Off Air... with Jane and Fi - I can't imagine a worse place to make love

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

Welcome to the second Off Air of 2024: we haven't made any changes, it's the same you-know-what. In fact, we return to the ma'am issue, talk premium bonds, and reflect on the Prince Harry of the raven world. You'll be pleased to know that Jane has only had two chocolates today, and only one of them was alcohol filled. Plus, author Ysenda Maxtone Graham talks all things women's history - including her book 'Jobs for the Girls: How We Set Out to Work in the Typewriter Age'. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Assistant Producer: Megan McElroy Times Radio Producer: Eve Salusbury Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. I'm just checking the premium bond prize draw.

Oh, yes. I had a win. Did you? Yes. Lucky you. Not prepared to disclose how much. Were you in a private place? Yes, I was. To reveal the results? I'm always in a private place. Do you look at that? Yes, I do. Were you in a private place to reveal the results?

Yes, I'm always in a private place. Do you look at that? Because there's a little screen thing, isn't there, if you have the app? And it says, reveal results. Basically, are you somewhere safe? And every single time, I don't have the full premium bonds, so it's very unlikely I'm going to win big. But every time, it's just that beautiful

dream isn't it just just for a couple of seconds where you just think are they asking me that because I've won the biggie well no do you know what the truth is if you've won the real biggie and a couple of people I think a couple of people can win a million yeah they phone you don't they do they tell you the day before but I never answer my phone so what would happen I mean I really do I really don't ever answer my phone. If it's not a number that I recognise, I mean, obviously I'd answer it if you called. If it flushed up Premium Bond jackpot line. But it wouldn't, would it?

No, it wouldn't. It would be a weird 800 number. I don't know what it would be. Let's put it out there. Has anybody listening won a big prize on the Premium Bond? Yeah, actually, that's a good one. I mean, this is a uk only shout out isn't it well no well let's broaden it because there'll be the equivalent of is there though

i don't know because they're government bonds aren't they yeah but i'm sure there'll be a postcode you know people's postcode lottery equivalent in some country there's a lovely story there's that there's that property lottery thing isn't there oh yes and there's a yeah there's a lovely story about uh the family who won one of the most recent draws uh because the mum in the family was phoned on the bus and the person said you know are you okay to you know to for me to tell you something important she just went yeah you know whatever crack on and And they said, you've won. And she just announced it to the whole bus. Wouldn't that be magical? That is absolutely magical.

That's brilliant. Yeah, I'd like to be in somebody's joyful moment like that. And then you get off the bus and think, I'm going to be in a shamble home in the rain, filled with resentment. But yes, for a moment. Just in that time, that lovely shared moment, you'd be high as a kite.

I mean, I do. I always have the little word with myself, I don't want to win huge amounts of money. I'm very fortunate, I don't need to win huge amounts of money. You already won lots of money. I'm going to look at you. Shut up. No, just, you must have had this conversation too, I'd love like 25 grand.

Do you know, I mean, just enough to. I'd like to, yeah, absolutely that. We're very fortunate people. don't want to you don't want to go there everybody said i did you know what this morning i was i was laughing to myself because something sometimes things pop up on the phone i don't know why and i was looking at elasticated waist garments on instagram and all of a sudden for whatever reason i found myself watching barry humphries as Edna Everidge interviewing KD Lang. Have you ever seen that? No, how did that go? It was so funny.

I mean, I loved Edna Everidge anyway. I mean, I thought the death of Barry Humphries last year was one of those really sad celebrity deaths that I genuinely felt quite moved by. But it was just brilliant because it was the pacing of the encounter. KD Lang comes on in a very sharp suit looking incredibly alluring. I'm a big fan of Katie Lang, loved her music. And Edna starts off by saying, what does Katie stand for? And then somebody comes on and slaps a sticker on Katie Lang's,

the lapel of her suit saying, Katie. It's just so ludicrous. And then Edna builds up to a very sensitive question, you know, about awareness and about identity. And you're lulled into thinking it's going to be one thing. And then Edna says to Katie, so Katie, when did you first know that you were Canadian? And then it almost within about three or four seconds seconds we've got the word beaver into the conversation it's so utterly pure but utterly utterly brilliant oh dear so funny i really

liked it in average anyway there you go uh we were watching a nature program that's fantastic fantastic program about scandalous scandalous avian nature well it's because we'd watched all of the other television. Oh, I see. Literally. Bear in mind, I have watched Cheryl Baker's Celebrity Escape to the Country. So you know that I've done it all this Christmas. I've put in the shift. So we were watching a Scandinavian nature program.

And beavers just isn't as funny in the younger generation as it is in ours. It's not funny at all. No, there was absolutely no cognizance as to why I might be giggling at the enormously ambitious Scandinavian beavers. Just because, OK, come on. Right, welcome to the second edition of Off Air for 2024. We haven't made any big changes. It's the same old shite,

but you're very, very welcome to it. Jane and Fee. They've basically built a dam across Sweden, love. I mean, you've just got to really... No, I'm in awe. You do, you do have to give them some kind of... And I do. Space.

Yes, janeandfeeattimes.radio. Right. Okay, so we've got some lovely suggestions, actually, for Book Club. And i think we will be deciding next week what we're going to read and this one comes from ruth who says please do a book by dorothy whipple her writing is so subtle poignant and witty and full of astute observations on people all her books are brilliant but you could do someone at a distance for the book club because there's lots to discuss.

And there's just something about the name, Dorothy Whipple. I think if you're going to make up a name as a contemporary novelist who's been compared to the grandeur of Jane Austen... Yeah, and she has. Yeah, then you would call yourself Dorothy Whipple. Well, I confess I knew nothing about Dorothy Whipple, but I was attracted by that email too. I found a Times article actually from this time last year by the novelist Rachel

Joyce about Dorothy Whipple and about that book. So saying that it really is remarkable and it deserves being read now and discussed so I think that's definitely a possibility. Well we'll put it in the hat because I think Eve has been compiling a list and a spreadsheet and we'll announce it next week but it's always going to be something that's out in paperback is always going to be something you can get from a library we'll have to check and I but I'm pretty sure that is available yeah we do need those two things this one comes from Kate though who says I think you were asking for book favorites earlier she's currently reading the survivors by Jane Harper and she says she's gripped and all she wants to do is read so she's

probably not listening to this but i've just started a jane harper myself but you said it wasn't your favorite i've started exile yes now i listened to that as an audio book it was my going home companion on the tube and it wasn't my favorite but i thought the dry was an amazing book oh beautiful that was her wasn't it yes it certainly I thought The Dry was an amazing book. Oh, a beautiful book. That was her, wasn't it? Yes, it certainly was. I'm actually, as my bedtime companion at the moment is Miriam Margulies. I think she'll probably rather like to be my bedtime companion. And so I'm reading her second memoir. It's absolutely filthy.

It is good. No, but it's good, isn't it? I enjoyed it more than the first. No, I'm enjoying it. You feel like she's with you. Yes. I mean, it's clearly written by her. I know it's a daft observation because it is her second memoir.

As we found out quite a lot of times, actually, in the run-up to Christmas, not every celebrity has either written their book or read it. That is very true. And if you send us a load of money in a brown envelope, we'll reveal the names of those people. Yes, actually, do you know what? Somebody revealed to me over the weekend, the ghostwriter behind a very, very, I'll tell you you later and then i'll put it in code a second time today

that you've told me something oh yes i've got to tell you that in the lift on the way down right right so this comes from uh from amelia who is a doctoral researcher have i said that the right way doctoral researcher and you make such a good point, actually. It's from a while back. It's after the interview that we did with Matt from Bake Off. So he was on, I think, in the week before Christmas. And you say, Fee quite rightly brought up the issue of teenage girls falling out of love with sport. And Matt correctly said, and the boys, and I wanted to back him up. As someone doing a PhD on adolescent boys and physical activity, I'm acutely aware of how we sometimes miss the boys.

When we look at masculinity and what it means to be a teenage boy, we now try and talk about masculinities as a plural, because boys come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and personalities. And my research has found that there are plenty of teenage boys who really hate PE, hate changing rooms, hate competitive sports and really hate contact sports like football and rugby. And they have the same issues around their body image and developing bodies too. Boys also have the added pressure of looking a certain way. Love Island has a lot to answer for and boys often feel that they need to look buff and muscular like matt i'm all for encouraging teenagers to find a form of physical activity they love and not feel stereotyped into being non-sporty just because they don't like football or rugby

and you're absolutely right so my apologies for making that kind of gender specific assumption because i think you're right in all of these things and it's just so unhelpful, I think, at the moment to be too focused on the differences between boys and girls because an awful lot of what they're experiencing is exactly the same and it's more helpful to try and tackle it all. So, Amelia, you're absolutely right to point that out. And the Love Island point as well

I suppose I am I think astounded is the right word by the physical perfection of the young men on that show but also the hairlessness of those men and I don't mean this in any way

unpleasantly to the young men that I knocked about with in my adolescence and afterwards. There were no bodies like that. No, exactly. We didn't encounter them. So their unachievable body shape is exactly the same as the unachievable body shapes of the women who we've focused on for a long time, haven't we? And I think for the boys, there's so much danger involved in trying to get to a body like that you know it quite often will involve uh you know an awful lot of pumping iron

only eating protein shakes heading towards steroids you know all of that type of stuff so it's really worth talking about that in exactly the same way as we talk about some of the hideous pressures for girls so amelia thank you for that. This is from, I think I'll keep her anonymous, although she hasn't asked to be, in fairness. I'm writing to you whilst I'm breastfeeding a very sleepless baby. Your podcast does help me stay awake and I remain slightly in tune with normal life. It will only be slightly, let's face it.

I wanted to write in to say that I'm an army officer. We get such a high quality of individual listening to the show. Who in my working life is called mum by everyone. Oh God, you've gone back to the mum. I find it so routine, says our correspondent. I had a good laugh at Jane wanting to have a title like this. I'm currently navigating my one year notice period before leaving the service. Finding a new normal with small children and what that means for my career long term they won't call you mom no your children won't i'm here to tell you

i enjoy my career and i'm proud of what i've achieved however i have also experienced dreadful misogyny at times especially whilst pregnant or on return from maternity leave to the extent i put in a legal complaint whilst eight months pregnant last year. As a mother of two young girls, I want to support them to achieve anything they want in life. However, I can't help but feel slightly hesitant as that was the parental support given to me and it's led me to work in at times a very toxic environment where female qualities are not appreciated. As I age, I found a much stronger voice to be forthright about my own qualities, strengths and weaknesses. Women do have power and we mustn't let it be dimmed

by those afraid of our strength. So to that woman, I am sorry that... I can really appreciate that wanting to be in the army and being a successful officer in the army, I'm assuming it's the British Army, was something she was incredibly proud of. And that won't have been easy to achieve, will it? And I'm really sad to hear that there were some issues along the way.

So you could, I mean, we'll keep you anonymous, but perhaps you could tell us a little bit more about that. You don't say what happened after you put in the legal complaint. Yeah, I'd also be interested to just hear a bit more about the dismissal of kind of gender stereotypical traits because if you want to go down that road and you say that women are good at caring, we're empathetic, we can do nurture, perhaps we can do understanding, I'm not saying that every woman can or chooses to do, but if you were going to say those are in the kind of palette,

I wonder how easily those fit into what I've always assumed to be quite a, I don't know, quite a rigid way of living in the army, whether or not that fits into your battalion and following orders and whether you can be all of those things. Because those are all things that are needed, especially in war. But I don't know, do they get respected as much? I have no idea, but I think it's a really good question. So I wonder if either that correspondent can get back in touch.

I mean, she's quite busy feeding a newborn baby. So we've asked a lot of you there. And looking after her other daughter. But nevertheless, if you do have a moment, let us know and we'll keep you anonymous. We already have, so I think we're okay there. So just on the mom thing. Yes.

So do you think that in order to be a good mom, you have to have been able to be a good subordinate? No. Right. No. Right, actually, your emailer who wanted to do The Survivors by Jane Harper. Oh, no, she actually says that's all she wants to do is read it. She's doing Dry January. Now, this is Kate. I've never done Dry January. Have you? No. No. I mean, in fairness, neither of us... It is the month when I need to drink the most.

Yeah, I don't... Neither of us are big drinkers. We talk about alcohol, but actually, in truth, we're such lightweights. And we're very fortunate that we don't have a dependency on it. I think a whole month without the option of a drink would be not not something I'd look forward to. And I'm but having said that, I haven't had a drink since New Year's Eve and it's a new year and a new me. Goodbye Stilton, hello Kale. We'll see how long that one lasts. You brought in some nice chocolates today.

We were very appreciative of that. Oh yes, I forgot about the chocolates. You've had a few. I've had, to be precise, only two. And one of them was alcohol filled. Yeah, but that's only just now. Yes. I wouldn't do live radio. Yeah, but that would ruin your dry January, wouldn't it?

I suppose in theory it probably would. Is there actual champagne in those? There can't be. I don't know. You, on the radio show, read out Rita's email, but I think it's worth repeating that one. I think you should do it then. No, you do it.

No, you do it. Okay. This is from Rita, and this was about this... I mean, it was a terrible incident. It was funny because... Just don't do it better. No, you do it. No, you do it. Okay. This is from Rita. And this was about this. I mean, it was a terrible incident. It was funny because... Just don't do it better. Oh, I won't. Well, put my own special twist.

Yesterday's news, the world of news wasn't fully awake yesterday. Everybody was a little lacklustre, let's be honest, on January the 2nd. Everybody seems much perkier today for some reason here. But there was that terrible incident in Japan, which could have been a lot lot worse um this was where there was a collision on an airport runway in tokyo uh between a coast a small coast guard aircraft and a japan airlines plane that was on the ground that was that was what happened wasn't it yes with 379 passenger and crew on board yeah and they all i mean unfortunately everybody on the ground. That was what happened, wasn't it? Yes, with 379 passenger and crew on board. Yeah. And they all, I mean, unfortunately, everybody on the smaller Coast

Guard vessel, Coast Guard plane did die. But everybody on the Japan Airlines plane survived because they got off. They got off as the plane was absolutely engulfed in flames. And Rita from Cranley has emailed she is an ex-BA safety instructor and she said just to let you and your listeners know that every aircraft gets a certification when it's designed and passed for development that it can evacuate all the passengers using only half the exits in just 90 seconds that was a bit we didn't know wasn't it I took part in these trials at the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute in the US as a passenger. The lights go off and you've got no

idea which of the half of the exits are blocked. It's then up to the cabin crew to manage the passengers, directing them to usable exits. Crews are also encouraged to go through these drills during every takeoff and landing so they may not be smiling when they do that information and um they don't smile do they nor should they i don't think actually um but you and i are both rather sort of sensible risk averse types and i don't fly very often because i really don't like it very much but i always watch the demonstration i would never not i'm just not that confident. No.

I'm just in myself, frankly. More recently, I've really checked in with myself about what I do know about that message because actually having travelled a lot as a child and then a younger person, I think it did all start to kind of wash over me a bit. And then when I started to travel with my kids, I thought, OK, now I really do have to know what to do. And because it's that thing of you've got

to you do have to serve yourself first so that you remain standing and can help your kids. And I just thought, wow, I'm not sure that I have paid attention enough at all. But it's the timing on that that I just find astonishing. so to empty a plane in the dark over 300 people in 90 seconds with only half of the exits available to you and some of those people will be tiny children yeah some will be people in their 80s yeah so and some will be you know larger people who might find it quite difficult to move around there are all kinds of you know permutations i often often feel for really, really tall people on planes, you know, who have

just kind of folded into their seats as well. So no, all of that. So we're going to try, well, we're going to ask and see whether, is it Rita? Yeah. Wants to come on the programme and maybe talk a little bit more about being in that position of trying to... I mean, it makes you think about the responsibilities of cabin crew.

I've always thought that was a hard job and a job that some people are a little keen to dismiss. I mean, imagine now with some of the drinking on board and there's always someone who goes in the toilet and wants to have a vape. Or worse. I hate to break it to you, but I think worse things go on. I think you're absolutely right. I can't imagine a worse place to make love. If you're doing it in an airplane toilet,

it's not make love, is it? I mean, in the nicest possible sense of the word. I think it's probably pick up germs. God. Shall we go? Who do you think has ever used the following sentence shall we go to the plain toilet and make love we're so nice we're so sweet you're adorable this one comes from rachel packer

who says uh my husband gary has always clipped one wing of each of our rescue hens to stop them flying over the hedges. Now, what was this about? Oh, this is about the ravens at the Tower of London. We were talking about them because they have had their wings clipped. Yeah, because two of them keep flying off. And this is a relatively weird story from the United Kingdom. Those listening elsewhere might sometimes wonder, what goes on in this benighted isle of ours?

Well, we don't really understand either but not very far from where we're sitting in fact if you look out the window and then just gaze right you can see the tower of london that's spooky it is very spooky at night indeed terrifying horrible murderous things have been done there uh but we are always told that uh britain, England will collapse if the ravens that are kept at the Tower of London fly off. So they're not allowed to fly off. And we were intrigued yesterday to discover there are only six ravens,

but there is actually a seventh, but that one is a spare. But we don't know whether that raven knows they're only spare. No, and it's quite cruel if it does. I think it's a real blow. Yeah, it's a diminishing role isn't it yeah well as we found out prince harry of the raven world yeah yeah anyway look uh rachel packer's husband gary has been clipping one wing of each of their rescue hens to stop them flying over the hedges but this year he surpassed himself he managed to clip one wing of each of the queen bees in his hive what so that they couldn't

swarm one tried it and only succeeded in spiraling down under the hive all her workers flew away over the road realized their leader wasn't with them so they flew back and clustered around her gary with two hours was able to lift them into a new hive where they settled happily, busily making honey. Love from a very windy Western super mare. Now, do you know what? It's that kind of email that makes me joyful to be doing a podcast and alive, actually. I mean, who knew that you could clip the wings of a queen bee? You're absolutely right.

That is the reason I do a podcast. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. Absolutely amazing. That email and the I do a podcast. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. Absolutely amazing. That email and the one we had about thrush just before Christmas, to me, summed up the appeal of podcasting. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on.

Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast anna from 10 to 11 and get on with your day accessibility there's more to iphone now let's bring in our guest because um i think a lot of people will enjoy hearing from ascender maxstone graham a social historian and writer who specializes in our guest because I think a lot of people will enjoy hearing from Isenda Maxton-Graham, a social historian and writer who specialises in our recent past with particular emphasis on the

lives of women and girls. Now, she's written a book called Jobs for the Girls, and it's really about the British education system in the 20th century, with its incredibly low expectations of girls. And career options back in the day in this country used to be limited for girls to nursing or the typing pool and that's if you were lucky um this interview does include a reference to a meal i confess i hadn't heard of beetroot with white sauce i'm just putting that out there in case you are likely to be upset by that reference towards the end of the conversation ascenda told us why she wanted to focus on women and the British workplace. Yes, well my first book in this sort of

I call it a trilogy, was about life in girls' boarding schools then I wrote about what happened in the summer holidays, those lovely neglected weeks when our parents had no idea where we were and then I wanted to find out what the hell happened next, what happened when you were tipped out of that rather pampered existence

into the world of adulthood Yeah, it's not just about privileged middle class and upper class women no there are working class women's experiences in here too there are very much i'd really wanted to touch all four corners of the united kingdom and all all stratum society so it was the culture of low expectations wasn't it and i i loved your starting point for this book which was the very important maths O-level and anyone who says well what you're talking about I can still remember walking down the road on the day I took my maths O-level knowing that my performance that day would probably dictate the course of my life and that was in 1980 and I wasn't wrong. So recent really that people I

discovered from the perhaps the lowest strata of society and the highest both were it was off the menu, off the menu. Very posh girls schools, you were sort of you were allowed to give up maths at the age of 12 or do the CSE which was hardly, didn't even count as a proper level came out so unqualified, unable to be a

teacher, nurse, you know all those even basic, quite basic professions let alone anything higher. At secondary modern schools too, you're left in swathes after you turn 15 with no qualifications whatsoever. Again, you were stymied before you started. But why was that allowed to happen? I just think there certainly was daughters,

perhaps just a real sense that that wasn't what you needed to do in life. What I was really set off with in this book was hearing one woman say to me that her father, when she was 17, said to her, there's no need for you to have a career, darling. You're perfectly bed-worthy and will get married. And this was not lost in the mists of time. This was within living memory. Absolutely. That's what I really wanted this book to be, within living memory. So grandparents who often had rather amazing, in their way, very fulfilled lives, but yet just had that kind of thing said to them.

But part of the problem was the fact that employers wouldn't allow an awful lot of women to carry on working after they had got married and had children. I mean, that was true even in the nursing profession, wasn't it? Absolutely, it was. You were expected to give up on marriage. So, exactly, so there are all these carpets being pulled from under your feet, even if you had got into something. So So exactly. So the Maslow level. So I had some hilarious stories of people just sort of getting an A, but an A for absent rather

than A for absent rather than A results because because they somehow just didn't even bother to turn up because it was just there was just no no understanding that this was a vital ticket. Industrial mobility, I call it rather like social mobility industrial mobility that's what you needed that's your ticket right and it really was um and i wonder whether some people are very sentimental about the grammar school system which still it's not it's actually still in existence in parts of the country isn't it well yes i mean exactly that are you the middle the middle swathes was that were the lucky ones'd say, the sort of more academic of the private schools and the good, solid grammar schools,

were a way to tick it out for people to... But they weren't to tick it out, first of all, if you'd failed the 11+. No, they weren't. And I talked to girls who felt perpetually belittled for life by having failed the 11+. You really do think that... Oh, yes. I mean, it knocked the stuffing out of you in no end.

I mean, you know, and still recovering 50 years later from that awful shock. So, exactly, it wasn't a fair system at all, so I don't think it was a rosy past totally, although, you know, it did have its area of aspiration for women, although even grammar schools had something called the nursing sixth,

which is the sixth form where you didn't actually do A-levels, you just sort of prepared to be a nurse rather than a doctor. Not that I'm denigrating nursing, nursing is a marvellous profession, but as I say, this autodidact woman I spoke to who didn't get a maths A-level, didn't get anything

and they'd read the whole of Proust while she was being a receptionist. She had the brain for that, but just hadn't had any help. So I didn't set out with a great feminist agenda really, I just set out to ask people, what really happened to you? And that was what was so interesting. And it was, you know, it was more nuanced in some ways.

There wasn't a kind of high-flying path, but there was a path opening, as you say, to go to sexual, to go to sexual carol colleges was a path. Can we just talk about the typewriter? Oh, yes. Because the typewriter actually plays just such an enormous part in the lack of liberation for women, but at the same time, the ability to earn your own wage.

Exactly. I mean, I spoke to Sue Peart, who just said when she was at Cambridge Tech doing her sexual culture, I just knew that was my path to a job. We laugh at it now, but actually there was a narrow path, but there was a path. And we all got where we were today through that terrifying sort of typing to either ABBA,, yes, ABBA was the sort of most modern thing

you had to type to in absolute rhythm. Oh, I see, what they play, play music. Yes, or it could be some terrifying march. What's your typing speed? Yes, I mean, I just did a three-week course in Edinburgh, but that really did get me to a certain pitch. You can type very quickly, can't you? Well, I went so terrible.

Did you have to do the shorthand as well? You had to do the... Yeah, because I fund my A-levels. And my parents were worried that I wouldn't be able to earn a living. And as it turned out, I went to university the year after that. But I did a secretarial course. Probably really useful. Well, I don't know.

Because I think one of the great things now is that everybody does type. It's not seen as some kind of special skill. Everybody can do it. It's liberating. Communication had to be, the typing woman was the midwife to every single, even memo, let alone letter, going out. It was an extraordinary country, and that's all gone now. I mean, from basement to attic, there were typists. Yes, and you write very lovingly, actually,

about the friendships that were made in these workplaces. It wasn't all terrible, was it? Well, I really did want to describe that and I just find it's not so easy now. I mean, this office is glass barriers, glass barriers before you start, I mean, you know, to get a pass, to get into... In those days you could sort of wander in

to up some rickety stairs and ask somebody, steelhead woman behind a desk, is there a job for me here? And the chances where there might be some menial little thing. I talk about porousness as well, where you could sort of float up between the layers of the job more than you can now. I think as a secretary, you could suddenly be asked,

could you possibly edit this bit of writing? Or could you go out filming today and next thing you know, you'd suddenly be just doing something a bit more high powered and authors were less lean, mean machines than they are now. You do write about some really wonderful bosses, and women and men, who were genuinely inspiring and did look for potential amongst the female workforce

and encouraged it. Well, that's lovely, and that did happen just as much as there was absolute bowers and scrapers who would after you, after you when they opened the door and then treated you like absolute scum once you got into the office. That was men you're talking about. Yes, there was a bit of that. And also, but women could be just as bad i came across some really

terrifying sort of women who just boring boring bored bored boring boring when you tell them your ideas um so that wasn't very nice i mean there were some real old dragons but there was that the men in the offices were often they'd fought in the war for example if we're talking about the the 50s and 60s So their attitude to women was probably, well, a bit strange, but then their life experience had been pretty tough, I'm sure. Well, exactly, and same with the women, the terrible battle-axe nurses, who, furious with one young nurse who was trying to save someone's life who'd had a cardiac arrest, said,

Nurse, you've got your cardigan on. Right. So much was... Can't save a life with a cardigan on. No, OK. Can we just talk about um the whole idea of daughters who would be obliged in fact to pack in whatever work they had been able to acquire in order to i think the expression was go home to help yeah um sons tend not to get called home to

help that really was a syndrome until really even 1990s actually my book really cuts out and the first email is my cut-off date for this book with the first ping and then we're out. But even then, girls were sort of expected to give up their job and go look after some ill uncle, father, who said, I don't want a stranger in the house, I want my daughter. You also explored the lost worlds of these lodging houses. Oh, yes. It's called digs, my tactical digs,

back streets of Oxford, London. But I mean, often these women I spoke to lived in incredibly grand parts of London. I lived in a sort of vermin infested flat in Knightsbridge. So there were these old ladies who I think ran their flats as sort of warrens for

under-earning young women who lived for a pittance, had to queue up for the bathroom every morning, got to sort of beat you up with white sauce for supper. Oh. And probably again had a lovely time earning a pittance, which was awful, waiting for Mr. Right,

or being taken out to supper by Mr. Potentially Right, who would actually give them a square meal. And they couldn't pay their way because they weren't earning enough. But this was the world of the six. This makes marriage seem appealing, doesn't it? I was going to say. The other end of the scale, you give a lovely mention to finishing schools

now tell us about finishing schools and do they still exist today? Yes I think perhaps they do This was Mont Fertile or Chateau d'Eau all these marvellously grandiose sounding houses in Switzerland run by a mademoiselle this and mademoiselle that

who taught you to make a perfect smocked frock, not allowed to look at any men and had to speak French at the table. And again, what an extraordinary... The idea of being finished before you start, I mean, it's just rather a sad word, finishing. Yeah. I mean, we do remember certain things from history, but so much social history is forgotten.

Well, exactly. I mean, like going home for lunch. Yeah, going home for lunch. How about that? Little things I had no idea. I wasn't as going home for lunch. Yeah, going home for lunch. How about that? You know, little things I had no idea. I wasn't as fascinated by the lunch. I didn't know whether you were. When people scuttle off to God knows where for their lunch, I was thinking, where the hell, where are you going?

And I did ask people, and one woman who worked as a banker in Poole had to go home for a stifling three-course lunch every single day of her 20s with her miserable parents and even more miserable grandparents who were trying to control her. And I think parental control was stronger in those days. Yes. But you say right at the very end, and I found it very moving, actually, or perhaps it's concerning,

it's certainly a talking point, that women today, some of them feel wronged by what life dealt them, frankly. And they're sort of seeking revenge through a sort of overarching ambition for their daughters and granddaughters. That is something to be a little bit scared of, just thrusting worksheets into the granddaughters' hands. It does happen. And I thought just because you want to compensate for what didn't happen to you,

just be careful because you can really put off an 80-year-old's math for life if you just overcompensate. So exactly, we've just got to be a little bit careful to let people forward their own paths. And also to still let women enjoy elements of domesticity elements of you know the joys that previous generations had to endure that's a different thing i love my laundry yes exactly i do like it exactly i think that's what again i didn't have the agenda of anti anti sort of laundry agenda i thought you know we do all get

a sort of wendy house pleasure in running a real house that isn't no longer a Wendy House. It's a lot of difference, doesn't it? I mean, I mentioned that you do talk about tougher existences in many ways and working in factories. And there are some lovely details about working in the Tampax factory. Oh, yes. Although no one who worked there was allowed, or really ever addressed what it was they were actually making.

Yes, they told their families they made cotton wool. Certainly their children had no idea what they were up to and there they were. I think they were allowed as many free tampaxes as they liked and they occasionally, the conveyor belts sort of slowed down, they just juggled the tampaxes and occasionally put notes of help me or severed fingers inside the tampax box. So this was the great, yes I had a long, yeah. And they probably weren't allowed any time off at all for really severe period pain. No exactly, probably not, but there was this thing called the twilight shift which I loved hearing about, the great, yes, I had a long, yeah. And they probably weren't allowed any time off at all for really severe period pain. No, exactly, probably not. But there was this thing called the twilight shift, which I loved hearing about,

the four hours in the evening, six till ten. Husband got home, bye, didn't have to speak to him. Off he went to have your four-hour shift, working to make the vital extra £40 a week that really kept the family going. Yeah, now I didn't know about those twilight shifts. And do they still exist? Because that's such a good idea. It's a brilliant idea, and I don't know whether they do.

I think it was, there were local factories in most towns cycle that cycle out to the outskirts and work in a hot water bottle knob lid factory um and and and and feel absolutely vindicated and piecework you know the more hard you work the more you got and it was a rather brilliant intuitive invention by the factories to allow the whole workforce of wives and mothers who was pretty sick of their family and then they got home at 10 p.m and the husband went off to the pub so you never had to meet your spouse it's perfect do you want to back anna yes i will jane is back anna wing everybody it's an art for you students of journalism pay attention now students of journalism pay attention now.

Cassandra Maxton Graham, author of Jobs for the Girls, which was a book that I really do recommend. If you've got daughters sort of in their early 20s like mine or a little bit younger, it just gives them a glimpse of how far we've travelled and how much has changed for the better, just in terms of what a female life looked like. And your options were limited, weren't they? And sometimes, let's be honest, they were limited by other women. You know, as Asenda was telling us, you know,

horrible teachers at school, because they weren't always all that supportive. Your own mother may not have been all that ambitious for you. Everything seemed to be against you, actually, in some ways. Not for everybody, obviously, but some people really suffered. There's a nugget on every single page of this book, Jobs for the Girls, and there's a reference here to actually... Did you read the Sue Barton books?

No. Oh, I did. Yeah, Sue Barton, student nurse. No. No? She was a nurse in New England and she had all kinds of adventures. Did she? Yeah.

I think a lot of people will remember Sue Barton. If you did, it's janeandfeeattimes.radio. Anyway, Isenda, thank you very much for coming on. And thank you for telling us about some of those little stories about women in the workplace. And I think, and I really hadn't stopped to think about this enough before reading her book, that the notion that there was a thing, a skill called typing, has just gone, hasn't it? Everybody types. You don't learn to type at school. You don't do all that, you know, wear a blindfold

and make sure that you do it with your pinkies. Yes, because I learnt how to do it. But it's just gone. It's just absolutely gone, that notion of it being a particular skill. And if you look around the newsroom here, I'd say that all of our fantastic young colleagues are kind of under the age of 26, can just type. And actually, it's the older ones who will never really get the hang of it.

Yeah, I just stab. Yeah, because you haven't done it all the way through your life. So it's weird. Can I just read a bit of a lovely email from Philippa about the book? I went to one of the schools in Great Malvern, which gets mentioned in a lot of Ascender's books. I was there because my parents worked overseas. I left to go to university in 1983,

but the majority of my year group went to the Ox and Cow, which is a secretarial college in Oxford, or the Marlborough Secretarial College or Eastbourne College of Domestic Economy. Hard to believe that this was only the 1980s. It's true they didn't teach maths A level but you could go to the local boys school to do maths. Sadly you had to be selected and I wasn't. These are the 1980s not the 1950s. Yeah it makes me think I mean nobody questioned me going to university in 1982 yeah i mean nobody else in the family but somebody else is having a completely different experience

that's extraordinary and philippa says i got away with doing neither physics or chemistry at o-level something my sons are appalled by i did though learn how to walk with a book on my head and do shake take and bob i don't know what that is how to close the a book on my head and do shake, take and bob. I don't know what that is. How to close the door behind me without turning my back on the people in the room and how to stand up in front of the whole school and tell them the news of the day. I don't think younger women have any idea of how recently these things were commonplace. And I think you're spot on there, Philippa. But you do go on to say, all of this said though,

most of us, and that's the girl she was at school with, have gone on to have pretty successful lives without the straitjacket of the modern education system. And at a recent reunion, it was striking how varied and interesting people's lives and careers were, totally different from what you would expect on the face of it. Some had gone on to study in later life or had gone up through the ranks from secretarial roles. Others had started their own businesses or had careers in the arts.

So on the one hand, it's shocking that parents had more interest in turning out nice gals than academics. But on the other hand, as someone who has children who maybe haven't fitted easily into the very rigid system which we have now, no one wrote someone off because they were poor at maths, which is a lovely point i think that's a really interesting point that isn't it that perhaps there is too much rigidity now in the education system and that's just lovely proof that actually uh women are so good at making a silk purse out of a sow's ear so they'll come up somewhere and also um i guess you need to say that a career isn't the be all and end

all is it it might be perfect i guess it's shocking i know i've got nothing else love you're right right okay what was i thinking i think maybe that champagne truffle's gone right to my head it's better than the wind we both had last night. By the way, thank you for asking. We did get home all right. It was very severe, the storm. It was so windy.

Yeah, I tell you what, Piers Morgan's exit was very busy. Right. Okay, we'll be back tomorrow. I can't remember for the life of me who our guest is tomorrow. Neither can I. Okay, lovely. Well, it should be a good one.

It'll be a classic, whatever. Jane and Fee at Times.Radio. Thank you. Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run or running a bank.

Thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. Running a bank? I know ladies don't do that. A lady listener. I'm sorry. Voice Over describes what's happening on your iphone screen voiceover on settings so you can navigate it just by listening books contacts calendar double tap to open breakfast with

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