2:00

In 2014, Benjamin met Chen, who had become

2:02

his wife three years later. At

2:04

first, she was unaware of his reputation as

2:07

the people's laureate of the UK, but then

2:09

she saw him perform at a school. When

2:12

he informed our children, that

2:14

was amazing. It's like

2:16

now becoming Christmas is like

2:18

talking turkey. Did he

2:21

do the poem about the turkeys? Yes, he

2:23

went to the primary school. The children, all

2:26

of them know this one. Be

2:28

nice to your turkeys this Christmas. Because

2:32

turkeys just want to have fun. Turkeys

2:35

are cool and turkeys are wicked

2:38

and every turkey has

2:40

a home. Be nice to

2:42

your turkey this Christmas. Don't eat it,

2:44

keep it alive. It could be your mate and

2:46

knock on your plate. Say, yow turkey, I'm on

2:49

your side. Benjamin Zephaniah was

2:51

born in the Hansleth district of Birmingham in

2:53

1958. He

2:55

was a twin and the eldest of eight children.

2:58

His father was a postman from Barbados and

3:00

his mother a nurse from Jamaica. Benjamin's

3:03

publisher, Neil Astley, says his childhood

3:05

was very difficult. Basically

3:08

he had a lot of problems at school because he had

3:10

dyslexia. He got in with

3:12

a sort of bad crowd, but generally the

3:14

whole neighbourhood was a difficult area to grow

3:16

up in. And in

3:19

his early years, he got involved

3:21

with stealing, pickpocketing and

3:24

became basically a juvenile delinquent.

3:27

I hated authority and

3:29

like many young kids I wanted to

3:32

keep up with the kids around

3:34

me. I did bow a lot to

3:36

peer pressure, especially in the teenage years. He

3:38

was sent to an approved school and

3:40

later a ball store and one

3:42

of the teachers there said to him, you

3:45

are a born failure, you will end

3:47

up dead or in prison. I ended

3:49

up kind of sleeping with a handgun on the

3:51

original pillow. I remember thinking

3:53

about that teacher saying that I was going to end

3:55

up dead or doing the life sentence and

3:58

then seeing some of my friends. ending

4:00

up dead and doing life things. I

4:03

just thought, I've

4:05

got to pray one teacher will

4:07

do something. Lucky

4:10

will not run away. We have

4:12

to stand and fight me another

4:14

day. He started writing his

4:16

own poems in his head. He

4:18

was very inspired by his mother, who

4:20

used to have a habit of rhyming a lot of

4:23

things that she would say. And

4:25

there was a difficult time between his mother

4:27

and father, wasn't there? Yeah, his father was

4:29

very violent and he decided

4:31

to stand up to his father when he was

4:33

big enough. He beat me and

4:35

I... I

4:38

can remember obviously some of the beatings. My

4:41

mother tells me that he was a lot worse

4:43

than I remember, but most of

4:46

all I remember him beating her. He really

4:48

cared about a woman's right. As

4:51

he told me, he used to

4:53

fight a big horse for women

4:55

and the life them to live

4:57

in. A refuge? Yes, even

4:59

he doesn't know where the horse

5:01

is. Even now, I asked him,

5:04

where is it? We should go and visit.

5:07

And he said, I don't know. I

5:09

just bought it for them. I bet

5:11

his relationship with his mother was very

5:13

close, wasn't it? Yeah, really, really close.

5:15

In fact, he always had a second

5:17

mobile phone on him, which only his

5:19

mother had the number to, so

5:22

that she could contact him at any time because he was

5:24

always all over the place. And very

5:26

often he'd be doing a performance and his phone would ring

5:28

in the middle of the performance and

5:30

he'd start talking to his mother and he'd turn

5:32

that into part of the performance. I love me

5:34

mother, I me mother loves me. We come so

5:37

far from over the sea. We hear that the

5:39

streets were a perfect call. Sometime it hurts, sometime

5:41

it cold. I love me mother, I me mother

5:43

love me. We try to live in harmony. Well,

5:45

you can call her Valerie, but to me she

5:48

is my mummy. What

5:50

happened was he'd been to prison, he'd

5:53

had a lot of trouble with the police, he'd

5:56

moved from just doing stuff on

5:58

his own or with an associate to actually... running

6:00

a small group of gang members. I

6:03

would always entertain my fellow burglars

6:05

and friends and colleagues and

6:08

I saw around me people

6:11

being shot and some of my friends

6:13

going to prison for a long time and there

6:15

was a time. Again it happened

6:17

just like that when I

6:19

woke up one morning and said I'm

6:21

not a maths expert but the Lord of Avedis

6:24

says that omnics somewhere along the

6:26

line it's going to be my turn soon and

6:28

so I'm getting out of here and I got up and said I'm going

6:30

to London. What about racism

6:33

which he'd obviously experienced hugely

6:36

and came out in some of

6:38

the more angry poems that he

6:40

wrote? Well some of it

6:42

he confronted through his poetry through writing about

6:44

for example Stephen Lawrence. There's a poem called

6:47

What Stephen Lawrence Has Daught Us and

6:49

that came from when he was working with an Orange family

6:52

and Michael Mansfield QC with the

6:54

Tux Barristers on the Stephen

6:56

Lawrence case. We know who the killers are

6:59

we have watched them struck before us as

7:01

proud as sigma serene we

7:04

have watched them struck before us contactless

7:06

and arrogant they paraded

7:08

before us like angels of death

7:11

protected by the law it's

7:15

now an open secret black people do not

7:17

have chips on their shoulders they

7:19

have injustice on their back and

7:22

justice on their mind and

7:25

now we know that the role to liberty it

7:28

goes long better role trans-laborally.

7:31

Interested about his religious beliefs because I

7:34

think he sort of went on a

7:36

bit of a journey but ended up

7:38

with rastafarianism why was he interested in

7:40

that religion? I think the rasta thing

7:43

came on quite early actually but it

7:45

developed into quite a spiritual practice in

7:48

latter years he spent a lot of time

7:50

in china practicing tai chi also

7:52

went hand in hand with things like his

7:54

vegan beliefs and even

7:56

from a young age you know he was asking

7:58

where meat had come from and when he heard

8:01

it came from a cow, he just

8:03

couldn't eat meat anymore. We

8:05

meet in a really nice vegan

8:07

restaurant in Beijing and

8:09

while we speak in English,

8:11

we talk about martial arts,

8:14

about the Chinese culture,

8:16

about poetry and then

8:18

when my friend told me, he said, he's

8:21

a poet. I said, okay, I don't

8:23

know, no concept

8:25

about him, no clue,

8:29

poetry. Before in my mind, you

8:31

know, I just think, oh, that's

8:33

kind of boring. But after

8:35

we talk, he showed some points

8:38

about him. I said, oh,

8:40

that's powerful, that's nice. For

8:43

it is written in the

8:45

great book of multiculturalism that

8:47

the kali will blend with

8:49

the shepherd's pie. And

8:52

Afro hairstyle will return. Now let

8:54

me hear you say multicultural. Oh,

8:56

yeah. Oh, man, let

8:59

me hear you say roti-roti. Roti-roti.

9:02

Hey, women, I

9:04

may not get there with you, my friend,

9:06

but I have seen the time. We

9:08

here have a privilege. We

9:11

don't celebrate any Christmas

9:14

or anniversary because we

9:16

celebrate every day. Every

9:19

day is a different, we

9:21

enjoy the life. Chen Zephaniah

9:23

on her husband Benjamin Zephaniah, who's

9:25

died aged 65. Now

9:28

Laura Lean was an officer in the

9:30

first aid nursing yeomanry or the Fannies,

9:33

a historic regiment of volunteers, which was

9:35

originally founded to bring nurses to the

9:37

front line during the First World War.

9:40

Nowadays, their duties include supporting civil

9:42

and military authorities in times of

9:44

crisis, acting as members

9:46

of the public during training exercises

9:48

and taking part in ceremonial events.

9:51

Laura had lived in many different parts

9:53

of the world. Her father's postings in

9:55

the Navy took the family from Gibraltar

9:58

to Spain and then Venezuela. Laura

10:00

worked as a researcher at the

10:02

Chicago Art Institute, lived in Hyderabad

10:04

in India, and then became a

10:06

freelance photographer working in Afghanistan. Back

10:09

in the UK, she was a picture editor

10:11

at The Times, and later a civil servant.

10:14

But her commitment to the phonies was central to

10:16

her life. She became the officer

10:18

in charge of parachute training, as her colleague

10:20

Dot Newman told me. Jumping out of an

10:22

aeroplane is very scary. It's not a sensible

10:25

thing to do. Your instinct is very much

10:27

not to jump. And

10:29

so everyone has a different reason

10:31

for wanting to do the course and to

10:33

get through it. And she was really good

10:35

at identifying what those reasons were and giving

10:38

people the right kind of support to get

10:40

them through the jumps and to get them through

10:43

the physical training. Our predecessors during the

10:45

First World War served with great distinction

10:47

for the French, the Belgian, and the

10:49

British armies. In the

10:51

interwalls, we helped during strikes, and

10:53

then during the Second World War,

10:56

who were most famous for our

10:58

role with the Special Operations Executive,

11:00

SOE, in which we provided over

11:02

2,000 women, including 39 women who perished

11:06

into behind enemy lines in

11:09

France. These ambulances were presented by the

11:11

Canadian Red Cross. Princess Alice,

11:13

Councillor Athlone, inspected the unit which was about

11:15

to leave for Finland to carry on its

11:17

work of mercy with the gallant Finnish army.

11:20

And these girls too are a gallant pair,

11:22

facing hardships and danger with a smile. She

11:28

had a very strong sense

11:30

of service. And she

11:32

was a very compassionate person. And

11:34

she approached everything always very aware

11:36

of the human stories behind whatever

11:38

crisis we were dealing with. Good

11:43

morning. It's six o'clock on Wednesday, the 14th

11:45

of June. This is today with

11:47

Michelle Essane and Nick Robinson. The headlines

11:49

this morning. A fire has engulfed a

11:51

27-storey block of flats

11:53

in West London. Hundreds of firefighters and

11:56

ambulance crews are at the scene, watched

11:58

by local residents. Can we talk about

12:00

some of the operations that she was involved in.

12:02

I think she was involved in the aftermath

12:05

of the Grenfell Tower fire. What was

12:07

her role there? Her role

12:09

there was answering the phones in

12:11

the casualty bureau. So members of the

12:14

public who were concerned about loved ones,

12:16

friends, relatives who might have been involved

12:18

in the fire would see the

12:20

the phone number at the bottom of the TV

12:22

screen and they would call and they would get

12:24

through to the the phonies answering the phones and

12:27

Laura with her characteristic compassion

12:29

and thought and dedication

12:31

was on one of the

12:34

early shifts answering those phone

12:36

calls and it was

12:38

in the early hours after the disaster it was

12:40

becoming apparent how how truly awful it was. And

12:43

so a lot of the people who were phoning

12:45

were very distressed, very anxious,

12:47

they weren't able to get hold of

12:49

their relative. We didn't

12:52

have any information as to whether those

12:54

people have been actually involved or

12:56

not. All we could do is take down their

12:58

details, take down as much information as possible and

13:01

try to reassure them that someone will be

13:03

in touch where we know more which

13:05

is it's a complicated and

13:08

very emotional thing to do and Laura

13:10

was exceptionally good at it. It's

13:12

Monday it's the 23rd of August the top

13:14

story for you today the Prime Minister is

13:16

expected to ask the US President Joe Biden

13:19

to delay withdrawing the last American forces from

13:21

Afghanistan to allow more time to get people

13:23

out. The UK has evacuated nearly 6,000

13:26

people from Kabul Airport, thousands

13:29

more are still waiting. I

13:32

think she was also involved in

13:34

welcoming people who had been evacuated

13:36

from Afghanistan when they came to

13:38

this country, another test that required

13:40

a great deal of delicacy and

13:42

compassion I should imagine. Because

13:44

Laura has herself been a photographer in

13:47

Afghanistan she had a great empathy with

13:49

the culture and a great respect for

13:51

it and huge understanding

13:54

of some

13:56

of the extra difficulties that the people arriving might

13:58

be facing. able to

14:01

brief the other women

14:03

who'd been tasked to support. She

14:05

taught them how to, some

14:08

basic greetings in Pushto. She explained

14:10

the value of wearing a

14:12

headscarf when you were dealing with them, to

14:14

make them feel more respected and

14:17

comfortable. She took the women

14:19

to the pharmacy to help them get

14:22

prescriptions and when the

14:25

free prescriptions were refused, she paid for them as well.

14:27

It was very, very important to her to

14:30

support that operation. I

14:32

think my key message would be do not underestimate

14:35

the power of training

14:37

pretty much 365 days a

14:39

year being on call 24-7. And of course, our

14:42

hope is that we never are called up, but

14:45

we are. And never forget the

14:47

value of you being at

14:49

the end of that phone, of you

14:51

being in Nightingale Hospital and

14:53

saying, can I get you a book

14:55

or magazine? No matter the tasking, it

14:58

does not matter. She really

15:00

epitomized that quiet sort

15:02

of hidden service. She

15:05

never boasted, she never bigged

15:07

herself up. I'm finding out things about her

15:09

that I didn't know before

15:12

her death. It's like she was a

15:14

very, very intensely private person and it's like

15:17

she was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle and she would

15:19

give everyone a few pieces, but you never got to

15:21

see the whole thing. And

15:24

so every time I met her,

15:26

I would discover that she knew something. She

15:29

knew all about the pearl

15:31

trade in Hyderabad or she

15:33

knew all about garden design

15:35

or she knew just random

15:37

subjects that she would suddenly turn out to

15:40

be a great expert on, that you had

15:42

no idea because she would never blow her

15:44

own trumpet or tell you about it.

15:47

But she absolutely epitomized that

15:49

quietly, politely, relentlessly

15:51

getting on with the job. role

16:00

in saving some of the UK's rare breeds.

16:03

In 2013 his work was recognised

16:05

by a Lifetime Achievement Award presented

16:07

by Prince Charles and he also

16:09

advised Princess Anne. Eric

16:11

was a founder member of the Rare

16:13

Breeds Survival Trust and County President of

16:16

the Gloucestershire Federation of Young Farmers' Cliffs.

16:18

He was a regular broadcaster known for

16:21

his extensive knowledge of local sayings. The

16:23

farmer and TV presenter Adam Henson has known

16:25

Eric all his life. We lost 26 of

16:28

our British rare and native breeds.

16:31

They became extinct, gone forever. So

16:33

when people like Eric and other

16:35

passionate rare breeds enthusiasts recognised that

16:38

these animals needed saving and preserving

16:40

and promoting, that was the turning

16:42

point for British livestock. No more would be

16:44

lost since the formation of the Rare

16:46

Breeds Survival Trust. They were just little pockets of

16:48

some of these breeds left, some of them down

16:50

to less than 100 and even less

16:53

than 50. It was absolutely

16:56

pathetic. They were in real dire straits.

16:58

Eric's son Clifford has now taken on

17:01

the running of the family's farm. He

17:03

says as a boy his father

17:06

left school in the morning and

17:08

started work on the farm in

17:10

the afternoon. He's passionate about Gloucestershire.

17:12

It was absolutely Gloucestershire with everything.

17:14

He was lucky enough to

17:16

live at a time when these

17:18

things were about. And I know

17:20

during the 70s they

17:23

were all considered cranksies, people that got

17:26

involved. I'd always been interested in the

17:28

sort of underdog, like you're under pig

17:30

or whatever. I went to a sale

17:32

at Teppery

17:35

in 1971 and I bought

17:38

two clusters, cluster cattle. But

17:40

some of us also had perhaps

17:42

a bit more of a practical

17:44

reason for keeping up. Scientific people

17:47

thought that we shouldn't lose the

17:49

gene bank. We might want it.

17:51

Things change over the years as we know. And

17:54

then there's other people, perhaps

17:56

like me, who were sentimental people

17:58

for our own county. you know,

18:00

and localism was at work. At

18:03

the final sale of Gloucester Cattle. So these

18:05

are the last remaining cattle in the world.

18:08

He and a number of other people, including

18:10

my dad, bought some cattle from the sale

18:12

and basically saved them from extinction. And

18:15

then Eric championed the breed for his entire

18:17

life and now his son carries on that

18:19

legacy and has really taken it to the

18:21

next level. They've got the biggest set of

18:23

Glouces in the world. With me when

18:25

I took the cattle over, so I took the cattle over

18:27

in 2009 and he said to me,

18:33

you'll take it on to the next level. I

18:36

probably don't get involved with all

18:38

of the stuff that dad was involved with, but

18:40

the cattle are really special

18:42

to me and producing this

18:45

very high quality meat. So

18:47

I do hear him in the background

18:49

going, no boy. He

18:51

also did give me lots of support

18:53

and praise and could see what we

18:56

were doing, taking the breed on.

18:58

He was, I think he was, not

19:00

that he ever told me, but I think he was quite

19:03

proud of what we achieved. He

19:05

loved all the other county breeds as

19:07

well. The Gloucestershire Old Spot Pig and

19:09

the Cotswold Sheep and was a great

19:11

champion for British rare farm animals. After

19:14

the war, they didn't want black pigs

19:16

at all. The butchers wouldn't buy

19:18

them. And then we got to

19:21

where the trust suddenly thought we got to promote

19:23

the food, we got to promote the meat. What

19:25

did they do? They came into Gloucestershire

19:28

and they picked a Gloucestershire breed and a

19:31

Gloucestershire butcher to start the thing off. Dad

19:33

loved his animals and he used to go, he'd

19:36

go and sit with them down in

19:38

the, you know, if there was a quiet one,

19:41

he'd go and sit with these animals or just

19:43

stand at the gate and

19:45

watch them. And he was very

19:47

knowledgeable about the social side that

19:49

animals have when they're allowed to

19:52

be more natural. He

19:54

used to, you know, point

19:56

them out and tell us as kids that this

19:58

is how it should be. and it's more

20:01

natural and it's less stressful and all of

20:03

that side of it. Over the

20:05

years, having built up his flocks and

20:07

herds, he would have dispersal

20:09

sales and start to sell animals on

20:12

the farm. And they were always incredibly

20:14

well attended because he had such a

20:16

great reputation as a wonderful livestock first.

20:18

But he always retained his favourites and

20:20

then would build those flocks and herds

20:22

back up again. And then 10 years

20:25

later have another sale. I'm actually

20:28

going to present the master of the

20:30

orchard of the corset to our hostess

20:32

of the night, Eric, to take the

20:34

first sip of the wassail bowl. Cheers

20:38

everybody, good help.

20:40

Wassail! He planted an orchard at

20:42

the farm with these very local

20:44

apples and pears. So

20:46

that kind of led on to wassailing.

20:49

And wassailing was something that was

20:51

done on Twelfth Night. It

20:54

was a kind of pagan festival

20:56

that had been taken over and

20:59

become a bit of a hybrid. And

21:02

basically it was about giving back. We

21:13

gather the people together, anything up to

21:15

300 and we always finish up round

21:17

the fire and go from one to

21:19

the next to sing a song. And

21:22

they all do their little bit. He

21:26

also had lots of sayings. The one

21:28

I always remember, especially when I'm employing,

21:31

is one boy's a good boy, two

21:34

boys is half a boy and three boys are

21:36

no good at all. You know, he

21:38

had his lovely tweed clothing he

21:40

would wear, his leather boots, his

21:42

beautifully trimmed beard. He was always

21:45

incredibly well presented with that lovely

21:47

accent and the way he

21:49

could communicate stories was just

21:51

a pleasure. And behind it was

21:54

a very bright entrepreneurial businessman.

22:00

We must not give up.

22:02

We must keep going because it's

22:05

so historic. They're a

22:07

beacon really for us. Eric

22:11

Freeman, who's died aged 91. This

22:15

week's Last Words also go to the Hollywood

22:17

actor Ryan O'Neill, best known for his Oscar-nominated

22:19

role in the 1970 film Love Story. And

22:23

we remember the author Anne Schley,

22:25

who won the 1979 Guardian Children's

22:27

Fiction Prize for the novel The

22:29

Vandal. But now Stacey

22:31

Marking was one of the UK's first

22:33

female TV documentary directors. She

22:36

started out by creating music videos, but

22:38

her focus soon switched to the social issues of the 1960s

22:41

and 70s, including

22:43

poor housing, poverty and inequality.

22:47

Stacey's daughter, Havana, is herself an

22:49

award-winning TV documentary maker. She's

22:52

been telling me her mother's story. She

22:54

grew up in India, in Mumbai, an

22:56

incredibly happy childhood, sort of

22:58

free, easy, warm. Her

23:01

father was the dean of the Mumbai

23:03

Anglican Cathedral. And she just had

23:05

a really lovely life. Until

23:08

post-war, she and her brother were

23:10

sent back to England to

23:12

freezing cold boarding schools, sort of

23:14

Dickensian conditions, and

23:17

didn't see her parents for ten months at

23:19

a time. That was

23:21

sort of a massive change in her life,

23:23

and I think it really affected her for

23:25

the rest of the time. Did she

23:27

rebel against it in some way? She

23:29

ran away quite a few times,

23:31

and she just found solace in

23:33

books and education. She also questioned

23:35

authority the whole time. She was

23:37

just like, why am I here?

23:40

Why are these people being like that? Why does

23:42

it have to be this system? That

23:44

was something that stayed with her her whole life. And

23:47

I think she set off and travelled too, which

23:49

led to a rather interesting career

23:51

as a Turkish screen star. How

23:54

did that come about? It is an

23:56

amazing story. She won the Vogue

23:58

Talent Writers' Conference. and had got

24:01

a job in London on the Vogue fashion desk, which

24:03

was exciting at the beginning, but very soon she

24:06

got very bored of writing about hemlines.

24:08

So she decided to go travelling. She

24:10

and her girlfriend got in a mini

24:12

Cooper and drove to the Middle East.

24:15

They stopped in Istanbul, and

24:18

she was walking on the street where

24:20

she was actually spotted by a French

24:22

director. And so she then started this

24:25

life as a sort of Turkish film

24:27

star. And she was in 23 films, and

24:29

she would learn her lines in Turkish, even

24:32

if she didn't actually know what they meant. Did she

24:34

turn her back on stardom to come back to the

24:36

UK and get involved in television? What she

24:38

realised was that she loved film, but

24:40

she also realised that drama

24:43

was just incredibly pretentious. So she

24:45

came back to England and enrolled

24:47

at the Slade Art School as

24:49

one of the very first film

24:52

departments at any art schools in

24:54

Britain at the time, and specifically studied both

24:56

art film, but also documentary.

24:58

Swinging London, changing London, down

25:01

with the old, up with the new.

25:04

Oh, wow. In

25:06

67, Flower Power came, and she absolutely

25:08

dropped out and became, and tuned in

25:11

and became part of that world. I

25:13

think one of the things that's not

25:15

so understood about that time is that

25:17

what a creative and brilliant experimental time

25:19

that was. And she became an experimental

25:21

filmmaker. She made a video for Pink

25:24

Floyd, and she made the light shows

25:26

for the nightclub UFO. And she would

25:29

find old reels of film, bleach them,

25:31

scratch them, and then they would be

25:33

shown on the walls of those incredibly

25:35

influential nightclubs at the time. What about her

25:38

more conventional TV films? What sort of films

25:40

did she want to make, and did she

25:42

find it easy to get commissioned to make

25:45

them? She was working at that time

25:47

on the kind of news shows and things like

25:49

This Week. She did a stint at the

25:51

BBC as well. She chose to really focus in

25:53

on kind of films about poverty or race injustice.

25:56

She spent a lot of time in Glasgow in

25:58

the slums trying to highlight. stuff that

26:00

was going on with housing there. She

26:02

was given the opportunities to work on

26:04

some great things. After the flower power

26:06

movement, after that period as an experimental

26:09

filmmaker, she then went on to make

26:11

a series called Nice Time. That

26:16

was Kenny Everett, wasn't it, in Germaine Greer? Exactly,

26:19

very early on in their careers. They

26:21

just literally had a really nice time.

26:23

But she did suffer in the making

26:26

of that from some terrible misogyny and

26:28

sexism. She then left TV for a

26:30

bit. She just had a pathological aversion

26:32

to ass-licking. She couldn't do it. She

26:35

left filmmaking at that point, went travelling.

26:37

She was a sort of string of

26:39

for the Guardian and the Sunday Times

26:41

in Latin America. I

26:50

think one of the wonderful things about the

26:52

creation of Channel 4 was that Channel 4

26:54

was there to set up to serve audiences

26:57

that hadn't been served. It allowed

26:59

filmmakers who

27:01

hadn't found their place in

27:03

the hierarchies. So suddenly, people

27:05

like my mum could run

27:07

their own companies, could be

27:09

their own people. She and

27:12

a consortium of people, journalists

27:14

and businessmen, bought a

27:16

magazine called History Today, put

27:18

Juliet Gardner in as the editor and

27:20

completely turned it around. It became the

27:22

kind of thriving magazine that it is

27:25

today. As part of

27:27

that, mum then pitched to Channel 4 doing

27:29

a series called Today's History. It was just

27:31

a new way of telling history stories. Was

27:33

it a great success? It was

27:35

a great success. It ran for two

27:37

prime-time series. Then she then

27:40

went on to make another amazing series with

27:42

A.J.P. Taylor called How Wars End. You've

27:44

talked about her interest in injustice

27:46

and social conditions and so on.

27:49

Was she somebody who was

27:51

an activist as well as a filmmaker? Was

27:53

she somebody who tried to get involved in

27:56

demonstrating against things that she saw as wrong?

27:58

She was always on demonstrations. I think one

28:01

of the things that I can see from her

28:03

career, I mean, I'm a documentary maker too, and

28:05

I know that everything that I do is

28:07

because she broke those glass

28:09

ceilings before me. She was

28:11

just determined always to

28:14

do that. Also in her TV

28:16

series, she really deliberately made an effort

28:18

to make sure that the people that

28:20

were presenting the show were again, not

28:22

the traditional types. There were women, there

28:24

were people of color. She just wanted

28:26

a different world and she worked every

28:28

way she could to make that happen.

28:30

Havana marking on her mother's Stacey marking,

28:33

who's died aged 83. This

28:35

week you also heard last words on

28:38

the farmer, Eric Freeman, the first aid

28:40

nursing, the Omenry officer, Laura Lean, and

28:42

the poet, Benjamin Zephaniah. Don't forget there

28:44

are hundreds of other fascinating life stories

28:46

in the Last Word Archive on BBC

28:49

Sounds. BBC

28:51

Sounds, music radio podcast.

28:56

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