Woman's Hour - 11/06/2009

With Jenni Murray. Jenni speaks to Caroline Flint MP, in her first radio interview since resigning from the government. Amid the storm created by the series of ministerial resignations, that of Caroline Flint created the biggest waves. Not least because it gave newspapers the opportunity to publish images of a glamorous woman on their front pages, but more importantly because she accused the Prime Minister of presiding over a 'two-tier government' in which the women supplied the window dressing, not the policy. Dr Grantly Dick-Read was a pioneer of natural childbirth, becoming a household name after WWII when his book Childbirth without Fear was published. He expounded the theory that labour pain was caused by women's anxiety, and that pain-free birth is possible. 50 years after his death, Jenni discusses the huge influence he had on women's attitudes to childbirth with medical historian Ornella Moscucci, who is writing Dr Grantly Dick-Read's biography, and Gwen Rankin, who was one of the founding members of the NCT, the organisation he inspired. Jo Yirrell's son Harry was only 20 when he gave away his malaria medication to protect the children he was working with in Ghana. On his return to the UK it was discovered that he had contracted the disease, and despite being admitted to hospital, the infection killed him within days. Jenni is joined by Jo to discuss a new documentary exploring her work for the charity Malaria No More, and by Professor Janet Hemingway, Director of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. And Jenni talks to Maria Friedman, the star of numerous West End musicals, and who is about to appear in The King and I at the Royal Albert Hall. She takes the role of Anna, the British governess brought in to tutor the King's children, and sings in a dress with an 18-foot circumference that she says is like 'wearing a hovercraft'.