i'm rico hizon in singapore, the headlines: killed all 157 people on board. ethiopia declares a national day of mourning after the plane crash outside addis ababa that killed the boeing 737, owned by ethiopian airlines, was carrying passengers from more than 30 countries. it came down shortly after taking all 157 people on board. off from the capital addis ababa. families and fighters leave syrian forces backed by the us have begun their assault the islamic state group's last on the last enclave held by so—called islamic state. stronghold in syria most of the group's supporters have as the final assault by western—backed forces begins. now surrendered to kurdish forces. this story is doing well online. we have a special report. it's the moment a deer i'm babita sharma in london. was rescued from an icy pond at pittsburgh zoo. one of the keepers plunged into the water to help. luckily the animal was able to get i'm kassia madera in london. also in the programme: out and returned to its herd. india braces for the world's biggest election. 900 million could vote next month as prime minister narendra modi seeks a second term. that's all. stay with bbc world news. now on bbc news, stephen sackur is in the bbc radio theatre with a special

edition of hardtalk. welcome to a special addition of hardtalk from the bbc radio theatre in london. —— edition. mental health is not easy to talk about, least of all for young men. so often brought up all for young men. so often brought up to regard in emotional vulnerability as weakness. well, my guess today knows that and has lived with the consequences. stephen manderson is much better known as rapper professor green. all his hit records, the awards and the rewards could and ultimately mask his own in a pain. but he chose to speak out. he is determined to break the taboos around mental health. so, can we all learn from professor green? thank

you. stephen manderson, professor green, welcome to hardtalk. thanks having me. i have to start by asking, how are you? because people who follow you closely know that you we re who follow you closely know that you were about to go on a national tour. yes. you then had an accident and you fractured bones in your neck. so how are you doing? i am all right, that's my answer and i'm sticking to it. but you are not in a neck brace. no, ithink it. but you are not in a neck brace. no, i think the way they described it is that it was not structural, it was a hairline fracture of my c7, which is high up, so we were quite worried initially but i am all right. iam not worried initially but i am all right. i am notjumping around yet, but i'm probably doing better than they thought i would be. when i was introducing you, i was wondering whether to introduce you stephen manderson or professor green. obviously you are one of those artists who has always had a sort of

stage name, a stage persona. is it important for you to be separate from professor green, all do you see it that way? that is a tough one to answer, because i have always put so much of myself in my music. and that wasn't a character. it was not a character that i played. a lot of the musicians that i listened to growing up, my favourite artist put themselves in my music, and that was what gave me an affinity towards them, really. so when i started writing music, istarted them, really. so when i started writing music, i started writing about how i felt, what i saw, what i had been through. it has always been incredibly personal, hasn't it? yeah, and for me, you mentioned mental health already. i didn't realise this until recently because i only tried it once and it didn't work for me, cbt, cognitive behaviour therapy, a cornerstone of which isjournalling, writing down

what you feel at any given moment in time. it is good to do that because it gives you perspective. you can write something a week prior which are back on and say, i don't feel like that any more. you've made progress. or, ido like that any more. you've made progress. or, i do feel like that andi progress. or, i do feel like that and i was right to feel like that and i was right to feel like that and it was a justified anxiety because it was actually something to worry about. basically from the age of 18 when i started writing music, i was doing something that was really beneficial to me as far as my mental health goes, because i was making sense of the mumbo—jumbo inside my head. i tell you what interest to me, you chose a form of music, a genre, which too many people, rap and hip—hop, to many people, rap and hip—hop, to many people that was, in the 1980s and 19905 people that was, in the 1980s and 1990s and through the 2000s, associated with images of young men bragging. young men putting on a show of rabada, of macho behaviour. macho attitudes. —— bravado. your

ta ke macho attitudes. —— bravado. your take on rap and rhymes and the words was never quite like that. no, there isa was never quite like that. no, there is a lot of bravado in my music. isn't there? what about that word, macho? macho... no, not really. i think, i think the idea that... listen, there are things that were instilled in me growing up from when i was very, very young as to what a man should be, because i grew up in a very hard household. i was brought up a very hard household. i was brought up by my a very hard household. i was brought up by my grandmother who was working threejobs and up by my grandmother who was working three jobs and looking after her grandson, having already raised three of her own children on her own after husband walked out and left, and was also looking after her mum, my great—grandmother, nanny edie. i think this happens in a lot of single—parent families, especially when the single parent is the mum, they think they have to be hard to station that is what the man would do. so my household was very you

know, stiff upper lip, and i was taught that being a man meant being ha rd taught that being a man meant being hard and you have got to suck it up and get on with it. which isn't necessarily the best way to deal with things, and i learnt through my own experiences and through going through things that the more honest i was about my vulnerabilities, the more strength i had in my cell. —— myself. and actually, there is a strength in admitting being vulnerable because as soon as you are honest about how you feel you can deal with it. as long as you lie about it, especially if you are lying to yourself about where you are out and how you feel, you are doing yourself a disservice. that honesty about pain in you, i think it is run right through your writing and your music. we are actually going to play a clip. late last year you released a new song, it was a collaboration with a guy who is now varied big in britain and around the world, rag and bone man. we can show it, andi world, rag and bone man. we can show it, and i think when we look at it it, and i think when we look at it it is important for people to know

that it it is important for people to know thatitis it is important for people to know that it is deeply personal. it is about photographs, the importance of pictures, and loss of the pictures we are going to see in the clip are actually you with the dad you barely knew. let's look at this video clip. # i can't leave you left me feeling solo... # and i'm running out of film now # there's only so many pictures i can take # how does faith feel looking at pictures of b? # how does courtney feel looking at pictures of kurt? # but #but| # but i hate looking at pictures of view, it has it hurts.

# wish that i took more photographs of us # said goodbye, now our love's collecting dust # just a memory of you is not enough # wish that i took more photographs of us . i have watched that take you time send it really gets me. you wouldn't be the first person it made cry. yeah. it has resonated with a lot of people, the girl that you saw there was someone who contributed to the video by way of hashtag. there is a lot of negative talk about the impacts of social media. we found a way to use it for something really positive. you appeal to people for whom pictures of absent loved ones or people they had lost meant so much. you appealed for them to send in those pictures. you said, you know what, i can relate to that. people did, and it became this beautiful, i'll be at sad, this

wonderful public forum where people we re wonderful public forum where people were engaging in each other‘s stories and sharing those stories. —— albeit sad. and people they had lost, and by way of doing that, keeping them alive. the girl in the video lost her brother, she only went to one concert with him and it was mine. it seems to me that your relationship with your dad has become so central, to be honest, to your life. yeah. which is crazy, we think... i was going to say, it is so ironic, because in life, and of course your father took his own life when you arejust... course your father took his own life when you are just. .. 24. course your father took his own life when you arejust... 24. 24 course your father took his own life when you are just. .. 24. 24 years old. you didn't really know him. not as an adult. and in fact, the most difficult thing to say to you is that when you last had a conversation with him, when you are six years younger, at 18 years old, do told him basically to get lost. no, isaid do told him basically to get lost. no, i said if i see you again lock you out. —— i will knock you out. and people say, do you regret that?

why would i regret that? he had done so much to me by letting me down time and time again, and i swore before that conversation that i would never open myself up to him doing that to me again. and then i thought, actually, maybe i need to be, even though i am not the older here, iam be, even though i am not the older here, i am not the parent, maybe i need to be the one to take that step. because for whatever reason, unbeknownst to me at the time, he is too scared to. and i have an understanding our which i didn't have them. so i found him and i said, what's happening tomorrow? are you going to come and see me? he was mobile, i wasn't. you going to come and see me? he was mobile, iwasn't. he you going to come and see me? he was mobile, i wasn't. he was driving. anti— started to go, well, jackie and the kids would love to see you. jackie being his now widow, and the kids being his stepchildren who he was more of a father to then he ever was more of a father to then he ever was to any of his, you know, his actual children. and ijust said, for the first time ever, i stood up, i was honest about how i felt, you know. i said,

i was honest about how i felt, you know. isaid, this i was honest about how i felt, you know. i said, this isn't about me coming to play happy families, this is about you and i sitting down as adults and trying to see if there is adults and trying to see if there is a relationship there are asked to salvage. and he's started to stutter, and i just salvage. and he's started to stutter, and ijust went, you know what, don't even bother. if you can't make the effort, don't even bother. if i ever see you again... how was that the macho? typical man, the first emotion, anger. and what i actually was, i was upset. and this is even harder to talk about, i guess. but the next time you saw him... he was dead. i identified his body because no—one else would walk in to do it. they were going to let the owner of the shop to walk in and identify his body. and ijust said, absolute respect. —— have some respect. there might have been something in between those words. but i walked in and i said, you silly sod. i gave him a kiss on his forehead and i cried my eyes out. does talking about it, and it is

selling 10 cents are personal, and yet you have talked about it in recent times, does talking about it this the pain? or is the painjust as real today as it ever was? what is funny is that i normally have a real good way of disengaging with any of the emotions that have anything to do with it, because i have to talk about it so often. today, i don't find it that easy to disengage. that is the thing, he is never going to not be dead, but we have got a really bad relationship with death. we pretend it is not going to happen, and when it happens, we quite often pretend it hasn't. we don't deal with that, we don't give ourselves a chance to deal with that. people, the old saying about i would rather cross the road than talk to you, you know? it is because it is an awkward conversation. i think it is because we also want to fix things, we want to make people feel better, but your

job isn't really to do anything in that situation. sometimes you just have to give someone a chance to talk. or to cry, have to give someone a chance to talk. orto cry, orto have to give someone a chance to talk. or to cry, or to say nothing, just give someone the chance to grieve. absolutely. india is directly after your dad took his own life, your music career took off in a big, big way. —— in the years. life, your music career took off in a big, big way. —— in the yearslj almost died. sorry? i almost died. well, we will get to that too. you are very accident prone person. you almost died because you were stabbed ina almost died because you were stabbed in a nightclub. i don't know if the camera can pick it out, but if we look at the tat you on your neck it actually also now was deeply scarred, because that is where that can bottle went right in. scarred, because that is where that can bottle went right inlj scarred, because that is where that can bottle went right in. i had a tat to which said lucky, which was a node to me being less pessimistic, if not optimistic, at least realistic. —— tattooed. just trying to be more positive about things. and then i was lucky, to be honest.

it's weird, people always say, do got stabbed. how many people get stabbed in the neck and walk away from it? nonetheless, if we don't get too distracted by the multiple accidents, it is there are others we can talk about, if we just focus for a second on the korea. i am interested in this disconnect in a way, between such a troubled and anguished life, but the ability you found going on from 2008 through to 2014 to have a string of hit records, to work with some of the biggest artist in the world, to become, if you like, the sort of vanguard of a rape movement in the uk that was a really big deal. —— rape movement. —— rap. some would say that the success you had, the millions of records sold, that might have eased the pain. did it? no.|j am silly as well, i had this idea, right, that if i became successful in music i would be absolved of everything that hurt me in my entire life. everything i saw growing up, all distressed that was in my

household from the minute i was able to work out what was going on and even probably before, you know, before your memory is forming, before your memory is forming, before your memory is forming, before you can think, you can feel, can't you ? i before you can think, you can feel, can't you? i was four when i was diagnosed with ibs and it was just anxiety and stress. shebah you just said you had a permanent knot of anxiety in your stomach. not anymore. there was quite anxiety when they told me i fractured my neck but i had to distinguish between what was worth worrying about and what was not. did you reach a point when you realise no amount of adulation was going to fix you? it doesn't stop you from having good or bad days. nothing does. no matter what you achieve. people always focus on numbers. you can obsessed with selling a certain number of records. i did just know i

wa nted number of records. i did just know i wanted to continue making music so i wa nted wanted to continue making music so i wanted to continue making music so i wanted to sell the amount of records. i am lucky. myjob as a hobby. i don't look at going to the studio is work. that's a day off for me. iam studio is work. that's a day off for me. i am lucky for that. if anything, it put a microscope under read and meant i wasn't allowed to complain about anything. people looked at me as someone who can't complain because i have done what they wanted to do. it doesn't absolve you of your past and get rid of all of your problems. an element of all of your problems. an element of your past and what your friends are stuck with after you left behind, is drugs. you have been very frank and honest about what happened between period between being a teenager and your early 20s. you we re teenager and your early 20s. you were building a life that actually revolved quite a lot around selling

cannabis, acro three. i never sold crack austin because i would never deal with people in the most desperate situations they have ever been in. that —— crack. desperate situations they have ever been in. that -- crack. what made you different in hackney, what made you different in hackney, what made you able, in the end, to escape from that when so many others did not?|j don't know. i have seen a lot of people still in prison now. people still have regularjobs. people still have regularjobs. people still working on music, i didn't start selling records till i was 28. i really did go all nothing. i risked everything to do this. they said you know what? you have got to doa said you know what? you have got to do a job or do something different of this is going to be your life. i don't know if it was a bit of some kind of self belief buried beneath,

it led me down that path continually, i just carried it led me down that path continually, ijust carried on. it changed my life and gave me an opportunity, hopefully, to show others it is possible. it makes me feel good. when other see a young rapper coming up, it makes me feel good because i know what that life is, i lived it — back whenever. good because i know what that life is, i lived it - back whenever. that element of wanting to show others and ina element of wanting to show others and in a sense, maybe guide others as well, it seems to me it took a big part in your life as you have made a number of tv documentaries. people remember the story of when your father took his own life. so many young men in the uk. the percentage is extraordinary. so many young men kill themselves.” percentage is extraordinary. so many young men kill themselves. i would never have thought it. even having

dad and his brother also took his own life two years prior to him doing exactly the same thing in exactly the same way, i would never, if you had asked me, what is the biggest killer of men between 15 and 45, i would biggest killer of men between 15 and 45, iwould never biggest killer of men between 15 and 45, i would never have thought it to be suicide, ever. i would 45, i would never have thought it to be suicide, ever. iwould never 45, i would never have thought it to be suicide, ever. i would never have thought that. it strikes me that given your own vulnerabilities, the mental health issues you have had, the willingness you have then shown to go into areas and dig deep into mental health, suicidal tendencies, you have also looked at the drugs industry, you have made documentaries about the class system and the difficulties that white kids face. you have become something of an activist and campaigner and you clearly care very passionately about these causes. breaking taboos on mental health, breaking down barriers that keep down kids from

disadvantaged backgrounds. in a sense, that is you taking on more burdens. i know you get e—mails from across the country from people who are sharing their mental health problems, their difficult times with you. that's incredible difficult but incredibly difficult because all i can say is this is where you can get help. —— incredibly difficult. iam not sitting here saying i am fixed andi not sitting here saying i am fixed and i am fixing all of you. you are taking on all these other problems. it is wonderful that people reach out to you but what does that do to you? i think everyone should probably take this on board. it is what you choose. it's what you choose to let in because you do have the power to decide as to what you do. i could read twitter all day and look at all the people saying nasty things. that could become my opinion of myself. i am too old and too long in the tooth to be living my life

for anybody else. i am not living up to anybody else's expectations. i make them my decisions based on what i want to do. the word selfish we need to look at and really readdress the connotations attached because looking after yourself is in no way a bad thing at all. how many of us find ourselves in situations that we are injust find ourselves in situations that we are in just because other people wa nted are in just because other people wanted us to be there? you go with what you need to do for yourself, as long as it is not in the detriment to other people. i had to work it out the hard way that you are no good to anyone if you are no good to yourself. applause. i just good to anyone if you are no good to yourself. applause. ijust wonder, listening to you and hearing what you just said about the importance of tackling inequalities and giving people chances, whether there is

possibly a politician inside you?” hate politicians. laughter. even the ones i like, i can't stand. applause. to generalise massively, unlike politicians, you are a public figure that young people in particular can connect with and who do not for a second question your genuine interest in them. that is an incredible power you've got. ijust wonder if you are tempted to use it. do you know what? i am but in a way that i have by accident stumbled into and it is by not preaching or telling them how they should leave or do anything differently, it's just by, and it's how i learn from me watching and listening to the people i looked up to. we are almost out of time. my last thought is about the book title that you chose, lucky. that was asking for trouble.

laughter. and attached to that hides a scarfrom laughter. and attached to that hides a scar from the attack that nearly killed you. the attack happened first. i know but then that had to. there was the car smash that almost killed you. you had a terrible accident, i have a brilliant osteopath. after all of the honesty you have given us about the pain in your life, i wonder whether, alongside lucky, you could write happy. oh. do you know what? it really depends on the day. i'm not going to sit here, i can't lie to you, i can't do it. not every day.

not every day. more days than not? of recent, yeah. i spent a hell of a lot more time recently doing things that make me happy and spending my time with those people as opposed to putting myself in situations that may have made me feel better temporarily but ultimately making things worse. that is the most important life lesson i have learned, make the things that do the things that make you happy and put your energy into those things and those people and life does get a lot better. i am a hell of a lot better these days than i was a couple of yea rs these days than i was a couple of years ago. lets and on that thought. —— let us and on that book. —— and

end honour that thought. sunday morning started off on a wintry note. the far north and west had overnight sleet and showers. the far north and west had overnight sleet and snow showers. icy stretches on the road as you can see from this weather watcher's picture. a different story across england and wales. yes, sunshine, but gale force winds strong enough at times to uproot trees. it looks as though the winds will be a key feature to our weather forecast throughout the week. potential for severe gales and also heavy rain, particularly tuesday into wednesday. but fingers crossed some dry and bright interludes. you can see a little bump of high—pressure building as we speak,

so allowing for a quieter day today but waiting out in the wings another way that another area of low pressure. on this monday morning, we start with the risk of a few wintry showers which will ease through the morning. further north and west, is still a windy start but nowhere near as strong as yesterday. and there will be some sparkling sunshine. hires around 8— 11 degrees will feel more promising as the winds are more promising. —— highs. we will see strengthening in the far north—west as the area of low pressure moves in from the atlantic. west—facing slopes and some strong—gale force winds. quite likely 40—50 mph. on exposed coasts, 50—60 mph. a spell of wet weather moves south and east, clearing from the south—east corner during tuesday afternoon. behind it, sunny spells and scattered showers. some of these showers again with hail and sleet

and snow mixed in. as we move out of tuesday and into wednesday, we could see the strongest of the winds overnight. to the southern flank of the low it drifts off into the north sea, we could see a spell of severe gales and that is certainly worth bearing in mind. if you are going to be travelling on the roads in tuesday night and into the early hours of wednesday morning, it is worth bearing in mind and keep abreast of your weather forecast and your bbc local radio station will tell you if there is any disruption. as we move into wednesday, it looks as if the winds will slowly start to ease through the day. it will be a windy but showery day. i suppose the good news with the strength of the winds is those showers will rattle through with quite a pace but after those severe gales, the winds will start to slowly abate as we go through the afternoon. temperatures will probably peak at 9—11 degrees as the overall high. take care.