Anne Hegerty: ‘Quizzing is easy, household tasks are the hard bit’

30th September 2022

bbc.co.uk/accessall

Access All – episode 19

 

Presented by Nikki Fox and Emma Tracey

 SFX: Beep

NIKKI-           Hi guys, it’s only me. Just to let you know I’ve been driving around the block for about five or so minutes because the bloody, there’s no disabled bays. Well there are, there are eight, and they’re all taken, bar two which have been taken up by a massive van that’s doing deliveries. So, Libby’s just trying to track the offending driver down so that we can park there. But yeah, I’ll be as quick as I can. All right guys, see you.

MUSIC-         Theme music.

NIKKI-           Hi guys.

EMMA-         Hi.

NIKKI-           It’s a single yellow line. If he’s doing a delivery plonk your arse on a single yellow. I can’t see myself; do I look all right?

LIBBY-          You look lovely.

EMMA-         You look fantastic.

NIKKI-           Emma, I love that, but you’re blind.

LIBBY-          Nikki!

EMMA-         She’s right though. She’s right.   

NIKKI-           She’s right.

EMMA-         Nikki, you made it.

NIKKI-           I made it, finally. I mean, I’m not always the most punctual, am I Emma, but I do try.

EMMA-         I think it’s always access reasons though. I think it’s usually issues around getting the car in, or getting out of the car. Or you had a hoist broken last week, didn’t you?

NIKKI-           I did. Oh my goodness, yeah I did, and it was stuck right out of my boot. I couldn’t even drive the car. Honestly, Emma, basically I’m always late because I’m disabled. Libby, she doesn’t stand for any of it. Actually I think it was quite an easy one, she asked, she said, ‘Look are you going to move? Because my boss needs to park there’. And he moved. We are quite lucky in London where I’m working. I know you’re in Edinburgh, but we’ve got like eight disabled bays around near where we work, and that is, as you know, unheard of. In London you’re lucky if you find one. But the van was straddling two of them.

EMMA-         And there were people in the other six?

NIKKI-           Yeah. I was eyeing up the badges. I was checking. I was like, that’s when I get really Mean Nikki, Mean Fox, grr.

EMMA-         If you’ve got a blue badge you’re allowed to park there.

NIKKI-           Yeah. If you haven’t, back off love. Anyway, we’ve got to make up time now. On with the show, Emma.

EMMA-         Okay, let’s go.

NIKKI-           It’s Access All, the BBC’s disability and mental health podcast from the people who also bring you the brilliant Newscast, Ukrainecast and Americast, here at the BBC. I’m Nikki Fox and I’m in London.

EMMA-         And I’m Emma Tracey and I’m in Edinburgh.

NIKKI-           Thank you so much for listening, wherever you are in the world, and on 5 Live too. Now, we have got a really interesting story coming up about journalist, Sean Dilley, who has just retired his guide dog, Sammy. It’s very emotional. Now, he’s going to tell us all about that heart-breaking process, and why he might have to wait two years before he’s matched with another guide dog.

                       But first let’s go through some of your emails and tweets, because they have been magnifique.

EMMA-         People were right on it this week.

NIKKI-           Oh they were.

EMMA-         I wonder why?

NIKKI-           I wonder. Now, Karen got in touch to say, ‘Just listened to the latest BBC Access All podcast. It’s always engaging, enlightening and just brilliant in general. But the audio described snippet of Naked Attraction made me spray my coffee across the room’.

CLIP-             Trouser snakes.

NIKKI-           There’s Dave with his trouser snakes.

EMMA-         Yeah. And Angela has also been talking about trouser snakes. She sent us an email and she said, ‘Hello all. The trouser snake was the best episode ever’.

CLIP-             Trouser snakes.

EMMA-         She said, ‘Thank you so much’. On a more sober note she said, ‘My PA didn’t come in today so I was stuck without her help. But your podcast made me laugh out loud’.

NIKKI-           Oh, thank you Angela. You know, I saw that one and I was like, because I’ve had those days where your PA can’t turn up for whatever reason, and it is difficult because everything goes out the window. And to think that we made her laugh and get through what would have been probably a horrible day, then I’m very happy about that, aren’t you, Ems?

EMMA-         I am. And apologies listeners, because I’m actually going to continue talking about trouser snakes.

CLIP-             Trouser snakes.

EMMA-         There’s a tweet from Rhianna, not the Rhianna I don’t think. She said, ‘Did you really just say that blind people don’t know what a trouser snake is?’

CLIP-             Trouser snakes.

EMMA-         And she said, ‘Patronising much, from a fellow blind person as well’.

NIKKI-           Hang on, are you getting agg there?

EMMA-         A bit of aggro.

NIKKI-           Yeah, aggro. Are you getting some agg?

EMMA-         Yes, I think I am. Actually I think she’s right. I think I accidentally potentially spoke for more blind people than just me, and shouldn’t have done that. And can I tell you why I spoke for myself there? because, like Justin Timberlake’s the same age as me, so I wasn’t young really, but people were calling him Justin Trouser Snake.

NIKKI-           They were. Me.

EMMA-         And I actually did have to ask somebody why they were calling him Justin Trouser Snake, because I hadn’t quite copped what that was. And of course as soon as they started to tell me I was like, okay, okay, I know now, I know now. And honestly that did happen. So, I’m sorry Rhianna, I’m really sorry, you’re absolutely right. And maybe I am slightly less worldly wise from not seeing all the posters, magazines, TV. Obviously I’m exposed to the audio, but I think sometimes I do miss things. And maybe it’s just from being in CBeebies world of small children and work and everything; maybe I just don’t put my head up enough and watch stuff. But I have heard some stories over the years of other expectations of blind people not being worldly wise, and then blind people actually not being worldly wise.

NIKKI-           Okay.

EMMA-         So, in terms of expectations of blind people, there was a lady transcribing a book into braille in the 50s and it kept talking about the River Nile, and she kept changing it to the River Thames, in London, because she thought English blind people wouldn’t get the River Nile because it was too far away and a concept too far for them.

NIKKI-           No!

EMMA-         Yeah. The Canterbury Tales, obviously back many years now, wouldn’t be now…

NIKKI-           Chaucer.

EMMA-         …but they actually took out anything that was in any way rude or in relation to gay people in the book, they actually took that out.

NIKKI-           What?

EMMA-         I know of blind people who went to blind schools who had that taken out. And then their teacher, who was like a proper classics teacher, was horrified. Maybe she got the book redone, I don’t know, but that did actually happen. I’ve heard of that happening a lot of times.

NIKKI-           Blimey. Well, I guess a lot of people do tell me actually, disabled people, in my job how they feel a lot of people have low expectations of them because of their disability, whatever that be.

EMMA-         Yeah, absolutely. But then in terms of not being worldly wise, my very learned and worldly wise friend, let’s call her Ellie, because that’s her name, right, she grew up in a city, then she moved to a city, and she for many years believed that cows were the same size as Labradors.

NIKKI-           Oh.

EMMA-         Yeah, because she’d never seen a cow. You can look at a cow in a picture.

NIKKI-           Yeah, scale. How do you know the size? That’s it.

EMMA-         But we absolutely ripped Ellie to shreds for that one.

NIKKI-           Why?

EMMA-         The one about the Labrador. Well, because I come from the country and I knew the answer. So, again, like Rhianna made fun of me, I made fun of Ellie. And Ellie’s going to absolutely hate this if she listens to this.

NIKKI-           So, basically you’re just all a bunch of arseholes you blind people.

EMMA-         Yeah, basically. Ah, you don’t know this, you're rubbish. No, that’s not true. We try to support each other. Blind people are nice; you should help them across the road.

NIKKI-           Well no, because once David Blunkett me that somebody picked him up and carried him across the road, and he was just waiting for a friend.

EMMA-         And they carried David Blunkett across the road?!

NIKKI-           Yeah, literally picked him up and carried him across the road.

EMMA-         Oh my gosh, that is absolutely deplorable behaviour.

NIKKI-           Don’t do it people.

EMMA-         I used to live beside the National Council for the Blind of Ireland, and I used to be standing out waiting for a friend to pick me up for work somewhere else in the morning, and the amount of people who went by and went, ‘Oh you’re in the wrong place, just left a bit, go in there, no, you’re in the wrong place, you’re in the wrong place’.

NIKKI-           Oh, and also, Emma, just to update you on a story from last week. Do you remember we featured the story of over 250 British Sign Language users taking the government to court for not providing BSL at those government COVID briefings, we all got very used to watching? But shortly after we recorded the episode on Friday 23rd September, a paperwork row broke out apparently, and the case has been adjourned until December. We’re obviously going to keep an eye on that, and we’ll update our listeners. But it’s a good excuse for us to touch on that again and catch up with everyone and see how they’re doing.

                       Now, we love hearing from you, our lovely listeners, we really do. We love to know what you think of us. Be kind. We’d also love to know what stories you want to hear, and also the issues you want us to look into. Because Emma and I talk a lot about the issues that affect us, but we’re going to be missing lots of people’s issues. So, please let us know. You can tweet us @BBCAccessAll, or you can email us accessall@bbc.co.uk. Or if you like you can WhatsApp, our number is 0330 123 9480. And if you can send us an audio note, that would be nice. But you can also send us a message, but please if you can put the word Access at the beginning. Surprise us listeners, come on, make our week.

MUSIC-         Access All.

SEAN-           I wish this walk could be an eternity to tell you the truth. Good boy. Yay, come on, let’s get you off the lead. Well done! Come here, come here. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

NIKKI-           Oh.

EMMA-         Oh.

NIKKI-           That is an emotional Sean Dilley, at the exact moment his guide dog, Sammy, retired, aged ten years and two days. Now, Sean is a BBC News correspondent, a brilliant BBC News correspondent, who is blind and has used guide dogs for the past 23 years with no gaps, until now. Like many visually impaired people in the UK delays exacerbated by COVID mean Sean now faces a wait of up to two years for his next match. And I am so thrilled to say that Sean is with us now. Hello Sean.

SEAN-           Nikki, Emma, hello.

NIKKI-           Oh Sean, I know this is so emotional for you, so thank you so much for coming on. But let’s just talk about Sammy and retirement. And for people who don’t know how it works with guide dogs, why did Sammy retire? Why was it important for him to retire?

SEAN-           There’s a working life for any working dog. That’s particularly true of guide dogs because of all of the working dogs that I know of, and I would count everything from military, police dogs, through to other types of assistance dogs, they’re the only working dog I know of where they have to put so much energy into suppressing their natural instincts rather than bringing them out. So, if you do that for enough years by goodness do they deserve that retirement, because they start to slow down. You start to perceive more kind of, I don’t want to call it stress because we don’t work our dogs if they’re stressed, but more awareness in the harness. And in Sammy’s case he’s developed a very mild form of very well controlled arthritis. But going up and down stairs through Central London it was his time. And to do anything other would have been selfish.

EMMA-         And actually London dogs retire before dogs in the rest of the UK because the work is harder, isn’t that right?

NIKKI-           So, Sammy now really deserves to put his paws up, pour a Jack Daniels and Coke and maybe get the occasional massage.

EMMA-         And has it been useful as a correspondent to have a dog sometimes and then very much not other times? Or has it always been a positive thing.

SEAN-           Yeah. And I’ve got some stories. I used to be really funny about this. So, the genesis of me and my guide dogs on screen and the genesis of me and blindness on screen. I used to be a Sky reporter once upon a time, prior to the BBC, and I know in my early days there I would avoid for the most part my guide dog being on screen. He was sometimes, but I wanted to be this kind of, I don’t know if it’s your kind of macho, perfectly able-bodied type person. It didn’t really work because people would take screen shots of my face and time code where the eyes are pointing in different directions and post it on Twitter. I laugh out of pity for them.

NIKKI-           No?

SEAN-           Yes, absolutely. Back to stories about Sammy and the way he’s helped me. So, the previous place at Sky we were out catching pickpockets. Can I clarify: the British Transport Police Dip squad were catching pickpockets; we were there for the ride. And a chap who was handcuffed he lunged at me with handcuffs, which I wasn’t particularly aware of. Guide dogs are not trained to aggression, you don’t want it, but Sammy put his paws up and pushed back and probably stopped me getting whacked in the chest, much as I probably deserved it.

NIKKI-           Oh. We mentioned there before that there’s a wait of up to around two years. And obviously you’ve just explained to us why you can’t work with Sammy until you get a new dog, it’s just not possible because he needs his massage. But how are you getting around with a guide dog. Because you’re so busy, how are you doing it?

SEAN-           If it wasn’t for my work I would be isolated in the building I’m in. I’m getting around with what I jokingly call the Cane of Doom, or I call it my Michael Cane. I originally did my long cane training after losing all of the sight that I had remaining at the age of 14. I probably should have used at least some sort beforehand. So, that was 26 odd years ago. And I had that with social services sensory impairment team. Brilliant, it gave me my independence. Some of the techniques have changed. The canes themselves have changed. I’ve got one that’s got a spring in it; if you hold a cane properly and if you bump into something it does hurt you.

EMMA-         It hurts the pubic bone, let’s face it. It really hurts.

SEAN-           Yeah, it does.

EMMA-         I don’t have a cane with a spring in it yet. I really want one of those. I’ve heard about those a lot in the last month or two and I really want one.

SEAN-           It’s like having suspension for your cane. I’m now totally used to it, but I’d say it’ll take you about a week to get used to it.

EMMA-         This is so geeky, isn’t it?

NIKKI-           I love this.

SEAN-           For getting about, though, it’s about a third of the speed as it is with Sammy. A guide dog is an object avoider. So, you don’t know there’s an object always. With a cane it’s an object finder. It won’t find every object; it’ll find things sort of in front of you, but you can bump into things quite a bit.

NIKKI-           I’m really interested in your relationship with Sammy because I feel like I can understand on certain level because my lovely PA, when Libby had to leave for a while, I remember crying every single day for about five months. It was just that sense of loss, because Libby is with me all the time. She was with me all the time for work, and when she left it was awful. How are you feeling at the moment? It’s different I imagine.

SEAN-           Yes, I know what you mean. I have spent more time with Sammy than I spent with my other half over many years, and he’s with me 24/7. I cry every day at the moment.

NIKKI-           Do you?

SEAN-           I do.

NIKKI-           Oh Sean.

SEAN-           I do feel more vulnerable without my guide dog. I can’t just follow in the way that you would with a dog. And I do worry, by the way – here’s an interesting one, I’m sure it’s not the case – I do still worry will people think, okay well you’re not moving about quite as easily as you were out and about, in terms of getting deployed on jobs. I doubt that will even be a thing right.

NIKKI-           Yeah. No.

SEAN-           It goes through your mind. I book assistance where otherwise I wouldn’t need to. If it’s a sociable thing I do try and say yes, but so many times I think yeah, I’d kind of rather eat my own face than have to head out. I kind of notice people touch me more with a cane when I’m not expecting it.

NIKKI-           Do they?

SEAN-           I can only urge you, don’t touch a blind person or a visually impaired person unless they know you’re there. Don’t do that. It’s going to make me jump 6ft in the air. And I may actually punch you, not deliberately, but how do I know I’m not being mugged?

NIKKI-           Yeah.

EMMA-         Dr Amy Cavanagh has a big campaign on that: just ask, don’t grab. I mean, I just do feel that I need to say that there are some really, really competent and comfortable full-time can users out there. and I think it’s different when you’ve been using a cane constantly for 30 years than if you are using one after having a dog for so long, and it changes, you’re learning again. There are 20% fewer guide dogs out working than there were before the pandemic.

NIKKI-           I’ve got a statement from Guide Dogs UK. They told Access All, ‘COVID has hit us hard, and we’re still feeling the impact. Guide dogs had no option but to pause breeding and training of our dogs for five months during the pandemic. Than meant fewer litters were born in 2020, training times increased, and some puppies didn’t make the grade due to lack of socialising. We know that when you’re waiting for a life changer – and it is a life changer, speaking to you, Sean – the wait can feel like a lifetime, but we are doing everything we can. And that includes training 70 new frontline staff this year’.

SEAN-           Guide Dogs lost a third of its volunteer puppy raisers. So, I know at the moment the big drive for them is if anybody wants to be a puppy raiser then obviously get in touch with them, because that’s one of the things to sort the bottle-neck out.

                       And then the other point, Emma, is this: my matching circumstances are challenging in the extreme. It needs to be a confident orientator. Because I’m good with my mobility, I think it’s really good, but I do get lost if you’re doing quick turns in crowds. And it’s a dog that needs to work in Central London, use escalators, go on occasional plane trips, and it needs to be a dog that is going to not bark and things. You don’t really want a, And  welcome to the, it’s Huw Edwards here on the News at 10, [barks] in the background, do you, really?

EMMA-         Well, actually I think people probably do, to be fair.

NIKKI-           Yeah. I know you and I know how difficult it must be for you feeling so emotional every single day. And it’s going to be a bit of a long road I imagine, and you’ve got a long wait potentially. But it won’t stop Sean Dilley, that is for sure.

SEAN-           If you haven’t already, I know we had a clip at the beginning, please do take time to check out BBC Sounds on the 5 Minutes On Podcast with guide dog Sammy’s last working walk, because it is so emotional; I’ll put that trigger warning. The day we recorded that there were times when I fell apart. I think you’re going to get an insight into what a guide dog means to their visually impaired handler.

NIKKI-           Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us today.

EMMA-         Thanks Sean.

NIKKI-           Honestly, it’s been fascinating for me actually, as somebody who’s not blind. And I would also like to quickly just say I wasn’t comparing my PA, Libby Quinn, to a dog.

MUSIC-         Access All with Nikki Fox.

ANNE-           What’s the difference between an animal and a mammal, other than a few letters jumbled up and the letter n? A mammal can feed its young by producing milk. This also applies to monotremes such as the duck-billed platypus, which lays eggs and produces milk, and is therefore the only animal that can make its own custard.

NIKKI-           Oh, that voice belongs to our next voice, who is quite possibly one of the most intelligent women on TV. She’s also hilarious, and very, very warm. It’s the incredibly queen of quiz shows, Anne Hegerty. Now, Anne people do know you obviously more so from The Chase, but you used to be a journalist, didn’t you?

ANNE-           Yeah.

NIKKI-           How did that career change come about?

ANNE-           I was a journalist for about ten years, and then I went into publishing and became a copy editor and proof reader for about 20 years. And then I just kind of fell into whatever it is I’m doing now.

NIKKI-           What I loved when I was reading about you, Anne, because I had a period where I was a bit on my tush – I’m not going to say a rude word – I was working hard but not making much money and I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do, but I still had a tiny shred of belief that actually one day it would all come good. And I read an article where you were saying that even when you were younger you kind of had this belief that you would be famous one day. Where did that come from?

ANNE-           I don’t know. It may have been something to do with my dad; he always vaguely assumed that he was a superstar and one day he was going to be famous. Although he was never quite sure what he was going to be famous doing. He’d be watching Casablanca on the telly, pointing at Sidney Greenstreet saying, ‘He didn’t start acting until his early 60s’. and I’m sort of like, ‘Yeah but dad, he did start acting. You don’t actually do anything that could possibly make you famous’. But I spent much of my life thinking I want to be famous, while not actually do anything that could possibly make me famous, so I’m a lot like my dad in many ways.

NIKKI-           But it’s incredible, isn’t it, that you have become so well known, so famous on a quiz show. I guess you never planned that you would be famous through a quiz show called The Chase, hey?

ANNE-           What happened was, this happened in about April 2009, I happened to find out almost accidentally that there was a high-level quizzing circuit in the UK, and I was given the details of a website. And I went and looked at the website and it said yeah, there was going to be a quiz in Liverpool, which was like 30 miles away from where I lived in Manchester. And I thought okay, so I signed up and went along. And one thing that was happening at that particular quiz event was that the BBC were auditioning for the second series of Are you an Egghead. So, I auditioned, got on. We filmed at that sort of ten days later, and I ended up coming third. And I didn’t realise it’s a tiny incestuous world, quizzing, and everybody in the quizzing world, even though it didn’t go out until November, everybody knew that I’d done really well. and everyone was like, who is this new woman who’s just come along.

                       And then I went to the world championships, the British end of the world championships the following month, and there I met Mark Labett who told me that he’d just finished making the pilot series, just ten episodes, called The Chase. And he said you should watch it because it’s going to be really good. And then the following month I went to yet another of these quizzes, and the woman who runs the circuit said, ‘What do you think about maybe being a Chaser?’ and I was like, ‘Ah, well um, well, yeah, yeah, that, that’d be good’.

EMMA-         What is it about quizzes that you love so much?

ANNE-           I was always just kind of interested in stuff. I was a nerdy child, and I discovered that I could learn things off by heart. I mean, this morning lying awake, trying to get back to sleep, I decided to reel off to myself American presidents working backwards. And by the time I got to Lincoln I thought okay, this is ridiculous, I obviously don’t want to sleep. So, I got up. But yeah, I’ve just always been someone who’s quite enjoyed learning things and learning stuff.

NIKKI-           You’ve got, and this is not uncommon for autistic people, but you got quite a late diagnosis, didn’t you?

ANNE-           My diagnosis was Asperger’s syndrome. I didn’t really mind which they say. But it wasn’t until the 1990s than Lorna Wing established that the whole thing was in fact a spectrum, and that you could be someone who seemed to function.

NIKKI-           Is it overly simplistic to say, Anne, when you got this diagnosis it was like some kind of life-changing moment and suddenly everything made sense again? I mean, how did you feel?

ANNE-           The diagnosis came in 2005. It was really in 2003 that I figured out for myself I think I’ve got this, I think I have Asperger’s. But I wanted a formal diagnosis. I wanted, this is important to me, I wanted to subject my judgement to the judgement of experts. I didn’t want to just say, but I know my own mind, because I was brought up around psychologists. My mother was a psychiatric social worker. And there’s a reason we have psychologists. You may be the expert on how you feel about things, you’re the expert on the data that you produce; but you’re not necessarily the expert on interpreting it. So, I wanted the experts to look at it.

NIKKI-           I remember when we were having a little chat off camera you were saying that you get up in the morning, you pour a pint of coffee or something, and you sit down and you do like 25 quizzes. And that’s the easiest part of your day.

ANNE-           Until I’ve properly woken up, and then I do the difficult stuff like going upstairs and having a shower and getting dry, and then putting some clothes on, and making sure they’re clean, and then actually getting myself out of the house, into the car to the studio – all of that is hard work.

NIKKI-           But why is that so hard, Anne?

ANNE-           The questions are the easy bit.

NIKKI-           But why is that so hard, Anne? Because obviously for a lot of other people that would be the easiest part of the day. I couldn’t do one quiz, let alone 25.

ANNE-           For me it’s a whole load of little bits of tasks. I can’t see the entire picture; I can see the little details. So, having actually got myself dressed and put on various items of clothing in the correct order and correct places, this feels like I’ve climbed a mountain. For everybody else it’s just got dressed. So, at the moment I’ve got a note in my diary saying, do washing. But if I was feeling very, very stressed I would have a bit of paper in which I’d write down: go upstairs, take washing bag, dump on floor, sort out tights, put in this container, sort out hot wash, put in that container, take bag downstairs, put tights in washing machine. So, I would sit and literally have to just write it all out like that.

                       I need a lot of time to kind of get all my neurones lined up and pointed at something before I do it. You know the artists Gilbert & George, have you heard of them?

NIKKI-           Yes, they’re very quirky, aren’t they?

ANNE-           They are. They tell a story, which always really resonates with me, about a time when they shared a studio with a potter. And he would come in at 9 o’clock in the morning and put out all his potting tools, and sit at his bench, and then do nothing but stare at his hands. And then at quarter to 5 in the evening when they were packing up to go home he would suddenly say, ‘These are the hands that can do it’, and he’d set to work and in the next 15 minutes he would make the most beautiful pot.

NIKKI-           Wow.

ANNE-           The kind of pot you’d be quite proud to have spent the entire day making, which in a sense he had, it just took him that long to get it all lined up.

NIKKI-           Oh my goodness.

ANNE-           Whenever I think to myself I haven’t done anything for the last three days I think it’s okay, it’s okay, because these are the hands that can do it, and tomorrow you’ll suddenly find you can get everything done.

NIKKI-           Do you think you’d have struggled if you hadn’t fallen into this kind of world of TV?

ANNE-           Well, yes, I mean I was struggling. As I say, it’s a difficulty with thresholds. I sometimes find it’s hard for me to get something finished, because there are going to be moments of, well what do I do next. Which is ridiculous; there’s always something to do next. But it sort of meant yeah, I’m actually going to have to think about what I do next. So, it’s a bit like being on the computer and playing endless games of Solitaire because you just can’t make yourself go to bed. And I was good at the proof reading, but I was not good at actually getting the thing finished, parcelling it up, putting all the questions in an email, and sending out an invoice, and just the admin stuff. So, by the time the call came from The Chase I’d been on benefits for a couple of years.

NIKKI-           Really? And had you ever got to the point where you thought to yourself, I’m going to need some outside support?

ANNE-           Absolutely. And I think it was something like early 2008, I think that was kind of the low point. And there was a ring on the doorbell, I went downstairs and it was a bailiff. And bailiffs are sort of like vampires, they can’t come into your house unless you let them; but if you do let them then that means they can come in any time. And then what happened I hadn’t been paying my rent for some time, so a woman from the Housing Association came round and knocked on my door. And I sort of opened it, and she just kind of pushed it open, walked through the hall across the piles of unopen mail, and she said, ‘Right, don’t worry, we will fix this’.

NIKKI-           Ah.

ANNE-           And she got me a social worker, a lovely bloke called Jeff Mackenzie. I always feel like I have to name Jeff because he’s such a lovely guy. And he knew for example that United Utilities, the water people, actually keep a fund of money to pay the water bills of people who can’t pay. And he helped me fill in forms for Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, Jobseekers Allowance, and then he made an appointment for me to see a disability advisor at the town hall, and they helped me apply for Disability Living Allowance.

NIKKI-           Right.

ANNE-           And once you got that, not only do you get that, but it means you get a bit more Jobseekers Allowance.  

NIKKI-           Yeah, it’s a pathway to a little bit more support, isn’t it?

ANNE-           Yeah. It just gave me a breathing space where I could kind of work out what was going on.

NIKKI-           One thing I noted that you’d mentioned in an article, that when you got your diagnosis it made you understand neurotypical people a lot better, which I thought was brilliant. Is that the case? Is that really what happened?

ANNE-           Well, there are times when I’ve looked back on things and I think there are things that I resented at the time, and I think oh actually, you know what I see, they were trying to be nice, or they thought that I would appreciate that, or they thought it was something I wanted to hear, and they didn’t realise how I would take it. So, I can kind of understand how neurotypicals feel about us. I was always aware as a child that I was a problem to my parents, especially to my mother, and I couldn’t understand why or what I could do about it. It’s not our fault, but at the same time it’s not their fault either. Everyone’s just trying to figure it out.

NIKKI-           Anne Hegerty, I adore you.

ANNE-           Thank you.

NIKKI-           Isn’t she brilliant, Emma?

EMMA-         She’s absolutely brilliant. When can we watch you next? Are you going to pop up on our TVs or radios, in our bookshops, any time soon?

ANNE-           New episodes of The Chase have now started on ITV at 5pm. Oh, and I’m in panto in Swindon this Christmas.

NIKKI-           Oh fab!

ANNE-           Last Christmas I was Mrs Blunderbore in Jack and the Beanstalk, which actually was rather fun because she was a happier character than most of the evil people I play. She’s happy in her personal life, she’s got this nice giant, and she gets to be evil, which she enjoys.

NIKKI-           I was going to ask you whether you’ve got a nice giant in your life, Anne?

ANNE-           I’m not very good at holding down relationships. It’s better for everyone if I’m not actually doing that.

NIKKI-           I just don’t believe that, Anne.

ANNE-           Everyone tries to set me up and I’m like, you know what, it’s terribly kind of you, but, um, could you not.

EMMA-         Fair enough.

NIKKI-           You’re better off anyway.

EMMA-         Absolutely.

NIKKI-           Oh Anne, thank you.

EMMA-         Thank you so much.

NIKKI-           Emma, how interesting was that interview with Anne?

EMMA-         It was so unexpected. I really enjoyed all of the stuff about her life before The Chase, and then she’s so brilliant in The Chase.

NIKKI-           I know.

EMMA-         She’s just lovely and warm and an absolute star.

NIKKI-           So, if you like what you hear then subscribe on BBC Sounds, and tell your friends all about our podcast, because they might appreciate all of this random disability chat that we have week on week. Until the next time.

EMMA-         Bye.

CLIP-             ‘I could feel our house shaking.’ ‘That was one of the scariest battles.’ ‘I’m traumatised.’ ‘I’m completely destroyed.’

VICTORIA-   Hello, I’m Victoria Derbyshire, one of the hosts of Ukrainecast. We actually put out the first episode of Ukrainecast on the very first day of the war when Russia invaded Ukraine.

CLIP-             This is a European country and it’s at war. It’s extraordinary.

VICTORIA-   So much has happened since then, and all the way through we’ve been trying to tell people’s stories, what’s really happening on the ground in Ukraine.

CLIP-             My elder daughter was lying on the ground. She had been dead.

VICTORIA-   And we’ll be here for you, making sense of it all for as long as we need to be.

CLIP-             ‘People were being snatched and disappearing.’ ‘People took to the streets even after the Ukrainian forces had gone.’

VICTORIA-   Ukrainecast is made by the same BBC News team that makes this podcast.

CLIP-             This is it, this is the war of the direst evil against all of humanity.

VICTORIA-   Listen to Ukrainecast on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Just search for Ukrainecast on BBC Sounds.