Woman's Hour - Actor Gemma Chan. Who is Princess Haya? Rediscovering picture books. Summer wardrobe staples, the kaftan.

Episode Date: July 31, 2019

Gemma Chan talks about her role in the Channel 4 drama "I Am Hannah" - a woman in her mid-thirties struggling with the pressure to settle down and start a family.The ruler of Dubai and his estranged wife, Princess Haya, are in court this week battling over the welfare of their children. Princess Haya fled Dubai earlier this year and has been reportedly living in hiding in London. We hear from Louise Callaghan, Middle East Correspondent for the Sunday Times, who's been following the Dubai family saga for the past year, and BBC Law in Action’s Joshua Rozenberg who's been in court this week watching proceedings.Do we take children’s picture books, lullabies and nursery rhymes as seriously as we should? The writer Clare Pollard says NO and explores in her new book " Fierce Bad Rabbits" the stories that meant the world to her as a child and how they represent women. And the dress historian Amber Butchart has been finding out about the history of some of the summer wardrobe staples which get shoved into suitcases every year, today - the kaftan Presenter Jenni Murray Producer Beverley PurcellGuest: Gemma Chan Guest: Clare Pollard Guest: Amber Butchart Guest: Louise Callaghan Guest: Joshua Rozenberg

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the podcast for Women's Hour for Wednesday the 31st of July. Princess Haya, the estranged wife of the ruler of Dubai, appeared in the High Court in London yesterday, asking for their children to be made wards of the court and for herself to be protected from molestation. Who is she and what is she hoping to achieve? In our series on the staples you have in your summer wardrobe the origin of the kaftan and fierce bad rabbits the poet and playwright Claire Pollard looks behind the stories in some of our best known children's books. You may have already seen the first two of Channel 4's series featuring women. Vicky McClure took the lead role in I Am Nicola last night,

Samantha Morton was I Am Kirsty, and next Tuesday the final drama in the series will be I Am Hannah, where Gemma Chan plays a woman in her mid-thirties meeting men online, but with no obvious desire for a permanent partner. But her mother is clearly quite keen for her to settle down and not leave the possibility of grandchildren too late. You can have everything, Hannah, but it doesn't happen by itself.

And sometimes you have to make conscious decisions about what you want in life and make a plan and stick to it you don't need to worry about me mum i'm right i'm fine mum and i don't think you are hannah i'm happy mum And I don't think you are, Hannah. I'm happy, Mum. I really don't think you are. Gemma, I know you worked with the writer and director of the series Dominic Savage on Hannah's story. Why did you choose a woman at this stage of her life? Gosh, well, I mean, it probably has a little bit to do with the fact that I am at a similar age to Hannah. A lot of my friends have either found themselves in a similar position to Hannah's or have gone the other way and have had

children and are very happy. Or I also know women who are struggling with aspects of it. But I was really keen to do something that explored that expectation that there is on women, which whether it comes from without or within, but that expectation that you should do things at a certain time and combined with the biological reality, of course. The mother there is quite chilling. I wondered whether you'd heard similar words yourself. Thankfully, I haven't heard similar words myself from my own mother. My own mother is actually very, very lovely and supportive and quite hands off in that respect, which is good. But no, Sarah Lamb, who played my mother in that, was very good.

Very, yeah, quite, quite, quite chilling. And when she kind of looked at you, you definitely feel that, gosh, I should be questioning all my life choices. Now, there is a point at which Hannah sees a fertility doctor, and I know a genuine fertility doctor plays the doctor in the story. What did you learn from him? Well, it was incredibly educational for me. I went to see him and had essentially went through the whole consultation process as if I was doing it for real, as if I was thinking of freezing my eggs. And he explained everything to do with obviously the procedure,

but also a lot about the context of why women might come to see him. And he said something very interesting to me that, you know, in many ways, especially in the last 50 years, our societal attitudes have evolved really quite quickly, but our biology hasn't evolved at the same rate. So all these things that we have, you know, whether it's egg freezing or embryo freezing, IVF, we're trying to kind of catch up or close that gap between the societal attitudes and what our biology can do.

And obviously none of these things are fail-safes, which is something that we explore in the film. Where have you concluded that pressure to settle down and have children comes from? Is it from family? Is it from friends? Is it just from people around you? I mean, I think it comes from a lot of different sources. I think there are external reminders of it, whether that comes from your social circle, from your family, your friends, from the media,

kind of narratives that we've internalised from such a young age. And then also, you know, it does come from within as well. And I think, I found it very interesting. I think it was a month or two ago, there was that research published about the fact that actually single childless women rank very highly on the scale of happiness. But the reaction to that was quite extraordinary. And I think, you know, the fact that we found that quite hard to believe, whether you're single or you're in a couple. Apparently, we found that very difficult. So I think that's really interesting.

It says a lot about how we view childless women. I think single childless women have often been viewed with either suspicion or pity. The dialogue in the piece is improvised. Yes. How did that work so it it it is all completely improvised the dialogue we had a 30 page treatment which uh said roughly what had to happen in each scene but the dialogue was completely up to the actors in the scene to to come up with so it was it was quite terrifying not to have that safety net, but also very freeing. And when it works, you get something that hopefully is very intimate and very raw in terms of the emotion and the reaction that can come out of it. And also very unpredictable.

Like, for example, there's a scene in I Am Hannah where we know that, or we knew beforehand that Hannah was going to have a date that goes quite disastrously wrong we didn't know exactly what was going to happen and we did several long takes of that scene and and it got quite explosive um by the end and there were other versions of it that weren't quite so explosive but um it was it was yeah very it felt very alive and very um very real. I hope that kind of comes through. Now, I know you studied law at Oxford and then had a job as a lawyer. I actually didn't practice law.

I had a job offer, but I never took it. What was your father's response when you said you were going to be an actor? Well, he was very worried for me. This was 11 years ago now, so the landscape was very different and I had been told, you know, quite kind of bluntly that I probably wouldn't be able to get enough work in the UK. There were very few opportunities for actors of colour and I was told I should probably go to America

where I would have more of a chance of making a living. But so I completely understood my father's reaction. And, you know, both my parents are immigrants. And, you know, the luxury of being able to take a chance of a career in the arts was something that they, you know, wasn't open to them. So I completely understood their fear. But I should say that

they're they're incredibly supportive and very very happy that it's all worked out okay. Now it was the child four series humans that gave you your big break and we talked about it then about playing a robot and then you were starring last year in Crazy Rich Asians how surprised were you at its phenomenal success? I don't think anyone could have predicted it really. When we were shooting the film we thought we have something here that could be special and that we hope is going to be a good film that people will enjoy but there's really you know when people make predictions in the entertainment business really no one knows anything so we really had no idea whether people would actually go and pay their you know their hard-earned disposable income to go to the cinema

to see our film so it was it was a really lovely surprise and then you know to be honest it kind of took me uh i was a bit taken aback actually by the personal reactions that people had to the film um you know even within my own family I took my mum and dad to the premiere in London, and had them on either side of me and watching it with them. You know, all of us were were in tears and my mum kind of gripping my hand. And she said that she she hadn't expected ever to see, you know, faces that look like our families or the food that we grew up eating or, you know, songs that she hadn't heard since her childhood, you know, being in a mainstream Hollywood film. So it was a very, you know, not to kind of over egg it, but it was a very cathartic experience for all of us and very, very special.

But how much is diversity changing for the better? I mean, looking at Hannah, you're a professional woman in her 30s. In a way, your racial background is completely irrelevant. Well, on the one hand, you know, that is, I suppose that's the next logical step. It's wonderful to have stories where, you know, your cultural background or your ethnicity is at the forefront. But also, you know, in a modern city like London, you can have a story about a woman who, you know, is a modern woman who's working and where really, it's not the central thing. And I think that's also an important

next step. And in some respects, I think, not just to do with ethnicity or race or gender or sexuality, you know, when we get to the point where we're telling stories, and it's just stories about people, that will be a new thing. I think um for example this this series has been talked about a lot in terms of it being a women-led anthology and we wouldn't call a something a male-led drama I think we'll we'll we'll have turned the corner when we no longer it's no longer the exception that we have female-centric stories and and that's the thing that you know seems so special because it's so rare. Now, I couldn't help noticing that you are on Meghan's Vogue list. What do you make of your inclusion as one of her star choices?

I know. Gosh, it feels, it's slightly surreal. I actually didn't know that the Duchess was involved until a very late stage. I think I found out the day before the cover was released that she was involved. So I had been speaking with Edward Ennenfall, who was the editor, but it was all kept very hush-hush and very secret. I think it's lovely. I really admire the other women

that she chose to highlight, and I think it's great that she is highlighting their work. I feel slightly humbled that I'm remotely considered alongside those women. But no, it was a lovely surprise. Gemma Chan, thank you very much indeed for being with us this morning. And just to remind everybody that I Am Hannah

will be on next Tuesday evening and it's at 10 o'clock. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now, as I'm sure you've heard in the news, Princess Hayabint al-Hussein, the estranged wife of the ruler of Dubai, appeared in the High Court in London yesterday. She left Dubai earlier in the year

and is said to have been living in hiding in Kensington. She has considerable wealth of her own and has two young children. Her court appearance was to ask for three things. She wants her children to be made wards of the court, has asked for a forced marriage protection order and a non-molestation order. Well, who is she and what is she trying to achieve? Well, Joshua Rosenberg is the presenter of Radio 4's Law in Action. Louise Callaghan is the Middle East correspondent for the Sunday Times and joins us from Istanbul. Louise, what is Princess Haya's background?

So Princess Haya is this kind of really, really modern, highly educated outward face of the Dubai royal family. And so she's born in Jordan. She's the half-sister of Jordan's King Abdullah. So, you know, in her own right, she is incredibly powerful. And she grew up largely in the UK. She went to boarding school in the UK, and then she went to Oxford. And then after that, she had this, you know, during that, she had this remarkable life of being an Olympic equestrian. And, you know, by all accounts, she's this very life of being an Olympic equestrian. And, you know, by all accounts, she's this very kind of urbane, highly educated woman. She's not the first woman in the family to flee Dubai.

Last year, we spoke to the friend of the Sheikh's daughter, Latifa, who had escaped and then been picked up on the coast in India. What is going on there? So, as you say, Princess Haya is actually the third woman to escape from this family or leave this family. That is quite remarkable. So in 2000, Princess Shamsa, who's one of the Sheikh's daughters, is thought to have run away from the family's UK estate. And she had this very dramatic escape, it seems, where she drove a

Land Rover to the edge of the estate, jumped over a wall and ran away. According to claims by her sister Latifa, Shamsa was later captured, brought back to Dubai. She hasn't been seen in public since. Now, Princess Latifa, last year, in this very, very remarkable story, published a 40-minute video online where she spoke of what she claims is years of torture and abuse at the hands of her family. Now, in last year, Latifa ran away. Her friends claim that she ran away. And she tried this amazing escape on a yacht to Goa. And just before she arrived there, she was captured and her friends claim brought back to Dubai. evidence that Latifa is alive since then came in December during this very, very bizarre visit by the Irish former president, Mary Robinson, to Dubai. Now, Robinson's a friend of Haya. Haya is

not Latifa's mother. And it appears that Haya invited her to Dubai for a lunch and she met with Latifa and there's these very strange stilted photos of Mary Robinson with Latifa. So that was presented as a kind of proof of life. Now that's all that we've really heard from them. And so the fact that Haya left Dubai is the latest in a series of really remarkable events with the women of this family leaving. Why would you say Princess Haya has come to London rather than going kind of home to Jordan, where she was born?

Well, it's a very, very difficult diplomatic situation. You know, Jordan has very deep ties with the UAE. There are many Jordanians who live in the UAE. It would be potentially an extremely difficult and embarrassing situation for her family. So it would appear that an easier solution perhaps is to go to the UK where she has links and that they have property. Joshua, I know you watched the proceedings yesterday at the High Court. What was she asking the family court to provide?

We know that she's asking for wardship for her two children. We know she's asking for a forced marriage protection order, as you say, and we know that she's applying for a non-molestation order. Beyond that, we know very little and can report even less. What does wardship actually mean? Does that mean the children would be awarded to the court or awarded to her? It means they are wards of the court or awarded to her? It means there are wards of the court and that very old-fashioned procedure, the inherent powers of the court, means that the court is responsible for them. It applies to anyone under the 18 who is made a ward of court and the court has to take

any significant decisions as to their future, their schooling, where they live, what happens to them. It means that the court protects them against the world. Now, a forced marriage order is not something we're familiar with. What is it? It can help somebody who is being forced into a marriage or is already in a forced marriage. It's an order of the court. It is not an off-the-shelf order. It's designed to meet the particular circumstances of the person applying for it. So, for example, it can say that an individual mustn't be taken out of a city, out of the country. It may say that somebody can't be harassed or pestered. It might say that no arrangements can be made for a

wedding. It's designed to protect an individual against being forced into a marriage. And obviously, if they are the subject of this order, then the courts can deal with anybody who breaks the order. How common is it for a mother to ask for protection for herself as well as her children? We don't know exactly what Princess Haya is asking for. All we know is that she is asking for these orders and for wardship for her children. We do know that forced marriage protection orders are becoming more common as people become aware of them. Now, the Sheikh and his wife have hired

what you can only describe as superstar lawyers. Who are the two solicitors and why might they have been chosen? Money is clearly no object. They are indeed the two stars of the solicitor's profession and they were in court yesterday sitting on opposite sides of the same bench. You've got Fiona Shackleton, Baroness Shackleton, and you've got Helen Ward, Lady Ward. Baroness Shackleton and Lady Ward have both been involved

in these very high-profile cases. Lady Shackleton acted for the Prince of Wales in his divorce from Diana, Princess of Wales, and Paul McCartney in his split from Heather Mills. And Helen Ward was representing Guy Ritchie in his divorce from Madonna. And of course, they also had barristers in court, and they don't come cheap either. Just briefly, the family courts are usually absolutely private. Why do we know the details about this case that we know? There is a trend for the family courts to become more open

and reporters from the UK media alone were allowed in court yesterday on condition that we report only what we're allowed to report. There is a feeling that the public is entitled to know the broad areas that the court is involved in, even though the proceedings are private. Louise, just a final point to you. Why might this case taking place in Britain prove embarrassing for the British government? It could be very difficult for the British government because of the immense wealth, power and standing of the individuals involved.

So both Sheikh and Princess Haya are friendly with the Queen. They know the royal family extremely well. And the UK has deep, deep diplomatic links with the UAE as well. So if this divorce becomes acrimonious or difficult in any way, this could be very embarrassing for the UK government. Louise Callaghan and Joshua Rosenberg, thank you very much indeed. And we will, of course, keep an eye on everything that happens here. Now, still to come in today's programme, Fierce Bad Rabbits.

Claire Pollard's analysis of the stories behind some of our best-known children's books. And the dress historian, Amber Bouchard, looks at the origin of the kaftan. Now, don't forget, if you miss the live programme, you can always catch up. All you have to do is download the BBC Sounds app on Monday. Tina talked to the singer Angelique Kijoe about making her proms debut and yesterday Mimi

I cooked the perfect red prawn curry. If you look at Instagram, you can watch videos featuring two of our Takeover guest editors. Nadia Hussain shares tips on switching off and Danny Cotton, Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade, talks about how she's dealt with trauma during her career.

Now, you may remember last year we asked you to share some of your family secrets and six of you told us some of your surprising experiences. When Ellen finally came out to her mother, she could not have expected what her mother revealed. I think I said to her, have you had a relationship with a woman? And she just said yes. And I know I then asked, does anybody else know?

She said, no, I will go to the grave with this and you are to tell nobody. The way she fixed her gaze on me when she said that, I knew she was serious. It's one of those moments when you know when your mum says no to something, even as a child, there's that look. Jess was astonished to find out about her mother's affair. All of a sudden it was just like, boom, everything changed.

It was like, oh my God god is this what real life is is this the way adults are supposed to be am i now an adult yeah i was just so angry just like why how like you have such a good life like with my dad and the things that you do and the way we are, like, why would you want to have an affair? And Christine's vague feelings about not quite belonging to her family led her to send off for a full birth certificate. What could I possibly find out that would be really awful? And what I could possibly find out that would be really awful and what I could possibly find out that

would be really awful would be that Jean was my mother the auntie that nobody liked and when the birth certificate arrived I opened it not expecting to see anything like that but there it was. Name of the mother, Jean Elsie Louise. Now we're hoping to hear more of your family secrets that you now feel ready to discuss. Maybe you were never told that an absent parent had tried to get in touch. Perhaps the fact that someone in your family

took their own life was kept from you, or you may not have been told that you were adopted. What happened when the secret came to light? You can get in touch with us through the website, by email or on Instagram or Twitter, and we are at BBC Women's Hour. The dress historian, Amber Bouchard, has been finding out about the history of some of the staples

we keep in our summer wardrobes and take on holiday just about every year. Today, the kaftan. Jane asked her for a definition. The kaftan has become a sort of catch-all term for a summer cover-up or a sort of maxi dress. But it originated as a variant of a sort of robe or a tunic. And it's actually been worn in a number of different cultures around the world for thousands of years. So what we think of as the kaftan likely originated in ancient Mesopotamia and it became an incredibly important garment in Turkish dress under the Ottoman Empire. During the 16th century the sort of magnificence of the Ottoman court, the empire was expanding and it was really sort of projected through imperial kaftans and majestic turbans as well.

So the identity, especially of the sultans, became really quite heavily bound up in the kaftan and the incredible, beautiful, luxurious silks that were being made to create these kaftans. So they were always patterned or could you just have a caftan in one colour? Well, they could be adorned with pearls, they could be lined with leopard skin, like the turbans to accompany them could be garnished with rubies. We're talking patterned silks mainly. Exquisite garments that completely sort of sent a message of power and wealth to anyone who saw it. These kaftans even became important in terms of statecraft for the Ottoman Empire as well.

They would be given as diplomatic gifts. There was also a ritual known as kaftaning the ambassador, which I would like to see brought back into our statecraft. Tell me more. To be honest. This basically meant robing foreign dignitaries, so dressing people appropriately before they were allowed

to enter the Sultan's room and converse with the Sultan. So caftanning the ambassador. So this was unisex then, this garment? It was unisex, yes. And it differed very much from Western clothing at this time,

which was much more about conforming to the shape of the body. Whereas the kaftan is a sort of much more flowing garment. It's not tailored in the way that European, Western European clothing was being tailored at the time. I mean, that's purely based on the climate, isn't it? Well, yes and no. Around the globe, you get different sorts of concepts

of dressing the body and the role that textiles play in this with the sort of kimono in Japan for example it's very much about layering the textiles it's about the textile is almost a canvas for workmanship as opposed to the sort of cutting and tailoring crafts that emerge in western Europe so it's very much to do with sort of how different cultures express their identity through textiles, the textiles that are being created in those local areas, all the textiles that are being traded into them as well. Let's talk about the link between the kaftan and women's emancipation. What about that? The importance of the Ottoman court meant that sort of dressing a la Turk or this sort of vogue for turkeroise, it's been called various different

names throughout the centuries, you know, had a big impact on Western clothing. Even some of Henry VIII's clothes apparently were sort of influenced by this Ottoman dress. But it's really in the 18th century that we start to see the impact on women's dress as well. These ideas of turquoise become very, very fashionable. And this idea of looser clothing that comes along with it as well. These ideas of turquoise become very, very fashionable and this idea of looser clothing that comes along with it as well. Now, a lot of these ideas were brought over by Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who was the wife to the British ambassador to Turkey in the early 18th century. Now, she spent quite a lot of time wearing Turkish dress while she was there and wrote about it extensively in letters.

And there's some really interesting thoughts that she had where she talks about the Western corset and talks about that as being sort of almost imprisoning women, as opposed to the freedom that Turkish women she was spending time with had. And there are certain items like the kaftan, those kinds of robes, but especially the wide full trousers that were worn by women that did have an impact on fledgling feminist movements in Britain and America, especially Amelia Bloomer in the States, who began advocating the bloomerism, bloomer outfits, as we think of it now. Very sort of baggy, wide ankle trousers, still worn underneath a skirt. So skirts were still worn coming to just below the knee. And this was modified Turkish dress, as they called it. And she thought it was much more hygienic. It was seen as something that was

a first step towards kind of political emancipation for women. And I also associate the kaftan with a kind of a hippie-ish vibe. Is that not true? That is true indeed. In the 60s and 70s we see a hippie counterculture beginning to impact fashion. We see fashion editors like Diana Vreeland sort of discovering the kaftan and putting it in vogue all the time. Designers like Yves Saint Laurent inspired by his time in Morocco, start creating similar sort of robes. And especially in Britain, we have Thea Porter, a designer who began importing caftans and similar sort of textiles for her interiors business. And she ended up actually designing her own ranges of caftans and other items inspired by her. She was born and grew up in the Middle East.

And so this really inspired her design ethos, but became very, very, very fashionable. It's mentioned in Vogue from the sort of late 60s onwards. And actually, I remember from watching the telly back in the 70s and the early 80s, I thought Margot Ledbetter in The Good Life famously wore a kaftan, but I also thought, and I think we disagree on this, that one of the characters in Abigail's Party wore a kaftan but you're not sure about that I'm not quite sure I think it might have been a maxi dress but Margot Ledbetter certainly I love Margot Ledbetter she's one of my style icons

she's amazing but also if we're talking about trendsetters in this way I recommend you do a google image search of Liz Taylor caftan. You will not be disappointed. Okay. And for our younger listeners, I think they might know Liz Taylor. Margot Ledbetter was a character in a sitcom, The Good Life, and she was played by Penelope Keith. You're right. She was a style icon. That was very much a programme of its time, but worth having a look at. Amber, thank you very much. Thank you. Amber Butchart was talking to Jane. There are so many

books that we've read to our children, some of which were read to us by our own parents, but how much do we know about the writers who created them and what they intended their readers should learn? Why, for instance, is the very hungry caterpillar quite so hungry? Why does the tiger who came to tea consume everything he finds? Why does Baba the elephant weep for his dead mother but then do rather well in life? And why are Beatrix Potter's animal tales as popular now as when they were created at the turn of the 19th century? Well, Fierce Bad Rabbits is a critical analysis by the poet and playwright Claire Pollard. Claire, why did you name your book after a Beatrix Potter book?

Well, Beatrix Potter is one of the great heroines of the book, which is full of these amazing female writers and illustrators and businesswomen, actually. And I think she brought forward the picture book as a form. She was an incredibly talented woman. But also I was really interested in in bunnies in rabbits they just keep cropping up in my research rabbits kept appearing and particularly rabbits as a kind of stand-in for humans um from Miffy to Goodnight Moon um and it's really interesting of course that

a rabbit is a kind of prey animal but we're apex. So I was quite interested in how we always positioned ourselves as the rabbit in these books. What books really stay with you that you loved as a child? I mean, so many that I wrote a whole book about it. But one that I finished the book on is the Garden Gang books, the Ladybird Garden Gang books by Jane Fisher, which she wrote when she was nine and I remember just staring at the author photo of her on the back so enviously brimming with ambition. I think those books

are the reason why I'm a writer and they're still beautiful. I still read them to my children with the kind of felt tip drawings of Linda Batcurrant and the P Twins. I don't know what happened to her though. If she's listening I'd love to interview her. Well if she's listening get in touch. Please send her the tweet orTwins. I don't know what happened to her, though, if she's listening. I'd love to interview her. Well, if she's listening, get in touch, please. Send her the tweet or an email. Let's

go on to this idea that food features quite often. In Carl's Very Hungry Caterpillar, and then again in Judith Carr's Tiger Who Came to Tea, why is this hunger, this food? Because, of course, the tiger who came to tea ends with the family going off to have tea in a restaurant and have chips. Yes. I think food is children's first great sensual pleasure, really, isn't it? My children just adore fruits, cram mouthfuls of watermelon and berries into their faces at the moment because it's summer. So in a way, it's a way of engaging children with that great pleasure in their life, I suppose. Those books are both interesting because they're both about greed. I mean, the tiger literally has everything. The caterpillar eats just so much food for a little caterpillar. but then becomes beautiful yeah

he doesn't get punished turns into a butterfly although eric carl did he he later said in the parish review that he felt bad because he gives the caterpillar a tummy ache after it's gorged on all that delicious watermelon and cake and sausage and he always felt like he shouldn't have punished the caterpillar by giving him a tummy ache. What's wrong with just enjoying the wonder of life, the pleasures of life? What are children picking up from stories like Baba the Elephant, which of course was repeated in Bambi and broke the hearts of an entire generation?

Yeah, Baba's a really interesting one, isn't it? I mean, I can't read it to my children my my son says put it away put it away it makes him cry too much it's very brutal within about three pages um baba's mother's been killed by a white hunter and he's on top of her body with tears pouring down his face it's probably the darkest image in all of children's picture books um it has been argued that the um creator uh brunhoff knew that he um had tb actually and was dying and in a way that the books are a way of showing children how to cope how to exist after a parent has died but um the way they cope is very, I mean,

the way Barbara copes is just to go to the city, which is full of white people like the one who killed his mum, and buy a new suit. You point out that Dr. Seuss, who is incredibly popular, doesn't have any female characters in his books. Generally, how well represented are women and girls in children's literature? I think the problem is the kind of default is male and it's been said a lot. It's partly the fault of authors and illustrators, but also it's the whole market. It's the buyers, it's the editors. They all believe that boys won't read books with girls in them,

which I just don't think is true. But yes, in 42 books, Dr. Juice wrote, not one has a female lead in the central story. So to what extent are books still gender divided then? With the intention, you know, there's always this rumour, as we discussed last week with the new Children's Laureate, the intention of encouraging boys to read because people say, oh, boys don't like to read.

I think it's a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. And I hate these picture books for boys, which are always some kind of combination of pirates, robots, dinosaurs, underpants and poo in like varying quantities. And they're usually quite poorly written, I think. And I think they usually kind of underestimate or undersell boys you know little boys deserve kind of wonder and beauty and magic in their lives too not just pooing dinosaurs. Going back to Dr Zeus how useful are books like his like Cat in a Hat for children's language development well i mean interestingly

they're more um they're more for early readers in terms of uh the vocabulary that something like cat in the hat or green eggs and ham uses it's actually incredibly restricted deliberately um green eggs and ham is written with only 50 words which as a poet um i find incredibly interesting what a linguistic constraint and how did he manage to write such a stunningly witty and clever and kind of narrative poem using only 50 words um so zeus is an interesting case in point he's i think he's great for teaching people to read and i'm using him to teach my son to read at the moment. But there are other picture book authors like Beatrix Potter who deliberately put difficult or unusual words in their books to expand our children's vocabulary.

The Harry Maclary books do that. They're always using words like cacophony. And Beatrix Potter famously talks about lettuce as being soporific. I think that's great. I think we should be expanding our children's vocabulary. We shouldn't be afraid to use difficult words in front of them. I think one of my children's favourite books was Meg and Mog. They loved Meg the witch and Mog the cat. How well generally do children respond to the female character being a witch? I think they love witches, don't they?

I mean, being a witch, witchcraft is a kind of most basic way of trying to get power over the world, trying to get power over the world through language, I suppose. Magic is the power of the powerless, the hope that you can whisper a spell or say a curse and something might actually happen. I think children find, I certainly as a child,

found the idea of spells and magic very, very seductive and I was always trying to make things happen, conjure things, whip up potions with the rose petals in my garden. There have been an awful lot of princess books but recently in recent years a number of powerful princess books. How useful are they for little girls? I have very mixed feelings about princesses. On one hand I'm absolutely fascinated by fairy tales that's very much my thing. I'm interested in folk tales and myth and fairy tales on the other they do kind of normalize inherited wealth on a very basic level and a lot of

contemporary princess fiction particularly seems to be about vanity about appearance it's all about dresses it's all about kind of sparkles makes me very uncomfortable I've tried to protect Kate my daughter from princess culture to a certain degree but I think I say in the book they'll they'll always be a spindle somewhere to prick their finger you know I don't it's so ubiquitous in our culture I don't think you can avoid it really so if there's a princess there must be a witch yes yes I think we need a witch. Claire Pollard, thank you very much indeed for being with us. And just a reminder, the book is called Fierce Bad Rabbits. Thank you.

I was talking to Claire Pollard. In response to my conversation with Gemma Chan, Jill Halifax said, Interesting conversation this morning. I did see the first of these dramas, but found it claustrophobic. Not as good as Helen and Rob Titchener's story. This one sounds more engaging, but still about coupling. The statement that single childless women are among the happiest was interesting. I've never heard a single

childless woman interviewed on Woman's Hour. I'm one of this endangered species and at 82 I think as reasonably contented as I can expect to be. How about talking to some of these? R. Russell said childless societies will be replaced. It's inherently unsustainable. Tristan said I prefer the term child free. And then Karen said my name is Karen and I'm the term child-free. And then Karen said, my name is Karen and I'm a single childless woman. Right, that's that off my chest.

Really, really thrilled that the world, or at least a woman's hour contributor, has woken up to the fact that we're not sectionable, fit for dunking, or we're the only of cast-off pity. Here we go. I'm 60, single and childless. I have many like-situated friends. And we have a great life. On Kaftans, Lynn said just to say that I have several in different colours which I obtained from Malaysia.

They're wonderful. And I wear them in the house to feel comfortable and relaxed, but still look decent if I open the door to a caller. They've been so cool in this hot weather, and the other evening I wore one outside when we invited our friends for a barbecue. They're good to take when staying with friends, just to slip on and look respectable. I also have a couple of warmer ones to wear in the winter, so for me, up with the kaftan and Demis Roussos. And Helen Lederer said, today, the kaftan, if only.

I'm in tights. And then, in response to Claire Pollard, in response to which children's books you love, Jasper tweeted, Judith Carr's The Tiger Who Came to Tea and Mog Books, Dogger and Alfie series by Shirley Hughes. Now do, if you can, join me tomorrow when we'll discuss the report by the National Rural Crime Network

that women living in rural areas are half as likely to report domestic abuse as those in urban ones. And endometriosis, a serious lifelong disease which affects as many as one in ten women. I'll be talking to two women who both suffer. One has turned her experience into a novel, and the other has written a manual aimed at her fellow sufferers as well as their friends and family. That's tomorrow, two minutes past ten. Be there if you can.

Bye-bye. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service,

The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.