Woman's Hour - 17/10/2008

Presented by Sheila McClennon. Should all children's details be held on a national database? Terri Dowty, Director of Action on Rights for Children, Maggie Atkinson, Director of Children's Services for Gateshead and Baroness Delyth Morgan join Sheila to discuss. While researching for her novel East of the Sun, author Julia Gregson discovered that the women known as the 'fishing fleet', who went to India in the 1920s looking for a spouse, were were a robust and determined breed. She joins Sheila to talk about these desperate women and the life led by memsahibs in India before independence. Dr Andrew Weeks and Joanna Tilley, Scientific Director for Virgin Health Bank, join Sheila to discuss the risks and benefits of Cord Blood Banking. Roberta Blackman-Woods, MP for Durham, talks about her campaign to increase regulation of lap dancing clubs. Samantha Ruderham's autism means that she struggles to make herself understood through speech, but she has found far greater fluency through song - so much so that she has started work with a vocal coach and has recorded her own album, called I Have a Voice. Including at 10.45am [Rptd today 7.45pm]: The Color Purple Dramatisation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker, telling the story of a young black woman's struggle against adversity in the Deep South of the interwar years. Shug is back, and Celie is finally reunited with her sister Nettie and her children Olivia and Adam. Celie ...... Nadine Marshall Nettie ...... Nikki Amuka-Bird Mister ...... Eammon Walker Harpo/Adam ...... OT Fagbenle Shug Avery ...... Nina Sosanya Pa ...... Colin McFarlane Samuel ...... Ray Shell Olivia ...... Lorraine Burroughs Dramatised by Pat Cumper. Directed by Pauline Harris.