Changing Lives

In a week when a new vaccine for Covid 19 has been unveiled, this is a podcast focussing on Getting Fit.   My doctor daughter broke it to me several years ago that, as we get older, we have to exercise more, and more, and more...it appears it's exponential...especially with the threat of further viruses around the corner.   This is a montage of old newsreel and recordings of the really extraordinary Mary Bagot-Stack and her daughter, Prunella, often described as Britain's first 'perfect woman', who founded The Women's League of Health and Beauty in 1930, mixed with my attempts to get fit with the NHS app 'Couch to 5K', and pilates with Danielle Moye of  www.lebarrecolchester.co.uk.  and a guest appearance,  from an ancient LP, of Winnie the Pooh voiced brilliantly by Kenneth Connor with the Wonderland Singers and Alyn Ainsworth and his Orchestra.  The picture  shows members of the The original Bagot-Stack Dancing Academy dancing at Clacton-on-Sea in Essex in 1928... ‘in harmony with the rhythm of the wavelets lapping the sand and with the vibration of the sunlight on sea and shore. Every movement was an object lesson in the expression of the strength and health and passionate joyousness of pulsing natural life.”  Thank you to Dr. Lucy Vermont.

Bouldering is a relatively new take on an old sport which has boomed in popularity over the past few years. Traditional images of climbing focus on athletic body types, but increasing numbers of people are realising that it offers something for everyone. Yasmin is a paraclimber who's discovered its magic. Indirock is a new bouldering wall on a mission. In their own ways they want to increase diversity within the climbing community and encourage a new generation to discover the sport.

You can follow Yasmin's journey  on Instagram @the.climb.to.healthy (beware, you will find yourself inspired to climb a rock face!) and her diversity work through @unitedweclimb and @all_in_beta.  You can follow Emily Vermont and Indirock, Southend's first bouldering wall, on both Instagram and Facebook @indirock_  and their café will be run by @hugos_pantry. And if you'd like to help make their vision a reality, on 5 November Indirock will launch a crowdfunding campaign to raise £25,000 towards their start up costs. Links will be shared through their social media and on their website indirock.co.uk 

Many thanks to Tim Macri and Luis Avila for their beautiful playing of the Stabat Mater of Antonio Vivaldi and to Chris Jones for his 'Southend Song' performed for Southend Radio in 1981 (copyright Essex Sounds).

At this time when everything is so uncertain around us, it is pure joy to listen to the recordings of Vladimir Kryuchev in his home town of Sergiyev Posad in Russia.  He is an international award-winning audio producer and has just won the top radio prize in Russia for 'The Bots and Spammers Dating Club' but it's his portrayal of his community, his town and surrounding villages, that, for me, is his overriding achievement.  Just sit back and enjoy his gentle voice and the touching vision of a Russia that we never normally see.
This podcast features the following field recordings made by Vladimir Kryuchev all available to listen to on his website https://www.oontz.ru/en
which has a choice of viewing in Russian or English.
1. The Dubrava Muzyka festival.
2. Sounds of twilight in Sergiyev Posad: from the open windows and elsewhere
3. The beggar’s song, Blinnaya Mount
4. Sound recording of the construction workers from Uzbekistan plastering a wall of a building on Vifanskaya street
5. The would-be priests choir (Moscow Theological Academy)
6. Krasnozavodsk brass band
and we end with 'Ringing Up The Curtain':  'Operated by the ticket-collector the old-fashioned buzzer marks the beginning of a play at the Oktyabr concert hall and youth centre on the outskirts of Sergiyev Posad. People rushing in a hurry, tip-up seats’ claps and the background music once used as the weather forecast signature tune by the USSR TV.'
and several others!
With many thanks to Vladimir and all the people and trees and traffic and trains and rivers and rain he has recorded!

This first podcast in the 2nd series of 'Changing Lives' is a tribute to a truly remarkable man.  Richard Jameson was a brilliant scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, a fêted young actor and President of the Oxford Experimental Theatre Club when he was struck down with extraordinary hallucinations up at the Edinburgh Festival where, instead of acting his character, he became that character: 'Ask a man to play a raving lunatic with
method acting and you are asking for trouble. It is so close to the real thing
that it becomes the real thing.'  Treatment for schizophrenia in those days was primitive and he went in and out of hospital until finally the right drug regime was found.  Richard was the subject of a BBC television series 'The Human Brain' and he wrote and broadcast extensively on the subject of his illness.  His autobiographical play 'Is It A Crime To Be Happy?' was performed by Samuel West in London and he carried on until the end of his life performing his cherished magic show to cheer up the infirm and elderly.  These are some precious dictaphone tapes which were left, with his suitcase of tricks, to his nephew, Mark Jameson, also known as Mr. Squash, an inspirational teacher and entertainer himself.  We hear Richard's bravery and vulnerability, his indomitable spirit, the wisdom of knowing what is reality and what is delusion....a wistfulness for a life without pain.  The last word on the tape is the last word he left.  Below are some links to articles written by Richard and one by Esther Rantzen describing the man she knew at Oxford.  
Piano by Henrietta Faire (Richard's niece):  Enrique Granados' Twelve Spanish Dances Op. 37 No. 5.

'No Longer On The Fringes'. https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2002/01/10/no-longer-on-the-fringes/
British Medical Journal 'Personal View' by Richard Jameson https://www.bmj.com/content/291/6494/541
'Survival is Magical'  https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2002/06/13/survival-is-magical/
'A Direct Line To Sanity'  https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2002/04/17/a-direct-line-to-sanity/
'The Bliss of Madness' https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4997178/?page=1
'Schizophrenia Experienced First Hand.' by Esther Rantzen https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/theatre/schizophrenia-experienced-first-hand-6331992.html

(This is the last episode of Series 1 of 'Changing Lives'.  Series 2 will start in September 2020)
Children across the world are being taught in a myriad different ways at the moment.  Schools are having to reinvent the very nature of schooling.  Some are relishing the opportunity and encouraging their teachers to be as creative as possible and some are not.  This is one young teacher's story.

I include a few short clips from an interview with the Head of OFSTED (the Office for Standards in Education in the UK), Amanda Spielman, with presenter Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4's morning news programme 'Today' last week.  

I am very happy to make a follow-up podcast with any reactions, responses, any comments at all from anyone anywhere in the world on this subject.  Please contact me via Twitter @vermont_sarah

Vulture populations are being decimated across the world and yet they are essential to the circle of life, disposing of carrion in a matter of minutes and allowing what remains to return to the earth.  In India the vultures are crucial in the ancient burial rite of the Parsi-Zoroastrian community but they have all but vanished in the past few years, poisoned by Diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug given to cattle.  This podcast takes a literal and metaphorical look at the vulture and the circle of life as it applies to our ecosystem and its imbalances and the role of destruction and rebirth in the economy and business.  There are interesting lessons to be learnt from the ancient faiths of the Jain and Parsi-Zoroastrian communities which both aim to live in complete harmony with the environment.

Very many thanks to my interviewees: Deli Saavedra in Barcelona, Regional Manager for Rewilding Europe, Peter Fiala, entrepreneur from East London, Anahita Havaldar from the Parsi-Zoroastrian community of Mumbai, Sonali Shahpurwala  from the Jain community of Mumbai and Michael Mainelli, Emeritus Professor of Commerce at Gresham College in the City of London.
'Righteousness is the best good
and it is happiness.
Happiness is to him/her who is righteous for the sake of the best righteousness.' One of the two most important  Zoroastrian prayers, the 'Ashem Vohu',  recited by Nyrika Mehta.
Piano: Henrietta Faire.  No.98 from Czerny’s 160 'Kurze Ubungen' (short excercises).

Albert Camus' philosophical novel, 'La Peste', is being read voraciously all over the world at the moment.  Written in 1947 it resonates with us today in a way Camus would probably never have imagined.  In this podcast we hear excerpts of his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1957 in which he describes the role of the writer in a world under constant threat by malign forces.  As we make the first tentative steps to come out of lockdown and emerge into a world where we will be living with an ongoing pandemic for the foreseeable future, I asked three academics to look at the lessons we can take from and parallels we can see in plagues from the past, using 'La Peste' as a springboard.  This is a montage of their reflections which are diverse but complementary and their message, like Camus', is one of guarded optimism.  
 We hear from Professor Rosemary Lloyd, Fellow Emerita of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, and Professor Emerita in French at Indiana University, Dr. Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and former Archbishop of Canterbury and Mark Bailey, Professor of Late Medieval History at the University of East Anglia and High Master of St. Paul's School.  Professor Bailey delivered the James Ford Lectures at Oxford University in 2019 on his specialist subject of thirty years, the Black Death, 'The End of Serfdom and The Rise of The West'.      

The excerpts from Camus' speech concerning the role of the writer translate as follows:
'Art, in my view, is not a solitary pleasure.  It is a means of stirring the greatest number of people by offering them a privileged picture of common joys and sufferings. It obliges the artist not to keep himself apart; it subjects him to the most humble and the most universal truth.' 
'..the nobility of our craft will always be rooted in two commitments, difficult to maintain: the refusal to lie about what one knows and the resistance to oppression.'
'..the silence of an unknown prisoner, abandoned to humiliations at the other end of the world, is enough to draw the writer out of his exile, at least whenever, in the midst of the privileges of freedom, he manages not to forget that silence, and to transmit it in order to make it resound by means of his art.' 
'Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself.' 
'Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road.'

The full speech is available on the Nobel Prize website at https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1957/camus/speech/
With many thanks to the Nobel Prize organisation for the use of excerpts of Albert Camus' speech and the photograph from their archive.
Many thanks to Ian Claussen, freelance existentialist, for translating and reading the passage at the beginning of the podcast from 'La Peste' and to the Estate of Albert Camus for allowing use of this extract.
Piano: Tamás Vásáry playing Frédéric Chopin's 'Nocturne Op. 09 Andante in E flat major' (Internet Archive)

Many people are reinventing themselves under lockdown.  So, when an email popped into my inbox 10 days ago inviting me to 15 minutes of smiling, laughing and connecting to boost my immune system and lift my mood for the rest of day, I thought 'Yes...that's exactly what we ALL need' so I made a podcast about it.  Flora Wellesley Wesley is a dancer, choreographer, teacher and writer and sits on the council of Equity (choreographers' seat).  She is also a founder member of Nora, a contemporary dance ensemble who make highly original work constantly challenging boundaries.  In this podcast we hear pieces of Nora's work woven through Flora's laughter workshop and a sung portrait of her made for '52 portraits' at Sadler's Wells.

“When you laugh, you change and when you change the whole world changes around you.” – Dr Madan Kataria, medical doctor and founder of Laughter Yoga.

Daily classes are listed at www.florawellesleywesley.com.

'52 Portraits' is a digital project by choreographer Jonathan Burrows, composer Matteo Fargion and video maker Hugo Glendinning.  Flora's song was performed by Francesca Fargion.

'BLOODY NORA! 'Concept, writing, choreography and direction: Liz Aggiss  Music: Richard Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra played by Portsmouth Sinfonia; Dead Belgian (by kind permission) Mazurka Limouson and Ne Me Quitte Pas; Johan Sebastian Bach Sheep May Safely Graze (Extract) and Prelude No. 5 in D; Alan Boorman/Wevie Hornpipe.

'Digging' Choreography: Simon Tanguy. Text: Eleanor Sikorski, Simon Tanguy and Flora Wellesley Wesley. Dramaturgy: Marzena Krzemińska.

Guest appearance at the end by Emily and Lucy Vermont (recorded for BBC Radio 5 in December 1991).

In the last week of February the wind blew me in to The Training Flat in Norwich where an eager group of young people were tucking into pizza, some chatting and laughing, some quiet and shy but all engaged.  This was a 3-day Tenancy and Independent Living Skills Plus (TILS+) training course to help set them up on their feet in the outside world.  The course is one of many invented and run by the social enterprise, Your Own Place, which was set up by Rebecca White in 2013 with the specific aim of preventing homelessness. They also have a network of mentors in the community who they train to support people leaving home or care and people approaching and after release from prison.  The team has suddenly, like every single social enterprise, or other business across the country, had to completely rethink how they operate under lockdown and how to reach all the people who need their support more than ever.  In this podcast we hear from CEO Rebecca, talented trainers, Jarrod and Jess, and past TILS+ trainee, Simon, who is now a member of their Youth Advisory Board... and last, but not least, a roomful of bright and lively young people who have all had many challenges in their lives.

Piano:  Henrietta Faire
'Fantasie und Fuge A-moll' by Johann Sebastian Bach
'Vals Poético' by Enrique Granados

Your Own Place have a fund-raising campaign called #MoreThanEver on  Crowdfunder.  CEO Rebecca White says:  
'We mustn't close as the government scheme requires - because we're needed more than ever.   Many people are isolated, scared, unsupported as well as losing their jobs and at risk of losing their homes too.  People who struggle to trust others need the people they already have trusted relationships with - that's us.  More than ever people are going to need support finding work, keeping on top of bills and keeping their home.  We have to keep going.’ www.yourownplace.org.uk

These are three interviews with three remarkable people from my previous podcast who I caught up with to find out what their experience of the last few weeks has been as the corona virus has taken hold in the UK and the whole country is under lockdown.  The Breathe Music classes were cancelled two weeks ago and Elmi and Noel are in the strictest form of self-isolation and Linda, who has worked as a specialist respiratory nurse for 20 years, is about to join the team of hard-pressed staff working in intensive care.  She has volunteered for this post and I spoke to her on Monday evening after a day's training in how they are managing in daily changing circumstances on the front line.  Her description of a set of lungs that were examined post mortem will stay with me for the rest of my life.