Podcast appearances and mentions of Esther Rantzen

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Dua Lipa brings out Jamiroquai at emotional Wembley debut Romantasy Why its happily ever after for romance books Prince William celebrates 43rd birthday with puppy photo Newspaper headlines Victory and uphill battle for assisted dying Assisted dying Esther Rantzen urges Lords not to block bill UK weather Thunderstorm warning issued as heatwave intensifies Israel Iran conflict unleashes wave of AI disinformation 32 nations but only one man matters Natos summit is all about Trump Tulsi Gabbard now says Iran could produce nuclear weapon within weeks NHS plans to DNA test all babies in England to assess disease risk

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater's assisted dying bill is back in the Commons for the report stage today – returning to parliament for the first time since major changes were made to the legislation. While Leadbeater has insisted the bill is coming back ‘even stronger' than before, support among MPs appears to be fading. The mood in parliament was different to the second reading – which listeners will remember as a self-congratulatory affair, hailed as a ‘historic' day by Leadbeater – but today's debate was notably more ill-tempered. The majority of speeches seemed to oppose the bill rather than support it, and a late intervention by Esther Rantzen did not help. The prevailing opinion appears to be that, while there is support for this kind of legislation, there is little backing for a private member's bill. If this bill does achieve Royal Assent, that will only mark the beginning of a complex challenge for Labour, who will then face major decisions on doctors, training and substances – all issues likely to dominate debate for the remainder of their term. Is Starmer right to hang his legacy on this issue? Lucy Dunn speaks to James Hale and Rajiv Shah, a former adviser to the Attorney General and in Number 10. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Cricket legend Sir Geoffrey Boycott is one of the world's most famous sportsmen. The England test batsman was the man who could defend against the very best fast bowlers, score plenty of runs and give England a chance.Theresa May once described him as her political hero; gritty, digging in and getting the runs in the end. But last year he discovered his throat cancer, which he first battled in 2002, had come back, undergoing a three-hour operation to remove the cancerous tissue.In this special episode of The Daily T, Geoffrey Boycott joins Kamal and Telegraph Chief Cricket Correspondent Nick Hoult to discuss pontificating politicians, showman sportsmen and why he's 'absolutely sympathetic' to Esther Rantzen's arguments for assisted dying.Read: Sir Geoffrey Boycott: After everything I've been through, I wouldn't be against assisted dying, by Oliver Brown: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2025/05/03/geoffrey-boycott-politics-farage-starmer-cancer-nhs-health/Senior Producer: John CadiganPlanning Editor: Venetia RaineyExecutive Producer: Louisa WellsSocial Media Producer: Rachel DuffyStudio Operator: Meghan SearleVideo Editor: Andy MackenizeOriginal music by Goss Studio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we bring you our fourth annual Christmas Cracker featuring some of the jokes as told by our guests this year including Miriam Margoyles, Esther Rantzen, Greyson Perry, and Robin Ince. More about Cally PRE-ORDER Cally's Namate Motherf**king book here Instagram: @callybeatoncomedian Twitter: @callybeaton Produced by Mike Hanson for Pod People Productions Instagram: @podpeopleuk Music by Jake Yapp Cover art by Jaijo Part of the Auddy Network Sponsorship: info@theloniouspunkproductions.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Cally and producer Mike celebrate ten of the very best women of a certain age to have graced the podcast with their presence: Kirsty Wark, Miriam Margolyes, Jenny Eclair, Helen Lederer, Sally Phillips, Philippa Perry, Deborah Meaden, Jackie Morris, Susie Dent and Esther Rantzen. Follow Namaste Motherfuckers now and go listen to those episodes in full! More about Cally PRE-ORDER Cally's Namate Motherf**king book here Instagram: @callybeatoncomedian Twitter: @callybeaton Produced by Mike Hanson for Pod People Productions Instagram: @podpeopleuk Music by Jake Yapp Cover art by Jaijo Part of the Auddy Network Sponsorship: info@theloniouspunkproductions.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Nick Ferrari at Breakfast,Dame Esther Rantzen says she is "disappointed' in Wes Streeting over his "vocal opposition" of the assisted dying bill. Shameless employers who commit serious offences will be banned from hiring overseas workers as part of a government crack down. Nick speaks to Minister for Migration Seema Malhotra. Jacob Rees-Mogg joins Nick in the studio to discuss his new fly-on-the-wall documentary series. All of this and more on Nick Ferrari - The Whole Show Podcast.

When Dame Esther Rantzen told Amol and Nick that she had joined the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland she helped reignite a debate about assisted dying in the UK. Now MPs are preparing to vote on a bill that would legalise it in England and Wales, so in this episode they catch-up with Dame Esther and speak to two MPs, Preet Kaur Gill and Warinder Singh Juss, about how their religion has influenced their thinking.They also discuss the interview Amol did with the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, whose private members' bill could bring about this colossal social change.The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson who are both presenters of BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Amol was the BBC's media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he's also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC's political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV's political editor. To get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories and insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme make sure you subscribe on BBC Sounds. That way you'll get an alert every time we release a new episode, and you won't miss our extra bonus episodes either. If you have a question you'd like Amol and Nick to answer about presenting the Today programme or something they discuss on the podcast, get in touch by sending us a message on WhatsApp to +44 330 123 4346 or email Today@bbc.co.ukThe Today Podcast was made by Lewis Vickers with Nadia Gyane. Research and digital production was by Joe Wilkinson. The technical producer was Dafydd Evans. The editor is Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths.

In this episode, Cally's guests are Esther Rantzen and her daughter Rebecca Wilcox on mums, daughters, fame, families, assisted dying, campaigning, Gogglebox, elocution, loneliness, philanthropy and legacy. Instagram: @soverybecca Childline Silverline Campaign for Dignity in Dying BBC Morning Live More about Cally Instagram: @callybeatoncomedian Twitter: @callybeaton Produced by Mike Hanson for Pod People Productions Instagram: @podpeopleuk Music by Jake Yapp Cover art by Jaijo Part of the Auddy Network Sponsorship: info@theloniouspunkproductions.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Policing Minister Chris Philp says in an article for the Telegraph that Stop and Search is a “vital tool” in taking knives off the streets that is “not used nearly often enough” by police. Kamal Ahmed and Camilla Tominey are joined on The Daily T by Shaun Bailey, the former Conservative candidate for London Mayor, who's been stopped and searched himself many times but still believes in it.Plus, the legendary broadcaster Esther Rantzen, who has been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, tells Kamal and Camilla why she believes assisted dying should be legalised in the UK, after last night's BBC One documentary 'Better off Dead', with actress Liz Carr, presented the case against. ReadEnding stop and search was a disaster for black kids, by Shaun BaileyTories tell police: Bring back stop and searchBetter Off Dead? review: Liz Carr presents a powerful argument against assisted dyingEmail: thedailyt@telegraph.co.ukThe Daily T Newsletter: telegraph.co.uk/dailytnewsletterSubscribe to The Telegraph: telegraph.co.uk/dailytsubToday's episode of The Daily T was produced by John Cadigan, Lilian Fawcett, and Georgia Coan. The Editor is Camilla Tominey. The planning editor is Venetia Rainey. The video producer is Luke Goodsall. The studio operator is Meghan Searle. The executive producer is Louisa Wells. Original music by Goss Studio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode of The Today Podcast, Amol and Nick take on more of your questions – on politics, AI and their approach to journalism.Friends of the pod Dame Esther Rantzen and Stephen Fry join other listeners in asking Amol and Nick questions like ‘how did we come to have such lightweight politicians in charge?' and ‘have you done any interviews that went so badly wrong that the memory makes you blush?'Episodes of The Today Podcast land every Thursday and watch out for bonus episodes. Subscribe on BBC Sounds to get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories of the week, with insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme.If you would like a question answering, get in touch by sending us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 4346 or email us Today@bbc.co.ukThe Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson, both presenters of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the UK's most influential radio news programme. Amol was the BBC's media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he's also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC's political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV's political editor.The senior producer is Tom Smithard, the producers are Hazel Morgan and Joe Wilkinson. The editor is Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths. Technical production from Dafydd Evans. Digital production from Elliot Ryder.

In this episode of The 5 O' Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with Rebecca Wilcox, journalist, broadcaster, deputy president of Childline and the daughter of Esther Rantzen. The Guardian newspaper have her down as “brilliant… both brainy and funny (a rare combination in a presenter), and a proper investigative journalist as well as a silly trigger-happy prankster." On the day of the recording, Claire drove to Rebecca's farmhouse, which as all best farms must, comes complete with an aged Argentinian polo horse horse named Chunk. Rebecca wanted some help to make her carbonara not “gloopy, grey or scrambled”, Claire, though bemused by Rebecca's suggestion for beans in a carbonara to begin with, is fully on board by the end of the episode. Armed with pancetta, the beans, some dried pasta and two types of cheese, Claire and Rebecca make carbonara together chatting teenage years in the 90's, winning Ready Steady Cook, drug deals for a television series and how to feed children in a way that makes sense in the maelstrom that is family life. Chop and chatter, on repeat. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joining Anton to discuss the legal and ethical questions surrounding assisted dying is Janie Lazar, Chairperson of End of Life Ireland & Esther Rantzen's daughter, Rebecca Wilcox.

Are we closer to allowing assisted dying? Or not?The Health and Social Affairs Committee in Parliament has made no recommendation on a vote – but votes might be coming in other places like the Isle of Man and Jersey soon.Dame Esther Rantzen, who has stage 4 lung cancer and called for MPs to vote on assisted dying on The Today Podcast, says she is 'disappointed' a new health committee report doesn't go that far.Listen to the Today programme on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds: 6-9am Monday-Friday; and 7-9am on Saturdays.

Joining us today is an esteemed actor who you'll know from the likes of Downton Abbey, Cold Feet, Toast of London and countless stage shows across the country: it's Robert Bathurst!He joins us the morning after another night spent inhabiting the troubled but intriguing life of journalist Jeffrey Bernard as part of his latest run of the one-man play Jeffrey Bernard is unwell. He chats about that, some of the most haunting - and hilarious - times he's died on stage and having the confidence to decline huge professional offers not truly suited to him. Even if it meant lying to Esther Rantzen!Make sure you're following us on Instagram @whitewine_questiontime!***Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks!*** Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dame Esther Rantzen is a tour de force: journalist, TV presenter and campaigner, her vision and dynamism brought about the nationwide helpline for children in distress, Childline. Through her massively popular consumer show That's Life, Esther was also responsible for campaigning for organ donation and introducing compulsory seatbelts for children, at the same time as showcasing viewers' faulty washing machines and laughing at misshapen vegetables. Recently, That's Life's incredible reunion of Sir Nicholas Winton with the children he had rescued from the Holocaust in Prague has been made the subject of the film One Life starring Sir Anthony Hopkins. Gyles and Dame Esther spoke over Zoom, and the interview was recorded in two parts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dame Esther Rantzen is a tour de force: journalist, TV presenter and campaigner, her vision and dynamism brought about the nationwide helpline for children in distress, Childline. Through her massively popular consumer show That's Life, Esther was also responsible for campaigning for organ donation and introducing compulsory seatbelts for children, at the same time as showcasing viewers' faulty washing machines and laughing at misshapen vegetables. Recently, That's Life's incredible reunion of Sir Nicholas Winton with the children he had rescued from the Holocaust in Prague has been made the subject of the film One Life starring Sir Anthony Hopkins. Gyles and Dame Esther spoke over Zoom, and the interview was recorded in two parts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cush Jumbo is the award-winning actor known for her roles on the stage and screen, from The Good Fight to Macbeth. She joins Clare McDonnell to discuss starring in - and executive producing – the new crime thriller series Criminal Record. Cush stars as DS June Lenker, a police detective locked in a confrontation with an older detective, played by Peter Capaldi, over a historic murder conviction.For the first time, Royal Mail has dedicated set of stamps to a female pop group, to commemorate 30 years since the Spice Girls formed in 1994. Lauren Bravo, a culture journalist and author and DJ Yinka Bokinni joined Emma to talk about it.Last week on Woman's Hour we heard the candid admission by the former Labour MP and Government Minister, Dame Joan Ruddock that she was ready to end her terminally ill husband's life using a pillow in a bid to end his pain. Her husband the former MP Frank Doran had been suffering from end stage bowel cancer in 2017, and she struggled to get him pain relief medication in the hours before he died. She is now calling for a free vote in the Commons to legalise assisted dying. The public debate around the subject has been revived in recent months by leading figures such as Esther Rantzen - who revealed that she is considering travelling to a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland if her cancer worsens. But others such as Baroness Ilora Finlay, a cross bench peer in the House of Lords and a palliative end of life care expert, are cautioning against a law change. She believes improved access to care and pain relief is the answer when people are dying rather than the taking of lethal drugs. She joins Clare McDonnell to reflect on the new push for a law change.Shere Hite - a name many people will remember, but some may not know. She was a pioneering feminist sex researcher who published her ground-breaking book, The Hite Report: A National Study of Female Sexuality in 1976. The book was seen by many as radical, changing prevailing notions about female sexuality. Shere went on to write and publish several more books, but endured intense and lasting criticism in the US, and eventually moved to Europe and renounced her American citizenship in 1995. She died in 2020. Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated Director, Nicole Newnham felt that despite how influential Shere had been in life, that she has since been forgotten. So Nicole produced the documentary, The Disappearance of Shere Hite, which is released in UK cinemas on January 12th. She joins Krupa to discuss it. As the number of pupils missing a significant amount of their education is about double the level it was before the pandemic, Clare is joined by Ellie Costello, the executive director of Square Peg, a not-for-profit which helps families that struggle with school attendance.

Woman's Hour investigates the cosmetic surgery clinic taking legal action when patients post unfavourable reviews. Kate Kronenbach tells reporter Melanie Abbott she was disappointed when she had an operation to remove fat from her arms after losing 10 stone, and received a solicitor's letter when she wrote about her experience on the Trustpilot website. Action has also been taken against five others. The Free Speech Union is supporting them in their case. Clare McDonnell discusses the story with Melanie and speaks to the Union and to patient campaigner Dawn Knight. Is speed-dating making a comeback? Apathy over dating apps seems to be pushing both men and women towards the kind of speed dating that was so popular in the nineties. But is it better than online dating? And does it work? Clare is joined by writer Radhika Sanghani and relationship counsellor Suzie Hayman to discuss.Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina won a controversial fourth consecutive term in Parliamentary elections last elections last Sunday. The opposition party called it a 'sham' election, coming after mass arrests of her political opponents and refused to participate. The leader of the Opposition former PM Khaleda Zia – also female - is under house arrest. Between them the two women have dominated Bangladeshi politics since 1991. BBC News South Asian Correspondent, Samira Hussain, joins Clare McDonnell to tell us more about these leaders and the political situation in Bangladesh. Last week on Woman's Hour we heard the candid admission by the former Labour MP and Government Minister, Dame Joan Ruddock that she was ready to end her terminally ill husband's life using a pillow in a bid to end his pain. Her husband the former MP Frank Doran had been suffering from end stage bowel cancer in 2017, and she struggled to get him pain relief medication in the hours before he died. She is now calling for a free vote in the Commons to legalise assisted dying. The public debate around the subject has been revived in recent months by leading figures such as Esther Rantzen - who revealed that she is considering travelling to a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland if her cancer worsens; and the late Dame Diana Rigg, who made a recording before her death making the case for assisted dying. But others such as Baroness Ilora Finlay, a cross bench peer in the House of Lords and a palliative end of life care expert, are cautioning against a law change. She believes improved access to care and pain relief is the answer when people are dying rather than the taking of lethal drugs. She joins Clare McDonnell to reflect on the new push for a law change.Presented by Clare McDonnell Producer: Louise Corley

There's fresh debate on whether the UK should change the law to allow assisted dying, sparked this week by well known British broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen, who has stage four lung cancer. She has joined the assisted dying clinic Dignitas. Dame Esther is urging the Government to allow a free vote on assisted dying - as it has been more than eight years since it was last debated by MPs. And the Irish government is to begin a legal challenge against the UK Government over legislation which offers immunity for Troubles-era crimes. The Troubles Legacy Act includes a limited form of immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related offences for those who co-operate with the new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR). But the Irish government believes the Act breaches the UN Convention on Human Rights.

Dame Esther Rantzen is a broadcasting legend, responsible for some of the most famous moments in television history. She blazoned a trail for women in the media and has and has made a huge impact with her charity campaign work. Today she is continuing to make headlines for her battle with stage-four lung cancer. In a remarkably candid interview with Amol and Nick, she reflects on her career and opens up about the impact the disease has had on her life. She speaks about not having expected to see this Christmas – and why she now wants parliament to vote on legalising assisted dying, something she is now considering for herself. This is a special bonus episode of the Today Podcast. Episodes of The Today Podcast land every Thursday and watch out for bonus episodes. Subscribe on BBC Sounds to get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories of the week, with insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme. If you would like a question answering, get in touch by sending us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 4346 or email us Today@bbc.co.uk The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson, both presenters of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the UK's most influential radio news programme. Amol was the BBC's media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he's also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC's political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV's political editor. The senior producer is Tom Smithard, the producer is Rufus Gray. The editors are Jonathan Aspinwall and Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths. Studio direction from Jack Graysmark.

Discussions continue here in Ireland around laws that would allow for assisted dying in this country. Dame Esther Rantzen, announced today that she has signed up to Dignitas, so that if her cancer treatment doesn't go to plan, she will have the option to do that. Kieran was joined by her daughter Rebecca Wilcox on The Hard Shoulder to discuss...

COFFEE MOANING the PODCAST ON APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/coffee-moaning/id1689250679ON SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/3p6z4A1RbhidO0pnOGGZl2?si=IqwD7REzTwWdwsbn2gzWCg&nd=1HOW TO STAY MARRIED (SO FAR) the PODCASTON SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/57MT4cv2c3i06ryQlIpUXc?si=1b5ed24f40c54ebaON APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/how-to-stay-married-so-far/id1294257563AGONY AUNT & UNCLE the PODCASTON SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/10G1HRFFGNRze1QegIeozs?si=158f37e366dd4ba0ON APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/agony-aunt-uncle-with-nadia-sawalha-and-mark-adderley/id1668850817 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Archers is still being discussed, to no one's surprise... But, they also manage to cover their journalistic capabilities, Nigel Farage on Strictly and Jane's pepper mill. Plus, friend of the show Dame Esther Rantzen joins them to reflect on her career, discuss her health and share her hopes for the future. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: janeandfi@times.radio Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Assistant Producer: Eve Salusbury Times Radio Producer: Kate Lee Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The legendary broadcaster Sir Michael Parkinson has died after a brief illness at the age of 88. For more reaction to this, Kieran was joined by Dame Esther Rantzen to discuss...

Discussing her life and career and specifically her series “That's Life”. That's Life! was a TV consumer affairs programme on the BBC, at its height regularly reaching audiences of fifteen to twenty million, and receiving 10–15,000 letters a week.Todays Sponsors:AG1: drinkAG1.com/HOWTOWOWCarFest: https://carfest.org/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join us as presenter, author and farmer Kate Humble guides us through magical ancient woodland near her remote Wales home in the Wye Valley. With infectious enthusiasm and occasional impressions, she tells us about the plants and animals along our route as well as the story of her accidental career, becoming host of nation's favourite Springwatch having never wanted to be a TV presenter! Kate also talks worldwide travels, access to nature and planting trees with the Woodland Trust on her smallholding. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife.  Adam: Well, in early spring I went on a woodland walk in Wales with presenter, author and farmer Kate Humble, who was taking me around what promised to be some amazing woodland with her dogs. But as is increasingly common in these podcasts we of course had to begin with me getting absolutely and entirely lost.   This is an absolute disaster. Although I am bad at directions, this is not my fault *laughs* So Kate sent me a pin, she said look this is going to be hard to find my place, she sent me a map pin. I followed the map pin. Look I'm here I don't know if you can hear this you probably can't hear this. This is the gate that's locked, which is across some woodland path. So I can't get there. And of course there is no phone signal, so I'm going to have to drive all the way back to some town to find a phone signal. And I'm already late.   OK. I have managed to find a village where there is a phone signal. I've managed to call Kate and Kate *laughs* Kate has clearly got the measure of me and told me to give up and she is now going to get in her car and find me in this village and I will follow her back. In the meantime, we have passed Google map pins back and forwards, which apparently tell her that I'm sitting outside her house. But I really am nowhere near her house, so I seem to have broken Google which well, that's a first. Anyway I've got a banana here, so if she's a long time, I have dinner and I'll just wait. This will never happen. This will actually never happen.   Well we've found Kate. We've found a whirly country drive lane. Feels a bit like rally driving. It's like, I mean, I don't understand why my map wouldn't find it, but this is certainly a bit of rally driving we're doing here getting to her house. My goodness. We found her house.   OK. Well, we're here. Which I never thought I I really thought it was really lovely. The idea was nice, and next time I'm in Wales, I'll give you a call so really, it's it's better than I thought better than I thought. Anyway, so you're leading me off with your two dogs.  Kate: I am. I am. I'm leading you off into one of the most beautiful I think I mean, obviously I'm a little bit biased but it is one of the most important areas of ancient woodland in Britain. This is the Wye Valley. We're the lower Wye valley, so we are the the the the bit really where the River Wye is in its sort of last bit of its journey. It's risen in mid Wales, about 136 miles from here. I know that cause I've walked the whole route.  Adam: Really, we're not doing that today, are we?  Kate: No we're not no I promise. I promise Adam. So yes and we are basically about 5 or 6 miles from where it flows into the River Severn and then out into the Bristol Channel and the woods around here are a lovely mix of broadleaf, so we're walking through broadleaf woodland now and this is literally this is what I walk out of my front door. Aren't I lucky?  Adam: You are lucky.  Kate: I'm so lucky. So we've got a lovely mix of broadleaf woodland now and we're just coming into that time of year. Which is the time of year that makes everybody's spirits lift, because we are coming into spring, and if we actually just stop just for a second. You can hear that's a blue tit calling *imitates sound* and I mean, this isn't the perfect day for birdsong, but the birdsong was really picking up. And that's the lovely thing about living alongside woodland. So even in the winter, even when you don't think there are any birds at all, what you hear in these words is *imitates sound* that's a very, very bad impression of a great spotted woodpecker.  Adam: OK, I'm glad you. I I was guessing it might be a woodpecker, but I didn't want to.  Kate: So they start to drum around about sort of late January, they'll be drumming. And and then as the and we also have tawny owls, lots of tawny owls in these woods. We've got an owl box and we used to have an owl that we called Percy who we have no idea whether it was a boy or girl.  Adam: I was gonna say it was, a reason it was called Percy?  Kate: Don't know, just it just it looked like a Percy.  Adam: Just fancied the name. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah.  Kate: But we have lovely tawny owls here. So, you know, at dusk and and when when I take the dogs out sort of last thing at night round about 10 o'clock 11:00 o'clock at night we walk down this track and and you stand here and you hear this wonderful and everyone thinks you know, tawny owls go toowit toowoo. They're the classic toowit toowoo owls, but actually you've got 2 owls calling, so you've got the male going *imitates noise* and then you have the females going *imitates noise*. And they're calling each other, establishing territories or going ooh I like the sound of you, there's a bit of flirting going on. So these are, as I say really it's it's just the biggest treat to live with this on my doorstep.  Adam: Right, so fantastic. You you clearly I mean, you've launched into a sort of fantastic description and detailed knowledge, but you are not a country girl by birth are you?  Kate: No, I am a country girl by birth.   Adam: Oh you are? I though you were born in London?  Kate: I am. No. Well, I was you're right, I was I was  Adam: Sorry, do I know where you were born and you don't.  Kate: Well, being born and where you were brought up is different.   Adam: Yeah, OK. OK, fair enough.  Kate: So I was, you're absolutely right, I was born in London. I was born in well, I was born in Wimbledon in fact. This is my neighbour by the way.  Adam: Right. Right. Wow. I didn't, we're in the middle of nowhere I didn't know there'd be a neighbour.  Kate: I know, but I know. But there are other people mad enough to live in these woods, and he's particularly mad.  Adam: OK. Does he mind you saying that?   Kate: Not at all. Not at all. No. He's absolutely used to it. Hello. Come and say hello to the Woodland Trust podcast.   Adam: No. OK, I'm just checking. OK. Hi, I'm Adam. Hi. Nice to see you. Yeah, I hear you're her neighbour.  Kate: This is this is this is writer Mark Mccrum and his dog Jabba. Yes. So I'm just dragging Adam down to take a look at the ponds and talking about the ponds down there.  Mark: Oh lovely. Which ponds?  Kate: The ponds down there.  Mark: Oh those ones? Yeah, very good. I might see you on the reverse cause I'm gonna go all the way round.  Kate: Oh you're gonna go round. OK, fine. Lovely.  Mark: These are lovely woods cause you never see anybody here. *all laugh*  Adam: I'm sorry.  Kate: Apart from you   Adam: I was gonna say, and me, I've ruined it.  Kate: Yeah we're the only people who see each other aren't we.  Adam: So you were telling me you are you are born in Wimbledon, but you you grew up in the country then?   Kate: Yeah. So I was I was born in Wimbledon and yes. So after about, I think I was about six months old, my mother always says that she realised that London was clearly not the place for me and   Adam: From six months? Outward bound baby were you?  Kate: Yes! She said she said there basically wasn't enough space in London for me. So so yes, so I was brought up in Berkshire, right? And I was brought up next to a farm. So I was always a sort of vicariously farming kid. Even though my parents weren't farmers and and spent my childhood looking after various animals of various descriptions, and I think the wonderful thing about being the age I am, so everyone bemoans being old, but I think I just I I am so thankful that I was born in the sixties.  Adam: Why?  Kate: Because no one had invented health and safety, climbing trees, no one had climbing frames, you climbed trees. And I think the trees enjoyed it, and so did you. And if you hadn't fallen out of quite a lot of trees by the time you were 10 and had various, you know, scars or broken bits as proof of a proper childhood, it wasn't a proper childhood.   Adam: Right. OK.   Kate: So I had a lovely proper childhood of, you know, not being plonked in front of a screen of some description or another. We're going to cut off piste a little bit and head down here.  Adam: OK, I'm is this a precursor warning that I'm about to get bumps and scrapes and?  Kate: This is a precursor warning that you might yes, you might. It's quite a steep descent.  Adam: OK just as long as my, my face is my fortune though, as long as that's safeguarded throughout this, that'll be fine. OK. Well, that's good. Yeah. Lots of leaves around. Yeah.  Kate: Of course it will be a soft landing whatever you say. Lots of leaves. One of the nice things again about broadleaf woodland. And as you can see, I'm sure your leaf identification is brilliant, but we've got a lovely mix of oak here and beech, as well as the evergreen so the hollies and lovely, lovely mosses. But yes, what you're walking on is is a sort of glorious mulchy carpet, but we have a profusion of bluebells.  Adam: Already they've come up?  Kate: Well the bluebells, the the plants themselves have come up so the leaves are up and there are one or two I'm going to show you, is it, will it be your first bluebell of the year?  Adam: It, almost, almost we we can pretend it is for dramatic purposes. Let's let's go along.  Kate: OK, OK. They are, they're just, they're just starting to come here now and and you get that lovely moment. It'll be about probably about three weeks or a month's time, slightly depending on on what the weather does, where you get the, the unfurling of the beech trees. So that glorious kind of neon green which when the light goes through you get that sort of wonderful, almost disco light effect show.  Adam: And aren't they in Welsh, aren't they called cuckoos? The Welsh translation for bluebells is cuckoo clock. I think it's because it's like it's a harbinger of spring along with the cuckoo.  Kate: Oh, I didn't know that.  Adam: Oh my God, I found something you didn't know.  Kate: You know, you know, you'll know lots, I don't know, but  Adam: No, no, let's hope that's true that's that's I'll have to go check that. Do check that before you tell anybody.   Kate: Well, I'll just blame you.  Adam: But no, I do think in Welsh the translation for Bluebell is is cuckoo clock or something like that because it is this harbinger of spring and I think that's it's a really nice I I won't even try the Welsh but in Welsh it sounds very so I mean, I thought we were going to chat about your conversion to nature and everything, but actually that's a lot of nonsense. This is this has been a constant in your life?   Kate: Well, it's been, I mean, coming to Wales, so I did live in London, you know, after I left home.  Adam: Except, I mean, you didn't choose a a nature career, did you? I mean, you you're involved now we can talk about that. But first, what was your first career?  Kate: Well, I mean. Career always seems such a grand word and that you've planned it.  Adam: Yeah. OK, so your accidental career.  Kate: So my accidental career, well, I had this idea that that I that I wanted to work in television, although again I don't really know where that came from. We're going just down here. Part of me also wanted to be a a safari guide.  Adam: Good. I can see the appeal of that.  Kate: I went to I when I was 19 having never really been abroad at all, because again, our generation didn't really go abroad as a matter of course. So I went to Africa when I was 19 and.  Adam: Sorry we're not talking on a holiday?  Kate: No it was a well it was a it was probably a rebellion.   Adam: Right. You went as far away as your your parents as you could. I'm not going out for the evening I'm popping off to Africa?  Kate: Yes, yes. I'm popping off to Africa and I don't know when I'll be back. One of those.  Adam: Right. Yeah, good. Good exit line. So where, where, where in Africa were you and what were you doing there?  Kate: So I I started in South Africa. I ended up in Egypt.  Adam: Right, just bumming around doing sort of bar work or doing something more serious?  Kate: I did I did I was a waitress for a little bit, but I was very, very bad and was sacked. I I was a model for a little bit, also very bad, very bad at that too.   Adam: Why were you so bad at that?   Kate: Because because I really don't like having my photograph taken and I really like food.  Adam: Yes, OK well I would I would have guessed I could have advised you that wasn't the career for you.  Kate: So so the two things, yeah, didn't really weren't terribly compatible to that. But I then got a job as a cook and a driver on a safari, and I drove a truck aged 19, having never really been out of Berkshire, from Cape Town, through Botswana and into Zimbabwe. And and then I hitched back to Cape Town. So I had a a real adventure. But what I what it really did for me was, having had this very sort of unconsciously wild childhood, I don't mean you know lots of parties and taking drugs I mean, a natural wild childhood, I then went to a place where the natural world was was so extraordinary and so mindblowing, and on a scale, you know, everything was was was like technicolour. You know, the birds were amazing. The the you know the the the size of the animals, the proliferation of the wildlife, the size of the landscapes, the emptiness and I think it was that journey that turned my mind to really re-look and re-examine the natural world and think it's, you know, it's extraordinary, it's it's mind blowing in every way and so even though I then came back and thought I want to have this sort of career in telly what I really wanted to do in my career in telly was work for the natural history unit.  Adam: Right. And is that what you did?  Kate: No. Not initially anyway.  Adam: OK, but you have done, I mean you've done nature programmes, lots of nature programmes. What did you first start doing?  Kate: We're going down here. I have. So I first started sweeping streets in the East End.  Adam: In EastEnders?  Kate: No, in the East End, no. I was a runner so I basically got jobs wherever I could get jobs and I got a job on a commercial that happened to be shooting in the East End and they needed the streets swept and so that was one of my jobs. But had no plans to be on the telly that that really did happen by mistake.  Adam: I think you know my first job in telly. I don't know if you remember That's Life with Esther Rantzen. Do you remember they she always had rude, funny vegetables?   Kate: I do, yes  Adam: That was my job to find them, yeah so only only marginally above the street sweeping.   Kate: Oh my goodness!  Adam: So you got how did you get picked there? I mean, we gotta get back to the natural world. But you've had such such a fantastic life. So I mean, I think people will be fascinated to know you have not much of even a vague plan about what you're doing. You're fumbling about a bit.  Kate: None, yeah. Living in a squat. Eating crisps.  Adam: So yeah, right. So not many models will be will be living like that and eating crisps, I get that You're sweeping streets as your way into telly, all of a sudden you're on telly. How did that happen, was that more of a plan or did someone just turn around and go, hey, you, street sweeper, you'll do?  Kate: No, it wasn't. So I had I had graduated from street sweeper, so it took about probably four four or five years I have become by now a sort of senior researcher. And I got a job at the BBC. My first job at the BBC on a programme called Animal Hospital.  Adam: Right. Yes. And you were still a researcher there or presenter?  Kate: Yeah, as a researcher. And and I think the reason that I got the job was actually my childhood. Because I think it was the first series, in fact, I think the only series that they did of Animal Hospital in a rural practice. So we went to a practice that didn't just do small animals, pets type animals, but also bigger animals like farm animals and horses and I think the only reason I got the job was that I was the only person they interviewed who knew what to do with something bigger than a hamster.   Adam: Right ok great.  Kate: And I had my own wellies.  Adam: Oh good. Always important for a career in telly, your own wellies, see these are the secrets people wanna know. Good. So you've got your wellies?   Kate: Always really, really important. They are. So I got that job I got that researcher job. And at the end of it, the BBC do this appraisal thing. And they said we thought you were alright, you did OK, will you come back and do the next series and I said I'd absolutely love to. I'd really loved it, absolutely loved it. Can we just pause here a minute because this,  Adam: A sea of wild garlic?  Kate: No, these are bluebells.  Adam: These are bluebells? Oh, sorry. Look at the ignorance here.  Kate: These are bluebells. Well, those white flowers let me show you these because they're beautiful.  Adam: I thought like I I think that's what I thought was wild garlic shows you *unintelligible* OK, we've got a proper safari expert.  Kate: No. So look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, first bluebell starting to unfurl except my dog's just walked all over it. Come on you're not supposed to walk on there.  Adam: So this is, all of this is bluebells?  Kate: So all of this will be bluebells and in about 3 weeks time you get this absolutely, it's so blue it's like the colour actually detaches itself from the flowers and floats above it in this sort of glorious mist, it's beautiful. But this these flowers here I love. And these are these are one of the flowers along with celandines which are the kind of waxy yellow flowers that people will see in woodlands and even in their gardens at this time of year, these are wood anemones. And they are lovely, very delicate white flowers with these slightly sort of hand-like leaves and the lovely thing about these, they're not looking at their best at the moment because it's been quite a wet day. But when the sun's out, they open to the sun like these brilliant white stars. And sometimes there are areas around here where you'll see carpets of wood anemones and they're one of the first I've seen these as early as January, although not this year because we had lots of frosts.  Adam: It's funny you, you, you, you use the word magical I'm just looking at this tree with covered in moss and everything, there is something magical about these sorts of places, a sort of sense of, sense of, a Tolkien type moment isnt there?.  Kate: Absolutely. Absolutely. I've I I don't think it is a coincidence that lots of fairytales are set in woodlands because there is something otherworldly about them. We're going to head keep heading down just so that you have a really good climb on the way up.  Adam: Yeah, I was gonna say I'm fine going down, I'm assuming you're sending a car to pick me up? It's well a little, a little Uber will just I'm sure,   Kate: Nice try, Adam! Lots of Ubers around here. Look, look, look.   Adam: Oh look now that is OK that's a proper bluebell.  Kate: That is a, a, a bluebell that's a proper bluebell.  Adam: Yeah, that is my first proper bluebell of the year.  Kate: And you can see all the others are just starting to come.  Adam: And that's and it is lovely because clearly so few people come here that's the problem often with bluebells is when people trample all over them. And we've got just one clean path down here and it's completely undisturbed for as far as the eye can see. So yes, we OK, we we did a little pit stop for bluebells. We're back on and the what was the programme, animal?  Kate: Animal Animal Hospital.  Adam: Animal Hospital. So they wanted you back as a researcher. I'm interested in the jump from behind the screen to on screen.  Kate: So so they basically said lovely we'll see you in four months and I said oh well, I've got a landlord and rent to pay, I can't not work for four months. I'm going to have to get another job and it may mean that I'm not available. And they said ohh well, maybe we can find you something else within the BBC as a stopgap. And I had also at that point, so this is the mid 90s now, started writing. I was writing travel. And I'd spent at the the a end of a a, the second Africa trip that I did between 94 and 95, I'd spent the last two months of that in Madagascar.  Adam: Right.  Kate: Madagascar was a place that I was obsessed with because of its wildlife because it has unique flora and fauna. I came back and got an article commissioned to write about it, and it was the first,  Adam: Your first commission?  Kate: Yes, my first commission and my first article, and it was in a broad a broadsheet newspaper, and I was very excited and very proud about that. And so when I was asked by the series producer of the BBC Holiday programme, whether I would consider coming to work for them because I was a travel writer,  Adam: Right OK, yeah, you're now a travel writer because of your one article.  Kate: I am I am now a I am now a travel writer on the strength of one of one article.  Adam: Whoa oh Kate, I'm so glad you were the first person to sort of go over *Kate laughs* That was before me I just want that on record.   Kate: Yeah.   Adam: OK so I haven't gone over yet.   Kate: You haven't got over yet.   Adam: OK. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.  Kate: Yes. So I got a job on the BBC Holiday programme. Anyway the next day I got called into the big boss's office. And I assumed that my short lived career at the BBC Holiday programme was about to be ended because I wasn't quite sure why, but perhaps because I hadn't been taking the producers guidelines as seriously as I might and that also I had smoked on a fire escape, which probably wasn't a good idea. And instead I was asked to do a screen test and I assumed that this was the sort of common test that the Holiday programme did and I tried to say I really don't want to be a presenter thank you, I love doing, I love making the programmes, I love the research, I love talking to people, I love putting things together. I'm quite, I like logistics. I'm quite, you know, I like all that stuff I don't want to be a presenter. And they went well do a do a screen test. So at this point I just thought I've just got to get out of this office because I feel very embarrassed by the whole situation. So I will just nod smile say yes, do it, it'll be a disaster, and then everything can go back to normal. So that's what I did. Three weeks later, the boss came into the office,  Adam: Sorry, we have to stop. This is a story that's gonna last all day, cause I keep stopping because your dog is posing or it was posing beautifully by this river.  Kate: Well, so this river is an important, one of the sort of parallel streams that run into the River Wye for this is the Angidy, we are in the Angidy Valley, surrounded by amazing woodland on both sides, it's a very steep sided valley. This river is particularly good for dippers, which are those lovely chocolate brown and white birds, they look like little waiters.  Adam: Right *laughs*  Kate: And they and they, they're called dippers because that's exactly what they do. So we'll keep an eye out because we might see some, but they'll sit on a stone like that exposed stone within the waterfall there and they will jump into the water and literally completely submerge. They'll disappear completely and they're looking for things like caddisfly larva, which is what they feed on, and then they'll bob up and come back up and they're they're just these wonderful, perky, very smart little birds.  Adam: Brilliant, OK.  Kate: They're the only British songbird that is also a water bird.  Adam: Wow, OK, good. All right.   Kate: There you are, little bit of, little bit of,  Adam: No, I like these these these sorts of diversions we take, it's it's almost like doing a stand up routine, so we're gonna go gonna go back to the story now. So you thought everybody in the world gets a screen test. So I'm just doing this and then they'll leave me alone.  Kate: Yes, yes. And and then the boss came into the office about 3 weeks later. And she said, can you go to France tomorrow? And I said yes, of course, assuming that they needed somebody to carry the heavy stuff. Bhcause carrying heavy stuff is the other thing that I am good at. I can whistle very loudly and I can carry very heavy things and those are really the only two things that I can offer the world.  Adam: OK, I I you, you have set yourself up for a big whistle at the end, so we'll we'll wait for that then let's hold out.  Kate: It it will blow your ears well, that's all I'm saying. So she said, we want you to present a film on a barge in Normandy, could you please do something about my hair, she said. My own hair.  Adam: I see she didn't ask you to be a hairdresser? Also could you cut my hair?  Kate: Yes could you cut my hair *laughs*. No, could you do something about your hair, she said. I thought she's been talking to my mum, who constantly despairs of my lack of my lack of grooming.  Adam: Right, also right at this point of hair hair disasters, we have to pause because we've come across as you may hear an extraordinary small waterfall, it's a weir, really, isn't it?   Kate: It is really.  Adam: I'm gonna take another photo of this before we get back to the life and misadventures of Kate Humble. So I'm just gonna take a photo. You'll find that, no doubt on one of our Twitter feeds. Oh, I know beautiful, oh no the dogs disappeared, the dog doesn't like posing for me. But all right, so now, you're off to France. You need a haircut and,  Kate: So I'm off to France. I need I need I need to basically smarten myself up. Off I went to France and presented my first film.  Adam: Right. And that was, I mean, we could talk about this forever, but that was the beginning of that was the beginning of this, the story. OK, well, amazing.  Kate: Yes. My first job for the natural history unit came in 2000. And I was asked to do a programme, which was a sort of, was made in response to Blue Planet. So the very first series of the Blue Planet, which I think everybody watched with their mouths open because we had never seen the oceans in that way before, particularly the deep ocean. And there was a phrase used which I have used many, many times since, which was that more people have been to the moon than there have been to the deep ocean. And people were fascinated by these, they were they were creatures that looked like they might have been designed for Star Wars. They were so extraordinary.  Adam: These sort of angler fish which have which have this light don't they.  Kate: That sort of thing, and these these, you know, these astonishing, you know, plankton with flashing lights, there were Dumbo octopus with, you know, little octopus with these sort of literally did look like Dumbo the elephant, you know, deep water sharks that people had never seen before that were really slow moving and and, you know astonishingly well-adapted to live at depths and in in at water pressure that no one thought anything could exist in and come on dogs we're gonna keep, do you wanna have a,  Adam: And so yours was a response, in what way?   Kate: So we did a live,  Adam: The dogs keep looking at me like they want me to throw something for them is that what's going on?  Kate: They do, and I'm going to just try and find a, here let's try let's try this, here we are.  Adam: Look, they're very, oh you've thrown it into the river?   Kate: Go on, in you go.  Adam: Oh, look at that go!  Kate: Come on Teg, do you wanna go in as well? Here you are. This one's going to sink, go on. Ready? Go. Good girl. Where's it gone? Teggy, it's just there. That's it. Well done, well done, dogs.  Adam: Oh they like that.  Kate: Well, I can't go and get it, you have to bring it here, that's the deal with sticks *laughs* So we did a live programme from a boat in Monterey Bay. I made some films to play into that live show. So I went to the Cayman Islands, which is a rotten thing to ask anybody to do, can you imagine?  Adam: Terrible, terrible. You wanted to be back in the East End really.  Kate: I did really, sweeping streets and instead there I was, doing films about coral reefs and this is the one of, this is the wonderful thing about the natural history unit or just about making films with animals is the lengths that you have to go to to be able to capture the natural world in all its wonder. And so I was asked to go and film a shark called a six gill shark that lives very deep and only about 10 people in the world had ever seen. And I was sent to go and find this creature. You know, I can't I can't even now I can't really believe that I was asked to do that.   Adam: And did you find it?  Kate: Eventually. We had to do two, we did one trip we failed to find it,   Adam: How how long was that?  Kate: So that was, we did 6 dives. It was an amazing trip. We didn't get the shark on the first trip. We went back for another trip. We didn't get it. We didn't get it. We finally got it and it was incredible. Incredible moment. And that was the first job that I did for the natural history unit and there was then somebody who came up with the idea of doing British wildlife life live at kind of springtime, like kind of now.   Adam: And this was Springwatch was it?  Kate: This was the precursor to Springwatch.   Adam: Oh I didn't know there was one.  Kate: There were two!  Adam: What were they called?  Kate: So the first one was called Wild In Your Garden. So I'm just going to put the dogs on a lead here. Hold on, poppet. Just hold on my poppet. That's it. We've got to take Adam up the hill now. So yes, so the first one was called Wild In Your Garden and it was Bill Oddie and Simon King and me. And we did two shows a night, from gardens in Bristol, and it sort of worked as an idea.  Adam: Right. OK.  Kate: It worked well enough or it wasn't so much of a disaster that there wasn't a thought of let's try it slightly differently, maybe on a farm instead of in the garden, and we went to this wonderful organic farm in Devon and basically made camp for three weeks. And made a series called Britain Goes Wild. And Britain went a tiny bit wild. And so the following year we thought, well, we'll do it again, but maybe we'll just call it something different.  Adam: Right.  Kate: And someone came up with the idea of calling it spring watch and everyone said, and it always went out at the same time as it does now, sort of end of May and people go, it's not really spring though is it? And we're like, well spring enough, still spring things happening and Springwatch seemed to capture everybody's imaginations and and I presented that for 10 years.  Adam: And you presented that for how many, how many years?  Kate: Ten.  Adam: Blimey! That's a long,  Kate: Yeah, I know. I've just grown old on telly and then Autumnwatch came into being and then Winterwatch and I did Seawatch. So I did a series about British Britain's seas and and marine life. Yeah. So I did eventually get my wish of working for the natural history unit.  Adam: Oh, that's very good. The fairy godmother in the form of the BBC descended and granted your wish. And now from all of those adventures abroad and on TV and everything you then said, I'm gonna move to this really quite, there's another car coming, quite quite remote parts of Wales. Why that?  Kate: We're going to head up here. Hold on, dogs. There we are.  Adam: Oh there's some steps. Hallelujah.  Kate: OK, only for this little bit.  Adam: Look, stop stop taking away the hope.  Kate: *laughs* So so I we moved,  Adam: Yes so you you picked up sticks and then moved to Wales. Perhaps it's not such a big move because the natural world has seemed to be always the centre of things for you. So but why Wales in particular?  Kate: Well, that is a curious question. I had no connection with Wales as far as I was aware. I honestly honestly can't tell you why I felt this extraordinary pull to live here. But it really was it was like a magnetic pull. There is actually a a Welsh word and I'm not sure I'm really allowed to use it in my context, but I can't think of a better word to use for the feeling that I had. And it's hiraeth and is a word that it's sort of more than home sickness. It's like a deep longing for the place that you belong. A yearning, a pit of the stomach emptiness for your home.  Adam: You felt this was a spiritual home, did you?   Kate: I don't know I really don't know, Adam. I, as I say I just had this extraordinary pull to live here. And yeah, I would look at the, there are these old fashioned things called maps, and I would look at the A to Z of Great Britain. And you know, there I was in the South East and if you look at a thing called a map,  Adam: Yes, sorry is this a point about me getting lost on the way to you.   Kate: No no not even remotely. No, it's the fact that no one uses them anymore, and yet, they're the greatest treasures we have. So if you look at a map, the South East of England is just this chaos of colour and roads and towns and names. And it's just, you know, there's not a square millimetre that hasn't got a name in it or something in. The further west you go, the browner the map becomes, and when you go over the border into Wales, it's mainly brown and green and it's got beautiful lyrical names like Abergavenny and and it's got mountains and mountains, when you've been brought up in Berkshire mountains are the height of exoticism. To live in a in a country that had mountains all of its own just struck me as being remarkable. I still, 15 years on, find it remarkable that I can I can get up at breakfast, not go terribly far, and climb a bona fide mountain. I love that. And that's what I love about Wales.  Adam: And and you've done more than, I mean, people might feel that and move to a beautiful part of the country and live there and more or less carry on with their ordinary life. But you've not done that. I mean, you're not just you don't just go for walks, the natural world is something you've created a a new career out of as well. Is that fair?  Kate: I wouldn't call it a career.  Adam: OK but you're very much well, but you make money from it and it fills your days.   Kate: Well, no, no, I don't think I don't know I don't I don't think that's I don't think that's true at all. I think you know I my working life is peculiar. I've I still am involved making television programmes, some of which involve the natural world. I still write, some of that's about the natural world, but not all of it. The natural world for me is nothing to do with making a living. Making a living. But it is about living. And it was one of the things that I was acutely aware of when I lived in London was I felt cut off from the seasons. This year you know, I know I can tell you that I didn't hear a skylark until the middle of March last year it was Valentine's Day. I can tell you that because that's what I'm experiencing. And I love feeling that instead of the natural world being something I watch on the television or I read about in a book that I am able to be part of it. And that's one of the big problems I think that we face now with trying to engage people with the importance of things like biodiversity, species loss, habitat loss. None of those things sound very sexy, and none of those things appear to matter to us because we as a species so weirdly and inexplicably view ourselves as a species separate from the natural world and the natural world has become something that we just watch for our entertainment. But we are just another mammal in this amazingly complex, beautiful, brilliant web that is the biodiversity web, where everything fits in and everything works together, and one thing feeds another thing and you know, until we feel properly part of that, immersed in it and and wrapped up in it, why are we ever going to worry about the fact that it is now a biodiversity net that's full of holes, and those holes mean that the net becomes less and less effective and the less effective that net becomes, the more it affects us, but we see ourselves as somehow immune from that process and we're not. And what I love about living here, what I love about walking in this area every day, twice a day, is the fact that I feel that I can, I'm I'm more in tune with our natural world and that is sadly, it shouldn't feel a it shouldn't be a privilege, but it is.  Adam: And do you feel, I mean, you're you feel passionate about it. Do you feel evangelical about it?  Kate: Yes.   Adam: So what do you, do you have a prescription to help to bring others on side?  Kate: I wish it didn't, I wish you didn't have to ask me that question. I wish it didn't have to be an on side.  Adam: Do you do you feel that's an unfair question? Or do you think there's?  Kate: No, I don't. I think it's a very fair question because lots of people don't feel or don't perhaps don't experience it experience the advantages of the natural world, or they haven't been they haven't been given the opportunities to properly understand the impact that it can have on us and all those impacts are positive. I mean, there's loads of science. And you know, it was talked about endlessly during the pandemic about how green spaces are good for our mental health, blue spaces are good for our mental health, being outdoors, being in nature, listening to birdsong, sing plants grow, all those things are good for us. But we've got to a place where we've been so divorced from it, where we look for our pleasures in shopping malls and online and and we forget that actually all we need is right here. And, you know, it's a hard sell for some to to somebody who's never experienced this, who hasn't had the privileges I've undoubtedly had, you know who have not grown up in the countryside, who find it fearful or boring or inexplicable, don't understand where they fit in.  Adam: And I think one of the perhaps growing debates, I think or interesting ones anyway for me is is the balance between trying to either scare people or make them aware of the environmental challenges and potential for disaster. And then so to sort of go engage with the subject it's really it's really newsworthy, it's it's it's imperative people do things and actually turning people off going well we're we're all going to literally burn, enjoy the party whilst it lasts. So what what do you feel about that?  Kate: Yeah, yeah. I mean, all all, all you have to do, all you have to do is watch Don't Look Up. Have you seen that film?   Adam: Yes.  Kate: And and and that, you know, absolutely embodies what you have just said.  Adam: So what do you think about that? Because I think there's a balance between going, offering hope, the power or audacity of hope is a phrase one hears as opposed to the sort of potential to frighten people into action. Actually the opposite, don't frighten them into action. Offer them hope of change. And I wonder where you feel that, if we've got that balance right, or whether,  Kate: No, we haven't got it right and I, but I don't know what the balance is because I think there's a real, I think that a lot of programmes that are made about natural history now have become so glossy and so beautiful and and so almost otherworldly that they don't actually reflect the reality of the natural world. And a lot of them again show the natural world without the context of people. And of course, that's sort of how we want to see it, we don't want people muddying those pictures. We don't want, as you say, the kind of the awful stories of the litter and the, you know, the the, the, the negative impact that human have humans have had on the natural environment. So we kind of don't want to see it, but equally if we don't see it, we don't engage with it and we kind of can watch one of those documentaries and even if David Attenborough is telling you that, you know, this is a habitat that's in peril or this is the last animal of its type that you will ever see, you don't really take that in because you're looking at these really stunning pictures and you think it's kind of OK. But I don't know what the answer is because I also know that as you say, if all you peddle is hopelessness and helplessness, no one's going to engage, they're going to stick their heads in the sand and just hope that it all goes away and pass it on to the next generation. So somehow we as communicators need to find a way that really does cut through. That really does make people feel, genuinely feel part of the natural world, that it isn't just another thing. I had the great joy of interviewing Tim Peake not that long ago, and I was interviewing him for a book that I'm writing about the concept of home. And I thought he would have, of anybody, a really unique idea of home having not just left home but left the planet. And he told me that he did a spacewalk, he was out in space for over four hours, and he said the blackness is like a blackness you cannot imagine. But he said, you know, you see Mars and Jupiter and Venus and you see Earth. And he said, when you're there, amongst the planets in that way you see that Earth is, as far as anyone's experience, and any telescope has been able to tell us, unique. You look at it and he said there it is, this colour, this blue and green planet, whereas everything else is, you know silver and and ghostly, ours is a living planet and he said he had this, he had this sort of feeling when he was there looking at Earth and imagining somebody, some other being coming up and tapping him on the shoulder and saying hey, hi,  who are you? I'm Tim. And he'd say oh hello so where are you from then? And Tim said I felt this enormous swell of pride to be able to point to our planet and say I'm from that planet there. I'm from Earth. I'm an earthling and I thought if all of us had that experience, could understand what it was like, how special our planet is in a universe that is infinite as far as we know and that we have, we have no idea what's out there, but what we do know at the moment is that our planet is unique and I think we would treasure it that much more and have moments like this of just standing amongst the trees and midges coming out, the drizzle, the mud and go, this is our home, this is where we live. It's really special. Aren't we lucky?  Adam: You're taking me uphill again aren't you.  Kate: I am taking uphill, but you've done the worst bit and you and and actually you marched. I was impressed!  Adam: Oh OK good. You know I'll fall apart after, I'm just doing it so I don't embarrass myself too badly.  Kate: *laughs* I'm afraid it is going to get very, very muddy, so you're going to have wet socks, mud up to your knees, you know, that's why I spend six months of the year in wellies.  Adam: Right OK. But you know, that is the privilege of being an earthling, isn't it?   Kate: It is it is.  Adam: So you've been you've got involved with the Woodland Trust.  Kate: I've been involved with the Woodland Trust for quite a long time, but it really started when we took on a farm near here.  Adam: What's this an arable farm?  Kate: No, it was a small council farm. It belonged to the council and people are not really aware that there are such a thing.   Adam: I've never heard this one.  Kate: No, but there used to be about 16,000 council farms throughout Britain and they were set up as part of the 1906 Smallholdings and Allotments Act and they were there, low rent, small areas, usually 30, 40 acres that sort of size and they would be available to rent for farmers who for whatever reason, didn't have a farm of their own. And over the years, as farming practices have changed as economic models have driven farmers to need to to produce things on a bigger scale, small farms have been basically relegated to either hobby farms or they've been broken up and sold to land that's been added to bigger farms. So we've lost an enormous number of these small farms and with them an enormous opportunity for people with farming skills to stay on the land and produce as food. And that's what was going to happen to this farm. And for whatever reason, I just felt this was not the thing to do and to cut a very, very, very long story short, we ended up taking over the farm and setting up a rural skills centre o prove that a small farm, ours is just over 100 acres, could still be viable. It supports itself and that's really important. But one of the things that we wanted to do, we were really interested to do when we took it over was to add more trees. It's it's got some wonderful ancient trees. There's an oak tree on the farm that we call Old Man Oak, as did the tenants before us. They introduced us to him and we think he's about 600 years old. And but we wanted to plant more trees. But we had this conundrum of how do we increase the tree cover on the farm without taking away the pasture because obviously we needed the pasture for the livestock and it was the Woodland Trust that helped us with that conundrum. So they looked, together we walked round the farm and we identified either areas where there were small copses or where there was a bit of a hedge. So what we did with the Woodland Trust's advice and input was to put in trees as shelter breaks, so not actually impinging on the pasture, just or very much, but adding a kind of a thicker bit of hedge if you like, or making a copse a little bit bigger and in that way we've planted over 1,000 trees on the farm in the last decade that we've had it. And then at home we have a four acre small holding and and so at the beginning of last year I started thinking maybe it's an age thing, you start thinking about legacy and when you when you take over a piece of land, what you start to understand actually very quickly is that you will never own it, that you are simply the caretaker of it for the time that you are around. And I think we've got cleverer now. Our knowledge has become greater. We understand that just planting trees isn't the answer. We need to think about we need to think of landscape as a mosaic and so what we wanted to do was to create a little mosaic. Plant trees, create water or make a space for water, make sure that there was going to be areas that had glade that was good for insects, that was good for wild flowers. And so I talked to the Woodland Trust and said, are you going to be into this idea, because it's not just planting trees and they went, that's exactly what we're into. That's exactly what we want to do. We want to create habitat. It's not about blanketing a landscape with trees. It's about planting the right trees in the right places at the right density to create something that you know, in a generation's time will have real lasting value, and that's what's been so wonderful about working with, you know, an organisation like that that sees big picture, sees longevity as as an advantage rather than as a disadvantage. And and that's what's been so lovely is that, you know, I can go to them and say so I've got this plan. I mean, I'm not even going to be alive to see it kind of come to fruition but do you care? And they went, we don't care, do you care? No. Let's do it. And that's wonderful.  Adam: Wonderful. OK sorry, this is a bit, this is the bit where I'm going ohh well, I'm swimming effectively swimming now.  Kate: Sorry. This is a very wet bit.  Adam: Hold on a second. OK. Right. That's a very Norman Wisdom walk I seem to have. OK. Yeah. OK, so ohh sorry, hold on.  Kate: It gets, that's the that's the wettest bit now, now we're now we're more or less home and dry.  Adam: Oh well you know what we we might be home, but we are not dry. That would be inaccurate at this point. So well, that's a neat story to bring us back to home with isn't it. So you know things are looking good. It's all hopeful. A a long journey and a long one ahead, you know, not just for you, but for that natural world you're creating.  Kate: Well, I hope that you know the the I I think going back to to what you said about how we can, we can help us all feel that we are actually, you know part and parcel of the natural world rather than observers of it or visitors of it and things like planting trees or being aware of the seasonal joys of the bluebells coming through, or, you know the leaf fall in the autumn and the colour, all those things if if i you know if we can build that awareness that brings with it huge joy and reward, then maybe we'll start to cut through again and people will start to feel more like the natural world is their world and not just another part of the planet that they live on.  Adam: Well having arrived back at Kate's home, let me just say there are lots more woodland walk podcasts for you to enjoy wherever you get your podcasts from. And indeed, if you want to find an actual wood near you well, you can go to the Woodland Trust website www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. Until next time, happy wandering.  Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk. We look forward to hearing from you. 

#426 Sarah Alabaster - It's the last show of the series, but never fear, the RHLSTP juggernaut will continue until you have to wrestle the microphone from Herring's cold, dead hands. His guest is singer, podcaster, 24 hour dancer and lock down internet sensation Sophie Ellis-Bextor. They discuss Richard's feelings for Sophie's mum, being carried to bed by Joey from Bread, why Sophie was embarrassed when Jarvis Cocker used her toilet, the weird and sometimes horrifying culture of the 1990s, how Sophie has combined being a pop superstar with family life, falling down Esther Rantzen's staircase and making up with Robbie Williams and how Sophie has made a life long career in a fickle business. Plus how she ended up in Neighbours and Game of Thrones. And how to stop your husband playing golf. Sophie is a truly inspirational person and her book is open and honest. Buy it here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08WPGRPJ1/Come and see us live http://richardherring.com/rhlstpBuy Richard's new book here http://gofasterstripe.com/ballSUPPORT THE SHOW!Watch our TWITCH CHANNELSee extra content at our WEBSITE Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/rhlstp. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As Christmas approached, I started to think about how Christmas changes as we get older so typed ‘Christmas and ageing' into Google. I was bombarded with results about loneliness and isolation and how Christmas can exacerbate these very real problems. It's true that a lot of older people do say that their feelings of loneliness increase during the holidays, which is why campaigns from charities such as Age UK encouraging us to look out for elderly neighbours and helplines like Esther Rantzen's Silverline are so important. Whilst I appreciate that Christmas can be a very difficult time, I would like to offer a different perspective. If you're not completely looking forward to this Christmas, I hope to help you to see the silver lining in this festive cloud. Could it be that Christmas actually gets better as you get older? I think so. So here are five ways that Christmas improves with age.

Arguably one of the most influential changemakers in the UK joins us on the show this week, founder of The Silver Line Helpline and Childline; Dame Esther Rantzen.On this week's episode, we're talking about loneliness and how it's a growing issue within our society, the invaluable work The Silver Line Helpline does, how a cat from over the road has adopted Esther, and how important it is to have fun and continue to well into your old age.Last week on the show we were joined by Alasdair Stewart, Director of National Operations, and as part of his role, he manages The Silver Line Helpline which is a free, confidential telephone service just for older people and provides friendship, conversation and support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We were interested in finding out more about The Silver Line Helpline, and how it continues to provide an invaluable service to tackle and prevent loneliness among our elderly population. The trouble with loneliness is that it's often unspoken about because of the stigma attached to it, however, it is chronic within the elderly. A review carried out by The National Institute for Health and Care Research found that "one in four adults over 60 reports feeling lonely" and "for those aged more than 75, the figure is almost one in three (31%)"So who better to tell us more about The Silver Line Helpline, and how it's tackling loneliness than the founder herself, Dame Esther Rantzen.Call free on 0800 4 70 80 90Cup only half full? Follow Tea with the Changemakers on TikTok, for behind-the-scenes content and clips from our episodes!

The BBC celebrates its 100th birthday today. Esther Rantzen, broadcaster and former host of ‘That's Life' on the BBC and Dylan Haskins,executive producer leading the commissioning team running the BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 5 Live podcasts joined Kieran on The Hard Shoulder to look back on the past 100 years of the BBC and what the future holds...

On our final day of Listener Week Jessica Creighton brings a host of stories to the table inspired by your requests. Listener Carol is DJ BB. She got in touch to tell us about taking up DJ'ing in her 50s and setting up an event called ‘She's In Control'. Nearly 60 she tells us about the negative perception of older women in music and the club scene. DJ Ritu is the same age as Carol but has been in the club scene since her 20s. They both join Jess Creighton to dissect the music and club scene through the lens of an older female DJ. Have you decided to retire and then changed your mind months or years later? What made you de-retire? Were the reasons financial? Did you miss the mental stimulation or daily structure or the socialising? Jessica Creighton speaks to Ros Whitehouse who, in her early 70's, felt society was telling her to retire but within months she realised it was a mistake. Dame Esther Rantzen, founder of the Silver Line Helpline, joins them. We received an email from an anonymous listener who described her experience of being an unwanted child. To discuss this issue, and the impact it can have later in life, Jessica speaks to Dr Caroline Boyd – a peri-natal, chartered clinical psychologist. And we look at matrilineal communities who trace kinship through the female line and can involve the inheritance of property and titles with Woman's Hour listener and Professor of Indigenous and Environmental History at the University of Hull, Joy Porter and Dr. Mariaelena Huambachano, Environmental Humanities, Native American and Indigenous Studies at Syracuse University. Presenter: Jessica Creighton Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Manager: Duncan Hannant Photo Credit: Mahaneela

Richard Stilgoe is one of Britain's best known songwriters. As a lyricist and musician he has been involved in some of the biggest hits in the history of musical theatre (Cats, Phantom of the Opera and Starlight Express). Alongside his creative successes he is also heavily involved in charity work through the Orpheus Foundation which he founded, as the chairman for the National Foundation for Youth Music and as the co-founder with his brilliant wife Annabel of the Alchemist Foundation. He is a familiar face on television having appeared on 'That's Life' with Esther Rantzen, 'Nationwide', 'Stilgoe's On' and as a regular on 'Countdown' for many years.Presented by Tom Pigott-SmithA playlist containing all the music we talked about and some we didn't but should have done is here:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6NyZuotQ3MBFuPffNuGhkO?si=0c65b51029a34d33Read more about this extraordinary man here:https://richardstilgoe.com/index.html Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaking with the astute Dr Sarah Myhill whose experience as a British medical doctor led her to what works in chronic illness: naturopathic medicine.  And no vaccines to poison us. Getting to the root of the problem. Her belief in the power of naturopathic medicine led her to deregister from the UK's General Medical Council and register with the Association of Naturopathic Practitioners.Medical Director of UK Medical Freedom AlliancePatron of ANP (Association of Naturopathic Practitioners)  Clinical Director of the College of Naturopathic Medicine https://www.drmyhill.co.uk/  - over 20 million hits to date.  BIO: Dr Myhill qualified from the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, London, Honours viva, 1981. She worked for 20 years as an NHS GP before moving to Independent Medical Practice with a special interest in CFS/ME. She practices Ecological Medicine – diagnosing mechanisms if disease which have obvious implications for management. She has been an active member of the BSEM since 1986 Hon Meetings Secretary (1993–1998) including  5 day International Conference “Sustainable Medicine” at Christ Church College Oxford, Hon Secretary 1999 -2007.  Lectures regularly to doctors and health professionals who are interested in Ecological Medicine.  Author of award winning books: “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - it's mitochondria not hypochondria” BMA Prize Highly Commended 2014. Second edition 2017 (5 reprints)“Sustainable Medicine” (Beryl Bainbridge Prize 2016).“Diabetes” (Beryl Bainbridge Prize 2017)“The PK Cookbook” 2017, now updated to “Paleo-ketogenic - the why and the how – just what this doctor ordered”“The Infection Game” 2018, updated 2018“Ecological Medicine – the antidote to Big Pharm and fast food” 202) https://drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/My_book_Ecological_Medicine_-_The_Antidote_to_Big_Pharma_and_Fast_Foods“The Energy Equation – From the Naked Ape to the Knackered Ape” “Green Mother – Families Fit for the Future”  In the pipeline “The Underactive Thyroid – do it yourself because your doctor won't” She has made media appearances in Newsnight (silicone implants), Dispatches (BSE and organophosphate poisoning), Woman's hour (silicone breast implants, allergies), Esther Rantzen show (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), Watchdog Healthcheck (silicone implants) as well as many Welsh TV programmes and local radio in UK and abroad.Lecturer to What Doctors Don't Tell You, BANT (British Association of Nutritional Therapists), BSEM,  ANP (Association of Naturopathic Practitioners)  and othersCo-author of three papers on CFS and mitochondrial function:·      http://www.ijcem.com/files/IJCEM812001.pdf ·     www.ijcem.com/files/IJCEM1204005.pdf  ·     http://www.ijcem.com/files/IJCEM1207003.pdf Everyone should know Dr Myhill, one of the good ones, one of the best.Counting down to weeks away to the publication of Transforming Trauma, a drugless and creative path to healing PTS and ACE.  I am again seeing patients and planning groups and retreats. Please email drheatherh@icloud.com for more info. Website: drheatherherington.com Support the show

Dame Esther Rantzen and her little sister Scilla grew up in London and - briefly - New York, where Esther got a taste for life in the limelight. Since 1981, Scilla has lived in Australia, which leaves a "real gap" in Esther's life. Technology helps the pair stay in touch and they talk all the time, staying close to their nieces and nephews, too. Brought up by their anarchist mum and engineer dad to be ambitious, the sisters pursued very different paths, but have supported each other regardless. As kids Esther may have stood up for Scilla many times, but also used her as a bit of a willing 'canary down the mine' .. !Our sponsor for this third season of Relatively is Findmypast, the exclusive online home of the 1921 Census. Joining Findmypast gives you access to a unique snapshot of life one hundred years ago. Plus, with extensive British and Irish records and fascinating newspaper archives, you can answer those burning questions you have about your family, your past and yourself. Where will your past take you? Join Findmypast to find out. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Described by Kindred Spirit magazine as one “one of the biggest talents in MBS”, Richard is an award-winning, international bestselling author on spirituality, and one of the foremost Disciples of Master of Yoga Dr George King. Richard's books, DVDs and CDs have been sold in many countries – translations have included Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Estonian. He has taken part in hundreds of radio shows around the world including several appearances on Coast to Coast AM, which broadcasts to 475 radio shows throughout the USA. He regularly appeared as a co-host on Mike Allen's weekly show on LBC called The Phenomena Files. His TV appearances include GMTV on topics ranging from UFOs to angels, psychic powers and complementary medicine. He has also appeared on TV with Esther Rantzen, Eammon Holmes, Gloria Hunniford, Terry Wogan, Noel Edmonds and James Whale, and a host of documentaries and magazine programmes on all the terrestrial and many of the satellite channels. In addition to having had a column in The Observer, he has written for the Daily Express, Daily Mail, The Sun, Woman's World, Here's Health, Health and Fitness, the USA's Whole Life Times and Phenome-News, New Zealand's Lifestyle magazine and many other journals. He has appeared in most of Britain's national newspapers, and many magazines and local papers. As well as in the UK, he has lectured in the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Nigeria, and for over 30 years, has been a keynote speaker at London's largest and most prestigious Mind Body Spirit Festival. He has spoken internationally at various venues including churches, synagogues, Buddhist temples, schools, universities, business conventions, charitable meetings and numerous conventions and bookstores, as well as to an audience of thousands at an open-air pop concert. Richard is the Executive Secretary of The Aetherius Society for Europe and a Bishop in The Aetherius Churches. He has devoted his life to the work of his late master and personal friend, Dr George King (1919-1997), who founded the Society. https://www.aetherius.org/

Described by Kindred Spirit magazine as one “one of the biggest talents in MBS”, Richard is an award-winning, international bestselling author on spirituality, and one of the foremost Disciples of Master of Yoga Dr George King.Richard's books, DVDs and CDs have been sold in many countries – translations have included Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Estonian.He has taken part in hundreds of radio shows around the world including several appearances on Coast to Coast AM, which broadcasts to 475 radio shows throughout the USA. He regularly appeared as a co-host on Mike Allen's weekly show on LBC called The Phenomena Files.His TV appearances include GMTV on topics ranging from UFOs to angels, psychic powers and complementary medicine. He has also appeared on TV with Esther Rantzen, Eammon Holmes, Gloria Hunniford, Terry Wogan, Noel Edmonds and James Whale, and a host of documentaries and magazine programmes on all the terrestrial and many of the satellite channels.In addition to having had a column in The Observer, he has written for the Daily Express, Daily Mail, The Sun, Woman's World, Here's Health, Health and Fitness, the USA's Whole Life Times and Phenome-News, New Zealand's Lifestyle magazine and many other journals. He has appeared in most of Britain's national newspapers, and many magazines and local papers.As well as in the UK, he has lectured in the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Nigeria, and for over 30 years, has been a keynote speaker at London's largest and most prestigious Mind Body Spirit Festival. He has spoken internationally at various venues including churches, synagogues, Buddhist temples, schools, universities, business conventions, charitable meetings and numerous conventions and bookstores, as well as to an audience of thousands at an open-air pop concert.Richard is the Executive Secretary of The Aetherius Society for Europe and a Bishop in The Aetherius Churches. He has devoted his life to the work of his late master and personal friend, Dr George King (1919-1997), who founded the Society.https://www.aetherius.org/

In this week’s fun-packed, thrill filled show the lads pay tribute to that top chap Peter Bowles, how Esther Rantzen ruined Quosh for an entire generation and discuss Paul’s flawless plan to resume broadcasting Jim’ll Fix It in the wake of Nuclear Armageddon.

Back when Mrs Thatcher was prime minister, it was said there were three powerful women in Britain. There was Mrs Thatcher herself; there was the Queen; and there was Esther Rantzen. Breaking into television at a time when it was very much a man's world, she became one of the most recognisable and powerful voices in the country, thanks to her Sunday-night show, That's Life, which ran for 21 years. In today's fragmented television world, it's almost unbelievable quite how popular that programme was in the 70s and 80s; up to 22 million people tuned in for a mix of consumer affairs, cheeky vox pops, and rudely shaped root vegetables sent in by viewers. It was a programme that exposed both faulty washing machines and the shortage of organ donors, and it created some serious social campaigns. In 1986 Esther Rantzen set up Childline, which is now run by the NSPCC, and in 2012 she launched Silver Line, offering support to older people. In 2015 she was made a Dame for services to children and older people. In conversation with Michael Berkeley Esther Rantzen looks back on her early days in broadcasting, when her job was to create sound effects for dramas by running round the studio flapping a huge umbrella (to simulate a pterodactyl, apparently). She talks about how she began to realize the scale of abuse suffered by the children in this country, which led to the creation of Childline. She reveals, too, the pleasure she takes now in living in the country, leaving her career behind, and realising that life is for living, not working. Music choices include Elgar, Georges Brassens, Brahms's Double Concerto, Grieg, and Carmen Jones. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3

Clive is joined by one of the UK's most esteemed TV presenters for today's episode, whose storied career has spanned five decades and some of the country's most beloved institutions - it's Dame Esther Rantzen!Esther joins Clive from her New Forest idyll to walk us through a varied list of wonders that span TV icons, her immense charitable contributions and some of the world's greatest natural beauty. They also look back on her trailblazing efforts that helped pave the way for other female presenters in British television. *** If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks! *** See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ahead of Friday's Drive and to celebrate NSPCC Childline's 35th birthday, I caught up Sarah Laffling, Fundraising Manager for NSPCC in East Anglia. After a few updates on fundraising, the Childline 35 Club and our “Drive Aid” fundraiser – the Childline 35 Challenge, Dame Esther Rantzen also took the time to share a few memories of founding Childline in 1986 plus some words of support to the fundraisers and volunteers who still keep Childline running 35 years later. We also covered the many different ways you can contact childline both online or via email, message board or telephone. For more information on Childline 35 Club click here. For more events and information about NSPCC East Anglia visit their Facebook page and for more information or support from NSPCC visit www.nspcc.org.uk.

In the new episode of The Change Makers, Sir Tom introduces us to Dame Esther Rantzen, who following her career as a successful broadcaster, created two charities Childline promoting child protection  and The Silver Line UK combating loneliness in older people's lives

Looks Unfamiliar is a podcast in which writer and occasional broadcaster Tim Worthington talks to a guest about some of the things that they remember that nobody else ever seems to.Joining Tim this time is author, restaurant critic and broadcaster Grace Dent, who's refusing to eat anywhere that doesn't remember Magic Smile by Rosie Vela, a mystery clown who appeared on the television from nowhere, the BBC's 1986 Domesday Project, Puddles In The Lane by Alan Parker, ITV stunt cycling show BMX Beat, BBC Scotland summer holidays children's programme The Untied Shoelaces Show, gritty ITV teen drama Going Out, eighties backing vocalists extraordinaire The Fabulous Wealthy Tarts, eighties video shop favourite Wacko and That's Life! trying to whip up a bit of panic about raw kidney beans. Along the way we'll be recounting Phil Redmond's ascent to superstardom in the Netherlands, gauging The Beastie Boys' impact on social statistic analysis, betting on a pay-per-view smackdown between Esther Rantzen and Delia Smith, and finding out just how many people it's possible to fall out with over a black and white portable television.You can find more editions of Looks Unfamiliar at http://timworthington.org/.

My guest today is a writer, broadcaster and TV icon, known for presenting the BBC show That's Life! for 21 years, amongst many others. She founded the charities ChildLine, promoting child protection, and The Silver Line, designed to combat loneliness in older people's lives. She has just received the Woman of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award. I am talking with Dame Esther Rantzen... The Positivity Podcast sees Paul McKenna interview some of the world's most interesting people. From film stars, to entrepreneurs and entertainers, you'll learn the tips and tricks that the best in the business use to stay positive. Don't forget to rate and subscribe to the podcast and share your best bits from the episode online. Paul McKenna Twitter: @ImPaulMcKenna Paul McKenna Instagram: @IamPaulMcKenna

Former Director of Communications at Number 10 Katie Perrior starts the show, looking ahead to Boris' speech. Independent Statistician Jamie Jenkins talks to Mike about vaccine passports in Wales. Tonia Buxton and Mike have their weekly chat. Finally, Esther Rantzen chats to Mike about Sajid Javid's comments, that social care should start at home. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week's guest is journalist and presenter - Esther Rantzen In this LBC podcast, Rachel Johnson's Difficult Women, Rachel speaks with women who had to be a pain in the backside to get where they are today. Women who take the word difficult as a compliment not an insult. And women who had to fight, resist, insist, or otherwise be badly behaved in order to get things done. Listen and subscribe now on Global Player, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's exam results week and Sarah and Imogen are dealing with stressed-out teens (and trying to remember what they got in their A-levels themselves). Meanwhile, Esther Rantzen reveals why her new radio show is getting her in trouble with her family yet again, and Hannah Betts discusses Botox - and why all the Love Islanders look so odd. Plus, astrologer Theresa Cheung reads what's written in the stars as Geronimo the alpaca languishes on Death Row. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Strong swear words are becoming an increasing part of everyday life, according to research from the British Board of Film Classification. Six in ten of us are now comfortable cursing. A third of us have a greater propensity for profanity than five years ago. What has not changed is the desire to censor swearing in age-restricted cinema and DVD releases. This seems almost quaint in an internet age where almost no content has a gatekeeper. It does, however, point to contradictory attitudes to bad language. Those who dislike swearing think it is vulgar, morally corrupting and intellectually base; the words themselves can be seen an aggressive act, unacceptable in any context. Some see swear words as morally neutral, where any real or perceived harm is entirely dependent upon the intent of the speaker. Others think they can even have a moral power as an expression of strong sentiment and solidarity. Others still, see the creative influence of swear words as linguistically and culturally enriching. Have we become too complacent about bad language? What do generational attitudes to swearing reveal about wider social change? Why have some strong obscenities become more acceptable, while slurs have become less acceptable? How do we negotiate a public discourse in which everyone draws their own lines about the acceptability of swearing? Frankly, should we give a damn? With Peter Hitchens, Dr Rebecca Roache, Esther Rantzen and Simon Donald. Producer: Dan Tierney.

Marriage and monogamy: Are single women happier? Professor Paul Dolan looks at relationships and the judgements people make, specifically when it comes to women. Why do people have such strong views on how women choose to live their lives? Why is marriage and monogamy still seen as the ultimate fairy tale? Paul speaks to two women who have made very different life choices. Esther Rantzen was married twice to the same man and takes great joy in her family whereas Joan DelFattore has always been single and has never seen herself as a wife or mother. Paul also speaks to behavioural scientist Dr Laura Kudrna about why it's a subject that polarises people. And he's joined by Rory Sutherland, vice chair of the advertising agency Ogilvy. A Mother Come Quickly production Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Labour MPs have sent and signed a letter to Camelot calling for more transparency on the location of winning tickets and questioning the allocation of Lottery Funding, while recent figures reveal doesn't go to as many diverse courses as you would expect. Roy calls from Liverpool which has been allocated funding but this hasn't reached the less affluent areas of the city.Have school trips become a bit too extravagant? Mike thinks parents should just shell out, while Daisy thinks its damaging to children with less affluent parents. One mum, Alison Maloney of The Sun and Fabulous, who's daughter's school offered a school trip to Las Vegas, costing £2500 per child, wrote about her experiences and comes to a mutual disagreement with Mike over this.Cave diving expert Andy Torbet explains the possible intricacies of the operation that the British divers who have been sent to Thailand to rescue the trapped school children will be taking on.And finally, Dame Esther Rantzen has some dinner party tips to share and tells Mike and Daisy about the progress of Childline and Silverline, the two charities she has set up. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Philip Dodd discusses the Problem with Love with behavioural scientist Dylan Evans, television presenter Esther Rantzen, Costa Prize-winning author AL Kennedy and singer and writer Pat Kane. Is it bad for us? How does love alter our brains and our bodies? What impact will social media and changing gender relations have on the future of love? The edition is was recorded at the recent HowTheLightGetsIn philosophy and music festival as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking in the Summer.