The Happy Pod: Creating 'Christina's Corner'

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2:05This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service.

2:13Hello, it's Alan Smith here and welcome to half an hour or so of uplifting stories from around the world. In this edition, we hear about Christina's Corner. When they treat people like my daughter, I mean, they see them as a human. Now there's a special place for them in heaven, you know. A special place in a convenience store in a small town in Idaho. There's the millions of people tuning in to watch the moose migration in northern Sweden. I like everything about it. The sounds, the pictures. The tranquility. You just be there. Plus... I just thought, what a wonderful little snapshot. Of course, we've got recordings of famous people, royalty or politicians from that era, but very rarely people who are just on their holiday.

3:05A 70-year-old voicemail which has been reunited with the woman who recorded it. And... When we are starting the programme, the first sessions, they don't know each other. They are not confident with the group and also they are not really sure they are going to feel comfortable. How rowing is helping refugees feel part of their new community.

3:33We're going to start in the small US town of Pocatello in Idaho with a story about kindness. Dave Craning ran the last video rental store in town until he just couldn't carry on due to falling profits. But for almost every day for decades, he was visited by his most loyal customer, Christina. For Christina, picking out a film was an integral part of her day and Dave was determined for her to carry this on despite his store closing. The Happy Pod's Harry Bly has been speaking to Dave and Christina's mother, Toni. My name is Toni Kavanaugh and my daughter is Christina. She is almost 36. For more than 20 years, Toni and her daughter Christina have visited their local video rental store almost every day at 3.30 in the afternoon to pick up two of Christina's favourite movies.

4:25It's part of just, you know, the fabric of her life. It's woven in. Christina has Down syndrome and is mostly non-verbal. Toni says going to the video store is an important part of her daily routine. I mean, I have a cabinet full of videos, and they are those videos, the same movies that she goes and rents. So it's going to rent the movies that she loves. Nowadays, for many, video rental stores are a distant but fond memory. Since the mid-2000s, as streaming services became mainstream, most stores have closed. And last year, Christina's favourite video store began to struggle. Dave Craning is the store owner.

5:10Our costs were going up, but the revenue was going down. And it just kind of got to a point where I just felt that just maintaining the video store wasn't feasible. The people that work there were warning me that eventually, you know, they didn't know when, but things were just not looking good. because I can't explain it to her. And Dave knew that too. And that was his concern. Dave kept the store going as long as he could. Well, he let it go on, you know, the loss of revenue because of her. So then, you know, it happened. The hammer came down and it was like, oh no. But when it came time to close the video store, Dave came up with a solution to create Christina's Corner in the neighbouring convenience store, which he also owns.

6:08So I thought, well, I could build just this version of this corner of the store that looks like the video store, put her favourite movies in there and then just kind of create a snapshot, I guess, of what our video store was at the time we locked her up. I explained it at one point. It was like having a prison sentence lifted. And the way he's got it set up now, I think she'll be able to do it as long as he's the owner. Truthfully, when I did this, you know, I was just doing something nice for just a customer that's been loyal just for decades. You know, I was just doing it to help a mother out and her daughter that was, you know, wasn't born, you know, with the same faculties as you and me.

7:04And, you know, I thought, you know, what if the shoes were on the other foot? And I thought, you know, I can help this one person out and make their life a little bit easier. I went to thank him and no words came. I just burst into tears. So about a week or two later, I saw him and I said, promise not to cry. And I thanked him then with words. You know, it's just when they treat people like my daughter, I mean, they see them as a human. And they're willing to go the extra mile, you know, so many times. yeah there are a lot of good people and kind people but they don't understand disabilities they're afraid when they see people with disabilities so when somebody steps out like that it's now there's a special place for them in heaven you know you know people are saying it's everything to me.

8:20So I didn't want to use that phrase, but really it is. It's everything. After Tony and I spoke, it approached 3.30 and was time for them to head over to Dave's store. Tony says she hopes their story will promote more love and kindness across the world. Tony Kavanagh and Dave Craney were speaking to Harry Bly. And this story got us thinking, Has somebody you know gone out of their way to change someone's life for the better? If so, we'd love to hear about it. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. Now on the happy pod, let's slow down.

9:04These sounds affirm last year's moose migration in northern Sweden. It was broadcast by a team who've set up 30 cameras around the woods to capture the natural phenomenon of the animal, also known as the elk, moving across rivers and lakes to find greener pastures ready for summer. Well, now the team's rolling the cameras for another year. They'll stream live for 24 hours a day for about three weeks. Nine million people tuned in last year, and judging by the global reaction after its first day, many millions more will be tuning in this year too. Ulle Malmgren is a fan of the show and one of its most avid watchers.

9:40I like everything about it. The sounds, the pictures, the tranquility. You just be there. I don't have to go out. I can't go out. So this is my connection with nature. I have been watching this for six years now. I am sickly and homebound, so this is my lifeline. Johan Erlag is the project manager and executive producer of the show. He spoke to the BBC's Luke Jones. I hope that the Swedish people would love it, but I couldn't imagine that the whole world would be interested in this as well, so it's fantastic. Just explain what the programme is. It's just a load of cameras over the Swedish countryside picking up moose as and when they wander past.

10:38Yeah, exactly. The moose migrate from their winter places to their summer pastures. And we are actually having 30 cameras in a small area where they are actually going to cross and swim over a river. so it's a very unique and beautiful thing when you actually see these big animals walking down in the river and then suddenly the head appears with flapping ears and it's amazing. And is it constant moose or is it occasionally a view of a bit of stream or a bit of field where a moose has yet to arrive but we're keeping our eyes peeled just in case? I mean the mooses migrate obviously this time of year every year it's about the same dates every year but the spring is a bit earlier this year so we had to start a week earlier but this is the very very few weeks of the year where they migrate in big big queues actually so it's 20 30 yeah Traffic jam in the woods.

11:50And you must be very good at it now because you've done it a few years, is that right? Yeah, this is our seventh season actually. And do you recognise the same moose coming back again? Are there other recurring characters and stars? Actually, we tried to see if we can recognise the stars, but we can't actually. They do look quite similar. Yeah, they look quite similar. The scientists are helping us and there are obviously mooses living in the area, but they also migrate for a few kilometres. Johan Erlag. Now, here's a question for you. Have you ever been reunited with something that you thought you might have lost forever?

12:34Well, that's what happened to a British woman called Valerie Stannard. You see, 70 years ago, she recorded something called a voiceograph whilst she was travelling in New York. Decades later, she's been reunited with the disc that it was held on. Justin Dealey has been talking to Valerie to find out more. In 1955, Valerie from Welling Garden City was in New York and decided to send a message home using a voiceograph machine. Now, these recording booths were popular in the 40s and 50s, especially in America. Valerie went into a small booth, had only one minute to speak, and the recording of her voice was pressed onto a vinyl disc.

13:11She then posted the voiceogram back to her family in Hertfordshire. 70 years later, record dealer Joel Diath was going through some records and made an intriguing discovery. I was in a dusty old warehouse and I was going through some records and I saw this voiceogram and I just find them absolutely fascinating because as much as I'm a fan of rare records, this is a complete one-off. So among it was not just the voiceogram but the envelope it came in and I thought, oh, I have to. I have to not just listen to this. I have to do a bit of digging. I heard a very well-spoken young lady who was telling her parents about her trip to New York.

13:49And I checked the date, and it was 1955, so 70 years ago. And I just thought, what a wonderful little snapshot. Of course, we've got recordings of famous people, royalty or politicians from that era, but very rarely people who are just on their holiday. I just went on to Facebook, and I found a Welling Garden City Facebook group, as there's many. and I just shared some details, shared some photos and said, can anyone help? I know the street name, I know the surname and how fortunate for me some people got in touch. A neighbour of Valerie's family was able to tell Joel that Valerie had moved to Vancouver.

14:21In Canada, she also had a daughter and finding out she was called Zoe, Joel was able to message her on social media. I thought it was going to be something spammy but I read it anyway and I thought it was having rather a challenging day and it was just such a little ray of sunshine in the middle of a bit of awfulness. And so I reached out and it was really quite something. By this time, Joel had managed to get the recording digitised. It's 70 years old and not the clearest, but Valerie can be heard wishing her mum a happy birthday and that America is a wonderful place. When you have to return to your birthday, I was teaching from the cops at the one-time state fairgrounds.

15:03Valerie was 20 years old when she made that recording. Now aged 90, she was able to listen again to her younger self. It was a little bit frightening. Do you actually remember going in to record that message at 20 years old or not? Well, I remember the couple of days I was in New York very, very clearly because such outstanding things happened to me. And Joel, you're the man who's worked very hard to make all of this happen. It was certainly worth it, wasn't it? I was just sort of sitting here feeling quite moved by the whole thing, because when Valerie recorded that 70 years ago, could Valerie have imagined that 70 years later would be sitting here talking, meeting new people?

15:46And because of some sort of voice postcard, I'm so glad that I reached out. And Zoe, as we've got Joel here, is there anything you'd like to say to Joel as well? Oh, thank you so much. This has just been a lovely thing. my husband and I are with a pipe band and in 2026 we are going to be travelling to Glasgow to see the world and we're planning to pop down to London and meet Joel in person Well I thoroughly look forward to it I don't think I've ever been to a pipe band gig before but I couldn't think of a better first one to go to That report was from Justin Dealey

16:27Coming up in this podcast I was home during the day and I was out every night. And my man worked during the day and he was home every night. That was the secret. We'll find out the recipe to 70 years of happy marriage.

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18:13This advertisement feature is paid and presented by Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Looking for the perfect place to grow your business? For over 30 years, Poland has been a launchpad for innovation at the heart of Europe, powered by world-class research and ambitious young talent. From bold startups to established powerhouses, Poland offers the momentum, resources and reliability you need to take your business further. Poland, where businesses don't just grow, they're built to last. Find out more at polandyourplacetogrow.com. If journalism is the first draft of history, What happens if that draft is flawed?

18:48In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

19:43part of the boat crew. Craig Langren went to find out more. I arrived to a flurry of activity down by the riverside. A group of adults and children are dragging a large white rowing boat into the water. I'm here to meet Jose Vines, founder of a non-profit organisation called Dacena Deportiva Sevilla, which runs programmes to get people involved in sports. Jose tells me the project's called Crew Together and offers a six-week rowing course to refugees and asylum seekers. A lot of people have to move to our city from different countries like Venezuela and Morocco and we want them to feel part of our society.

20:27And we learn to coordinate their movement and work as a team. I quickly settle in and become part of the crew. You want to sit next to Alu? Yes. OK. OK. All right, so I'm going to get in as well. We each grab one of the metal oars with a bright orange blade at the end. It was so tightly packed in that my knees knock against the person sitting next to me. I'm just in the boat. I'm not sure how helpful I'm being, really. I'm seeking solace in the fact that I'm balancing out the boat at the back. We head further out into the middle of the Guadalquivir River. Whilst it's wide, there isn't a strong current and the calm blue water shimmers in the early evening sun as we make our way down the river, passing parks, office buildings and cyclists on the footpath.

21:35After about an hour or so of rowing up and down the river singing, the sun begins to set and we make our way back to shore. Everyone gets out and helps to pull the boat up the slipway and back into the nearby boathouse. It's a big effort. It's a big... 200 kilos. 200 kilos? Yeah. Wow, it's a big... Momentito. It's a big old thing, this boat. Jose tells me they put on a weekly session for 50 people. That's 10 each every day from Monday to Friday. He says that they have a sports coach to teach the students how to row. And there's also someone called a social educator. Now, their role is to create games and activities to encourage the groups to talk.

22:21An important part of all of this, as Jose explains. Many refugees don't have friends or family here. So this project helps them feel part of the community. When we are starting the program, the first sessions, they don't know each other. They are not confident with the group, and also they are not really sure they are going to feel comfortable growing on the river. But it's great to see them after two, three sessions, when they know each other better and they connect and they join the games and the play that we are proposing and they are laughing and they are getting better. Some stay in touch after the course and also we try to connect them with employers.

23:12José Vigne, sending that report by Craig Langren in Seville. And for more stories like this, listen to People Fixing the World wherever you get your podcasts. Now we have a story about a public artwork featuring life-size puppet animals travelling across Africa from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The group, including the puppeteers, will follow a 20 ,000 kilometre route from the Congo Basin, travelling through Lagos and Dakar later this month, before moving through Morocco and then into Europe through Spain, France, Italy, the UK, Denmark and Sweden, all the way up to the Arctic Circle.

23:56This is their promotional video. It's about raising awareness of what they describe as their flight from climate disaster. The artistic director, Amir Nizar Zouabi, has been speaking to Julian Warica. Yeah, it is an ambitious project, but we're facing a massive problem. And maybe by doing massive feats, we can try and address this problem that is on everybody's doorstep. It's everywhere all at once. It's been, you know, climate crisis is new, of course, right now with world politics being what they are. It's being pushed aside. So our project has become more acute. And we want to raise the conversation.

24:41We want to raise a different way of talking about climate. We want to bring it to where we feel safe, to the doorsteps of our cities, so people can get inspired again by nature, by the beauty of nature. Well, the artwork is called The Herds. They're a group of life-size puppet animals which will first emerge onto the banks of the Congo River. And then you've got this enormous journey to undertake. How practically do you do that? with a lot of patience with flexibility and with knowing that a lot of things will go wrong but basically we're working with a lot of local artists and local groups along the route so this is in many ways a global project that is rooted in local collaborations in all of the cities that we walk through it's not a touring production it's a production that is recreated in every city organically co-created with artists in the city and is reliant heavily on local knowledge and on local participation.

25:47The number of the animals, the size of the herd changes from city to city, but we rely heavily on local participants that come and work with us and they become the herds in their city. So it's a civic act that invites people to take part of a climate action. And at the end of it, when it finishes, what do you hope you will have achieved? You know, we are theatre makers. First and foremost, we're not politicians, thank God. And what I mainly hope to achieve, what we hope to achieve is to touch the heart. I think that people are affected and take action when they're moved by something, when they fall in love with something, when something becomes precious and they care about it.

26:34Obviously, the science around climate has been around. We all know it. We all understand it, except the people in power that deny it. But we also think there's another aspect of this discussion that we need to engage with, which is an emotional aspect that is very important. And that's what we hope to achieve. We're trying to create an immersive, visceral experience for people to reignite something, to crack indifference. Amir Nizar Zuabi, the artistic director of The Herds. Now to finish, we have a story to gladden the heart. Two couples who married in the same venue on the same day 70 years ago have just marked their platinum anniversaries together.

27:19Tommy and Thelma Budge had a joint wedding with Tommy's sister Violet and Leslie Flett on 9th April 1955 in the Scottish Archipelago of Orkney. David Delday joined the anniversary celebrations. The beginning of April 70 years ago, a resignation from the Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and this song by Tennessee Ernie Ford, top of the charts.

27:53Perhaps those words had been swirling in the heads of Tommy Budge and Laisley Flett. Thelma and Violet did give them their word, and soon after the four were in the Kirkwall Registrar's office, tying the knot. Thelma explains how the joint wedding came about. Violet was planning to get married later that year. Tommy had to go for his national service, and he was away, still at the first stages of it. And he couldn't get home twice, so the only time that we'd all work out was on that particular day and he got home on the Friday night, I think. We married on Saturday and he was way on Monday morning.