Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Releasing your southern-ness at Peterborough

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

The animals may have gone onto the ark two by two, but Jane Garvey will be boarding solo! More on that... plus cruise ship balconies, the many ailments of Karin Slaughter's cat, and booby dispensers. Mental health nurse Bella Jackson also discusses her book 'Fragile Minds: Stories from an NHS Mental Health Ward'. You can listen to the playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3qIjhtS9sprg864IXC96he?si=uOzz4UYZRc2nFOP8FV_1jg&pi=BGoacntaS_ukiIf you want to come and see us at Fringe by the Sea, you can buy tickets here: www.fringebythesea.com/fi-jane-and-judy-murray/And if you fancy sending us a postcard, the address is:Jane and FiTimes Radio, News UK1 London Bridge StreetLondonSE1 9GFIf you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] The next book club pick has been announced! We’ll be reading Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession. Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Podcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, the giraffes as well. They're mad. They're really, really mad. In what sense? Well, you look at them and they are a horse at the bottom. And then... It's like you've pulled a slinky. Now, we had complaints yesterday, didn't we? Because we left the podcast early according to at least one correspondent. Can I just out myself as just being the person who I'm

really sorry to that correspondent, I was just really hungry. Well we did have to go at some point and we'd done two podcasts, so I mean it's not hard work, we're not asking for your sympathy here. Oh, Fee, don't say that. But we'd done the book club podcast and then we'd run on to do technical term, to do the normal podcast. In fairness to us yesterday, we were on a roll talking about pornography, weren't we? So I understand why.

I think we probably both had more to say. We need emails on that subject, by the way, don't we? I really want to hear from what people think about what we were saying yesterday about how it's beyond disenchanted, isn't it? It's kind of and it's beyond world weary, it's kind of despairing. Well it is and it's just that point that we still need a voice I think for the young people which is the voice that says I don't really like most forms of pornography. You don't always need to use it and There is very very little proof that it's been empowering towards women. Some elements of it might have been and some people have tried very hard to make it a decent space for women, but overwhelmingly I think you can follow the

trajectory of more violence and nastiness against women and the trajectory of more violence and nastiness against women and the trajectory of pornography becoming more and more extreme. Here ends the lecture. Of you, Gay, I think you've got a clipping about cats. I have, Fee. But look, I'm with you here, sister. So do let us know what you think, Jane and Fee at Times.Radio. My eyes were drawn, as I'm sure yours are every week Fiona, to the, is it the home section in the Sunday Times where people show off? Well, obviously, sorry, can I stop you just there? Obviously, I just read all of the paper. Oh, yes. No, I know you do. I used to chuck out travel because I don't like travelling, but now I even have a look at that as well. Oh, I love the adverts in travel. I love the

adverts in travel. But what, for the cruises? Yeah, for the seven-day walking holidays in Ulaanbaatar. I like the descriptions of them. I like to imagine he's gone on them. I like looking at the varied prices. I mean, the country remains the same, but you can add two zeros onto a tour of Ulaanbaatar. Yeah, and if you do go on a cruise, by the way, do let us know about the balconies because they seem to vary in price. Does it not depend where in the ship you are, how much you, or does everyone get a balcony? Oh no, oh no, there are internal cabins.

Oh are there? They're very reasonably priced. Oh indeed, right, okay. But tell us, is it worth paying that little bit extra for a balcony? No, I was, I couldn't take my eyes off this new section they've got in the home bit of the Sunday paper, celebs and their pets. I live in Dreadfeet. It's gonna come up one day. We might get the call. Although I don't think we're not really as starry as the people they've featured so far. But this week it was Karen Slaughter who's very well known and let's face it pretty bloody crime writer. Anyway she is waxing lyrical about her pets, the pets

in her life, particularly this cat called Dexter who's a black cat and asked what breed is he? She says according to the cat breed identifier on my iPhone, New to me. He's Burmese. But she says he's talkative. So he must have some Siamese in him as well. I got a DNA testing kit, says Karen, but of course Dexter's a cat and he wouldn't let me swab the inside of his cheek. Can imagine how that would go if I attempted that at home. And that's a DNA testing kit for cats. She's not trying to log him on to a website. I think so. To find out if he's Scottish. Anyway, she says he's highly strong, is Dexter, so she's put him on Prozac to even him out.

Apparently Dexter was a bit anxious around her older cat, Grace, and he is a young male cat so he was aggressive, even though she had had him neutered. So the vet, it was the vet who suggested Prozac. Does he have any other issues? Says the interviewer going on gamely with this extraordinary interview. Yes, he does, Sophie. He used to have a binge eating disorder, says Karen. I'd find regurgitated birds and rabbits. Right. Did you? The interview goes on, did you plan to get a companion cat for Dexter? Well yes, when grace passed I thought about getting a baby cat but then Dexter started getting cystitis. You've got yourself the right one there Karen.

Male cats can get cystitis sometimes, says Karen. They're just not urinating at all. I had to take him to the emergency vet overnight. They said the only way to fix the problem permanently was for Dexter to have a sex change. Good God. So did he. Well.

A sex change, or just more neutering? In other words, says Karen, to have his penis cut off because it had been bruised by the cystitis. It's radical surgery for any animal and he does identify as male. So I decided to keep everything intact. Is this for real? Well, this is what I was thinking. If you've got a copy or a subscription and you've just not got round to reading that

little bit yet, I do urge you to have a look because I have never read... I mean you do get interviews with humans these days who are prepared to outline their issues in technicolor, but that's quite a list. I feel for Dexter. He's definitely, he's had his fair share of problems. I think more than his fair share of troubles. But he's been very well looked after. I mean he's very much, he's lucked out in the sense that his owner is an extraordinarily wealthy woman.

So poor old Pinky Ponks, may he rest in peace, brother of Cool Cat. So he, before he died, and he died of a heart failure, but he had had a very, very bad bout of cystitis. And in fact, he just couldn't weir at all. So his bladder got so big and he just got more and more angry over the course of a couple of days, as you would. And we found him in the garden frantically digging as cats do when they want to go for a wee or a poo. But obviously he then couldn't go and I remember picking him up because he'd

been very aggressive for a couple of days. We kind of left him to it because he was a moody one. And I picked him up and I thought, oh my God, this is like a water balloon inside him. You could feel it. Oh my word, yeah. So we only just got him to the vet in time and you know, they literally do well, they just they stick something in and release it. A catheter. Yes. And it all comes out out and then he had a course of

antibiotics but I do remember the vet telling me that it probably came from an infection because they wee in the soil don't they and so you know that they're not using a bathroom afterwards in order to wash themselves down and the vet did say that I should keep a very close eye on him and wash his private parts after. Okay, thanks. And I'm afraid I didn't because on the basis he's a cat and cats do clean themselves quite a lot usually right in the middle of the sitting room when you've got company. So awkward isn't it? What does one say? So I just thought well I'll leave him to it. And also I felt I was very very fond of Pinky Punks and I just thought it slightly invaded our own relationship that we'd develop with each other if I started washing down his penis.

Right. Do you have an email? No. No? Don't leave me in the lurch. We're days away from our trip to North Berwick and I cannot tell you how excited we are. I'm very excited. I love, love, love, love, love that journey up the East Coast. It's gorgeous. It's so beautiful and there's a point, isn't there, when you get past Peterborough where I always feel that I've released my Southern-ness and I'm heading up north, do you get that?

Do you know, I don't think we've ever heard from anyone in Peterborough. Come on in Peterborough. It's one of those, gosh I was going to use a very mildly offensive term there, it's one of those places you, in all conscience, you do forget about. No we've talked, no we have got friends in Peterborough. Friends? Yes we have. I've got a friend in Peterborough. Friends? Yes, we have. I've got a friend in Peterborough. We've got off-air friends in Peterborough because when we've talked about the fact that

we've struggled to find enough things to do whilst waiting for emergency passports that might have been lost by teenagers, that Peterborough, we've heard from people who suggested what we could do in Peterborough. Look, I take it all back. Yeah. Sorry, sorry. You just forgot to Peterborough. Again. I think it's got a lovely Lido, hasn't it? I didn't know that either. Yeah. Right. I hope we've restored relations with Peterborough. Turned into a celebration of Peterborough and I'm very glad to be a part of it.

Yeah. This comes from Juliet in Edinburgh. I have got an email and it's about pensions and North Berwick. So regarding your pension question, oh that's very hard to say isn't it? This is why you and I never got Moneybox. Regarding your, do you have 75,000 pounds for a better and I said no Paul Lewis I don't. He's a fantastic journalist, he's done loads and loads and loads of good work hasn't he. Regarding your pension question, you may already have some answers on this, but just to add, as a former pensions administrator, so this is the person that we need. You need to listen to this.

Your pension sits outside your estate and is held in trust, which means it's not covered by your will in the same way other assets are. Didn't know that, Jane. Okay, right. So, technically, you don't own own it outright and the pension trustees or provider have the final say over who receives it if you die. While they'll consider your will if no nomination is made, it's your nominated beneficiary with a pension provider that usually carries the

most weight. Without a nomination the process can take much longer and may not reflect your true intentions. This is a massive thing to know. I don't people know this. Yeah, okay. Hope that helps in clarifying for your emailer and there's an exclamation mark there followed by an apology to Jamal. Now Jamal is on the podcast all of next week because I'm on my holidays. Yeah, she's back with us.

You know, I mean things always take a turn when Jamal turns up. Well, just be careful with your punctuation because I didn't realise quite how difficult it was for her. It was very, very difficult indeed. Juliet goes on to say, looking forward to seeing you both in North Berwick on Friday. I'm bringing my mum who's never listened to the podcast before and on hearing that Fee may be bringing her glockenspiel, I'm not sure whether to warn her or not. I think it's best not to, just leave that as a delightful surprise. And she might think that we permanently just like to knock out a little glockenspiel jingle. Well, only you could, I can't knock anything out. Oh no, you're going to be in charge of the glockenspiel.

In what sense? You're going to do the jingles in the show. You're going to do live jingles on the glockenspiel. But I can't, how would I know which ones to knock? Well this is where the comedy element may. Oh god. I'm being set up for a fall hit. No, you're not being set up. I am.

No, you can just do two little notes and you'll enjoy it. Seriously, you'll enjoy it. Rachel says, I have been listening to you both for quite a while now, since the beginning I think. And over these few years you've been with me through a lot. You've helped me to get round a half marathon, kept me company when I first moved to Rome alone, and I needed to hear some familiar voices as I got to know the new city. And most recently, this weekend, you were with me in the bush of Chobie National Park in Botswana. I'm assuming that would be Chobe.

I don't know. I'm so the wrong person to ask Jane. I don't ever get a pronunciation right. Would you always make you sound confident? C-H-O-B-E. I didn't think we'd find ourselves in such a situation, but together on Saturday evening we did indeed zip up our tent and look out of the mesh, oh if you listen to this, into the blackness of the bush, hearing the mildly alarming sounds of a chuffing hippo and a roaring lion in the air. I've got to say East West Kensington offers a great deal, it cannot offer that. I say we because you were very much with me via the one airpod I had, stuck in my ear for a lot of the evening as a means of calming my beating heart.

And then there was the night itself. I'd rather hope that the wine I'd had before bed would knock me out till morning, but alas the pitter patter of leaves by my tent at 02.30 meant that I found myself reaching once again for you both, metaphorically of course steady, says Rachel. I'm pleased to say that your latest episode featuring Daisy Goodwin and the familiarity of your voices punning your way through conversations got me through the night and the fact that a few hyenas were passing by. Have you ever been to Botswana? I have and a long time ago on the travel show we did a piece about a safari there.

It's a very, very, very beautiful country. I've never been on safari as a paid tourist. What I don't understand is how you could ever be safe if there's only canvas between you and a predatory animal. Well, Rachel has survived to tell the tale. Yeah. safe if there's only canvas between you and a predatory animal? Well Rachel has survived to tell the tale. Yeah, but is somebody outside patrolling? I mean a hyena would just take you out wouldn't it? I mean it's just a very very very big aggressive Dora.

That doesn't bear thinking about. A few hyenas were passing by, well they were just on their way somewhere else. Okay, off to Peterborough. Seeking out the passport office. Rachel just says, I just felt compelled to email you for the first time to say thank you. Wherever I've been, your podcast has provided me with a sense of home, no matter where I've found myself in the last couple of years. That's lovely, Rachel. Honestly, thank you very much. I'd just like to say, if you can get me through a night in the southern African bush, there's no knowing what you

can help others get through. She says she loves solo traveling despite having an adventurous boyfriend and wonderful friends who love traveling too and I firmly believe that everyone, especially we girls, should try it once. Thank you Rachel for that. And could you get back in touch actually actually, Rachel, and just tell us a little bit more about the serious things that you have to do in order to keep safe if you are out in the bush? I'll tell you what, I always remember about Botswana and that job on the travel show was amazing, Jane.

It was just so... There was a lot of travel involved. There was a huge amount of travel and, to be honest honest not that much show. It was really great and we went to some amazing places but in Botswana it was the first time that I'd ever seen the sky at night without any light pollution and obviously you are miles away from the nearest conurbation and I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it and it still gives me tingles even thinking about it. So sometimes when you're watching the movies and they'll pan up to a sky full of stars

to use a cold play expression, you think, OK, well that's just CGI, you know, of course they're going to put sparkles and, you know, ones that meteorites that are flying across and all that kind of stuff, but it was genuinely that. It was so very beautiful. And what animals did you see? So we saw giraffes and a lot of gazelles, antelopes, not any of the lions or tigers,

elephants and I think that was about it. Yes, not bad though. Not bad. Oh, the giraffes as well. They're mad. They're really, really mad. In what sense? Well, you look at them and they are a horse at the bottom. And then, it's like you've pulled the slinky right up to the top.

And then they've got a kind of slightly horsey, camily head at the top. Tiny heads, haven't they, relative to... Yep. It's actually a bit like a greyhound. You know, the body is completely out of proportion to the head. And you know, they're there, wafting around in the treetops, having a bit of a munch. It's just beautifully bizarre. Have you seen any of the new David Attenborough shows? No.

I haven't either. No, but I'm very much looking forward to it. This is about parenting in the animal kingdom. And we're learning a lot, aren't we, about species where the gentleman does take responsibility and quite a lot about the aggression that can lie within parenthood. Get out! Get out of my nest! Yeah, well, some of these animal mothers have had a belly full, haven't they, after a couple of days. They just want them to go. And there's a bit of a scandal isn't there because

some of the stuff has been filmed in fish tanks in captivity part of incubation programs. Do you mind that? Do you know the reason I asked you about this is because in all conscience I'm not a big fan of these shows. I don't, I find them a bit boring. I know that I know they're beautifully filmed and I know there's wonderful scenery and we can marvel and gape. I just get a bit bored. Sorry. Well that's that's told you. Don't get on Noah's Ark with Jane. She'll just be bored. Noah's Ark. That would have been, oh the smell on Noah's Ark. And they wouldn't have got on. No, it would have been absolute pandemonium on there. Let's

not fool ourselves. It was no picnic on Noah's Ark. Right, Emma says, I listened with interest to the correspondence that you received regarding the schoolgirl who'd asked to join the school football team That was lovely that letter which we read out last week from live in Ledbury I think it was who had her mom astonishing astonishingly had kept a letter That her primary school head teacher had written to her mom in 1977 explaining why young live couldn't play football with the boys and 27, explaining why young Liv couldn't play football with the boys. And this is interesting to Emma who says, I was at the local mixed state school and as Ian Botham was a local hero at the time in the cricketing world, he was to visit the school for the day. Every

single boy, whether they were the slightest bit interested in cricket or not, got excused from lessons for the duration of his visit. None of the girls were. We had lessons as normal. I remember thinking this was unfair, as although I wasn't particularly interested in cricket, I would still have rather had the time off from the classroom. I remember one girl had the nerve to ask if she could spend the day with the boys and cricket visitors, as she was interested in cricket and was extremely sporty. Her expressing a desire to attend wasn't enough though. We were having a lesson one day and our PE teacher walked in and asked this particular girl to stand up. The whole class was silent as we assumed she was in trouble. He said that he'd been told she wanted to go to the cricket day but would have to prove how much she liked the sport.

She then had to ask two questions, answer two questions in front of the whole class, and she had to get them right. One was who was the captain of Somerset County Cricket Team at the time, and the other one was who did Ian Botham play for. Well, she got both answers right, and grudgingly, he agreed to let her join the 400 boys who'd automatically qualified for this day off lessons because beefy both of them, who's been much discussed on this podcast before, was in attendance. Unbelievable. That shit happened everybody.

Yeah, it is unbelievable, isn't it? I think somewhere that shit still is happening actually, Jane. I don't think we can park it in the annals of history quite yet. Do you think it would still happen in Britain? I don't know about that. I think unfortunately there is quite a lot of misogyny still going on in school sports. Okay well it's sad. Anonymous says I really enjoyed the women's euros and the joy it brought to just so many people. I regularly repeat to any young person within Earshot, anyone born this century, that we were not allowed to play football and they just can't believe it. I really enjoyed hearing that email you read out. I was quite keen on football

for a while as a younger child in primary school and used to play in the garden at home with my reluctant father. I didn't have older brothers or anybody else to encourage me. I remember at primary school watching with envy as the boys ran off to play footy while we girls donned oversized bibs with the letters GK or GD on them and loped off to the netball court for another dreary game. When I moved on to an all-girls secondary school I met several football mad girls, one of whom had played for her primary school's team. She got around the rules because her dad was on the staff at the school that she attended, she kept her hair short and none of her teammates ever called her by her name on the pitch when they played against other schools. They shout things

like, oi mush over here, or other generic appellations such as mate etc. When I went to the skateboard park everyone assumed I was a boy as there weren't many other girls around. I did have short hair and I was wearing a helmet of course and all the pads. I never corrected anybody as it just made things easier. I wonder if any of your other listeners have got similar stories of infiltrating what were thought to be boys sports. Thank you for that Anonymous. I'm sure there will be some others. I'm sure there will be. It's Jane of Theee at Times.Radio if you want to contact our podcast. We take all sorts of emails.

This has been such a rich vein of empathy and sympathy, this topic about parental finances, hasn't it, over the last couple of days. And this one is remaining anonymous. In the last years of his life life my dad had problems paying his telephone and other bills and from time to time we were unable to contact him because the unpaid bill meant that his phone was blocked for incoming calls. As he was living alone and vulnerable we tried to contact BT about this to allow me to pay the bills but they couldn't do anything without my dad's consent which he never gave. We tried to persuade him to

have a mobile phone or a cheaper digital telephone connection, but he was stubbornly analogue. Things came to a head when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and in the last few weeks of his life we were caring for him at home and the phone was disconnected once again. At this point we were able to contact BT and pay about £1000 to reconnect it. Eventually a paper bill came through and we discovered that he had been calling high tariff sex companionship telephone call lines costing more than his pension every month and doing that for over two years. As you might imagine this news affected us in a mixture of ways. But the hard part to take was that we've been helping him by covering

the day-to-day food and household bills and caring for him whilst he was busy chatting away his pension late into the night. Ultimately, that was how he had decided to spend his money though, so we decided not to let on that we knew about the phone bill and we cared for him around the clock until he died in his own home with his family around him. There is very little that you can do unless you have a power of attorney agreement in place for finance and one for health. At this point I would urge you to plug the book and guest you had on about end-of-life arrangements. Well it's always worth plugging the guest we had on about end-of-life arrangements. And that book is The Later Years by Peter

Thornton. It's such a fantastic practical guide to all the things that you need to do to make sure that those decisions are wisely made by the right people for your loved ones later in life. But I think you sound like such a lovely person to have just agreed to never mention it. I think it just would have been so embarrassing. What a difficult conversation to have to have. Especially with someone who is so ill. Yes. But I feel for you. And I think there are so many circumstances when it wouldn't be right for anybody to take responsibility for somebody else's finances without their

permission to be able to contact services like BT without their permission. You can see how that could go awry so you can understand why the rules are in place but that's also so difficult isn't it because actually you could have found out about this an awful lot sooner or we just could have rectified it without having to spend quite so much money and that is a complicated old situation to find yourself in. And I suppose apart from anything else your dad was just lonely, which is hard work too. But how fortunate he was to have you in his last couple of weeks and months.

Honestly, it's a wonderful thing to be able to die in your own home, supported by your own family. Just amazing. Yep. Those chat lines though Jane. I know. It's grim isn't it. Let's cheer ourselves up with a bit of old school careers advice. Yes let's do that. Following the email from your listener who had crime scene photographer suggested as a possible career, Catherine says, I thought I'd write about careers advice in my final year at uni 1984. We all did a questionnaire which covered our interests, values, etc. and produced a reasonable range of suggestions. But comparing mine with friends, we realized we'd all been given this option as a possible career. Assistant

prison governor. Do you know what I like about that? It's not prison governor. It's just, it says don't aim too high. We always wondered if somebody had slipped the careers service a fiver to include it. As far as I know, none of us took up this option. And by the way, that's not in any way to denigrate those valiant people who do enter the prison service because somebody has to. Yeah, it's just a bit weird that everybody's talking the same thing. It's recommend the prison service month in schools.

We're basically suggesting bribery and corruption at a high level of British life and I'm sure that can't happen. I know. Yeah, have you read, let's just lower the tone. Janet's in Brisbane. I mean... I like the very clever use of punctuation. That's great. In Australia we have the same cat's bum toilet paper dispensers that you've been chatting about. However, in our public loos they're almost always in pairs and so we've been calling them booby dispensers. Oh grow up Australia!

God's sake! Well honestly what's wrong with them? No but they do! They do look like boobies. Do you remember those fun years when you just used to type in 8008 fuss? You see this is the glorious childhood that our children have been denied. Pre-internet, the fun we had. Did you ever make a mud pie? I did. I don't think I ever did make a mud pie. Do you ever cut a worm in half?

Yes, unfortunately. Funeral for a bird? Yes, I think we've done that. There we go. We've done it all. I don't think we ever cut a worm in half on purpose, but we were magically entertained by, because we did quite a lot of gardening when we were young because mum's a very keen gardener, you know, when you accidentally slice one in half and then you could watch both ends wriggle away. I mean it's still

a source of fascination to me. Yeah, yesterday was the day, in fact we're featuring on our radio show a little later today on Times Radio, it's too late for you now to listen because you're listening to this and you won't be able to listen to that because you're listening to this. I had a mild headache when we started this podcast. That's not helped. Okay. But yesterday a huge rat came to our attention in the UK.

It's 22 inches long. Don't! Don't! Why would you leave people with that image? I'm just saying they can look it up. It's not very nice. No, you're telling me. Right, let's say a huge hello to Lynne who was very excited about our show on Friday in North Berwick and Lynne sent a lovely email saying, can I help on the day to make things more comfortable?

I'd be delighted to let you freshen up in my house. It's a one minute walk from the Big Top. We'll take you on a quick tour of the town or the hardware store after the show. And I would seriously then be, if the hardware store is quite close, I would be quite interested if you could point that out to me or send me in the right direction because I still haven't replaced the LED lights and it's still disco dancing in the fridge. Oh my god, that must annoy you. It does. Yeah. Yeah, every single time you open the fridge door. Yeah, and I just have to... No, so when I open the fridge door, it's fine for about five seconds, and then disco lights come in. So I just spend an awful lot of time just only closing it.

And, yeah, my kids have pointed out that it's something that I could quite easily fix, but sometimes those things, those weird things... They're full of good advice like that. Why don't you fix it? Why don't you fix it? I try not to use that joke. Sorry, that's just a glimpse into what buzzes from my domestic life. But it's just become one of those things that for a while there wasn't a single door in the house that shut properly and neither of the bathroom doors had locks that worked. Oh yeah, it's astonishing what you can put up with.

For well over a year I had a massive hole in my kitchen ceiling that was covered by a bin bag. Yeah, you just get used to it. I'll get round it, I'll sort that. And it's the only, one of the only good things about the pandemic is that all of those slightly shonky things in my house, stuff it, no one's coming round, I can't get the trades person in, we'll just leave it and then we just got very, very used to it. The bin bag has, I've got rid of that now, I did sort that out. But I think it might even have been two years before I actually got that rectified. I got fond of that bin bag.

Well, maybe we could go to the hardware store together and I've sorted out the locks on the bathroom. What a funny mood you're in. You're inviting me to a hardware store. You've talked about all sorts of cat terms that I just wasn't prepared for earlier, the penis thing. Before we move to our guest today, I just want to say, I wonder whether Lucy in, oh gosh, now did you do Spanish? Can you pronounce this? Oh, it's Andalucía. Andalucía.

Yeah. What's the Spanish? How would the Spanish pronounce that's Andalusia. Andalusia. Yeah. What's the Spanish, how would the Spanish pronounce that? Andalusia. Andalusia. That's better. She doesn't need the jingle. I'm writing about HRT and the general understanding of menopause and perimenopause in countries outside the UK, and we're just throwing this out there on Lucy's behalf. She lives in Spain, turns 45 next month. She's had very little luck discussing the perimenopause with doctors in Spain. She went to a female doctor who should have been, she thinks, in her late 60s. I mentioned a few of my symptoms, the aches, the brain fog, the mood swings, and brought up the subject of perimenopause.

She just raised an eyebrow and said I was too young. This is despite me telling her that my own mum went on HRT in her mid-40s and is still on it at 68. She does live in the UK. Lucy, sorry, went on to try a local private doctor who was a man who said her bloods were fine. He had the bedside manner of a wardrobe and I didn't feel at all comfortable discussing the matter

further with him. So I've hit a wall, she says. None of my colleagues in their 50s take it, mostly because they face similar challenges with doctors. So she wonders if any other expats in Spain have faced similar difficulties. So are you in Spain and are you just having trouble engaging any medical professional on the subject of HRT? It is interesting that disparity in care because it was highlighted wasn't it by one of our previous emailers who said that the difference between the understanding in America and here had also left her vulnerable as she had lived in both places. I'd be really interested

in hearing if we have any listeners at all in Japan where the legend that emanates from Japan is that the menopause doesn't affect women so badly because their diet is incredibly different and has always been very high in proteins. And low in dairy. Yes, and the kind of phytoestrogens that obviously might make a difference. Eve was, when you said phytoestrogens, she went all peculiar. So more on that would be great. I think too, Naoive, you

should not only bring your glockenspiel but play it consistently on the train up to North Berwick. We're not on the same train. Oh yes I've forgotten about that. Yeah because you are traveling with the team I'm going on alone. I've created such a one for my own back because I just really want to see some people up in Scotland. I don't get to see very often but I've just such a one for my own back because I just really want to see some people up in Scotland who I don't get to see very often. But I've just tried to pack too much in Jane, it's just ridiculous. Yeah and the glockenspiel. Yes.

Okay, that's absolutely fine, you're allowed to see your friends. Thank you. Yeah. For the next 20 minutes or so we're going to talk about mental health and particularly the experiences of an author called Bella Jackson. Bella is here, good afternoon to you Bella. Thank you so much for having me, Jane. Great pleasure. The book you've written is called Fragile Minds and it is about your work. Well, tell us exactly who you are. You are a registered mental health nurse. You've worked in mental health since 2010. Yeah.

And what do you do now exactly? So I'm dual registered, I'm also an integrative therapist and I now work privately but also in the theatre industry. I look after about a thousand staff members and mental health and people in and out of the system so I still work very closely with individuals in the mental health system. Okay, so your book did remind me, it's not the same as, but it reminded me of the Christy Watson memoir, The Language of Kindness, which was about Christy Watson's experience as a nurse and nursing in general. Is yours, would you say that was a reasonable comparison or is yours very different? From what I remember of that book, I think she does talk about her training, doesn't she, as well?

And I think I focused on my training period. Partly as I was in a privileged position as a trainee mental health nurse, you have less pressure, you have less time constraints. I was able to talk to people more, to really look at assessments, to really try and understand what was going on in these sort of behind closed doors really. And so it didn't start out as a book. I'm not sure what Kristy, I think hers is over a very long period. Mine is over two years of training. It really started out as taking notes and just trying to make sense of what was going on. And initially I wanted to complain and then when that didn't happen,

it started to become this book. I see. And you have to be very careful, obviously, because of patient confidentiality. So the words you describe and the patients you describe, they are their composites. Yes. Yeah. And you have to keep confidentiality in mind at the forefront of writing something like this because legally, morally, we really have to think about keeping people safe in that sense, staff and patients, so I did have to write composite characters but everything was said to me, everything that appears in the book did happen, it's just that I've amalgamated characters into, you know, two or three people

into one, for example, and changed identifying details. Okay, so nobody should be able to spot anyone they know or indeed themselves in this book? No, no, no. Okay, I mean, I should say I've read it and I found it absolutely fascinating. It is, it's the Cinderella part of the NHS, isn't it? That much almost all of us know, whether we've ever been in a psychiatric hospital or not. Is that actually accurate? Is that what it's like? Yes I think we talk a lot about funding and we talk a lot about the fact that it's it is forgotten. Actually, since the 80s, we've put about 250 billion into mental health and yet we're not improving in terms of people's response rates. We're kind of flatlining, but

I mean a lot of we're kind of flatlining but it's in other areas of medicine we are improving So it's it's a real conundrum to try and figure out what's going so wrong for a lot of people and yet in the last I think decade we have never been more Open about mental health and I don't mean this in a dismissive way But practically every single celebrity interview you read will include some kind of acknowledgement of or discussion of somebody's mental health issue. And it might be something like anxiety or depression. But then, you're right, it doesn't seem to translate into things improving for the very vulnerable people who end up in psychiatric hospitals? Yeah, I think that's a really important point that we are asking people to speak more about their mental health and we need to make sure that the system is there to catch people and to then

offer treatment and help and I think at the moment there is that challenge that more people are coming forward but we're still not improving our outcomes. So something is going wrong there. But of course we know that there are loads of incredibly wonderful doctors and staff at all levels of our mental health services, but we do also really need to think about where the gaps are and when that's not happening.

And I think it're just, it seems to be that our service is really excellent for some people and other people really don't get the care that they need and we do need to look at why that is. I should say that you yourself in the book do acknowledge that you've had a mental health issues of your own. What sort of stage in your life did that happen? So teenage years and early 20s for me, and I wanted to talk about that in particular because I think that acknowledging our own lived experience is actually really powerful. It leads to empathy and understanding and I think that is one of the things that is missing in our

system. There's this real sense that we shouldn't be talking about the things that we struggle with if we're staff members or we shouldn't be saying gosh that's really that's really sad that story that I just sat with that patient hearing and it's it's it leads to this sort of us and them and it leads to this sense of really empathy fatigue really. Well that's certainly what we hear quite a bit and we see through your eyes quite a bit of empathy fatigue in the book. When you first set foot in an NHS psychiatric hospital what struck you about it? So I had been working in mental health for five or six years at that point. I've been working in mental health 15 years now. So I didn't come sort of completely fresh and new to mental health

and distress. But what really struck me, I think, was, as we said, this lack of empathy in terms of the support for both the staff, in terms of their capacity to sit with people in distress, but also the amount of time that people spent talking to patients. It just really was quite obvious from the beginning that there was a lack of interaction in hospital settings and that was really different from where I'd come from in social care. In what way? Just tell us more about that. Yeah so I think one of the things that I explore in the book is about my surprise at the lack of empathetic training in the nursing curriculum. So and certainly as I

understand in the healthcare, healthcare assistance and also for psychiatrists, there doesn't seem to be much supervision, like emotional supervision. So I'm not talking about with your manager, it's actually something that therapists get to enable them to sit with distress, to sit with people in extreme emotion, and it's not actually

manageable to do that if you're not having that ongoing support, and if you don't have that training in the first place, then retreating is very understandable. You do describe in the book some members of staff who've simply, well they're running on empty, and frankly, the drugs are very helpful. They do pacify the patients, they make them easier to handle and the day can be less eventful. Let's put it that way. Did that happen all the time? It happened more than I was expecting it to. I was quite shocked when it was used in terms of pacifying for reasons like irritation or exhaustion.

When staff were really exhausted, they would at times use it in a kind of punitive way. So those were the times when I thought, wow, this really needs to be talked about what is happening here. We need to understand this. But of course, medication is a very, very tricky area to talk about and for some people it is life-saving and for some people it's incredibly important and the only thing at that moment that's going to help them or calm them down. And for other people it's felt as a kind of re-traumatising and it's really quite

aggressive and it's, if it's forced on them. So there are conversations we need to be having around this. Yeah, I mean, you also describe combinations of drugs which were really, really challenging for the patients. And then it was extremely hard for them to come off them. Yes. And this is another reason why I wanted to write this book is for people to have informed questions and considerations around their treatment to really be able to ask actually wait a

minute does this particular drug help me or is it this one actually am I looking for psychological support rather than just medical what are the questions I can ask for my loved one around this? Well what about those people who didn't have anyone to advocate for them? They must have a particularly tough time. Yeah, and you see that a lot, unfortunately. I think when people get into the mental health system, there's often an isolation to that.

And some of that is around stigma, around mental health, we've still got that. And I think also people assume that right they're in the system, they're in a ward, they're with the professionals, I can just leave them to it, whereas actually what I really feel like we need to do is really understand what's going on behind these closed doors and really think how can I best advocate for myself or my loved one. Has the medication and clinical understanding of mental health conditions come on in leaps and bounds or is that a rather neglected area of the

pharmaceutical industry and of clinical research? Yeah it's a really good question. I'm not sort of best placed to answer that but what I can... Way better than nearly everybody who comes into our studio. Okay I'll give it a go. I mean certainly from working with individuals I see that these are kind of blunt instruments as it were to treating really complex distress and for some people it is really important and the medication really helps. I think the problem comes when we silence

other people who it's not helpful for, it is incredibly damaging for actually and what it seems to be medically is that we've got kind of stuck in using the same medications that we've been using for years and years and years and as I said the sort of it's it's the outcomes are not improving so so we need to really think in a much broader way and not just think first first thing we need to do is to to always medicate sometimes that's helpful and sometimes that isn't. It's a quarter to four thereabouts you're listening to Times Radio and our guest is Bella Jackson who's written a book about her experiences of working in mental health wards in the NHS. Her book

is called Fragile Minds and a listener has WhatsApp to say, Bella my daughter was sectioned to an acute mental health unit after her first ever psychotic break. It was at Christmas and it was caused by poorly prescribed pain medication, that's what the message says. Now it was a soul-destroying experience for all of us. The unit seemed to be merely a holding pen where you wait for anti-psychotic drugs to kick in to subdue patients. Staff might be kind, some of them, but I felt they were just ticking boxes. There was no therapeutic support whatsoever. Does that strike you as being an accurate account of what

goes on? Yes, I mean I'm always really sorry to hear that and I hear it every day is the truth. That these, that in terms of context I think it's really important that she mentioned that her daughter had this psychotic episode because of pain medication that impacted her in a particular way and wasn't potentially asked about. So that there are, this is, yes, that certainly resonates with my experience and we need to be having these conversations rather than seeing it as, oh, it's attacking the NHS in some way. It's actually so important to be able to make our NHS better better to listen to people's voices at all levels of the pyramid not just the people at the very

top. It does seem to me that if you're well connected, white and middle-class, you are unlikely, let's be honest, to be sectioned. It's not impossible but it is unlikely isn't it statistically? I think what I was seeing that there were a lot more patients of colour on the ward who, and this is where the life context comes in, it's so important to think about the context that people come from in terms of their background, their experiences, their trauma.

Are they coming from a racist society? What has happened to them in their lives, and how does that impact racist society, what has happened to them in their lives and how does that impact them in terms of their mental health and certainly there was racial disparities on the ward that I see and that I see in the community teams as well. Yeah, I mean people who were disadvantaged perhaps from the very moment of birth frankly and perhaps didn't have anyone to advocate for them and to make a case. Yeah and this is where unfortunately psychological

therapies are hierarchical in that sense that you're on a waiting list for many many years or you can pay privately and really when we're thinking about social supports, their finances are being drained from them, so there's less support early on. And that is really, it's really unfair. And you also talk about, sorry, I know a few wants to ask a question actually, about the consultant who appeared to dismiss somebody's terribly traumatic life story.

They were sort of, they had their clipboard or they were slightly disengaged, they weren't really focusing. Is that honestly something that happened very frequently, that somebody in authority system or have been sectioned that that does happen and I was trying to make sense of why that was happening because of course I was thinking about the training and the emotional, empathetic side of that. How much support do we give people psychologically to sit with someone and to hear their terrible story and to really empathise with that day in and day out and to not become detached, which is what I think a lot of staff, what happens to a lot of staff and I think we really need to be giving support to staff to be able to do that day in and day out. I just wanted to ask a very small practical and curious question about poorly prescribed pain medication in some way provoking a psychotic incident, is that a common thing? I mean I think

with, I've seen people become very agitated, anxious from codeine based medications, that can happen as well from ADHD medication, so we do need to be thinking and I am seeing on a day-to-day basis that medication that's prescribed has effects that aren't always talked about with the person first, so that they're really on the lookout for what that could do for them psychologically. So that is something I have encountered, yes. And are you seeing an awful lot more younger people who are experiencing severe mental health difficulties because of recreational drug use. There is

undoubtedly a ketamine problem in this country and there is a cocaine problem in this country at the moment in ways and volumes we've never seen before. Yes, I have seen and heard and worked with a lot of people who have struggled with their mental health post- taking recreational drugs and certainly there's in the book I look at a patient who I call Daisy who took Spice and she had what was a kind of mania episode and what I then try and understand is how two psychiatrists can come up with two different diagnoses. One said, okay, this is just drugs.

She will come down from this. This is drug induced. And the other one was saying, well, no, this is activating an underlying bipolar that was there but the drugs have brought it out. And I thought, wow, this really needs to be thought about. And again, we need to empower ourselves. We need to be empowered to educate and really ask questions at that point. Yeah, and actually, I think in the case of the character Daisy,

I think I remember that her mother just basically came into the hospital and took charge and effectively took her home. Yeah. But not everybody's got a mother and not one necessarily prepared to do that. Yeah, exactly. I think that again, with thinking about whether or not someone has a family with them or has a supportive family or a supportive network at that point and I did see that being

sometimes the kind of buffer between taking a medication or not or being sectioned or not so that's that's a crucial point. Yeah, I mean, not everybody, I should say I found the book fascinating, I hope I've made that clear, but not everyone thinks it's fabulous. I mean, Rachel Clark, who's a very well-known doctor, reviewed it in The Guardian and said that you imply, this is, I'm quoting, you imply that treating serious mental illness is simply a matter of listening to, believing and empathizing with patients. And she she says if only this were true for people with

bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Do you understand why she might have made that suggestion? I do and I think it was a... I did have a lot of responses from patients and from staff after that review saying, but this is my experience, or one particularly powerful one from a patient saying, if only I did get empathy and care and if only I was listened to, it shouldn't be this or that. Well, let me just interrupt you actually and say that Jan has messaged to say, as a trainee social worker on placement I was really shocked at the lack of input from staff on a mental health ward. I was the only one mixing with patients in the lounge area. Staff seemed to stay behind their

desks or doors until the consultants rounds when they would appear. The whole experience was very sad. Again that's something that you would recognise. Yeah and I did write about that and I think that was another thing that being a trainee I could do more of. I do recognise that staff have a lot of paperwork. I also think it's about a sort of a disassociation from what's going on, an inability to be in the spaces with people in a lot of distress day in and day out and that means that there is this divide and it actually when someone comes into services and they really want to be helped, they really want to be listened to, it's so scary to be left alone and to not be talked to by staff. Yeah and people really did enjoy just being with you and being given an opportunity to tell their tale, to be themselves.

Yeah and again I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to do that as a trainee and I think yes that was something that came across that people were desperate to talk, they really were and they were desperate for more time with everybody. Well I think also yes, that was something that came across that people were desperate to talk. They really were, and they were desperate for more time with everybody. Well, I think also you do acknowledge that you saw some brilliant care and some wonderful compassion from members of staff. And the truth is, they probably all entered the profession with great ideas about what they wanted to achieve. But the system didn't allow them to operate in that way.

Yeah, I think that's true. I think that people do go into mental health either because they've had lived experience or they really want to help. Generally speaking, I can't speak for everyone, but I think we really do a disservice to everyone involved if we aren't exploring the side that isn't working. We end up with public inquiries or documentaries

about failings and this is what's happening. that isn't working. We end up with public inquiries or documentaries about, you know, failings and this is what's happening. So we really, really need to understand why things aren't working and why many people feel they aren't getting the care they deserve. In fact, sometimes it's actually traumatising. That was Bella Jackson. Her book is out now. It's called Fragile Minds and if you just want to add to that conversation, if you want to tell us something of your own experience, do let us know. We can certainly keep you anonymous. We always appreciate your input on any subject, serious or utterly trivial. But thoughts and prayers particularly today to Karen Slaughter's cat Dexter, who is going

to stick with me. It has to be said for quite some time. I don't think that's the end of his woes. I've got some thoughts but Eve's giving me the eye so I'll save them for another time goodbye. Congratulations, you've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2-4 on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale and if you listen to this you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online on DAB or on the free Times Radio app. Off Air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.