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Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.

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Woman's Hour: Weekend Woman's Hour

Weekend Woman's Hour

02/01/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Weekend Woman's Hour

Weekend Woman's Hour with Jane Garvey, marking inspirational women from 2009.

With Jane Garvey. Celebrating inspirational women from 2009, including Shirley Williams, Katie Piper, Marguerite Patten and sword swallower Miss Behave.

Jane Garvey celebrates some of the most inspirational achievers who appeared on the programme last year.

Katie Piper is a former model and TV presenter who suffered a horrific attack, arranged by her former boyfriend. Acid was thrown into her face, causing extensive third-degree burns and blindness in one eye.  She has had over 30 operations and her life has changed beyond recognition.  Katie and her mother Diane talk about what happened. 

Shirley Williams was born to politics. As well as being influenced by her mother, the author and pacifist Vera Brittain, her father George Catlin, a leading political scientist, encouraged her to have high ambitions for herself. She left the Labour party after 35 years of membership to co-found the Social Democratic Party as one of the Gang of Four. Jenni talks to her about her extraordinary life and career in politics.  

Jane visits Marguerite Patten, the doyenne of British cookery for more than 60 years. During the Second World War it was her job to insist that the nation made the most of the limited ingredients available, even if this meant creating bananas and cream from parsnip, sugar and banana flavouring. 

As last year marked the 150th anniversary of district nursing, Irene Sankey, now in her late 90s, shares her experiences of working as a district nurse in the 1940s.   

And an unusual inspirational high achiever: a performance from Miss Behave, a female sword swallower.

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