Many Voices

I'd forgotten just how good the radio is in England. Apart from the wonderful Radio Three there's a lot to enjoy on Radios Two and Four and on local stations like Radio Manchester. (Excellent football coverage on the latter. Well, of United and City at least.)

One reminder of this came in the form of a bit of casual listening the other day when a presenter on Radio 2 was interviewing a young lady suffering from schizophrenia. The immediate occasion of the interview was a quite dreadful story from the previous day of a young man whose mother had been attacked by a schizophrenic man and who had killed the man in the course of defending her. Sadly his mother also died. The presenter far from playing up or on the tragic details of the case was interviewing the girl in order to attempt to give a balanced picture of schizophrenics and their suffering. Remarkably, partly as a result of the remarkable courage and character of the girl in question, he largely succeeded.

This girl, having been traumatised by some kind of abuse as a child, had managed to lead a fairly normal life despite being haunted by three voices taunting her almost continually, as I understood the situation. She sounded amazingly balanced and rational, I suppose because that's exactly what she was, even as the voices were talking to her as she was having the interview. The presenter throughout talked with knowledge, understanding and compassion. Any listener would have learnt one heck of a lot.

And this was a bit of routine, unheralded, daily radio that no one would have made any fuss over. Listening I was reminded of the virtues of allowing many voices, many viewpoints, on air. In a sense they provide their own balance.