Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Forensic anthropologist who identifies human remains in high-profile cases, from the Asian tsunami to war crimes in Kosovo and Syria.
On the island
Eight records
I was born in Inverness and I grew up in a very remote part of the West Coast, just on Loch Arran. And traditional music was still very, very strong.
Glenn Miller and His Orchestra
My father was such an incredibly important personality in my life. He was a pianist... He used to call it In the Nude.
1970s, Inverness, teenager, glorious hot summers. That was a really happy time... Life was wonderful.
Tom is my husband. And so I've known him since I was 17 years of age. He is my best friend and this was one of his tracks.
When I was writing a textbook with my dear friend Louis Shaw... this would blare out. So for me, this is a really pivotal point in my academic career.
Highland CathedralFavourite
Lathallen is a school, and my girls were in the Pipe Band. And they used to play Highland Cathedral, and it also became one of my father's really favourite pieces.
We were invited to a party just on the other side of the airport in Kosovo... And the senior officer came and apologised to us... this was party time Kosovo, which was downtime.
This is my children... every night as they went to sleep, it was my job to sing to them. And I had a number of them, including the Corries, but this one, which is a Nancy Griffith song, which is called Turnaround.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:34How on earth do you do it?
Oh, it's great fun to be given the opportunity and the permission. To open up the skin and look inside and see that every single one is different. And if every single one is different, that says what can you use about the differences that allow you to say that's who this individual may be. It's like being Taggart and it's like being Morse every single day, but using science and using anatomy.
Presenter asks
4:31How do you wind down?
Um I don't, is is the honest truth. Um our youngest daughter, when she was eight, came to us one day and said, Have we ever been on holiday? ... I was so bored. by day two, that whilst everyone else was frolicking around in the pool I'd written a text book by the time I came home.
Presenter asks
12:04What was her legacy to you?
When they opened up her chest ... what she said to me ... she said, Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. ... Because for the rest of your life, I'm going to sit on your left shoulder. ... And I find myself right the way throughout my life sticking my head down to my left hand side, thinking, I can't do that.
The keepsakes
The book
Henry Gray
It can only be Gray's Anatomy, and it can only be the Thirty Sixth Edition.
Presenter asks
How did you find it? [working in a butcher's shop]
Well, my friend Susan got a job in the farm shop. ... I lasted one Saturday in the vegetable shop ... So I worked in the butcher shop. And I loved it. Absolutely loved it. I liked the order ... I liked the fact that I could understand where on an animal every single bit had come from. ... And we used to love it when the vans came up from the slaughterhouse ... if you put your hands into liver boxes, they were warm.
Presenter asks
18:45Did you have an idea of what you were going to do work wise?
Not really, no. What I I was very lucky with was that I had a very dear friend, Louise Sharr, in London, and she informed me that there was a teaching job going at St Thomas's Hospital. And so I was just out of my PhD and she said, Come and interview. And the very last question asked of me was If you can go into the dissecting room this afternoon, could you teach the brachial plexus? To which I said, Yes, of course. And by being able to answer that, the job was mine. So I really went into the academic side by accident.
Presenter asks
32:15Do you believe in a spiritual life?
I have been fortunate enough to be at the moment of death with both my mother in law and with my father, and to be there to hold their hand when they take that last breath and the shift that happens. In that last breath, from being the person that you know, to there being something gone, missing, is like a light going out. I have never been spooked by the dead. I spent my life with the dead. They don't hold any fear for me at all. When you leave that shell, you've gone. I have no idea what's on the other side. I believe in Christian values, but I'm not a religious believer.
“It's like being Taggart and it's like being Morse every single day, but using science and using anatomy.”
“Because for the rest of your life, I'm going to sit on your left shoulder.”
“that first cut that you make with a sharp scalpel through skin is something that you can never repeat twice because it it is only a onetime event.”
“he came back and he thanked every single member of the team for what they'd done. And we were just so uncomfortable and so embarrassed that somebody would thank us for what we'd had to do. But for him it meant everything, absolutely everything.”