England governor, mark carney, warns about the world facing irreversible heating unless firms shift their priorities soon. Raging bush fires are burning out of control across australia, with authorities in the state of victoria saying its now too late for people to evacuate. Temperatures are exceeding a0 degrees in every state. Police investigating the deaths of three british tourists who drowned in a pool in spain on Christmas Eve say it was an accident and that the case can now be closed. Now its time for hardtalk, as Stephen Sackur speaks to Dame Stephanie shirley, one of hundreds ofjewish children smuggled out of nazi occupied europe. Welcome to hardtalk. Im Stephen Sackur. 80 years ago, hundreds of jewish children were smuggled out of nazi occupied europe by train in a covert humanitarian mission which became known as the kindertransport. My guest today, Dame Stephanie shirley, was one of those children. She went on to live an extraordinary life of achievement and philanthropy, blazing a trail for women in business. So, what lessons can we learn from a woman determined to make the most of a life so nearly extinguished in childhood . Dame stephanie shirley, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you for inviting me. Weve invited you almost 80 years exactly 80 years from that moment when you were forced to leave your home. Your father put you on a train, its called the kindertransport, and you ended up in an alien country, in london, in england. What do you remember of that journey . Well, of course, i was only five years old, so all the things that i remember, the childish things. I remember the little boy that kept being sick, i remember losing my doll and then finding her again. And the general what is england, what is happening . I was with my older sister, renata, who was aged nine, so if you think how small a 5 year old is, it was a traumaticjourney and an extraordinary change to a new country, new family, new language, new food, new everything and i think my parents really did a very brave thing because they sent us basically into the arms of strangers. They knew the names of the people who had agreed to foster us and waved us goodbye, thinking never to see us again. And at five, were you in any way able to understand the grave danger that you were in as a little girl your father wasjewish, of course a little girl under nazi occupation . I dont think so. I think one had seen the gradual development of anti semitism so that my sister had had stones thrown at her, my father had lost his job, all these various things one was conscious of. And we became since he didnt have any work quite short of money and it became obvious that the family was in problems, but i thinkjews across europe knew that to remain in nazi europe really was catastrophe. Theres so much to talk about in your extraordinary life and i dont want to telescope it, but i do want to just reflect, at this moment, as we are thinking about the kindertra nsport, i want to reflect on things that you have said where you have always maintained that this journey, the exile, the loss of your home and, indeed, for the most part, your parents although, of course, you were reunited afterwards, but it was never the same relationship again. Youve said that, i constantly was aware that my life had been spared and that i must do something worthwhile with it. Did you even as a child growing up in england, did you feel that . I think the kindertransport experience did several things for me that most of them are lifelong things. As ive mentioned, i came to enormous change and that meant i have learned to manage change, in fact, i Welcome Change and that is very useful to me in a fairly still high tech career. But secondly, even as a 5 , 6 year old, people were saying it is not a good thing to say to children arent you lucky to be saved, arent you lucky to be saved, so i very conscious that i was lucky and, indeed, i was because my foster parents were particularly good. But the feeling that i really needed to justify my existence has driven my life. That was planted early and, in a sense, you reflected on it, almost, what, every day . Yes, i try not to fritter my time away. I am conscious that i still have things that i can do for other people and that is what i aim to do, so i have a wonderful lifestyle, happily married, things are pretty good for me. Well, i promise not to telescope everything in too much of a rush. So, now, let us go back to you as a young girl making your way in this new country, in england. It seems to me you showed a rather remarkable gift for mathematics and it was remarkable in a sense because, at the time, young girls were not really expected to excel in mathematics, they werent really even expected to be interested in it or to even do it. 0h, all the sciences were not really considered suitable for young girls. The only one that was considered respectable was botany, the study of plants. So, you ended up, i think because your foster parents saw quite early that you had a talent for a while, you ended up actually going to a boys school for mathematics. Yes you can imagine what fun that was. And then you sort of had to study at night school to become more of a specialist. You really had to push to get the education that you clearly benefited from. Yes, but i love to learn, i love to do new things, and so that was no hardship as far as i was concerned. I reallyjust studied, i knew i had to get good results in order to get out of poverty and. | went for it. You went for it, and you, at the age of 18, got yourfirstjob and ive written this down because it sort of amuses me because it sounds so sort of 19405 or 50s, i guess it would be then, the post Office Research station at dollis hill in london. Oh, you should not sneer that was very a World Renowned Research station so, what was your role . I worked on the first electronic Telephone Exchange at Highgate Wood and the one that everyone remembers me for the premium bond computer, ernie. Yes, now, you are using the word computer. In those days, computers were a thing most people. Im in a Computer Museum are you . Because you were on the cutting edge of. Very early on. Britain adopting computers, coming to terms with what computers could do and you, after this, as you say, it was actually quite a high tech job at the post office. You then went into the private sector at icl. You spent a couple of years there, but this is what intrigues me about that you say that you discovered, at icl which was, again, at the time, was a leading technology company. Oh, it was our national pride. Yes. You said, i discovered what is now known as the Glass Ceiling. It was an excellent company, but i felt unable to grow the kernels that were in me. So, what did you mean at the time by Glass Ceiling . I think i was getting soft, mild discrimination. Women did not do this, no, i could not apply for promotion there, no, it was not suitable for me to be talking about marketing, i was technical, and generally feeling that i was not allowed to expand from being a technical person to what i became, a manager. I hope a good manager, ive really worked very hard at that. But the fact that doors were closed or were very, very hard to open really made me quite assertive, aggressive i believe in equal pay, i will carry my own things, i will do my own things, and that set a tone perhaps for what was going on in the rest of the world. Well, were now talking about the late 19505 and the very, very early 1960s, a time when perhaps the word feminism was just beginning to be used it probably still was not a word they were terribly familiar with