The Silence of My Pain

[kernelbogey]

I heard this traiied on Breakfast: Hannah French, the musician and Radio Three presenter, who lives in constant pain, explores the issue of pain in performers and how musicians have expressed pain. The Silence of my Pain, 1845 tonight 8 November.

[Serial_Apologist]

I heard this traiied on Breakfast: Hannah French, the musician and Radio Three presenter, who lives in constant pain, explores the issue of pain in performers and how musicians have expressed pain. The Silence of my Pain, 1845 tonight 8 November.

Not an easy subject to talk about, if one is a constant sufferer - rather like intractable depression. Right at the end of his life, my father, a victim of polio before I was born, who always would tell people he didn't suffer from pain, admitted that in fact he always had, chronically, but that he had not wanted to trouble anyone over something neither he nor anybody else had been able to alleviate - which I put that down to a matter of pride, along with that tendency in general for his generation to keep schtum about their emotional feelings. Not that that ever stopped him ranting about politics!

[kernelbogey]

This was thought-provoking and moving; a very good piece of R3 radio.

[jayne lee wilson]

This was thought-provoking and moving; a very good piece of R3 radio.

It certainly was.... thanks for highlighting it....pain-management is a subject I know just a little too much about, not often discussed, well below the usual health radar..

[kernelbogey]

It certainly was.... thanks for highlighting it....a subject I know just a little too much about, not often discussed, well below the usual health radar..

[Bella Kemp]

We so often forget that so much pain is hidden - both mental and physical. (And how wonderful it is that in these times we are so much more able to talk about mental ill health than in the not distant past). I always tried to remind my children to be kind, no matter what. I seem to remember in To Kill a Mockingbird, there's a really spiteful old bat - Mrs DuBoise (?) who is vile towards the children, but when she dies it is revealed that she was in great physical pain because she had refused the opium that might have eased her cancer and that was the reason for her ill temper. How often should one forgive? Seventy times seven, as Christ said. (Alas, I reached 490 with Mr Trump a little while ago, so there may be rare exceptions.)

[Nick Armstrong]

This was thought-provoking and moving; a very good piece of R3 radio.

Agreed, 100%. A courageous programme too, new perspectives opened up on some of the voices we hear, disembodied, over the radio (Fiona Talkington as well as Hannah French).

It did also make me appreciate pretty intensely the fact that I lead a life more or less free of pain, a reminder not to take that for granted....