Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Nostalgic for 'women's things' (with Laura Trevelyan and Clive Lewis)

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Book club is wrapping up this week so Jane and Fi make their final bid for you to get your thoughts in! They also discuss period pants, London's train stations and tantric sex... obviously. Plus, they're joined by journalist Laura Trevelyan and Clive Lewis MP to discuss their new podcast 'Heirs of Enslavement', which is available wherever you get your podcasts. 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: Eve Salusbury Times Radio Producer: Kate Lee 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. That's my deep breathing for the day.

Oh, my headphones are under your handbag. My handbag's very, very heavy at the moment. I'm finding it's... We've tipped into that place, haven't we, where you need a lot of different layers because the tube's very hot. My walk to the tube is very cold. Yes, yes. The office is just indeterminate.

You never know. You just don't know what you're getting. I tell you what, Ed Faisy likes a much, much colder studio than Mariella. Well, what do we read into that much colder studio than Mariella. Well. What do we read into that? Don't get Mariella started on the menopause again. That's what she starts. Do you know, I was only saying to you the other day,

I miss the old days when nobody ever talked about the menopause. No, you don't. Don't be silly. Sometimes I get nostalgic. Well, we could just talk about women's things. Sometimes I still genuinely celebrate the fact that I don't have periods anymore. Just occasionally I'll catch myself. You have a little party. I do. I have a little party in my head.

And I was thinking about it the other day because we were planning a holiday for next summer. And for those last couple of years of my periods, I genuinely had to plan a holiday around them. Because they were so vile and horrible. It wouldn't be a holiday if I had to plan a holiday around them because they were so vile and horrible. I just, it wouldn't be a holiday if I had a period on holiday. So I had a little moment of thinking, oh, never again. Never again. It is wonderful. It's so liberating, honestly. Not much good if you're 24 and listening to this, but hey, hang on in there. The good times will come. No, I think it is good to know that it's not forever.

No, it isn't. And we're talking about this particularly today here in the United Kingdom because this won't impact on the rest of our considerable global audience. But tomorrow we're having a statement from our finance guy, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he's going to, apparently we're told, get rid of something called value-added tax on period pants and this will be potentially good news to users of period pants,

although not necessarily because the manufacturer will have to pass the cut-in price on, but hopefully some of them will. So are vats currently running at 20%? So it does make a difference because them period pants, they aren't cheap either. No, they're not cheap. They are quite good.

They're very good. I wish that they'd been around in our day because they're relatively new to the market, aren't they? Yeah. And they work. I was trying to explain them to my mum the other day and she clearly didn't get it. Which bit didn't she understand? Well, I could tell she wouldn't trust in the concept. And I said, actually, I think most of the women who use them

use them in sort of the early days of their period and maybe the last couple of dribbly days, if you see what I mean. Well, I think they're just extra security. Yeah, they act as extra security. Most people I know using them are using something else and a period pant. OK. Yeah, just to protect their modesty. I should have known this, and I'm grateful to Julia,

who emailed to say that it was Tracey Emin who created that lovely neon art at St Pancras Station. And can you remember what it says? It says, I want to spend my time with you. Oh. And it's under the clock. That's nice. It's actually brilliant.

It's in a kind of bright, bright pink. And it's just, I don't know, it makes London seem incredibly inviting and slightly sexy. Well, I think King's Cross and St Pancras do full stop. So the roof at King's Cross, that incredible cantilevered, slightly kind of, it's not art deco, is it, but it's slightly modern industrial roof, is so beautiful because it brings in all of the light. Light, yes, that's true.

And there's something almost kind of church-like about it as well. I always think that's an absolutely lovely station to come into. It's only within the last couple of months that I've realised that most, though not all, of London's main stations are on that road. Well, well... And that's something to do... Isn't that something to do with the railway companies when they were all set up?

Yes, but that is only when you're travelling north or west, obviously. Because Charing Cross, London Bridge, the station Liverpool Street, Victoria, are all the other side of that road. That's true. Okay. A lot of London's main stations are on that road. Okay. Do you think maybe they built the road after the stations? Well, I don't know.

I mean, it was always the big puzzle, wasn't it? It was why on earth had the Queen put Windsor Castle so close to Heathrow? I mean, because she must have been woken up at dawn's crack. A-boom-boom. Right. Dear Jane and Fee, says Helen, ex-Harrogate, now Wakefield. I was at a wedding probably about 25 years ago at the Swan Hotel in Harrogate. The Swan is famous for being the place Agatha Christie was found after she went missing,

something we talked about only last week. Anyway, I go in the loo there, and when I'm washing my hands, I see a familiar face and greet them with, hi, how are you? Somewhat awkwardly because I couldn't quite remember which relative or friend they were, but I just knew that I knew her. She was really nice, but it was only later I cottoned on to the fact that

she wasn't actually at the same wedding as me. She was Sue Johnston, who is of course the mum in the royal family and is, I can report, a lovely person. Really lovely. Liverpool fan, nothing wrong with Sue. She would have been very nice in that toilet. Angela sent us this saying,

fascinating interview with Philippa Gregory, went straight out and bought her book. That's the spirit, Angela. My dear mum and dad, originally from the Lake District, went over to New Zealand in the 1950s. My mum was a teacher and over the course of a few years she worked hard and became the first woman head teacher in Auckland

which was no mean feat. The Auckland Primary Headmasters Association then had to change its name to the Auckland Primary Principals Association, APA instead of AFER by which it is still known today. So my dear mum was a bit of a trailblazer

in her time, just thought I'd mention it. Do you know what? I really love those kind of stories and it would be great to have more of them. If this is read out, it'll be the third one for me, so I beat all my friends. Well, I'm afraid, Angela, you've reached your limit now. And it doesn't matter if on tomorrow's podcast

the most prescient and pertinent thing is mentioned to your life, I'm afraid we won't be reading it out anymore. Oh, you're a very, very harsh lady. Angela says, I'm wondering, are you immediate bedmakers or do you leave it so the bed can air? Good question. Excellent question. Now, I've got into the habit, because I read something,

that you should let it air for a couple of hours. Was that a bed bug I was worried about, think because I certainly don't make the make the bed immediately that's wrong I know you shouldn't do that but I do think it's good to always have the bed made before you leave the house oh very much so yeah I have got standards yes I think coming back to an unmade bed is actually the sign of a slatter it no, it really is. Possibly a little bit slutty. No, I mean, don't do that. I don't think anyone listening to this would be the sort of person who'd come home to an unmade bed. I really

don't want them listening anymore. Yeah, this is not the podcast for you if you do that. But I think you're right, you are meant to air it and for quite a while I just folded back, so I'd make the bed immediately but I'd just fold back the duvet so it was aired well half of it was aired uh but for some reason i've stopped doing that and i can't think why maybe it

just doesn't look very nice but i make the bed immediately jane oh do you yes no harm has come to me well you're not the tallest neither are you i suppose that's not necessarily connected right uh we were talking about the new uh argentine argentine president argentinian argentinian um and we have had some correspondence from argentina so here goes i'd like to remain anonymous says this listener i've lived in argentina for 20 years although as a non-citizen i don't vote i feel sad angry and scared for all the chaos of Argentina. The far right is so far what we lacked, what you have lacked since the 70s and 80s dictatorship. It isn't just and I'm going to try and pronounce his name as our correspondent suggests.

It's not just me, me, Trump, Bolsonaro politics. It's his rage, his hatred and quite possibly his lack of sanity. I like to believe that the percentage of people who genuinely support his politics is not huge. He is successful notably with the disillusioned male youth, the anti-woke, the wealthy and expats. Mainly though, many hate the ruling Peronist party so much they would vote for literally anyone else. The endorsement of the 2015-2019 president made it more publicly palatable to vote for this man. I think it softened his image. I'm no fan of the other candidate either. Emotionally, I could describe it as being forced to choose between a Sunak or a Trump. As much as you might

not like one thing the other is just beyond the pale i fear for hard-won women's rights lgbtq plus the environment schools and health as well as the economy which is already a disaster the only bright side is unlike trump there's no hand on a nuclear button right okay, OK, well, that really is clutching at straws, but thank you. So what do you think it would be that changes that direction of the shape of a hard man having to be filled by the shape of an even harder man? I just don't know. I genuinely don't understand.

The thirst, clearly what is a very real appetite from so many voters all over the world in different sorts of countries for this sort of character. Yeah. Untested, possibly not entirely sane, but someone who trades on their maverick status as though their complete lack of experience is something that people should be prepared to buy

into i just don't get it yeah it is really strange isn't it really strange because you just wouldn't i don't know just just take a really kind of mundane thing you wouldn't really want your local i mean pick any shop or whatever you wouldn't want your local petrol station being run by somebody who had never ever taken an order of petrol before or handled a van before or knew how to use a fire didn't know how to use a fire extinguisher didn't know how to use a till you know all those really kind of basic things yeah so what is the attraction of electing somebody to run a whole country on a manifesto of kind of i I don't know how to do this and I'm proud of that. Vote for me.

This guy wants to, his ideas are to literally blow up the central bank so they can't make money anymore and that will stop inflation. He has in the past said he thinks that the selling of organs might be something that you could bring into normal modern society and medicine. I mean, it's madness, Jane. It's real madness. So I'm with you. I don't understand the attraction, but I just wonder what changes that direction because it seems to be the bigger the shape, the more it's filled by somebody at the moment. Well, I'm going to attempt to lighten the mood by just acknowledging that he is supposedly a proponent of

tantric sex and what was really harrowing for Fia and I was that we did have to explain to a junior colleague what it was and it was a gentleman He was very nice, a very nice young man It's terrible though Jane Jane, because you and I

only know tantric sex because of what the sting did. And we don't really know what it is. No, we don't. And it was only ever... Well, did he... He did make claims, didn't he, that he could... I think he used to say it was because of his yoga prowess.

No, but that's... You see, I think that's the myth about tantric sex. I don't think it means that you are pre-apic for seven hours. I think it means that you start a thought about sex and you can kind of hold that thought about sex for seven hours. And I just posit this here, Jane, there are a lot of people who are doing that, but they can't spell tantric, they don't know the word, but they're still doing it.

They certainly couldn't spell pre-apic. I'll tell you that much. When I hold thoughts, it's things like i really must remember to get broccoli from saint's local on the way oh shit did i turn the iron off yeah i've had that thought for most of the day yeah oh totally anyway if anybody out there is an expert into of course you'll be so busy doing the tantric sex you won't be able to email us. But if you have ever been someone involved in it or been on the receiving end of it, I shouldn't really phrase that properly, but I honestly... Just tell us more.

Yeah, just we're a little bit naive and neither of us wants to put it into our search engine. No. Antonia says, what my sister Sarah, pronounce Sarah, I said Sarah last night. Well, it's hard to know. Didn't realise when she got her email read out tonight about her kitten mittens in a box was that I win, really,

as not only did you read my name out too, but I got for you to talk about the archers. It's like some kind of bet. Actually, no, because you did, you allowed me to reference the archers without going, you know, like you normally do when they are mentioned. What, when I tut? Just so you know.

The podcast I'd written to was Ambridge on the Couch, one to recommend to Jane. Very funny analysis of the wonderful everyday... Also, I wanted to say how much I enjoyed the book club choice. The violence was hard to stomach, but it was more than made up for by the I enjoyed the book club choice. The violence was hard to stomach,

but it was more than made up for by the beauty of the boys' relationship. Now, this is Boys Swallows the Universe by Trent Dalton. We did the interview with Trent this morning. So it was 10 o'clock our time, which means it was very, very... Quite late. Late his time. I looked, of course, he was in the dark.

He was in the dark. Which I didn't want to ask him, what time is it with you? But sometimes I long to ask people in Australia. Well, I was just working it out because they do the live thing, don't they, for Ant and Decno in the jungle. And when I watch it at nine o'clock, it's seven o'clock in the morning. Yeah, but whereabouts, which Australian city are they closest to? I don't know, that's one too many questions.

It was 8pm. It was 8pm. I find that very disturbing. Thank you, Elisa. Anyway, Antonia goes on to say, I loved how the meaning of the title of the book was gradually revealed and used as a theme to convey much more than the three words. With a full circle back to your thread about humanity in prisons,

it was so poignant to hear the impact of the letters Eli sent. prisons it was so poignant to hear the impact of the letters Eli sent and that's such a lovely lovely little part of the plot actually Antonia isn't it so our book club special will go out this Friday we will include as many of your thoughts and opinions as is humanly possible Trent was just lovely to talk to he was, he was. And he was also incredibly excited that anybody outside Australia would have discovered this book and would have enjoyed it. Yeah, so isn't that fantastic? That's the fantastic thing about the book club, Jane. Well, so far.

Valerie Perrin never did agree to come on, did she? No, she didn't, but that was because she didn't speak English. Well, she should have made more. My French isn't good enough. No, don't be so, don't. I want to keep your sourness at bay. Book club is a sanctuary, Jane. It's a sanctuary for positivity about other people's work.

But we would never have come across Trent Dalton, would we? Or I would have watched Boy Swallows the Universe, which is coming to the Netflix, and thought, oh, I've seen that now, I won't bother to read it. Oh, no, I wouldn't recommend relying on a Netflix version of anything. No, but that's what I mean. I would have watched it and then I wouldn't have read the book. I would have thought, I'm not going to read the book

because I've seen it on the TV. And I probably wouldn't have read any of his, but now I may. I feel now that I should confess that I wasn't going to, but I have watched those four episodes of The Crown. What do you think? Well, I kind of felt a bit ashamed, and I don't know why, but I did watch all four episodes. The acting, I think Elizabeth Debecky, she's just astonishing.

I mean, I think I saw Diana twice in my life on the public. I think I covered one of her very final UK sort of public engagements at a hospital in Bronze Grove. And she often spoke of it. I mean, the royals do and in her case did have to do some pretty run of the mill type activities. But the reaction that woman generated was absolutely off the scale i mean it was simply crazy the atmosphere on that occasion and the people of worcestershire don't normally sort of you know lose their fruits but emphatically the reaction to it was a billion percent but can i ask you what is the point of well i series of The Crown? I suppose I, because I really, I agree with people who say

so many people are now going to think that's what actually happened. We've got no idea. Absolutely no idea. And there's a very interesting interpretation of the state of the relationship between Diana and Dodie in episode three. The suggestion in The Crown being that he did indeed propose to her, but only because his father had ordered him to. And she had absolutely no intention of marrying him, according to The Crown. So, but his father would have been left with the impression that they were engaged.

You have to watch it to understand that. But anyway, the acting, certainly by Elizabeth Tbeke, I think is some of the best I've ever, I mean, she just is the woman, as far as I could make out. Let's talk about women in finance. No, one more question. But isn't that impersonation that you're applauding, not acting? Gosh, I don't know. See, that's a very good question, and I don't know what the answer is to that.

But surely all acting has a degree of impersonation in it, if you're playing a real person. Well, yes, but if the thing that's so striking about The Crown is literally that you can't, you almost can't believe it's a different person, you're thinking, gosh, that is Diana, then that's a different thing that you're commending. I mean, I'd just say this to someone, I genuinely,

and back to how you introduced this, I would just feel dirty watching that series now. And also, poor Dodie. I mean, I don't know, the bloke never met him, whatever. Maybe he was an absolute piece of work, but he goes down in history now, by the sounds of it, in quite a kind of weak weak rather demeaned way do we know that he was that?

We don't know anything I think we know that it's probably not a bad idea to be somewhat sceptical about his late father and his motives But we know quite a lot about him We certainly do Lucy is

she works in finance she is emailed to say that she describes herself as a fairly rare beast a 59 year old woman working in finance and she says it staggers me how often i hear women in particular say things like that they're not really interested that they don't understand or i leave all that to him i can talk all day without charts and graphs about what really matters in investment and how important it is that women have financial knowledge and independence and I can make it understandable, honestly. Okay, more importantly, she says, these are her kind of off-air credentials, I have a strong set of pegs, not a euphemism, I like dogs in coats, I love Ken Follett

and I'm going to see the play Lioness in early December. Ticks all our boxes. She really does and good luck there at Lioness. Yes, Lucy, thank you. I wonder what I've got a strong pair of pegs would be euphemistic for. Legs. That's too obvious, isn't it?

Don't people call legs pegs? I don't think they do, do they? I thought they did. Okay, I'll have to get one of our cockney experts in. A Cockney person. Right, shall we get to the big interview of the day? Yes. So this is an interview with two people today.

It's with Laura Trevelyan, who's a former BBC journalist, and it's with the Labour MP for Norwich South, Clive Lewis. Now, the thing that they've got in common is really quite a dark thing. Well, it's a very dark thing because Laura found out only a couple of years ago that her family had been in charge of some plantations and about a thousand slaves on the Caribbean island of Grenada. And when she found this out, she was ashamed and mortified and horrified, as she says in the interview. But she also decided to do something about it. So her family has given £100,000 to support education on the island. And that's just the start of a journey for her.

So she's given up her BBC post and she really is dedicating her working life to reparation of slavery. And Clive Lewis's ancestors may well have been those slaves because that's what his family heritage is. He's from a family, as he explains, who would have lived on Grenada at the time that Laura Trevelyan's family were running that plantation. So he's done some very interesting things, not least of which pose questions to Parliament about why reparation can't be made by the UK government. And they've come together to make a podcast where they go back to Grenada and talk about all aspects of slavery and this extraordinary shared history that they have. It's called Heirs of Enslavement. So they came into Times Towers today to discuss it. And Clive started by telling me a little bit more about his family.

So obviously, I've got my English heritage from my mum's side, which I knew plenty about because I lived for a while with my dad and granddad, you know, paratrooper in Normandy in the Second World War. I knew a little bit the history of that side of the family. On my dad's side, beyond my great-grandmother, who came from Barbados to Grenada, and the immediate family, not very much, which is very common for people from the Caribbean because there isn't really the kind of records that they have access to where they can find out beyond that, and a number of other reasons. So on my dad's side, I knew that he was part of the back end

of the Windrush generation. I know some of the stories of the things that he experienced when he first came over here some of the racism they experienced um but also the positive welcome that he got from my side of the family my mom's side of the family um and others so uh their history was one i knew about the grenadian revolution you know, my dad was intensely interested in. And I knew quite a bit about enslavement, first of all, from him and the history books that would be on his bookshelf that I would read. Then at school, although there was a big difference between what I was taught at school and what was on his bookshelf. So his bookshelf had things like The Black Jacobins, things about Toussaintaint the Overture, Haiti, which about much

struggle, the Maroons on Jamaica. So he was more about struggle, whereas what I was taught at school was more about, you know, the good and the great, handing emancipation to black people. He was more about their own struggles. So, but between that, that's where I probably picked up most of the information that I knew from enslavement and the transatlantic chattel slavery in the initial periods of my life. So when did you really learn so much more about your family's history and the huge part that enslavement had played in it? I think if you have any remote interest in politics and history, which I do, then you begin to look at the genesis of where things came from. Sometimes I loved hip hop as a kid.

Sometimes it was through the medium of hip hop and often then black race politics, which are slightly different, but in terms of understanding that there was a whole thing around the civil rights, around the Panthers, around pan-Africanism, those kinds of things. And they all link back to imperialism

slavery and colonialism and the effects of people trying to struggle against that i think where i've learned a lot as well is on this program my dad's told me things on this program that i didn't know about myself um i was like i remember my dad telling me about my great-grandmother um who came from barbados thinking why didn't you tell me that before and things about you know um grenada itself and guav where he's from and he was talking in the interview with me and laura in the podcast he's talking about some of the local stories around slavery of what was going on where who the rebels were julian fed on and others so i learned quite a bit from doing this podcast as well. And Laura, what about you?

Your realisation of what was in your family history is a relatively recent thing, isn't it? It is. I mean, basically, all I really knew about slavery, it was what I was taught at school. And maybe it was the same for you, Fi, and Clive, which is that we were taught in history that Britain abolished slavery. That was a fantastic achievement, not that the British Empire was up to its neck in slavery. So that was pretty much all I knew, as Clive said, the great and the good. But then University College London in about about nine years ago put online a database of all of the compensation that was paid to Britain's slave owners at the abolition of slavery in 1833. slave owners at the abolition of slavery in 1833. And then some years after that, someone in the family was noodling around on the UCL database of legacies of British slavery, as it's called, and typed the name Trevelyan in, because you can search by family name, by island, by plantation,

to find out who was paid compensation. And just think of that. It was people like the Trevelyans who were paid compensation when slavery was abolished, not Clive's ancestors, not the enslaved. And so in the family, people were really shocked to discover that Trevelyans part-owned ten plantations in Grenada, six of which they got compensation for, and got about £3 million in today's money. So that sparked this whole debate in our family about who are we. And how did that debate go? I mean, some people might find it hard to really believe that that story of your family had not been told through the generations, that it was a surprise to you.

That's so British, isn't it, to sweep it under the rug? Because once slavery was abolished in the 19th century, then it became an embarrassment, didn't it? And this narrative took hold of Britain. Oh, fantastic. Abolished slavery well ahead of those terrible Americans, ignoring the fact that, of course, British America was a colony until the Americans fought the War of Independence. So I think there's a shame in association with slavery.

And by the late 19th century, clearly nobody who is within living memory in our family knew anything about it, or if they did, they didn't talk about it. So my dad's generation, who obviously knew his grandparents, my dad's generation knew nothing of this link until they actually began looking on the UCL database. And then it just prompted this reckoning because, you know, we had quite distinguished relatives in the 19th century and the early 20th. One was the best selling historian of Britain, George Macaulay Trevelyan, and his histories of England. Don't mention the family linked to enslavement. Again, they celebrate. He celebrates abolition. It had us thinking well gosh

who are we i i mean i'm listening to laura there and one of the things we we kind of discuss and pick up in grenada and barbados is this thing about forgetting um both the kind of post enslavement populations in british the british caribbean islands is kind of deliberate forgetting which wasn't just on their part. It was also in terms of the education system that was there. I think a lot of people have this idea that after emancipation, it was this tropical paradise. It was a brutal form of apartheid.

And, you know, Sir Hilary Beckles was telling us that he went to give lunch to his father in the sugar cane fields in what must have been the 50s or the 60s, and there was a kind of white teenager youth on horseback, you know, literally swearing at them. So, you know, there's a whole long history of what happened after emancipation. And then also the extractionism that continues to this day. This is one of the most indebted parts of the world. And, you know, we've left it that way with no infrastructure with a climate crisis

approaching it. These are things that we discuss in the podcast. But that forgetting also happened here. I mean, I've been doing quite a bit of reading behind it. And it's really interesting, there was this kind of period in the kind of post 45, 48, after the kind as the empire began to break up, where people like Enoch Powell, very, very early on were saying, you know, Britain without an empire is like a head without a body. Now, he said that in 1950. By 1965, when he was writing his book, he basically moved,

along with a big part of the British establishment, into saying that, well, the empire wasn't that much. The colonies were landed on us. It really wasn't that big a deal. And it's a deliberate forgetting because if you forget who extracted the wealth from the Caribbean and who's kept it, where it goes to those British overseas territories,

the Cayman Islands, the Virgin Islands, which we control, which, you know, are about 180 billion pounds of tax that should be coming to the UK exchequer isn't. You begin to piece together this story about where wealth was created and who's held onto it to the modern day. And so, of course, you'd want to forget about that

because once people understand where that wealth came from, they're going to probably start thinking, hmm, we could do with some of that. And it's not just people in the Caribbean, it's people here in the UK as well, I think. 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. we are in conversation with laura trevelyan and clive lewis talking about the podcast they've made together called heirs of enslavement after learning about her ancestors laura decided she didn't want to just carry on without some kind of reckoning so i asked her why she decided that she wasn't just going to forget i think because you know like know, like you, I'm a journalist, I'm a storyteller. This seemed like a huge story and a microcosm of Britain, as Clive's saying, this selective amnesia about slavery. And so, you know, my BBC bosses last year let me go to make a documentary in Grenada, you know, I had to really persuade them. They were like, this can't be a jolly in the Caribbean, Laura. You have to, if you go, you've got to pose the question, should I pay reparations

for what my ancestors did? So I went and I asked that question of everybody I met, do I have a responsibility all these generations later for what my ancestors did? And the answer that came back was a resounding yes. And yes, and you should invest in education because here in Grenada, there are still parts of the island where we have pockets of illiteracy, if you can believe that, all these years after emancipation. the island where we have pockets of illiteracy, if you can believe that, all these years after emancipation. So it really just set me thinking. And I met, made a lot of friends in the Caribbean. And this February, you know, we went as a family to publicly apologise because that was something that leaders in Grenada felt would be important and would set an example and to announce that, you know, we were giving money to an education fund in Grenada. And it did set an example and to announce that, you know, we were giving money to an education fund in Grenada. And it did set an example. Everybody was right. And that just set me thinking. And then Clive stood up in Parliament for you on the same day

that our family apologised. And he said, if a family can apologise and pay reparations for slavery, why can't Britain's government? And that's how we connected. So that is such an important question to answer. And we will come to that in a couple of moments time but I want to explain to the listeners what the podcast is about because it is about this dual journey isn't it that you two make together and actually it's beautiful in many ways and it's very very thought-provoking. Can you take us to that point when you're both walking on a beach in Grenada and what that meant to both of you? Clive, if you can start.

The whole journey, being on the plantation that Laura's ancestors owned, that my ancestors probably toiled on, was for me full circle. You know, our history is extremely complex and interwoven. And I think Laura did a really brave thing. I know she doesn't see it as that. She doesn't like me saying that. But it was a very brave thing to step up and do that. And I think it's opened doors in terms of what people can talk about, what we've been able to discuss.

But for me, being back there, it felt, I felt very privileged. I felt like I'd come full circle. Because so much of what I am is in part because one of my one of my ancestors somewhere on the line was enslaved and then obviously through my dad I've come to the UK and eventually become a member of parliament and I can raise the issue in parliament off the back of what Laura said so it's all highly complex and interwoven and when you begin to pick it apart you begin to see how intertwined the histories of the Caribbean and the UK which so really are but for me I think the last thing

I would say was it it was humbling and it made me also it doesn't I don't want people to feel guilty I don't want people to feel anger I want people to understand because I think it enriches us it's definitely enriched my life because it's given me an understanding of a of a past that sometimes i was angry about i'll be honest but it's made me see it in a in a bigger picture way a more intertwined way with the british society that i've grown up in and i want others to experience that as well it's not just about the money for the caribbean and doing what i think is right for this country but it's also about this country asking itself, who are we and what kind of country do we want to be in the 21st century?

And will we look back on our past with open eyes and have an honest interrogation of that history? And I think it will make us a better country. I don't think we'll have windrush scandals for a start. I think we'll have a far more open, view of racism and and immigration and those kind of issues I think we'll be more at ease with ourselves and I think it's a kind of trauma that we haven't looked into yet and I think we should. Laura what were your emotions going to Grenada? Well it was just there were two things really one was being with Clive we went to this plantation, Beausajou, and Clive's dad still lives really near to it. And that's just typical of the legacies of slavery, that people, generations

later, don't move that far away from the plantation where their ancestors were enslaved. And so a Grenadian historian we met, Nicole Philip Dow, said, yes, you you know it's highly likely that Clive's ancestors were enslaved by yours Laura so we went to the Beausajou plantation and to be there really at what's a crime scene and there's me looking at the plantation house and thinking oh this is you know so elegant it looks like gone with the wind this is just so horrible to think of what happened here and then Clive's looking at the sugar cane he's looking at the fields and he's really quite visibly shaken by the thought that his ancestors may have toiled here and it was really hot when we were there we couldn't but be struck by the horrible conditions

by the fact that the sugar cane it's like a razor in your hand and we just were both transported back in different ways with very different experiences so that was really very profound but the other thing that was extraordinary for me was meeting Clive's dad Tony because he's part of the Windrush generation he left Grenada for opportunities in Britain became a really successful trade unionist, you know, started on the factory shop floor, then has come back to Grenada, where he's actually running the Fisherman's Collective. So still a trade unionist, but he's the story of Britain. And I just think it's so poorly understood that Windrush itself was a legacy of slavery. People left the West Indies because there were no opportunities because of slavery, only to meet discrimination in Britain, which is what happened to Tony, Clive's dad. Yeah, he succeeded against all the odds.

And look at his son. Like, it's an amazing, uplifting story, but it's really painful as well. Are there quite a few people that you've met in Grenada who really don't want your apology? There are certainly people who are like, well, what does this do for me? What does it change? there are certainly people who are like well what does this do for me what does it change how's you just making yourself feel good uh and what does you know a hundred thousand pounds from you do when your ancestors must have made well millions from slavery all of which is true but what clive and i found i think was that there is some kind of healing quality to raising and discussing these issues, at the very least because it opens up a discussion,

even if you can't solve the pain of the past or really confront it. So I don't know. It's complicated. But the fact that Clive felt that he could stand up in Parliament because we were in Grenada and that before that he hadn't been able to talk about the whole issue of reparations for the Caribbean. I think it tells you something about the importance of a joint journey in trying to confront. And I will just say that as a listener, there are a couple of moments where because you are having a conversation with each other, which has emotions in it, doesn't it? You know, you're not talking as a journalist to an MP about policy. Those moments really crackle, actually. I think

they're so immensely important to try and understand what it is that we should do with a sense of shame, or we should actually do with a sense of guilt. It's important to have actions, isn't it, Clive? Not just emotions about this? I think so. So, I mean, obviously, talking about trauma is a good thing. And we can't control the past. The past has happened. But we can influence the present and the future. And that's, I think, what we're doing when we're talking to each other. We're attempting to do that.

We're attempting to understand what happened, the implications for today, and our part in that story. And it's a story that's still being written. It really is. And that's a story that's still being written it really is and you know that's the thing that i saw when i when i went to the when we were at beausé jus we stood there with laura i said i felt that my ancestors were watching i could see them lined up and and it's almost as if i think for them there was a i'm not going to say a closure that's just too much it's not for me to close their pain and what they went through.

But there was just a kind of a full circle that someone had, one of their descendants had come back full circle with. The person who was up on the house most of the time, who owned them, there was just a kind of, you know, a universal kind of sweet spot to that. I can't really put into any other words. But, you know, you're right.

It's about action now um and you know there's a growing campaign on this issue it's not about retribution it's not about making people feel bad it's about it's about having a conversation and seeing where that leads you know there was a great it was a great injustice one of the greatest injustice against other human beings that was committed and and it's enriched this country with the sixth richest biggest economy in the world there's a reason for that and there's a reason why we maintain that position at the expense of other islands and other countries so that's the story of today how do we have you know let's let's be honest we've left the european union we're looking at the world this globalization is fragmenting um we need more

friends and i think you know we need to kind of be able to say to them, hold on, we do acknowledge the part that we played in, you know, the history and the present day, and we want to do something about it. And having this conversation is the start of that process. So can you answer that question that you asked in Parliament? If Laura Trevelyan's family can make reparations, why can't the UK government? Because other governments have, haven't they? Yes, so they have in the Netherlands. It's been controversial. I think one of the things that they missed in the Netherlands was having

the conversation, if I'm honest. I think the government initially tried to just drop the money on Suriname and Suriname said no. And I think it's been very divisive. I personally think, I think there should be a Royal Commission or something like that on this issue. I think there should be citizens assemblies. I think there should be a learning process. I think we should discuss this issue. And then I think once you've done that,

once you understand where so much of that wealth that is, and it was very interesting, Ali Gill, the chair of the Grenadian Reparations Committee, when I said to him, my constituents, I can't go back to my constituents in Norwich and say to them, you should be paying for reparations. They were paying for the reparations for the owners up until 2015 in their taxes.

Why should they now pay people in the Caribbean? And he said they shouldn't. He said, what you have to understand is that the people who've been extracting from us all of these centuries, the corporations, the banks, the financial institutions, the wealthy in your country, they're still sitting on that money. They still have it in offshore accounts. They still have it in your country. You're one of the most unequal countries in the world. They should be paying for this.

And the way that the state does that is through looking at where wealth is and how you tax that. And that would open up wealth for people in this country, would open up access access to better public services and a small fraction of that could go to the caribbean but i don't think you can go from a to c unless you go through b and b is that conversation about our history laura do you think that it is feasible that that money could be extracted your family has given the money entirely voluntarily hasn't it but if somebody had come to you and said, your predecessors, your ancestors were involved in this crime and we would now like some money from you, may it have been a different outcome?

Yeah, I think it would have been totally different and people would have probably run for the hills in that situation. And we did have a big debate as a family. One of the reservations that people had who didn't sign the letter of apology, and 104 family members did, but people who didn't sign were really worried about a legal precedent. You know, and this is why Britain's government, Britain's royal family, have never apologised for their links to slavery, because if you apologise, that means you acknowledge that you're responsible for a wrong

and therefore maybe you're on the hook for the money. But really what I hope is, as Clive says, that, yeah, you can't go right from A to C at 100 miles an hour. By beginning a discussion, maybe when there's a change in government, if that happens in Britain, perhaps a new government, perhaps one that had David Lammy as Foreign Secretary, who's a child of the Caribbean, like Clive Guiney's British. Perhaps then, as we look towards the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Britain, 2033, perhaps we can bring it all into focus and realise that the past informs the present. And that Britain has a debt, a black debt to the Caribbean and owes the Caribbean

better investment in its infrastructure and its health and its education because Britain extracted all of the wealth. Clive Lewis and Laura Trevelyan and their podcast Heirs of Enslavement is available now. It's one of those podcasts, it's not an easy listen, it's got some really crunchy moments in it but it's got so much information about slavery and stuff that i think you know we we aren't taught it in schools but that is not an excuse to have ignorance on the subject i didn't know or realize where limbo dancing was from for instance so lots of things are explained those really really long echoes of slavery that are still ringing out, especially across the Caribbean, are really explored as well. And it's just a really good

thing to fill in the gaps of our shared history. And I think that podcast does a remarkable job of doing that. I think the point that the infrastructure of far too many Caribbean countries just isn't as good as it should be. And that is also connected to what happened during that time. And of course, we have also plundered, we have, we've taken their people as well, because it suited us to ask back, well, the Windrush generation, we asked those people to come here to fill the gap left by the couple of million people who scarpered and left Britain to become immigrants themselves after World War II. So, you know, we have...

It's very difficult, isn't it? Because I think Laura Trevelyan is someone who has very firmly put her head above the parapet. Because she chose not to do nothing and did something, she's been criticised. And that's completely wrong, because what about all the people who could say something about their own family's involvement in this

who've not said a word? But that's exactly what Clive Lewis says in the interview that whatever position you might hold, you have to admire her bravery. And she's started something because other families have now realised that they need to do the same thing. So her contribution is massive.

But yeah, I'd highly recommend it actually. There are two episodes available at the moment and there are plenty more to come. So tomorrow we are talking to a food historian and anyone who thinks that, what's food history? What's the significance here? It's just one of those slightly niche, I suppose, but endlessly fascinating areas.

And Penn Vogler is her name. She wrote a book a couple of years ago called Scoff, and this is a new one called Stuffed. And she writes each chapter based around a food group. So, for example, there's a chapter about turnips and there's a chapter about potatoes. But honestly, you'd be amazed by how many really interesting nuggets there are in this book.

Tofu? No. Kefir? No, these things don't feature because this is... Kombucha? She talks about a world where, at one point, the broad bean was of immense significance in this country. And, I mean, I can't stand the things.

But that's probably why it was included in the coronation quiche. Well, what a wonderful observation. You're right. The quiche that you weren't very keen to either publicise, talk about or even taste. Or taste. Right, you win that one. Didn't go unnoticed. Dear Fionnuala

we end with this. It's from Sue Brask. Just a speedy email regarding the French calling periods Les Anglais. I googled it and it says they also have some of the most colourful expressions such as Les Anglais ont débarqué, the English have landed, a reference to the British

Redcoats who fought off Napoleon's army at the Battle of Waterloo. I bet that's not in the movie. Oh, yeah? No. I don't think I'm going to watch that for you. I'm going to see it next Friday. Are you?

Yes. And Sue just says how much she enjoys the podcast. That's very kind of you. And she's listening to us in Denmark, having lived there for years, as she describes it, the land of Carlsberg and herring. Get one down, your love. As the Danes would say, tussentuck.

Which means? I don't know. It's probably very rude. Right. Just the thought of a herring, and I feel a little burp coming on. Take that with you on the tube. Yeah, I will. But thank you for that. It's Sue, isn't it? That was from Sue.

That was Sue. Thank you very much, Sue. Over there in Denmark, wherever you are, whether you're here or over there, you can contact us, janeandfee at times.radio. Apart from you, Angela.

No, not you, Angela. Banned. No, she's not really. We don't want to be horrible. We'll take everyone. Right, have a decent evening and we'll be around again in your ears tomorrow.

I'm actually looking forward to Angela's email mail. Come on, Angela, you can do it. 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? Sorry. 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

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