Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Epidemiologist who founded the Children of the Nineties study, a pioneering biobank that has enabled global health discoveries.
On the island
Eight records
The Song of the Western Men (Trelawny)
This is known as the national anthem of Cornwall... But the tune is good and you've got a really good choir singing this.
Under Milk Wood (To begin at the beginning)
I'm really keen on people's voices and words and the radio. So I've chosen Under Milk Wood... Richard Burton, who has such a fantastic voice and it's such wonderful words.
that was a fantastic way of signing off what had been a really wonderful three years.
The Dawn ChorusFavourite
I always wake up early and in spring that's a particular pleasure because you hear the birdsong. In the stillness of the morning.
The Hippopotamus Song (Mud, Glorious Mud)
Michael Flanders and Donald Swann
reminding me of that time in London when I had my two children... something we used to sing together and laugh at.
Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe
Whenever I feel that as a woman I've been downtrodden, I listen to this and just laugh.
Trout Quintet (Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667)
my discovering the joy and relief of having a power chair... the trout quintet displays that sense of movement and motion and freedom.
reminds me of family Christmases and it's just so joyful.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:17What does it mean to you on a personal level that the study is still relevant and still informing future treatments?
It actually makes me feel quite emotional. I'm just so proud and so grateful to all the people who've put in their time. And the information that's being collected from everybody is just fantastic.
Presenter asks
3:08Where does your optimism come from, do you think?
Well, my family would phrase it more as stubbornness rather than optimism. … I think possibly from my history, when I had polio and various illnesses, the support of my parents was very much for battling it through. It's going to be all right in the end.
Presenter asks
11:47How did those stays in hospital influence the person that you grew up to be?
I think it made me far more able to or interested in observing other people, because I was in a ward with people from quite different backgrounds, just listening to the conversation and what they were interested in. And I think that is one of the things that has kept with me is an interest in how people of various different backgrounds react to things and what their interests are and what their [assumptions] are.
The keepsakes
The book
An anthology of modern poetry (everything published since 1960)
What I would like to do is read a lot of modern poetry... So what I would like is an anthology of everything published since 1960.
The luxury
What I would like is a power chair that can do everything on this desert island... climb over tree trunks and go into the water and allow me to swim off it and on back onto it and trundle back up the beach.
Presenter asks
21:51Did your gender ever make things difficult in your career?
My gender certainly and very obviously made things difficult. I mean, I I was interviewed by one scientist and told that all things being equal, I wouldn't get the job because, you know, I was a woman, I might have children, more children. So my response again is my Cornish stubbornness coming up. I'm going to show I'm not equal, I'm better.
Presenter asks
23:51Can you remember how you felt when the funding for the study was rejected?
Oh, I felt absolutely downcast. I felt total failure. That took a few months to get over that.
Presenter asks
30:01Of all the findings that came out of the Children of the Nineties study, what are you most proud of?
One of the most exciting things was looking at peanut allergy. I hardly knew that it existed at the time we planned the study. We worked with an expert in the field called Gideon Lack and were able to show that at least some of the cases of peanut allergy were associated and probably caused by the sort of creams that young babies were having put on their skin. So nappy rash essentially. … or eczema of any sort. And many of these creams were containing [arachis] oil, which is peanut oil. which could then prime the immune system and cause a reaction the next time it was exposed. And it has resulted in those creams taking [arachis] oil out of their products. We can never be absolutely sure that that has prevented cases of peanut allergy, but it certainly did cause a change. in the product of various products, and hopefully a lot less [peanut allergy] than would have occurred otherwise.
“I do indeed. In fact, it's probably the best thing that can happen to me in terms of what I do next is to be told I can't. So a stubbornness to show that I can do things has been something that's guided a lot of my life.”
“I think it made me far more able to or interested in observing other people, because I was in a ward with people from quite different backgrounds, just listening to the conversation and what they were interested in. And I think that is one of the things that has kept with me is an interest in how people of various different backgrounds react to things and what their interests are and what their [assumptions] are.”
“My gender certainly and very obviously made things difficult. I mean, I I was interviewed by one scientist and told that all things being equal, I wouldn't get the job because, you know, I was a woman, I might have children, more children. So my response again is my Cornish stubbornness coming up. I'm going to show I'm not equal, I'm better.”
“I did say that unless you have the nets and go fishing you can't catch fish.”
“I can remember writing a letter to the Vice Chancellor. It was very cold, and I delivered the letter by hand. I can remember standing outside while he came to the garden gate in a pinny. I didn't actually get on my knees, but metaphorically I was on my knees begging that he would allow us to carry on.”