30/01/2017 Inside Out Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

This week we meet the primary schoolgirl who was born a boy.

And we find out why Lawrence of Arabia came to live

Welcome to Inside Out. I'm Paul Hudson.

Tonight, how old he have to be to decide your future?

We meet the nine-year-old who was born

It just matters that you, you, are who

Also tonight, we followed the GPs train to care for

elderly patients at home as the local hospital

There's got to be a much bigger acknowledgement of the need to

properly fund and properly resource and properly integrate health and

And, later in the programme, how and why historic

legend Lawrence of Arabia came to live here in Bridlington.

He used to take these little marine craft out

into the bay and he'd let the aircraft, and bomb him.

And, so, he was just like a sitting duck in the

The number of children referred to Yorkshire's gender ID

Heidi Tomlinson has spent the last six months with a nine-year-old

Amber, who was born a boy but wants to become a girl.

Her parents have agreed to this film to help raise awareness of this most

It's June and eight-year-old Amber has an appointment

Do you want to show me your extensions?

You're hoping that those might go in so your hair's a bit longer?

I think they might be for dressing up and to make her feel

when she needs a girly day but I don't think

She wants to look like a girl despite being a boy physically.

Are you excited about having a new style?

Her mum Becky says she's too young to wear it regularly.

Do you know, I never realised how long your lashes were.

I never realised how wrong they were.

Tomorrow she goes to school as a girl for the first time.

I think you look really glam. You look gorgeous.

Amber was born Nicholas, the youngest of three boys.

Amber was living a lie. She was playing the part of a son.

She was playing the role that she saw from her brothers.

And she was filling that boy role through their guidance.

At a very eary stage she became obsessed

She watched a programme about drag queens

I didn't want to be a drag queen any more.

So, I told my mum, can I be a boy again?

And, then, I remember saying, "What is transgender?"

Her parents say she was a girl trapped in a boy's body.

It's not about what anybody else thinks.

It's not about what they deem better for my child.

It's me and everybody else who has to run to catch up.

How convinced are you that Amber will stay as a girl now?

From day one, she wasn't as the other boys were.

She had got a feminine side to her, more than anything.

She wanted to do the cleaning, she wanted to do dolls,

But but my mind is, like, pulling me to one side and my other

The one on the left is saying, being a boy.

The other one is saying, being a girl.

The big day arrives, Amber will go to school as a girl.

Do you know what you're going to do if you need the loo?

Today classmates will call her Amber instead of Nicholas.

Last term there was a special assembly about Amber's

Her friends have promised to support her although she has been

The best bit is the kids referring to her as Amber.

The teachers have come up to her and said hello.

Very positive reaction from the teachers.

I think I need to go home and bawl my eyes out.

It's been an emotional time at home, too.

Amber's teenage brothers have both found the change hard to accept.

It just came to have it when I was in tears.

It was just too hard for me to think about.

She said that she wanted to be a girl.

I thought she was too young to understand.

When she wanted to change her name to Amber that

It come to a bit where she just said, "Mum,

And I was just eaTing something at the time

I went in tears. I just walked away.

Amber's parents are separated but they are united

And people think it's a neglect type of thing.

You're forcing it on to her, that poor child.

It's come from the child herself. It's nothing to do with us.

Strong friendships give Amber confidence but there have been some

One of them said, are you going to die your hair, I said no.

Another said, are you going to get married

She's changed in her personality by doing like things like she's

getting more confident and stuff that she is doing.

Usually, she wouldn't really wear jewellery when she was a boy

but now she's a girl, she wears much more jewellery.

A few months after transition, Amber celebrates her ninth

birthday with afternoon tea, one of her favourite things.

You're not allowed to just fill your plate up with paper, either.

But eating's become an issue, she thinks putting on weight

Hiding food. It's not good, is it?

Puberty is getting closer as each year goes by.

She's keen to take hormone blockers to delay the obvious

It's something they've discussed with psychologists at the gender

Of the blockers, I think that is something that would be,

if this is something that Amber definitely wants, that's come

at a certain stage of development, she has to go through a certain

If that changes down the line and she wants to keep continuing,

We don't want to do something to early,

Can you imagine yourself as a teenager?

If I'm not an blockers, I'll be all bulky, all manly, like.

And then, at night, I'll be trying to pray, saying,

We've been filming Amber for six months.

The family wanted us to tell their story to encourage

acceptance and understanding of transgender children.

I am aware of a lot of people's views.

Been called disgusting and everything else and,

realistically, I think those people need to just step outside

their little box, their judgmental box and realise that

transgender people are, you know, humans.

Have you given Amber too much freedom?

That is something that I tear myself up about.

I've just got to do the best that I can

with the information available to me.

She's so much more brighter and confident than what

Do you think your too young to make your mind up about this?

It isn't like something bad's going to happen.

It just matters that you are who you want to be.

And, don't forget, if you've got any views on tonight's programme,

or you've got a story you think we might like to cover,

you can get in touch on Facebook or on Twitter.

Why Lawrence of Arabia came to live here

to close a Community Hospital in the Peak District

they realised they wouldn't be popular

but argued it would be cheaper but better

for some elderly patients to be cared for at home.

has been to one nearby GP practice that is doing

"It's been revealed this lunchtime that the NHS wants to close

two community hospitals in Derbyshire."

Newholme hospital in Bakewell was built

Now health bosses say it doesn't fit into the NHS of the 21st Century.

The people I've spoken to in Bakewell today are shocked.

Nearby at Baslow health centre the news has got everybody talking.

It's a real shame because people rely on it,

You know, it should be there for people.

I think the elderly, especially, are going to be quite devastated.

But some think the idea of moving care out of hospital

and into people's homes is a good one.

I think it sounds marvellous if people

People are so passionate about Newholme

Because it's been around for 150 years.

Just about anybody you speak to around here will have had either

a member of the family work in the hospital

or be admitted to the hospital.

It's just health economics, isn't it?

We've got an older, frailer population.

The evidences, keeping people out of hospital is better for them.

We have downward pressure on our finances.

It is absolutely essential for us to do things differently.

For us to be ready to meet the needs of

So how easy is it to care for patients at home?

Today Dr Jordan's been called to visit Jill James,

an elderly patient with dementia who's at risk

We're going to see a lady who's

met her before and she's 79 and she's got a chest infection.

I gather from your daughter that you're

Have you had anything to eat or drink today?

She's very breathless. Her oxygen sacs are low.

The temperature is high. And she has got a chest infection.

We've got a couple of choices that they are not easy choices.

I was obviously quite shocked at how unwell Jill was.

Quickly try to assess, is this appropriate to go into hospital?

Which, unquestionably, it would have been.

Or is this someone we can try and manage at home which was clearly

Hello, it's Doctor Jordan from Baslow surgery.

I wonder if you can help me with some IV fluids and

antibiotics to help a lady at home, please.

I shall now call the on-call microbiologist at Chesterfield

To move Jill into a hospital bed would cost hundreds

Putting a jigsaw of home care in place is cheaper

You're having to be a conductor of a very large orchestra.

You're having to try and get lots of services in very quickly.

Good afternoon, central access point.

Hello, Kate, it's Doctor Jordan. Calling from Baslow surgery here.

I was wondering if... Hello, Doctor Jordan.

I was wondering if you could help me support a lady to stay at home,

who's quite elderly and unwell at the moment.

Five phone calls later carers and antibiotics are on their way.

Louise is sure keeping Jill out of hospital

It would have taken one phone called to admit

her into hospital and in our time-poor job, that so easy to do.

But, just that little bit of extra effort

We're going to have to follow that up tomorrow,

but it's the right thing to do for that

Newholme hospital has cared for patients

Elderly patients come here to get

back on their feet with the help of specialist teams.

The clinical commissioning group now wants those teams to visit people

at home instead ? and they're asking the public what they think.

But it's not just about specialists -

doctors are worried, if the hospital closes,

who will feed and wash vulnerable patients

Very specifically, we don't have enough carers

Social services cuts It won't be able to step

up to give the extra care that is needed

83-year-old Peter Warin hasn't been eating properly

Very scared. He had a bleeding head wound.

When he was weighed, when he was admitted, he was 40 kilos.

It was Newholme that has allowed him

to rebuild his strength, giving him the right diet

Oh, it's wonderful. The food is marvellous.

Well, the number of people here who need care

A Community Hospital is very, very important.

Particularly with such an ageing population.

It's more than a month since Dr Jordan put in

For weeks the family have been visited daily by nurses,

It's just a miracle what's happened to mum.

She is almost back to her normal self and she'll be able to carry on

We've got lots of things we want to do still.

Those hanging baskets are nice. When did you get those?

It's a good quality of life she's got back to.

I haven't got a cough, at all. No.

The best local response, really, is to

I'll lie in front if a bulldozer comes.

Meanwhile, in Bakewell, after a series of public meetings

All the feedback that we get

from the general public will be

An announcement is expected in the next few weeks.

Down the road in Matlock some health staff have already moved

from Newholme so they're in the same building as social services.

There's a lot of repetition between health and social care,

so being based in same office will hopefully

and more elderly patients, it's all part of a bigger picture.

It's really clear that for a sustainable future

for an increasingly elderly population there's got to be proper

acknowledgment of the need to properly fund and properly

Now, I've been on the trail of one of the greatest British heroes of

A man who made his name in the sands of Arabia

and his story has been told in films and in many books.

But, did you know, before his death, he came to live

In 1934, a passenger arrived here in Bridlington train station.

He was one of Britain's most famous men.

But he had an assumed name to try and avoid being identified.

He was better known as Lawrence of Arabia.

The new arrival was an international celebrity

Nearly a hundred years later, Lawrence is still remembered

in films and books for his role in leading an Arab rebellion

What, in your opinion, did these people hope

These days in Bridlington, only a few clues survive

He came because he'd started a new life, under an assumed name,

Aircraftsman Shaw, To give him his adopted name, has

always been a difficult man to photograph, ever since his war

exploits made him the uncrowned King of Arabia.

For more than ten years, Lawrence had been pursued by the Press.

When he arrived back in Britain in 1929, he wanted to evade

the public spotlight by joining the marine branch of the RAF.

My search begins in Bridlington library, where I'm finding evidence

It's very obvious just looking at the collection of

books and newspapers here on this table but there is an awful lot of

Absolutely. Yes.

People were very proud of the fact that Lawrence was a part of the

community, not just here working but mixing with

them in the harbour, and in the shops.

In a collection of newspaper cuttings, Sarah's found what looks

like the first public record of Lawrence's posting here,

It's all about what he did here in Bridlington.

He used to take these little marine craft out into the bay

So, he was just like a sitting duck in the middle of Bridlington Bay.

It was here in Bridlington harbour that

Lawrence spend most of his working days.

He was based with the RAF in boat sheds behind me.

This is the only surviving footage of Lawrence's

which started at Hythe near Southampton

He was developing high speed launches for air sea rescue,

as well armoured boats for bomb target practice.

His work was a deliberate escape from the glory

After the Middle East, Lawrence, a quiet, reserved man,

enjoyed coming to a seaside resort in winter.

Richard Knowles has researched Lawrence's RAF duties

Lawrence of Arabia, here in Bridlington,

Well, he'd have been very familiar with this sort of

feeling because he was here on three occasions.

Briefly in 1932, for about a month in the summer of 1933

and for a few months, towards the end of his

It paints a very different picture of

the one we all know, Lawrence of Arabia.

It's a very different scene to be seeing

Lawrence in the desert but, of course, he went through quite a

traumatic time, after that period, and came into the RAF and towards

the end of this career was very influential

How important to Lawrence was his work in the RAF?

I think he found great satisfaction

Which led, of course, in the Second World War to the

development of air sea rescue launches.

Using some of the technology that he'd used.

Now, anything which belonged to Lawrence is highly prized.

Richard has original hand-written notes which describe

Here we have a tiny fragment of paper, in

pencil, in Lawrence's actual hand with his signature at the bottom,

and this talks about type 200 number 208.

He goes on about it in quite some technical detail.

I think these logs and the letters of the period show the pride and

these satisfaction he got out of it. You can mirror the achievements of

the latter part of his career with the time in the desert.

So what did Lawrence really think of Bridlington?

Richard's got a fragment from one of his letters which gives a clue.

It says, post to and from Bridlington take at least two days.

"A Dreadful little place." On his final posting,

Lawrence stayed at what used This is the room he stayed in during

that last visit. It's changed massively. One thing that hasn't

changed is the view of the harbour. In fact, most of the time,

Lawrence liked Bridlington. He was in a melancholy mood because

he wasn't looking forward to retirement from the RAF. He wrote,

have you ever felt like a leaf that has fallen from a tree in autumn. He

was in that kind of mood. But he spent the time in the room behind is

writing letters to his famous friends.

He was supposed to be an ordinary aircraftsman.

But here he wrote to leading politicians,,

He talks about the waves coming up the beach like lions. It was a quiet

place here in winter. It's quite bleak in winter. Even on a day like

this. He also writes that it's a place that there are not many people

about in winter. He talks of just cats and landladies husbands to keep

him company. In a lock-up garage behind

the hotel, Lawrence It was to play a tragic part

in what happened to him It was against this harbour wall,

possibly, that the last two photographs of him were taken. He

was on a push bike, leaning against the wall, just before ten o'clock in

the morning. So the man who was photographed so many times, the last

known photograph was against a wall in Bridlington. He cycled down in

due course and then in May 1935, he was tragically killed. What was he

really like? Eighty years after his death,

the legend of Lawrence lives on ? He was a very great man. He was a

poet, a scholar and a mighty warrior. He was also the most

shameless exhibitionist since Parliament and Bailey. There are no

camels and I'm not going to the desert so we've got Bridlington

beach and, come on, Molly. We can do it.

Whoa! Whoa!. I've had enough now. That's it from others in Costa Del

Bridlington. Joined as next week. We'll be talking about the battle to

protect red squirrels in the Yorkshire Dales.