Review of the Year, Part 2 Victoria Derbyshire

Welcome to the programme. Over the next half-hour, we will bring you

some of our original stories and exclusive interviews from our

programme since we launched in April. We start with the

extraordinary story of who were separated birth at the end

of World War II, and who were reunited earlier this year after

nearly 70 years. They were born in Germany in 1946 after their Polish

mother was sent to a forced labour camp. When she became ill and

couldn't look after them, George and Lucien were taken to Poland, where

they were adopted separately. George now lives in the sand chillis and

they didn't even know each other existed. After is accessible search

by the Red Cross programme, the twins finally met in Poland earlier

this year, and we were there. Over 11 million of you have watched this

film online, so if you can, stop whatever you are doing and take a

few minutes to watch their story. When I found out about Lucien, I was

very emotional. I just... For a while, I just couldn't stop crying.

TRANSLATION: I don't know how to say thank you. I am so grateful to the

Red Cross, who helped me so much. I am so very grateful.

I am so excited to see him, and hope from now on, we will be very close

together. TRANSLATION: It's going to be a great pleasure. It's the first

happiness in my life. I feel very happy. I cannot wait to hug him. And

give him a big kiss. TRANSLATION: There he is, my little brother

George. Welcome, welcome. TRANSLATION: It will come back

quickly enough, don't worry. My heart is overflowing with joy to

welcome you on Polish soil. We are looking to the future. What has

happened in the past, you cannot change it. Wars are terrible things.

And we have wars right now going on around the world, and people dying,

people get misplaced. It is really very sad. That is why I am saying we

have a time to celebrate now, and look to the future. And, I would

like to say, for ever. TRANSLATION: I was surprised,

because I had heard different stories. That he was a German, that

he was a Pole. George didn't either. We finally learned that he

was an American soldier. Like I said before, I always had the feeling.

I came to America, and now I have found out why. And this was the

response your mother got when she was try to find you. Yes. So she was

looking for you. She was looking for me, and she really wanted to return

to Germany. TRANSLATION: When I look at her now,

I see myself in her. I wish, when I was young, she was with me. But I

know it didn't happen this way. It says here that by error, the

children were repatriated to Poland without the mother being notified.

TRANSLATION: It was a great shock to me. I was deeply shaken. I just

couldn't believe that things turned out so well in the end.

That film has been seen over 11 million times three broadcast it in

September. You can watch all of our stories on our programme page.

Or the BBC News YouTube page. Every day on the programme, we ask you to

come to us with stories you think we should be covering. One recurring

theme is mental health. One in three of us will experience a mental

health problem over a lifetime. In July, we decided to devote an entire

programme to the issue. Good morning. It is Monday, 9.15.

Welcome to the programme. Today, we are discussing the state of the

nation's mental health. One in four of us will experience a mental

health problem at some point this year. This morning, we will hear the

impact it can have on you and your families. I am Jack, I am 25. I self

harmed and tried to take my own life. I ended up sectioned and

under the Mental Health Act. Once I came out of hospital, there was no

after-care and I felt really alone. I am Kerry. I am a mum of two and my

husband had clinical depression. He didn't work for two years. It was an

enormous strain on my family. There needs to be more support for people

with mental health illness. An exclusive survey for this programme

suggests that 69% of British adults think people with mental health

problems are viewed more negatively than those with physical health

issues. I am Nathan. I have had depression and anxiety for the past

nine years. I now make films on YouTube to highlight the stigma

around mental health illnesses. Some of the stories I have heard and

experienced are outrageous. I am anxiety. Education about mental

health is key. People don't speak about it enough. That is exactly

what we are going to do today. Thank you, Laura, Nathan, Kerry and Jack.

I am Sarah, and after my second child, developed postnatal

psychosis. It was horrific. I thought I was going to kill my kids

at one point, because I felt like I couldn't look after them. And a fear

of having taken off me as well was awful. I had no clue what was going

on. Throughout my pregnancy, I was quite erratic. I had my baby and the

next day, I was doing loads of stuff. I was on a high, going

shopping, going out. My mum was like, you need to slow down. One

day, I was just sitting there and this fear just came through me. I

dropped my plate and screamed the place down and went into the

bathroom and didn't come out for two hours. I didn't know what was going

on. I went to the doctor, and they gave me these pills. I took them and

it just made me worse. Afterwards, it just got worse and worse. I

couldn't have a bath because I thought I was going to die. I

couldn't go near my children because I thought I was going to kill them.

I was adamant that if I did touch them, I would harm them. I started

hearing voices telling me to kill myself. How far away do you think we

are, Ruby Wax, between parity for mental health along with physical

health? We were discussing that the law should protect you, but 56% of

employers do not hire people with mental illness. So it is a

conundrum. But everybody watching the show will go, that is too bad.

You know how it is. They watch the news, and it could be a cartoon.

They have to get it into their heads that mental illness is a physical

illness. It is not like you got up in the morning and thought, should I

take up golf or should I be sectioned? When I went into

hospital, a doctor said that if Bill Gates spent the money he did in

malaria on the brain, which gets zilch, they would maybe have had a

illnesses. You can look in illnesses. You can look in

anti-Alzheimer's. You don't say to somebody with Alzheimer's, come on,

you remember where the key is. But mental illness is physical. She is

not making it up. It is confused with fantasy, that these people just

had nothing to do. When they put money into brain research and they

can locate where this is, and it will take years, but then you will

be able to hold up a card and say, if you discriminate against me, I

will take you to town, because I have the blood test, whatever.

Nothing will change and people will keep going, that is too bad, or that

is good television. I suffer with bipolar disorder. I have been an

electrician for the last two years on building sites and stuff, and

obviously, men deal with mental health issues a lot different clay

from women. Being a young man on a building site is hard.

told people about it, they say things like man up. What have you

said to them? Take us to the conversation on a wet November

morning when you are plastering, whatever you are doing. How do you

bring it up? I get anxiety on the train on the way there. Even before

I have got there, I want to go home. So you get to the door and you tell

people how you feel. I say, I feel a bit weird. That is all I feel I can

against me. Especially with men, against me. Especially with men,

they say, sort yourself out, mate. And it is like, I can't. You don't

know why you are feeling it, so unless you can put something on it

like with physical things, if you have broke your leg, you know you

have broken your leg. But if you have something in your head, you

don't know what it is. I was sitting there a minute ago and feeling like

I wanted to walk out of the door. But I want to show people that you

can get up and do things and help others. I suffer from an exact sea

-- I suffered from anorexia for six years and spent two and half years

in different patient psychiatric wards. The handover between

outpatient and inpatient services was appalling. My inpatient team did

not show up to my outpatient meeting. I was left long periods of

relapsed over and over again. It's relapsed over and over again. It's

got to the point where I was so desperate for help that I was

ringing up my GP at her house, saying to her, I need help. And I

rang a local hospital to say to them, I have a very low BMI and I

was not sleeping. My parents were checking on me breathing. I said,

can I come in and get some inpatient health? They told me to get lower in

my weight. I was anorexic. It is like waving a red flag in front of a

bull. They basically said, go away, don't eat any more. It was so

powerful watching so many people who have never told their story before,

doing so in a room full of strangers and on national television, so thank

you for doing that. Another woman who told us her story for the first

time, 20-year-old student Victoria. She was seriously injured

in the Alton Towers roller coasters crash in June. In an exclusive

interview, she told us it was a relief to finally have her leg

amputated above the knee. After six rounds of surgery, to try and save

it. She came to speak to us with her mother.

I think through the operations and there were more than six, you were

thinking, "I am, my leg, we're going to save it." The medical staff were

thinking that as well, weren't they? They were amazing. They wanted to

save it. They didn't want to amputate at all. They thought it

would be better to save it because I've got a fracture in my fee murder

intl. Femur. The question from day one was I am owe sorry, you're going

you amputate or not and I couldn't you amputate or not and I couldn't

make that decision. I don't think anyone really can. He said if you do

amputate it will be about here and it would be a really short stump

because I've got a fracture around here. That was quite bad. I didn't

want to amputate. I couldn't. I couldn't say yes, but I couldn't say

no. I think in the end, getting an

infection kind of made that decision for you, didn't it? Yes, it did.

Operation after operation, it was looking like they could save it and

I would be able to walk again with it and in the beginning, before I

got an infection, I was up walking with a frame, with my crutches on my

own and it was starting to look really, really good and I was

starting to see like a light at the end of the tunnel and then all of a

sudden, I was sleeping. I slept for three days in a row and it was, I

didn't feel myself. I was, I had my friends there and I just slept. I

couldn't really speak to them or do anything and then obviously you

realise that something wasn't right and told the surgeon and they said,

"If there is sign of infection, would you sign for me to amputate?"

I said yes, because I couldn't do anything myself. I had gone back to

having people, like I had to sit having people, like I had to sit

down and someone had to hold my leg and someone else had to wheel me, it

was horrible. When you woke up after the operation, when your leg had

been amputated, what did you, where were your initial emotions? My mum

and a nurse was there. Mum was on this side and the nurse there. I

knew the nurse quite well. I was in there that long I got to know them

me and they were upset and then I me and they were upset and then I

got upset, I was like, "Hang on a minute. Why am I upset?" I looked

down at my leg and it was a relief not to have it there because

eventually I would be able to walk again with a prosthetic. So many of

you got in touch after that interview to congratulate Victoria

Balch on her bravery and her pragmatic approach to her recovery

as you did after our interview with Martin Compton. 75% of his body was

burned and three of his colleagues lost their lives when their armoured

vehicle exploded after reversing over an IED, an improvised explosive

device in Afghanistan. The team had been trying to escape enemy fire. He

is one of the most injured soldiers to survive and had over 500

operations. He joined us for his first TV interview since leaving the

Army. Martin, thank you so much for coming on the programme. It is

good to meet you. Thank you. good to meet you. Thank you.

You're very welcome. Aged 22 you were sent to Afghanistan and in

Helmand with three colleagues, in a small tank, in a small convoy, what

happened? That's right. That day we were on patrol and helping the

Danish out and we happened to go through a very wellage. And as we

went through the village my troop was ambushed. I happened to be in

the middle wagon and I reversed, we were IE development which blew the

wagon up. I managed to get out and as I got out, they shot rocket

grenades which blew the engine up and engulfed me in flames. I

happened to be able to put myself out. And your comrades got you out,

they came back and found you, didn't they? The guys in the front wagon

got out and fought back through and got out and fought back through

realised I was missing and realised I was missing and

eventually found me and those are the guys that got me to the Chinook.

How on earth were you still alive? I couldn't tell you that bit. I

officially died three times on the way back to the UK. It is a long

road and obviously then afterwards, I came a long road. What you

remember after that effectively is emerging from a coma, many months

had passed. How many months was it? That's right. I was in an actual a

coma for three months and an induced a coma for three months. They hadn't

brought me around with the amount of operations and the pain I had gone

through, the body probably wouldn't have survived that. What kind of

treatment were you receiving? Everything from skin grafts to

my lower legs and the only skin that my lower legs and the only skin that

I had left. When you first saw your reflection, what did you think?

That was a hard time for me. I had people around me. I had family

with me and obviously Michelle was with me. And it was a case of I had

to get out or I had to get out of the hospital and so I had to look in

the mirror, you know, it was a hard thing to do.

I wasn't kind of expecting what I looked like. I felt the same inside,

you know. It was hard. What did you see when you saw other people

looking at your injuries? I kind of got used to it, you know. That was

because looking in the mirror was because looking in the mirror

the first step and then getting used the first step and then getting used

to people looking at me was another step, but that was the thing that I

had to get on with, you know, it was one of those things that I've got to

live with and just got on with it. It was hard to start with, yeah. Do

strangers, do they stare, do they talk to you? What do they say? I

prefer people that ask what happened and that way I can obviously get it

out and tell them what went on or things like that, but it is the guys

that stare. It is hard every now and then, but again, I get used to it

and it is a case of having to. Have you sought treatment for the mental

I have. And the Army offer you I have. And the Army offer you

everything and they have been very helpful, but for me, it is hard to

talk to anyone that's not family and I find it hard to sort of talk to

other people. I've just dealt with it by racing

and family. So counselling and that side of things wasn't that much use

to you? It was useful in the fact of sort of highlighting my issues and

that's about it really. It was more the fact that I needed to, once

those hoImted, I spoke to my wife about it and she helps me now.

Thank you very much for coming on the programme.

You can watch that interview back on our programme page.

Before we go, our reporter Benjamin Zand has been meeting people who

believe we can one day live forever by cre atting digital immortality.

To never daoushtion not unless I To never daoushtion not unless I

wanted to. Actually, I dream I could just not everything, to have super

intelligence, super strength for that matter and super speed. I wish

I could just be happy all the time. Eternal happiness of which sadness

never comes. But then, sadly, I realise it is all impossible.

But is it really? In this programme, I will be

speaking to the people who think that it is possible. Not, now, of

course, but in the future and a future that might not be as far away

as you think. Radical change is upon us. I will be finding out what they

think the future has in store for us human beings. The future that

matters is the future of cognition, not really the future of the human

race. In short, I will be speaking to the people who want to make us

live forever. Are you the future of live forever. Are you the future of

the human race? Yes, I am the one and only future of the human race.

That was a brilliant answer. You are very confident!

To the majority of us, life is hard. We live, we do things, we get sick

and we die and that's about it, full stop. Nothing we can do about it. To

others though, that's not really the case. There is something we can do

about it and that is the change of the basis of what it means to be

human. Ben is one of those guys. I met him at an AGI conference in

Berlin. AGI stands for artificial general intelligence and it consist

of a lot of smart people. I think digital immortality is definitely

going to happen. My hope it happens within my own lifetime so I can take

sure it will happen within the next sure it will happen within the

century at worse. Is that what century at worse. Is that what

you're working towards now? Digital immortality is one of the goals I'm

working towards. I aim to build an artificial general intelligence, an

AI system that can become massively smarter than human beings and

understand more about the universe than any human possibly could. Ben

and others like him call them trans humanists. It is the idea that we

can improve man in all imaginable respects. The plan is to do this by

science and technology. People in the world of it, rans humanism have

a common ideology. One is that the brain. Another is a controversial

should not exist. It is a disease. should not exist. It is a disease.

We really need to abolish ageing in the same way that we need to abolish

cancer and we need to abolish rape and murder. Ageing shouldn't be

allowed to exist and the fact that everyone takes for granted, there is

no choice, but to just get old, die and rot. In 100 years, that would be

looked on as insanely barbaric. The same way we look back at slavery as

insanely barbaric right now. Thank you for watching this Christmas

special. We're back on air on 4th January and you can watch all our

stories on our programme page.