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Great Lives

Helen Sharman on Elsie Widdowson

Great Lives

BBC

Documentary, History, Society & Culture

4.21.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2017

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How many people realise the impact Elsie Widdowson had on the way we view nutrition?

She was a food scientist who devoted her life to improving the diets of adults and children in Britain and abroad.

Matthew Parris hears why Helen Sharman, the first Briton to go into space, thinks Widdowson deserves her nomination.

They are joined by Elsie's friend and biographer Margaret Ashwell, President for the Association for Nutrition.

You can download the podcast to hear an extended version of the broadcast programme

Producer: Maggie Ayre.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2017.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service.

0:04.7

Join me as I serve up personal conversations with my sensational guests.

0:08.8

Do a leap interviews, Tim Cook.

0:11.2

Technology doesn't want to be good or bad.

0:15.0

It's in the hands of the creator.

0:16.7

It's not every day that I have the CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room.

0:20.7

If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes, you're doing the wrong

0:25.4

thing.

0:26.4

Julie, at your service.

0:27.4

Listen to all episodes on BBC Sales.

0:31.4

I remember appearing with her on a BBC Forces Broadcasting program ages ago, shaking her hand and feeling

0:38.6

strangely, almost primatively thrilled to be touching a person who'd actually gone into outer space. And Helen

0:47.1

Sharman, the first Britain to visit a space station, is my guest today. A scientist

0:52.3

herself, a chemist, she's chosen a fellow scientist

0:55.6

Elsie Widoson as our great life. Helen, tell us a little bit about

0:59.8

Widoson, just an introductory. Well I I first heard of Elsie Wooderson through my employment actures Imperial College,

1:07.0

and only because we have named a Fellowship Award after Elsie,

1:12.0

and this enables people to return from a maternity

1:14.3

break or paternity leave, something like that, and come back and concentrate on their

1:18.4

research rather than having to spend a lot of time doing teaching in the first

1:22.3

few months after they've returned.

1:25.3

And I didn't think of any more other than it was just called the Elsie Widerson Fellowship

...

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