Merry Ouchmas: The festive special 2021
The Ouch team reflect on their favourite podcasts from an extraordinary year.
As 2021 has been a strange old year, the ±«Óćtv Ouch team decided to look back at some of their favourite podcasts from the past 365 days.
From space travel on the āvomit cometā to Love Island, Covid-19, climate change and adoption ā we really have covered it all with our own unique and disabled look at the world.
Some podcasts were sad, some were happy but all (we like to think) were insightful.
Merry Ouchmas!
Presented by Emma Tracey, Beth Rose and Keiligh Baker
Produced by Keiligh Baker
Subscribe to this podcast on ±«Óćtv Sounds or say "Ask the ±«Óćtv for Ouch" to your smart speaker.
Transcription
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Christmas Episode
20th December 2021
bbc.co.uk/ouch/podcast
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Presented by Emma Tracey
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Emma -ĢżĢż
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Hello and welcome to this festive special episode of the ±«Óćtv Ouch podcast, Itās a Disability Thing and itās [in chorus] Christmas!
Iām Emma Tracey, and as you can hear Iāve got Beth Rose and Keiligh Baker with me. Hello.
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Beth -
Hello.
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Keiligh -
Hi.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
Itās been a strange old year, hasnāt it? So, we here at ±«Óćtv Ouch thought weād look back at some of our favourite podcast episodes from 2021. Some were sad, some were happy, but all were, we think, insightful. So, letās start by talking about our year, our 2021. Beth, what was your year like?
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Beth -
Well, it was a year of two halves really actually. Obviously the first part we were at home. I was in London doing all my Ouch recordings from my flat. And then latterly I got to go home and visit my family, so that was a big thing for me. Obviously the ±«Óćtv Ouch team has been behind me and my park running career. Youāve enjoyed my weekly updates on how slowly I can manage that. But also big news: today me and Keiligh have met for the very first time in real life. Weāre actually in a studio, sat next to each other, with 2m between us. But yeah, itās the first time weāve seen each other in the flesh and not on a Zoom call, so that is very exciting.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
Iām pretty jealous, it has to be said.
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Beth -
I know. Youāre up in Scotland, arenāt you, and we are missing you.
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Keiligh -
We are.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
I miss you all a lot. Actually at this stage Iām really keen to get back and see you all and work collaboratively ā that great word. But I am in Scotland making podcasts from my garage. Iāve managed to get home to Ireland a couple of times, which has been just a real winner for me. Itās fed my soul. Iāve got to see my family and itās been absolutely lovely. Weāve had a lot of building work done on our house, which I talk about quite a lot in our daily meetings. And working from home with builders coming in and out all the time has been interesting I would say. So, yeah thatās my year in a nutshell. What about you, Keiligh?
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Keiligh -
Yeah, itās been a weird one. Iād kind of forgotten actually that I was still shielding at the beginning of the year. I only thought about it earlier when I looked over at Beth and I was like, this is the first time weāve met, weāre in a studio, and from April I was recording everything from my bedroom at my parentās house in Wales. So, this seems really strange because it doesnāt feel strange anymore, seeing people in real life.
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Beth -
Well, the funny thing for me, so the last time I was in the office was I think March 19th 2020 and it was to record the very first cabin fever.
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Keiligh -
Wow.
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Beth -
Which I think itās gone vintage now, right? Iāve not listened back. I bet itās a bit of a terrifying listen because we had no idea what was coming around the corner.
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Keiligh -
Well, actually when you were talking as well about getting home you didnāt have your Christmas until when?
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Beth -
No.
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Keiligh -
When did you have your Christmas?
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Beth -
I think we had it in end of May this year. So, all the presents had been wrapped ready for Christmas under the tree, and then by the time we actually got round to having our Christmas day and opening them no one could remember what was in the wrapping paper. All the tags were really cryptic. And also itās made this yearās Christmas shopping much harder because we only had six months to think of new ideas.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
Some of the biggest news stories of the year: COVID, climate change, the space race, weāve covered them all with our unique and disabled outlook on the world. Letās start with one of our most recent episodes. Beth, what was your biggest highlight of this year, or one of them anyone?
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Beth -
So, one of my favourite podcasts this year was meeting two of the ambassadors from Mission AstroAccess. And thatās a brand new space firm, a bit like SpaceX and all of those that we hear about. But itās all about making the space industry and space travel both inclusive and accessible. So, at the moment we know about NASA astronauts and theyāre kind of the cream of the crop. Thereās the famous saying theyāve got the right stuff, which basically means they are brilliant at everything, they are impeccable when it comes to physicality and intellect and ideas. But actually do you know what, that doesnāt really help us going forward into space travel because the human race is entirely different, good at all sorts of different things and have different needs. So, Mission AstroAccess is making space travel inclusive. And just a few weeks ago in October they took their first crew of 12 ambassadors who are all disabled and all brilliant scientists, and they went on their first parabolic flight; which you might have heard be called the vomit comet. So, basically itās an aeroplane, itās a Boeing 727, itās not kitted out like your regular aeroplane though. And they fly very high up into the sky and they do these arc shapes. And as they tip over the top of the arc so gravity disappears and they experience weightlessness like theyāre in space. And so I spoke to Sina Bahram and Mary Cooper, both from America, who had just come off this flight.
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[Interview extract] What was it like that very first moment when you experienced zero gravity?
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SINA-
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Magical. And I donāt really use that word to describe things, but magical, absolutely joyous.
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Beth -
Is there any way to describe it? Is it like being in a swimming pool or is it just completely different?
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SINA-
No. Mary, I'd like your thoughts on this, but itās not. That's what everybody says, it's like swimming. No. It's not that you're floating up, it's that you're no longer getting pulled down.
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MARY-
But a lot of people have that sensation because it is one of the closest things you can describe it as. I think someone on our team described it really well: as a child you used to pick dandelions and you would blow them and the white flakes would go off and you make you a wish. It felt like that, like being one of those flakes just in the wind, and you have really no sense of where you're actually going.
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SINA-
Every assumption that you have. For example, being blind I'm very aware of my environment. I have to be, I can't just rely on looking over, 'Oh, the coffee table's over there', you're paying a lot of attention to your body, to am I brushing up against something? And for all of the things that have remained invariant in your life, which is to say gravity, down is down, up is up, for that to be released, for that constraint to be redefined, you know you could look at it as kind of scary. That's not the emotion though. It was just sheer joy. You're sitting on the ground; you push up so much as with on finger and you're floating. This is what you see in Mary Poppins, it's just a beautiful, beautiful thing. And I think for all of us, at least for many of us, we've been dreaming about this our entire life. In some of the pictures I like 100% have my eyes closed, and it's not because they shouldn't be open because I can't see much from them or anything. It's because I just wanted to concentrate on that sensation of just bliss that came over during the experience.
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Beth -
I just loved hearing the wonder in their voices. These are important scientists, so Mary is at Stanford University and Sina is a whizz at computer science. But taking that aeroplane I think has just changed everything for them. And they werenāt there just for fun; they did some experiments. So, Sina, as he mentioned is blind, and so his experiment was to use audio beacons to navigate, so sounds to be played and he would know where he was in the cabin. But they didnāt work. They did not hear a single audio beacon go off, because basically the environment is so loud that it didnāt cut through the noise. But, and this is amazing, when they yelled āfeet downā which is basically signalling itās the end of weightlessness, come down and find your seat, the body and mind remembered where they had to go back to.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
Thatās so interesting.
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Beth -
And it wasnāt just Sina that experienced this; it was all the blind crew and those with low vision. Their bodies somehow knew, which they werenāt expecting, which is amazing.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
I reckon Iād be the one person that wouldnāt know. I reckon Iād be the one person still upside down when everyone else isā¦you know like musical chairs when youāre still dancing. Oh my gosh, so many questions. But they were just like kids; they were so excited and so happy and it was just a real joy to listen to their experience, and a real advert for more of this I think.
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Keiligh -
My big question though is, when you were talking to them, did it make you want to do it?
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Beth -
You know what afterwards I googled how much it would cost: $5,000.
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Keiligh -
Oh, I thought it would be worse.
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Beth -
Which I think is actually almost worthwhile saving that money and doing it, because how incredible would that be.
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Keiligh -
I would do that if I had the money. I donāt. I work for the ±«Óćtv! [Laughs]
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Beth -
Well, it somehow seems like an almost seamless Segway into our next podcast, which is about climate change, because of course 2021 big year for climate change. And Keiligh was onto it.
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Keiligh -
I was. Well, I mean obviously itās just been one of the big topics of the year, hasnāt it? I think every other conversation begins with a C word: itās either COVID or itās climate change. But yeah, itās been a really interesting year in terms of developments and stuff. But we wanted to focus on how climate change is impacting on disabled people. So, to mark COP26 taking place in our very own Glasgow, not far from you Emma, we decided to look into that. I knew nothing about how climate change was impacting on disabled people. And when I started looking into it, I donāt want to scare people, but I was horrified. Disabled people make up a really massive part of the population, thereās one billion of us on the planet, and a lot of the time we are poorer or perhaps we have less access to services and stuff. So, as part of this research I ended up speaking to some very interesting experts in their fields. So, I spoke to Dr SĆ©bastien Jodoin, and he told us this really interesting story. Itās shocking but I think it really sums up the situation quite well.
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Sebastien -
[Interview extract] July 2018 in my home town, Iām from Montreal, there was a heatwave that killed 61 people. And of these victims a quarter had schizophrenia, which is about 500 times their share of the population. And so the question is why would people who live with schizophrenia die at such high numbers in a heatwave. So, there is an element to the fact that they will often be using medication that makes you less tolerant to heat. Antipsychotic drugs make you less tolerant to heat basically, so they have this underlying effect. There are many other medications that have this type of effect as well. So, many people who are also on certain medications or many people who have chronic illnesses, such as mine, it's a very common symptom to be more sensitive to heat as well. But for the most part itās really tied to their underlying levels of poverty that they experience disconnect from social networks and family. And obviously the city did not have a plan to think about, oh okay, this group might be more at risk; weād better have something in place to we reach them and ensure that theyāre safe. So, ultimately we see these kinds of stories all over the world, whether itās when there are bushfires and there isnāt a plan to evacuate people who are wheelchair users or who may need to move in medical equipment; whether itās the context of hurricanes where shelters donāt have ramps. So, we see this story time and time again.
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Keiligh -
I just find it really sobering. Iād never thought about having schizophrenia and how mental health could actually lead to that kind of situation happening.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
Yeah. And I think often we talk about disabled people and how disabled people can be more friendly to the environment and we can pull our weight and what we can do to live more sustainably. But actually the more important thing is that weāre remembered when a climate emergency, that we had no hand in, actually takes place. I remember reading a lot on social media when there were big power outages in California, and people with ventilators and other equipment really, really struggling. And a big social media surge within the disability community to help each other. That was a really interesting thing to follow on social media at the time. And I think we get forgotten sometimes, donāt we?
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Keiligh -
A 100%. And also itās something that keeps happening. The strangest thing is the authorities and the people that are in charge donāt seem to be learning from these massive incidents. Going back to Katrina, and that was a while ago now, there was a real issue then with evacuation buses coming along and they didnāt have wheelchair access. So, people that use wheelchairs were quite literally being left behind when they were evacuating. Another issue they had during Katrina was there werenāt any sign language interpreters on the news talking about the updates and everything, so again people were being left behind across the board.Ģż
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Emma -ĢżĢż
Yeah.
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Beth -
I think the interesting thing, and also a bit of a scary thing, because these are really shocking facts and situations, especially the schizophrenia and ventilation ones. But I did a piece fairly recently about an artist called Carrie Schmitt who in her 30s discovered sheās allergic to heat and the sun. Thatās not a result of climate change, thatās just her body reacting to it, but she moved from Ohio to Seattle because itās much cooler. But now with climate change sometimes Seattle is too hot for her. And if she gets too hot she goes into anaphylactic shock. So, she now has to find hotel rooms with certain air conditioning, or actually relocate to islands which are much cooler. So, I just think weāre going to see this more and more as a natural occurrence with all the stories we cover.
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Keiligh -
The things weāre talking about on this particular podcast and with Bethās story as well they do sound really scary, and to be honest they are scary. But that doesnāt mean that we shouldnāt know about them. If anything it means that we have to know about them in order to tackle them. Whilst itās scary knowing these things we also have to know these things. It is a matter of survival.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
[Music] Speaking of being part of the conversation, back in January I interviewed Katie Price and Harvey, her son who is disabled. I think itās one of my favourites from this year A, because obviously theyāre celebs, thatās fun; but also Iāve seen Harvey on lots and lots of interviews and lots of things, and it was my opportunity to speak to Harvey himself and to have a conversation with Harvey. So, we had a lovely chat about trains and frogs and all the things that heās really, really interested in. And then we were then able to lead from there into speaking to him about his life and about his school and where he lives. And then I talked to Katie and Harvey about change and transition, because thatās a huge, huge thing for disabled people, the transition from school into adulthood and what services you go to and where you live. This clip that weāre about to hear is all about that and about how Harvey handles change.
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[Interview extract] The filming, you did lots of visits, it was in a pandemic, what was that process like, you and Harvey getting to the college, getting round the college?
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Katie-
It was difficult with Harvey, because when you say residential, he loves where he goes now so heās got used to that, so when I say weāre looking at another one heās quite confused. When I said, "Youāre going to go there in a year," because he doesnāt understand why he has to leave the other one. So there were a few challenges, youāll see it in the documentary, there were a few challenges. And then once we were there at one of them he didnāt want to get out of the car. So youāll see him having a little meltdown, but then once heās there and heās happy then heās fine. Because I said, "All right, weāre not staying here, weāre going home after. Youāre just looking." So itās how you communicate with him and how you talk to him. But he loved National Star. But he had them round his finger there as well, he has a tendency to do that.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
Oh my goodness, heās so charming?
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Katie-
Yeah, he does. I donāt know how he does it but he does.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
How have you found is the best way to prepare Harvey for change?
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Katie-
Well, Iāve got him a little place now to help transition him. So heās got a house, although itās just opposite me, so weāre there all the time. Weāve got cameras in it, soā¦ Heās got carers here, heās got his own kitchen, bath. Itās three bedrooms basically, so it gets him used to his own environment and his own space. And he loves it, absolutely loves it. He Facetimes me. We speak to him through the cameras and he looks at the camera. And itās safe because thereās nothing he likesā¦When heās at home, like I say, in the night heāll raid the cupboards, because heās got his Prader Williās, and thatās not healthy for him either, whereas here thereās nothing he can get out of the cupboards, because I donāt leave anything in it that he can get and eat. Obviously heās got tins of food and stuff like that, but heās not interested in eating that. And he knows itās his space, so he feels like a man. If I say, "Youāre a boy," what do you say, Harve? Are you a boy, Harve?
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Harvey-
No.
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Katie-
What are you?
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Harvey-
A man.
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Katie-
Yes, youāre a man now. Thatās why youāve got your man house, havenāt you?
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Harvey-
I know, mum.
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Katie-
So, itās getting him ready for residential. When you go to college, Harve, this is what itās going to be like at college, isnāt it?
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Harvey-
Oh yeah!
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Katie-
Your kitchen, your bathroom.
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Harvey-
Yes mum.
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Katie-
You love it. And when he brushes his teeth and stuff he likes to video it and show me, because he likes the praise. So, I think itās doing him really good coming here, helping him transition. Not everyoneās lucky enough to do that.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
Yeah.
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Katie-
But I just want it so right for him.
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Beth -
I just love the fact that Harveyās got his own three-bedroom house, at 18, isnāt that amazing? But on a more serious note the documentary, and Emma your interview, it was just so refreshing to hear Katie Price and Harveyās story away from the noise of all the celebrity stuff and the background stories that are always going on around them, and actually see them as a mother and son and a mother trying her utmost to get the right care for her son. And the amount of things she had to go through, all the visits they had to do, it was during the pandemic. She herself was in a wheelchair as a result of an accident. And just making sure that Harvey was happy and understood what was going on.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
I know. And even all the media attention that theyāve had later in the year and all that noise around them, I love having that memory of that great chat, and the love that comes across and how Katie wants the absolute best for him. And even the documentary in the pandemic it sounded like it was really hard. He couldnāt go to school, that was a big thing, he couldnāt go back to his residential school because of the first lockdown there was no school available. And that was really tough going for them as well. So, it really was a highlight. It just felt like a really good conversation and that I got to know Harvey a bit better than Iād managed to get to know him from YouTube or Instagram or any other chats that Iāve seen on TV.
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Beth -
I do remember when we recorded the interview. So, Emma was obviously leading it and I was sitting in with her, and there was a press woman, as there always is in these kinds of high-profile interviews, and then there was Katie and Harvey was with Katie that day. And it was on Zoom, so really regular, so we all jumped onto Zoom. And the camera opened, as it were, we could see everyone, and Katie was an absolute glamour puss. The rest of us were just wearing no makeup, because lockdown happened, makeups gone, a top, whatever. I imagine Emma looks quite glamorous as well. But Katie Price was full on Katie Price.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
Well, I love the way you say Iād imagine, Iād imagine Emma looked glamorous, because Emma didnāt have her camera on. I had no idea that everybody else had their cameras on. Katie never saw me and I was never in vision and we never got in picture because I couldnāt get my camera to work. So, itās a massive missed opportunity and a pure blindy blunder there where I had no idea that everybody else was in one situation and I was in another.
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[Music] Weāve done quite a lot of reality TV related stuff this year; more than we would usually do I think, havenāt we?
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Keiligh -
Yeah, we also did a podcast about Love Island because this year was the first year ever theyāve had a physically disabled contestant on. But actually when we look back and we think about the history of Love Island perhaps not the first disabled contestant if we include mental health and things like that. But anyone the headline was First Ever Physically Disabled Contestant. It was Hugo Hammond. He was a 24-year-old PE teacher and he was born with a club foot. He said that you could only really tell when he was wearing no shoes because then heād have a slight limp. Beth, do you watch Love Island?
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Beth -
No. So, actually I watched it on your behalf, Keiligh, because I knew we wanted to do something about how do you make Love Island accessible, and I was shocked.
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Keiligh -
Yeah.
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Beth -
So, Iām in my 30s and I was like yeah, Iām cool, itās fine, I know what goes on in these reality shows. Love Island is like a totally different brand. I just donāt understand how they get away with a lot of the stuff.
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Keiligh -
Yeah, Iāve always been a Love Island fan. Iāve watched all the series, to my pride and shame simultaneously. But we got Kamran Mallick, the CEO of Disability Rights UK to come on and talk to us about what it would cost to adapt the villa.
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[Interview extract] Very, very generously you watched an episode, [laughs] as research for this podcast. From what you could see of the villa what would need to be done to make it accessible?
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Kamran-
Yes, so I thought before coming on here I should at least watch one episode, so I did. We mustnāt forget that impairment is not just about the physical mobility aspect, there are kind of cognitive impairments, visual impairments. But before you kind of get into all of that I think almost your starting point is to say you almost want to get an actual access type audit done, someone professional who would come in and say, āYes, these are the physical environment changes we want to make. These are some of the softer things that you should be doing, like creating quiet spaces.ā
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Keiligh -
Can you put a price on that? Do you have a rough idea of how much it would cost to put those adaptations in place?
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Kamran-
Huge variance. So, for example, allocating a space, thatās a quiet space, really thereās no cost to that, itās just identifying a part of the villa where you accept that thatās going to be a quiet space for anybody, and so that thereās some no cost, very low and no cost options like that. To make contrast change on steps or if thereās glass, putting strips across to identify that thereās glass and a barrier there, again, these are very low cost. I think when you get into the higher end itās always difficult to put prices on these because it depends on the physical building itself. But if youāre looking at lifts, you know, it could be between Ā£10,000 to Ā£30,000, but thatās a very rough ballpark kind of figure of what it might take. And that Ā£10,000 to Ā£30,000 is the cost that would be for a typical home in the UK. Itās always going to be more expensive if youāre retrofitting adaptations in, making adjustments.
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Keiligh -
Yeah. Iāve heard that a lot, it does seem to be just so much easier and cheaper in the long run to just ensure buildings are made accessible from the start.
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Kamran-
Yeah, absolutely. And if you just think about the advertising revenue they must be getting from it, its popularity, itās in series seven so itās clearly incredibly popular, and therefore the levels of income that are probably being generated through it must be, you know, more money than I can imagine.
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Keiligh -
Also, quite famously in some of the earlier seasons people were really desperate to find places to have sex, so imagine how much fun they could have in a giant wet room? I think they went in an airing cupboard one year. Think how much more room thereād be in a wet room.
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Kamran-
Absolutely. And you always hear donāt you, accessible toilets are much bigger.
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Keiligh -
Yes. Yes, exactly. More manoeuvrability. [Laughs]
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Kamran-
Absolutely. Youāre looking at between Ā£5,000 and Ā£15,000, depending on the size and kind of facilities.
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Keiligh -
I really appreciate that he gave us the price for the wet room for fun.
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Beth -
Exactly, just that clarification, just to bring it back.
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Emma -ĢżĢż
I also really love that you got the CEO of a fairly major disability organisation to watch Love Island and then speak at length about it. I think that was quite a coup.
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Keiligh -
Kamran had done a lot of research and was an incredibly charming man, and I would love to talk to him about Love Island again in the future one day. I think maybe heād watched more than one episode.
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Beth -
I think so. I was quite surprised though at how reasonably priced it would be to make the villa accessible.
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Keiligh -
Well, yeah because whether or not youāre a Love Island fan you can imagine a tropical villa on the Spanish coast. And obviously there are a lot of steps and a lot of patioed areas, thereās a pool and all that sort of stuff. And although Kamran a lot of the time was saying about how much those adaptions would cost in the UK, I think it is pretty comparable. Also we have aged out of it now, you realise that?
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Beth -
Have we?
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Keiligh -
Weāve aged out, yeah.
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Beth -
Whatās been the top age?
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Keiligh -
I think the top age was 31.
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Beth -
I have a contender.
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Keiligh -
You do have a contender. Seamless.
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Beth -
For Ouch listeners who have been with us for a while you will of course be familiar with the fabulous Simon Minty, whoās a very handsome man. He is now part of the Gogglebox team on Channel 4, so he is on primetime TV every Friday night talking about TV. I saw him last week and I put it to him, āSimon is the next step in reality TV Love Island?ā He didnāt say no straightaway.
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Keiligh -
Well, if he didnāt say noā¦
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Beth -
I think he would be great on it. He would be brilliant, heād be funny, heād be witty, theyād all love him. Yeah, so watch this space.
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Keiligh -
That would be a better TV show I think.
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Beth -
[Music] So, my dad asked me last night what carols he wanted me to print off so as a family we could play over Christmas, so me on the violin, my dad on the guitar and my mum may or may not be on the harp, she took up as she retired.
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Keiligh -
I love harps.
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Beth -
And I was going for the classics, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Three Kings, Good King Wenceslas, the ones that donāt seem to get sung as much.
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Keiligh -
Can I give you a really embarrassing Christmas confession?
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Beth -
Please.
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Keiligh -
As tāis the season. I only found out two years ago that it wasnāt Good King Wenslas. For 30 years I thought it was Good King Wenslas. And someone was like, no itās Wenceslas. And I was like, what are you on about, Wenceslas.
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Beth -
What did you think everyone was doing with the last bit?
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Keiligh -
I thought it saidā¦
Beth -
Ģż
Good King Wenslas last looked out.
Keiligh -
Ģż
Yes exactly!
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Beth -
Ah.
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Keiligh -
Thank you Emma that was not alone. I felt so stupid. Wenceslas last looked out, yeah.
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Beth -
What were they thinking?
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Emma -ĢżĢż
I just like taking the big deep breath and going, [sings] Glo-ria, Gloria, hosanna in excelsis. When Iām in choirs or if Iāve been in choirs itās always been an achievement if Iāve done that without breathing.
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Keiligh -
That is an achievement.
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Beth -
I was playing some Christmas music the other day and I realised ā do you know the song, Gaudete?
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Emma -ĢżĢż
Yeah.
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Beth -
Is it Latin, Emma?
Ģż
Emma -ĢżĢż
Yeah.
Ģż
Beth -
So, I can sing the full song in Latin.
Ģż
Keiligh -
Go on then.
Ģż
Beth -
Iām not going to do it. But I was like thatās a good handy thing to do.
Ģż
Emma -ĢżĢż
Easy-peas dot com.
Ģż
Keiligh -
Yeah, could you give us a bit.
Ģż
Beth -
[Singing] Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus, ex Maria virgine, Gaudete.
Ģż
Keiligh -
Maybe I do know that actually.
Ģż
Emma -ĢżĢż
Did you say sex and virgin in that?
Ģż
Beth -
Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus, ex Maria virgine, Gaudete.
Ģż
Emma -ĢżĢż
Oh, right it was theā¦
Ģż
[Music] So, weāve talked about reality TV and weāve talked about a lot of the fun stuff thatās happened this year, but itās been a tough year for a lot of people. And back near the beginning of the year as well we recorded an episode of mentally interesting where one of our presenters, Mark Brown, spoke about the death of his sister Alison from COVID-19. Itās an incredibly powerful episode and difficult to listen to at the time and difficult to edit, but really relatable and we had a lot of feedback from it. I suppose the reason being that COVID has disproportionately affected disabled people and lots of us have lost people over the last year or two. And Mark has just put into words what some of that felt like, and thatās what weāre going to hear now.
Ģż
Mark-
[Interview extract] One of the really weird things about losing someone and about grief is itās really not like it is in the films. Like, you donāt put on your black dress and your black veil and walk around with a sour face all of the time, just kind of shaking your head and sighing. Although to be honest, Iāve been doing quite a lot of shaking.
Ģż
Seaneen-
Thatās the way you live normally anyway, soā¦
Ģż
Mark-
Iām full of grief and sadness, sighing.
Ģż
Seaneen-
Sad face.
Ģż
Mark-
Just like slowly deflating one of those inflatable men that, you know, waves their arms around in front of car dealerships.
Ģż
Seaneen-
But you did want to talk about it. So why? Why did you want to explore it on this episode?
Ģż
Mark-
Well, I think one of the things thatās very difficult for us to talk about right now is how much this pandemic period, this cabin fever period, this lockdown period, about how much the last year has been haunted for a lot of us by the spectre of death, the fear of illness and the fear of loss. But we never really think that itāll happen to us, like, you always think that things will turn out all right and, you know, in the final reel of the film you all get together for that big party thatās been put off for all that time and then everything will be all right and youāll get to see all the people you wanted to see and youāll get to pick up all the threads that you wanted to pick up. And unfortunately thatās not the case with me and my sister. So the last time I saw my sister was on her birthday in February, just before lockdown started. And being very good, very conscientious people we observed all the lockdown rules, you know, kept ourselves safe and stuff, so we didnāt see each other all year.
Ģż
She fell ill just before Christmas and had to go into hospital for a medical procedure and she was really, really ill. I couldnāt go and see her. I was standing in the field outside of the hospital in the dark waving a torch up at the windows in the hope that she would see it, because that was as close as we could kind of get. Then she was moved to a care home for kind of rehabilitation and whilst she was there she contracted COVID and it wasnāt sounding very good but, you know, itās all right, sheās young, sheās healthy so sheāll be fine. She was 39.
Ģż
Then at kind of four oāclock in the morning I got a phone call from the nursing home saying unfortunately your sisterās died. Iām a month, a month and a bit, nearly two months into the kind of process of getting used to being a person that doesnāt have a sister anymore. Yeah, so I thought it was really important for me to talk about it because itās something very real thatās happened. We can wang on about mental health stuff and talk about stuff in the abstract, but for me this was the kind of experience of all of the headlines coming home.
Ģż
Seaneen-
Yeah.
Ģż
Mark-
And almost, you know, like echoes from the future resounding back through the past, like all the things that Iād been worried about for other people happened to my sister, and kind of happened to me and her partner and my family and all of her friends.
Ģż
Seaneen-
Because of the pandemic, I mean, you canāt grieve in the way that you probably would like to, or that, you know, people have done for years in order to say goodbye. I mean, whatās life been like since Alison died?
Ģż
Mark-
Life since Alison died has been a kind of mixture of feeling the good stuff and also feeling the loss. It kind of takes a long time to even begin to, like, reset your internal settings. So I remember I went out for a walk and I was thinking about Alisonās partner whoās on their own now, and I was thinking, God, you know, they must be absolutely knackered. And I was thinking, you know, all this emotion and all this feeling and all these feelings of sadness, Iām really knackered. And then my mind just ran on and I just thought, God, and Alison must be absolutely done in from, like, all of these people saying that they miss her.
Ģż
And it was like I hadnāt reset my thinking to stop worrying about how she was feeling, like, I was concerned about how her death was affecting her. And thatās that kind of, you know, thatās what you feel for your sibling, that youāre always thinking, you know, this is happening to me but how do they feel about it.
Ģż
Beth -
That was such a powerful episode and clip. I think Mark just describes things so beautifully. Often youāre going through these experiences, weāve all been in a similar position to Markās, but the way he can actually articulate it I think really hits home to a lot of people. And a lot of people have obviously been impacted by grief over the last nearly two years.
Ģż
Keiligh -
And of course what we should say is, if it is a bit of a difficult time for you at the moment, and lots of people have been through lots of grief and challenges, you can always get in touch with ±«Óćtv Action Line for any support and advice, or there are various organisations as well such as MIND or Rethink.
Ģż
Beth -
[Music] It has been tough. There has been a lot of grief. But also there has been a lot of happiness, and some of that happiness has come to the extended Ouch team. If youāve been with us right from the beginning of Cabin Fever then youāll be very familiar with Kate and Holly who presented the Isolation Diaries. They are a couple. They are married. When they joined them they had a daughter called Scout, a toddler, and very recently, earlier this year they also adopted another little girl called Gracie. And weāre going to hear when that became official.
Ģż
Kate-
[Extract] Okay, I just had a call. It was from the court and they said everything went through on Gracieās adoption order and she is now a Monaghan!
Ģż
Holly-
Yay!
Ģż
Scout-
Gracie Monaghan.
Ģż
Holly-
Gracie Monaghan, yay!
Ģż
Scout-
Gracie Monaghan is a pomaban.
Ģż
Holly-
Ow!
Ģż
Kate-
Scout, too tight hugs.
Ģż
Holly-
Too much cuddle, too much cuddle.
Ģż
Kate-
Too much love. Yay, so we can take her out of the country. Oh wait, COVID. But thatās great news.
Ģż
Holly-
Youāre official, Grace.
Ģż
Kate-
Official.
Ģż
Holly-
Youāre officially part of the family. Is that good news, Scout?
Ģż
Scout-
Yes it is.
Ģż
Kate-
Right, for anyone who couldnāt really hear us in the bath with screaming children, yeah we found out from the courts today that Gracie is now officially part of our family. So, when you adopt a child, for anyone who doesnāt know, when you bring them home thatās not the end of it. You share custody for at least ten weeks with the local authority, which is to make sure that everything is good on their side and itās good on our side and the match is right and all of this stuff, and that the child is happy and safe and loved and all of this stuff. And then after ten weeks of the child being with you youāre allowed to apply for the adoption order through the courts, which is a paperwork kind of thing that sheās yours. And thatās what we did. And then thereās lots of kind of waiting around, even more than normal because the courts are backlogged in all their stuff. It feels like weāve been waiting ages. You have an official hearing to make sure everybodyās happy with the match. And then you get another date, and then itās at that second date that it all goes through.
Ģż
Holly-
It's also to allow birth parents to contest as well. They can try and try and try again, just to try and prove that they areā¦
Ģż
Kate-
Have changed.
Ģż
Holly-
Yeah. So, sometimes it might work in their favour. Luckily for usā¦ Can you go and wipe mamaās face?
Ģż
Kate-
Oh, thatās got a load of snot on it. And Gracie is now officially ours, so that means no more social worker visits, no more looked after care review.
Ģż
Holly-
Itās a funny feeling because itās amazing, but also thereās obviously a hint of sadness that nobody did contest her. But I think luckily we know that her birth parents are happy where she is, donāt they?
Ģż
Kate-
Yeah. They understand that sheās in a good place anyway.
Ģż
Holly-
And thatās really important for when sheās older and we can explain to her that her birth parents did want her but they couldnāt care for her.
Ģż
Kate-
Yeah. Good girl, youāre building a tower. And that even though they werenāt able to care for her we wanted her more than anything in the world, and we were lucky to have her.
Ģż
Holly-
Yeah.
Ģż
Beth -
Can you imagine how chaotic that householdās going to be this Christmas?
Ģż
Keiligh -
Very chaotic and very cute.
Ģż
Emma -ĢżĢż
Cuteness.
Ģż
Keiligh -
Oh, the little snuffly noises Gracie makes, and when they were like ātoo much love, Scout, too much loveā when she was celebrating.
Ģż
Beth -
Just lovely.
Ģż
Emma -ĢżĢż
Itās just beautiful. And the idea that we followed Kate and Holly through such a difficult time for them where they were shielding, because Hollyās immunocompromised, for that to be the outcome, the ending. And also a disabled female couple adopting is just all the feels.
Ģż
Keiligh -
Just so lovely. And also just for a bit of a weird time context I produced our Christmas podcast last year, and while we were recording Kate suddenly started crying. And Simon Minty was like, āKate, whatās wrong?ā and sheād just got the text from Holly saying that Holly was finally getting her first jab. And that was a year ago.
Ģż
Emma -ĢżĢż
Big moments. And Kate and Simon presented the Ouch podcast for many years, the Ouch talk show, and theyāve been in our lives for a long time and weāre very fond of them and weāre very keen to follow their journeys in life, as you can tell.
Ģż
Keiligh -
Definitely. Oh, and also a nice thing that I couldnāt include in the clip was that then Kate and Holly were explaining theyāve got a booklet to give to Gracie when sheās older that marks her entire journey. So, there are pictures of her with her foster parents, stuff about her birth parents, about how Holly and Kate found her and all these lovely things. Itās really nice. And when sheās old enough theyāre going to present her with it and then sheāll have a little life story, a bit of a ā what was that programme back in the day?
Ģż
Beth -
This is Your Life.
Ģż
Keiligh -
This is Your Life little Gracie. I think thatās ending on a high note right there, isnāt it?
Ģż
Beth -
It is. And itās interesting hearing about the court process, the adoption process, because itās always, not shrouded in mystery, but unless youāre going through it youāre not sure. So, theyāre going to have a great end to the year. And actually there was loads of brilliant Ouch stuff that we didnāt include. Obviously the summer was the summer of the Tokyo Paralympics; didnāt go asā¦well it went smoothly, but not in the normal way we expect. And also what a year itās been for loads of disabled celebrities. Weāve had Strictly with Rose Ayling-Ellis wowing everyone with her dancing. Rosie Jones is appearing on everything right now. Casualty, my personal favourite.
Ģż
Emma -ĢżĢż
I saw here on The Wheel; that was quite good.
Ģż
Beth -
Yeah.
Ģż
Keiligh -
And obviously she also appeared on an Ouch podcast not that long ago as well. Another of ourā¦ can we claim Rosie Jones?
Ģż
Beth -
Yeah, definitely.
Ģż
Keiligh -
Fantastic. Iād love that.
Ģż
Beth -
What about Tim Rencow? He had a new series of Jerk out, heās been with Ouch many times.
Ģż
Emma -ĢżĢż
Yeah, weāve had him a few times on. Absolutely. Lots of highs, lots of lows, and lots of stuff in the middle as well. But I think the Kate, Holly, Scout, Gracie clip is the high to end all highs.
Ģż
[Music] Itās been quite the ±«Óćtv Ouch year, I think youāll agree. And all the episodes weāve taken the clips from for this one are available on the ±«Óćtv Ouch podcast on ±«Óćtv Sounds. And you can subscribe to us there too; please do that. And you can get in touch with us as well. Weād love to hear from you. We are @bbcouch on Twitter. And you can search for ±«Óćtv Ouch on Facebook and Instagram as well. So, all thatās left for us to say on this episode is:
Ģż
All-
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Ģż
Keiligh -
Sing us home with a Latin song Beth.
Ģż
Beth -
[Singing] Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus, ex Maria virgine, Gaudete.
Ģż
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Access All: Disability News and Mental Health
Weekly podcast about mental health, wellbeing and disabled people.