National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the United States he told the b.b.c. That the world had a window to prevent a global pandemic the infection has actually spread by travel the fate of all of this is going to be determined by whether or not the Chinese are able to contain this particular outbreak within their own country and prevent it from seeding in other countries and then the other countries that actually now have cases if they can block that we may be successful in preventing this from evolving into a full load pandemic communities along the river 7 a truck share of being warned that flooding is potentially imminent around 30 properties at Iron Bridge were evacuated this morning 8 flood warnings are in place in England and Wales including in Herefordshire more than a quarter of n.h.s. Staff have reported being bullied Harris or abused in the last year a staff survey for England which included responses from over 500000 workers found that the number of staff who had been physically attacked had increased. A woman who had repeatedly bad her m.p. On social media had to apologize after being rescued by her during bad weather she won Davis was struggling to walk home in gale force winds in Anglesey and it is designed to flag down a car which happened to be driven by the island's m.p. The junior Crosby b.b.c. News. If you're in need of a good book to get through this winter the authors Gail honeybun and Mavis cheek will be talking to her but Garrett Gilbert about some of the novels they love in half an hour they include the beginning of spring by Penelope Fitzgerald and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte which astonishingly has never been chosen on the program before a good read is at $430.00 the 1st already or 4 we join Michael Roizen for word of mouth every so often my father would take me and my brother to one side and say your mother won't tell you the story boys because it's about one time your mother was a gun off a thief she told me that one time when she was little I had harvest festival at school and told the children to bring in flowers but there were no flowers where she lived in a flat over a shop and she didn't think she could ask a man for the money to buy flowers and anyway she thought her mom and dad would know anything about Harvest Festival what with them being Jewish so on the way to school she went through to the little park on the corner and cut a flower from there and took that into school that way she thought no one would ask questions about why she hadn't brought in flowers for harvest festival think of that voice your mother again if now now don't tell her I told you so I just told you a story about my father telling a story that my mother told him or he said she had told him. But the chick Well I don't know and come to think of it you don't know whether I've made it up either Today we're talking about stories clamoring Murphy has been a professional storyteller since 2006 she's traveled all over the world telling stories in English and Spanish to all kinds of audiences she's performed on beaches in order to rooms in theatres at festivals in fields in medieval round towers and in many weird and wonderful situations including for our president Mary Robinson and for the science community at NASA is Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California she also teaches storytelling skills to those who work outside the art form from scientists to limitless veterans and many others in between Clare Welcome to the program thanks very much and what he's a storyteller a storyteller is someone like me who wanders the world carrying stories with them who tells them live in front of audiences with no digital assistant and how do you get to tell a story where does it come from. The stories that I tell from all over so the oldest story of ever tell is 5000 years old and the newest is maybe from yesterday so I tell myths fables folk tales that ins anecdotes bit of history let anything that moves me carry and tell and where do you find all these stories because you've just conjured up what Seamus Heaney called a rattle bag you've conjured up or a beautiful idea over a ragbag but it's all in your head it's all in my head so nothing is written where do I find I mean that's that's their life's work isn't it it's to walk through the world and keep my eyes and ears and heart open all the time for where the next story is coming from so I read us I talk to a lot of people and I listen carefully and I talk to storytellers who told me that one way they remember stories because that's part of the problem. It's not only telling them yours have to remember them it's to think of stories having rooms for each part of the story and they've told me they get to the end of one part and they know they're sort of edge of the room then they go through a door into the next room do you do anything like. Let me ask you this when you were little kids did you ever injure yourself you know in an er nonviolent I fall off a bike or being stung by a baby yeah I played cricket and a ball hit my nose and broke it and then when I came home. The 1st question my dad asked was well did you catch the ball. So yes I did and where were you I was on the cricket pitch and I was at a position called silly mid-off and from then on everyone said Yeah well it was wasn't and who was there when you got hit in the now Mr Carroll. Who was the woodwork teacher he was on pirating and pretending or claiming to coach us. And how long did you spend recovering. Few weeks swelling had to go down and. And I went to hospital and the doctor said I've never been asked this before you know and the doctor said Well when you go under and I didn't know what I meant when you go under We're going to hit your We're going to hit your nose with a hammer and I said are you was that well to knock it back into shape because you've got a kink in your nose and so I can remember going under. And apparently that's what he did he bashed my nose with a rubber hammer that's what he told me and you held 12. So to see the way your brain feels right now as you're recalling us yes that's how I feel when I'm remembering stories. So I never learn them word for word they they sit in my mind like memories now I always know the bones of a story so I know where the story begins and I know where it ends and what I do before I have to tell it as I wake it up so I walk through the story but I don't walk through the whole thing I just say I was in silly Madoff Mr Carroll was coaching and it was the time of the morning and the ball came out of nowhere and broke my you know and I walked through all the bones so that it's nice and awake and then when I go to tell it all of their all of their illustration exaggeration and farm boy comes in but it sits like memory right and the way you made me do that I had to kind of inhabit it I had to go there feel it's I think it and you're making me conjure up pictures and that was I mean I actually remembered the square you know of the cricket square in the middle of the school field again on the East field as it was called and I can see it and I can see which side I'm on but you make me go back to that visual thing you know difference being causes that actually happened whereas if you're remembering a story about the Drew of the sorrows or whatever yeah you've got to create that picture in your head haven't you yes so that's part of my work exactly as I have to inhabit these stories that I've never seen with the same kind of attention to detail that you have what life so I will always walk through a story and see all the landscapes in the story I spent time with the characters so they feel as real to me as a memory so when I conjure them as you say which is a brilliant word for it I'm seeing them and they say something with performance as you know if you see it as the speaker we see it as the audience this is the magic of language this is the magic that happens between us as human beings if you are reporting it or telling it and you've seen people do this and they're describing Yeah I was standing on the field you know Mr Brown's was there but their voice has a certain flatness to her deadness to it but right there if they could if your audience a singer could see could have seen you your eyes were moving off you were looking into the story so that's what I do but I have to create. Huge much a landscape's in my head in order to be able to do that and what are their ingredients to a really good story as opposed to a not good story I mean when your snuffling about like a truffle hound looking for good stories what what you looking for what are these great elements ingredients. The biggest one for me is the element of surprise. I got excited read peasant's of stories right so I read story and says there was a woman and she had 3 sons and I got right well I have a sense of where this was go and in the youngest I was the most useless and so I read also read the whole story but if something in the story can surprise me has read thousands thousands of stories I think there's something really special in this I love stories that don't take expected pathways I love stories where the characters are fully 3 dimensionally developed they're not just there to serve to move the plot along they're really there so for me it doesn't have to be heroic story it doesn't have to be a tragic story it has to move me with it's with its surprise has to engage and catch me so those elements change from story to story yes I was very surprised and wonderful way by a little motif in the story I think it comes from Haiti. And it's the it's Wolf dresses up to be the suitor to the girl because he doesn't let on that he's a wolf so it's that old motif but the way he does it is he tightens up his throat for the 1st time he comes he goes oh I've come to see you you see and of course he knows it was he's got away will for many tightens up his throat so the next time he goes oh I've come to see you she has no no it's will from any Titans it one more time he goes Hello I've come to see her and then she believes him because he's tough and the storyteller did it he he kind of tightened these through text he did it and of course it's funny but of course absolutely terrifying at the same time because you don't know whether he's going to succeed or not but of course as he goes from her to hello and then you got it and of course I remember the audience of kids and so on and he's done it and it's going to get are and how old is that story it's a Caribbean story I think it was probably originally told in in Haitian French right and it's in a wonderful collection by a New York woman who heard it at the New York storytelling so it's at least. 150 years probably but probably much much older than that and yet I think about it when you tell that I think about the way that the voice can be used for seduction natto you see all these people who have control of the story and it's their voice you know and it's that lying it's a tightening of the collar so like there's a story that's maybe hundreds of years old at a guess which is so relevant now this is it's stories like that that I absolutely love because they can awaken something in us the listener so can you tell us a story yes yes I'll tell you now the Irish story about keep it brief as our time was limited once the old gods of Ireland the king of the gods had lost his arm and they had to elect a new king because you couldn't have a king with a blemish and so they picked the most beautiful of all the gods but it wasn't until they had elected him that they realized although he was beautiful on the outside he had an ugly heart he introduced to things that the gods had never experienced work . And taxes for thousands of years the gods of Ireland had only piety done sang and danced and loved another had to sweat and lift heavy stone but still they had elected him so what could they do and then one day the chief storyteller of Arden came because he visited all the kings and he knocked upon the door and he was treated like a beggar he was brought to a tiny room he was given bread and water instead of a dinner and a cup of made as the night passed the streets are cut so incensed by this outrage by being treated so badly the men wait to see the king the next morning just as a sudden was rising in the birds were singing he stormed out of that tiny room and as he walked towards the rising sun all the all the anger boiling in his stomach headed north and all of the weight in his had headed south and the 2 of them at the back of his throat and he spoke the very 1st satire the very 1st such terrible poem are composed and was all about the king's hospitality. Scary the old gods heard it and they began to laugh the new king woke to the same to their laughter and that was the beginning of the end for that King because an hour and a storyteller can teach around a king oh wow can I You can only hope. This is our work now yes yes I've seen some stand ups who when they're in their own way of course are storytellers and they're not far off a bit of decent owning it in their time yes well they come from the long line of of the fool the very important role of the Fool which is to stand there in the contrary position and reflect what's happening and they're in a very dangerous position because they're naming the truth but then of a powerful position because they're wrapping it in laughter. Like the great comedians are I was raised on comedy I was raised on Billy Connelly and Eddie Murphy and Martin's Laugh-In So yeah we were raised on a lot of comedy in my eyes and. I think if I'm wrong that all your stories are not based on your own life you take what we might call a body of traditional story folk story fairy story legend myth how whole area is the reason for that do you mean I guess you've done some funny and interesting things in your life I could looking at your face on the video so I could just see you also saying I'll tell you something else yesterday I was at Dublin airport knew could do that as well if you wanted to yes and there are loads of storytellers that do that it's quite common in America they talk up they tell a lot of personal stories there are people here side to but I'm so moved by meth I'm so moved by folks Hales these are stories about traveling for a 100 sometimes days of years and they've still got the possibility of knocking your heart out your chest so for me this something really powerful in those stories and that's what I want to carry forward. Here in there I might say a little something in between stories about my life but I suppose in Ireland that's what you say for the kitchen table or the or the pub or late night with your friends so on stage I want to bring this older medicine to the stage I say that the older medicine but I mean it's absurd isn't it because the moment you say it all and gods then one part of me want to just switch off we were doing Gods are you know it doesn't it's not now and I were and sometimes you say Long Long Long Long Long Long Long ago and the beginning of your stories and say Well Ok well this isn't true so I really ought to stop watching should my Yeah stop listening to you but why is it how is it then that these things that you're telling us are true but we're moved as if they are yeah it's fantastic and so human beings according to evolutionary biologists human beings have been telling stories for 100000 years. And that means that it's far older than writing and it's far older than drawing this you know probably older than stories would be song but this is the way that we've been wired to make meaning out of the world so when we hear a story there's a guy in the states Kendall haven he wrote his book story proof and he talks about the brain becoming wired over the last 100000 years to receive information 3 stories so the baby is born waiting to hear its 1st story so well we know it's not true and I'm putting inverted commas there. There is some truth in it and stories are a vehicle there are a way to journey through the Great Adventure is that we go through internally and you know Karen Armstrong has written a beautiful book on a short history of myth and she talks about is the biographer of God Yes Karen Armstrong the woman who's able to sin helps us and he's thinking to us well book and she talks about the enemy a lash which is from Sue Mariya and this need we have to hear these fantastical stories were great odds are faced and through a man are. Woman is great odds are faced and and somehow overcome though there is loss and that this is a catharsis we need as a society to go through these inner journeys as a way of helping us with our outer journey so I think that I think when you hear long ago some part of the settles in and goes good we're going there yes somewhere I don't know in order to find out about something I might might get to know get to something about me I was giving a workshop in Ohio in California a festival short workshop to her as you know just a brief glimpse and these are not storytellers these are just everyday people and we went through it and this woman came up to me afterwards and very simple I'd given them a story they retold it we talked about it we broke it apart she comes up to me and she says thank you very much I said Oh you're welcome and she said My husband really enjoyed as I said all that you know that's great that's great and she said no you don't understand he has Alzheimer's and he generally can't contribute or do anything and I I'd seen her husband and he'd been answering questions and he'd been telling stories like I'd seen them talking and laughing and she said I haven't seen him like this and you. Struck by her because she had tears in her eyes and I said I wasn't expecting that at all it's this thing of story has this way of. Bypassing So there was there was another situation I was in in Birmingham and I was I was working with some kids I was giving them a workshop I tell them some stories and then it was their turn I was walking around and I put them in pairs are saying you're the storyteller and you're the director I was getting them to direct each other and I came up to these 2 guys and I said I got this sort of argue with a director and one of the boys looked up and said No Miss he doesn't speak. I knew not to ask any further I just said oh that's grand and I turned and I I said you're the you know I pointed away from the other guy said You're the storyteller and point you're the guy you're the director and to the 3rd boy doesn't speak I said I want you to be the observer right you make sure they're doing they're doing their jobs and not when around came back a few minutes later and I was asking everybody how did the girl was he a good director how was he storytelling and then I just turn to the little boys observing and I said I did they do to do a good job and he said Well Mr They did a really good I thought he was a very good director and I thought his storytelling was really good I said Oh great thanks very much I turned to move on to the next player to teach your child straight up to me so what should. I say I don't think I sassed I wash said he's a selective news he hasn't spoken he doesn't speak has spoken in years was a trauma couple years ago what did you do I said I I didn't do anything I just I just asked the boy question and she was really shocked and I just had to do what I'm sure you want to just carry on like normal you don't draw attention to it because you just keep going but I thought about it a lot afterwards and I thought some of the happens in the world of story this is safety that happens there's a place we can go to that allows us to take risks that we wouldn't take a less is to forget ourselves and our fears I've had people describe it as you know travelling to another place and I forget my To Do list and I you know the room disappears and