Woman's Hour - Adult orphans, Accusations of assault in tennis, Leader interview: John Swinney

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

In the next of the Woman’s Hour interviews with the leaders of the main political parties in the run-up to the General Election, Clare McDonnell speaks to John Swinney, Scotland’s First Minister and leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party. What does it mean to be an adult orphan? Does the term still apply if you lose both parents when you’re no longer a child? Playwright Naomi Westerman was writing about death rituals when she lost her whole family, turning the academic into the deeply personal. Naomi talks to Clare about her experiences and is joined by Flora Baker, the author of The Adult Orphan Club.Wimbledon starts next week and amongst the usual pre-match discussions about favourites and performances, there’s also been a serious conversation about how top-level tennis handles allegations of domestic abuse. Clare is joined by the host of the Tennis podcast, Catherine Whitaker to discuss recent cases. Marine biologist Christine Figgener went viral after sharing a video of a turtle with a plastic straw lodged in its nose, bolstering the campaign to get rid of plastic straws altogether. She joins Clare to discuss her new book about her efforts to protect sea creatures, My Life With Turtles. Presenter: Clare McDonnell Producer: Olivia Skinner

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.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Clare Macdonald and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. This morning, just one week to go to polling day and our leaders interview series continues. Today, we'll be speaking to the leader of the Scottish National Party, John Swinney, who's fighting off a robust challenge from Labour in Scotland. Keep listening to find out what his party is offering women in this election. Can you define yourself as an orphan when you are no longer a child?

I'll be speaking to two women who lost both their parents when they were still young women and both have written about their experiences as adult orphans. Tell me your experience. Does age matter when you lose a parent? Does life experience a family of your own help you deal with the loss or is that loss just as profound at any time of life? You can text the programme. The number is 84844. Texts will be charged at your standard message rate on social media. We are at BBC Woman's Hour and you can email us through our website. Also today, Wimbledon fortnight begins on Monday and whilst there's an awful lot of focus on whether Andy Murray will appear for one final time, today we'll be focusing on a serious issue away from the courts. How does top level tennis handle allegations

of domestic abuse and could it do better? And I'll be joined in the studio by marine biologist Christine Figener, author of My Life with Turtles. It was her video of a turtle having a straw removed from its nostril that went viral and led to corporate straw bans around the world. She will be joining us later on in the programme. But first, as you know, Women's Hour series of interviews with leaders of all the main political parties in Great Britain in the run up to the general election is underway. So far, we've heard from the leaders of the Green Party and Plaid Cymru and from a representative of the leader of the Liberal Democrats. Today, I'm joined by John Swinney, Scotland's first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party, SNP. Welcome.

Good morning. Great to have you on the programme. Listen, we know that women are more likely than men to be undecided in their vote. Now, your party has been in charge in Scotland for 17 years. Why should women vote for the SNP in these Westminster elections? I think women should vote for the SNP in these Westminster elections because we have a track record of working to enhance the lives and the involvement of women in our society and the access that women have to public services. We were, for example, the first country in the United Kingdom to bring forward an ambitious women's health plan,

which addressed some of the issues about which women are able to access the labour market and some of the support to women particularly through the expansion of early learning and child care which has been a significant policy commitment of the Scottish government so when the SAP came to power a child would get 475 hours of early learning and childcare back in 2007. Now that is 1140 hours. So it's essentially equates to the school day. So we've expanded early learning and childcare to enable more women to be economically active and to have the support of good early learning and childcare services.

OK, we'll get into female issues that aren't necessarily in your manifesto and therefore how importantly you are taking them. But let's talk about your candidates. 57 SNP candidates standing in this election, 22 of them are women, which makes 39%. It puts you roughly in the middle of the seven main GB parties. How important is it to you to get that figure closer to 50%? Well, it's very important. And in the Scottish Parliament, we have done that.

And actually, in the cabinet that I lead, we have more women than men within the Scottish cabinet. So I think that's an illustration of the priority that I, as the First Minister of Scotland attach to making sure that the voices and the perspectives of women are very very influential on the policy direction of the Scottish Government and that we're able to reflect that in the decisions that we make as a government. But if the candidate count is still low that representation is not going to climb higher is it?

In this particular election, no. But I would cite the fact that in the Scottish Parliament, we're in a stronger position. And in relation to the government, we and the cabinet, we're in an even stronger position because we have a majority of women in the cabinet able to influence and shape government policy. You've stated your claim in your manifesto on independence, page one, line one. We all know that is your main pledge, independence for Scotland. This is Woman's Hour.

And in the 2014 referendum on independence, 57% of the female vote was no. So how are you hoping to convince voters that Scottish independence would benefit women? I think what we've got to do is relate independence to the lives that people have today. So during this election campaign, I've concentrated on the fact that there has been some very significant decisions taken in Westminster that have had a negative effect on the lives of individuals in Scotland around austerity, around Brexit and the cost of living. So these three significant factors, austerity, Brexit and the cost of living,

are all the product of decisions taken in Westminster and they will all be having a detrimental effect on the lives of women within Scotland. So austerity, we've got real pressure on our public services because of the constraints of the public finances. On Brexit, young women in Scotland are no longer able to move around Europe, choosing where they want to work and study because of the barriers that Brexit have put up because of the loss of freedom of movement. And on the cost of living, there will be women in our society, and I talk to women as a constituency member of Parliament

about the challenges that they are facing in relation to meeting the issues arising from the cost of living. All of these decisions are a product of Westminster decision-making, and independence, of course, is a way as an alternative to that, is a way of taking decisions in Scotland for Scotland that are in the interests of our people. And if I cited, for example, the movement on early learning and childcare, that's a decision taken exclusively in Scotland that's making a profound difference on the lives of women within Scotland. And it's an example of what we can do when we have the powers to take these decisions. And that's a long-term ambition,

which is all well and good. But, you know, for example, on the issue of health, health is devolved, you're in charge of that. Independence for many women listening to this may feel like a distraction when they want you to get on with dealing with things that affect their daily lives. Public Health Scotland released

their latest NHS weighting figures. The second highest increase in ongoing weights by speciality is for gynaecology. No mention of women's health either as a strategy in your manifesto. Why isn't this a focus when you see that as a yawning gap? Well, obviously, the Westminster lecture, you're absolutely correct. why isn't this a focus when you see that as a yawning gap? Well, obviously, the Westminster election, you're absolutely correct. Health is an entirely devolved issue. So it's an issue the government is responsible for.

And in this election campaign, obviously, there's a set of issues that are reserved to the UK government. And we've concentrated on that in our manifesto. But what I would come back to is the point I made at the very outset, that we were the first government in the United Kingdom to bring forward a women's health plan. And we want to take the necessary measures to improve the services that are available to women and to improve their health. But if that's your track record, why is there no mention of a women's health plan, a strategy in your manifesto? You're not building on that. Well, essentially, well, I can build on that within government.

And that's where we've got the levers and the powers to do that, because we've got that under our control in the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. But the point I'd make about health services in general is that we are significantly investing in the health service. We have allocated a larger proportion of the budget that we have under our control to healthcare than when we came to power in 2007. But there are real challenges which I don't escape about the

delivery of healthcare services because of the availability of the public finances to support that. And part of the argument I think that's at the heart of this election has got to be what is going to be the direction of investment in our public services particularly the health service and I'm really worried that an incoming Labour government and I think it's absolutely certain we're going to have an incoming Labour government are not going to be making the investment in our public services and especially in our health services that we need to make sure that we can overcome some of the legitimate problems and challenges that you put to me. OK, and you've got significant problems and challenges. Waiting times peaked at record highs last month on your watch.

Many of your pledges in your manifesto costed by a return to the EU. You're talking about the NHS, more funding for the NHS, for example. Rejoining the EU is not happening any time soon. So where is that money coming from? You've attacked the Conservatives you've just attacked Labour but where are your costings come from if there isn't an imminent return to the EU? Someone's got to pay for it.

Well that's right and what I've also argued in our manifesto is that we've taken some pretty difficult decisions over the last few years to increase the resources available for the public services of Scotland by increasing tax on higher earners. Now, the UK government has chosen not to do that. There would be a solution to some of these challenges if the UK government actually followed what we've done on tax and got higher earners to pay a bit more into taxation so that we had more investment in our public services. So we've taken those

decisions. But the issue of Brexit, this election campaign has largely ignored the fact that Brexit has been a calamity for the United Kingdom. And it's now, it's reduced the size of our economy by about £69 billion. And it's reduced the tax available by 28 billion pounds. Now that is money that we need to have invested in our public services. It's money we need to have to create economic opportunity in our society and both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party are engaged in a conspiracy of silence about Brexit and the public finances and these are crippling problems that are undermining the future of the United Kingdom which is why I think Scotland's got to take a different course with independence. I mean yeah raising taxes though anyone on more than £28,867 in Scotland is paying more income

tax than someone on the same earnings anywhere else in the UK you say it's high earners that is not a high earning sum is it? But those individuals will also get free prescription charges if their child goes to university they will not pay tuition fees they will have access to larger early learning and child care provision than is available in the rest of the United Kingdom and they will generally pay a lower council tax than in the rest of the United Kingdom. Now those are just four examples which have got to be taken into account when we consider the tax question, that there are more things on offer

that are made available to people as part of the social contract in Scotland, where we say to people who are earning at the higher end of the spectrum to pay, in some cases, and certainly at £29,000, very slightly more in taxation, obviously at higher incomes, a larger amount in taxation,

to contribute to the public good so that we can provide these services to people in Scotland. Understood. Conversations around trans rights and gender reform increasing as we get closer to the election. We were talking about things that weren't in your manifesto. The only time the word gender appears in the SNP manifesto is in reference to the gender pay gap. Did you avoid using that word on purpose? No, I think we've set out in our manifesto the propositions that were taken forward to the people of Scotland. And we do that in an open way to set out what we believe in and what our priorities should be. OK, your stance on gender identification, then let's just probe that a little bit more. When you became leader for the second time, only last month, the author J.K. Rowling accused you of, in her words,

obfuscating and blustering to avoid the dangerous words, women's don't have penises. What is your stance on gender ID? Well, what I believe is that we've got to take forward this debate in a respectful fashion. It's a really difficult subject. I'm aware of, obviously, the tensions and the difficulties that exist on this question.

And we've got to try to advance on this issue in a fashion that listens carefully to different points of view. The Scottish Parliament came to a conclusion about gender reform. We passed legislation that was supported by members of all five political parties in the Scottish Parliament, and we brought forward that legislation. Now, that legislation can't be implemented because of the court action that was taken by the United Kingdom government so we cannot implement that legislation as things currently stand but what that legislation was was a product

of the decision making of the Scottish Parliament supported by all five political parties. Talking of different points of view there has been reports of a disagreement between yourself and your Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes on this exact topic. She said that JK Rowling took a principled stance and said that she actually supported JK Rowling's views on trans rights. Are you listening to all of the women in your own party? Of course I am. And that's part of what I said to my party when I became its leader just about seven weeks or so ago, that I wanted to create an environment for respectful debate where we listen to each other

and we had open discussion and open debate about our priorities and we come to conclusions. And once we've done that, we take that agenda forward. Now, I've spent the last seven weeks, yes, involved in the election campaign, but also bringing my party back together again. And I think I've succeeded in that mission. My party is cohesive and focused and united. And crucially, it's respectful, respectful of different points of view.

And we'll consider those points of view and come to our conclusions. So the question is, was that cohesiveness not there before? And equally, Kate Forbes, Deputy First Minister, has said she had so many significant concerns when it came to the Gender Reform Recognition Bill. Had she not been on maternity leave, she would have not voted in favour. We have a First minister a deputy first minister not on the same page on this very important issue don't we no I think what we've got is

people who are prepared to work together for common cause and to listen to each other with care and to listen to all of our colleagues with care and to bring people to points of agreement and that's precisely what I've done since I became leader of the Scottish National Party and it's what I'll continue to do in that role. And also, crucially, in my role as First Minister of Scotland, I recognise, and I said this in my acceptance speech to Parliament, that the country and Parliament is intensely polarised just now and I have to use the office of First Minister to bring people together

and that's what I intend to do. We're just going to get through as many last questions as we can. Single sex space is there and you've expressed confidence that they are being protected already under the Equality Act. How do you convince women listening who think the opposite? Well, we've got to make sure that what is in legislation is turned into a practical reality and that we do have the the provisions in the equality act 2010 are utilized to ensure that single space single sex spaces are used in a way that protects the security and the safety of women and girls and there is nothing absolutely nothing i want to do which jeopardizes the security and the safety of women and girls. Okay we're just finally going to ask you about maternity pay because as many of our listeners

will be interested in your view on that there is a pledge on maternity pay in your manifesto you say you'll increase maternity pay a year with 100% pay for the first 12 weeks 90% after that we also know that the Institute for Fiscal Studies say an independent Scottish government would have some very difficult decisions to make on taxation and spending. So that is a hell of a pledge. How are you going to fund it? Well, what the Institute for Fiscal Studies say is that, yes, there are challenges, but also with independence, we'd have more powers at our disposal to create greater economic activity in our society. And when we look at small European countries

like Ireland or Sweden or Denmark, these are higher performing economies and countries than Scotland is today. And that's who we seek to emulate in taking forward our agenda of independence. John Swinney, thank you so much for joining us on BBC Woman's Hour. John Swinney, Scotland's First Minister

and leader of the Scottish National Party, the SNP. We welcome your views on this and everything else we're talking about on Woman's Hour this morning. You can text me on 84844 and our leaders debates will continue here on Woman's Hour. Now let's move on to talk about being an adult orphan. Does the term still apply, orphan, if you lose both parents when you are no longer a child? Or does losing your parents lead to the same feelings of loss and isolation no matter how old you are? Both my guests in the studio now have experienced losing both parents when they were still young women and both have written about their experiences as adult orphans playwright naomi westerman was studying death rituals as an anthropologist when her whole family died in close succession during

the academic sorry turning the academic into the deeply personal she's written a book happy death club about how we approach death in our culture it blends her research with her own experiences and looks at topics from choices about burial to how horror films deal with loss i'm also joined in the studio by author flora baker her book adult orphan club is now. And it's also about how she navigated grief after losing both of her parents. Both of you, welcome. It's great to have you in the studio. Naomi, tell me how you feel about the word orphan and it being used to describe an adult. Well, I think the word orphan conjures up so many images of, you know, sort of tattered, penniless children in rags.

But I think you never stop needing your parents. Culturally, there isn't really anything that exists around the concept of an adult orphan. But often if you lose both your parents, if you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s, you may be the first person in your friendship group to experience that. And it's a profound loss that you don't necessarily experience much understanding of. Because generally people become orphaned. You know, there's a lot culturally around children obviously being orphaned. But for most people, you might be, you know, in your 60s or even 70s before you lose both your parents. If you do lose your parents in young adulthood or mid adulthood, there's very, very little understanding.

There's very little conversation around that. So I think it's very important. How old were you? I was in my early 30s. Right. And what was your loss? Your loss was over a period of time? Yeah, it was over a period of a few years. I come from a very small family. I'm an only child. So I lost my grandmother, who was my only grandparent, and then my aunt, which is my very close aunt, who was my only grandparent and then my aunt which was my very close aunt who was my mother's sister and then my dad and then my mum and my mum was my last family to pass away who I was very very close to. Flora you too are an only child tell us your story

because your parents died separately obviously but at different stages of when you were a very young woman. Yeah, my mum passed away quite suddenly when I was 19. And then my dad passed away in a slightly longer period of time. He had a terminal diagnosis and died about six months later. But that was when I was 29. So essentially, my entire 20s were bookended by two parent deaths and as Naomi was saying it's it's very difficult to feel like you're part of your cohorts you're part of your you know age range because nobody has any idea what you're feeling and also as a result has no idea how to

treat you and you often take on a lot of that sense of feeling very other and very alienated which is I think why we both want to make sure that people understand that it doesn't make you different it just means that you're dealing with a lot. You talk about you've written about this before about how you got the call from your dad when you were in halls of residence with your then boyfriend just 19 years old and what did did he say to you well my mum had had cancer when i was 10 and had got through it um but suddenly cells had metastasized and she'd gone into hospital um and he was supposed to come and collect me from uni for christmas um and he said oh i can't come and get you we're in hospital um and my mum was okay that night she was exhausted

but she was okay um but she had a stroke that night but had been discharged already to come home the next day so the doctors didn't catch it so essentially there was a listening of different things that kicked off and she died yeah about eight days later nine days later. Do you have a sense of yourself before that phone call and after that phone call? Honestly, I remember saying to people just after it had happened that I felt like my life beforehand was just a rehearsal. And essentially my mum dying kind of pinpointed new life, like how I was going to have to be for however long I lived for. And that felt very strange right in the moment I knew how separate before and after was going to be.

Did you get the support or was it just that people wanted to support you but they didn't know what to say? I mean back then it was 2008 and it was very different then. Like there were no podcasts, there were no obvious means of support systems, there were no groups that were obviously seen there was no social media channels and I didn't really know how to reach out or where to reach out um I did have good friends but at university all the people I was with were you know 19 20 and they they didn't know how to handle grief I didn't know how to handle grief yeah Naomi you were studying anthropology and actually writing about death rituals when you lost your entire family. How did being an anthropologist help in any way and the subject matter you were dealing with? or things that are very frightening to me. I didn't really grow up in a culture where death was talked about. So I think studying anthropology really taught me that there's such a broad range of ways that different cultures approach death.

Some cultures are very, very open about death. And it really made me realize that, you know, there's no wrong way to do death and there's no wrong way to do grief. So I think that was incredibly, incredibly beneficial. But how do we do grief here? I don't think we do grief very well. And I think one of the things that I really campaign for, both in my books and my work with grief peer support groups, such as Table 11, who are a new organisation that offer peer support for people in their 20s, 30s and 40s

who have experienced bereavement, is that we need to create more secular communal grieving rituals. We need to find more ways to grieve communally. And I think we need some ritualistic way of doing that because ritual is a huge part of anthropology. And ritual, I think, gives you a structure and gives you a language for talking about uncomfortable situations when people maybe don't know how to do that by themselves. Tell us how you created that then you've done this artistically, dramatically, and involve the audience. What did you do? Well, I wrote an award winning stage play called Batman that debuted at Vault Festival and then went to Nottingham Playhouse and is potentially being adapted for a TV that was very much an autobiographical show about my life and my mother's death and grief within that but I had lots of interactive things I played lots of

games like death related games I had things like serial killer bingo I had things like serial killer bingo. I had things like death family fortunes, just to kind of encourage people to know that it's okay to laugh about death, to get people thinking about their relationship with death, particularly, I think, with things like the true crime genre, which is very exploitative, and how are we complicit in consuming content that reduces death entertainment. And then the play finished with, because I'm Jewish, but I'm not particularly a practicing Jew,

with a shiver ceremony, which is things that Jewish people do when someone dies, where you basically gather together and you eat food and you light candles and you remember that, the person you've lost. So I gave the audience food and I invited them to come on stage to light

a candle for anyone that they were grieving, which a lot of people felt very touching. And what was the reaction? I mean, was it kind of an exorcism for a lot of people, do you think? I think so. Every, yeah, the audience feedback and kind of the critical reviews all highlighted the candle lighting moment as a very special moment. I think there's something very powerful about sharing space. And I think that is the power of theatre because I am primarily a playwright now. And I think just silence, just being in a room together and having a moment of silent, quiet reflection, I think is just a really, really powerful thing. Flora, I want to, you know, we mentioned this earlier that you're both only children. There's that sense, I guess, when you lose parents and wider family you're talking about your

aunt Naomi you were very close to that you become untethered because you're the holder of everything now aren't you? You're the holder of your family history of those memories how have you coped with that? It's a big thing to handle it really is I I don't quite know how I would have managed that if they'd both died when I was 20 but losing my dad just shy of 30 I'd I'd traveled a lot before that and I think a lot of that time was spent trying to outrun all of the grieving that I kind of knew was waiting. But when my dad died, I ended up moving into my family house, ostensibly to look after him when he was dying. And then that house became an incredible source of comfort and anchoring. And I pretty much lost the desire to travel the

way I had before, because suddenly I needed that underpinning. I needed that sense. And I don't mean in like a ghostly way, but I needed the sense that my family were around still and that I could see them in that space. I could remember my mum walking around in the kitchen and I could see my dad, you know, working in his study. And I really, I felt like it helped an awful lot for me, but also that was a massive privilege to be able to hold on to that house.

Like a lot of people have to get rid of their parents houses as soon as they go um but I think the unmooring sense and the the preservation sense that you're almost foisted with when you lose a parent or both parents there's a lot of of having to remember things for your sake, but also for theirs. Like you don't want to lose track of the memories that you shared as a family. And that is, yeah, it's just very difficult. How do you do that? What do you do? How do I do that? I think one of the things that has really helped me, and it took about eight or nine years after my mum's death,

was being told by a therapist off in Bali that I could talk out loud to her and that that wasn't a strange thing to do and while I was having that conversation with this woman I said she said to me what would your mum say right now and kind of out of nowhere like little words that she would have used just kind of appeared when I was speaking out loud what she might have said to me and now I find it really easy to talk to her and know what she would say back to me. And knowing that 15 years after her death, I can still really hear what she would say. I mean, that's definitely a source of anchoring for me.

Do you share that with other people? Do you share those memories? So other people have a vision of your mum that they might not have had before? I think very much so. But also I was lucky that my mum was also in theatre and was a very dramatic theatrical woman. So a lot of people have very grand memories of her anyway. But equally, I make sure that I utilise the words that she used, specific little idiosyncrasies,

and I make sure that my friends are aware that they can feed those back to me. And that keeps that aspect of her alive. But yeah, I think it's just it's a very, it's a very unique and personal decision on how you bring them back with you and have them around you. Naomi, what about you? I mean, the thing is, it's great to remember people. But let's be honest, life isn't always that straightforward. And relationships are problematic. And Laura, I know you had a problematic relationship with your dad. What about that? What about this people listening to this saying, I haven't processed the grief, but actually, it's much more complicated, because it wasn't straightforward when they were alive. Yeah, exactly. My process of grieving my dad was very straightforward, because we had a very

good relationship. He was also a very well-organized person. He didn't leave a lot of mess. My relationship with my mother was a lot more complicated. It's definitely very, very hard to grieve people who you had a complicated relationship with. There's a lot of guilt in my case. My mother was in an abusive relationship. There's a lot of guilt around that. I don't really know the answer to that. I think it's just important to keep talking. I found ways to honour my mother's memory in different ways. That's very important to me. I feel like I can do things for her in death that I unfortunately didn't feel I could do in life. And that's been a huge part of my grieving process. How do you do that? Well, I did the exact opposite to Flora, that you felt that you didn't need to travel.

My mother always really desperately wanted to travel and she never had the opportunity to. So one thing I did that I put in my book is I created something that I called the Ashes World Tour. My mother was cremated. So um I do travel a lot everywhere I travel I scatter a very small amount of her ashes I have my little teeny tiny you know Tupperware box in my hand luggage you know security go what's this and you have to go that's my mom please don't take it um so yeah I've scattered my mum's ashes on something like probably a dozen countries, more than a dozen countries on I think three or four different continents at this point. And I'm going to keep going. And that feels like I'm going to give my mother the world.

And that is really special to me. What do you think? I'll ask you in a second, because I'm going to ask you for what do you think your mum would say? But what do you think your mum would think about that? That is such a beautiful memorial to her through being published and through being performed, I just know that that would just, she'd just be thrilled. She'd just be chuffed. She'd be absolutely chuffed. I'm sure she would. Flora, what would your mum say? Looking at you now, seeing what you're doing, coming on Woman's Hour, opening up this really important conversation.

I mean, as a woman who religiously listened to Woman's hour and radio 4 in general many memories of a lesson to the archers theme tune and um in the bath um i yeah i think she would be so proud and so excited by it all and i think what we said earlier that you know the conversation is very often very dure and dark and serious about grief and it should be because there is a lot of you know dark serious stuff in there but it's also it can be very light there can be a lot of humor there there can be a lot of dark humor there um and the first step to that is talking about it more um and just feeling like you can you can discuss them like they still lived they still lived for a very long time.

The death is just that one moment, but there's a whole like aspect to them that is still existing. It's still there. Well, they live on both of you and it's just been brilliant. And having you in the studio, so many people are texting in on that. I'm going to get to a few of the texts in a second.

But for now, Naomi Westerman and Flora Baker. And if you want to read more of both of these amazing young women's works, you can. Naomi's book, Happy Death Club, Essays on Death, Grief and Bereavement Across Cultures is out now. And Flora Baker's book, Adult Orphan Club is out too. People texting the programme. Even though I was in my 60s when my mother died, dad had gone earlier, I still felt orphaned. Age doesn't come into it when losing a parent that's

from carol thank you carol uh my parents this is michelle in nottingham morning michelle my parents died in 2018 and 2020 they were in their mid-80s and my sister and i in our 50s neither of us have children and it feels as if our world has shrunk whilst it's an expected part of life it's as if our jigsaw puzzle of family has key pieces missing and there are so many things I wish I could share with them, says Michelle in Nottingham. Michelle, both my guests nodding vigorously.

They're still in the studio, but hopefully they've both given you some bits of that toolkit so it can help you process that grief. But again, Naomi and Flora, thank you so much for joining us. 84844 is the text number if you want to get in touch on that

or anything else you hear on Woman's Hour. And we'll try and get some to some more of your texts before 11. Now on tomorrow's programme, Anita is going to be live from Worthy Farm as she brings you the delights of the Glastonbury Festival.

She'll be joined by pop icon, Cindy Lauper, best known, of course, for her track Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and some Woman's Hour listeners who have advice for you about attending a festival solo. What a great idea. That is live on Radio 4 tomorrow at 10 o'clock. Do not miss that.

Now, Wimbledon starts next week. This year, I'm going to be part of the BBC's coverage team as well. People are having the usual pre-match discussions about favourites and performances, but there's also been a serious conversation happening away from the courts about how top level tennis handles allegations of domestic abuse. To discuss recent cases, I spoke to sports broadcaster and host of the tennis podcast, Catherine Whittaker. Well, in the past couple of years, actually, four male tennis players have been accused of domestic violence, the most high profile of those

being current world number four, Alexander Zverev. He's been accused by two former partners of domestic abuse. He denies all of those allegations. The most recent of them made by two former partners of domestic abuse. He denies all of those allegations. The most recent of them, made by his former partner and the mother of his child, Brenda Patea, was due to come to trial last month in Berlin, and actually the trial did commence at the time of the French Open. During the first week of the French Open, a tournament was very ended up, of course, reaching the final,

so being very high profile throughout those two weeks. Now, that case was settled out of court and no verdict was reached and no judgment was made by the court on innocence or guilt. But, of course, in the eyes of the law, he does maintain the presumption of innocence. Playing during the French Open, I mean, this all came to a head and it was very high profile. What was the impact of that?

What did the other players say? Very, very little said by the other players. In fact, very, very little response from tennis as a whole to this situation either now or at the time uh that the various allegations were first made obviously Zverev himself has spoken about them and consistently denied all of the allegations but um everybody is very reluctant to go anywhere near this it's obviously a very delicate issue, a very tricky one. And I think in the absence of guidance from the sports authorities, and I think there has been a vacuum on that front,

tennis players are very, very reluctant to wade into waters that are extremely foreign and thorny for them. And as I said, I think there has been a vacuum on that front. And tennis is a notoriously very selfish and all consuming sport. I don't think tennis players as individuals necessarily always have the greatest perspective on the world's issues and kind of the bigger pictures on these things. So I do think that guidance from authorities is particularly important in a sport like this. Just to give the listeners some context on this,

the legal situation involving Zverev, it effectively started last October. He was issued this penalty order for bodily harm against his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his child. Now, he was fined 450,000 euros. He denied the allegations. He contested the order. And as we now know, as you said, the trial was settled out of court and the trial proceedings discontinued.

And the decision is not a verdict. It's not a decision about guilt or innocence. And one decisive factor for the court decision was that the witness had expressed her wish to end the trial. So Zverev's lawyers said that the previous penalty order was now groundless. And he says he is innocent. But just to give a little bit more context for our listeners, these weren't the only allegations of this kind from a former partner of Zverev's, were they? No, in fact, you only have to go back three or four years for there to have been allegations made by another former partner, Olya Sharipova. Now, these never came to court.

They were never made in any legal forum. They were detailed in an article that was published at the time that has now been taken down in slate.com. And these allegations were investigated by the ATP, the governing body of men's tennis. The investigation concluded in January of last year and it was deemed that there was insufficient evidence to support the allegations or punish Zverev. However, the findings of that report were never published. A director of safeguarding was appointed, Andrew, as a party in March of last year with a view to implementing a safeguarding strategy which would include a policy around domestic violence but in the intervening 15 months things have gone silent and tennis fans

have rather been left to to wonder what's going on and in that time Zverev's been voted onto the players council of the ATP which essentially means he has a leadership position within the organization. We have to reiterate Zverev in response to that ATP and the ATP is the association of tennis professionals that governs the men's game I know there are several governing bodies but this is the one we're talking about here and Zverev said looking into that investigation that the ATP did this was his comment from the beginning, I have maintained my innocence and denied the baseless allegations made against me.

I mean, the ATP would say, and we got a statement for them, saying exactly what you've just said. We've hired a new director of safeguarding to oversee the implementation of a new safeguarding programme which aims to further address domestic abuse. This is a work still in progress. They have moved.

Why don't you think they've moved far enough? Well, it's not controversial for sports to have a domestic violence policy. In fact, in America, it's entirely standard. It wouldn't be groundbreaking at all for the ATP to introduce a domestic violence policy. Pretty much all major American sports leagues have a DV policy, including the NFL and the NBA, which govern American football and basketball

in the US. Now, the specifics of those policies do face a lot of criticism. By all accounts, they are not perfect. They are, according to a lot of women's groups, insufficient and inconsistently applied. But the policies do exist and that's considered fairly standard, which at least is a recognition of the problem, which many tennis fans feel like tennis and its governing bodies is failing at right now. What happens in those instances then when there's an allegation of domestic abuse in the sports you've been talking about? It varies. Generally in the NFL, which is the most prominent sport in the US and has had, I think, the most cases to deal with, the standard is a minimum six game ban and that can be issued regardless of whether the case is being brought in a court of law or not. They obviously examine the allegations themselves.

They have internal mechanisms to do that. But the absolute minimum standard is a six game interim ban. And then there obviously is flexibility within that for it to be extended depending on the circumstances. You mentioned that Zverev was also elected to the Players' Council. Just explain to us what the Players' Council is. It's a group of player representatives, and they make determinations and recommendations to the ATP about policy decisions, decisions of all kinds in leadership of the sport. He was elected to that position by his peers, other male tennis players. Iga Siontek, as I say, the women's world number one, did express disappointment that that had happened. And the former US Open champion Sloane Stephens

also said she didn't think that was the sort of thing that would happen in women's tennis. Wimbledon starts on Monday, and one of the pundits behind the glass will be Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios. And last year year he admitted to assaulting his ex-partner. He pushed her after an argument. He has apologised about this and the BBC has hired him as a pundit for Wimbledon. How has that been received? Quite controversially.

Now the BBC isn't alone in employing Nick Kyrgios as a pundit in spite of all this. ESPN, the Tennis Channel, Channel 7 in Australia, they've all made the same decision and have come in for some criticism in doing so. But a lot of people, particularly here in the UK, would argue that the BBC can and perhaps ought to have a higher moral bar for its pundits and those that it's employed. Certainly, that case has been made by a number of women's groups. Caroline Noakes, the Women and Equalities Committee chair, said the BBC should hang its head in shame. And Women's Aid made a statement to the effect that we know from survivors we speak to, they said that when perpetrators of domestic abuse are seen to continue in public life as normal, and especially given a

platform, it sends the message that domestic abuse isn't taken seriously by society. And just on the subject of Nick Kyrgios, as you say, he has apologised for the offence that he admitted to but wasn't given a conviction for in Australia last year. But he has also retweeted and promoted the views of Andrew Tate and that's been quite recently. He's been doing that this year. Well, we just want to say, actually, we did reach out to Kyrgios' team and they said on the issue of the Andrew Tate tweets and they said this to us I was this

is a quote from Nick Kyrgios I was not aware of the full picture when I reposted Andrew Tate since I have learned of the full story I have deleted posts unfollowed him and gone to all lengths to distance myself just to bring more clarity to the situation of that particular trial um the magistrate didn't actually get to trial the magistrate decided not to convict because she said the seriousness of the matter was low uh level and he did apologize he said at the time um what i did was wrong and i think i've been very clear about that i reacted to a difficult situation in a way that i deeply uh regret i have apologized i really meant it when i said nothing like it will ever happen again I think I've been very clear about that. I reacted to a difficult situation in a way that I deeply regret. I have apologised. I really meant it when I said

nothing like it will ever happen again. For now, I'm very happy to be here at Wimbledon and doing my best to share some insights into the tournament for everyone watching on the BBC. And the BBC, we approached them for comment as well and they just said this. Nick Kyrgios has spoken about this publicly

and apologised. Catherine, the question is, where do we go from here? Well, I'd say at the very minimum, a domestic violence policy from the sport and from the Association of Tennis Professionals, which governs men's tennis players, as I said, they've indicated that that is their intention. I don't understand the delay, but I can only assume there are things going on behind the scenes that are complicated and taking time, but I see no reason for that to be held up any further. As I say, it's an uncontroversial thing to have.

I think more generally the sport has work to do with the fans, and in particular it's female fans, which is the biggest growth market for sport at the moment. It's a potential fan base that sports, not just tennis, are targeting and trying to engage. I think there's a lot of work to do to give the impression that domestic abuse and misogyny is taken seriously. I think there's been a lot of evidence over the past couple of years which could suggest to tennis

fans that it's an issue that's at best poorly understood and perhaps at worst trivialized and treated as a women's problem rather than a men's problem. And of course, that speaks to men largely being in positions of power. The ATP board is made up exclusively of men and they tend to prioritise men's agendas and solving men's problems. So in the very wide scheme of things, there need to be more women in decision-making positions and positions of power within tennis, just as in the world. That's Catherine Whittaker, host of the Tennis Podcast, talking to me earlier this morning. Now, in 2015, marine biologist Christine Figuerna was one of a team of researchers who removed a plastic straw from a sea turtle's nostril off the coast of Costa Rica. The disturbing incident, which was captured on video,

went viral with over 100 million views. And that video led to the corporate straw bans around the world. Christine now leads research projects in Costa Rica dedicated to empowering local conservation initiatives with an emphasis on the role of women. In her new book, My Life with Sea Turtles, she recounts her own life spent studying and protecting these age-old species. Delighted to say Christine joins us now on the line from Germany. Welcome, Christine.

Well, thank you for having me. It's a fascinating book. I have so many turtle facts now. It's a brilliant read. I just mentioned though, let's start with that incident of what happened back in 2015. You posted that video online. Talk us through how you came across this turtle and did you ever anticipate it to have the impact that it did? Yeah, well, maybe to take the answer for the second question first. I never thought it would blow up as it did. And I was a pretty innocent PhD student at that time, not very savvy what social media and whatnot concerned.

And we were collecting data for my PhD while we were coming across this particular turtle that had something funny across it in its nose. And my colleague that was on the boat with me, he was interested in the crit colleague that was on the boat with me, he was interested in the critters that live on turtles, so the parasites and any kind of animals. And we thought in the beginning that it's some type of barnacle or maybe a worm.

Well, it turned out within eight minutes that it's made from plastic and it was a plastic straw that was lodged in that male's nose. And just really for, yeah, I did have a YouTube channel I don't honestly recall why I had it I had maybe two videos on it maybe three or four clicks on it but it was the platform that I uploaded the video uncut to it just because I think for me it was very much the literally the straw that the broke the camel's back you know I see a lot of uncomfortable things in my times with sea turtles and I think I got a little bit tired of shouldering all of that myself while everybody else was still sleeping soundly but I did not not expect, of course, that it would go viral. I still

don't know how, you know, what the recipe is after becoming viral. So many people asked. I'm sorry, I cannot help. But what it provided me with was an incredible platform to talk about sea turtles, about the threats that they're facing, about the state of our oceans. And that I have taken advantage of, for sure. Yes. And just by focusing on this one species, it's an incredible insight into the delicate ecosystem they live in, you know, how global warming is affecting them as well. Tell us about, you describe this in the book,

the moment you first saw one in its own habitat. These things are huge, aren't they? Right. So we have in total seven species of sea turtles, which is not a lot if we talk about turtles in general. And I had seen sea turtles, but the smaller kind, like the ones that most people are familiar with, the one that you can see in Finding Nemo, Hartsfield. But there is this one species that is kind of an

enigma I would say I sometimes say they are the unicorns of the sea and those are the leatherback turtles and leatherback as the name says do not have a hard shell so they have literally a soft kind of leathery type of shell and they're humongous I mean they are just out of this world besides that they have been on this planet for more than 90 million years. So they survived the extinction of dinosaurs. And when I saw my very first leatherback turtle, I mean, I had heard about all these animals. But when you're sitting next to this animal,

just a few centimeters away, watching it do its thing it's incredible i mean it's literally you can't even believe that this is happening and that such a creature still lives in our oceans and allows you to spend these brief minutes while it comes onto shore to lay its eggs yeah to just kind of be with it without having to you know do anything like restrain it even let's get as many turtle facts in to this interview as we can, because it's amazing. They come back to the beach that they were born on to lay their eggs, don't they?

Yes. How do they do that? Yes, they do. Yeah, so sea turtles, just as migratory birds, can sense the geomagnetic field of the earth. So they have a little organ in their heads um that works like a gps so it's not just a compass but it's literally a gps and they can hone back onto their nesting beach and the imprinting so their learning process of that

is happening likely even or probably even while they're still developing, but definitely when they're running to the ocean, well, to the water, because they have to memorize it for many, many years. Because sea turtles, another fun fact, have an incredible long generation time. So depending on the species, between about 15, 20 up to 45 years, until they become sexually mature and would migrate back for the very first time to the beaches that they've been born on. That's incredible. And the male turtle as well, is he from the same beach or is it any old male turtle? Well, no, actually the males do the same thing. And so this is another fun fact about sea turtles. So they're highly migratory. So they travel thousands of miles.

In fact, leatherback turtles, as we've already talked about them, we do have them nesting in Costa Rica on both coasts, Caribbean and Pacific. And our Caribbean population sometimes also is feeding in front of Wales, so England, UK, and then migrates back from those feeding areas back to the foraging, to the nesting beaches. Also the males to meet up with the females to mate and make babies. Incredible. Another fun fact, they don't have X and Y chromosomes. And global warming is affecting turtles how then? There's a feminization going on, isn't there? This is another part of, you know, the concerns about how the population will live on.

Correct. Yeah. The biological sex is determined by the incubation temperature. So hot chicks, cool dudes, that's usually how we memorize it. The hotter temperatures make more females. And yes, the sad reality is that for the past decade, we are producing more, almost exclusively females on most of our nesting beaches, thanks to rising temperatures and thanks to global warming. Yeah. Why do we need to protect them? I mean, it's fascinating, the book, you go into how you collect the eggs, how you then take them and protect them with these incredible fences to stop them being removed, not only by humans, but by, you know, other prey as well. Why do we need

to protect them in the way that you do, the important work that you do? Yeah, well, sea turtles are what we call keystone species, right? So they are important for a healthy marine ecosystem. Depending on the species, we have, for example, the hawksbill turtle that feeds mainly on sponges in the reefs. I hope we know by now that coral reefs are very important for producing oxygen. For example, for us, every second breath we take comes from the ocean.

And so sponges tend to overgrow coral reefs. So in order to keep our coral reefs healthy, we need hawksbills to feed on those sponges. That's the reason we call them the architects of our oceans. Leatherbacks, for example, feed mainly on jellyfish. And because of the way that we do agriculture, we have a lot of fertilizers running into our oceans, creating huge jellyfish explosions. And if we wouldn't have a prey that would feed on jellyfish, we would, for example, have issues, or we do have issues already, that we're not having enough larval fish that survives to

become big fish, because that's what the jellyfish eat. It's all part of the delicate ecological chain, and you detail it brilliantly in your book, Christine. Christine Figuener, thank you for joining us on Woman's Hour. My Life with Sea Turtles is out now. Join us tomorrow on Woman's Hour when we will be live. Anita will be live from Glastonbury. Don't miss it. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm Adam Fleming. This is going to be my sixth general election as a journalist for the BBC. Political people and campaigners love using their own language. So we thought we'd make a series for BBC Radio 4, unpicking it all. What is a manifesto?

What's swing? How do opinion polls work? Who picks the candidates? That is the subject of my podcast series, Understand the UK Election, available 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 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.