10/05/2016 Scotland 2016

What lessons can Scotland learn from a woman who survived

It's more than 70 years since America dropped

Where does it leave the debate on Britain's nuclear submarine

Alzheimer's dementia affects almost 100,000 Scots.

We ask one woman who lost both her parents to the disease

I started to think to myself there are many genetic links and most of

the diseases, probably that is the case with Alzheimer's as well.

After Jackie Stewart and Colin McRae, what can Scotland

do to bring on the next generation of motorsport champions?

It was the bomb that changed the world.

In the summer of 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima

was flattened by an American atomic bomb more powerful

Today a Japanese woman who survived the bombing has visited Scotland,

to call on politicians here to oppose the renewal of the Trident

Our reporter David Allison caught up with Setsuko Thurlow, and he started

by asking her what she remembers from that day.

I saw southernly the blueish white flame in the window -- southernly. I

felt that I was flying in the air, my body was floating. The glass from

the detonation just flattened all of the building. I was buried under the

collapsed building. And when I regained consciousness, I found

myself in the total darkness and in silence. I knew that I was faced

with death because I could not move my body. Then I started hearing my

classmates around me, asking for God, asking for help, asking their

mothers for help. All of a sudden, I heard a male voice. It told us to

keep moving and pushing and kicking. He was trying to three years. You

saw the sun breakthrough that opening, we moved towards it as

quickly as possible. That is what I did in the total darkness. I just

crawled to that direction. I'd escaped but the building was already

on fire. When you got out, what did you see?

Well, it happened at 8:15 in the morning but it was dark

as twilight, perhaps because of the smoke and dust

and particles rising up in that mushroom cloud.

As my eyes got adjusted in the darkness, I started seeing

I could not believe they were human beings, they just did not look

like human beings, it was a procession of ghosts.

Their hair was just standing up. They were bleeding, covered in

blood. Bernd and blackened and swollen. Everybody raised their

hands up like this and slowly suffering from the centre part of

the city to where we wear and somewhere carrying their own

eyeballs. And then some intestine is just burst open. The soldier said,

you girls, the three of us who managed to escape, he told us to

join the procession to escape. We did that as we stepped over the dead

bodies. You are here in Scotland

to take your message to politicians I emphasise the human perspective of

these weapons. We have given so much attention

to the doctrine of deterrents and how useful nuclear weapons are,

therefore, we have to spend more money to have more nuclear weapons

and to make us safer, that is nonsense

from my perspective. It is how those terrible things kill

human beings. You have said it is nonsense, but

the reality is that nuclear weapons have kept the peace, not just in

Europe, but Japan has been protected by the American umbrella from

aggression from China or North Korea. It is a terrible thing, but

it seems to work. We have been lucky for the past 70

years. But we cannot keep pushing our luck. As long as those weapons

exist, we keep competing, we are leading ourselves to catastrophe.

What difference would it make if a country like Scotland didn't

have nuclear weapons on its soil when we live in a world where China

Pakistan has them, India has them, Israel almost certainly has them.

Removing them from Faslane would literally be a small drop

We have a greater chance that we will have that catastrophe, an

accident. The majority of the Scottish people are against it. Why

cannot the government pay some attention to the people's wishes?

The same thing is happening in Japan. The majority of the people

want to get rid of the nuclear weapons. But the government, in

spite of the fact that we are the only victimised nation by the

nuclear weapons, it has been doing what it has been doing because Japan

has a military alliance with the biggest nuclear weapons states. As a

member of such a military alliance, I think those states feel the

obligation, to be loyal, and that is the unfortunate reality.

Somehow, we have the notion that by having the nuclear weapons we can

secure our security, but I think there are other ways

of achieving that security rather than having that indiscriminate

It is not a bomb, it is a device for mass murder.

Setsuko Thurlow, thank you very much indeed.

Thank you. It's shocking to hear that early

signs of Alzheimer's disease are often present for up to 20 years

before a person So how can we treat such

a mysterious condition? A major European study aims to find

ways to halt the onset of Alzheimer's, and it has

recruited its first participant. She's Julie Duffus from

Tillicoultry. Both her parents suffered

from Alzheimer's. Our reporter Andrew Black

met with her today. Julie Duffus has many fond memories

of her parents, Bert and Beryl. Towards the end of their lives,

there were difficult times. Both are diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease,

the most common cause of dementia. Julie recalled the way that the

deceased or cold. I did not see what was happening on

a day-to-day basis with my mother. But I would speak to are on the

phone and she would constantly repeat the same things over and over

again. You knew that something was going on. My mother died in 2005.

Four years later, my father started to suffer as well. That was

obviously a horrible shock. His decline was very rapid. He only

lived two and a half years after diagnosis. He didn't recognise

anybody for the last year. He was a very gentle man in all senses of the

word, but he began to have violent outbursts, a complete change of

personality. It was distressing to watch. It must have been distressing

for him as well. So, it is a horrible disease.

Now, Julie wants to help scientists find better ways of fighting

Alzheimer's disease and has become the first person to sign up to a

major new European study, jointly led by Edinburgh University, which

aims to do exactly that. She is the very, very first person

across Europe to be involved in this ground breaking study. There will be

several thousand other people like her over the next two years who will

contribute as well. She will be doing memory tests, having very

detailed brain scanning, she will be giving blood samples, she will be

putting in her genetic code, and it is only through all of that

information together we can build up these models of what is happening in

the brain, decades before the disease develops. In doing so, we

can sensibly develop drugs to try to affect processes which may hopefully

prevent dementia and the longer term.

The study has been warmly welcomed by Julie Duffus, who wanders Monday

if she herself will be diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

I believe that there are genetic links. -- wonders one day. It is

something that has worried me for some years. You know that you have

two parents with it and you start to think to yourself, there are genetic

links and many other diseases, probably Alzheimer's as well. That

is something that has been on my mind for quite a few years.

Obviously, as I have got into middle age, my memory has become poorer. So

it is a concern for me. There is currently no cure for

Alzheimer's, but it did so but studies like the one involving Julie

will find better ways of diagnosing the disease and even perhaps

prevented from ever happening. -- prevent it.

Joining me now from our Edinburgh studio is Professor June Andrews,

author of Dementia: The One-Stop Guide.

Thank you for joining us. Alzheimer's, it is a mysterious

condition, what do we need to find out to stop it affecting so many

people like Julie's payments? The first thing I must say is that I

am really sorry about Julie's situation. Because there is a form

of dementia, a form of Alzheimer's, which is inherited, we know that it

is inherited, but that generally happens too much younger people. To

all the people who develop dementia, there seem to be quite a lot of

complex Divin things that cause that and that is why the research is very

difficult. What could it be? Lifestyle? The

Scottish environment, what is going on?

The number of people with dementia in Scotland is not greater than in

any other developed country and we know that the changes that take

place in the brain happen long before any symptoms occur, that is

what the researchers are looking for. And sometimes you find that

even when someone has passed away, and you do a postmortem on their

brain, you find that they have some of those Alzheimer's type changes

but they have never had any symptoms, that is what makes it

really difficult to do research on this. We know that even if someone

has the changes in the brain, there are lifestyle changes that can help

to keep the symptoms at a low level or to delay them for longer. A

number of years ago I met a woman in America and sadly her father had had

the genetic form of Alzheimer's disease, and she and all her

brothers and sisters were all affected. So families that do have

the genetic form usually are very well aware of it, so I hope that

middle-aged ladies that have memory loss or difficulty with their

memory, realise that in most cases that is not the dementia disease

that is causing it. Both of Julie's parents were

affected by it, but do we know by Alzheimer's seems to affect more

women than men? Actually, I do not know why it seems

to affect more women than men. At one point, we got that because more

women lived to be older and because the older you are the likely urge

you are to have dementia, but that was the reason for it, but dementia

can because by either Alzheimer's disease or other diseases, and one

of the common diseases, the second most common disease that causes

dementia is a vascular disease. Recently we have noticed that with

improving vascular health because people are getting fatter, they are

having good medication for blood pressure and similar conditions, we

found that there is a suggestion that perhaps vascular dementia is

not increasing as fast as he would have thought. So, there are things

you can do to stay well. There are things you can do to stay well even

if you have been affected, but the absolute cos of it remains a mystery

and that is why it is worth doing these great big long population

studies such as the one started at the University of Edinburgh. We must

try very hard earlier to find out what it is that is causing the

problem. Research in the United States

reaches the conclusion that Alzheimer's should be called type

three diabetes, that it is caused by resistance to insulin in the brain.

Are those researchers on the right lines?

There is a good amount of research which gives early indications of

something that might be useful and so, I think people are sometimes

tormented by the kind of research that they see printed in the papers,

one day it is because you are too fat, sometimes because you are too

thin. I saw one recently that said you are more likely to have

Alzheimer's if you have a certain skin disease. These types of

research when reported, they make people feel that they might have

come to the one solution reason for it. I think it is because it is so

complex that it is rubbing important we do not get too excited about one

theory as it happens. A very broad study like the Edinburgh one is the

one that will likely give us what we need to know. What everyone wants to

know is will I get it because my parents got it? The answer is

probably not. They also want to know if there is something they can do to

avoid getting it, the answer is, yes, you can, there are lots of

things to do to delay the symptoms or avoid getting it in the first

place. What more can the NHS do without all

the information at its disposal, what can it do to treat people and

prevent people from becoming ill in the first place?

The NHS in Scotland is doing welcomed with other parts of the

world. The first most important thing is to be identified at the

point where you probably have a problem, that is why the diagnosis

level is done by GPs is truly in Scotland. At that point in Scotland

people have a guaranteed here of post-diagnostic support. Sometimes

that is too soon for people, but the fact that that support is there is

useful. We have Alzheimer's Scotland that helps people with information

and advice. I think the NHS is doing well but it probably needs to work

harder on acute hospitals, where sometimes with dementia get much

worse for reasons that are avoidable.

We must leave it there, Professor June Andrews, thank you very much

indeed. Now, Sir Jackie Stewart,

Jim Clark, Colin McRae, Dario Franchitti -

just some of Scotland's Now efforts are under way

to encourage more young people into the sport and continue

Scotland's long tradition Per capita we are certainly leading

the world with the successes, whether in Rally driving, motor

bikes as well as cards, two wheels as were asked for reels. We have to

build that further if we are to get another generation of topline racing

drivers. So how can Scotland encourage more

young people into motorsport? I've been hearing from the former

British Rally champion Jimmy McRae and Alastair McNaughton

from the Scottish Auto Cycle Union. Tell us about your plans. What do

you hope to achieve? The basic plan is to broaden the baseline

participation levels in motor sport. That is all forms, Rally, motor

cycle, track, off-road, on road, whatever. The plan is to broaden

that, not just with participation of the sport itself but within

officials, Marshalls, all the imported people that make an event

happen. And really to do that we are focusing on helping clubs and

looking very much at things like the mass gleam of people who are nicely

held in place is called universities. -- the mass volume of

people. Try to bring them in, encourage motor sport clubs in

universities. That has not done very much before. A bit of karting, but

very little larger scale motor sport. Probably because it is viewed

as being expensive. So the aim is to attract more people in. Jimmy, I

wonder, you and your family show that Scotland can produce champions.

But your success was very much family success. How do you go beyond

that? How do you go about creating a situation in Scotland where it is

individuals coming in fresh to the sport? I think it is great what has

happened today, the funding, because there are people out there with

loads of talent, young guys with no money, and hopefully with the

correct funding, not going direct to them but getting other big companies

involved, will bring a bit more money into the sport, bringing money

into the sport will get more coverage. More coverage, it gets

more popular. And I think it is going to be good, what is happening.

But I wonder, the recipe for success, in so many sports, involves

very supportive parents, because they provide the impetus and they

provide the wraparound care, the support that kids and junctures need

to get on in sport. -- and youngsters. What more do we need?

What more can we do to encourage those individuals who don't have

that? I think basically what we are seeing here at the moment is try to

create a lot more interest, get young people in at an early age, and

basically if you get the men at an early age and they show potential,

that will attract sponsors or companies that are willing to get

involved. -- if you attract them in at an early age. The likes of Susie

will have shown that Scottish women can thrive in this arena. If there

is scope for encouraging more women to get involved? Of course. We had a

world champion rally driver, and it would be nice to see another women

doing the same. It is definitely open to girls as well as boys.

Alistair, there are about 300 is into this initiative. For a very

rich sport, it doesn't seem a huge amount. -- ?350,000. Will it make a

difference? The benefit it will produce is that they can be the Big

Brother taking them along, introducing them to this family

called motor sport, bringing them into a club who will take them by

the hand and show them what they can do. If they want to marshal

initially, which is basically cost neutral, they can come along and do

some marshalling, some observing our trials, whatever they want to do. If

they want to get involved in bikes, then initially we will stick them on

a bike and buy them have a go, stick them in a car and let them have a

go. Once they have done that, had a couple of free shots, it is then

time for them to invest in going forward. We have had lots of success

in the past, lots of champions. When will we have the next batch of

champions? That is difficult to say, but I think one of the good things

in Rally for us at the moment is we are going out of the junior

programme where 14-year-olds can jump in a rally car, off public

roads, on private roads. When you go there and see 18 or 20 young

14-year-olds, girls and boys, and you see the enthusiasm and what they

can do with the 1000 cc car, then we might not wait too long. We have to

leave it there. Thank you very much. With me now to discuss some

of the day's news are David Leask, who's chief reporter with

the Herald, and Kirstein Rummery, who's Professor of Social Policy

at Stirling University. Thanks very much for joining us. At

the top of the programme we heard from Setsuko Thurlow who survived

the Hiroshima bombing. Campaigning here against the renewal of Trident.

What sort of impact, Kerstin, do you think the comments might have on

what is an ongoing debate? It would be nice if her comments brought back

the human face to this kind of debate, because Trident has very

often been used as a political football, and its symbolism in terms

of the Scottish versus the rest of the UK identity and also the way in

which it was used in the independent referendum to move funding to their

ends not bombs kind of thing. Even the concerns about the safety all

set aside the fact we are dealing with weapons of mass structure and

here. And David, weapons of mass of structuring, and yet there are

plenty of people here who want to keep nuclear weapons for national

security. -- weapons of mass destruction. Is there any sign of

the country moving towards being anti nuclear? I think in Scotland

there is said to be a consensus against Trident. Whether there is, I

don't know. In many ways I think we still view nuclear weapons in a

rather old-fashioned way. We still think of them as being a nation

state with a big bomb to defend themselves, and that is quite a

compelling narrative, but I'm not sure it is very useful when our

security really relies on the logicians we have with our allies

and our enemies. Our security is something we have to build

transnational, and that also should be a question when we decide what to

do with nuclear weapons. It is quite a thought, when you see that footage

from the end of the Second World War which claimed tens of billions of

lives. It was only right at the end of that appalling process of

slaughter that people used nuclear weapons. It makes you wonder how

much political innovations there would ever be about using nuclear

weapons nowadays. -- political inhibition. I am a child of the Cold

War, and I was terrified of nuclear weapons. What is interesting though

is that we have almost not learned the lessons of the past, because we

do not treat them as a bomber, and what advisers as the UK is not any

kind of meaningful deterrent against attack. It buys us a seat on the UN

security council so that we get the chance to say we are a nuclear power

on the world stage without really taking some kind of political

responsibility for what that actually means. Let's move onto the

next topic, the EU referendum. The Scottish election is out of the

road, David, and not long now. Today Iain Duncan Smith arguing that the

European Union as a force for social injustice. What do you make of this

latest line of attack? I find it slightly funny. Am I allowed to say

that? I once in the way that reporters do followed Ian Duncan

Smith around the East End of Glasgow, and he was said to have

discovered poverty. I'm sure his views are genuine enough, but not

sure whether his analysis is very clever on these matters. What

surprises is this being a tactic being pursued on the right of

politics, someone who is rightly or wrongly associated with austerity

and cutbacks to the services. Somehow he is going to sell Britain

outside the European Union as one of social justice I don't know. What

it's worth, I'm surprised there hasn't been more of a left attack on

the EU. For those of us hold us to remember the 1980s, the weather was

at the forefront of anti-sentiment, I was expecting something that

hasn't happened yet. He is aiming this method squarely at poorer

voters. I just wonder how receptive and audience might they be? I think

when you look at the arguments he is trying to put forward, he is trying

to put social justice argument, arguably trying to appeal to those

left voters that David was talking about. But if you look at the way in

which the different arms of the campaign have weighed up, on the

Remains side, you have quite weighty bodies, economists, the Prime

Minister, entire political parties, and then on the Believed side, you

have a lot of very charismatic personalities like Iain Duncan

Smith, Nigel Farage. They are very much penning that all those

individual voices. What makes me worry about that is that people are

voting for her against those individual personalities instead of

looking behind those faces for the substantial arguments. If the

antiestablishment theme that Iain Duncan Smith is now putting forward,

is that going to be key to whether this referendum is one boss? I

suspect it will be. -- is one robust? And the only game I think we

have got is to play the anti-antiestablishment card. People

think these are antiestablishment figures, but Boris Johnson,

antiestablishment? And no. That is all we have got time for. Thank you

very much for joining us. Andrew's back with you tomorrow,

so join him then, usual time. From all of us here, have a very

good night. Your partner would be in bed on the

other side of the world and would be able to hear your heartbeat.

HEART BEATS we are doing to one other

through technology. I am a cyborg

for the rest of my life and I'm OK with that,

because it gave me a life. What is our relationship

with the digital world? Join me, Aleks Krotoski, for

The Digital Human, on BBC Radio 4.