Woman's Hour - 22/06/2009

Woman's Hour with Jane Garvey: Martha Reeves was the lead singer of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas from 1962 onwards. She started out answering telephones for the Motown label, but went on to have a string of hits, including 'Dancing In The Street', 'Nowhere To Run', 'Heatwave', and 'Jimmy Mac'. Martha still performs regularly, in between working fulltime as an elected member of the City Council in Detroit. She's currently touring the UK with some of the other Motown giants in a 'Once in a Lifetime - Legends Live Tour', as part of the 50 year celebrations of Motown. She talks to Jane about a life making music. There are 700,000 people living with dementia in the UK, and that number will rise to over a million by 2025, so more and more couples are taking on the role of carer for their partner. The development of the illness inevitably changes the dynamic of their relationship, but what effect does it have on their social life and friendships? One listener contacted Woman's Hour about the impact that her husband's diagnosis of Alzheimer's has had on their network of friends. She describes how she deals with their friends' reluctance to visit their home. Why are we so afraid of dementia, and how do we overcome those fears and communicate with people who have it? And as Wimbledon starts, Jane is joined by Britain's number 1 women's tennis hope, Anne Keothavong. Wimbledon might not be able to guarantee sun, but one thing it can guarantee - as far as women's tennis goes - is grunting. Past and present grunters include some of the tournament's finest players including Monica Seles and Maria Sharapova. The most recent culprit on the court, however, is the Portuguese teenager Michelle Larcher de Brito, whose unusual style of grunting can apparently be heard three courts away. Now the International Tennis Federation is discussing whether to add a 'noise hindrance' clause to its code of conduct which will place grunting in the same league as verbal abuse. So is it a harmless habit or a deliberate distraction on par with cheating? That's all in Woman's Hour with Jane Garvey.