More Rosebud - Dame Rachel De Souza, the Children's Commissioner
Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth
Gyles Brandreth / Plain Jaine Media
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our More Rosebud guest today is the Children's Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel De Souza. Dame Rachel advocates for children in parliament, and on May 8 published a major survey of 1 million children in the UK - entitled "The Big Future". The children she's surveyed are especially those who are hardest to reach, living away from home, with disabilities, or in care – and the survey provides an urgent and definitive state of the nation of childhood, at a time when children are facing numerous challenges.
Regular listeners to Rosebud will know that we're particularly interested in childhood, and the huge impact the memories of our earliest years have on us. A childhood lasts a lifetime. And that's why Gyles is talking to Dame Rachel today - to ask her about the state of childhood in the country today, and to find out about her own story. Rachel tells Gyles about growing up in a working class family in Scunthorpe, about studying theology, and about becoming one of the most successful headteachers in the country.
Thank you to Dame Rachel De Souza for this frank and fascinating conversation.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Giles Brandreth, and this is Moore Rosebud. I'm Charles Brandreth. And because it's Tuesday and it's More Rosebud, |
| 0:30.9 | it's me chatting with my friend and producer Harriet Jane. How are you today, Harriet? |
| 0:37.7 | I'm well, thanks, Giles. You're in good form? Yes. |
| 0:41.1 | Our show is very much about childhood. We've discovered over the last three years, |
| 0:45.7 | recording Rosebud, that a childhood lasts a lifetime. Good childhood, bad childhood, |
| 0:50.9 | whatever it is. It's still in people's heads. It's very, very vivid. |
| 0:55.9 | Your childhood is still very much in your head. |
| 0:58.4 | Yeah. |
| 0:59.2 | My childhood is very much in mine. |
| 1:02.8 | And that's why we've got as a special guest today, somebody who has thought a great deal about childhood and childhood in our time. |
| 1:12.6 | Her name is Rachel D'Souza. |
| 1:15.5 | Did I tell you how I first came across her? |
| 1:18.0 | I don't know, maybe. |
| 1:19.7 | I am a supporter of, maybe even a patron of, something called the Longford Trust. |
| 1:24.5 | The late Frank Longford, Earl of Longford, Knight of the Garter, once a member |
| 1:30.2 | of Clement Attlee's government, I think later a member of Harold Rulson's government, a Labour |
| 1:35.3 | peer, and a very interesting person, a social reformer, a prison reformer, and I got to know him |
| 1:40.6 | when I was very young indeed and admired him and liked him. |
| 1:49.1 | And he was a kind of sort of father figure in a way to me, took an interest in me, which was jolly good of him. |
| 1:50.4 | In fact, one of my first books was published by a publishing company of which he was the chairman. |
| 1:55.2 | Anyway, he died and his family started something called the Longford Trust, which was particularly concerned with |
| 2:03.5 | people who've been in prison, rehabilitation for them, and education for them. And it's a wonderful |
... |
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