Off Air... with Jane and Fi - All the hallmarks of a Costco customer

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

It’s the day of the Christmas party, and there’s excitement in the air! Can you hear the distant snap of a Christmas cracker? No, us neither… Jane and Fi chat building a holiday around Harold Wilson’s bungalow, who would play them in their biopics, Austrian sewer tours, and misleading Tube stops. Plus, writer and producer Catherine Carr discusses her book Who’s the Favourite? Our new playlist 'Coiled Spring' is up and running: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4tmoCpbp42ae7R1UY8ofza Our next book club pick is 'A Town Like Alice' by Nevil Shute.Our most asked about book is called 'The Later Years' by Peter Thornton.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producers: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Don't you think that Eve is looking unbelievably beautiful today? Very put together. Very, yep, she's applied makeup. Is that because we're all going out to dinner tonight? It is. It's party day. Just say it, it's our Christmas dinner. It is our Christmas dinner.

Yes. Do you know what? I wish Jane and I have our makeup applied daily now because we're visualised. Yes, why couldn't the lady have already been to do that? No, mind, she'll come along later. I wish there was such a, I wish there was such a, a big difference between us with makeup and us not. We just ask Eve to do our makeup. That's clearly the answer, isn't it?

No, I do have my whole kit with me. There we are. But I think it's because I never wear makeup day today, so it's... You look a right sight normally. You look a bit haggard. So I don't look haggard. There's a bit of a feeling of kiddiness on the team today. Yes. Yeah, well... Because it's Christmas. We've got chicken schnitzel to look forward to. I was hoping to have like a turkey dinner, but I suppose it won't be a very

available in March. I'll just have to accept it. But the last time we went to that restaurant, we were with our agents. Should we just slap that down on the table? And it was the height of summer and a shepherd's pie was taken with all the vegetables. I was very, very impressed. But you do. You need stamina in the world of showbiz. It wasn't me. I would never choose shepherd's pie. No, it was one of our agents.

We have several. Anyway, Eve, you look absolutely terrific and let's look forward to a fantastic evening tonight. In the meantime. Yeah, let's bring it. We've had enough girly chat. Let's bring in Stuart. He's got a very important message about people driving around

with full tanks of petrol. Now, forgive me if this was discussed yesterday because I wasn't here, but the day before we talked about panic buying and about the human psychology and how people can be better informed about the, well, about how to cope with a potential shortage.

And we just need to keep saying, there is no shortage of fuel. Well, so stop introducing the topic. Well, you see, this is why I'm interested. Stuart says, people who drive around with a full tank of petrol need to know it's going to cost them money. Petrol's heavy. It makes MPG worse and you end up spending more. Self-interest is always an important motivator.

Thank you, Stuart. Just worth noting that sometimes we don't understand that actually, although it looks reassuring to see the gauge in the right place, if you're interested in a full tank, it will actually slow you down a little bit. So take notice, please, of Stuart. who is in Cowbridge. I think if you're the type of person who's worried about a fuel shortage,

that will mean nothing to you. It won't change your behaviour at all. Because unless the government came in and said, you can only put 30 quids worth of petrol in your tank, you're always going to think, I need a full tank because it might all run out. So until those measures come, and lots of people say that they might,

I'm not sure that that's going to dissuade anybody from filling up the tank. and in fact not really being a particular panic merchant myself, having thought I could easily use some old curtains during the pandemic if the loo roll ran out. I did think today at the weekend it's on my list of things to do to fill up the Scoda Monte Carlo. Okay, I think you're going to say buy some loo roll.

In case, no, I was sure. I bought some loo roll this morning, because I had completely and utterly run out. And I thought, should I buy, you know, 38 loo rolls just in case. Well, I didn't. I was out with Nancy. You just bought four.

I was talking to... That's very moderate. I was talking to a cab driver yesterday about Costco. And I'm not a member of Costco. I think you should be, Jay. You've got all of the hallmarks of the Costco. I think that's your Saturday morning, sorted. Well, we have got a local.

He was just talking about how he saves a fortune. But what he was saying was... And this is, I suppose, a serious point, because he was obviously being a cab driver. he was slightly concerned about petrol. And apparently Costco do very reasonably price fuel as well. Anyway, look, let's move on. Because as you very rightly pointed out,

the more we talk about it, the worse you make it. And also Donald tells us that he's in highfalutin conversation with all of the Iranians, and at any moment the war might be over. Oh, well, there we are. Just over. The switch would just be flicked off, no more war. Turn the lights back on in Iran.

We're all at peace. Fantastic. Well, let's put our faith in the great deal maker to sort everything out over the next couple of days. Now, we did have an interested 80-year-old party who may be able to record some of the Donald Trumpage for us. And also somebody who volunteered their northern Irish accents, which could be quite fun as well.

And if you'd like to volunteer to just voice up some Donald Trumpisms for us, we'd love to hear from you. There's not really any huge criteria involved. and this is that we'd just like to hear his words being spoken by other people. If you've got your marbles, that's really the only criteria we want, really. That's all we'd settle for.

That's all we're asking for, is what I should have said. I just want to mention this, because I don't know if this is true. It's from M and her well-behaved restaurant dogs. On the subject of the Baker-Loo line, I was once told that the screeching of any tubes through bank station,

that's the one I currently get off at, is due to trains, to divert around the vaults of the Bank of England? Can that be true? Divert around the vaults? So they're screeching because you're on a slight curve and a tilt. I think that is a delicious London myth. I'm taking it because it's a great story.

It doesn't have to be true, does it? No. I do love those tube journeys where you go from, and we've got one here, haven't we? If you go from London Bridge to Bermonzie, it takes nearly two minutes. I always count it in my head. And if you look at London Bridge to Burmancy on the map,

it's like 200 feet. You just think sometimes when I get to about 116 seconds, I think, where in London am I? Because I'm nowhere near London Bridge or Burmansey. I may well be south of Dulwich, and I'm just about to turn around and come all the way back. Have you ever been on one of those tours of a disused station or an unused tunnel?

I'm always quite intrigued by those. No, the closest thing I've got to that was doing a tour of the Austrian sewers in Vienna. Which is very, very smelly, and as the guy delighted in telling us, we'd pick the very worst slot because we were doing first thing in the morning. There was a good slot, wasn't it?

Whereas he said, he said, this is where most of Vienna is doing its ablutions at this time, so it's a particularly smelly time. But you're absolutely right. I'm not sure that at 3.30, you would have thought this is remarkably different. So many emails about perfume. I think it's fascinating, isn't it this? Well, it is.

And you missed yesterday's fantastic explainer. Oh, yes, no, young Eve did tell me, but go on. Yes. So there is a reason. Yes. Well, just to fill you in, did you not listen to the episode on the Good Chef Even Fee? I was absolutely going to. Don't be daft.

Don't be daft. It's really weird listening. to yourself. Oh, I don't know. We had a fantastic email from a woman who is basically a scent scientist and also does a podcast all about sense. And she said that yes, there is a very,

very super strong version of perfume around now, sometimes called an Alexir, which just is really kind of, you know, parfum to the power of something. So it stays on you more. But also there's an actual

compound that's now really, really common which gives perfumes that really big bass note that woody ambery bass note and that's probably the thing that makes you realise that there is more scent around so you haven't got those lovely kind of slightly more gentle top notes of flowers and stuff like that it's that very punchy woody you know I'm I'm in a library with leather yeah so less of the floral wafting sounds good actually that It's a library with leather. More of a manly thump. But there are...

I think you're looking at the email there from somebody who just can't tolerate any of this. Yes, so this is anonymous, please. Fee for solidarity. I cannot tolerate any perfume or aftershave at all. I'm recovering from autoimmune encephalitis and it means my brain is hypersensitive to any solvents or smells like that.

It's so bad, it can start a seizure even from the smell of floor cleaner. I spend my life's... scared of public places and if somebody sits opposite me on a train doused and after shave, I have to move. Previously I'd explain but people just don't understand so I've stopped bothering. It's what many people with this condition experience, but it's so rarely understood. I wish there was a way to make this more widely known and it can also be a problem for people with now MCAS, MCAS, is that a post-viral syndrome, something which is much more prevalent post-COVID,

says Anonymous. So I think a lot more people struggle than we think. And yes, the cheaper brand of aftershave are definitely the worst. Well, I'm really sorry to hear about that because, you know, I'm just being annoyed by it when I, you know, head around London and find myself in a small enclosed space with people who are deliberately whiffing themselves up. But actually, if it's making you incredibly unwell, that's so difficult at the moment, isn't it? Yeah, it sounds absolutely horrible. Thank you for your email. on the subject of celebrities doing the do. Libby says, I was waiting with my husband the other day

at the Treatment Centre in the Whittington Hospital in North London and we were both delighted by the plaque commemorating the day back in 2008 that it was declared open by Dermott Mernahan. It must have been quite a moment. Dermott. I've been waiting for the right people to share this news with and along you came. Thank you. And Nikki, a regular correspondent, Nicky, good to hear from you.

As a cub reporter in St. Helens, many moons ago, I was dispatched to cover the illustrious opening and then relaunch of a local charity shop with our local nightly news host, Stuart Hall. Oh, God, yes. And he was the presenter of North West or Good Evening, Northwest, whatever it was. Awful man.

And later, Coronation Street's Percy Sugden. That's a little bit better. It was all glamour, says Nikki. I also bunked off school once because the then-Miss world, Silvana Suarez, was coming to open Burtons. And I was a keen autograph hunter. Lord knows what she made of visiting the great metropolis of St. Helens in the 80s recession, but she was definitely the first South American I'd ever met.

I don't remember it being very busy, though. Right, Nikki, thank you very much. Have you seen the email? Can I just interject please? Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. That's what MCAS stands for. The symptoms are multi-systemic, often causing recurring allergy, like reactions like flushing, hives, itching and swellings.

Okay. So because... No fun at all? No, no, no fun at all. So it's different from a post-viral fatigue syndrome. I think lots of people who have that also find that the smells are particularly problematic too. So keep your smells coming. Liz from Coventry, sometimes from Enfield.

You'll never guess what she was doing the other day when she was listening to the podcast. She walked past that plaque outside Barclays Bank, which commemorates the opening of the world's first cash machine by Reg Varnie from On the Busses. So how wonderful that you were listening and actually at that scene at the time. She says, I wanted to drop you an email to thank you for keeping me sane-ish for the last couple of weeks.

My husband's had major surgery in London to remove cancer. The surgery itself was eight hours long. He was then in intensive care for five nights and then on award for five further nights I'd saved up a batch of podcasts and those together with your afternoon show and the off-air playlist have been quite an amazing distraction.

Liz, very best to you and to your husband. I hope he's on the men now and really glad we were able to keep the company after a fashion during what must have been a really testing time for you. There's some very big spookiness going on with people finding themselves in the same place as the stuff that we're talking about

And in Sandra Baker's case, she found herself looking at a plaque that, well, it's a little bit odd really, isn't it, Sandra? Because you were very much alive when reading this on the subject of commemorative benches on the pier at Galston-on-Sea on the Norfolk coast as a bench, which details the name and date of birth, which I've sadly forgotten, but the comment is just ham egg and chips, something that has subsequently stuck in my memory. Here comes the spooky bit. Whilst on holiday in Suffolk last year, we visited Southwold. A resort much love by Simon Mayo, Richard Curtis, etc. It is extraordinary.

Yes. Up there. So you are never more than a Wellington boot away from Radio 4 presence, or somebody who's guested on Radio 4 or somebody who'd like to be on Radio 4. 100%. I admit that Simon Mayo is on a, well, he was on a different radio station. We don't know what time. We don't know what.

See, she just fall off in Jerry. All right, dear. But it's well for later, doesn't it? Do you know what my kids would say? Cool. Right, back with you. That's normally me playing that part. We went for a walk on the pier

and noticed that the wooden railings along the pier were densely covered in tiny metal plaques. Am I saying that wrong? I don't know. I say plaque, but I don't know, genuinely. Plaques of commemoration. I looked down at the railing where I was standing to see a plaque which stated Southwold

my little bit of heaven, Sandra Bates. It's Sandra Baker's name. Not particularly interesting unless your name happens to be Sandra Baker, which is mine, spooky or what? And what were the chances of me actually standing there? See, photo attached? Sandra loves the show.

She often listens at the gym, where the laugh-out-loud moments frequently attract strange looks from fellow gym-goers. They don't know what they're missing. Well, they absolutely don't. They'll be listening to pump up my biceps. And in fact, they'll be much, much happier if they just listen to us. And there it is, my little bit of heaven, Sandra Baker.

That word really, really freak me out. Yes, all my name on a bench. That is really quite discombobulating. So well done, Sandra. Thank you for telling us about it. Our guest today is an author called Catherine Carr, who's written a book called Who's the Favorite, the loving, messy realities of sibling relationships.

And I think Catherine's done our best in this book to cover every sort of family and situation. But I guess inevitably, some people will feel that they're not included. So she does talk about only children. She talks about merged families. She talks about step siblings. She talks about twins. And why, have I missed anything out?

And also, actually, interestingly, a group of people, I must admit, I didn't know this expression, glass siblings. Do you know, have you heard of that? No, what are they? They are people who may feel that their parents look through them because they have a sibling with additional needs. And I'd never thought about what it might be like to grow up in. a family where quite necessarily the needs of one of the children basically it's it has to be the focal point I guess of the parents' energies and so much of their attention is necessarily given to the child who requires additional help but that can mean that the other siblings are they're

not neglected but it's a very different way to grow up isn't it would be wouldn't it so hopefully there'll be something for everybody in that conversation but I do think, and Catherine does make the point in the book, that your sibling order, if you're not an only child, so if your eldest, middle, youngest, will have an impact on you now. I was talking to Eve earlier. You are the, where do you fit in? I'm number two of four. Right. So I'm middle. But the dynamic is interesting in your family because the youngest child is a boy. So I was saying that in our family, gender slightly overthrows because we're three girls and a boy. And when we were growing up, there was so much tension between all the sisters. that our little brother we all kind of doted on him because he was neutral. And as he turned out all right? He's doing okay, he's doing okay, yeah. How far away from the rest of years he chose him to love? He's actually in Manchester University.

Okay, well that's not too far. That's not too bad. I thought you're going to say he's in Melbourne, and then we would just have had a long pause. I think as much as he probably does exhibit youngest child energy, he probably has it tenfold as well, because we all gave it to him. Yes, yeah.

And do you think, in your experience, and this is an open question to both of you, do you think that you have ended up in your adult lives getting on better with people who are in the same place in the family as you? No, I don't think it's had any impact on my friendships. So I'm the eldest of two. You're the youngest of two. I'm just trying to think whether,

I think most of my friends are, no, I can't generalise about anything. Everybody's in a slightly different place in the family, middle. I think it's interesting if you, I've got one friend who is the youngest child. Oh, and she's female and she had two elder brothers. So she's in the sort of similar situation to Eve where I think she would probably acknowledge she might have been favoured as the youngest and the only girl. So that's possibly an impact. And what about with partners?

So actually my boyfriend is one of four as well And his sister has also got a husband who's one of four Interesting this is slightly where I'm trying to go Okay so where is your partner in his birth order He's actually number four But I think there's something about attracting that kind of like Loud family or busy family And being comfortable in that dynamic and in that environment

Yeah So I agree I think there's a really There's a really interesting affinity and of course there would be where you just recognise certain things that you've experienced

and been through but also I definitely definitely get on better with people who are younger siblings it's definitely a point of shared experience

and quite often solidarity actually yeah no I'm just thinking going through my little address mental address book no there's no

I have got some friends who are eldest children but not the majority. Do you know many only children because I don't? Well, I do, yes. And actually one of my very best friends is an only child. And I think only children, does Catherine Carr tackle this in the book? Well, she talks about, I tell you, there's an interesting quote from an author who I think we're going to talk to in a couple of weeks.

Sabine, I hope I've got her name right, Durant, or Durant, Durant. She's just written a book about Greece, a thriller set in Greece. which is what I wanted to do it. And she talks about being an only child and says that she was very, very conscious always of her mother's moods. Now that's not to say that her mother had... I don't know whether her mother had ups and down moods

or whatever it might have been, but she was very, very wedded to how her mother was feeling. And I think I hadn't thought about that aspect of being an only child at all. I think there's so much that's attached to only children that sometimes seems incredibly unfair. And in fact, in...

in obitories about Jenny Murray, it's noted that she was an only child. And I think there's then a whole series of tropes and assumptions that are made about people who are only children. And actually it's become increasingly common as our birth rate is dropping. I think in previous generations it was quite a standout thing to not have siblings. I don't think it's necessarily the case now. And I think for so many children, you know, who are grown up, up to know. It just must be really, really irritating because the

same thing is not so, oh yes, well, of course. She's a younger sister. Oh, well, of course. She's one of... The eldest of nine. Three. Yes, or something like that. But only children just get this absolute spotlight of assumption

all over them. And also the parents of putting all their eggs in the one basket, aren't they? And that absolutely has to have an impact on how you're brought up and expectations of you. And I think actually in Jenny Murray's case... Oh, I don't know. I think there are some expectations on, you know, on anybody within a family. That's what I'm trying to say.

I'm not sure. The more common it gets, I think, the less we should go. Well, okay, you're really different. Yeah. I know in Jenny's case, and she wrote about this, so it's not a secret, that her mum just literally said to her, I'd have preferred a son. And that's just, you know, cool. I mean, it is incredible.

That's what some people are prepared to you. That is just... Anyway. Horrible. Listen to what Catherine's got to say. She is the, let me think, she's the middle of three. three sisters. But interestingly, they didn't actually spend huge amounts of time together in their childhood because her parents' marriage broke up when she was 10, I think. Anyway, she'll explain all that

in the conversation. But it's an interesting topic. And I think it's a topic that is under-explored, I would say, because also do you pick a label in a family or are you kind of given one? So are you a dutiful eldest daughter because that's who you are, or are you made to be that? And is your younger sibling or are your younger siblings just kind of I don't know allowed to get away with more allowed to be different I don't know I don't know I've tried very hard to treat both my children the same

but you don't you do I think I would say I cozzeted the younger one and possibly continue to do so she won't be listening I remember being so delighted to have one of each because it's just me and my sister

although we have over the years had an awful lot of step-brun and sisters as well but it's just she talks about that too did I mention that and were very very close in age there's only 14 months between us and both of us have gone on to have a boy and a girl and I think both of us were very glad of that

yeah I think it's some although there was a moment when my daughter was born because I had her at home very suddenly she arrived out of the blue I mean I did know I was pregnant I wasn't one of those women who just went to the loop I just didn't know it's a really big poop by the way if anybody no I was a born

has ever been in that situation. Please tell us how that happens. Just don't get it. Anyway. But, I mean, there was quite a lot of confusion, and obviously it was quite a sudden arrival. And the paramedics made it just in time, just in time. And I was a little bit out of it because it had been a very, very sudden birth, and it was just a bit too soon. And so I'd said, as soon as my daughter came out, of course, the first thing you want to know is what you've had. and actually my husband did misinformed me

and there was a couple of minutes so I thought I'm the mother of two boys and it took a long time for that to go Jane it was such a weird because you suddenly have this huge vision of your life when you're told because it's very different what you had

and what were his observational skills like normally I think to be absolutely fair to him He must have been quite shocked himself. Yes, no, quite shocked. And also, I think there is a massive responsibility on you, if your partner goes into labour too soon at home, you know, all of that type of stuff. So I don't blame him at all, and we used to laugh about it a lot. But I did think, oh, I've got two boys.

And then I had to kind of work my way back from that quite often, as it turned out. It's just really strange. I may be completely alone in this, but help me out if I'm not. This one comes in from Eleanor Oh dear, we were talking again about the silly aisles Jane yesterday because... Getting a lot of attention from us. Nobody had had a good time getting there.

Yes, it's just the getting there, isn't it? Well, no, some people hadn't had about it. They were there. One of our correspondents had just been on a tour and the only thing that she had seen through the fog was Harold Wilson's bungalow. It's okay. Which, I mean, you can't build a holiday around that, really, can you?

However much of a fan of Harold Wilson you may have been. I just said something about it. So British. A good time was had by all. This one comes in from Eleanor, who says, I've been to the city of aisles once and feel obliged to come to its defence, given the bad rep in recent emails.

They run a swim event of 15 kilometres where you swim between all the islands. This one's for you, Jane. Yes. So you brought out on a boat to an island to start and then swim to the next island, and then walk across it and swim to the next one, etc., etc. You can do it over one day. And Eleanor does say in brackets very intense, or two days in brackets a bit more relaxed, but still a challenge. I did it once in the sun shone. It was beautiful. The water is so clear. It's like the Caribbean.

We stayed on St Mary's. It's very quiet at night because there's no light pollution. The sky's amazing and you can see the Milky Way. Tresco seemed fantastic as I walked across it as we made our way to the next swim leg, never got to visit it properly. We flew from Exeter on a little prop plane, but then the fog descended for our departure. to get the famous boat back. Luckily, the sea was calm and we saw loads of dolphins. So I think that helps to better explain why people absolutely love the silly aisles

because you've got the Milky Way, the Milky Way, or Harold Wilson's bungalow in the fog. It sounds very beautiful. Yeah, you could write, I can see a melancholy album cover from the 1970s with the title, Harold Wilson's bungalow in the fog. That was my first ever memory of news

was Harold Wilson's resign. Was it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just remember coming home from school. I must have been about, what was I, 11? What I know?

Big newspaper billboard said, Wilson resigns. And immediately, fee, I was sucked into the world of current affairs, and I've never, ever got out. Well, when they make the biopic of your life, where you are played by? Julie Walters. Okay. Just FYI, in case you're interested, I want to be played by Bob Hoskins. No. Daddy DeVito

to push What about Little Bobby De Niro Bobby in his Hayday What about the chap From Saltburn Barry King

I don't know why that's funny But it is I don't know why it's funny I heard of it is Right OK We have had some email Say

Are you getting funnier No I think we're just getting madder And I think it's partly We're being driven mad By current affairs I'm just looking up the screen and there's a just don't but just look that's classic retired general there are on the screen giving us the benefit of his wisdom there's there's something about the jillet and men of a certain

age who've been in the military or is it a fleece either way well they're having the time of their lives at the moment they are at the moment and that's why the rest of us just have to take refuge in idiotic remarks um jeanine has written a thoughtfully mail now um she and a group of friends lost a dear friend of theirs last year. And naturally, she says, a group of us thought, right, let's get a memorial bench by the Thames in Kingston. She used to run there all the time. It was a lovely, wholesome, very British plan. But here's the plot twist. The council basically said, absolutely not. Benches are now too high maintenance, which raises the question, what are these benches doing? Demanding spa days? Filing complaints? Anyway, I went down a full

investigative spiral. I contacted Westminster, where our friend worked, and Portsmouth where she grew up, thinking surely somebody somewhere still supports a good old bench with a slightly wonky brass plaque. No, nowhere. Nationwide bench ban vibes. Apparently, councils have collectively decided no more sitting down and remembering people thanks. I'm really sorry to hear that. That seems rubbish. It seems really rubbish. And Jane, in these cash strapped times, you would have thought that councils would make the opportunity of every penny that is being offered to them? Well, I mean, Janine goes on, I'm just trying to process this bleak new reality, a future with no quietly emotional riverside benches, no slightly faded plaques saying,

beloved Dave, who loved this view and a good sandwich. What are we supposed to do instead? Put QR codes on lamp posts. I mean, I'm completely with you, Janine. And I love that expression, um, quietly emotional, because I know exactly what she means. You can just, suddenly read a plaque, picture the people that are being remembered and it's just a moment of genuine reflection and it's lovely. Oh no, totally and it's all part

of being in a community isn't it? That you take the time to remember that somebody else is here before you. So it seems pretty bonkers. Let's start a campaign. Well we sort of have in our own way because we are influencers. Now do you, I like this from Gill in Newbury.

For your coffee table book, the one that you suggested and then I also suggested within nanoseconds of you suggesting it. Sabrina came to Ipswich in the early 60s to open the gondoliers coffee shop. That's what we want, isn't it? We want pictures of that. I don't know who is Sabrina. She's a singer. Can we find out? There was great excitement as she lent

out of an upstairs window to cut a ribbon and delighted all the men. Love to all on the pod, says Jill. Thank you very much, Jill. And we're just trying to find out exactly who Sabrina was. Early 60s. So we're looking for a 60s pop star just called simply Sabrina. Yeah, I mean, the problem is if you pop it in now, whoever Sabrina was and whatever she produced has been completely overtaken by Sabrina Carpenter.

Oh, of course, yeah. I don't think Sabrina Carpenter will ever find herself in a position where she's popping to Whipswich to open a coffee shop. You never know. But showbiz is a cruel old world, so you don't know. And this is another celebrity spot. It was the mid-80s, and I was a young PE teacher

at a secondary school in restaurants. Edbridge, reminisces Wendy. We had the end-of-year prize-giving and the school decided to invite an ex-pupil, Nigel Ben, the boxer, to give the keynote speech. On the stage of the school hall, the headmaster and deputy heads were all dressed up in cap and gowns, members of the governing body and smart suits and hats and twinsets and pearls. That was the women, she says, several hundred pupils all sitting in the hall, expectantly waiting for the words of wisdom they were about to hear. Well, after about an hour of prizes and the headmaster regaling us all with the successes of the year, We excitedly awaited Nigel Ben to see what pearls he was going to impart. He was called up to speak and stood up wearing a shiny black shell suit with lots of gold jewellery weighing him down. He stood in the middle of the stage, held up his fists and claimed, look at these, this is all you need to get on in life. Forget education, just use these. They've made me rich and famous.

Well, I mean, he cut to the chase there, didn't he? In fairness, he had made a living and a good one as a boxer. The pupils were not expecting this and started cheering and clapping, whilst the head turned a shade of puse and one of the governors walked off the stage. Right, Wendy. Thank you very much. That's Sabrina. But that's not 60s, Sabrina.

No, no, so she was... This Sabrina was big in the 1980s. That's from 1987. But the Sabrina that Jill's reminiscing about came in the early 60s. Or could it be possible that possibly... It's a typo. It could be a typo.

Yeah, it could be... Get back to us, Jill. This is the news from Berkshire we all need. During her career, this Sabrina had 10 international hits, including three number ones. She was the queen of Italian disco, high energy. And that is NRG. I think we should probably go to the guest if that's all right. Fee's got a mouthful of mini-egg, so she's already celebrating.

Now, this is partly because our guest, Catherine Carr, came in with some gifts for us at some mini-egs. She's the author of Who's the Favorite, The Loving, Messy Realities of Sibling Relationships. Now, as the blurb to the book says, Catherine, our sibling relationships are the longest we'll ever have. But that doesn't mean they are without complication, and that's true, isn't it? That's totally true, because they're unlike any other relationship, I think. And that's what's so interesting is I heard you saying just before I came on air, you know, you have birth order, oldest middle baby and maybe more. So your relationship starts sort of vertical, they're hierarchical.

And then unlike any other relationship in your life, they sort of can evolve over all of those decades. maybe eight or nine decades, into something more equitable and peer-like. And that's quite a shift. And it can be a challenge. And it often doesn't happen. People have their sort of roles and their labels and their identities, part of which is birth order,

but a lot of which is dictated by the circumstances that surround a family like money or where they live, environment, health, all sorts of things. And sometimes they don't go beyond those. So when you're thrown back together, which can often happen in middle age as siblings, to deal with ageing parents and things like that, that, if you haven't really evolved beyond two-dimensional labels of who's the oldest, who's

the responsible one, who gets away with murder, etc. That is a really fraught time and the study showed that's when things can go really wrong. It's absolutely fascinating. Now, Fee is you're the eldest of, no, you're the youngest of two daughters. Yes. Yeah. And what are you, Catherine? I'm the middle of three girls. Right. And I'm the eldest of two daughters. Here we are. So, okay, and I would say it absolutely emphatically has had an impact. the fact that I'm the elder of two girls. And have you ever met anybody who simply denies that their sibling relationships or their birth order has had the slightest impact on them? Really interestingly, I have never met an oldest daughter who denies it.

So I think where gender intersects with being the firstborn, particularly when you're talking about care, but also that kind of emotional caregiving or being slightly relied upon to look after the subsequent siblings or being responsible or being a, little bit perfectionist and neurotic as a result. Obviously in other cultures, being firstborn and maybe a girl or boy is completely different. In some parts of the world, if you're the firstborn boy, you may be sent out to work really early and you don't get the chance to finish your education and do better in inverted commas like oldest siblings do sometimes in the West. But I think the oldest daughter thing is fascinating. What about the youngest daughter? Well, the research for youngest children, it's interesting. You've got children, I've got children, you've got children. You know when

You've got a toddler and a baby, for example, and you're generally more preoccupied with the toddler, because developmentally they're into things emptying the tupperware drawer or whatever, and the baby might be plonked in a bouncy seat in the corner. That's sort of where I see it starting. You know, when you make eye contact with the baby who's just there, they almost make jazz hands, and they make eye contact and they smile. They're kind of desperate for some of the attention and time that you can give them. So it's very simplistic to think it's just about that.

but in your own family, with those circumstances around your own family, you are always relative. You are always in that order. And that does, I think, mean something. Tell us about your own childhood and where it happened and how it all unfolded. So I think my childhood is what predisposed me to be interested in siblings. So we moved to Holland when I was six. There's three girls. So the oldest, Beck's six, seven, eightish, maybe, and the baby was six months old, CJ.

and my dad worked in ice cream, which is cheerful. You should say what he invented. The feast. Yeah. You're absolutely kidding. I don't know why I'm shilling like this. I shouldn't be working. It's just fantastic.

He was in a team of two or something who came. It was basically how to get as much chocolate on a stick as possible. He succeeded. It's a magical ice cream. He's an incredible man. You say some time at the end for talking about that. Absolutely. Carry on.

So we moved to Holland to do that, among other things. And when I was 11, my parents split up. really common. What wasn't so common is that my mum left and my little sister went with her. So she was six at the time. I was 11. Bex was about 13. And not long after my dad and me and my older sister moved back to the UK, leaving my mum and my little sister in Holland. So there's a lot I could say about that. But really in terms of siblings, what it does, is it really, what's the word, exaggerates the separation that every sibling has in their childhood because even if you grow up together, your experiences are different. But if you grow up

apart, your experiences are really, really different. Different countries, different parents, different biscuits, different Bolognese recipe, the whole thing. So I think what it did is maybe, I never take my sisters for granted. I think you can if you grow up together because you assume they'll always be there. I've never thought that. And we've worked really hard to be friends and to love each other in the way that we do and to be so close. So that's sort of where the the idea, really the germ of the idea, came from. Yes, and have there been other children as a result of your parents having other relationships? No, so we gained stepsisters, three step sisters and a stepbrother, but no halves.

Okay. Otherwise known as cement babies. Right, cement babies. They might cement the new families together. I see, gosh, I mean, you do try in the book to cover every possibility, including only children. And I do think, we would, Fee and I were talking about this earlier. it's just such a weight about that term, as though the individual bears some sort of responsibility for this,

when they have no say whatsoever. Who did you meet to hear about being an only child? Oh, all sorts of people. But most interestingly, a psychotherapist called Louise Halling, who remembers growing up in the borders in Scotland, quite Presbyterian, quite an environment. And she remembers being quite small and people bending down to her height when she was a little girl and just sort of saying one word in her face,

spoiled. She was sort of, how do you know? You don't know any other experience when you're a child. You swim in the soup you swim in. You don't know any other environment. You don't know any other reality. And when you're older, I think it's bonkers to assume that having siblings could rescue you from being lonely and automatically make you happy, because sometimes, and often they don't. And to assume the other, which is being an only child automatically means you're lonely. because the research shows actually only children are really good at making friends because they value close relationships and they nurture them sometimes better than siblings. Well, all of us who were first children were only children for a while

and we are born into really an adult environment. And I think if you're particularly the first grandchild in a family, the amount of attention can be really quite overwhelming. Yeah. Is that good or bad, do you think? I think, I mean, there's lots of things that come to bear on that, including age gap. So how quickly you might be, quote unquote, dethroned in your mother's affections by the next child, that has a bearing on it. So what your memory might be like, my children are 20 months apart.

They don't really remember life without each other. Well, actually, you and your sister are how many months apart? We're only 14 months apart. So do you remember life without her? No, you're the baby. Yes, she's the, no, she's always been there. But there is quite a, there's quite a strong kind of reaction, isn't there, in an awful lot of toddlers who are presumably around the two, three, four year old mark when they get dethroned, which is completely understandable because you go from total immersion to having to share the bath. And an awful lot of people do say that that can carry on all the way through your life.

You're just not a person who shares easily. Yeah, I think that can be true. Lewis Goodall, I spoke to you for the podcast, which came before the book. And he has a little sister called Meg, and I said to him on the podcast, did you have a nickname for her? And he said, yeah, go away. I mean, he was so resentful. He was four or five.

And I think potentially the only grandchild as well as the only child. So he was this very happy little sort of recipient of funneled attention from all of these adults. And it took quite a long time for him to see her as a person, someone who could help him. Just to remind us, there's a funny story in the book about I think you're feeding your baby and your elder child who didn't have very many words. I think they were just learning to talk, was not impressed. No, he was sitting on this tiny little sort of wicker armchair that I used to get out for that time of night and put in front of the night garden. Theme tune still gives me a bit of flashbacks. So he'd sit on there and have a bottle himself and I was feeding the baby and he kind of side-eyed me for a bit and then came toddling over with the bottle in his dressing gown.

and he hadn't said a full sentence by that point, it's 20 months. And he just looked at the baby and he said, put that. And then he pointed at the bassinet on the floor, in there. Good point, well made. I was proud and worried. Yes. Julia says, I was born on my sister's third birthday. She describes it as awkward.

I wonder whether it still is. Tansy says, my daughter's an only child. When people used to suggest that only children were spoiled, she'd replied, no, I'm just well looked after. And from Emma, I'm the youngest of three, but I'm the only girl. I'm relied upon to be care and support giver. I have trouble deferring to my brothers in this role when I'm cast aside when they appear. I feel like my mum favours the boys.

She would deny this as I do to my own children, says Emma. Yes, I mean, that is it. I mean, it's been a theme actually throughout the programme with people messaging to say, it's all very well. We had one earlier, a message from a woman who is the youngest of three and was treated as the baby of the family by her elder brother. others until the point at which she became the person who had to look out for the old folk. And all of a sudden, she had to rise to the occasion.

Yeah. And I think that sort of evolving of roles is really, it's really difficult. And I include the main chunk on favouritism intentionally on the chapter on estrangement. Because really, although there's not very much research that shows how being the favourite or being perceived as the favourite affects your sibling relationships, there's certainly quite a lot of research about how being the favourite or being perceived as the favourite affects you psychologically. And I think it's this idea that you felt sort of the chill of being outside of your parents' affection for one reason or another, or in really dysfunctional families, slightly being blamed for the dysfunctionality, this scapegoat idea, we're all all right. The problems are caused by that one.

That really troubles me. And I sort of quote the bear, the TV series in there, the Christmas episode with Jamie Lee Curtis is the most sort of cartooning. grotesque version of all of that, these sorts of terribly dysfunctional roles and how people go home to their parents and start rehearsing and replaying those roles. Can we talk about this is favouritism, basically, the polite term is parental differential treatment. I just want to mention Ben who says, I think he's just beaten our previous correspondent, my mum's water's broke at my brother's 10th birthday party. You certainly putting a marker down there. That's for sure. Was that you, Ben? Did you result from those waters breaking, let us know. So favouritism, is it inevitable that perhaps parents, dads and

moms will look more fondly upon the, quote, easier child? Is that just inevitable? I think research does show that the more amenable, quote-unquote, good child can have an easier relationship with their parents. And I think that's sometimes gendered. So the good oldest daughter sometimes might more commonly fall into that category, which I think is a bit worrying. I find that a bit troubling as a woman. But I think what favouritism does is it really sort of explodes this whole idea about the family, which is we have our separate childhoods and our separate experiences. We are not experiencing the same thing at the same time. We're born at different moments. We have different personalities which bring out different parts of our parents' personalities. Those relationships

will be different. So your memories of what your dad was like or your mum was like will be really different to what your sibling remembers, simply because, you know, with your own children, at certain times they need different things and you have to step up in different ways. How to do that without making your child feel that affection is contingent on them performing in one way or another way or that the troublemaker gets loads of help and they're just left alone to be competent. I think that's, it's not a parenting book, but I think there is quite a lot in there for parents. I found it quite interesting. Did you meet many people along the way who had actively worked incredibly hard to turn around the positions that they'd been born into and with.

Oh, I see what you mean. I think it happens. I think often in adolescence and early adulthood, there's a moment where in the chapter about friendship, siblings stop seeing each other as they have seen them forever in this sort of parental context, if you like, in the house, in their roles, sharing the remote and arguing the back of the car. And Dan Snow said it best, He went to the pub one day with this little sister, who he says he was really mean to and he regrets. She was in six form. He was maybe a bit older. She was dancing.

His friends were there and he saw how they saw her, like really cool, really good dancer, really good company. And he was sort of shocked. He was like, oh. So seeing your sibling out of that context, out in the wide world where we are so many more things than just the funny one, the clever one,

the one who's good at maths, the one who's messy is so important. So I think, I mean, not giving advice, who am I to give advice, but maybe go out for lunch with your siblings without your parents now and again and talk about your whole grown-up adult life rather than just going home for Christmas and doing that thing that you always do. Yeah. And wouldn't it be true also that you can only ever really change that position if the sibling is willing to change their position to?

Yeah, I spoke to Daisy Goodwin, screenwriter and playwright, an amazing person. and she said, you know, lots of older sisters sort of might huff and puff about all this responsibility and they haven't really stopped to think that maybe they're taking on that role and that without it, their identity might be tricky for them to manage. I mean, recently, my little sister, I was overwhelmed with work and quite, anyway, I was in a state, and I was on the phone to her and she said, right, check your email. And five minutes later, she'd booked me in Airbnb, paid for it. It was about half a mile away from my house.

She was like, leave the puppy, leave the dog, leave the children, go for four. days, get this done, I've paid for it, is sorted. And then she said, I can be like your big sister sometimes. I can take care of you. But it is a bit of a weird feeling. You have to sort of step aside and get out of your main character energy and be sort of open to the idea that maybe everyone can do quite a lot of things. Yeah, it's really interesting hearing you say that because there's a part of me that's slightly flinching of the idea of the younger sibling moving in starting to take charge of organising something. By the way, it was Ben who was born. as the result of his mother's waters

breaking at his brother's 10th birthday party and he's now 43. Right. From Anonymous, just because your siblings, it doesn't mean you've got to get on regardless. My sister's two and a half years older than me. When we were children, I spent all my time with my dad watching horse racing and my sister spent all her time

with our mother sewing. I've been an outdoorsy horsey person all my life. My sister's been an indoorsy sewing person all her life. Yes, I mean, just because you are related, sometimes you have absolutely nothing in common. Yeah. But I have to say as parents' age and as the inevitable hits the you know what,

you're going to have to find a point of connection because you're going to have to deal with it together. It's only fair. I think that's right. And I think the way that DNA's shared out, you don't have the same amount of DNA with all of your full siblings. So maybe there's bi-yes.

Yes, yes. Maybe there's biological reasons why you don't get on with one as well as the other. but also I think the reason that I include the trickier, and there are lots of tricky sibling relationships in the book, is to ask people to talk more about siblings and then to be a bit more honest about the ones that aren't all hallmark cards and memes on the internet, and to be honest about that.

And then maybe when we're honest about that, we can then move on and say, okay, but right, as you say, we are going to have to sort these things out and get together and be grown up. So maybe some of the language in here will help people get to whatever point they need to get to with their siblings. Yeah. Now, because you're a middle child and you're happy to own that,

I was quite surprised you described them as quite manipulative or they have to be able to manipulate. Now, what do you mean? Well, it was described to me by a psychotherapist called Drew Law who uses Adlerian theory. So Alfred Adler was a contemporary of Freud

who's kind of one of the best known birth order theory dudes from the 19th century. And he says that middles, you have the first, as you say, born into the adult environment. and then you have the next and then if you have another you create a middle

and that middle can ally really easily with the baby potentially against the oldest who's maybe a bit more perfectionist or like the adults or a bit of a goody two shoes this doesn't always happen or could ally more with the oldest against the baby who's come along and upset the apple cart

so they can tend to be good at being people pleasers getting on manipulative is the sort of not so nice way of putting it, but they do tend to be able to get on with all sorts all the time, he says in his research. Right, and you're talking about yourself there, so you're happy. You've been very honest. Another area, which I haven't thought of, and I'm really glad you mentioned it, the glass siblings, because they are, they're a group who often have quite a lot to do and a lot of

responsibility, and they can get overlooked. Yeah, these are siblings of a child with an additional leader or a disability, so the expression means that sometimes because of the extreme needs, of their sibling. They feel like they're looked through straight to the child he needs more help. So they're given less sometimes in terms of attention and asked for more. So it can on the sort of more problematic end of that lead to parentification where the child has pulled into sort of performing roles they really shouldn't. But even if they don't, even in a happy family and I spoke to a lot, where the child with a disability is one of the children and everybody gets on with it. Even so, because resources, it's

all about resources, parents will give where the need is, that does create a dynamic, which can be something that they live with as they grow up for quite a long time. I found that chapter probably one of the most interesting to write, because there was so much about it that I hadn't considered and that I really want to consider now when I meet families in that situation. Yeah, I mean, I thought it's just, it's fascinating this book, and it's just, you really do read it and learn something about yourself. I mean, it's quite troubling some of it, Catherine. I'm here to tell you.

It really is. Carry on, go on. I was just going to ask if you had unlimited feasts when you were growing up once your father had made them. Yeah, yeah, we did. And in the, well, we had unlimited ice cream fee. So in the 80s, sometimes he would bring home dry ice in his briefcase. And then we could have top of the pops in the kitchen and ice. You just open his briefcase sometimes and there'd be like strawberry sauce, ice, and a lump of dry ice.

And I thought, this is a little crazy. It's better than a calculator and a copy of the FT, isn't it? Tell you what. Don't you be writing a misery memoir, please? Golden Charles. I haven't. No, you haven't. You have written.

This gives me a, what a wonderful. It's almost like you're in radio. The book is called Who's the Favorite? The Loving, Messing Realties of Sibling Relationships. And very quickly, in one word, you have got a podcast. What's your podcast called? It's called Relatively. Yeah, and that features siblings, talking to you, Catherine, about being a sibling

and what it's meant to you and some of the complications. Love you to see you. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Catherine Carr, author of Who's the Favorite? And I think if you've, everyone has got a family story. Everyone's got a family. So I think everyone will find some nugget in that book to reassure or invigorate, I would say, one way or another. People are still asking about Fee and her lack of interest in kitchen role.

Now, this is from Kit, who's in Marin County, which I think is that California? I think so. Yeah, I'm a quite seldom user of kitchen roll, says Kit, mostly favouring cloths. However, something I learned at the Marin County Farmer's Market from a lovely strawberry seller, place a sheet of paper towel in a pannot of soft fruit and they will last longer.

Ideally, transfer them to an airtight plastic box for even longer life alongside the paper towel. It also works really brilliantly well in bags and boxes of salad leaves. Genuinely, kitchen roll has revolutioned. my fridge over here in northern California. Now, I would like to put some science on that. Why is that happening? Kit, can you tell us why that's happening?

Is it because the paper towel absorbs the moisture or maybe mould or spores? Who knows? So one of our unbelievable listeners will know, just like our joy of scent, scientists just absolutely nailed the problem with scent. Jane and Fee at Times.combed Radio. and just to wet your appetite and that's wet

which has got an achin, I'll come to you. Eve's got her hand up. Next week we have got the delights of John Battiste, Stigable and William Boyd in Guest Corner that all men will we be all right? I don't know. Let's ask them all about kitchen roll.

Let's... On a little parish notice, we did originally promise that the book club was going up tomorrow. There's been a scheduling conflict. So it'll be next Friday now, but thank you everyone for sending me your emails in and there will also be a bonus episode of an interview that Jane's done going out tomorrow.

Okay, well, right, thank you very much indeed. No, goodbye. Thank you. Okay, bye. Bye. Congratulations, you've staggered somehow to the end of another off-air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4 on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale, and if you listen to this, you'll understand. and exactly why that's the case.

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