Episode 19 Sunday Morning Live

Good morning and welcome to Sunday Morning Live.

The World Health Organisation points to evidence that

Are you healthier, more virtuous and more moral

As the House of Lords blocks progress on welfare

cuts, angry ministers say that's not the job of unelected peers.

Is it finally time to amend or abolish it?

The Dark Destroyer, Nigel Benn, one of the biggest names in boxing

history, goes a few rounds with Hardeep Singh Kohli and reignites

He's just out there. He's a very eccentric black man, or tries to be

but, really and truly, I know him and he knows I know him.

If you want to be buried, you might have to think again -

We're running out of graveyard slots.

It means in some cases disturbing remains, placing them deeper in and

replacing them. Is it time to dig up the past

and start recycling graves? And forget Hallowe'en - this is how

Mexicans celebrate tomorrow's Day of the Dead, when they remember

the lives of their loved ones. The Mariachis will perform

for us later. It will bring a smile to your face,

I promise! Tommy Sandhu is here to share

your thoughts If you are still an Halloween hide

from all the candy you can seemed yesterday, come and join us. You can

find us on social media. You can use our hashtag. Or you can call us in

the old style fashion, number Bob. Standard geographic charges from

landlines and mobiles will apply. You can text us at 81771. E-mail us

at [email protected], and you can also send us your video

reactions. Just record yourself on your tablet or your phone and e-mail

it to that address and get involved in the debate.

Pauline McLynn is an actor, writer and animal rights activist.

Bill Oddie is a television presenter and conservationist.

Christina Patterson is a journalist and broadcaster.

Ajmal Masroor is an author and Imam in West London.

Thanks for being with us. Not at all. I was going to send an e-mail.

We are getting to the stage where there is more "get in touch with us"

the mayor is of the programme! It is nice to have you back, Bill. We

haven't even started the programme and he's already!

Barely a day goes by without another report telling us

which foods give us cancer - and this week it was red meat.

The World Health Organisation says it's "probably carcinogenic" -

and considers processed meat is even worse,

putting it in the same category as alcohol, nicotine and even plutonium

So is this a good time to look at our diets?

And if we do, should we also think about whether ethics

Is it better for the animal, the environment

and our health to bin it, or would that mean the death knell

Are you not only healthier but more virtuous if you stop eating

sausages, salami and Shepherd's pie? Joining us now from Bristol is

Juliet Gellately - animal rights activist, and the founder of vegan

organization VIVA! And also, from our studio in Dundee, is Dr Carrie

Ruxton - dietician, health writer and member of the British Meat

Advisory Council, an industry body. Welcome to the programme, both of

you. Bill, as you're so anxious to get going this morning, is this

report more likely to make you change your diet? Me personally? Of

course not. This is what I call, if I may say so, Daily Mail headlines.

You go through any copy of the Daily Mail and you find every page has

something on it that says, this make cause cancer, or playing football

could cause cancer, or eating wallabies make your cancer or cause

it or whatever. -- may cure cancer. It is the world health organisation

which has looked at 800 different studies and suggests there might be

a relationship. You just said it yourself - might be. This sort of

scaremongering stuff... I'm not saying it's not true to a point but

I might amended a bit more generally and say, being alive causes cancer.

The biggest risk. I think that's a bit of escapism in my view. We need

to be very careful about what we eat. What we eat is what we are and

if we consume an excessive amount of meat, I believe it causes damage.

Our body hasn't been made to consume meat, especially processed meat.

Once you understand that an animal has died in order for you to live,

it creates a different relationship with that animal. If you are eating

it, you must eat it at a very nominal level and the reverential

about it. As a Muslim, do you eat much processed meat? I try to avoid

it as much as possible. We don't eat pork, for example, and is now there

is -- in Islam there is something called halal meat, which means

wholesome and permissible. We are only allowed to eat animals which

have been killed in an ethical way. If we don't, it affects us

physically and spiritually and we are very meticulous about what they

eat and the culture they have. We recently had be to celebration which

has sacrificed as part of it. One of the animals I had to kill in order

to be able to eat it and I'd told my children, after I had felt the

warmth of the animal and seen the animal die, I felt remorse in my

heart. So when Aida meat now, ie do very little because I need the

protein but I don't waste, I don't just Roy. It isn't for consumerist

ideals. It has to be... We are missing that field to fork process.

Christina, how does this affect you? I feel like you are speaking like

Henry VIII in terms of terrier carcass in front of you. I don't eat

very much meat, to be honest, and I enjoy meat and I did not like the

idea of my meats being ruined by this. I believe them but I wish they

were wrong. So many things are unhealthy. I think that human beings

have always been omnivores. They didn't eat a vast amounts of meat.

This idea that they were chasing mallards and then it in a entire

carcass in the afternoon is not right. -- mammoths. I think we were

designed, if you believe we were designed, but whatever, we exist. We

should have a lot of plant protein, a bit of meat, about 3%, if you want

to. Fine not to. Only about 3% of the population chooses to be

vegetarian. It it, enjoy it, try to make sure the animals don't have

miserable lives but it isn't up to the middle classes to say that it

all has to be organic and beautiful because that means a very large

percentage of the world's population will not be able to afford it. I

will come to you and a second, Pauline, but I want to bring up one

of your points with Dr Carrie Ruxton who is joining us from Dundee, and

that is the question of whether we eat too much meat in the first

place. The advice is that eating more than 50 grams of processed

meat, two rushes of bacon, there might be a relationship with certain

bowel cancers. You sit on the board which is on the meter advisory

council, funded by the meat industry. What is your response? I

sit on the meat advisory panel. We currently eat an average 17 grams of

processed meat a day, which is below the 50 grams that the WHO

highlighted as potentially harmful. Overall, the WHO said that 200 grams

a day of total meat consumption could potentially be harmful and our

average intakes are 71, with very few people eating high amounts.

About one in 50 women and one in ten men eat more than 140 grams a day. I

would say at the moment, people don't eat too much meat in this

country. I just want to touch on risk because the WHO said that the

risk was 18% increased risk with high intakes of processed meat. That

equates to an extra case of basically six out of 100 getting

cancer in a lifetime, as opposed to seven in 100. The risk goes up one

case per 100 if we all ate more than 50 grams of processed meat so I

think that really puts the risk in context. Thank you. Pauline, you

were getting quite worked up. Yes, all in moderation. You know, I think

things like calling it a middle-class problem is not

helpful. If you are, as I have become, a vegetarian, and it was for

moral reasons... I didn't say vegetarianism was middle-class. No,

but we have figures about less than 50 grams... Yet, but probably most

people sit down and have a big feed of meat on that day. It is well

over. Moderation in everything, certainly. For me, I stopped eating

meat on a moral level. I could not kill my own creatures and eat them.

If I were to ever taste the cruelty that is even in the organic farming

industry, the cruelty and the panic that that animal feels when it dies

and stop cruelty and panic. Let carry response to that. You are now

probably going to go to a vegan and then we are into, you have got to

cut it all out. We need to think of the consequences of everything. It

isn't just that we kill 35 billion farm animals and waste most of them

every year, it's the consequences for the planet. The point in your

conversation is the waste. It isn't the waste, it is also the cruelty

involved. The cruelty involved in intensive farming and also in an

organic way, when you know the animal has a happy life, can it have

a happy death? I don't think so. I recognise that you kill your own and

feel their lives going from them and you have respect in that way but,

you know, I can't believe that any death can be kind and cruelty free.

Carrie, how do you respond to that, that no death can be kind and

cruelty free? Carrie, can you still hear us? Sorry. I think that we are

omnivores. The dental records, our guts. We have been eating meat for

hundreds of thousands of years and what we have to do is make sure that

animal welfare standards are high and the UK has the best record in

Europe for animal welfare. We brought in the directive on pig

welfare six years before we had to and 97% of the population eat meat.

They want to know that it is well cared for, that the slaughter is

fair and humane and we can guarantee that that is the case in the UK. We

are meeting all the requirements. I want to bring in our guest Juliet

Gellately who has been waiting patiently. You are from a vegan

group. I want to raise an economic point as much as anything. English

meat alone brings in a net value of ?1.67 billion to the British

economy. If we stop eating meat, there will be profound effects on

farming. Do you act knowledge that? Also remember the drug industry,

about half its profits come from giving drugs to that refund animals

so you have two industries globally who make an awful lot of money out

of the death of the animals and causing very nasty diseases. It

isn't just cancers. We know that meat and dairy products cause heart

disease, Alzheimer's, obesity, chronic diseases which are crippling

the NHS of the UK. Just qualify that because it is actually about the

amount you consume, isn't it? Just saying "dairy gives you terrible

diseases", you got to be quite careful and qualify that sort of

statement. The scientists, group Viva quote from science that milk

contains hormone and growth factors because the hormones directly linked

to things like breast cancer, prostate cancer in men and other

cancers. We know that for absolutely sure. The science is all there. But

going back to a guaranteed to be cruelty free or welfare friendly,

that is a nonsense. Just last weekend, Viva exposed in a national

newspaper a farm that had a glittering battery cages, stacked in

cages where they can barely move. This was a farm that is supplying

Morrisons and is red tractor approved. One of the reasons the

British public is moving away from meat is because we just don't trust

these assurances any more. They are being blown apart time after time.

Factory farming has not changed. In many ways it has got worse for top

what is changing is the British public, who are rejecting meat any

more. We've been doing the whole programme

with someone saying, is meat a moral issue and we haven't touchen on

that. Only a tiny bit. I'm a meat eater as it happens and I'm a

Vice-President of Compassion in World Farmings. I dare say we've got

at least two more members here now. I'm not a vegan, not a vegetarian,

anything like that. Meat is a part of the diet. This is a moral issue,

it is the welfare of the animals. Many of the conditions, I was

surprised to hear the lady saying that Britain can boast to be one of

the best in Europe. We are not the best in Europe in anything I don't

think, indeed the world. We've got terrible scandals come up all the

time. Go on their website, Compassion in World Farming doesn't

include just the world but where you live. Find out how horrendous the

conditions are. A lot of the ritualing, I won't go any further

than that, is equally horrendous. The moral issue here is the meet

consumption. Why? That's not moral. Every piece we waste, that's a moral

issue. The amount of cruelty animals suffer in cages in the

industrialised farming we see. Those are the moral issue. The bigger

issue is how we've made it part of the consumerist society in which

everything must be fast and quickly available. You know the fast food

industry, all of those are the moral issues. If I was addressing it, I

would go back to what Pauline said. It is about moderation, about our

attitude towards what we do to the animals and how we eat them. But the

bigger one is how our children have never had an encounter with an

animal dying, never seen where the meat is coming from. There's no

relationship. We need to revive it so that when children eat chicken

burgers they know it has come from a live chicken, or beef from a live

animal, so they don't waste it. And they'll go for the organic healthy

one. In all our food we need to have a more real relationship with where

it comes from. Whether it is bread or anything. It is essentially made

of plastic and chemicals. That applies to meat as well. So we must

look at overconsumption... Hang on a minute Pauline. So many people have

been getting in touch with us. I would like to hear from you at home

as well. Tommy? And this video is from Gareth.

Morning, I'm a hill farmer from North Wales. I produce lamb and

beef. I'm very disappointed listening to all the scaremongering

about the eating of red meat. There's nothing healthier in a

balanced diet, like everybody should know. It's just so disappointing

when things are pretty tough on us as an industry you hear these people

who want to put these stories out and destroy the fantastic way of

life and of producing something that's very healthy and very

natural. Gareth making the point that it is scaremonger. How would

you respond to that, Pauline? You know, I think farming is a wonderful

way of life and it looks to me like that man loves what he does, and his

animals. I think we just must look at moderation. I'm not going to sit

here and tell somebody who wants to feed somebody on a low income who

wants to feed their family cheap chicken, that that's wrong. It is if

we go back to where the cheap chicken came from, that's where the

problem is. And always follow the money, because it is worth billions

this, industry. Why not educate from the industry itself forward? Why not

make less food better, even if it is meat, and make the lives and the

slaughter of the animals better. And therefore have a much better quality

of meat available to people who also know that they can eat this, that it

is good for their family, good for them, in moderation, and let's have

the rest of our diet as it should be, plant-based and so on. I agree.

It is simple and logical. We are eating far too much anyway, we

should eat less. Always look at the industry. People want to do, you

know... More is not better. Less is, in fact, in this area. Thank you so

much and thank you to Carrie and Juliet. I wish we had more time on

this, but there are many other discussions to be had. Thank you for

joining us and for your comment at home as well.

The Former World Boxing Champion Nigel Benn

about how a confession during bible studies changed his life.

I told my teacher, I think I've been having an affair. She said, have you

told your wife? I said no. I went home and confessed everything for

the first time in my life. I was being honest.

That interview is coming up shortly. Shortly. But

Angry MPs were calling for the abolition of the House

of Lords more than a century ago - and they're still at it.

This time, they're angry that the unelected second chamber - or the

"other place", as they call it - threw out the Government's planned

The Prime Minister says there needs to be a review of the power

It was one of the first stories I covered as a journalist more than 30

years ago and various ministers have recently had a go in 2003, 2007,

Is now the time to do something radical about it -

or is it an integral and workable part of Parliamentary democracy?

But first, we sent Tommy to Westminster to hear

Who are they? The Queen. The Queen? Yeah. Someone in the magistrates

courts? Members of the Houses of Parliament. I was going to say

something to do with the Royal Family. What if I told you it is

something to do with the building behind you. Probably the Parliament,

right? Do you know? The House of Lords. Yes, they are the House of

Lords. What do these people in the red robes do? Speak about the law.

Politics and stuff. Scrutinise Government policy and legislation.

They hold the Government to account. That's right. Anything could go on

in there, will I have no idea. Who knows what goes on? Exactly. Is this

important, is it good to have these guys questioning what MPs are doing?

They need to question what MPs are doing. I don't believe MPs do a good

job. From an historical point of view it is quite nice, but maybe we

don't really need them. I think they do a lot for our democracy. I know

they are not elected. It seems like you can turn up if you like. If you

do turn up the you get 300 quid for doing so. You never hear much about

them that's positive. They are brilliant actually. They've taken up

issues on my behalf, challenged the Commons and tried to put amendments

into bills. They've got expertise and this week we've seen how

important they are. How? Because they stopped the Government's

terrible cuts to tax credits. They've made the Government think

again, which is what they are there to do. So having this mates as Lords

is not on? Not really. Just because you are born into the upper levels

doesn't mean to say you should get to sit in the House of Lords and

decide the direction of the country. Should we abolish the House

of Lords? You can e-mail, text, call or use

social media to get in touch. Joining the panel is cross-bench

peer of the House of Lords Baroness Molly Meacher, whose amendment to

this week's Tax Credits Bill And we are also joined

by the hereditary Conservative peer the Lord Rodney Elton,

who has been a member of the House Welcome to you, Sir. Baroness

Meacher, if I can start with you, 300 years of convention holds that

the Lords tend not to scupper financial laws, so why did you do

this? The fact is we are perfectly able to do it. It is perfectly

constitutional. I checked this out with the clerk of the Parliaments,

who is our guru on House of Lords procedures. He said procedurally

this is perfectly in order, so it is not a constitutional matter, not a

constitutional crisis if you like. It was a crisis somewhat created by

Downing Street. But the reason we did it was because these measures

were in regulations on a welfare reform bill, which is something we

regularly look at. It is normal House of Lords practice, and we were

horrified at the impact of these tax credits on very vulnerable, very

low-income working families, disabled working families or people

with disabled children, the impacts were absolutely horrifying for a lot

of people. So we felt we had to step in, perfectly constitutionally, to

act. Perfectly constitutional Lord Elton? According to as much as the

constitution as is written down, which amounts in this case to a

report written in some 10 or 15 years ago. It is not a

constitutional outrage. According to the convention which has reigned in

the House for centuries, it is. And the reason that I, against my heart,

voted with my Government was that I think there was a greater issue at

stake, because the House of Lords, was that Parliament was I vented to

protect the people from the Crown and the Crown was not admitted into

Parliament until George I, couldn't speak English well enough to do the

speech from the throne, and he sent in his first Prime Minister, who

took his place. But the extent to which Parliament protected the

people from their Government, which was the Crown, they were kept

completely at arm's length. And now we have over 100 of them. The result

of that and other developments which I won't detain you with, unless you

want me to do so, the Government can from time to time get control of the

House of Commons. As they did in 2005 with the Terrorism Bill, and

she slipped in a clause which would have enabled one Minister talking to

one senior policeman to write on a piece of paper that for instance odd

odd odd was a terrorist shot, could for instance odd odd odd was a

terrorist shot, could be a -- that Bill Oddie was a terrorist threat

and could be locked up for a long time. Can I'd that we sat from

2.30pm on a Thursday afternoon until Friday night to stop that happening.

Bill Oddie, do you think the House of Lords needs reform, or do you

think they have done their job? First of all, as the ladies who was

interviewed outside the Commons and Lords said, the fact that they made

this decision in this instance, I think most of us went, well good on

you. Apart from Conservatives of course. Of course, yes. We assumed

they don't like it. But Bill... People voted for a Conservative

Government, you say most of us. I'm not Conservative, but you can't say,

most of us. ALL TALK AT ONCE

Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the welfare reform Bill,

we are looking at what this means for a form, for reform of the House

of Lords. I think most people apart from people in the House of Lords or

House of Commons haven't a clue what the House of Lords do, who they are,

why those people are there, have they got any reason to be there?

Where any of them elected? Do any of them have expertise, I'm sure they

do, but we haven't a clue. We can only got from what we occasionally

see when they interfered in this case and you think, good on them.

Government are never very happy if you don't agree with them. Insults

will be thrown in your direction that you are not elected, not like

our wonderful intelligent Ministers that we have. Owen Paterson, in

charge of the environment last year, and he dismissed me and my ilk

saying we were an unelected green blob of busy bodies. We were

unelected. We don't count and that is their

attitude. But he was elected. Owen Paterson was elected. He is not here

to defend himself. As Churchill said, democracy is the worst kind of

system apart from every other system that has been tried or stop it is a

mess but at least it represents... It is our mess. I'm one of those

people who thought that the tax credit cuts were a terrible mistake

and on one level, I was delighted out what you did this week. On the

other hand, do I think that people are unelected, particularly her

registry peers, should overrule decisions made by politicians? Know

I don't. -- have read to reap years. I can't think of anything worse than

being told, you reform the House of Lords tomorrow. It would be a

nightmare. Everyone who has tried to do it has messed it up and what the

alternative is, it is very difficult. I do think that in

principle, a second house is a good idea to oversee and hold some checks

on the legislation of the first house. The trouble is, what kind of

second house do you go for? You could have a mix of half appointment

and half a different system of election but then you could end up

with another kind of career politician who became special

advisers or whatever. It is very tricky. Molly, what would you do

about representation? The House of Lords is not representative of

society. You may say that is absolutely fine, that more than half

of peers are over 70 and most of them come from very similar

backgrounds. What would you do to change it? In my view, the first

thing we've got to do is have a much, much smaller house. All peers

would agree with that. Secondly, we ought to have the political people

elected. Why have political people who are not elected? It could be on

a list basis or a regional basis, elected to represent Scotland,

Wales, Northern Ireland or whatever. There are things that in my view are

very important but the crossbenchers are priceless, excluding myself. We

have the top judges, the top medics, the top generals, the top people who

really understand subjects. They shouldn't be lost. I've been in the

House of Lords and it is so incredibly detailed. It is actually

fantastically boring! Hats off to you for having to sit through it

all. But it doesn't really... It is a mishmash. And we do do with the

detailed work of regulations and laws that the House of Commons

haven't got time to do. Would you reform it at all? I just want to

pick up the points - we do not have the last word on anything, except

the extension of the life of Parliament beyond its mandate.

Because it goes back to the Commons? It goes back to the Commons and they

can always chop us off with a parliament that. We are there to see

that what the politicians do is what they mean to do and what their

elected people want. We are there to serve the public. But we also have

the craziness of people who give money to parliamentary parties...

They buy their seats and that is just shocking. Let's hear what you

are saying at home. A lot of people are saying, what is

the point of having a general election if an unelected body can

interfere with government? John says...

Thank you. There was a lot of here, here then! I was just practising for

when I become a Lord! I believe we should get rid of the word Lord.

Much better is Senator. Do you like Baroness? No. It just sets people

apart. I met another baroness who had only been there every year and

she said it needed to be reformed. Because it increases the separation

between you and the people? Yes. We do actually always just leave things

back to the House of Commons but we do require governments to think

again and very often, they take our view because that view is based on

professional judgment and this is what we have that often the House of

Commons don't have and we have time that they don't have. Will anything

really changed? The number of changes we make runs into the

thousands in a session. We really do change legislation to make it do

what the other place wants it to do because they got it wrong. Many

thanks, all of you, for that discussion and thanks for all of

your reactions at home. Former World champion Nigel Benn was

one of Britain's most successful boxers after memorable fights with

the likes of Chris Eubank, Michael Watson and Steve Collins, but also a

particularly brutal encounter with Gerald McLellan, which left

his opponent blind and paralysed. The battles continued outside

the ring for the troubled boxer, He has now found his salvation

in faith. Hardeep Singh Kohli met him

and began by asking him The paper first of all named the

three Mean Machine, but Burt Reynolds had got that. Then they

called me Rambo. And then in the paper, the Dark Destroyer. I

thought, I'm dark and I love destroying people, yeah! I don't

know who named me it but Dark Destroyer was a great name. I just

took it. I didn't even think about colour or anything. I'm bigger than

that. To say you were a phenomenon understates your impact on the

sport. For those who don't know, it was probably the golden age of

British boxing. We never had so many world champions, we never had so

many genuine pound for pound of the greatest fighters on the planet, and

you were absolutely there. I had some heart sites in the street,

being hit with pickaxes, baseball bats. -- some hard fights in the

street. I didn't have any fear. Whenever I stepped in that ring, I

had no fear of absolutely anyone. I wanted to talk about your rivalry

with Chris Eubank. For those of us on the outside, you couldn't like

you both and in our house we like to you. I felt I could meet you down

the pub and you could be a mate. Chris Eubank was another... Another

planet. One might say that. I thank the Lord for putting Chris in my

fight because we were able to get 47,000, at Old Trafford, over 18.5

million watching us on TV. Just two different people. He goes one way, I

go the other. He talks gobbledygook. He is just out there as a very

eccentric black man, or tries to be, but I know him, I know him, and he

knows I know him. One of the most significant fights in your career

was against Gerald McClellan who ended up being very seriously

injured. I just wonder how you reflect on that. At that time, it

didn't have no impact on me at all because he was saying to my dad,

"I'm going to hurt your boy," at the press conference. I came out with a

damaged nose, damaged joints, and a shadow on my brain. He came out

paralysed, blind, A-Z death and in a wheelchair. -- 8% death. At that

time I wasn't Christian so my life was still in bits. I was just

plodding along, getting on with life. I didn't have no feelings

about anybody. 12 years later, I met him, me and my agent came to

Lewisham and we decided, let's do a benefit for him, and we raised about

$250,000 for him. When I met him again, it was just heartbreaking. My

whole life had changed by them. You were the Dark Destroyer but you also

suffered some profoundly dark times. Do you want to tell me about those?

I think you know about my wife, we've been together 25 years. I just

kept being unfaithful to the and everything that I did was very

destructive, very destructive. It was just like... Was I happy doing

what I was doing? No, but I didn't see any other way out. I didn't know

any other way out. That was just life. Nigel, there was a night in

your life, sitting in a car in South London, where things took a rather

extreme turn. A life changing and life-saving moment. I remember that

very clearly. That was in Streatham Common, where a story came out about

me having an affair, another affair does not grow it wasn't the first -

and it would not I couldn't believe I was in the same position. It was

like I was always being tempted. I was going to end it all because I

love this woman so much but yet I had a weakness that I could not

break and I was just being tormented in my head and I sat in the car and

took some sleeping tablets and a bottle of wine, crying my eyes out,

and I just thought, "I'm not in this position again, I just want to end

it all," and I don't know if I really wanted to die. I just wanted

someone to say, you know what? You are going to be all right. You are

going to get through this. I sat there crying my eyes out. I had

everything you could dream of - a mansion, money in the bank - yet I

was lonely. I was just on my own, just crying. I thought, "it's not my

time," so I went home and slept for about two days and then my wife went

to the church and was sitting in there for about three hours saying,

"if you are really up there, you've got to help me out down here," and

she said she felt like a rucksack had been taken off her back and she

came home, she banged on the door. We ain't spoken for a couple of

months but she opened the door and she said, "Jesus says it's going to

be all right," and I'm thinking, OK... She was reading the Bible. I

was saying, OK, yeah, right. It was in one ear and out of the other.

What changed it for you? It was having more Bible studies and then I

started reading Scripture, then I read a passage which said, "God is

light and there is no darkness," and a passage about having fellowship

with one another, but if we say we have not sinned, to save us from

truth, the point I'm getting too is that if we confess, we are cleansed

from all of writers must. I told the teacher, "I think I've been having

an affair". It just came out. I didn't even want to say it'll stop

she asked if I had told my wife and I said no, so I went home and

confess to 16 years affairs to my wife, drug use. I went to live with

my past is for one year. Me and my wife never had Communion for one

year. I everything and this woman, she was called Pastor Cheryl and

passed a gale "how dare you treat hurt...?" And I would cry, really

cry. God did not use a man. He used a woman, a 65-year-old woman, to

break me and I was petrified. I thought, "what has just happened

here? " And not too long ago I was knocking people out for a living and

doing a good job. I was not chasing the drugs or the rock 'n' roll is

all the world titles. They mean absolutely nothing. Then things are

not going to get me into heaven but having a relationship with Jesus is

going to get me into heaven. It has been an absolute pleasure to meet

you. Thank you. God bless you. Nigel Benn talking to Hardeep Singh

Kohli. Did you dress up

in ghoulish gear and give out handfuls of sweets to small children

last night - or were you one of those muttering that Hallowe'en

is a cynical marketing ploy? Well, this is

a time traditionally observed by Christians for remembering the

dead. It's All Saints' Day today and

All Souls' tomorrow. Perhaps a good time to raise a

rather tricky question - what happens when you die? We don't mean

your soul but what happens to your remains.

If you want to be buried, you'd better do it fast -

Cremation is one choice, but for those who'd

like the comfort of consecrated ground for their religious rituals,

the City of London Cemetery has a solution - recycling graves.

We met the Superintendent Gary Burks, who explained why

I've worked at the City of London cemetery for just under 31 years.

One of my predecessors started recognising the need in the 1960s

when we still had 40 years of burial space, pushed through the Houses of

Parliament in 1969, which allows us to reclaim a grave after it hasn't

been used in over 75 years. That means that when people say they own

a grave, they own the rights of burial in the grave, not

specifically the land. That's why we are in a position now where we can

provide people will grave space ongoing. Some of Britain's

cemeteries are full, some are not. It depends on the area, the

availability of land. What reclaiming means is that using the

depth remaining or in some cases disturbing remains, placing them

deeper within the grave and burying more people in that grave. The

remains stay within the grave, so the grave will always be there, will

always have those remains in it. There'll always be a record of that

burial taking place. This is one of the memorials where we've reclaimed

the rights of burial. Because there is an inscription on the stone and

it is legible, we've kept it in place, turned the memorial around so

the front becomes the back and the new inscription is available on the

front. We have a public notice in a we put in areas of the cemetery

where graves are being reclaimed. It records the numbers of the graves

being reclaimed and states all the information anyone needs to object

to that grave being reclaimed. We are very proud of what we've done.

And we understand that it is not everyone's choice. We are very lucky

at the moment that we've got other options available to families. There

possibly will come a time, not in my working life, where there won't be

that option. What do you think about that? Rejoining our panel is Ajmal

Masroor. Gary there said it is not everyone's choice to be, I suppose

either to be buried further down, not that you will know, because

you're dead, but to put a body on top, in other words to reclaim

graveyard plots. What are your thoughts? I'm not that keen on

talking about it at all, to be honest. I can give you opinions, but

I have no view on this. Isn't it Poltergeist, the movie, they only

move the gravestone. Is that right? I think so. I don't know, but that's

a Great Hall wean voice. Haven't you seen it? I haven't, and I don't

think I will either. I think you should. Of the funerals I've had to

go and that increases as you get to a certain age, there've been one or

two which were fantastic, and that was entirely because God wasn't

invited. That helped a lot, because all the music was like a band, a

rock 'n' roll band. One of them went out with Jimi Hendrix screaming away

on the guitar. The coffin itself was made out of rushes and reeds,

flowers everywhere. God, religion, nowhere. In fact everybody had a

great time and said, that was wonderful, and to coin that terrible

cliche, she, in this case works have loved that. Ajmal, putting that to

one side at the moment, as we are talking about burial plots. I know

your views on religion. I wouldn't be buried. No, burn me, if there's

any bits worth having, give them to somebody else in the hospital.

Ajmal, what are your thoughts on the idea of reclaiming the old graves?

Burying the old bonus further down, putting another set on top, and

having one side of the gravestone with one dedication and the other

side with the other. I have no problem with that. I've said to my

family, bury me where I died, and wish me well. Life and death needs a

meaning. In my life, as far as I'm concerned as a Muslim, life is just

a temporary space in which I am to invest for the life to come. Death

is a stepping stone, a door that opens up to that next life. So what

is my body as far as death is concerned? It becomes part of the

earth, carbon. Once it has decayed, hate gone. Why am I so obsessed

about a piece of earth which is 6 feet deep and 3 feet wide? It is

very minimal. I winter to bury a friend of mine the other day. The

person who dug the grave said Sir, look at the grave, it is going to be

your home one day. It really struck me. I took a picture of it and pit

it on Facebook, not to scare people, but to show people if we are to

prepare of death, it is only a station,ly never be scared of it. I

will never be scared of recycling my grave. What's the big deal? On the

afterlife and whether there is one and whether you have a religion,

there is no doubt that confronting mortality gives you a different view

on life. Many of us don't believe there is an afterlife and so this is

it and you had better enjoy it. I've had containers twice and both times

were pretty frightening. The second time you think, OK, so the news that

it has come back really isn't good news. I remember being near

Trafalgar Square after I had been to the hospital and the visceral fear I

had in my heart. I thought, I do not want to die. I will do anything not

to die. I'm not frightened of the process of dying particularly,

though obviously to have a horrible, painful, lingering death would be

ghastly. I just really, really, really don't want to be dead. I

don't want I'm going to be with Virgins or anyone else in an

afterlife, s I had better enjoy the one I've got here. We should

celebrate the fact we have this precious gift of life. If you have

an idea it will go on somewhere else and this is the preamble, I don't

think that's a helpful perspective. I think we should live every single

mint on this planet with passion and kindness and curiosity and interest

and joy, because this is the only opportunity we have. It doesn't stop

me It doesn't stop me from It doesn't stop me from being just that

- passionate, curious, exciting. Doing everything I want to do, but I

have a meaning to my life and to my death, which I believe in my view, a

profound one. It enables me to make sense, to make relationships beyond

the material. Beyond the here and now. I don't do it for your

pleasure. I believe there's something better to come. It is not

limited to a few days of joy or pain, in your case the cancer, which

I hope never comes back to you. I hope you find a full cure. If I was

to die in agonising pain, it wouldn't bother me. Why? Because to

me this life is only a stepping stone for things to come. Forget the

Virgins for a second... One second if I may interrupt in the way you

interrupted me. Of course you can. You don't know, it is supposition

and I would argue fantasy that you are going to have this eternal life

somewhere else. All we have for a fact is what we have here now. For

me to be pointing at a grave and saying, this is going to be my home

and putting it an Instagram or whatever... How does that stop you

from being good and enjoying your life. Sorry, carry on. We weren't

intending having a discussion on what happens to your soul. You can't

escape it. Clearly. We were talking about what happens after you die,

what happens to your remains. I suppose it is important to think not

just about you, because as you pointed out, if you are dead, what's

to worry about? It is thinking about the family and the family who are

grieving and where they would choose to grieve. I know Molly this is

something you've had to think about very recently, because your

ex-husband Michael died recently and you've got four children and that

must have been terribly difficult. I'm going to talk nonpersonally if

you don't mind, but you are right. The family are very, very important.

I rather agree with the views here that once we are dead we are no long

they were the body. That's why it is so useful for everybody to see the

body of somebody once they've died. I always remember doing this when I

was 29 with my former mother-in-law. It was a terrible experience, my

first confrontation with death, but it really made clear to me, I say

she's gone, not there any more. And then the issue of cremation and

burial becomes very much easier to deal. I don't know how I would have

dealt with her cremation if I hadn't seen her body and thought, she isn't

there, this isn't her, just a carcass. So she ceases to become

her. The body, it is just part, we become part of the universe and

therefore what's done with the body isn't relevant. The important thing

for families is after the death is going through a grieving process,

but then having somewhere to go or some way of remembering the person.

My feeling is that all this focus on tombstones and graves is grim for

people left behind. Speaking for myself and my parents, I have a I

have a photo of my parents, I remember them when they were alive

and my relationship with them. Focus on the living, not on the death. I

don't have children. I don't think, I would love to think there were

thousands of people in the world... Your legacy will be you. What

matters is how you live on in other people's hearts. 2 billion people on

the planet, we can't all have grave stones. There would be nothing left.

It is part of that thing, I must have something that's mine. It is

too late. don't move people like rubbish. They

are just making sure that those who want to be buried this sacred ground

still have an option to do so. And that is important. Our legislation

is very strict about moving graves. I'm about to renovate a place and

we've found a grave in there. We have to get in touch with many

officers, get through the legislation. That in itself is a

problem. The bigger issue is what do we consider life and death to be?

Iffer so obsessed about life, we will never get rid of it, never want

to let it go. It's gone. What I cherish is the memory, my legacy. My

father told me this, son, when you are dead, how will the world

remember you? And when you lived on this earth how did you benefit the

world? And in the world in which you lived, how did you benefit from it?

That's your legacy. If we can remember those legacies, a burial

site, a Steen, a piece of land is nothing. Bill? I was going to make

one rill recommendation, if I may, meant to be constructive. For

anybody who is about to go, as it were, to say please bury me. Don't

bury me, sorry. Get Ashes and then leave interesting instructions for

your family as to what to do with the Ashes. I beg of you, try and

think of something funny, because my wife for example, I think it was her

mum or aunty, she got these instructions. She wanted her Ashes

thrown off Beachy Head, scattered to the wind. They took the top off, a

scattered into the wind and they all blew back in their faces. But they

fell about laughing. Thank you. We are going to end the programme

cheerfully. Thank you for that, bale.

Thank you to all my guests and you at home for your comments too.

We've been talking about death this morning - all very chirpy.

Well, at least it is in Mexico, where they celebrate the Day

2nd November is a festival which remembers those who have gone

To mark it, we've asked The Mariachis to sing us

out with their version of the Monty Python Classic- 'Always Look

on the Bright Side of Life' - coincidentally, the most popular

We're taking a break next week, so we'll see you on 15th November.

# Other things just make you swear and curse

# When you're chewing on life's gristle

# And this'll help things turn out for the best

# And always look on the bright side of life

# Always look on the light side of life

# And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing

# Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

# And, always look on the bright side of life

# Always look on the light side of life. #