00:00:40.320 --> 00:00:42.840
Why does one film
 one's life partner dying?

00:00:48.520 --> 00:00:52.280
During Nancy's cancer, I had no time
 to reflect on what was happening.

00:00:53.120 --> 00:00:57.040
I hoped that the footage would be a way
 to comprehend, find meaning,

00:00:57.320 --> 00:00:59.480
but mostly to help me remember.

00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:05.520
It was a project
 that Nancy and I were united in,

00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:10.440
although, on occasion, I wondered
 if it was the correct thing to be doing.

00:01:17.560 --> 00:01:21.680
It has taken me sixteen years
 to find the courage and the impetus

00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:23.000
to make this film.

00:02:21.640 --> 00:02:25.200
My reaction when I was diagnosed
 was one of shock,

00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:28.520
I felt like I had gone into a dream world.

00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:33.760
Fear, of course, and the fact that
 you really could be facing your mortality.

00:02:37.800 --> 00:02:39.240
When you hear cancer,

00:02:39.240 --> 00:02:42.560
you know, you have a choice,
you have to make your choices.

00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:44.120
You either lie down

00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:48.160
and not do anything, or you,

00:02:48.160 --> 00:02:52.400
you either stand up
 and you take all of your courage

00:02:52.400 --> 00:02:57.640
and your strength, and you go “Hit the road,
 Jack, I'm beating you.” You know.

00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:02.040
During Nancy's cancer,
 many TV stations filmed her

00:03:02.040 --> 00:03:05.640
because of the groundbreaking trauma work
 she had begun in South Africa.

00:03:05.880 --> 00:03:09.120
This footage has helped enormously
 in the making of this film.

00:03:09.760 --> 00:03:13.240
Six months ago, Nancy
 Diuguid was diagnosed with breast cancer.

00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:18.520
Nancy decided to adopt a holistic,
 integrated approach to fighting her illness,

00:03:18.520 --> 00:03:22.360
combining both conventional
medicine and natural methods.

00:03:22.840 --> 00:03:25.640
A second operation revealed
 that the cancer had not spread,

00:03:25.800 --> 00:03:28.760
and six months down the line,
 she's officially in remission.

00:03:29.200 --> 00:03:31.840
Nancy, are you confident
 that you took the right route?

00:03:32.520 --> 00:03:35.400
Yes, I think by taking an integrated
 medical approach,

00:03:35.480 --> 00:03:36.640
I did take the right route.

00:03:36.640 --> 00:03:39.160
I have to, you have to, take
 control of your life.

00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:43.040
And I did, and I did lots of reading
 and thinking and studying and,

00:03:43.160 --> 00:03:46.400
and working with various people.
 - But there's one thing for sure.

00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:49.600
You need support, am I right?
 - That's absolutely right. Without support

00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:52.080
you can't handle the whole thing by yourself.

00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:53.840
Okay, how did Melanie help you?

00:03:54.480 --> 00:03:56.480
Well, I think the first thing you got to do
is overcome the fear

00:03:56.480 --> 00:03:59.240
because once you hear about cancer,
 you’re in a terrible state of shock.

00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:01.320
And I think, I didn't know where I
got it from,

00:04:01.320 --> 00:04:03.320
but I just decided to make a yes list.

00:04:03.640 --> 00:04:06.920
And everybody I knew who had survived with
 cancer went up on this big board.

00:04:06.920 --> 00:04:08.320
And the list is still growing

00:04:08.320 --> 00:04:11.120
because I think so often
 you just equate cancer with death,

00:04:11.440 --> 00:04:14.080
and once you're in that space, it's
 very, very hard to be positive.

00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:19.720
Nancy and I lived
 together for many years in London.

00:04:20.320 --> 00:04:25.120
Nancy was a theatre and opera director
 and I a political documentary filmmaker.

00:04:26.320 --> 00:04:28.840
When we first met, at the
National Film School in England

00:04:28.840 --> 00:04:32.440
in the 1980s, I knew immediately
 we were going to be together.

00:04:33.280 --> 00:04:36.640
I was captivated by Nancy's
 exuberance and enthusiasm,

00:04:37.080 --> 00:04:39.320
her open heartedness and her extravagance.

00:04:39.960 --> 00:04:42.440
I was more reserved and reticent.

00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:50.960
Happy birthday, mom and dad.

00:04:53.200 --> 00:04:56.880
Camerawoman today is Melanie
 Chait, director Nancy Diuguid.

00:04:57.200 --> 00:05:00.560
Hi, and happy birthday to both of you.
- Here we are,

00:05:01.560 --> 00:05:04.760
turning into the cottage.

00:05:04.880 --> 00:05:08.400
We both worked long and hard
 and early in our relationship,

00:05:08.400 --> 00:05:12.640
we found a cottage in the Cotswolds
 where we would escape to for weekends.

00:05:13.480 --> 00:05:18.560
Hello cottage. I'm just going
 to take you around the garden.

00:05:18.720 --> 00:05:22.040
Nancy's breadth of interests
 and depth of knowledge was compelling.

00:05:22.640 --> 00:05:24.680
From cosmology to quantum physics,

00:05:24.680 --> 00:05:28.840
the visual arts to the classics,
 to scuba diving and above all, nature.

00:05:29.120 --> 00:05:30.880
The wild flowers aren’t out
at the moment.

00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:35.200
Nancy was a passionate
 organic gardener.

00:05:35.920 --> 00:05:39.400
Her aversion to pesticides
 stemmed from her having grown up

00:05:39.400 --> 00:05:43.520
on a tobacco plantation
 where DDT had been sprayed extensively.

00:05:44.480 --> 00:05:47.040
You can see we have yellow
 marsh flowers here.

00:05:47.520 --> 00:05:48.640
Where's the pond.

00:05:48.640 --> 00:05:49.600
Oh, there it is.

00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:52.160
Did you get the yellow marsh flowers?

00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:54.320
Yeah.
- And we have frogs.

00:05:54.880 --> 00:05:57.680
I imagine I'm making too much
noise for them right now.

00:05:58.320 --> 00:06:00.960
I'm trying to find little animals,

00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:02.760
I don't see too many today.

00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:06.360
Normally, I see lots of life going on.

00:06:12.800 --> 00:06:15.720
We both greatly admired
 the scientist Rachel Carson,

00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:19.800
whose seminal book, Silent Spring,
 published in 1962,

00:06:20.360 --> 00:06:23.560
raised the alarm about the long term
 damage of pesticides,

00:06:23.760 --> 00:06:27.720
particularly DDT, and its effect
 on wildlife and human health,

00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:31.280
especially in relation
 to the increased risk of cancers.

00:06:35.440 --> 00:06:39.080
The history of life on earth
has been a history of interaction

00:06:39.080 --> 00:06:41.800
between living things
 and their surroundings.

00:06:43.840 --> 00:06:45.800
Only within a moment of time

00:06:45.800 --> 00:06:49.600
represented by the present
 century has one species,

00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:55.320
man, acquired significant power
 to alter the nature of his world.

00:06:57.040 --> 00:06:59.600
Future historians may well be amazed

00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:01.920
by our distorted sense of proportion.

00:07:03.720 --> 00:07:06.560
How could intelligent
 beings seek to control

00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:12.080
a few unwanted species, by a method
 that contaminated the entire environment

00:07:12.680 --> 00:07:17.080
and brought the threat of disease
 and death even to their own kind?

00:07:23.160 --> 00:07:25.480
Because of my political filmmaking
in South Africa,

00:07:25.480 --> 00:07:28.120
 I was persona non grata for many years.

00:07:29.240 --> 00:07:31.720
When apartheid was overthrown, I returned,

00:07:31.720 --> 00:07:33.880
wanting to contribute
 to the new South Africa.

00:07:35.480 --> 00:07:39.360
Nancy continued to work internationally,
 commuting back and forth.

00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:43.000
She was in South Africa
 when diagnosed with breast cancer.

00:07:46.880 --> 00:07:47.960
Hi Dr Kessel.

00:07:47.960 --> 00:07:49.840
How are you?
- Fine, yourself?

00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:51.200
Good to see you.

00:07:52.080 --> 00:07:53.480
It was a stage one cancer,

00:07:53.480 --> 00:07:54.840
it was very small.

00:07:54.840 --> 00:07:57.360
They found it early, prognosis was good.

00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:00.640
I also went to a cancer counselor.

00:08:01.040 --> 00:08:05.600
Together, we created a nutritional plan
 and a supplementary plan.

00:08:06.680 --> 00:08:09.040
And Melanie and I turned to the ocean

00:08:09.720 --> 00:08:14.720
because I find that nature is one
of the most important places to be in if you can.

00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:18.680
It brings
 about a kind of expanse of awareness.

00:08:21.960 --> 00:08:27.040
I now practice meditation
 and I'm doing remedial yoga as well.

00:08:27.480 --> 00:08:31.680
So I’ve taken a holistic approach to

00:08:33.240 --> 00:08:36.120
healing this cancer
 and never having to have it

00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:37.600
come back again, hopefully.

00:08:45.240 --> 00:08:49.200
Before Nancy's diagnosis, Desmond,
 a seven year old,

00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:53.000
had crept into our hearts
 and was to change our lives forever.

00:08:55.840 --> 00:08:58.120
One day a little chap,

00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:02.000
very tiny, street waif looking,

00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:06.920
knocked on the door and looked up at me
 and said, ‘Can I play with your dog?’

00:09:07.160 --> 00:09:09.520
And I looked down at him and I said,
 of course you can.

00:09:09.800 --> 00:09:12.880
And so, we got to know Desmond.

00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:15.080
Almost every Saturday afternoon,

00:09:15.080 --> 00:09:16.920
he would come to play with Fudge.

00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:19.800
And he and I would go out
 and cut bulrushes

00:09:19.800 --> 00:09:23.920
and just look at nature, the butterflies
 and the birds.

00:09:26.080 --> 00:09:28.120
And then one day he announced to us

00:09:28.120 --> 00:09:30.800
that his mother was going to send him back
 to his grandmother

00:09:31.880 --> 00:09:33.760
in the township outside, Kimberly,

00:09:34.120 --> 00:09:36.440
and Melanie and I
 looked at each other and went

00:09:36.440 --> 00:09:38.240
‘This child is just too bright.’

00:09:38.920 --> 00:09:41.040
It’s just a bit like, funny.

00:09:41.040 --> 00:09:43.040
So we spoke to his mom

00:09:43.760 --> 00:09:47.560
and we said, ‘Do you think that we
can help with Desmond's education?’

00:09:49.120 --> 00:09:50.560
And so Desmond's

00:09:50.560 --> 00:09:54.240
been living with us
 and he's getting an education.

00:09:54.480 --> 00:09:56.000
What's it say to you?

00:09:56.000 --> 00:09:59.480
To me? She’s got a headache or something.

00:10:00.800 --> 00:10:02.440
But he is so talented,

00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:07.080
he has a tremendous artistic and creative
 ability and an athletic ability.

00:10:07.400 --> 00:10:09.120
He was just utterly delightful.

00:10:25.040 --> 00:10:26.760
Desmond brought us great joy,

00:10:27.040 --> 00:10:32.000
but despite Nancy's remission, the anxiety
 of cancer returning never quite leaves.

00:10:32.480 --> 00:10:35.880
So the three of us spent as much time
 as we could at a holiday cottage

00:10:35.880 --> 00:10:38.360
in Pringle Bay to assist her recovery.

00:10:40.480 --> 00:10:42.080
Go ahead. Go.

00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:01.440
But 18 months later,

00:11:04.280 --> 00:11:06.520
Christmas 2000.

00:11:11.880 --> 00:11:14.160
I started getting terrible pain,

00:11:18.600 --> 00:11:20.680
and I went back to my oncologist.

00:11:22.520 --> 00:11:24.880
Of course, it had spread into my bone.

00:11:53.560 --> 00:11:59.080
Man alone of all forms of life
 can create cancer producing substances,

00:11:59.080 --> 00:12:02.640
which in medical terminology
 are called carcinogens.

00:12:03.320 --> 00:12:07.920
With the dawn of the industrial era,
 the world became a place of continuous

00:12:07.920 --> 00:12:11.960
ever accelerating change.
 Instead of the natural environment,

00:12:12.280 --> 00:12:15.480
there was rapidly substituted
 an artificial one

00:12:15.760 --> 00:12:19.000
composed of new chemical
 and physical agents,

00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:22.160
many of them possessing powerful capacities

00:12:22.160 --> 00:12:24.640
 for inducing biologic change.

00:12:25.240 --> 00:12:27.480
By the end of the 19th century,

00:12:27.760 --> 00:12:31.560
a half dozen sources of
industrial carcinogens were known.

00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:36.960
The 20th century was to create countless
 new cancer causing chemical,

00:12:37.400 --> 00:12:41.760
and to bring the general population
 into intimate contact with them.

00:12:42.720 --> 00:12:46.320
It is hardly surprising, therefore,
 that we are now aware

00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:49.560
of the alarming increase
 in malignant disease.

00:12:53.560 --> 00:12:58.320
Biologist Rachel Carson worked four years
 in the preparation of Silent Spring,

00:12:58.600 --> 00:13:01.760
first printed on September 27, 1962.

00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:04.960
Up to now, five hundred thousand
copies have been sold,

00:13:05.200 --> 00:13:09.040
and Silent Spring has been called
 the most controversial book of the year.

00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:10.760
Miss Rachel Carson.

00:13:10.760 --> 00:13:13.200
We've heard the benefits of pesticides.

00:13:14.440 --> 00:13:17.080
We've heard a great deal

00:13:17.080 --> 00:13:20.680
about their safety, but very little

00:13:21.640 --> 00:13:24.040
about the hazards.

00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:26.880
Very little about the failures,
 the inefficiencies.

00:13:28.200 --> 00:13:32.160
And yet the public was being asked
 to accept these chemicals,

00:13:32.160 --> 00:13:35.600
was being asked to acquiesce in their use,

00:13:36.680 --> 00:13:38.760
and did not have the whole picture.

00:13:38.920 --> 00:13:41.760
So I set about to remedy
 the balance there.

00:13:58.560 --> 00:14:00.560
We have to remember that children

00:14:01.120 --> 00:14:04.160
born today are exposed to
 these chemicals from birth,

00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:07.200
perhaps even before birth.

00:14:07.640 --> 00:14:10.520
Now, what is going to happen
 to them in adult life

00:14:11.200 --> 00:14:13.280
as a result of that exposure?

00:14:13.960 --> 00:14:15.520
We simply don't know.

00:14:20.840 --> 00:14:24.400
Nancy was born on October the 19th, 1948,

00:14:24.880 --> 00:14:29.320
and she was brought up in
 a little town in Kentucky, in Ghent.

00:14:31.560 --> 00:14:35.880
She was part of a wealthy tobacco
 farming family and a family,

00:14:35.880 --> 00:14:40.760
by most British standards, very formal,
 with very traditional values.

00:14:41.440 --> 00:14:44.000
And her mother was very much
 a southern belle.

00:14:45.440 --> 00:14:49.160
Nancy would often recall how
in her early years in the south,

00:14:49.160 --> 00:14:52.600
 she'd once seen the burning
cross of the Ku Klux Klan

00:14:53.280 --> 00:14:57.000
and the horror of this stayed with her
 all her life and gave her the impetus

00:14:57.320 --> 00:15:00.720
to challenge discrimination
 wherever she saw it.

00:15:01.960 --> 00:15:05.920
But this background
 and her parental expectations,

00:15:05.920 --> 00:15:09.840
of course, made it very difficult
 and deeply painful for Nancy

00:15:10.200 --> 00:15:13.320
when in later years,
 she came out to her parents.

00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:27.280
I’m gonna start taking my top off.

00:15:29.200 --> 00:15:31.240
Stand by your woman.

00:15:33.680 --> 00:15:35.280
I shall be very demure.

00:15:42.560 --> 00:15:44.040
No, show it to the camera.

00:15:44.240 --> 00:15:45.120
Desmond, hush up.

00:15:53.040 --> 00:15:55.160
Look what I'm reading, Anna.
 - What are you reading?

00:15:55.160 --> 00:15:57.400
Faust.
- Faust? Are you mad?

00:15:58.080 --> 00:15:59.000
I am mad.

00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:00.920
Our friend Anna, a physician,

00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:04.320
was always close at hand, often
 administering treatments

00:16:04.320 --> 00:16:06.840
at our home in Johannesburg to save Nancy

00:16:06.840 --> 00:16:08.880
 spending long hours in the hospital.

00:16:09.400 --> 00:16:10.160
Are we doing it in this hand?

00:16:11.040 --> 00:16:14.640
We have been because these are such...
- Fragile

00:16:14.640 --> 00:16:16.400
fragile little veins.
- OK.

00:16:20.400 --> 00:16:22.280
Wow, I watched her do that, Mel.

00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:24.640
And was it sore?
- No.

00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:34.320
Chemotherapy was tough, it was called FEC,

00:16:34.840 --> 00:16:37.280
and it makes you extremely nauseous.

00:16:37.280 --> 00:16:40.240
And of course you’re warned
your hair is going to come out,

00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:43.440
and I was quite fascinated
 to see what I’d look like bald,

00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:45.880
so I just didn't know
 I was going to have to do it this way.

00:16:46.880 --> 00:16:50.000
What happens is you
 have days where you go,

00:16:51.040 --> 00:16:52.960
‘I'm going to be fine.
 I'm going to beat this.

00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:53.920
It's not going to beat me.’

00:16:53.920 --> 00:16:57.880
And I had days where I was in very,
 very dark despair.

00:17:00.680 --> 00:17:02.720
But often I was too sick to do anything.

00:17:02.960 --> 00:17:06.560
Often I just lay there in the bed,
 but I have wonderful friends.

00:17:07.200 --> 00:17:11.360
They gave me foot massages
 and head massages and hand massages.

00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:14.880
Friends from Britain
 came out every month to help us.

00:17:16.600 --> 00:17:19.280
The week that I was well,
 or the two weeks sometimes,

00:17:19.400 --> 00:17:21.560
when I wasn't working,
 we’d plan a nice trip.

00:17:21.560 --> 00:17:24.880
I found nature to be really important.

00:17:28.840 --> 00:17:33.440
My little family is very important
 and doing something beautiful each day

00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:35.640
and remembering that life is for living.

00:17:35.640 --> 00:17:39.120
However long it is,
it's the quality of your life.

00:18:06.960 --> 00:18:09.680
OK Mel, I’m tired now
- OK

00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:17.520
Miss Rachel Carson,
 and those who agree with her,

00:18:17.520 --> 00:18:20.720
charge that risks involved
 in the use of chemical pesticides

00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:24.320
far exceed the benefits
 they provide, including wormless apples.

00:18:24.880 --> 00:18:30.120
Since the mid 1940s, over 200
 basic chemicals have been created

00:18:30.120 --> 00:18:34.720
for use in killing insects, weeds,
rodents and other organisms

00:18:35.040 --> 00:18:38.000
described in the modern
 vernacular as pests.

00:18:38.760 --> 00:18:43.880
These sprays, dusts and aerosols are now
applied almost universally

00:18:43.880 --> 00:18:47.680
 to farms, gardens, forests and homes.

00:18:48.840 --> 00:18:52.960
Can anyone believe it is possible
 to lay down such a barrage of poisons

00:18:52.960 --> 00:18:57.400
on the surface of the Earth
 without making it unfit for all life?

00:18:59.240 --> 00:19:02.360
Now, we know from experiments on animals

00:19:02.360 --> 00:19:07.040
that many of these chemicals
 accumulate in body tissues.

00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:10.480
We know that some are liver poisons,

00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:12.680
others are nerve poisons.

00:19:14.440 --> 00:19:17.880
And for still others, we
 have evidence that they produce mutations

00:19:18.800 --> 00:19:23.280
and in various other ways are exceedingly
 dangerous materials.

00:19:23.320 --> 00:19:24.960
Unless we do bring these chemicals

00:19:24.960 --> 00:19:28.800
under better control,
 we are certainly headed for disaster.

00:19:29.040 --> 00:19:32.160
The world is facing a global
 public health risk.

00:19:32.800 --> 00:19:36.600
That's the warning from scientists who
 say cancer will claim the lives of

00:19:36.600 --> 00:19:42.080
nine point six million people this year, up
 from eight point two million in 2012.

00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:48.920
Nancy and I found it remarkable

00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:52.440
how innovative and progressive Rachel
 Carson’s thinking had been.

00:19:53.360 --> 00:19:57.800
She challenged the claim that pesticides
 were harmless as constantly promoted

00:19:57.800 --> 00:20:01.960
by big pharma companies seeking
 new markets after the Second World War.

00:20:03.800 --> 00:20:07.240
Rachel was dismissed by these
companies for being a woman scientist,

00:20:07.720 --> 00:20:10.280
yet she was so ahead of her
 time in comprehending

00:20:10.280 --> 00:20:12.240
the interconnectedness of all life.

00:20:14.360 --> 00:20:15.680
In the last 50 years,

00:20:15.680 --> 00:20:18.640
few other books have had the
same impact as Silent Spring,

00:20:18.800 --> 00:20:21.840
and today, Rachel Carson
 is considered the founder

00:20:21.840 --> 00:20:24.080
of the Modern Environmental Movement.

00:20:26.280 --> 00:20:29.600
Nancy's feminist
 politics were way ahead of the rest of us.

00:20:30.600 --> 00:20:34.200
Imagine, in 1973, that
Nancy was very out

00:20:34.200 --> 00:20:39.040
and upfront about being a lesbian
 in an extremely chauvinistic set up.

00:20:42.760 --> 00:20:47.560
We arrived at gay sweat shop
 as first and foremost actresses.

00:20:47.920 --> 00:20:51.800
The politics were learned on the road
 and with a great deal of help from Nancy.

00:20:54.280 --> 00:20:56.440
It was an extraordinary time.

00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:06.040
Thirty years later, it's very hard
 for people to remember

00:21:06.040 --> 00:21:09.880
how difficult it was to come out
 and let alone stand on a stage

00:21:09.880 --> 00:21:11.000
and tell the world.

00:21:13.160 --> 00:21:18.680
Autumn 1976, we toured the very first
 all lesbian production of any woman can.

00:21:19.080 --> 00:21:21.480
The all lesbian company was very special

00:21:21.680 --> 00:21:26.160
because we were all able to say that,
yes, we were dykes, and proud.

00:21:26.680 --> 00:21:28.640
The scariest time was
 when we went to Dublin,

00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:31.720
there’s nightly bomb threats
and hellfire and damnation

00:21:31.720 --> 00:21:33.760
 being preached by the Dublin press.

00:21:34.800 --> 00:21:38.320
In 1977, Nancy had a notion
to run a women's festival.

00:21:38.440 --> 00:21:41.440
In autumn, the Drill Hall
 housed the very first

00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:44.400
contemporary women's
festival in the UK,

00:21:44.920 --> 00:21:47.680
and trailblazed
 the future of lesbian theatre.

00:21:48.160 --> 00:21:53.920
Nancy’s energy, drive, vision
 and southern cussedness made this happen.

00:21:55.040 --> 00:21:58.280
Every artist in the country
 who over the past 20 years,

00:21:58.280 --> 00:22:03.680
has been able to openly call
themselves lesbian, queer or gay,

00:22:04.680 --> 00:22:07.800
must remember to say her name
 with love and gratitude.

00:22:12.200 --> 00:22:15.920
1973, I was at drama school

00:22:16.200 --> 00:22:19.520
and I was sitting at the top of the
steps and, out of nowhere,

00:22:19.520 --> 00:22:22.440
this motorbike pulled up
 with two women on it,

00:22:22.680 --> 00:22:26.160
and she got off the back of the bike
 and she was in dungarees.

00:22:26.360 --> 00:22:28.760
The sun was behind her, she was barefooted,

00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:31.480
she got one strap for the dungarees opened

00:22:31.480 --> 00:22:35.920
and this long blond hair,
 and she was holding a leather music bag.

00:22:36.160 --> 00:22:39.080
You know, those ones which have
the silver bars that go through,

00:22:39.360 --> 00:22:42.200
and she sort of drifted up the stairs
 because she was a dancer,

00:22:42.200 --> 00:22:46.400
trained as a dancer, moved like a dancer,
 and she was extraordinary,

00:22:46.440 --> 00:22:48.760
and my little heart just went.

00:22:49.080 --> 00:22:51.320
It was love at first sight.

00:22:51.360 --> 00:22:53.280
I think one of the things
 she was very good at

00:22:53.280 --> 00:22:57.200
was imagining worlds
 beyond the conventional.

00:22:57.200 --> 00:23:02.640
Using whatever facility,
 whatever technique she could bring to bear

00:23:03.320 --> 00:23:08.400
in pushing those imaginations
 into more colorful, into wilder

00:23:10.440 --> 00:23:11.880
ideas.

00:23:12.440 --> 00:23:14.880
And so that you would feel
expanded as a person,

00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:16.560
 I think she was about expansion.

00:23:18.440 --> 00:23:21.640
The work that she did, it was very pioneering,
 I mean, she was one of the first

00:23:22.080 --> 00:23:23.440
women directors.

00:23:23.440 --> 00:23:26.920
We're seeing women directors
 now who really are

00:23:26.920 --> 00:23:29.760
standing on Nancy's shoulders
 and probably don't even realize it.

00:23:30.080 --> 00:23:35.560
From the mid 1970s through to the 80s,
 Nancy directed over thirty theatre productions.

00:23:35.920 --> 00:23:38.720
The ones that are still very,
 very clear in my memory

00:23:39.120 --> 00:23:44.160
are her productions of Noel Greig’s
 all male Dear Love of Comrades.

00:23:44.680 --> 00:23:48.560
And then, of course, her wonderful,
 expressionistic production of

00:23:48.560 --> 00:23:50.240
Angels Descend on Paris,

00:23:50.920 --> 00:23:54.960
which was about Nazi persecution
of gays as well as the Jews.

00:23:55.680 --> 00:23:58.040
Both productions won awards,

00:23:58.320 --> 00:23:59.480
hardly surprising.

00:24:04.720 --> 00:24:08.080
Nancy was a staff producer
at London Coliseum,

00:24:08.360 --> 00:24:09.760
 home of English National Opera.

00:24:09.920 --> 00:24:12.080
What Nancy found in opera was

00:24:12.440 --> 00:24:15.960
all the big players, all the
big mediums of human expression.

00:24:16.600 --> 00:24:17.640
Movement,

00:24:18.080 --> 00:24:21.160
text and, most importantly, music.

00:24:21.280 --> 00:24:23.160
And Nancy had a deep feeling for music,

00:24:23.520 --> 00:24:25.280
probably starting back when

00:24:25.280 --> 00:24:28.760
she was a child in America
 with Baptist Church,

00:24:28.760 --> 00:24:31.800
and to still find a way of bringing that

00:24:31.800 --> 00:24:34.240
into European high art music,

00:24:34.240 --> 00:24:35.680
it’s great fun if
 you can do that.

00:24:35.680 --> 00:24:39.160
And I think that was a good time
 to try and put those two things together.

00:24:40.960 --> 00:24:43.960
Nancy was enjoying a successful,
 international career

00:24:43.960 --> 00:24:47.360
when she started coming to South Africa
 after the end of apartheid.

00:24:48.240 --> 00:24:51.960
Once here, the focus of her work
 began to change dramatically.

00:24:54.280 --> 00:24:56.120
When I came here, I said to Mel,

00:24:56.440 --> 00:24:58.720
‘I can’t just come here and flit in and out.

00:24:58.960 --> 00:25:01.720
There's so much going on,
 I want to contribute something.’

00:25:02.760 --> 00:25:06.560
Well, this is the project that
was initiated by Nancy Diuguid.

00:25:06.680 --> 00:25:10.120
Nancy felt that somehow
 she needed to contribute to

00:25:10.360 --> 00:25:12.480
the children of Alexandra.

00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:15.280
Some of the kids
 within the group were kids

00:25:15.280 --> 00:25:19.320
who have been sexually abused,
 emotionally abused.

00:25:19.400 --> 00:25:23.680
Well, Voices or amazwi, or
mantsoe, amazwi,

00:25:23.680 --> 00:25:25.360
whichever language you
want to do it in,

00:25:25.960 --> 00:25:27.440
is a project

00:25:27.920 --> 00:25:30.800
that uses the expressive art therapies,

00:25:30.800 --> 00:25:34.320
or the creative art therapies,
 to work with children at risk.

00:25:35.320 --> 00:25:39.280
Working with these children
 and looking at the first few days

00:25:39.280 --> 00:25:42.000
of them hardly being able to utter a word,

00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:43.800
 to find those children

00:25:43.920 --> 00:25:48.560
slowly relaxing with us,
slowly smiling genuinely.

00:25:49.160 --> 00:25:53.840
We talked about ourselves,
 our names, our sense of identity,

00:25:54.160 --> 00:25:57.680
and out came a sense of pride in the self

00:25:58.040 --> 00:26:00.200
that wasn't there in the
beginning, when we first met.

00:26:04.520 --> 00:26:07.600
It was really the result of the work
at Alex with the children

00:26:08.040 --> 00:26:12.320
 that I realized, the real training
in the creative arts therapies

00:26:12.680 --> 00:26:14.760
should be with the
trauma workers themselves.

00:26:15.280 --> 00:26:18.960
So I spent about a year and a half
 starting to make a team.

00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:22.920
And we talked about Makati
 feels very much that an African traditional healer is called

00:26:22.920 --> 00:26:25.880
You’re not
 going to go out and use these techniques,

00:26:26.480 --> 00:26:27.960
Caroline spitting water on my
face, for instance.

00:26:28.920 --> 00:26:31.320
Hey.
- Hey.

00:26:31.320 --> 00:26:32.760
Hey.

00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:36.120
When Nancy ran a trauma workshop,
 she would be there every day,

00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:39.080
even when at her sickest,
 her energy was phenomenal.

00:26:42.160 --> 00:26:43.760
Everybody get close to one another

00:26:43.760 --> 00:26:45.520
so you can touch the person in front of you.

00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:47.040
Alright, lovely.

00:26:47.480 --> 00:26:50.680
And just start to massage each
 other's shoulders.

00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:54.640
Let’s shake those hips.

00:27:14.800 --> 00:27:17.560
Bone pain is very, very painful,

00:27:19.160 --> 00:27:21.760
and there's times
 when it's just too painful.

00:27:22.400 --> 00:27:25.560
If I need to be knocked out a bit, I will.

00:27:28.400 --> 00:27:30.600
So I've had a lot of bad side effects,

00:27:30.600 --> 00:27:32.440
I've had a lot of days in bed.

00:27:42.320 --> 00:27:46.560
As yet, insufficient time
 has elapsed to reveal the full effect

00:27:46.560 --> 00:27:49.840
of the new chlorinated
hydrocarbon insecticides

00:27:49.840 --> 00:27:51.840
and of the modern herbicides.

00:27:52.680 --> 00:27:56.200
Most malignancies develop so
slowly that they may require

00:27:56.200 --> 00:27:58.760
a considerable segment of the victim's life

00:27:58.760 --> 00:28:01.680
to reach the stage of
showing clinical symptoms.

00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:05.640
The full maturing
 of whatever seeds of malignancy

00:28:05.640 --> 00:28:08.760
have been sown by
 these chemicals is yet to come.

00:28:19.080 --> 00:28:23.440
After another round of chemotherapy,
 Nancy felt so much stronger.

00:28:24.080 --> 00:28:27.920
Her lifetime dream had been
to go to Tibet, and so we went.

00:28:28.880 --> 00:28:31.240
And I'm the only one
 who didn't get altitude sickness,

00:28:31.240 --> 00:28:32.880
and I think because the chemo

00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:36.040
 had thinned my blood so much
 that I'm the only one

00:28:36.040 --> 00:28:38.400
that went through Tibet
 without getting ill.

00:28:50.320 --> 00:28:53.040
The trip imbued her
 with new life and vitality,

00:28:53.760 --> 00:28:56.880
but within a month of returning,
 her pain had intensified.

00:28:58.680 --> 00:28:59.920
How are you feeling this morning?

00:29:00.520 --> 00:29:05.320
Pretty good, which tape are you
 on for this ‘Wheel of Life’?

00:29:05.640 --> 00:29:07.920
The...
- Second one?

00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:08.840
Yeah, second one.

00:29:09.160 --> 00:29:10.880
That’s the one I hadn’t listened to yet.

00:29:11.480 --> 00:29:13.680
It's all about after death experience.

00:29:14.400 --> 00:29:16.520
Mel.
- I’ll listen to it after you.

00:29:25.400 --> 00:29:26.920
I went back on to

00:29:27.320 --> 00:29:29.400
another form of chemotherapy, Taxol.

00:29:30.520 --> 00:29:31.880
I had to have a
port put in

00:29:32.760 --> 00:29:35.800
and I ended up in hospital
with neutropenic shock.

00:29:41.240 --> 00:29:43.280
Melanie stayed often
 at the hospital with me,

00:29:43.520 --> 00:29:44.800
she was fantastic.

00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:51.400
One night, though, she wasn't
 there and I was in such pain,

00:29:51.400 --> 00:29:55.520
I'd have to rinse my mouth
 just every sort of half an hour,

00:29:55.680 --> 00:29:57.640
and I just put my head
at the side of the sink

00:29:57.640 --> 00:29:59.880
and I just cried and cried and cried,
and I actually said,

00:30:00.520 --> 00:30:04.000
if this is where I am and
 this is where I'm going to stay,

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:05.200
please let me go now.

00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:27.360
I could cope with Nancy
not getting better

00:30:27.680 --> 00:30:29.280
 as long as she did not get worse.

00:30:30.800 --> 00:30:34.400
The fear of losing the battle against
 cancer strikes terror in your heart,

00:30:34.880 --> 00:30:36.720
and we all fight it in our own ways.

00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:40.560
I managed mine by
 staying up late into the night

00:30:40.880 --> 00:30:43.760
researching whatever new
cancer treatments were available.

00:30:46.720 --> 00:30:48.400
Desmond dealt with his fears

00:30:48.640 --> 00:30:50.680
by always remaining close to Nancy.

00:30:58.600 --> 00:31:00.640
Poor Nancy, trying to work at her

00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:04.920
her little studio, Desmond pulls up
 his chair to work next to her.

00:31:09.880 --> 00:31:14.000
She means... means

00:31:15.760 --> 00:31:20.000
By the power of the sun.

00:31:23.040 --> 00:31:24.040
Hello, you.

00:31:29.440 --> 00:31:32.120
What are you guys doing?
- Working.

00:31:32.120 --> 00:31:33.320
What are you working at?

00:31:33.840 --> 00:31:35.760
Um, I'm doing my work here.

00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:37.160
Which work is it?

00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:40.640
Time.

00:31:40.920 --> 00:31:43.600
He's doing his, you're doing
 your story, darling,

00:31:43.600 --> 00:31:46.080
how to tell time and then
 answering questions.

00:31:46.080 --> 00:31:46.600
Yeah.

00:31:46.880 --> 00:31:47.400
That sounds right.

00:31:47.720 --> 00:31:48.440
And you Nance?

00:31:48.800 --> 00:31:51.160
I’m writing my letter,
my long, long

00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:53.480
overdue letter to my friends,

00:31:53.960 --> 00:31:56.040
who’ve all been so
wonderful to me.

00:32:07.240 --> 00:32:08.680
Look inside Whitehall.

00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:13.560
June, we were planning our trip
 to the United Kingdom and the USA

00:32:13.560 --> 00:32:15.400
to see family and friends, and I said,

00:32:15.400 --> 00:32:16.880
 if I'm on a stretcher, I'm going,

00:32:17.400 --> 00:32:18.440
and I just had this,

00:32:19.440 --> 00:32:21.480
well, Mel says, she calls me Lazarus,

00:32:21.480 --> 00:32:22.920
I just had this turnaround

00:32:23.400 --> 00:32:24.520
 and I'm so grateful.

00:32:33.560 --> 00:32:37.560
All of Nancy's friends
received the same letter

00:32:37.680 --> 00:32:40.680
 basically saying she was
 coming to London

00:32:40.760 --> 00:32:45.280
and she was going to have
 a really big celebratory party

00:32:45.560 --> 00:32:50.640
and she wanted as many of her friends
 as possible to come to this party,

00:32:51.440 --> 00:32:54.560
which, obviously, all of us
 were thrilled to do.

00:32:55.880 --> 00:32:58.280
Everybody knew she had cancer.

00:32:59.720 --> 00:33:03.720
There were many women
 there who were survivors of cancer.

00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:07.640
One or two have been survivors
 for a very long time,

00:33:08.080 --> 00:33:13.080
and there was a lot of very positive,
jokey conversation about,

00:33:13.080 --> 00:33:15.960
we’ll crack it,
 we'll be able to survive,

00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:19.720
all of those things and Nancy
 was absolutely upbeat about it.

00:33:23.880 --> 00:33:27.160
Nancy had an extraordinary
 ability for friendship.

00:33:28.040 --> 00:33:31.240
She brought out the best in everyone

00:33:31.560 --> 00:33:36.160
and had this warmth
 and unconditional love for people,

00:33:37.280 --> 00:33:39.560
which was truly very special,

00:33:39.560 --> 00:33:42.840
because she made you feel very special.

00:33:45.920 --> 00:33:48.080
And she had friends

00:33:48.080 --> 00:33:50.240
from so many different continents

00:33:50.840 --> 00:33:54.640
and so many different contexts of life

00:33:56.200 --> 00:33:59.640
that you realized
 that hundreds of people loved her.

00:34:02.120 --> 00:34:05.680
You have been such remarkable friends,

00:34:06.560 --> 00:34:10.120
and Melanie and I have many times
cried at the beauty of your friendship

00:34:10.560 --> 00:34:12.720
and the love and the
support that you've given us.

00:34:13.080 --> 00:34:15.880
And Nicole said a very beautiful thing
 the other day after the party,

00:34:16.640 --> 00:34:19.400
she said everybody was there
 just holding on,

00:34:19.920 --> 00:34:22.160
and none of you have ever let us go.

00:34:22.160 --> 00:34:24.480
And we will forever be grateful,

00:34:24.840 --> 00:34:28.120
and we love you deeply for your goodness.

00:34:28.120 --> 00:34:32.360
Thank you. Cheers.
- Cheers

00:34:32.920 --> 00:34:34.640
I'm not getting up, you come to me.

00:34:41.560 --> 00:34:43.000
After the party in London,

00:34:43.360 --> 00:34:47.440
we went to visit Nancy's parents who still
 lived on their tobacco plantation

00:34:47.680 --> 00:34:52.320
where DDT had been sprayed
 since 1945, when first introduced.

00:34:53.400 --> 00:34:55.480
Her mother was turning ninety four

00:34:55.480 --> 00:34:56.920
and her father a hundred.

00:35:00.200 --> 00:35:02.600
Never thought I’d be that old.

00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:04.840
And you still looking pretty good.

00:35:06.640 --> 00:35:08.800
There’s Nancy, twenty two,

00:35:10.280 --> 00:35:11.480
and still looking pretty good.

00:35:11.480 --> 00:35:14.160
You said the first hundred years
 were the hardest, didn't you, dad?

00:35:14.800 --> 00:35:16.240
Well I made a hundred.

00:35:16.240 --> 00:35:17.520
You have, honey.

00:35:18.240 --> 00:35:19.800
I think I have.

00:35:19.800 --> 00:35:20.800
You have indeed,

00:35:20.800 --> 00:35:22.040
you made a hundred.

00:35:24.440 --> 00:35:26.160
Being there was difficult,

00:35:26.160 --> 00:35:28.960
Nancy's parents had never
accepted her sexuality

00:35:29.520 --> 00:35:32.920
and had not once offered to
help us with her medical expenses.

00:35:46.440 --> 00:35:50.320
This is where we would
 often swim off the ferry boat.

00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:53.440
Of course, I'd go swimming
 also off our farmland,

00:35:53.440 --> 00:35:54.160
 not off the boat.

00:36:19.760 --> 00:36:23.520
Chemicals sprayed on crop lands,
 or forests, or gardens

00:36:23.840 --> 00:36:27.360
lie long in soil, entering
 into living organisms,

00:36:27.640 --> 00:36:32.000
passing from one to another
 in a chain of poisoning and death,

00:36:32.480 --> 00:36:35.800
or they pass mysteriously
 by underground streams

00:36:36.120 --> 00:36:39.880
until they emerge, and through the alchemy
 of air and sunlight,

00:36:40.280 --> 00:36:44.920
combine into new forms
 that kill vegetation, sicken cattle

00:36:45.240 --> 00:36:49.880
and work unknown harm
 on those who drink from once pure wells.

00:36:50.560 --> 00:36:54.040
This pollution is, for the most part,
 irrecoverable.

00:36:54.040 --> 00:36:56.400
The chain of evil it initiates,

00:36:56.400 --> 00:36:58.960
not only in a world
 that must support life,

00:36:59.360 --> 00:37:03.320
but in living tissue, is for
 the most part, irreversible.

00:37:29.320 --> 00:37:30.280
After Kentucky,

00:37:30.280 --> 00:37:34.120
we went to the Memorial Sloan
 Kettering Cancer Center in New York,

00:37:34.440 --> 00:37:36.600
one of the top cancer
 hospitals in the world.

00:37:37.600 --> 00:37:40.200
We were keen to see if they could offer
 any other treatments,

00:37:40.760 --> 00:37:44.200
and Nancy asked if pesticides
 could have been a potential cause.

00:37:47.560 --> 00:37:50.560
The doctors told us that
there was mounting evidence

00:37:50.560 --> 00:37:55.760
that women of Nancy’s age cohort, who grew up
drinking ground water from farm wells,

00:37:56.320 --> 00:37:59.360
were now presenting with
high incidence of breast cancer.

00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:05.360
What do you want me to take?

00:38:05.360 --> 00:38:08.800
I want you to come up here and look at
 Brooklyn Bridge through these trees.

00:38:21.560 --> 00:38:23.720
It was only in 2015

00:38:23.720 --> 00:38:28.120
that an American scientific study
 showed that exposure to DDT

00:38:28.120 --> 00:38:31.320
in utero, infancy and
early childhood

00:38:31.320 --> 00:38:33.840
places women at significantly higher risk

00:38:33.840 --> 00:38:37.280
of being diagnosed with
breast cancer by the age of 50.

00:38:38.320 --> 00:38:40.640
This proved Rachel Carson's assertions

00:38:40.880 --> 00:38:42.920
made fifty three years previously.

00:38:45.600 --> 00:38:48.440
The International Agency
 for Research on Cancer

00:38:48.880 --> 00:38:53.760
estimated that in 2020,
 more than 10 million people died of cancer

00:38:53.760 --> 00:38:56.960
and that new cases increased to
nineteen point three million,

00:38:56.960 --> 00:39:00.920
breat cancer being by far
 the deadliest form of cancer for women.

00:39:09.160 --> 00:39:10.600
We returned to South Africa.

00:39:11.360 --> 00:39:13.920
The doctors at Sloan Kettering
 thought Nancy was doing

00:39:13.920 --> 00:39:16.840
remarkably well and felt
 they had nothing more to offer.

00:39:19.640 --> 00:39:22.280
Nancy immediately threw
herself back into her work

00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:25.520
and Carte Blanche was keen
 to do a follow up program.

00:39:25.880 --> 00:39:30.960
What did you see that convinced you
 that creative art therapy was necessary?

00:39:31.120 --> 00:39:33.520
I believe that the
 creative arts therapies

00:39:34.840 --> 00:39:39.520
can touch the human being
 in a way that talk can't always do it,

00:39:40.320 --> 00:39:43.720
and hopefully, potentially,
 the healing process can happen.

00:39:44.520 --> 00:39:45.680
During the world summit,

00:39:45.680 --> 00:39:49.240
Nancy organized a series of
workshops at the women's jail on

00:39:49.240 --> 00:39:51.240
Constitution Hill in Johannesburg.

00:40:11.400 --> 00:40:12.840
How are you feeling at the moment?

00:40:13.120 --> 00:40:15.040
I'm tired. I'm tired.

00:40:15.040 --> 00:40:18.320
Although the drumming,
 by doing the drumming myself,

00:40:18.600 --> 00:40:20.960
it reenergized me, which was good.

00:40:21.400 --> 00:40:24.760
And I feel so encouraged because, remember,

00:40:25.720 --> 00:40:28.000
this is the best I've felt in two years.

00:40:30.680 --> 00:40:33.840
The last two years
 have been a lot of, quite a lot of pain,

00:40:35.680 --> 00:40:37.240
a lot of chemotherapy.

00:40:40.240 --> 00:40:41.920
I still can't look at the needle.

00:40:42.920 --> 00:40:44.280
First take.

00:40:44.880 --> 00:40:47.040
I get every side effect you can get,

00:40:47.480 --> 00:40:50.040
because I didn't drink tea or coffee.

00:40:50.240 --> 00:40:53.480
I had quite a pure system,
 I was very athletic,

00:40:53.600 --> 00:40:57.440
I did everything that they say,
 you know, that should keep you healthy.

00:40:57.800 --> 00:41:01.480
So it seems that my body reacts
 to these quite heavy chemicals.

00:41:07.480 --> 00:41:09.240
There's a book by Bernie Siegel,

00:41:09.400 --> 00:41:12.160
who's an oncologist,
 Love, Medicine and Miracles.

00:41:12.720 --> 00:41:14.640
I've had the love all along,

00:41:15.040 --> 00:41:16.520
I've had a lot of the medicine,

00:41:16.880 --> 00:41:19.640
and I feel in the last two months
 I've started to have the miracle.

00:41:21.760 --> 00:41:23.720
This new chemo drug called Xeloda

00:41:24.160 --> 00:41:27.360
has really turned
 things around for me

00:41:27.720 --> 00:41:31.520
and it's given me less
 pain and a new energy,

00:41:31.760 --> 00:41:34.720
and it's risen my blood counts to
levels that have just shocked us all.

00:41:35.320 --> 00:41:36.840
But ultimately, I think it's love.

00:41:38.720 --> 00:41:40.040
Are you not finished yet, guys?

00:41:40.040 --> 00:41:42.800
This is really painful.
- This is killing her.

00:41:46.600 --> 00:41:48.440
I think Nancy is a hero,

00:41:48.440 --> 00:41:51.800
I think the way she deals with
 it is quite phenomenal.

00:41:54.520 --> 00:41:56.840
She never, never, ever gives up,

00:41:56.840 --> 00:42:00.600
she keeps going all the time,
 I think, to the point where she drives

00:42:00.680 --> 00:42:04.680
people, or me, desperate, because
 when you think she should be resting,

00:42:04.800 --> 00:42:05.960
she needs to be recovering,

00:42:05.960 --> 00:42:07.800
she needs to be strengthening
 her immune system,

00:42:07.800 --> 00:42:09.680
she's rushing around doing her work.

00:42:10.320 --> 00:42:13.360
And I think the work she's taken on
 is a remarkable achievement,

00:42:13.360 --> 00:42:15.720
even more so considering she's so compromised

00:42:15.720 --> 00:42:16.960
 with her health and energy.

00:42:23.080 --> 00:42:26.400
At his press conference on
August 29th, 1962,

00:42:26.400 --> 00:42:28.080
 President Kennedy was asked.

00:42:28.320 --> 00:42:30.600
There appears to be growing concern
 among scientists

00:42:30.800 --> 00:42:34.400
about the possibility
 of dangerous long range side effects

00:42:34.880 --> 00:42:37.840
from the widespread use of DDT
 and other pesticides,

00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:40.720
have you considered
 asking the Department of Agriculture

00:42:41.560 --> 00:42:43.920
or the Public Health Service
 to take a closer look at this?

00:42:43.960 --> 00:42:46.960
Yes, and I know that they already are,

00:42:47.320 --> 00:42:48.760
I think particularly, of course,

00:42:49.200 --> 00:42:52.520
since Miss Carson’s book,
 but they are examining the matter.

00:42:54.120 --> 00:42:56.320
So great was the impact of Silent Spring

00:42:56.840 --> 00:42:59.600
that even the US government
 was forced to take heed,

00:43:00.120 --> 00:43:03.760
in 1972, DDT was banned
 in the United States.

00:43:04.440 --> 00:43:08.120
But despite it no longer being used
 as a pesticide in many countries,

00:43:08.120 --> 00:43:11.440
a plethora of other pesticides
 and herbicides have replaced it

00:43:11.840 --> 00:43:14.760
and are thought to be having much
 the same effect as DDT.

00:43:16.680 --> 00:43:17.840
In 2018,

00:43:18.120 --> 00:43:21.600
courts in the US find
Monsanto guilty for their use

00:43:21.600 --> 00:43:25.680
of the chlorinated hydrocarbon,
 glyphosate, used in Roundup.

00:43:26.360 --> 00:43:29.720
Hundreds of plaintiffs
 with non Hodgkin's lymphoma

00:43:30.120 --> 00:43:32.960
filed class action
 lawsuits against Monsanto,

00:43:33.600 --> 00:43:37.400
who sold to Bayer for sixty
 three billion dollars in that same year.

00:43:38.440 --> 00:43:43.000
Multimillion dollar settlements have been ordered by
the courts to pay for compensation.

00:43:43.600 --> 00:43:48.440
Yet Bayer persists in its manufacture,
 denying glyphosate is a carcinogen.

00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:53.160
For some chemicals

00:43:53.480 --> 00:43:56.480
where small residues were permitted
 a few years ago.

00:43:57.000 --> 00:43:59.720
Now, with increasing knowledge,
 it has been necessary

00:44:00.680 --> 00:44:02.960
to reduce the tolerance to zero.

00:44:03.640 --> 00:44:06.720
Now, and my feeling, if
 that can be done for some,

00:44:06.720 --> 00:44:08.320
it can be done for all.

00:44:11.240 --> 00:44:13.440
The central tenant of Rachel Carson

00:44:13.760 --> 00:44:16.800
is that when we poison the planet,
 we are poisoning ourselves.

00:44:18.840 --> 00:44:21.360
The terrible irony was
 that she, herself,

00:44:21.360 --> 00:44:23.200
was diagnosed with breast cancer

00:44:23.200 --> 00:44:24.800
 when finishing Silent Spring.

00:44:27.800 --> 00:44:29.720
She wore a wig when  testifying

00:44:29.720 --> 00:44:32.000
at the Congressional hearings
on pesticides,

00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:34.120
as well as for
her CBS interview

00:44:34.840 --> 00:44:37.120
so that no one would
suspect she had cancer,

00:44:37.120 --> 00:44:39.880
and therefore, could not dismiss her writings

00:44:39.880 --> 00:44:41.960
 as an embittered, angry reaction.

00:44:45.880 --> 00:44:48.120
We only know how she
suffered with her cancer

00:44:48.120 --> 00:44:50.440
from her letters to her
friend and great love,

00:44:50.720 --> 00:44:51.760
Dorothy Freeman.

00:44:54.720 --> 00:44:55.960
Darling, Dorothy.

00:44:56.520 --> 00:45:00.280
Well, as you know,
 I start treatment on Monday,

00:45:01.640 --> 00:45:05.040
the time this represents now,
when it is all so precious

00:45:05.040 --> 00:45:07.120
 is, of course,
horribly frustrating.

00:45:08.240 --> 00:45:11.000
But naturally, there is no choice.

00:45:13.240 --> 00:45:16.400
I'm trying to finish the chapter
 on herbicides over the weekend.

00:45:16.800 --> 00:45:19.080
I've got some wonderful material for it,

00:45:19.080 --> 00:45:23.200
the ecological folly is so apparent
 in this war on vegetation.

00:45:24.680 --> 00:45:27.760
Now, I must let sleep
take over

00:45:27.880 --> 00:45:30.600
so I can get up fairly
early and work, I hope.

00:45:31.880 --> 00:45:33.480
I wish you were here, day one,

00:45:34.280 --> 00:45:36.640
all my love to you, Rachel.

00:45:45.040 --> 00:45:48.320
And that fabulous turn,
isn’t that fabulous?

00:45:48.400 --> 00:45:50.200
This is Sango’s fabric.

00:45:52.280 --> 00:45:53.720
With gold embroidery on it.

00:45:54.240 --> 00:45:58.840
In addition to her trauma workshops,
 Nancy had been working on her new opera,

00:45:58.840 --> 00:46:02.760
Earth Diving, which was to open
 at the Spear Amphitheater in the autumn.

00:46:03.920 --> 00:46:06.480
Isn’t it stunning?
- Yeah, it’s absolutely stunning.

00:46:07.040 --> 00:46:10.440
Didn’t they just come home to roost on that one?
- Yeah, it’s lovely.

00:46:10.600 --> 00:46:14.760
It's wonderful.
- Lovely, sweet

00:46:27.960 --> 00:46:30.840
I could go 18 hours a day and I just went,

00:46:31.360 --> 00:46:32.920
I don't have that kind of energy now.

00:46:34.120 --> 00:46:38.040
I get home and I'm tired.
By nine o'clock, I'm finished.

00:46:47.320 --> 00:46:51.280
Have you seen the ramp Gcina? Look.
- Is that the doggy ramp?

00:46:51.360 --> 00:46:54.120
The vets father in law
 made it for a present for Fudge.

00:46:56.280 --> 00:46:57.600
So she can climb onto the bed.

00:46:57.600 --> 00:46:59.200
You have a strange collection of friends.

00:47:01.880 --> 00:47:04.040
The chemo was taking its toll on Nancy,

00:47:04.920 --> 00:47:08.720
but she was unwavering
 in her determination to direct her opera.

00:47:17.680 --> 00:47:20.080
Pringle Bay was close
 to Spear Ampitheater,

00:47:20.480 --> 00:47:23.880
and this allowed us to stay at the cottage
 while Nancy was rehearsing.

00:47:34.120 --> 00:47:35.640
Champs.

00:47:35.640 --> 00:47:36.840
Of the whole place.

00:47:45.800 --> 00:47:47.960
You're not going to use this as evidence
 in court against me?

00:47:48.040 --> 00:47:49.160
Why? What do you intend doing?

00:47:51.920 --> 00:47:53.800
As long as you make her better,
 I won't use anything.

00:47:53.960 --> 00:47:56.040
I will definitely do my best.
- Okay.

00:47:59.480 --> 00:48:01.960
Nancy's health was visibly deteriorating,

00:48:02.600 --> 00:48:06.720
she needed constant medical care to keep
 her strong enough for her rehearsals.

00:48:13.160 --> 00:48:16.120
OK, I need the chorus back on stage please.

00:48:17.200 --> 00:48:19.800
OK, one more time,
everybody ready?

00:48:20.400 --> 00:48:21.800
That’s how it should be done.

00:48:22.680 --> 00:48:25.600
We need more, a little bit more

00:48:25.600 --> 00:48:27.200
vibrance but a little bit more pace.

00:48:27.200 --> 00:48:28.480
So let’s just do another one.

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:30.800
This is fun.

00:48:31.880 --> 00:48:33.760
Power. Power to the people.

00:48:34.240 --> 00:48:38.640
Opera lovers in the Cape
 are flocking to see an unusual opera

00:48:38.640 --> 00:48:41.720
based on African themes,
 Earth Diving.

00:48:44.600 --> 00:48:48.360
For director Nancy Diuguid,
 this opera is a personal journey.

00:48:49.080 --> 00:48:51.560
Nancy is terminally ill with cancer,

00:48:51.960 --> 00:48:54.920
she believes her
 illness has enriched the opera.

00:48:55.320 --> 00:49:00.360
It's essentially about a community
 and a family who go through

00:49:01.120 --> 00:49:04.400
strife and difficulties
 and conflicts and find

00:49:04.400 --> 00:49:07.680
some sort of reconciliation
 towards the end,

00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:09.720
but it's also based on myth.

00:49:09.720 --> 00:49:13.520
The theme is change, the theme,
 unless we change what goes on within us,

00:49:13.760 --> 00:49:16.120
we will never be able to change
 what's going on without.

00:49:28.920 --> 00:49:32.320
Here we go.
Start down there. See?

00:49:33.120 --> 00:49:36.160
Yeah, that's it. We’re going
to have to bring

00:49:36.480 --> 00:49:38.600
probably the bottoms up the back.

00:49:41.200 --> 00:49:44.480
Damn, Mel I think this will be
 the last time I'll put this on.

00:50:55.720 --> 00:50:56.960
Good?
- It’s perfect.

00:50:56.960 --> 00:50:58.040
Go and show Nance.

00:51:03.080 --> 00:51:04.720
OK, That's the knob on this side.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:08.160
My one regret was selling Nancy's
 wetsuit and scuba gear

00:51:08.480 --> 00:51:11.240
when it became obvious
 that she could no longer use them,

00:51:11.920 --> 00:51:14.040
I felt like I was betraying her hope.

00:51:14.880 --> 00:51:16.920
I was panicking about finances,

00:51:17.280 --> 00:51:20.800
particularly as her brother refused
 to release her money from Kentucky,

00:51:21.200 --> 00:51:24.000
and the medical expenses
 were mounting rapidly.

00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:26.640
There’s a compass on there as well.
- It’s got everything.

00:51:26.640 --> 00:51:29.080
Stunning.
- Like I said, I was becoming a master diver.

00:51:29.400 --> 00:51:31.440
Des says he thinks his might fit you.

00:51:31.960 --> 00:51:34.080
Well, the crotch is too big for me.

00:51:34.080 --> 00:51:35.600
- Yeah, I’ll use Des’s

00:51:41.440 --> 00:51:45.040
Friends from London continued
 to visit to spend time with Nancy,

00:51:45.600 --> 00:51:48.240
unsure of whether they would
have another opportunity.

00:51:48.240 --> 00:51:49.520
Oh, sorry.

00:52:03.960 --> 00:52:05.440
Drive home safely.

00:52:21.760 --> 00:52:22.960
Darling, Dorothy.

00:52:23.480 --> 00:52:27.040
Yes, I do remember that
 you came to me a year ago this month

00:52:27.600 --> 00:52:29.680
and that it was a
precious and happy visit

00:52:29.680 --> 00:52:31.400
in spite of the undertones

00:52:31.400 --> 00:52:34.320
and the portensions there might
 have been of what lay ahead.

00:52:35.360 --> 00:52:38.400
There's quite a story behind
Silent Spring, isn’t there?

00:52:38.400 --> 00:52:40.640
Such a catalog of illnesses.

00:52:45.320 --> 00:52:48.240
I give you my thanks
for these ten years,

00:52:48.240 --> 00:52:52.080
years that have enriched,
 yes, and even changed my life.

00:52:53.240 --> 00:52:56.720
Such years of joy and
sorrow for us both,

00:52:57.680 --> 00:53:01.520
as we shared the joys, no less
 have we shared the sorrows.

00:53:03.320 --> 00:53:04.880
Sometimes I wonder

00:53:04.880 --> 00:53:08.480
how I could have endured the depths
 without your sustaining love.

00:53:09.840 --> 00:53:12.280
Without you in those shadowy days,

00:53:12.760 --> 00:53:15.280
I know life would
 not have been worth living.

00:53:23.200 --> 00:53:25.960
I knew the hard conversation
was necessary,

00:53:26.240 --> 00:53:28.760
but felt so unsure of
how to approach it.

00:53:29.840 --> 00:53:32.160
I hoped that the presence of
the camera would provide

00:53:32.160 --> 00:53:34.520
some form of safety for us both.

00:53:35.080 --> 00:53:35.960
You ready, shnooks?

00:53:42.680 --> 00:53:44.040
From your perspective now,

00:53:44.040 --> 00:53:46.640
what do you feel is
meaningful about living?

00:53:47.640 --> 00:53:49.640
Every moment.

00:53:50.960 --> 00:53:52.400
But what's really meaningful

00:53:52.400 --> 00:53:57.800
is our moments that we have together
 or to look out and see a beautiful bird.

00:53:58.560 --> 00:54:01.480
Or see another bird building it’s little nest,

00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:06.880
or the little pink flower that pops up,

00:54:07.800 --> 00:54:13.040
or our Dikkops. Moments.

00:54:13.480 --> 00:54:14.520
OK.
- Are you filming?

00:54:14.520 --> 00:54:15.240
Yeah.

00:54:23.320 --> 00:54:24.800
That’s very good.

00:54:25.720 --> 00:54:27.080
Look ma, no hands.

00:54:28.720 --> 00:54:29.840
Very good, Des.

00:54:42.240 --> 00:54:45.320
Have you cried and grieved as
much as you needed to?

00:54:45.800 --> 00:54:46.480
Yes,

00:54:47.120 --> 00:54:48.520
I feel very free to do that

00:54:49.680 --> 00:54:51.840
and I feel very free with
you to do that,

00:54:52.400 --> 00:54:54.640
and I thank you for that, I mean it.

00:54:56.840 --> 00:54:59.240
You say I must dance you
to the end of time,

00:54:59.240 --> 00:55:01.240
but I’m not sure
I know what to do.

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:03.840
I've said to you,
 and I'll say to you

00:55:03.840 --> 00:55:05.200
to the day I die,

00:55:05.480 --> 00:55:08.560
that you have been
absolutely unfaultable.

00:55:09.720 --> 00:55:11.440
You have been absolutely

00:55:12.160 --> 00:55:16.440
as near perfection as anyone
I can think of,

00:55:16.440 --> 00:55:18.960
in terms of the way that
 you’ve looked after me.

00:55:21.120 --> 00:55:23.920
But I remember you said...
- I say it all the time to you, this.

00:55:23.920 --> 00:55:27.560
Before Christmas, you said you wanted us
 to have some time together

00:55:28.200 --> 00:55:30.760
so that our relationship
 could reach another level.

00:55:30.800 --> 00:55:32.960
Well, it is, right now, what we're doing.

00:55:42.920 --> 00:55:44.400
Darling, Dorothy.

00:55:45.280 --> 00:55:47.760
Don't hesitate to speak
 what is in your heart,

00:55:49.120 --> 00:55:52.240
I know I've held back
 out of a desire to spare you,

00:55:52.520 --> 00:55:54.800
but really, is this for the best?

00:55:56.120 --> 00:55:59.400
We both know my time is limited,

00:56:00.640 --> 00:56:02.800
and why should we not face it together

00:56:03.160 --> 00:56:05.040
freely and openly?

00:56:06.920 --> 00:56:10.000
I know you have dark
 thoughts and hard nights,

00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:12.760
how could it be otherwise?

00:56:14.600 --> 00:56:16.800
So why not share the thoughts?

00:56:17.360 --> 00:56:19.000
Some of them, at least.

00:56:21.320 --> 00:56:22.920
I love you always,

00:56:24.000 --> 00:56:25.400
and in all ways.

00:56:30.640 --> 00:56:33.960
I'd like to know that you and
Dessie were still good, together

00:56:35.200 --> 00:56:37.240
and that he looked after you well,

00:56:39.040 --> 00:56:42.000
and that you found contentment

00:56:43.720 --> 00:56:45.800
in whatever you do.

00:56:47.880 --> 00:56:50.200
And that you found a place
 where your heart could settle

00:56:50.800 --> 00:56:53.560
and be calm and harmonious,

00:56:54.480 --> 00:56:57.800
and if you meet someone else,
 that you feel the love for them

00:56:57.800 --> 00:57:00.000
that you felt for me.
 Well, maybe just a little bit.

00:57:00.680 --> 00:57:02.560
Just have to have a little
special place.

00:57:02.560 --> 00:57:03.200
How much?

00:57:13.600 --> 00:57:15.000
That you were financially

00:57:16.720 --> 00:57:21.320
stable enough to be able to travel
 and do the things that you want to do,

00:57:24.120 --> 00:57:26.640
so we can see them together.

00:57:33.240 --> 00:57:35.560
You know Dessie and I say
 we will always take you with us.

00:57:47.120 --> 00:57:49.400
Put the little tie on like
you always do, fix it.

00:57:50.560 --> 00:57:55.480
Nancy's bone pain was intensifying and
 she needed to be on morphine constantly.

00:57:56.720 --> 00:58:00.480
We found a wonderful hospice sister
 who happened to live close by

00:58:00.760 --> 00:58:03.120
and who would come round
 regularly to help Nancy.

00:58:04.160 --> 00:58:07.120
Start it, start it to make sure that it’s going.

00:58:08.000 --> 00:58:09.440
Oh, it’s back.
- There you go.

00:58:09.880 --> 00:58:12.360
Bye Jenny, thank you
 for being so good humoured.

00:58:13.160 --> 00:58:15.520
Bye guys, I’ll see you tomorrow.

00:58:16.120 --> 00:58:18.040
Oh, thank you so much.

00:58:19.200 --> 00:58:20.280
You get a hug.

00:58:30.880 --> 00:58:34.120
How did the infrastructure work
 this weekend in Pringle Bay?

00:58:35.160 --> 00:58:38.880
Very well, Jenny's
 just been an absolute sweetheart.

00:58:38.920 --> 00:58:42.160
How do you get things like that organized?

00:58:42.280 --> 00:58:44.960
How do you do this?
- It’s just a luck.

00:58:44.960 --> 00:58:47.880
No.
- But she lives there.

00:58:47.880 --> 00:58:49.520
I know about that.

00:58:49.800 --> 00:58:52.840
Sweetheart, I’ve been working in this
area for the last four years,

00:58:53.480 --> 00:58:57.440
we have no bloody
infrastructure, nowhere.

00:58:57.440 --> 00:59:01.080
This one comes, says
as a sort of an aside,

00:59:01.080 --> 00:59:04.560
we must try and think of this
 as a possibility,

00:59:04.560 --> 00:59:06.680
and the next thing it's organized.
 I don't know how you do it.

00:59:06.880 --> 00:59:11.240
If I looked at the, how
 effectively you breathing,

00:59:11.560 --> 00:59:15.960
you've come a hell of a long
 way from a week ago.

00:59:16.280 --> 00:59:19.880
I think the one thing that's interesting
 is Nancy has one good day

00:59:20.480 --> 00:59:24.280
and the next day she's out completely,
 and maybe the second day

00:59:24.280 --> 00:59:26.200
and then she has a good day, like today is a good day.

00:59:26.720 --> 00:59:29.160
But now she'll probably
 be wiped out tomorrow again.

00:59:30.120 --> 00:59:31.920
Is that kind of normal?

00:59:34.080 --> 00:59:35.520
We must try and get it better.

00:59:49.760 --> 00:59:51.640
I woke up
feeling excellent today,

00:59:52.200 --> 00:59:53.760
which is why I thought, let’s come,

00:59:54.600 --> 00:59:56.880
because I might not wake up
 feeling excellent tomorrow.

00:59:58.200 --> 01:00:00.640
I couldn't believe the energy
I felt this morning,

01:00:01.240 --> 01:00:02.200
and I'm glad we came.

01:00:02.200 --> 01:00:04.200
It's a perfect day, we’ve seen the horses,

01:00:04.200 --> 01:00:07.680
I didn't think we'd see all 13, did you?

01:00:09.560 --> 01:00:13.120
And they've already slipped away,
 some of them to the other side.

01:00:15.600 --> 01:00:16.560
That’s how I feel.

01:00:16.560 --> 01:00:18.440
How do you feel about
Jenny saying

01:00:18.440 --> 01:00:20.960
they might take you off the morphine
 because you're doing so well?

01:00:22.600 --> 01:00:23.840
I think that’d be great.

01:00:23.840 --> 01:00:25.240
It would be very encouraging

01:00:26.480 --> 01:00:29.640
just to see what they say
and watch what happens.

01:00:30.800 --> 01:00:31.840
But I mean, a week ago,

01:00:31.840 --> 01:00:33.640
 they thought you had very
little time to live,

01:00:33.640 --> 01:00:34.640
you were so bad.

01:00:35.600 --> 01:00:38.720
Darling, I bemuse myself.

01:00:43.960 --> 01:00:46.720
Oh, sweetie, I hope you have lots
 more lovely days like these.

01:00:46.720 --> 01:00:48.120
So do I.

01:00:50.120 --> 01:00:51.560
I hope we do.

01:01:10.200 --> 01:01:11.480
 Dearest, Dorothy.

01:01:12.600 --> 01:01:15.240
Dr. Crile insists the bone metastases

01:01:15.240 --> 01:01:17.560
will yield to x-ray
 as readily as the lymph,

01:01:18.280 --> 01:01:19.960
and that this will be all right, too.

01:01:20.600 --> 01:01:22.840
I guess it's just a matter
 of detecting them.

01:01:23.440 --> 01:01:25.640
The main thing I want to say, dear,

01:01:26.160 --> 01:01:30.000
 is that we're not going to get bogged down
in unhappiness about all of this.

01:01:32.720 --> 01:01:34.280
We're going to be happy

01:01:34.600 --> 01:01:38.400
and go on enjoying all the lovely things
 that give life meaning.

01:01:39.920 --> 01:01:42.080
Sunrise and sunset,

01:01:43.440 --> 01:01:45.000
moonlight on the bay,

01:01:46.120 --> 01:01:48.240
music and good books,

01:01:49.440 --> 01:01:51.120
the song of thrushes,

01:01:52.120 --> 01:01:55.080
the wild cries of geese passing over.

01:01:58.800 --> 01:02:01.920
So let's think and live happily,

01:02:02.600 --> 01:02:04.760
enjoying whatever time there is.

01:02:06.520 --> 01:02:09.200
All my dearest love, Rachel.

01:02:20.680 --> 01:02:22.400
I think that the key philosophy

01:02:22.400 --> 01:02:26.080
is to recognize the dark,
hold the dark,

01:02:26.080 --> 01:02:27.880
contain the dark,
embrace the dark,

01:02:27.880 --> 01:02:29.160
but sit in the light more.

01:02:32.320 --> 01:02:33.920
Is that a difficult balance?

01:02:38.160 --> 01:02:39.520
No, I think on the whole...

01:02:42.800 --> 01:02:45.520
Is it equivalent to...
- It’s been quite well,

01:02:45.520 --> 01:02:47.440
I think I’ve balanced that.

01:02:47.440 --> 01:02:49.600
 Is it a similar thing to the way

01:02:49.600 --> 01:02:50.680
we've had to deal with

01:02:50.680 --> 01:02:53.640
the fact that you're very ill,
 but carry on living all the time?

01:02:53.640 --> 01:02:54.320
 Yes.

01:02:54.760 --> 01:02:56.640
It’s that sort of duality.

01:02:56.640 --> 01:02:58.240
Absolutely, the hope,

01:02:58.240 --> 01:03:02.120
and yet dealing with the reality.
Hope, reality, hope, reality.

01:03:02.280 --> 01:03:05.480
What about you?
- Me?

01:03:08.480 --> 01:03:12.000
I tend to do and keep busy
 and do whatever I can to help you,

01:03:12.320 --> 01:03:13.600
so I don't have to think.

01:03:18.440 --> 01:03:19.760
I know.

01:03:25.080 --> 01:03:26.560
You want to stop for a little bit?

01:03:54.640 --> 01:03:58.400
Hein the oncologist had said
 we needed to leave Pringle Bay immediately

01:03:58.840 --> 01:04:02.600
as the black butterflies were out,
 and that meant winter was approaching.

01:04:03.560 --> 01:04:07.120
Nancy’s health was too compromised
 to survive the damp and the cold.

01:04:08.760 --> 01:04:10.080
I never told her,

01:04:10.080 --> 01:04:13.040
but I had already made plans
 to get her back to Johannesburg.

01:04:14.240 --> 01:04:19.640
We had spent the last four weeks of April
 listening to music, taking gentle strolls,

01:04:19.640 --> 01:04:22.960
eating delicious food
 and avoiding the future.

01:04:41.920 --> 01:04:45.640
Back in Johannesburg, we tried to
 continue living as normally as possible.

01:04:47.840 --> 01:04:50.600
How do you think Nance is looking?
- Sexy.

01:04:51.840 --> 01:04:53.680
I’m sexy.
- You looking quite good, Nance.

01:04:53.680 --> 01:04:54.520
Good.

01:04:54.520 --> 01:04:56.200
All right, guys.
- OK.

01:04:56.480 --> 01:04:58.360
Bye bye, we’re off to school.
- Bye

01:04:58.600 --> 01:05:00.600
I'll see you at four o clock when I finish.

01:05:01.000 --> 01:05:04.920
I'll see you at one, maybe,
half past one, I don’t know.

01:05:05.600 --> 01:05:08.680
Nancy had begun to hand over
the trauma workshops

01:05:08.680 --> 01:05:10.560
in order to conserve her energy.

01:05:12.280 --> 01:05:14.640
So he knows that four is four below.

01:05:15.200 --> 01:05:19.440
OK, and there’s your...
Am I right?

01:05:19.480 --> 01:05:21.320
Does it go here?
- No, it’s 49

01:05:22.560 --> 01:05:25.400
I am so bad at maths, Mel,

01:05:25.680 --> 01:05:27.840
I don't know who's going to do
 these maths after this.

01:05:28.720 --> 01:05:31.960
I am so bad at it.
Good, darling. Find your down.

01:05:33.480 --> 01:05:36.480
There's no five across,
 OK, where did you say it was?

01:05:37.760 --> 01:05:40.320
OK.
- Thirty, thirty five.

01:05:40.320 --> 01:05:41.360
Yes, thank you.

01:05:44.040 --> 01:05:48.200
When you think of the doctors, let alone
 your friends and colleagues

01:05:48.200 --> 01:05:51.920
who are all humbled, in awe and overwhelmed

01:05:51.920 --> 01:05:54.680
by your strength,
 determination and fortitude,

01:05:55.920 --> 01:05:58.240
and they are, and they express
 that all the time.

01:05:58.960 --> 01:06:01.160
And even Hein said
 when you went to visit him,

01:06:01.160 --> 01:06:04.400
how he's never had a
patient like you before.

01:06:04.400 --> 01:06:06.080
He can normally say
 what's going to happen,

01:06:06.080 --> 01:06:09.000
but with you, he just, you defy
 the odds all the time.

01:06:12.040 --> 01:06:15.240
Do you think you've always
 had this sort of stubborn streak?

01:06:17.360 --> 01:06:19.640
Yes, and I think you think so, too.

01:06:21.440 --> 01:06:22.560
I do.

01:06:27.240 --> 01:06:32.760
Oh, I paid that, I think you
 paid this out of us.

01:06:32.760 --> 01:06:37.720
Three weeks after returning to Johannesburg,
 Hein the oncologist phoned me.

01:06:38.200 --> 01:06:42.000
He was very shocked, upset and
disappointed that Nancy's eyes were so yellow

01:06:42.560 --> 01:06:46.080
and said, Schatzi, I hate
to tell you this, but this is it,

01:06:47.080 --> 01:06:48.560
there is nothing more to do.

01:06:50.000 --> 01:06:53.320
I went back into the bedroom
 where Nancy was working with Wilma.

01:06:54.320 --> 01:06:56.320
Nancy said, was that Hein?

01:06:56.320 --> 01:06:57.360
What did he say?

01:06:58.280 --> 01:07:01.440
I said Hein does not think
 Graham will give you chemo tomorrow.

01:07:02.360 --> 01:07:03.240
Nancy asked,

01:07:03.240 --> 01:07:05.720
Does Hein have any other suggestions?

01:07:06.200 --> 01:07:07.480
I said, no, sweetie.

01:07:08.200 --> 01:07:10.280
Nancy had tears rolled down her cheeks.

01:07:11.040 --> 01:07:12.800
I began to cry quietly,

01:07:13.560 --> 01:07:17.520
then Nancy said, ‘Sorry Wilma, let's continue.’

01:07:18.200 --> 01:07:20.240
and they went on with their meeting.

01:07:26.360 --> 01:07:29.280
After the news, Nancy
 deteriorated rapidly,

01:07:30.160 --> 01:07:34.000
it was as if the hope that chemo gave
 was keeping her alive.

01:07:43.920 --> 01:07:47.600
Friends came to be with us,
 which gave great comfort and support,

01:07:48.120 --> 01:07:50.320
but most of the time, Nancy rested.

01:08:18.160 --> 01:08:19.320
Our friend Jacqui

01:08:19.680 --> 01:08:22.880
brought a letter that Rachel Carson
 had written at the end of her life

01:08:22.880 --> 01:08:26.320
that she wanted to read to Nancy,
 about the monarch butterflies.

01:08:38.360 --> 01:08:40.720
Most of all, I shall
 remember the monarchs,

01:08:41.040 --> 01:08:45.800
that unhurried, westward drift of one small
 winged form after another.

01:08:47.280 --> 01:08:51.240
For most at least, this was the closing
 journey of their lives,

01:08:53.040 --> 01:08:55.200
but it occurred to me this afternoon,

01:08:56.040 --> 01:08:59.640
remembering that it had been
 a happy spectacle,

01:09:01.640 --> 01:09:03.440
that we had felt no sadness

01:09:03.440 --> 01:09:06.560
when we spoke of the fact
 that there would be no return.

01:09:09.160 --> 01:09:10.120
And rightly,

01:09:10.280 --> 01:09:14.240
for when any living thing
 has come to the end of its life cycle,

01:09:14.840 --> 01:09:16.960
we accept that end as natural.

01:09:21.040 --> 01:09:22.080
For the monarch,

01:09:22.720 --> 01:09:26.000
that cycle is measured
 in a known span of months.

01:09:27.520 --> 01:09:29.880
For ourselves, the measure
 is something else,

01:09:31.000 --> 01:09:32.920
the span of which we cannot know.

01:09:34.120 --> 01:09:39.360
But the thought is the same when
 that intangible cycle has run its course,

01:09:40.360 --> 01:09:42.960
it is a natural and not unhappy thing

01:09:44.480 --> 01:09:46.920
that a life comes to an end.

01:09:48.600 --> 01:09:52.520
That is what those brightly fluttering
 bits of life taught me this morning.

01:09:54.000 --> 01:09:56.240
I found a deep happiness in it,

01:09:57.000 --> 01:09:59.320
and so, I hope, may you.

01:10:18.160 --> 01:10:20.720
The last time as we spoke about death

01:10:20.720 --> 01:10:23.960
was when I asked Nancy
 what concerns she still had.

01:10:25.120 --> 01:10:27.080
The fact that you’ll be alone,

01:10:30.520 --> 01:10:32.360
And that worries me.

01:10:35.800 --> 01:10:38.760
But in a way, that's my choice

01:10:38.760 --> 01:10:41.360
or my decisions or choices.

01:10:42.680 --> 01:10:44.560
Well, sure, you chose to stay with me,

01:10:45.360 --> 01:10:47.240
you could have split,
 if that's what you mean.

01:10:47.240 --> 01:10:51.760
No, I mean if I'm alone, on my own,
when you're not here,

01:10:53.160 --> 01:10:54.560
that's my responsibility.

01:10:54.560 --> 01:10:56.120
Yes, I appreciate that,

01:10:56.120 --> 01:10:58.360
but it still doesn't mean
I don't feel about it,

01:10:59.240 --> 01:11:01.440
and that my head, and my heart,
 and my soul don’t feel about it,

01:11:02.320 --> 01:11:03.120
because they do.

01:11:03.480 --> 01:11:05.480
Do you want me to become a big social being?

01:11:06.280 --> 01:11:09.680
No, I don’t want you to become anything
other than what you are, my darling.

01:11:09.680 --> 01:11:14.640
I just say that that's
 my biggest concern, is your wellbeing.

01:11:15.440 --> 01:11:17.200
Let’s put it that way, your wellbeing.

01:11:21.000 --> 01:11:24.160
And for you, what are the
 biggest difficulties in...

01:11:24.160 --> 01:11:25.880
I don’t want to suffocate to death,

01:11:26.760 --> 01:11:28.360
and I don't want to be in hospital,

01:11:29.520 --> 01:11:34.120
and I want to be surrounded by,
 how I said, with my Buddha and light

01:11:34.920 --> 01:11:38.600
and possibly music, or my
Tibetan monk chanting away.

01:11:40.280 --> 01:11:41.920
And for us to be

01:11:42.360 --> 01:11:46.640
as clear in the process as we can be.
Sharp, alert and clear.

01:11:50.680 --> 01:11:54.280
And what happens if you were to be
in terrible pain and you couldn't be that?

01:11:55.960 --> 01:11:59.080
But then promise me
 that I don't have to suffocate.

01:11:59.960 --> 01:12:02.840
No, not exactly,
 but say, and what I'm saying is

01:12:02.840 --> 01:12:05.640
I know you want to be present
 in the process of dying.

01:12:06.360 --> 01:12:08.760
What I'm saying is,
 if you're in terrible pain

01:12:09.960 --> 01:12:12.000
and they have to
 give you things to numb that pain,

01:12:12.000 --> 01:12:15.040
then maybe you won't be in a position
 to be sharp and focused.

01:12:15.240 --> 01:12:18.840
Then I need you to be
 saying things to me in my ear.

01:12:25.080 --> 01:12:26.960
It felt like I was playing God,

01:12:26.960 --> 01:12:32.240
deciding what to do when Nancy was so
 unlike the Nancy I had known,

01:12:32.680 --> 01:12:35.840
I only wished I could do better
 with the process of knowing

01:12:36.120 --> 01:12:38.880
how to comfort and help
ease her anguish.

01:14:29.320 --> 01:14:30.600
Mel, that light.

01:14:57.440 --> 01:14:59.920
Theresa, you can go have supper now.

01:15:11.680 --> 01:15:14.160
This is where you are so vital

01:15:15.440 --> 01:15:17.200
in that transitional role.

01:15:21.400 --> 01:15:22.960
Whisper in my ear,

01:15:23.760 --> 01:15:26.400
like Puck, Ariel,

01:15:26.960 --> 01:15:30.480
Hermes, the messenger between the two I think at that point.

01:15:30.480 --> 01:15:32.680
It could be quite beautiful.

01:15:38.440 --> 01:15:40.040
I whispered in her ear,

01:15:40.040 --> 01:15:42.800
I spoke about having
 inspired so many people.

01:15:43.640 --> 01:15:47.640
I told her I loved her, that I could never
 love anyone like I’d loved her.

01:15:49.760 --> 01:15:51.400
I told her I would be OK,

01:15:51.400 --> 01:15:54.200
but that now she must
let go, stop fighting.

01:15:57.280 --> 01:15:59.520
I think I said something about the light.