Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Not many people have actually walked into an oven… (with Judy Murray)

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

Jane and Fi are talking about Jane’s gift of the second sight, getting angry about idioms, and asking why we can hear the British couple shouting at each other from twelve tents away... They're joined by Judy Murray to talk about her book 'The Wild Card'. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow our instagram! @JaneandFi Assistant Producer: Kate Lee Times Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Right, are we ready? Yeah. Hello everybody. Hello. We've just been out onto the terrace here at Times Towers and oh my goodness, it's got hot, hasn't it? It was beautiful. It was one of those moments, it's a little bit like getting off an aeroplane.

No, it was like entering the blanket of foreign lands. Yeah, when you just get that woof. Yeah. And everyone always writes about it in books, don't they? It's like entering an oven. Well, they do write about it in books because it is a very definite thing. Because it is true that often, though not today, you can leave the UK and it can be, you know, let's be honest, it can be 13 Celsius in August. And then you land somewhere else and it's 34. You just feel a new person, don't you? Well, you do. But my point would be that actually not very many people have ever

walked into an oven. But we're all expected to really understand that as a metaphor, aren't we? When I write my award winning novel, I won't use that. No. No. Because if I do, you'll know that I'll come down on you like a ton of bricks. Absolutely. There's another one. Like a ton of bricks. How many of us know what it's like to have a ton of bricks fall on your head? That's very true. So stop saying it. Okay.

It's been the end of quite a long week, everybody, but we're still okay. Perhaps it's just as well the temperature's only gone up today. If we were working Fridays, we wouldn't be, but we're still okay on a Thursday's just as well the temperature's only gone up today. If we were working Fridays, we wouldn't be, but we're still okay on a Thursday evening. Some of your titles for your emails are just fantastic. Cold Babies and Doll Lobotomies goes in at one of my all-time favourites. Yeah.

And we've also had a very interesting one, actually. And do you know what? I know that I often do you down for your kind of spooky, wise woman thingy, your ability to read the runes. But you know, when we were talking about an email from Charlie, who was trying to get me to listen to The Archers on account of the coercive control thing with Rob, and you said, are you sure that that's not an email

that then details... Their own experience, yeah. And it did turn out to be detailing experiences. So I really, I doff my cap to you, and also I'm slightly scared now. Well, no, I do have a gift. I mean, I know that, because you do mock, and I'll hand it to you,

you're right to mock my fortune-telling. Always on sport, I know that because you do mock and I've handed to your right to mock my fortune telling always on sport and completely wrong. For goodness, I just never want anybody to place a bet on your predictions. But sometimes more sensitive things. I am right. Yes. And you are right about that. So we will save that email for our email special. email for our email special but it's also got some very funny bits in it as well about

whether or not vegans have a right to tell you all about being vegans. I'll do cold babies and doll lobotomies though. This comes in from Jackie listening to the pod this week. I thought I would tell you about two things you reminded me about. My son was born in late September

and I was always a bit crap at ensuring I had all of the appropriate equipment with me. When he was about three months old, I set off into town with him to collect the Christmas turkey. My intention was just to pop in and out quickly. However, I failed to think through the fact that there may be a queue. The queue outside the butcher's was about 30 minutes and I had no coat, hat or even blanket in the pram

to protect my baby from the cold. What a shocking mother you are! I ended up using the newspaper I'd bought as a makeshift blanket. It was also the time when InfoCol was out of stock nationwide and I remember wheeling him around Tesco's in my pyjamas, crying and begging the pharmacist for something that would help this incessant colic. My son is approaching 24 years old now,

has just finished university, is six foot three, so I think I got away with it on both counts. I to say that had um had you been a bit more careful he might be six foot five yeah think on that yeah just think about that jackie in other news my sister and i had a large collection of dolls when we were children my mum was a doctor so all of our dolls had holes in their foreheads as we'd given each and every one of them a lobotomy. Oh, my God. I mean, that's quite advanced, isn't it? I mean, a minor appendix operation, I could understand. Isn't that extraordinary?

A full lobotomy. How sinister. Jackie wants to say thank you for the book recommendations, The Lincoln Highway and The Girl with the Louding Voice. Yes. Both amazing and currently reading at the table. And I'd forgotten those, actually. So The Girl with the Louding Voice is by Abidarere I think it was one of my favourite books of last year and The Lincoln Highway is by

Amor Towles whatever one of he wrote a Gentleman in Moscow as well didn't he? Which I haven't read I often go into a bookshop and pick that up and think no no I'll leave it until I can fully focus on it because Because I read The Lincoln Highway on my holiday last summer and it's a proper road trip. It's a literal road trip of a book and it's somehow appropriate for holiday. But it's a great it's just a great yarn, that.

And we love a good yarn. Oh, we do. Oh, yes, we like a good yak. And we like a good yarn. Episode 143 is the title of Gillian's email. I'm listening as I work as a gardener, so apologies for short with very likely bad grammar and spelling, as I need to be quick.

That's not just me being inept. That's a literal reading out of Jill's very swiftly composed email. Enough, get on with it. Yes, exactly. To the email you received from the lady who'd just been in Japan was finding her return to the UK noisy. Can I just say I agree? I just got back from cycling the west coast of France and how lovely and quietly spoken the French are. Or at least they just speak at a normal level. You realise how loud we Brits are.

In fact, we encountered some British people on one of the campsites. And yes, you could hear their conversation so clearly around the whole campsite is this a new thing or have we always been so loud asks Jill so I'm just going to imagine what that British conversation I mean to be fair Jill is also British but uh there she is on the campsite and I can hear I can hear a woman's voice shouting Nigel have you got the briquettes? It'll be something like that, won't it? It will. And then there'll be a couple of squawking kids in the mix as well,

possibly a noisy dog. But I don't actually think that British people are that noisy abroad. Oh, no, I disagree. Oh, do you? OK, right. I disagree. So I think if you're abroad in a restaurant, especially in France and there's a English, I'm going to say English

specifically family, yes, you've been very careful to say that I think you definitely know it, I think sometimes it's just a I'm going to be really honest about this I think it's a real arrogance of the English person travelling abroad.

Do you think that still happens? Yes, I do. Just, you know, my language is the language everybody speaks. There's something about me, you know, that means I can travel. I feel free in this place, even though it's not my place. I think that goes down an awful lot. And actually, Satnam Sanghera makes that point in his books, that there is only the British,

and obviously he's enlarged it from just English, who have a thing of being an expat. No other country has expats as a kind of community thing. They're actually immigrants, aren't they? Yeah. But, you know, we have a sense that we can go. Oh, I see. It's all right for us.

It's all right for us. We set up a community everywhere. We're expats. Yeah. Yes. Yes, that's a very, very good point. So I think sometimes we're not particularly nice. Do you think we're liked?

No, not at all. I really don't. I really don't, Jane. I was going to do one about the male pill. So there was a really interesting story around today, wasn't there, as well well which kind of combines quite a few things that we always talk about on the podcast falling birth rate yes so the falling birth rate one is research out of oxford university which basically says the more you educate a woman the fewer children she chooses to have yeah which is true globally isn't it? And it was always thought that the answer to population growth,

which poses such a threat, is to educate women. And, you know, I never remember whether it was my great-great or great-great-great-grandmother died after having her 14th child. And people always say, well, they must be Catholic. They weren't Catholics. So, you know, like a lot of families, it's all very all very mixed and we had Catholic sides and this happened to be a Protestant couple um I mean that is extraordinary isn't it um all 14 of her children lived to a great great age some of them to a very great age so um but that's clearly not an ideal, is it? No. It clearly isn't.

And I remember now, it's my great-great-grandmother, because my great-grandmother, who I met, was the oldest of those children. OK. So they spawned huge amounts of economic units who could pay tax. Yes. Miriam Cates would have loved that branch of my family. Yeah. So you need to explain, especially to our external listeners. Well, Miriam Cates is a Conservative MP, and I'm going to say she's on the, she's on a fringe of even the Conservative Party, if you can imagine such a thing. And she basically was just bewailing the lack of future taxpayers.

But this is a difficult thing, because let's be honest about bringing up a child. You do discover to your amazement that it turns out to be quite a commitment. And it's not something that's over. Pregnancy, honestly, is neither here nor there. The first couple of years, yeah, they're tough, but crikey, try teenagers. And then try people in their 20s

who wake you up in the middle of the night because they want you to do the fake tan on their backs. I mean, you know, it never... It's non-stop, darling. It's non... Non-stop. Well, it does stop because I did have a couple of hours sleep before I was woken up to do the fake tan.

But, yeah, it's a fairly major commitment, which if you gave yourself time to consider, you may not be prepared to take up. But we were talking earlier, weren't we, and I said that I had always wanted children and I never quite knew why because I wasn't sort of um a particularly and this is a you know difficult thing to say but a girly girl but I did really really want to have children and you were not so sure were you no so I definitely had I think in my 20s I really didn't give it any thought at all and I didn't see my horizon I really uh I've never been a very kind of that's exactly what I'm going to be that's what I'm going to aim

for you know I don't have that kind of mind anyway so maybe that's got more to do with it than any kind of choice about fertility but I just didn't always think that I would have children and I did have children quite late and I had children because I met someone who I wanted to have children with actually but that's almost by the by. What I just find incredibly difficult is this notion that the state especially in a first world country thinks it has anything to contribute to conversations with women about their fertility.

And I'm not being derogatory about countries in the developing world. I'm saying something about a prejudice I think we have about countries in the developing world. And they've got an awful lot of issues about women in education, which they will be looking to us and thinking what's going on there? Do we want to head in that direction? So that's a kind of separate geopolitical argument. But the notion that women should either be discouraged from having kids or encouraged to have kids because a balance sheet somewhere might need something from their progenies in future generations. I find really repulsive because exactly as this conversation proves, it's a really personal thing whether or not you have children.

You may think different things at different times in your life. You may think different things when you're with different people in your life. And it's not only women who are having these thoughts in our heads as well. Yeah, I mean, the idea that when little Daphne is born, that you gaze at them and think, I wonder if she'll ever win an Olympic medal or the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, or will she ever be in the higher tax band?

Yeah. I do hope so. Yeah. Because I'd like her to contribute. I mean, it's just, it's a bizarre way. But I think every developed so-called country in the world has this issue. Apparently, Japan has a real problem with its glacial growth in terms of its population. Well, it does.

And so they have a problem as well because of their longevity. Yeah. And also, weirdly, and I think, I wish we could do this on Urgent Question on our Times radio show, no immigration. Yes, that's very true, isn't it? I don't understand really why that... Well, that's a geographical thing. No, but

they could accept refugees. Well, they could, but I think historically it's been a very isolated... Well, we need to find out more, don't we? We must have listeners from Japan. I'm sure we do. And I could be very ignorant, so I apologise if I've said something really hideous. But also more don't we we must have country in japan i'm sure we do and i could be very ignorant so i apologize if i've said something really hideous but also don't you

find it a bit insulting to even think that there's a downside to educating women mark i mean obviously it's just not great is it it's not but also this is where we started with the male pill. It's just about men too. And if you continually have conversations about children only with women, then I think we just miss an enormous opportunity to achieve equality sooner. Because men have thoughts about starting families too and about emotional responsibility, financial responsibility. We don't ask them to join in this chat too. And so it's as much about men being educated as women. Sometimes the idea of having children is couched

in terms of it just being some sort of silly female indulgence. Oh, this silly old bird, she wants to have a baby. But also when it goes into that territory of, you know, women having to justify whether or not they feel fulfilled by having women. Ask men as well. Please ask men. And also, defend the right of any woman or man

to say, no thanks, I don't want to have children. I don't want them. Yes, and I'll be fine. And I'll be absolutely fine. Please don't judge me. And also the right of all people in a family setting to say sometimes I'm fulfilled by this sometimes I'm not.

That's a more real thing. Everyone's got a job that they love sometimes and on some days they hate. I don't believe that. It doesn't apply in this room. No, but it's so broad brush, isn't it, James? It definitely is. Do you want to read your email about the pill? Oh, well, this is an interesting one from Sarah.

Dear Jane and Fee, I'm surprised to hear men are reluctant to take a contraceptive pill. Many of my close male friends have for years lived in fear that they will unintentionally get a sexual partner pregnant or wear condoms, but these are not guarantees. A female friend of mine from uni became pregnant as the result of an affair she was having. She was clear with me that she wanted the man to leave his wife and she was out of options to persuade him the pregnancy seemed

calculated his wife found out but didn't throw out her husband instead my friend became a single parent she's a gorgeous mother and has no regrets however my sympathy goes to the man who did not want a baby does not see the baby and had to pay for the baby. He believed in good faith that my friend was taking the pill. If the pill means women feel secure, they won't become landed with the baby, then surely men should be afforded the same opportunity. I myself am 37 in a loving and child-free relationship.

When I discuss it with colleagues or in general chat, women wink at me and say, well, maybe you'll have an accident. Oh, God. That's just got everything in it, that one. So thank you very much indeed for that. And this is from Anonymous. I wanted to put across my view of the use of the pill.

I've been on it for most of my adult life, nearly 25 years. Fortunately, I never had any side effects except on one brand, and I just changed it. For me, the fact that it's a contraceptive is just a bonus to the fact that I can run my packets together and never have a period. The break in pill packets to bleed was created just to reassure women that they were still having a so-called proper period every month. I relish the fact that I never have to have the headache, the bloating or the cramps. I understand the pill isn't for everyone, but please don't demonise it because it does work brilliantly for some women.

I think having a good GP is key. After wanting to reduce the hormones I was taking, I spent a year on the Mirena coil, which is often touted as the holy grail of contraception, especially if you've had your children. But for me, it was a nightmare. I lost a quarter of my hair, my skin looked like a volcanic eruption and I put on loads of weight. So after a year I asked to go back on the pill and it's clearly the best thing for me and my body. It's also worth mentioning that my husband would take a pill if it existed for him and he's offered to have a vasectomy. However both these options would mean periods for me so it's a hard no i thank you very much for that email i think that's another perspective

and we did say that um there's plenty perhaps a fodder for this conversation in the davina mccall documentary which is on tonight tonight thursday but i'm sure you can watch it on all four after that. Can we say a very big hello to Susie? Thank you for your email. You point out that you remember the bionic man or action man with part of his arm that you could open up to see the bionics. She says my brother had one.

I do remember that. I don't think Cindy or Barbie had a similar thing. They didn't? No. Which part of their body do you think you'd be able to open up and look at the body parts? I think, if left to their own devices, manufacturers may have made that around the uterus.

Golly. Thank goodness they didn't. But Susie, I hope your daughter's all right. I hope you're okay. And I'm sorry that you've had such a terrible time, actually. Some of the really bad things in life have been raining down on you so i hope you're feeling all right now i'm not rolling my r's or am i uh i didn't notice that so i i wasn't going to include that email

no but you have been accused i mean god knows i'm accused of all sorts often with some merit what have i been accused of? Rolling your arse. Oh, I see, of rolling my arse. I thought it was something else. I don't think I'm doing that. I think there was a character in Mallory Towers by Enid Blyton who rolled her arse. She was a French mistress who was always telling people to roll their arse.

Well, I think Matt Chorley rolls his quite a lot, doesn't he? Can you give me an example? No. I don't quite know how it would sound. Yes, like that. I think he does. Maybe I'm just imagining that. I think perhaps it forms a part of one of your nocturnal fantasies.

This is from Anne, who's included some lovely photographs of dinosaurs, which she spotted in Shaftesbury. So I just think this is one of these stories you don't see in the mainstream media. So that's why we're reporting it here. Thank you, Anne. There are dinosaurs in Dorset. They're trying to pretend it hasn't happened.

That's the government. It's the dark web. And it's the mainstream media. All right. And it's the Liberal Democrats. They are washing the truth because Anne has sent us photographic evidence. media all right and it's the liberal democrats they are keep they are no don't bring the democrats washing the truth because anne has sent us photographic evidence oh my gosh are they going to disappear into the garage with the alien vehicles that mike pence has got over

it's not mike pence it's actually nasa uh yeah that's it keep an eye on that one page 30 of the guardian yesterday and we've heard nothing today We should have asked the Guardian bloke on today We had their chief senior political writer Didn't we And yeah We've aired our thoughts on that It should be on page one everybody

Anyway Anne thank you very much For sending us your intel From Dorset And also if you do see dinosaurs out in the world and you know in your heart of hearts that the msn is not reporting it then send it to us and we'll do it on our fair uh and also says she loves ellie griffiths and she's read the dr ruth galloway series in order well i'm not i'm going to read more of them but i don't think i've got them in order now so they're going to be all jiggled up. But are they a genre that you can read out of order?

They are, but there's lots of back references. Yes. But I do recommend it. If you're looking for kind of, I suppose it's not really cosy crime, but you actually get quite close to the characters. I'm really interested. There's a grumpy policeman. There's a slightly unorthodox archaeologist lady.

They have an on-off relationship. It's super. Yeah, really good and lots of um deserted farmhouses and stuff like that oh i don't like that no no but i mean when anyone goes up a track by themselves a bouncing track by themselves human remains oh no yeah but they're old no we used to have a rallying cry on the family sofa, call for backup, which was used many, many, many times. Because you just wouldn't, would you? Anywhere in Scandinavia, after dark, as a lone woman, just call for backup. Right, would you like to introduce Judy Murray?

Oh, are we not doing the book club? Oh, do the book club. Would you like to introduce the book club? We're doing a book club, so that bit was slick. And we've done a video, some content on our Insta. Jane and Fee on the Insta. Yeah, now we're edging towards Holly Willoughby,

we're on her tail, so we've got 3,000 followers now. She's still on 8.2 million, but she is absolutely querulous in her high-heeled shoes because she knows we is coming for her so our book club is it's called what do you mean it's called the book club yeah no i know but what is in the book club oh i see a book yes uh and the idea is that no people know what a book

club is i honestly love they really do we're all to read the same Do you think I need to explain it? No So the book we've chosen, well actually we haven't, you have Well it's because one of our listeners chose it and then a lot of people piled in and said yeah that's really good So it is the one that we didn't understand when it was in its original French

but the translation is Fresh Water for Flowers, it's by Valerie Perrin We're going to read it. It's not something that I would ordinarily have picked up. And I'll tell you for why, Jane. I'm just going to be very honest. There's quite a lot about it. When people say a beautifully, intensely atmospheric,

bittersweet dream of a book, romantic, light, but not meaningless, colourful and highly enjoyable. When I see stuff like that in the recommendations, I feel that's euphemistic and what it's going to be is too romantic and too wrapped up in a bow for what I like, which is something with a little bit more backbone to it and sometimes a bit of steel.

So I'm very happy to give it a read because I wouldn't have chosen it otherwise. Well, it says on the back there that over a million copies have been sold. Well, there you go. Of course, it doesn't mean they've been read. It was long-listed for the Dublin Literary Award. Long-listed. No, come on now.

No, we're going to read it because that's the whole point of our book club is to have an open mind, read things we wouldn't usually read. Fresh water for flowers. So if you'd like to join in, that's what you have to do. Beautifully written, said the Times Literary Supplement.

And they eat in the same canteen as us. Well, they do. And they used to be run by the bloke who now kind of runs this place. Yeah, so they'll know what they're talking about. Anyway, join in on Instagram. You can leave sarky comments there. We don't really care. We've had worse. Keep them coming. It's Jane and Fee. That's where

you need to go. So our guest today, and we were so glad to get her because she's a lovely person and she's so interesting to talk to. And she's eloquent and she's been there and done it. It's Judy Murray. She was actually a tennis player herself. She was a good player. But obviously she's much more better known these days as a coach. She's the mother of Andy and Jamie Murray. And she's been on Strictly, of course. Anton Dubek has endorsed her novel, which is out today, Thursday. And it's called The Wild Card. And yeah, it is set in the world of tennis. You probably won't be surprised to hear that. But it's not perhaps the story you might be expecting to hear. It's about a British

tennis player called Abigail Patterson, who is at an interesting point in her professional life at the grand old age of 36. And after a long period out of the game, she finds herself in the second week of Wimbledon. What's going to happen to Abigail Patterson? We asked Judy, would a comeback like that actually be possible? I think it would be very difficult if you'd taken a break and not come near the game at all but what she did after she was forced to retire as one of the most promising prospects in Britain at 17 was that she went into initially became a hitting partner for another coach and worked with a lot of other good young players in a paid capacity

and then learned how to coach so stayed in the game and mentored a lot of top junior players so she was always involved in tennis just out of the picture in terms of the main the main frame and I think that what uh what you see now in tennis is many more of the top players staying around the top of the game because of all the advances in sports science and sports medicine they travel with physios they travel with fitness trainers they keep themselves in great shape so you see Serena still competing at 40 Venus still competing at 42 43 Roger 40 still up there and contending so it in that sense it is possible and it is very much a tale of you're never too old to follow your dreams well that's why people are going to love the book jodie uh i won't give away the end uh but she has

a secret which she has to basically keep on keep on the down low and it all comes to the surface and i don't want to i don't want to ruin anybody's enjoyment but you'll you'll be smiling at the end won't you that's that that's the point it's not It's not a sad thing. So that's great. But there are some difficult aspects to the story you tell here. And I just wonder whether you were considering writing about all this stuff before. I'm talking particularly about player-coach relationships, because they're tricky. They can be extremely difficult, can't they? Yeah, I definitely saw an opportunity to raise awareness of some of the challenges and issues that exist for women and girls in sport, not just in tennis. And one of

those, of course, is abuse of power, abuse of trust. And I think that when I was the Fed Cup captain in the British women's team, and I spent about six years on the women's tour with our girls. And the first thing that I learned was how much harder you have to work to make things happen on the women's side of the game than on the men's and the second thing was that there's hardly any female coaches on the women's circuit it's it's dominated by male coaches and when I first encountered that when I walked into my first player lounge and I went wow where's the female coaches they didn't exist and that made me think you know what do these young female players

do when they have a problem you know whether that's physical financial anxiety over something emotional issues menstrual cycle the pill all of these. Who do you go to talk to in confidence? Who did they go? Well, actually, what the WTA did, that's the Women's Tour, they started to recognise that there needed to be an outlet for women to go to in confidence. And they brought in a few, they were called lifestyle managers, older women who understood the tennis circuit and were there who you could go to in confidence, who would listen, advise and who could act where they needed to. Because if you think

about it, you know, you're a young female player, you're travelling around the world with usually a very much older guy or male team around you. And you're the employer. And it's a, how do you, how do you learn how to be an employer when you're like like late teens? Yeah. And, you know, unless you're in the luxury position of being able to afford to have a parent or parents or brother or sister to travel with you, you're out there on your own. And you are in that sense, very vulnerable. You obviously have two highly successful tennis playing sons. If you'd had daughters, would you have been actually happy for them to do that you'd had daughters would you have been actually happy for them to do that for a living or would you have been concerned you know I've been asked

that a few times and you know for sure for all that I went with my kids when they were in their later teens in order to help them you need to have somebody around you that you can trust who's there for you to give you the emotional support who has your best long-term interests at heart. And not everybody has that. A lot of people see the fame and fortune, but not, you know, and you generally speaking can rely on family for that. And a lot of parents do travel and a lot of parents assume the role of the coach, but that doesn't always work out. So for the player to speak out about, I've got a problem with my parent, you know, taking advantage of me financially or abusing me or whatever.

And that happens. There are some horror stories out there. They're well documented. But yes, I think if I'd had daughters, for sure I would have been there every step of the way if I could have afforded to do that. And I think if I hadn't, I may have advised them to go in a different direction.

Right, OK, well, that's telling in itself, I guess. V and I were talking the other day, actually, after we saw the pictures of Emma Raducanu sitting up in bed looking happier than I've ever seen her after surgery. Now, I'm not undermining the seriousness of the surgery she's been through, but it really struck us both, didn't it, that we'd never seen her look so joyful. She looked really positively relieved and comfortable,

and so often the pictures that you see of her, she's been looking quite distressed recently. I mean, even if she's had a good day on court, she's looked unhappy. Is she a person, and I know it's difficult for you to comment on on a specific person but is that the kind of concern that you're referring to that we might actually all be witnessing in plain sight actually at the moment yeah I think for you know most young girls of her age would be students and they would be studying enjoying themselves, boyfriends, great social calendar and so forth. And, you know, she was catapulted into superstardom really when she won US Open, an incredible achievement, but completely unexpected.

And what it did, you know, obviously it put her into the public eye hugely. It also catapulted her ranking to a place that normally she would have taken several stepping stones to get there and on those stepping stones she would have learned along the way about the life and business of becoming a professional player and she didn't have that luxury so she really had a baptism of fire and she's gone through a number of coaches I think you know probably having this time off after the surgeries will hopefully give her time to consider the long term strategy from here. Who does she want in her corner? Who's going to advise her? Who's got her best interests at heart for the long term? And where is she going to have her fun?

And when, you know, when Andy was 18 and he started off on the men's tour and we were able to afford a coach for the first time in Mark Petchy. And I recognised it is stressful in a one-on-one situation, not just for the player, it's actually stressful for the coach as well. If you're 24-7 with a young player, you don't just assume the role of the coach. You're part parent, you're part friend, you're all sorts of things. And the coach needs a bit of downtime as well. And so from time to time I would send one of Andy's pals with him for a couple of weeks you know one of his tennis pals

or one of his school pals to break it up for him and to break it up for the coach and that was really just my common sense telling me he needs to have a bit of normality in his life he needs somebody to go go-karting with and out to the cinema not the same older coach every night for lunch dinner breakfast and has he ever said to you or Jamie that actually they recognize some part of all of the problems that we face in adult life might be to do with not having had quite such a normal adolescence I think with boys I would say that what I saw more in boys tennis and on the men's circuit the men in general I think they tend to mix with each other much more they've always got football or baseball or basketball in common they still have all these

fantasy football and basketball leagues among players you see that kind of gang of friends going out for dinner more going to do things together you don't see it so much in the girls I think they're more protective of their own space they tend to see the others as being their competitors and so forth so you do become reliant on that group or person that is around you and that's why you know I've been really happy to see the WTA bringing in a head of safeguarding bringing in these lifestyle managers which for me especially with all the mental health challenges that we've had post-covid and the hassle with social media and the media I think these people are every bit as important as the physios who look after the bodies that are provided for by the tour. We've also seen things like the LTA, that's the

governing body in Britain of tennis, they are advertising at the moment for a young person's welfare manager. And I'm thinking, that's great, because that means if somebody sees or hears or experiences something there is somebody that they can go to where they can report things because for so many years who do you go to you're ashamed you're embarrassed and you're anxious you're frightened who do you go to that will listen to you and will act on what you say, i.e. believe you, and do something about it, rather than, I don't know how to deal with this, I'll just brush it under the carpet and hope it goes away. So, you know, I think through the book I've got the whole thing of, speak up if you can, but who do you speak to?

That's always been the problem in the past. Judy Murray is our guest this afternoon. Now, actually a question here from a listener, Judy, and I think this will probably resonate with quite a lot of people. I'd like to hear from Judy if she thinks the LTA could learn anything from the Czech Republic or Czechia as far as women's tennis is concerned. They've only got a population of about 10 million, yet there are 10 Czech players inside the WTA's top 100

and 12 are involved in the singles at the French Open. Britain apparently has no competitors at all at that sort of level at the moment. So what do they do right? You know, I'm not really au fait with what happens in Czech Republic. What do we do wrong then, I suppose? But I think there's a lot to do with the hunger there. You know, the opportunity to travel, make a living playing sport and so forth. They also have a number of club stroke academies where they really invest in nurturing potential.

And for me, that's incredibly important. I think we could do a much better job of investing in environments with coaches who have track records of providing great foundations for young players but not in a hothouse entitled specialist taking them away from home at the age of six yeah that that kind of thing i think um the countries that do continually produce numbers of players tend to have really a culture of tennis within the country um and usually they have better weather as well so you can play outdoor all year round yeah I mean a class is always linked to tennis in England I think probably Scotland it is slightly different but in England it's just a plain fact that it's still middle class if not upper middle class as a sport and you mentioned hunger

perhaps there just isn't sufficient hunger at the moment and I don't mean it in the you know the strict sense of needing food I mean in the ambition the desire to get somewhere and do something maybe the wrong sort of English people are playing tennis yeah I think during the French Open Dan Evans who's one of the top British men players he came out and said he felt that there there wasn't enough opportunity for those from working classes to come through and that they have the hunger and the desire to work hard because they're not privileged and entitled and I think he has something there but as someone who's worked a lot in places where there is rural deprivation or social deprivation I know that when you go into those places it's very difficult to

find tennis courts we've lost them over the years state schools don't have them public parts for the most part they don't have them anymore and it's not just about the facility you need activity as well so yeah i think there's there's a lot of work to do to really spread the game into those areas and to make it stick you need people which comes about investing in a workforce to deliver to fund the pied Pipers that always were the volunteers within the community. Quick question about Saudi, because Andy has been quoted as saying he won't play in Saudi or in a Saudi-sponsored tournament, because there is the very real concern, I think,

that the Saudi state might come for tennis in the way that it's come for golf. Does that worry you? I read that, what's come for golf. Does that worry you? I read that, you know, what's happened with golf and they do seem to be buying their way into a number of sports in a, you know, in a big way. And I actually went to Saudi in December. And what I did was I was there for four days to start the buildings of a female workforce for tennis that they want to grow tennis they recognize the schools are segregated the universities are segregated

the girls and young women have to be taught by women and they don't have any sports coaches because traditionally they were never allowed to get involved in sport and now that they want them to you need to build a workforce which um so i i went over and and and did that and uh I really loved the idea of being able to be a catalyst for something so you really bought into the fact that they're sincere about this yeah I I absolutely did and having been there I'm sure that they were and the work that I did over those four days was long and varied and incredibly fulfilling because the reaction to me being there from the women was, oh, it was, it was really amazing. And, you know, somebody's got to go in and show the way or something, or it never changes. So I took that step and, um, and I went in and I'm glad I did.

That's very good to hear. That is good to hear. Um, very quick question, because I know if he wants to talk about gods of tennis, um, white clothing at wimbledon and periods has that finally been sorted out yeah it has um oh probably six months or so ago there was a decision taken that under clothing um can be colored and i think for you know for many years even way back to my playing days there's trauma attached to having to be an all white you know if you have your period and you know if you look back at women's sport everything in terms of shorts or skirts was always white from football to rugby to everything and all the other sports moved on much quicker and Wimbledon with its wonderful tradition and history, stuck with the all-white, but it has actually made that decision

to allow coloured underclothing. I actually wish as well, and this is a conversation for another time, Judy, that somebody would take just a really long look at what girls are expected to wear in sport full stop. It just puts off so many, so many girls to have to wear very short skirts and shorts. Yeah, why do they have to wear shorts?

And there's no reason for it now. We've got all the technology around stretchy fabrics and all that kind of stuff. But I did want to ask you about Gods of Tennis, which I know that you've just started watching with one of your sons.

It bills itself as being about the golden age of tennis stars. Now, does that upset you? No, because it, actually, I watched the first episode and half of the second episode last night with jamie and the first episode is about billy jean king and arthur ash two incredible pioneers of tennis you know there's billy jean king who i would have sat on the sofa with

with my mom watching wimbledon in black and white and just being absolutely in awe of her as a player and you know now she's getting close to 80 now and she's still, she was the first female athlete activist and she's still going strong. So when it takes you back and you see the era that she came from, the wooden rackets, the slowness of the game, I mean, that was how I learned to play with the wooden rackets. So I was absolutely loving it and it just reminded me of everything that she went through

to try and gain equality for the women. And she's the reason why tennis is so far ahead of all the other sports in terms of visibility for women, media coverage, endorsement opportunities, equal prize money at the major events. And Arthur Ashe, who was such a great activist for people of colour, what he put himself through to be, you know, when he was young playing and it was showing you all the men's entrance, women's entrance, coloured entrance. And, you know, for Jamie, it was like, oh, they didn't live in that era. They need to be reminded of what these people who are so incredibly important to our sport, put themselves out there to inflict change that has made it the sport that it is today.

That is the truly brilliant Judy Murray, and her book is called The Wild Card. So if you're a tennis fan and you just want to build up some tennis tingle as we await Wimbles, then you can approach it through the medium of The Wild Card. And actually, off-air, while we were listening to some adverts, I mean, we do listen to them, obviously, we weren't paying full attention. Judy was saying that Andy's youngest daughter,

who I think is four or five, sent him a note. And we can talk about this because Andy himself made it public on his Instagram account, sent him a note saying, basically with a drawing of somebody holding a racket, a stick person holding a racket, and a big cross all the way through it. So it turns out she isn't that keen on tennis. Brilliant.

Yeah, she's just letting him have it, just letting him know. And it's good to hear that small people, you see, that's why you should have kiddies, you see? They're just gorgeous and they're so fun and they do some really cute things like that. I also wanted to ask her about Kim's hair. Oh, it's immaculate. It's beautiful.

Yeah. I can't believe it's real. Well, we did talk to the CIA's master of disguise, retired, on the programme today. If you've never heard the Times Radio show, I mean, I will say we do offer a range of guests, don't we? We do. It's got the full spectrum. To give people an example today, we talked to the CIA's head of disguise, in brackets,

retired. We talked about extreme weather conditions. We talked to a young woman called Rachel who's living in New York and really struggling with the pollution at the moment. It sounded terrible. We talked to Uber weatherman Jim Dale, who told us there was an El Nino in development and this weekend is going to be very warm. We talked about Paella and we talked to somebody called Aubrey from The Guardian. I don't think you'll get that anywhere else. And I spoke occasionally. A very good night. Good night. You did it. Elite listener status for you for getting through another half hour or so of our whimsical ramblings.

Otherwise known as the hugely successful podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. We missed the modesty class. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler, the podcast executive producer. It's a man, it's Henry Tribe. Yeah, he's an executive. Now, if you want even more, and let's face it, who wouldn't, then stick Times Radio on at three o'clock Monday until Thursday every week.

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