Be there parents but some parents who've been allowed unsupervised contact with their children have gone on to home them sometimes with tragic consequences this woman whom we're calling Lisa lived with her partner for 8 years they had 2 children and she says the abuse got worse all the time it was small pushes for the doors throwing things at me then it cept up to you in a car journey threatening to crash into a wall and take my seat belt off and then it gradually stepped up into this attack that rarely I feared for my life after she and her partner separated Lisa said he was allowed unsupervised contact with her children at weekends even though he'd served 8 weeks in prison for assault by beating so I get them back on Sunday night and it take me to lease Wednesday to calm them tantrums throwing stuff smacking me and one of the comments on never forget when my daddy does that so why can't I Lisa suspects that her ex partner physically harm their son you may find the details upsetting there's an incident that sticks out my mind went to a Mexican progress day with my children and my son was on the table whispering there's the challenge sauce that daddy uses some like what my daughter to run this idea every time he's cheeky he gets cherry sauce put down is marked. Which kind of . It just made me sink into my chair because it explains why he's so poorly when it comes to how. It made me recall a time I attended the chief piece with the bent to Suffolk s.n. The blood twenties coffin and it just made me break because that was the final straw for me it was Lisa interviewed for b.b.c. Stories her former partner is no longer allowed to see their children unsupervised . And really Hilton a senior policy officer at the Children's Charity n s p c c told me of cases where children might get caught up in what's now called coercive and controlling behavior they might be asked to punish that they abuse parrot my locking them out of the house in the rain will be told to throw their dinner in the bin because it's not been cooked properly or shout at their parents and getting cold in the cycle they might also feel that they have to defend the parent who might be being harmed whether that's physically stepping in or looking after them after something might have happened and what effect does it have on the children domestic abuse has been shown to have profound emotional and mental health impacts on children young people particularly if they don't have access to any kind of service of the therapeutic support children who experience domestic abuse potentially vulnerable to having unsafe relationships as they get older and that's why we really think that you know the programs that any species he runs for example domestic abuse recovering together which is about therapeutic support with a mother and a child to overcome the experiences that they've had together is one way of really trying to address these kinds of potential impacts. Emily Hilton but there are 2 sides to every dispute speak to divorced or separated nonresident parents typically fathers and some will tell you that their former partners have alienated their children against them or made groundless allegations of abuse but Greg founded support groups for families going through divorce or separation they're called only mums and only dads what sort of incidents to see come across we often hear of instance at the fridge where both Mum and Dad will arrive to go to the fridge for milk of the same time and it'll just snap they'll be or push on a shelf and we hear dad's talking of an isolated incident being labelled then family court is domestic abuse but parents shouldn't push fathers shouldn't shove shouldn't swear no they shouldn't none of us should ever at the very dying embers of a marriage when there's a lack of trust and people are scared and frightened it's not abnormal for there to be Riyadh incident but I suppose it's difficult for the family courts they see what you say is a minor incident to push or a show of but there may be a symptom of something deeper and that might expose a child to danger if that child spends time with their parent. You know absolutely right and that's why one of the things that we've been asking for is for courts to have a speed year process of finding out some facts I do not see why it takes family courts judges months to access things like police reports and social services reports because it's certainly in the child's interest that if there is domestic abuse at home and one parent is a danger to the children that ought to be found out really very quickly how well is the system working for some parents it's working appallingly we've had contact with a mom of the last 5 or 6 years who is trying to raise her daughter but keeps on being taken back to court because Dad wants increased contact on this mom has been very open to contact always has been but this case and I'm not exaggerating when I say it has gone back to court over 30 times what particularly worries many of the parents who speak to Bob Greg are false allegations typically against fathers he gave me an example mom stopped dad seeing the children. Dad applied to courts mom then responded to the court with various allegations of abuse against her and also one allegation of abuse against the child that Dad had on one occasion. Physically abused the child. That. Father didn't see his children for just over 6 and a half months eventually it was proved as far as possible from our family court judge that that was all made up and did contact resume after that it did but it's right that in circumstances like that allegations of abuse are investigated. It's absolutely right but let's do them very quickly Bob Greg during the summer officials from the Ministry of Justice invited anyone who's used the family courts to resolve contact disputes to give their views on how well the system was working a panel of experts is currently considering their responses alongside other evidence Lucy Reed is a family law barrister John's chambers in Bristol how likely are the courts to allow contact when they have been allegations of domestic abuse most cases will end up with some form of contact whether that's extensive staying over at dad's house type contact or something much more restricted supervised contact or letters every so often supervised contact might be the parent and the child meeting at what's called a contact center contact center and there can be various degrees of supervision most contact centers are not strictly supervised there's a sensible adult around and about keeping an eye on a number of families we call that supported contact but there are cases where the court will say this is simply not safe it can't be done safely or it's not for one reason or another in the best interests of the child for this to happen and courts do tend to try to maintain contact because generally speaking the starting point is courts think some contact with a parent is better than no contact at all yes the I mean that's the generality but the court has to drill down once it knows what the facts are to what's right for this particular child at this particular time knowing that there are both risks probably in relation to contact with a parent who's got some history of domestic abuse but also potential benefits and that can sometimes be really difficult for judges to make a decision about judges are human they make mistakes but are they doing the best they can I think that most judges that I have appeared in front of as a lawyer are doing the best they can but judges are working under extreme pressure at the moment and that problem. Increases the risk off human error or just things not being spotted off some really thought 3 Lucy Reed who also chairs the transparency project which aims to make family justice clearer and if you're concerned about these issues you can find details of organizations offering information and support at b.b.c. Doc u.k. Forward slash action line you can also hear recorded information free of charge by calling 080-000-7707 extension 7. If parents can't agree on contact then as we've heard a court may have to take a decision for them but how does a judge decide when it's in the best interests of vulnerable children to see a potentially abusive parent so Andrew McFarlane is president of the High Court Family Division which makes him the senior family judge in England and Wales the gold standard is for the court to achieve an outcome which is the best for the child the child's welfare is the paramount consideration but where there are allegations of abuse then the court has a duty to investigate those allegations and then if their locations are found to be true then they have to evaluate whether it's never the less safe enough for the child to have a relationship with the other parent how easy is it for the court to make that evaluation it's often very difficult often the only witness is are the 2 protagonists one word against another and that's it's often very important to wait and we sometimes have to wait quite some time for material to come from the police or some other 3rd party because often that's very important eyewitness material to assist the court the court has a set of guidelines for evaluating these matters they were brought in about 10 years ago but they've been revised twice in the intervening period in order to give the courts as much assistance as possible in evaluating the evidence that comes before them he said. Anything that can be done to speed up the process I'm sure there is the volume of cases in the system is immense the number of days on which the family court now sits undertaking family work is 91000 court days a year and the best research we have is that allegations of domestic abuse are made in about 60 percent of all family cases and so the volume of work is such that we can't avoid having delay in processing the cases but the delay itself builds in problems typically the court will suspend any contact while the investigation takes place and so if that takes 345 months then the child hasn't been seeing the other parent in that time and if their Legations are not proved or not proved to a high degree you think about a further problem of restarting contact because of that delay and that in itself may harm the relationship between the parent and the child it may well do and sitting in the seat I do I speak regularly with women's agencies who are rightly very keen for the court to take domestic abuse very seriously which we do but equally I meet a group such as Families Need Fathers but there are a reputable and recognized group of individuals who feel that they've been badly served by the family justice system who speak about Delay who speak about the court's inability to get to the bottom of the fact finding process quickly how does it feel to the individual judge having to decide a case like this these are difficult cases it's quite easy to look at a newspaper headline and see abuse given contact and think well that should never happen but these cases are much more complicated than that when something goes wrong after the event we all look with hindsight and sometimes see tragically that the court's decision or the decision of the parents has been dangerous when everybody at the time will have the. It was safe and we just need to keep pushing and pushing at it to improve the perspective in the training of the judges but also increase the ability of the court to get information from the police and from other agencies a further problem that we have is that a lot of the people who come to court now with these problems are representing themselves legal aid will come to a person who makes an allegation but the other party is often a litigant in person and so the court is having to draw out of those people who are not used to being in court just what they want to say about their children Sandra MacFarlane president of the High Court Family Division. You're listening to law and action with me. Maybe not. Making life. Easier if it costs 24 points. Ok now we've got Kelli with us here to answer our family law questions so Kelly what's the overall attitude of the law towards children seeing fathers being released from prison or who are currently residing in prison welly I think an important fact that light to start with Old Course is a prison just outside Liverpool it has its own radio station but there's more to radio all course the limousine beat the same president doesn't automatically remove your parent toast sponsibility our parenting responsibilities gained if you a Kelly isn't a practicing lawyer yet she's a student before we hear how she ended up questions in the prison radio studio let's take a quick tour of all course which is privately run by g 4 s. I've come here to find out how a traditional closed prison can open the minds of its inmates Our guide is David McCully who's worked here for more than 20 years this was billed originally as a cat's a prison cell from the main body of the prison open so you get to the prison walls we've got various barriers we've got the razor wire we've got Gates you've got railings we've got walls we've got x. Rays infrared so we're still equipped as a council and these things need to be maintained all the time but it's now a category b. Prison what's the difference between category which is most secure and can't be it's based not so much on the offense but on the offender so if you are high risk prisoner It's got a potential in the forms and the means to escape are probably classed as a category one copies are more people who come locally probably a lesser offense but still with the potential to influence maybe an escape or something Ok well it's let's go on and see where we get. We have prisoners who are gardeners they have also met how to manufacture the stuff you can see got to live a bad spot and these for me are to scrap left by forthright and somebody is cut that out here using their new laser printer that we've got so we could have lots of contracts here for the local businesses and such like a beehive over there he yeah I also keep easier as well we use that as a therapy program to get people the old prisoners out and get me involved in the regime in the prison so I'm the only is absolutely gorgeous at all course prisoners learn all about the b.s. And the birds Pete Tinsley works in prisoner education these are the birds of prey the European Eagle owls are a small. Couple of one else. Yes So there's quite a few in the let's take them around the prison I'm not so use them as therapy birds as well so many prisoners are anxious to not see pet them so the guts or to you know come from the front so the bad can see the hand and things like the fly them on the West pitch do they come back yet there's been a couple of occasions where they haven't bought generally the lots of got the well trained we heard earlier from one of the lads a prisoner whose 1st name is Elliot when he introduced me to Bella the buzz that he trained it's a great spirit because obviously this is taught in new skills I would have never known on the out what's the training involved training of all just the hands of you know it's a man who like this and the gloves she so you see here in cons are. Stroking her feet and on the floor of the wave flying she's quite new She's only been in 7 weeks so now it be flying her from gloves on a lead and see what progress to free fly in her eye because she doesn't know she's in prison she doesn't she had a bad life before the show you made a life better for rescue she was she was taken from a nest and she she was young she said he soon I'll choose really really scared she came such a long way in the 7 weeks. If used to be agreeing with you yeah she. As a grave I wasn't quite sure who was rescuing whom Ben who's serving a longer sentence than Elliott teaches other prisoners about birds of prey. Where did this Saturday morning cause the lights come down and just take the time and learn how to do it and then from that then go into a flaw in a work in the bird probably the birds have been tricked wrongly by other people on the out so that to us with rehabilitate them back to being looked after weak as much out of them as they get out of us for show. When all course was visited by prison inspectors 2 years ago they reported a downward trend in fall and anti social behavior which they described as highly creditable levels of self harm while still high were also decreasing They said that purposeful activity work education and training was excellent for a local prison. And there's nowhere to go it's time to listen to that a laid. Back in the prison radio station just an office really with microphones and 2nd hand computers I met George he tells me that he and his fellow prisoners are expected to produce as much as 5 hours of content every day all of which is played out several times by prison staff 24 hour precaution shows 24 hours a day 7 days a week we do all types of show all different genres of music things that are with the prison interviews yes we do interviews music you people. Are in prison and then also the staff as well how do the prisoners Listen to this radio program do they have Oreo Quitman in the rooms they have T.V.'s so comes through the T.V.'s presumably they've got a choice between you and outside broadcasters Yes they have both it's local here isn't it and they associate with it as well so I think that's why they listen to. People because principle point. Ok today in the studio we are joined by soem very special guests and I'm going to let Jenny introduce them all thank you very much yeah my name's Jenny I'm a cheater at the Open University and I'm here with pick the final here last Leigh is the presenter and the law students are taking part in one of the station's most popular programs each year but all of the last couple of years now a group of open university students will come in. It's part of their degree course and unset questions have been raised by lots in the present so give them an opportunity to ask legal questions that they want to ask and combi case specific general questions then these guys go away research announces come back and then we'll interview them on air and again it's something to show for the lots and that it's a lesson to me because it's that question's been on sense what sort of questions they ask her vast range could be anything from or is Paca what is Bill Parker is the proceeds of crime not 2000 and so so they will ask about law and how it affects their family they'll ask or sorts family law questions questions about the Hague the shape how detention curfew tog absolutely any question that they once these guys will go why research them and give your actual cases of lost and so on Saddam they get it right yes to be fair they do we're privileged in this job it was an off make a big difference speaking to people from the outside world just makes a big difference to us what the sentence guidelines for the fence since this 2 lakhs of legislation in the criminal justice Immigration Act 2008 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and they contain the student giving advice here is Sarah cooling she's just been awarded a 1st class law degree by the Open University and is now hoping to train as a barrister who was it like for her visiting old course for the 1st time it was very scary I must admit walking in your quite nervous escapes in this razor wire and you don't know where you're going in you have to check your bag makes you not taken anything in that you're not allowed and this is a men's prison of course absolutely but you see on the t.v. You think that's what it's going to be like but it's nothing like that and then coming in here and in the education department I was blown away and in terms of the course the idea of you providing the answers to questions put by prisoners how well does that work. I think it works quite well you know we were given a quite a substantial list of questions we had to go through and pick which ones weren't too specific and we split those questions up between us we prepared on says and then we have a supervising solicitor who make sure what we are saying is in fact correct and then we presented our answers so it was great and Bulent from the prison's learn from it absolutely yes it was definitely eye opening for me and the skills I gained of coming in here in confidence. You know on the same from the prisoners or getting the same thing so it's prisoners helping students and students helping presidents I think it's fantastic all this is part of the universe to open justice project which provides free legal advice and guidance to people who might not receive support in other ways human fall is a law lecturer at the Open University what does he see as the benefits of this project the main thing for me is having this sense of collaboration and for our students coming in it's a great opportunity for them to put the hard won legal knowledge and skills to good use and I think the radio projects particularly is exciting for them because there's that element of nerves that when you're actually going in them being recorded that you have to really have done the research so when you given your ounces to be broadcast it yet has to be just right human fall bringing law students into prison was the brainchild of Pete tensely who works in prison education it's useful to the students but how useful is it to the prisoners I think you can see them a lot because even though all the questions are very generic they will be specific to individuals one lot wrote in the other access to children when he was up through the courts but when he came in suppressing his partner with names of access to the kids all his question which was obviously specific temple possibly generic because it affected all the people so one of the students went away can come up with the answer to find out what the answer was through research in. None of the prisoners knew anything about full canary when they came here and none of them were broadcasters either but Lee is enthusiastic about working on Prison Radio I fell on my feet when I got my job here slowly no skills I mean and use computers before on the outside like music or in terms of point shows together interviewing people publishing documents no skills like Clinton will well have been here these useful skills clearly for when you leave Yeah absolutely so much so that I'm going to set me oh in business when I got out of the publishing company through the skills of Landsea and it's improved me self confidence as well why did you apply for this I've always worked all my life so I wanted to get a job when I came here to help pass the time though it's turned into a whole lot more all the shows are 60 minutes long though without you even know and using math you've got but you songs in place it out the same then you've got to write scripts are using your English then you're interviewing people you've got a communication skills you've got than at it the show because although we recorded live it's not I had life so then you've got to add any little mistakes or if there's things that you said that you know allowed to say you know a lot of comments on any cases that are going on in the news to anything like that you've got at it then I'll basically you know we do that to leave the presenter is now planning to take an Open University course himself how long will that take officially it's classed as 6 years because we can only do it part time you've got to prove to them that you can do the work because it's 40 hours a week full time which is a lot of study in bull Heya waiting ourselves for 13 hours a night so it's manageable It's manageable but much harder because Pete Tinsley and his education team can't offer prisoners adult course the one resource that every other student takes for granted these days Internet access. It makes it massively difficult then open access to the Internet because that uses then have to be more ingenious in the resources that they produce so you obviously get engagements by the load as in certain places they have a thing called Universal compass which is like a variation of the Internet where the cheaters can put the test on lines of all the students can sit the test at the same time or different students can work on different projects in the different sounds really where not there yet and unfortunately you won't be able to listen to radio course unless of course you find yourself only unsigned on next week's program though we sample Prison Radio that everyone can learn from Law and action was presented by Joshua Rosenberg and produced by Neil Koenig in a moment Harriet Gilbert's and her guests share some of their favorite books including one with the magnificent title an account of the decline of the great orc according to one who saw it that's in a good read after this on b.b.c. For most of the great art comes out of most of situations for jazz is born out of the story of a label that I have to the period of it's musician I had the freedom to make man music he would stand behind what he believed in even if a wasn't selling and innovative. Music as me to cont stride piano and turn it inside out broke the rules of bebop wish broke the rules of whatever came before that Blue Note Records. On Friday night at $930.00. This is b.b.c. Radio 4 his Harriet Gilbert's with some more books and some more guests on this week's a good read. Hello with me today are 2 award winning writers Damien Lebar poet journalist author of last year's the stopping place is a journey through Gypsy Britain and earlier this year a presenter of the t.v. Documentary a very British history Romany gypsies and with a man Amy lipped dropped his memoir The outran was a Sunday Times top 10 bestseller and he's currently writing her 2nd book Damien would you start us off what is your recommendation for a good read my recommendation is the spectacularly titled an account of the decline of the great walk according to one who saw it point Jesse Greengrass. It is one of the good titles Yes that is the title of the 1st story in the book is a collection of short stories I think it's astonishing it's unique the stories are set in many different places across the Earth told from the perspectives of very different people in different times part. But you have one thing in common and that's an incredible piercing self-regard on the part of the people who are telling them you know marched disquieting level of precision about what cars are in the human mind and more cars all in the world. Sort of spooky really without God exists or this one has Garson it but you know in the normal way well I am a little trot it is a very varied collection in terms of subject matter and history I mean some of them a set way in the 19th century some of them are set in the future some of the mystery Now how did you enjoy them I love this because well it was really unusual and distinctive I had to choose for example to write a sort of story from the point of view of a 19th century Hunter involved in the extinction of the great talk if not obvious choice but it really really works and I don't tend to to read sort of stories that much but this made me made me wonder why not because often in a very short space you can enter an entire imaginative world which can be set up in just one line one of the story starts sometimes I dream there is still an Internet which I think it is brilliant It tells you so much just in that and that line but although the stories are in different times and places I felt that was definitely a union unify almost voice and some similar theme throughout them yeah there's a Ganesh that excoriating sort of so for praise of you know looking at what's going on in your own head you know you know a lonely. Detailed Why that's something that every new writer has in common whether it's a why you are in Antarctica or someone he regrets having disrespected their greengrocer parents in the middle and they have that in common everyone's analyzing themselves to death almost but it's weirdly addictive to read that I have to say I think this is a terrific collection to those 12 stories 10 which I think a good to very good and to which I think a brilliant I think the title story the one about the Great Auk extermination is just superb and it's partly because it's got this steady voice and it's telling a really ugly sad story it's the story of how the great talks will be gathered on this bit of rock because they couldn't fly the sailors used to catch them and eat them and then their feathers were valuable that they take the feathers of Quite often they didn't bother to kill them before they took the feathers out they just dumped these now half naked birds in the sea and it's that thing Jesse Green Grass says at that point this is what I think is so great that the contract he says we caught them and pulled the feathers that we needed and let them go half plucked and even then they would not run but only stand but mused on blinking a naked where we put them down and then later they would die of their own accord and it's like you know the great talks had some choice in the matter I just think it's it's brilliant and as you say it's so cute the way this this Mariner who's telling the story says actually we started blaming these birds for what we were doing them to them you know they wouldn't move we started hating them here that they saw their own frailty somehow in these creatures I mean it's it's surrender so in a way there are all sorts of moments of weird humor in it but the bits the study with me of the the grotesque pitch to be honest because they're sorry brilliantly described she. Woman The narrator describes using the birds as kindling as fuel on the fire which is heating a pot which is boiling the other birds which is such a case when exquisitely horrible graphic image that I think my favorite one is all the other jobs which is and the right who's considering other law eves and other jobs and isolated jobs that happen in in remote places it looks at the Folly really of of thinking you could just put on another life that there's somehow a panacea in there that if only I did that job really well then what troubles would melt away. If only I got to be a sort of polar bear look out exactly how can I follow and so use it since to learn how to use a shotgun. In the oyster Nord suddenly be free of more individual 4 balls and it's a brilliant subtle dismantling of of the order I mean do you have a favorite story out of the movie I think it be the last one which I thought was brilliant which is about a man overcoming his guilt about the relationship they had with is now dead parents through returning to their greengrocer's shop which is now a Toyota shop and he had been as a young man a bit snobby about his humble upbringing and had turned his back on it but he's by returning able to internally kind of forgive himself for how he behaved and it's quite subtle and it's quite still has this slightly detached slightly depressed voice that a lot of the stories do but very perceptive and kind of emotionally intelligent about how he comes to understand how his parents' pride made him also proud and how even though he took a different path he had some similarities in and it's sad what happened but also he develops a good grace to overcome it I thought it was beautiful I'm interested that you thought it was a male narrator because I felt with so many of these Yeah I mean not the 18th century mariner who presumably it was to be mystified but it's never very rarely specified I thought that was quite interesting that you just thought there's this person this voice where you have the Mariners name which cannot connection or thinks all that was a clue that's a clue it connotes in that other wonderful story this is my favorite is called the lone some sort of trials of you know in the way you look at somebody and humor and then I think no it is a wonderful character is this sort of the last of this shipwrecked ship is the last Mar in the still alive and so he sort of becomes promoted to captain Yes I do want to. He's dead and he's so proud of the fact he says you know my parents were yes so pleased if they knew that I'm not captain alone on the edge of the way to say yeah dragging the corpse of ease of the previous captain to the cliffs to which he's accompanied by a small penguin who cries out in grief sort of joins him in the morning process like all of it so I waited in an oddly brilliant you know why that he he just on often encounter really in writing also slightly funny the for my lawyer he under him making his himself Captain and almost seeing the positive side of being the only surviving sailor in Am what will be a fatal situation and allow him and kneeling to take his captaincy evolves in front of a nest of all the trusses to albatrosses nesting indeed and they sort of spread their vast wings as he kneels there and takes his vows as a cop to spread their wings like Jack an orange it's all so littered with just brilliant for capital reaches perfectly chugs in words I got this gothic air so of infuses everything with a slightly with a hole in Cygnus you know I think really the book proves that the world is haunted by arson or thought we don't need gods really it's weird enough as it is how much more I love about it we've been talking about an account of the decline of the great orc according to one who saw it by Jesse Green grass. And for my good read I've chosen a novel called Mirror shoulder signal sorry Damon It's a relatively short title it's by a Danish writer called daughter Norse and it opens as a sort of comedy our heroine who's called Sonia is being given driving lessons by a motor mouth with a cigarette habit so the car is constantly full of cigarette smoke and this woman who's giving her lessons won't stop talking about her family about the fact that she really doesn't get on with our daughter's boyfriend about the fact that he thinks are too many foreigners in the country and she's got so much to say that instead of actually teaching Sonia how to change the gears she does it for so it's on your obviously isn't learning a very great deal and then but I mean I was enjoying all that I was enjoying the comedy when I 1st read this book and partly because my own driving isn't brilliant so I was identifying with Sonia and her a failure to turn right properly and to do 3 point turns but then something less funny starts creeping in as though the voice slightly changes in this book it becomes. Darker maybe certainly big has an edge to it it acquires an edge and you realise that Sonia is not some kind of ditzy Roman calm heroine for whom everything is going to be fine she's in fact a woman she's in her forty's who is having a real crisis she she not only can't drive she hates being in Copenhagen where she's come she's fled from Joplin there's a young woman she'd come back being stuck in the town she doesn't understand why she's not in touch with our sister properly any longer she hates her job which is translating scanned in Wa fiction from from Swedish into Danish and she doesn't know how to get any of this anguish out of her it's just stuck inside going round and round it's it is a mordantly funny book but it is also very sad I think to do enjoyed a me I thought the it was interesting. And who was somebody out of step with social convention and I thought she was quite similar to the heroine of another book that I read after listening to this program convenience store woman because this person is kind of questions social norms that it leads you is as a reader to do the same and I particularly like the bits where found quite funny where she sort of questioned the psychobabble of her message cease and said things like there's a psychological cause to breast cancer which is a kind of extinction of how she sees the different parts of the body is linked to different things and I thought that was both funny and quite quite true but ultimately I think I found a bit unsatisfying I felt like there were too many unfinished threads that we suggested at the beginning but were not completed and we never found out for example if she learns to drive or what happens with her family or the instructor that's a character in the book called Molly and it says family tales without climax don't have any appeal and I'm afraid that with regards to this book I'm a bit of a Molly. Order but you don't mean the I thought that there were really 2 faces to Sonya the protagonist and that when she was talking about the world she'd come from Animal Rule part of Denmark and about her family and herself as a child she wrote in a very beautiful y. About their place in nature describing the case the fields of our time spent particularly with her father and I was very taken with our spirits there was a sort of. Simplicity about them and they were pretty well damn. I think she struggles with the city to the extent that it makes her quite on likable or I found I couldn't help noticing that she's always very. Sort of spiteful about children and about mothers with children there's talk of flocks of mothers mothers resembling a sort of about Shiv of gorilla so was as if they've somehow become soldier Royston lost their humanity by virtue of being a gathering of mothers and children's faces have orifices that leak tears and I don't know that that sort of language I found quite disturbing really was weird how she how she seem to dislike the little ins. I think there is definitely a disturbing element to this novel I suppose I found it quite attractive quite appealing that not quite knowing where anything was going this one scene which does feature a small child she is in some years in a shopping mall and she sees a child in a buggy who is eating a current Bon and stuffing his little face with it or it's little face that again I think she have a specifies that the sex of the child and she comes over to it. And how is this memory of something that happened on the farm in Joplin this farm where she grew up of little pink slips who overfed themselves on some kind of animal food and gorge themselves so much that they died and it's a really horrible image because her father says well the another one will bury them but in fact he doesn't bury the me just pitchforks them on to the top of the manure heap where they rot so I she's approaching this child she's got this really quite dark image in her head and then she kneels down in front of the buggy and it's make clear that nobody can see at this point the mother can't see her nobody can see her and she says to the child you mustn't eat so much stuff or face so much and then the mother appears and she set turns around and says. What a lovely little child you know and I just thought that was such a dangerous moment nothing happens nothing happens this you know she doesn't do any harm to this child but I don't know did you not I mean quite enjoy that sort of balance between. Comedy and horror Yeah that would certainly elements that I enjoyed including her relationship with the right to who she's translating who she's quite skeptical of his technique so that you can miss our journey in violence and his bit and it was quite quite humorous as well and I think it's made multi-layered by the fact that the itself has been translated for us and maybe some of the problems that you might be having with the language could be to do with the translation and also at the end when she has this meeting with an older woman and that kind of suggests different types of relationship the possibilities of different and more unconventional types of relationships than perhaps the heir traditional family which she struggled with or thought that it was really beautiful more for isn't it the very end of the very end an older woman has she sort of connects with her what I want to say what she says and because people want to read a book. That was very warm and lovely but I can't I don't I'm saying that you think a child is not particularly nice looking and then being complimentary about it in a disingenuous why afterwards. I think I think fill me with the milk of human corn I don't think Sony is a particularly nice person I think she's a very unhappy person I suppose that's what I was feeling and it's interesting you talk about beautifully she talks about the farm where she grew up on the land and fields of barley and dry and so on and so forth I think it's true but there's also something else I mean that there are things like the dead piglets there are things like she just knows that the land has been spoiled because I grew businesses come in the small farms of sold up therefore the whole community dies because if there aren't any small farms there aren't enough children to keep the village school going or the village shops and so everything seems to me in that novel to be quite ambivalent sort of as though if you tip it one way it looks dark of you to put another way it looks like that sort of here and I thought that was very well done and as I me says it made a noise contrast with the contrasts that daughter North draws in the book between the idea that Denmark is a sort of crime Skype littered with murdered corpses and you know us for you know our ending gruesomeness and the shallow points about what's happened in the countryside and. Yeah I thought that there was a turning the character and she became more I found it easier to empathize with I want she began to admit what was wrong really and turn Turkey's inwards rather than outwards other people there's a moment towards the end where she she starts to sort of figure out what what the issue might be and and talk about it and then all will we've been talking about Mirror shoulder signal by daughter Nourse And you're listening to a good read where my guests today are Damien the bar and a meal that got Amy your choice of good. I have chosen Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie's 2nd collection of essays published in 2012 called sightlines and it's the kind of book that just reading the dedication which is for all the island goers and the chapter titles which include 3 ways of looking at St Kilda and the storm Petrel makes my heart beat a bit faster just reading those books it's just the kind of things which I'm interested in these kind of subjects but although having Jamie has chosen could be seen as quite romantic subjects so there are things about far flung islands and animals and artifacts she what I like one of the many things that I admire about her is that she likes it all with a realist's eye and she finds the poetry in things like a list of different objects that have been found in Ghana it's nests which she has gathered up and presented this to us as as poets we are there are great collectors it appears gannets of all the super rubbish in plastic and stuff from the city and the birds themselves they don't have a great reputation but she really sees the t. In them or could happily read what she's got to say about absolutely anything and what the book proves is that if you look at anything with the right corner voice for long enough you will see things that are really there that don't get seen and I found this astonishing thrilling how. I never knew where a paragraph was going to go but it always seemed to go in exactly the right. Direction in the end and from going from wire with skeletons to to. And I mean shouldn't Stonewall in which I believe leeches fall petrels might their nests and when disturbed by start to sing and this will starts up like a barrel organ always just it's full of that corner of. Magical take on reality and . On their I made it Lee went home pour another Kathleen findings off the back of this because I just couldn't get it I says it's an incomparable treat to read where it really and that as you say it is startling I mean I think it's the 2nd story which moves from the landscape to the basement of a hospital where she goes down to where the pathologists are working on bits of human tissue and a nice guy allows it to look through his microscope so she's seeing a sort of cross-section of the liver with a tumor who's you know owner is still upstairs in the ward somewhere and bacteria she sees a cross-section of a bit of a lining of the Gulf with the bacteria and it sort of going about their bacteria life and it is what I mean she goes from bacteria to whales through gannets and through Also also through creatures I mean the whole of the universe is there in this book she's really questioning and pressing the definition of what nature is she says it's not all Primeau is an author is raise leads her to look as far as bacteria inside the human body and some of the more threatening aspects of what can being included in in the natural world but what it does raise a very interesting question and one that echoed in different ways throughout the book which is what should our relationship be with these other natural forms these are the living things should we be intervening This is the story of the moth that she sees floating on the loch and it's waterlogged and it's clearly going to sink down and she leans in and tries to rescue it and it's very difficult little it's little leg is stuck to it sorry and she says it's like it looks a bit like a an old man holding a monocle just amazing perception of description about absolutely everything. And when she releases the leg from it so I She says compares it to the possibility of looking at things or new. Yourselves if only recycle of fruits of our oil and she doesn't know she's on it any good whatsoever except clear and she's awareness and self questioning and even a challenge the process of her editing her own writing a story in the writing so you get this you feel or are felt like I had a connection with the more end of the writer that isn't always there ever there was a kind of newness of her voice in a very special why she does take sides sometimes for example she looks at the issues of wringing and very much say that this has been a valuable thing for increasing our knowledge about where swallows go in winter she's not kind of misty eyed about leaving nature to its own devices she seems like she's sort of pro science but she expresses her views with restraint which is another thing that I do admire about her I feel there's times when a lesser right to May have gone on to make a point say about conservation or climate change or spirituality but she sort of holds back and she allows the reader to come to these conclusions and I think that's she's really great and did you feel I mean that what I felt because they will hang together these pieces is that what emerged was that the whales were the great tragic heroes of this book we see them in so many forms they sort of surface sometimes just in passing in one they're safe sometimes of the whole center of it but we see them most commonly as as bones and remnants to me that's in the museum in Norway in Bergen and also she travels around Scotland looking at different places where jawbones of Wales have been a youth is gate gateways and as part of agricultural walls and she goes to me and finds a in the Thomas museum looks at a whale's ear drum which is a have a sort of totem of the whole species is one of the it's the thing if you burn away l. It's something that will withstand burning. And it's very symbolic of you think but I think that whale has never ever wear that but that whales he wanted to hear if they heard last comment more a lot of that's about really like in general of law and just seeing comparable Yeah it seems to me the book is about how do we find the balance how we interact with animals the landscape. Crumbling buildings as well they crop up quite a lot the remnants of old you know Polly and the buildings and settlements and so yeah or found it very refreshing how she was happy to to think about what people's lives were like who lived there because often those are an understandable reluctance to speculate about what people were like in the past on the part of archaeologists and that's absolutely fair enough but there are certain things that we can assume the laws will only. Things like in compliment of people walking through caves they would have been carrying. Things are so she's brilliant to get into the mind of of inaccessible mornings really you know why you are think you still intellectually justifiable were never it's never crashed or she doesn't are just up the mark I just really read this because the 1st reading it shortly after it came out and I I wish that they have influential it's been on me and I think on . A lot of British kind of nature writing. In the last 5 years it sort of showed me that it was Ok to put the natural surroundings and animal life that is the story it's not the background to human affairs and also I think it sort of changed my center of gravity somewhat for the North she's looking all these Scottish places they know there's got his Highlands and then as far as the Arctic and. It's not it's not looking at the tropical rain forest it's showing the sort of romance and attraction of the know the early places and I think that's being been quite influential and it's she shifts the center of intellectual gravity in Hawaii us a bit of a city sentence but she makes a question she makes this question what Word lot remarks means you know she talks about oil and that we call remarked scion the Western Isles but remark from what Jess she says from one source from London but what was London with you have centuries more of human habitation than some of the places that we see is less remote we've been talking about sightlines by Kathleen Jamie which is published by sort of books before that we were talking about Jessie green grass is an account of the decline of the Great or according to one who saw it published by John Murray and shoulder signal by daughter North translated by Michelle Hoekstra and published by Pushkin press suggestions from hundreds more guests including porn a bell Matt Hey John Snow Bernadino every stone. Can be found by searching for a good read online and if you read a book reach out about here tell us what you think of it are joining our book club on Instagram you can follow us at all one word a good read b.b.c. For now though thank you to my guests Damien bar and a 1000000. And to you to the same time next week thanks for listening a good read was presented by Harriet Gilbert and produced in Bristol by Maggie Yeah . It's exactly like hearing a story from your friend on the fall where they get wat a new series of told stories with great stands everything from a drag artist fighting to change the dictionary to a choir boy he's about to lose his voice at the most terrifying moments I'm so proud of everybody that's involved in the show we really do get to the heart of what's happening in Britain today joining me greater than for a new series of the I'm told beginning next Monday morning at 11 on b.b.c. Radio 4. Cynthia Tucker is a retired nurse him eighty's she got a phone call from a man offering her the chance to help her grandchildren through university Fast forward 3 years and Mrs Tucker's lost hundreds of thousands of pounds find out how and why her fight for justice has reached a dead end in fire on for the c evening at 8 now on Radio 4 it's 5 o'clock in time for pm with Evan Davis. Hello 5 days of flooding and counting. Everything seems to be for in the round you know it was always through 3 top 4 you know. It took a while but it's now become an election issue the Conservative government's response to the floods has been one of these extreme weather events are becoming more common and that's why the Environment Agency does need to have more funding well as the prime minister chairs an emergency meeting will help you understand why flood control creates winners and losers and we'll ask how well prepared we are for everything that will hit us in decades to come. In other election coverage Carol Carolyn will keep us up to date we'll hear what or who farmers will be voting for and the voice of young voters in the historic Labor stronghold of Bishop Auckland I think breakfast stick in the middle of it now because that many opportunities to get a deal these people over and of course we don't even have to listen to the people also on pm An important prisoner hostage exchange in Afghanistan and could independence for Wales really be on the cards with the b.b.c. News throughout the hour Jim Labor and the Liberal Democrats have attacked the government over its response to the flooding in the north of England accusing the prime minister of not taking it seriously enough more than a 1000 homes have flooded or been evacuated this afternoon Boris Johnson has been chairing an emergency meeting to discuss the situation is our political correspondent David Corn UK than in St insists the Cobra meeting bringing together key ministers and officials which show jewel before Boris Johnson came under pressure to declare a national emergency the chancellor Sajid Javid said ministers had already released funds to reimburse councils for costs but with hundreds of homes flooded and hundreds more evacuated the issue has featured increasingly prominently during election campaigning visiting Yorkshire The Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn said the government's response had been woeful and would have been different if the floods had been in Surrey and visiting a community center in the area the Lib Dems leader Joe Swinton called for a 5000000000 pound flood prevention plan Labor says a cyber attack was mounted against its online systems but was successfully repelled with no data being stolen Jeremy Corbyn described what happened as very serious and said the timing was suspicious however security sources have indicated it was a low level incident with no links to state actors. A panel which was asked by the government to consider the future of the h s 2 rail line has concluded it should go ahead even though the costs could continue to spiral the current budget is 88000000000 pounds up from 56000000000 pounds the review says it could go higher still the report isn't due to be published until after the election and he has to campaigners say the evidence has been ignored the transport correspondent Tom Barrett has more details last Thursday members of a government appointed panel tasked with carrying out a review of the high speed rail project were allowed to view a draft report panel members have told the b.b.c. That the draft recommends that h.s.t. Should be built and suggests only relatively minor alterations such as reducing the number of trains from 18 an hour to 40 mm in line with other high speed networks abroad the document says even the most controversial stretch of the railway linking west London to central London should go ahead business leaders and politicians in the north of England have welcomed the reviews preliminary findings Ervin extraordinary scenes at a medical tribunals in Manchester where the former British Cycling and Team Sky Dr Richard Freeman is facing a charge of medical misconduct for ordering sachets of testosterone the hearing began with a lawyer for Dr Freeman accusing the former Team Sky head coach Shane Sutton of being a doper and a serial liar Mr Sutton reacted angrily accusing Dr Freeman's legal team of defamation and got a tactics the parents of 6 children who murdered their 2 teenage sons have both been sentenced to a minimum of 35 years in prison Sarah Barrus and Brandon made chin killed Tristen and Blake Barrus in Sheffield in May Our correspondent Judith Moritz has been following the case at Sheffield Crown Court. The court heard that Sara Barrus regularly told her children that she had given them life and could take it away she previously approached the local authority to ask for help with them but was reportedly unable to cope with the thought of them being taken into care center half brother Brandon made who's also the children's father hatched a plan to kill them they tried unsuccessfully to poison the 4 eldest with tablets and to drown another in the bath then they strangled Tristen and Blake Barrus aged $13.14 in front of their siblings today the parents were each jailed for life tributes are being paid to Frank Dobson who served as health secretary in the 1st new Labor government who has died at the age of 79 Tony Blair has called him a politician of the highest caliber Gordon Brown said he represented all that was good about Labor values Mr Dobson's family say he died last night following a long standing illness Thank you Jim Well it's been days since the Yorkshire village of fish lake was inundated with water from the river dawn but the sad news for residents many evacuated from their homes is that the water has not subsided it remains in an emergency situation according to the county.
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