Deliverance is the title of our brand new documentary about women. It’ll be broadcast on  on BBC radio 3 – Feb 28th. This is how it came about.

Some years ago the artist  Kate Daudy captivated me as she recounted in perfect detail the hours that led to labour. It struck me that stories of women in  pregnancy and their  individual internal experience of growth is at least as fascinating  as the individual they are creating. Behind the dramatic story of birth of a child is the dramatic story of the birth of a new woman.

Certainly the birth of a new woman in pregnancy is less acknowleged than the birth of the child – less celebrated.     To record women at this point would be  like recording the thoughts of a spaceman throught the journey but   before he lands on the moon.   Questions of life and death are a reality as labour approaches, the loss of air, the change in atmosphere, the gravitational pull….. thoughts adjusting to new centres of gravity… The idea of a documentary of these voiceswas born.

Award winning Radio Artist Francesca Panetta suggested  it could be  radio . “Why not give   the recording facilities to the women?”  she said. “and let them record their final days towards birth”. After speaking with her colleague Lucy Greenwell  at phantom productions they secured the commission from BBC Radio 3 for “Deliverance”.

Then mainly via my facebook and twitter account  Lucy Greenwell contacted and met women who were giving birth in September 2014. They have  recorded throughout the final days to birth. Yesterday I recorded a new poem which interweaves throughout their words. Deliverance: broadcast at on BBC radio 3,  Feb 28th.  . Drawing by Tia Terefe 2014