Off Air... with Jane and Fi - The sound of sumo flesh on flesh echoing through London (with Philippa Gregory)

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Jane and Fi consider the demands they’ll make in the near future... as 80-year-old megastars. They also discuss Big Ben’s government name, Tudor indigestion, and luxury pet hotels. Plus, historical novelist Philippa Gregory discusses her latest book ‘Boleyn Traitor’. We've announced our next book club pick! 'Just Kids' is by Patti Smith. You can listen to the playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3qIjhtS9sprg864IXC96he?si=uOzz4UYZRc2nFOP8FV_1jg&pi=BGoacntaS_uki.If 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! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I mean, this is, I mean, I gave birth 25 years ago, you know, so it's a long time. 125. I don't know why I laughed. I shouldn't encourage you. I shan't encourage you. The Hulu original series, Murdoch, Death and the Family, dives into secrets, deception, murder, and the fall of a powerful dynasty. Inspired by shocking actual events and drawing from the hit podcast,

this series brings the drama to the screen like Never. before. Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark, watch the Hulu original series Murdoch, Death in the Family, now streaming only on Disney Plus. This is The Business. A new weekly podcast from The Times and the Sunday Times. With me, Hannah Previtt, the Sunday Times Associate Business Editor. And me, Dominic O'Connell from Times Radio. From boom to bust, the business tells you the inside story. From the high street to the boardroom, we'll bring you unparalleled insights. We'll talk to unicorns, market movers and city CEOs.

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Just trying to plan lunch. We're on air at two. So, yes, I might bring something with me instead of then having to find something on site. Although they've got that quite nice buffet, haven't they, in the green room? Oh yeah, there's quite a spread there. I remember there was a very nice poached salmon

in some winter vegetables as opposed to summer vegetables or indeed any other vegetable what are winter vegetables are they more root they're more neaps yeah yeah neaps and beets

and beets there'll be a cafe in Dalston called neaps and beats somewhere if there isn't one start one welcome to the podcast our guest today is the historical novelist Philippa Gregory so it has been a bit of a history theme because we were talking witches with

Professor Alice Roberts yesterday. We were, yeah. So I think you and I definitely we would have been dunked, wouldn't we, in times gone by, because if you had gone around with your Mystic Magnus trying to predict the future,

people just would have said... That's a witch. Well, no, because they would have said, well, she's no bloody good. I don't think being a bad witch or an unsuccessful witch, wouldn't stop them. Oh, dear.

Nothing down for me. Speaking of Mystic Garv, just to say that, congratulations, to the England men who have made it through to the World Cup finals next summer. And do you know what? Actually, I'm really pleased because I do love the World Cup

and I wish them the very best. The final is on July the 19th in New York. So if you're thinking about an event for next summer, just avoid... God, it's very, very hot and sweaty. I know. I know in New York. But don't worry, it won't stop England. This is our year.

So there are four different geographical venues or five. I think it's, oh, I thought it was USA, Mexico, and I confess, I don't, is it Canada? Would you mind just looking up? It's, oh, thank you, Eve. And do you think that that will work? No, I should think it would be really, so much travelling involved. If you're a proper fan and you want to go, then that's just insane, isn't it?

Those are big, big distances that you'll be expected to cover. I guess, yes, I mean, we don't know yet. I think in December the draw is coming up for the actual groups, so we don't know yet who England will be playing. Yeah, I just think it's very, very, it seems weirdly ambitious. Canada, yeah. So three. USA, Canada, Mexico.

So huge distances potentially to travel. And within those countries, I mean, there's going to be more than one venue, isn't there? You would imagine so, yes. Anyway, there's something to look forward to. But just to avoid, I think the finals on a Sunday. But you don't want to suddenly book a wedding and then, oh, just, I bet people now I'll be checking that, oh, my God. We've got a family event on July the 19th But you don't want it

Don't do it Just pretend you're ill Don't go Yeah I'm just trying to think I might have already Oh you haven't Yeah no there is a clash there We're slightly getting ahead of ourselves

Because we don't know England Are going to be in the final No we really don't know that But they have they are playing well anyway We don't know that at all Congratulations to Thomas Tuchel and the gang Right So Philip Gregory awaits

And tomorrow we're at the Cheltenham Literature Festival with our guest, Penny Lancaster. Some of you I know who have emailed to say that you're going to be there. Very much looking forward to that. I hope you enjoy the session. Penny is a woman who's written. She's written a memoir which contains both fun bits and also some very serious stuff in there as well.

And she does tell us, if not everything about her marriage to Rod Stewart. Certainly gives us an insight in what it's like. Yeah, I don't think she's told us everything. Well, mercifully she hasn't. but we do get just a few clues as to his eccentricities and he is a man who likes his model now not railway

which is very keen to point out it's a it's railroad which he takes with him everywhere yeah and I think if you've got to that kind of status in your life then you can do whatever you like if you were a wildly rich

and successful octogenarian is he nearly octogenarian oh yeah he's 80 one i think okay uh then what would you really not want to leave home without oh by then vintage champagne okay yeah well i see i would have my pets taken with me absolutely everywhere with all of the the things that they like in the house to to sit on and i'd want my dressing room to be exactly the same in every venue that i went to and i'd completely and utterly milk my success so yeah i mean you've word, wouldn't you? He's right, Stuart.

He sold like 96 million records or something absurd. So he's allowed to set up his model railroad wherever he damn well goes. Yes, of course he can. Karen, just to answer Karen's quick question, could Philippa recommend where I start if I want to read her fiction? Karen, that

interview's already been done, and I'm afraid I didn't have time to ask of that, but I would suggest that if you are a history buff, sometimes the kind of easy way in is the Tudors because we kind of think we know we know them so I maybe I would start with one of her Tudor books there are quite a few to choose from but she's written about other periods of

history too and actually her novel about Georgian England is about I think it's going to be it's being filmed now and it's on television or will be on television in a year or so so there's loads and loads of potential stuff there if you want to get into Philippa Gregory but yeah start with one of the Tudors and then you can enjoy the book she's talking about in the interview today which is Balin Trader. What do you do if you feel that you've just, you've got to absolutely the, the, the overflowing

meniscus of your Tudor knowledge and ability to take on any more? But you just reach peak Tudor. Pete Tudor. I mean, completely peak, just like Tudor indigestion. What's the Rennie that you can take? It probably would be, what would be the historical or Rennie. Well, you could probably

go back to go back to our Neolithic friends. Oh, I don't know. No, you see, I think you just... I wanted to protect them since I was rude about them earlier in the week. What do you think is the least written about? Period of our history. Yes, a period of our monarchs. Oh. Because we're obsessed

with Edward the 8th. We're obsessed with Queen Victoria. We've lived through Queen Elizabeth but maybe future generations will be obsessed with her. I don't know, actually. I think maybe her kind of decorum might mean that, you know, people feel there's not enough purchase. But it's the people around her who've provided the salacious gossip.

So we've done all of those. I mean, there's definitely a big bit, isn't there, between the Tudors and them? We don't know all that much about our Georgian mark. I mean, George III was the one who, poor chap, had terrible mental health issues. And we don't hear a lot about that. Queen Anne? We don't know about her.

That's very true. But then Olivia Coleman played her in a film. Yeah, and she didn't seem all right at all. No, she was a troubled story. soul. Yeah. She had all the bunnies, didn't she?

She had bunnies. And she also had a female lover. They seemed to be getting on fine. So, look. Well, maybe that is the indigestion tablet that you need, a dose of Queen Anne. Because, I mean, I respect and admire Philippa Gregory enormously,

and I think she can bring to life the most incredible stories that you think, you know, nobody could possibly add anything to that. I completely get that, so I'm not dissing her. But I just don't have, I don't feel that I'm drawn towards another Tudor saga.

Well, that's the wrong thing to say just before we prepare people for an interview. You're right, actually. About Jane Belins. So let's go a little bit further back in history. I just want to say how marvellous it is that finally the scaffolding has come off the Parthenon in Athens. Apparently, it's been on the Parthenon for 200 years.

Now, I read, I know, and I read that, and I thought, hang on. So noisy scaffolders have been around since the, whatever, 200, really? Have young men been crushing around, shouting and playing, disco music on their cassette recorders for 200 years. Well, I suppose they had just had to bring people with their own lutes and matriacles, didn't they, at 6 o'clock in the morning. It will have been 6 o'clock as well. And leave their big horses idling outside my house. Or indeed, outside my Parthenon.

But isn't that incredible that it's finally free of any, if you like, recent historical additions. And so apparently the people of Athens are flocking to the Parthenon to just be amongst it. and around it and in it and at it and kind of viewing it in its most natural state. I think it's tempting fate to be having this conversation. I can feel a small windy sheet being attached as we speak. Bits will start to drop off. Well, there was a time when you get out of the tube at Westminster Station

and there'd always be some work going on at the Houses of Parliament. I haven't been there for a while. Is there work ongoing works? Well, Big Ben was being done for a long time, wasn't it? So the clocked out. What's the proper name of that clock tower? It's the Elizabeth Tower now. Is it?

I think so. Wasn't, isn't it all, isn't, haven't we always got it wrong? So we call it Big Ben, but that's actually just the clock face, isn't it? Eva's checking this fact for us. It's like you're listening to QI, isn't it? It is the Elizabeth term. There we are. A rare moment of triumph for me.

Would you be attracted to a night of sumo wrestling? I would be, actually. Would you? Yeah, no, it would be. Because there's been these wonderful images this week. because there is a night of sumo coming up, but I think at the Albert Hall. And the big guys are in town, all over town.

They're all over town. They're doing some wonderful outreach PR. Very cute photographs of them with Paddington Bear. Well, I would be intrigued to see whether in the moment it's really, really good fun. Because when you come to it new and you watch it on the TV, and Clive James tried to bring it to life, didn't he?

But in a slightly kind of, let's laugh at this form. And he did, I mean, he did make us laugh at it. But I remember thinking, what is that? How am I going to get, you know, really, really involved with whether or not somebody's moved a centimetre back? And also how large these gentlemen are. That's the kind of 2025 spin on Sumo, because you do look at these lads. And they're, I mean, let's just be honest, they're absolutely enormous. And so all your health and safety claxons start sounding off inwardly.

but of course it's a very ancient yeah do you think you'd enjoy it if you actually went to see it I'd be interested to hear what sound they make as they but as they connect oh I see yeah flesh on flesh

I wonder what that's like okay so that's this weekend just some cultural highlights there for those of you who might be in London town I think we've disgraced us more than usual in the last couple of minutes with our wide-ranging levels of ignorance. Let's bring in Tara, who says, heard your call out for the listener who is struggling to be motivated when job hunting. Well, I'm also job hunting after a short career break, and I am

finding it tricky to break through with recruiters. But I know from past experience and the more recent experience of friends that I will get there. In the meantime, it's dispiriting. And I just wanted to say to your listener, she's not alone. Something will come to pass. She's only in her 30s after all. She's not old in any sense of the word and has quite possibly not even hit her professional stride yet. I would also advise against comparing yourself to others. It will do your job search no good at all. And as Fee said, you'll end up feeling worse about yourself. I actually went through a period of doing this and I used to feel so inadequate, but then I had to laugh when I saw an ex-colleague who wasn't the sharpest and had zero emotional intelligence describe himself

as quotes a thought leader thought leaders it is actually thought leaders jane i mean just the most terrible terrible terrible terminology for someone who's bunkum well exactly and especially if you've had personal experience of working alongside this individual and then you hear they're just the cheek of it a thought leader oh please uh work on your linkedin pro files, says Tara, and your CV. Again, there are loads of good ideas online and free CV templates. I would suggest having a go at writing your profile and CV yourself and then put it through, I don't know, open AI, chat, GPT for refinement. Remember, of course, it is all free. It's also worth looking at ex-colleagues linked in profiles to see how they've described tasks, projects, etc. for ideas

of how to frame your experience. There is no need to include dates at school, college, university, etc. Yes, I think that's actually important to emphasise, isn't it? Because you can sometimes get drawn into, well, frankly, revealing your age, which shouldn't be off-putting, but of course, might be. Tara, thank you very much and good luck with your job search as well. Festive evening is the title of Sarah's very, very simple and short email. I'd already book my ticket for your Christmas bash before you mentioned it. I'm coming by myself. will you arrange an interval table for anybody else by themselves? What a cracking idea.

It's a good idea that. So we very much should. When is this event? It's December the 7th, Jane. I'm very glad you asked. Would you like more details? I would. It's at the Prince Edward Theatre.

I can call it a playhouse if people are upset by that pronunciation and it'll start probably around the 6.30, 7 o'clock mark. It's on a Sunday evening. So you could come along. You could do some shopping in London's fashionable West End, then get completely nutty fed up with that. Decide that you want to put your feet up in a pretre-manger or a cafe Nero for half an hour, have a reviving cup of coffee, pop along to the Prince Edward,

get a little bit tidily and join in the fun. Rest assured, it'll all be over by 9.30. It certainly will. Oh, my God. Although Jane and I have taken the precaution this time of taking the Monday off work just in case we decide to go, all night. Which we won't. All night.

We're so, so won't. I did, I think I might wear a button's outfit, if that's okay by everybody because I just find it really difficult to decide what to wear on a stage Jane and a couple of times when we've been doing our live shows before I just struggle with the footwear and with reaching the ground from the chairs and as you know when we do the live radio show here I like to sit cross-legged on a chair and that's very comfortable if you're short-assed but I can't do that on stage so you did sit cross-legged on the chairs do I sit cross-legged on the chairs do you Yeah, all the time. It's as if you're not paying attention. Well, I can't see what you're doing with your legs. But I think a little costumed outfit solves lots of problems for me, so I'm very happy to come as buttons.

Okay, so you're going to theatrical costumers and you're dressing up as a Panto character. Yeah, but I do very, very much want you to come as a dame. Yeah, but we've discussed, I can't. No, but you still can. You still can. I think that might cost money, so I won't be doing that. Margie says, I recently did you.

talking about walking at night in safety. Well, at least I think you were, says Margie, who sounds like one of our listeners who perhaps nods off halfway or even a quarter way through the podcast every day. But Margie, it doesn't matter when you fall asleep. You're very, very welcome. She says, I recently did a lodge sleepover

at Wipsnade Zoo. Have you heard of these? This is Hartfordshire's wonderful partner to London Zoo, set amidst the Dunstable Downs. It was brilliant with tours when the zoo was closed to the public at dusk, at 10pm and early morning. Sounds gorgeous.

It is interesting that, isn't it? I was chatting to the wonderful young lady who guided us, and it was fascinating. She mentioned that she loves doing a late or night shift at the zoo, which covers 600 acres in the Chilterns, because I can walk around this beautiful parkland in the dark and feel completely safe and unthreatened

without wondering if there's a creep behind every tree, all words to that effect. How ironic is that, bearing in mind that she is in the middle of a zoo? with the nighttime noises of lions and hippos, et cetera, and she still feels completely safe. I did not, you know, it never occurred to me that there's a night shift at a zoo.

But there must be, wasn't there? Yeah. Why are you not as stunned as I am? Well, sometimes the revelations that happen in your head, I'm not, I don't share them. I wouldn't have, I never thought that anyone kind of locked up London zoo and just went home and all the animals just left completely on their own.

So sorry, I just assumed that there would be in the night. And also, because especially if you know, if animals are giving birth at night or if one of them was an accident. Yeah, it's all absolutely logical. But I suppose, idiotically, I did think they locked it up and the animals went to sleep because they knew it was night time and they'd open up again the next morning. But of course, that's utter rubbish and it can't happen.

Margie, thank you for that. But I'd love to hear from someone who regularly does a night shift at a zoo or an animal hospital. I mean, I guess as well, there must be a night shift there. Well, I think also all of the catteries and the kennels, of course they've got people stay over. Well, no, all of the kennels that you use if you've got a dog and you want to put the dog into kennels and cattery,

then you know, you've got to have nighttime staff all the way through. And it must be really good fun. You must feel so much closer to the animals when everybody else has bugged off and it's just you looking after 50 cats and seven hounds all the people who are looking after the lions and the hippos at night

I mean that's just incredibly cool But don't you like to imagine that after everybody's gone home the animals you know just all have a lovely kind of shake out of themselves and go right all those stupid humans looking at us have gone

here we go make that a double let's go to the library and get something really good out yeah it's really I don't know I'm quite taken with this notion of what goes on in these places after dark. And also maybe that's when they have their kind of private love time. Maybe they put on a show, you know, for the visitors during the day.

But actually, once everyone's gone home, you know, they're having their proper relationships with each other. Kennels. I always think you've got to be careful. Presumably, it doesn't answer you go to a kennel. She does. Well, she goes. It's called a luxury pet hotel, but it is a kennel. Yeah.

Right. Okay. luxury pets and they must they genuinely must vary in terms of what they offer and cost yes yeah

I'm not asking to do yourself in but a lot it's a lot okay so it has to be really all of the pets have to be really really

factored into my holiday budgeting because it's a lot to get all of them completely sorted and the thing is all pet owners and pet lovers I mean presumably I've forgotten of course you live in a zoo

Does somebody do a night shift? I do. And at the moment it's really busy because of the bloody foxes. So you can't... I can't go on holiday and have a nice time if the animals aren't completely and utterly sorted.

That's just a fact. So, yeah, it's a bit out of hand. It takes quite a lot of dropping off one here and three there and the other one there. But I think as I've told our lovely listeners before, Nancy goes to a place where she is welcome with open arms.

She really loves it. They really, really love her. And I do have the, they provide the facility for owners to watch their pets. There's a video link up from the little place where Nancy sleeps. So I could always wave at her and I can make sure that she's having a good time. You wave at me. I have actually never, I haven't logged on to it. It's there as a facility.

It's available to me. but just because it would ruin my holiday if I had to look at Nancy in a small room without okay alright don't go there but actually just perhaps for somebody who's going to be using a kennel for the first time because we put our dog in kennels when I was a child

but I have no personal experience of it what is a good sign of a kennel what do you look for I would go completely on smell and it's a really good question so I actually wouldn't look at the cost very much at all I mean, you know, I just don't think you guarantee yourself better care for your pet just by the cost. But I think if a kennel or a cattery really, really stinks, it's just not a good sign.

They don't need to. You know, of course there are going to be litter trays around and all that kind of stuff, but it's just a sign of general cleanliness, isn't it? And I think that's what I would go on. And also just personal recommendation. because pet lovers who've had a bad time at a facility will always try and warn other pet lovers about it

so there'll be a Reddit thread somewhere or Facebook somewhere so I'd just go on that personal recommendation right and here's my apology for today I can't believe I said this for me I said that Barry Manilow had performed Club Tropicana I didn't mean it as I meant you meant Copa Cabana I'm sorry I'm just what could I say

yeah oh well don't worry well I'm It's too busy looking up his marriage to Gary, so I'm sorry that I didn't come to your aid there at all. I was glad that they found happiness together. Well, I think they have. Yes, no, genuine, I'm very glad. Yeah, I think they have. Sheila says, I know you've mentioned the upcoming Cheltenham Festival a few times.

Have we? Is that because tickets are still available? I can't believe it. Good Lord. And Sheila went over the weekend to hear Chimamanda, Ngozi and Dichie. She was given the Sunday Times Prize for her contribution to literature, but it was her insight into what is going on in the world today, and particularly its impact on women that I thought was so incisive.

It is partly told through her most recent book, Dream Count, which tells the story of four women from the American Nigerian diaspora and doesn't shy away from the details of what happens to them. I'm not sure whether as Times employees you can get recordings of other sessions, but it's well worth it if you can. Sheila, thank you for that recommendation. I don't actually think we are able to actually... But that does sound, what a privilege to be able to hear writers of that quality.

I mean, these literary festivals, honestly, they are an amazing thing. I'm sounding like on Message Mandy, but in a world that's so fast and at times so grim and is so sort of fake and artificial, people are still flocking to the spoken word. In fact, they're doing it more than they used to, because these things didn't exist, did they? 30 years ago. I don't remember. I think if they did, they were tiny by the person, they are now. But they are, I mean, you know,

they're middle-aged, middle-class Glastonbury, aren't they? Things like Cheltenham Literature Festival. They're a massive marker in people's diaries. And, I mean, you know, I think you do get to a certain point in the year where you realize that you've run out of tote bags, and it would be

a good idea to pop along. Get some more. But you and I, when we've gone to them, as workers, we have also really, really enjoyed going to see other sessions and just the whole atmosphere. I love the food court. There's always a really, really terrific food court. And in fact, Fringed by the Sea, which we went to up in North Berwick in August, I mean, we hit upon a really, really beautiful day, didn't we? But you could see the sea, you could smell the sea. There was plenty of space. There were different things to do everywhere. The food court was

phenomenal. Everybody was happy. That's the thing, isn't it? I do remember, I can't remember which festival it was, where the Cue for Falafel was about 10 miles long, but it was really easy to get fish and chips. So I think we got fish and chips. Where was that? Well, I was with you.

Oh, yes. Oh, very much so. I think it was hay, actually. Was it hay? I can't really, oh, I can't quite remember. Oh, it's painful when you don't have... There was a beautiful memory of mine. I remember we couldn't get out of hay and I had to run over to the very, very large superstore

to try and get lots of snacks for our coach journey. Oh, yeah. Then took us across the Welsh border and back into England and then across the Welsh border again. I thought, what's happening here? There's a ransom note going to be left. I think that was a very bad day, governed, I think, by some issues with the railways.

I think you're right. But I'm sorry, I think all of my nice memories of, hey, might have been replaced with a harumph. I could not be able to go. I can't believe that you wouldn't be harumph. This is The Business. A new weekly podcast from The Times and the Sunday Times. With me, Hannah Previtt, the Sunday Times Associate Business Editor. And me, Dominic O'Connell from Times Radio.

From boom to bust, the business tells you the inside story. From the high street to the boardroom will bring you unparalleled insights. We'll talk to unicorns, market movers and city CEOs. Join us every Thursday. Search for The Business from the Times on your podcast app. You're the business. No, Helly, you're the business. No.

This is the business. The business is sponsored by PWC. America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is the global story.

Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a very serious email from Joe, who says, because we were talking about, we had a very, very important email from a woman who'd had a shocking experience at one of our maternity units. And she frankly, and I do not blame her at all, was just angry that the BBC had commissioned what sounded like a rather jaunty comedy show

set in an understaffed maternity unit. It's going to be called Push. And I think it'll be out relatively soon. I mean, it's ho, ho, ho up to a point. But if you've been there, as our correspondent had, there's nothing funny about it at all. And Joe has emailed to say, I feel compelled to email.

My daughter is a community midwife. She trained for three years, working on a labour ward in a large London teaching hospital. During her training, she earned nothing. She had to support herself financially. She trained during the pandemic and was issued with totally inadequate PPE. So here's a typical day for her.

Eight in the morning, attend woman having baby. Baby born five hours later. 1pm sent to labour ward at the hospital due to a shortage of midwives. She finished at 1 a.m. the following day, as there are no other midwives available. That's a total of 12 hours on the ward, with no breaks, not even to get a drink.

This is on top of the five hours attending the home birth. Now she and all her colleagues have been told that there is a national freeze on recruitment of midwives. Add to that, they've been told there'll be redundancies in community midwifery. They will all have to reapply for fewer jobs. Please, please sing the praises of these grossly underpaid and wonderful midwives. They do love their jobs, but many continue to leave in their droves because they can't deal with the stress, the bad pay and the long hours. read this out, people should understand what is happening in every labour ward in the country,

I think it's a disgrace, says Joe. Well, I agree with you. And I think what does it tell us about modern society that that's where we've ended up with maternity services, Jane? Well, I mean... Because we hope that we're travelling down the path of progress, don't we? I mean, apart from anything else in terms of equality, but there's this massive area of female health care that the more you hear about it, the more frightening it becomes. And, you know, we all wonder why younger women might be turning away from having children and large families, why women might not want to train as midwives, why people are leaving the profession. And it's because they're having a rubbish time at a point where, you know, for most people, it should be a joyful and supported

experience. Ideally, we do now at the health secretary where streeting has actually, I think he said, hasn't he, that it's maternity night. Well, good, well done him. Yeah, and there is an inquiry. They are supposed to be changing things. But I must admit, I didn't know that there was going to be a freeze on recruitment of midwives, which doesn't sound, that just isn't a positive, is it, at a time like this? No, and at any time.

I think the midwife is just such a derided job within the health care professional hierarchy. And it just, that just shouldn't be the case, should it? because, you know, they can offer you something that actually doctors often can't, but it's a really, really important thing, which is just continuity and, you know, kind of consistency of care. I'm not deriding doctors in that at all, but you tend to meet a doctor during your pregnancy or during your birth when something is a little bit up against it and the amber light is on,

but the midwife is the person, you know, who has hopefully kept you going and who you know and who is integral to those proceedings as well. I would hope so. I'd love to hear from women who are pregnant right now about that. Are you seeing the same midwife? Well, did you? No. No, neither did I.

No. I mean, I gave birth 25 years ago, you know, so it's a long time. I'm 125. I don't know why I laughed. I shouldn't encourage her. It's because you always mentioned your age. I would happily never have mentioned your age or the age gap between us in this podcast ever. But I'm constantly being told how young I am, it's great.

Spring chicken. That will stop you. Actually, yes, it will. It's stopped. Do you think we should get to the guest? Well, can we just mention that we've had an alternative milk email? I was going to save that until we could also tell people about the overheard. No, let's leave it.

Because the overheard overheard us. Oh no, that's what we call meta. And they're sending in some product. Are they? Yes, so we go to sample it. Oh, well, that's good. My offspring that I gave birth to thousands of years ago might be interested in that.

It would be good for them. And now, the guest. Philippa Gregory is one of Britain's most successful historical novelists. Are you reading? No. Her best known work is the other Berlin girl, and in her latest book, The Lynn Traitor, she returns to the drama and intrigue of Henry the 8th's court,

but this time, dear listener, the focus is on Anne Boleyn's sister-in-law, Jane. I'm intrigued. Well, you should be. Philippa told me about Jane Boleyn, who arrived at the Tudor Court as a very young girl. Well, she's a professional court here, so she does come at 12 to the Court of Catherine of Aragon to be a maid-in-waiting, and she's married to the son of an up-and-coming family, whose lands are near hers. She's the daughter of Lord Morley, so she's no nobility, but not one of the big houses.

And the young man who's picked for her about her age, very suitable marriage, is George Ballin, who is, you know, with a bit of luck going to become a minor diplomat. But the luck changes, rather, when his sister marries the King of England. So all of a sudden, Jane finds herself not the wife of a junior diplomat, but of the most important man in England after the king, favourite of the king, favourite of Anne, memorably. And Jane herself gets promoted, Jane Berlin, gets promoted to be Chief Lady in Waiting of the Queen's Rooms.

You only have to read 50 or 60 pages of this book to be plunged into a world that honestly, from our perspective, Philippa, it sounds horrible. I mean, we sort of love the costumes and we like all hearing about all the rivalries but it's so tough just to keep going and Jane Berlin doesn't meet the happiest events which we can discuss a bit later

but it's more than intrigue it's vicious and vile and you live on your wits knowing that actually you could end up you could end up dead yes I mean it's a court of a tarant and so when I was researching for it I didn't just read up about Renaissance masks and dancing,

so all of the costumes and the colour and the vibrancy and the art of the court is there. But I also read up about what it was like working with Hitler and with Stalin and the idea that actually, Terrence seem to be very similar. They are quite tediously similar. So the court always ends up focusing on them as an individual. It ends up moving very fast from policy.

to whim. And then what Terrance always seem to do is they activate the law of the land that they come to and turn it into, in a sense, their own personal grudge-setting agenda. So, I mean, how much were you thinking about Donald Trump as well? Of course I was thinking about Donald Trump as well. And what was so interesting is to be writing this novel

at this time where people are increasingly saying America is drifting into a tyranny and seeing that this is the time where England experiences its first tyranny that before Henry the 8th English kings were called your grace like dukes were called your grace and they were first among equals

and that's the real sense of the word that he's the king but he's one of the nobility and Henry the 8th changes that title to your majesty and we still have that today yes well I hope I live I won't live long enough because I won't be 350 years of age do you think it would possible that one day a historical novelist will write

about the Windsors and see some parallels with a Tudor court? Well, the reason I'm never bothered with the Windsors in terms of research and writing is because what interests me is the coalition of personal and political

and the coincidence of royalty and tyranny. So that's why Henry's so interesting that he's a king who claims a status of a demigod. and that's what makes me interesting whereas our current king is clearly a Democrat and that's a really refreshing thing to have in a royal family.

You absolutely need it but where you see the danger now lies is people who are elected claiming the status of kingship. Yeah, let's talk more about the character of Henry the 8th who is taught in schools every school child in the land

we'll hear about Henry the 8th and there's a sort of I mean depending on the age of the child there's a sort of temptation to dismiss him as a funny old chap with red hair and did a bit of jousting and had six wives and ho, ho, ho. But as you've already said, he was a tyrannical despot of a man. He was also impotent, ulcerated legs, profoundly overweight, and just revolting. And he was a serial killer. I think the really important thing about the six wives motif is that it's only now that we are saying

He has six wives because he either puts them aside, exiles them, or they die in childbirth, or he executes them. He changes the law of the land so that he can execute his wives that he has chosen, first of all, as his wives, and he has chosen the advisors who create the evidence against them. It's literally, it's a story of a serial killer. And we need to, do you think we've been a bit squeamish about this? and perhaps maybe it's feminism's duty, yet another one,

to actually acknowledge that this much-discussed monarch was exactly that? I think it's more patriarch's duty to acknowledge it rather than ours since we're the ones who suffer from it. But it's part of a bigger thing, I think, which is that a degree of tyranny is acceptable in men, particularly in this period, noble men or kings, in our period, men of influence or power, or wealth get away with an enormous amount of tyranny politically

and also get away with it personally. And, you know, we see in the statistics of the number of women who are abused and the number of women who are raped, the proportion that it is their husbands and their partners, what we do constantly in history as historians, as in our current social life, is we don't challenge it. We let men get away with it. Well, and in the past, of course, male writers, male historians,

talked about women from history and dismissed them as slots and harlots. That was quite routine. Well, yes, I mean, the very description of Catherine Howard who is executed for adultery because Henry changes the law in order to make her pre-contract illegal, he literally changes the law in order to execute her.

And she, even in a history book written in this century, is described as a slut. And you just go like, this is no... adequate description of a woman. Apart from anything else, nobody is a one word. You know, if you're historian, you have an obligation, I think, to try and give a rounded picture of a person. And, you know, in the case of the queens,

they are all dismissed with one-word stereotypes. Let's go back to Jane Berlin then. She should logically have fallen with her in-laws when Anne Berlin was executed because she was related to her. She'd been very close to her. She wasn't. Why wasn't she?

Well, that's the million-dollar question. And in a sense, again, historians have been quite remiss in not asking that question. So what people just go is like, I don't quite know how, but next queen, she's lady in waiting. Queen after that, Anne of Cleave, she's lady in waiting again. Queen after that, Catherine Howard, she's lady in waiting again. How does this woman pull it off when her sister-in-law and her husband were executed for treason? and a widow's, a widow traitor, the widow to a traitor, would normally have all of her fortune taken from her.

And that just didn't happen. There's an act of Parliament passed to give her Blickling Hall in Norfolk now still an enormous beautiful stately home and a fortune for life. And you have to say, who has the power to get that law through Parliament? And there's nobody that I can think of at that time except Thomas Cromwell. And I think it's Thomas Cromwell. Okay, you just better remind everybody of the... significance of the name Thomas Cromwell. Who was he? Well, everyone who's read Hillary Mantel's

wonderful novel, Wolf Hall, loves Thomas Cropwell. He was a much more ambivalent character at the time. He was Henry's great advisor. He was very instrumental in Henry's move towards tyranny. He was very helpful in changing the law to suit Henry so that he could move towards tyranny. And in the end, he was executed by the change in the law that he had brought about. So Henry could sign off on his execution. He didn't have to have a fair trial. So he's punished in a sense by his very own misdeeds. At the time, he's basically he runs the country. So he's responsible for the reformation, for the inquiry into the monasteries. He's responsible for managing parliament. He manages the king's temperament and moods personally. He literally, he's missed to fix it for Henry. He

does everything. And I think what he does this by a network of spies and administrative and people reporting to him. We know he has that throughout Europe from his commercial days as a wool trader and he does it throughout England by appointing sheriffs and mayors who report back to him the mood of the country and I'm sure he does it in the courts as well

by having nobleman in his pay that report to him and noble women as well. Because noble women of course were in places where noble men on the whole couldn't go. He has to have spies in the Queen's Chamber and as a man who doesn't have a wife or daughters in that position he's literally got to hire them

and you can see I mean literally we've got the signatures of three of them on the document which explains why Anne of Cleve's marriage can be an old so it's Cromwell's job to get Anne out of the king's bed out of the marriage out of the Queenhood to make space for Catherine Howard

who's going to come next and he gets this extraordinary document of evidence that the king has never slept with her that she doesn't know what's supposed to happen in bed and that she is a virgin as she came to England and that signed this document which is clearly invented is signed off by three women of her lady's court and one of them is Jane Rochford

Jane Berlin and she knew what she was doing by signing that quite clearly she was actually saving the Queen's life because if Henry hadn't got rid of her that way he would have almost certainly have found another way to get rid of it. And the stuff of myth around Anne of Cleves is that she was too ugly

and I mean that's what little I know of her. That's the one word stereotype. What do you have about the queens? Catherine of Avargan, old, Anne Boleyn, sexy, Protestant, Jane Seymour, good wife, but dead. It's hard to be a good wife when you're dead. As good wives, you know, traditionally are. Anne of Cleves, fat, ugly.

And that's literally, Henry's complained about her in order to get the divorce through to explain why he was impotent with her. Yes, I mean, it really does make you profoundly grateful. I'm going to say that things have moved on. And what really makes you despair in this book and you do these very visceral descriptions of stillbirth and miscarriage

because that was the stuff of life for women of childbearing age, wasn't it? I mean, it was properly brutal. I think the death rate of women in childbirth is comparable to the death rate of men in battle. It is women's battleground. It is women's war against death in childbed without any competent science of gynecology or obstetrics

and no anaesthesia at all. So literally you're doing it cold turkey or you're doing it drunk as a skunk. There's nothing between. Sorry. Take a little bit of a chew to break here while we think about that. And also remember, no controversy. contraception so there's no choice no but so all that that that bloody messy violent business

plays out in the same environment where we have this these masks and this court this idea of courtly love so superficial such tosh and often resulting in a woman dying in childbirth oh yeah but you're being very modern am i oh sorry you're being very very much not been accused of that all that often not lately well the the mask and the glamour and the guilt on the coffin this is exactly how the medieval world bears itself how it makes it

tolerable that you could be Queen of England with a cloak of ermine and the king's ransom on your head and fingers you could wear diamonds in your hair you have diamond buttons you have pearl stitched in your clothes your gown is so heavy with jewels

that you can barely stand up you have to have people either side of you're helping you to walk and the price you pay for that is that you are quite likely to die in childbirth and you will certainly have a horrendous time both trying to conceive and trying to give birth to any child that Henry might have. That's the deal.

I mean, it's a deal that women make these days when they go into marriages in which the profits are very, very clear and the disadvantages are very, very clear as well. Right. Effectively, the women that feature in this book, they were, would it be fair to say, were pimped out by their families, basically, to marry Henry?

Well, they know, and the families know, and everybody knows that they are a commodity. You know, women are owned by their fathers by law. So if you're a poor working woman, you could literally be harnessed to the plough if, you know, if the ox was ill that day. And that's fair enough. That's part of the culture of life. So if you're a noble woman, your job is to further your family's fortunes and destiny, and you know that's your job.

as if you were a boy like George Berlin, you would have to go into the diplomatic corps, you'd have to go abroad. If there was a war, you'd have to fight in the war. You have to be good at jousting, which is really, really dangerous. But it's just part of the How to Be a Noble Tudor. You say in this book that it was Henry's jousting accident. I wrote down the date of it. 1536. 1536, there we are. I've never that good with dates, which I had to write it down. You say it had a quite profound effect on him that he was never the same. afterwards. Now, sometimes people say, well, Philippa Gregory writes a cracking yarn, but I'd take issue with some of her facts. What is the truth about that? That's not my supposition. There's

actually a book by the historian Susanna Lipscomb called 1536, which says this is the benchmark in Henry's career. It's after the fall that he turns against Anne. The fall causes Anne's miscarriage. And his health certainly deteriorates dramatically. She miscarriage because of the stress of his fall? We don't know. I mean, she miscarriage. She blames it on the stress of his fall because that way she can sign it off to wifely devotion. Ah, okay. So it's more window dressing than medical fact. Of course, it's not medical fact. Right. But I know you always, at the end of the book, you include a list of sources and of recommended reading. You take the whole business of the history, very, very seriously. indeed. And I know there is a book about Jane Berlin that you used to research this novel.

Very much so. There's a very, very good biography by Julia Fox, which I depended on for the bones of Jane's story. So all of the facts, which always served to me as a sort of bus stop that I drive along. So all of the facts that are known are in the novel. But what the novel brings to it is the things that cannot be known. So lots and lots of private life. lots and lots of gaps when she simply drops from the historical record. We don't know what she's doing. The things that are absolutely secret and that I speculate she's doing

and in the novel, because I'm writing a novel, I write it as fiction, but I wouldn't stand behind it as a historian without saying, I think it's very likely that she's working for Thomas Cromwell for the reasons we describe. But there's no evidence for that because it's spy work, it's secret work.

There should be no evidence for it. Otherwise, she'd be useless at it. Otherwise, he would be useless at him, and he clearly wasn't that. No, he certainly wasn't that. Her life ends not that far from where we're sitting right now. And I've said this before, but the Tower of London, I don't know how people couldn't visit. I've been on a few school trips and other visits.

It's just a terrifying place. Maybe I've read too many of your books, but it's hideous, isn't it? It's an extraordinary place. I say hideous, you say extraordinary. Well, I was there at a reception late one night, and I was one of the last people to leave, and I walked past Tower Green where so many very fine women

were beheaded at Henry's request and I went if I'm ever going to see a ghost I'll see it now, I'm quite on my own and there's the green lit by moonlight and not a thing. I can't tell you how disappointed I was. Oh, I thought you were going to come up with something.

I know. I know, but I didn't. Okay, I really didn't. We should say, of course, that if anyone wondering, I'm thinking this is very... The Berlin family had a wretched time. everyone needs to keep in mind that the daughter of Anne Boleyn was Elizabeth I first

so in the end they had the last laugh It's a win. It's a massive win. It's a massive win. It's a massive win for the Bolins and of course Anne Boleyn's reputation has been rehabilitated to an extraordinary degree by all the Protestant and reformist and indeed Victorian historians who came after then. Philippa Gregory, with that anti-climactic anecdote about not feeling in any way spooked by the Tower of London.

Honestly, I was sitting back in my seat. thinking this is going to be amazing. She's going to tell me about a distant scream she heard. Whale. A whale. But no, she heard absolutely nothing. Oh, okay. Which was a bit of a letdown.

But anyway, we've left it in. Just to prove that we are, it was interesting yesterday. Alice Roberts is the, I think she's now honorary chair of the humanist society. She certainly is. So although she'd made a series of programs

about witches, she is absolutely She will not go near anything. No. Religious. And she told us that. In no uncertain terms, I am not superstitious, I do not believe. No, I was impressed by her. I mean, she was very clear, very clear about that.

So it is, it's just worth saying that lots of people think all this hocus pocus is a load of bollocks. And that it does include all kinds of religion, every single one of them. A lot of people think it's just tosh. And the whole spooky dokey thing is, it's a good experience. to make lots and lots of money. I mean, pumpkins, you cannot shift for them in my local supermarket already. I mean, honestly, I mean, have you ever, did you have fun with pumpkins when your kiddies were a bit younger? Definitely, definitely, yeah, but it's still annoys me and it will always annoy me that those same supermarkets are still selling the pumpkin carving pack,

which is a series of plastic utensils that you could not use, I mean, you wouldn't even be able to shape Le Mondege with them. They're not strong enough to carve with. They should be taken off the shells. They don't pass the trades description act. Just don't buy them. So that would be my one message that I would leave to the world. That never look under your children's bed.

That's a very important advice there. It changed me, Jay. Certainly agree with you on the last point. Right. Thank you very much for bearing with. And join us tomorrow. when we're going to be attempting something a little radical. It's quite ambitious, actually, isn't it?

Well, over to you. Well, we're doing our live Times radio show from the Cheltenham Literature Festival. We've been shown pictures of the new place that we will be broadcasting from. And it's not as bad as last year, where we did look like we were operating a help desk and a lot of people wanted to know what time Michael Rosen was on.

But we were actually trying to do some important news items because we're broadcast journalists. So that's from two and two. 3.30 and then we are going to run wear appropriate shoes from that area of the Cheltenham Literature Festival to the forum where we will take to the stage with our guest Penny, Panny, our guest Penny Lancaster and we will talk about her memoir from 3.30 until 4 o'clock and

and what? Well then we say goodbye to the live times radio audience and then at 4 o'clock it's just us and the audience. in Cheltenham talking to Penny and then we very much hope that we'll be able to put that out as a sort of seasonal gift to you a little bit later in the year. Yeah, it's a bit complicated.

What about tomorrow's podcast? What about tomorrow's podcast? Oh, Eve, yes. So tomorrow's podcast, Jane and I are going to record a special podcast in motion while we're on the train. I'm going to bring along my little Sony hip. I'll probably...

That's my stomach. God. I'm going to bring along my recorder Yes, that's not your recorder That's the recording equipment Yeah And we're going to record a little podcast You and I sitting in our seats

64 A and B I've made that up, don't come and find us And then we're going to send that back Here to Hannah who's going to edit it It's so complicated Yes well, God that was boring Okay, so let's hope that some of you If you are still conscious

You intend to listen to this Tomorrow I'm so, I just, I've just made myself so much more stressed by me to say. Yeah, it's like quite the shift we're going to put in tomorrow. Wasn't it just? Looking forward to it already. Congratulations. You've staggered somehow to the end of another Offair with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4 on Times Radio.

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