Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Emeritus professor of psychiatry specializing in learning disabilities, policy adviser, and incoming President of the British Medical Association.
On the island
Eight records
Well, when we had parties, we were a young family and we would have friends round on a Saturday and we'd spend the day cleaning the house and preparing the food and getting everybody sort of all dressed up. And then when my husband put this track on, everybody knew the party was about to start. So it's very atmospheric for me. It means the family are ready to welcome whoever's going to arrive and the children loved it especially.
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58Favourite
This recording belonged to my mother and she played the piano. When I was a child we didn't have a piano, but I was learning the clarinet at the time and I saw a classified ad in the local newspaper for a piano, rang up and found out that it was only twelve pounds and would it be a good idea, you know, because then we could play together. And so we duly went and bought this piano. And I was just very aware of my mother's love of piano music and the fact that she'd not been able to to play since she was a child because she hadn't had access to a piano. So I chose it and it reminds me of her.
Well, Strange on the Shore was the first tune that I played on the clarinet at a school concert and I was offered the chance to have clarinet lessons. And I didn't have traditional music lessons. He was a bandleader and he taught me jazz clarinet and jazz hot licks and so on. But I began with Strange on the Shore.
When I left school at 18, I went as a VSO to Nigeria and I fell in love with Africa. I couldn't not include African music and drums in my choices. And I met my husband through VSO, because he was also a VSO, but he was a VSO in Malawi. We met through a Return Volunteers organisation.
Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
And my daughter Catherine is one of the river singers, and it was performed by them for my birthday last year. And it was a very special birthday. I didn't know they were going to sing it. The reason for Westminster Bridge is being so important is because I went to medical school at St Thomas's, which is across the river. My husband was a student north of the river, and I was a student south of the river, and he used to chase me on his bicycle. I had a motorbike. So it's just been quite a sort of significant place.
Well, my husband and I both always enjoyed jazz, and when we were first married, we used to go and listen to jazz in pubs in South London, and it's just been part of our lives.
On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)
If I could sing, I would love to be able to sing like Cleo, but then I'm sure an awful lot of people would. And also because she was married to Johnny Dankworth and my daughter Catherine had been to a summer school which they ban and we went to hear her playing saxophone in a concert at the end of that summer week. And I've just always been a huge fan of both Cleo Lane and Johnny Dankworth.
It reminds me of my brothers, particularly my brother Hugh, singing in the school choir, and I find that I share a a love of this kind of music with several family members, perhaps particularly Emily, my third child. And it reminds me also of Worth Abbey and the Lay Community of St. Benedict, which we've a close relationship to as a family.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:15Clearly a highly motivated person. What is your driving force, do you think?
Do you know, I think I would have to say that it probably goes back to my parents because they always encouraged my sister and myself to believe that we could do things and encouraged us to have an education and indeed to assume that we would go to university, even though it was not that common when we were growing up.
Presenter asks
2:37Is that something that somebody in your profession would welcome? The idea that yes, let's just open it up, let's just say this is normal [to speak out about psychological struggles].
Absolutely. Anybody who speaks out about their own mental health problems publicly helps to break down the… exclusion and fear which leads to people with mental health problems being shunned by society.
Presenter asks
4:10How are you preparing for the role [of President of the BMA]?
Well, the role of President is really very much on the professional side of the BMA's work, not the trade union side. And it's an opportunity for me to raise awareness of some of the issues in medicine which particularly concern me. And although I haven't finally decided where the emphasis will be, it will definitely be somewhere about mental health and learning disability.
The keepsakes
The book
Marina Vaizey
Having pictures which tell a story, helping us to understand complex ideas that one can reflect upon and look at time and again would just serve so many purposes, really.
The luxury
I haven't played it for quite a while. I sold my original clarinet to pay the gas bill when we were first married and didn't buy another one until Catherine was ready to learn an instrument. But it seems to me that it would be timely for me to be able to teach myself again, and I could learn from some of the the C D's that I've got with me.
Presenter asks
20:20I know that you have a strong Roman Catholic faith, and I'm wondering if there was any conflict there between what you felt your professional and thorough duty was and what your personal belief system dictates [on the debate on changing the law on assisted dying].
As President of a secular organisation, I wouldn't let my particular religious views interfere with that, although I think people find that quite difficult to understand. I think the point is that what you're trying to do is bring to bear on the issue that you're advising on your professional expertise and the scientific expertise. And I think that that's one of the aspects of professionalism, which we learn to do as doctors.
Presenter asks
25:16Did you find it frustrating, then, coming up against those attitudes that either didn't really seem to want to engage with Nigel's problems, or just said, Well, you just need to cope with it on your own?
I kind of expected that because he had special additional needs that there would be additional help, and what I found to my horror was that doors seemed to close to him rather than new doors to open for him.
Presenter asks
34:46What do you make of how the Catholic Church has dealt with this issue [of sexual abuse] to date?
I think that conference was a huge sign of hope. It was an international event designed to try to learn from the mistakes of the past. I think that the church, just like most institutions in society actually, have been very slow to understand the reality of abuse and that we need to be incredibly alert to it so that we can protect children.
“I can remember changing what I said when I was asked what I did at a party to say I was a housewife rather than have to go through the pain of other people's attitudes.”
“I think as a society there's a lot of fear of death, but there's also a lot of fear of disability. And if we were much more kind of open about the effect on our lives of disability, of impairments, of pain, of vulnerability, that we would find it much easier to support each other when that happens.”
“I've always thought that our children are always going to be different to any expectation we had of them, and that really the joy of parenthood is discovering who your children really are.”