The life and times of "Dr Death" - the Body Worlds founder Gunther von Hagens
Body Worlds founder Gunther von Hagens, the businessman and philanthropist Sir Ian Wood, the social historian Juliet Gardiner, and England's only ice acrobat Dinkie Flowers.
Gunther von Hagens, often known as Dr Death, was a German anatomist who developed a system of plastination to preserve human bodies permanently after death. His aim was to de-mystify anatomy and created the internationally successful “Body Worlds” exhibition. Former Channel 4 producer Nick Curwin, who helped Gunther broadcast a public autopsy, tells his story.
Sir Ian Wood was the billionaire Scottish businessman and philanthropist who made his fortune by transforming his Aberdeen based family fishing boat repair business into one of the oil and gas sector’s biggest engineering firms. The former Business Editor at ĢƵ Scotland, Douglas Fraser, covered Sir Ian’s work for many years and shares his memories.
Juliet Gardiner was a social historian who pored over the diaries of ordinary people in WWII to bring a different perspective to history. She wrote books and made radio and TV programmes such as Channel 4's “The 1940s House” in which a modern family were challenged to live as they would have done during the war. Fellow social historian Simon Garfield reveals what inspired her to choose her field of study.
Dinkie Flowers was a mere 98 years-old when she wowed the audience and judges alike on the ĢƵ TV show The Greatest Dancer. She had previously had a long and successful dancing career when in the 1940s she moved from the ballroom to the ice rink, to become England's only ice acrobat. She went on to set up her own dance school in her home town of Shoreham-by-Sea. Her friend and former pupil Louise Durrant remembers her.
Presenter: Matthew Bannister
Producer: Ben Mitchell
Assistant Producer: Ribika Moktan
Researcher: Jesse Edwards
Editor: Andrea Kennedy
Archive:
ĢƵ World Service, The Interview, 17/08/2007; ĢƵ Two, Newsnight, 22/11/2002; Channel 4, Firefly Film, Television, The Autopsy, 20/11/2002; ĢƵ News, Reporting Scotland, 18/11/2012; Channel 4, Wall to Wall Media, The 1940’s House, 02/01/2001; ĢƵ Radio 4, Archive on 4, 05/09/2015; ĢƵ, A Blitz Scrapbook, 01/01/1941; ĢƵ Radio 4, The History of the Future, 20/02/2018; ĢƵ Radio 4, Making History, 23/02/2016; ĢƵ Two, Who Do You Thin You Are?, 27/12/2007; ĢƵ Two, the Goodies, Kitten Kong, 09/04/1972; ĢƵ Two, Springwatch, 29/05/2006; ĢƵ News, 10/03/2021; ĢƵ One, The Greatest Dancer, 04/01/2020
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Last Word
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