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Woman's Hour: Blake Morrison on his play about the Brontes, Thyroid Cancer and Penalising Truancy

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Blake Morrison on his play about the Brontes, Thyroid Cancer and Penalising Truancy

09/09/2011

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Blake Morrison on his play about the Brontes, Thyroid Cancer and Penalising Truancy

With Jenni Murray: Blake Morrison; thyroid cancer; penalising parents for truancy.

With Jenni Murray: Blake Morrison's new play about the Brontes; thyroid cancer; penalising parents for their children's truancy.

Blake Morrison has written a new play about the Brontë sisters called We Are Three Sisters, loosely based on Chekhov's Three Sisters. The play has its World premiere in Halifax on 9 September, then tours the country.

Thyroid cancer affects three times as many women as men. There are currently about two thousand new cases of thyroid cancer each year and rates are going up. So what is thyroid cancer, and how is it diagnosed and treated?

Penalising parents for their children's truancy: currently they can be fined, but now it has been suggested that Child Benefit could be withdrawn. So would it work?

In mid-September every year, in the province of Quebec in Canada, women get together to learn how to hunt bear with The Quebec Hunting and Fishing Federation. It's an attempt to get more women involved in a traditionally male pastime. Critics say it's a sign of how desperate the hunting lobby has become to increase its numbers. They say bear hunting is cruel and unnecessary, but supporters say it's part of the Canadian way of life. Anne Kostalas reports.

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