Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Britain's most distinguished doctor who improved care for women in pregnancy and childbirth; first woman President of the British Medical Association.
On the island
Eight records
Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542
I actually heard this played by Doctor Schweitzer on the organ of New College, Oxford, so it has rather special memory for me.
Piano Concerto No. 7 in F major for Three Pianos, K. 242
my daughter Amanda actually played in Oxford when she was an undergraduate.
Der Lindenbaum from Winterreise, D. 911
I did hear Peter Peirce sing accompanied by Benjamin Britton. Benjamin Britton was the most fantastic accompanist I've ever seen. My mother was an accompanist, so is my daughter, but I've never seen anyone accompany like Benjamin Britton.
String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135
It's just about the last piece of music that Beethoven wrote, and it contains the phrase, Mus Essein, must it be? And the answer, S mus sein, it must be. Perhaps on a desert island if you were feeling a bit melancholy, that might be significant.
Komm, Jesu, komm (motet), BWV 229
Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, Richard Marlow (director)
my reason for choosing this record is that it's the choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, which includes my granddaughter Nicola.
Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85 (third movement)
Jacqueline du Pré, London Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli (conductor)
I did hear her play it in the Albert Hall, and it was an experience not to be forgotten.
Falstaff (excerpt from Act III)
Geraint Evans, RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti (conductor)
my daughter Amanda has done the new translation, which the English National Opera will be doing this month, and I would therefore like to hear a bit of the last act.
I Was Glad (anthem)Favourite
Choir of the Coronation, Sir William Harris (conductor)
my son in law Martin was actually singing, and our great family friend, Sir William Harris, was conducting. So I have a lot of reasons for hearing this, and also, perhaps, if I might say, as a very humble tribute to Her Majesty for all she's done for us in the years since then.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:19Was it a complete surprise to be invited to become President of the BMA?
Yes, it was. I was enormously honoured. Of course, you do get a bit of warning, because you get asked first, it goes through various committees, then you do a year as President-elect before you do your year as President. I was absolutely delighted. I thought it was the most wonderful thing.
Presenter asks
5:22Where were you brought up?
I was brought up all over the place because my father was a an i itinerant nonconformist minister. and we moved from Basingstoke to Exeter to Scarborough And then my father having been a chaplain in the First World War, and having had a very rough time indeed, managed to get up to Oxford as an undergraduate, a mature undergraduate. at the age of forty four, with a wife and five children. And we spent five years in Oxford while he took his degree.
Presenter asks
7:23Did you decide at a young age that you wanted to go into medicine?
Oh, I made up that decision at about thirteen, yes. And I never thought of doing anything else. It never occurred to me that I'd do anything else.
The keepsakes
The book
All the scores of all the music
Various
All the scores of all the music found, so I can study the scores as I listen to the records.
The luxury
A solar powered word processor with a printer and lots of paper, and an instruction book
A solar powered word processor with a printer and lots of paper, and an instruction book show me how to use it, so that I can write the great book I've never had time to write.
Presenter asks
10:54When did you decide you wanted to concentrate on women and children and improving the way they were cared for?
I was very much inspired by a great professor, Francis Brown, who was the first professor of obstetrics, that's a midwifery at University College Hospital. And I realized that this was what I would like to do. Now the things I liked about it, first of all, when you're doing midwifery, you're looking after pregnant women and delivering babies. You're looking after people who are normal healthy people doing a normal healthy event. And of course the delivery of a baby is always the most amazing thing you ever see.
Presenter asks
23:44Did you ever consider giving up work and becoming a mother and a housewife?
No, I couldn't have done it. I'm not terribly good at looking after young babies. At least I'm in Spending a whole day with a young baby is is not is not my choice at all. And I decided that the best thing to do was to stay at work and employ the people who knew how to look after babies to look after my children.
Presenter asks
27:00What do you believe to be the correct time limit for abortions, given all medical expertise now?
I was very privileged to work with Dame Elizabeth Lane. On the Committee on the Working of the Abortion Act in 1974, I also before that had worked with the Church of England Board of Social Responsibility on Abortion. Now on the Lane Committee, we concluded quite positively that twenty four weeks was the right limit. That was published in 1974. One gets in a way a bit disillusioned when you work for the government like this. If that had been brought in, then perhaps there wouldn't have been that so much need for the Alton Bill, which, however, I think was directed against abortion as a whole.
“There were occasions when a man was appointed when I thought I might have got the job, but uh that was up to the people to have the person they wanted to work with, so uh it never worried me very much.”
“It simply means that people expect a lot of you for the rest of your life. I think that is the problem. You'll feel you mustn't fail at anything from then on.”
“I don't like home deliveries. I've done them and I was always terrified, partly of course because I did for eleven years a flying squad when I used to tear around North London looking at women who'd got into serious trouble and that put me off having babies at home forever.”
“I think that's absolute nonsense, I must say. In the what, fifty odd years since I became a doctor, I think natural childbirth has been rediscovered every five years.”
“I've seen two young women die and one very nearly die following a back street abortion. That has virtually disappeared. That's one good thing.”
“I would start off by writing more about myself. Really for my children and my grandchildren. And I might even have a go at a novel, I think.”