Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Move over Starsky and Hutch

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

Should you sing your own theme music? Jane and Fi find out. They're also joined by surgeon Averil Mansfield, where they talk about why surgery is a male dominated profession, what makes a good doctor and performing surgery on stuffed animals. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producer: Kate LeeTimes Radio Producer: Rosie CutlerPodcast Executive Producer: Ben Mitchell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shall we sing our own theme tune? Dang, da-da-dang, da-dang, da-da-dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, da-da-dang! There's going to be this reboot of Starsky and Hutch, and I'm amazed that we haven't already been contacted to do the theme tune or to star in it. Oh, they want a pair of youngsters in their 20s or early 30s. I just don't know. Well, I think there's room in the TV market

for a yet-unplundered plotline of two radio hosts who solve a crime. Because you could do lots of things with funny timings. You're forgetting Eddie Shoestring. Oh, okay. Well, yeah, but that's not two middle-aged women of a certain type

doing things together on the radio. I do remember Trevor Eve, wasn't it? He lived on a boat, do you remember? Yeah, they always do don't yeah so you get a lot of tv mavericks in all sorts of shows who live on the water and uh shoestring was eddie shoestring he had a crumpled suit and he had a way about him you know sort of 70s tash which is weird because i think we were probably in the early 80s by then anyway he solved crimes

on a local radio station so it it had everything for me. It had Trevor Eve, and it had a radio, and it had a bit of mystery. Fabulous. Did you like Sleepless in Seattle for its radio-themed love plot? I've never seen it. Have you never seen it? Is that Tom Hanks? Yes. And Meg Ryan. So I know about it, but I don't think I've ever seen it.

And it's about a late-night radio programme. That's the connection that brings them together it's very it's do you know what it's probably one of those films that hasn't aged too badly at all i wouldn't have thought okay well i mean they haven't got a podcast no but these days they would have one were they the hosts then no so they were brought together by one of their children i think was it his son or her son was listening to the late night programme. Kate's far too young to be able to remember this.

Maybe we could make Sleepless in Crosby as the reboot of that. Remember Jim Rockford? He lived in a kind of mobile home, didn't he? The Rockford Files. The Rockford Files, yes, he did live in a mobile home. And I don't think if you were creating, you know, a sharp detective, a solver of all crimes, he was a P.I., wasn't he?

You'd probably ask, why are you living in a mobile home? I think you might. Well, obviously, Jim Rockford was, he was such a maverick, he had to leave his past behind. He'd probably been done bad by a woman and probably he'd have to leave her the house and go off on the road. No, that'll be it because it's all those old blues songs. My woman did me bad. That kind of thing. All of those.

And I don't want to get your feminist ticker going, especially towards the end of the week. I know because I've left all that behind. Okay, now, welcome everybody to Man Embracing Jane Garvey. It just hurts to even say that. But you wouldn't have a woman who lived in a mobile home as the star of a TV show, or would you? Brenda Blether as Vera.

She's as close as you'll get, but she lives in a very well-appointed cottage. She is not very well-appointed, though, is it? All right, she lives in a cottage that is in a gorgeous location that probably costs a packet, but she's let it go a bit. Yes. Come on, Brenda, you can do better than this this yeah um i've got one more to watch in this current run i wouldn't bother oh i know what you're going to say that because the plots that

they're not being written by angley yeah it's just not they're just not as good jane but this last one though is set in the stately home and i've read that book that's definitely from one of those books okay well that might be better than. So is this the anniversary one? It's the one where she ends up at her ancestors or her cousin's country house and she's linked to that family. Right, so that has a bit of the backstory in it because I think what is lacking

in the ones that aren't written by Anne Cleaves are there's just no kind of greater depth than the plot, which is a bit of a cut out. Yeah, it is a bit. And they seem to be specialising in the oddest of potential murderers.

They're just picking the wrong person. Yeah, so they're doing that thing. So my son is a Vera Whisperer, and he'll watch the first three minutes of a Vera, and he tells me, and every time I go, oh, don't be ridiculous. But that's his methodology as well you just pick the least likely person who appears in the first three minutes and then you know the screenwriter has worked his or her way back from there and and and as soon as somebody you know does that yeah the

magic is gone it is true you do point to a truth that it's never somebody who's just left the area because they have to be sort of visible on screen and part of the local community in order to come across Vera in her pomp. Yes, and it's amazing how few murderers in all of the ITV dramas, BBC ones as well, on a Sunday evening, they don't just go on the run. They do stay alarmingly close.

Thinking they'll never be detected. Believe me, it's a mistake, lads. Okay? Oh, that actually reminds me, our big guest on Monday is no lesser person, man. Word, Sally Wainwright. Really looking forward to that. Yeah. She is the creator of Happy Valley

and Last Tango in Halifax, Gentleman Jack. She's just on a lot of really brilliant telly. So I do want to ask her about the ominosity of Happy Valley, because it was quite something, wasn't it? The ominosity? Yes, I've made that word up. But the menace of Happy Valley, which I'm intrigued as to how,

when you're writing that just on the page, flat page, just words, how you're building that just on the page, flat page, just words, how you're building that up in your head and whether actually in that case of Happy Valley, she was helped enormously by the actors who just managed to do something that other actors might not have managed to do. Because James Norton is extraordinary

to be a very beautiful man who could just play handsome people in breeches, couldn't he? He could, but he's a brute. Darker than dark. She does also specialise, though, in writing about extraordinary relationships between women. So in Happy Valley, it's Siobhan Finnan's character and Sarah Lancashire's character. They're sisters, aren't they? And that's a sort of, it's slightly overlooked in

TV drama, that kind of relatively subtle but not always easy relationship. Subtle is the wrong word, but I mean everyday relationship that's not always explored. Apart from Little Women. Nobody's heard of that. So, yes, Sally Wainwright. Also, by the way, if anybody's avoided Better

because it replaced Happy Valley and they didn't think anything could. Oh, no, Gold has actually replaced Happy Valley, hasn't it? Better is on Mondays on BBC One and it's on the iPlayer. Fee and I were both watching it. You finished it. I haven't quite finished it yet. I think it's brilliant.

Really good. Some great actors in it. And it's really drawn me in. I mean, it's another police thing. And extraordinarily, Unforgiven is back next week as well. Oh, I'm very happy about that. I know, I'm happy too. But will we ever?

There's an extraordinary sort of slightly odd thing going on where the reputation, if we're honest, of the police force has probably never been lower for a string of well-reported reasons I don't need to go into here. But every other drama on television is about detectives and about the police force. It's quite peculiar. I know the overwhelming majority of people in the police force

are thoroughly decent people doing a job most of us don't have the guts to do. But nevertheless, it is interesting. We cannot let that idea go. No, but do you think, because obviously there's a kind of backlog, isn't there, just a timing backlog in between what writers have in their brains at the moment and then we see further down the line and in the same way

that I don't remember there being quite so many disturbing plot lines about child abuse until about three years after some of the biggest scandals, including Jimmy Savile emerged. And so those seeds are being planted at the moment

and maybe in a couple of years' time we will see a different depiction of some members of the police force to what we're seeing now. This has gone very dark, Jane. It's Thursday. I mean, it's always good to mention that because that is the reality of the world. But equally, I've got an email that will

take us into the realm of gummy bears. Yeah, go on, do that. It comes from Jess, who says, I'm a regular listener to the podcast and therefore my young children are frequent, if somewhat adjacent, listeners themselves. I do hope they're liking it, Jess. I thought you might be interested to know the musical pedigree of your theme

tune. My four and three quarter year old daughter listened attentively, and this is the exchange that followed. Her, I know this song. Me, I'm sure you do. I listen to it quite a lot, so you've probably heard it before. Her, no, Mummy, it's the Gummy Bears. So there you have it.

Jess says, keep doing what you're doing. One day she will appreciate the subtle nuances of your craft, I don't think we'll date well actually Jess so I wouldn't hold out any hope for that, are we the gummy bears? are we the gummy bears? well yeah I mean I suppose when we're not wearing our false teeth in 30 years we will be the gummy bears won't we?

we'll still be doing this podcast though, they won't be able to get rid of us because that will be ageist oh yeah we have a correspondent who's only 15. I don't need to mention her name because I'm really happy with you being undercover, if you don't mind. She does write regularly and we are very, very grateful. I'll call you Agent K. She describes herself as the self-proclaimed voice of the under 20s for the Off-Air podcast.

I thought I'd email in about something I often think about regarding self-care, something we talked about yesterday. I go to an all-girls grammar school and recently I've been revising and preparing for my mock exams. I'm due to sit them in a month's time. Well, good luck with those. My entire year group is currently jittering with stress. I find it very ironic how often schools try to drill the idea of self-care into us, stating that we must always put ourselves first, while simultaneously applying immense academic pressure on young people, making it almost impossible for any of us to have any time for ourselves, where we aren't feeling guilty for not revising or doing any work. I feel the idea of proper, effective self-care for young people is something that we need to think about

more as a society, and we definitely need more conversation with us teenagers about essentially protecting our sanity when facing academic pressure. I also wonder if this is felt as heavily in other schools or is it as I'm often told a trademark of girls schools all girls schools that many of us feel such enormous stress. I'm sorry you're feeling the stress, and I wonder whether, actually, our correspondent there does have a point where we both went to all-girls schools and there was a certain amount of academic pressure, wasn't there? I think it's... Whether it's unique to all-girls schools,

I doubt myself, but there's a particular kind. I honestly don't remember anything like the amount the spaz it is now amount of stress that is placed on young people now and especially if you're 15 and you're facing your gcses you your brain is being asked to retain information about more subjects than you'll ever need to retain information about at the moment you can't possibly be good at every single one of them and i think the pressure on you to succeed is just bonkers I completely agree and I'm very grateful to you for making the point about schools then telling you that you need to take care of yourself whilst being the ones responsible for putting these huge huge expectations on you and I just wish that there was still a greater

attachment to failure we were allowed to fail at things at school it was genuinely part of the kind of school makeup that you just that some people just weren't good at sports some people weren't good at music some people weren't good at science and we all found our place we didn't we weren't expected to be straight a students i think there were maybe two or three girls in the year who who did have an expectation on them they were just super bright i don't know whether you know that was an unfair pressure on them but for the rest of us there wasn't there just wasn't this you know a star a star well n it is now. I think it's just bonkers. And we didn't have self-care lessons.

And I think maybe some of that was because we didn't need them. You know. Yeah, you might be right about we didn't need them. Well, is it that we didn't need them? I don't know. We didn't have the same levels of anxiety and depression, OCD, eating disorders, self-harm. We just didn't.

We never talked about our mental health. No, that's true. It was never referenced by anybody. But there's got to be a kind of matrix about pressure and mental health. I mean, it is causal. It just must be. I would say, and it's one of the hardest things to do, isn't it? I think from older generation to younger generation

to reassure younger people that they will be OK when they find the thing that they want to do because nearly every other voice is telling them that that's almost impossible. I find that very challenging. I would want anyone who's just about to start their mocks, I do remember that period of my life, and it feels like you're at the bottom of a

very, very steep flight of stairs that you've gone. The truth is, if you are on that sort of journey, it may well end, as it's been fortunate enough for Fi and I, for it to end in a job we love. And the truth is, and I hate to say this, I'm not

sure I'd be doing this job now, you can't even call it a job really, if I hadn't put those hours in to get past those ruddy exams. I don't, I really don't think, I even, even my degree, I don't think, I couldn't be here without it. I mean, I didn't, that wasn't the hardest work I've ever done in my life. In my case, it was most definitely getting my O levels as it was then. It was 1875 when I took those exams, kids. No, it was just trying to, it was most definitely getting my O levels as it was then. It was 1875 when I took those exams, kids. No, it was just trying to, it was 1980. And the pressure was astonishing. It really was.

So I'd love to say that these exams don't matter, but I rather fear that they do. Oh, OK. I mean, I wouldn't say that. Well, I just, I'd love to say that they don't. It's not that they don't matter. It's just if you feel that you're exceeding your own speed limit, your speed limit is there for a reason.

We talked to Dr Pooja Lakshman yesterday, didn't we? A woman who, by her own admission, had been through incredibly fierce academic youth where the expectation was very high on her. And she got herself into medical school. And she was obviously top of the class at lots of things. And then she got a bit further down the line and just had a massive wobble because she couldn't juggle all of those balls.

And she's found her happiness in talking about self-care, in talking about keeping your eye on your speedometer. And if you're going too fast, stopping doing it. So, you know, go figure. Wouldn't she rather have just never had to be in that position in the first place? Slightly unhelpfully. She's really good at talking about self-care. So it's become very successful.

So it's a really difficult one, this. Anyway, to that young woman, thank you for listening. And we really appreciate you emailing us. And honestly, there's a phrase I drag out of my cupboard of nonsense to pacify or encourage my youngsters. And they laugh every time I say it. I just say, dig in. You've just got to dig in and get through it.

And it won't help our correspondent. And it didn't help my kids but there you go I've said it again well if anybody has parenting tips that they think have genuinely worked we would really love to hear them and to share them around so there's a challenge for you I just want to briefly mention because we've got a great guest today um a doctor really well she's not a doctor because she's a surgeon and you lose the doctor thing don't you when you become a surgeon so you need to get that right that's Avril Mansfield we'll hear from her in a moment but Rebecca is asking a question about clothing and age appropriateness

now what do you think about this? So the gist of her email is that she's been sorting out her wardrobe and she's got two piles of clothes one which is from her youth, which she's going to save for when she is a kind of eccentric older person. And one pile that she thinks is still acceptable to wear now. And isn't she asking us for our opinion on why she's put that kind of what would be the right term? Yeah, well, she's... Restraint on herself. Yes, that's right.

She's giving, she's created a set of regulations in her head and she's got two piles of clothing. One pile that's now inappropriate for a woman of my age, she believes, because she's now 47. And another pile, which I think I could get away with. It's got me thinking though, she says, am I being ageist to myself in thinking like this? Why should chunky

pink jumper hoodies and shorter skirts be reserved for the young? Why did I, an intelligent progressive woman, feel like I can no longer wear something I've loved because of some sense of what a woman should wear at a certain age? I'm ashamed to say I have judged others for wearing young clothing. Do clothes have an age limit, she says. I don't want to wait until I'm 70 before I feel it's safe to wear purple earmuffs again without feeling I'm being judged. Her point being that she can wheel out the earmuffs when she's 70 because people will just say, crazy old lady.

Whereas at 47, they might try and take her to the local A&E. It's, I think, what she's worried about. Are you wearing the same clothes that you would have worn in your 20s? they might try and take her to the local A&E is I think what she's worried about. Are you wearing the same clothes that you would have worn in your 20s? Well, as I've been a solid, solid loyalist to normcore, I think it's fair to say I wouldn't say my wardrobe was any more heightened or any less heightened or daring than it was 30 years ago. Fair enough.

Does that answer your question? It does. What about you? Well, so I had a bit of an instant on the skiing holiday. Oh, good. I hadn't heard about it. So I hadn't met everybody who went on the skiing holiday because we were there because our teenage sons are all friends.

And I was having a lovely, lovely chat with one of the other mums over dinner one night. She said, V, I have met you before. I said okay where was that it was in a pub in northwest London and she started my daughter was sitting next to me and she started saying and you were wearing it was just like no no oh good grief not this wasn't in the wet look nope nope whatever it was it doesn't bear repeating now so I didn't get to the bottom of what it was that I might have been wearing,

but it would have been something that would be incredibly inappropriate for me to be wearing now. So although I'm very much on our correspondent's side in being able to wear whatever you want to wear, I am going to be a hypocrite because I would not wear my 20-something wardrobe to work now. And we would ask you to stick to that, please. I have some understanding of what may have gone on in the 1990s in London.

Well, it was a crazy time, Jane. Well, it wasn't for all of us. I can assure you there was nothing crazy going on in the Herefordshire and Worcestershire area. I think I can never work out whether you slightly kind of looked down your nose on me for having had a slightly bonkers 20s or whether you're secretly very jealous. I think I probably struggle to be secretly jealous. Actually, jealousy is not really an emotion. I think I'm not really good with jealousy.

Are you not? No, I mean, I don't really. I just think, oh, it's OK then. OK. I don't care that other people have got huge mansions, really adorable, brilliant cooks who happen to be their husbands. None of that ever bothers me at all. I'm not remotely...

No, I'm not jealous! Okay, Jane. Our big guest today was Avril Mansfield, CBU. If it's any consolation, I look like an absolute twerp. When? In the 1930s? In my 20s, yeah. I was going to say, you look lovely now. Our big guest today was Avril Mansfield, CBE, the first woman to become a professor of surgery in the UK. She's written a memoir about her life. It's called Life in Her Hands, the inspiring story of a pioneering female surgeon. Now, we began by asking her about the title of the book,

and she told us why she'd chosen female surgeon as opposed to surgeon, because I put it to her that actually she'd really want to be regarded, first and foremost, just as a surgeon. That's exactly how I would prefer to be remembered, as a surgeon, not just the fact that I happened also to be female. But, you know, it does stand out a little bit because there weren't that many of us in those days. So inevitably, people will comment about the fact that I was female.

But it doesn't really matter. Things have improved a little bit, but I gather that surgeons are still overwhelmingly male. Why do you think that is? I think it's because people see the potential lifestyle of a surgeon as pretty demanding. You can't walk away from an operation that you're halfway through just because you need to go and pick the children up from school. You have to finish the job that you start. And people see that as very demanding. And it is. It's part of its pleasure. It's part of its joy.

But it also is quite a demand on your on your personal life. And so I think people think twice about it and they should. They should think twice about it. But at the end of the day, it's a wonderful profession. Yes. I know you don't have what you do have children. You have your stepchildren and you have lots of grandchildren now as well, don't you? Do you think that I do indeed indeed. Joy of my life. No, I know they are. And that comes across really, really well in the book.

But do you think, honestly, that your professional life would have been possible had you had children at the time, perhaps a lot of women in your line of work would have done? So late 20s, early 30s? It would have been difficult. There's no doubt about that, because what has to happen is that you have lots of backup so that you're absolutely sure

that you can both look after your family and your patients to the highest possible standards. And that demands a good deal of organisation. Tell us about being a vascular surgeon. Most listeners will have heard the term but won't really know what it means. So what do you operate on if you're a vascular surgeon? You operate on blood vessels, that's arteries and veins. Veins are the things that become varicose veins and in all honesty that's a fairly rare operation these days for a vascular surgeon, because we're usually occupied in putting right the problems that go wrong with the arteries. They're the tubes that deliver blood from the heart to everywhere else in the body, to the brain, to the arms, to the legs, to the abdomen, to everywhere. So they are the conduit. And I've always said that really and truly, I'm just a plumber, because my job was to keep the pipes running, replace them if they were worn out, clean them out if they got blocked. And that's all it actually is. It's as simple as that. It

doesn't need brains to work out what we do as vascular surgeons. It's a fair amount of technique, but it's fairly straightforward what we're as vascular surgeons needs a fair amount of technique but but but it's very straightforward what we're trying to achieve yeah i think you're slightly underselling your abilities there fair amount of technique i think there's probably a bit more to it i mean let's go back to your childhood where i think you used to operate quite regularly on your panda didn't you i did i had a panda rather than a teddy bear no idea why uh and it had its appendix removed numerous occasions. It was, you know, an India rubber that was lying around the house.

I used to tuck it into its abdomen, cut it out, then sew it up again and then, you know, do it again. So that poor panda got operated on many times. Right. It was irresistible. And this is back home growing up in Blackpool. And your mum and dad, you're an only child. They're immensely proud of you, your mum and dad, as any parents would be.

But I think they were also quite keen to put a sort of lid on your ambition, at least in public, weren't they? Very keen indeed. They simply, I mean, they were a working class family. My father was a welder. My mother didn't work. They were, she were a working class family. My father was a welder. My mother didn't work. They were. She was a housewife. She was very nervous of me actually declaring that I wanted to be something that she saw as beyond our reach in life, beyond our station, if you like, in life. And I had to dampen what I would say in public to match those expectations. I found that quite irritating. I got quite cross at times because I didn't see there was any reason to hide the fact that I

wanted to be a doctor, maybe keep quiet about wanting to be a surgeon. But certainly, there was nothing wrong with wanting to be a doctor. I'd seen women doctors around me as a child. So I knew it was possible. And that's what I wanted to do. So what was the point at which that changed and your parents did allow you to openly celebrate your ambition? I think it was really when I became into the secondary school and I was progressing through the exams and I was doing well at school I was quite a good student at school and suddenly my parents realized that this was actually what I intended to do and therefore they would give me support they were always hugely supportive parents throughout my

life it was just that they thought my ambition was too great but once they saw that perhaps that ambition after all would be possible then they they went behind they got behind me uh absolutely and helped me on the way and in fact go on sorry sorry i was just going to say if you were young again now and you saw all around you so many people in the medical profession doctors and nurses being so unhappy and frustrated with their well I mean it's their their choices do you think that you would have made a different choice I certainly would not I have absolutely loved everything that I've done and what I feel is that there must be some reason why the profession that's given me such pleasure such joy yes okay there are tears at times you you can't always do the best or what you want to do for patients you're going to have

some problems you're going to have some sleepless nights but overall it was a it was a job that gave me a great deal of pleasure and so something has gone wrong in that aspect of it, I think, for me, I was always very well supported. I knew the people around me. I knew who to call on if I had a problem. I knew that the boss really became a friend and was interested in my career and knew me well. And somehow that seems to have slipped. There isn't that camaraderie that we had when I was younger. And I'd love to see in some way that coming back into the profession, because it hasn't really changed.

We're still looking after patients. It's still a great joy to do that and to see what we can do to achieve success with really some serious problems. And that's wonderful. We are talking to Avril Mansfield, who is the author of Life in Her Hands, the inspiring story of a pioneering female surgeon. And actually, if there's somebody in your family who's thinking of studying medicine or someone who's already maybe at medical school and thinking about becoming a surgeon,

it'd be a great book for them to have a look at. Avril, can we just talk about what it means to be a surgeon? And if I'm honest, the psychology of the psychological makeup of people who decide to pursue this line of work. You know what I'm getting at? Because quite frankly, you've got the audacity to take a sharp knife and cut into human bodies, haven't you? It's quite a thing. It's not easy the first time you do it, that's for sure. I remember as if it were yesterday, even though it's many years ago, when I first took an appendix out, the shock of actually being the person who makes that incision in the abdomen and then delves into the abdomen and pulls out the appendix and removes it.

It does take a moment of careful thought and planning. But you start small. Let's be honest about it. You don't start by taking out an appendix. You don't start by repairing somebody's aorta. start by taking out an appendix. You don't start by repairing somebody's aorta. You start by just putting a little stitch in, perhaps in the A&E department, if somebody's had a cut, you stitch it up. You might take a little cyst out. You might do something to a toenail. It's a gradual, slowly improving, increasing amount of responsibility that you take looking after patients. So it doesn't all happen at once you have to and and of course you learn the techniques in in other ways too particularly

you learn about anatomy you know where everything is even when it's diseased and abnormal so it's all based on fact and it's a slow progressive step-by-step movement towards the biggest surgery that was the sort of stuff I was doing in my career. You do talk in the book about at least one of your colleagues who tried to make you cry. Indeed, he had the reputation of doing it to every person he worked with. Did he ever succeed? And why do you think he tried to do it anyway? I don't know. I think he just loved to see how much he could push. It wasn't just women. It was men and women he pushed to the limit. He would goad them into feeling that they were inadequate.

And I wasn't easily pushed in that sort of way. I never did cry ever over such things. I never did cry ever over such things. I cried sometimes if I failed to get a patient better or to lose a patient in an operation. That's a different story. But in terms of somebody being mean to me, no, I never did that. And is that sort of thing OK? It's not it's not really, is it? Not really, not really at all. It's not really, is it? Not really, not really at all.

And, you know, I think it's now become much less common for people to be treated in that way. I didn't meet much of it. I really didn't. And I had a way of diffusing such a situation by converting it, if I possibly could, into something humorous, because I always think that humor can dispense with an awful lot of formalities if you can manage to find a little humor in a situation. But nowadays, I hope that people behave better towards each other and don't treat themselves, don't belittle people. That's the biggest thing that I would like to see disappear from the world of life, really, thing that I would like to see disappear from the world of life, really, people being belittled.

Can I ask you about loss? How do you learn to deal with what must be a natural sense of grief around not being able to save a patient? It can be extremely difficult because often the situation is that you have tried your damnedest to save somebody's life. You really have. Sometimes you've gone beyond the normal amount of effort that you would put in because you can see that this is a serious and dangerous position that you're in. And then you fail. And that is the most awful situation. you fail and that is the most awful situation and not only is it awful because you have failed but it's awful because you then have to go and talk to the family you have to it is absolutely required that you go and discuss with the family what has happened why you couldn't save their nearest and dearest but that is so hard when you yourself are grieving for the fact that you haven't actually achieved what you set out to achieve and then you've got to go and explain it all to the next of kin and the next of kin is so important in all of this I think we we perhaps over the years

haven't um recognized how very important that is as we we get older, we find ourselves in situations where we're the next of kin, and we have to listen to the bad news that might be told to us about our loved ones. So I felt very much that the family had to be included, particularly in the really major stuff that I was involved with. You need to carry the family with you and make sure they understand what you're doing and why. Have you been a patient yourself of the NHS?

I have. Yes, I have. Yes, most certainly. And has that altered your view of it in any way? Well, you know, I suppose for all of us, we're more likely as we get older to become the recipients of health care than we are the person who doles out the health care. And you do become very sensitive to the way in which people approach you. I can be quite critical in my mind of the way in which people approach you. At the moment, I need a consultant. And I have to say, I don't suppose he will be listening to this, but if he were, I'd be very happy if he heard me say that he's what I call a proper doctor. He talks to me. He explains things properly. He makes sure I understand. And that's what I really want most of all in my doctor is somebody who can actually talk to me and make sure I understand what's going on. and make sure I understand what's going on.

If you were a surgeon, he's not, but if you were a surgeon, I'd also be keen that he was competent with his hands. But I suppose the most fundamental thing that I want from a doctor is a communicator. And actually, if I'm honest, Avril, that is sometimes the very aspect of the profession that does appear to be lacking. I mean, I'm not criticising surgeons in particular here, but sometimes even GPs are not the best at talking to their patients. No, I totally get that. Simply, I imagine because at the moment, pressure is so high on all branches of the profession, they're so pushed to see as many and to deal with as many in as short a space of time as possible.

But somehow that aspect, that really important aspect, has taken a back seat. And it needs to come right front and central, in my view, because I think not only do patients feel better if they're communicated well with, but also it saves an awful lot of argument and possibly even litigation if people are fully in the picture as to what's going on. Do you ever feel, Avril, that because we've all come to rely on the NHS to such an extent that we're just too complacent and that we don't actually take care of ourselves to the degree that we should. Well, that is a terribly important point because we really should. And I, of course, have memories of the start of the National Health Service.

And you certainly realised at the very beginning that it was your responsibility to take care of your health to as much an extent as you could. And you would only involve the medical profession if there truly was something medical that needed to be sorted out. So, yes, I think perhaps we need to accept the fact that we are what we are. We can look after our bodies a lot better than we often do we can take a bit more exercise we can avoid the smoking we can keep you know on all of those things that we know we should do and many of us find hard to do um but i think at the moment the profession is to some extent just overloaded with. We haven't enough doctors in the system. We haven't enough nurses in the system. And for the first time, I suppose, since I first encountered the NHS, I'm anxious about it. I feel really quite concerned that we're in a situation that needs to be sorted out. needs to be sorted out. Can I just ask you whether you think it might be helpful in that kind of information that is needed for patients to actually see a little bit more of the kind of

work that you do? Do you think if we understood just how serious heart surgery is, the long recovery that is needed from it, you know, the fact that you won't always make it on the operating table, we might start to have a better understanding of why we don't want to end up in that place. I think you're right. Years ago, the title of the book how uncertain I was about revealing operations to the general public as if it were a theatre rather than an operating theatre but I justified it on the grounds that it is important for people to know what goes on behind those closed doors underneath those drapes and how difficult it can be. And I think sometimes people will be much more tolerant and much more understanding

if they really do realise that we're not there to please ourselves. We're there to try to make our patients and their nearest and dearest well again. And sometimes it's extremely difficult. Avril, you were awarded the CBE by the late Queen, weren't you? Which must have been quite a moment. You must on that day have had your mum and dad in your thoughts. I did have my mum and dad in my thoughts. You're absolutely right.

I was accompanied by my husband and two of the children. We took the three seats we were allocated. But yes, of course, I thought about my parents. My dad in particular would have been absolutely amazed to think that his daughter was shaking hands with the Queen. Yeah. And we must check in on, by the way, is the health of that panda. I mean, I've been thinking about that. You took that appendix in and out any number of times. Is it still around, dare I ask? It's gone, gone, sadly. Oh, dear.

What a shame. Well, that is a shame. That was Avril Mansfield, CBE, first woman to become a professor of surgery in the UK. She was, as she described there, a vascular surgeon who tried out initially on her panda at home. It was a stuffed panda, we need to make clear. No animals were hurt in the, actually her maiden name was Dring. In the Dring household. No, exactly. I thought she was a really fabulous woman.

Yeah, I think she's great. It's a really interesting book, actually. It's a very, I think everyone has a, everyone has a backstory. And I really... I almost welled up myself when she was talking about how her mum and dad would have felt about her getting the CBE. Because in the nicest possible way, and this is in no way judgmental, she is from a humble background.

Her mum and dad would have been chuffed to bits to find out what happened to their daughter. And they gave... She asked for a book on human anatomy when she was quite young. And it was because she kept saying, I want to be a surgeon. And as she described in the interview, her parents were level-headed and they were quite keen for her not to just, you know, shout her mouth off too much about her slightly lofty ambitions for herself. And so they did get a book on human anatomy,

but her dad glued together the bits about the male body. So she didn't actually know what a naked man looked like until she went into the dissecting room at university. Wow. Yeah. And she describes it brilliantly as, well, it's quite illuminating. Well, it would be, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

It's just an astonishing ambition to have as a young child, to want to be a surgeon. I've just never heard that before. I understand wanting to be a doctor, wanting to be a nurse, but very specifically wanting to cut bodies open in order to do good inside them. That's extraordinary. It's a very specific childhood vocation. It is, yeah, and you do have to feel for inside them. That's extraordinary. It's a very specific childhood vocation.

It is, yeah. And you do have to feel for that panda. No wonder it's no longer with us. No, well, I think the panda came out of it very well. I mean, he had his appendix removed beautifully several times. We do need to acknowledge it needed to be inserted. Because like a lot of stuffed toys, it didn't have an appendix originally.

Oh, I've always insisted that all of my teddy bears have their full internal organs, Jane. It's the way we like to rock and originally. Oh, I've always insisted that all of my teddy bears have their full internal organs, Jane. It's the way we like to rock and roll. Well, look, don't worry, darling. Your CBE will come. Your parents will be very, very proud of you. We'll all have a whip round. We'll be standing there outside the

palace with bunting. And it'll be a lovely day. When's it going to happen? I don't know. When is it going to happen? when's it gonna happen i don't know when is it gonna happen i'm not jealous i don't even know i didn't know how to spell it have a lovely weekend um rejoin us on monday sally wainwright that sounded promising didn't it sally wainwright is our big guest i've got a list of all of the vegetables i've eaten this week down here on my thing how many have i had today?

What did I have for lunch? You had Thai curry. Oh, so that's about three. Sweet potato. I think I'm up to 27. That's good. It's only Thursday. Oh, you ought to give Therese Coffey a call.

Have you had turnip? You have been listening to Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Ben Mitchell. Now, you can listen to us on the free Times Radio app or you can download every episode from wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget that if you like what you heard and thought, hey, I want to listen to this, but live, then you can, Monday to Thursday, 3 till 5, on Times Radio. Embrace the live radio jeopardy. Thank you for listening, and hope you can join us off air very soon. Goodbye.