Woman's Hour - 12/08/2025

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.

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BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Neula McGovern, and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome. Punched, spat at, pinned up against a wall, threatened with a gun and acid. These are just some of the attacks on A&E nurses over the past six years, according to the Royal College of Nursing. Attacks have doubled over the past six years. We're going to hear from the RCN in general.

a few minutes. Also today, Emma Hulton will make the case for how she thinks feminist economics can change the world. Her book deficit is so thought-provoking, not least on what is paid for and what is not in society. Where does value lie and why? Now, sometimes it is not the work that keeps people happy and healthy, and that is often, as we know, done by women. This morning, I'd like to hear from you on what work you do that is unpaid but should be valued or indeed paid. Here's a little

from the Woman's Hour office. Being a strong shoulder for people to cry on like an unpaid therapist. Always knowing where the kids' sports kits are. Being the only one who cleans the cat bowls. Okay, what is it for you? Add yours. You can text

the program. The number's 84844 on social media where at BBC Women's Hour or you can email us through our website for a WhatsApp message or voice note. That number, 0300, 100444. Now, someone who valued women's work was technology pioneer, Dame Stephanie Shirley, who has died at the age of 91. She created a workplace that she wanted to work in, hiring all women coders who worked from home ages before anybody was thinking about flexible working. We're going to hear a little off her interview from Woman's Hour

back in 2020. We also want to ask this question. Did Queen Victoria marry her Highland servant John Brown? And did she have a child with him? Could that possibly be true? Well, the historian Dr. Fern Riddell thinks so and we will hear why as she joins me this hour. We'll also meet Jas Turner, who wanted to be the first wheelchair

user to complete a solo, non-stop, unassisted circumnavigation of the UK and Ireland in a sailing boat and she's only gone and done it. We'll hear how. But let me turn to nurses who are facing abhorrent levels of violence in accident and emergency departments according to the Royal College of Nursing. Their freedom of information requests to NHS hospitals found rising rates of violence towards staff including as I mentioned being punched spat on even threatened with acid or guns and they say more needs to be done to protect their staff. I'm joined by Orsian chief executive and general secretary, Professor Nicola Ranger in studio.

Good morning and welcome. Thank you very much. So I mentioned briefly there some of the incidences. What else do our listeners need to know? I think the alarming rate and the change of how normalised these attacks have become. When I first started nursing many years ago, you of course always had patients that maybe didn't have capacity. They didn't, they were unwell, didn't always know what they were doing. But nowadays, the attacks on nursing staff primarily from the average person is a real shock. And I think it's that the scale and the intensity

and the frequency is a shock. So to be very frank and candid, perhaps people who attacked previously, if I'm hearing you're saying, might have been very vulnerable of how their mental health issues or something that was. was impeding their judgment, for example,

but now you're saying some of the people that are carrying out the attacks don't fit those categories. Absolutely right. And I think that's the biggest surprise. And there may be many reasons why. We do think there's a correlation between the amount of time people are waiting

in an A&E department. I think families get protective over their loved ones that are waiting for a bed. They know the care isn't that dignified. there is a lot of that general patients being not in the right place with the right care. And a huge part of nursing is observing people, seeing that they're getting anxious. You can watch someone's facial expression.

I used to notice if they stand up, if they're starting to pace, all signs that things are not going well. But at the moment, with the vast number of people in the departments and the amount of time people are waiting, Some of those de-escalation skills are just being put to the test with not enough nurses and too many patients. And I think I'm afraid, probably since COVID, a bit of general instability that we're seeing everywhere as well. Incivility is an interesting word. Dignified care is a very interesting term. Absolutely. I mean, you know, at the moment, how can you possibly not be angry and upset if your loved one?

isn't getting painkillers, is waiting a long time, having to use a bedpan in a corridor, I'd be cross. So there's something around, how do we get the environment better so that we can look after patients better? But there is also something around some of the attacks, unprovoked, unacceptable, and really should not just be allowed to happen. Why did you carry out a freedom of information request?

You know, before I came to this job, I was the chief nurse at a very big London hospital throughout the pandemic. And I started to see a rise in attacks on my staff in A&E. We had to employ a matron whose primary role was to decrease violence in the hospital, who'd done a master's degree in trying to understand the cause and effects. I never thought I would have to do that, ever. I was just wondering what are the skills or qualifications for that matron, but you've just said it. So she's done a master's degree. Did I ever think when I first started nursing that that is someone I would have to employ as a specialist?

Absolutely not. But I could see firsthand the scale, the intensity, nurses being spat at, people having their limbs broken, things that actually were becoming completely intolerable. And we listened, our job as the Royal College of Nursing with over half a million members is to listen to those nursing staff. And one of the things I'm hearing increasingly from our membership is their real concern around violence and aggression against them.

So you're putting a spotlight on that. The Health Secretary West Streeting told us in a statement that he's appalled by the findings. He said nurses dedicate their lives to helping others and deserve to go about their jobs free from violence or intimidation. anyone who violates this core principle will feel the full force of the law he met as you'll know

with the Royal College of Nursing recently to reaffirm the commitment to standing with frontline workers to stop violence against NHS staff and improving working conditions he has announced a new graduate guarantee to get more nurses into the NHS and told us I have also committed

to shining a light on the extent to which corridor care plagues our NHS as the first step to eradicating it we are strengthening vital support for victims including security training and emotional support for staff affected by violence

so no NHS worker has to suffer in silence. Let's take two parts to that really. The first bit, the full force of the law. Are you seeing that being implemented? I think we do see that. You know, people are prosecuted or reported to the police. But the difficulty is with the scale and the volume,

the difficulty is I still think it's probably underreported, even though these numbers have completely gone up, there'd also be a lot that goes unreported purely because of the sheer amounts of time that it takes. So I think we know it's a significant problem. And we've got to work out how we solve it because what we're doing at the moment isn't really working. Other aspects to that, he says he's shining a light on the corridor care that is plaguing the NHS and strengthening vital support for victims. Have you seen that security training and emotional staff for staff

affected by violence? We have seen more security presence. We have. I think many departments now do have security. But there is something about how that actually feels in reality. How does it feel? Really, really

hard. Really hard for people actually. They're trying to look after people and do a good job. But actually to be bitten, to be punched is really terrifying at times actually and it is that that people struggle with and we are

a 90% female profession so it doesn't just happen to nurses of course it happens to our colleagues as well but we're the constant presence in many settings so we are often the ones that it first happens to the constant presence for patients and families

so we are often in that really challenging environment and the Secretary of State It talked about, you know, guarantees for student nurses. I met two amazing nurses yesterday who are looking for jobs and both of them want to work in A&E. So we've got to solve this for the next generation of nurses. And is it particularly the A&E departments where there's these incidences

or does it happen in other departments? I'm afraid it happens in other departments. We focused our report on A&E because we knew that would be where the porting was probably the best. But I'm afraid it happens on wards, it happens in other departments. And we also have this image of district nursing sometimes as this lovely English village with someone with a bicycle

and a basket on the front. The reality is, this is usually women on their own going into tower blocks where you and I would bet you be a bit nervous to walk. You know, in the wintertime, it's dark by four o'clock. seeing really vulnerable patients in really vulnerable settings. So I'm afraid this violence and this fear of violence happens in every aspect of nursing, including prisons, everywhere. Would you say your colleagues are ever afraid to come to work?

I think some are. I think this is where teamwork really matters. Some are, you know, it is scary when these things happen. But we've got to support people. It's not just the large system things that we need to focus, but always looking out for each other. I think the teamwork and noticing your colleague and checking their okay,

particularly before they go home, is absolutely vital. These are all, though, the solutions that you're speaking about right now, being within this particular environment. But what is the solution to eradicate it? The solution to eradicate it, I think from my experience, people tend to come in three groups. This is just a personal, you know, experience. Those that are very sick that we described that were unwell. There is something about getting them access to the care they need quickly with regard to good medical care, good intervention.

There's those that are actually tricky before they come in, no respect for anybody anyway, and actually aren't that physically unwell just very unpleasant. We probably need to be pretty tough with them actually and that's the person that needs a kind of red carb we won't put up with this. So some sort of system to identify? Exactly.

Some sort of flagging system to say, look, you know, a warning system say this will not be tolerated. And then the people that we probably, which is the majority, the majority is the average person that actually usually would behave well and the challenge for them is

how do we look after them in an environment that stops the fear, stops the anxiety, stops them feeling they have to battle to get what they need for themselves or their loved ones. So they're not in a defensive mode when they're put in that environment? So I think my worry is we're not giving it enough thought. I think just saying the slogan zero tolerance isn't working.

if people tend to fall in those three areas what can we do in a more ordered way to get to the root of the problem we need more thinking and probably a bit more action thank you so much for coming in really interesting the RCN Chief Executive and General Secretary Professor Nicola Ranger will continue to follow it thank you very much for your messages coming in

we're talking about what should you be paid for that you're not I am always the one to repressurise the boiler in my household I seem to have to teach myself practical jobs because my partner is not wired that way. Thankfully, he does the bins. So says Eleanor. Keep him coming to 8444 if you'd like to get in touch. Now, really, I suppose, related in a lot of way

to care that we've been having that conversation about nursing and the value of it and some of the challenges they come up against. But we talk a lot about unpaid care as well on this programme, the work of raising children, of looking after the elderly, the sick, the disabled relatives, and keeping households running, as we're hearing from our listeners.

Here's a staff. In 2024, women spent an average of three hours and 32 minutes a day doing unpaid work activities, including housework, caring for others and volunteering. That is 57 minutes more than the average among men. That's according to the ONS Office for National Statistics. And we know that work, that sort of work can sometimes feel undervalued. But do we know why? One woman believes that she does. She's sitting opposite me.

She's the feminist activist and author Emma Hulton. She spent years investigating and rethinking how the way we look at economics could transform our societies. She's based in Denmark, in the UK at the moment, happy to say, for a series of events to talk about her book, Deficit, how feminist economics can change the world. And let's hear a little bit of what Emma has been thinking about and the way she's looking at the world.

Hello, hello. Good to have you with us. Now, you begin with a hospital visit leading on from our last conversation. And in a way, it illustrates feminist economics that you are pushing for. Would you like to explain? Yeah, sure. Thanks so much for having me. So I have a chronic illness called ulcerative colitis.

It's kind of like Crohn's disease. And most times I feel fine. I eat a lot of medicine, but I'm good. But sometimes I get really sick and I need to admit me to be admitted to hospital. And last time I was in hospital, it was in 2019. And I was in hospital for a week. And I think, I can say without exaggeration, that the people I met there, which was, I think if you've been in a hospital, you know that it's the nurses running the show most of the time, but doctors also, of course. These people saved my life.

They completely fixed me in many ways. And about a year after I'd been to hospital, I read a headline in a Danish newspaper that said that women were an economic net deficit to society. And one of the reasons that they were that was that many of them worked in the public sector where pay was low. And what that taught me was that in politics, the way we think about value and the way we measure value is not through what the work creates, but what it is paid. So I realized after researching this that in all of the ledgers and Excel sheets and graphs and all these numbers that were served, nowhere in the government budget, was it shown or recorded that this? these people had saved my life and they were only seen as an expense. These nurses were seen as an expense, not as an investment in the health of the society. And I wanted to understand how we got there.

You talk about care work, which I think is quite evident to our listeners. But you also talk about reproduction, but there's nothing to do with making babies. What is it? So reproductive work is kind of the more academic way. of saying that every person needs to be maintained. We're reproduced every day. So we need to, even though we slept last night, we need to sleep today.

And even though we had dinner, we need to have dinner today. And sometimes we get sick or we're children or we're elderly or we're disabled. So we constantly need to support the body and other people's help to support the body. And what I show in my book is that all work, whether paid or unpaid, that is about supporting the body and mind and maintaining the human being is, stupendiously devalued in the way we think about economics today. I'm going to go back a little bit because you do too in your book. I mean, it's fascinating and it kind of gives it a different world view.

But you talk about the move, particularly the Enlightenment, moving from the non-mechanical to the mechanical world, shall we say, and that value was really placed on things that could be quantified in a mechanical way. Yeah, exactly. So what happens during the Enlightenment and kind of the birth of political economy, as we know it today, is that you start looking at society like a machine. And every human being is a little machine that's a cog in the big machine. So you want to make these perfect mechanical systems where you can predict. And I think that's how many of us

view economics today, that they can predict what happens when you do X, Y, and Z. But the issue with care work and the reason that there's issues both with paid and unpaid care is that care work is not like a machine. Human beings are not identical cogs in a machine. You can sit in a classroom and you'll have two kids who are getting the exact same education, the exact same resources, but getting completely different things out of it. I think any nurse would tell you that there's no such thing as an average patient. So what happens in economics is that care work becomes perceived as, you know, unreliable, chaotic,

unpredictable, and what happens is that everything that cannot be quantified and that cannot be predicted, the value of it is set to zero. But why can't it be quantified? We are advanced human beings. We have a lot of tools at our disposals, for sure. I think we can say quite a lot about what care works, but what we can't do is put a price on it. So if you have a teacher that has a class of students

and you invest a certain type of resources into that class, you don't know necessarily when you do it what will happen to those students. Some people will become career criminals. Some of them will win a Nobel Prize. But we don't know when the care is given what it will create. So what happens is that because we cannot quantify,

you know, the return on our investment, the return is at to zero. And I think that is kind of the big issue here because when the return on care is set to zero, when it's seen as an expense as something that costs us something, not something that creates something, it becomes, of course, incredibly easy to cut money from it. So you just had a nurse on, obviously, who said that we've seen an increase in violence against nurses.

But nowhere was it said when we cut money for the NHS that it would lead to violence. It was said that we were going to save money. We would get richer from it. But that's because all of the human consequences, the social consequences and the health consequences, was not recorded anywhere. And of course, as I mentioned with the health department, that they talked about, investing to alleviate any violence against NHS workers and other various issues that I mentioned in the statement that we got from West Streeting. But I understand your hypothesis. You talk about it as well when it comes to cutting benefits, for example.

Yeah, so for example, in Denmark. In Denmark, yeah. In Denmark, we're seeing similar movements as you're seeing in the UK with a decrease in, and disability benefits. And this is touted as a big savings, and the local governments will get more money at their disposal. And the first couple of years, it did look like, you know, they were saving a lot of money.

But what started happening was a couple of things. So first of all, people with severe disabilities were seeing decreased quality of life. They were getting more aggressive, frustrated, losing capacity for some of them to contribute to their families, to be friends because they had no time to come out because no one was helping them leave the house. Then we saw suddenly mothers especially stepping up and taking their kids out of the system because the quality of the care was so terrible. So they were leaving work. And the last thing we saw was healthcare professionals leaving disability services because they said they could not stand for giving care of such low quality that had so few resources.

So what looked like in the first couple of years, oh, big savings, we're getting so rich. Actually, what happened around these savings were long-term decrease in capacity in local communities and everyone getting poorer, but in a more subtle and difficult way. You would perhaps call it, don't let me put words in your mouth, but kind of more impoverished culturally. Exactly. So what I'm noticing in my book is that we're living in a paradoxical time. because actually our countries have been getting richer. There's a lot of money going around,

but it doesn't show up in mental health. It doesn't show up in well-being. Actually, many of us feel much worse. So what I show is that we're losing a lot of the things that are difficult to measure, care, rest, community, art, green spaces, and all of this is showing up in our mental health. But on all the lines and the beautiful graphs, it looks like we're getting richer

because we're losing a lot that cannot be. quantified. And also in the UK benefit changes that you mentioned there in certain cuts, we did ask the Department for Work in Pensions for a statement on that. They say we're changing the welfare system, so it helps people to live with dignity, genuinely supporting those who can work into employment and ensuring the safety net is always there for the most vulnerable. We're also putting the views and voices of disabled people at the heart of a ministerial review of PIP, which is the personal independence payment, a welfare benefit, to ensure the benefit is fit and fair for the future. I know if we dug into that, you'd probably have issues with it,

but there's a lot of points that I want to get to on your book as well in the time that we have here with you. You talk about the 1960s. I'm jumping back in time again, not as far as the Enlightenment. But the sort of economy that we're in at the moment is established economics, as you call it. And you're calling instead for a feminist economics. However, in the 1960s, the established economics and feminism, we're kind of hand in hand in trying to get women into the workforce. But why are they not good bedfellows? Yeah, so I think many of us perceive of economics as a science

that is like chemistry or physics. But what I show in my book is that it's much more like sociology. So there are different eras and paradigms. And right now we're in a paradigm where it is not that modern within economics to really value care. for what it creates. But when we made the welfare state in the post-war era,

there was a much bigger sense in economics that schools and hospitals were long-term investments in a sustainable society. Whereas the way we're looking at economics now, and I have a quote in the book from a former chief of the Bank of England, where he says that we shouldn't be looking at

the value that the public sector creates. We should be looking at the value that it takes. out of the real economy. So what is seen as creating value now is IKEA, H&M, all the shops on Oxford Street, but there's not at all the same energy being spent on thinking about, well, what is the value of a good school? What is the value of a hospital? And that is a paradigmatic change that there's been in economics and the way economics works. And I think this is something that is so central to the book that right now we are much richer than we were in the same.

60s. We have much more technology and knowledge at our disposal. Yet we seem to think that less is possible than people did 100 years ago when they were fighting for something like a day off, an extra day off, which they got, free school, free health care. And I think that is not a crisis of money. That is a crisis of ambition and of collective imagination that we think less is possible than a person thought 50 years ago. I mean, some of the arguments that you put forward, I wouldn't have to look too far within schools or hospitals for people to be thinking about these things deeply. Do you think it's a new perspective or just that it's not given the attention you wanted to be given? I think the whole that I try to plug with my book is that

I think there actually is a lot of focus on unpaid care, on paid care and the way it's not being prioritized. But nothing is happening. Nothing is really happening. And what I try to get at in my book, is what are the systems that we need to understand to really address this problem? And I want to, and I think this has been such a joy and a pleasure to see that in Germany and Denmark and Norway where the book is already out, that what I wanted with this book was for people who work in care, for people who spend a lot of time on care in their everyday lives, to empower them to criticize this system. Because economics as a language, when a consultant comes striding into your hospital wing and say, okay, we're going to fire four of your colleagues. We're going to save

X amount of millions of pounds on that. I want to empower a nurse or a doctor or a teacher whatever to say, where did you get those numbers from? How are you reaching that conclusion? Because it seems to us from where we're standing that it will lessen quality and the long-term consequences will be really dire. I know. And you very much say numbers do lie. Numbers lie all the time. And I think we have this idea that numbers never lie. We see this number and we think, oh, we can't question a number. but numbers lie constantly. Let me turn to one more aspect before I let you go, it being women's error.

You advise women not to emulate men's lives. Yeah, I think for a long time and for good reason, kind of the goal of feminism was to say, oh, we can do what men have traditionally done, we're as smart, we're as good. But I think in my book, I'm more curious about a society where men's lives seem to be more like women's,

because I think the complex thing about care work is that yes, it is difficult, yes, it is a burden. But when you do ask people at the end of their lives, what gave you joy? Many of them will mention things that are related to care work, taking care of friends, a family. You call it a gift. I think it's also a gift. And I think that is kind of the double vision we always need with care work, is that it's both a privilege and a burden. And I think I don't seem to think that men are that happy, to be honest.

And I think that there is a huge potential in looking at women's lives. as also something that is joyful and good. The issue with care work is not that it's unpaid, it's that unrecognized and under-resource. You even go as far to say that the care crisis is at the heart of the attraction for boys and young men to figures like Andrew Tate. I think for sure.

I think men are suffering tremendously under the care crisis because they are not involved in society in a way where giving and receiving care from other people is something that they're taught. And I think that can give you a sense of incredible, loneliness and there is a huge potential there and we cannot live in a society where everyone is living like men do now everyone would up and die and

let us leave it on that point Emma's book as you probably figured out is very thought-provoking and very interesting I want to thank Emma Holton books called Deficit and she will be speaking at various events in London this week I hope you enjoy it thank you so much for having me on thank you for getting in touch here's some things that should be paid for should be valued I think grandparents should be paid for looking after grandchildren

and saving the parents hundreds of pounds or more unpaid labour from one let me see clean the fridge write the food shop list clean the oven defrost the freezer

the majority of the laundry and house cleaning being the go between with his ex-wife to ensure his children have hats coats sports kits this week I finally got a cleaner because I'm so fed up with how much

unpaid labour I do the cleaner is my new favourite person Hi after both of us have put away our own folded laundry I'm always left with the teetowels and all the other shared items. 844, if you want to talk about the work that you do, that should be valued. Now, what did you do in June? Can you remember?

All of a sudden, June feels like it was a long time ago, doesn't it? However, I think my next guest will be able to recount June's activities in exact detail. Jazz Turner is an engineer from Seafred in East Sussex, and for the month of June, she completed a solo circumnavigation, of the entire British Isles in her yacht that's called Fear. Jazz is a wheelchair user who lives with a life limiting condition

but does a plan for an even bigger challenge. Jazz, welcome to Woman's Hour. Let's talk first about this challenge. Number one, the yacht is called Fear. The challenge you set yourself was Project Fear. Why? Yeah, so Fear got named

after one of my favourite quotes, which is you have two choices in life. you can forget everything and run or face everything can rise and in December 2023 we as a medical team and family we chose to withdraw invasive life-sustaining treatment that would mean my condition was terminal and then I was given six months to live at the time at the end of those six months when I was still alive and kicking and I decided I would chase the one dream I still wanted to do, which for me was simple, which was to sail around the world. Very simple. We'll get into that in just a moment. But the condition you have, can you explain a little? Because I know there's many variations of it, but you have a very severe form. Yeah. So the condition I have is called hypermobile AEList Anilus Syndrome. And it's not actually that part of the condition. That means my condition is terminal. I have comorbidities, so symptoms.

conditions that go along because of my body not producing collagen and the issue is I live with intestinal failure so I can't maintain adequate fluid or nutrition. So I was reliant on artificial nutrition and it was withdrawing that artificial nutrition that made my condition life limiting. I mean many people would think with that diagnosis that the last thing they would be thinking

is solo circumnavigation, unassisted, in choppy, choppy waters. Tell us what you did. Yeah, so I set sail from Brighton Marina on the 2nd of June and I sailed west around the British Isles going round the outside of Ireland, top of Shetlands down the East Coast before coming back to Brighton on the 30th of June,

having spent 28 days at sea and set the record as the first female and first disabled person to complete a solo non-stop and unassisted circumnavigation of the UK and Ireland. Well, congratulations on that. But what are the challenges? Because I mentioned your wheelchair user,

obviously within limited space with the boat and you're by yourself. Tell me a little bit about what you had to think about before taking sale. Yeah, so we spent months adapting my boat fear so that we had a strap system that allowed me to support myself without the use of my legs, lots of handles and handrails so that when the boat's rolling

around and rocking around, I can pull myself around as well as I had to deal with, I have fainting episodes and seizures, so I had to manage those while I was going around as well. You say it's so matter-of-factly. I mean, I even read you suffer from seasickness. Yeah, I get pretty seasick, but I'm pretty lucky in that when I start feeling seasick, I can just throw up and have it be done with it. I love that that's lucky. Yeah. And I also read, you know, when you're at sea for such a great length of time,

you said drifting is really hard to deal with mentally when you want to be making progress. What do you think about when you're drifting? I think a lot of the time I spent drifting I spent trying to catch up on sleep because obviously you don't sleep for more than 15 minutes to an hour at a time so that was one of the few times I could get some decent sleep but you spend a lot of time thinking about everything really from what on earth you're doing it to yeah what you've got to look forward to and face when you get back.

And why on earth you're doing it? Did you come up with an answer for that? The honest answer is just because I'm absolutely crazy. But I'm doing it because I genuinely believe that the reason I'm still here and exceeding my condition and my diagnosis is because it gave me something to fight for and it gave me something to work towards and that having that positive goal to constantly focus on and move towards has kept me going. when I think otherwise I wouldn't have.

It's such a purpose. You know, you may have heard as well, Jazz, that some disabled people we speak to say there is pressure at times to be exceptional or remarkable and that they find that objectionable. I'm just wondering if you have thoughts on that. Yeah, I don't see what I did as an inspiration. You don't?

No, because for me, it just started as a challenge that I set myself over a cup of tea. and it's never really been about the record it's been about being true to myself and finding myself and following what made me happy if other people see that as inspirational then that's just a bonus but for me that's just where my heart lies

I understand you were in foster care and your foster parents must be so incredibly proud of you and are very much part of your journey me. Yeah, so they've been incredible. They've, yeah, they've backed me no matter what. And I don't, you know, it's not usual when you're given that diagnosis to announce over, over dinner in the garden that you want to sail around the world and that you're going to start by sailing around the UK. And my dad, he's a retired engineer and he helped me adapt the boat. And my mom did all the soft furnishings and contacted every RNA station on my way around so that they were aware of me. And what I was doing and having their support and yeah total faith no matter what is incredible and you just dropped it in there like yeah who wants to sail around the world um because that's what you're thinking about yeah so i've um i've declared my intention to uh compete in around the world race that starts from plymouth uh september 2026 uh called the world star race um i just have the small

hitch that I don't have a boat big enough at the moment. But I have a feeling you're going to overcome that obstacle. I hope so. I'm hoping that going around with Project Fear, I developed such a community of people who were backing me and I'm hoping

someone in the sailing community can back me again and hopefully loan me a boat so that I can take on this challenge and together prove that you know, anything is possible no matter how crazy. Just Turner is looking for a boat to sail around the world.

Thank you so much for coming on Woman's Hour, and we wish you all the best. Thank you very much. Thanks to all of you getting in touch. Lots of messages coming in on all our items today. Here's one from Fiona. I was taking into A&E in the early hours of Saturday morning. There was a nine-hour delay in treatment.

The staff were lovely. They did what they could. I was disgusted by the obscenities and abuse that one man was yelling at the nurses trying to deal with him, and he was accompanied by two pretty much inactive police. another man was sitting with his wife swearing his head off about staff and his treatment the message needs to get out it is never acceptable there's no excuse for abuse ever people should be put straight out on the street whether it's to the detriment of their health

or not just tough one story there and of course that is her opinion on what she saw I've worked in the NHS since 1978 says another much has changed but enough Everyone knows the environment is challenging and the staff are under pressure. There is no excuse for aggressive, violent or abusive behaviour. They should be ejected immediately. So really echoing what the other listener has said as well. If you'd like to get in touch, 8444-844 is one of the ways to do it.

Now, I want to turn to Dame Stephanie, Steve Shirley. She fled Nazi-occupied Austria as a child on the kindred transport and went on to become one of Britain's most influential technology pioneers. years. She has sadly died at the age of 91. She shook up the 1960 software industry by hiring almost exclusively women, many working from home, decades before flexible working became the norm. She built a multi-million pound company, gave away most of her fortune to charity and spent her life fighting sexism in tech. Here she is speaking to Jane Garvey about her life. This was on Woman's Hour back in 2020. And Stephanie told Jane how she was

as she came to found her first company back in 1962. I was doing a very modest sort of mathematical clerk type of job and coming up against the so-called glass ceiling over and over and over again, Jane. And I eventually got sick and tired of it and sort of said, I am going to set up an organisation that is the sort of organisation that I would like to work for, that is female friendly, if you like, though I didn't use that term at the time, that is positive about the way in which the world is going and definitely something that I would want for myself and for other women.

And that's precisely what I did. I set up a little company spending less than £100 in today's money to write software as it happened, which was my discipline. a plane, I'm a mathematician turned computer buff, and thoroughly enjoyed creating a new sort of organisation, something that was flexible in all its ways, flexible whether you could work full-time parked time, whether you could work from home, whether you could work when you were travelling, whether you could work summers only winter, all forms of flexibility, including sort of having a cafeteria benefits

so that people could say how they were remunerated for the work that they did. And it became important because doing that made management concentrate on work done rather than the time that people spent in an office. And that's very relevant today as we have a lot of working from home. It's a big step forward now.

We've gone further in the technical world in the last few weeks, a few months, I suppose, than we have in the previous 10 years. But that's what's so fascinating about you, because I think you saw the potential for something. I think you called vision phones long, long ago, didn't you? I was demonstrating vision phones in 1987, so I must have been working on them in 1986. The culture of accepting science is very slow. and although people think this is an overnight happening, it has been coming very slowly.

The science moves forward. Shall we do it this? The culture moves forward. Can we do it in a different way? No, no, no, that doesn't work. We'll try something else. And gradually, it does take decades. That was Dame Stephanie, Steve Shirley, speaking to Jane Garvey on Women's Hour.

I want to bring in the BBC's technology editor, Zoe Kleinman, who found Dame Stephanie an inspiration. Great to have you with us. Zoe. The tech world we often hear is still male dominated, but I'm wondering what lessons can we learn from Dame Stephanie? She really was an inspiration, wasn't she? And listening to her there, I think many of those points that she makes stand the test of time. You know, it is still the case

that almost all funding goes to male founders or mixed, male founders or mixed teams of business founders, the proportion of money that goes to women founders is very, very low. We know that it's still very male-dominated the industry. We know that it is still in some areas more male-dominated than others. And it's really difficult to build a career there as a woman in some cases. And I think what Steve shows, by the way, her name was Steve, because she found that when she was emailing, she wasn't emailing, it was back in the day, she was writing letters to male investors, asking for money, asking, you know, to talk about

business and they just wouldn't reply to her. So she started signing her name as Steve and suddenly she found that the door's open because they thought they were talking to another man. Now I'm not suggesting that we should all start changing our names. But it's interesting, isn't it, that it took that in order for her to be taken seriously in that world at that time. Why did you find her so inspirational? I think growing up, if I can take my BBC journalist Hattel. Take it off. Throw it in the corner. I think she, what I really like, what I really like about her is how inspiring she was. She was a real role model. You know, she didn't take any nonsense. She wasn't necessarily soft and cuddly. She was steely. She was determined. And she always,

throughout her life, championed women. You know, it is a privilege for me to talk about technology on the BBC's platforms. I try to be well informed. I try to tell people what's going on in the world of tech because it affects all of our lives. And I get abuse for it. I get grief for it. And sometimes I think, you know, what am I doing this for? Do I really need this? And I think about her and how she forged this path and shouted so loudly and made it easier for a generation of us to follow. Somebody said to me at work the other day was having a hard time trying to get something together. And, you know, the doors were sort of closing all around me everywhere I turned. And they said, you just don't take no for an answer, do you?

And maybe that's something that I learned from her. Well, maybe that's a way to think of one of the contributions that she has made, not just to technology, but also to women's equality. Technology editor Zoe Kleinman. Thank you so much as she reflected on Dame Stephanie, Steve Shirley's achievements. Now, lots of more messages coming in. Let me read a couple of them. My sister's partner said that it didn't make a difference if they spent more money because all the money came from him. Her value to the family was zero. I told her to listen to your show today and consider her return on the investment in her time. that she's making. Her investment in cooking, caring, cleaning,

and a general interest in her children's lives is invaluable. A conversation for the dinner table this evening. There is a fundamental flaw, says another, in the valuing of women's domestic labor in cash terms. The vast majority of that work would need to be done by the woman even if she was living by herself. So it doesn't make sense to value it

as if it were being carried out exclusively for the husband. Well, I think people would probably point to the fact that some of the work is being done for the partner and some of the work is being done for the couple and some of the work might be done for that family's dependence, depending on the circumstance. 8-4-8-44. That has turned to a different couple.

The relationship between Queen Victoria and John Brown has been a source of gossip for hundreds of years. He was officially her Highland servant, that was the title. But at the time, and to this day, many people believe there was more to be. it than that. A new book written by Dr. Fern Riddell explores the possibility that Queen Victoria

and John Brown were actually secretly married, that they even possibly had a child together. And Dr. Fern Riddell joins me in the studio. Welcome. Thank you. Now, let us start perhaps for those that aren't up to date with all

their historical references. John Brown, when did he come into Queen Victoria's life and what was a Highland servant? So her Highland servant is what Victoria decides to call John when she brings him down from Balmoral after Albert has died and Prince Albert was her first husband and we know him as history as this grand love affair

that Victoria had the father of all of her children. Albert dies in 61 when Victoria is a very similar age to me, sort of late 30s, early 40s and she is devastated. John Brown is the man who stands at her side for the next 20 years but he's actually been in her life ever since Victoria and Albert went to Balmoral. He took care of her out of doors. He looked after her kids.

He was really important to her. And they obviously formed a very close bond, which no one really knew about before. So, I mean, when many people think of Queen Victoria, they think of her black robes and, you know, mourning, really, for the loss of her love, Albert. But when did gossip start that there could be more to the relationship than Highland Servant.

It starts very, very quickly in 1865. So John is brought down from Balmoral to be Victoria's Highland Servant. He's at her side. He's taking care of her every need. And he's very obvious. He's dressed in a kilt. He's dressed as a Highlander.

And very, very soon after that happens, within about 18 months, we get stories that he's called, that she's called Mrs. Brown, that they may have got married, that secretly they may have had a child. And the court and then the press just explain.

in this gossip. But perhaps it's just gossip? Well, that's what historians have always asked. And I decided that we never had an answer to this question. We had these three rumours, where they love us, did they get married, did they have a child? And amongst historians for years, for generations, there have been whispers that his family, John's family, kept a secret archive that held the answer. But no one knew where it is. No one knew what was in it.

No one knew if it was even real. And I set out on a journey to find it. And after 160 years, I have. And not only was it sitting with John's family, with his surviving descendants, it proved that they were lovers. I certainly believe they got married. And the family were holding this incredible legend. And this is in Minnesota, right, in the United States. And proves they were lovers, though.

State your source. Absolutely. Which letter, which document? which artefact. The thing we've had is there's always been rumour around Victoria and John. And every time one small piece of evidence has come out, people have wondered and been able to kind of downplay it. When Ben Dor Grosvener found an incredible letter in 2004

that said where Victoria wrote for the second time after John has died, the Queen has been deprived of all she so needs, meaning of course the loss of Albert and John is equal to her. This was taken seriously by some, but certainly downplayed by many. What I have is an absolutely gigantic archive of new letters, new documents, beautiful artefacts. For example, Victoria had John's hand cast and carved after he died, which is just one of the most moving things I've ever seen in my life. Which she did for Albert too. She did, yes.

And the moments of memorialisation after John died are exactly what she did after Albert. But when you ask for proof about this marriage and proof about everything, there are things we already know. So we know that Victoria's Scottish chaplain, Norman McLeod, made a deathbed confession that he had married Victoria and John. Well, historians know this. And it was absolutely devastating. It was kept secret for 13 years by his sister, who then confesses it to the wife of Victoria's private secretary, who then confesses it to the home secretary. And it's taken as this massive scandal that the government has to immediately.

cover up because they can't disprove it. They believe it might be true. And we know that Victoria went into her grave wearing John's mother's wedding ring, that she made sure that none of her family knew it was on her finger. So these are things we already knew. And for me, they're very powerful bits of evidence. What John's family held were incredibly beautiful letters where Victoria calls John Darling One, where she calls him beloved, where she calls him dear, dear one. And I realized we'd never looked at the possibility of a marriage from a different perspective. I mean, it's all fascinating and explosive at times. But, you know, Victorians write in such beautiful romantic language that some might pick holes and say, you know,

is she just being effusive or is it actually romantic? But I want to move on as well to the other part, which is a baby in the middle of all this. And historians often disagree on this And some people question the theory of Queen Victoria and John Brown having a baby together And this concerns her uterus That she wouldn't have been able to have children She was warned not to have children

By doctors with her last child with Albert But that's absolutely It's both fact and misinformation Okay, go ahead So we know that Victoria was warned After Beatrice not to have any more But we didn't know why and this only came out in 2016.

It was because she suffered terribly with postnatal depression and they were absolutely terrified having a very limited understanding at the time that she was going to go mad. She'd had nine kids, she'd done really well and they felt that this was enough of a threat to the mental health of the monarchy

to risk any further. Then, when Victoria died, it was discovered by her doctor that she was suffering from a prolapsed uterus. These two facts have been combined into one thing, But there is absolutely no proof that Victoria had a prolapse uterus after Beatrice's birth, which was her last daughter. And certainly, one of the things I found on during this research is that a pelvic organ prolapse is just part of a natural part of aging for at least half of women over 50. It's nothing unusual.

It's very specific. There's no way Victoria would have been able to get on a horse as she was so often pictured with John. if she'd had a severe uterine up prolapse. So the actual evidence, given that her doctors never examined her, we have no proof, does not exist. What happened to the baby then, people will ask? If there was such a baby. This is the story of John's surviving descendants.

They had this incredible archive, and they had this rumor, this myth that they'd carried for a long time, that they were descended from the child of Victoria and John Brown. Marianne given to his brother Hugh to bring up. She was sent away to New Zealand. and then potentially and then was brought up there as Hugh's child

Victoria, one of the letters that I found which is incredible and is where Victoria calls John Darling one is where she brings Marianne home. She pays for everything and she keeps that family at her side secretly. We had no idea they existed for the rest of her life.

That archive was secret as you mentioned for 160 years. Why? Why weren't the family shouting about it? I think firstly from duty to Victoria because she kept them so close after John died. No one understood this about the Browns. They were by her side for the rest of her life. And then when she died, her son Bertie went on a campaign to eradicate them from existence, from her legacy, from knowledge. And that's one the things that I unpick in the book that no one understood and had seen before, just how brutal

that eradication had been. And there were a lot of hurt feelings. But this is a different generation. It's not a generation where we shout about things on social media. indeed which is also so interesting to put it in the context of the time people have an issue with some of your findings and I know when it comes to any royal history

when there's an established narrative if somebody pokes holes in it or messes with it there can be vitriolic response have you come across that I haven't I think people love the story and there's always been a suspicion and now we have proof

and that's what matters why do you think there is resistance to thinking about Queen Victoria and your narrative. Do you think it would happen to a king? I don't at all. I think what we're doing is restoring Victoria's womanhood, not seeing her as a queen, as a wife, as a mother, but as a woman who found love and passion with a man in her 40s and 60s to her 60s. We abandon women in their midlife and Victoria for me is proof that you never give up on love. So you are convinced. Absolutely. From the evidence alone Absolutely.

And you believe it was like a second love, I suppose, that she harmed? Completely. It was certainly a deeply passionate love affair. I believe John was her de facto royal consort. We definitely have a lot of evidence that he was her second husband. And for his family, there is this story of a royal child. Dr. Fern Riddell, thank you so much for coming in. Fern's book is called Victoria's Secret. There is a documentary called Queen Victoria's Secret Marriage, Secret Child.

question mark. Can be seen on Channel 4. I watched it and loved it. Thanks so much for coming in, Fern. We appreciate it. The Britain's Got Talent winner, Sydney Christmas, and her amazing voice joins me tomorrow in the studio. She's playing Cruella Deville in 101 Dalmatians. And you know what? You tune in. We'll even treat you to a performance from her. I'll see you tomorrow. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I'm Shari Valle. I've been investigating fraud for more than 20 years. It is not them being gullible or stupid. These are criminals and it's often very organised. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Carter. I'm a criminologist and a forensic linguist.

Liz, your red flag's gone up. This is this gap in contact. It's an incredibly powerful mechanism. I'm Alex Wood. I used to be a prolific fraudster, but now I help the police to catch people like me. And that's very clever because he's mirroring the bank and the police's own security messaging. Listen now to Scam Secrets on BBC Sounds.