Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Nothing against Harrogate

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Fi is back at Jane's side after a week away. They talk about her trip to the Cotswolds, Michael Ball (again), and recalling a Yorkshire visit where they once faced a closed hotel kitchen. Journalist Sean O'Neill from The Times shares a personal story about his late daughter Maeve and a crisis is affecting the coroners' courts. If you've been affected by any of the issues discussed in this episode please email [e-mail] and we can put you in touch with the relevant support services. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail]. Follow our instagram! @JaneandFi Assistant Producer: Matt Murphy Times Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. So it's Monday and Fee is back from her restful holiday. Well, it wasn't entirely restful.

We didn't go very far. Well, it was quite... it wasn't entirely restful. We didn't go very far. We went to the Cotswolds, a beautiful part of England, kind of southern England, a little bit in the middle, and that's for our international audience, Jane. Yes, absolutely, for the vast and varied international audience.

And it was very, very, very, very, very bucolic. Well, do you want to try to describe the Cotswolds for people who genuinely, is it, would it be fair to say it's the ultimate cliched English England? Well, it is, but they've decided not to use that as a slogan. I can't think why not. By the way, I got fired from a job in an advertising agency. So it's bucolic England, I think at its best. So the River Thames runs through quite a lot of the Cotswolds, so you have an undulating rural landscape. It's not hilly or mountainous at all, and it is the site of lots of those very, very beautiful sand-coloured stone villages.

That's what defines the Cotswolds, isn't it? Yes. Before you get to a couple of miniature villages that are there, we used to go to those a lot. And I think there's a big water park there now, isn't there? I don't know. And the big towns are quintessentially British. So they'll have a high street with a couple of pubs on either side.

It's quite posh. Yes, I was going to say. The Cotswolds are quite posh. You can get a meal in a pub for 40 or 50 quid, super there'll be a lot of organic wine being sold at the moment, quite a lot of sourdough will be available to you

at every meal, and we've seen you coming farm shops, very much so but it's also it's got a rural beauty to it that I really love so I'm not going to knock the Cotswolds. So there was one night when my daughter and I were sitting outside and the grass had just been mown in the church graveyard

next door to where we were staying. And it was so beautiful. The bats were swooping down. You could just see, you know, the dying embers of the sun across a long, low horizon. It was absolutely beautiful. And then someone was murdered. No, that didn't happen.

Well, it should have normally, wouldn't it? Well, it could be the start of something because the midsummer murders are very much in the cotswolds. So you didn't see any giant cheeses heading in your direction or anything like that? No, we didn't. And we had some really lovely food. And, you know, it was lovely, actually.

There's a lot to be said for... You can't call it a staycation, can you? People get annoyed. A staycation appeared to mean that you literally stayed in your home, but it was misinterpreted, wasn't it? Oh, yeah, people went to Margate and then said they were on a staycation. Yes. Genuine question.

Did you see any men in those very distinctive red, slightly pink trousers? Well, it's funny you should say that. So we did see one gentleman striding out of a morning in a pink short, but it was that dark pink. Tailored. Yes. So definitely some pleats, I think, along the waist area. OK. So that would be the summer version of the long pink trouser. Yeah, I think it would be. But if you're seeking to deride this part of the country, Jane,

I'd rather you wouldn't. I'm not. No. Because it really was very beautiful. Very, very beautiful. It is lovely. I do prefer rugged. Do you?

Yeah, I do. I prefer rugged to manicured. But I can appreciate the beauty. You're right about the I do. I prefer rugged to manicured. But I can appreciate the beauty. You're right about the sandstone. They're gorgeous. But I was in an Italian restaurant the other night and a man, shall we say, of a certain vintage with a very particular sort of confidence

came striding in and said, the kitchen was closed and the lady in charge couldn't have made it clearer. She said, I just want a bowl of pasta. I just want pasta too of pasta. I just want a bowl of pasta too. Just tell her. One of those voices that, you know, so posh, he couldn't completely make himself understood.

It's a little bit like Miriam Markely's impersonation of a posh person. I just want a bowl of pasta. I just want a bowl of pasta too. And, you know, he got one. Now, I mean, if I were to go into that restaurant and say, oh, could I possibly? No, the kitchen is closed. And I would say, oh, and I would take my leave.

But when you've got that kind of inbuilt certainty about what you're entitled to, you get your pasta. I think you would get your pasta. I don't know. I would beg to differ on this. If a lady tells me the kitchen is closed, I would have beaten a retreat. I'm not sure about that. But not my new friend.

Actually, no, because we were, where did we get stuck once and the kitchen had closed? Oh God, we've been stuck in several places. Hay-on-Wye? And Harrogate. Harrogate. It was Harrogate where the kitchen was closed. There was all kinds of nonsense going down there, but we did. We won in the end, didn't we? Oh no,

because we had to get a delivery and we couldn't eat it in the bar, even though there was no one else in there. We had to go down to the billiard room in the basement. Oh,'t we? Oh no, because we had to get a delivery and we couldn't eat it in the bar even though there was no one else in there. We had to go down to the billiard room in the basement. Because you didn't lift a finger for that. What? I didn't enter into the argument. No, you didn't.

No, because I'm too shy and I don't like confrontation. IRL. Yes, okay. But we did get fed in the end, didn't we? But we weren't very welcome, that's for sure. But we've nothing against Harrogate. No, we've got nothing against Harrogate, but it wasn't quite the Northern Welcome that might be on their tourist posters. It wasn't the Northern Welcome we got in, for example, Chester.

Chester. Well, we got lost in the one-way system, but the people were lovely. Fun times on tour, kids. Fun times. But look, you've had a great week. I know lovely. Fun times on tour, kids. Fun times. I never joined the Rolling Stones. But look, you've had a great week. I know this. I saw a little clip of you pop up.

You're having a little bit of a flirt with David Tennant. I know. That wasn't flirting. You did. You got your dimples out for a Doctor Who. You did. I genuinely, because he's 52, something I put to him, which I'm not sure he was entirely pleased to hear,

although he was very charming. And he does look amazing for 52. But he wasn't particularly giving on the beauty tip front. Because genuinely, if I see someone who just looks amazing and their skin is utterly clear, I just would like to know if they use an ointment. Do you remember when we asked Greg James and he favoured Hawaiian

Tropic, didn't he? Yes, well he favoured a moisturiser that had a slight little self-tan in it. That's right. And he was happy to be honest about it. Totally honest. And we loved him for it. Yeah, so I was hoping for a little bit of that from my new showbiz pal David, but it didn't come.

But you definitely, you were having a nice little rapport he's a very good actor had he seen your review I mentioned I mentioned it to him I said I'd seen staged and to quote my

perhaps slight lapse on the radio show I did say to him that I'd found it insufferable. And he was kind enough to laugh along. His PR lady looked a bit shifty, but he was all right about it. We went on to have a discussion about the persona of actors. Okay. Oh, yes. Anyway, I've had some devastating news just in the last couple of minutes.

Oh, gosh. Well, we had a big, big guest tomorrow. You'd done all of the work. You'd gone to see the show. I've been to see Aspect couple of minutes. Oh gosh, well we had a big, big guest tomorrow. You'd done all of the work. You've gone to see the show. I've been to see Aspects of Love. Can I just say, that was, although I did say last week, and I mean it, that the staging was magnificent, the performances are

impeccable, costumes are superb. You took one for the team. I was taking one for the team because the plot is rubbish. And I think that's okay because other people have said it. It's incredibly dated and it features a man shooting a woman and then the character played by Michael Ball deciding that that signifies that the couple belong together.

She wasn't dead, by the way, it was merely a graze. But I put it to you that in the 21st century, if a man has shot a woman, you don't necessarily think that means they should belong together for all time. Anyway, several other twists and turns in what was an utterly deluded plot. I mean, it was completely crazy. But the terrible news this afternoon is that Michael Ball has pulled out. Well, he's lost his voice.

Well, he's having problems with his voice. And I think that does happen to people when they're in long runs of shows and they don't want to risk it for a biscuit by doing a 19-minute interview with the likes of us. It's a shame, though. We were only allowed 13 minutes anyway. Was it only 13? Yeah, it was 13.

And we could have done some of it with mime. He could have done it, yes. I wanted to ask him a question about what is the most inane line he has had to sing in a show? Because Aspects of Love does contain some very daffy bits that could be spoken, but are in fact song instead. And it is things like, what time does the bus leave from the main station? So I just, it would have been, anyway, there's the question if anybody else wants to use it. I was hoping you'd sing for me.

Yeah, that would have been lovely. Do you know what, just on that tip, we were listening to Alita Adams' Get Here, which is a beautiful, beautiful song. Oh, that's a great song. It came on the radio the other night. Yeah. And it's got a fantastic rhyming couplet.

Oh, I know. Caravan, rhyming with Arab man. Yeah, Arab man and caravan. That was on the list. Craft the desert like an Arab Man. Yeah, Arab Man and Caravan. That was on the list. Craft the desert like an Arab Man. I can't remember whether it was a song we played a lot during the first Gulf War on local radio or it was a song that we were banned from playing on local radio.

Gosh, it's quite telling if it's not the latter or if it is the latter, actually. Because I was working in Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Obviously the SAS are in Hereford and so we would have had listeners with links to what was going on and I seem to remember that that was a song we sort of adopted as

a kind of, we're thinking of you. Get here if you can. But I could be completely wrong. It's incredibly mournful, isn't it? It's a beautifully sung. It's a lovelynful, isn't it? Yeah. Beautifully sung. It's a lovely song, that. And I don't think Alita Adams had another hit, did she? Not as big as that, no.

No, great singer, fantastic voice. Do you know what? Those lists are always worth trying to get your hands on, actually. The stuff on music stations that gets banned in war or any types of emergency, actually, because people put so much thought into it and you know rightly so i suppose if you're tasked with drawing up a list of songs that may have offensive lyrics you might as well put some welly into it but equally i think there are

lots and lots of times when people are just listening to the radio for the tune they're not really triggered by a bad rhyming couplet. They don't listen. You see, I think if you're interested in words, you and I are both keen on words, we always pick things up, don't we? Yeah, which I don't think other people are, because the all-time classic is the first cut is the deepest, is always taken off any playlist

if there is any kind of accident involving large numbers of people in hospital and I don't think people hear that in the song no I think you're right yeah so it's stuff like that it's just thank goodness the return of good sense has come uh to this podcast um a few things just from last week yes oh yes well well we'll talk about Hugh Edwards in a moment because I want to say something about that but Diana Bird was, you know I kept going on about that programme on Channel 4 about evacuation.

We got Diana Bird who was the RAF squadron leader on last week's programme and Cathy just says what an amazing interview, thank you for covering this. What an incredible woman showcasing the work of our service personnel. Diana was remarkable and so were her young colleagues. They were so young, some of the young men and women she was working with out in Kabul.

There was another email actually that said, I would like to have known a little bit more about her family life. Was she able to have a family or was she somebody who was just totally devoted to the RAF? I can't answer those questions, I don't know. Actually, she was with somebody from the Ministry of Defence. And I got the impression that although we could... I certainly wasn't told that there were no questions about what happened in Kabul that I couldn't ask.

I must admit, I simply didn't think to ask her about the rest of her life. And I apologise if that was an omission. But it was very much about her working life to be fair that interview. Yes and not everybody is happy to disclose their personal details are they? No that's true and I certainly wouldn't have

wanted to put her on the spot Caroline's in Devon but she's from Hampshire originally Fee Welcome, welcome, welcome Fee went to my old school and it seems we share a devotion to Mrs Rankin, she says. Triple welcome again. Caroline is mentioning the interview that, the piece, not the interview, the piece that Anthony Lloyd did for the Saturday Times magazine. I have the pleasure of knowing Anthony, says Caroline, and think you would make

a fantastic guest on your programme. He is fluent and engaging and hugely informed. Okay well we'll see if we can do that Caroline because I agree with you. Anthony wrote an article for the magazine over the weekend about it was so sad it was about Ukrainian women really not able to find the bodies of their husbands after after they have served in combat and then been killed. And it was a really insightful and very moving piece about the, frankly, the not especially good Ukrainian bureaucracy. The domestic authorities in Ukraine, like a lot of authorities in a lot of countries, are not actually terribly good.

And obviously they're dealing with very difficult circumstances, but it doesn't sound as though they have been hugely helpful to women who just want to find out where their husbands are and give them a funeral. So it was a really, really sad, sad article. And actually, Anthony made the point in it that we do spend a lot of time discussing Russian deaths, but there have been so many Ukrainian deaths as well. And really, we just want this over, don't we? Yeah, well, they do more than we do. Yeah, well, quite.

I didn't quite understand this email, and I don't want to go over lots of old ground from last week because that would be very tedious. But I just like what it said. Sarah says, I really liked your listeners email on Wednesday when my eldest went to school, the parents in her class were generally my age with older children. Plus, I was only working part time. So I felt much more included in the class. But they weren't the kind of people to go out. My younger child's class are all a decade younger than me. And I work full

time now post a divorce. I felt like I had nothing in common with those parents and wasn't invited on nights out. I always thought that primary school was when I would meet friends for life, but sadly that's not the case. I'm still looking for friends. My heart went out to you a little bit, Sarah, and I presume you were having a conversation about which bits of life you best fit into. Were you doing something like that? That was because one of the guests last week was Catherine Faulkner who'd written that book called The Other Mothers, which was partially, although not entirely,

about the atmosphere around playgroups and playgrounds and the mothers you connect with and the ages they are, the ages you are, and just the difficulties around making connections when you might be from different sorts of life experience and different ages. And we had some interesting emails from people who'd moved to different areas of the country, to rural settings, and had really struggled to make connections in the playground

specifically with other mothers. Because I think it is hard if you... In fact, funnily enough, we interviewed Lisa Jewell today, didn't we? A really nice writer. Brilliant writer. She writes quite twisty, turny books, I should say, but a charming woman. And her book, which we're going to feature on the programme in a couple of weeks, is about two women meeting around their 45th birthdays.

And Lisa made the point that your life at 45 can be very different depending on if you had children or when you had them. So your children could be 20 or older, or they might only be six. And your lives at 45 will be very, very different on that basis. Yeah, yeah. I just love that point about the one that Sarah is making about older children and younger children, because I think that's often the case as well,

that you just establish your friendship group with only one of your kids' friends' parents, not both of them. Yeah. And it's quite a kind of, it's quite a firm line, actually. It's quite weird. So nice observation, Sarah, and I really hope that you find your tribe.

I'm sure you will. Yeah, and the fact that you haven't yet found your tribe just means that you're staying true to who you want to be, really, because at some stage in life you will find your tribe. And I always feel a little bit sorry for people whose tribe was, you know, school friends or university friends, because there's something quite fun, actually, about finding a tribe a bit later in life, I think.

Yeah, and it'll happen. It really will. Now, we did talk, Fee wasn't here last week, we did talk at J.M. Mulkerran's and I about Hugh Edwards. And there have been a few emails specifically about what I said. So I just want to read one of them

from Sharon, who is a qualified counsellor for young people and adults. So she knows her stuff. I just wanted to pick up Jane, pick up on something Jane said regarding Hugh Edwards and depression. It felt as if the implication was that being a journalist wouldn't be anywhere near as stressful as being involved in the airlift operation in Kabul,

for example, and therefore if anyone was going to suffer from depression, it would probably be more likely if you were involved in this second profession. When we look in from the outside, we may wonder why someone would be depressed when other people appear to have a more stressful profession, etc. But there are many factors that can cause an individual to develop depression, including life-changing events, family history, etc. It's how we internalise our feelings and our ability and capacity to think logically and rationally. Hugh Edwards may appear to have a less stressful profession than others, but we don't know how his stress responders work. We don't know his personality traits, how critical he is of himself or how high or low his self-esteem is. We don't know his vulnerabilities or what his triggers may be.

No, good point, Sharon. Thank you very much. I certainly didn't mean to be insensitive, but if it came across that way, and as I say, several people have mentioned it, then I am very sorry. And Sharon, as I say, is a counsellor. Well, I'm sure it was a very difficult news week for everybody because there's something quite weird, isn't it, when something happens to people who you have known, no matter if you haven't known them all that well,

it's quite a different prism to look at things through. So I have very, very little of anything, even approaching wisdom to add to all of those discussions about Hugh Edwards. I think I'll do that thing where I'm wishing everybody well, just in a physical and mental sense, really. Faye says, a couple of weeks ago, Fee mentioned she had been watching a show on Amazon called Deadlock.

Don't go for Deadlock, the one ending CK. You need Deadlock, the one ending CH. I took her up on her suggestion and boy, did I love it. I feel it's going a bit under the radar as an incredible piece of feminism half hidden in a very funny comedy selfishly i'd like it to get a second season an interview with the creators known as the two capes that's mclennan and mccartney would be amazing and hopefully spread the word of this a-star comedy drama i'm delighted you liked it for i thought. I thought it was just remarkable, actually.

Where can I find this? It's on Amazon. Right. And it's set in Tasmania. And it's just, you know how we always talk about how horrible it is that so many dramas start with the body of a beautiful young woman dead in the woods.

Has she been raped? Oh, OK. Off we go. This is completely the opposite. And I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but it's about men being rather put upon and not surviving the incidents. But it's really darkly funny in quite an eyebrow-raising way.

I would give it what you call a hard recommend. Hard recommend. Yeah. And I think you've really got to allow yourself to laugh all the way through. I'm pretty sure that's what the writers are hoping that you'll do. And I would very much recommend it.

But also I'm really enjoying Hijack at the moment. My sister keeps wittering on about it. Idris Elba, Vehicle. And you did say, I'm not sure that I want to watch it because it's all a bit same. It's just lots of people stuck on a plane and I mean it absolutely is

exactly there you go but it's very good it's got Eve Miles in it as well yeah give it a go the Welsh actress and Idris Elba I started becoming Elizabeth

the Tudor romp about Elizabeth. And I have enjoyed, I've watched two episodes on preview of World on Fire, the BBC's World War II programme. It's a terrifically ambitious attempt to tell the story of World War II right across the world, so the impact on a whole range of people. And I have to say, it's the second series. I've more or less totally forgotten the first

because it finished in 2019 and quite a lot's happened since. But they've gone back to it. Lesley Manville is in it. She's always good in everything and she's brilliant in this. So you've gone very historical. So I have gone, yes. I'm sticking contemporary. I'm not sure that I can watch another Elizabethan drama ever.

Well, I'm kind of slightly with you. I can't read another thing about Henry VIII. I don't want to go and see Six, the musical. No. I'd like someone to really focus on one of those incredibly boring kings or queens who just never really surfaces in our history. Well, name one. I can't because they're so hidden.

So dull. I just can't be bothered. You've been talking about penny farthings. I don't want to go there. All right. they're so hidden. So dull. I just can't be bothered. You've been talking about penny farthings. I don't want to go there. All right. They're so odd. They're so strange. Don't give them the oxygen of publicity.

Have you heard about this? I'm completely with this. It's from Claire, this email. I'm forwarding our press release relating to our protest at a bar, which is opening in Southsea in Portsmouth. The bar is going to be called Ripper and Co and the logo of the pub has a knife in place of the letter I. I think this bar is an extremely bad taste and does nothing for local campaigns trying to stop violence against women

and girls. We've got a petition on change.org which has over 500 signatures. And there's obviously quite a spirited campaign going on in South Sea to stop this opening. I'm not sure we're really allowed to support campaigns, except of course we both support it. And why on earth does anybody think that's a good idea? It's just stupid, isn't it? Because you don't have to do that. You're not keeping up some kind of a tradition or something.

So, no, no, no, no, no. I live opposite a tradition or something so no nope nope nope nope i live opposite a pub that's got it's called the prince george that has got uh you know one of the swinging pub signs and i don't it can't possibly be the original but it's of uh prince george who was you know quite a man of the night uh with a, maybe of the night, basically sitting almost astride him, having her bottom slapped. And sometimes when I wander past that, I think, time for a change. Time for a change. Yeah, well, it is a bit odd, isn't it?

It's quite strange. Can I just say that Jane and I disagree over the book club book? We're going to talk about Valerie Perrin's Freshwater for Flowers on the 27th, I think, of July. I am. So I started off when I was bored and then I sort of got into it

and I thought I was going to be charmed by it and then I'm afraid I just lost interest again. I'm sure it's me and not the book. I really am. It's me, not you. Valerie, if you're listening, which we know you're not because you don't speak English, because you don't have to because you're a wildly successful French writer.

Sorry, I really wanted to enjoy it. I'm loving it. Well, just tell me what happens at the end. Absolutely loving it. So she's got chapter headings and the chapters are really short and I appreciate that, Valerie, because I can say, you know, I'll just do one more before bed, and it's only a page and a half long.

And chapter 42, love is when you meet someone who gives you news about yourself. It's that beautiful thing to say. I really enjoy it. Is it? I'm really, you know, well, you see, books are always revealing about the difference between... So when you meet someone and they say, you've got ketchup on your shirt...

No, that's not what she means. She's not what she means. It's not what she means. It reminds me of that lovely, lovely Anne Tyler quote, which is... I can't remember which book it's in, but it's not that she loved him, it's she loved how she felt about herself when she was with him.

Oh, yes, I think. Which is a beautiful observation. Is that the accidental marriage? It might be. But I'm enjoying Valerie for the little nuggets of that that she drops in. But it is like a great, it's like a very, very long French lunch of a book. And quite a lot of it is about the kind of style of her writing more than the substance of the plot.

But I am very much enjoying that. Well, it's interesting that we do have such a differing view so it will make the book club even more interesting than it possibly could be. It will have a little bit of dynamism about it. I really would like to hear from people living through the extreme heat in parts of Europe at the moment, and indeed the States. If that's you, we'd very much welcome your input over the next couple of days.

Just let us know. It's very simple. What is it like? Jane and Fee at Times.Radio. We are so fortunate in Britain in any number of ways, not least with our benign summer weather so far. So we have an interview for you to listen to today. And this is very, very serious stuff. It's by its features, the Times journalist Sean O'Neill, who's been doing a lot of work about the crisis in the coroner's courts in England and Wales. And quite simply, the problem is that inquests are being

delayed in some cases for over two years. And let's face it, most of us don't know much about the coroner's courts or inquests because we're never likely to be involved in one. But if you are, because your life has taken an unexpected and perhaps tragic turn, you really want the inquest to be over as soon as possible. So you get answers. And so improvements can be made based on the findings of the inquest to be over as soon as possible so you get answers and so improvements can be made based on the findings of the inquest. So Sean has a particular and very personal interest in this because his daughter Maeve died in 2021. He told me all about her, I should say she was only 27. My daughter Maeve, Maeve Bernadette Boothby O'Neill, to give her her full title, died of severe ME in October 2021.

She'd been admitted to hospital three times in the last seven months of her life. With growing complications, she was bed-bound, imm immobile malnourished and basically the ME had become so severe that she couldn't chew and digest food it was too debilitating for her body and um the hospital in Exeter was really unable to help her. There were procedures that we felt as a family should have been tried, and I'm talking specifically about tube feeding into the stomach. The hospital was unwilling to try those for various reasons, which is one of the reasons we hope an inquest will do an enhanced investigation to this. And yeah, Maeve died at home in Exeter after being ill for a very long time. And

she had, there was the possibility of a fourth admission, but she didn't want to do that. It was, she felt the hospital couldn't help her, wouldn't help her. And she took a very courageous decision, in my view, to die at home. They did mental health assessments to see which, this is an irrational decision, but concluded she was very articulate and very, I mean, she could barely speak, but she was able to communicate her wishes quite clearly.

She didn't feel the medical profession could help her. She wanted to die at home, surrounded... by the people who loved her most. And an inquest is something that most of us, because we're fortunate people, don't know very much about. How would an inquest into her death help? In many ways, Jen, I don't think it will help

because it won't bring her back. It can't bring her back, obviously. What it could help is provide some learning, identify if there were any systemic failures in the treatment of MAVE in particular, but also learning for other patients. I believe there are thousands of people with ME and severe ME living in the UK. I think long COVID is a very, very similar disease in many cases,

not all cases, but in quite a few, to post-viral similarities. And I think that I know there is no guidance in the NHS at all for the treatment of severe ME in hospital or by GPs in the community. And an inquest can't provide all the answers, but it could provide some steps that could lead to improvements. I mean, there has been another case since May have died in Exeter,

and I know the hospital has done some things differently. Whether that's a result of publicity or whether a result of learning within the hospital already, I'm not clear. But I think we need an inquest to have a public airing of some of these issues. And I know you have spoken to other parents who are waiting in a similar fashion for inquests to take place.

And we'll talk about some of those examples a little bit later, if you don't mind. But ME is something that puzzles a lot of people. When did Maeve become ill? How did it all start? I first, when I look back now, I remember picking her up from school one time. Her mum and I had separated from Maeve was five or six. I remember picking her up from school one time her and her

her mum and I had separated from Maeve was five or six and I used to visit routinely at weekends and picked her up from school one time when she was about 13 and she'd fainted doing cross country running

and that was the first indication when I look back I can see that she would get these dizzy spells and and and be really tired and fatigued and and that progressed she wasn't formally diagnosed with ME until she was 18 in 2012 and it is a difficult illness there's a lot of controversy around it and I find there's a lot of

obstinacy in the medical profession about it they don't know they don't recognise it they can't find there are no diagnostic markers there's no obvious you're diagnosed by a process of elimination basically so they can't tell physically what causes it they can't test for it and they have no treatments for it and the way it has been treated until recently fact, the way it is still treated because the new guidelines have not been enforced,

is a combination of CBT, talking therapies, and graded exercise therapies, based on the idea that this is a behavioural or psychological illness. I think that's false. I think that's an example of medical establishment not having sufficient knowledge of what this disease is and therefore replacing it with a set of assumptions about patients and about their carers. The parents of people with ME have a very difficult time from schools and local authorities and the medical profession. But in Maeve's case...

If I could just say it in Maeve's case, I understand why people, especially doctors on the front line, don't know what's going on because for years I was sceptical and if I'm honest, my scepticism about ME and what was wrong with Maeve I used to think this was some sort of psychological kind of trauma but delayed trauma from her parents divorce

or something like that and that damaged my relationship with her quite significantly especially when she became ill and she was unable to see anyone and was housebound and thought that rest and relaxation would help her recovery. I found that incredibly difficult, and our relationship was fractured by the illness

and by my understanding or misunderstanding of the illness. In the case of Maeve's GP, I know not every GP is sympathetic, but Maeve's GP, I think, was concerned, and they were concerned enough to write to the coroner after she died. That was her last GP, and for a very short period, I think of all the GPs she saw, this lady was the only one who seemed to understand that there was something significant wrong

because she had a good connection with me. If she could see she was an intelligent, a really intelligent, bright young woman who was not feigning illness or malingering in any way. And so something should have happened, shouldn't it? In fact, something did happen, to be fair. An inquest was opened in a relatively reasonable length of time. Tell me about that.

The process of opening an inquest is basically a formality. The GP reported the death, the coroner opened the inquest and then immediately adjourned it um to gather evidence we then had a pre-inquest review about 11 months later in september 2022 and since then there's been nothing um we still haven't had full disclosure of evidence and we haven't um got a date for the coroner wants a second pre-inquest hearing that hasn't happened yet i think they're having difficulties identifying the coroner wants an expert witness and i think they're having difficulties identifying someone to do that so my feeling is a full inquest, which could take a week or so, is probably a long way off yet. How long? You've waited a period of years now,

so might it be another year? My expectation is it will be at least another year. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar.

Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. We've been talking to The Times journalist sean o'neill who's been writing about the problems in the coroner's court system across england and wales in some cases the bereaved are having to wait for more than a couple of years to get the inquests held and to get the answers they really need so i asked sean if the delays in the system were caused by the pandemic.

There is an element of this that is a post-Covid problem. During the pandemic, coroner's courts were shut down and even Zoom hearings were restricted because I think there's a quirk of the law, the coronial law, that says everybody else can appear by Zoom but the coroner has to be in court. So there were a lot of problems holding any inquests during the pandemic. And of course, there was an increased number of deaths reported to coroners that required investigation. So there's a backlog, a natural backlog there. But there are very chronic problems in this system. It's a tangled, complicated structure that is no one's priority. Well, it's a sort of Cinderella service, isn't it? But local councils are quite pivotal

here. Local councils provide the funding. But in recent years, you've had a process of merging council areas. So I think there are now about 82 council areas and they're kind of amalgamations of local councils. The coroner sits, for example, in Devon. It is the Devon coroner, covers a huge area in which there are multiple local authorities. So they provide the funding. The coroners are judges

and therefore appointed by the Lord Chief Justice. And in many cases, the investigating officers, the coroner's staff, coroner's officers are from the police service. So you have this kind of three-cornered hat. And if you get a dispute, you can have people pulling in three different directions. And the more complicated the circumstances, as in the case of Maeve, the longer you're going to have to wait to make sure everything's in place. That's what appears to be.

The other families that I've spoken to have all got quite complex cases, quite often involving hospitals or mental health hospitals. And those are quite often inquests that are deemed Article 2, so the obligation of the state to protect life comes into play. It requires enhanced investigation by a coroner, and the more complex cases seem to take longer and longer and longer. And is there any concern on your part that this allows or might facilitate a cover-up? I think I wouldn't say cover-up. My concern is more that what happens over a period of time is that witnesses forget things, documents get lost, witnesses are uncontactable.

get lost, witnesses are uncontactable, you know. The longer the period between the death and when the inquest should happen and it actually happening, then basically the evidence degrades. And also, if there are systemic lessons to be learned, either in Maeve's case or in other cases, the lessons aren't, the reforms aren't put into practice, are they? So lawyers and campaigners I've spoken to say you get the same mistakes being made again and again

leading to further deaths because lessons aren't learned. I hate that phrase, lessons will be learned. I've been a journalist for so long now. Every time I hear lessons will't learned. And I hate that phrase, lessons will be learned. I've been a journalist for so long now, every time I hear lessons will be learned, I raise my eyebrows and go, yeah, but they're not. And of course, as you point out, the longer people have to wait, the less likely it is that there will be any lessons learned. So tell me about some of the other people you've spoken to

who are also in a similar position to your own. I spoke to one woman who wanted to be anonymous, who's been waiting four years for an inquest for her daughter who died in a mental health hospital. And she, the coroner ordered a jury inquest, but the local council said, oh, we can't provide a room for that. We haven't got a facility big enough. So that was a kind of waiting and waiting. And her lawyers, I think it was Lee Day were her lawyers, eventually had to threaten judicial review proceedings before they got any movement on that.

And an inquest has now been scheduled for later this summer. And I also spoke to the father of a young man called Lane McGinnity who died in another in a private mental health unit his father Peter he put it really I thought really succinctly he said

he doesn't want closure, he doesn't expect closure from an inquest but an inquest is a milestone and it's something his family's desperate to get over with you know they've done a lot of work and a lot of research they've read a lot of documents and reports and disclosed evidence and they have to read and reread the note their son left and it's all very traumatic and and that's what I find as well. What looms up at you is that you are going to have to go into a courtroom,

a public courtroom, and relive the death of your loved one in minute detail at some point. And that's incredibly distressing to even contemplate, never mind go through. So when families talk about the need for the inquest that's what it is it's it's something to do with it feels like your grieving process has been abruptly halted like it's frozen in time until you get this done and you get this hearing and when you speak to people in the process are they sympathetic are

they embarrassed what's their attitude well i spoke to the chief coroner the other day for for this piece and he is sympathetic i mean he said he he's dealing with he's trying to modernize a system that is in many ways way behind the times um so he's working very hard to do that and he's toured the whole country visiting coroners and and their staff and he's he paints a picture while saying he's making progress and and he's hopeful and he's optimistic and working really hard he does paint quite a depressing picture of crumbling buildings paint peeling off the walls, leaking ceilings backlogs that leave coroner's staff in tears he spoke to one coroner's officer who he just said just burst into floods of tears

and what they keep saying to him is we just want to help the families but I feel that this is nobody's priority. It's not a Ministry of Justice priority. It's not a local authority priority. I mean, local authority budgets are so stretched already. I'm sure the coroner's service is, you know, bottom of the pile. So, you know, there is a massive human cost to all these delays and all this neglect of the system.

And I guess for the majority of the general public, this is something they don't know much about and probably won't ever have to play a part in it, if they're lucky. But of course, none of us know. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, do we? And there were, you know, the figures are quite stark. So 2017, there were 378 inquests that have been open for two years or more. Today, it's 1,760.

And I'm sure next year it'll be higher again. So it is impacting more and more people all the time. That is Sean O'Neill, who's a journalist at The Times. Now, if you've been affected by any of the issues discussed in that interview, you can email feedback at times.radio and then you'll be put in touch with the relevant support services. So that's it from us for today. It's lovely to be back. Our fare will drop again tomorrow evening at the same time, but sadly not with Michael Ball. As Jane referred to earlier, we've been balled out, haven't we?

I don't know how I'm going to break it to my school friend who... Oh, gosh, yes, she was very, very excited, wasn't she? Well, she was, yeah. Just to be in the same room with someone who's been on the same Zoom as Michael Ball. She was living for it, Jane. I think I probably exaggerated and told her I was going to meet him. Oh, OK. Well, I'll have to backtrack on that now as well

will it make any difference that you've met me that I've met you and that I can tell her that she's met me I'm here I've known her since I was 11 I don't think it's going to make any difference it's not going to nudge it along at all

I don't think it's not going to nudge anything right nice to be back so talk to you again tomorrow Thank you, I'm a bit slow on that one Good to have you Good night We're bringing the shutters down on another episode of the internationally acclaimed podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover.

Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. But don't forget that you can get another two hours of us every Monday to Thursday afternoon here on Times Radio. We start at 3pm and you can listen for free on your smart speaker.

Just shout Play Times Radio at it. You can also get us on DAB Radio in the car or on the Times Radio app whilst you're out and about being extremely busy. And you can follow all our Tosh behind the mic and elsewhere on our Instagram account. Just go on to Insta and search for Jane

and Fee and give us a follow. So in other words, we're everywhere, aren't we, Jane? Pretty much everywhere. Thank you for joining us. And we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. I'm to open breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11 and get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone.