Ellie Simmonds; anti-depressants; dealing with loneliness

There’s been a considerable increase in the numbers of anti-depressants prescribed in the UK over the last decade. Last year more than 50 million prescriptions were issued in England alone. Tomorrow as part of our Staying Sane series we explore the role of anti-depressants in keeping ourselves healthy and free from danger. Are GPs prescribing them too often, or are we just getting better at diagnosing depression? How effective are they, and do we know how they really work? We’ll be hearing from a listener, Karen, who wishes she had taken them earlier. And we’ll also be hearing from psychiatrist Dr Joanna Moncrieff who questions their efficacy and safety, and from Dr Maureen Baker, Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

MIND

Ellie Simmonds has won four Paralympic gold medals, and currently holds ten world records. She shot to fame in 2008 when she won her first two Paralympic golds in Beijing at the age of just 13. The following year she became the youngest ever recipient of an MBE, and has since received an OBE. She intends to compete at the Paralympics in Rio in 2016, but in the meantime she’s studying at Loughborough and pursing her passion for baking cakes. She was Star Baker in her episode of The Great Comic Relief Bake Off last year, and she’s just published a children’s story called Best Cake for A Best Friend, which follows the fictional eight year old character Ellie as she tries to change the world around her by baking. Jane met Ellie Simmonds a few days ago and asked her about her swimming and her baking.

Loneliness is an affliction that’s rarely mentioned and yet it affects all in society, including those of us who have plenty of human contact. In today’s item on loneliness we explore what it’s like to be lonely in a crowd. Some people experience deep and constant feelings of loneliness regardless of their social situation or how many friends they have. According to data launched last week, Britain is the loneliness capital of Europe – we’re less likely overall to know our neighbours or have strong friendships than people living anywhere else in the EU. Jane talks to psychotherapist Philippa Perry, and to Marion McGilvary, who has written about what it’s like to be sociable and yet still feel a deep sense of loneliness.

The 1860s marked a change in culture on the high-street. It was a time when young women’s employment outside the home was taking off ,and being served by a woman in a shop was a strange new phenomenon. Prior to this, shop work was a closed world for most women. So what led this change? Why was shopwork considered ‘un-ladylike’? And why is the profession’s early history steeped in scandal? A new series, Shopgirls, charts how they have been central to Britain’s retail revolution. Lecturer at University of Essex, Dr Pamela Cox, who presents the three-part BBC Two series, joins Jane.

Shopgirls: The True Story Of Life Behind The Counter is broadcast tonight on BBC Two at 9pm

Althea  Gibson was the first African-American to win Wimbledon, and indeed the first to win  a Grand Slam: The French Open in 1956.  Five years before, she’d been  the first African American to be invited to play at  the All England Club. She went on to win the Ladies’ singles there  in 1957 and 1958.   In this piece from the Woman’s Hour Archive Collection, first broadcast in 1989, Liz Roberts spoke to the photographer Carl Kramer and to  Henry Kennedy, a former tennis player on the same circuit.