Woman's Hour - 07/07/2009

With Jane Garvey. Florence and the Machine are currently taking the pop world by storm. After winning the 2009 Critic's Choice Award at the Brits, 22-year-old Florence Welch and her band's debut album has become one of the most eagerly-awaited of the year. Her unbridled, flamboyant and wonderfully weird performances have seen her compared to the likes of Kate Bush and Bjork and made her one of the most talked-about acts at this summer's Glastonbury festival. Florence chats to Jane. It is 150 years since organised district nursing began in Liverpool. Following a Woman's Hour programme exploring how it all started, many listeners emailed the programme with their own memories. Jane Garvey introduces some of these stories. To discuss the way the service has developed over the recent years and to talk about the challenges that face it in the future, Jane is joined by Rosemary Cook, Director of the Queen's Nursing Institute, and by Bernadette Medcalf, chair of the District Nursing Forum at the RCN. Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm were two of the most famous women of the First World War, affectionately known as the 'Angels of Pervyse'. In 1914, 18-year-old Mairi and 31-year-old Elsie headed off to Belgium as ambulance drivers, but, frustrated by the number of men dying in the back of their vehicles, they set up their own first aid post a few hundred yards from the front line. They risked their lives, working under sniper fire and heavy bombardment and were decorated with many medals for their bravery and self-sacrifice. Diane Atkinson has written a book about their achievements and tells Jane about their extraordinary lives.