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Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts.

0:37

On Last Word this week, Sandra Day O'Connor,

0:39

the first woman to sit in the US

0:42

Supreme Court. Lord Darling, the Labour

0:44

Chancellor at the time of the 2008 financial crash.

0:48

And Joan Harra, who campaigned for justice

0:50

for the victims of the Pinochet regime

0:52

in Chile. But we

0:54

start with the final journey of the

0:56

Pogues frontman Shane McGowan, which involved a

0:58

horse-drawn procession through the streets of Dublin

1:01

and a star-studded funeral in Tipperary, where

1:04

he lived. Shane's blending

1:06

of Irish traditional music with the energy

1:08

and attack of punk brought him

1:10

millions of fans around the world. But

1:12

he became almost as famous for his

1:15

excessive use of drugs and alcohol and

1:17

chaotic lifestyle as he was for his

1:19

singing. His Pogues bandmate

1:21

James Fearnley recalls a typical studio

1:23

session. He came

1:25

into the studio wearing a

1:27

dove grey suit, black shirt,

1:30

Italian lattice shoes.

1:33

He might have had a flower in his

1:35

lapel, but he was so well-presented and he

1:37

came in and he said, we're going to

1:40

do this song, it's called Rainy Night in

1:42

Soho. James, you're going to play this on

1:44

the piano, the chords go like this. Andrew,

1:47

you're going to do this on the drums. He

1:50

knew everything about the song.

1:53

I've been loving you a

1:55

long time It

1:59

seems appropriate for a moment. man who would go

2:01

on to write one of the greatest Christmas

2:03

songs of all time that Shane McGowan was

2:05

born on Christmas Day. His parents

2:07

had emigrated from Ireland to live in

2:09

Kent but Shane's sister Siobhan says

2:11

as a youngster he was at his

2:13

happiest when he was taken back to

2:15

visit his extended family in the Irish

2:17

Republic where he was surrounded by music

2:19

making. Auntie Ellen would play the

2:22

concertina, there'd be all sorts of

2:24

whistles and stomping the feet and

2:26

dancing and a neighbour told us

2:28

that there'd be sparks flying from the

2:30

floor that's the way he described it

2:32

there was so much dancing so much

2:34

music and singing and everybody would

2:36

take a turn and I think that Shane loved

2:39

that. He was put up on the kitchen table

2:41

to sing at a very early age so that

2:43

was his first gig he always used to say. There

2:46

was about 12 people

2:48

living here right sleeping

2:50

three to a bed like

2:53

when I was a kid there was no television

2:55

in here there was there was

2:57

no running water there was

2:59

electric light and the hard

3:01

part of the cook on there was no cooker.

3:04

Yeah it was

3:06

basic and beautiful you know. Dad

3:09

was a voracious reader as was mum and

3:11

dad was very very into the Irish literature

3:13

mum would be more into the kind of

3:16

Zachary and kind of Dickens and Graham Greene

3:18

all that kind of thing but and but dad

3:20

was into Graham Greene and all those people too

3:22

but he was mad into Irish literature and like

3:25

being in the eighth and second all the Irish

3:27

people and literature and he and

3:29

Shane lapped it up together

3:31

he shared that with Shane and Shane

3:34

was a voracious reader from very

3:36

early and he was reading Sartre

3:38

by 11 like you know so I mean

3:41

it was extraordinary really he had

3:43

quite a brain for absorbing and

3:45

literature. round

4:00

and round and never seems to end and you

4:02

don't know where you are. I

4:08

think one of the songs that came out of

4:10

the Cretan music was Down in

4:12

the Ground where the Dead Men Go on

4:14

the first album. I

4:24

think his heart belonged

4:27

with those people who have

4:29

very little and who are under

4:31

the heel of life. A

4:34

lot of the time I'm thinking of songs like

4:36

The Old Mane Drag in particular and

4:38

Dark Streets of London. In

4:50

life it was an ordeal

4:52

for him a lot of the

4:54

time. In later

4:56

days he would insist that the lights

4:58

go down where he was because he

5:00

couldn't stand the focus on

5:03

him I guess. Yeah, performing

5:05

was difficult but he was great

5:07

at it. When he was

5:09

at home basically he liked watching films and

5:13

having a quieter drink and

5:15

listening to music and

5:17

reading. But the persona

5:20

wasn't different, he wasn't putting on

5:22

an act. People said that

5:24

he really wasn't putting on an

5:26

act and he did drink that

5:28

much. People were saying

5:30

no he did and

5:34

that's a bit of a problem obviously. Siobhan,

5:37

why did he drink so much? I mean

5:39

he knows industrial quantities and being told quite

5:41

repeatedly that he only had six weeks to

5:43

live and things like that. What was going

5:45

on that made him do that do you

5:48

think? His heroes were

5:50

like Brendan Behan for

5:53

drink and then for

5:55

drugs like Jimi Hendrix, William

5:57

Burroughs for drugs. He

6:00

really admired that culture and he

6:02

started from that point of view and

6:04

also because he started from a hedonistic

6:06

point of view. So it was

6:08

never from a, well I didn't

6:10

think it was from an emotional need point

6:12

of view but I

6:14

really don't think it was and

6:16

he often said it wasn't. Usually

6:19

the way that songs came

6:21

out of shame the

6:23

lyrics for the most part were

6:26

all done. Scribbled

6:28

in that way that he had you know live

6:30

writing with a fist it seems to me and

6:32

crossing all the capitals as I

6:35

remember. And we played

6:37

and played and played and played

6:39

those songs again

6:41

and again and again and then

6:44

with an eye on the clock to see what

6:46

time it was so that we could get down

6:48

to the north again and get a couple of

6:50

pints in and then come back and do it

6:52

again. I

6:54

was Christmassy of

6:56

faith and

6:59

the traffic. Fairytale

7:02

of New York is actually an awful lot

7:04

of work and there's early demos of it

7:06

which are interesting you'll see that it's kind

7:08

of growing there's bars and cars

7:11

in it and there's New York in it and

7:13

all that kind of thing but it's a much

7:15

different song. So I actually think it

7:17

took a couple of years for them to get it to

7:19

the point where they were very very pleased with it. What

7:34

about his relationship with Victoria who became

7:36

his wife obviously that was a hugely

7:38

important thing in his life

7:40

was she an important anchor for him?

7:42

Oh yeah I mean a total anchor for

7:45

him I mean I don't think he would have

7:47

survived without her. She gave

7:49

him security and love and

7:51

all the things he needed in the kind of mad

7:53

world you know and certainly as

7:56

life went on and

7:58

he was you know still doing things to excel. she

8:00

was there to really help him and

8:02

try and provide a safety

8:05

valve for him. I mean we

8:07

all did try and intervene with

8:10

the excesses but Victoria was a very

8:12

important part of that. I

8:21

wasn't able to visit him in hospital because

8:23

I live all the way in Los Angeles.

8:26

So I wrote him a letter and

8:28

oh wow I'm just talking in this way

8:30

now it's sort of um it's

8:33

really affecting how high this is a

8:35

surprise. I wanted

8:37

to thank him for all the

8:39

experiences that I had due to

8:41

him. Some of them

8:43

were horrifying but many many many

8:45

of them were among the most

8:47

beautiful and intense

8:50

and colorful and

8:53

original and abandoned

8:56

experiences that I've ever had and

9:00

yet I'll be eternally eternally grateful

9:02

for the the time that I

9:05

spent with Shane. The

9:11

voice of Shane McGowan has died aged 65.

9:18

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was the first

9:21

woman to be appointed to the United

9:23

States Supreme Court. Before her

9:25

appointment in 1981 she'd been a judge

9:27

on the Arizona Court of Appeals who'd

9:29

made her name as the state's Assistant

9:32

Attorney General and as an elected member

9:34

of the state senate. Sandra

9:36

was born and brought up in El

9:38

Paso, Texas as her brother Alan Day

9:41

told us. She and I were both

9:43

raised on a quite large Arizona cattle

9:45

ranch. On the ranch one of the

9:47

things we always learned it was just

9:49

ingrained in living on the ranch is

9:52

if a problem came up you

9:54

solved it for yourself. Here's a problem, fix

9:56

it. Justice O'Connor's friend and

9:58

fellow judge MacGregor. Professionally

10:01

she appeared she

10:06

was so warm she was

10:08

adventurous. She was

10:12

always up for doing anything while there

10:14

was rafting down the Colorado River.

10:16

She was always ready for an adventure and she

10:18

was very good at it all. She's

10:20

very athletic. She graduated law school and got

10:23

her law degree and then went out to try

10:25

to find a job and nobody

10:27

would hire her because they just didn't

10:29

hire women lawyers and so one of

10:31

her stories is that she finally after many

10:33

futile attempts to get a job she

10:39

was up at San Rafael, California just north

10:41

of San Francisco and she was interviewing

10:44

for the job and the guy said, well I might have room

10:46

for you but I don't

10:48

even have an office or a desk and Sandra

10:50

just said, well fine the secretary's right

10:52

here. I don't mind sharing her

10:54

desk and that's how she got her first job. We

10:58

have for 200 years in this country been working with her

11:00

for a long time and for 200 years in this

11:02

country been waiting for a woman

11:04

to be on the United States Supreme Court. So

11:07

when President Reagan said he was going to

11:09

appoint a qualified woman to the court I think

11:11

women lawyers were generally

11:14

hopeful but doubtful. I

11:16

will send to the Senate the nomination

11:18

of Judge Sandra Day O'Connor of Arizona

11:21

Court of Appeals for confirmation as an Associate

11:24

Justice of the United States Supreme Court. It

11:28

was not a job to which I

11:30

aspired. Not a job to which you aspired? No.

11:34

The Supreme Court of the United States? No,

11:36

because I had a very full

11:38

life and happy one in Arizona. My

11:40

family was there. My husband

11:43

was a significant partner in a

11:45

law firm that he loved and everything was fine.

11:48

When he actually announced her

11:50

appointment there was such

11:52

excitement. We felt validated, we

11:55

felt as if all possibilities have been open

11:57

to us. There

12:00

was just great joy and

12:02

excitement about what the future would

12:04

bring and about having her on

12:06

the court. Did she take that

12:08

as a big responsibility? Was it

12:10

a pressure on her to be

12:12

the first woman in that position?

12:14

She knew that people would be

12:16

evaluating other women on the basis of

12:18

how well she did her job. It

12:21

was a pressure that she was willing

12:23

to accept. It's such a huge

12:25

responsibility. I've often said

12:27

that it's great to be the

12:29

first but you don't want to be the last. Was

12:32

that universal or were there some who criticized

12:35

her appointment? Oh, of course there

12:37

were some who criticized it. Some criticized it

12:39

because they didn't trust her opinion on abortion.

12:42

Some criticized her because she didn't come from

12:44

a traditional background for United States

12:47

Supreme Court justices. Some

12:49

criticized her just because they didn't

12:51

know who she was. She

12:54

never came back to family meetings and bragged about it

12:56

or talked about it or anything. When

12:58

we were all together as a family, we

13:00

talked about family things and that didn't dominate

13:02

her life to where she didn't have other

13:05

things to talk about her. She

13:08

liked to get out and play around the golf and

13:10

go fly fishing. She was an outdoors

13:12

person. She's a pretty good skier. She said she

13:15

had had to develop a short memory and a

13:17

thick skin. When it

13:19

came to dealing with the question

13:21

of abortion rights, the Roe versus

13:23

Wade decision, she annoyed some

13:26

on the right by confirming that

13:28

decision rather than overturning it. Yes,

13:30

annoyed is probably a not strong

13:32

enough term. Those in

13:34

the pro-life movement were very distressed

13:37

with Justice O'Connor. Her

13:39

view toward it and her approach were

13:42

very consistent with her general approach. She

13:45

thought it was very important that people be

13:47

able to rely upon the law as settled

13:50

because people plan their lives on it. Her

13:53

view of abortion and taking

13:55

into account the long-standing precedent

13:57

of Roe versus Wade was

14:00

consistent, although her personal approach to abortion

14:02

would have been very different. You

14:05

joined the majority affirming Roe v.

14:07

Wade. Were those cases

14:10

turning point moments for you? They

14:13

were hard cases. They

14:15

affect a lot of people and people

14:17

care deeply about them. I can just

14:20

say every justice

14:22

is aware that some

14:24

decisions the court makes are

14:26

decisions that people care

14:29

about emotionally and certainly

14:31

that is in that category. Another

14:34

controversial decision that she was involved in

14:37

was the case of Bush v. Gore,

14:39

the disputed election which

14:41

the court effectively handed to George

14:44

W. Bush. When the late night

14:46

decision came, reporters ran from the

14:48

court carrying the judgment, six to

14:50

two pages of conflicting opinions and

14:52

dissent. The judges headed home knowing

14:55

the split decision will damage the

14:57

court's reputation. One liberal

14:59

judge wrote, we may never know with

15:01

certainty who won the election. I

15:03

think people were very divided as

15:06

they were on the election itself,

15:08

but I have to say it

15:10

is remarkable that we live under

15:12

a system of a rule of

15:14

law where hot button issues like

15:16

that can be resolved without people

15:18

fighting it out in the street.

15:22

So what do you think is her

15:24

legacy as a pioneer

15:26

in the legal world? Well,

15:28

you know, I think it's early to know

15:30

what it will be as far as

15:33

her judicial legacy, but she

15:35

certainly changed the court as

15:37

an institution. Before she

15:39

went to the court, we seldom saw the

15:42

justices making public speeches

15:44

or attending meetings and today we

15:46

see more justices doing that and

15:49

being public. People regarded

15:51

her as a personal friend. They

15:53

really felt a connection with her.

15:56

She changed the attitude of people

15:58

in this country. I think toward

16:00

the need for a civic education which

16:03

she regarded as very important to her

16:06

legacy. So I think that her impact on the

16:08

court will continue to be felt even

16:11

if as has happened in the last terms

16:14

of the court some of her judicial

16:16

decisions are changed. Justice

16:18

Ruth McGregor on Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

16:20

who's died aged 93. Now

16:23

Lord Darling of Rulanish, Alistair Darling was

16:26

the labor politician who held many leading

16:28

roles in government. He

16:30

practiced as a lawyer before entering

16:32

Parliament in 1987 as the MP

16:34

for Edinburgh Central. He

16:36

was in the Cabinet for 13 years

16:38

first under the Premiership of Tony Blair

16:40

and then Gordon Brown. He

16:42

was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary

16:45

of State for Work and Pensions, Transport

16:47

and at the Department for Trade and

16:49

Industry. But the biggest challenge

16:51

of his career came when he was made

16:53

Chancellor of the Exchequer just before the financial

16:55

crisis of 2008. Working

16:58

alongside him was the former political journalist

17:01

Catherine McLeod. He asked me to join

17:03

him in the Treasury to be his

17:05

Special Advisor. That was in 2007. I

17:09

said yes, I really didn't know what to

17:12

expect. I don't think Alistair knew what to

17:14

expect either. In fact the first day he

17:16

went into the Treasury he was doing an

17:18

interview with the FT and the

17:21

journalist and himself were both agreeing that it

17:23

was the first time Alistair had gone into

17:25

a department which was running smoothly and there

17:27

were no problems. Neither he

17:30

nor I were there for very long

17:32

when the problems manifested themselves. The

17:34

financial crisis happened and it was pretty

17:36

hard going. About four or

17:38

five weeks after I became the Chancellor of the Exchequer and

17:41

I went on a holiday as you do and

17:43

I thought well I'm Chancellor now I better get a coffee with the

17:46

FT. And back at the

17:48

house we were staying in I just looked

17:51

at this and it was a small report

17:53

buried inside that said Society General had expended

17:55

three of its funds because it couldn't value

17:57

them anymore. Also in a separate item

17:59

was one of the German regional banks,

18:01

they're the ones that are supposed to invest in

18:03

the German industry, and got into subprime in a

18:05

big way. And of course I immediately

18:08

thought, well, if this is happening in France and Germany,

18:10

London is the biggest financial centre in the world, it must

18:12

be happening here. He came home,

18:14

he came back to London, and

18:17

the Treasury was very

18:19

under-manned because the economy

18:22

had been running so smoothly, so

18:24

they had to step up

18:26

very quickly to make sure that

18:29

there were able people focusing

18:32

on the financial crisis. Alistair

18:34

was very good at being

18:37

calm, he was always strategic. He

18:40

thought about next week and

18:42

next month and next year and how it

18:44

would pan out. The one phone call I've

18:46

ever received that did send a show of

18:48

down my spine, and I got

18:50

a call from the then chairman of RBS to

18:53

say the bank was hemorrhaging money, and what was I going

18:55

to do about it? I said, well, you know, you've got

18:57

a plan that's almost ready to go. And

19:00

I said, how long can you last? There was a

19:02

pause and he said, we're going to run out of

19:04

money this afternoon. And if RBS had run

19:06

out of money, cash machines would have gone off, the doors

19:08

would have been shut, and there would have

19:10

been a run on every other bank in the

19:12

UK, and by that afternoon in the United States, because

19:15

of the biggest bank in the world, it could collapse,

19:17

then I think people would have thought anything collapsed. We

19:19

were that close to the brink. Alistair

19:21

was up at all, she really got the

19:23

call from RBS, seeing that the bank was

19:25

in big trouble and he phoned network version,

19:27

who's a permanent secretary who phoned the Bank

19:30

of England, and they kept RBS

19:32

afloat. I mean, that must have been a

19:34

hair raising 24 hours. It

19:36

was, I think Alistair had to go to Europe

19:38

because the UK government had a

19:41

directive on the table and he

19:43

didn't want to go, but he thought if

19:45

he didn't go, then other finance ministers would

19:47

be thinking, well, what kind of crisis is

19:50

keeping Alistair away from the table? So

19:52

he went and very uncharacteristically,

19:55

he hired us very small

19:57

RAF objectives, some kind of

19:59

plea. Catherine

22:00

MacLeod on Lord Darling who's died age

22:02

70. This week last

22:04

words also go to the artist and

22:06

writer John Byrne who created the acclaimed

22:08

TV series Tutti Frutti. He

22:10

also worked as a painter and designed

22:12

album covers for his friend the singer

22:15

and songwriter Jerry Rafferty. And we remember

22:17

the actor Bridget Forsyth who played the

22:19

character of Bob's girlfriend Thelma in the

22:21

TV series The Likely Lads as well

22:24

as other leading roles. But

22:26

now Joan Harrow was the British-born dancer

22:28

who became the face and voice of

22:30

the thousands of people who disappeared or

22:32

were killed during the 1973 military

22:35

coup in Chile. While

22:37

on tour in the country Joan fell

22:39

in love with and then married the

22:42

Chilean folk singer and political activist Victor

22:44

Harrow who was himself killed by the

22:46

incoming regime of General Augusto Pinochet. The

22:49

general took power in a violent

22:51

coup overthrowing the left-wing president Salvador

22:53

Allende. One of the

22:56

lawyers who supported Joan's decades-long fight

22:58

for justice was Almadena Bernabao. She

23:01

told me more about Victor Harrow's reputation.

23:03

She became an icon of a

23:06

movement that the youth in Chile was

23:09

generating which was change very much

23:11

and that change came with Salvador

23:13

Allende and the prospect of Salvador

23:16

Allende becoming a president. So

23:18

she was quite popular.

23:28

The area from

23:30

which what I see in my window

23:33

is absolutely dead.

23:35

The governor's building surrounded the gutted

23:37

presidential tariffs as in all thought.

23:40

It is the right calling. There's a heavy

23:42

military guard, a heavy police guard. You

23:44

can still hear a sniper fire and military

23:46

units responding with machine guns and

23:49

tank cannons. By all

23:51

the subpoenas shared the army and

23:53

the navy took Santiago within hours.

23:55

I mean really the entire city

23:58

and they began making arrests. people.

24:00

I mean the orders

24:03

were to target

24:05

particular circles including the

24:07

university. Circles perceived as

24:10

dwelling at the time youth, dissidents,

24:14

activists and just in

24:16

a very very perhaps genetic way,

24:18

all in the supporters. Those

24:20

were the orders. My husband

24:22

left the house to go to his place

24:24

of work and I never saw him again. What

24:27

happened to him? As so many

24:29

other Chileans he was taken

24:32

prisoner by the military in

24:34

Chile. He was taken

24:36

to the stadium and there he

24:38

was very brutally treated. His hands

24:40

were broken and he

24:42

was shot after two days. I found

24:44

his body in the city morgue in

24:46

Santiago one week after the military coup

24:48

in Chile. And that must have

24:51

been the most horrendous moment for her. She

24:53

always said publicly I was lucky. I

24:56

was able to confirm and see my

24:58

husband even if dead and

25:00

given the last kiss. Do

25:02

you think that she immediately resolved

25:04

that she would try

25:07

to campaign to find justice for her

25:09

husband no matter how difficult that would

25:11

be? I think so. For me it's

25:13

just it's so important you know she

25:15

was a mother of two young girls.

25:17

I think she had profound, profound

25:21

happiness. Really the love

25:23

of her life. And I was taken away

25:26

and I think if our factors broke in

25:28

a million pieces and then she decided

25:31

yeah this is what I'm gonna do.

25:33

We're going to talk about this and we're

25:35

going to see who did this and we're

25:38

gonna do it for Victor but

25:40

through Victor for everybody else in

25:42

Chile who suffered. It's always difficult

25:44

for me to speak but

25:47

somehow there's a necessity to

25:49

respond. I mean if

25:52

I ever thought well it's difficult for me to speak the

25:54

anything I need to do is to think what was happening

25:56

in Chile and then I knew that I

25:58

was speaking for so many people. that my voice had to

26:00

be heard. For years, it seemed Joan would not

26:03

be able to find out who had killed her

26:05

husband. But after democratic rule

26:07

had been restored in Chile, the Commission

26:09

of Investigation into the fate of the

26:11

dead and disappeared was established. A

26:14

witness identified a former army lieutenant

26:16

called Pedro Barrientos Nunez as having

26:18

taken an active role in Victor's

26:20

killing. In 2013, Joan

26:22

and her two daughters brought a civil

26:24

case against Nunez, who was by now

26:26

living in the United States and was

26:28

a US citizen. In

26:31

2016, 43 years after Victor's death, Nunez

26:34

was found guilty by a jury in

26:37

Florida. Joan reflected on

26:39

their verdict. We've lived with all

26:42

these years with gradually

26:44

losing more and more the hope

26:46

of justice for Victor. It

26:49

was wonderful here in the

26:51

United States, in an

26:54

American court, to find this unanimous

26:56

verdict. In 2018,

26:59

eight former Chilean military officers were

27:01

also given prison sentences in Chile

27:03

for the murder of Victor Hara.

27:06

Because Nunez was a US citizen, he

27:08

could not be extradited to Chile. But

27:10

thanks to the efforts of Joan and

27:13

her lawyers, his US citizenship was revoked

27:15

earlier this year. She has been

27:17

the most iconic demanding

27:20

justice, never giving

27:22

up. She had the Victor

27:25

Hara Foundation. They had been putting

27:27

concerts and using Victor

27:29

Hara's music to keep messaging

27:32

and keep requesting truth. She

27:35

has been struggling to manifest it. So she

27:37

is this person that never,

27:39

ever, ever stopped fighting

27:41

for 40 plus years. So yeah, that

27:44

was very important for Chile

27:46

and Chile. Almadena Bernabao on Joan

27:48

Hara has died aged 96. This

27:51

week, you also heard last words on

27:53

the Labour politician, Lord Darling. The US

27:56

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and

27:58

the singer Shane McGowan. Don't

28:00

forget there are hundreds of other fascinating life

28:02

stories in the Last Word Archive on BBC

28:04

Sounds. Next week we'll bring

28:06

you memories of the poet Benjamin Zephaniah

28:09

who's died aged 65. The

28:11

music of the world is here. This

28:14

city can't play any song. They

28:17

came to hear from everywhere. This

28:19

day that made with city's dream.