Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2022-06-20T16:22:21.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Gogglebox's Steph and Dom discuss how cannabis oil offers new hope for their epileptic son
items: How one BBC doc tracked down this Sottish woman’s lost long family in Sri Lanka
items: Meet the Manchester Arena bomb survivor attending the royal wedding
items: Royal Wedding: BBC presenter Kirsty Young explains the details to look out for
items: A CNN news anchor explains why Americans are so obsessed with Meghan, Harry and the royal wedding
items: Class of Mum and Dad: how a group of adults coped with going back to school
items: The lone cameraman who filmed The Fight for Mosul on the toughest battle of his life
items: Saving Lives at Sea: how a family day out at the beach turned into a fight for life
items: Joanna Lumley on India: A land of tech billionaires and untouchables, breathtaking beauty and giant rats
items: What do Good Morning Britain’s Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid really think of each other?
items: How do you transplant a garden from the Chelsea Flower Show to the roof of a London hospital?
items: The unbelievable coincidence behind the new series of Long Lost Family
items: What is it like to be a divorce mediator?
items: Inside Birmingham Children's Hospital: what would you do to save your child's life?
items: To vape or not to vape: are E-cigarettes a miracle or a menace?
items: Attenborough at 90: Sir David Attenborough picks his favourite four documentaries
items: SAS: Who Dares Wins – what does it take to be an SAS soldier?
items: Alex Jones on being made a Welsh Bard at the National Eisteddfod: "My heritage is very important to me"

Gogglebox's Steph and Dom discuss how cannabis oil offers new hope for their epileptic son
type: item
date: 2019-01-28T11:49:11.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The Channel 4 stars open up about their 18-year-old son's treatment for severe epilepsy
encoded: As fans of Gogglebox know, Dom and Steph Parker are more than familiar with the premise of inviting television cameras into their home. Over the years, viewers have seen no shortage of intimate footage of the husband-and-wife duo, a charismatic pair whose larger-than-life personalities give the clear impression that, in Steph’s words, they “live a very privileged life without a care in the world”. Their latest TV venture shows that assumption to be far from the truth: this time, the cameras reveal a different slice of family life. How did Gogglebox’s Dom propose to Steph? Gogglebox star quits C4 show ‘to pursue a career in TV’ Gogglebox’s June won’t be returning to show after husband Leon’s death The focus is on the couple’s 18-year-old son, Max, who from infancy has had a severe form of epilepsy that can see him experiencing up to 130 seizures a day. The effect on his developing brain has left him with a mental age of five, and alongside the daily distress the couple endure in witnessing their son’s regular fits, they must cope with the knowledge that these seizures bring with them a much higher risk of sudden death, particularly as he gets older. To date, Max’s condition is managed by a cocktail of powerful drugs – but those drugs come with equally powerful side effects. The couple’s discomfort with what Dom calls these ‘‘mind-altering, powerful chemicals” has led them to contemplate giving their son cannabidiol (CBD) oil, a non-intoxicating marijuana extract credited with helping treat a host of medical problems from seizures to anxiety. View oEmbed on the source website Last year, the Government announced that specialist doctors in the UK will legally be able to prescribe cannabis-derived medicinal products, and the documentary follows Steph and Dom as they explore whether medical marijuana will help alleviate their son’s symptoms and give him a better quality of life. The decision to open this journey to the documentary cameras wasn’t easy, however. “It was a t…

steph-and-dom-45fc9d6.jpg
width: 1000
height: 666

How one BBC doc tracked down this Sottish woman’s lost long family in Sri Lanka
type: item
date: 2018-08-17T09:29:22.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: As seen in Searching for Mum, Ria Sloan was born in Sri Lanka but adopted and brought up in Scotland – now she’s trying to find her birth mother…
encoded: If you’re a fan of the TV reunion series Long Lost Family, you’ll know that behind the moving stories of disconnected family members often lies a trail of impeccable record-keeping navigated by the show’s meticulous researchers. For those people who were born thousands of miles away from the UK, however, the challenge of tracing their past frequently proves far more complex. All too often the records that may shed light on their adoption have been lost, destroyed or even faked. And that’s the distressing reality facing four British women as they return to Sri Lanka and India to trace their birth mothers for a moving two-part documentary in the BBC’s Big British Asian Summer starting this week. Everything you need to know about BBC2’s Searching for Mum: Sri Lanka “Shakespeare is so Bollywood”: Anita Rani shares her love for India’s cinema classics Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter View oEmbed on the source website All four were adopted at, or soon after, birth, and raised in the UK – and all are gripped by a longing to know more about their background and meet the mother who gave birth to them. At 27, Ria Sloan is the youngest of the four featured. A chef who lives with her girlfriend Kat near Inverness, Ria had a happy childhood in the Scottish Highlands, raised by parents who adopted her when she was just three weeks old from war-ravaged Sri Lanka via a Dutch adoption agency. “I knew from fairly early on I was adopted,” she says. “I remember asking Dad why I was a different colour, and that’s when he told me I came from Sri Lanka. I didn’t fully understand, but I accepted it. Initially I wasn’t that curious.” That changed as she entered her teenage years. “I was one of the very few Asians at secondary school, so while I’d always stood out, those differences became more obvious. I started to wonder what my life would have been like if I’d stayed in Sri Lanka.” Just a few documents and one photograph connected her to that life: a picture of Ria’s birth m…

15766119-high res-searching-for-mum-342a3c5.jpg
width: 4281
height: 2854

Meet the Manchester Arena bomb survivor attending the royal wedding
type: item
date: 2018-05-19T08:00:26.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Current Affairs
subject: News
subject: TV
description: A year after she was left traumatised by the bomb attack, Amelia Thompson has received a wedding invite from Prince Harry
encoded: Lisa Newton admits that when she received a late-night email informing her that she and her 12-year-old daughter Amelia had been invited to Windsor Castle to be part of the royal wedding, she initially thought it was a hoax. “I read it on my phone and was so shocked that I dropped it on the floor,” she laughs. “I couldn’t believe it was genuine.” The best royal TV specials marking Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding How to watch the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle RadioTimes.com newsletter: get the latest TV and entertainment news direct to your inbox View oEmbed on the source website The email, from the Lord Lieutenant of South Yorkshire, was followed the next day by a phone call from Kensington Palace, at which point Lisa felt confident enough to break the news to her daughter. “Part of me still couldn’t believe it,” she says. “At the end of the day we are just an ordinary family.” Perhaps – albeit one that has been through a terrible ordeal. On 22 May last year, Amelia and her mum were in the crowd at the Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena when a device was detonated, killing 22 people. While Amelia was uninjured, she was left deeply traumatised by the horrendous scenes she witnessed and is still undergoing counselling. “Doing day-to-day stuff is still hard for her,” says her mum. “Going to the shops, to the cinema – in any normal environment you can sense her nerves, she’s questioning and looking.” The bomb trauma came after a difficult few years for Amelia: she had lost her uncle to cancer and her father Wayne has undergone major heart surgery. The concert was meant to be a treat but instead became its own nightmare. Her anguish was so great in the minutes after the explosion that she damaged her vocal cords through screaming. “Her screams of fear left her unable to speak properly for weeks,” says Lisa. “She required intensive speech therapy to help regain her voice. More than that, the bombing really changed her. She was always very…

horse-b342f83.jpg
width: 1000
height: 668

Royal Wedding: BBC presenter Kirsty Young explains the details to look out for
type: item
date: 2018-05-19T06:51:14.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Current Affairs
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The host also talks about the difficulties fronting the six-hour broadcast marathon – and why Harry and Meghan are "showing a rather different way of being royal"
encoded: As any live-broadcast presenter will testify, it’s not always possible to know quite what will unfold once the cameras start to roll. Kirsty Young does know one thing, though: ahead of a six-hour broadcast marathon as one of the anchors of the BBC’s live coverage of the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle, she will be getting her hair done at the crack of dawn. “There will be an early call time, so I will definitely be at the hairdresser’s very early in the morning,” she laughs. Until the conclusion of the carriage procession after the wedding, it will be Young – alongside Dermot O’Leary – who will present the BBC’s coverage of a wedding that will be watched around the world. How to watch the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Meet the winner of our competition to design the Radio Times Royal Wedding cover Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter View oEmbed on the source website Huw Edwards, at his post on the roof of the Guard Room of St George’s Chapel, will describe the wedding ceremony itself. While cameras from all the main UK broadcasters will be positioned along the route of the procession, only BBC cameras are allowed inside the chapel. They will then feed pictures to other broadcasters, both in the UK and globally, who in turn will be jostling for position outside. “I thank God I’m not at the logistics end of things – the broadcast presence from around the world will be phenomenal,” says Young. “I heard that one American channel alone is sending over 15 anchors!” The royal wedding is certainly a “big gig” – not that Young isn’t used to those. Although, as she quickly points out, “Often big gigs can be dramatic news stories. The lovely thing about this is that it’s something joyful.” Both joyful and informal – relatively, at least: the usual pomp and ceremony notwithstanding, this is a royal occasion that is parting from tradition, so it seems fitting that Young and O’Leary have been charged with providing the main BBC television com…

harry-meg-3ff7f0a.jpg
width: 620
height: 414

A CNN news anchor explains why Americans are so obsessed with Meghan, Harry and the royal wedding
type: item
date: 2018-05-17T13:20:06.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Current Affairs
subject: News
subject: TV
description: From the glamour to "the diversity question", CNN's Richard Quest talks through what's made the royal event so popular across the Atlantic
encoded: It’s being dubbed the friendly invasion – scores and scores of American journalists and broadcasters over here to witness one of their own getting married into the British royal family. Celebrated news anchor and reporter for America’s CNN channel, Richard Quest, is no stranger to covering big British royal events. The Queen Mother’s funeral, the Diamond Jubilee and the wedding of Prince William and Catherine all saw him in London reporting back to an eager American public. How to watch the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Meet the winner of our competition to design the Radio Times Royal Wedding cover Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter Most observers believe the US audience figures for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding will outstrip the 23 million who watched Prince William tie the knot in 2011. View oEmbed on the source website Quest confirms the interest from across the Atlantic is huge. “Harry may be a more distant heir to the throne but he’s extremely popular in the US, and never more so since he chose to marry an American. “So even though this won’t be the big set-piece occasion – it’s not Westminster Abbey, not the ‘full monty’ – people are still excited about the royal prince and the girl from LA. I was in Miami last week and people were stopping me to ask me about it.” What he calls an “invasion” of US broadcasters – CNN alone is deploying a staff of more than 30 – is, in part, a response to the desire of their viewers for light relief. “There’s so much tough, difficult news at the moment that, rightly or wrongly, everyone has latched onto this wedding for a bit of glamour. The public see her as a real-life American princess.” Their interest is also fuelled by what Quest calls “the diversity question”. He says: “It’s an issue that reaches almost obsessional levels in the USA, and while of course it’s awful that we’re still talking about this in 2018, there are undeniably deep race issues in the US today, so Meghan’s African…

GettyImages-906665940-1-3fb2068.jpg
width: 3425
height: 2334

Class of Mum and Dad: how a group of adults coped with going back to school
type: item
date: 2018-04-10T08:00:39.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: 17 parents were sent back to the classroom for a C4 documentary. One of the returning student tells us what he got out of the experience
encoded: With documentary cameras now, seemingly, ever present in school classrooms, it was only a matter of time before a broadcaster came up with a twist on the observational format. Cue Channel 4’s Class of Mum and Dad, which sees 17 parents – and one grandparent – form their own class at Blackrod Primary School in Bolton and study the year six curriculum (for 10- to 11-year-olds). The six-week-long experiment – in which the parents wore school uniform and were subjected to the same rules – would horrify many people, but not Bill Bones. Instead, the 70-year-old grandfather to Jessica, nine, and five-year-old Jack, jumped at what he calls a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to experience what happens behind the school gates. New on Netflix: the best movies and TV shows released every day Everything coming to Netflix in April 2018 View oEmbed on the source website “My wife Gloria and I have always been hands-on grandparents and, since my stepdaughter passed away two years ago at the age of 34 from cancer, the children have stayed with us several nights a week,” he says. “I’ve always helped them with their homework, and as a school governor I pride myself on having a good overview of the school, but there’s no better way to really get a sense of how somewhere works than to immerse yourself: sitting in the odd lesson doesn’t give you a full picture.” Bill’s own school days, of course, are a long way behind him. His time at a Staffordshire primary in the 1950s was not a happy one. “I was a bright boy but I had an awful stammer, which meant I struggled to get my voice heard,” he says. “No one tried to tackle the stammer and it meant I was also bullied quite badly.” Discipline was also harsh – and frequently administered. “It was the era of the cane and the hurled blackboard rubber and I was on the receiving end of both, often for fairly minor infractions like not concentrating properly,” he says. He left school at 15 with little in the way of qualifications, although he went on …

Class-of-Mum-and-Dad-Bill-Grandad-and-Grandchild-Jessica-and-Jack-50-copy-9225e5a.jpg
width: 3000
height: 2000

The lone cameraman who filmed The Fight for Mosul on the toughest battle of his life
type: item
date: 2017-11-07T10:01:36.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Battle-scarred filmmaker Olivier Sarbil was embedded with Iraqi special forces as they took on Isis, and captured the brutality and the humanity of war
encoded: In the opening moments of The Fight for Mosul, a fly on the wall documentary about the ferocious nine month battle to reclaim the Iraqi city from Isis, a window is blown in by gunfire and one soldier narrowly avoids being killed. The message is clear: the viewer is not to be spared the brutal reality of urban combat in a film which gives us almost unprecedented access to the front line, captured by one lone cameraman Olivier Sarbil. Sarbil is no stranger to warfare, having covered conflicts all over the world from Mali and the Ukraine to Syria and Libya – where he was horribly injured as he filmed the 2011 battle for Sirte. Caught in the blast of an RPG, his face, leg and arm were torn to shreds and he spent eight months in hospital. Yet Sarbil says that it was Mosul which proved to be his most punishing mission yet. Embedded with a ten strong Iraqi special forces team for weeks at a time over nine months he slept and ate alongside them as they moved from one house to the next – some abandoned, some occupied by civilians– narrowly escaping injury himself among the car bombs, snipers and suicide bombers that were the daily reality of life in the beleaguered city. His extraordinary access allowed him to capture the ferocious reality of the fight to take back the city of Mosul, but also the more intimate moments of life behind the front line. Without a translator, and speaking no Arabic it was an often lonely quest, but one Sarbil felt was vital. "We’ve tried to get something different with this film – something more visceral," he says. "So yes, we see the horrible reality of battle, but we also see the soldiers talking to their girlfriends, taking a smoke. "I think it’s rare to see Arab fighters portrayed in this way. I wanted to show that they were the same as any other soldier – that they live like us, they love like us, they suffer like us." What gave you the idea for this film? A few months earlier I had met the squadron’s captain Anmar in Fallujah. He spoke a lit…

1-c662624.jpg
width: 3000
height: 1688

Saving Lives at Sea: how a family day out at the beach turned into a fight for life
type: item
date: 2017-08-16T08:00:00.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Ben Biltcliffe and his daughter Grace are just two of many who are saved by RNLI lifeboat crews every year
encoded: Desperately clutching on to his 11-year-old daughter Grace as they were buffeted by waves nearly a mile from the shore, Ben Biltcliffe had a terrifying thought. “It struck me that perhaps no one was coming,” he recalls. “It was a frightening and lonely moment.” By then Ben had been treading water in the freezing North Sea for nearly an hour after going to his daughter’s rescue when she was caught in a riptide that swept her – and then him – out to sea. In fact help was on its way in the form of an RNLI lifeboat crew, who undertook a dramatic rescue amid the wind and waves. A few minutes later, Ben believes, and it may have been too late. His experience – one of several shown in Saving Lives at Sea, the returning documentary series looking at the RNLI’s vital work – underlines how quickly a sunny afternoon by the sea can so nearly end in tragedy. It’s something Ben, 47, from Bedale, North Yorkshire, now knows only too well. In the late summer of 2015, together with Grace, his former partner Alannah and their 12-year-old son Peter, he was enjoying a family afternoon on the beach at Robin Hood’s Bay on the north-east coast, without an inkling of the dangers in the water. He recalls how his daughter was holding his hand as they jumped up and down in the waves. “She then let go of me, although she was still within arm’s reach,” Ben recalls now. “But the next thing I saw was that she’d gone and was being pushed along.” Unbeknown to Ben, Grace had been caught in a riptide, an unpredictable current that moves directly away from the shore – and as he went after his daughter, he was also caught up in it. “The sand was disappearing from beneath my feet with every step I took – it was like walking up an egg timer,” he says. “When I reached Grace it was up to my chest, and you could feel the force underneath.” At this point, relatively unperturbed, Ben told his daughter they would have to swim to shore – only to find they couldn’t. “I quickly realised that we weren’t going in, w…

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2017/08/145580.ae83f9b2-45f7-4d1c-ad00-01d806aa458d.jpg
width: 4281
height: 2855

Joanna Lumley on India: A land of tech billionaires and untouchables, breathtaking beauty and giant rats
type: item
date: 2017-07-05T12:50:00.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: Travel
subject: TV
description: Lumley, who was born in Kashmir, discovers the country in a new three-part series on ITV
encoded: Joanna Lumley loves India but she also knows her limits. Asked to front a new three-part series about the country, she wondered whether she could do it justice. “You could spend six million years and you wouldn’t get anywhere near really understanding India,” she says. “It’s elusive, forever changing.” The actress is better placed than many to understand this: she was born in Srinagar, Kashmir, in the last days of the Raj and her family ties go back several generations. It allows her to bring a personal touch to a series in which, criss-crossing this vast nation, she explores India’s extraordinary diversity and contradictions in the year it marks the 70th anniversary of its independence. Joanna and her older sister Aelene were largely raised in rural Kent – to which the Lumley family returned from India just after partition – but grew up listening to stories of their parents’ colonial life amid the mountains and clear air of Kashmir. Their father, Major James Lumley, had served with the 6th Gurkha Rifles, and while his memories were coloured by his experiences in Burma during the war, there were many happy, colourful expat tales of polo, dogs and horses. “There were these heavenly stories, like the one about a parade where suddenly the General’s horse decided to go backwards through the marching troops,” Lumley, 71, recalls. “Daddy would cry with laughter telling it.” Meanwhile, her mother Thya had grown up enjoying life as a diplomat’s daughter in Sikkim, in the north east, where Joanna’s maternal grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel James Weir, was political officer. While she was educated in England, Thya spent her formative years at the Governer’s Lodge in Sikkim’s capital, Gangtok. While filming, Lumley was able to visit her mother’s childhood home, catching a glimpse of the exact spot where the eight-year-old Thya is captured astride her beloved pony in a treasured black and white photograph. “Some things have changed – the trees have grown, there are more building…

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2017/07/142312.124c8f50-af40-4fd3-a7b5-d2b47c741b80.jpg
width: 4608
height: 2592

What do Good Morning Britain’s Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid really think of each other?
type: item
date: 2016-11-21T08:12:00.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Current Affairs
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Is their breakfast TV partnership really a "great unrequited love story", as Morgan tells it?
encoded: ITV has a history of landing big-name, big-bucks stars to add substance to its early morning breakfast offering. Who can forget the ill-starred Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley – both poached from the BBC – who sank without trace in 2011? So when Piers Morgan joined the other BBC defector Susanna Reid on the Good Morning Britain sofa a year ago, there were some cynics who believed he might not go the distance. View oEmbed on the source website Could their breezy, sometimes flirty, on-screen demeanour win over viewers from the rival BBC show, where the boyishly enthusiastic Dan Walker has filled the shoes of Mr Dependable, Bill Turnbull? So far, so as you were. ITV says its audience is steady at around 600,000, where it was when Morgan arrived, whereas BBC Breakfast is still getting a daily average of 1.5 million viewers. Morgan and Reid reflect on the past 12 months in our special RT “bedroom” – though we should make clear that even the twin beds were a bit too close for Reid’s comfort! Piers Morgan: Susanna, what’s the secret of our magical on-screen chemistry? Susanna Reid: I knew you’d start with that. I think it’s because you’re a very opinionated, dynamic, disruptive, divisive figure, and left to your own devices you would probably career out of control. You’re a mini-tornado, and I play the role of... Piers: Compliant wife? Susanna: Interested observer. Also timekeeper, hurricane watcher, ruffled-feathers smoother and legal adviser. So I’m the belt and braces, with a dash of humour and – I hope – my own contribution journalistically. Piers: I’d describe it as alpha male meets queen bee – although I don’t need a legal adviser, by the way, I’ve never been successfully sued. What I like is we have journalistic rigour. And I knew we’d get on when in my first week, moments before we went on air, you said, “God, I’ve got legs like a pit pony.’’ Susanna: I really do, sadly. What do you find irritating about me, though? Piers: Actually not much. I am definitely mo…

123009.jpg
width: 800
height: 482

How do you transplant a garden from the Chelsea Flower Show to the roof of a London hospital?
type: item
date: 2016-11-10T09:00:00.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Ahead of DIY SOS at Great Ormond Street Hospital, a garden designer, a mover and fixer, and a clinical nurse reveal what it took to build a magic garden
encoded: Chris Beardshaw, garden designer: "It was the boiler house roof" I’ve always believed gardens should be transformative spaces, but when I first stared down on the space that would eventually become the Great Ormond Street Hospital garden it was about as uninspiring as it’s possible to be. There, in the centre of the hospital, surrounded by high buildings with very little natural sunlight, was the grey flat roof of the old boiler house. One of the great lessons in gardening is to look around and see what’s growing naturally because that will indicate the growing conditions. On this roof there was nothing but air conditioning units. Nonetheless, I was inspired to create something that would, in a small way, help people going through some of the most difficult times in their life. The sponsor, Morgan Stanley, set a demanding brief – a permanent roof garden at the hospital, but first it had to be displayed at the Chelsea Flower Show. In truth, showing at Chelsea had to be a secondary concern, although it gave me a date to work towards: a year from conception to delivery of both projects. The shady, windless, rather humid environment immediately directed the scheme towards a woodland garden of dappled shade, varied leaf texture under-storey and jewels of blooms. Japanese maples, with their delicate foliage, form the centrepiece while buildings are masked by pruned hornbeam, oak and pear trees. Overall, I wanted to ensure people saw something different each time they ventured outside – the way the light was catching the trees, seasonal blooms or frost on stems. A lot of the design challenge, though, was dictated by what you can’t see. The roof wasn’t designed to be weight-bearing, which in turn dictated the placement of each of the three-tonne trees, as each had to be supported by a weight-bearing column. And everything had to be lifted over the hospital buildings by crane. The whole project was a monumental challenge. Occasionally, when we were on site, I’d forget where …

122370.jpg
width: 1342
height: 896

The unbelievable coincidence behind the new series of Long Lost Family
type: item
date: 2016-07-13T06:00:00.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell explain how one case in the tear-jerking reunion show was a million-to-one shot
encoded: Sometimes in TV programme-making, the natural order of events is turned on its head by a moment of serendipity – something so unexpected and surprising it leaves those working on the programme slack-jawed in disbelief. Such a moment occurred during the making of ITV’s Bafta award-winning Long Lost Family, which returns this week. Thirty thousand people have contacted the show since its launch in 2011. But researchers investigating appeals for this latest series realised that two people who had written in entirely independently were actually searching for the same person. Cliff, a 54-year-old Devon taxi driver and Sue, a 51-year-old grandmother from Portsmouth, were entirely unaware of the existence of the other. Both had been adopted, and both had spent most of their adult lives searching for their birth mother. That search led to them writing in to Long Lost Family at almost exactly the same time. Only detective work by the show’s researchers – and a subsequent DNA test - uncovered the fact that they were looking for the same woman and they were half-siblings. It’s a scenario that left not just them but both the show’s presenters Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell reeling. “What are the chances of that happening?” McCall asks now. “Not only that they applied at the same time but that the same researcher read both application forms and saw the similarities? Without that they would never have done the DNA test and they would never have found out that they were looking for the same person.” The new siblings’ reunion proves joyful, yet ultimately bittersweet. While researchers did manage to trace their mother she didn’t want to be put back in touch - the pain of reconciliation apparently greater than the pain of separation. “It’s devastating for them, but they respect her choice,” says Campbell. That news is delivered off-camera, and isn’t addressed in the programme, although the cameras are rolling when the siblings meet. As always, the two presenters absent themselves …

112337.jpg
width: 620
height: 374

What is it like to be a divorce mediator?
type: item
date: 2016-06-21T09:25:00.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Who gets the dog? Long-time mediator Irene Jackson on how you can avoid pricey lawyers fees if you pick mediation instead
encoded: This week TV cameras go behind the scenes of the UK’s family mediation services, where warring couples attempt to settle their differences instead of taking them to court. Here Irene Jackson, a mediator for nine years who features in the series, gives an insight into her work... The main bones of contention are property, money and access to children. Whatever the issue, it generally boils down to the fact that one person thinks they are entitled to something and the other person thinks they’re not. The focus varies: some couples will say they can’t even think about money until arrangements for the children have been sorted, others are completely in tune about where their children should live and with whom, and it is all about the pounds, shillings and pence. The family pet can also be divisive. Dogs in particular carry a lot of importance for some people, even when there are children in the family. Emotions can run just as high. The timing of mediation is important. Ideally you don’t want to work with anyone whose relationship has just ended because often there is a disparity between how each half feels. There isn’t an optimum time but ideally you are talking months – sometimes even years – as opposed to weeks. I never underestimate how hard it is for couples to be there. When people come into mediation we are asking them to do something that is actually really alien to them. Sometimes they have just grown apart but more often than not something horrid has happened in their relationship, so the last thing anyone wants to do is sit in a room with that other person and talk amicably about how they are going to resolve their future lives. People get fraught, upset and frustrated – but it’s rarely directed at us. No matter how angry people are they do understand you are trying to support them through a difficult time. I have never felt threatened. The only slightly hairy situation I have encountered is when, on one occasion, a guy got so worked up that I genuinely thoug…

111003.jpg
width: 620
height: 374

Inside Birmingham Children's Hospital: what would you do to save your child's life?
type: item
date: 2016-06-09T13:02:00.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: New Channel 4 documentary series tells the story of Christopher Tobey, who went through life-threatening surgery to help his son Charlie
encoded: Most parents will do anything for their children. For Christopher Tobey, however, that sentiment was put to the test when he learnt that his teenage son Charlie faced death if he didn’t receive a liver transplant. As there was a desperate shortage of donors, Chris was told that Charlie’s only chance was for him to become a living donor, giving a section of his liver via high-risk surgery that had no guarantee of success. Here, Chris (53) and Charlie (15) from Woolhope, Herefordshire, who feature in Channel 4's new documentary series Inside Birmingham Children's Hospital, tell their story. THE DAD’S STORY Sometimes, a few words can change everything. In my case they were: “We could just take some of yours and give it to him,” uttered by the doctor who was looking after my desperately ill 14-year-old son Charlie. He needed a liver transplant, but with a shortage of donors his chances were looking grim. I knew instantly that I would do it, despite the fact that I’ve always harboured a deep fear of going under the knife. To be honest, I’d do anything for him. Charlie had liver problems at birth. His mother – my wife, Rachel – had contracted autoimmune hepatitis when she was pregnant, which had passed on to Charlie in the womb. Days after his birth we were told that without a transplant our beautiful newborn son had just a week to live. Looking back, I don’t really know how we dealt with it. All you can do is try to focus on the positive, because the alternative is just too horrible to contemplate. We were lucky: Charlie received a new liver when he was two weeks old, and doctors told us that if he took his anti-rejection drugs he should recover well. And he did. As the years went by, Charlie grew into a clever, bright and sporty boy with a love of rugby and cricket. Of course, you never fully relax when your child has been severely ill, but Rachel and I also knew that we couldn’t wrap him in cotton wool, and it got easier as he got older. Then, a few years ago, Charlie …

110167.jpg
width: 620
height: 374

To vape or not to vape: are E-cigarettes a miracle or a menace?
type: item
date: 2016-05-22T12:00:00.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Michael Mosley has never smoked – but for a new Horizon documentary, he's taken up vaping
encoded: Michael Mosley has never taken so much as an experimental puff on a cigarette. “When I was about ten, Dad told my older brother and me that if we didn’t smoke before 18, he’d give us 100 quid,” he says. “It worked.” He never took up smoking – so he was puzzled when he was asked to front a new Horizon documentary examining the phenomenon of e-cigarettes, and which called for its presenter to try them for a month to investigate the consequences. “My initial reaction was that it would be better to ask a smoker,” Mosley admits. But in fact his unblemished lungs made him a good choice, providing a chance to test out the effects of “vaping” on healthy volunteers, a study that, as far as he knew, had not been done before. But there has long been uncertainty surrounding e-cigarettes. Currently used by around two million Brits, they have exploded in popularity in the past decade. Yet they are banned in some countries (it’s unlawful to sell or possess them for personal use in Australia, for example), amid widespread concern that they would have a broader appeal than merely as a tool to quit smoking, while experts remain divided about their safety. “When I started looking into it some studies suggested it was as dangerous as smoking,” Mosley says. There are currently one billion smokers globally, and as many as half will die of smoking-related diseases. “If I was looking at the two greatest epidemics in the world today, they would be smoking and obesity. The scale of tobacco consumption and the amount of damage it’s doing is a world epidemic. People tend to think about lung cancer, but actually there’s so much else – heart disease and strokes, because basically smoking buggers up your arteries and veins. It’s the number one cause of impotence, too. Basically it hits every system in the body.” Yet people find it hard to do what it takes to address their habit, though they know continuing can create potentially catastrophic consequences. “Just telling people to stop smoking is c…

108617.jpg
width: 620
height: 374

Attenborough at 90: Sir David Attenborough picks his favourite four documentaries
type: item
date: 2016-05-07T07:26:00.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The broadcaster has chosen four of his favourite films to show the nation again for his 90th birthday
encoded: As with many people who are approaching a landmark birthday, David Attenborough is struggling to reconcile himself to the sheer number of candles on his celebratory cake. Although he’s marking the occasion with a birthday lunch at his Richmond home with extended family, he acknowledges that the number itself still doesn’t seem real: “I don’t believe it, actually, and all I can say is I’m aware that I’ve been fantastically lucky. I have relatives and friends who are my age who can’t remember anything, who can’t move, and the fact that I can do both of those to some degree is just unbelievably fortunate.” In fact, his memory remains not just intact but forensically sharp, as he demonstrates while discussing his “passion projects” – four programmes he’s personally chosen from his vast back catalogue, and that are to be reshown on BBC2, this Saturday and next. They span several decades and, he believes, all stand up to modern scrutiny. “There are things you’d do differently on modern apparatus that you didn’t have back then, but not much, actually. Nothing’s perfect, but one or two of them you think, 'Well, yeah, that wasn't bad.'" 1. The Lost Gods of Easter Island (2000) Saturday 7.30pm BBC2 (not N Ireland) When Attenborough purchased a strange wooden figurine at a New York auction in the 1990s, it was initially merely a source of private curiosity. “I’ve always enjoyed collecting things, and this was a very strange figure that the auction catalogue said was from Easter Island,” he recalls. “But the estimate led me to suppose that the auctioneers thought it was a fake. I thought it was better than that.” His conviction sparked a personal quest that, ultimately, led him to the belief that the figurine had been handled by none other than Captain Cook in 1771. “How could you possibly prove that? Well, this programme is how we try. And along the way it took us to one of the most remote civilisations on Earth.” 2. A Blank on the Map (1971) View oEmbed on the source website …

107498.jpg
width: 620
height: 374

SAS: Who Dares Wins – what does it take to be an SAS soldier?
type: item
date: 2015-10-19T06:00:00.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Former special forces serviceman Colin Maclachlan reveals the gruelling tests of the SAS selection process – and what happened when he put 30 novices to the test for Channel 4
encoded: Asked about the most vital qualities required to be an SAS soldier, Colin Maclachlan doesn’t hesitate. “Everyone talks about the physical aspect of being in the SAS but to me that’s twenty percent of it,” he says. “The majority of it is about mental robustness. Give me a guy who’s got that over a guy who’s twice as fit any day of the week.” He should know: during seven years serving with Special Forces, Maclachlan, 41, has been on the frontline in some of the most dangerous and testing territory in the world, deployed in highly risky operations everywhere from Afghanistan and the Balkans to Northern Ireland and Iraq – the latter three times. Recently, though, Maclachlan has found himself in an altogether different role – this time on camera. Together with a group of other former Special Forces servicemen, he put a group of 30 civilian rookies through their paces as they undertook a series of gruelling tests from the SAS selection process for a new Channel 4 series. Former SAS serviceman Colin Maclachlan It’s not for the faint-hearted: SAS selection is widely acknowledged as one of the most physically challenging and psychologically demanding military entrance processes in the world, and the show – described by Channel 4 as the toughest of its kind ever broadcast – doesn’t shy away from its excesses. Using exact replicas of the selection process tests, in Maclachlan’s words, it “strips these candidates bare so you can see what’s at the very core. “It shows the whole process. It’s not just, ‘He can jump out of a plane, he can survive under interrogation,’ it’s looking at all the competencies.” These included so-called “sickeners”, a punishing full day of exercises with a number of false endings and a “tunnel and kidnap” task, in which they are “kidnapped” by hooded special forces and taken to a room when they are exposed to barking dogs and simulated beatings. They’re tests Maclachlan knows all too well. He joined Special Forces in 1999, ten years after enrolling with…

rt-comp-thanks-placeholder-8fd64dd.jpg
width: 800
height: 600

Alex Jones on being made a Welsh Bard at the National Eisteddfod: "My heritage is very important to me"
type: item
date: 2015-08-18T09:00:00.000Z
creator: Isobel James
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: Reality TV
subject: TV
description: “It’s an enormous honour," says The One Show host, "my family are beside themselves with excitement"
encoded: Alex Jones is aware that what she’s trying to describe sounds, in her own words, “a bit mad”. “For someone who hasn’t been brought up with it, I appreciate that it sounds totally bizarre,” she laughs. “It” being the National Eisteddfod, the celebration of Welsh language and culture that takes place each August, and more specifically her induction into the Gorsedd of the Bards in a ceremony performed by the Archdruid. Even if it does sound bizarre, Jones, 38, couldn’t be more thrilled. “It’s a huge thing for me. Huge,” she smiles. “It’s an enormous honour and my family are beside themselves with excitement.” Dating back to 1792 and made up of poets, writers, musicians and artists who have made a distinguished contribution to Welsh culture, the Gorsedd features among its number opera singer Bryn Terfel and ex-Welsh rugby star Gareth Edwards. For a woman who is a fluent Welsh speaker you have to be to join the Bards – and fiercely proud of her Carmarthenshire upbringing, join- ing such esteemed company is “the cherry on the cake” of her career. As presenter of The One Show, Jones may now call London home but Wales is where her heart is: “Although I moved from Wales five years ago, it’s still a massive part of my life. My heritage is very important to me.” Jones recalls, as a girl, how she, sister Jennie and parents Mary and Alun would all pile into the family’s orange caravanette to attend the Eisteddfod whenever they could. For an otherwise painfully shy girl the festival also offered the chance to try her hand at performance. “Each school would have to produce a short musical. You’d compete in the county and if you won, you’d compete nationally to perform at the festival itself. If you won overall and got to take part – well, it was joyous.” Her school won plenty of times, which gave her parents many sightings of their otherwise apparently reserved daughter on stage. “It really bought me out of my shell,” she adds. “Really, the Eisteddfod set me on the path that led …