From Baroness Neuberger DBE, known to PFT as Rabbi Julia:

"I was guest preacher at the twentieth anniversary service of the Mary Ann Evans hospice in Nuneaton on Sunday afternoon, and met staff and carers, patients and local dignitaries. The hospice is in the grounds of the George Eliot hospital- Mary Ann Evans being George Eliot’s real name. Both the palliative care consultant and I quoted George Eliot, a writer who gets insufficient attention in Warwickshire, her home county, because William Shakespeare was born there too. Yet she had something important to say.

Hospices are hugely popular charities in the UK- communities support, fundraise and volunteer for their local hospices. But we are still bad at helping people who are bereaved. Bereavement counsellors are great, but what about the rest of us? People still cross the street because they don’t know what to say. We have no form of words to express sympathy, like the Irish “I’m sorry for your troubles”. I’d love us to change that, so that people who have lost a loved one get greeted and supported by acquaintances, as well as friends and family. If we succeeded in changing that, we would have carried out one of George Eliot’s famous ‘unhistoric acts’.

Her novel Middlemarch ends: “...for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

Being more supportive to people who have lost a loved one would be a truly ‘unhistoric act’. We wouldn’t make our names, we wouldn’t be in the history books- we’d just make life better for so many people. We’d greet them and support them and mark the first Christmas, the first birthday, the first anniversary with them, quietly, privately. No fame attached. But it must be worth doing."

Today's show was dedicated to anyone who has finally managed to convince someone the right way to go.

Richard Todd from Weybridge in Surrey who chose the Big Screen Belter

Olivia Riley from Chipping Norton whose Auntie Karen picked her up from Rainbows last night

Sam McGlashan from Barnoldswick who is going to be a mascot at the Leeds v Arsenal match tonight

Jan Jefferies from Staffordshire who chose the Golden Oldie

Gary Barlow from Take That who was our co-host

Baroness Julia Neuberger who gave us reason to Pause for Thought