Bluebells on Bunny Hill

Life Changing

BBC

Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.6 • 735 Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

When Alan and Irene met in 1959, their connection was instant. The two isolated children aged just seven and nine found warmth and kindness in each other in a children’s home that was unwelcoming and strict. They would steal moments together up on Bunny Hill and talk about their lives. But the home had a rule that boys and girls could not mix. So when their friendship was discovered, a year after they first met, Alan and Irene were separated. It would take four decades for them to find each other again.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Eleven climbers appeared to have died on the world's second highest mountain K2.
0:06.0	It was one of the deadliest days in mountaineering history.
0:10.0	Rock falls, avalanches.
0:11.0	Huge pieces of ice. All are big enough to kill you.
0:14.0	He just flew out into Devoid and he was gone.
0:17.0	How did it all go so wrong?
0:19.0	And is it really worth risking death to feel alive? Why would
0:23.2	somebody pay to go to a place called the death cell on a vacation? Extreme, peak danger. With me,
0:29.9	Natalia Melman Petrazella. Listen to the full series now. First on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:40.6	Hello and welcome to the series that explores how one moment can shift life forever.
0:46.1	When that moment happens in childhood, it can be particularly transformative.
0:51.2	Friendships forged when we're very young can often be intense and long-lasting,
0:56.1	especially with shared experiences like loss or loneliness. Imagine then when the very person
1:02.1	you've learned to trust and feel safe with disappears with no warning and no adult to explain why.
1:09.9	Meet Irene and Alan. They're joining us from Sunderland.
1:13.8	Hello. Hello. Hello. Hi. Good to see you. Irene, you met at a children's home more than 60 years
1:21.4	ago, 1959. How old were you and why were you sent there? I was nine-year-old when I went to the home that we both were in,
1:32.9	but I'd been in a couple of homes before that.
1:36.0	I was in because my mother died when she was very young.
1:40.5	I think at the time things were different that they are today.
1:46.0	We were just putting to children's homes.
1:49.7	But when I went to a Rennie Road at Red House in Sunderland,
	...

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