Test Match Special - #40from40: Professor Robert Winston

Episode Date: December 24, 2020

Professor Robert Winston tells Jonathan Agnew how cricket fits into a busy life of science, medicine and journalism.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Bring more gear, carry more passengers, face greater challenges. Welcome to the world of Defender, with seating up to eight, ample cargo space and legendary off-road capability. It's built to make the most of every adventure. Learn more at landrover.ca. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. MMS podcast, classic view from the boundary. Hello, my name's Simon Mann and welcome to another classic view from the boundary from test match special. Today, we're going back to 2015 and the first test of a busy summer that saw England win back the ashes

and the start of Trevor Bayliss's Whiteball Revolution that would eventually lead to England winning the World Cup four years later. At Lords, England were taking on New Zealand in a thrilling test match, one on the final day by the hosts Sir Aleister Cook and Ben Stokes both scored second-inning centuries. Our guest on the Saturday is one of the leading voices in British science. Lord Robert Winston has been a regular face on our television screens, hosting shows such as Child of Our Time and the BAFTA winning the human body. In his medical career, he's been a pioneer in fertility, working particularly on the efficacy of IVF treatments and embryo screening amongst many other things.

A passionate cricket fan He arrived in our commentary box wearing his MCC tie and sat down to join Jonathan Agnew for a really fascinating half hour I must say that the first thing I have to say is that the view you have from this commentary box is absolutely amazing

because you have this angle down on the pitch which we ordinary people never normally see and it makes a very, very big difference to watching the ball. You think? I think so, yes. Easier? The other thing that, of course, I've never seen before

looking directly at the pavilion, you have a very, very exaggerated view of the slope at Lords, which is very, very clear. So, I mean, I'm amazed. And I love this automatically opening window you've got as well. That's great fun, isn't it? Well, it's interesting, because Lords actually has quite a reputation for being a bit stuck in the past, doesn't it?

A bit fuddy-duddy. But in fact, it's not at all. And including our opening window, which is only one in this glass bowl in which we sit, it makes a huge difference. Well, I mean, we're sitting in this oasis in pretty well in the centre of London and I always think every time I come to Lords

it's always a treat because you just don't somehow expect to see this anymore I mean there was a time when we used to sit on the edge of the pitch because we can't do that now but nonetheless it's still a great treat to be here very special but you must be a ridiculously busy man I mean do you ever get the time to come down here and watch much cricket?

I mean I always put the test matches in my diary but actually in fact I don't often get get here and occasionally I've got down to the Oval usually in the afternoon but to spend the whole day at Lords is a special treat

so I walk down to Lords this morning and that's a good bit of exercise to get here where do you sit in the pavilion have you got a favoured area because they state it's quite a tradition down there you stake out your territory don't you do a bit but I mean one of those balconies are a pretty good bet because they're by the bar so you can always nip

and actually I suppose you're a loud one if you're off duty well in fact actually you can always squeeze in on that balcony I mean it seems ridiculous because they're not very big looking at them I'm I mean I suppose you know when I'm really old and decrepit

I can then get a named seat I suppose you do I think it'll be a certain age haven't you I think 75 yes and I think you do and then it's a much more relaxed process because you know where you're seat is how long have you been a member for them I think it's not quite

quite 15 years. Right, quite reasonable length of time. And did you serve, you served your time? Oh, it's ridiculous, isn't it? The process of becoming a full member. I mean, I think now the waiting list here is about 27 years. Oh, I think so. And the best way to come on, I think it's why you don't need to anymore.

But for anyone listening, the best way to become an MCC member is to play. Of course. If you play for MCC, that gets you accelerated. Did you play then? Talk me through your cricketing pedigree. Well, I played a bit at school, but very badly. I was usually sort of number 10. Yes.

That's where I was too most of the time I bowled a bit Usually off brakes Did they spin? Very seldom I mean to see these Sort of 2,000 rev things That's really amazing

I wish I could do that Would it have registered And your off spinners? I don't know I might have got it around To turn 60 revs a minute I don't know that But did you enjoy it though

Yes I did I mean I think I found it A bit frustrating I learned to feel quite well I mean I did do that I feel it close But I never scored a lot of runs and then I played a bit at university and I've played a bit of sort of you know

stuff that you play in in the countryside on rather uneven wickets and so it's rather terrifying with a local baller bone really rather fast at you but that is great though that's what's actually what proper cricket's all about really it's not about these beautiful manicured grounds with the covers and everything I think the last time I played reasonably seriously was actually in Hampshire in Winchester when I was working down there and that that was great because we had a we had a sort of half good cricket team We still play, I mean, we still play cricket at Imperial College where I work, but, I mean, I don't play anymore now.

No. Do you come down and watch, though, when you were younger? Can you remember, why did you sort of county, where you're from here? At Surrey, it was originally, but I don't know why. I mean, I think whether it was, I mean, my great memory of cricket as a schoolboy were people like Locke and Laker, for example. And I remember watching them? Yes, did once.

I mean... Talk me through watching Jim. Lakeer Bowen? Well, I remember more, I remember more actually Lock fielding at leg slip. Right, yes. Because he seemed to be an almost part of the partnership really. He anticipated where Laker was going to be putting the ball or where it was going to come off. And it was astonishing that that, of course, that amazing record that Laker got. Broadlock only got one. But I...

That's right. Well, you're a bit more of a Lachman than a Laker man, perhaps? I didn't think you could avoid being a Laker man, really. I mean, he was, I mean, that, what was it, 19, 19 wickets in a test match. But you did feel sorry for Locke then, because Locke actually had bowled quite well. Do you remember that happening that day? If you were sort of, they were on your radar anyway as a youngster. Yes, I mean, we were, I mean, just overjoyed. I just remember, I remember it very well.

1956. Yes, I remember it very well indeed. It was, you know, at school at that time, What did we talk about? Well, we used to talk about, in the ashes, we talked about whether it was more boring to watch Bailey bowling to Mackay or Macai bowling to Bailey.

They've actually quite a good competition, that. So Laker and Locke, you know, were really exciting, by comparison, really. So did you try and be Jim Laker? Was that your long spinning off spin? No, never. No, I mean, actually, in fact, my best spin bowling has been in my back garden,

going bowling down the slope to my 9-year-old son. I have to say that, you know, I wanted to make the ball break. Yes. And using a hard cricket ball. I then felt rather cricket. I never hit him, but I always felt a bit nervous about bowling in the garden, really. So, no, I mean, I can't claim any kind of glory at all. No.

They were golden years for Surrey, weren't they? I mean, they had a brilliant team. I suppose as a youngster as you were, perhaps inevitable that you... They were the best team, weren't they? Yes. They were the best team for a while. Peter May and people like that. Yeah. May, of course, was amazing.

and even after he'd retired and was brought back and he was incredibly brave, wasn't he? Yes. It was astonishing watching him faceing, fast bowling and being hit all over the place and just standing there. Yes, and Brian Close too, taking it on in those days. Well, Close was a really rough, tough individual.

Yeah, well, there we are. It's a bit different now, isn't it? I mean, it's very interesting watching this game because when I watched the first three overs this morning, I couldn't believe what we were doing and it was very odd because Moe and Ali I felt very sorry for him really in a way

because I don't think he should have probably been opening a bowling I mean it was and you know a few soft balls to get the batsman's eye in is probably not the ideal way of when you've got about 100 runs ahead but I think also I think the atmosphere has changed

I think it's become a bit more humid it's certainly warmer Oh now if we're going to be giving the old scientist's territory Do you have any theories on that? on humidity and swing bowling? I met somebody here some years ago who was a Cambridge mathematician who then got talking about swing

and he then sent me his essay on swing bowling and with all his mathematical calculations which I couldn't really understand but he was convinced there really was an issue that actually in fact given atmosphere the way the bowler actually produced the ball from his hand could make a very big difference. That's interesting because as a bowler you feel

that the atmospherics make a difference. difference. And yet whenever we say that on here, oh, it's getting humid now, so the ball's swing, you tend to get an irate letter from a, from a professor somewhere who says it's complete nonsense. Well, this guy certainly believed that unevenness on one side of the ball made a very big difference. Right. So aerodynamic. Yes. And he certainly brought that into his calculation. Sadly, I can't find his letter now that he wrote to me, but it was, I mean, I, because I... Did you understand it? No, I didn't. The mass was... I mean, you know, it's ridiculous, because I come from this highly sort of literate...

a mathematical literature institution in the Imperial College where the mathematicians are unbelievably clever. But I never understand what they're talking about. Do you pretend that you do? Of course. So how do you like, like Brendan McCullum batting here, for instance, which is someone like test cricket these days? Do you like that, or is there a bit of a streak of purist in you, Robert?

No, I mean, I think it's great to watch that. And I think that's one of the things that's happened to the, I mean, the old style test match where you sort of sat and waited and you attack the balls that were weak, but you know, you didn't go for it otherwise. You met Jeff Boycott, have you? Yes, of course. He's very keen to meet you.

Well, one of the things that's very clear about cricket is that it's a very, very psychological game. I mean, all sports are psychological. But I just can't imagine how batsmen face the sort of bowling, even this morning, you know, when it's going close to 90 miles an hour. And, you know, the ability to react. to that, I find remarkable because, you know, you've got this pitch which is only 22 yards long and the reaction time is only about 0.2 of a second and you're going at 80 miles an hour so actually the human reaction time isn't fast enough to cope with that. So how does a batsman anticipate where the wall is going to be? And that's a very interesting question. And I think that we don't really understand how that happens. So somebody with the so-called fast arm is very difficult to deal with.

Yes. Have you studied in any way, sort of athletes or reaction time? Have you, any way you've encountered that sort of thing? But more and more of that sort of work is going on at universities. It's going on at places like Loughborough University. It's going on at Sheffield-Harram University where they've got big sports science centers where they're looking at that sort of thing like reaction time and looking. And I think actually it's very clear that sports psychology has got a lot to do yet. And of course, one of the aspects of psychology, of course, of course,

is having teams which are comfortable with each other because it makes a very big difference. I mean, you know, who knows what went on? No. But it's interesting how you recognise the importance of that team psychology. It's important in everything, you know. I mean, in science, it's very interesting.

You consider it. You know, each of us have got, you know, 100 billion neurons in our brain. So our brains are wrong. All of us? All of us, roughly speak. Yeah. And you know, you take Albert Einstein.

You know, the great model of the greatest brain of the 20 years. century. You know, he gave his brain to science, and he left it to the university where he was working in New Jersey, Princeton, and his brain was put in formalin and pickled. It was actually a pickle jar, and it was left on a shelf, and people forgot about it. And 11 years later, some neuroscientist decided that's Einstein's brain, let's cut it apart, and they chopped it up into tiny little bits and counted the neurons. And they could see nothing which distinguished that brain from anybody else's brain.

And the interesting thing is, if you think about it, you know, so you and I sitting here together have got more brain power than Einstein. Because, of course, we've got, you know, because we have together, we have that combination of it. So actually how people work together is really very, very important. And that applies certainly to the psychology of running a unit. And I think to a team too. And I think sometimes we forget that we don't, you know, individual ability,

may not actually always be the great thing to have but working with the abilities of others I suppose you could argue well I don't want to criticise Geoffrey Boycott's batting no well you can he's not he's not around you're safe to do it at the moment but I'm not going to do that but you know I think there's a great deal I mean maybe that's one of the thinking it's gone on

that we need to seem that really feels coherent together communicating and being comfortable with itself Are you fascinated by what makes us different? Is that something that is interesting? Yes, and it's always said to be genetics, and of course as a geneticist, I don't believe that. I think it's environment. I think the environment shapes as much more than our genetics.

And I think that that's a really important thing that we tend to forget. And I think that's a great message, because actually, I think, you know, we can all have surprising ability with constant practice. I mean, you can be, you know, a modestly good batsman if you practice long enough. I mean, of course, innate ability obviously helps and the extra little edge that you'll have as a really fine sportsman is really important. But a lot of people have a lot of talent that they don't develop.

And I think that's one of the messages that we have to remember. And why don't they develop it? Because they're lazy, they don't get the opportunity, they're unlucky, they don't get inspired, they don't get mentoring, they don't see the opportunity. I think the lack of aspiration

sometimes in schools a whole range of reasons why that doesn't happen. And I think, you know, it's very clear that with sport, you know, when a country is doing well at sports, suddenly new sportsmen start appearing from schools who, you know, who've been inspired by what they're watching. Yes. What's it like for you?

Because it seems that whenever you say, or pass judgment or pass an opinion on anything, it's immediately sort of quoted. And we're talking about sort of difficult issues, like fertility, like genetics and so on. I mean, are you forever living on a bit of a tightrope and you're forever offending one section of the community? Or do you manage to steer your way through that minefield? I do think it's quite important to say what you really believe and think, actually. And I think certainly I've tried to do that with unpopular things.

I don't really like political correctness. I'm prepared to write something which I know will be controversial. and I think you have to stand up eventually and take the criticism and sometimes you get it wrong and I think you have to listen and you may need to adapt and I've been wrong so often

that you know I realise that understanding that you're wrong eventually is probably quite a good thing what have you got wrong oh everything I mean you know that can't be true but it can't be right

well you know one of the biggest things in my professional life was the development of in vitro fertilisation and, you know, when it was first mooted, I mean, back in the early 70s, and I went to lectures where people were showing their embryos, people like Robert Edwards, thinking, you know, this is never going to work. And then realizing belatedly, actually, that as I was heavily involved in human reproduction, I had to be involved in the field

because suddenly I'd actually really been rather ready to attitudinize about it and not realize that actually there was something that might really work there quite well. Why don't you think it's going to work? Well, it seemed... I've got to transform more lives, I suspect, than possibly anything else in our generation. I think, you know, between us around the world now, we're responsible for, what, is it,

five and a half million babies that wouldn't have existed, something like that? And, I mean, it's very easy to take huge pleasure in that, but we shouldn't ever forget that one of the things that we've all done in that field, and we don't admit this often enough, is that we've also peddled in failure, you know, only one third of the time is that treatment successful and it's very, very demanding

for the couples that go through it. It's unbelievably anxiety making. Some people find it really very, very, you know, corrosive. You know, they can't imagine doing it a second time. And I think the worst moment for anybody going through that treatment is when they finally see after all the hurdles they've gone over, it's a bit like a horse race over over the jumps, that they've got to the stage when they've actually got an egg that's fertilised and it's an embryo and then that embryo is put back into the uterus and for 12 days people fantasize that they're pregnant finally after years of trying and you know the moment when of course they realize that they're not pregnant which of course happens most of the time is unbelievably

demanding and one of two things happens either it builds a partnership together or in fact husband and wife or partners find it very, very difficult to deal with. And so I think we have tended to raise hopes a great deal without understanding sometimes their psychology or the sensitivity that's needed really to deal with that.

And I think certainly helping people to come to terms with failure is an important part of that treatment, but we always talk it up. All the time it's seen as being the great boom to women and men who can't have children. And I think, of course, that resolution can be very important

because then you can walk away if it's handled properly. So I think that's one thing I have learned, and it wasn't an easy thing to learn. And I think it's very easy to congratulate yourself of being right at the forefront of a technology and forget that actually that technology doesn't work a lot of the time. Yeah. You talk about the shattering blow over when it doesn't work,

but the incredible joy when it does work Must be something that you must have struck you countless times, isn't it? The incredible moment where actually does all happen and the baby's produced. Oh, yes. I mean, of course I remember that. I mean, again and again, you see people who, against the odds, and you have some very strange stories. I mean, sometimes, you know, unbelievable stories happen because you can never really say that somebody can't get pregnant. Equally, you can never say somebody's going to be really easy to treat. And I think my best story is the times of tubal surgery before IVF started.

And I used to, I was developing work to try and open tubes. that were very badly damaged. And this woman came from the Middle East who came with the most appalling history. She only had one fallopian tube. It was obviously we'd never get treated. She'd never get pregnant. And the whole history showed very clearly

that there was not the slightest chance of treatment. And I saw her in my outpatients and refused to treatment. She came back the following week and I refused her again. The third week she came back. She said, look, you know, you have to understand my husband will divorce me unless I have an operation.

I said, but you can't have an appointment. It's operation. And eventually, having discussed it with my team and friends and other colleagues, they said, well, you know, maybe you should just have a look with a telescope, prove that really it's not worth doing. A look with a telescope under anaesthesia, and it was obviously hopeless. So I told her this. I'd taken photographs, and she said, no, I'm not accepting this.

I want you to open my tummy and have a look and repair the tube that was left. So the following week, after real soul-searching, and I didn't sleep that night, I opened her abdomen and fiddled around and closed her up again and told her that really it was hopeless and she went back to the Middle East and that was the end of it and then about 13 months later I was sitting in my outpatients

and the nurse came and said look there's a woman outside who wants to see you she hasn't got an appointment up she's flown a long way today do you mind seeing her as an extra nice that came in and this woman came in a very long flowing garment right down to her ankles and she said as you predicted I'm now pregnant and I think I may be in labour

and this was the same woman who had got on the aircraft in this flowing gown knowing that she was about deliver she was absolutely going to refuse to be delivered anywhere except at Hammersmith Hospital so she got on the plane in labour and flew for four hours and she came in and it was her

and she got pregnant how do explain that you've got sort of more than fiddle about as your expression. I mean, you must have a bit more than that. I don't know. I mean, really, I don't know. I mean, you know, I think basically, you know, sometimes biology surprises everybody.

I mean, that, you know, when we talk about science being the truth, there's so many of my colleagues, too, it's a nonsense really. It's a version of the truth. And I think we have to understand that, you know, we are, you know, we are not, we can never really be fully certain about anything. And actually, one of the great things about doing science now, of course, is that it becomes more problematic. I mean, modern physics is now much more difficult, I think, to fully understand, because, you know, with, I mean, quantum mechanics seems completely impossible. How can you have two states at once, for example? And I think we're beginning to... I'm taking your word for this, by the way.

Well, I mean, you think about it, you know, we now can look 13 and a half, what, billion light years away. But, you know, beyond that, we still have this mystery of what's going on out there. And we'll never know. And I find that very humbling. I think it's very important we should feel a bit threatened by that lack of ability to understand. Do you ever worry about, because you're moving in such extraordinarily high-powered medical areas and forming opinion, so on, do you ever worry about where it's all going to end? Where is this genetic improvement?

Are we going to see genetically enhanced human beings? Well, that's future. I think we might. And it's one of, I mean, I've got a book there to write because, you know, basically the research we're doing now in my lab at Imperial was to try and find new ways of getting genes into embryos more efficiently so that we could then make ultimately what we wanted to do, Carol Rita and I, my colleague, what we were hoping to do is to make pigs whose organs would not be recognized by the human immune system because they'd be genetically modified. so that then we could have organs for transplantation, hearts, livers, lungs, um, livers, particularly, of course, quite useful because liver disease and heart disease are important. And we've got to that stage now where we can have a very, very efficient method of getting genes in. We haven't quite got the right genes in, but nonetheless it'll happen.

Somebody else will do that in due course. And the trouble, of course, is if you can modify a pig so efficiently, you know, there's another large animal that you might want to modify. Indeed. And given that we have the knowledge of how genes in some way control things like cognitive ability, memory, sporting ability, for example, I mean, ultimately, you know, your strength, your speed, your stamina are certainly to some extent genetically determined. You could see how in a highly commercial market in an unregulated global society. Well, that's more point two, isn't it, how somebody might start to want to meddle with the human genome. Bad people might want to do with it.

Absolutely. And of course, you know, if we believe that human life is sacred, which I think is one of the tenets of our ethical principles, that's one of the reasons why the assisted dying really is so important. You know, if human life is sacred, and if you make superhumans, what value is human life? Silly question, possibly. But if you can put, if you can have organs in pigs that the human body won't reject,

why can't you put human organs into pigs that the pigs went. reject, then you've got human organs going back in again? When you translate the pig as well. Well, I think, I mean, look, I mean, we haven't got there yet. But, I mean, I think that would be unnecessarily complicated. But I think if you, you know, at the moment, people who are waiting for a transplant

are basically waiting for a motor bicycle accident. That's what's happening in practice. So the number of people who need a transplant greatly exceeds the number of people who get one. Around the world, every 15 minutes, somebody's put on a transplant list, and there are many more people who never get on one. so the need for organs is massive now of course the real issue for many people will be well how can you justify using animals

well as long as we eat animals it seems to me to be ethically much better to save life with animals and of course if you're going to make a pig transplant you will have to treat that animal extremely humanely the the killing of that animal to get the organs would have to be under absolutely scrupulous conditions of an anaesthesia for example completely unlike an abattoir where animals are not that well treated when they're slaughtered. So I don't have a problem with that, particularly, preferring the animals are well treated. But the issue, I think, really is

whether or not we can really control the acute rejection phenomenon, which of course is something we've not been able to do, but this technology looks like being a possibility that we might do in due course, maybe in 10 years' time. And are you 100% excited about modification or genetic improvement or what I want to call it?

Or, I mean, how much of that 100% is actually? caution or even being more than caution. We're really worried about where it might go. Genetic modification of animals has been going on very successfully now for more than, well, 35 years since John Gordon published his work in New York. And that's been one of the greatest breakthroughs in genetics because it's enabled us to understand how genes work. It's enabled us to understand what happens when genes are missing or damaged.

It's had a phenomenally important impact on cancer biology, much more important than the human genome sequencing, for example. We always think of the genome as being the big flagship. But actually what preceded before, the ability to modify genes in mice was actually a very, very great breakthrough. And it's really transformed biology. I mean, everybody who's in experimental biology would argue that, you know, the mouse model and the mouse experiment.

So transferring that to a large animal is just a small step, really. I mean, we haven't done anything very major. What we've just done is to try and look at ways you could improve it so you could make it possible in a larger animal, really. But if you can make humans, I know, run faster or eventually, or make them taller or make them stronger or something, I mean, is that a possibility? Well, you know, if you look at the, what's the premier event at the Olympics? It's the 1500 metres, isn't it? Probably. Yeah, I like the 100 metres myself, but yeah.

1,500 metres, I think over, in 1900, the world record was about 4.4 minutes, 0.3 seconds, something like that, I think. And we've now got it down to, we've shaved about 13% I think off it, something like that. But with genetic modification, you could double the speed of a human, couldn't you? Could you? Well, you can do it in the mice. In mice, you can double their speed. Really? Yes, I mean, there's a man called Halimi, he's done it.

That's been done. Yes, he's done it in mice. And they have massive stamina. I'm just trying to think, what was Steve Ovett's record? Well, you've tested me now. I think he did the thousand meters in about three and a half. something like that? 3.30, 333? I'm not going to argue with this. I can't remember. I don't remember, but it's something

like that. And now it's, you know, since then, of course, it's tail off because we can't go much faster. Because there is a limit, well, I think there is more. Physical limit. Well, because, you know, muscular activity can only be, you know, so good. Gosh. You know, it's a, it's a, the more you sort of just open the door

a jar into your world, I mean, it's sort of. Well, I mean, people say, are we evolving? And of course, what Steve Jones I think has argued. And I mean, He knows much more about genetics than anybody really, argues that really we modify our environment so much we don't need to evolve. But I suppose the other great interest in things is what happens with artificial intelligence.

And I don't know enough about that to talk about it intelligently. But I suppose eventually we may be challenged by machines that are more intelligent than we are, in which case this whole issue of biological improvement becomes almost kind of secondary importance. How do you explain all this in simple terms? I mean, you've, you know, just part of your life has been presenting television programs, scientific programs, on complicated issues, too. How do you present that without any way to giving the feeling you're talking down to people? I think it's not difficult. I don't think you need to patronise people.

I think really, you see, I felt it patronised by that scientist who told me that I shouldn't have an opinion on even later. Ridiculous. Yes, ridiculous. But, I mean, I hope that everything I've said is intelligible. Definitely. this morning. So I mean, basically, I think, certainly with the television, what I've always tried to do is not to be on screen for long pieces, but really short pieces, usually to have one point, one sentence, where there was clarity about what I was trying to say, which was, I mean, I had an amazing director in my first series, which was Your Life in their Hands back in the 70s, John Mansfield. And John Mansfield used to stand me in front of the camera and said, Robert, didn't understand a word of what you were saying. or Robert, you're being really pompous. And you know, it was a fantastic training.

He was amazing, actually. And it made me really sort of think back and dissect about it. And actually, it's very, very important, I think, to just think about being intelligible. It should apply to all science. And even now, I think, with a complicated PhD project, you should be saying to a PhD student, look, if you can't explain your project

in three simple sentences to a layperson, it may not be worth doing. And is science becoming so increasingly complicated that actually it's harder for the lay person to grasp? Yes, and for the scientists to grasp, too. I mean, it really is. I mean, you know, reading nature or science are two great journals. For something like myself, is reasonably literate in science, but I think becomes a real. I mean, I know that there will be two-thirds of the journal I will not understand.

And that would be, most scientists would say that, I think. It's become, we're knowing more and more about less and less in greater depth. and it's a real problem and that's a real issue for school children because from the age of 14 they're now being forced to specialise in a narrower way and I'm worried about that in our society because that is continued at university

and I think it's very very important that we think wide we think about the implications we think about the issues which affect our society in a broadway as well as being expert in the field we're not speaking in the lords as well where again it's quite a sort of random mixture of people

out there. It's that quite a stressful thing to do to stand up there. It was when I started. I mean, it's a different environment. When I first... Oh, I remember my second speech. I mean, my second speech, I waxed lyrical about some piece of chemistry, which I didn't really understand, which I said was being taught rather bad at universities, and sat down, feeling very pleased with myself that I'd finished, you know,

all around myself, what a great speech, and I walked out thinking, I'm going to go to the nearest... You read a speech? No, I never read my speeches. and I walked towards the bar thinking I need a double whiskey and as I was walking down this long dark corridor I heard the one word behind you you never want to hear in the House of Lords

it's a very elderly voice saying Lord Winston that was a very interesting speech I turned around it was a Nobel Prize winner for that piece of chemistry George Porter and I had to give him a lot of whiskey in the bar we became very firm friends afterwards

does interesting mean anything but then in that? Absolutely of course typically English understatement but it must be pressurise There are only people settling back there and, you know, because they are, you know, it's obviously your big moment, isn't it? Do people get a bit stressed?

Yes, and some people get very pompous too because, you know, basically there's a convention in the House of Lords which is quite interesting which nobody perhaps knows about it. Basically, when you give your maiden speech, there's always, the speaker followers who following is notified that you're following a maiden speaker, so you're told that.

So you prepare beforehand and you look at his CV a little bit and you always, the convention is you always say, this was the most amazing speech. You know, you've never heard a speech of such eloquence. And we look forward, we can't wait to hear the next time this man will contribute because, you know, this is going to change our view about so many aspects and his expertise is unparadoled. And, of course, some people really believe that.

So when they get up to speak again, they start to get bit pompous. Well, you haven't been pompous at all. Thank you for coming to see us. Thank you for having me. I'm sorry. Thank you for the invitation. Well, look, they're sweeping up out there. so let's hope that I think we might see some play

and indeed we did see some play England eventually won the game by 124 runs well I hope you're enjoying our trip through the archives there really is so much to enjoy such as this from 2017 when we were joined by Olympic hockey star Helen Richardson Walsh tell me what it's like then come on

Helen to stride up to do a penalty with gold medal at stake and so on I mean even now year on. I mean, can you remember absolutely unerringly now what you were doing, how you were feeling, were you that much in control of yourself, or was it all a bit of a blur? And you just sort of dealt

with it at the moment? I think when you just said then, with all that at stake, with the Olympic gold at stake, if I had thought about that in that moment, I would have been like jelly. I do remember thinking a little bit like

Like, do you know what, you've been playing this game now for 17 years in the international team? You've had a lot of highs, but many lows. You know, you've dreamt about this moment for an incredibly long time. And it almost relaxed me. It almost just made me thought, right, just do it. Just put this in and just do it. This is what you've trained so hard for for such a long time. and now you've got the opportunity to make it happen.

Yeah. And unfortunately, I did somehow. You can hear all of that interview on BBC Sounds and to miss nothing from TMS, just subscribe to the podcast. You really won't regret it. Somebody was even wearing a t-shirt with your face on it, and I couldn't eat.

You couldn't eat? Hi, Louis Theroux here. I've spent my whole working life trying to find people with interesting stories. It's taken me from high security jails to South African hunting grounds to Las Vegas casinos. But there are still loads of people I've always wanted to talk to, so I've tracked a few of them down for a second series of my podcast, Grounded with Louis Theru. I'll chat to Sia, Ryland, Michaela Cole and more, peeling back the layers to find out who they really are.

I just became a little bit obsessed with it. Grounded with Louis Theroux. Subscribe on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.