Off Air... with Jane and Fi - P.S. leprechauns are real, obviously (with Dame Stephanie Shirley)

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Fi is away today so we bring you Jane² this fine Thursday. They chat the myth of the Irish driving license, silicone testicles and Italian roots.Plus, businesswoman Dame Stephanie Shirley reflects on her career and escaping the Nazi regime ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day.Dame Stephanie’s memoir, Let It Go, is available online: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Let-Go-Extraordinary-Entrepreneur-Philanthropist/dp/0241395496If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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I've just asked Eve if I can start again. She said I can. Good evening and welcome to Off Air with J. Mark Aronson, not Fee tonight. You've had a funny old week, haven't you? Yeah, I sat on that side when I was playing you on Monday. I sat on this side playing Fee. And I definitely play you slightly differently. I don't know, I wouldn't like to say how.

Are you just a bit bustier? What, than I am normally. No, never mind. Anyway, it's lovely to have you here. It's lovely to be here. And actually, you're rather useful to have because one of the topics in the emails is driving in Ireland. I know. I was thinking about that.

Yeah. So can I just read a few emails out? Absolutely. This all stems from a conversation I think I told it. Was it yesterday or the day before? Was it yesterday? Only yesterday. Okay, gosh, the days get so jumbled, don't they? One is so busy.

Well, I'm not actually, but I like to pretend I am. Anyway, yesterday I was recounting my trip to the dental hygienist and the young Irish dental nurse or assistant was telling the hygienist that you didn't need a driving licence in Ireland. I laughed out loud when I heard that. Well, you're not the only one. Half the population of Ireland has taken me to task. But I am really grateful. And I didn't think it could be right, which is why I was talking about it.

Jane is in Carlow in Ireland. I love your show so much so that I even listened to the book club episode when I haven't read the book. That is dedicated. And Monday mornings are so much easier with the knowledge that you're going to be back after the weekend. However, the remarks about provisional driving licences in Ireland are just wrong. Unqualified drivers here must have a qualified driver with them to be allowed to drive on the road at all.

And this is enforced. Perhaps 20 years ago it was more lax, but not anymore. The cost alone of insuring an unqualified driver would prohibit this, even if the law didn't. I don't know anything about Irish licenses being used over there as fake ID, but it comes across as a vague generalisation. Check your facts before propagating stereotypes. You have lots of fans in Ireland. And Jane Stiles herself, long-time time listener, first time quibbler

right well no, listen you're absolutely entitled to quibble, plough on and there's more So on another Irish licence related email Pat gets in touch to say listening from Ireland regularly, really enjoy the podcast

but to say the situation isn't as lax as you heard at the dental hygienist she says you must always have someone with a full driving license in the car with you when you're driving on a learner permit that person must have had their driving license for at least two years if the guarder stop you and you're not accompanied by a qualified driver they can detain the car however she says there was a time in the 1970s where there was a backlog of people getting tested and those with a provisional licence were gifted a full one. So maybe this is where this legend has grown up.

This myth and legend has started. Like Irish folklore about driving. Clara says, I listen daily, but I did find myself enraged when you have the cheek, first of all, to take holidays. It's becoming a problem, but I'll plough on. OK, well, I'll write to you personally, Clara, to tell you when I'm due to be off. But don't worry, I'm not going anywhere until I think the week after Easter. So, you know, nothing to fear from my perspective. I'm Irish living in Manchester and had whiplash from the eye roll caused by the suggestion at Jane's hygienist

appointment that in Ireland people don't need to pass their driving test. Absolutely hilarious and a load of bollocks. One of the many ludicrous things said about Ireland and the Irish. Keep going please, says Clara. P.S. leprechauns are real obviously. Well yes. And there's also, doesn't Ireland have lots of fairy bridges? Yeah. Where the fairies, you stop to... Yeah and everyone can river dance, absolutely. Oh everyone can. Everyone, yeah. Changing tack slightly, you stop to... Yeah, and everyone can river dance, absolutely. Oh, everyone can. Everyone, yeah. Changing tack slightly, you've been talking about feedback that you can do nothing about.

Yes. Or unwelcome feedback, or unrequested feedback. Before I move on to an email, I'd just like to give you some feedback that I had today from my own dad. Is it about your work? Well, it's kind of a combination. So there's a piece I've written for This Weekend's Saturday magazine about perma-singles, people who have been single for a long time.

And I've interviewed lots of people I know for this piece and I'm also in it myself. And there's a picture of me. Can I say, it's a gorgeous picture. Thank you very much. No, but it really is. Thank you. But you do take a lovely photo.

Thanks, Jane. That's my name. It's very kind. Not that she ever said it to me. A lot of hair and makeup and lighting involved and probably multiple pairs of Spanx in that picture. Every penny has been well spent. Thank you very much.

So my dad agrees. My dad texted me today. Hi, Jane. I enjoyed your singles piece. You and Claire, who's my friend in the piece, from primary school, look very glamorous for single 40 somethings cheers dad well done well that's everything you could want there i prefer it when he texts me

about the shed his new shed he's got a new show oh yeah he's got a new shed what kind of a shed is it wooden i think that's probably enough about your dad's new shed. I just, I think maybe, yeah. He's trying, I mean, it was a very well-intentioned text. Yeah. Yeah, I remember my dad did say something once about when I got the job presenting Woman's Hour. He just said, oh dear. That was it. He's still waiting for the second part.

He never really got the whole kind of feminism radio show thing. Anyway. Still working on him. But on that note, from Owen, he said, fine, using his name. This is about feedback you can't do anything about. So Owen says, a few years ago I had testicular cancer. The tumour required the removal of one of my testicles and I opted for a silicon replacement for it.

I didn't have to, many men don't, but I felt I wanted to maintain that all-important symmetry. Can I just interrupt? Because that's just something I couldn't understand. But I guess you could apply that whole symmetry theory to breasts, couldn't you? Yeah. Yeah, some women do, some women don't, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So in the years following, I had regular check-ups at the oncology unit to ensure the cancer hadn't returned. A couple of years ago, I attended a clinic and could see how yeah it's a burial yeah so in the years following i had regular checkups at the oncology unit to ensure the cancer hadn't returned a couple of years ago i attended a clinic and could see how busy it was they were short staffed but when i was called to a consultation room there was no doctor in there at first looked across the waiting area there's a very distinguished looking older man in a smart suit marching towards me with a student dashing along in his wake to keep up it was the head of the department his name was on all the letters I'd received over the years, although I'd never met him. He was the big man.

The big man of the department. I suspect he'd been drafted in as they were so stretched and he'd probably chosen the straightforward patients like me. As per the check-up drill, Owen says, I laid on the bed and lowered my clothing for my examination. The consultant checked me over, but then took two steps back, staring at my exposed genitals. In a voice I can only liken to that of Stephen Fry, he said, wonderful prosthesis.

Gosh, can you deliver that in a more lugubrious way? Wonderful prosthesis. Yes, that was better. It was left for me to respond, but I didn't know what to say. I couldn't take credit for it, says Owen. In fact, at the time it was inserted I was the most useless person in the room thanks to a general anesthetic still I meekly said thank you he was obviously blown away by the work of one of his colleagues no it really

is a wonderful prosthesis I really can't take the credit I said and got dressed thanked him and headed off with I can't lie a bit of pride in my stride why not I had a wonderful prosthesis it still makes me smile to this day says Owen but as I say it's thanks to the brilliant NHS that I received that compliment my contribution was pretty minimal yeah that's that's a really lovely story and um it I think sometimes yeah why wouldn't you have a little bit of a wiggle in your walk after somebody's sometimes I might your testicle. But somebody said, yes, well, yes, which is exactly what happened there. So that's probably the end of that particular stream of emails.

We don't really want any more from people. You can send me personally emails about testicles at any time. I was going to say, Jane would absolutely love them, Owen. So if you have got any spare time, just... All the testicle traffic you want, send it my way. Testicle traffic. God. For God way testicle traffic god um don't for god's sake don't involve me in this uh let's talk about the more wholesome subject of Britain's postal service right Jane yeah this is from Sue and it just gets better because Sue's in Tunbridge

Wells of course she is welcome welcome listeners in Tunbridge Wells um we get probably more emails from Australia than we do from Tunbridge Wells. So Sue, you need to spread the word a little bit. I think maybe we're a bit too raucous for Tunbridge Wells. Yeah. That might be the problem. You don't help Mark Herons. Anyway.

I'm banned from Tunbridge Wells. Yeah, well, I was going to say you're not allowed anywhere near the city limits. Sue says, I don't know about anyone else, but I rarely receive a proper letter on more than two days a week. I may be Billy No-Mates, but all that flips through my door are pizza leaflets and adverts for the Lib Dems. And a thing important I send by email regards to... Yes, I'm sorry to hear... Well, you know, probably you enjoy your pizza leaflets.

Is that Ed Davey, right? And you might be thinking about going Lib Dem at the next election. It's interesting, that sounds to me like the Lib Dems are targeting Tunbridge Wells. I'm no political expert, but I suppose that in this election, it's all to play for, isn't it? They might well think they've got a chance in Tunbridge Wells. Sue, tell us more. And if the Lib Dem leaflets increase in volume, we want to know more about it. Or I'll have some sort of crossover with the pizza.

Yes. Sponsors and pizzas. Yeah. Or I'll have some sort of crossover with the pizza. Yes. Sponsor some pizzas. Yeah. What would a Lib Dem pizza be? Be vegetarian, wouldn't it? Oh, yeah. Or do you know what? It'd be a cacio stagioni, wouldn't it?

A what, love? A cacio stagioni. It'd be like betraying my Italian roots there. Oh, absolutely. Gosh, you've just flown in from Milano. I'm not even going to try and say it again. No, please don't. The one with four different bits.

Yes. Four seasons. Okay. Four seasons, thanks. Okay. All right, can I read this from Emma? Yes. Dear Jane and Fee,

as a mother of three teenage girls, like so many of your listeners, and someone who didn't even share with her own mother, buying my own bra or starting my period, I find addressing the porn issue agonising and complex. My friends warned me that when the children started to take the bus to secondary school, they would be exposed to porn for the first time. So this was when also they could each get their own phone. I decided to pre-warn each of them and explain what porn was as best I could. My eldest kept her head down, nodding furiously,

then scurried away as fast as possible. But my second, much more worldly-wise and cocksure, said, oh don't worry, I know all about it. Rather taken aback, I asked her what she knew it was, to which she replied, oh it's why you sell your jewellery. Oh dear, right, okay. I laughed and felt very relieved that she was clueless. Emma also goes on to say, my sister is the Duke of Bucklew's PA. You say it, Bucklew. Oh yeah, we were talking about that. Yes, and I'd messed it up several times on Monday.

I think it's pretty much the biggest private landowner in Scotland. The family seats are Bowhill House, Drumland Castle and Borton House. Oh, just the three? Yeah. Okay. Maybe downsized recently. Yeah, perhaps they have. Bucklew.

Bucklew. For next time. Now we all know we've educated ourselves. What's this? Oh, I know. We were talking yesterday about conscription. It's absolutely no laughing matter, this. But the fact that it's even in the air at all is interesting.

It's wild, isn't it? Nafisa is a regular correspondent. It's always good to hear from her. She says, I'm a child of colonialism. I'm here because India was colonised and my father came as an economic migrant in the 60s. I was born in the UK in 1967. I would absolutely join and fight in a so-called citizen army. If war is declared on us, I'd rather die fighting than be killed or be imprisoned. However, the battle is fought by air, sea, remote missiles or drones. The end result is if we lose, then the aggressor country can claim our lands and our people. Surely this impacts everyone. It's not about pay. Soldiers and civilians can and will be

indiscriminately killed. Yes, I admire your courage, your new pluck, Nafisa, and she's actually said, yeah, I'd do it, I'd be there. I don't know, I think you might be in the minority. It's funny, wasn't it? As I've talked about, endlessly, boringly, made you all listen to, I went to Korea in November, and they still have national service. So when you get to about 19, I think you get to about 19 I think you have to do 18 months right girls and boys girls no just boys boys so BTS are currently doing their national service the boy band it was really interesting I

had this some guide for a few days which went well at points and they're not so well when he you know would tell me what when to put my coat on and when does it my coat up and things like that but he did tell me a lot of very interesting things was he appointed by the government or is this south korea this is south korea yes um uh no he was just sort of tourist board person who's because it is bits of it nobody speaks any english it's quite hard to get around but he was telling me when he was uh younger i think they had more like two and a half years of national service. And he was saying that him and all of his contemporaries still have the most appalling kind of nightmares bordering on PTSD from their time doing national service.

And, you know, I'm sure it is character building in some ways, but also i think quite damaging in other ways he said you know his recurring bad dream is that he's got to rejoin the military as an older person and isn't allowed to leave and of course um growing up in south korea there is a mental load there that we don't have in this country absolutely i mean north korea is an omni threat isn't it well yeah i mean they are still officially at war yeah it's not yeah. It's not over. It's officially a ceasefire. And there was an incredible level of paranoia that I discovered there. They do, everyone believes that they are constantly surrounded by spies. Everyone believes that North Korea is a terrible threat all the time.

It was really interesting. And also, I mean, the war only, the ceasefire was only 1953. And they were decimated. So they've only really had one full generation living in peacetime. Yeah, I think in this country we are so, I mean, it's not idyllic in Britain. It never has been. But certainly if you're my age, you've only ever known a really pretty cosy way of life. Yes, we've talked before about the threat of nuclear war which felt greater in the 1980s bizarrely than

it does now but we've been so fortunate and the last thing you'd want for your offspring or younger relatives is to face conscription of any kind. I mean it just doesn't, most of us truly don't really want to think about that very much but nevertheless slightly to my surprise it has been a part of our national conversation here in the UK this week. Just a couple of quick ones before we get on. Can you look for something really cheerful, Jane, while I'm just doing these two quite serious, in fact, very serious ones? Yes.

I just want to say a big shout out to Louise. Louise and her husband have had some really rotten news this week. So, Louise, thinking of you, very best to your husband as well. Really glad that occasionally listening to Off Air, Last Thing at Night under the duvet, keeps you as sane as Fi and I are, which isn't very, let's be honest, but at least we're doing something. Thank you so much for listening and thank you for your lovely email as well.

And very best to you. And this is an extremely sad one from a listener who says, I don't think I'll mention her name. She says, I wrote to you a couple of months ago about tracing my birth mother in Ireland after watching the BBC series Woman in the Wall. I was adopted, as I told you, on Merseyside. Sadly, I have found out that she's died. She was only 63. I also found out that my father is dead as well. He was 67. Sometimes perhaps you shouldn't go looking, she asks, or maybe I should have done it sooner.

But thank you anyway for your advice and reading my message out. It really meant a lot to me. I'm so sorry to hear that you did go to look and that they had both passed away. What can you say about that? I suppose the only thing is there's no wondering anymore, wondering whether you should have gone and looked. You know, obviously not the answer that you want

when you're not able to ask the questions that you maybe wanted to ask. But I suppose at least you all have the comfort of knowing that you tried. You tried and, you know, who knows what's gone on. And now, unfortunately, our correspondent isn't going to find out. But there is, I think the word closure is all that helpful. But I am going to use it here and just say, as you say, that that chapter has ended, just not in the way you might have wanted it to.

I'm really sorry about that. Absolutely. I don't have anything super cheerful. Is this about placentas? But it is. Oh, they're quite cheerful. It's cheerfully weird. Yeah, do it, so this is from louise in rainy california she says dear jane and fee and the podcast team listening to the placenta discussions on the podcast this week

brings me back to my student nurse days we were told that the placentas were not incinerated but put into a freezer and sold to max Factor for makeup. Oh, yeah. There was always that story. Really? Yes. Oil of Yule. It allegedly had placenta in it. Allegedly, of course.

We need to insert that word. Allegedly. So, well, this is interesting because I was saying that there was placenta facials and massages in Korea, which is known for its beauty products. Last night I went to a party and I was offered a salmon sperm facial by a by a beautician cut that out of you uh just while we're talking about sometimes i think all this is just going on in your head jaymol karens are you sure okay we'll have to backtrack now i'll have to find out more about it and i've got to go because i'm

meeting a friend at an italian restaurant it's something to do with the DNA of salmon sperm being very close to human DNA. How do they get the sperm out of the salmon, Jane? Well, that's not for broadcast, Jane. Oh, my God. Right, carry on. Anyway, that was it.

That was it about the placenta. Anyway, she says, I got into my trusty WhatsApp group of nurses who I trained with. Jim came back with a yes and he remembered the freezer too. So anyway, I had no idea about this, this rumour that all of you, Liam, Max Factor,

had got sent to us. I mean, it almost certainly is a rumour, but I'd heard it too, for what it's worth. I mean, some of the rumours I hear, I mean, I do obviously pass them all on, but they're almost always complete crap. 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. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Now, much more seriously, and I'm so glad we were able to get this interview,

suggested by a listener, in fact, with Dame Stephanie Shirley, because it is Holocaust Memorial Day this Saturday in the UK. And a couple of weeks ago, a listener did say, look, you've got to get Dame Stephanie Shirley on and just honour her, particularly in the context of Holocaust Memorial Day. She's an incredible woman. She really is. Dame Stephanie, who likes to be called Steve, she came to this country in 1939 on the kinder transport. She was just five. Her older sister who was with her was nine. And really, her life story is just a thing of beauty, really. She was brought up by some very decent people, kindly foster parents in the West Midlands, started her working life at a post office research institute. And in the early 60s,

she set up her own computer programming business with six pounds in capital. And it's worth pointing out that she needed her husband Derek's permission to open a bank account. Yes, that's how things were. By the turn of the century, her company was valued in the billions of pounds. And the late Queen made her a companion of honour in 2017, which is a very rare thing indeed. I asked Dame Stephanie how she approaches Holocaust Memorial Day. When I was younger and was really lost all contact with my German past, somebody said to me, you will feel more Jewish as you grow older. And I thought, what's the silly thing to say? And I tucked it away in my subconscious. And in fact, it's true.

I feel much more Jewish now than earlier in my subconscious. And in fact, it's true. I feel much more Jewish now than earlier in my life. And it's simply because the Holocaust is slipping out of human memory. And we need to make sure that we commemorate what has happened in order to make sure it doesn't happen again. That's the purpose of Holocaust Memorial Day. It's a positive thing, looking forward. It is a dangerous time, this, in any number of ways. It's also not just a period in our lives when lived memories of the Holocaust are slipping away, but people are incredibly daring to deny that it ever happened. How much does that concern you?

Well, you've always had the Holocaust deniers. Right from 1945, people sort of said it didn't really happen. It was all staged. It's just such a dreadful, dreadful thing that I find it hard to believe that a civilised country like Germany should spawn such horrendous happening. Jewish people, apparently, the Hebrew for the Holocaust is shoah, meaning catastrophe, and what a catastrophe it was. How much do you recall of that journey to Britain with your elder sister?

You were five. She was nine. How much of that can you remember? Jane, all I can remember are the childish things. None of the sort of historic or significant or strategic aspects at all. I can remember having to sleep on the floor on some sheet of corrugated cardboard. I can remember the little boy that kept being sick and I even think I can remember his name. I can remember the German guards that came in because they were very nasty and memorable. It was a fairly chaotic journey in that the train I was on had, as is fairly typical, about a thousand children on, aged five to 16. A few small 17-year-olds also snuck in.

But the feeling of distress of a thousand children weeping and having left their parents behind. and having left their parents behind. I nearly said weeping and wailing because the parents, they made some sort of weird noise that I gather is fairly traditional in Jewish, but they made a sort of wailing noise as well as the tearfulness. So it's something I'm never, ever going to forget. And it's been very important to me, really, because it's led to all sorts of things in my life. I'm still a refugee. I still want to make each day worth

saving. I still want to contribute to the world and make the world a better place, to make sure that the life that was saved was worth saving. to make sure that the life that was saved was worth saving. Yes, I've heard you say that before and I find it incredibly moving. But it sounds, Steve, it sounds almost like a burden. Is it a burden? To a certain extent, yes, because I'm 90 now and I'm still working. I still feel that there are things that I could do.

I mustn't waste the time. It's a duty. I'm a very dutiful person. I do things right. I do things dutifully. I was a dutiful daughter, not a loving daughter, which is rather a shame. Why do you say you were only, in speech marks, a dutiful daughter? What happened there? Well, when I was reunited with my birth parents, our sort of expectations of each other had been damaged and grown unrealistically over the years. And we never really bonded again. Although I did spend time with them, I lived with my mother for a short period. It was as a dutiful daughter rather than a loving daughter. And I much regret that for me and for her and for my father. I don't think he cared at all, but my mother certainly did. But what your mother did in putting you and your sister on that train,

well, we know was without doubt the right thing to do, but she must have agonised about it. I think every parent did. They were sending us into the arms of strangers. I mean, they knew the names of the people we were going to, but no real details. If you've seen the current film, One Life, you'll find that there's a section in there about the flurry of activity,

the need to sign documents, to get authorizations, to get payments made. My mother found all this so onerous with two young children that she put us in a children's home for, I think, about a fortnight so that she could scurry around and get all the paperwork done because she was determined to get us on that train. She spoke somewhat bitterly of the bureaucracy of both the Nazis and, she said, the British, who didn't make things easy. And towards the end, of course, people were forging visas and input papers to get people in. It did become very desperate.

Britain likes to think of itself as a welcoming place for refugees. And it is true that some remarkable people did go to great lengths to ensure that the kinder transport was able to happen. But there's no doubt Britain could have done more, couldn't it? Well, compared with what other countries did, it did remarkably well. I'm forever grateful to Britain. And I love the country with a passion that perhaps only someone who has lost their human rights can feel. I don't criticise some of the families of the kinder really could have come over. It's such a complex issue. I think it's just a positive story. There are other positive stories of the Holocaust. There are the positive stories of the children who somehow or other managed to survive in concentration camps and who came to England. The so-called Windermere children, they lived together for a long time as they learned to deal with their trauma.

But there were many, many stories, including, of course, Nicholas Winton, who, of course, worked as an individual with his mother and a small group. The Kindertransport was organised by the Christian and Jewish activists, it was funded by the Quaker Society of Friends when it ran out of money and it was manned again by volunteers and so it was hundreds of volunteers who administered that largest ever recorded migration of children. You, I know, were brought up by some very, very decent foster parents, weren't you? Tell me about them. I was very lucky indeed. We were fostered by a lovely, loving couple in the Midlands of England, Guy and Ruby Smith, let me honour them, who brought us up really as they would their own.

They were, Uncle was a sort of, we always called them Uncle and Auntie. And I do thank all the uncles and aunties who saw us children through those dreadful times. Uncle, who had been an apprentice in a small engineering firm and finished up as the managing director um auntie was a housewife and hadn't worked for many many years but they were lovely and gave a secure safe very english somewhat christian upbringing i was sent to school at a roman catholic convent for. The reason was not religious, so that I should learn to speak properly the Queen's English perceived pronunciation. But in fact, of course, I learned so many good values from those nuns. They were lovely people. And

I think my moral compass comes partly from them. And was it at that school that your ability in maths was obvious? Yes, we were taught by nuns, lay teachers, who were sufficiently professional to say to my foster parents that I was gifted in mathematics and that they couldn't teach me anymore and I needed to go elsewhere. So I sat for a scholarship and got into a grammar school. That's the first of two times that I've really had to struggle to study mathematics, because my second secondary school, again, didn't teach mathematics. And science for girls was not considered terribly respectable. I had to go through some psychometric tests to see if I was worth making a special case for.

And I finished up going to the boys school to learn my mathematics. It was quite an extraordinary thing to do and prepared me perhaps for the sexism of the adult working world when I joined it. Well, you really have come up against any number of extraordinary challenges in your life. But I was actually quite shocked to read what you said about Britain's working environment in the early 50s. When you've talked about how physically frightening it was to be in that place as a woman, just how bad was it? Well, maybe I was very naive. Country bumpkin come up to London. The culture was that if a couple were ever together after dusk on their own, then intercourse was assumed to have taken place and the girl's good name would be lost. Now, those days are long past, but at the time, protecting one's reputation became quite a serious thing.

That sort of environment carried on for many years. Some of it may have been in my own mind. It got easier once I took some classes in self-protection and learned how to knee a man in the groin. Maybe these are not the sort of things you want to be talking about. No, you're right, because we don't want to focus on the negative when so much about your life has been so gloriously positive. And you are someone who has achieved so much. I mean, your company, Freelance Programmers, then later the F International Group and then the FI Group. You've given so much to this country and so much to the women of this country, actually, in choosing to employ women over men. But I've also had a wonderful life

myself. Even today, I have a choice as to how I live. I choose to work. It's exciting. It's interesting. It's social. I feel it's worthwhile. I feel fulfilled. I've done what was in me to do. I also just think it's worth noting, because it's very important, you always look incredibly fashionable and smart. Well, it's very important to you, isn't it? It's a carapace, perhaps, that I've put on over the years to make sure that I project myself as best I can. Do you think that we could all, I mean, I'm speaking for myself here. Do you think we could all do better in that department, Steve? I mean, I'm very conscious that I know I could. I think things have changed. Very often I go to an event and I'm among the most formal person there dressed and people are there in jeans and slacks and so on. And I think it's a courtesy to my hosts

to dress up as if going to a professional event. I'm not just coming in off the fields. No, I agree. I think a lot of people of your generation would heartily agree with that. As we speak now, things in the world are very tense. The situation in Gaza is deeply concerning. Anti-Semitism, far from going away, appears to be on the rise. What would you say about that? Well, I know some of the figures that are being quoted, that anti-Semitism is up by 1,200%, 1,200% since the Gaza horrors. Oh dear, it's dreadful. That was Dame Stephanie Shirley,

and lovely to spend a bit of time talking to her. And it's really, I mean, so much of interest that she had to say, Jane, but i do think i love her approach dressing formally and smartly because she believes it's another thing that she owes the rest of the human race at the age of 90 she still looks impeccable very fashionable as well i mean i think i could spot some of the tops i've seen her in on a very high-end fashion website. And why shouldn't she? She's now devoting so much of her time to philanthropy,

but also to public speaking on the subject of the Holocaust. And I just don't think she's ever going to stop because she feels that she shouldn't. And it's really sad that she actually still has to do it. But I think she's right. She does still have to do it. Possibly more than ever. Well, again, that's it.

And that's what's so sad. But anyway, lovely to talk to her. And I hope other people have enjoyed finding out about her because she isn't actually as well-known as she should be. Dame Stephanie Shirley. Now, next week on the programme, amongst other guests, we're going to be talking to Candice Bushnell, the woman who created Sex and the City.

And boy, Jo, V and I have already done that interview. Has she got stuff to say? I bet she's had a summons for Sex and the City. And boy, Jo, V and I have already done that interview. Has she got stuff to say? I bet she's had a salmon sperm facial. Well, we didn't include that in the interview, but frankly, bearing in mind what she did have to say, I wouldn't rule it out. But perhaps I could just go home and rub vigorously a tin of salmon over my face.

That would be the economy way of doing it, wouldn't it? Right, have a good couple of days, everyone. Fee will be back. I don't like tin salmon. Fee will be back on Monday. Jane and Fee at Times Dot Radio. 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, and you can hear our take on the big news stories of the day, as well as a genuinely interesting mix of brilliant and entertaining guests on all sorts of subjects. Thank you for bearing with us, and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. 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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