11/01/2017 South Today

In tonight's programme: Another day, another strike on Southern rail.

The leader of the union behind today's industrial

Members will tell us when they have had enough.

The medical mannequins helping trainee midwives get hands-on

The special clinic for children that helps them and their families get

And we revisit The Adventures Of Portland Bill -

the plasticine characters brought to life in a popular TV series.

There's still no sign of a let-up in the misery for Southern rail

passengers as a second drivers' strike this week draws to a close.

The company did manage to run a very small number of trains today

but most services were scrapped, including these carriages

Commuters in Sussex who tried to drive into London found

themselves caught in the backlog of a 13-car accident on the M23.

In a moment, we'll be speaking to the leader of the union

First, Steve Humphrey has been hearing about the impact

It is very, very congested indeed and, of course, on the trains,

I blame the Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, and the government.

They have had nine months to rectify the horrible situation of 300,000

Once again, the drivers' strike has left most of Southern's

trains in the sidings, and commuter Darren Ball has been

I think I've stretched the goodwill of my bosses or my managing director

as much as I can in order to have as many work-from-home

A director of a city recruitment firm, Darren moved

from Greenwich to Sussex three and a half years ago.

So really stressful in terms of your relationship

Yes, and my relationship with my partner and my stepson.

They don't know what time I'm going to get home.

Darren and his fellow commuters have suffered nine months of delays

and cancellations on Southern and, when we went for a cup of coffee,

he told me one of his biggest concerns is overcrowded trains.

You've got anything up to about 100 people,

all trying to squeeze in the one train door to get into

Darren took these photos at London Bridge station.

He says the situation is made worse when trains with fewer carriages

It's a crush, it's a push, it's a shove.

I'm pretty good-natured, I'm a pretty relaxed guy,

but there have been some quite sort of shoulders and elbows and things.

The long-running dispute on southern centres on the plan to give more

drivers responsibility for opening and closing doors.

Getting a train 35 or 40 miles from Hayward's Heath or East Grinstead

in the London Bridge is not that complicated.

The dispute centres on who should close the doors on the trains.

It had been the guard's job but the company thinks drivers can

do it after checking CCTV cameras for door obstructions.

It's called Driver Only Operation or DOO for short.

Mick Whelan is the General Secretary of the train drivers' union, Aslef.

I asked him why Southern drivers were on strike when the union

already has drivers opening doors on other services.

Because we are an honourable organisation. We continued to do so.

We seek to find a way forward. I accept that you are honouring an

agreement that you said that safety is paramount. Either it is safe or

not safe. Our view is that in the increasingly longer trains, 1100

people, 13 platforms, and nobody on the train. The safety report

recognises that some of the technology needs to be upgraded.

Southern rail says it will do that so why not sit down with the table?

We will sit down at the table when it is shown to us it is safe to do

so and when the people have the ability to make an agreement. People

are saying they were just upgrade the TV cameras. The ability for my

people to assimilate 24 images and two seconds to is not exist. Read

the first lines of the many repeated back to me. Tomorrow, a train will

go to Brighton with just a driver on board yet there will be another

train on the same line in the same type of train and a driver and the

guard. Both drivers will be an Aslef. Where is the issue with this

if one is on the track with a driver and be at the has a guard? Also, not

all lines have the same method of working. That's from the same line.

I was just about to explain that even on the same line, not all

trains have the same method of working. Some of the trains have

other people to dispatch them. Note to trains operation is identical. Do

you go on the DLO train? I have driven them. I have experienced an

everyday scene things that should not be happening. So you would not

do it if it was not safe? I'd do like the rest of the public because

there is no alternative for choice. Even non-strike days, you have got a

continuing overtime ban running. Why? You are really holding

passengers hostage here. You want my people to be working 12 hours a day?

What we have found up the company who has run this for the last 14

years, they had been under resource in the service and the state the

High Court that they could not run 25% of their services without

overtime. So you want goodwill on one part but want to disregard the

very people who say it is unsafe. Is there anything you want to say the

passengers? What we do normally is spent 90% of our time seeking

investment in railways, seeking cheaper fares and a greener railway.

We operate and campaign on behalf of the taxpayer. We do not want to be

in this position and we do not want them to be in this position but

we're not doing this for money and we're not doing this for better

conditions, it is purely for safety. How much longer can your members

strike and go on like this? We do what our members asked us to do.

19,000 active train drivers nationally say that DOO is unsafe

and want it challenged. We are doing that and members will tell us when

they have had enough. The owners of southern rail to go to

the Supreme Court in another attempt to stop the Aslef strikes. That will

not be before the next ruck on Friday.

Special armed police who guard the Berkshire factory

where Britain's nuclear weapons were made feel they were made

scapegoats for the failings of their senior commanders,

A Ministry of Defence investigation into police patrols

than 50 officers leaving the force or facing misconduct proceedings.

But now an independent report has found that officers further up

the chain of command were not considered for disciplinary action.

Ben Moore joins us now form our Reading studio.

Concerns were raised in spring 2013. There were even reports the officers

were falling asleep on duty. The MoD launched an investigation.

As a result, six officers were dismissed for gross misconduct,

25 officers resigned and 19 officers were required to attend

But a freedom of information request has now found no-one above rank

of sergeant was considered for disciplinary action, prompting

This independent inquiry was carried out by an independent member

"A lack of direction resulted in the investigating team on site

"focusing on the low-hanging fruit rather than addressing the root

The report strongly criticises senior MDP officers for a lack

of proper supervision and a lack of response to problems

Those who watch the site say, because of the secrecy

surrounding the AWE, it's unclear whether these

senior officers have faced or will face any action.

There's no accountability, really, here and the Ministry of Defence

police need to come clean with the public, be a lot more open

about what's happened, what went wrong, why it went wrong

and what they're going to do about it.

But one thing we do know is that there is now a huge feeling

of resentment across the Ministry of Defence police force -

not ideal when guarding the UK's nuclear arsenal.

The MoD says police officers are held to the highest standards

and there was never any threat to the safety or security

Police are looking for a driver who moved an ambulance

Staff were in the back, carrying out emergency treatment

It's thought the man released the ambulance's handbrake to move it

and then drove his car into the empty space.

It happened on Pelican Lane in Newbury two weeks ago.

The man's described as white, in his 50s and driving a red Mini Cooper.

Detectives say the patient could have suffered serious consequences.

It was a very reckless act to undertake.

Obviously, the ambulance could have moved forward.

The individual would have had no proper control of that vehicle

at the time and anything could have happened.

It could have hit another pedestrian, it could have hit

another vehicle and it put the lives of the patient and the crew in

A controversial proposal to raise the salary of the chief executive

of Arun District Council by nearly 6% will be voted on by

The council says that the increase, to just over ?117,000,

will bring Nigel Lynn's pay more into line with comparable

councils and includes a performance-related award.

Opponents say it's unfair at a time when other council employees

are seeing a 1% increase in their pay.

Later, we revisit an 80s children's TV series.

Come with me the BBC South Today, where the weather is still to come.

We will travel to 1983 with Portland Bill.

A new centre using state-of-the-art simulators to train nurses

and midwives has opened in Reading at a time when the NHS is struggling

to recruit enough staff to care for mums and their babies.

Part of the problem is finding enough hospital placements

for trainees, so could technology be part of the answer?

The bump may feel real enough. But the patient most definitely isn't.

But this is no dummy. Linda gives birth like a real mum. So realistic,

it is not the time viewing. The centre has opened. We were able to

practice in our own time for our exams. It has been very valuable for

us to have this invested for us and for the rest of the students within

the university. My name is Claire, I am one of the nurses here. The

mannequins come in all shapes and sizes and just like a flight

simulator, the force trainees to make life or death decisions. The

whole point of the Centre is that students can reserve their skills.

They can learn in a safe environment and it is safe but also safe for

patients. Midwife numbers in the Thames Valley have risen 10% but

live births are up half as much. The biggest problem is finding hospitals

with the budget to find clinical placements for these trainees.

Simulation centres are very important because we can do a lot of

our training within the simulation centre and help relieve the pressure

of the amount of places we need in practice. The need for trainees to

metaphorically get their hands dirty, practising on real-life

patients, is not going away any time soon.

If you've got young children, did they have you up in the night?

Many parents struggle to get their babies and toddlers

into a good routine but, for some families, the problems

BBC South has had special access to the work of

Southampton's Sleep Disorder Service.

It's just for children and, in recent years, the clinic

It's under the leadership of one woman, Dr Cathy Hill.

She's on a mission to give desperate mums and dads a good night's rest.

Imogen has a typical light tap routine. She however wakes

repeatedly through the night. She sleepwalks around the house and

frightens her parents. Even though the wise up wide-open, she is sat

bolt upright and is rocking. She walked down the stairs, completely

asleep. Southampton's specialist leet service treat children with

complex sleeping disorders, the hardest cases. By the time we see

bees families, quite often those problems have been going on for many

years. The parents have forgotten what it is like to sleep. Building

on work that began in 1980, Cathy has done much to develop the

service. It is now based in Southampton hospital and sees

children from around the UK. The strongest, most powerful trigger the

sleepwalking, if you have got those other tendencies there, is not quite

getting enough sleep. Cathy is quick to diagnose imaging with behavioural

insomnia and sleepwalking. Children will have a night terror or

sleepwalk within one or two hours of falling asleep, and what is

happening is that the child's brain is half asleep and half awake, so it

will do complex things like walk around, climb, but they have no

memory of it or no awareness of what they are doing. The brain is

obviously. That is the slave wage of sleep when our brains are vulnerable

to do this funny switch. -- that is the stage of sleep. She has really

gone into not just image and ask, down to what she's doing at bedtime,

why she's getting up. She gave us advice we need. We will. By

measuring from just between your eyes to the back of your head. In

Southampton, this high-tech sleep lab is used to investigate the most

difficult disorders. Cathy designed it based on similar setups in

Australia, adapting adult testing to sue for younger patients. Some of

her other patients do not need help with sleeping but with staying

awake. Falling asleep in class, falling asleep as soon as we get in

the car, falling asleep at home and at times, in weird places. This is

nothing unusual among college students per right now Chloe is

medicated to stay awake. Her narcolepsy need careful management.

My eyes are watering. Carefully timed daytime sleep has been part of

her routine out the three years whether she is but a condition

called cataplexy has been harder to solve. She collapses, she drops

things, she cannot hold onto anything, all her grip is gone. Her

head will go and she would just collapse and she slurs her words,

her mouth goes to one side. She copes with it very well. It is what

is, it makes who she is, and there is nothing we can do about that

other than support her. We have a cheesy strapline. We want them to be

at and achieving. Six weeks on, imaging and her family have made

progress. You might not have heard of them but sleep fairies are

everywhere. I just want to say well done for good sleeping. Cathy has

suggested Imogen should have happened sleep very. She visits a

night-time when image and sleeps well, leaving encouraging little

letters. She has a sleep Ferrador that the fairy visits. I have had to

be a bit more strict bedtime. The last couple of weeks have been great

so we're doing really well. A full night's sleep for everybody.

Onto sport and big night of football for Southampton in the League Cup

semifinal and a trip to Wembley up for grabs.

It's 30 years since Southampton last contested a League Cup semifinal

and, such is the way that the footballing fate works,

that was against Liverpool - the same opponents they face this

evening in the first of two legs for a place in the final at Wembley.

For Saints, it's part of a hugely busy January

in which they could face as many as nine games.

The halo has slipped slightly for Claude Puel's side

in the last few weeks - three straight Premier League losses

were followed by a frustrating FA Cup draw at Norwich at the weekend.

This game against Liverpool, a good team, it is a good thing for us. We

need to try to have good result. It is a fantastic opportunity for us.

We did well to stop it was only a draw in the end. A really good

performance. Sometimes, the temptation can be to rotate the

squad. We know that Claude Puel well has rotated to some effect.

On the team news front, Puel said that he wouldn't be

playing want-away captain Jose Fonte, so Maya Yoshida

is set to continue alongside Virgil van Dijk.

Adam Larner is in the Liverpool side, Flamini, Sturridge.

You can follow all the action, of course, live on BBC Radio Solent

with Adam Blackmore and the former Saints manager, Dave Merrington.

Dorset's Scott Mitchell has seen his bid to win a second BDO

World Darts Championship end in tatters today.

The Bransgore farmer, who won the title two years ago,

crashed out this afternoon at the Lakeside to Belgian

Mitchell, himself seeded number two, suffered a 4-2 defeat after missing

He exits in the second round in Frimley Green.

Staying on a Wembley theme, Oxford United moved a step closer

to a quick return to the Arch in the Checkatrade Trophy.

Do you know any of these iconic names?

They're locations in the BBC Radio 4 shipping forecast.

But, as well as being coastal stations, they also became

the characters of a children's TV series, which first

Alexis Green went to meet the man who co-wrote the music

The 1980s saw the birth of the large number of children's TV programmes.

But one that sticks firmly in my memory is based on this lighthouse,

the adventures of Portland Bill. Oh, come with me to the rolling sea,

where the weather is calm still... It was the brainchild of John Grace.

Sadly, you passed away in 2004 but his colleague, Nick Parsons,

co-wrote the music. John entered a photographic competition and won it.

It was based on the three plus the scene characters. As a result of

that, he was contacted by a film fare who made the wombles in

Paddington. The director asked if you would like to make the series

and John said, I will write the script, would you like the music? So

we collaborated. It was a nice project to work on. One day, Ross

was having a terrible time, trying to scrap the steps clean. Most of

the characters were named after sea errors and coastal stations around

the British Isles. West 40s, north-westerly, six -- eight.

Portland Bill was the main character and manned the lighthouse. Two

Seabees altogether, 26 episodes and stories. The theme tune is the most

memorable. Come with me, to the rolling sea, where the weather is

common still. We will have some fun, the adventures of Portland Bill! It

has lasted for years and even now my students will come to me and say, do

you still write music for Portland Bill?

Overnight tonight, we are expecting very chilly conditions and tomorrow,

the chance of snow. A lovely scene today. Blue skies overhead. Very

chilly conditions overnight. The winds will increase in strength,

very windy. Coming in from the north-west, taking the edge of

temperatures, but mainly dry by the odd isolated shower. Temperatures

could drop as low as three Celsius. The winds will be very strong

tomorrow. Light spells first thing but clouding over very quickly and

the Met Office have issued the yellow snow warning. The risk of

heavy snow in many places tomorrow, which could cause is. Through the

day, rain first which will help temperatures rise joined the

morning. A northerly breeze digging in. The potential for snowfall. More

likely for air is not a boxer. Intense rain at times, up to 30

millimetres in an hour, and the strength of the winters well. You

need keep three key ingredients for snow, the cold air from the north,

the right wind direction and intense rainfall. The risk of snow

everywhere tomorrow evening, whisking eastwards and clearing most

places tomorrow night but then the big risk is following the snow and

rain. Temperatures tomorrow night, in the countryside, minus three

Celsius. In our towns and cities, minus one Celsius. A risk of snow

and ice with this feature drifting down the eastern part of the

country. We could see snowfall for the rush-hour. Really intense winds

coming in from the north, making it feel bitterly cold. The big risk of

snow tomorrow almost anywhere. Stay tuned to the forecast annual local

radio station. Don't forget to send us photos as well if you can.

I think my political beliefs are really quite straightforward.

I believe that our country needs to work for everyone.

Not just for the rich, not just for the privileged,

not just for those who know the right people or who've got

the loudest voices, but a country that really works for everyone,

has the opportunity to be who they want to be.

In order to make sure that the country works for everyone,

Standing up for the vulnerable, for the voiceless,

against those who feel that they're strong and powerful.

If you're doing the right thing, then you must do that however

difficult it is, even if there seems to be an easier path to take.