Archives for November 2010

TV presenter and science whizz Johnny Ball told me the transistor was the greatest invention, or perhaps Dalton's Atomic theory, which revolutionised Everything Else!

My Mum reckons its antibiotics - and plenty of listeners this morning agreed that penicillin had to be the biggest influence on our lives nowadays.

But what about anaesthetics? Or television, and the world wide web? The telephone, maybe, the MRI scanner, DNA profiling, or the world's first heart transplant?

Congratulations to the Royal Society and Happy Birthday.

I was chatting today to former Olympic rowing champ Sarah Winkless, who's off to walk up Mount K in a couple of weeks time, with her brother. She's looking forward to the challenge, but also to the shared moment at the top - a wonderful thing to share with someone you love!

She reckons it costs about £2,500 to make the trek. You start in sweltering temperatures - it is Tanzania, after all. Then, as you go higher, the air gets thinner and it starts to snow! Wow, can you imagine? Not much more expensive than an ordinary holiday abroad, but you'd never forget it, would you? Watch out kids, mum's got a great idea for next year's family holiday. Get the thermals out? Or is it Florida again?

Hi there! This is a big hello to everyone who's new to the internet and is exploring what's available.

Especially my Mum.

She's got a smashing new computer, and yesterday me and my sisters worked really hard to get her online.

It should have been simple - but things like computers and cars never are, are they? I spent ages talking to a technical helpline somewhere in Mumbai which was about as useful as a chocolate coffee pot. In the end the "connectivity problem" was solved by my sister and me crawling around the floor, chasing cables, and switching things on and off until - hey presto - the right little lights started to blink on and off, and everything started working!

Now it's so exciting. When you go online, a whole new world opens up. I left my Mum last night, fascinated by You Tube and setting up her Facebook page !!!! Ain't life wonderful?

If you want to find out more about some of the extraordinary things that were invented and tested at White Waltham - go see the exhibition at the Maidenhead Heritage Centre.

They're doing well on the "Grandma Flew Spitfires" project, too.

White Waltham was where they based the ATA (Air Transport Auxiliary) during the war - so it was where 1200 women (now grandmas) learned to fly all sorts of aircraft - including Spits.

They were the unsung heroes of the war and so deserve a specially dedicated exhibition and study centre, planned for Maidenhead in 2011. It'll be really inspirational. I can't wait. Trouble is, never mind grandma, I want to fly one. Anyone got a two seater Spitfire?

Nowadays, it's the hidden must-have for any youngster who wants a decent job, or place at university. You have to have work experience. And the bigger the aspiration, the better the university, the more competitive the course, the harder it is to find meaningful and worthwhile work experience.

Yet most companies and industries are doing naff all about it. Many say they offer work experience but all they do is take on your fifteen-year-old for a few days and do nothing with them. Well, it's difficult, they say - what you can possibly entrust a youngster to do?

I understand the problem, but it's one we must all solve together - us parents, together with schools and businesses.

One of my sons wanted desperately to be a doctor. Nothing would shake his determination - not even the fact that he needed at least 3 A* at A level, and one of them had to be chemistry, not his strongest subject.

Not even when I spelled out how hard he would have to work, how many years he would be in college, and predicted the size of his student loan which he would one day have to pay back, would be budge from his dream.

So the next HUGE task was to find him work experience. Because NO WAY can you get into any medical school without it.

In the end, after trying everything we could think of, filling in countless forms for all nearby local health authorities, I managed to find a friendly surgeon (who once removed my gall bladder) who agreed to take my son into his clinic for a couple of days. Luckily, his local PCT (unusually) agreed to deal with a 17 year old. Most will only take 18 year olds into a hospital - how crazy is that? It's too late, then, to put on your UCAS form!

It was right down in Sussex. Where we DON"T live.

So I arranged for us to go and stay at a little hotel near Chichester, and I commuted to work from there for a week, while my son went into hospital every day. It was fantastic for him. They thrust him in with the first year medical students, He witnessed several days of operations, in full scrubs, and even did ward rounds in a white coat.

I fully expected him to complete the week utterly convinced of his dream. Instead, he gradually realised he wasn't up for it. It was talking with the first year students that did it. He said: "Mum, they're all so CLEVER and yet they're all finding it so hard!"

That is why work experience is so important.

So why is it so difficult to get?

(One of my lads also wanted work experience at the BBC. I found I couldn't help at all, even though I work at the BBC. The BBC has a department set up to deal with applications totally objectively. So please don't expect me to help your offspring on that one, I couldn't even help my own!) But I did once take a daughter's friend into a non-BBC station with me for a week. I've always helped where I can.

Now I think it's time for all parents to help each other properly with their contacts who might be useful work experience providers.

What could we call it?

The Work Experience Parents' Network.

What do you think? Can you help?

In an exclusive interview, he told me today that the ring was NOT a symbol of unhappiness, but a much loved gem to Diana.

"Every morning when I went into Kensington Palace, that ring would be there in pride of place on her dressing table. She always loved that ring - and would be proud to see it on Kate's finger. I think she'd thoroughly approve of William's fiancee.

"I watched the interview and was moved. William has grown into a fine man. I knew him from his childhood - I even gave him and Harry their first haircuts!"

As for Kate, Richard reckons she's got star quality. And what of her long hair?

"I think she should wear it up for the wedding. With lots of hairspray so it doesn't fall down and blow all over the place like Diana's did!"

We all feel a kaleidoscope of emotions - those of us who loved, and remember Diana.

Look after her, William.

Don't let the press, the paparazzi, the lure of fame, the powerplay and politics of such a high profile destroy her or your marriage.

You deserve better than your mother's fate.

Do you remember this - the photo of JFK's son saluting his Daddy's coffin in Washington in 1963.

I'll never forget the heart-aching picture of Princess Diana's flowers, atop her coffin, from her boys. You know the one I mean. Simple flowers and the word "Mummy." Also, think of the moment the cranes all bowed in homage to Winston Churchill's funeral barge as it headed down the Thames.

Sad moments but history would be poorer without their memory. These, of course, were huge state funerals, and have always been recorded for posterity. But not since Victorian days have ordinary families booked a formal funeral photographer. It does seem to be catching on, though. Today, I was joined by Rachel Wallace from Henley, who is building up quite a business as a funeral photographer. Like me, she feels that we Brits aren't good at dealing with death, handling those in mourning, or letting death be "a part of life", as she put it. And certainly I have been to funerals where the family concerned have been hugely moved by the people who bothered to turn up, and the emotion of the event itself. Yet within moments, it is all over. I think, in many cases, the bereaved might be helped by having a keepsake album. I have been to some tremendous funerals. It sounds weird to say so, but it's true. A lot of love and care can be invested in a funeral, and it's a shame if it disappears forever.

It was a phrase first used by the Roman poet Horace, meaning "it is sweet and proper to die for your country".

But if you studied the war poets for English A level, as I did, it immediately brings back memories of studying the works of Wilfred Owen. He wrote a very famous poem called "Dulce et Decorum Est" about the horrors of real-life war in the trenches.

Today in the studio we also heard a modern poem, written by the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. It's called "Last Post", and it is now part of a new display at Windsor Castle. It's worth listening to it - have a look!

Meanwhile, thanks to all our lovely listeners who told me their personal stories of what they were remembering during the two minutes silence.

Reg, from Reading, was an absolute star. He's 88, and was in the Home Guard until he was old enough to join up in 1941 and then he joined the RAF, as a engineer, maintaining bombers in the UK and then later in Germany - where he was shot in the back by German fighter planes who were strafing the Allied airbases, as they retreated. He described his two minutes silence today as "a kaleidoscope of faces and memories". And a sea of poppies.

The autumn colours are so dramatic at the moment that even the motorway can be a delight for the eyes! I'm doing a lot of stuff in London this week (and lots of love to Esther Rantzen who's minding the show this week on BBC Radio Berkshire) and so I'm having to do a lot of motorway driving.

Usually it's pretty mind-numbing but the autumn colours were simply fantastic today, with this sort of display lining both sides of the route. Obviously its difficult and dangerous to stop and take any sort of photo that would do justice to the sight. But my passenger snatched this view with my mobile phone. Stunning, isn't it? This was on the M40 in Buckinghamshire.