Today, Radio 4
Every postmaster and mistress wrongly accused of theft or false accounting has their own horror story.
The Post Office scandal has dominated the airwaves.
Seema Misra was one of those wrongly accused... sent to prison while she was expecting her second child. Her husband, Davinda, talked about their wrecked lives.
After Seema was convicted, one newspaper headline read: “Pregnant thief”.
Davinda himself was beaten up “very harshly” three times, he said.
Seema Misra was one of those wrongly accused... sent to prison while she was expecting her second child. One newspaper headline read: ‘Pregnant thief’
The couple could not tell their son that his mother was in prison, pretending instead that she was in hospital. Luckily the visiting room was a bit like a hospital which helped, he said.
His wife’s parents rang regularly from India to talk to her. The couple did not want them to know she was in jail and he lied, saying she was out… to the point where they began to think he had killed her.
Eventually he found a way to connect the calls so that his wife could talk to her parents and reassure them without telling them the truth. They died not knowing.
It’s the seismic shattering of so many lives and the ripples and reverberations down the years. Davinda Misra wants proper justice and compensation for the dreams that were stolen from them.
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Wild Inside, Radio 4
When it comes to animals, I like mine at a safe distance.
Wild Inside invited us to get up close to the Red Kangaroo – in fact, a ring side seat at the post mortem table.
The programme’s premise is that the secret of any animal lies in their complex anatomy.
Close your eyes if you like to think fondly of Skippy. Remember his sweet little tut, tut, tut?
A friend who is an Australian journalist quickly punctured my rosy picture of the land of sweet Skippys.
“If a roo gets you, it holds you down with those big back legs and rips your chest right open with its arms,” she said off-handedly.
But this autopsy on Radio 4 was in the company of experts enthralled by the sheer power and beauty of the Red Kangaroo – that silken tendon which gives the animal such power, the pouch and the mystery of kangaroo reproduction.
Their fascination was a little infectious.
Stand by for the Bearded Vulture and the Californian Sea Lion.
