The mortician, the "werewolf" and the keeper of brains

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Alexandra Morton-Hayward unlocks the secrets of the human brain but her own betrays her.

Every night Ally Morton-Hayward has a headache so painful it wakes her up. She says it makes her feel like a werewolf. But by day she's unlocking the secrets of other human brains. Ally was at university when she started feeling a shocking and extraordinary pain in her head - 'cluster headaches' - which became so debilitating she had to drop out. While the rest of her friends were finishing their degrees, Alexandra decided to do something different – she got a job as an undertaker. It was at the mortuary that Ally held her first human brain and observed its delicate texture. When she began reading about ancient human brains that had been found intact around the world, she was amazed – how could something usually so delicate survive for thousands of years? Today she's leading the effort from Oxford University to understand how this is possible, whilst her own brain pushes her to become a master of pain and resilience.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: May Cameron

Get in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Transcript

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0:00.0	Why does some big successful brands go bust?
0:05.7	Toast is back for a new series, taking a look at the decisions that often left investors burnt.
0:11.6	I'm Sean Farrington, a BBC business journalist. I'll be hearing about the hype.
0:15.6	They're going to do the deal that makes them the most money at that point of time.
0:19.7	And I'm picking what went wrong, talking to owners and employees to ask, what can we learn?
0:25.4	It was being undercut by similar rivals. It just couldn't survive.
0:30.3	Toast. Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:35.8	The first time I held someone's brain in my hands, that was a really odd sensation because
0:42.4	I had sat with her family and planned her funeral and I knew that she had wanted the colour
0:48.9	purple. And I remember wondering which bit of the brain how's that bit of knowledge?
0:54.6	Which bit of the brain was the bit that told her she loved purple?
0:59.5	I found that really strange.
1:02.0	It's heavy in your hands.
1:03.4	It feels almost spongy.
1:06.9	And it's covered in folds and dips and texture.
1:13.6	And of course, there's also a range of sort of fibrous coverings to it, which can sometimes
1:19.2	cling to the surface of the brain.
1:22.2	It's a strange thing.
1:35.1	Alexandra Morton Hayward, or Ali, has dedicated her life to studying that strange thing inside our heads.
1:41.9	And she has a unique perspective. In her 20s, when most of our friends were finishing their degrees and climbing the corporate ladder.
1:46.6	Allie got a job as an undertaker.
1:52.1	And she's not afraid to speak pretty plainly about everything that job entails.
	...

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