Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Prize-winning historian, biographer and mathematician who chaired the HFEA on IVF regulation and directs UCL's Centre for Lives and Letters.
On the island
Eight records
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:40You've just been made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society. How enjoyable is that genuinely for you?
It knocked me for six. It is the accolade of all accolades.
Presenter asks
5:49Given your generation, you would often have been the only woman in a room. How have you dealt with that over the years? Did you have a policy for how to conduct yourself, in terms of behaving badly?
Well, I give to every woman listener the advice I was given by a great woman professor of philosophy when I was a mere grad student. And she said, 'When you get into a room and you are the only woman, make sure your voice is heard first in the room. Ask for a glass of water, ask for a window open, say, Has anybody got a pen? Because your voice has to be heard in the room because its pitch and timbre is so different from the men that otherwise it will startle and disorientate people when you finally speak.'
Presenter asks
9:45Your father was the scientist and broadcaster Jacob Bronowski. What were your memories of him as a father when you were a little child?
The keepsakes
The book
The Latin Letters of Erasmus of Rotterdam (12 volumes)
P.S. Allen
Because ever since I published my book on Erasmus, I've desperately wanted to write the great work on the letters and never had time. And this will be when I have time.
The luxury
Large Le Creuset pot in Love It Green
Cooking is my love. I would like some cooking utensils as my luxury, because although I think I'll find things to cook, I need a large le Creuse pot, preferably in the original Love It Green, and, you know, maybe a few condiments. But I I would leave it at the Le Creuse.
Well, he was a looming figure, but interestingly, the more I think about it today, the more my image of my father was also the media image. He loomed so large in my life that it's hard to convey it, really. I adored him, and it was, I think, pretty mutual.
Presenter asks
10:36Your mother was an artist and sculptor. You've written about the conflicting demands of a creative and domestic life. How did she deal with those demands?
Well, she just rolled over and was a doormat. She was a very accomplished sculptor, but she only did little bits of tinkering around once she had the children. And she gave herself over to us, as a result of which I can't even remember what she looked like, because she was always there.
Presenter asks
18:48Your love affair with maths came to a crashing end when you went to Cambridge. Tell me what happened.
At University Maths. Bottom line. Very interesting really. Some of it had to do with gender bias. Newnham told me that I could never be as good as a mathematician as a man.
Presenter asks
26:42In 2004 you were diagnosed with breast cancer. What do you remember of that time?
Shock was the first response. I wasn't ill, didn't feel ill, but I had regular check-ups for breast cancer. The collapse of all that structure that held everything together for us and discovering that my husband was a rock. He made me pick myself up. He was quite firm with me. Made me pick myself up and said, 'We'll get through this, we get through everything else.' And I believed him. I still believe him. And we carried on. We didn't stop anything.
“That's me. I've never learned that. That's the wonderful thing about being an older woman. I can say what I like, and I do.”
“When you get into a room and you are the only woman, make sure your voice is heard first in the room. Ask for a glass of water, ask for a window open, say, Has anybody got a pen? Because your voice has to be heard in the room because its pitch and timbre is so different from the men that otherwise it will startle and disorientate people when you finally speak.”
“Well, she just rolled over and was a doormat. She was a very accomplished sculptor, but she only did little bits of tinkering around once she had the children. And she gave herself over to us, as a result of which I can't even remember what she looked like, because she was always there.”
“At University Maths. Bottom line. Very interesting really. Some of it had to do with gender bias. Newnham told me that I could never be as good as a mathematician as a man.”
“Well, I knit. I am a very, very prolific knitter, as all of my students know because I always knit them cardies for their new babies. I'm a prolific knitter because when my eldest son, Daniel, was seven and we had just separated, Nick and I, I was standing in the kitchen with Daniel and he said to me from behind my back, 'you never face me when you talk to me.'”
“You know perfectly well it would be Annie Lennox's [Why].”