Woman's Hour - Actors Laura Dern and Diane Ladd, Nurses Strikes, Sarah Gilmartin

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

The book Honey, Baby, Mine is a joint project of mother/daughter actors Diane Ladd, and Laura Dern. Working together is not unusual for these two as over decades they have taken their connection onto our screens but as fictional parent and child. Now 87 and 56, they have both had, and continue to have, critically-acclaimed careers with many character roles, gaining them numerous awards and nominations. They join Nuala to discuss their latest project. Nurses in England are taking part in what the Royal College of Nursing is calling 'the biggest walkout so far' today, and some teachers are striking tomorrow. Nuala speaks to Dr Susan Milner to talk about these female-dominated sectors taking industrial action.Nuala is also joined by one of the Grassroots women on our Power List, celebrating the 30 most remarkable women in sport in the UK. Somayeh Caesar is a teaching assistant in London and has set up several sporting clubs for women and girls. Service is the new novel by the author and critic Sarah Gilmartin. Famed Dublin chef Daniel Costello who runs a successful high-end restaurant is facing accusations of sexual assault. Set between the present day and the earlier noughties, the story is told from the perspective of three voices- the waitress, the chef, and the chef’s wife. It’s a story of power, abuse, complicity and Metoo. Sarah joins Nuala to discuss her new book. Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Emma Pearce

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour on this Bank Holiday Monday. Well, we have movie superstars for you today. Not just Laura Dern, but also her mum, Diane Ladd. Now, they've written a beautiful book together from conversations they had when Diane was ill and Laura was trying to walk her back to health. Thankfully, she succeeded

and now has a stack of stories to relay. So we're going to hear some of them. Also today, Sarah Gilmartin, who has written Service. It's her second novel. It's set in Dublin. It focuses on a restaurant with a celebrity chef and we follow an alleged crime through the perspectives of the chef, his wife

and also one of the young waitresses. And this is a story of power, of celebrity and also of the Me Too movement. And it's very perceptive about so many aspects I found of restaurant culture and also to the streets of Dublin from the 90s to the

noughties so we'll hear all about that you probably heard in the news bulletin there about the nurses strike today we will update you on that and also the planned teacher strike tomorrow and we have another amazing woman from our Women's Hour Power List today it's the turn of Samaya Caesar

a woman our listeners suggested for her grassroots work of getting girls and women into or back into sport. So there's netball, football, cycling that she's all involved with. She's a powerhouse of energy and has really inspired others.

So we're hearing from her and I'm really interested to hear how she's done all that. And did you see this? We saw that Debreth, so that's the etiquette manual, has updated its advice for marriage proposals.

So the new edition will be published to mark the King's coronation. And it says that while it, and I quote, is traditional for the man to ask his future father-in-law's permission for his daughter's hand in marriage, unquote,

the convention is no longer observed and that proposing is no longer solely the role of the man. So we want to hear your stories this morning on asking for permission to propose. Did that happen in any way, shape or form? Maybe you have a story to tell about it. For me, my husband did ask my father for permission, I guess. And apparently my father asked my husband

whether he was really sure he wanted to go through with that next step. So anyway, you can text the programme 84844. We also are on social media at BBC Women's Hour or email us through our website. If you'd like to send us a voice note or a WhatsApp message, that is 03700 100 444. So look forward to hearing your stories wherever you are this Bank Holiday Monday.

Now, to a broadcast exclusive, the book Honey Baby Mine is a joint project of the mother-daughter actors Diane Ladd and Laura Dern and it's just been published. So working together is not unusual for these two. Over the decades, they've taken their connection onto our screens as fictional parent and child.

Now they are 87 and 56 and they both had and continue to have critically acclaimed careers with many character roles, gaining them numerous awards and nominations. Perhaps one of Diane's most memorable and Oscar-nominated performances was for Flo.

That was the sharp-tongued waitress in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. That was back in 1974. More recently, Laura won an Oscar for her portrayal of a divorce lawyer in Marriage Story. But about four years ago, Diane faced a serious threat to her health and the two embarked on a series of walks and talks that Laura recorded for posterity, which then unexpectedly, as they put it, became a book. Now, they're both referred to as Tinseltown Titans.

And to discuss their latest venture, I had the huge pleasure of meeting them both on Zoom just a few days ago. Tennessee Williams is actually a distant cousin of Diane Ladd's. Once described Diane, get this, as a splash of Tabasco sauce, tart, tasty, and capable of turning the bland into the exotic. What a description. Here is Diane replying to my first question about why the book was entitled Honey, Baby, Mine. Well, it's an English folk

song, actually, that I'm from Mississippi and the people who built the dams in Louisiana, Mississippi, they sang the song. It's just a little old country song. And my father sang it to me and he sang it to Laura. It goes, you get a line and I'll get a pole, honey. You get a line and I'll get a pole, babe. You get a line and I'll get a pole. We'll go down to the crawdad hole, honey, baby, mine. And so we called it Honey, Baby, Mine. Of course, this book came about because of a diagnosis that was given to you. And it was basically that your life was in danger. I think I'm not over-exaggerating, Laura, when I say that. Also, maybe strangely, that the doctor gave the news to Laura, not to you, Diane, about this diagnosis.

What about that moment, Laura? I just remember him being rather reserved with my mom, who had at that point gone to the hospital with double pneumonia and ended up sending her to the hospital. And when they discovered this lung illness, he kind of took me to the side, sort sending her to the hospital. And when they discovered this lung illness, he kind of took me to the side, sort of smiling to my mom and then said, be gentle with your mother. She won't be here in three to six months. And I remember mom looking so afraid and also seeing my face, you know, and saying,

what is he saying to you? And that was I wasn't afraid of death. I was afraid of Laura's pain in her face. That was me reaching my heart like a mother. I knew something was wrong. That was worse than any news about death was the expression on my child's face. And that was pretty scary. That was the beginning of the journey. But most importantly, the only thing they said I could do for her is to get her walking to expand her lungs with oxygen. And that was almost impossible at that time. She was on a breathing machine. She could barely walk a few steps. And so I knew I had to, frankly, distract her by much you have to push Diane.

I mean, it is such a window into, I suppose, that inner sanctum of family life. And I should also just let our listeners know with the book, there's photographs, also recipes. So we begin to get a feel for what it was to grow up being Laura and indeed having Diane as a mum. But just before I go back to Laura on her persuasive skills, how bad were you feeling, Diane, when those walks started? I was feeling pretty bad. I thought I was going to just go hit the ground in front of everybody in the park any minute and go blah, blah, blah.

And the only thing, I wasn't afraid of death, but the book wouldn't have gotten written had this not happened to me. I am a member of the writer's guild. I've done a movie and two other books. But the thing was, this was not any intended book. That's the odd thing. It was because parents don't always tell their children the truth. Be honest here. We lie. We lie because we want respect and love from our children. And then the children want the same thing for us. So they lie.

So then when the parent dies, you've heard so many people say, oh, I wish I'd asked my mother that. Or I wish I'd asked my father. So what this book is about, stop just whooshing and make it so. I said to Laura, if one person really talks to somebody, they're not talking to a loved one or a friend, we will have done something good on this planet. And Laura recorded this so she'd have it for austerity's sake. And then her agent said, this is a book. And we said, it's not a book. And she went to five publishers who fought for the right to publish it.

And then we spent a year and a half editing all our walks. We'd written 420 pages. And it was a lot of work. Right, Laura? We truly only shared it because and I appreciate you saying, you know, that it that it has that feeling like you're cracking open a scrapbook of a family's life. Because we wanted to be any mother, daughter, father, son, sister, brother, who finds themselves in a position to be able to ask life's questions because we don't do it enough. And we saw how it was creating bonds we never had. And it's not just because we talked about the hard stuff that was in fact healing. It's because we laughed harder than we've ever laughed together over just fights. We told each other the truth

because we thought I was dying. I'm going, hey. So we spill the beans. So everybody should spill the beans. The mother-daughter relationship, of course, is a thread that goes throughout the book. But it's also, you're an actor. Both of yous are actors. You have had so many similar experiences. I think, I was reading it, like parenting is a mess or the torture of being away from your kids.

And I think a somewhat different attitude I was reading it like parenting is a mess or the torture of being away from your kids. And I think a somewhat different attitude maybe came across to me from both of you. Is that fair, Laura? Yeah. What was great was I even discovered things that I'm doing as a parent that I was completely unconscious of based on my mom's responses. You know, when I finally admitted to my mom how much it hurt when she would leave for work. I'm an actor. I know that that's a sacrifice that happens with working moms that, you know, have to leave their kids when they're traveling. But yet I still know as a daughter what that felt like. And the minute I shared it,

mom had to protect and defend not only her point of view, but mine by saying, oh, no, no, good for you because you had ballet and you did this and you went horseback. And I realized in that moment that that's what I'd been doing with my children. When they would start to bring up their fear of me leaving town for extended time, I would kind of justify instead of really listening to the hurt that I well know. And so my mom and I not only healed a fracture for a shared experience, we both are parenting and grandparenting differently because of it. What about that, Diane? I'm just thinking how, you know, you can't be a good actor if you can't listen. Laura's godmother was the actress Shelley Winters.

And the one thing she always came down on was to tell young actors, you have to listen. But it's true for every human being. You have to listen, not just with the ear, but with the ear of your heart to really listen. And we aren't talking to each other in this world right now. And I think Laura and I were forced to do that, even about things that we didn't agree. And there's another lesson. You don't, because you don't agree with somebody, that's okay. You don't have to fight because of it. Have a different opinion. You might learn something. Step back and let it go with God. Just listen. It's okay to not agree. Laura and I have a couple of things that we don't,

we don't talk about because we don't agree. And so we both listened to each other. And that was what was so great. Let's talk a little about how you are similar and how you are different. I'm going to bring up one of the recipes. That was banana pudding. Laura, is it your favorite dish as Diane says it is? Oh, yeah. We agree on that. We are the same in our obsession for Grandma Mary's banana pudding. She made the best ever. We chased each other around the table to get the last bite.

Let's talk about what an incredible life you have both had. Just looking at, I suppose, these backdrops of old Hollywood and new Hollywood as well as these stories come to light. I'm wondering, Diane, how did you feel when Laura said she wanted to be an actor? I said no, no. She didn't listen? No. Thank God she didn't listen to her mother. I just knew that there was a lot of rejection. At the time I came in, it was about almost a decade and a half following Shelley and Marlon Brando and all those great actresses. There were great parts for women.

They used to make 35 movies a week in Hollywood. And when I came into the business, they were hardly making 35 a year. And it was very hard for women's parts. When I did that film, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, we thought for sure that that would change things. And then when Laura and I did Rambling Rose, we thought that might change things. It slowly has changed for the better again, but it's still very difficult for women. And I said, Laura, be a lawyer, be a doctor. I said, if you're saving somebody's life, nobody cares if you have put on too much weight or your chin points when you cry,

but they care if you're an actor. You're judged every which way every day. But you know, Ramlin Rose, by the way, your late princess Diana chose our film that we both got a nomination for in America, kind of made show business history there by both being nominated for the same movie same year. She chose it as one of her all-time favorites and she flew us to london and had a royal premiere and a party in our honor and we got not only to meet her but she sat between laura and i holding each our hand while watching our film and she was crying and laughing i was pouring sweat. Oh my God, the Princess Diana's watching our film. She was a magnificent, real human being. There was nothing phony about this great lady, wise and beautiful

and gracious. And that was a great honour in my life. Let me turn to you, Laura. I mean, when your mum said no, what was it in you? Was it the life that you had seen growing up around actors that you wanted to be part of? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I had such an opposite journey of mum who came from this small town knowing she was meant to be an actor. I discovered it because one, it was all I knew. I saw it everywhere with both my parents and my godmother and their friends. But I had the privilege of falling in love with the team sport of making a movie. I remember being seven on the set of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and seeing 150 people come together to achieve a goal of art, of storytelling, all with different crafts. And that was really moving. How it's changed is as a seven-year-old,

I saw mostly men come together to make one piece of art. And now there's more gender and diversity equity in storytelling and storytellers, thank God. But in terms of roles, when mom was coming up, and even at the very beginning of my career, I would say that unlike an actor, but like an athlete, an actress was told there was sort of a time window. A small window. Which is disgusting. I mean, my God, imagine the world without performances of, what, women over 40? We have, including my incredible mother, my heroes, our greatest actresses alive, are most of them in their 60s, 70s, 80s. And we need their stories desperately.

Those are the stories that are going to teach us the lessons of life. I remember when I was with my dad on an airplane, I was a teenager saying, you know, I'm really serious about being an actor. And he said, you're never going to have the fun you deserve until you're in your 50s. And I was like, oh my God, that was the most horrible advice. And it took me a while to ask him what he meant. And he said, because you will love playing characters and you will want to go to the deepest of places. And as a woman, I don't think they'll let you do that as an ingenue. And I have and continue to, as mom has not it's not only the mess of life, it's the fun of life. It's the comedy in brokenness that you get to explore in ways

that you don't know as a girl. And I don't follow the rules, right, Laura? Instead of dying, I've done three movies, a TV series and written two books. So just believe in yourself and follow what you know and ask questions. Always ask the questions. You look very well. Was there a point, and this is for both of you, I'll start with Diane, that you were like, ha ha, with these walks, I'm getting better. You felt like you were turning a corner.

Yeah, it took about eight months, I think, for it to click in. That, hey, I might not die at all here. I got a series. Can I really do this series? And I did. We did this for some months and we tried to select stories that would reflect a familial relationship for anyone. You selected stories to get me talking because you know I love to tell stories. And she thought if she could get me telling stories, she could keep me walking.

She's very smart. She sure is. She's smarter than her daddy and me put together both. My daughter is very brilliant and I love her for that. And in the editing process, trying to kind of have things that seem mundane, but take you to a deeper place. Obviously, what was extraordinary about the journey was we were taking these walk and talks in Santa Monica, California. And the goal was to be near ocean air for her lungs and to go a little bit further each day. And we didn't realize until mom started getting stronger and was able to walk

to the next bench and the next bench. And I felt safer to ask her some really hard questions about her greatest grief and heartbreaks. That we, when we got to the end of the block, which was quite a victory after eight weeks of this, that we were actually at the corner of our old street. We didn't intentionally go to the house as we go in the book. We found ourselves there. And that was just extraordinary. And so it did feel like an evolution of healing. And it's like just when you're ready to handle facing something, it's right there for you. So it was very symbolic.

And I think as mom got stronger, I was able to allow myself to hope that she could be around longer. We spent the entire journey assuming, and we still do, we don't know how much time. And so it's, yeah. Ever. I remember that day that you were talking about, subconsciously, I was fighting going down that street I was fighting memories I didn't want to go down that street I did every complaint possible Laura it's too windy I can't get pneumonia here I'm sorry I'm cold I gotta go home remember that Laura I fought against that yeah that was a tennis game going on between us that she got me to take another step another she knew it would probably very important for me to go down that block and look at that house again.

I wondered, actually, when I read it, Laura, how did you know how much to push your mother? She had been ill. It's hard to know our parents sometimes. It is. And, you know, that for me was the main reason I was open and hopeful to share with other families and within other relationships our story, because I didn't want to push. I began doing so. I could see, yes, the grief or the anger or the hurt in certain moments that we were discussing. But afterwards, I literally saw physical healing. I watched someone be able to breathe more easily, walk more easily, feel a sense of relief that made me think that there is a connection to what we hold on to, the grief we hold on to as something that is unkind to the body and that we must share

and talk to heal ourselves and each other. I wonder if I can turn to a story, and I don't want to get both of you arguing again, because it's all been so lovely up until this point. But I'm just going to mention a haircut. I wondered, Laura, about that. Don't bring it. I'll have to, who will I get to tell the story? OK, Laura, you tell your version and then I'll get Diane to tell her.

It's just for our listeners that have not read the book yet. I'm not telling that story. I'm letting the people read that one because you know what? We still don't agree. I want the whole world to take a vote. I was right. She was wrong. And she thinks she was right.

I'm right. I'm right. I'm right. I'm right. Grandmother is right. We will let you read it. It's our biggest fight to this day. It resurfaced, but it is in and around

grandmother watching my son when he was, I think, four and while his dad and I were out of town. He was five. But she took him to get his haircut without asking us. And so that begins the fight. I will say, actually, Laura, for our listeners at the back, you do have questions to ask on your own walk. So what are the most powerful memories of childhood, for example, or who or what were your first and most important influences and other things like that, which can spur the conversations? But you got to ask them all of your mum. Did you think during those walks, I don't even know if this is a fair question to ask, did it alleviate in any way your fear of losing your mother? I'm listening to this, Laura.

I don't think it alleviated, but it definitely shifted it. It presented for me the relief of knowing that my mum and I were as close as we could be, that we didn't always agree, that we didn't always forgive for a moment between us. That wasn't the goal. The goal was we knew each other. And I can say from this specific journey, not working on movies together or being only children and a single mom and daughter, more this ritual has given us a closeness in knowing each other deeply, our hearts, our complication, our vulnerabilities,

so that we can feel we've invested in the intimacy of a mother-daughter relationship in all the ways possible. So lovely to speak to Diane Ladd and Laura Dern. The book is Honey, Baby, Mine. A mother and daughter talk life, death, love and banana pudding. And to save you from looking it up, she didn't mention the name, but Laura's father is another acting legend who gave her acting advice. It's Bruce Dern, as many of you will know.

Let me see, Sylvia got in touch. She says, thank you for this insightful interview with Diane and Laura. I was also told my mother only had six months to live. I didn't accept it and my proudest achievement is having helped her beat cancer and die free of it seven years later. Also,

I've been asking you your stories on asking for permission to propose, whether you did or you didn't, because De Bretts, the etiquette manual, have changed their conventions or their advice on that.

Apparently, you don't have to ask permission anymore. Here's one. Let me see. My now husband asked my father if he could marry me. My father said, no, I don't know you,

to which my husband wanted to answer, I'm not going to marry you. My father said, no, I don't know you, to which my husband wanted to answer, I'm not going to marry you. He did walk me down the aisle in the end. Another one, let me see, I am 27 getting married this July. Myself and my fiance had discussed the topic of asking permission from my parents. We decided it all felt slightly archaic, especially since the focus is asking the father's permission. I make my own decisions across all areas of my life. So deciding my husband to be is not something we felt needed permission from my parents. Lots of them coming in 84844 or on social media at BBC Woman's Hour.

Right. Let me turn to this week. Of course, it begins with the news of more strike action by nurses and teachers. The Royal College of Nursing is calling their ongoing 28-hour strike in England the biggest yet. And although the union has agreed that staff can be called in for some critical areas, it does mark the first time that some nurses who work in A&E, also intensive care, and the cancer services have joined the picket lines. And it comes ahead of a crucial meeting between a number of health unions, ministers and also NHS bosses.

That's tomorrow, when the government's pay offer of 5%, which RCN members have rejected, will be discussed. The Health Secretary is Steve Barclay. He has called the strike premature. He's also called it disrespectful to other unions. A pay offer was accepted in Scotland while health unions in Wales and Northern Ireland are still in negotiations with their governments.

Then tomorrow, you may know, many of you probably affected, that teachers in England will begin their fifth day of strike action in an ongoing pay dispute. So what can we expect from the coming weeks as these female- female dominated sectors step up their industrial action? Well, to discuss, I'm joined by Dr. Susan Milner, a professor of European

politics and society at the University of Bath. Thanks for joining us this morning. So perhaps we should quickly jump back to the decision with the nurses' strike and the recent court ruling that actually changed what people are experiencing these days? Yes, well, as you reported, the ruling was that the Royal College of Nursing wanted to call a 48-hour strike

and this was not ruled lawful because the mandate expired so the strike was cut short but did go ahead with a shorter duration and one feature is as you've said of the actions well there are several features that make it really quite historic, I think, what's been going on over the last few months. But one of them is the way that the unions have been trying to coordinate action between themselves. And obviously, you can see that within the health sector, for example, that makes sense because ultimately, the paymaster is the same. And also, you know, to a large extent, the structures are the same.

So coordination from a union point of view certainly makes sense. But it is, I suppose, just delving into the nurses for a moment, the fact those working in A&E and intensive care and cancer services have joined the picket lines. How significant do you think that is? Well, it's just significant. I mean, A&E obviously has been bearing the brunt of what's been going on elsewhere in the health service and has been kind of pushed almost to breaking point, it seems, at various points. So it's already a service that is very, very stretched. I would say, again, thinking about the features of this movement it's really um

remarkable that the strikes have been very very well organized and you can see that they're the results of very very intensive talks that have been going on also with management to try to make sure that there is a minimum level of cover and if you go to hospitals at the moment you'll see that there are people traveling in and out for treatment there are ambulances going in and out so so that there is a minimum level of service there and obviously emergencies are being dealt with um like a lot of people know, I've had experiences recently where I've had relatives needing urgent treatment, you know, really urgent treatment and having to wait for ambulances on strike days. And they did manage to get to the hospital in the end, but with waiting times. So I think, you know, what we're seeing is, we keep saying, you know, know unprecedented historic in so many ways but

that kind of organization which is across the hospitals and across the health and care sectors is really quite remarkable you know we're talking about uh nursing and teaching which are two female dominated industries 75.5 percent of teachers are women, 88.6% of nurses and health visitors are women. But when we look at the heads of some of these unions involved in the strikes, Pat Cullen, Sharon Graham, Christina

McInnes, Mary Boustead, there's an awful lot of women that are really, I suppose, leading the way when it comes to some of the aspects that you've just discussed of that organisation. Yeah, well, really, I suppose, leading the way when it comes to some of the aspects that you've just discussed of that organisation? Yeah, well, Frances O'Grady, who's recently stepped down as Trade Union Congress General Secretary, she said a few years back, you know, the future of the trade

union movement is female. So across the board, where the trade unions have seen growth in membership, it's been women, and partly that's reflecting changes in the economy. But the strikes that we have at the moment obviously are very focused on the public sector. So if we look at the public sector as a whole, it is a major employer of women. And if we look at those particular occupations health care education

then those are occupations and professions that are predominantly done not exclusively obviously but predominantly done by women and they're also sectors that are characterized by relatively low pay relatively low pay compared to the rest of the economy. So that is a feature of what we're seeing. And so I suppose there are lots of things going on. One of them is that the trade union movement itself has, and that's thanks to women's activism, it didn't just happen naturally, that women within unions have been pushing over decades to try to get the leadership structures and decision-making structures to reflect the membership. And they did that through, you know, really determined action with quotas and targets and reserve seats and these sorts of actions. So we're starting to see that,

but we're also seeing a site of contestation, which is the public sector, which is a female-dominated set of occupations, largely. It's interesting because I was beginning to look just at figures, you know, when it comes to pay rises, for example, and there was a YouGov survey from last year

and it said that 40% of people who asked for a pay rise just over a quarter succeeded. But if you went along gender lines, 43% of men asked for a pay rise compared with a third of women. Furthermore, 31% of that of men were successful. Just over a fifth of women received a salary increase. So kind of looking that in that larger context that women, as we know, paid less. But now in these fields that were also lower down

the salary scale. It's a very particular confluence of female leaders in the union in a lower paid industry with women dominating and always have been asking for less pay raises in general. Yeah, the two things, aren't there?

One's the general kind of undervaluing, I suppose, of women and also maybe the ways in which men and women, through organisational cultures, again, it's not just, you know, their brains are wired differently, but it's how organisational cultures perpetuate these sorts of ideas that, you know, men are hungry for promotion, you know, and are talked about in those terms. And so it's kind of understandable that men are more ready to put themselves forward for the next post, whereas women will sit back and say, oh, I don't know whether I'm ready for that. And so that's why you get initiatives like coaching and mentoring where women are given the support they need and told, actually, yes, you are ready for this.

So there's that generally. And I think this very specific question of how we value those occupations. And it seems to me that as a society, we're sort of coming to terms with the pandemic obviously put a big spotlight on those occupations and, you know, what we call key workers, the people that we actually need, you know, that if we want to go to work, then we need other people, primarily women, but not always. But we need people to look after our children. We need people to educate our children so that the next generation gets on in life. If we're ill or our relatives are ill, we need the ambulances, the paramedics. We need the nurses. We need the doctors. So I suppose as a society, we've had a wake up call that we need to value these professions. But what those workers are saying to us is, well, hurry up, hurry up, because, you know, every day that passes, their pay is falling behind everybody else's.

And at the same time, it's getting more and more expensive to buy food, you know, to pay for the heating, to get by shoes for the kids. We'll continue talking about it. Dr. Susan Milner, a professor of European politics and society at the University of Bath. Thank you so much. I just want to take a moment for words and phrases that motivate or inspire you. What about this one? All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. This year marks 650 years

since Julian of Norwich wrote those words and next Bank Holiday Monday, yes, there's a lot of them in May, I will be finding out more about her life and times and hearing from women who were inspired by her.

I also want to hear from you about works that you live by. Maybe live, laugh, love is across your fridge door. That's one. Some people love it. Some people hate it. My personal favourite is Maya Angelou. And it is that I've learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. So that's my one. What's yours? Do get in touch.

84844 is one place that you can text us. Indeed, at BBC Women's Hour is our social media. And you can email us through our website and I'll give you one more WhatsApp message or voice note at 03700 100444

Looking forward to hearing from you on that. An awful lot of people getting in touch about asking permission to marry. Let me see. As my father was no longer with us, I suggested that my husband ask my mother for my hand. When he did this, she was so delighted she went out into the garden

and did a joyful little dance obviously so relieved to get rid of me that is Janet let me see there was one more Jan has texted in

my daughter's fiancé asked my husband if he could ask my daughter to marry him and my husband said well you'll have to ask Jan's permission as well and so he did

while we were doing the washing up my eldest daughter's husband also asked my husband's permission all my. And so he did while we were doing the washing up. My eldest daughter's husband also asked my husband's permission. All my friends have had the same across the past three years. So lots of different stories coming in. Thank you for them.

Keep them coming, 84844. But now I want to turn to service. It is the new novel by the author and critic, Sarah Gilmartin. In it, famed Dublin chef Daniel Costello, or Costello maybe, more in the Irish way of saying it, runs a successful high-end restaurant and is facing accusations of sexual assault.

Now, this is all set between the present day and the earlier noughties and told from the perspective of three voices, the waitress, the chef and the chef's wife. And it's a story of power, of abuse, of complicity and also of me too. Sarah, welcome to Woman's Hour. Hi, thanks for having me on. Now, why did you decide that you wanted to set this story in a restaurant?

So a number of reasons, one of which was I had read a feature in an Irish broadsheet a couple of years ago, that detailed some dreadful working conditions in various restaurants across the country. It focused on things like the stressful working environment, the poor paying conditions, and particularly the lack of HR procedures. And it got me thinking about industries like hospitality, how easy it is for shady things to happen when those proper procedures aren't in place. And as a rider, that lack of accountability is interesting. You know what it can lend itself to depending on who's in charge.

I also worked for many years as a waitress during college and in my early twenties, never in Dublin, it has to be said, a little bit in Europe and predominantly in America. So I knew how the industry works, you know, the good things, the bad things, you know, my own experiences were largely positive, bar the odd run in with the temperamental chef or two. But, you know, you learn things, you see things, you hear things. You have a lot of friends who work in service when you work in service. I mean, you glean things too. You learn things by osmosis a lot of the time, things that don't look right or seem right. You know, I've worked in a lot of restaurants and bars in my time. I probably can't even count them.

And I just thought you got aspects of restaurant culture so down to the last spoon, shall we say, in what happens in a service. But, you know, it is set in a particular time in Dublin, really Celtic Tiger. And for those that don't remember that time, I mean, it was the country was gone mad. But maybe you can tell our listeners a little bit on why it probably lent itself to your novel. Yeah, that's quite a good description. The country was gone mad.

So in my fiction, I like layers or I like layers of fiction in general. So kind of public and private stories that maybe mirror each other. And for me, the Celtic Tiger was the perfect backdrop for which to set a story about the abuse of power, which is what service is about. Because really, the Celtic Tiger, you know, was a time of great excess, money, possibility, easy money, quick money, deals. It was a great time of opportunity as well um but in retrospect it wasn't a very safe place to do business um and you know collectively as a country we've all been paying for that for the last 15 years so those kind of that backdrop seemed to be appropriate um for the fast-paced frenetic uhful and moneyed world of the restaurant.

The other part of the story which struck me is you're telling it through these various perspectives, as I mentioned, the chef, the chef's wife and a young waitress who worked in the restaurant. What about the chef's wife? Why did you decide to give that person a voice um so for me i wanted to tell i definitely i knew going into the story that i wanted to tell it from multiple perspectives i think with a subject um about um sexual misconduct and things like that um you know for nuance you need to see it from from other people's perspectives um so with the character of Julie, who is the wife in the book, when I was researching this book and this, you know, not even necessarily for research,

but just reading a lot about Me Too in the media because there was quite a lot of it, it struck me that one voice that you never hear from or you rarely hear from is the partner of the person who's up on sexual misconduct allegations. And that to me is interesting. You know, when you don't hear from a voice, I'm always kind of interested in that. And I mean, she's not the most important voice in the story. I think that probably belongs to the victim. But it is another, you know, in one way, it's, you know, she's a woman

whose life has been kind of ripped apart by the same man in a very, very different way. So, you know, in one way, it's, you know, she's a woman whose life has been kind of ripped apart by the same man in a very, very different way. So, you know, she's been married to Daniel for 20 years, they have two teenage boys, she's been living one reality, and quite possibly, there's been another different reality going on at the same time. And let's turn to this revered chef. You say that he was very compelling to write. Why? Well, actually, just going back to what you said in your introduction.

So his name is Daniel Costolo, which is how we generally pronounce it in Ireland. But I reckon in his own head, he probably pronounces it Costello. More in line with Elvis. He does. He has a big ego um an inflated sense of ego he was an entertaining character to write um you know he's kind of viewed or he views himself um but certainly viewed by other chefs too as a kind of artistic genius a man who um very much a self-made man um who has worked as a chef from the age of 16 and kind of kept going and now he's in his late 50s and there's kind of an interesting false sense of humility that goes along with his character so there's a lot of ego and it was quite entertaining to write but on another level he is or perhaps has elements of predatory elements. Certainly, he views other

people, women and men, not necessarily as human beings in their own right, but tools to either help him in his job or satisfy his desires or quell his insecurities or whatever. So that was an interesting aspect. And then I suppose just finally on Daniel, he's a man for the first time in his life who has, you know, is being forced to stop. His restaurant is closed because of what's going on with the trial. And he's taken a good long, hard look at himself, I suppose. And that's interesting for a writer. There's more than a whiff of midlife crisis of Daniel. So that was quite interesting to write. The midlife crisis, yes, because we, of course, we see him and

everybody really in the book and how times change. A pre-Me Too, I don't think there is a post-MeToo yet, but kind of, I suppose, a reckoning. But what about MeToo fatigue? For example, you know, Daniel does talk about that he's being victimised, for example, or men are being victimised or there's no time to be a man. Were you trying to get across some of those aspects as well about where it is now, the movement? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, from Daniel's perspective, so there's two timelines. It's set in 2007 as part of the boom. And then the second timeline is in or around early 2017. So it's as Me Too is happening, you know, particularly over in the States. But, you know, a lot of it hasn't yet unfolded or certainly reached Ireland. So Daniel calls it American nonsense at some point, you know, that it will never happen over here among ordinary, decent people. But, sorry, Niamh, can you remind me of your question? backlash is too strong a word but kind of what some people have been saying about the movement since about like whether it's still in full force he feels like he's being victimized you're kind of

giving voice perhaps to some of the me too fatigue that seems to come up every now and again and I'm just wondering what you were trying to get across with that or is it something you've encountered um yeah so I find the whole idea of Me Too fatigue a bit funny. I mean, in a kind of a bitterly ironic way in that, you know, what happened, what has happened since Me Too is that there's been platforms for women to speak out about sexual misconduct, harassment, discrimination, bullying, stuff that's been going on for decades or centuries. So this kind of idea that, you know, there's fatigue after four or five years,

I feel like, you know, come back to me in a couple of centuries and then we can see if the balance has been redressed. Your book is Service, second novel, first was The Dinner Party. The author and critic is Sarah Gilmartin. Thanks so much for joining us on Women's Hour. Thanks, Amelia Nuala.

Lots of you getting in touch on Women's Hour 84844, some in response to the interview with Diane and Laura. Let me see, I don't have her name or his name, but they say, I wish I had heard your interview with Diane and Laura while my daughter was so ill. We'd been very close, but when

we heard how ill she was, she shut me out to protect me. We didn't have any of the important conversations that we needed to have and I do regret that. Talk to each other, no matter how difficult it is, there may not be another chance. I'm really sorry to hear that, but thank you so much for getting in touch. But they did talk about that, didn't they? That children try to protect their parents and parents try to protect their children. Now, I want to move on on Woman's Hour now and return to the Woman's Hour Power List.

It is May Day Bank Holiday. Are you going to get outside today? Maybe a walk or a bike ride? Something like that? Well, someone who I'm sure will want to encourage you to move your body. I can't say that

without thinking of the song. Is my next guest, a real champion of grassroots women's sports. She placed 16th on our Women's Hour Power List, which celebrates, as you may know, the 30 remarkable women in sport. Now, her name is Samia Caesar, and she's a teaching assistant at a primary school in East Finchley in London. She set up netball and football clubs for girls

and cycling netball and football clubs for women. Yes, she is a very busy woman set up netball and football clubs for girls and cycling netball and football clubs for women. Yes, she is a very busy woman and does some kind of coaching or playing every single day of the week. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Was I just lucky to get you on a bank holiday? Yeah.

Well, you're very welcome and congratulations on placing in the power list. Now, I understand your coaching began with netball, setting up a team at your son's school? My daughter, well, my son and my daughter's school, but yeah, my daughter then. Yeah, so I just, I kind of got back into netball after many years out of it.

And I went to like a back to netball session. And yeah, that kind of sparked the the the journey i suppose um i set up a after school club um what year was it 2018 i think 2017 or 2018 and i was um just coaching the school team and that kind of um you know everything spots and went from there and you just realized you had these skills? I mean, no, I've always loved sport. I've always played. I always, when I was younger, I always played netball.

I always cycled. I was always quite active and busy. And then, you know, I grew up. I had my kids and kind of fell out of love with it. But then, you know, when I started... What do you think brought it back? Just, just... What brought it back to me? So when I started what do you think brought it back um just just what brought it back to me um so when I started back again just just the remembering you know what it was like for when

I was young and then like what it does for me as a woman um so yeah I was just kind of motivated to to push push it and get other people as well because yes you have of course the sporting skills but you have these organisational skills and these persuasive skills and these influencer skills is what I'm hearing as well. Not just netball, you wanted to coach football

as well. Llymore Gardens FC? Yes. So when my daughter was in year five she had a group that was about five or six of the girls that were, they were playing football in the playgrounds at school and stuff, but there wasn't really a space for them outside of that. So, yeah, I just, I really wanted to just build a platform and create a space for them to be able to come and train and develop their skills and stuff. Not thinking it was going to kind of grow into what it has grown into. And so we started in 2019 and we had like 12 girls

that kind of turned up for our community sessions, which were originally funded by like the Grangeburg Local. It was a community, it was all about the community. So we wanted to create this space for them. And then, yeah, we've just, you know, fast forward four years and it's huge now. We've got five girls teams that competitively play on a Sunday and we've got training, coaching after school on a Wednesday,

a Friday, Saturday mornings. And we engage over 100 girls every week. It's terrific. And I know, of course, there's challenges during lockdowns, the pandemic and all that of keeping that going. But you did. Well, we were amazed by the submissions we received from our listeners

when we asked for the women they wanted our judges to consider for our power list. And someone who put you forward is Emily, one of the mums whose daughter plays in your team. Do you want to listen to the message we got? So, Mayor, I think it's extraordinary what you've done for my daughter

and for all the girls of East Finchley, creating an opportunity for them to play football, to love football and to enjoy being part of the team and really enjoy the fun of it. I love that even when they're losing 7-0, you still keep them cheerful and positive and playing on right to the end. And it's been great that you've created so many fantastic opportunities for the girls like going to play at Wembley they have never felt like football is not for them they totally feel like they're in their sport

they're owning it they're proud they're holding their heads up and they're having fun and they're keeping physically active and that's just amazing thank you how does that feel oh I sometimes I don't I don't realize how much of an impact like the things that I do have on the community around me um you know I just I sometimes I can just do just do and do and do and not realize kind of take it all in yeah yeah yeah so this has kind of been a big like, woo, moment for me, which is nice. It's nice to hear that. And yeah, that's exactly what,

you know, we set out to do when I started. And it's not, obviously, as Emily mentioned there as well, you know, you can be losing, but they're still inspired to keep going. Well, the girls that we, you know, we started with,

they wasn't really, they never had that kind of natural, they weren't natural footballers. I just wanted them to kind of get into something and just feel that being part of a team and that sense of belonging within their community. So, yeah, they used to lose every game. But we go back, you know, every week we come back and we'll learn and we'll grow. And now they're sitting top of their league. So I'm really proud of them.

Well, that's amazing. Resilience right there. Lots of resilience. But it's not just girls you work with. And I want to let our listeners know about this as well, because you coach women. And I want to talk about the cycling. Because there's women that weren't confident about cycling.

But tell us about the group you've got together. Our Limewell Ladies Cycling Group. It's a really quite intimate group of women. It's not a huge cycling group. I started it off the back of lockdown and I picked up a bike in May 2020 with my two kids and I just wanted to ride. I always rode when I was younger.

And yeah, I met a lot of people on my cycling journey and did some amazing things. I've run London to Southend, London to Brighton, I'm Ride London, kind of joined an alliance together. So Limehole Ladies Cycling Group was birthed off of that. And it was the ladies, lots of ladies wasn't really like road confident, you know. So it was a difficult journey for some of them. But we're there now and we go out, we explore London. And, you know, we started our first ride was like five miles just around East Finchley.

And now we kind of push ourselves to go further and further. I think the max that our group's done maybe 30 miles, which is good. So, yeah, just really encouraging them to keep moving for their mental health. So let's think about somebody this morning listening to you. And I'm sure smiling because I find myself smiling as I listen to you with all these wonderful stories. But they're not confident about cycling. What would you say to them? Try and find a buddy because i went on instagram there's so many

cycling groups and alliances out there that um that that um you know can encourage them and i would just find find somebody but there's always somebody there's always i rode a lot on my own and then there was a few people around me like oh i'd love to go for a ride i'm just not confident and you know just um try and find someone online on instagram is really good a good platform for that um and then yeah just just do it you've got to do it really good, a good platform for that. And then, yeah, just do it. You've got to do it. It's just the confidence thing.

And that's what I do with the girls as well. It's all about like just having that confidence to just get it done. Which you bring in bucket loads. And being on the power list? It's fabulous. I feel like a local superstar. Because you are. Yeah. But I didn't realise sometimes I'm walking down local local superstar because you are yeah but I didn't realise sometimes I'm walking

down the road and you know it's like oh that's me I'm like hi hi yeah really

yeah well we're so delighted you came in and you know we've just touched on some of the aspects of the work that you do

but I'm delighted you were with us thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Really lovely to have you in. And of course, you can learn more

about our power list on the Woman's Hour website. I just want to go to some of your messages. Let me see. Listening to Woman's Hour this morning with Laura Dern and Diane Ladd. My mother did the exact same as Diane and cut our daughter's hair

for the first time without asking me. I was furious. She's 93 and I totally forgive her now. We never spoke about it again. That's Rose in Devon. Here's Graham and Elizabeth getting in touch about wedding permission, marriage permission. I asked my wife's father for permission.

He was rather deaf. He replied, you do as you like, son, which I took as assent. So we went ahead. That was 45 years ago. Though we're still not sure what he thought the question was that I asked.

I hope he didn't regret it. Let me see another one here. My daughter got engaged at the end of last year. My husband was away at the time sailing in the Indian Ocean and not easily contactable. But nevertheless,

my daughter's partner persevered and managed to speak to him over satellite phone. What will always mean the world to me is that he called me too. Thanks so much for your messages. I'll talk to you tomorrow. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, my name's Michelle D'Souza and I'm Laura Smith and we have a new podcast from BBC Radio 4. Bang On It is a weekly podcast where we curate, recommend, cherry pick through the week and just go,

have a look at that, basically. We're going highbrow, we're going lowbrow, right? We're doing the legs. We're doing the hard yards so you don't have to. Oh, I like that. Listen, like all podcasts, we're talking about stuff we've done, whether you should bother doing it,

but really we're waxing lyrical and... Trying to make that paper, baby. The economy's in the pan. Subscribe to Bang On It on BBC Sounds. 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's 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.