Desert Island Discs Radio 4
A Caravaggio in Tuam? RTE Radio 1
Woman’s Hour Radio 4
It was an amazing bright blue BMW and he used to pick her up in it and then he parked it outside a Harvester restaurant and they’d just kiss and spend time together.
Other people’s lives are endlessly fascinating ... and so began the tale of David Beckham and his wife, she who was once Posh Spice and the way they started their secret courtship.
Her manager wanted the relationship kept quiet so they had clandestine meetings.
The liaisons sounded kind of beautiful for the raw, everyday, ordinariness of the location.
Beckham was the guest for the 75th anniversary of Desert island Discs. He chose Ella Fitzgerald singing Every Time We Say Goodbye and he thought he might look forward to a little island solitude.
If you were hunting down a Caravaggio painting, would you go to Tuam?
In 2005, Nora Nic Con Ultaigh learned that her great grandfather bought one at an auction and sold it on.
Caravaggios have a habit of turning up in strange places. In 1990, that old painting hanging in the refectory of a Jesuit order in Dublin turned out to be by none other than himself. Dublin made world headlines that time.
So why not Tuam and why not Nora’s great grandpa.
She whisked off on her hunt for the provenance of A Girl in Blue Dress with Embroidered Coat and there was a tale to tell – of small towns and big dreams and great grandfather Tom who was a stonecutter with a keen eye for European art.
Woman’s Hour featured midwife Clemmie Hooper who has written a book, How To Grow a Baby and Push it Out.
There were alarming questions like does everybody poo in labour. Here’s to raw honesty.
But the talk turned to the time after birth and the challenges of sleep deprivation and social isolation.
The consensus was that there is a lot of focus on birth but motherhood is much bigger: quote, unquote: “There’s no epidural for motherhood.”
