BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Hello, this is Stephen Fry here.

I was lucky enough to be a guest on the podcast a few months ago

and able to talk about mental health in the battlefield and at home in Ukraine,

a subject that Ukrainians are taking very seriously,

and I've been connected with for more decades now.

So it was wonderful to get an opportunity to talk about this subject. It's incredibly important.

And it's a sign, I think, of what Ukraine stands for, that they embrace the subject for

conversation and realize its importance. In Russia, it's not spoken about at all,

and that's only asking for trouble for their population, I think. Anyway, it's my pleasure now

to read a short story from the book Brave Tales by Irina Vyhowska and Victoria Murovina. It's called

Miracle in the Darkness. Just as Christia reached for the packet

to retrieve a ginger biscuit for her and her brother, the lights went out. Oh dear, here it goes

again, she sighed. The TV flickered and died, carrying with it the vibrant cartoon unicorns

on the screen. The lights in the living room went out. Darkness enveloped the entire apartment.

The kettle, the toaster, the fecass plant on the windowsill, and Christia, all thrown into shadow.

It was not the first time the electricity had vanished.

Soldiers were driving the invaders beyond the borders of their land,

and in desperation the enemy would launch rockets at their power stations.

The lights would go off, but engineers would work tirelessly to repair them,

and the light would return. It seemed to be all anyone would talk about, parents, the news,

and even Mrs. Olesea at school. At first, the darkness was dull. But as time passed,

...