Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: Running topless because I'm proud of my scars

Episode Date: May 2, 2026

We meet a woman who started running marathons topless after having both her breasts removed because of cancer. Louise Butcher tells us she wanted to display her mastectomy scars with pride. She says she wants to empower other women and show that surviving the disease is about power not pity.Also: Preserving voice notes from almost a hundred years ago. The so called 'speaking letters' were recorded on small discs and sent through the post.Do chips from someone else's plate really taste better? Scientists put the common belief to the test.A project to save bats in Nigeria, where they're often associated with witchcraft.Plus: the comedian making her debut in her eighties; and the choir helping people get their voices back after a stroke or brain injury.Our weekly collection of inspiring, uplifting and happy news from around the world.Presenter: Holly Gibbs. Music composed by Iona Hampson. (Photo: Topless marathon runner Louise Butcher. Credit: @louisebutcher39)

This is the Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Holly Gibbs and in this edition... Even though I've lost my breasts, the scars are there to remind me that I survived a disease that tried to kill me. We meet the topless runner, showing the world her double mastectomy scars with pride. Also on this podcast...

Hello, Mom and Dad. And we have been able to talk to you from Jersey City. And I get home on my... Furlough, I want you to have a lot of orange. A girl I told you about in one of my letters, we're going out canoeing. Preserving voice notes recorded nearly a hundred years ago. Why a chip you take from someone else's plate really does taste better? And the woman who's been recognized for helping to protect endangered bats in Nigeria.

Bats plant for us, because you're always dispersing seeds. But to manage insect populations. but are really valuable ecological friends. We start with a woman who is trying to inspire others to embrace their bodies, no matter how different they might be. Louise Butcher had both of her breasts removed after having cancer. Although it was only in her left breast, Louise chose to have a double mastectomy. She is now known online as the topless runner and runs, as the name suggests,

with her scars proudly on display. She's been speaking to the Happy Pod's Karen Martin and started with why she decided not to have breast reconstruction. At that time, there's so many things going through your head that all I cared about was I wanted to get rid of the cancer. And I think all these sort of like questions, you're going to have reconstruction, do you want this, do you want that? It's just too much to take on.

And I kind of thought, I just want to get on with my life, I want to recover quickly, and I don't see the need to, put something back, which isn't mine. When I first had the left side off, which had the cancer in, I actually said, can I have a double mastectomy? And the surgeon said, we don't take off a healthy breast. And I kind of said, well, how do you know it's healthy when lobular breast cancer, which is what I had, doesn't show up well on scans. I could look in the shower at the scar really easily, but I couldn't look at the other breast because it felt like a killing machine. It worried me

It could be there. It could come in that breath. But it also wouldn't let me move on because I could see what I'd lost. And what was the process of coming to terms with your new body? It took around about six months and it was kind of like, which is what I tried to pass onto other women, evolving into a better version of yourself. So I'd never run marathons with boobs.

So I became without boobs a marathon runner. and it was kind of like becoming a stronger, better person. So I know that if I'd have stayed the same person, I would have constantly been going, I remember when I had breasts. This is what I was like. But I can't look back at that person now because now I've become this stronger, better person.

And I try and pass that on and encourage other women to do that. Because just because you lose a part of yourself doesn't mean you can't gain other things. Cancer took away and it does take away all your control. Everything you had planned, this life that you thought you were going to have just goes like this. And that's the element that I tried to empower other women with as well

is the control. The fact that I'd had that off was my decision. I'd advocated it, which made me feel empowered. Let's talk about your relationship with your scars, like how they make you feel. When I looked at the stigma associated with not having reconstruction, it was a negative narrative around it. It was like, oh, she's lost her breasts,

oh, poor woman. pity was there. And I thought the analogy of the shark for me was you had a shark attack and your leg had been bitten and you came out of it alive. I would be really proud of that scar if I was bitten on the leg. I'd be showing it off. I'd be like, look what I survived. And that's kind of how I look at my scars because even though I've lost my breasts, the scars are there to remind me that I survived a disease that tried to kill me. So instead of the negative, I put that narrative on it and that really helped change my mindset around them. They've still created something beautiful because you're still alive and that's what I'd try and pass on. From there you took to running.

Yeah. The first time you ran without a top on, talk me through the feeling of before leaving the house even. I'd run the marathon six weeks after my second surgery and I remember thinking I've got to do something with the next marathon, that's quite special. And it had been about a week before, and I thought about this stigma and how I felt and how I'd seen other women had felt. And I thought, what would be really amazing would be to show the stigma of the pity

alongside something that's really strong and determined and the resilience of running the marathon. And that was how the mindset of, I'll do it, Topless came about. And I remember that morning, I woke up. And you know when you know you've got a job to do, do and you're not thinking about it, you're just like, I'm going to do this and this is a job I've got to do. It wasn't really a choice. I woke up like that. There was no anxiety. I wasn't nervous.

I was like, no, I've got to do it. And this is what's got to happen. And then I met two of my friends at the start and I took my top off and I just ran. And it was the most liberating, empowering feeling I think I've ever felt. I brought back the control and the choice of what I was doing with my body after cancer. And what was the reaction from people? At the start, I would have said 80% positive, 20% negative. A lot on social media is 20% negative. But as I've gone on and on on, the positivity just keeps rising. So I've had messages from all over the world, women in Japan.

There's a lady who ran a topless marathon in Australia, in America. And it's just empowering women in all sorts of ways, not just running, just about their confidence they've got in their body. How has this experience kind of reshaped your relationship with yourself in that way? When I was younger, it was all about how I looked, which I think in many women, that's usually how you feel when you're younger. You care about what people think about you. But when I went through cancer, it changed my mindset because my body became something bigger than how it looked.

It was kind of like it healed. It tried to keep me alive. and I had a bigger respect for it than the superficial. And I think that's why I've got the confidence I have because I don't look at it like that now. And that's where I don't care about the judgment because I just feel in awe of what it's done, not what it looks like. Louise Butcher speaking to Karen Martin.

Recording our voices is now pretty common. You might send a voice note to friends and family or to us here at the Happy Pod. But nearly 100 years ago, people recorded what were known as speaking letters, and one man is now preserving them in a special digital archive. They offer fascinating insights into everyday life in the 1930s and 40s, as Branca Lesser Dissar has been finding out. Hello, Mom and Dad.

And they have been able to talk to you from Jersey City. That's Evelyn, in New Jersey, sending a message to her parents in Blackpool. I expect to be going out to Sue Hackis's place. Remember, the girl I told you. And that's Doug in New York, telling his sister Mona about his plans for the weekend. We're going out canoeing, spend a day out on the beach. Both Evelyn and Doug have passed away, but their voices, recorded close to a century ago, have been immortalized. They're part of a project by Thomas Levine, a professor at Princeton University who collects what are known as voice letters.

These are small records that people recorded, starting in the 20s and 30s, in small booths. at home in studios. Voice recording technology has been around since the mid-1800s, but it used to be rare and inaccessible. Gramophone discs helped to make the process more mainstream. You would go in, put a quarter or some small amount of whatever currency into the machine, and then, astonishingly, with nobody else present, you would record and out would come a record. Thomas first came across audio letters, when he found one at a fleet of,

market in New Jersey. He became fascinated by how people interacted with what was then a novel technology. Some got nervous and didn't know what to say. Oh, I've a bit more time to spend now. What can I say? I have about two seconds. Others marveled at the technology, putting on a bit of a show. Hi y'all. Wonderful day out here. Making records to the GIs. And there was a lot of singing. Professor Levine now has an archive of over 5,000 audio letters from all over the world. A lot of the recordings are from American soldiers during the Second World War, who were given access free of charge to recording booths across the US.

Many of these letters are remarkable documents of, particularly during wartime. of an imagined peacetime, quotidian life. And I guess I have a lot of orange there. Thomas explains that for families whose sons or husbands were away for long periods, the opportunity to hear their voices would have been incredibly special. These records, unlike the records that we buy in stores, are not multiples. They are unique. So that if you had a recording that you love to hear of your son,

particularly if the recording arrived at home, but your child did not, then these things could often be played to the point of almost acoustic oblivion. Nowadays, we're used to recording ourselves. At the click of a button, we can send voice notes to our loved ones. Thomas hopes his collection can remind us

not to take that for granted and to maintain our sense of wonder about the technology we have available. An archive of past messages that had to travel sometimes arduously through a postal route and sometimes arrived, sometimes didn't, reminds us that what we take for granted today has a history that helps us understand just how magical

some of the dimensions of our current technological, convenient landscape have. Branca Lessa Dissar reporting. Here in the UK, an 88-year-old is proving that age is really just a number. She's learning how to be a comedian. Mary McLaren is part of a group of people over the age of 50, taking part in lessons, which ended with them taking to the stage for live shows. The Happy Pod's Helena Burke called up with Mary.

My daughter nominated me. I've always enjoyed jokes and comedy, and even at my late age in life, I quite like being happy and cheery. I don't like complaining and moaning. Life's short. She put me in for this, and we had to do a little sort of four-week training type of thing.

And then we were up in front of an audience to tell a story about comedy. My birthday, in she comes with vouchers. Oh, you're a beauty. Vouchers, I love vouchers, love, love, love, love. Running about spending a fortune. Her money, great. So I opened the vouchers, and they're for assisted buying. I said, well, they've even got somebody to show me how to spend my money new.

So I went along and I looked at them again and I went, there's no assisted buying. That's assisted dying. And how was that for you? What kind of things did you learn? Well, we learned how to sort of present a story and the girl that she was a natural comedian herself and she took us for four weeks and trained us

and told us different things what to say and how to say them so that you can hesitate and get a laugh in between, you know, that sort of thing was very, very interesting. And at the end of it all, you performed at the social hub in Glasgow. What was that like? Yes, that was lovely. That was a lovely night, obviously very nervous to begin with. But once I get going with my jokes and my story, I'm quite vocal in that way.

And did your jokes go down well? Did you get a lot of laughs from the audience? Yes, and we really did get quite a lot of laughs at the end of the night. night, which made a day, you know, and it was really good. What do you hope that listeners of the Happy Pod take away from your story and your experience? I hope they take away. Well, that was enjoyable and it makes life happier and a lot more pleasant than constantly complaining and just deal with your lot and get on with your life.

And I guess for an older person listening who thinks, like, oh, I'm too old to pick up a new hobby or a new skill, what would you say to them? I would say, well, you're never too old. ages a number and I've always said all my life it's attitude to life and it's how you present it. I've lost a son nearly he was only 47 but I'll look at that and say well he's not coming back. Make the best of your life and thinking all the happy times and do not complain. Mary McLaren speaking to Helena Burke. Coming up on the happy pods, the choir helping people get their voices back after a stroke or brain injury.

Don't stop the music. Don't stop the music. Just don't stop it ever. You're listening to The Happy Pod. Whether we admit it or not, we've probably all helped ourselves to food from someone else's plate. And now a new study confirms that we actually prefer the taste of food that isn't ours. My colleague James Kumarasami spoke to the author of the study, Valentin Scriyabin, a psychiatrist based in Moscow. There is a saying that exists in almost every culture on earth. In Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, etc.

That stolen food tastes better. Everyone knows it, everyone's experienced it. Knicking a chip of someone else's plate, sneaking a biscuit you weren't supposed to have, and it always seems to taste just a little bit better than it should. But nobody had ever actually measured whether that's real or just a charming story would tell ourselves. So that's what we did.

We took identical French fries, and we gave them to people under different circumstances. And we measured whether the circumstances changed how the food actually tasted. And they did. And when you say different circumstances, you mean them taking it from someone else's plate? We had four situations. First, your own portion. Second, someone offers you their fries as a gift.

Third, you sneak a fry from the plate of someone sitting next to you, but they seem friendly and approachable, so the stakes feel low. And fourth, and this is the interesting one, you take a fry from someone who is stern, unapproachable, well, someone you really wouldn't want to catch you. Same fry, same taste, completely different experience of eating it, as it turned out. So the ones that were taken from the person who it was more daring to take it from tasted better, did they? Yes, really. On a nine-point scale, the legitimately eaten fries scored about six for pleasantness. The stolen ones were. The stolen one,

once taken from the strict confederate. Scored nearly eight and a half. That's a 39% in Greece in taste of the same chip. But here's what really surprised us. It wasn't just overall enjoyment. Every single sensory dimension moved independently. The stolen fries tasted saltier, even though the salt content was identical. They tasted crisper, even though they came from the same badge and more intense overall. The brain wasn't just saying, I enjoy that more. It was actually recalibrating specific sensory channels. When you say stern Confederates, just to explain what you mean by that. It was a professional actor, one trained to be warm, open, smiley,

and the other to be stern, strict, closed off. Participants didn't know that the persons were actors. They thought that they are stealing the food indeed. And was there a correlation between how guilty they felt and how tasty the fries were? At the trial level, guilt and enjoyment were positively correlated. Higher guilt was associated with greater pleasure. What we suggest is that guilt isn't driving the pleasure directly. Rather, both guilt and enjoyment are responses to the same underlying thing,

the perceived social risk or the act. So the strict confederate condition produced more of everything, more anxiety, more guilt, more excitement, and more enjoyment. This is something, as you say, that exists as a concept as a saying in many languages. What conclusions do you draw from your research? The fighting is the brain doesn't taste food in isolation. It tasted the whole situation.

Social risk, it turns out, is a remarkably powerful seasoning. Valentin Scriabin. To Nigeria next and a conservationist who's been recognized for her work to protect short-tailed round-leaf bats, Euroro Tanshi worked with locals to set up community fire brigades after realizing that wildfires were a huge threat to the endangered animal. She also tackled fear among locals that bats are associated with witchcraft. She's been awarded a prestigious environmental prize for her efforts.

Ororo spoke to my colleague Nketschio Bonner. Essentially, people just wanted to deal with the problem of wildfires on their farms as well. But we really just say, you know, bats are really great at all these ecosystem services. Bats plant forests because you're always dispersing seeds. You're always moving far away from, you know, the source of the fruits that they're eating. And so by moving away from that tree, they're planting that tree as much as possible across the forest. Same thing with insects. The bats will manage insect populations just naturally.

bats are really valuable ecological friends. You would have a reduction in populations of mosquitoes, for example, because bats, it's insects. You have a reduction in pests on farms because bats are insects that are cultural pests. So essentially, you come to see that they play so many critical roles, it's almost impossible to ignore them. Bats are also vectors of different diseases. Now, when you say they play a huge role in the biodiversity and the ecosystem and all of that, I'm worried about the interaction with humans. That's a really good way to phrase that.

And the problem of bats potentially carrying diseases that are harmful to humans, it's not a bat problem. It's a human problem. Bats are on their own. If you don't disturb them, if you don't come in close contact with them, They're living their best lives. Where bats potentially might spill some of their viruses might be, you know, if they're disturbed at their roosting sites, so where they sleep.

So in caves, for example. And your team has identified at least 10 additional bats species. Why is that discovery significant for conservation efforts in Nigeria and beyond? In the past, it used to be more about exploration. Now, while in a mad rush, Cigaro was species we have, because we're losing them before we even get the chance to describe them and know them in science. We're trying to understand the species that occur on this planet and where they occur. So it's a very important detail to know whether but A, but B, C and D occur only in Nigeria or only in Kenya or only in South Africa.

You've now received global recognition with the Goldman Environmental Prize. What does this award mean to you personally and how do you hope it will help shape the future of this important work? Personally, it's an incredible honor. There are very few things in this world that signal to you that the work that you're doing has global relevance than, you know, things like this. The first Nigerian to win this award was Kensar we were, you know, that's freedom fighter for oil and the environments in Nigeria.

That was a big thing and it made a big shift. And so in our case, we're hoping that this will make a big shift for bats in Nigeria and in Africa, but also for wildfire management. So essentially, this recognition means, in addition to the work that we get in Nigeria, we get to do in Nigeria, we can now scale up this walk across the globe. Arorotanshi. We end with a weekly choir that's making a difference to stroke and brain injury survivors. It's run at the MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, D.C.,

and the Happy Pod's Riley Farrell went along to meet them. It's Thursday afternoon in one of Washington, D.C.'s busiest hospitals. And right now, the hallways are filled with singing. Leading the group is Dana Griff, a board-certified music therapist at the hospital. Singing has really great benefits, especially. for stroke and brain injury survivors. After a stroke, some people might have difficulty with word finding, where they might know what they want to say, but it might not come out necessarily the right way.

Some people have difficulty with, like, cognitive fatigue, respiratory endurance. So singing is actually something that can impact all of that. Singing in a choir has shown to increase people's confidence. And then, you know, being in a choir that particularly is a focus for stroke and brain injury survivors. They're amongst peers who have been through the same things. This is part of the hospital's music wellness program where therapeutic music activities are tailored person by person with goals like speech, language, cognitive function, and movement. My name is Tiffany B. King, V for Victoria.

Before my stroke, I had a lovely singing voice. After the stroke, not so much. After the stroke, not so But I still enjoy the camaraderie and just being with a group of people who like me have some physical limitations or setbacks. But we've all come together to lift our voices, to sing, to come together in fellowship, and just enjoy each other. Hello, my name is Susan Robinson. I love music. Oh, no, I grew up playing the saxophone. I was in the marching band in high school and in college. So I'm a saxophone play, really, my nature.

I really like R&B. That just fits well with my personality. You all know this song, right? Does everybody know this song? There's research behind music-based rehab. I'm trained in what's called neurologic music therapy, so it is a separate clinical system of music therapy that focuses on the neuroscientific approach.

and it's stemmed from years of research, but we know that music is activated in all different areas of the brain. So it's easier to sing instead of speak sometimes after a stroke because of the language center that was affected during a stroke. So we have to reroute to a different area. Because singing and music is activated all over the brain, we can use that to our advantage to reroute the language to a different area of the brain. They inspired me to continue to improve, to try and, you know, regain what I lost from my stroke

and also gain new things, you know. You lose one thing, you regain and learn to expand yourself in other ways, you know. I've gained a new family. What would you say to someone who's recovering after a stroke or brain injury, or if they have a loved one who's recovering? I want them know that it's okay for them to try to sing, listen to music and sing along. Like, try to remember what that person's favorite song is and then play that music and sing along with that person. That person may not be able to vocalize or verbalize, but they'll hear it and they'll recognize it.

Don't stop the music. Don't stop the music. Just don't stop it ever. Stroke Survivor and choir member Susan Robinson, ending that report by, Riley Farrell. And that's all from the Happy Pod for now. We'd love to hear from you. As ever, the address is global podcast at BBC.co.uk.

This edition was produced by Rachel Bulkley. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Holly Gibbs. Until next time, goodbye.