How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S10, Ep4 How to Fail: Emma Barnett

Episode Date: February 24, 2021

Emma Barnett is the presenter of BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, a gifted broadcaster whose forensic interviewing style has reduced politicians to gibbering wrecks and whose compassion and insight can move listeners to tears. She's also the author of Period: It’s About Bloody Time, a book borne out of her own experience of living with painful endometriosis which for years went undiagnosed. At the time of recording, her book was about to come out in paperback, but that's been pushed back to 8th July because, well, pandemic. Link to buy / pre-order is below!Emma joins me to talk about the ingrained sexism that means so-called 'women's issues' are concealed by misplaced shame, as well as how her failure to get pregnant for two-and-a-half years led her to a dark place. It is one of the most honest conversations I've ever had about fertility, from someone who has truly walked that path. Plus, she admits to getting bored easily by repetitive conversations and failing to live in the moment enough...and I mean, DON'T WE ALL?I first interviewed Emma on a Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. This episode of How to Fail is sponsored by Misoma, my go-to jewelry brand. Now, I was introduced to Misoma by a very, very close friend of mine, and I have barely gone a day without wearing a piece of their jewelry since. They really are amazing and Miss Soma know that every piece of jewellery a woman wears tells a part of her story, her successes, her celebrations and of course her failures. The earrings she bought with her first paycheck, the surprise pick-me-up present from her best friend after that rubbish breakup,

the matching bracelets they got on that wild holiday, refusing to take them off for months. As we grow, so too does our armour. From past loves to career milestones, morning to night, we wear our treasured moments, knowing they have shaped the person we have become. Misoma are on a mission to build a more confident, creative and collaborative world, are on a mission to build a more confident, creative and collaborative world, starting a chain reaction, one link at a time. I'm thrilled to share to all listeners of How to Fail a very exclusive 15% off now when you use ElizabethDay15 on Misoma.com. Thank you very much to Misoma. Before we get on with today's episode, I just wanted to tell you that I have written a new novel. It's called Magpie and it is available for pre-order now.

The blurb that someone else wrote, far better than I could have done, says that it is a thrilling, stylish and psychologically astute story of jealousy, motherhood and power. And I would also add that it's full of envy and intrigue and macaroni cheese. There is a whole scene centred around macaroni cheese and how you should best cook it. I finished writing it during the first national lockdown. And honestly, I think that writing that novel kind of saved me in many ways it really helped me through a very very difficult time and I hope that it will help you as well I hope that you will want to read it I hope very much that you might consider pre-ordering it because that does

make an enormous difference to us authors you can pre-order it on probably like any website that you might think of pre-ordering it on. I don't want to name the one that we're all kind of meant to hate, but it's on that one. And it's also on the fantastic Bookshop.org website, bookshop.org. They support independent bookshops. You can pre-order it there. It is out on the 2nd of September. So I hope it's not too long to wait. Hopefully by then we'll be able to sit on park benches and play outdoor tennis and do all sorts of exciting things whilst also reading Magpie by Elizabeth Day or listening to it on audio. I would love it if you wanted to pre-order it. I'd be incredibly grateful. And without further ado, I will stop waffling on

and get on with the episode. It's a good one. Hello, and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger, because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. My guest today is one of the great interviewers of our time, which would make her wildly intimidating, but luckily she's also a person who matches her intelligence and insight with her warmth and wit.

She is an award-winning broadcaster who has presented everything from election debates to Newsnight, who has reduced to a gibbering wreck everyone from Jeremy Corbyn to a man who confessed to catcalling sixth formers in the street. And she's a former newspaper agony aunt who has just taken the helm at one of Radio 4's most venerable institutions, Women's Hour. She is, of course, Emma Barnett. Barnett was raised in Manchester, where she attended the Manchester High School for Girls. A photo of her celebrating three A's at A-level, including one of the top marks for RE in the country, made the pages of newspapers at the time. Much to her embarrassment, I'm sure, although she seems hardly to have aged in the country, made the pages of newspapers at the time. Much to her embarrassment, I'm sure,

although she seems hardly to have aged in the interim. She studied history and politics at the University of Nottingham and her interest in both has never waned. Renowned for her forensic, calm and polite interview style, one journalist recently praised her dogged pursuit of logic and her fearless discussion of taboo subjects. One of those subjects is menstruation. Barnett's highly acclaimed book, Period, It's About Bloody Time, is just out in paperback. Endorsed by Jennifer Saunders, who said, I wish this book had been written before I stopped having them. The book was born out of Barnett's own experience of painful endometriosis.

I first interviewed Emma on a How to Fail live tour in Salford last year, but I had so many requests asking for her to come back and for her pearls of wisdom to be recorded for posterity that I am delighted we get to welcome her today. Emma, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you so much. What an introduction. I don't feel we need to say anything. I'll just leave it at that before I mess it up. No, you have to stay because this is the closest to a Christmas party that I'm going to get. We are recording on the 22nd of December and I have a glass of champagne here. And I understand that you are joining me in a celebratory beverage. I am.

And as a radio woman, a radio lover and fellow presenter, I thought what a better sound than, hang on, yes, yes, so well timed. So I'm on Prosecco but I think that means I can drink twice as much. A hundred percent, cheers to you and thank you for allowing me to do this a few days before Christmas, this is such a nice way to celebrate the end of the year. It hundred percent. Cheers to you. And thank you for allowing me to do this a few days before Christmas. This is such a nice way to celebrate the end of the year. It's lovely. It's so nice. As we mentioned in the introduction, you seem to have a penchant for talking about the taboo, for things that have stigma around them and for going where other people would feel slightly uncomfortable. Are you drawn to saying the unsaid I think I am I mean I do like raw honesty and that's why I've been a big fan of your work

the way you write and also what you do here on the podcast with your guests and I like to ask questions that I think people are thinking of and And I always say that radio, especially live radio at its best, is like conversation on steroids. All the boring bits that you don't want in, cut out. I mean, you've got the joy of this not being live, so you can cut out all the boring bits that I say, possibly that bit included. But the best thing, you know,

sometimes when I find myself at a party, you know, when we used to have those things, and you can see that the conversation is taking this huge nosedive or people are just, I don't know, throttling each other with boring platitudes. I just launch a question or a thought into the room or around the table. And my husband says, please don't do it. I can see what you're doing. You're starting to do that thing where you just think it's got a bit boring and you want to liven it up. And I think it comes from that ever since I was a child I just want it to be as interesting as possible if I can do and that doesn't mean it's about me it's actually the opposite usually it's

trying to get to what somebody might not be saying not because I think they should share something they don't want to share but I think so often the most important question is how are you and you say it at the beginning of the conversation straight after hello and you don't give a real But I think so often the most important question is, how are you? And you say it at the beginning of the conversation straight after hello. And you don't give a real answer. And it takes sometimes, I don't know, hours with a friend to actually say, how are you? And they answer. Such a good point.

And I have to say, you know, I'm lucky enough that you're a dear friend of mine. and you're one of the few people who does check in just now and then on how you're feeling. And it never comes with a weight of responsibility to answer on my part. being about sincerely wanting to know how someone is, but also understanding that it doesn't have to be reciprocal in the way that you want it, that it's actually about the other person, who they are and what kind of friend they can be. I've said that in an incredibly ineloquent way, but I think I've just realized this year that actually friendship relies on someone accepting you for who you are. And that sounds so basic. But I think a lot of the time, we as women and possibly men feel guilty that we're not being the right kind of friend. Yes. And I also think the thing that I really struggle with, and it's interesting,

you talked about pressure there, is I really am not built for the text age. So, you know, people who send very long WhatsApp messages and really are able to communicate very well on that. When I'm online, I can do that quick fire exchange where you're actually making each other laugh and bouncing. It's more like a phone call. But the thing I'm not good at is with certain friends who just won't pick up the phone. I don't understand why we can't do something proper in five minutes that might take a protracted few days on a crappy message app you know I just want to understand how you are what's really going on and you know maybe I want to tell you what's going on with me properly and I feel you know that art of

proper conversation is really why I love what I do and I love listening to podcasts like this you see I hate the phone. This is so interesting. So I'm so glad that I'm still your friends because I hate phone conversations, but I really like text. And I think it's because I always feel under pressure to perform, to be the person that the other person on the other end of the line wants me to be. And I've realized that that's no way to pursue a friendship, that actually, you both have to be able to be completely yourselves. You do give good sex to each other. I'm so proud. I'm so proud.

I promise I wouldn't come back for more if that wasn't the case. But I'm so fascinated by how you deal with awkwardness because I, as an interviewer, find it criminally cringeworthy in my own psyche when I know that I have to ask a question that my guests won't want me to ask. And I need to do that on behalf of the audience and the listeners. But you're so good at that. Do you ever feel awkward or embarrassed in an interview scenario? Of course you feel awkward. I mean, I think there's different types of awkwardness, aren't there? There's questions where it's, for instance, with people who hold power on behalf of the public, like our elected

officials, politicians, sometimes they're not elected, bureaucrats, all those sorts of roles, where actually I don't feel any awkwardness whatsoever. This is the question that needs to be asked and we're going to stick with it till we get an answer that is adequate to the question, you know, not the question they'd like to be asked the question that they have been asked. Where it obviously gets more awkward is if you know that that person what you're asking isn't really fair, or right. And actually, I'm not in that position that often, because I feel the terms of engagement around what we're talking about whoever that person is is usually quite clear where it can be frightening and I was trying

to think of a specific example so it's always good and this is quite a punchy example but just bear with me on this Charlie Elphick was a conservative MP and he's now in prison for sexual assault and he came onto my programme, my Radio 5 Live programme and he was on our MPs panel which is a weekly thing we do before Prime Minister's Questions on a Wednesday and it's a very robust panel, it's also quite good humoured, it's actually in a way you see and hear MPs sometimes in ways you don't see or hear them elsewhere because they're in a group together. I've done, you know, more than 200 of these. And it's interesting to get to know people through them a bit. But I remember he came on the panel and I spoke to my editor before because at this point he'd been arrested, he'd been charged, but he hadn't had his court case.

And it was controversial that day because the day before he'd been restored the whip. And it was controversial that day because the day before he'd been restored the whip. So the Conservative Party had taken his right to vote with the Conservative Party, a very basic definition of the whip there, away from him. So he was now an independent MP until his court case. But he was controversially given that privilege back because Theresa May needed his vote, needed him to vote for her Brexit deal, whatever stage it was at at that point. There were so many bloody votes. And I felt we needed to tell the audience why this guy had just been admitted back into the Tory party. But obviously, he hadn't yet had a trial. Do you see how awkward this is that I have to flag to the listeners that the man in front of me, you know, it's quite a complicated thing anyway to explain but it is my job to do that has just been allowed back into the

Tory party and lots of people did not feel comfortable about it at the time because of the precedent and all sorts of things but there was nothing about his guilt and I would never cast any aspersions before a court case anyway I have to say he went on several other programs that day and it was not raised we were the only ones who did it and I remember just before doing it was right at the end of the panel which is often when you leave those sorts of questions as you all know and I just said do you think it's appropriate that you have been admitted back into the Conservative Party something like this when you are still pending your court case on your sexual assault charges which by the way came from

you know somebody who'd worked with him so it was pertaining to his job all the color went out of his face you know this is all on public record you can look it up and he was absolutely incandescent with rage that I had mentioned this but it was totally in the public interest and what's interesting is he left the room and I never really do this I never sort of say these things afterwards but I remember it and I thought I won't forget this because of how worried I was and also his reaction and he was furious I mean beyond furious with indignation that I dared bring this up and I stand by it he's now in prison and I think it was the right thing to do but that required some nerves and I thought it was the right thing to do but that required some nerves and I thought it was a good example of a really difficult one. And difficult as well because as you say you'd

sort of got to know him and I know that it's a point of principle for you that you are not friends with politicians outside of your work environment but do you care if people like you? It's very very important to me that I am the type of journalist because of the type of work that I do, that I'm not doing it to make friends. So there's a few parts to your question, really. But in the clearest sense, of course, I'd love to be friends with, I don't know, Margaret Atwood, or I don't know who else have we had on, Hilary Mantel or Malala or all these people, but I can't.

I've got to reserve the right to ask them things that I know will not make me very popular with them or perhaps even the people who follow them or like them. So I've developed a talent for being disliked if it's necessary. And I say a talent because it is something you've got to get better at. It's not natural, is it? No no that's a really good point actually that you can build up that muscle of

being disliked in the same way that you can build up resilience and that's a very very good lesson do you think because I know you're an only child and again this is probably an impossible question because it's kind of counterfactual but do you think that some of that confidence comes from being an only child? So not having a sibling that you had to compete with or worry about who was being loved or loved more at any given moment? I remember reading your book and reading about your relationship with siblings and how that impacted you, actually. I really remember that because I'm fascinated by siblings. They're like this foreign species to me. You know, I don't understand them. And I'm really quite at a loss about how the relationships work.

I do think when you're an only child, it's, of course, going to be difficult for me, as you say, to answer, I didn't have something. So how was that? But what I know I did have compared to others is I ate every meal with adults that conversation and that sort of inclusion from a very early age does lead you I mean let's be honest probably to be quite also precocious in your view of what you think your stake is or importance in that chat because I I'll tell a story against myself always good I remember us being on holiday and we randomly bumped in to a friend of one of our teachers at school I do not know how my mother

made this connection but she did and I was probably around seven and I've had this hate for years and it obviously goes about as young as seven hence the word precocious I hate repetition I just hate it I hate it when people tell you the same thing like more than once and I also hate it especially when they go I know I've probably told you this and then they proceed to still bloody tell you even when you're going yes you have do it again and then they do it again and when I was about seven this woman on holiday and it's become a bit of a family joke, said a story. It was all right. Don't really remember what it was about.

And then she said the story again. And she began it again. And I had no idea as to why she was going to tell this quite mediocre story again. And I remember piping up. But in the spirit of actually being helpful, I said, oh, you've actually already told us that story. And my mother looked at me. And if looks could have killed, I would be dead. And I just don't know if that's part of the confidence

that comes from sitting with adults all the time. I thought, why is she doing that again? My poor woman. But do you feel impatience when, for instance, someone's repeating a nice thing to you again and again? So when your husband is saying I love you is there an impatience to that are you like I already know that so let's move on no sorry I mean obviously praise and love can't come often enough that's a very welcome repeat

visitor but I don't actually love it even if it is a nice story about my childhood to hear it again and again and again no I'm so hungry for new stories and information in my private life that it probably is the best job for me to be in half the time although you know there is value in traditions and stories I'm not saying there isn't but you asked me where I get it from some of it may just be I don't know a bit innate or maybe I'm just northern and rude I don't know do you reread books no me neither there's not enough time there's so much unread to read that's a really good question I know I don't I mean I've reread passages when I've wanted to quote something or see it again

but the thought of why would you watch something if you know how it ends yeah I break the promise for four weddings and the funeral four weddings and a funeral I've seen it too many times I think that and Ferris Bueller's Day Off they're the two films that I have watched the most in my life well they're just cozy aren't they funny and cozy and make you feel like you can just smile no matter what's going on we will get on to your failures I've got one final question, which is about Women's Hour, because I know that you haven't started yet. We're recording, confusingly, before you started, but this will go live after you've started. I suppose I want to know how you're

feeling about it, but also the perennial question, which I'm sure you've had to answer 5,000 times already, which is why there is still space for a programme called Women's Hour when we live in such a non-binary age where we welcome opinions and interests from all genders. So a twofold question for you, how are you feeling about it and what's its point? I think it's a great gift to have a new opportunity. And I say that with the fullness of context of the year that we've had and the year that we're going into where a lot of people won't have work don't have work don't have opportunity a lot of younger people in particular trying to hustle you know like you and I have done continued to do

won't be able to do so in person all those sorts of things I feel that it's a great gift to have a new project and a new opportunity and one that so many people care about you know millions of people still tune in live or via the podcast Woman's Hour turns 75 years old in the year I take it on it's just a good old age I think that speaks volumes about its place and its journalism and I think journalism really does run at the core of it I've been reading back into its history and looking through the archives. And, you know, it's an absolute treasure trove. You'd love it. So that's how I feel. It's a gift and it's exhilarating.

And I chose my words really carefully when I was asked to give a quote about when it was released that I was joining, which was that I really do feel like I'm going to get to know a lot of people over a long period of time now. Listeners are a family and they have to take to me. Some of them will not feel like that about me at the start, just like they didn't on Five Live. I mean, when I left Five Live at the end of, as it will be when people hear this, last year, I got an email from this guy who said, I absolutely hated you when joined you know your voice your style your interviews and now I'm a devotee you know and that's the thing radio especially live radio but also audio it's so personal isn't it it goes into people's ears it's a huge privilege that they choose to spend time with you now you could say

oh I've just had the station on Radio 4 or Radio 5 for the last 20 years and I'm not changing it. And it's an accident that you're in my ears. But for a lot of people, it's family and it's connection. And I think in the year we've just had, it's really come into its own, that whole space. So I feel exhilarated and I feel ready to get to know lots of people

and them to get to know me and tell me things if they feel they can and want to and shout things and and all of that in terms of women's hour itself i actually turn again to the archive because a little known fact for you elizabeth and your listeners there was something called women's hour in 1923 to 1924 and it was when the BBC didn't have television just one station just radio and it was this idea that women needed something to listen to but also it was pioneering it got all sorts of in quotation marks we don't find this pioneering now but real women onto the radio and there was a whole thing about our voices and the microphone and was it right to hear a woman's

voice and all of this and what I would say is they canned it after a year for various reasons but they realized when they did a review that once it was gone the issues that women's hour was committed to making sure it always gave attention to properly were no longer covered by the network and so what I would say is it's a guaranteed place the live hour a day a live bit of radio every single day bar Sunday that you are guaranteed will have your back and a third of the listeners are men but it will ask questions it will shine a light it will look if it's doing its job properly, at things that may not always be looked at in the way that it's being looked at. And I think for that, it has survived

and should continue to thrive. Great answer. Because if it wasn't there, there wouldn't be that space. Exactly. And I think if I may be as bold to say, people like you and I owe a great debt to that coming on the airwaves in the 1940s because actually the debate around whether women should be there and the space and the voice and the microphone and all those things that sound really quaint and odd now were real and while it was created for a mother to deal with after nursing baby it was on at two o'clock in those days which in itself is quite almost sexist now to us but was just women's lives it was also charting that moment the women went into the workplace and I think it's always been

a mirror to society and people like us who take having a microphone for granted really do stand on the shoulders of that and I think still value that. I mean they got listeners used to our shrill little voices, apart from anything else. No, I'm joking. I totally agree with you. We do owe a great debt to that. And actually talking about quote unquote women's issues, and I use that very broadly and slightly tongue in cheek, brings us onto your failures. And I'm so glad, Emma, that you have stuck so true to yourself to talking about things that don't often get talked about and that carry misplaced shame and stigma with them in your failures if I could start

with your failure which actually was your second one but I just want to flip the order just to keep you on your toes which is your large glass now so it's good for this bit excellent. Take a sip. It's your failure to get diagnosed with endometriosis for 21 years. Why did it take so long? Just the public service broadcaster in me wants to say at this point, endometriosis is a condition where tissues that look like the womb that should leave your body during your period do not and stay inside your body, build up, cause lesions and all sorts of difficult issues. And the hallmark of endometriosis is pain. It's not the same for everyone and the pain can vary and it can be all the time, some of the time, during sex, all sorts of things. And another issue is fertility. So for me, in answer to this question, I was so ashamed that I actually didn't even know how to spell the word or pronounce it when I was diagnosed with it but my whole menstruating life which had been from the

age of 10 starting in a very very cold toilet in House of Fraser in Manchester on the first floor I believe and my whole life menstruating was hell actually know, it really was not normal, close to blacking out, very, very ill, terrible tummy in terms of stomach to do with going to the loo. Everything was awful connected to it. And then I'd sort of be all right for two or three weeks and then it'd begin again. When I got my period, I remember my mum saying, oh, yeah, you're like me. You're like your grandma. We're just unlucky. That's how it it goes and that's the pill I swallowed because that's the pill she'd swallowed and I saw some people on the NHS and also twice privately over the years just to say is this how it has to be and was prescribed very strong painkillers

it just didn't touch the sides so you know there's all sorts of moments in my life that I can chart by where I was having a terrible period. You know, I remember a press trip to New York where I was interviewing the CEO of some media company when I used to cover media tech. And I mean, I nearly blacked out in front of this guy in the room, you know, those plush sort of suites and hotels where you go and interview someone. I remember when and I know we're going to come on to this, but when my husband and I started for a baby I said to him oh this isn't going to go well and he thought oh Sam is usual usual pragmatism slash pessimism perhaps coming in here could we perhaps just enjoy this stage of our life which is essentially a time where you have to try lots to have a baby which means sex and I said oh yeah I'm definitely up for enjoying it but it's not going to work and it was really weird at that

moment I kind of voiced something I'd been hiding for years which was I didn't think my body worked properly and I didn't know why and that was it I asked at every doctor's appointment whenever I changed a pill or tried something new oh is there anything I could do it's still pretty bad but I'd never describe it never try to vocalize it and I think that's another major issue which you know I've looked into for the book but also for myself which is it's actually very hard to describe pain yeah generally like the language of pain is very difficult but once I had this absolutely lightning bulb moment with my friend or light bulb I should say that's for a second uh light bulb moment with my friend who happens to be an obstetrician all right we were at breakfast

together and I'm sitting to one side and she said sit up what are you doing sit up we're having breakfast and I said oh I can never sit up it's my period she said what do you mean and this is like a dear friend I've never really mentioned that I suffered periods with it's all quite stoic about it if I could be and she said well what do you mean and I told her first time I sort of tried to describe this dragging feeling down to the center of the earth that I had that my legs would go all things I just never thought to vocalize and she said have you ever thought you've got something called endometriosis I said I don't know what you're talking about and it was awful because we've been trying for a baby with limited success and in her gentle wisdom she hadn't mentioned that she'd also put

that together at that point and I went home and I opened my computer I didn't do it on the phone because I didn't want to do it on the move and she said first thing she said don't read Hilary Mantel's essays on it it will freak you out and obviously the first thing I did was read Hilary Mantel's essays and her life has just been blackened by this everything she's achieved she says in the teeth of this disease which really stuck out to me because teeth is quite a brilliant word for pain and that was it I pushed on to see someone but I really want to stress this you can only be diagnosed through a procedure called a laparoscopy where they have keyhole and they look in you we can talk about that moment but I think that's

very important a lot of people come up to me saying I think I've got this but you don't know till you know and then when you know is it comparatively easily treatable no there's no cure and there is no treatment per se there are things you can do which have helped certain women for instance the hormonal coil can help people but it's quite a roulette you put it inside you and it can also obviously as it does with regular women disagree with you quite violently and if you're already having a bad time it's I find that I haven't done it yet I'm too scared to it's quite frightening prospect you are also told in a nice bit of irony try having a baby that might help but endometriosis can make it very difficult to have children and then some

women were very lucky and I love them for getting this but if they do manage that hurdle of having a child they sometimes find having a child actually helps and then some people as people may have read, have to or feel they have to, but again, to stress, it's not a cure, go down the route like Lena Dunham of having a hysterectomy. One of the things that is so brilliant about your book is that you expose all these myths around menstruation, from the idea that during the Second World War, female pilots were routinely stopped from flying if they had period pain, to the notion that menstruating women can curdle

mayonnaise and ruin wine. And there's a quote that I would really love to read from your book, which I think just goes to the heart of why it's important that we're having these conversations, which reads, the bogus presumptions about menstruating women are tragically not confined to the history books, namely that we are weak, dirty, unhinged, less than, and just different. At the heart of this lingering stigma is the idea that we are unequal to our male counterparts. Women then ingest these views and appropriate them as our own. Emma, did you feel that? And if you felt that, and you say that you felt shame over your heavy, painful periods, how did you get from shame to this level of openness? Do you know what? I've never felt shame about it, which is why I ended

up writing a bloody book about blood periods and women's health and I think what I felt shame about to be clear is the fact that someone like me who actually can I believe advocate not just for myself but for other people and try to through the work that I do on air couldn't get a diagnosis I was also essentially fobbed off by the medical establishment not because anyone was trying to do me harm but because I just either didn't vocalize it well enough didn't feel it was important enough and I also think which I discuss in the book that we've got this very interesting psychology in this country with the NHS whereby it's the most incredible thing ever we're incredibly grateful for it but because it's free to access at the point of entry and I say free obviously mindful

of taxes and the huge amount that we all push into it in various ways to lessen degrees or much bigger degrees other people but I say that very carefully that word free but free to the point of entry I think we're very grateful in this country to see doctors oh yes doctor thank you so much doctor oh yes don't want to trouble you doctor well actually doctor doesn't always know best and also that doctor may not know best but the next doctor might and one of the things I started to feel really passionate about it's actually the point where I found men really engaged with the book when I was speaking to people is advocating for yourself in a medical scenario is something that I didn't do

well enough and I do feel shame about because if I couldn't get it then loads of other people would be in that situation I know millions are I study of the NHS England in the book which talks about so many women basically living with lots of gynecological issues, wee issues, sex issues, all those sorts of things, because they have been fed a dialogue that women and pain go together like bread and butter. And we don't. Now, there are lots of other people will be listening to this thinking, well, men aren't good at getting diagnosis and men don't go. And that's true. But I'll tell you, the key to men going is women. Men who have wives live longer live longer now that's like a weirdly unfashionable thing to say and i haven't got the exact data set for you but go look it up it's true because women get men

to go to the doctors who gets women to go to the doctors who gets women to think oh walking around like pissing yourself after a kid is normal or you know having like the hottest under the sun flash with your menopause don't go and chat to someone about it or whatever it is all of those things are really important to destigmatize so that you go and advocate for yourself or better still if you can't do it if you aren't that sort of person take someone with you it's not to set us on a path against doctors doctors and scientists more this year than ever and next year as well when we're talking more fast forwarding they are the heroes of our time but they are not gods and they can only go off the information you give tell me quickly what male politicians said when you told them you were

writing this book there's only a couple and they said oh what have you written your book about and I said periods and one of them said oh periods of time which period of time and I just looked at him and I said the one in my pants and then there was a bit of a moment and there wasn't much more after that as we just sat in that sort of menstrual silence together that is your workplace the kind of world of politics and broadcasting but you're very good in your book about talking about other kinds of workplace and how workplaces should respond to menstruation and painful periods what's your take on what they should do the thing I try and say also in the book around is that my sort of job is a job where it's quite a rare job and I also have a situation where

I realize that I can sit for a lot of my job I mean interesting when I do news night which is most Thursday evenings I find that first bit if if anyone ever watches it, which we know they do, you know, if anyone notices this bit, that first bit at the beginning of the program, we stand and we do the menu, as we call it. Some weeks, I really can't stand very well. That's about as physical as my job gets. I'm really aware that some people either suffering with bad periods and not having a condition or suffering with I don't know something else have very physical jobs they stack shelves or they are on a construction site or they'll be in the military or all sorts of things so you know I can't pretend to know the parameters

but what I was trying to do is to think about how you can have those conversations if you need to and I think that what's been really cheering is I've had quite a lot of messages from bosses and quite a lot of the men saying as a start they put free sanitary products now in their loos when we were still going to offices and they were also saying if they people wanted to say the real reason why they're off because the thing is people always take time off or ask to work from home and they'll just lie there's a study in the book which I included around people are happier to say they've got the shit then they've got something going on with their period which is a very natural thing but I actually think more people should be embarrassed of having you know issues to do with

poo than they do with something that's actually quite routine or not and so I think making it I remember the police have done quite well in some of the case studies I read around menopause just letting people being able to stand to open the window and then if somebody says to you why well I'm going to the menopause like just being able to say that is quite important and shouldn't be undervalued so I think it's a mixture of having that sort of culture where you feel you can say something and it's not going to be looked down on and also some provisions at work sometimes people just need to go and sit in a slightly different seat I lower my chair and my microphone when I'm menstruating because I can

be in a situation where I broadcast with the hot water bottles to a slight angle I look like an absolute gangster when I'm doing it you know like I'm in some kind of like snoop video thinking that with my window wheel down and I'm actually another great reason for doing it to be fair yeah exactly it's a great I just disappear from the webcam on certain videos that I'm in interviewing I don't know whoever Yoko Ono or some Tory MP wants to talk about the policy whoever it is it's a rich tapestry who I get to talk to. But the thing I also found really interesting from people was, to some people, I've got a reputation. I mean, if you actually know my work, it's a real range around, I think there's that whole reputation around interviewing politicians. But a huge part of what I do is that relationship with my listeners,

which was very generous of me to say that sort of warmth. I really do want to be there in that wit and we're getting through life together but some people obviously see me as a very tough operator I would say firm but polite but the thing that came in from some people was Emma I really find it great that you as someone who's seen as tough have talked about being in agony so publicly because actually the other thing to say is feminism quite rightly and feminists again who we stand on the shoulders of, who barged their way into workplaces when they were not wanted, did not want to talk about their periods, did not want to talk about what made this different. And this is a very difficult terrain, and it really gets some people's backs up. But actually, experiencing some form of suffering, showing some form of vulnerability, surely is the point we've got to where you can take your whole self to work. And so some people

said to me, I love that you talk about being in pain and show vulnerability while still being able to do what you do. Such an important point, being able to bring your whole self into every area of your life. And it links us on to your next failure which I know you know I'm so grateful that you are going to talk about and it is your failure to get pregnant those are your words for two and a half years tell us what happened so so many things I need to say to you personally before I say some of this which is I fully see myself now as one of those really awful people who's had a baby talking about infertility and I just need to own that with you and your listeners I come in peace and I say it as I will never forget that road I

travel and you know I could travel it again should I choose to ever try again and that's a whole other thing to say which is that for women like myself when people say to me oh would you like another and they might not know anything about me I'll say to them well yeah I've got some on ice I've got to decide whether I want to go through that hormonal rollercoaster and become someone who's trying again, because I hated myself. I hated the person I became when I was trying. It is the most isolating, bitchy, horrible version of myself I think I've seen. So I just wanted to say that at the outset.

Thank you. I've seen. So I just wanted to say that at the outset. Thank you. You are one of the kindest and most sensitive people in this entire area. And I hugely appreciate it. And you don't come across as one of those smug, awful people. It's like, and here's my happy ending at all. So allay those fears and tell me why you felt so horrible about yourself at that time. Do you know what? I'm going to go one further and say, apart from one photo, which I was asked to do because I wrote a piece about maternity leave and again, breaking a bit of a taboo if I could about that. And where I did have to post this photo of me with my son's head looking as it happened at the washing machine. my son's head looking as it happened at the washing machine I haven't and will not for several reasons around privacy not post photos online of said child and me because I just don't understand why when people have struggled well I do understand it but I don't see how they end up doing it

how they end up doing an entire social media feed full of their kids like you used to look at that stuff I used to look at that stuff and feel like shit but you still do it anyway that's a separate point and the other point just to say and then I promise I'll answer your question which is I came to this realization recently again which is kind of in the context of you and I specifically talking because you've been so wonderful and candid yourself about miscarriage and this whole treacherous road and thank you for that is fertile people cannot comfort fertile people I'm just going to say 100% 100% and it is really difficult when you are with a partner who you might love more than anything, who is fertile and has children. That's a very difficult thing to communicate. And again, thank you for saying that in your inimitable way. And I think

the social media thing is interesting. And I've been thinking about it a lot because this year has given me a whole new perspective on the word triggered. And I know the word triggered comes in for so much stick as being a kind of millennial namby-pamby thing where you can't say boo to a goose without offending someone. And I've realized this year that I am triggered by things like Chrissy Teigen talking about her miscarriage. I'm so glad that she did it, but that takes me to a place of pain. And I find it triggering when I see certain social media posts from influencers who are breastfeeding. And I realize now it's not their responsibility. They are allowed to celebrate and commiserate in whatever way they feel fit. And I'm one who

has to curate social media so that it's a safer space for me. So I think it's important to say that as well, that we who do not have children, who have tried to have children and who still want that in our future and who have gone through fertility issues are not embittered by other people's success in that field. Because that for me ties into a whole stereotype around embittered childless women and I put that in quotation marks and so I strive very hard not to be that and to realize that their story is their story and my story will be mine but I so appreciate you saying all of that I think that's a really great point because the other thing to say when you have a child is that your photo feed is only that and if you literally look at it on a very practical logistical level if you still want to have a bit of an

instagram situation regardless of whether you're famous or not you only post what you've got right you're not going out to make extra material so it is completely their right to do that i specifically made the point around people who've struggled and the way that I've noticed they sometimes say you know I'm really sorry if this is hard for you but I feel like it's an interesting space to occupy and I've made a particular choice but their choice is their choice where I think you do have a choice and then I promise I'll talk is uh about what you've asked me I've done a terrible deep deviation but it's been really good is uh no I'm fascinated by it as well so it's so we're both as bad as each other carry on I'm committed by by the woman in charge of me yes is that um I think where you do have a choice is how you control that message and break

certain bits of news around pregnancy and children and all of that to your friends so social media is like broadcast it's like telly so I think radio and audio is actually one-to-one which is why it's so personal which is why I said what I said social media and tv is like one-to-many right you just pour it out it's like a hose but what you can control is how you speak to your friends your nearest and your dearest about this stuff and actually I think talking about taboos one of the things I really strive for is honesty saying to people that hurt that wasn't good for me and I think being able to say to somebody the way you told me you were pregnant like you rang me on a zoom and did a big reveal that really hurt me it's a hard thing to say but they want to be your friend and actually being a friend to someone who is struggling with fertility is also hard it's not anywhere near as hard like

I'm not getting out some sympathy for you and I'm not like providing tissues but actually if anyone's listening to this and you are a friend of someone who is struggling you just need to know there are limitations and some extra care is required yeah yeah preach as the youth say as the youth say and in answer to your question I hate that I view it as a failure to get pregnant but the reason I chose the word not just because you asked but the reason I include it is because it's how I thought past tense I think we are trained to think of things as success and failure in life and it does feel like a failure of the body you've been given and then choosing to operate in the way you're choosing to operate it it does feel like when other people are having children like you can't therefore it's a failure and IVF felt like which is where I ended up and I

only ended up there I just I really want to share this if I may which is I only ended up there because I got told off I got told off by this very cool doctor who was probably in her late 50s with a really cool grey silvery ponytail in the NHS and she said to me i don't know why you've been diagnosed with endometriosis now you qualify immediately essentially for ivf at this point why have you been trying on again naturally for six months i said well i thought that's what i should do you know this is the thing you get lots of different advice and she said for god's sake just try it and i said i don't want to try it I want to do it myself you know I was sort of yeah I want to try and do it myself because we looked okay apart from that on paper everything should have worked and she said well listen give it a go and at the very best you have a period for

two months and at that point dear listener I signed up because they got so bad I was willing to do IVF rather than have another period because my natural periods were just breaking me. IVF, I was just a total naysayer. You know, all these people would say things to me like, eat pineapple, have a Brazil nut, do this, do that. I just told them all to F off. I didn't believe it was going to work.

And I just stayed like that. And honestly, I didn't believe it was going to work. And I just stayed like that. And honestly, I didn't believe I was having a baby till six months. So I wouldn't talk about it. And that was the way I coped. I hadn't realized until I went through IVF myself, how much time it takes aside from how incredibly emotional you're feeling how invasive it is how you have to deal as you say with the constant narrative of failure in your own head which is reflected in the medical language used you fail to respond to drugs you have an inhospitable womb or an incompetent cervix and things like that but just on a practical level how it's like having another job and you have to go in to the hospital or the clinic every two days for internal scans you are injecting

yourself twice a day you have to inject yourself to trigger egg collection at a specific time and I remember doing that in a restaurant toilet at a work dinner and I know that you did it when did you do it Emma? Very good leading question Elizabeth there was one moment I remember on the election trail in Scaveness but in a bingo hall but that's not what you're talking about you're talking about when I was in Downing Street yes my producer my editor thought I was really nervous so I was spending a long time on the toilet but I was actually quite busy in there doing my thing with my needles which actually the prime minister if I'd chosen to confide as a diabetic we could have had a whole chat about needles but yeah and also someone who doesn't have children but I am you know reading between the lines I think that causes her great sadness I think she said that in an interview I've watched

her interview by Tina Brown on stage years ago and I think it was before she was promised but I may be forgiving you can look that up and she I may be wrong but she said oh it was so painful she said something like you know it just never happened for us I could have died on the spot just woman to woman on that but yeah no I did do it there which was which was interesting you know getting it through the scanner was interesting. Oh my gosh. Yeah, because you have to leave your mobile phone at the door when you're going to turn down the street, let alone taking your injections in with you, shooting up.

The ingredients for a baby into the room. Yeah, no, that was something quick to do before the interview. I'm interested that you said that your producer didn't know. So you didn't tell anyone that you were doing IVF. Do you think if you were to do it again, would you tell people that you worked with? No, I can't. What's that quote?

The despair I can cope with, the hope I can't. But I just don't want to share any hope ever with myself or anyone else. And the minute somebody thinks you're doing IVF, especially if they're not to do with it and they've never encountered it they're like oh she's trying for a baby and you're like no I'm trying for the chance of a baby and actually that's very different the odds are not great I read a book recently about adoption and actually this woman decided to go she she was on her own and she was solo and she was looking into IVF and she happened

to know someone very senior in that world and and she didn't go for it in the end and this person afterwards when she made the decision said you know I'm so happy you didn't because we also have to be honest about the odds and actually even though I'm so proud to live in a country that birthed IVF no pun intended but every pun intended the odds still haven't got better we also have to be really good about being honest about things and i remember telling somebody recently who was talking to someone going through another round of ivf they said to them you will have a baby and i said to them never say that because yes people say that all the time and it's like fuck off you really might not have a baby and that is a horrendous thing to say out loud you don't need to say that but please don't say to them you

definitely will and there's so much well-meaning advice out there as you say you need to eat more pineapple have you tried progesterone my sister's cousin-in-law's daughter went to this doctor and they gave her some aspirin and I want to say to these people thank you so much but if you don't think I haven't already tried all of these routes then you don't know me well enough to be proffering that advice oh it's the best is when I say to you just forget about it and then it'll happen yeah I'm aware that there will be people listening to this who don't have children, don't want children, have adopted children, have just found a path that is right for them. And I salute each and every one of those people. One of the questions that I know,

I'm sure you would have been asked, and I get asked quite often by men is, well, have you contemplated life without children? Because you know you can have a great life without being a parent. And I'm like, yes, I do know that on one level. And I'm extremely lucky and extremely privileged that I find my work exceptionally fulfilling and I have love and children in my life in other ways. And yet there is a yearning that I know if I don't become a mother, I will have to grieve that. And to be honest, it scares me that. I don't know how I will come to terms with it if I have to. Did you ever get to that point of thinking?

I did. And interestingly, my husband never did. I started, I'm a real planner planner and I started to try and imagine our life without children a child free I don't want to say childless but a child free existence and I didn't fully get there because I know that two and a half years isn't that long it was mad because two and a half years is a long amount you know it is long yeah and it felt long every period that came was very very difficult I almost can remember all of them but I also did do something good which by the way if you are at this point I would say

you know get someone you could always go out with that's not your partner and drink or eat cheese or do something you're not allowed to do if you would be pregnant we did in a pre-pandemic time travel that was what we did that's what we spent our money on and that's what we spent our energy on doing trips that were just wonderful and I really treasure those now actually even though there was sadness there but I did get to that point and I think when you're the person that it's the fault of even though this is language that is not nice and my husband would hate for me to say it like that it was my body producing the issue in terms of the evidence that we had and that's you know a lot of who I am and I really felt that now I'm not saying that we wouldn't have then got to the point where adoption or surrogacy or all sorts of things could have come into view.

But I wasn't there yet. So I immediately went to the OK, we won't have a life with children. As in I couldn't countenance the other bit yet. So I sort of went there immediately. And in some ways I knew that could be all right. But I have to tell you something, I wouldn't be living here. If that was the case, I would have completely left this country. Interesting. I completely relate to that. Because I think a lot of this country is still very traditional in the way that it approaches family units and the notion of doing things by a certain age. And my place to flee when I was going through a divorce, subsequent unsuccessful IVF was LA, where lots of people are living lots of different kinds of lives and have sort of gone there

in order to create their own stories. I love the romance of that city for that reason. Is that why you wouldn't be living here yeah I mean I just apart from missing family and some dear friends and obviously also my job the BBC is not in LA or the BBC is not Japan you could get a role there perhaps but I just would need to just tear it up yeah the whole thing the sort of ending to the script was going to need to be different and that didn't need to be forever but I had to find a way of justifying a new existence or a new way of doing it that would mean I really was excited by my story because the problem is when you fail in inverted commas to to do something, you become a failure.

And that is not a sexy script to yourself. Nobody wakes up thinking, oh, I want to be a failure today. You don't want to wake up and be like, oh, I'm not a mum again. You're trying to be a mum. And that's exactly what I mean about the fertility-challenged people going a second time, which is not where I'm at yet but where I could be at some point actually one of the most off-putting things apart from the false hope and the injections and the needles and all of that sort of stuff is I don't want to be on that road

again and I want to say that with such feeling to you because you are on that road and I will never forget that road it has completely changed who I am in fact more than anything else in my life and when I read Lena Dunham's piece about the grief that she had for potentially and now is a reality with her more recent piece but it was her original piece in Vogue after her hysterectomy where she talked about the desire to grow a baby in her body this is not to do down surrogacy this is not to do down adoption or any of that and the connections that will and are made I just need to say this is I remember reading that piece I you just said for some people is so deep and it is for some people your birthright even if it's not been the center of your world so I would have to rewrite the script

to feel like I'd won again yeah oh Emma you you just put that so eloquently. And as you're talking about travel, oh gosh, how we miss it. I think it's really important to just acknowledge, as I know you have done so often on your Radio 5 Live show, the people who were going through fertility treatment when lockdown happened this year, who have had to put their lives on hold in a year when the domestic has become so overwhelmingly important that we are constantly assailed with stories of other people's families. And I know that you see them and you understand them and I do too.

And I just really just wanted to acknowledge how hard 2020 would have been for them particularly because you can't get away from yourself you can't go as you say you can't travel and be your outside self during a global pandemic so it's really really tough for them but I would love to ask you a question which I asked you on stage in Salford last year and you answered it so beautifully and I suppose I ask it from a specific perspective myself which is everything that you went through to get there to become a mother and to have your baby was it worth it yes yeah it was on every level it's what you're still going for a little bit like it's all of those things and other things you can't imagine and it's other things again that you will be like hey what my life before was a little bit easier and all of those things that I can make jokes about but

on a very serious level I'm not saying you will but I'm saying you are fighting the fight of your life for your life because of what it means I feel really emotional I'm sorry to say it like that I know it's so beautiful I'm feeling emotional because I feel so understood by you and I know lots of people listening will feel that too I want you to get there however you get there and I want anyone else to get there that wants to get there because there are lots of ways there but there's a very specific way you would like to get there which is at the moment through your own body to do it with help or whatever it takes and you know I'll come around and dangle you from the ceiling by

your ankles if you need me to thank you that's an offer fueled by booze, but I'm very willing to commit to. Just post-coitally, I'll call you up. I'll be like, right, we've done the deed. I'm in my car, sober, but socially distant. You're at least two meters from me. It's great. So true. It's a terrible understood language by those who understand it she may be listening and i would never disclose her identity but there is a woman i have supported through some messages and a

conversation around this who isn't there and she may not get there but we had a chat a few months ago and it's exactly what you said the pandemic has made it even harder because she can't escape it and escapism is very hard to come by right now and she is having to redraw that at the moment but she still lives in hope every month yeah my heart goes out to her and to anyone else who relates to what we've been talking about and I've spent so long talking to you about those things that I almost forgot you had a third failure, but you do. Well, let's do it quickly because ironically, it's a good one to do quickly because it's your failure to live in the moment enough. Are you one of those people who constantly feel slightly guilty because you don't meditate?

Because I don't meditate. meditate yes because meditation is all about being in the present yeah no I don't feel any guilt about that but I think that people who are able to do that please like at some point tell me how and I have done yoga in the past and and done that whole everything I need to do after I get out of it and then actually they're telling me to clear my mind and listen to my breathing and I'm like this is a really good opportunity for me to refocus on the shit I need to get done yeah um and I know I'm not like saying that that is the right thing I'm not saying that I'm not pouring scorn on people who are able to clear their mind I'm saying

it as you know as a failure and why does it feel like a failure to you like what knock-on effects has it had negatively in your life I am able to lose myself but it just takes more than it used to and I think when I was younger and there were fewer things perhaps to feel serious about or hold my attention of things that need to happen it came to me easier I probably was also out drinking more so you just don't think about it possibly as much yeah I think on a serious note it's a work in progress right we do live in a society that is driven a bit by output and I totally bought into that and it was wrong in some ways and I think the way we're wired at school to do exams isn't I was actually quite a rebellious think the way we're wired at school to do exams I was

actually quite a rebellious kid who stuck within the rules just enough to do well you mentioned nicely top mark in religious education yeah priest rabbi imam at your service not at all I always did everything last minute I was sort of rebel without a cause but good enough to cope with the strictures I'd be given if you see what I mean but I just feel that actually one of the good things about being a mum that was very stretching and being a parent that's been very stretching is you are disabled in terms of your own time and your control over your own time because a small person is going to take those things from you as they should because they don't ask to be born so you

know and I've fought a bloody big battle in this instance to get him born so sort of I feel if I may offer this that the whole world at the moment or certainly those parts affected by COVID is on a maternity leave we're all on a kind of or you know career break to put it in less gendered terms but you know there's this thing that happens to you when you do take a break especially with an enforced thing where you've got another job to do in this case looking after a small being again with all the sensitivities i've said before you sort of do that thing where you're like what's it all about you know what does it mean why am i here what am i doing and actually everyone's having a bit of an existential moment in many ways some genuinely because in all seriousness they've lost what does it mean why am I here what am I doing and actually everyone's having a bit of an existential

moment in many ways some genuinely because in all seriousness they've lost what they were doing before it's become a cropper and I say that with huge sensitivity it's been a terrible year just gone and it's going to be a mean worse year I'm sorry to say in many ways to come but I think what we're all scared of myself included is stopping and stopping and thinking. We just don't do it. We don't like to do it. We fill ourselves. And I am fully guilty of that. So I can be in the moment with friends and family if the chat's good enough, Elizabeth.

If it's not repetitive. If it's sexy. If it's edgy. If it's different. If it's real, my friend. But it takes quite a lot. And I don't like that about myself. Should I tell you something I've never told anyone before?

I mean, that's catnip to an interviewer. Yes, please. Okay. Apart from the fact that earlier, actually, I was thinking I'll tell you something else I've never said before, which is I'm terrified of having to have a hysterectomy. That's a women's health thing on the agenda. But who knows if that will happen?

Why does the prospect of a hysterectomy terrify you because having had a c-section and having had a laparoscopy which is the diagnostic procedure for finding out if you have endometriosis so I've got a few scars now on my tummy I'm really terrified of non-essential surgery number one because I found it really hard to recover and heal physically from those but also it might not cure endometriosis well I should be very careful it doesn't cure it but it might not help my symptoms so you could go through all of that which is a major surgery and then it not be any different which is just terrifying the idea of that that you could go through that and also I've

heard from people it can be a very sad experience kind of having those things removed from you so I just feel like it's on my horizon but I can't quite engage with it yeah and what was the other thing that you've never told anyone oh god I just wish what the train of thought's completely gone have you ever had that? I have it all the time and I find it hilarious that you're so spooked by it because I have it all the time and that my friend is why you're a brilliant broadcaster but don't worry I have finally found the question that has dumbfounded Emma Barnett I did actually want to ask you something, which is quite left field, but I think probably a nice place to end on, which is that you talked in such an extraordinary way about the influence your grandmother had had on you on your Radio 5 show. And it was in response

to anti-Semitic comments made by wiley and you talked about your jewish grandmother who had fled austria for england to escape the nazis and how she used to read you bedtime stories and therefore how you knew the presence of anti-semitism was an ever real thing and i suppose i wanted to ask you how else you think your grandmother has shaped you and what she would say to your third failure to live in the moment. Well, the grandmother that you speak of, and then I was talking also about my husband's grandmother because she survived Auschwitz. She didn't sadly get out in time, but she did survive. And so I was speaking collectively and I actually was

very young when my grandmother died I was only a few months old but she definitely did sit with me a lot and there were many photos to prove it and I recently retraced her footsteps back to Austria and I actually stood outside the house that she grew up in and she literally landed in the UK I've got all her papers out the day before war broke out so she really did just get in it's a very wise question I would expect no less because my husband and I whenever we are facing anything difficult however small actually we think of the fact that our families have got through far greater things whether that's on my side to say it's leaving everything they have escaping and my grandma came here on her own

and her siblings went around the world by one went to China via Italy and then ended up in America the sort of journeys that the three siblings went on and the parents who also managed to survive, which was extraordinary, cunning and amazing planning, actually, by my great grandfather, which I didn't know anything of until a few years ago. But especially on my husband's side, because I had the privilege of meeting his grandmother who did escape all sorts of horrors, but then did find herself in Auschwitz and walked to freedom with a bullet in her leg we are in a situation where that's just our grandparents which is why I shared what I shared which was quite unusual because I don't do that sort of thing on the BBC very often because it's within touching

distance it's not our great great grandparents. It's our grandmas. And I think whenever we're in a tough spot, all it takes is for one of us to actually mention those stories or just say their names, which we do. And it immediately gets rid of loads of the issues and reduces that situation to what it is, to give it some context. And that doesn't mean you know pain doesn't have parameters in the time it's in and you only know what you know but it is kind of a really healthy perspective that you have and it gives us an inner strength

quite a lot to be the grandchildren of refugees. Emma Barnett I want you to write a memoir of your family history and appear on Who Do You Think You Are but in the meantime we will contend ourselves with this episode of How To Fail which has been such a profoundly special one for me and I cannot thank you enough for coming on the podcast. I'm so grateful and I'm so sorry that for my big failure actually was to just fucking tell you something amazing and then forget it that was your fourth failure that you can if you remember it and if it's going to be a massive scoop then just get back in touch and we'll re-record I just wanted to say thank you so much for having me and not feeling like I couldn't talk about at

least one of those things without being annoying. Oh my gosh, never annoying, always brilliant. Thank you so much, Emma. This episode of How to Fail is sponsored by Misoma, my go-to jewellery brand. Now, I was introduced to Misoma by a very, very close friend of mine, and I have barely gone a day without wearing a piece of their jewellery since. They really are amazing. And Misoma know that every piece of jewellery a woman wears tells a part of her story, her successes, her celebrations, and of course, her failures. The earrings she bought with her first paycheck, the surprise pick-me-up present from her best friend after that rubbish breakup,

the matching bracelets they got on that wild holiday, refusing to take them off for months. As we grow, so too does our armour. From past loves to career milestones, morning to night, we wear our treasured moments knowing they have shaped the person we have become. Misoma are on a mission to build a more confident, creative, and collaborative world, starting a chain reaction one link at a time. I'm thrilled to share to all listeners of How to Fail a very exclusive 15% off now when you use ElizabethDay15 on Misoma.com. Thank you very much to Misoma. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe.

Apparently, it helps other people know that we exist.