Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A doctor and founder of the modern hospice movement, she opened St Christopher's Hospice and revolutionized end-of-life care.
On the island
Eight records
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11: I. Allegro maestoso
Christian Zimmermann, Concertgebouw Orchestra
I'm choosing Chopin because we're going to be talking later about my Polish connections. And it also has been one of the records to which I have worked.
I go back to the music that I heard at home, and we did have very good times as well as the bad times.
See the Saviour's Outstretched Hands (from St Matthew Passion)
we're going to go to the time when I was back at Oxford singing in the Bach choir, because I'd been singing in choirs all my life, and listening to Kathleen Ferrier, and I would like one of the arias of her singing, even though it's an old record, she sang as nobody else did.
This is something that I used to play over and over again when I was trying to come out of feeling very sad.
Barry Griffiths, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, André Previn
we're going back to the time when I was a houseman. and back into the uh Saint Thomas's Choir. And once or twice we had the enormous honour of being conducted by Vaughan Williams himself.
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92: III. PrestoFavourite
Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Böhm
This record is for him, because he is pretty deaf and he really does find it difficult to listen to music, although he'll watch it on television. But he will listen to Beethoven, the Seventh Symphony, because it's it's full of rhythm and sound and it gets through his to his deafness.
The Heavens Are Telling the Glory of God (from The Creation)
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
back to my singing again. And this is Saint Christopher's had a choir, and we even joined with another choir and sang Haydn's Creation in Norwich Cathedral.
Donna Deem, City of London Sinfonia, John Rutter
Because I think it gives the peace which I do believe the many, many people that I've known over the years have finally reached for themselves.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:20Has it not been a very gloomy business, dealing constantly with death?
Well, of course, I'm not by the bedside much now, but I did have a check from a patient in one of the wards just before Christmas. And so I went to her bed in one of our wards just to say thank you. And she was the most lovely person in her nineties, Salvation Army. Full of life and expectancy. And meeting somebody like that at their most mature. and very ready for whatever was going to happen in the mystery ahead. That's not depressing. That is very enlightening and very rewarding.
Presenter asks
4:13Do you find anything at all inviting about being cast away on a desert island?
Very much. I'm not really a survivor on my own very well. I am a people person. But on the other hand, I have had times of solitude, particularly in the country. And perhaps you'll allow me a few birds to look at. Or to listen to, indeed. And music to listen to as well.
Presenter asks
8:34But you hadn't had any deeply held religious beliefs as a child, had you?
No, we weren't that kind of family, but I had a very good godmother who was very important to me all the way through, and she gave me all the right books, and stayed quietly in the background. But you'd been sent to Rodine to school and and and you'd been terribly miserable. I hated it. I was lonely, I was unpopular, I just didn't fit in. Um I did gradually by the end and ended up head of the house. But um I hated being away from home, and yet at home I wasn't very happy either. In fact, I was difficult. I'm not su suggesting it was anybody else's fault. I think it was my own.
The keepsakes
The book
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Because that will give you so many things to go on thinking about.
The luxury
I write bad poetry in times of stress, so can I have lots of paper and and pens or pencils.
Presenter asks
13:57Can you explain that relationship with Antony Michniewicz?
Well, he was in a Six bed bay And I was just his doctor for months. Suddenly he said something which made me realize that He um was very fond of me and I Remember him asking me was he going to die? And He's the f only person I think in all my life that I've without asking back another question or talking round it, I've just said yes. And he said long, and I said no, not long. And he said Was it hard for you to tell me that? And so I said, well, yes, it was. And he said, Thank you. It's hard to be told, but it's hard to tell too. And I think that shows the sort of person he was. And out of that encounter we had a month in which we were never alone, we were always in the ward, and yet we somehow managed to communicate. at an a really very, very deep level.
Presenter asks
27:46What do you say when people ask you for help to die, for euthanasia?
Well, first of all, it isn't many occasions. It is in a way surprising. How people change, or how few people actually think of it, although more do now than did earlier on in my career. But the whole problem of people who want to have their life ended may be insoluble for that particular person. I don't disagree, I don't dispute, that there are some people who feel there is no other way for them but that. But the real problem is, I think, a social one. that if that was made possible by law, then it would pull the rug from under a whole lot of vulnerable people. It would make them not just a right to die, but a duty. I'm nothing now but a burden and I ought to opt out. And although my that might be very subconscious, I think it would get through. And I'm afraid the The changed attitude of society over the whole area of abortion doesn't make us feel very happy that safeguards and so on would keep things to the very limited area which people are often talking about.
Presenter asks
32:03What about your own death? I understand you wouldn't choose a speedy death.
I would like to I have time. I think one needs time to say thank you. One needs time to say I'm sorry. And now needs time to sort out something of yourself and what really matters, until perhaps you can finally reach the place where, as it were, you can say, Well, I'm me, and it's all right. And of course I am would be facing death as as a Christian. With the belief that I won't travel that journey alone, and although it is into mystery. It is a mystery of love. But we wouldn't ever want to impose that feeling upon our own patients unless they came forward and asked for us.
“I think hospice is about living until you die, and it may be much longer and hopefully very much better than you you ever expected.”
“I'll be a window in your home”
“He's the f only person I think in all my life that I've without asking back another question or talking round it, I've just said yes.”
“There was nothing that we'd said that we regretted, and there was nothing that we might have said which we hadn't.”
“I would like to I have time. I think one needs time to say thank you. One needs time to say I'm sorry.”
“I'm not a survivor. I I wouldn't do anything about trying to get away.”