Jacqueline Paine

BBC Radio Manchester Reporter. Send me your story. Personal views. RTs not endorsements.

[Jacqueline Paine @jpaine951]

@BennnySunshine @hallaboutafrica I love South Africa and visited Durban with my family in 2023 - we were totally shocked at what we saw compared with how the city is portrayed in the guidebooks.

[NUJ @NUJofficial]

The BBC contributed £6.7bn to the UK economy and supported 79,000 jobs in 24/25.

Public service broadcasting generates unrivalled economic and cultural value. It’s clear we must prevent further cuts and #BackTheBBC. If you agree, sign our joint petition:
https://t.co/I8dZYTwjhG

[Rock Photography @Photomusicrock]

Playing AC/DC’s music in retirement facilities is the way!

[. @jdpoc]

"I paid off my mortgage at 37"

I actually read the story, so I'll add ...

".. by simply selling the other two properties I co-owned with my second very wealthy husband, that my dad helped me to buy in the first place."

[VisionaryVoid @VisionaryVoid]

The Woman Who Broke the Barrier Nobody Noticed.

On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister ran a mile in under four minutes. The world lost its mind. Twenty-three days later, a 21-year-old chemistry student named Diane Leather ran a mile in 4:59.6 at the Midland Championships in Birmingham, he first woman ever to break five minutes. The world barely looked up from its newspaper.

Leather had only started running two years earlier, inspired by watching the 1952 Olympics on television. She joined the Birchfield Harriers in Birmingham, trained under coach Doris Nelson Neal, and within months became the national cross-country champion. By 1954, she was rewriting what was considered physically possible for women over distance, a feat medical experts of the era openly doubted could be done safely.

She didn't stop at one barrier. Leather broke her own record five times, lowering it to 4:45 by the end of 1955, a mark that stood for seven years. But here's the thing: the IAAF refused to officially recognize the women's mile as an event until 1967. Her times were classified as "world bests," not world records. The Olympics didn't even include a women's 1500m until 1972.

Leather retired from running at 27, married, moved to Cornwall, and spent decades working in social care. It took until 2013, nearly sixty years, for her to be inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame. She died in 2018 at age 85.

Bannister got a knighthood. Leather got a footnote. History has a way of losing things in plain sight.

[Michael Crick @MichaelLCrick]

@MattChorley Actually, Matt, I think you'll find that in Manchester most people think London in Britain's second city.

[Michael Crick @MichaelLCrick]

Brilliant. Why can't we all be like that?

[Helen Lewis @helenlewis]

Going to show this tweet to every woman worried about asking for a pay rise

[BBC Kent @BBCRadioKent]

Dozens of shrink-wrapped packs of bottled water have been thrown away by South East Water in Tonbridge.

More here: https://t.co/mKmAUwHJ3T

[Press Gazette @pressgazette]

Telegraph declines to say how fake banker story got published but says it ‘lost confidence’ after issue with images became clear

There was speculation the article had been written using AI but Press Gazette confirmed a journalist spoke to a 'case study' https://t.co/OL9sED1DjB

[Harriet Harman @HarrietHarman]

Suella Braverman asked for my help to get mat leave when she was Attorney General. As first pregnant AG she needed new rights. (I helped ofc, she took mat leave and returned to govt office) Depressing she now plans roll-back of rights for aother women! https://t.co/TtGf7qVD2E

[Max Burns @themaxburns]

The FBI retrieved this footage from Nancy Guthrie's Nest camera even though she didn't have a subscription. Which suggests Nest cameras are always recording and retaining content even when users aren't subscribed to that service.

[Press Gazette @pressgazette]

Named: 50 ‘experts’ and linked brands publishers should treat with extreme caution! https://t.co/5MXQQenRtk

[Andy Burnham @andyburnham]

Greater Manchester was the first place to introduce a £2 cap on bus fares in September 2022. 🐝

To help our residents, we will be keeping it in place for the whole of 2026. 🙌🏻

[Jacqueline Paine @jpaine951]

@GunnarLotsberg Hi Gunnar I’m a journalist at the BBC World Service. I’m trying to reach you about a story I am working on. Please can you get in touch: [email protected]
Many thanks.

[A Street Near You @AStreetNearYou]

#OnThisDay 28 October 1925 the Ashton-in-Makerfield Wesleyan Church - WW1 war memorial in #Ashton-in-Makerfield, #GreaterManchester was dedicated. This memorial includes two #FirstWorldWar names #warmemorials100 https://t.co/ml16urVkZT

[. @jdpoc]

it’s a 2 minute radio program, never repeated, broadcast 18 times a week.

Bigger audience than Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon … combined.

Millions listen, with no need for the information it gives. Just to listen.

The BBC Shipping Forecast is 100 years old.

[Hiroshi Suzuki @AmbJapanUK]

Boddingtons
Cream of Manchester
“By’eck, it’s gorgeous”!!!

[Hiroshi Suzuki @AmbJapanUK]

Huge congratulations on signing of Sister City Agreement between Osaka City @yokoyama_hide 🇯🇵 🤝　& Greater Manchester @AndyBurnhamGM 🇬🇧!! This fantastic partnership will drive forward 🇯🇵🇬🇧 growth & prosperity into the future 👍

[Lily Craven @TheAttagirls]

Woman of the Day champion rally driver and driving instructor Rosemary Smith born OTD 1937 in Dublin couldn’t read a map and never took a driving test but she could drive like a demon. She competed in some of the world’s toughest events
and reversed over the Khyber Pass. Well, needs must.

“Well, you risk a certain amount in rallies. Cars slide straight on in the snow and you miss trees by inches —that sort of carry-on. But if you do it, you’ve got to expect these things.”

At age 11, Rosemary was taught to drive the family Vauxhall by her car dealer father and mastered the art of the power slide in muddy fields. A power slide is a controlled sideways slide by oversteering the car so that the rear wheels lose traction as the car turns and it requires precise throttle and steering control. It came in handy two years later when her mother accidentally electrocuted herself and Rosemary had to drive her at high speed to the doctor for treatment.

At 15, she added a year to her age and paid ten shillings for a driving licence, no test required. Driving tests were not introduced in Ireland until 1964.

Rosemary and school didn’t get on, or more precisely, she and the Loreto nuns at high school. Her father removed her when the Mother Superior informed him “Your daughter is stupid.” She went to Grafton Academy of Design instead but left to follow a career in modelling and dress designing and her introduction to rally driving was by chance. The wife of a local Monte Carlo rally winner needed a navigator alongside her for a rally in Kilkenny but she wasn’t a great driver and Rosemary was hopeless at map-reading so they swapped places. They won the ladies’ class and beat most of the men.

In 1960, they competed in the 2,400 mile UK RAC Rally but it was Rosemary’s entry in the 1962 Monte Carlo rally in a Sunbeam Rapier that caught the eye of a car manufacturer that offered to make her a professional rally driver. A string of successes followed. In 1966 she won the Coupe des Dames in the Monte Carlo Rally but was later disqualified. She felt it was a “disgrace” and on “very shaky grounds” when the French organisers said her headlights were “not regulation”.

Rosemary entered the 10,373-mile 1968 London to Sydney Rally in a Lotus Cortina but the pistons packed up reducing engine power when she tried to go up the Khyber Pass in first gear so, remembering what her father told her - “If a car won't go forward, it'll go in reverse” - she did that stage of the rally in reverse gear, all 33 miles of it. Snow, ice, gravel, forest dirt-tracks: nothing held her back.

When she and her navigator were proceeding along a little gravel road in the middle of the night through the Andes during the 1970 London-Mexico rally, they were held up by bandits on horseback. “Suddenly, I heard horses coming down the hill and these men showed up with scarves across their faces. When they saw we were women, they got off their horses and moved the rocks. Some of the other cars were stopped and money was taken from them. It was frightening at the time, but they were very nice to us.”

Racing cars was Rosemary’s life. "I've been engaged five times, and every time the man involved has been very interested in my driving…until discussions arise about married life, and it is obvious that I would have to give up the driving. Hence, five broken engagements.” She did get married once but knew it was a mistake. “I should never have got married. I cancelled the wedding twice before I went ahead with it.”

In 1978, she set an Irish speed record of 178mph in a Jaguar Chevrolet on a race track in Cork but gradually moved away from competitive racing, opening a driving school in 1998 although the lure of a fast car remained.

In 2015, she tripped while attending a function in England and broke her collarbone. On her return to Ireland, she had an X-ray and her arm was put in a sling but as soon as she learned that for insurance reasons she couldn’t drive in a sling, she took it off and competed in the Tulip Rally, a Dutch rally for classic cars.

On 10 May 2017, Rosemary became the oldest person to test-drive a Renault F1 car, reaching a speed of 160mph. She was 79. She died in 2023, aged 86.

“I always feel free when I’m in the car…There’s just me and the car against the world.”