Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Hopefully that John Lewis multipack will see me out...

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

Fi’s brought a frittata in and Jane’s fishcakes haven’t cut the mustard. We hope you’re enjoying a balanced meal wherever you are… Jane and Fi also cover hospital flowers, the randomness of bank holidays, and the sexual antics of the muntjac. Plus, writer Claire Lynch discusses her prize-winning book 'A Family Matter', about lesbian mothers who lost custody of their children during divorce cases in the 1980s. You can check out our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@OffAirWithJaneAndFiOur new playlist 'Coiled Spring' is up and running: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4tmoCpbp42ae7R1UY8ofzaOur 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 Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Right, we've got an awful lot to get through today. I've just written down bobbling with Eve, lest we forget, because we've got to catch up with that jumper, Joan. De-bobbling. It's a scientific question, really. What causes bobbling on certain types of Jersey, Eve? Well, so I don't know, but I would love to find out, now that I've debobled with Phillips debobbler.

Semi-effective, I'd give it a... Who's Philip? Oh, you don't know him? Oh, I'd go to another... school, does he? Okay. I thought you meant the electrical manufacturer. I did, yeah. Oh, I see.

I was thinking you must be familiar with Philip. I was thinking, God, you know someone called Philip. It's quite an old-fashioned name. It was a battery-powered Phillips debobbler. Wow. I'd give it a six out of ten. I didn't think it was that effective. So then I wanted tips on how to fully debobble

and then how to prevent re-bobbling. Yeah, I think the re-bobbling is inevitable, but I don't know why either. So we'll throw it open because we've had lots of sensible answers to our questions about flowers in hospitals so this one can't it won't be able to get past our incredible

informed hive mind so let us know what's causing it. Presumably when you wash it it's just little fibres that rub up against other little fibres. Well I don't know. And get a little bit hardened. You've got to wash your jumper so...

Well you don't have to. Do I have to hand wash it? Well I always advise hand wash it. I do, I'm afraid. She's not got time for that. Well, who has? Neither have, but I still do it. Some people, they advocate freezing things,

don't they? Instead of washing them. Oh, it sounds like a long road. Growing up is really hard to do, Eve. But you will find yourself. Do your world is a challenge? Exactly, these sort of things. But the jumper looks lovely. Yes.

I think you've done a very good job. I would have given it slightly higher than six out of ten, actually. It took a while. What a decent evening's work. What did you do last night? It certainly didn't achieve on that scale. That's for sure to try to think. Oh, it was fish cakes again.

With the nice gooey middles or just without? No, they didn't have the gooey middles. I think that's one of the advances in modern cuisine where now if I try and serve a fish cake without a gooey middle in our households, the mass rough reception. I must admit they're a bit dry. But anyway, they're just so useful.

They're my freezer go. to what the hell are we going to have tonight? Well, it's protein and carb all in one dish, isn't it? I like it. And I did serve it with some Jersey Royals. Okay, double carb. Yeah. Is it?

Oh, I suppose it is. Yeah. And then, yeah, what else did we have? What was your green? We had, I've made a chickpea salad. Ooh. Don't you like that? Oh, I mean, that is double protein, double carb.

Where's the green bit? Was there any? That was a plate of brown. I put a bit of parsley into the, into the chickpea salad. Okay, that's nice. She also had red chili, red onion. Oh, well then you're laughing.

You know, cucumber. Yeah, I'm sorry that's my statured. Yeah, that was, you see. You could have done with some of my chickpea salad. Don't mock. No, I wouldn't mock. I brought my own fratata in. Today, I'm looking forward to that.

Very much, indeed. I look forward to it too. Well, welcome to everybody, except Francis in Godalming, who sent us a truly horrific image of her husband's cactus, or actually cacti. They're in some kind of, there's a sort of orgy going on in a very small bowl. And I just don't expect that of Godalming.

Francis, it's appalling. It made me think of rather demonstrative men falling asleep in the sun on sun loungers on the beach. And just very occasionally you do see one who's definitely been dreaming about something. Yeah, quite. They should have gone upstairs. Right, this one, where Volvo failed, Ford succeeded.

And it is a fantastic email from Claire that came in the day before yesterday. and do you know what we get an awful lot of emails at the beginning of the week Jane don't we and over the weekend so if you don't hear your email read out please don't think it's just being binned it might just have been put in a folder for Wednesday onwards yeah that was very reassuring message you delivered there with genuine compassion and I absolutely echo it well because Claire obviously got annoyed yeah and I don't blame people for getting annoyed yeah so send it again but here we go and it's and it's worth reading hearing fee complain about her seatbelt

and Haskoda compelled me to write that some car design used to be influenced by women. Whilst working for Ford of Europe in the early noughties, I was part of the Fiesta program team. I worked as a project manager. One of the roles I was given was to help run the women's marketing panel. The panel was the ingenious idea of Malcolm Thomas, who was the head of B-car product development. He realised that despite trying very hard to recruit women engineers, he had a team of mostly male ones, but he knew that Ford of Europe did have lots of women in its ranks in other departments. So why not invite them to help?

The deal was every woman had to be measured and weighed. This included loads of limb measurements, hands, fingers, legs. I learned more about my anatomy compared to my peers than I ever wanted to. But then we got the opportunity to input into the design of future Ford cars. Rather than design cars for the average woman, the engineers would check those using the outer ranges of size compared to the whole of the female population. At six foot tall, I was 100th percentile woman,

whilst my colleague Helen at 5'1 was, now have a guess at this, where you and I are. Oh, okay, I would say, I'm going to, I think it might be under 10. Would it be, say, 8th? Fifth. Fifth, that reminds me of the baby's little red book thing. I know. Yeah, our graph wouldn't have moved much.

It meant that we were both very popular with the body and package engineering teams. Many a time we get a phone call asking us to visit them to try something out. Helen to test whether she could reach the pedals or comfortably put on and wear a seatbelt and me whether I could comfortably sit behind the wheels or in the rear of the car. Women have proportionally longer legs than men. Did you know that? I didn't, but I suppose that means we've got smaller trunks and longer legs. So a six foot tall wood.

woman would have much longer legs than a six-foot tall man. Right, yeah. We ran lots of events where the women were asked to drive prototypes as well. We were also asked to bring items that we would regularly put in the boot of the car. Strangely, golf clubs didn't feature. And I love this, but at the end, the chief program engineer, Jeremy Main, used to have a set of beautifully painted nails, which he used to test the buttons and switches on the car. The radio designers and engineers used to go through particular trauma.

his view is that if his customer had spent a fortune getting their nails done, they didn't want them wrecked by a poor design. Well, Claire, thank you for all of those details. I mean, it does also beg the question why Ford perhaps didn't do more to recruit female designers so that Jeremy didn't have to put on some fake nails. Yeah, so Jeremy himself had an immaculate manicure. Yes, so he would obviously put on some painted nails

in order to test out. He was 100% straight down the line, all man was Jeremy. But it's a fascinating insight, isn't it? And, you know, I mean, all credit to Ford, we're actually thinking, right, we do need to do a little bit more customer research using the female members of our workforce. But it's all part of the same problem, isn't it, that if you don't have women making decisions at the beginning, then it's not really going to suit women at the end.

Can I tell you a fascinating fact which surprised you, even you? Well, is this about your, and I'm very impressed. by this, you went to a talk. I did. I went to a talk about the history of Fleet Street. Sounds fascinating. Yeah, on Monday evening and I want to thank Carol for her generosity. Carol's one of those people who's been incredibly welcoming

and, you know, sometimes you meet people who are just really warm and you just think, this is lovely. Absolutely lovely. I wish more people like that. Anyway, I'm always a bit suspicious. Is it a cult? No, it's not a cult. It's not a cult at all. But I didn't know this fact, that Elizabeth Mallet, and I defy most of the audience to be going,

oh yes, Elizabeth Mallet at this point in time, she was the first editor of a national printed news sheet. She founded the Daily Courant in 1702. It was predominantly about foreign news, and she was the one who set it up. So not only was she the first female editor, She was the first editor of a daily news sheet and she was a woman back in the 18th century

but you know turn of the 18th century. A name totally forgotten? Totally forgotten. And the history of Fleet Street then becomes so male dominated with Lord Beaverbrook and obviously Northcliff and the Murdoch's arrival which obviously took the newspaper

printing industry out of Fleet Street and somewhere else. We haven't got time to go into all that. Difficult history. But I was fascinated by that fact. I mean, that's just an astonishing thing for a woman in 1702 to have done. And I think she's been completely forgotten by history. So how long did the talk go on for? It was about an hour.

And who delivered it? Three separate people. So there was one about Fleet Street itself and the notable points in Fleet Street. And I find that element of London's buildings absolutely fascinating. So things like the Fleet River. I mean, everyone's just forgotten. you know, the Fleet River. Is that one of those, it still runs underneath London.

Yes, yeah, it still runs into, I think it does run eventually into River Thames, but, you know, things like that, but also all the plaques that are dedicated that you don't really see unless you're at the top of a London bus these days. So we had to talk about that and also about the individual input by women and the journey through Fleet Street and gossip columns and all of that kind of stuff made by both women and men. so lots of stuff about penny dreadfuls and then a bit about

individuals who are very significant in fleet street. It was absolutely fascinating. I know that had I been around, I would have been out as often as I possibly could trying to secure a penny dreadful. Yes, you would totally. And they were supposedly scurrilous

rags full of tawdry murder and reprehensible behaviour? Very much so. And so much also about highwaymen about, you know, kind of danger and desperate situations and exactly that. And one of the most successful gossip sheets detailed the things that was said by people who were about to be executed or hanged. But the fascinating fact about that was quite often the sheet had been printed and was

available to the audience who had gathered for that execution. So it couldn't have been the last words. No, it just wouldn't know. Maybe it was a little bit made up. Well, you have ruined it now for people from the... past who may be listening. Absolutely ruined it. But now, it was really interesting.

We haven't moved on, have we really? I mean, look at the success of crime novels, true crime podcast. We're still the same people, aren't we? Oh, God, totally. And social media is absolutely. It's the ultimate penny dreadful. It is, yep. In fact, if I were to go back on...

Billionaire dreadfuls, isn't it? If we were to go back on social media, we should call ourselves Penny's dreadful or Penny dreadfuls. Yeah, that's a very good idea. Yes. The Penny dreadfuls. Yeah, really, really good. Sounds very interesting. Are you going to any more talks?

I'll keep you posted. I don't have any currently in the diary. No, but no, but I think, I also thought it's one of the great things, not just about London, but about lots of big cities and small towns, where almost every night of the week, the spoken word is still in action in some form, and people are either congregating or in some cases paying money just to hear other people talk. I just think it's amazing. Yeah, I agree. And especially at the moment, because the news is very, it's actually very narrow at the moment.

They're really dominated by a couple of themes, which are basically the world's going to end. So I'm finding it just increasingly nice to put my head in a different place and ingest something. And just as it happens, we are going on tour. Well done, sister. Well done.

Details coming soon. Wonderful. Now, I really want to thank Jacob, who's written such a thoughtful email. I really appreciate the effort you've gone to here, Jacob. It was about the listener's, son who was, well his mom wrote in on his behalf really. I mean, the son might well be horrified to hear that his mom had written in, but there were no names mentioned. She just felt her son was

about to leave education and it's a tricky time and he just seemed a little bit directionless and to be blunt about it, she wasn't entirely sure that he would thrive in interview situations because like so many of the young people around at the moment, he's had such a screen-based life and COVID didn't help either. Anyway, Jacob says, I was in the same position as your listener's son around 15 years ago. I graduated with a 2-2 in geography, no clue at all what to do. I now have a fulfilling job in IT as a software tester and I love it. I find the bugs and problems so you don't have to. I know times have probably changed a bit since then, but here's some of my advice based on experience. Your uni should put on optional free days, courses, seminars, etc. Go to as many

of these as possible. They want you to do well as they are judged on graduate employment stats. look for graduate schemes and internships they do still exist. My current employer struggles to fill spots some years. Office temp work can be a good option, speak to as many recruitment agencies as you can. It is usually minimum wage, but it will get your foot in the door, and it does at least prepare you for the 9 to 5. Be flexible, think about what interests you, but don't be afraid to try other stuff too, and accept that you might need to travel or commute or relocate. Volunteering is a good way to get around fear of talking.

to people. There are so many options. Could be something on the phone if you struggle with eye contact. I know I do sometimes. There might even be stuff at the uni. My brother started his career in tree surgery through volunteering, planting trees out on Exmo. Wow, that's incredible. Small things, says Jacob, but always tailor your CV to the job application you're applying for. Don't send out a general one to everyone and keep it short as people won't ever read more than two pages. Jacob, thank you. I think that's all really, really sound advice. Very, very grateful to you for making the time to contact us. We really appreciate it.

We concur with all of that. Incoming from Jill, squirrels and stockings. I don't think any other podcast is giving you this. Enjoyed yesterday's pod a lot. I have to agree with his majesty regarding the grey squirrel as a lifelong Republican. They're vermin, vermin, vermin, Jane. They're vermin, vermin. That takes songbird eggs and spread a fatal virus.

as to the indigenous red population. If you're ever lucky enough to see a red squirrel, I've seen a few on recent trips to the Trossox. They're beautiful creatures that we should support. I have similar feelings for the ever more present Munchak. Is that right? Munt Jack. Munt Jack, dear. Yeah, people are very angry about Munt Jacks, I think, aren't they?

Are they? Why? Well, because they lollop about, they do cause a surprising amount of harm to the environment and to other creatures. Well, yes, Jill says... I think they look sweet, but they're just annoying. Non-Indigenous, very destructive and proliferating rapidly. That means they've been at it.

In the countryside. Jill, they're having a lot of sexy times. And we don't like that. Regarding stockings, I have to agree with either not for normal times. In fact, since leaving the workplace, any form of hosiery is rare for me. However, I can recommend the crotchless tight, something like goelia love 20, suspended tights, from tights, tights, tights, I wonder what they sell. Sometimes marketing.

Who came up with that great idea? I don't know. Mind you, let's hear it for the sock shop. Because you knew where you were there, didn't you? You did, although confusing. They closed down. They also started selling shirts. Oh, yeah, did they?

Yes, they did. That's probably where it all went wrong. I always think it's one of the best kind of long-running jokes in modern family that Jay's company is called Closet's Closet's Closet's. He goes into battle at one point with a competitor, which is called closets, closets, closets, closets. Back with Jill. They have the hygiene advantages of the stocking

regarding ventilation of one's nether regions, and if you wear your pants over the top, they can stay in place all day, worth a try. Jill says, keep chatting. The first dog walker of the day isn't the same without you, but I do get some odd looks when I suddenly laugh at. When you say laugh out load, it's not a load, darling. It's not a bird.

I think listening to us can be a bit of a burden, to be honest. It's daily occurrence. We're very happy to be in your ears, Jill. And that is just fabulous news. It is. It really is. We have quite a lot about suspenders, didn't we? We discuss a lot of subjects. I don't think that very rarely do we have a subject that pops up in a completely natural exchange between us

that doesn't result in a single other email. It's great. You really are all every bit as crackers as we are. And I do find that reassuring. Very reassuring. And also because sometimes we'll talk about really serious things on the podcast. And I always think that's what everyone's going to write in about. My defence of women who are trying to do creative work

and weren't being pounded down by the burden of domesticity, which originated from a conversation about being able to work like a man. I thought, oh, God, I would have started something off there because it's only two examples in a field of masculinity. But in fact, we had many, many more emails about taking cats on ferries. We did. It's just...

Brilliant. Would you like another one about suspenders? Yes, please. Because this is called double and treble gussets and the magic of suspenders. Now, this one comes in from Bridget. Such a weird topic to email you about, but you did ask.

Here are the reasons why I prefer them. You don't have an additional layer of synthetic fabric covering your bum. This means less risk of a sweaty bum crack and the kind of moist knicker environment that can encourage problems like thrush, no laughing matter. You can adjust the length of the suspender bit so they fit perfectly avoiding the saggy crotch that can happen if your tights are slightly too short. Girls at school

would sometimes solve the saggy crotch problem by putting an additional pair of knickers on the outside of their tights. But that creates a treble gusset situation, which surely can't be good. When you need a wee, you can just pull your knickers down as normal as the suspenders go under the knicker fabric, no wrestling tights back up. And when you get a ladder in one leg, you can still wear the other one. Oh, I see. Well, that's... So they're economically sound.

Yeah, with tights, you have to throw the whole lot away. Yes, that's true. Unless you're my friend's frugal auntie Margaret, who used to cut the laddered leg off her tights, keeping the remaining unladdered one, and then pair her with the corresponding leftover leg. What? No flies on her. What extraordinary lengths some people go to?

This fantastic method of reducing waste, obviously, would result in a treble gusset situation, but in the days before central heating it probably kept your bum nice and snug. Now, Bridgett signs off by saying it's actually quite difficult to get hold of basic everyday stockings because they do seem to have become a sex accoutrement. I very rarely wear the sort of formal clothing

that requires a sheer leg, so I'm hoping that the five multi-packs of stockings I bought a while ago in John Lewis will see me out. Positive thinking. Bridget, I love you. Bridget, you do sound great. Very great. Two for that.

Leanne is also great and she's in Mulwala in Australia. Good I thought you might attempt. I hope it's Malwala, but thank you, yes. Just a little email, says Leanne, as you were discussing why you would wear suspenders and stockings, why anybody would, an advert suddenly popped up on my YouTube selling cream for itchy vulvers. So maybe there's the answer to your question. Wow, isn't the world slightly creepy?

I mean, talk about algorithms. Love your show. It makes me laugh, which is one. thing, the only thing I miss about work now I've retired, laughing with my colleagues. When I started nursing back in the 80s, arranging flowers, there's one part of the job I was definitely not trained for. I plot them in a vase and just hope for the best. There is no rule in our small rural health service about flowers, and the nicest ones are the posies brought in from home gardens. Oh, I bet that's lovely. See, that would cheer anybody up, wouldn't it? So that's interesting.

In Australia, thank you for that, Leanne. You are, at least in that part of Australia, are still allowed to bring flowers into hospitals. But Ruth brings us the British experience, and she says, I left my hospital nursing job in 2016, and flowers had already become history. Visitors would come in and delightedly hand over the bunch of flowers and ask, could you find a wee vase for these, please? The flowers then sat precariously on a wheeled table or drawers,

and they get swiped to the floor when a privacy curtain was whisked round. They smelt and, rarely patients or relatives would bother to freshen them up. People really dislike the smell of lilies, which always seemed to make an appearance in bouquets, and an already nauseous person found the smell too much, yeah, I can imagine that. Each night a member of staff would collect the bouquets, store them in the sluice overnight, and hope to get them back to the correct owners in the morning. Not really sure why that was done, perhaps something to do with the flowers absorbing oxygen overnight? Patients needed oh two more than the flowers. It

bad enough collecting dentures to be soaked and the horror story you're told as a student of the nurse who collected the dentures, oh dear, and put them all in the same bowl. Now that would have been a fun start to a shift. The stories we could tell, says Ruth. Ruth tell them. We're here for you. I know you're a regular correspondent. Many thanks indeed. For that, that's a really good slice of your nursing life. Yeah. We had loads about hospital flowers. Actually, this one comes from Jenny and she watched our Monday podcast. How could people do that

corporate, Kathy? Well, they could possibly go on to YouTube and look up Jane and Fee. Brilliant. Just on Mondays though. I think there are... And not next Monday because it's a bank holiday. That's very true. Well, the Monday after the Monday after that. That's true because that's also a bank holiday.

We get very few bank holidays in Britain, but they all seem very crowded. They're bunched up. Because you get Easter Monday, good Friday, and then the two ones who are. May and then there's nothing until the end of August makes no sense. Of course though if England win the World Cup will all be dancing in the streets for weeks on it. And will we be given a national holiday?

Well I don't think they'll be able to because they didn't win the women. They didn't do it for the women, yeah. But then that technically wasn't the World Cup. No. But it would still be nice to have a holiday. I'd really like a bank holiday at the end of February. Not just because it coincides my birthday, but it's when people need it most, isn't it? Yeah, it is weird.

A nice long weekend, just stay in bed. or find some tiny bit of seaside, bracing seaside air or whatever. It would be bracing. Jenny, sorry, back with you. I think there are multiple reasons why flowers aren't allowed in hospitals nowadays, including infection control allergies

and taking up room on bedside tables and sluces. When I started nursing way back in the 60s, the bedside tables would be awash with flowers but had to be taken up for the ward to the sluice every night. Water changed and put back the next day. Visitors weren't allowed to bring in red, and white flowers together as this was a reminder of blood

and bandages from World War I and brought bad luck. Oh God, I didn't know that. That's an extraordinary detail, isn't it? There was never enough room in the sluice for all of ours. God, the sluces getting quite a lot of their time. I don't think sluces are generally discussed on most podcasts, but...

We've gone from never, never thinking about the sluice to now only thinking about the sluice. That's incredible, isn't it? It certainly is. And if it was a busy night, the water didn't get, change so there would be a lot of smelly water. As nursing became more and more technical, patients didn't stay

as long in hospital and those that do are usually very ill and there is no time I'm afraid for tending to flowers and they wouldn't be allowed in the ICU or the high dependency wards. Jenny says I don't know exactly when bringing in flowers was stopped but I think it was

a relief to the staff. Yeah, you have to think about the staff who've got enough to do without arranging flowers but isn't that a fascinating fact about the First World War and the Red and White. My First World War was fact.

Were you in it? I don't mean in any way to God, because it's awful. Well, hi, it was terrible. Was that that was when she's gone. She's just lost. She's really gone.

There is nothing that Jane doesn't have an anecdote about. It's a fact. It's not an anecdote. Because as you rightly point out, I didn't. Right. Experience the first one.

No, that was where sanitary towels came from because they had a surplus of bandages. I didn't know that. So what were they using before? Well, just rags. Just rags. Yeah.

Okay. And moss and strange things like that. Well, I suppose, yeah, moss is probably, is that a sensible thing? I mean, well, I don't know. I mean, you must have put it inside a, God knows. Anyway, but that was where they started making

sanitary towels. Yeah. because they had all these burnages. So do you think that sanitary products and women's periods have always been regarded as something that needs to be not talked about, not shown, not depicted, not relevant? Are the cave paintings that actually show women having periods? Are there early forms of art?

No, I wasn't around when we were in caves. I mean, that's gone too fond. Honestly, I know. I'm only 85. But was it always like it still is now? I mean, we're getting there. Less of a stigma. There's never been less of a stigma in this country about it, thank God. Yes, but I don't think we're, I don't think we are completely there yet.

But yes, in our lifetime, it has changed significantly. But I wonder whether it was always the case. Well, it was a way of another way of keeping women down, wasn't it? Because they were supposed to have this shame. It was a shame. You were shamed by your. are you bleeding? I mean, that's all, it was pathetic, really.

Yeah, but there are definitely, there are cultures and civilisations that celebrated the female body's ability to reproduce way more than we've been able to celebrate it. So I wonder whether in those places and in those times, periods, you know, maybe just a bit more accepted.

Well, I don't know. I mean, I wonder if you have any listeners who are pagans, because people who, were not Christian, pre-Christian society. They worshipped, you know, the natural world, didn't they? So you would wonder whether there would be any stigma attached to periods at that time because it was all about giving birth and springing forth new life. Because, you know, you can't have a baby unless you've had a period, can you?

Yep. This is very interesting. Hopefully one of our lovely listeners will get in touch. Oh, by the way, I should make it clear. Generally speaking, your periods do stop when you're having a baby. Just in case anybody's confused and think, I mean, I do have a no level in biology, admittedly a grade C, but I have got that straight. I'm not sure. It's a really interesting point to make, because I don't know whether everybody does know that their period stopped for the entire time that they're pregnant.

Well, some people don't, don't. We refer to it as a missed period, don't we, which alerts you to the fact that you might be pregnant, not an end of period. So I don't know. I'm not sure I knew that, I think. Well, you didn't know that period stop when you're pregnant? What are you on about? You've had two kids. No, I know that now.

But I think when I first... And I don't want to go down the three. Oh, good Lord. Right. And she's been to talks and everything. You need to go to some more talks. Yeah. No, I'm not sure about that.

Anyway, we have got a fantastic Friday episode. And I'm only popping that in here because maybe we'll put something about pagan periods into a Friday. But we're thinking of the Friday episode becoming a really lovely kind of fact receptacle. Well, kind of a lovely wander down one of our crevices. With someone who actually knows the answer to know the answers. knows to us. It's fertile territory

because as regular listeners will know, we rarely know the answer to anything. But we do have a great guest on Friday. It's Susie Nightingale, who's an expert in scents and perfume and the history of the perfume industry. She's just really fascinating. Yeah, and she's a very good communicating. She certainly is.

I've just put coffee on my glasses. Now, tomorrow's guest is Liz Earle and Liz, how would you describe Liz, Fee? She's written a book called How to Age, Supercharge your health and feel better than ever. She's a beauty guru. All right.

Well, she has on page 152 of her substantial new tome. She's got a simple five to ten minute routine to help regulate and balance your nervous system. So chanting is one of her suggestions. Now, she's not the guest today. That's the novelist Claire Lynch. But she is with us tomorrow. So I wonder if we could practice chanting now just before we get to the guest. Do you want to do it to?

Well, we could say for tomorrow. we've only got to, it's R, E and O. Okay, well, you lead the chant and Eve and I will simply follow. Repeat each sound for three to five breaths. Oh God, this is, yeah. Okay, let's start with R then. It resonates in the chest and heart. You repeat each sound for three to five breaths,

allowing the vibration to fill your body. Go slowly. All together then. Ah. Right? And that one's all right. And now we go to E, which resonates in the throat and face.

E. Liz does say there's no need to be loud. Soft and sustained is often more effective. Sorry, Liz. That's stupid. And we'll go. The final one is ooh, which resonates in the belly and lower body. What, I feel crap.

Right, okay, so Liz is talking tomorrow to Fiona. And we'll find out more then. But I think we could perhaps do that almost just once a week, just as a small trio. I think we should get, yeah, we should definitely get together. We should do one of those kind of pre-podcast huddles. Yes. I think. Like Japanese companies get together and they will sing the company song first thing in the morning.

I was going to say the spice girls, but yes, that would work just as well. And then we give everybody a great big backslap when we head on stage and play golf. Yeah. Today's guest is somebody completely different. Here it is. Claire Lynch's novel of Family Matter, Will, I think, once read, Never Leave You. The story that she tells details the disintegration of the marriage of Dawn and Heron and what happens with their daughter. Dawn falls in love with Hazel and because she falls in love

and leaves her husband for a woman, the path she then has to walk down is not just littered with stones. It's got potholes of prejudice and injustice and great big rocks of unhappiness everywhere you look, really. The book is written across two timescapes. where the daughter, Maggie, we meet as an adult with her own husband and children, and one where we meet her as a child, caught in a breakup that denies her and her mother a lot. It is Claire's first novel, which is hard to believe Claire, because, I mean, it's won the gold prize at the Nero Book Awards. You have been congratulated by Jenny Godfrey, Barbara Kingsolver, Nick Hornby. I mean, it's a very, very good novel.

You have written nonfiction before, was the leap into fiction an easy one to make? I don't know about an easy one to make. I think I took a little sort of toe in the water with the nonfiction that was the first creative rather than academic writing, which I'd written before. And then I sort of had that, I don't like to say, midlife crisis necessarily, but a bit of a change in my sort of perspective. I thought, if I'm not going to do it now, if I don't take the chance, will I ever write a novel? So it was a sort of personal test, maybe. Yes, I have been very lucky.

You passed, love. It's always difficult when we talk about novels because we don't want to put people off reading it and we don't want to spoil an ending and all of that. So we'll tread carefully along the path of the story that you tell. But just tell us a bit about the main characters here. I do feel like I want to say there are jokes as well. Yes, oh no, it is funny.

There are occasional, it's not all doom and gloom. It is funny. It is funny. It's not all that bad. But I think you described it really well. My idea was to have this one family and you see them at two moments. So exactly as you described, we see them in 1982 when Maggie's a very young child and we jump to 2022, this big 40-year gap. And there's a sense of who the family has become because of what's happened to them earlier.

But also how, as with really, I want to say all families, if not most, some sort of, family secret or some crisis that's happened at some point has to be worked out. And some of the working out is how do you continue to live with that rather than, you know, it can't necessarily be fixed. But also I think the characters, particularly Heron, who's the dad that you described, and his daughter Maggie Wynchis are grown up, they're thinking about what do you do in the world has changed around you. So I think the tragedy, if you want to think of it in that way,

is that Heron does what seems like the right thing in 1982. what he's advised to do. He does what everyone is telling him is the best thing to do for his daughter. And then, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 years pass. And he looks around at the world and he also thinks, is that, what's that the right thing to do? Is that what I would do now? And that, in a sense, is their real struggle that they've got to work out. You can't go back in time, but you've got to somehow work out how to continue all the same.

If people don't want to know anything about this novel and want to save absolutely everything for themselves, I think I would advise them to maybe go and make a cup of tea over the next couple of minutes because I want to ask you a question about Dawn and Hazel. Come back in five minutes' time and it would all be fresh and lovely. For people who are happy to know something about the story, let's just go for it. Because what you say about times changing around people is so poignant because Dawn and Hazel fall in love. And they fall in love at a time where a court still views that as a bit of a crime.

especially where children are concerned. And of course, times have changed now, but take us back to the 1980s and what was in everybody's, not everybody's actually, what was in the court's mindset at this time. Yeah, and it's sort of, in a sense of kind of technicality. So it's not that it's illegal for them to fall in love. But the problem is it's kind of incompatible

in the court's mind, in the mind of the judge, that Dawn could be a mother and a lesbian at the same time. So it's kind of, you should be a mother, that's ideal. if you must be a lesbian, fine, but you really cannot be both all at once. So there's a scene in the novel where we see Dawn going, she goes to pick up the family allowance from the post office. And I wanted that moment to be in it.

So we see this is when she's kind of an authorised mother. The state is in a way, you know, supporting her, saying, you know, you're doing the right thing. The way that you look after your child is exactly what we want. And then almost the next thing we see is she's in court. And they're saying, well, your influence on this child now will be dangerous and the kind of concerns that the judges had in the real court cases were really that the child would be bullied or they'll be kind of psychologically harmed or maybe worse to

that they might also turn out to be gay. So those kind of dangers meant that the decision in and as you said earlier in kind of 90% of those cases was that it would be safer and better if especially with a very young child that the father would get sole custody. And I will say that the difference in the book from the real cases is that in almost all of the real cases, once that father won custody, he didn't keep care of the child. He immediately transferred custody to his sister or his mother, to another woman, basically, who could do the kind of looking after. And then that mother had to kind of look on for the rest of that child's life often

at what had been done to their family. There were people who made arrangements outside of the court because they knew this would happen and just made prime. private arrangements. But it, that relied upon you being in a marriage with a man who would allow that. So it's a really, it's a really tough kind of bind that these women find themselves in. And these were cases that really happen. I've, I've really been privileged to speak to women who are now, you know, grandparents who, who, who lived through this in the 80s. And it's still really, it's still really difficult for them to talk about. And it's still really

difficult for them to persuade people that it really happened. Well, this is the incredible thing, Claire, isn't it? And in fact, Nick Hornby said the same thing, didn't he? He was chair of judges and the panel awarded you the gold prize at the Nero Book Awards. And he said when he was reading it, he thought, well, the backdrop to this must have been actually the 1950s. But it was the 1980s. Yeah.

And, you know, these cases did go into the 90s even. I mean, I would say that almost every person I've spoken to has said, but I was alive then. I didn't know this was happening. And I think that's a point, isn't it? The power of shame or the ability for a family to kind of cover up what happens if it's the story that they don't want told, right? That's in a way what the book is about. And so, you know, there was a real moment when I was reading for the research. I was reading the court case transcripts.

And I was thinking, if a mother and father in court arguing about this, I suddenly thought, who's looking after the child that they're fighting over? Because when you've got small children, it's endlessly who is looking after them and where are they. And I thought, okay, so I need to write a grandmother who's complicit in this. And I need to think of family friends. And suddenly you think the way it's kept a secret is that all of these people around them

also are going along with the lie, really. And I think that's the thing that's very challenging for the character of Maggie is when she's older and she doesn't find out, about this until she's in her 40s. She's got a different story in her mind about what happened with her parents. And she has to kind of unpick then all of those trusted relationships from her childhood or when she was a teenager and think, God, all those other people knew and they kept it from me. Yeah. You do a very clever thing with Heron, who is the dad, Maggie's dad in the book and Dawn's husband at the start of the book, where actually you managed to portray him as somebody caught up

in a system that is prejudiced. But he's also a victim in the end too, isn't he? He's a slightly kind of almost an unwilling participant in what happens to him. I think so. I mean, people are a bit divided. There are anti-heron people in the world. But my view is that he's a good man who tries his best, goes along with particularly sort of authority figures

who he feels have a sort of their kind of experience. experience and their professional expertise is what he should listen to. And he doesn't quite have the guts, I think, is really, if he, if he, if he, if he's, if he, if he's, if he's, if he's, if he's, if he's, if he's, if he's, if he's, he's, he doesn't quite have the guts to do anything different. And I. And I think, he can't, look 40 years in the future and say, oh, but by then, this will be no big deal. So I can be brave now. So I wanted him to be a character who we could sympathise with on that level. And also think we see him in the book doing everything he can to make it up to his daughter, to his grandchildren. He works very hard, I think, to take on that role of parents. He's doing his best by them all the time. But there's no way that he can really make up for.

It's one thing that he's done. And for people who are thinking, sorry, what did she say his name was? It's heron. It's heron, yes. as in the bird. Yes, yeah. There are many, many light touches in the book as well, which I think as a reader,

we're very grateful for, actually, because it is, you know, it is quite a kind of heart-rending story that you're telling. Was that one of the joys of writing fiction or are your academic papers littered with jokes? I think more and more jokes were sneaking in the closer I was getting to the door, maybe I think that's how it was.

But, yeah, I think that's the, you know, is the beauty of fiction, isn't it? In a funny way, some of those bits are kind of the things that are closer to fact, because they're the things that you borrow from your real life, aren't they? They're sort of, you know, there are bits my secret favourite character is Connor, who is Maggie's husband. And he's just a kind of the lovely, no one in particular, he's not modelled in anyone. But just he does things like he makes an elaborate brunch when no one really wants it.

But he just likes to show that he's the kind of man who would make an elaborate brunch when there's a crisis. And, you know, those kind of moments are the things which are great fun to, yeah, to play around with. Was the same prejudice shown by the courts to men who had left marriage and lived their true lives as gay men and wanted access to their children? It's a little bit harder to say. I think yes, but they were, I think, less likely in these cases to be suing for custody. I think, yeah, certainly. And I think equally lots of arrangements were. made to kind of cover up the truth of the way a family was breaking down. Certainly I think in this case it was the real gap between, you know, the impossibility of kind of motherhood being these two

things at once that people in that circumstance really kind of paid the ultimate price. How delighted were you to win the award, Claire? Well, I was pretty delighted. Yeah, it was quite something for a debut. Yeah, it was a real, and it was a real shock. So kind of at the moment that they announced it, I was in the wrong part of the room because I was kind of casually waiting to clap and do a nice, you know, supportive face. Were you drunk as well? No, I wasn't. I was actually the opposite.

I was so nervous. I was kind of waiting for that to be able so I could finally get near a glass of champagne. So I wasn't. But I was waiting to see who on and then I had to sort of make the walk to the stage and on my way, rapidly write a speech in my head. Were you genuinely unprepared for winning? I was genuinely. There is video evidence, I think, which demonstrates the sheer. shock and surprise on my face,

which I'm not, I mean, I'm not winning awards for acting. Let's put it that way. So that was true. Yeah. And so what changes in your world, having written a novel that has been so well received? Are the offers flooding in? I think, I mean, the main thing that's changes now do this as my real job, which is very exciting. And I think it's a sort of permission, maybe, isn't it, to think, well, you know, you've written one, maybe.

You can go ahead and try and write another one. So it feels like a sort of pass into the next stage, which is to try and make it a kind of ongoing career. And because you've written a novel that has at its heart a real story that you felt needed to be told, does that make it hard to choose the theme for the next novel? Do you feel confident enough to just leap out and go, okay, I'm just going to write a kind of character-driven novel,

maybe about families or whatever? Yeah, I think what it does is it makes me think maybe that's for me a really good starting, point because those stories that are, you know, it's kind of maybe a cliche to say kind of underrepresented, but that feeling when you read in a novel, something you think, I did not know that that happened. For me, that's a really powerful starting point. So I think I've got my next bit of history in the works. So I've done all of the research bit, which is where I feel safe. But now I need to do the character part, as you say, and write the story around it.

So you've left the world of academia completely behind. I have, yes. Sorry, I meant to do more regret in my voice. I'm afraid I have. There was no regret at all that. I didn't hear of, absolutely. I wanted to ask you about free speech on campus and you'll still be able to have thoughts. I can remember enough.

Yes, about that. I mean, how much did things change in your time? Tell us about your university academic experience. I mean, in terms of things like free speech, I think hugely, but also I think in terms of student politics and activism. So I think, you know, in the almost 20 years or so that I was working in universities, I think it became harder for students to do the ordinary kind of, you know, the traditions of kind of protests and sitting in and going on strikes and all of those things which did make differences, at least within individual institutions.

I think students have become more anxious about that too and the kind of consequences. I think the paying for your degree changes how you feel about university in general and that sort of service relationship. but I think where that power sits in terms of who should come to campus but also students feeling that it's their place it should be that students are protected

and that they are safe there from you know there's a to my mind there's a kind of a very clear line between freedom of speech and you know inviting harm to the people who that's their safe place we should make clear which universities

you have taught at and been a part of yeah so I have taught it at University of Oxford and the University of Brunel University of London. Right. So how can you try and get to a place where the things that you've talked about do flourish again on campus? Because there are all kinds of pressures involved in the problems around free speech. You know, you can't shut down social media. You can't make students feel safe just by saying that world out there will never come on to. campus. So how do you manage it from here and in? I don't know and I don't know that I'm the best

person to answer the question really, but I do think that part of this is a kind of a trust in students. But also it's very difficult because I think universities are anxious about you know, kind of the sort of the legal business of what it is that they're doing has changed, I think, or the kind of feeling of the corporate responsibility of a university, which I think is has changed over the last 10 years at least. So, yeah, I mean, I think the university is not, in my mind, a place it's separate from the real world. That's the point, isn't it? It ought to be kind of right at the centre of it.

Yeah. I mean, if you were a young person doing it all over again, would you choose to work in universities? Would you choose to even go to university? I would, because I have a kind of idealised an evangelical view of universities, all the same. I think for me going to university, I was the first person in my family to go to university. It changed my life. And I would choose to do that and I would choose

to follow exactly the career path, but also because I think I wasn't a writer all the way through and I really admire people who know that they're writers from a very young age, but I think another way to become a writer is to be a reader for a really long time. And

if it doesn't feel like a debut novel, it's because all the time I was building up to it, I I was reading all the time. And that is 50% of writing. Yeah. I think it's just a lovely, lovely book. For whatever reason you choose to read it, just read it.

That's what I would say. It's a family matter and it's by Claire Lynch. And thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Coming in. Who is your favourite writer? Oh, goodness. Maybe Claire Keegan.

Yeah. I don't like to pick favourites. It's nerve-wracking, isn't it? Yes. I can imagine it would. Well, it's hard for a... writer to be a favourite writer, yeah. Right. Thank you. Thank you very much, Claire. Who's yours? I couldn't pick. I genuinely couldn't pick. That's really unfair to ask me and they're not

saying on, isn't it? I mean. I'm very unfair person, as fee will testify. Absolutely. Who is my... Well, I'm looking forward to the new Elizabeth Strout. Oh, May the 7th. Strong choice, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that endorsement. I could have said Ken Follett. I nearly did, in fairness. Claire Lynch, a family matter, is out now in paperback. Join us tomorrow. We much, much appreciate your attention to this matter. We certainly do and can I just say farewell using an email from Judith who obeyed us when we asked what appears on the right hand side of your visualised podcast. Judith says words fail me because on the right hand side of her visualised podcast on the YouTube is Highland Cow Garden Charm Storage Basket.

Shop now. Save up to 50%. Get your... before it's gone. I think it'll still be that. It's very rude, isn't it? Rush at all. Highland Cow Garden, Charm, Story. I don't even really know what that is, Jay. Just a load of words. Right. I think we probably should be offended by that. Jane and Fee at times dot radio. 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.

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