Woman's Hour - 05/09/2026

Episode Date: September 5, 2026

Highlights from the Woman's Hour week

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ad-free, with an Amazon music subscription. Hello, I'm Claire MacDonald, and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Coming up, we discussed the changes that have recently come into effect designed to keep babies and young children safe in nurseries in England. With Monday's programme devoted to women and water, we meet a former Royal Navy officer who now works as a marine pilot with the Port of London Authority.

We'll also hear from an NHS doctor and lifelong car enthusiast who's launched a mechanic school for women to help tackle the skills gap many experience when it comes to car maintenance. And also, why we need to give good quality clothes to charity shops. But first, the singer-songwriter and actress,

Natalie Imbrulia, first hit our screens in the early 90s, playing the role of Beth Brennan in the Australian social. neighbours. She moved to the UK and her 1997 debut single, Torn, quickly became a worldwide hit and was listed in the 50 Best Songs of the 90s by Rolling Stone magazine. Natalie has since received Grammy nominations and Brit Awards and has sold more than 10 million albums. This year, she's been gigging with Tom Jones and guest performing with Olivia Rodrigo. Nula asked her

about her new album, Algorithm, her first as an independent artist. I funded it myself. I co-wrote every song. I worked with incredible collaborators. I co-produced it. And I've even been making the videos on my iPhone. You know, I was just watching your video for the title track, for AlgoRhythm. And I was thinking, it's hypnotic.

It's almost like I'm scrolling on my phone at high speed, a little bit dystopian as well, I think. And I was looking at some of the lyrics. I mean, let's start with I am my algorithm. What are you thinking with that? It's actually, are you my algorithm? And Spotify guesses the lyrics. So we're trying to get that change. But it's are you my algorithm?

And that song is about my addiction to doom scrolling very late at night. And so the song is a little bit tongue in cheek, but opening the conversation about are you in charge of the Al Gore? Does the algorithm lead you? Like, whether it's in your life, in your personal self or on your phone, because I haven't changed any of my settings. And I just follow it down rabbit holes that I shouldn't. Because rabbit holes are in there. There was a lot, actually, that that struck me.

Like, how can you be in the zone when you're always on the telephone? You have, like, these images of people, which we see every day get on a bus or, you know, wherever you are. In the doctor's waiting room, people are just kind of zone. zoned out and zoned into their phone. I'm too lazy lately to do people. And that struck me that line as well because we have the story about young people being lonely and not having close friends, for example.

And it's kind of, I suppose, a reflection of these times we're living in. 100%. And I think because I'm such a victim of it, I wanted to open the conversation for my own medicine to go, you know, you can actually change the settings. You can put the phone outside of your room. And just to remind people you do have. have a say in the algorithm. You don't have to follow it blindly. So I just, for my own self,

want to be better with my time on the phone and the dark places it takes me. You know, you can type in cute kittens and that will come up on your phone. So you can actually affect the algorithm. It's like if you eat good food, you're changing the algorithm of your body, but we just don't do it. We get lazy. And we have a little kind of twisted fascination with the dark side. So sometimes, well, not all of us, but I do. Maybe that's the artist in me. But I'll see something like, oh, I shouldn't click on that on my phone and I'll click on it.

What is that? You know? So I think it's just interesting to be aware of our behaviours. I found the video really, because you have it kind of at fast speed, shall we say, going through. And there's one of Times Square, for example, with your image up there. But, you know, I was thinking as well, it's so off the moment, like it could be pulled from the headlines, let's say, with some of the lyrics that are there and also the images that are there. But looking back, then I was thinking with Tor,

there you were standing with your little hoodie. You know what I mean? In that video, I suppose, quite sparse or quite bare. And your thoughts, looking back on the music industry, you're a woman in your 50s now, and you've seen it all, I would imagine. Yeah, I think I've been really lucky to have had so much success on the first single I ever released.

I think I lived through a different era of the music industry where there was a lot of money and it was a lot more fun being, walking into my record label. I think slowly over time with streaming, things have turned much more like accountants where they have to prioritize who's getting the most streams, who's making the most money.

And, you know, they're a business. So I'm not even saying that as a negative, but for an artist, things have changed quite dramatically. So I'm trying to learn from the next generation how they're doing things. And I don't see anything. anything as a negative, it's just, you know, it's painful for us to let go of things, but I think we have to learn to embrace how things change.

I mean, music is forever, artists are forever, you can never replace the artistry and the thoughts and the imagination of an artist. And I think it's important to remember that. We are going to hear a clip of your new single, Just Drive, but tell me a little bit what people should be listening for. What is this song about? This song is actually about a breakup. This whole album happened at a time, coincided with me.

hitting perimenopause and being diagnosed with ADHD and trying to understand what was happening. So for about a year I was going, I didn't feel like myself. And I kept seeing this look on people's face. And they looked quite frightened. And I was like, it's happening. Why is everyone looking at me like this?

And so, yes, a lot of the songs are dealing with those issues. And in reference to this song, I had a breakup during that period of time. And it was partly because it's bad enough, me going through this. I didn't need to watch you watch me go through this. Sometimes when you love someone, you let them go. And so that's really what the song's about. And sometimes all that's left to do is not speak, just drive. So that's the... Yes, and having your freedom or their freedom in that way. Driving can solve a lot. Yes. What is it, I wonder? The movement, the motion,

the moving, the clear head. I've written songs driving. I think that's the ADHD. I was trying to rewrite a chorus for a particular song called Debbie that's on the album and my friend. Yes, we need to talk about Debbie. So my friend, I was like, that is a brilliant chorus. But the verse, I had like a Suzanne Vega verse and there's lots of speaking in it. And he's like, I feel like the chorus. So I decided I was going to write the verse over the chorus chords in the car. So my friend had my phone and I was driving and I'm able to catch melodies either driving or when I'm in a songwriting session, I walk around in circles, but I have to have movement. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's something about distracting yourself so you're not focusing too hard on what you're thinking that allows thoughts to wash over you or you process in a different way. It's like when you do yoga or exercise, people often run for their mental health. It's the same thing. I think it creates space for almost like the processing to be done without you getting in the way. Yeah, yeah. I find in the shower. Yeah.

It's often warm water. I'm going to watch that man right out of my hair. Exactly. For example. But let us talk about Debbie. It's a song reminding yourself not to be a Debbie Downer, which lots of people will be familiar with Debbie Downer. I think it probably started on Saturday Night Live,

like the woman who often sees the downside of everything. So I'm Debbie. Nice to meet you. Really? It's like a lullaby to myself. It's a song that's like telling myself it's going to be okay and don't look back, look forward. I think I was going through really tough time with my mental health.

And sometimes songwriting is my form of therapy and it was my way of kind of, yeah, I mean, I didn't literally sleep in my car. That's how the song starts. But it's just about, you know, your time is coming. Your time is coming. Sometimes you, in your darkest moments, All you can do is just like look forward and not look back.

And that's what it's about. Don't be a Debbie Downer. Don't be a day. Well, let us talk about, I suppose, maybe more visceral reactions, anger, rage. The track Who Dimmed the Lights can be full of both. And it is about perimenopause, I understand. And you want to speak out about it. That's right.

And that song was very much inspired by Bonnever and Taylor Swift's album folklore. Well, it's Taylor's album, but they did. a collaboration together and there's a song on there that really inspired it. So listening to the song for all the men out there, it doesn't say the word perimenopause. You're not going to listen to it and be, but it's who dimmed the lights, who stole the sound. And it's all about, you know, something's been taken away from me. And I had a glimmer of shame when I first hit perimenopause. And I was quite horrified by that. And I just, thought, where's that shame coming from?

Well, I was just about to ask you, where do you think it came from? Well, people hush you. It's something that could represent for a woman, the end of being able to bear children. So we have all these attachments, some that have been put on us by society, patriarchal society, you know. So I think it's happened over time, but change doesn't happen until people like Davina McCall open that door. and she was someone who I got a lot of information from watching her documentary. But I was horrified that I even had a glimmer of shame. And I'm quite rebellious in that sense where I was like, I'm going to speak about it. And I didn't want it to be something.

I had certain women hush me if I tried to talk about it in front of a man. And I thought, you know, this is a mental health issue. This is not something. Every single woman goes through this, possibly for 12 years. So it's not a short-term thing. It's not about menopause, but perimenopause is the 12 years before menopause, that all 30 symptoms can happen. Natalie and Brulia on her latest album algorithm

and her single Just Drive is out now. Now, whilst the majority of nurseries across England are extremely safe, there have been some highly distressing cases reaching the headlines in recent years where children have been abused or come to harm. In 2022, nine-month-old, Jennifer. Eve Meehan died after being restrained face down on a beanbag at a nursery while she slept. And Noah Sibanda was 14 months old when he died.

CCTV later revealed that he'd been put down to sleep in an unsafe way. This year, Nathan Bennett, a childcare worker at a nursery in Bristol, was convicted of sexually abusing children as young as two and three years old and sentenced to 30 years in prison. From the beginning of September, strengthened wealth. and safeguarding requirements under the Department of Education's early years foundation stage framework have come into effect for early years providers in England designed to keep babies and young children safe. Also from this month, following £8 million of government funding, Offsted will undertake an extra 3,000 unannounced visits each year in England.

To discuss what all of this might mean for both nursery providers and families, I spoke to Jonathan Broadbury, Director of Policy and Communications at the National Day Nurseries Association, which is a national charity representing selected children's nurseries across the UK, and also Zoe Raven, chief executive of ACON early years

with 18 nurseries in the South Midlands. One of the changes is that babies under 12 months should now routinely sleep in cots rather than in alternative sleep equipment. So what does Zoe think of the changes? I've been working in early as for 37 years, so I've seen a lot of changes. We used to have unannounced inspections, so that isn't a problem to have an announced inspections. My problem is the changes, there's only one, and that is the stipulation that babies under 12 months have to sleep in a cot.

Now, times have moved on. Once upon a time, we all had cots. A lot of us had sleep rooms. We don't tend to have sleep rooms anymore because we want children to be supervised and visible and heard. checked very regularly, they're never left on their own. And in terms of safeguarding, going back to those horrific stories, it's all about developing a safeguarding culture and working practices where nobody is working alone working. CCTV isn't the answer. It's a post-mortem exercise really, although I could talk to you more about CCTV, but in terms of sleep, this stipulation that you can't put babies in what we use at the moment, which are, well, we have been using for, and

12 months. They're called coracles. There's various other names, but they're mainly baby coracles. They're like low floor beds with solid sides, but they are designed for nursery use for, I mean, most babies don't come to nursery until they're nine months old now because that's when the funding kicks in. That's where the biggest demand is. But now those nine months old are going to have to go in a cot, even though some of them will never have slept in a cot at home. So that's going to freak them. Okay, let me interject. I mean, what we've been here. hearing about, though, in light of the deaths of 14-month-old Noah Shibanda and nine-month-old Genevieve, Meehan, tragically died at their respective nurseries due to extremely unsafe sleeping

practices. What else could the government do? Well, those have already been outlawed. So we were already not allowed to use beanbacks. I mean, there's a very clear stipulation about the bedding needing to be flat, the cot sheet needs to be tight, you know, there's all those things have already been in place. And the corocalls have been in place since 2012. And just to say, to people, these are wooden, stackable sleep pods. So people who haven't heard that word before. Yeah, sleep pods. Yeah, sleep pods. They're low floor beds.

They're counter's floor beds. And the bizarre thing is they're saying you've got to use cots. But their definition of cots, travel cots, carry cots and moses baskets, which is ludicrous because carry cots and moses baskets are not designed for the aged children. We're looking after. We're looking after children mostly from nine months.

And one of the lovely things about the coracles is that the babies, they can show they want to sleep, they can't communicate verbally. So what they often do is, well, they will crawl into a coracle to show that they're tired and ready for asleep. The other lovely thing about them is you can take them outside. We do a lot of outside sleeping.

And to take up lots and lots of space for cots, which are not in the best interest with children, is a big wrong step, in my opinion. Having said that, I don't want to make it sound like I'm against any. Okay, yeah, because I'm obviously, you're pro-safety, and this is what the measures are about. I do understand the practicalities.

Jonathan, let's bring you in. Is it possible, then, with this changes to sleep practice, that nurseries will have to restrict the number of places they can offer, babies under 12 months? Yeah, it is possible. I think Zoe kind of touched on the difference that you would see between the smaller sleep beds that would be just on the floor versus I think everybody knows the sort of size of a cot and a travel cot.

So that takes up a lot more floor space. And the EYFS also regulates the amount of floor space that's necessary for children of certain ages. So I think one of the practical concerns for nurseries about this move is if they're moving from these things with the smaller footprint that can be cleared away so that children have lots of space to play and learn when they're not sleeping. then there is a practical consideration about capacity. We've spoken to a number of providers who've said, well, they might now have to take the decision of not taking babies from nine months, as Zoe said, and actually waiting until they turn 12 months, at which point they can use floor mats or the coracle beds

that have been described as well for those sleep spaces. So that is a consideration for providers. but I think as Zoe was saying, everybody wants to see whatever works to keep children safer, but there's just those questions. Well, let's move on because a lot of ground to cover here. Zoe, the new framework updated to prevent new employees from commencing employment before receiving their DBS check,

their full DBS check. Is that a good thing? Well, yes and no. Obviously it's a good thing that people need to be fully DBS cleared. There is that slight problem in that people sometimes get stuck at stage. for and at the moment we were allowed to have them under supervision, which means close supervision. They're not ever left on their own and now we're not allowed to. So somebody will have to now, what they'll probably do is they will wait to hand in their

notice at their previous job before they hands in their notice. They're wait to get their DVS clearance. So it's going to slow down recruitment, which is going to be a problem. I mean, it's not a huge problem. Mostly, DBS clearances get through in time. and we have to get references and other things as well. But what I'd like to say is that having a DBS clearance is not a guarantee that somebody is safe to work with children.

What's really important is the safeguarding culture. Yes, the DBS is important, but that's like having a driving test before you go on the roads. It's not a guarantee you're not going to be an unsafe driver. Let's just put that. I think the point you're raising, Jonathan, this BBC investigation in recent months, revealed that Christian Parry,

who was a nursery worker in Leeds, was arrested for downloading in decent images of children. yet was able to get another childcare job. Now, his arrest was not reflected in the DBS update system because that only searches for pre-conviction information every nine months, leaving potential employers unaware. He's now in jail, but I guess the question is, the people listening to this is how fit for purpose

is the DBS check system in your opinion? Well, that is a crucial question because obviously nurseries have their own policies and procedures, but they are also reliant on the network of support around them. And one of those things are the, you know, the DBS checks. And yet it's a worrying situation that somebody who is out on police bail with a condition attached to that bail that they not work with children, that somehow that information did not come out of a DBS check

using what's called the update service. So the update service is supposed to be instant, information for those people who are registered on it so that employers know straight away what is on that person's record. The fact that crucial information is not coming up through that we're actually advising providers at the moment until we see changes and reassurances around the DBS update service that actually they do need to go through the full check. Now that takes time. It costs more money but that's the way that you make sure you've got the most accurate information. Let's move on to CCTV. Zoe, the use of CCTV in nursery settings,

currently under review by the government. CCTV footage has been used to identify serious harm, which has taken place in nurseries. It's secured convictions. I understand you were initially against usage of CCTV in settings, but you've changed your mind. Why? Yeah, the first 30 years of running nurseries, I was absolutely adamant. No, no, don't want CCTV in my nurseries, because I felt it undermined staff professionalism and trust in them. And I didn't want managers sat in offices looking at screens. I want them in the rooms, in and out of the rooms, to see practice for themselves. Then we thought we'd trial it because one of the things with all these awful stories

is that I have to satisfy myself, think, how can I be certain that one of those awful stories couldn't happen in one of my nurseries? I've got a board of trustees who are similarly anxious to be reassured. that nothing like that could happen. Now, as we've heard, some of those awful cases, they've had CCTV. It hasn't prevented those things happening. But I'm an absolute convert now because in the first week that we trialed it in one nursery, a child had a feebrile convulsion, which we were then able to review the footage of what led up to it,

how the child was, how long it lasted, all that stuff, which was very reassuring for the parents to view and for us to view and review. We've also had cases where there's been, because we do have a very strong safeguarding culture and strong whistleblowing culture that I check with every individual member staff and we've got over 550 as part of their induction, how would they whistleblow, what circumstances,

what would they do if it was the manager, somebody senior, even me. I quiz them about that to make sure that I know they understand whistleblowing. So we do get accusations about, oh, this person grabbed a child. But in these cases now, we can review the CCTV to say, well, did they or were they grabbing the child because that child was about to bite another child or whack another child? So, you know, you can see the circumstances in which those things happen. And we did have a really worrying case where a child has an injury which could have been suspicious. But we were able to review the CCTV for the whole day. Every happy change, the child didn't cry.

She was happy. And then later on in the day, slipped on a bike. and had a straddle injury. You know, she fell on the bar of the bike. And that sort of, nobody'd noticed that because she hadn't cried or anything like that. But on the CCTV, we're able to see exactly what had happened. And that that was the likely cause of bruising. So very useful.

Let me just put this back to Jonathan. There is an argument, Jonathan, that it doesn't get to the root of the problem, as we've already heard from Zoe, but she's outlined why she thinks it's strong, a strong tool to have in your armoury. What about the right? it's of privacy for the children or the staff in these settings. Would you say the overall safety of children just outweighs

all of that? Well, I think the important thing that you've just said there is that CCTV is a tool so it's not a silver bullet that will fix everything. It can be a very useful tool as part of that wider safeguarding

culture that needs to happen. And if other things aren't working well around that, then the CCTV as we've seen tragically in some of those those cases that were mentioned, it shows what had happened, but it didn't prevent it from happening. And that's actually the culture in a nursery that can do that with or without CCTV. You asked about privacy. I think it does throw up one really challenging aspect for nurseries,

which is parents can make then under data protection laws, they can make a subject access request because CCTV is gathering data on their children. but then obviously it's also gathering a lot of data on other children so it can be a really practical headache for nurseries about how you then can share images whilst not infringing on the privacy and the rights of other children that will be in that footage. So it is a practical headache but these are things that people are working through to try and resolve because people do recognise that it can be a really important tool

but we would say it's not the be-all and end-all and actually culture rather than cameras is what is critical for keeping children safe. Jonathan Broadbury and Zoe Raven there. It is important to stress that the vast majority of early years settings are very safe, happy environments. A spokesperson from the Department of Education said this, nothing is more important than the safety and well-being of our children. The vast majority of early years providers do a fantastic job. But we've strengthened the Early Years Foundation State.

framework to ensure consistently high standards across the country and give parents confidence that children are safe, well cared for and getting the best possible start in life. And just to say, the manufacturers of dream coracles, those stackable cots, have given us this statement. The company is called Community Playthings and they say, we support the effort to promote safer sleep. Good nurseries want sleep products that were specifically designed for use in the early years environment. Over 3,000 settings have been using the dream coracle without any reported

safety incidents and three independent product testing companies have confirmed it is safe for babies over six months old. So if you want to listen to that item in full, which includes our interview with the BBC's investigation team reporter Haley Hassel, you can listen back to Woman's Hour, the episode on Thursday the 3rd of September. It's on BBC Sounds. Divorced, Beheaded Died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Words familiar to most of us and maybe what you learned at school. But what do we really know in depth about Henry the 8th's wives? Well, there's a campaign to make sure that children learn an awful lot more about the queens than those six words.

And Nula asked Tracy Borman, chief historian at the Historic Royal Pallises about the campaign. Historic Royal Pallises is launching a campaign to teach the six queens differently. And you're quite right. That rhyme is how most people know the six wives of Henry the Eighth. And they're called six wives more than six queens. But what we want to do at the palaces is to put the spotlight on these six extraordinary women and really explore their lives in their own right, not just their marriage to Henry the Eighth, which of course, that was a significant part of many of the Queen's lives, but not the only part. And what we want is to really bring their personalities to the four, their achievements. And I'm thinking of the likes of Anne Berlin, arguably the most famous of the six queens today. She was a radical religious reformer. And arguably there wouldn't have been the Reformation, or at least not in the same way, without Anne Berlin.

And she inspired her daughter Elizabeth. And yet we've become just fixated with her love affair with Henry and the tragic end to that at the Tower of London. So that's just one example, but there are so many rich stories that we're hoping to bring forward. Because it's often their demise that people hear about instead of their lives. What do you, your campaign I know will highlight the queens, we shan't say wives, which is like queens as diplomat, scholars, political operators and survivors. What do you think when you take a look at them as a whole, what it tells us about the power that women could exercise in Tudor England and perhaps also the limitations?

Yeah, well, what's become really clear from the research we've done is just the extent of the power. And taking, for example, Catherine of Aragon, who is often seen just as, you know, rejected wife, the first divorce. But actually she was a regent. She was a diplomat. She led an army when she was pregnant. This was a formidable woman. And she's by no means alone. When you look at the other five queens, they all have quite remarkable, very different histories. And it's not just about comparing them, although that's always tempting, but really looking at them individually. They're six very, very different women.

And they all left their mark on English history. And on the palaces at the Tower of London, Hampton Court, where I'm looking enough to work. We're walking the footsteps of the six queens every single day. So it's wonderful to be able to tell stories that people might not be so aware of as opposed to. to just the way in which their marriage to Henry VIII ended. Now, you're working with schools on this project.

I'm curious how the children respond when they're introduced really to these women as complex individuals instead of one of the wives. Yes, exactly. And we've got a whole range of new resources for schools, you know, teacher packs. We've filmed videos with the cast of Six, the Musical. Oh, yeah.

Six of, you know, they really blazed a trail with this and put the focus very firmly on the women. And as a super fan, I've seen it 12 times. I can tell you that it's going on. Hang on a second. Hang on, Tracy. We need to talk about that. You've seen it 12 times. I realize I'm addicted. But do you get something different from it each time? What draws you back? I just love it. And the cast changes. I find something different from it each time. And that's, you know, it's been wonderful to collaborate with six. So children, when they visit the historic royal palaces, website, they're going to be able to see videos. I'm talking to each of the six queens and in rooms

across Hampton Courts and exploring their individual stories. So that's been a wonderful collaboration that's part of this campaign. You mentioned Catherine Varegon. You mentioned Anne Boleyn. Is there another queen that you think history is really misunderstood? Yes. And my own personal favourite is Anne of Cleaves. So her marriage to Henry comprised only six months of her life. You know, this is a woman who lived into her 40s. Quite extraordinary, again, just seen as the rejected ugly wife and nothing else to her. I think we should be talking about her as the most successful of the six queens because she negotiated an extraordinary divorce settlement, five palaces, £20,000 a year, royal status. And she enjoyed that rare

privilege of living as an independent, very wealthy woman long after her marriage to Henry the 8th. You mentioned she lived into her 40s and obviously with some of these wives, their lives ended before they should have. But how long could a woman expect to live at those times? So the average life expectancy for a Tudor woman was 35, but that was skewed by high infant mortality. And obviously for a woman, the greatest peril, was childbirth and that accounted for a huge amount of early deaths in this period, which I guess is understandable and was certainly, you know, you look back at the history of the six queens and they had a difficult experience when it came to producing the all-important male heir and suffered

miscarriages, stillbirths. And in the case of the last Queen Catherine Parr, she died in childbirth, although not from her marriage to Henry VIII. He was just her third of four husbands. Tracy Borman from historic Royal Palaces talking to... Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service, Odu gives you one place to manage your business.

Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's ODbolo.com. Get more with BBC Podcasts, wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows, like evil genius, good, bad billionaire, and You're Dead to Me, with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon music subscription. Blu-la.

Still to come on the program, car maintenance. skills for women by women. And remember, you can enjoy Women's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10 a.m. during the week, just subscribe to the daily podcast for free via BBC Sounds. More than 8 billion items of clothing are produced around the world every year. And now, human-made materials outweigh all living biomass on Earth. But what happens to all those clothes when we've finished with them. Well, journalist and sustainable fashion expert, Tansi Hoskins, has spent more than a decade

investigating how clothes are made from garment factories to global supply chains. In her new book, Charity Shop World, she turns her attention to the other end of the supply chain. After spending 16 months volunteering in a charity shop, she's uncovered the hidden stories behind our unwanted clothes and what our donations reveal about us, our shopping habits,

and the fashion industry. I asked Hansi about the book. Charity Shop is a book about expulsion. It's about us expelling the clothes that we no longer want out of our houses, giving them to the charity shop, and then the charity shop expelling them out the back and then them going into these so-called textile recycling vans and then being expelled to countries like Ghana and Kenya and Pakistan

and then becoming a massive social and environmental hazard over there. So we think we're in a kind of pre-lislegged. virtuous circle, but that's not always the case, is it? When we donate to charity shops. Yeah, I mean, I think we donate to charity shops because we love the charities that, you know, that are running the shops. And we hope that we're doing something good

and we hope that clothes are going to the people who need them. But the reality is very different in a lot of cases. If a garment can't be sold in a charity shop, then it is exported. And I mean, yes, one of the countries where loads of stuff ends up from the UK is Ghana. And, well, the figures are a bit controversial,

but millions and millions of the pieces of clothing that arrive in Ghana are not sellable there either by the market traders. You know, if something's not a nice item in the UK, it doesn't become a nice item on the boat over to Ghana. So it's waste over there. It ends up in informal dumping sites, tumbles into rivers, ends up in the sea,

is burnt as fuel and stuff, all goes into landfill and becomes a big methane, bubble and then catches fire. So it's not what we want. Not a good story. No, it's not. You call this waste colonialism and you tie it back in with the colonialism, if you will, of the industrial revolution and the cotton trade that, you know, we started. So tell us about that, because maybe a lot of people don't really understand how that shaped where we are today. And we've kind of gone full circle, haven't we? Yes. Yeah. So it's just really interesting looking at the supply chain of a piece of clothing.

You know, typically, like, our clothes are being made in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, you know, places where there was a very destructive colonial occupation and relationships. So we're following the same, you know, British, European, American companies are following those same trade routes. And then, you know, once the stuff is over here and once it's been used and it's no longer wanted and it's waste, then it goes back on those same trade routes, you know, and goes back to Pakistan or over the. to the continent of Africa and ends up as a problem in Kenya or Ghana. And the irony being, we as a country, kind of decimated the domestic cotton trade or garment, if you will, fabric trade in India. And then we've now farmed out our production to these countries so that we can buy it in cheaper. Yes. Yeah. And when you look at the amount of, like the resources that we're taking, you know, from those countries, I mean, I did a bit of work a while ago.

We figured out that it takes 4.5 million years worth of human time to make all the clothes that are imported into the EU in a single year. So 4.5 million years of human time every single year just to make the clothes that we're wearing. And then, you know, we don't even value them that much. We then just like toss them out when we've worn them. There's this phrase, isn't there? built-in obsolescence, which we have, we can apply to tech.

But you make the argument, the stuff that you went through in your local charity shop, it's not built to last, is it? Which is why people get rid of it. Yeah, this is one of the things that really broke my heart is like, you know, we would get things donated, it were new items, they had the label on. But, you know, the seams were split already. The fabric was see-through. And it's a deliberate policy of, you know, these giant multinational,

fashion brands are deliberately making our clothes worse and worse. So, you know, there is a sense people sort of say, oh, charity shops are getting worse. And the part of the problem is the volume of clothing that's being donated is the same. But the quality has tailed off. So charity shops are just being used like a dump, you know, for like ultra fast fashion and these, you know, this stuff that, you know, it's broken by the time it reaches you or by the time you've worn it once. Yeah, it doesn't last.

You also don't like how charity shops are kind of thrown in this basket of declining high streets. You know, if a high street has vapes shops and charity shops, well, it's game over. Tell us why that leaves you uncomfortable. And you don't think it's the reality, do you? No, I don't. I think charity shops are in a really important part of our high streets, a really important part of our communities, especially in the climate of austerity. These are places where people are coming together.

and finding their way through the cost of living crisis. You know, lots of people who are, you know, maybe older women who've retired and are bored out their minds and they want, you know, somewhere to go and to be part of their community. They think they're really important places. And I think charity shops get blamed for an awful lot when actually what they're doing is clearing up the waste of our communities. And they might not be doing it perfectly.

And we need to fix the model a bit. But this is still, you know, like, groups of volunteers tidying up after our community and our consumer society. And you saw the human connection that is really important, people coming in, the one conversation they have all day might be in that charity shop. Yeah, I was taught from the get-go, you know, anyone who comes in, we say hello to them, because that might be the only conversation that they have. You know, in the winter, it was very obvious that people were using the shop as a warm space,

you know, because it's warm and welcoming. You can take your time. You can browse. And so, yeah, it was really important to the managers of that shop that it was a welcoming place and a hub for that community. You say, like, you could take charity shops and use that as a starting point for us to all rethink how we consume and put that at the centre of the high street. So explain that to us.

I think a lot of people think that there is a laundry attached to charity shops. There's no laundry attached. to any charity shop. So I think if I was changing the model, I would have, you know, the charity shop in the middle, you'd have like a community laundry on one side and 100% a repair, like a repair cafe, a permanent repair workshop so that we could increase the percentage of things that get donated and that stay in our communities. Because these are, you know, these are our resources and, you know, we can take care of them here. You mentioned this in the book as well. The money stays in the community, isn't it?

Yes. Yeah. And we fix our problems here. We don't export the waste to become a problem in Kenya or in Ghana where there's no infrastructure to set up to deal with the volume of stuff that's coming in. So your message to people listening to this, and I tell you something your book really made me think, start with what you buy. Would that be it?

Yes, I think we definitely can all assess our own consumption habits and think about our consumption habits and think whether we want to be giving more money to billionaires so they can buy another super yacht or if we want to do something different. I also think we should look at our expulsion habits and think about how much we are giving to the charity shop and what we're giving and make a pledge to donate more responsibly and make sure we're giving nice things to the charity shop

and not just selling them online. I think would, yeah, would be very helpful for all charity shops. author Tansi Hoskins. Monday's programme was devoted to women and water and the many different ways it shapes and inspires our lives. We started the programme with a woman on a ladder. Her name is Ivana Maria Carrioni Burnett. She's a marine pilot navigating visiting vessels

into the port of London and she's arriving at work hanging off the side of a ship. So the first two steps you get up as quickly as possible and then sort of settle yourself down and then start climbing the ladder. This ship is a tanker, it's carrying gasoline, and it's about 144 metres long, so we're talking about one and a half football pitches

with a draft of nearly nine metres. And there is absolutely nothing on my mind except my next handhold, one handhold at a time, until I get to the top. Once I'm on the deck, I usually give a little wave back down to the pilot boat to say, look, I'm on safely. Off you go.

I arrive on the bridge and I met first by the captain and then usually the next question is to your coffee pilot, which is very welcome, especially in the middle of the night. Once we've gone through the master pilot exchange and I'm happy with everything, I will then ask the captain if I can take conduct of navigation. So I just asked the captain I'm going to take conduct of navigation now and it's as simple as that.

London VTS, London VTS, the specified harbour fountain. Good morning, over. Specified harbour fountain, London Viches, good morning. Okay, so I'm now on board the ship. I make my first call to London vessel traffic services. I'm entering their area and they need to know some information about my arrival. Would you at Gravesend at 1300

I have to use the word specified to prefix the name of the ship because this tanker is carrying gasoline and it just means that other vessels need to keep a certain distance away from me. So we're now in the river and we are a few miles away from the berth. I've made contact with the tug and I'm going to then relay my plan to him. Once we're past the broadness boy and before the birth, intention is to swing to port, pin the bow with the bow thruster. This is really important that the Tugmaster and the pilot both have a shared understanding of how the manoeuvre is going to progress. So I've passed all my arrival information on the radio.

We're well on our way and making good speed towards the birth and I've been provided by. I've been provided with my much-needed coffee. Ivana later joined us in the Woman's Hour studio, and Nula asked her about the role of a marine pilot. We are local area experts, so you can imagine that ships all around the world go into lots of different ports, and the master and the crew can't be expected to know in detail every single one.

So we go on board as the local experts. We know all about the depths of the water, the births and especially the tidal streams that we can expect. And they're quite complex, as you can imagine, on the Thames. Yes, absolutely. We begin to get a taster of it from being at work with you for a few minutes. Help us understand, however, the scale of the task that you often have ahead of you. You're manoeuvring, I understand, a vessel that could be the size of a football pitch

or even several pitches. Yes, that's correct. That's length. And then they've also got a draft. which is the depth of the ship underneath the water. And I do up to 9, 10, 11 metre draft. And we can actually get up to 16, 17 metre draft into the Thames. You're basically working with a captain and crew that you may never have met before.

You're kind of parachuted in, so to speak. You're, I suppose, sailed in to take over. I imagine people are happy to see you, but how do you build trust? You're just immediately building that trust through an exchange of information. So I tell them all the safety information they need to know for the passage and the manoeuvre. And they provide me all the information they can about the ship. How do gender dynamics play out in those situations, I wonder, because you're dealing with people from all over the world with different cultures around.

Gender, for example, or perhaps different roles for women in society? It's a great question. And it's one of the things I love about the job is that we get to make people from all around the world. culture often plays a bigger factor than gender. Is anyone surprised when they see a woman pop up as their pilot? Sometimes, many years ago, I did have one captain say, oh, I should have shaved when he saw me, which I found very amusing. I don't know how that made any difference.

Are there many women doing what you do? Not at all. There are around maybe over two and a half million seafarers in commercial shipping around the world. and the statistics are around 2 or 3%, some even as low as 1 and a half percent. So, yeah, there aren't many of us at all. So you are exceptional.

How does that sit with you? It's something that I'm actually really comfortable with because I understand the importance of that representation and that visibility. I was once on board a tanker, and there was a woman cadet, and she was so thrilled to see me, and it made me realize how important it is to,

maintain that presence online through my socials. Oh, yeah. And also, you know, just engaging with them and encouraging them. And that kind of, if you can see it, you can be it. But it is just from the little that I'm learning about it, it could be an incredibly stressful job. I'm just wondering, it sounds to me like you take it all in your strive, but do you have tricks, tips for yourself

when you're working on something that could be, I don't know, just this huge endeavour? So obviously, coming from the military. Being calm under pressure is something that is almost innate to me now. And it's really important that I project a sense of calm and control to the captains because I don't want them to pick up on any nervousness. And I want to try and keep them calm and show them that this is eminently possible, even in difficult conditions.

But I've got my own towels. There's always a radio to hold on to speak to the linesman or the tug, and I grip that. I try not to chew the rubber end of the antenna. And I'm sometimes got my hand in my pocket fiddling with a piece of lint. So nothing anyone will ever notice. But I am struck that you're working with something that is so industrial, yet what you love about it is nature, for example.

It's kind of a paradox in some ways. Absolutely. Yes, that's a funny way to look at it. But it's the best way that I can get to see. and yet spend time at home with my family as well. Marine pilot, Ivana Maria Carrioni Burnett. And if you want to listen to that program in full, you can head to BBC Sounds,

and that episode is from Monday the 31st of August. Now, for many of us, opening up the bonnet of a car can be somewhat daunting. How would you feel about checking the oil or jump-starting a flat battery? Maybe you are self-taught, or maybe you had someone in your life who passed on those valuable skills.

Too many women haven't been taught those skills, according to Dr Louise Wilcott, an NHS doctor and lifelong car enthusiast who recently launched a business called the Women's Auto Academy, running women-only workshops, teaching basic car maintenance. I spoke to Louise and also Maria McCarthy, a motoring journalist and contributing editor for online car marketplace car wow.

And I started by asking Maria whether these skills just don't get passed on to girls in families. That's right. I think what can often happen is you end up in a situation where a man might look at his children and think, well, I need to teach my son about how to care for his car. But with his daughter, you'll think, I'll do it. I'll change her oil.

You know, I'll help her. And he thinks in the moment that he's being a good dad. But in actual fact, it's far better to empower children and to give them those essential skills. And I think another thing is that often fathers might not even know those skills themselves these days. Because when I was young, there were an awful lot of men working in manufacturing. They were quite practical. Whereas now we're in a situation where we've got more service jobs.

So, you know, you might not have those skills yourself even to pass on. And also the technology in cars now very often doesn't require you to know that. That's right. I mean, you can look under the bonnet. And years ago, you know, you'd sort of see where somebody would sort of get in there with the spanners, you know. Whereas now an awful lot of is sealed off. But there is so much a case for being able to deal with it because there are things you can do and that you should do.

Like, you know, check the various levels, such as wind stream wipers and so forth, check your oil. So, you know, although cars have change, it's still really important to have those skills. Louise, you decided to set up women-only workshops. What was the inspiration for that? I think it was having been working on cars myself for years and years. I'm always the person that people call if they get in trouble. They get stuck, they break down.

It's often me that they call and I go out to help them. And I kind of realised how many women don't know the basics. And last year, my best friend, Sophie, rang me, she was trying to put air in her tyres and she accidentally let all of the air out of her tires. And I kind of realised, okay, there's definitely a knowledge gap here. where people just don't get taught these things. I mean, don't get taught these things, like you say. And I thought, well, I'm going to do something about it.

And I know another really sad tale I'm reading that a friend of you rang you in tears because her dad had died, and it was always her dad that she would ring to ask for advice when she was in a bit of a fix. Yeah, and I think a lot of people can relate to that where, you know, they call their dad or their partner or their brother or whoever it is for advice. But what if that person's not available or they do unfortunately pass away or something like that. And then you're stuffed and you're in such a vulnerable position as a woman.

You know, if you're sat at the side of the road and you're stuck, it is a very vulnerable position to be in and it can be really scary. Yeah. What are you offering then? Is it the basics? Is it something more advanced? What's on the menu? Well, I'm trying to steer away from saying basics because it's actually not basic.

If nobody's ever taught you, it's not basic at all. But it's everyday stuff. So all of the everyday maintenance that everybody should be doing to increase the lifespan of their car. And then also the kind of emergency breakdown stuff. So changing a wheel, repairing a puncture, jump-starting a flat battery, all of those kind of car first aid things, if you like. Yeah.

Let's talk about reactions to women in the industry. Maria, having a bit of knowledge, even going into a garage, I guess, puts you on the front foot, doesn't it? Because a lot of women listening to this, myself included, going into garages, you sometimes think, am I being taken for a bit of a ride here? And maybe that's my fault, because I don't have enough understanding. understanding our knowledge, but it's empowering, isn't it, to know more? Exactly. I think a lot of the time it can feel like you're going into like

Mordor or something going into a garage. It can feel quite daunting. So I think there's two steps really. One is be prepared before you even step foot across the threshold. You know, do some research about the garage. Has it got good reviews and so forth? Ask around among friends who are local. One of the problems of the garage industry is that there isn't unfortunately an overwhelming trade body, a unique trade body. that people can sign up to. There's lots of little trade bodies. So see if they've signed up to one

and if it's affiliated with the Trading Standards Association, because that will help as well. And then when you actually get there, be confident. You know, you have every right to be there. You know, lots of us have to be environments which aren't very familiar to us. And, you know, explain what's wrong with your car.

And I think one of the really useful things to do is you need to get quotes for any work, you need to get it in writing, and you need to make sure it include the VAT and ask them to explain things to you about your car. And if they are open and friendly and happy to chat, that's a really good side. If they're a bit sort of like, you know, oh well, you know, you know, that's all a bit complicated. Don't worry your head. Then that is a bit of a sort of a garage equivalent to a red flag. Yeah. Because I think in the motoring industry,

you know, as women, it is important that whether it's like, you know, car dealerships or, you know, garages that they are willing to be open to women and to make them feel comfortable. I mean, research by Carwai showed that, you know, six in ten women feel that they are discriminated against in a car room situation. It's more angled towards men. So I think that, you know, by willing to take up space and to ask questions and to walk away from places that don't treat you with respect, that's one of the way we can improve the garage situation. Final word to you, Louise, the courses that you run so far, I know it's a new thing, but are you

finding women are rolling up their sleeves, loving it, throwing themselves into it? Absolutely. I've been blown away by how everybody wants to get so stuck in on the workshops, but also at the end of the day, every single time people are saying, well, what's next? What's the next step? What can I do? Can you teach me how to change my breaks? Can you teach me how to do a service? And all of these extra things, when they started the day, with no knowledge whatsoever about anything to do with the car. And it just goes to show that, like, these things are for women, you know, the stereotype. is that it's for men

and that that's a man's job but it's just not the case because as soon as these women are getting stuck in on my workshops, they want more and they want to be more independent and more self-sufficient with it. Dr Louise Wilcott and Maria McCarthy from Car Wow. And that's it from Weekend,

Women's Hour. Thank you for your company. On Monday's program in a new series, we will speak to women about the impact of having an absent father. The phrase, daddy issues, is often bandied about, but The reality behind it is often deeply complex, and we will hear Julie's story. That's Women's Hour from 10, join Nula on Monday.

That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. A new series of rarely heard tales from World War II. This was a suicide mission deep into enemy territory. This was a crazy mission. And by goodness gracious me, these men had guts. I'm Helen Le Bonn-Carter, and for BBC Radio 4, this is History. Secret Heroes.

Anyone who crossed the threshold was immediately entranced by her. She was very sexy. She was obviously close to power. Listen first to History's Secret Heroes on BBC Sounds. Get more with BBC podcasts, wherever you listen.

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