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Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts.

1:12

Hello. Today in

1:14

the Nigerian town of Chibok in

1:16

the country's northeast, we hear from

1:18

those who were kidnapped ten years

1:20

ago by the militant Islamist group

1:23

Boko Haram. Colleges

1:25

in the US are stepping up

1:27

mental health interventions due to a

1:29

steep rise in the rate of

1:31

suicides among young people there. In

1:34

Lithuania, we track the journey of

1:36

a lost Rembrandt wood panel from

1:38

its origins in a Baltic oak

1:41

forest to an auction house. And

1:44

we hear why the gift of a

1:46

second-hand book sent by post from the

1:48

UK to Paris got our

1:50

Paris correspondent thinking about the true

1:52

state of the Entente Cordiale.

1:55

But first, tensions between Iran and

1:57

Israel this week have ramped up

1:59

further. further after Tehran issued a

2:01

warning that it would retaliate for

2:03

a strike on the Iranian consulate

2:06

in Damascus two weeks ago which

2:08

killed 13 people. Israel

2:11

never claimed responsibility for the attack

2:13

but is widely considered to be

2:15

behind it. This has

2:18

compounded fears that conflict between

2:20

Israel and Gaza will spill

2:22

into a wider regional war.

2:25

And although Israel's defense minister said

2:27

earlier this week that the time

2:29

was ripe for a truce, there

2:31

are still many sticking points in

2:33

the current US proposal of a

2:35

six-week ceasefire. Divisions

2:37

within Israel's governing coalition have

2:40

also intensified in which far-right

2:42

and ultra-nationalist members insist that

2:45

no concession should be made

2:47

to Hamas and that the

2:50

war must continue. James

2:52

Landale reflects on recent events.

2:55

I'm sitting in a briefing room at

2:58

the King Abdullah military air base

3:00

in Jordan, about an hour's drive

3:02

outside the capital Amman. Around

3:04

me are pilots and navigators

3:06

from nine different nations. They're

3:09

huddled together, poring over maps and

3:11

iPads, scrutinizing charts of

3:14

Gaza, weather bulletins and security

3:16

reports. And it strikes

3:18

me that this is possibly the purest

3:20

form of international cooperation I've seen. For

3:24

these servicemen and women from

3:26

Jordan, Egypt, the United States,

3:28

France, Germany, the Netherlands, Indonesia,

3:30

the Emirates and Britain have

3:32

one aim, to deliver aid from

3:35

the air to Gaza. No

3:37

diplomatic horse trading, just a professional

3:39

discussion about how best to complete

3:41

their task without harming people on

3:43

the ground or themselves in the

3:45

air. The airspace over Gaza

3:48

is nothing if not narrow. I

3:51

joined the RAF flight carrying 12 pallets

3:54

of food and water. Each

3:56

sits on a thick slab of plywood

3:58

that slides on runners on the deck

4:00

of the aircraft. When

4:02

the moment comes, the ramp at the back

4:04

drops down, the pilot lifts the nose, and

4:06

gravity does its work. From

4:09

the open fuselage, I watch the parachutes

4:11

open in turn and begin their descent.

4:14

Two thoughts struck me. One

4:16

was the scale of the devastation I could

4:19

see along the shore of northern Gaza. The

4:22

other was how puny the boxes of

4:24

aid seemed in contrast. They

4:26

had been deliberately released over the sea, so

4:29

the onshore wind could carry them to the

4:31

landing zone near the beach. But

4:34

for a moment, they did indeed seem like

4:36

a drop in the ocean. As

4:38

we flew back to Jordan, it

4:40

also struck me that our focus

4:42

on Gaza, the progress of Israel's

4:44

military operation against Hamas, the deep

4:47

suffering of Palestinian civilians, meant

4:49

there was a risk the bigger picture was

4:51

being ignored. For the Jordanians,

4:53

that means the fear violence in the

4:55

West Bank could spill over onto their

4:58

streets among the millions of Palestinian refugees

5:00

living in Jordan. I crossed

5:02

the Al-Ambi, now King Hussein Bridge, and

5:05

once again I was reminded of the

5:07

sheer geographic proximity of this region. For

5:10

Egyptians, a similar concern that Israeli

5:12

military action in Rafah could lead

5:14

thousands of Gazans to try to

5:17

overwhelm the southern border and

5:19

seek refuge on Egyptian soil. And

5:22

for the Lebanese, the constant fear

5:24

that cross-border fighting between Israeli and

5:27

Hezbollah forces could escalate

5:29

into something more. The

5:31

bigger picture for everyone, of course, is

5:33

the conflicts between Israel and Iran. Right

5:36

now, Israel is on alert for a possible

5:38

attack by Iran. This

5:41

in response to Israel's missile strike

5:43

on Iran's consulate in Syria that

5:45

killed senior Iranian generals. In

5:48

Jerusalem, at least, there was little sign of worry.

5:50

I took a long walk through Jewish

5:53

ultra-orthodox neighborhoods and the streets were packed

5:55

with people preparing for Shabbat. Along

5:58

Jaffa Street, shoppers thronged the

6:00

markets. A juggler on stilts plied his

6:02

trade. A troop of dancers raised money

6:04

for a care home for disabled children.

6:08

I saw no queues at the food shops,

6:10

and despite rumours there was no run on

6:12

any bank cash point machines. I

6:14

spoke to Seema Benayoun who was

6:16

running a clothes store. The 75-year-old

6:19

was defiant. I am not

6:21

afraid, she said. We are the Jews,

6:23

we have our God with us, we are strong, we

6:26

sit for all the time. Itzik, a

6:28

30-year-old soldier told me, all our life

6:30

we live with the idea that maybe

6:32

something will happen, but we have

6:34

to live our normal lives. That

6:37

said, preparations are being made because

6:39

of the threat. Some military leave

6:41

has been cancelled, some schools have

6:43

told parents to prepare for the

6:45

possibility of remote learning, local

6:48

authorities are checking public shelters. From

6:51

the moment Hamas attacked Israel last

6:53

October, Iran has given every appearance

6:55

of wanting to avoid a full-scale

6:58

regional war. But the

7:00

attack on Damascus last week seems to

7:02

have crossed a red line. American

7:05

and European ministers are doing what

7:07

they can to try to urge

7:09

restraint on Iran. They are asking

7:11

China to use what leverage it

7:13

has to stay Tehran's hand. In

7:15

turn, Iranian ministers are telling their counterparts

7:17

from the Gulf that the West has

7:19

to put more pressure on Israel. The

7:22

stakes are incredibly high. One

7:25

is left with a thought that if the

7:27

world can cooperate so effectively to deliver aid

7:29

in the skies over Gaza, perhaps

7:32

it could do the same to prevent

7:34

this war escalating out of control.

7:37

James Landale. Nigeria

7:40

has seen a spate of kidnappings

7:42

this year as the country wrestles

7:44

with a deep economic crisis. Over

7:47

the last three months, as many as 1,000 people

7:49

have been kidnapped

7:51

by groups of bandits active

7:54

in north and central Nigeria.

7:57

But this weekend, Nigerians are

7:59

also remembering another deadly kidnapping

8:01

at the hands of the

8:03

Islamist militant group Boko Haram

8:05

in April 2014, in

8:08

which 276 secondary school

8:11

children were abducted. And

8:14

although many have been returned to their families,

8:16

91 of the

8:19

girls are still unaccounted

8:21

for. Yemizi Adagoke went

8:23

to meet some of the

8:25

girls who escaped captivity about

8:28

their memories of that day

8:30

and its impact on their

8:32

lives today. Amina was the first

8:34

to escape Boko Haram after

8:36

a month-long journey trekking through Sambisa

8:38

Forest in Nigeria's northeast, with

8:41

little food and her two-month-old daughter strapped to

8:43

her back. I just thought, even

8:45

if I spend 10 years as a hostage, one

8:48

day I'll escape, she says. And when

8:51

she did, her family greeted her with

8:53

joy and relief. Back then,

8:55

the Nigerian government promised that the lives

8:57

of the escapees would change for the

8:59

better. They'd received the education

9:01

Boko Haram denied them, and their

9:04

own children, many girls were forced

9:06

to marry Boko Haram fighters, would be

9:08

taken care of. But eight years

9:10

after her escape, life is far from

9:12

what she was promised. Amina and

9:15

her daughter live in a tiny shoebox

9:17

of a room in Yola, northeast Nigeria.

9:19

Their worldly possessions are neatly stacked

9:22

and organized into piles. They

9:24

share an outdoor bathroom with a neighbor with

9:26

just a corrugated iron roofing sheet for cover,

9:29

and she cooks outside using firewood.

9:32

She's a student at the American University

9:34

of Nigeria, the only option the

9:36

Chibok girls have been given to continue their

9:38

education. But like many girls, she's

9:41

found it difficult to keep up. Money

9:43

is tight, Amina used to get 11 pounds

9:45

a month to live on, but that money is

9:48

stopped and she receives nothing

9:50

for her daughter's education. back

10:00

to Chibok to visit, and so we arranged

10:02

to meet her there. But before we set

10:04

out to join her, there's been an attack, this

10:07

time in Kaduna, in the northwest of

10:09

Nigeria. Hundreds of schoolchildren

10:11

have been abducted during a school

10:13

assembly, eerily reminiscent of Chibok. No

10:16

one claims responsibility for the attack, but

10:19

I start to wonder if this sudden

10:21

resurgence of mass kidnappings is somehow related

10:23

to the upcoming 10-year anniversary. Upon

10:26

arrival, we meet up with Amina and head

10:28

to her old school. It's

10:30

the first time she's been back since the kidnap.

10:33

Wow, this school still exists,

10:35

she said softly, looking around

10:38

at the sprawling compound. After

10:40

all that's happened to us, it's still

10:42

here. Today, everything at the

10:44

school looks different. The cream-coloured

10:46

buildings look recently painted, and

10:49

there are new pavement tiles on the walkways. But

10:51

despite the cosmetic changes, outside

10:53

in Chibok and across northern

10:55

Nigeria, little in reality

10:58

has changed. Rakia, another

11:00

Chibok girl who escaped Boko Haram, is

11:02

still living in fear of the group.

11:05

She lives in a town that is routinely attacked

11:07

by the militants, and they recently burned

11:09

down her son's school. Whenever I

11:11

hear any sound, I think it's a gunshot,

11:13

she says. Rakia says she

11:16

doesn't receive any financial support from the government,

11:18

and like Amina, she pays for her son's

11:20

education with the money she makes from farming.

11:23

The government has been unfair to us, she says. They

11:25

know we went into the forest and came back with

11:27

children. If they cannot help us, then

11:29

who will help us? Nigeria's

11:31

new Minister for Women's Affairs has said

11:33

she's looking into how the funds for the Chibok

11:36

girls are distributed. She says that

11:38

their education is important, but so is their

11:40

welfare. But Rakia is

11:42

frustrated by the lack of support. So

11:44

much so, she believes the more than 90 girls

11:47

still being held by Boko Haram would stay

11:49

with the militant group if they knew

11:51

what life on the outside was like for them. A

11:54

shocking statement, but it's a sentiment

11:56

shared by others. Lisu,

11:58

a more recent escapee who agreed to

12:01

speak to us on condition of anonymity,

12:04

openly expressed her regret. Sometimes

12:07

I cry when I remember. I ask

12:09

myself, why did I even leave? Only

12:11

to come and face such degrading treatment, being

12:14

insulted almost daily. I never

12:17

experienced such heartache while I was in

12:19

Sambisa Forest. Lisu is

12:21

currently under government care and living

12:23

in group accommodation with other escapees

12:25

in Mediguri, North East Nigeria. She

12:28

describes difficult conditions there, a

12:31

lack of basic provisions like food and

12:33

soap, having her movements monitored,

12:36

and enduring verbal abuse from staff at

12:38

the facility who call the girls names

12:40

and say they're ungrateful for the support they're

12:42

receiving. The state government

12:44

deny these claims, but Lisu's disappointment

12:46

with the life she's living now is

12:48

clear, as is Amina and

12:51

Rakias. Successive governments continue

12:53

to fail these girls who have

12:55

survived such trauma and fought so hard

12:57

to escape. By the

13:00

time we finish filming in Chibok, there's been

13:02

another kidnapping. More missing

13:04

children, more devastated families,

13:07

and no end in sight. Yemizi

13:10

Adegoke. Mental

13:12

health experts have expressed alarm in

13:14

the US about an increase in

13:17

the rates of suicide in the

13:19

United States, with a particularly steep

13:21

rise among young people. Specifically,

13:24

a number of university campuses

13:26

have seen increased numbers of

13:28

students taking their own lives,

13:31

mystifying experts. In

13:33

response, several colleges are introducing

13:35

additional mental health measures for

13:38

students. Will Vernon

13:40

went to North Carolina to

13:42

investigate why the deaths are

13:44

happening, and some may find

13:46

the material contained in this report upsetting.

13:50

One side of Catherine and Tony

13:52

Salus's living room has been dedicated

13:55

entirely to their late son. They

13:58

call it their memory wall, and it's almost

14:00

buckling under the weight of

14:02

framed photographs, toys and other

14:04

reminders of Ben. We

14:07

didn't know he was living a

14:09

double life, says Tony Salas. In

14:11

one, he was planning his suicide,

14:13

and in the other life, he

14:16

was shopping for engagement rings. 21-year-old

14:18

Ben Salas suddenly took his own

14:20

life last April. He was

14:22

a promising student and aspiring Olympic

14:24

athlete. He had many

14:27

friends, a stable relationship and a

14:29

devoted family. We

14:31

have enormous guilt, Catherine tells me,

14:33

her voice shaking. You look

14:35

at every little thing you could have done that

14:38

might have changed things. Tony

14:40

and Catherine say their son briefly

14:42

received treatment for mild depression three

14:45

years ago, but had reassured his

14:47

parents that he had fully recovered.

14:49

There were no warning signs that Ben

14:52

was suicidal. Ben's girlfriend, Stephanie,

14:54

was already mourning the loss of a

14:56

friend who took her own life, when

14:59

Ben did the same two days later. A lot

15:01

of things are just kind of a blur, she says.

15:04

Ben truly loved and cared for people,

15:07

but unfortunately, it seems he didn't feel

15:09

like others cared about him. Stephanie

15:12

says she wishes she could have told him,

15:14

I love you, your family loves you, and

15:16

you're leaving us behind. Tony

15:19

says he still imagines the sound of

15:21

his son's car pulling into the driveway,

15:23

still sees him walking through the front

15:25

door. It makes me very

15:27

angry that I can't have that anymore, he says.

15:30

Crowning the top of the

15:32

memory wall in a mahogany

15:34

frame is Ben's university diploma,

15:36

awarded posthumously. In the

15:38

previous academic year, seven students

15:40

from North Carolina State University,

15:42

including Ben, took their own

15:44

lives. So far this

15:46

academic year, there have been three, with

15:49

one at the end of January. The

15:51

North Carolinian state capital, Raleigh, is

15:53

known as the City of Oaks,

15:56

and NC State's Red Brick University

15:58

buildings are nestled. among them. The

16:01

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Justine Hollington, says

16:03

new measures have been introduced

16:05

to cope with the crisis,

16:07

including a system called QPR

16:09

– Question, Persuade, Refer –

16:12

so that students can recognise the

16:14

signs that friends or classmates are struggling

16:16

and get them help. Staff

16:18

are trained to refer students who are

16:21

skipping lectures or deadlines, in case these

16:23

too are signs that something isn't right.

16:27

Like Ben's parents, NC State is

16:29

also struggling to understand the causes

16:31

behind the suicides. There

16:33

may be no warning signs, Ms Hollingshead

16:35

admits. Individuals don't tell their

16:38

family or friends, they don't reach out

16:40

to resources, and will likely never know

16:42

why. She describes suicide

16:44

as a national epidemic in the

16:46

United States that isn't limited to

16:48

college campuses. Last

16:51

year saw the highest recorded number of

16:53

deaths by suicide in this country. It

16:55

is now the second leading cause of

16:57

death among Americans aged under 35. Leading

17:01

psychiatrists suggest the impact of the

17:03

Covid pandemic could be a contributing

17:05

factor. Lockdowns meant young

17:07

people were disconnected from their

17:09

schools, their friends, everything necessary

17:11

for healthy development. Social

17:14

media too could play a part, according

17:16

to experts. More time

17:18

on phones means more exposure

17:20

to divisive political messaging and

17:22

upsetting content about conflicts and

17:24

human suffering. But

17:27

no one knows for sure what exactly

17:29

is causing this mental health crisis in

17:31

America. Back

17:33

at the Salas family home, Catherine shows

17:35

me a badge she wears every day

17:37

with her son Ben's face on it.

17:40

Written across the bottom, the words,

17:42

you matter. It

17:44

started some really deep conversations with people

17:46

who are struggling, she tells me. Catherine

17:49

is perched on the very edge of the

17:51

sofa cushions as we talk. She battles to

17:53

hold back her tears while explaining how she

17:55

quit her job as a nurse. It

17:58

was too painful to be in the place where... where

18:00

she received Ben's suicide note by

18:02

text message. Catherine and Tony

18:04

have agreed to speak to me, they say, because

18:07

they want to raise awareness of mental illness.

18:10

We need more people to talk about it,

18:12

Tony says. If it can happen

18:14

to us, then it can happen to somebody else.

18:17

I ask them if they have advice for

18:19

parents whose children may be struggling. Don't

18:22

settle for I'm OK, says Catherine,

18:24

her eyes glistening. An

18:26

OK may be an OK, but a

18:28

lot of times, it's not. Will

18:31

Vernon, if you're

18:33

suffering distress or despair and

18:36

need support, a list of

18:38

organisations in the UK that

18:41

can help is available at

18:43

bbc.co.uk/action line. It's

18:45

an art collector's dream, stumbling

18:48

upon the lost work of one

18:50

of the old European masters in

18:52

a local auction house. And

18:54

so it was in 2022

18:57

that US collector Cliff Shorra

18:59

happened upon a painting by

19:01

Rembrandt on an old wooden

19:03

panel, consigned by a

19:05

church and listed in a Maryland

19:07

auction as in the manner of

19:09

Rembrandt. He decided to

19:11

bid for the artwork before he

19:13

established if it was, as

19:15

he suspected, by the artist himself.

19:19

Stillfully, he began the lengthy

19:21

process of verifying its authenticity

19:23

with other experts. It

19:25

soon transpired that the estimated value of

19:28

$1,000 on

19:30

the auction list was a

19:32

gross underestimation of its actual

19:34

value. Simon Warrell

19:36

recently found out about the

19:39

provenance of the artwork, tracing

19:41

it back to its origins

19:43

in the Lithuanian Baltic oak

19:45

forest. The trees

19:47

were felled in autumn and winter, then rafted

19:49

down the river in spring, explains

19:52

my guide Linus Doboros.

19:55

We're standing on the banks of the

19:57

Nemenos River in Lithuania, a few dozen

19:59

years ago. thousand miles west of the city of

20:01

Kaunas. I've come here

20:03

to find the remains of the Baltic oak

20:06

forest that, in the 17th century, provided

20:09

the wood for the panels used by Rembrandt

20:11

and other Dutch masters to paint on. We

20:14

know from dating tests that one panel

20:17

Rembrandt used was from a tree felled

20:19

here in 1617. The

20:23

panel was about the size of

20:25

a paperback book, and on it

20:27

the great Dutch master painted a

20:29

portrait of a beggar with a

20:31

bulbous, drunkard's nose. The

20:34

painting was executed in Leiden

20:36

in 1629 and passed through numerous

20:39

hands until it ended up in

20:41

Berlin, in the hands of

20:43

a painter named Joseph Bloch. In

20:46

1930 he gifted it to

20:48

his daughter Anna. Anna

20:50

Bloch's life could come from the pages

20:52

of a Lecaré novel. Raven-haired

20:55

with a round moon face,

20:57

she was related to the

20:59

fabulously wealthy Oppenheim banking family.

21:03

She was a thoroughly modern woman

21:05

who was far more interested in

21:07

left-wing politics and culture than domesticity.

21:10

As a result, her three recorded

21:13

marriages lasted barely twelve years. In

21:16

the 1930s Anna belonged to

21:19

an anti-Nazi group, New Beginnings,

21:21

whose members met at her

21:23

apartment in Charlottenburg, Berlin. It

21:25

was extremely dangerous, and seeing the way the

21:28

wind was blowing, in 1934 Anna consigned the

21:32

Rembrandt to Russian-born art historian

21:35

Numa Trevas. Trevas

21:38

smuggled it and other artworks belonging

21:40

to Jewish families by ship to

21:42

America. Anna was

21:44

later arrested in Paris and interned

21:46

in a camp in southwest France.

21:49

After escaping, she joined the resistance

21:52

in Marseille. Standing on

21:54

the riverbank, looking over the fast-flowing

21:56

nemesis, I tried to imagine the

21:58

paintings nearly falling. 500-year

22:01

journey across space and time.

22:04

It began with planks of Baltic

22:06

oak being rafted down the river

22:08

to the Coronian Lagoon on the

22:10

Baltic Sea coast. From

22:13

there they were shipped to Holland. Little

22:15

remains of the infrastructure that supported

22:18

the timber trade, but here and

22:20

there, along the river today, there

22:22

are occasional reminders. At

22:25

Vilkia, the place of wolves, there are

22:27

the remains of a jetty where rafts

22:29

used to stop for repairs or

22:32

refitting. In Holland,

22:34

the timber was rough cut, thinned,

22:36

shaped, and beveled on all four

22:39

edges by a specialist panel maker.

22:42

It was then covered with a mixture of

22:44

calcium chalk and animal glue before

22:47

an imprimatur layer was applied,

22:49

a mixture of lead, chalk,

22:51

and possibly some umber. On

22:54

top of this, Rembrandt would

22:56

stab and drag thin layers

22:58

of pigment to create unprecedented

23:00

effects and textures so that

23:02

the glowing interior radiance of

23:04

reflected light would shine through.

23:07

Anna Bloch survived the war. She

23:09

died in Berlin in 1982, aged 86. The

23:14

painting she saved ended up in

23:16

a monastery in California. By

23:19

then, the Rembrandt provenance had

23:21

become detached. In

23:24

2008, it narrowly escaped destruction

23:26

when a wildfire burned the monastery

23:28

to the ground. The

23:30

panel was sold a few years later

23:33

at a small auction, where it was

23:35

bought by American gallery owner and curator

23:37

Cliff Shorra. A lost

23:39

Rembrandt that began its life

23:41

here on this riverbank in

23:43

Lithuania had been found. And

23:49

finally, this week might appear to

23:51

be a good week for Anglo-French

23:53

relations. A hundred and twenty

23:56

years after the Entente Cordiale was

23:58

signed, French Republican troops

24:00

took part in the changing the

24:02

guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace at

24:04

the same time as their British

24:06

counterparts at the Élysée in Paris.

24:09

The Entente Cordial was an agreement

24:12

that aimed to end acrimony and

24:14

improve diplomatic links between the UK

24:16

and France. And

24:18

last week even saw the adoption

24:20

in the French Parliament of Prime

24:22

Minister's questions. But

24:24

our Paris correspondent Hugh Scofield

24:27

recently received a parcel which

24:29

caused him to reflect more

24:31

broadly on whether,

24:33

despite appearances, the relationship

24:35

has grown more detached,

24:37

even distant. To

24:40

whoever it was who sent me the book,

24:42

I just want to say I genuinely appreciate

24:45

the gesture and your comments in the attached

24:47

note were very complimentary. If you'd

24:49

left an address or an email I'd have responded

24:51

with a word of thanks. But I couldn't because

24:54

the book, a second-hand copy of

24:56

Peter Mayles' memoir, Toujours Provence, arrived

24:58

in Paris out of the blue without any

25:01

indication of the sender. A young

25:03

man from La Post came up to

25:05

the office. He handed me the package, he

25:07

smiled, and then he said, that'll be ten

25:09

euros please. Not

25:12

knowing what the package contained, what could I

25:14

do but cough up? In fact I had

25:16

to have a whip around because I didn't

25:18

have the cash. Was it something I'd ordered

25:20

and forgotten about? Was it something from BBC

25:23

HQ in London? Was it valuable? But

25:25

no, it was a slightly grubby copy of a book

25:27

that came out in 1992 and sold back then

25:30

by the bucketload, and for that I'd just

25:33

been forced to shell out ten euros. So

25:36

again, to the anonymous sender, I do honestly wish

25:38

to say thank you both for the kindness that

25:40

made you send the book, but

25:42

also for setting my mind a thinking. Because

25:45

what happened to me there, a

25:48

trivial and meaningless inconvenience, is nowadays

25:50

an extremely common occurrence. If you

25:53

live in France, receiving anything from

25:55

the United Kingdom has become, post-Brexit,

25:57

a complete lottery. What

26:00

I was being asked to pay for the book

26:02

was, it turned out, handling charges. Taking

26:04

on the role of customs agent La

26:06

Poste, the French Post Office, had told

26:09

the French customs people that the package

26:11

contained nothing valuable as far as it

26:13

knew, and for doing that it then

26:15

made me pay a charge. But

26:17

it might not have been a handling fee.

26:20

You can also be charged VAT or duty

26:22

if the customs people decide that the package

26:24

is above a certain value. But

26:27

the essential point is this. It's

26:29

all totally random. No

26:31

one can tell what you may or

26:33

may not have to pay when you

26:35

are delivered a package from the United

26:37

Kingdom. I've had parcels of books that

26:39

have sailed through without a whisper from

26:41

French customs, and then another parcel actually

26:43

worth much less, which has incurred an

26:45

apparently made-up figure in fees. When

26:47

we appealed on social media for similar

26:49

experiences from British people living in France,

26:52

we were inundated. Somebody reported having had

26:54

to pay tenures to receive a birthday

26:56

card. The message from all of them

26:58

was, don't send gifts from the UK,

27:00

bring them next time you come to

27:02

visit. All of

27:04

which would not particularly matter, except

27:07

that it is having an effect. I

27:09

occasionally order old 78s, these are

27:11

vinyl records, younger listeners, from a

27:13

man in Derbyshire who's one of

27:15

the UK's top experts in pre-war

27:17

jazz and dance music. Once

27:20

I pay duty on the records I get delivered,

27:22

sometimes I don't. He says the

27:24

unpredictability is playing havoc with his business,

27:27

and his European market is drying up.

27:30

Another example, I subscribe to a

27:32

well-known British weekly news magazine. It

27:34

used to arrive two or three

27:36

days after publication. Now I can

27:38

be left waiting three weeks. I'm

27:40

tempted to cancel. These

27:42

are the banal, mundane, little threads

27:45

of commerce that bind countries together.

27:48

They are fraying, and I think in a

27:50

small way it's significant. Gradually

27:53

new habits of mind start to form.

27:55

You can't be sure about receiving a

27:57

delivery from the UK, so you don't

27:59

bother ordering. You can't be sure

28:01

that you'll get to Eurostar 90 minutes

28:03

before the train goes as is recommended

28:05

So you don't bother traveling toing and

28:07

froing to London suddenly isn't quite so

28:10

automatic You'd quite like a

28:12

British candidate for a job you're offering but

28:14

they'd need a work visa. So you give

28:16

it to someone else It's just easier in

28:19

such little events insignificant

28:21

in themselves to countries

28:23

ponderously gradually Imperceptibly turn

28:26

away from one another. I hope

28:28

it's not happening between France and the United

28:30

Kingdom But I fear that it might be

28:33

both sides still in general admire each

28:35

other like each other They just don't

28:38

deal with each other quite as much and that's not

28:40

good For this insight

28:42

I once again convey my thanks to

28:44

the anonymous benefactor who sent me an

28:46

old book by Peter Mayall and don't

28:48

worry the 10 euros Were definitely worth

28:50

it Hugh Schofield and

28:53

that's all for today But you

28:55

can hear more stories on the

28:57

from our own correspondent podcast including

28:59

a recent dispatch on gang violence

29:02

in Haiti We'll be

29:04

back again next Saturday morning do

29:06

China's From BBC Radio

29:08

4. I just remember shouting and

29:10

screaming get off my sister Life

29:13

as we know it can change in an

29:15

instant. I was just punching frantically I wasn't

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gonna let it take away my sister if

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I could help it a single transformative moment

29:22

I heard this engine go past and I

29:24

was like, what is that? And mum

29:27

had looked up into the rearview mirror and she went.

29:29

Oh my god, he's here I'm

29:31

dr. Sean Williams and this is the

29:33

program that explores the most dramatic personal

29:35

and poignant stories from the very

29:38

people who've experienced them I

29:40

always pass there and said hi You've

29:46

got to find some joy in in the sorrow,

29:49

you know, you gotta find some joy

29:52

subscribe to life-changing on BBC

29:54

sounds It

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was one thing that my family and friends know me

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for, it's If there's one thing that my family and friends

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