Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: Marrying the man who saved my life

Episode Date: November 2, 2024

Charlotte and Dave met as strangers in a moment of crisis, and went on to marry. Also, the son who reunited with his father after 19 years, and the friends that have been meeting up every week in the same spot since 1968 Presenter: Jannat Jalil. Music composed by Iona Hampson.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Remarkable personal stories from around the world. I'll never forget that day. I didn't know the effect it was going to have on my life. Lives less ordinary from the BBC World Service. There was a few surprises. Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the HappyPod from the BBC World Service.

I'm Janette Jaleel and in this edition, we sat and had a very good conversation about life and it was enough to break the crisis that was in and I ended up marrying the man that I say saved my life. The couple who found each other in a dark moment. Also, besides my father I got a younger sister and a family. I went to Darbar Sahib with my father and thank God I'm very happy. The emotional reunion of a father and son after not seeing each other for 19 years. And?

We meet every week and we know each other so well that we can talk about any subjections of the son. The group of friends that have met at the same spot for more than five decades. five decades. We start here in the UK with an act of kindness that gradually evolved into deep love. In 2019, 33-year-old Charlotte from the north of England decided she'd had enough of her life and decided to end it close to a railway station in West Yorkshire.

But David Lay, who was working as a train driver that day, found her in crisis and took the time to talk things through with Charlotte until she felt comfortable enough to move on. Years later, they got married. The Happy Pod's Holly Gibbs has this report. And just a warning, this piece contains references to mental health, but there is a happy ending.

A man got off the train and approached me and I suppose having a bad day and we sat and had a very good conversation about life and it was enough to break the crisis that was in and I ended up marrying the man that I say saved my life that day. Charlotte is talking about Dave, a train operator for the English company Northern who talked things through with her in her lowest moments. Dave says he remembers kneeling down in front of her and introducing himself. I think we sat and spoke for probably half an hour maybe and then just eventually got onto the train and got into the platform where we were greeted by the British Transport Police.

After that the pair went their separate ways but the following day Charlotte became desperate to thank the driver and started to track him down. I decided I wanted to find the man who'd been so kind with me and took to Facebook to ask if anybody knew anybody who worked for Northern somebody messaged me saying they worked for Northern is there something particularly they could help me with and I explained the situation that happened the day before and they said they knew the driver would ask the driver if he was OK with sharing details.

And within 15 minutes I had his name and number and the rest is very much history. Dave was equally as relieved to hear from Charlotte. He had already contacted the police who looked after her to find out if she was safe. From my point, I needed to know that the person that was on the track was well, to have that opportunity to make that the person that was on the track was well, to have that opportunity to make that difference and yeah, someone still be here until we go home to the family was a massive thing for me. Two months after their first text exchange, they met for coffee and their relationship grew from there. In 2022, the couple got married while Charlotte was 22 weeks pregnant. They're

now a family of five. This is why Charlotte wanted to share her story. Life can and does get better and you have to be here to see it. We need to be reaching in to people we care about, colleagues, friends, family. We need to be having conversations. It doesn't need to be anything special or life changing advice.

Just a general conversation is often enough to get people talking. In 2020, there was another twist to the pair's love story. Dave was diagnosed with testicular cancer after he went to the GP with a bad back. He is adamant he wouldn't have gone to the doctors if it wasn't for Charlotte's insistence. Weeks later, Dave was given the all clear. He if it wasn't for Charlotte's insistence. Weeks later, Dave was given the all clear. He says it's thanks to Charlotte. Charlotte may say that I saved her life, but Charlotte also saved my life as well. That was David and Charlotte Leigh talking to Holly Kibb. We've probably all lost touch

in some way with friends or relatives but imagine if you finally managed to meet up with a parent or child you hadn't seen for 19 years. Well that's what happened to a man from Japan. He managed to trace his father in India and their reunion was a very emotional one as Ravinder Singh Robin from BBC Punjabi reports. This was the moment that a son from Osaka in Japan reunited with his father, who lives in India's Punjab after a long gap of 19 years. It seems like a dream. I wish it to never end.

I can't believe it's a dream. It's my first time. I can't believe it. The story of Sukpal Singh's meeting with Rin's mother was like something from a movie. I met Rin's mother at Thailand airport. She was coming to India to visit Taj Mahal. In the plane we had our seats together. I just asked her if she is interested, I can take her to visit Uwaga-Attari border and Golden Temple. She trusted me and agreed and then she visited Amritsar. I took her to Golden Temple. I visited Japan in 2002 for the first time. We got married there and Rin was born in 2003. But the couple struggled to make the relationship work

and eventually got divorced when Rin was about 2 years old. I started living with my I was young then to understand responsibilities. There were relationship issues. I returned to India. She came to India and took me back to Japan. It was in 2004 and Rin was about 18 months old. Things did not work between us and we got separated. I never met Rin again. I was in India for a long time.

I was in India for a long time. I was in India and Rin was about 18 months old. Things did not work between us and we got separated. I never met Rin again. After returning to India from Japan in 2007, Sukbal lost contact with his son and later remarried and had a daughter. Rin Takata recounts the moment he decided to find his father. recounts the moment he decided to find his father.

I realised I didn't know anything about my father. And then I started talking to my mother about him. She showed me his picture. I was interested in India before. I had looked up Sikhism. I wasn't sure if it is true, but I heard a lot of people share my surname, Singh. I decided to search more on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, searched his name but so many people with this name came up so I thought, oh, maybe it's impossible. But I remembered I had a letter from him when I was three years old and on it was his old

address. So I tried Google. Rin came to India and went to the village with an old photograph of his father. A shopkeeper in the area recognized him and helped Rin to find his father's house. Yes, right now. Right now? Yes. Your photo, when you was just two years I think. Just two days ago, I was looking at this. For Sukpal Singh, his reunion with his son is still like a sweet dream that he does not want to let go. I was waiting for this for 19 years. Every day, Facebook, Reen Takata, Satyak Thakata, Jeeva Gher, every day.

But your sister, Instagram. And his 14-year-old daughter, Avleen, will remember this Rakhi for a lifetime. I am very happy because I have a dream that I will have a child. I am very happy because I always used to think that I should also have a brother. People often used to ask me, are you a single child? I have cousins. But then cousins are cousins. Now there is a vibe of real siblings.

That report was by Ravinder Singh Robin. Now to a story of lifelong friendship. 56 years to be exact. Dick, Ken, Paul, Brian, Bill and Peter have met every Thursday night in the White Swan Pub in Yorkshire, Northern England since 1968. The group, who are now all in their early 80s, say they've only missed two dozen or so meetups over the years. Our reporter Joe Inwood went to the pub in Sheffield and started by asking Ken how it all began. I think it was Paul and myself who was responsible for getting this thing going. What it was we were studying for a degree in metallurgy and we got Wednesday

afternoons off and we used to go playing golf and from that we used to go for a drink and then others joined us until eventually we settled on a Thursday night and that was 56 years ago. And Dick you've been coming all of this time. Yes. How much has this group and this friendship meant to you? A lot. I mean because we meet every week it's not as though there's a month goes by before we see each other but we meet every week and we know each other so well that we can talk about any subject under the sun. Now I'm just going to bring in Peter you're often the kind of the unofficial spokesman of the the group. Tell me the subjects that you guys talk

about how have they changed over the year and what do you talk about? I mean, a lot of it's about health nowadays, but yeah, we can talk about absolutely anything. Now, during the Covid pandemic, obviously things were slightly different, but you guys, you continued your weekly meetups on Zoom and we've got here the agenda, some of the things were being discussed. Tell me about that period well it was great because what we were able to do is some of the lads who who had moved away to australia and pennsylvania etc we brought them in for the uh during the covid time so we used to have a meetup every week every thursday like like we've always done uh but it got a bit uh disjointed because everybody were wanting to talk over Zoom.

So I wrote an agenda and I used to have some subjects that I'd introduce each week and then everybody could bring another subject in if they wanted. You guys set a really interesting example for young men now in how to have deep friendships, deep male friendships. What lessons do you think people can draw in your experiences and the friendships that you guys, in fact, I tell you what, I'll bring in Bill for this one,

the friendships that you guys have maintained over 56 years. Well, Peter and myself went to school together. We left school, worked for the same company together, went to night school, and after night school, three nights a week and the rest of the week we went out knocked about together we didn't have phones we didn't have even landline phones so we just made arrangements and stuck to the

arrangements that we made and we had I think the best years that you could possibly have rock and roll. Paul how much does it mean to you to have this this friendship? Oh very very much indeed. I mean, it's a fundamental part of our lives. I mean, here, they're all comics, this lot. They're all comics, and equally they're all competitive. But the week goes on, and we all go away, and we have our lives in the week goes on and we all go away and we have our lives in the week and we know that Thursday is a time when we can just move away from that. We can come and discuss football or whatever. It's relaxing, it's separate and it's in no way is it sort of a problem to our wives they know that they know that we're going and it just is fitting it fits into the calendar of the week and Brian I'll just bring you in finally how much does this all mean to you this

friendship it means a lot because I can sit here and listen to people talking. And I've learned a lot since I've joined this group. A group of friends there talking to Jo Inwood. Coming up in this podcast. We've sort of found these threads where things are joined abstractly or directly and it's a really joyous exploration of different cultures. European classical and African folk music are combined celebrating their unifying power. My talent as an athlete is swimming long halls over the curvature of the earth. Life's Less Ordinary is the podcast with astonishing personal stories from across the globe.

My past is very bad and I survived it. You have to tell the globe. My past is very bad and I survived. You have to tell the story. Expect the unexpected. All of a sudden the car exploded. Lives Less Ordinary from the BBC World Service. Here's a thing that happened to me. Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts. In October, Pakistan became the latest country to eliminate the eye disease trachoma. The

infection affects millions of people around the world. It can be extremely painful and can cause blindness and visual impairment if left untreated. With the help of the NGO Sight Savers and the country's government, health workers in Pakistan have now found a way to combat the spread there. Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir is a community ophthalmologist in Peshawar in the Kaiba Pakhtunkhwa. I spoke to him and started by saying that he must be proud of his achievement. It is a great pleasure and a great proud moment and honour for all of us, all the team who worked day and night for almost two and a half decades. You know, the WHO announced Pakistan as a trachoma free country and the public health problem as a trachoma is no

more in Pakistan. The WHO being the World Health Organisation, tell us how you were able to achieve this. How much of a problem was trachoma in Pakistan? So unfortunately, like other endemic countries where this trachoma prevailed, Pakistan was among them. The magnitude of this disease, if we were not able to eliminate trachoma well in time, there were chances of 3.7 million people of affected areas to become blind of this infectious blindness disease, which we call trachoma. That is a huge number. And it's easily transmitted, isn't it, with poor hygiene or overcrowded conditions, people touch their faces and they can pass on the disease that way. So what

do doctors do to try to stop that spread? The transmission is exactly with a contact and this prevail in those pockets where very hard to reach and usually this disease prevail from the poorest pocket of that community where it is endemic. For the trachoma, the standard and the protocol is, you know, the safe strategy. Safe is nothing but SAF and E. S stands for the surgery. Whenever there is a repeated infection of the, specifically the upper eyelid, we perform a surgery on those cases, which having inward turn of the eyelashes, which we call tracheal key assist. The perks of this surgery is definitely first to relieve the pain and the second important is that it will not further deteriorate the

condition. Otherwise, if we don't do surgery, he will get blind totally. The second element of the safe is the antibiotics. Antibiotics we give for the active infection, you know. The third pillar is face wash, like facial hygiene, the personal hygiene. And last but not the least, that is the environmental change. It's nothing but having a good sanitation. Wherever there is a clean water scarcity, the trochoma prevail will be there definitely. And this is quite an achievement because you've managed to do this in one of the countries with one of the biggest populations in the world and I gather that it's also become a

disease that has been eradicated from India which has the largest population in the world, Pakistan's neighbor. Yeah, this is again a proud moment, you know, because we are 19 in the list who eliminated the trochoma from the country. And I congratulate my neighbouring country exactly, India. So now the list from 19 goes to 21, you know. That is, I mean, it's a great achievement. And you want to increase that number, don't you?

You want to make this a club that expands from 19 to 21 to bring in all the countries that suffer from an easily preventable tropical disease like this one. If we are able and if we succeed to have a very good collaboration, very good partnership with all the global health communities, if we don't do these efforts, because this initiative is not enough to eliminate trocoma from one country or from another country because our major main objective and main goal is to eliminate trochoma globally because if one country eliminate and another country does not work any effort and they don't put any effort, that public health problem again will raise and those part of world where this disease have been eliminated, so this will again reoccur.

And that is again a disaster. It will be a great disaster. And do you think that's the goal that's achievable in your lifetime, the global eradication of trachoma? Yeah, I mean, you have to, for me, it's not that not achievable because the word impossible says that I am possible, you know. Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir. For many men, mental health can sometimes be a taboo subject and getting help for stress and anxiety can be hard to come by. So an NGO in Kenya called Centum Scientific has come up with an idea to break down barriers.

called Centum Scientific has come up with an idea to break down barriers. They've been using some of Kenya's best talkers, barbers, to get young men to open up about how they're feeling. Myra Anubi went to the west of Kenya to find out more. I'm on a busy street in a town called Bungoma but I'm here specifically today to visit a barbershop. It's not just a place where people go to get haircuts, but men have a chance to talk about politics, football. And at this barber shop called 64 Classic Kinyozi, they're doing things in a bit of a special way. You're not stressed?

No. You're not? No. Ah. You're not stressed? In this tiny shop, the barber, Davis Imiu, is shaving his customers' hair, and the conversation is all about stress.

Every customer who comes here who has maybe a particular problem concerning stress management always talk to them, and we share one on one. And the customer, Wanyoni, feels he can open up when he's in the barber's chair. So I feel free to tell Davis specifically because I trust him. He told me many things like be kind to myself, maybe if my thoughts and feelings are dragging me, I just unhook them. Davis is one of 30 barbers in the region who've been trained to support their customers' mental health. It's part of a project to help young men, which is run by a Kenyan NGO called Centum.

One of their researchers, Arnold Satya, believes it's helping to break down barriers. Mental health is basically a taboo topic in our society here. And so by using an informal setting where most of these youth can easily relate with the barber, we provide an opportunity for them to have a safe space to discuss and you know stimulate a conversation about these issues. And they use a smart way to get the conversation started, specially commissioned music that talks about mental health. I always ask my clients, are you okay with the music that is playing here or you feel

like I should change? He listens to the music and says, I'm okay. In fact, this music has a very good message, especially it's talking about stress. You know, that's now how we start communicating. Goldboy is a local musician. He wrote and sang this song called Tusemezane or Let's Talk. It felt so nice that my music can change somebody's life by reducing stress because when people don't have stress, the economy is going to be okay. Families, they're going to be together

if there is no stress. The barbers are trained to deal with mild to moderate mental health issues, but anyone they think needs more than just a chat is referred on to get more support. Faris suffered from anxiety and last year he was given some exercises to help manage it. I got to start reading it, taking in the actions, practicing the small, small exercises. And overall, how much has this process helped you? It's helped me a lot.

If I was to give it a scale from one to ten, I'd say nine. So far the project has reached out to more than a thousand young men, with around 600 receiving the programme materials. Arnold hopes that it can have a long-lasting effect on the way mental health is dealt with. It's our hope that there's a shift in perspective by ensuring that it's a common topic that is discussed in various settings, it will become a common conversation and by doing that we hope that it will create a common conversation and by doing that we hope that we'll create a culture. Kenyan researcher Arnold Satie talking to Myra Anubi and you can hear more stories like this one on people fixing the world. Music has a wonderful power to transcend borders, interweave cultures and bring people together. That's the spirit behind a collaboration called Sirocco, named after

the warm Mediterranean wind that crosses the Sahara, connecting Africa with Europe. South African cellist and storyteller Abul Salah Chouei has teamed up with Manchester Collective, a string ensemble based in Northern England, combining the two musical traditions in what they call a love letter to music and camaraderie. Ahead of their European revival tour, Ella Bicknell has been speaking to Rakhi Singh, co-founder of the Manchester Collective and the lead violinist on the project. We've sort of found these threads where things are joined abstractly or directly, and it's a really joyous exploration of different cultures and how they can reflect each other. I saw a description on the website saying it's a love letter to music. Tell me about that process of how you make music together. A lot of this is your own creation.

Yes, well, when you work with musicians from different cultures, not everybody has learnt the language in the same way and they're speaking a different language even though it's all music. You know, everybody has different strengths and weaknesses and it's amazing to be in a room. It's a space where you can be vulnerable which is really important when you're creating new art together I think. The musicians I share the stage with in this are just incredible. We have Abel Salouchwe who kind of needs no introduction, he's taking the world by storm right now, but also Siddiqui Dembele who is a djembe player from the Ivory Coast from

a griot family and the strength of music in his culture is really powerful in bringing people together. Very rewarding and inspiring and often I'm the one directing so I'm sort of the one in charge but I'm definitely of the one in charge but I'm definitely not the one in charge in this you know we all have our moments and it's this incredible mix of musicians. And Raggi this is a European wide tour there are 10 concerts through November in Czechia, Belgium, Germany and the UK. What's it like bringing this music from country to country? It's so interesting for us to play in different countries as well because each city, each

country, the flavour and the style as the audience, as much as you do from us. So we respond to what you bring us in the room and each show is really different for that. In the past you've taken traditional composers like Vivaldi and added things like African percussion. What is it about fusing different musical traditions that really excites you as a musician? I grew up in in West Wales to a Mancunian mother but also Indian father so even at home we have a mixture of cultures. We have Indian music, Indian food, English music. My mum loves classical music so we were often listening to that. So it just feels natural to bring that into my expression as an artist.

Why are music and happiness so intrinsically linked? It's your everyday life. What would a world be without music? I mean, I think, yeah, we wouldn't have ways to get to those deepest, darkest feelings or deepest, lightest feelings that we can't really access through words. You know, rhythmic music gets your pelvis moving or gets your heart pumping, whereas melodic music feel like a wind brushing across your skin. It's so textural and tactile. That was Rakhi Singh from the Manchester Collective speaking to Ella Bignall. Seng from the Manchester Collective speaking to Ella Bicknell. And that's all from the HappyPod for now. We'd love to hear from you as ever. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Nora Houlle. The producers were Holly Gibbs and Ella Bicknell. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jeanette Jalil.

Until next time, goodbye. An adventure of a lifetime. Sailing around the world. Delivering a renovated yacht thousands of miles around the globe, from Brazil to Europe. It was an opportunity to gain a lot of experience. My path to my dream was beginning. But for the sailors selected, the journey was a journey of a lifetime. The journey was a journey of a lifetime.

The journey was a journey of a lifetime. The journey was a journey of a lifetime. The journey was a journey of a lifetime. The journey was a journey of a lifetime. The journey was a journey of a lifetime. The journey was a journey of to Europe. It was an opportunity to gain a lot of experience. My path to my dream was beginning. But for the sailors selected, this dream job quickly turned into a nightmare. Rodrigo, the police are here. There's something on this boat. Whoa.

But then, off cocaine. And a key suspect was miles away. Fox called the shots. He was in charge. But we've found him. Brazilian police say that you are an international drug trafficker. Well, I'm not. From the BBC World Service. World of Secrets, Season 5, Finding Mr Fox.

Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts.