Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: The choir proud to admit they can't sing

Episode Date: September 12, 2026

The Off-Key Choir in Southport on Merseyside has a simple motto: just because you can't sing doesn't mean you shouldn't. Around 80 members come together every week to sing their hearts out, without the pressure to hit all the right notes. Since it was formed in 2018, the choir has also acted as a support group. It has become so popular there is now a waiting list to join.Also: the successful canopy bridge project giving animals a safe way to cross roads in the vast Amazon rainforest. How a pirate ship themed video game is helping stroke survivors in Mexico to regain mobility. A pilot scheme from Guide Dogs is turning ultrasound scans into 3D printed models for expectant parents with sight loss to feel their unborn baby's features. Campaigners across Africa are celebrating after a UN vote to adopt a new world map reflecting the true size of the continent. Plus, as a new Gruffalo book is released, we hear why the original story resonates with so many children. (Image: Sheila Byrne, member of the Off-Key Choir. Credit: BBC)Presenter: Chantal Hartle. Music: Iona Hampson

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Your sales order says one thing. Your inventory says another. Your spreadsheet says, good luck. Odu brings your business together on a single platform, from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's O'Dbolo.com. Did America's War on Terror work? I'm Asma Khalid, host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. In the words of a former U.S. official on September 11, 2001, the terrorists hijacked not just airplanes, but also the direction of U.S. foreign policy.

25 years on, what were the unintended consequences of the war on terror? For the full story, listen to the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Chantal Hartle and in this edition It's just so much fun and we laugh and nobody cares yeah we can't sing but nobody cares you come here

and you know when they say sing and dance if no one's watching you that's what we do here the choir with the off-key selling point we can't sing but we love to do it anyway a project to help animals safely navigate the vast Amazon rainforest pays off

we have recorded 17,000 crossings. So all the six monkey species are using the canopy bridges. How 3D ultrasound models are allowing expectant parents with sight loss to experience a precious moment. You can feel the outline of our head and our little tiny ear and our nose and our mouth. To be able to get that information firsthand is really powerful and it gives you that sense of independence back. And the unconventional video game therapy helping stroke survivors to regain mobility. The patient has to hold the leg out straight, and the player controls a cannon.

It simulates being in a bay with pirate ships coming in. The cannon fires continuously, and the player aims it by moving the leg. If you can't sing, come and join my choir. That was the unusual advert, Diane Chapman posted in a local newspaper in the north of England eight years ago. Diane didn't expect many people to turn up, but now around 80 enthusiastic members come together each week to sing at the top of their lungs without the pressure to sound pitch perfect.

The off-key choir has become so popular it has a waiting list to join. One member, Sheila, gets so much enjoyment from it that she even moved house to be closer to where the choir meets. Our reporter Jane McCubbin has been to one of their rehearsals. Hello, everybody! Come on in! Nice to meet you.

Let me introduce the... off-key choir. Does that mommy, we won't sing? Has anybody ever told you that you can't sing? Dye has the answer, and a motto. Just because you can't doesn't mean you shouldn't. Dye is Diane Chapman, who set up the off-key choir eight years ago. This is Jane.

Hi, everybody. Here, no one believes they can sing, so no one ever sings alone. until today. And I know some of you feel a bit nervous about this, Sheila. But could we just do a few little solos just to show people the power of when you come together? I love going the quiet. I do, I look forward to go on the quiet of a Wednesday,

even though we can't sing. This is Sheila Burn. Can we get you to do a solo? Oh, God, no. Oh, go on. Oh, go on, Sheila. Oh, I sound awful. Well, do you know, isn't that the point?

I know. Because when you are altogether, you don't sound awful. Yeah. Would you do it? I don't. Alone, they might wobble. When the night has come. And the land is dark.

Alone, they're exposed. It's the only light we see. No, I won't be afraid. But they're not chasing perfect pitch here. They're chasing joy. Just as you stand. And when they come together, shoulder to shoulder, once every week. Oh, darling.

Stand by me. Oh, stand by me. Oh, stand. Stand by me. Stand by me. Stand by me. Stand by me. Debbie, you love it.

I do. Adore it. I do. It's made a big difference to my life. Lost a few of my cat lives this year. The choir's really been there for me and got me through, you know, some tough times. And it's just so much fun. And we laugh and nobody cares.

Yeah, we can't sing. But nobody cares. You come here and you know when they say sing and dance if no one's watching you, that's what we do here. Sheila's amazing. She's got loads of confidence since she's been with us. But what do we believe anyway? Just because you can't. Doesn't be your children?

You put an advert in the paper of not knowing what would happen. And this has happened. And it said, if you can't sing, come and join my choir. I put 15 chairs out on the first night. And 52 people turned up. This is Joy Garvin. You'd just lost your husband when you saw that advert. I heard, yes.

I closed my eyes. drew back the curtain to see for certain. And I made friends, and I've never looked back. I'll just love it. I love every minute of it. Far far away. Someone was we're in, and the world was sweet. So why should you let not being able to do something stand in your way?

Whatever it is, I can't bake and I can't dance, But do it anyway. Because it's just so joyous. And you never know what adventures and what opportunities might come along if you do. If anybody out there has been told they can't sing, what do you say to them? Absolute rubbish. Definitely rubbish. Just sing your heart out.

It just makes every day worth living. Go out and sing. out and sing and enjoy. In a world obsessed with polish and perfection, this choir reminds us the only thing that matters is coming together and giving it a go. Jane McCabin meeting the Off-Kee choir. The Amazon rainforest is home to more primate species

than anywhere else on earth. But traffic on the roads cutting through the vast forest is one of the major threats to the many animals that live there. One Brazilian conservationist has made it her mission to change that, building rope bridges to help monkeys and other animals cross safely. And it's proving to be very effective. The Happy Pod's Helena Burke spoke to the woman behind this pioneering project. In 2021, Dr Fernanda Abra carried out a road mortality assessment for wildlife living in a section of the Amazon in northern Brazil. The results shocked her.

I recorded dozens and hundreds of primate roadkill, especially the golden-handed tamarine, but I also recorded fretting spider monkeys and the squirrel monkeys and many other arbore species, such as sloth, porcupines, and etc. So I also had a very bad experience where I found a primate that was hit by a car, and it was a very traumatic experience. Dr. Abra knew something had to be done to stop this, and so the reconnecter project was born. Alongside a team of engineers, architects and biologists, she designed a special bridge for animals to get from one section of the rainforest to another and avoid walking on the road. Our canopy bridge is very solid, resistant. We tested all the materials for the Amazon weather because we have a lot of rain, high temperatures.

So basically we install our bridges on two concrete posts. The core of the bridges is based on steel cables, ropes. The bridges cater for a wide range of species, from porcupines using the walkway below to monkeys swinging across the ropes overhead. Dozens of these bridges have been installed across the Amazon over the past six years, but the project around the town of Alta Floresta has arguably been the most, successful. In October 2024, we installed the first seven bridges and it was a very nice experience because we saw the whole city embracing the project, so many different sectors of the

city. So together with universities, private owners, the whole city hall involved in reducing the impact of road mortality for the species they have there. And then we, of course, at the moment we installed the canopy bridges, we started to monitor all the seven for full time using camera traps full time. And in 19 months of monitoring, we have recorded 17,000 of crossings. So all the six monkey species are using the canopy bridges. Since those bridges were installed in 2024, not a single primate has been killed. on the roads around Alta Floresta. After 19 months of monitoring,

we have recorded zero road mortality. So I think this is an amazing milestone. I think this project is something that really touches me because it's not only research, this is applied ecology. This is pure conservation, right? So we are saving animals' lives. and not only animal's lives.

We are promoting better traffic for everybody. Dr. Abra's project has been so successful that it's now going global, with the first canopy bridges outside Brazil about to be built. So Suriname is going to be the first country where we're going to really expand, installing new bridges. But we are also collaborating with other initiatives

from other countries. So, for example, we already shared, the design we use for our canopy bridges with people from Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, and also from Nepal. So I think we have a lot of potential to scale up our solution, not only inside Brazil, but also to many other countries in Latin America and who knows other tropical countries worldwide. So 2027 is going to be a busy year here for the reconnecter project. Dr Fernanda Abra ending that report by Helena Burke. Now, 27 years ago, young and maybe not so young, readers around the world were first introduced to the brown fairy creature with purple prickles known as the Gruffalo. He has terrible tusks.

and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws. Well, if you have raised a child since the millennium, you'll most probably know exactly how the rest of that description goes. The original picture book written by the author, Julia Donaldson, has sold millions of copies worldwide, and it's been translated into more than 100 languages. Well, now, a long-awaited third book has just been released with a new character, Gruffalo Granny. But in a world increasingly dominated by screens, what is it that makes the Gruffalo so popular, even all these years later?

Luke Jones brought together the American author Dana Hataway and Jaya Batachaji Rose, a book publisher in the Indian Capital Delhi who has worked with Julia Donaldson. She was full of boundless energy and she was always... so full of joy and rhythm and colour. I mean, you can understand why Grafalo has had the kind of success that it has, because at the core of it is the happiness and the joy that she reverberates through her words. Dana, how would you explain why her work has been such a sort of global hit and is something that so many children seem to take up and read?

I discovered that Gruffalo actually during my teaching year. And of course, when you're in that industry, the highlight of the day was read alouds. You know, kids would sit down and listen when it was time for us to read a book. So no one should underestimate the power of read alouds 100%. And that day, the Gruffalo was on the shelf. And this one boy, Josiah, he kept insisting we read that book. And the rest was history. And I think I've probably read that book hundreds of times.

It was the most requested book. and kids even asked if they could take our coffee home. It was so easy for me to do the voices because of the rhyming patterns. And then it made it easy for the kids to memorize the beats of the story. So everyone loved that clever mouse. That's one thing that they wanted to be. They wanted to be like that mouse who could pretty much trick all these other predators into like thinking, well, I'm the most dangerous thing around here.

And yet the unfortunate thing is we do know that kids increase, are reading less. Dana, are you worried about that phenomenon and how important are some of these big kind of key books, be it the Gruffalo or Harry Potter or Philip Pullman to kind of get kids interested in reading?

Oh yeah, definitely worried about that. I currently work as a digital product manager at Reading is fundamental, which is the leading children's literacy non-profit here in the United States, and our goal has always been to fight the literacy crisis and how, the way that we do that,

that is to get, you know, books in the hands of children. For the past 60 years, we've been doing that. And I think, you know, legacy books like the Gruffalo do make a good impact in terms of children's literacy. You know, as a young child, the way that adults read with them is something that builds these literacy practices that they continue to take as they grow up. Jaya, is that a phenomenon that worries you? Well, yes and no, in the sense that from the time that I've been in publishing and witnessed quite a transformation from traditional publishing houses which didn't have dedicated children's literature departments.

Now they do. We now see entire generations of children coming up remembering book fairs. We have author outreach programs. We have workshops. The new education policy of 2022 of the government, in fact, states very clearly that, that we should have storytelling in classrooms. We have at the lowest administrative level in certain states, like in South India, Karnataka,

Pratham Books partnered with the smallest administrative unit called the Grand Panchayat and set up 6,000 libraries, of which the 100 books which are in the Seed Library, 10% are dedicated to Braille books. 2008, we had the first children's book festival come up, literature festival called Bookeroo. It is incredibly popular. Dana Hataway and Jaya Batachaji rose on the popularity of the Gruffalo.

Still to come on the Happy Pod, campaigners celebrate a UN vote to adopt a new map reflecting Africa's true size. It really made Africa an African stand a little bit taller, a little bit prouder. We've asked the world to take a fresh look at Africa. That's actually the most important thing. Growing businesses deal with the same problem, too many tools, too much back and forth and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service, Odo gives you one place to manage your business.

Visit Odo.com to book a demo. It's O'DWO.com. Did America's War on Terror work? I'm Asma Khalid, host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. In the words of a former U.S. official, on September 11, 2001, the terrorists hijacked not just airplanes, but also the direction of U.S. foreign policy. 25 years on, what were the unintended consequences of the war on terror?

For the full story, listen to the global story on BBC.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to The Happy Pod. For many expectant parents, seeing that first ultrasound scan of their baby is a huge moment. But those with sight loss will have a very different experience. Clinics in Brazil and France have previously transformed 20-week scans into tactile 3D models, allowing parents who can't see to feel their baby's features. The charity Guide Dogs recently launched a similar pilot scheme in the UK.

Here's the moment, mum-to-be, Ray Walker, got to touch her baby girl's shape for the first time. Oh, that's her head? Wait. Is that an ear? That's an ear. Wait, that's her arm? Mm-hmm. It's like she's got it up like she's waving. Oh, she's cute.

Well, Ray has been telling Peter White what she could feel on the 3D mould and why it meant so much to her. It literally is like a little baby and you can feel the outline of her head and our little tiny ear and our nose and our mouth and our little hands and she's all curled up and she just seems really happy. And it was really lovely to feel it because when you go for an ultrasound, I'll have an audio described via the sonographer or my partner. But in a sense, it's secondhand information.

So it's always going to be a little bit biased because it's what they perceive. but to have that model on your hand and to be able to get that information firsthand is really powerful and it gives you that sense of independence back. How much does it actually feel like a baby? I mean, in the sense of, you know, arms, legs, the shape of it, the way it's curled, all that sort of thing. How much can you do that from what is effectively something on an embossed surface?

It literally does feel like, an actual baby. So mine, she was curled up, kind of like in the fetus position, and you can feel her head, and you can feel the outline of her ear, and if you run down the side of her face, you can feel the little indent where our eyes would be, and then the little indent where our nose and mouth are. So it literally is like a 3D model. It's not like an ultrasound where it's like all abstract ink blocks on a screen. it's actually a lot clearer than you would think. Has this made what is after all an exciting event anyway? Has it made it more exciting for you?

Yeah, it was lovely to get to see and feel out again. I had no idea what to expect. I was almost a little bit scared because I didn't know what my initial reaction was going to be like and how medical it was going to be, but it's not. It's lovely. And to know that I've got something like that a wee keepsake that I can keep forever or never really sweet.

We've mentioned you're having a girl, but I think your partner came up with a creative way of you being able to find out what the gender of your baby was, not just to be told, but finding out for yourself. It was my partner that said, let's make it really simple, and he came up with an ingenious idea of getting a nice little box, and there's these things called wiki sticks,

and it's like pipe cleaners, but they're sticky so you can stick them onto pieces of paper and things. And we literally said to the sonographer, can you put an X in the bottom if it's a boy or a circle if it's a girl? So she handy me the box and I got to feel inside to see what it was before anyone else did. And it was such a lovely surprise. Mum to be, Ray Walker speaking to Peter White for the BBC's In Touch series.

Campaigners across Africa are celebrating a significant step forward in the way the world sees the continent, quite literally. The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly voted in favour of phasing out the traditional world map with one that more accurately reflects the size of Africa. We're not talking about a minor discrepancy here. On common maps, Africa appears similar in size to Greenland, despite the continent being 14 times larger. Mokie Makur.

from the advocacy organisation Africa No Filter told us how she felt about this long-awaited recognition for change. Excitement, I would say, is a huge part of how I thought because it was nearly two years of work to get to that point. It was almost unanimous, 164 countries voted in our favour and you cannot be anything but pleased. It really made Africa an African stand a little bit taller, a little bit prouder. First fall, 54 African countries came together because we first four signed an EU resolution and then we took it to the UN and it shows that when we get together as a continent behind a single issue and we all agree things happen because the world takes you seriously.

And I think the second symbolic part to this is that this map, we've been looking at for over 400 years it's been wrong. We changed that. We got the world to agree to use a new map for us, a new projection. And to me, that means that we've asked the world to take a fresh look at Africa. That's actually the most important thing. Because we've been looking at Africa in the wrong way for such a long time. What else? What else have we taken for granted? What else do we not know about the continent?

And this resolution, this global moment we've had, is asking the world to look at us differently. And those are the symbolic parts of it. But the practical aspect to me is one, very clear and very simple. The map that we were using for 400 years was wrong. Factually wrong. The one we're asking you to use now is right because we want to make sure our children, the education system, our schools are teaching our children the right thing. Moky Makura, the executive director of Africa No Filter.

To Mexico now, where researchers think they've come up with a solution to make physiotherapy more enjoyable for people recovering from a brain injury. They've developed a video game that allows patients to do exercises similar to those in conventional therapy, but in a more engaging, accessible and consistent way. Roelho Navarro in Mexico City has been finding out how it works. That sound is a cannon-sinking a pirate ship. It is also the sound of a leg learning to walk again. Sylvia Salinas is 45 and she lives in Mexico City.

She's in rehabilitation after a live-altering health incident. A little over two years. ago I had a cerebrovascular event, what we usually call a stroke. I had the stroke and I lost all movement on the left side of my body from my face down to my leg. I woke up from surgery realizing I've lost sensation and movement in my arm and my hand and in my leg so I couldn't walk. What Sylvia was given in rehabilitation was not a standard prescription. It was a video game. It is called Cañonazo, roughly cannon shot, and it was built at the Laboratory of Interactive Applications

for Neuro Rehabilitation at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. This is the man who runs it, Joas Ramirez, a computer scientist. Once the calibration is done, the patient has to hold the leg out straight, and the player controls a cannon. It simulates being in a bay with pirate ships coming in. The cannon fires continuously and the player aims it by moving the leg. The idea is to destroy all the pirate ships. The controller is not a joystick or a game path.

It is a 3D printed knee brace that measures in real time the angle at which the knee bends. Before play begins, the system calibrates how far each patient can move the leg and scales the game to that. This is how Sylvia describes it. The mission is to hit a ship and knock it down. There's a steel ball, a cannon ball, and with my foot, using a device they fit on my knee, I make the movement of kicking it, but sitting down.

I line my foot up visually with the ball I can see on the screen. I kick it, and the ball is launched at the ship and knocks it over. If I do it well, the ship never reaches its target. Conventional physiotherapy is repetitive, and people give up on it. The window in which the brain recovers best is the first few months after the damage, and that is precisely the time

many Mexican patients spend waiting. In Mexico, the university's own laboratory has said publicly that treatment can be delayed by as much as five months because there aren't enough therapists or rehabilitation units, and the ones that exist are overloaded. Since 2021, the project's objective has been to feel that available,

availability gap. Montserrat Cano is the project's neuroscientist. Another of the laboratory's objectives is to take the video games into tele-rehabilitation so that patients can have them at home and start their therapy from home, without needing to travel to a rehabilitation center or to have specialized equipment. As long as they have a computer, a laptop, and the software, they can begin the rehabilitation at home. Cañonazo is one of around 15 games this laboratory has built. The laboratory has two peer-reviewed papers. Canyonasso, the leg game, has not published results yet.

What Sylvia can describe is her own body. My walking improved to the point where I now step over obstacles. I can walk with far more confidence now. If I'm out on the street, I have to be able to step around an open drain or dodge a dog if one runs across me. Sylvia is still recovering from her stroke, but she does rehabilitation every day, and this is what she wants people to know.

Even if the change is tiny, the brain is recovering. It isn't like a wound. When you cut yourself, the wound heals, and I can see it because of scab forms. With this, the brain doesn't tell us how we're doing, or how far along we are, or how much is left or at what speed. But if I can't move my hand,

and one day I noticed that my finger's done this, then I'm on my way. So, patience. That report by Rahelio Navarro in Mexico City. Before I sign off, I would like to wish any Ethiopians listening a happy new year. Now, that might sound a bit odd considering it's September, but Ethiopia follows its own calendar, which is rooted in ancient religious traditions. And it runs around seven to eight years behind the Gregorian calendar.

Well, as of the 11th of September, Ethiopians have entered the year 2019. And it is a time of great celebration, as Daniel Safe Michael, a theology professor in Addis Ababa, explains. Our new year is kind of a unity of the nature, the culture, in the religion, and also some of the major events in the solar and lunar calendar, where we think that it's the beginning of a new revolving of the year. It is the end of the rainy season. And then we have flowers everywhere in the mountains, this yellow flowers, which we call it Ade Ababa, which is a very beautiful flower, which happens only in September.

Girlless voice sing a song of flowers, you know, welcoming the time of flower. And actually, in some places in the northern part of our country, they have also a culture of, you know, singing together, all the members of the family in the village, in the neighborhood. to welcome the new year. And that's all from the Happy Pod for this week. If you'd like to get in touch, our email is Global Podcast at BBC.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Lee Wilson,

and the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Shantelle Hartle. Until next time, goodbye. Did America's War on Terror work? I'm Asma Khalid, host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. In the words of a former U.S. official, On September 11, 2001, the terrorists hijacked not just airplanes, but also the direction of U.S. foreign policy.

25 years on, what were the unintended consequences of the war on terror? For the full story, listen to the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.