank is. And after the service, we had a tree planting out in Wakehurst Place and it was on a bit of a slope. And I stumbled and somebody caught me. And it was so romantic. I looked round and there was this smiley face. Anyway, so we walked up through the woods because there was a tea party afterwards. And as we were going through the woods, I said, Oh, look, there's a Russilla emetica. It was bright red. He said, Yes, he said, It is a Russilla. I don't think it's emetica. So I said, Oh, do you know anything about fungi then? He said, Yes, a bit. So I said, All right. And we were travelling on and I said, What's your name then? And he said, David Hawksworth. And I said, Not the David Hawkesworth.

Presenter42:43

Oxworth, renowned mycologist.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire42:46

Yes, and he was the director of the International Mycological Institute. And you so you were familiar with his work already? Well, I had his books on my shelf and I was teaching his work to my students. I thought he'd be absolutely ancient. And there was this young man, well, young man, I'm not young, I wasn't young, about my age, you know, very jolly and cheerful. And that was that. And I said to him, you wouldn't help me identify a spore, would you?

Speaker 443:05

Cheers.

Speaker 143:06

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire43:11

Yes, he said I would. And then I sent him pictures by email and he sent it back and then we started writing to each other. And then he identified some more and then and so it went and the rest is history really. You've been together ever since. Oh yes. And you sometimes work together. We do because I introduced him into forensics because I had been using fungi because I trained in mycology as well to some extent. And it really works for timing death and for trace evidence and all sorts of things. He took you to Hyde Park on one of your early dates. No, he promised to take me to Hyde Park. He said to me, he was chatting me up and he said, would you like to go to Hyde Park to see how the lichens are recolonising after the Clean Air Act? I said, oh, that'd be fabulous. Well, it never happened. But he then said, we could go to Box Hill and I could show you similar things. I said, okay. Well, he eventually turned up too late to do field work. So I thought, oh, so I changed into proper clothes and went to pick him up at the station. And there was this man, to me, looked like a little gnome. You know, he had these shoes with, and the toes seemed to point up and he's old on a rack and a hat. Flat caps. God, I hate flat caps. And I thought, oh, I'm going to change him.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire44:32

And have you? Well, not really. I think he's too good to change. He's all right as he is.

Presenter44:37

I hope that there's a listener somewhere writing down, would you like to come and see my lichens recolonizing? as a potential chat upline, because that is a classic. It's wonderful.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire44:42

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire44:45

There's no

Presenter44:45

And of course I was I was hooked.

Presenter44:49

Would you like to see more forensic ecologists coming through and following in your footsteps?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire44:52

Well, I mean, I certainly would, but you can't be it if you're young. Why not? Well, because you need to accumulate an awful lot of knowledge.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire45:02

to be able to use that knowledge to interpret. So, you know, either it was a television programme, they said, We're going to put in a forensic ecologist like you. Well, she was nothing like me and she was very young and that immediately

Professor Patricia Wiltshire45:17

told me that it was nonsense because she wouldn't have been old enough to get the knowledge to do it.

Presenter45:22

So if we adapt your story for television, Patricia, as s I hope someone listening to this does, they need to cast an actress who's the right age. Who's lived like Vera, you know.

Presenter45:34

Brenda Bleffen, fantastic. Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire45:38

Imelda Staunton or someone like that. You know, that's the sort of person that would be realistic, I think.

Presenter45:41

Or someone like that.

Presenter45:46

Best

Presenter45:48

It's time to be tough again because we're about to send you off to the island. Your next challenge is waiting for you. I wonder how you feel about the prospect. I'm assuming that you can imagine what the environment will be like more clearly than other castaways.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire45:53

I wonder how you

Professor Patricia Wiltshire46:02

Yeah.

Presenter46:02

Uh

Professor Patricia Wiltshire46:02

Well, I know what I would like to be desert island disked on. It's got to ha be a volcanic island.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire46:09

Because I need obsidian glass for tools. Ah. Cutting tools. And I can find that and I can make cutting tools with it. I don't see why it shouldn't be a volcanic observation. It could be cutting tools. But hopefully it's an extinct volcano, so it's not going to suddenly go off.

Presenter46:14

Cutting.

Speaker 146:20

Okay, shut up.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire46:25

And it will be rich in vegetation and it needs to have coconuts. I can extract the coconut oil, and from that I can make soap and I can make skin cream and I can eat it and it goes quite well with fish. I think I would have great difficulty in killing fish. I'm hoping that this island would be absolutely full of fruits and lovely leaves that I can eat. But I am tough enough that if I was starving, I would catch a fish.

Presenter46:49

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire46:59

But I would kill it as humanely as I could. I think you're going to be very well set up on.

Presenter47:03

On this island, Patricia. It's all been leading up to this moment. But before we cast you away, we've got one more track to hear from you. What's it going to be? Your final choice.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire47:10

From New Mexico

Professor Patricia Wiltshire47:12

Love Will Keep Us Together. Neil Sedaka. I love Neil Sedaka's voice. My husband and I, it's our song.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire47:20

We are so similar in our attitudes to life. You know, love will keep us together, and we do love each other very much.

Speaker 447:30

Love will keep us together.

Speaker 447:34

Think of me, babe, whenever

Speaker 447:38

Some sweet talking guy comes along.

Speaker 447:42

Singing his song, don't mess around. You gotta be strong, just stop.

Speaker 447:49

Cause I really love ya. Now

Speaker 447:53

I'll be thinking of

Presenter47:55

Love Will Keep Us Together. Neil Sadarka. So Patricia Wilcher, I'm going to send you away to the island now. I'm giving you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take another book of your choice. What would you like?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire48:07

I'm going to be very cheeky and say, could I please have my Arthur Meese children's encyclopedias?

Presenter48:13

Oh, so a whole set of encyclopedias.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire48:14

You can't have just won.

Presenter48:18

Well, we couldn't deprive you of your encyclopedias. They got you through a difficult time when you were a kid, and I think they'll be absolutely perfect on the island.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire48:24

Well, they will because they're full of information. You can learn so much from them and they're also full of stories and history. And you know, you can be entertained as well. You can also have a luxury item. What would you like?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire48:39

Well, I was going to say an unending supply of skin cream, but I can make my own from the uh coconut oil. I'm going to say a big metal cooking pot.

Presenter48:47

The coconut.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire48:52

Uh

Presenter48:52

Mm.

Speaker 448:53

Yeah.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire48:53

Because I can cook my food in it, I can make my soap in it, and I can make my face cream. I need a vessel. You need a vessel to do things with. It's a very practical choice. I know.

Presenter49:04

So I shouldn't allow it, really. But we do have precedent. Several castaways, including Emma Thompson have taken cooking pots to the island. Oh, have they? So on that basis, I'm not going to deprive you of it, Patricia. I'm going to let you have it. Emma Thompson can have one. You can have one. Well, she's obviously a very sensible woman.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire49:13

Oh.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire49:18

I'll let you have it.

Presenter49:23

And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you rush to save from the waves first?

Professor Patricia Wiltshire49:29

Ugh, oh.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire49:31

Has to be the shop, I think. Yes, it's so emotional.

Presenter49:36

Professor Patricia Wiltshire, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire49:41

Thank you very much. I've thoroughly enjoyed being with you.

Presenter50:06

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Patricia, and I'm sure she'll have her nose in those encyclopedias as soon as she settles down on the island. We've cast away other forensic experts, including Professor Angela Gallup and Professor Sue Black, and Sir Paul McCartney from one of Patricia's all-time favourite bands is in our back catalogue too. You can find these episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and on BBC Sounds. The studio manager for today's programme was Jackie Marjoram, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky, the production coordinator was Susie Roylands, and the producer was Paula McGinley. The series editor is John Gowdy. Next time, my guest will be the actor and comedian Rob Delaney. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 151:01

From BBC Radio 4, this is Communicating with Me, Roz Atkins. This is the podcast where I talk to some of the best communicators, like legendary magazine editor Tina Brown, the Olympic athlete and broadcaster Michael Johnson, to find out why good communication really matters and how best to do it. Have you ever walked out of a meeting and thought, why didn't I make the impact that I'd intended to? Or perhaps you put down the phone to the bank without getting the answer you wanted?

Speaker 151:30

We all have dozens of interactions every day, and this series will provide you with practical advice for communicating effectively during them. Communicating with Ross Atkins, listen and subscribe on BBC Sounds.