The Girlfriends: Spotlight, E20: Rosamund Clears the Air

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I actually dropped better when I'm high. It heightens my senses, it calms me down. If anything, I'm more careful. Honestly, it just helps me focus. That's probably what the driver who killed a four-year-old told himself, and now he's in prison.

You see, no matter what you tell yourself, if you feel different, you drive different. So if you're high, just don't drive. Brought to you by Nitsa in the ad council. Novel. Hey girlfriends, I just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode includes conversations

about losing a child to asthma. I want to stress that these are really extreme cases. So if you or a loved one has got a manageable case of asthma, like I do, please don't worry. We mostly just get weasy when we go to the gym. But I'll also, as an added bonus to this episode, be introducing you to my mother.

When I was very young, I was diagnosed with asthma, and my parents weren't taking any chances. My bedroom floor was made up of court board tiles because carpets have mites and mites can trigger asthma. Duskatching curtains got replaced with blinds. My bedding was a thin, lifeless, but hyper-allergenic duvet. For most, it'd be over the top.

But I can understand why my parents did it. 18 months before I was born, my brother, Kit, died of a completely unexpected asthma attack. He was just 17 months old. And there I was, the hopeful new baby born into a house full of heavy hearts with the same terrifying condition.

Although my parents' loss was never my loss, I do think it had a hand in shaping who I am today.

I've always been a bit of a watcher, often on the outside of people's pain, trying to reach in and suath them.

I'm sure that's why I do this job.

“Both my parents had wondered for decades why Kit, a seemingly healthy toddler up to that point, had suddenly become so sick.”

The absence of a satisfying, medical explanation haunted both my parents in the early days. The hospital just said that his little body wasn't strong enough to cope with their treatment, which was designed to help older patients. It never sat right. Then, years later, mum was listening to the radio and heard about a woman who's story seemed horribly familiar. This mum had also lost a child to a devastating asthma attack in London.

This mum was fighting for answers and for justice, and perhaps my mum thought, "This woman could help her finally understand why this had happened to her little boy too." I'm Anison Field, and from the teams at Novel and I Heart Podcasts. This is the Girlfriend Spotlight, where we tell stories of women winning. Today, Rosemind plays the app. Usually, I do this podcast by myself, but like I said, this story isn't mine.

It's my mum's, my dad's, and my brothers. And I can't tell it without one of them.

“So, when we recorded this last year, I was in the slightly unusual position of having to introduce my own mum to our guest.”

And mum's being a little bit cheeky.

This is the first time I've been on a podcast, and hey, I feel I'm not too intimidated by her.

What are you talking about? So, this is Rachel Sinfield, my lovely mum. Hello, and mum, Rosemind. Hello, lovely to meet you. Are you okay, mum? Yes.

Rosemind is Rosemind, a do-kissie Deborah, and she's Ella's mum. Ella was born in 2004 at Louisian Hospital, South East London, UK, weighing in at eight pounds. She was a healthy baby girl. Ella was my first, and I used to teach, and the first born sort of teachers, yeah. She wasn't even too, where she was playing a keyboard and just being really loud and stuff.

You to Ella's eyes, her hair.

She would always attract the attention anyway, so people would stop and say,

"Oh, what a beautiful child you have," and things like that. And because she was a bit of a tomboy, she didn't appreciate it. She hated that. Well, when she was younger, she didn't get it. I was a bit like they only being nice, but I guess we're in your six or seven.

And if you're a tomboy as well, it's not what you want to hear. Yeah, as you can probably tell, looking at me, I was definitely a tomboy kid. Back then, I didn't want people stroking and plashing my hair all the time and telling me I was pretty. In fact, mum can attest her once she dropped me off at a kid's house, who was all girly and pretty, and they all told me I was pretty, and then I cut off my hair and protest.

But these days, if someone told me I was pretty or the time, I'd be delighted. They're radical cutting off your hair, right? I know, it was the start of a great rebellion. I picture up. I was handed my daughter back, and then an envelope which had naughty hair written on it.

Wow. Well, finally she said, Ella had the opposite, because she loved her hair.

“Ella's thing was never cut your hair, but then I think in our community, hair is a thing.”

Rosmond Ella and her younger twin siblings were part of a large black British community based in Louisian, just off the very busy South Circular Road. What did she want to be when she grew up? Oh, yeah, so we used to go to Bournemouth every year to see the red arrows. That's the Royal Air Force aerobatic team.

When they fly past information, it looks pretty damn cool, and Ella was inspired. She was going to be an air ambulance pilot. As she had aeroplane stuck all on her room. She had it all planned. She was going to go to Cadets.

As she was going to go to the RAF. Yeah, because she went to Beaver's first. Beaver's cups and scouts. That's the route we were going. I was the exact same.

When I was a kid, my mom suggested I join the Girl Guide.

But I said no. I was going straight to Cubs, which was the younger boys' contingent. It was all fires and danger and dirt. No sewing machines. And I loved it.

There you are.

“I think you're beginning to get a rough idea what Ella was like.”

A bit like you, really. So, no girls guide, how and no. That was definitely not her. I do feel like Ella was a bit of a kindred spirit. And like me, she was also into music.

She would hear like music or something on the telly. And then she would translate it onto their piano. And I think this is not something normal people do. She could swim, she could dance, she played football, who's obsessed. And I was like, wow, you can do anything.

In 2010, a six-year-old Ella was studying the great fire of London at school. During the October holiday, on a very regular Tuesday, Rosemund Ella and her younger twin siblings went to check out a monument to the fire in central London. There were three hundred and eleven steps to the top. Now, Ella was very fit.

And I thought she had a cold that day.

“But I do remember her saying to me, I can't climb.”

And me being mum, as usual, go, oh, Baba, you've only got a cold.

And coming back, she was sleeping on the train, never sleeps.

She went straight to bed, she doesn't do that. And for the rest of the holiday, she wasn't great. But it wasn't anything that I was concerned with. I just thought she had a cold. That was the beginning marker for me from that day onwards.

Ella's developed signs of a very heavy cold. And Antibiotics from the doctors didn't seem to work. And so she was diagnosed with asthma, which really is a common childhood problem. And life continued as normal. Ella went to school, played with her siblings and friends,

and kept being from the sounds of it, a bit of a wondercant. But only a few weeks later, right before Christmas, all of that changed. Ella had an enormous coughing fit and became hypoxic. A lack of oxygen to her brain made her black out.

She came around really quickly and it's as if it had never happened.

The whole thing was weird. But a week later, we were going to go to the pantomime. And she was still coughing. And I thought, let me take her to the hospital. Ella spent time in hospital that day, but was later discharged.

I promised you as we left there, everything were normal. But during the night, she blacked out again, and they went back to hospital. She was if we, on death's door, if she was put in an induced coma and sent us in Georgia's. That's one of London's top hospitals.

Ella was put on a ventilator. She couldn't breathe by herself. She came round on New Year's Eve, and she collapsed again in the hospital. That's when I began to think, "Hmm, uh oh, what is going on?"

After only a few months, the hospital basically became the family's part-time home.

I remember. I was in the cantion getting food, and suddenly, co-dread something to children's ward. And after about to pay for my food, and I remember saying to the woman at the checkout, "That's my doorstep, I've got to get." Of course, it was her.

No one else was that dramatic in the bloody children's ward. So I knew it was her. And when I left her in the ward, she was fine. And from the ward to the cantion, three minutes, all these doctors were running, co-dread, I was petrified.

But it would happen again, and again, and again. Rosamund lost count of how many times she had to resuscitate Ella's lifeless body after she passed out. The 999 calls, the blue light ambulance journeys, to five different hospitals across London. Ella would wake up on the wards in the morning, and then Rosamund would take her to school. And at the end of the day, bring her back to her hospital bed.

She was very bright. So although she, at times, she couldn't go to school because she was in hospital. She never fell back. She was able to keep up with it. Then she will work on the doctors to allow her to go to school.

Wow.

“I think she began to push it like when she asked to do pee.”

Well, I was like, don't push it like. And she already had marks out what school she was going to go to. Gosh, she had too much time on their hands. Don't go gosh. She had too much time on their hands. That's what hospital does, by the way.

When you're admitted to hospital a lot, there's a lot of sitting around and waiting. And she did it, I think the work from school was challenging enough. Yeah, she's grown quite a lot and she knew all the doctors' rotors. So if she was going to be admitted at whatever day, she knew who was on.

No, let's not get carried away now, she was nine. I'm so scared of the way.

“In 2012, Ella was well enough to enjoy a summer full of fun activities and the London Paralympics.”

And Ella was determined to keep chipping away at her pilot dream. She knew that she had to be in Haila Free for a year to stand a chance.

I could never see her coming off her ass married Haila.

But I wasn't going to put a dampener on her thing then. When she was having a tax, then she would obviously register her back, she was. But when she wasn't, she was like anybody else. It was just about for her, guessing the asthma and the control. And everything else was going to fall into place.

Meanwhile, the doctor's treating Ella couldn't figure out what was triggering her asthma. I promised her, we would get to the bottom of why she was becoming ill. She was tested for epilepsy because when she was high-poxic, I lack of oxygen. If you saw her lying on the floor, you would think she was having an epileptic fit. They even tested her for cystic fibrosis, you know, the doctors could have worked out.

The test revealed Ella was sensitive to allergens, but couldn't determine the cause of her asthma. And eventually, it all became too much. Ella died in the early hours of the 15th of February 2013, from a fatal asthma attack. It was less than a month after her ninth birthday. Rosemind doesn't want to talk about what happened that night.

Instead, she wants to remember the incredible person her daughter was.

The pediatric team, they were really upset because they got used to her on the ward. But also, because children generally tend to not die. So Rosemind had some questions for Ella's doctors. One of the things that was put on her initial death certificate was respiratory failure.

“And I remember asking, what is that, I mean, respiratory failure?”

Respiratory failure is a generic term. You could have even have someone who's 100 watching the television and suddenly die. Just die through natural causes and that's respiratory failure. So that does not tell you anything about Ella's journey, really. Rosemind asked the hospital to take tissue samples of Ella's body from top to toe.

"We have the samples to that great-our mystery."

I think I watched too many acts files. After the break, detected Rosemind. In the moment, it felt like it was going on forever. I didn't think I was going to live. I was terrified. There was no anything inside those eyes. They turned black.

It scared the hell out of me.

“That was your first murder case. Yes, yeah.”

It's fair to say this was the biggest case here, career. Yes, sir. Red, the murder of a chunk of 12-year-old child. It battles, it gets. I would think so. People wake up and the woman saw the murder, take place by crevents and the people.

Anthony DiPipo showed no signs of remorse, appearing unfazed after being sentenced to the maximum. I said, "I'm not guilty, I'll take it to the grave." Listen to the devil's quarry on the iHard radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear the devil's quarry at free, with exclusive content, subscribe to Love of For Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I love the sounds, the buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans, the announcers calling the place, soccer, football, at home. Why do I wash the world cup? That's like asking me, "Why do I breed?" I inherited that fandom from my mom. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force.

From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernando Chavari and this is American Football. I show about soccer culture in the U.S., and it's under dog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great. As a soccer game, it's a festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull.

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Ever since Ella became ill, Rosemund has been asking questions. Why did her daughter, so vibrant and healthy suddenly become so unwell? When they opened her up at the post-mort of, she looked like she'd been smoking cigarettes. That's when we saw the extent of the damage. Wow. That's frightening. It is. I mean, someone had to explain it to me because post-mortals are very complicated. A nine-year-old's lungs shouldn't look like she's been smoking a pack a day.

Rosemund knows she has to do something about this. Together with some of Ella's doctors and her own teacher colleagues on what would have been Ella's tenth birthday. Rosemund launches the Ella Roberta Foundation. I think our main reason was we didn't want any other child to suffer. Go down the route that Ella had. Those days, our pure focus was on asthma. It was a blind

eating a blind, basically. Rosemund demands an inquest into Ella's death. But it's not what she had

expected. The inquest, it's about who is this person, was everything right done on the night

“and did everyone do what they meant to do. They sort of look at you the mother and you have to confirm”

that this is your child and then they say things like, "Did she live at this address?" And then you have to confirm, "Yes or no?" Oh, it was so horrible. The coroner said to me, "I'll run some of you know, you really have done everything you could to keep your daughter alive." I think he could see the state I was in and you now need to let it go in. I think he was trying to be helpful, but I was expecting the inquest to answer my questions. Rosemund is determined to find out what

killed her daughter and she's not going to get an answer here. But she does get one vital piece of

information about Ella's asthma attacks. It was at the first inquest when they said that her triggers

were to do with something in the air. And Rosemund is going to find out what that something was. I think even the doctors there felt I'd gone through enough and sort of said to me, "Oh Rosemund, well something in the air, that could be anything." So please don't go on a wild goose chase. Well, too late. In February 2015, Rosemund doesn't interview with her local paper, asking for help to find the cause of Ella's death. A mid-responsive suggesting that it could have

been dairy products. One stands out. And it was that person who sort of said, "Have a look at the air pollution levels around your house at the time she'd passed away." Rosemund starts working

researching the link between asthma and air pollution. Something that Rosemund says had never previously

been considered by medics caring for Ella. And hadn't been looked into at the inquest into her death.

“But Stephen thinks it's played an important part in her illness.”

A friend of Rosemund recommends that she speaks to a lawyer they know. One day, she travels from Lewis Shum to Houston Road, right in the bustling centre of London. Rosemund's looks up at the towering buildings around her. Confused about where her friend is sending her. I can't afford any lawyer. Yeah, and going into me to her, Johnson is really tidy, but she's formidable.

Johnson and Coburn is a human rights lawyer. She's a big deal. I'm talking changing the European convention of human rights big deal. Many of her cases are about the right to life, and whether the state has failed to protect people. And one thing considered a universal human right is the right to breathe clean air. Johnson was looking for people that might be impacted by air pollution. One of the things I told her at that meeting is having got any money and we're not

“sending her house. My words to her were very careful. I think I have what you need,”

but I'm not sure. Jocelyn wants to work with her. So Rosemund and her growing team of experts get cracking. They hand over to Jocelyn, all of the evidence they've gathered about air pollution in the local area. A lot of credit has to go to her. It was Jocelyn who looks at Elis, all her discharge papers, and she looked at the readings on the South Circle. That's the major London ring road, which Rosemund's family lives next to. She pinned it together, that 27 out of the 28

times. There was a spike in air pollution. Elis had been admitted to hospital. And on the night of Elis death, the air pollution there had its biggest spike ever. The traffic on the heavily congested South Circular was causing illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide around Elis home. Jocelyn, Elis lawyer, looked at it and said, you know, leave it with me. She began to build a case. In 2019, the family applied to the high court for a fresh inquest into Elis' death, to look specifically at the role

played by air pollution. And in 2020, Rosemund and Jocelyn, armed with expert evidence from Professor

Stephen Holgate, go to court. We were in that second inquest for two whole weeks, and we were

victorious. See, with Elis, there was absolutely no doubt. And the coroner was very clear. The summing up took over an hour. And some of the conclusion was, if it wasn't for the air, a round Louisian were elevated. Not only would she not have got asthma, but she wouldn't have died on that fatal night when it was at its highest. And Stephen Holgate called Elis the Canary in the coal mine. The coroner reminds Rosemund of the first inquest, where it suggested she just let it go

for her own sake. So what he said to me at the second inquest is, if I'm goodness you didn't listen to me, but otherwise we actually wouldn't be here. The case makes legal history. The coroner rules that air pollution was one of the causes of Elis' death. She becomes the first person in the

“world to have air pollution listed on her death certificate. How did that feel at the time?”

It was a moment. It was just unbelievable. It's never been done before.

Yeah. I'm so proud of it. It was a relief. When you don't know why your child died, it's very difficult. And as a mother, it gave me an element of peace that I finally knew why she'd gone from being a very healthy child to what happened to her, which was catastrophic. She has siblings. I had to explain to them why the sister they adored was no longer here. I was exhausted. And I now assets that for all she suffered. She didn't die in vain.

After the break, campaigner Rosament

terrified. There was no anything inside those eyes. They turned black. It scared the hell out of me.

“That was your first murder case. Yes, yeah. It's fair to say this was the biggest case here,”

career. Yes. Right. The murder of her child was 12 or more child. Bows it gets. I would think so. People wake up and the woman saw the murder, take place by crevents and the people. Anthony DiPipo showed no signs of remorse, appearing unfazed after being sentenced to the maximum. I said, I'm not guilty. I'll take it to the grave. Listen to the devil's quarry on the iHeart radio app. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

And to hear the devil's quarry add free with exclusive content. Subscribe to love a

for good plus on Apple podcasts.

I love the sounds. The buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans, the announcers calling the place soccer football. It's home. Why do I wash the world cup? That's like asking me,

“why do I breed? I inherited that fandom from my mom. I think watching it will play that.”

It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernando Chavari and this is American Football. I show about soccer culture in the US and it's under dog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great. A soccer game is festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull. It is an American game. The Brazilians don't like hearing that though. Are they the only ones I don't like?

I actually don't know if anybody likes that. As we get ready for the men's world cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the Michael Thuda podcast network, available on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kattby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kattby. Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Mann shared

how she overcame fierce health challenges, I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand post-partner question. I was not prepared for post-partner anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kattby on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're seeking to try to understand the forensic science behind these cases that we hear about

“in the news, body bags is where you need to turn. There's no fluff. We do a deep dive into”

the forensics. Listen to body bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on America's #1 podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search body bags with Joseph Scott Morgan and start listening. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is, getting a racist tattoo removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is. Getting a new one put up in its place. As long as there's a politics of race in America,

there's going to be a politics of remembering the civil war. To get to school, I had to go down Robbyty Lee Boulevard. Get to the grocery store. I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway. If you're in a store in, and you leave out half of what the history is, you're not doing a job. I'm a Keely Hughes. In rebel spirits, season two goes deep on both of those things. The fights, the politics, the people who won, and my personal campaign to add something to the Kentucky

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The second inquest into what happened to Ella did confirm that air pollution was a contributing

factor to her death by asthma. But the coroner went further than that. He said, quote, "The health impacts of air pollution have been acknowledged for many years." His report stated that more should have been done to alert doctors, nurses, and patients to the dangers of air pollution.

people on the streets know they didn't know about air pollution. The government trust me. They

“fought us all the way. And I think people need to question why aren't there more people with it”

on their death certificates? I'm not going to say it's a conspiracy, but I'm going to say that if you went to court, I think they would fight you every inch of the way. The coroner wrote to the health minister, wrote to the transport minister, wrote to all the royal colleges, wrote to the mayor of London's office. He didn't just write to the environment secretary. He didn't see this just an environment issue. No, it's the health issue. But all the departments need to work together

to resolve this. So this is a big thing. This is more than me, more than Ella, more than anyone, and over the last 10 years, especially the amount of research that has come out that has shown the impact people living with all sorts of illnesses. I feel like we have an invisible killer in our mis. It's in our homes, it's on the street. But air pollution was not on my mom Rachel's radar back in the 90s. Similar to Ella, my brother Kitsasma had come out of nowhere. I just remember

when we picked up the death certificate for Kits, and it literally is in black and white, and it

hits you kind of like a slap around the head. It's said bilateral hemorrhagic pneumonia, basically

means lungs shreds bits, you know, and he had to be put on a ventilator with his last attack. He was

“17 and a half months when he died, and he'd had four attacks. Was he bored with reading difficulties?”

He was a really healthy little boy, heaviest of all my babies, and at about 15 months he developed, and again, the oncoming of winter, starting to get infections and codes, and I think it was in September, he had his first attack. That's when the weather changes, and I think it's the second week in September is when most children in this country are admitted to hospital with asthma. It starts to ring bells, doesn't it? Yeah. The similarities, and I think he basically had three attacks

which had us having previously had a normal time parenting. We were running to the doctors, the hospital, and he was hospitalized each time. You want your child to be in the right place at the right time, but it's on a cold November night, at two o'clock in the morning. Is that the right time, you know, to make that dash? It's really difficult. It's that judgment call, and he was a very smiley, gorgeous little boy. Yeah. And he was on steroids for 10 days, and then he came off

because they wanted to see what would happen, and he got an infection, a cold. When he got that last infection, we were at the doctors in the evening, and then he rushed him into hospital in the morning, and he died later that day. And actually none of the medication, the nebuliser, nothing worked. Nothing worked. I'm laughing because it's funny. I'm laughing because I recognize that. And it was just unstoppable. Yeah, and at the end of it, you know, obviously you had an extreme

case. We had an extreme case. We had the full pediatric team in tears. Kit died on November 17th, 1990, at the Wittington Hospital in archway, London. When his death was announced, my parents fell in a heap in the corridors all, but they couldn't stay there. They had to go home to their three and a half year-old son Ben, who just lost his best friend, and didn't understand why or how.

It took a lot of bereavement counselling for my folks to not only get through this time,

but continue to be amazing parents and successful in their own lives and careers.

They only stopped that counselling when they had me, but it didn't mean they stopped thinking

“about how Kit's death came about. I thought the trigger was his infections, and that's what I”

thought for years, and I do think they played a part. But the detail I haven't added. And in a way, it came like a flash to me, really, when I saw you giving interviews after that second inquest, is we were living on a busy road. At the time, my parents, big brother Ben, and little Kit, lived at the top of a hill in high gate, a leafy north London suburb. But the road they lived on was the main artery into the area,

and there would have been loads of cars in both directions every morning and every night. When I saw you doing the interviews, it just added a sort of layer because it just helps you

it's unacceptable because it just goes against how nature is supposed to be. Part of your future, those with that. I think part of your future goes part of that hope goes, and so it's a very difficult thing for people to accept.

“And I think how each person chooses to do that. It's a really important journey.”

Once Rosamund knew what had caused Ella's death, she embarked on the next phase of her journey.

Over 8 million people globally, die each year as a result of air pollution, 40,000 of those people

are in the UK. Women and children are disproportionately represented in those statistics, and so are black people and people of color. Yeah, Ella remains the only person in the world with air pollution on her death certificate. Rosamund has made clean air campaigning her life's work, and she's leading the fight. She's a World Health Organization, Breathe Life Ambassador. She runs the Ella Roberta Foundation, works with respiratory doctors,

and is an honorary fellow at the British Science Association. At its core, all of her work is about asthma and air pollution. I'm just raising awareness about something that's killing all of us. Some more than others, I children who are more vulnerable and they're lungs out fully formed, or the elderly, and I want the government or government's plural to do something about it. In London, Rosamund and Ella's home city. The mayor, Siddik Khan, has cited Rosamund as an

inspiration for his world-leading work to reduce air pollution. And it's working. Levels of nitrogen dioxide, one of the particles that was spiking in Ella's area each time she got sick, almost halfed between 2016 and 2023. And the story has reached everywhere you can possibly think, and what it has done has inspired people in different countries to take action the same way I campaigned here. So that was a positive. The negative thing that I found quite hard to deal with

is very little being done everywhere. Governments know about this now, because all the scientists have

“told them. And I'm like, why aren't they doing more about this? I think it's bad enough knowing,”

for instance, 54 children have died in the last four years through asthma and Anna for that sick, or link to their pollution, the day no child dies from asthma or air pollution, maybe then will be time to give up. But there's much work to do, I'm afraid, on this topic. It's been so great seeing Rosamund and my mum together. It just makes me feel so proud of them both for getting through it. I cannot imagine how it feels to lose a child. Most of us can't.

But I hope it's been a positive experience for them both to meet someone who truly gets it. I mean, it's amazing seeing you because I know you've lived with this for 35 years. I can say to you, the fact that 12 years old I'm sitting here, it's pretty amazing. I just couldn't see how my life was meant to carry on. And there are moments when it can all get too much. I mean, this year, she should have been finishing university and yet here we are talking about her

life list. And especially the first few years, I couldn't imagine 12 years old. I can't imagine

“35 years old. But one thing I do know is you have to learn is what I say to live without your child.”

I mean, the thing that will never change and I use that phrase about learning to live with the loss.

Because you don't get over it, but you do learn to live with it. And the thing that always gets me is I will never see kit story play out and listening to you very movingly describing Ella's ambitions and plans. I mean, kit only had about 30 words when he died. So we hadn't got that far. But actually he was learning everything, loving being a companion to his brother. And I would have loved to have seen how that would have developed. But

you know, we can't. But what I did want to do was to not let his death define us. And not to let our other surviving children have the childhoods that they should have. I just got a very quick question. Do you have other siblings?

Yeah, I got a big brother called Ben who was Mum's first born and then kit came in between,

then me. And then we had a very late surprise or mistake as I like to refer to her Livy Sinfield. So that's my story. Oh, Livy, I wouldn't say that lying down. It was a burn. She doesn't. So my journey has been more about working on the grief.

doing that. But in retirement, I'm actually now coming round full circle and training to be a

bereavement volunteer with bereavement charity because that benefited us so much at the beginning.

“And what are you most proud of both of you after experiencing such a loss?”

I think being a mum. I love my kids. I am proud that I didn't allow elders, illness and subsequent death to cloud everything. I am very proud that I am normal and boring and I manage to continue to have a life and I'm proud that I can smile. I can laugh. I can go to the theatre. I love art. I can still have a normal life, normal friends. I like the fact that I can laugh at myself all the time and I still have my sense of humour. I'm really happy how I've supported my other children

because it could have easily gone so badly wrong. My hope is they will go on to achieve stuff in their own right. But about you mum, can you be proud of being a bit boring? Why you? You said I'm boring. I resonate so much with what you've just said there was one because

“for me it's the worst thing that can happen to you but actually life goes on and I'm very proud”

that we've been able to grasp that. Kids legacy has not been sadness. I will always feel sad about

him but what I love and feel proud of is that he's still part of our family. Absolutely. He died in 1990 but when his older brother got married the celebrant mentioned of kit as the brother in the ceremony. I didn't know that was coming so you can imagine I was in tears. I'm here today you know with my wonderful daughter who came 18 months after he died and I have this opportunity to talk about him. Our other daughter quite often her friends asked me

about her brother and so he is still part of our family and even though his life was short you know the

fact that actually I'm embarking on this journey where I hope I'm going to help other people to be

able to live with their loss with my bereavement counselling journey. I feel very thankful for that fact that he's had that impact. We now live in Cambridge so we have left the area where we live with kit behind but his memories come with us. But Rosamund still lives in the same house 30 metres from London south circular ring road. My children won't move. They won't move. No, I've tried that. They don't want to. I decided not to because I didn't want to upset them and also the hospital is down

the road from us. It's a good example that's no right, there's no wrong way. I think you make your

“own choices and obviously you're focused. Actually if that's what the twins wanted you'd go with”

you go with that but just to say to people there are hundreds of thousands of people who live off the south circular and there are others who live on it by me moving is not going to change it and also no he doesn't change it. I'm not saying they're not impact it but if I had to run her siblings into hospital the way I did here trust you me I would have put my foot down but that's not the case thankfully. In April 2025 a statue of Ella was unveiled in Mansfield Park,

poster home in Lourisham. Her siblings actually made sure the hair was as correct as it could be on the statue literally every plat making sure it was exactly how Ella likes it. Her iconic hair. Yeah I had a moment of being absolutely overwhelmed because Ella died 12 years ago and there was about 300 people there all together and you suddenly think oh my god my child and all these people some I didn't even know came out and it was just overwhelming but it's

such a great thing and statues are there forever and ever we've put her cause of death on the plant. People stop and people read it so when it comes to raising awareness I hope it goes on to remind people all over the world. Air pollution is a health issue and no I don't want to frighten people it's about educating and I need to make this very clear and as asthma it is one of the worst ever recorded in this country so if you have mild asthma or medium asthma and you take

your necessaries you should be okay but air pollution affects everybody unless we all demand

reaching people who wouldn't normally know about that the air you are breathing is killing you

and I can't believe this little child who went I hope my brother and sister my friends don't forget

“me that's what she was really paranoid about because the twins were so young there were five”

when she died. Now people know her Nigerian Tina Peru Brazil Australia I believe that there's no country that this story hasn't touched and I don't even know what madam would have said about that I don't know she just if you wanted her siblings and her friends to remember her and so will the girlfriends or remember Ella and my brother Kitt

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this season we're supporting the charity woman kind worldwide they do amazing work to help women's rights organizations and movements to strengthen and grow if you'd like to find out more or donate to help them secure equal rights for women and girls across the globe you can go to womenkind.org.uk the girlfriend's spotlight is produced by novel for iHeart pop cards for more from novel visit novel dot audio the show is hosted by me Anna Sinfield this episode was written and produced by

Marlia Swarland our assistant producer is Lucy Carr our researcher is Sayana Usaf the editor is Hannah Marshall Max O'Brien and Craig Stracken are our executive producers production management from Joe Savage to re-huston and Charlotte North sound design mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson music supervision by Jacob Tyvich Nicholas Alexander and Anna Sinfield original music composed by Louise Agustine and Gemma Freeman the series artwork was designed

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