The Happy Pod: Soldiers' letters from 1916 finally home

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 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. This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service.

0:50I'm Alex Ritson and in this edition... What an amazing thing and, you know, thanks to Deb, any other person probably could have walked past it, wouldn't have taken any notice of it. The man reunited with a very special piece of his family history. We talked to him and the woman who found it. The memorial for LGBT veterans kicked out of the armed forces because of their sexuality. Words that were used to condemn us are now actually there in gold letters to actually honour us and to future people. So it's for past, present and future generations. Plus... Oh, I love the challenge of it. As long as you are physically capable of doing them, then it's why everybody does them for the challenge of it and the feeling afterwards of accomplishment and that you did something really hard.

1:41Meet Natalie. She's 80 and has just completed an Ironman challenge in Hawaii. And I feel a connection, you know. I do think I'll go visit him and be like, hello, Pasheri, it's been a while. So I do think it left a huge impression on me. I think it's going to impact me for the rest of my life. The students here in Britain helping to restore an ancient Egyptian mummy.

2:05We begin in Australia where a very special treasure has been found. Deborah Brown's daughter Felicity was clearing up rubbish on Wharton Beach when she found a thick glass bottle with some notes inside. Deborah carefully opened the bottle a few days later and found handwritten messages from two Australian soldiers who served in the First World War, privates Malcolm Neville and William Harvey. After searching for relatives online, Deborah managed to find Herbie Neville, Malcolm's great-nephew. The Happy Pod's Holly Gibbs spoke to Deborah and Herbie and started by asking Deborah what the note said.

2:44The first one that we read was from Malcolm and it said, somewhere at sea on August the 15th, 1916. Will the person finding this bottle please send the contents to Mrs W Neville, Wilker Watt, South Australia, Private Malcolm A Neville, number 2214 of the 4th Reinforcements, 48th Battalion, and then it says AIF, which is Australian Infantry forces. You have no idea what it felt like to read that, and I get quite teary to open that letter. And so then we then went on straight away because those letters were so well, his letters were so well maintained. And it says, Dear Mother, having a real good time.

3:32Food is real good so far, with the exception of one meal, which we buried at sea, accompanied by a mouth organ band, And the dear old Ballarat, which is the ship, is heaving and rolling, but we are as happy as Larry, your loving son Malcolm. It just tore at our heartstrings. And then more and more through that same day when we discovered that he had died a year after. So where do you think this bottle has been in the meantime? Well, first of all, we just assumed, and in our excitement, we assumed that it had been in the ocean and washed up because Felicity found it right on the shoreline. But as a couple of days went by and the excitement died down a little bit and we started to really think about it, we thought this can't have been in the ocean.

4:17For one, the little cork would not have survived. And also there was no barnacles. There was no growth whatsoever on the outside of the bottle, not one bit. So we now assume, and no one will ever know, but it has to be the case that it came ashore many, many years ago and has been buried in our sand dunes at our local beach, which has big sand dunes. because that would have protected it. And how does it feel giving Herbie's family part of their history? That is just incredible. And to have made a whole pile of new acquaintances across Australia and give them so much joy. I mean, they've all been, as I said, they've all been calling me and sending me messages and Herbie's going to come all the way across Australia.

5:05He's one end of Australia, we're at the other. and he's going to come and visit us. I have just had a message from Herbie himself. Yes. I can get him on the call. Yes. No, that's fine. Okay. Hello, Herbie. How are you? How are you, Deb? Yeah, good, darling. Good. Well, I've had a wonderful chat with Debra about this amazing story, Herbie, and I just want to hear about what your reaction was when you got that message from Debra to say that she's found this message in a bottle. It's amazing what Deborah's found and it means so much to my family. And I guess Deb means a lot to our family now too because she's gone to the effort to bring it home and extract the letter out of the bottle.

5:50How did you feel when you heard what the letter had said? I was in disbelief. And when I rang the other members of all our family, they were in disbelief too. I think they were in shock. What an amazing thing. And, you know, thanks to Deb, any other person probably could have walked past it, wouldn't have taken any notice of it. Where will the letter live? Are you going to have it on the wall, behind a frame? What are you going to do with it when you get it? Well, I haven't actually decided that, but I'm thinking of putting the letter in the National War Museum in Canberra. What does it mean to your family to be given this slice of your history?

6:35It's unbelievable. They are so grateful that they received that letter. And it's quite moving, actually, to know that he's reached out to his mother. Well, he hasn't. If anyone finds this, let mum know. He was happy and they'd thrown one. I think he was pretty happy to be going to war. What would you say to Deborah and her family for finding this letter and reaching out to you? I think they're the most amazing people I've probably ever come across. Oh, Deborah, that must be lovely to hear. It is. And I haven't actually told Herbie yet, Holly. I forgot to message him to tell him that I posted his letter yesterday.

7:17So he will probably get that in a few days' time. We haven't actually made a decision about the bottle either as a family. I feel personally that the bottle needs to be in the museum with the letters or with copies of the letters because otherwise it will become, in the years to come, it might become just a bottle and I would hate for the story to leave the bottle. I'd just like to sincerely thank Deborah, her husband Peter, and their daughter Felicity just for being so good people and reaching out and almost in tears now. Yeah, it makes me cry a lot too, Herbie. Mm, yeah. Ah, that's unreal. Deborah and Herbie speaking to Holly Gibbs.

8:05The notes found in the bottle from the other soldier, Private William Harvey, have also been returned to his family. Here in Britain, King Charles has unveiled a memorial to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender military personnel after a decades-long campaign against a ban on being gay in the armed forces. In his first official engagement in support of the LGBT plus community, the King visited the sculpture named An Opened Letter. I spoke to Kevin Baisley, a Royal Air Force veteran, and Carol Morgan, an army veteran, both dismissed and investigated by the authorities because of their sexuality.

8:44I asked Kevin to describe the memorial. It's a bronze letter, and they are written as if it was a letter from one person to a loved one that might well have been found during the time of the ban, used as evidence against that person to have them dismissed, screwed up, thrown away, and it's been retrieved and it's opened up again. And this two-and-a-half-metre-tall letter, it has this dark interior to reflect the dark times of the ban where people were hiding, they were fearful, they knew they were unwanted by the military, but with certain words like pride, strength, solidarity picked out in brighter letters for that hope for the future.

9:30And the rear of the letter is this highly polished bronze finish that almost looks like gold that glints in the sun, again, just reflecting on that brighter future and how well people can serve in the UK armed forces today openly as gay and lesbian. Yeah, you use the word openly because this ban was still in place until the year 2000. It's not that long ago in the great scheme of things and both of you were dismissed because of your sexuality even though you weren't openly LGBT in the armed forces. Well, I served like in the late 70s, early 80s, but it was deemed illegal to be gay in the services at the time.

10:14we had to hide our sexuality because if we had been caught then obviously what actually did happen to us that we would be dismissed and interrogated for being gay because we could be blackmailed or anything else like that they said so it was an instant dismissal. I joined the Royal Air Force in 1985 I was 18 fresh from school I was outed to the RAF police and arrested and interrogated and then eventually discharged in September of 1995. Things have really changed in 25 years for you to be standing and watching the king unveil this monument. Carol, describe for me the moment you watched the drapes come off that statue.

10:58I'm not an emotional person, but I was very emotional. Seeing the actual statue there at the National Memorial Orbital, it's absolutely stunning because you had the sun shining through it as well. And the flowers were arranged around the bottom of it. I mean, it's just totally spectacular. Like a friend once said to me, words that were used to condemn us are now actually there in gold letters to actually honour us and to future people. So it's for past, present and future generations that will outlive us and it's going to be standing there for many, many years. It was just, it was everything that we could have hoped for in terms of that permanent memorial to the pain and suffering of the veterans who were dismissed, but also reflecting on all of the duty, honour, courage, sacrifice that the current serving personnel are allowed to demonstrate as their true selves.

11:55Seeing those current serving personnel, I mean, as the veterans approached the memorial for the first time, we were actually walking down an avenue lined with 90 current serving personnel from the LGBTQ plus networks and seeing them there proudly out as LGBT plus serving personnel welcoming us genuinely happy to see us and us happy to see them as well was just incredible and that first impact that it had on veterans you could just see the raw emotion that was being displayed on people's faces. Last question. This is the happy pod. Are you? You've been through a lot. Many other serving LGBT people went through a lot.

12:42But are you now happy with the way things turned out? I've got a new family of veterans and serving personnel. We are one family and we are united as veterans and serving people. I'm over the moon. We could not have asked for anything better than we have now. I'm just literally still so buzzing from Mondays. It's unbelievable. This is an amazing climax to the reparations that are going on. It really has been that process of melding the veterans and the current serving back together again. We are part of the military family again, and we are glad to be part of the military family again. Kevin Baisley and Carol Morgan.

13:26Natalie Grabo has become the oldest woman to finish an Ironman World Championship at the age of 80. Ironman competitions include a 3.8km swim, a 180km cycle ride and a 42.2km run, which is the distance of a marathon. 1 ,600 people took part. The Ironman in Hawaii was Natalie's 11th. She only learned how to swim when she was 59. She finished in a time of 16 hours and 45 minutes just within the race's 17-hour cut-off time. A video of her crossing the finishing line shows her stumbling with exhaustion but determined to finish with the crowd cheering her on. Natalie spoke to Priya Rye and started by telling her how it felt to cross the finish line.

14:17I was just very, very happy. Cherie Bruenfeld was there at the finish line. She was the previous record holder. So she was there and that was fun to see her. So she broke the record at 78 years old. I was wondering actually, Natalie, yeah, because she looks like she was congratulating you, of course, but she maybe said something in your ear. Do you remember what it was? No, but we've competed against one another for years now. And 2022, she set the record and I was, there were four of us in the 75 to 79 age group that year and two didn't finish. and Sheree and I finished and she finished ahead of me.

14:58So she did a great job that day. And when she found that I was there in Kona this year, she was just very, very gracious and encouraging and wished me the best of luck. I ran the whole course other than walking through the aid stations. And I don't think I've done that very often in an Ironman race. So I really felt good on the run. So that was a very nice feeling and a feeling of confidence that I would have no trouble making the total cutoff. I went into the race with a hamstring issue that I had irritated during one of my bike workouts about five weeks before the race. So I got some therapy.

15:40I took a total of about five or six days off totally. So I missed some of my key workouts. So I was a little bit nervous about that. But talk to me about learning to swim at 59 to now be doing what you're doing at this level. Well, I had been running for about 20 years and doing quite well, really enjoying running 5Ks and 10Ks and doing very well in my age group. But I was also getting injured a lot and my friends were all getting into triathlon and they kept urging me to do a sprint triathlon that was nearby. and I was a little embarrassed, but I finally admitted that I had never learned to swim.

16:21So I had one of my daughters drive from where she was living up. I said, Amy, if you could just do the half mile swim and then I can get on the bike and run, I'd be so grateful. I don't care how fast you go. Just give me the chips so I can do the rest. So I did that and I just loved it. I was hooked. I loved all the people. I loved the energy. I loved everything. And as you reflect, what's your answer to the question that I'm sure you get asked a lot of times which is why do you do these Ironman competitions? Oh I love the challenge of it as long as you are physically capable of doing them then it's why everybody does them for the challenge of it and the feeling afterwards of accomplishment and that you did something really hard I think that's just a great confidence booster.

17:12I like the competition, but for me, it's the day-to-day training. So if ever I don't want to race anymore, I'll always be active. I'll always get up and do something. Natalie Grabo speaking to Priya Rai.

17:31Coming up in this podcast. I love being part of a choir. I've all sung wherever I've lived, to US, UK, I seek out a choir so that I can meet people, connect, share love of music, I feel part of something bigger than myself. Meet the choir trying to unite people from different parts of the world.

18:00If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 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.

18:38Two students from the University of Lincoln in England have been helping to restore a 2 ,300-year-old Egyptian mummy. During the 19th century, the mummified man, known as Par Sherry, was taken to Britain from Egypt. He's been part of the Derby Museum's collection since at least 1859. X-rays show the mummy was severely damaged to when he was previously unwrapped and examined. Charlotte Gallagher has been speaking to one of the student researchers, Ella Montero. I was really, really excited. I was really eager to start doing the work. It was something that I connected with almost immediately. And what was your reaction when you saw him for the first time?

19:24I thought he was smaller than I expected. He's only 5 '3", but then obviously came the, oh my gosh, he's 2 ,300 years old and he's right in front of me. So there was a bit of an existential crisis very soon after that, where I was like, how is it possible that I'm in a room with someone who was alive so long ago? What did you know about his story? Was there anything that you could find out from, as you said, the writings and the pictures that could tell you about the man that he was? Not much. I think most of the history we know is the more recent history, the past, let's say like 100, 200 years.

19:56But what we do know is that he would have had to be in the top 2 % simply because the process of lumbification is already so expensive. Like the linens alone cost an exorbitant amount of money. And on top of that, he also had this intricately painted cartonage that had real gold on it, right? So we do know he had to be very wealthy. Apart from that, there's not much that we know about his life back then. But then we do know that he was enrapped, that he's missing his skull, his pelvis, and his feet. as we've done some x-rays of him and we can see that those parts are missing. So I would say that's mostly history that we do know.

20:33But I think his story now can become a lot bigger than what it has been, right? Because now there's all this talk of like, he's been brought over here from Egypt. And, you know, now there's a bit of a cultural aspect to it as well. And now we can use him for further education of like, this is what happens sometimes to things when they're taken out of their origin. There can be damage, there can be like loss. Yes. And did you feel quite attached to him by the end? Because obviously you were working on him for quite a long time and you were learning bits about him. And obviously you found out that bits of him had been taken away.

21:05I just wondered what kind of relationship you had with him. It was definitely a lot more personal and intimate than any other object I've worked on, because he is a person. After a couple of days, you're walking in and you're saying, good morning, Kashiri. And we would have this privacy screen that we would put on him at the end of every day, both for Pashiri and just because some people aren't comfortable seeing human remains. And so we would say, good night, Pashiri. And it kind of felt like we were talking human bed. And it was the same thing in the morning. We'd pull the sheet back and we'd say, good morning.

21:35So there is a certain level of personification that happens that I would say hasn't happened in other objects that I've worked before that haven't been human remains. It's just this hyper-awareness that you're working on a person, a human being, and that could just as easily be me 200 years from now. I feel a connection, you know. I do think I'll go visit him and be like, hello, Pasheri, it's been a while. So I do think it left a huge impression on me. I think it's going to impact me for the rest of my life. Ella Montero speaking to Charlotte Gallagher. Kate Huang was living her dream in 2003 as a Kansas City police officer.

22:11But when she suffered a traumatic brain injury in the line of duty, attacked for issuing a traffic ticket, her life changed. She struggled to move on until a new friend stepped in to help. Now she's been representing the USA at the World Para-Athletics Championships. Before competing, she spoke to Kate Smith. We base a lot of our job and our identity with our job and when we're done doing our job, we don't know what we are. I didn't know who I was and so it was super hard so when all that happened, it was like everything disappeared. So for, I would almost say a full decade, I was just lost. It wasn't until Kate found a job as a security officer at a Kansas City school just three years ago that she was able to turn her life around.

23:02There she met Patty, who gave her unconditional friendship. One of the bigger, obviously the bigger turning point was her on top of, she found a great program, Boulder Crest, that dealt a lot with PTSD. And after that, things kind of clicked. She really kind of held my feet to the fire and kept me accountable. Like, oh, yeah, it helps when you do go to the doctor. And then once I started doing basic things like, like eating and doing all those things, it's like, oh, yeah, you do start feeling better. And then, and then doing all those things. And then it was like, oh, I feel like working out now.

23:40And then once I started going to the gym, they had a gym that had an adaptive like CrossFit. And I really got hooked with that. And once I got into that, they were like, well, did you want to do coaching? You can, I'll teach you how to do adaptive coaching. I'm like, oh yeah, that hooked me even further into that adaptive world. And I was like, oh, there's more for me than just being a bump on the log and having that purpose and having a drive for service again. because I think for a lot of people, I think it's not having a purpose. So we cycle forwards to all of this is happening. You're getting stronger and faster and fitter.

24:17You finally, or kind of out of nowhere almost, get invited to the US Championships, don't you, at Eugene, Oregon, track town. So it's, you know, the centre of the track and field world in the US. And now you are competing for your country at the World Championships. I mean, we've talked about purpose and we've talked about identity. I wonder what those mean to you now that you're wearing the Star Spangled Banner. I don't even know if I can put words to how it makes me feel. I've always felt super driven to serve other people and serve my community and my country. and I know there's a lot or take for granted.

25:06There's a lot of privileges in our country and it's really easy to take for granted. It just means a lot to me to be on the team. Kate Huang speaking to Katie Smith and Kate went on to win a bronze medal in the women's F36 shot put. Let's end this episode here in the UK.

25:32That's the Real Voices Choir, a singing group from London. They're on a mission to connect people from different parts of the world through a love of singing. And the Happy Pod's Tracy Gordon went along to their annual concert to find out the benefits of singing in a choir.

25:53Real Voices is a non-editioned choir for anybody over the age of 18. Our members tend to range from sort of early to mid-20s all the way through to early 70s. Becky Chalmers, the founder of Real Voices Choir. Yeah, I started it just to give everyone an opportunity to have access to high quality musical experiences. So that, yeah, Real Voices just means that everybody who wants to can come and sing and enjoy themselves and learn a skill and meet other lovely people.

26:29The choir is an eclectic mix with performers of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities. My name is Matea and I moved here from Germany not long ago. I've been singing in different choirs before and I like how music and singing together connect people. The atmosphere here is cheerful and relaxed so I'm happy to be part of the Real Voices.