Unexpected educational journeys: the journalist Datshiane Navanayagam speaks to the first female head teacher in the 500 year history of Magdalen College School in Oxford.

The journalist Datshiane Navanayagam had a challenging childhood punctuated by periods of homelessness but she was always expected to achieve academically. She won a bursary to a private school which led her onto Cambridge University. As a result she's fascinated by the transformative role education can have. For One to One she's speaking to three people who have been on unexpected educational journeys.

Today she meets Helen Pike. Born in Preston and educated entirely in the state sector, Helen Pike has almost exclusively worked in private schools and has just been appointed as the first female head teacher in the 500 year history of the independent Magdalen College School. At one stage she was the head teacher of the school that Datshiane attended (although not while Datshiane was there). They speak about background, confidence and breaking boundaries. 

Producer: Karen Gregor. Published on July 19, 2016.

Datshiane Navanayagam speaks to Helen Pike

For his One to One series, Sir Trevor McDonald explores the idea of redemption, talking to two very different people with very different ideas on what it means. 

This week a former maximum security prisoner talks about finding redemption through sport. Former armed robber John McAvoy once shared a wing with convicted terrorist Abu Hamza in Belmarsh Prison. His life was going nowhere but then he discovered rowing in the prison gym and went on to break the world record for indoor rowing. Now he's a semi professional tri-athlete seeking to inspire other young people who risk becoming offenders.

Producer: Maggie Ayre. Published on October 25, 2016.

Trevor McDonald on Redemption

Miranda Rae is a single mum with a young son who is 9 years old. Life is far from easy for any single parent, but in this programme Miranda meets mother-of-three, Josephine Pepper, who found herself on her own with 3 children under the age of three, when her husband died of cancer. Despite her grief at the death of her husband, Josephine's story is one of remarkable courage, resilience and joy in her children and in life itself. Producer Sarah Blunt. Published on November 15, 2016.

Miranda Rae on the challenges of being a single parent (1/3)

Television executive Peter Bazalgette examines empathy. He talks to primatologist Frans de Waal, whose pioneering work with chimpanzees has helped to illuminate how our own evolutionary history suggests a deep-rooted propensity, both emotional and cognitive, for feeling the emotions of others. 1/3. Published on December 6, 2016.

Peter Bazalgette on Empathy

For personal reasons, the journalist and broadcaster Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, has chosen to explore the impact of divorce on families for 'One to One'.

Yasmin divorced over twenty years ago, and - although happily re-married - often contemplates the fall-out of divorce, and the resulting emotional ripples which inevitably reach further than the separating couple. In these programmes she's hearing the stories of a grandparent, a parent and a young person who have all lived through a family break-up

So far Yasmin has spoken to a grandmother who hasn't seen her granddaughter for four years, and to the author, Louis de Bernieres, who is patron of Families Need Fathers.

This week she speaks to 18 year old Megan, who describes the experience of living through her parents' divorce.

The charity Young Minds put us in touch with Megan. Their website is www.youngminds.org.uk and Megan is part of the Young Minds VIK (Very Important Kids) project.

Young Minds has a Parents' Helpline which is for any adult who is concerned about the mental health or wellbeing of any child or young adult. It's free to call and the number is 0808 802 5544 (Monday to Friday 9.30am-4pm)

Producer: Karen Gregor. Published on March 6, 2012.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown with Megan

The journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed is taking over the One to One interviewer's microphone for the next three weeks. 

Samira has spent 20 years reporting breaking news at home and abroad from Britain to Los Angeles to Berlin. Born to Hindu and Muslim parents and educated at a Catholic school, Samira married into a Northern Irish family. As a result, she's aware of the way news coverage can make sweeping assumptions about stories and tries to seek out the missing angles behind the headlines. 

With that in mind, her first guest, Lucy Mathen, tells a tale of charitable endeavour, with a surprising twist.

Lucy Mathen joined John Craven's Newsround in 1976, becoming the BBC's first female British Asian to present a major TV programme. Several years later, after interviewing a local doctor in Afghanistan, she decided she could achieve a great deal more in a warzone by working as a doctor, not as a journalist. So she retrained as an ophthalmologist, and in 2000 launched the charity Second Sight which runs eye hospitals in northern India helping to cure cataracts for thousands of people.

But the story we're telling in One to One is about football....

Producer: Karen Gregor. Published on March 13, 2012.

Samira Ahmed with Lucy Mathen

Paddy O'Connell explores a subject that reflects his own experience: the effect of great emotional upheaval on family life. 

When Paddy was 11 his father died, and in this week's programme -- in order to explore what impact this can have -- he meets Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green who, at the age of 10, lost his own father. Almost immediately he decided that, when he grew up, he would become a doctor so that other children "didn't have to lose their mummies and daddies". 

This passion for helping children has continued throughout his career: Sir Al was the first Children's Commissioner for England (2005-2010), having also been involved in the political arena of Children's Services since 2000. He was appointed Chair of the NHS Taskforce for Children and then the first National Clinical Director for Children in government. He believes strongly that the topic of childhood bereavement should be spoken about more openly. 

Producer: Karen Gregor. Published on September 4, 2012.

04/09/2012

Paddy O'Connell has taken over the One to One interviewer's microphone to explore a subject that reflects his own experience: the effect of great emotional upheaval on family life.

Paddy lost his father when he was 11, and in last week's programme he met Sir Al Aynsley-Green whose career was shaped by the early loss of his own father.

This week's programme takes a slightly different tack as Paddy meets Lisa Cherry, whose childhood was spent in the Care System.

Born in a home for unmarried mothers, her childhood was spent moving from foster home to care home and a spell of homelessness. Eventually Lisa managed to get control of her spiralling life - giving up drinking and getting an education was the making of her. 

producer: Karen Gregor. Published on September 11, 2012.

11/09/2012

Kate Silverton wanted desperately to be a journalist from the age of 12. In her teens she travelled extensively - hitch-hiking across Israel and visiting the Palestinian territories in an attempt to better understand the conflict there, she stayed in a Bedouin in the desert and at nineteen went to Zimbabwe for four months armed with just a dictaphone to capture the stories of the people she met along the way. Despite her natural curiosity about the world and her desire to report stories of people living in conflict she didn't follow her heart because she feared she might fail. As the first in her family to go to university much depended on her and her career choice and she opted to enter the City as a Corporate Financier - a demanding job but one that diverted from her doing the one thing she wanted to do - because she feared she might not be good enough.It took the death of her best friend to convince her to change her mind. In the first of this two part series for One to One Kate talks to composer Raymond Yiu who despite his love for music at an early age, his strict parental upbringing stopped him from pursuing this as a career as he thought he wasn't good enough.

Presenter: Kate Silverton
Producer : Perminder Khatkar. Published on October 9, 2012.

09/10/2012

In this series, where journalists follow their personal passions by talking to the people whose stories interest them most, Martin Wainwright interviews persistent campaigners. Having been brought up in a household that was always at action stations as part of his father's long campaign to become a Liberal MP, perseverance has always fascinated Martin. What instils it? What nurtures it? Can it become an obsession at the cost of everything else , including family?
In this first programme he talks to Lindis Percy, now approaching seventy, she's been a political campaigner for some forty years, for the last thirty of them on the issue of American airbases in the UK. Lindis has been arrested five hundred times and served fifteen prison terms but she continues to campaign undeterred. Under the banner of the Campaign for the Accountability of American Airbases she still demonstrated every Tuesday outside the base at Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire.
Martin joins her there to discover what still inspires her to lobby and litigate when so many of her fellow peace campaigners have fallen by the way side. As a mother of three and a lifelong worker in the National Health Service, how has she managed to juggle her campaigning with family and professional life?
Producer: Lucy Lunt. Published on January 8, 2013.

Martin Wainwright talks to Lindis Percy

One to One - A series of interview programmes in which well respected broadcasters follow their personal passions by talking to the people whose stories interest them most.

BBC One to One

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