Woman's Hour - Agony Aunt Mary Killen. Is gossip the glue of life? Disabled foster carers. C4's new drama "Adult Material".

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

Agony Aunt and star of Googlebox Mary Killen joins Jane Garvey to urge us to channel her ultimate British Role model – The Queen . She argues we’d all be a bit happier, wiser and more adept if we adopted the underrated virtues of duty, kindness, discretion, restraint and fortitude as exemplified by Her Majesty. Could disabled people help to solve the crisis in fostering? Is gossip the glue or life, why do we do it, and who does it most? Plus the writer Lucy Kirkwood and actor Hayley Squires talk about their latest project, the drama "Adult Material" Presenter Jane Garvey Producer Beverley Purcell PHOTO CREDIT: Hugo BurnandGuest; Mary Killen Guest; Professor Robin Dunbar Guest; Lucy Kirkwood Guest; Hayley Squires Guest; Alison Bryne Guest; Peter Unwin

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi there, this is Jane Garvey. It's Monday the 5th of October 2020. Hello, good morning. Welcome to the programme. Today I'm going to be talking about gossip. Never do it myself, but apparently it is quite popular. At BBC Women's Hour, if you've got a bit of gossip for me this morning, I'd appreciate it. We'll also be chatting to Mary Killen. She is a star of Gogglebox this morning, I'd appreciate it. We'll also be chatting to Mary Killen.

She is a star of Gogglebox alongside husband Giles, of course. She's the Spectator magazine's agony aunt. And she's written a new book called What Would the Queen Do? Which is full of advice for life, some of which you might like. I would suggest that perhaps not all of you will like all of it. But we'll chat to Mary later. And there's a really interesting new Channel 4 drama about to start. It's called Adult Material. It's about a woman juggling family and career. Nothing new there, you might think, except the career in question is in the porn industry.

So we'll talk to the writer and to the star of Adult Material on Women's Hour a little later this morning. Now, something we have discussed quite a bit in the past, the shortage of foster carers in this country. At the moment, they're looking for about 8,500 foster carers. This is according to the Fostering Network. Now, a study published later on this week is going to suggest that many disabled people who would dearly like to be foster carers aren't allowed to do it. They're overlooked because of negative attitudes. Well, Alison is a wheelchair user currently fostering an 11-year-old. Peter Unwin is a principal lecturer in social work at the University of Worcester, author of this study and also still on the social worker register himself,

so still knows exactly what he's talking about. Alison, first of all, good morning to you. Good morning. social worker register himself so still knows exactly what he's talking about. Alison first of all good morning to you. Good morning. Tell us just a little bit about yourself Alison if you don't mind. Well I'm 43 years old. I'm as you've said a wheelchair user. I have a background in teaching prior to going through what they thought was a stroke that led to my disability. And since then, I've begun fostering. Why did you want to do it? I wanted to still feel like I could give something back to the community. I wanted to still be busy and I enjoyed still being around and working with children.

And what happened when you applied? Initially, I applied to a few agencies and was turned down immediately just on grounds of being a wheelchair user. So I gave up the idea for a while and thought I'm not going to be able to do this. Luckily, a few months later, I happened to bump into a store from the city council I'm working for now. And they were extremely positive. So I went through the application process with them. And tell me, the people who turned you down, did they see you? Did they come out to meet you? What happened? No, not at all.

They just turned me down either over the phone or through email. In spite of your teaching experience, and indeed actually the life experience that may have perhaps led them to believe that you were someone with empathy and an ability to understand challenge. Yes completely having been through something like I've been through and also coping with disability on a day-to-day basis I was well placed to understand the needs of a child and find ways to do things slightly differently with them But you are now fostering, indeed I think this is the third child that you've looked after, is that right?

It is, yes And can you tell us a little about the other two young people you cared for? One of them was an asylum seeker and the other one was a teenage, a typical teenager, really. Yes, which isn't always the easiest situation. No. How did you, I suppose it's a completely open question from someone who isn't a wheelchair user. Can you just explain, Alison, how you were able to do it? Because people will be wondering how you do it.

Well, as I've said, I find different ways around things, but just generally complete consistency with the child, building a good relationship, a sense of humour, the ability to show empathy and understanding are probably the most important things. And I can do all of those just the same as anyone else. And the children, do they question your use of the wheelchair? Do they mention it at all? Yes, they do. It seems to be something they ask about in passing. They're curious as to why. But following that, it becomes not an issue at all. And it's just there as part of day-to-day life, really. Can we just acknowledge the obvious, which is that there will be some things that you are not best placed to do. But I guess it's then up to the agency or the authority involved to place with you a child that you could help.

Yes, and there's a very careful assessment process, which I went through. I actually found it very positive, but there are ways that they could carefully match a child or find ways to help you to achieve things you'd like to do with the child that you're not able to. Sure. Well, we'll come back to you, Alison. Thank you very much for that. Peter Unwin, why is this an area that you're so interested in? Well, I think in terms of the need for foster carers, which you mentioned earlier, Jane, it's an obvious area to look at, particularly as the fostering world has very much embraced diversity in recent years. It's taken on people of different sexualities and from ethnic minority backgrounds, but it just hasn't looked at disabled people.

So I think that obviously there's an opportunity to fill this gap there. At the University of Worcester, we do work a lot with disabled people and Shaping Our Lives was a national disability organisation who bid with us to drill the disability research into independent living and learning. And we very much saw this as a great opportunity for disabled people to have valued roles, perhaps to come off benefits and get into work. And we also saw it as a win for the agencies

who would close their recruitment gaps. I gather that some councils, some agencies, are much more forward-thinking than others in this area? They are, but we did struggle to get this research going. Did you? Largely because there are so few disabled people actually engaged out there as foster carers because there's been no role models.

Most websites, which is the first place most people go, if they're thinking of fostering, don't mention disability other than perhaps caring for a disabled child. So there's just no culture of disabled people being foster carers. And it takes an exceptional person, such as Alison, who gets knocked down three or more times and still applies. This shouldn't be the case. We're not looking for exceptional people, we're looking for everyday people who can foster. At the moment, the disabled people who foster tend to be the exceptional ones

who have risen above the discriminatory attitudes of fostering agencies. Yeah, well, I think it's important to emphasise, Alison, that in your case, the child you are currently caring for, it has been such a success that this child is going to stay with you really for quite some time. Yes, they are. And can you just tell us, we don't want to give too much away, but tell us a little bit about your relationship with the child. It's just developed fantastically well over the time that they've been with me. When they arrived, they had lots of behavioural difficulties, were very difficult to take out.

Didn't really engage with education, needed lots of help. Since then, we've built on things that they can do. And they recently managed to take a grade one exam in music. And just started attending a school that was never thought possible for them to achieve so they've done fantastically well. So I mean that's incredible isn't it the difference that you've already made the strides that the child has been able to make because as you said earlier of your your consistent care there has to I, I don't want to patronise you, but I suspect you are rather a special person. What else do you think you bring to this?

I'd say perhaps my experience with children in the past has helped a lot. Also, the amount of time I have as a disabled person who wasn't perhaps able to work I have more time to put in to the child than perhaps someone who is working or has more to do outside the home would be able to. But what you clearly do provide is a welcoming home, an environment in which they feel utterly safe and protected. And actually, honestly, Peter, you can't put a price on that, can you? No, I think, as you mentioned earlier, the resilience, the life experience, the knocks that many disabled people experience throughout their lives, these give them a certain resilience they can share,

they can empathise with children who are fostered who have actually come from often very traumatic and abusive backgrounds. So I think as Alison portrayed there, she's got the skills, the empathy, the insight, and disabled people should be valued as a rich asset rather than some kind of liability a foster agency might be taking on you know we've even had people say oh well the um the child would become the care

of the said of the disabled person if they became foster carers there's a very pathological view of disability out there as if all disabled people can't do very much at all. Whereas as Alison, you know, models very well, she plays to her strengths and she gets around town and she gets to activities. She uses public transport, taxis. She gives that child a full experience. And of course, let's not forget, Jane, many disabled people are parents already.

Of course. So why can't they take on the extra skills needed to be a foster carer for the country? Really interesting, thoughtful. It's made me think. Thank you very much, Peter Unwin, Principal Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Worcester. And Alison, best of luck to you and the child in your care

and congratulations to the child on already a grade one, more than I ever managed. So that's a fantastic achievement. Thank you both. Any thoughts on that? Perhaps experience that you could tell us about? You can email Women's Hour via the website bbc.co.uk forward slash Women's Hour. Tomorrow on the programme, some of our Powerlist 2020 judges are going to be here answering your questions about how to live a greener life the Powerlist this year, the programme reveal is on November the 16th we'll tell you who's made the list

loads of suggestions from you, thank you the topic this year is our planet I think we have enough suggestions now some absolutely fantastic ones, thank you all some are obvious international figures others women that are just doing a wonderful job for your park or your street. We love hearing about them and all the efforts they're making. That's enough now, though, she said firmly. November the 16th is when we're going to tell you who's on the list.

The Powerless Judge is with me tomorrow answering your questions. If you have any more of those, that's fine. At BBC Women's Hour on social media. Looking forward to the rest of the week. On Wednesday, we're discussing women and epilepsy. Elizabeth Day is my guest on Thursday. And also on Thursday, what is it about dating apps and relationships between younger men and older women?

Now, the received wisdom about apps and indeed about dating is that they're full of men looking for younger women, but it's not always the case. Here's a man we're calling Richard. He's 28. He says he's slept with around 30 women in their 40s and 50s. He uses apps which make it easy for him to approach older women. So we asked him, what's the appeal?

Older women, they've been in their bodies for longer. So older women, on average, tend to be more comfortable with their bodies. They also tend to be more comfortable with their sexualities. They tend to know what they want, and they're not afraid to ask for it, or indeed just to go and get it, which are all very attractive qualities. And also I think the appetites of an older woman more closely resemble a younger man's. And I'd say they're uniquely fitted in this sense. You know, young women and young men aren't actually that well suited physically. They're really not, which I would argue why so many relationships fail.

Well, that's the view of the man we're calling Richard. You can hear about him and his dating experiences on Thursday and then on Friday we're going to hear from a woman we're calling Eva who is 48 and she'll bring us her story of dating a much younger man. I did promise I'd do this. It's not very Radio 4

but I just want to shout out to Yvette, the nurse in A&E yesterday who patched me up after a kitten related incident. For more I'm afraid you'll have to listen to Fortunately later on this week. Oh, God. Right, Mary Killen. I think you might have heard a guffawing.

Mary, good morning to you. Morning. Morning. Mary is the Spectator's Agony Aunt. She's also the author of What Would the Queen Do?, which we'll discuss in a moment. And, of course, you'll know her from Gogglebox. Now, what were you and Giles watching on Gogglebox on Friday?

I can't remember because the programme stuck in my head because Giles made the observation that in his experience only divorced men wear cardigans with zips. Well, he often talks through his hat. I can't remember. It must have been... It must have been, oh, I admired a jumper another man on the screen was wearing. Right. And suggested he got one. And he said, no, no, only divorced men wear that. That's right. Yes. Where does he get this stuff from, Mary?

Well, he's got a lot going on in his brain all the time. And sometimes he talks great sense. And other times he just says what's passed through his brain, which doesn't necessarily make sense. No. OK. How long have you been married? 32 years. Right. Now, in your book, What Would the Queen Do? Well, actually, I'll ask you first. It's intended to be a kind of regal tongue-in-cheek guide to life, isn't it?

Something you could pop in the toilet or what you'd call something else, I suspect, not the toilet, but carry on. I call it a self-help book. We all need role models and we forget about the ultimate role model most of us have had since we've been alive. The woman who's still fit, still able to read 10,000 words of state papers a day, is still giving to us, still dignified, still riding horses four days a week. And how does she do it?

Yeah, well, there'll be many, many people listening who, of course, agree with every word you've said. But there will be others. And I'm just preempting the Twitter stream that is in front of me now saying, yes, well, isn't it well for her living in luxurious accommodation and enjoying a lifestyle that would be envied by trillions? What do you say to that? I say that they wouldn't envy the amount of work she has to do. 300 engagements last year, 30,000 guests to Buckingham Palace garden parties, constantly having to keep her brain alert, meeting people that she has to be diplomatic with. Imagine all those people she met in the past, Robert Mugabe, Ceausescu, etc.

And she is actually a very, very rich woman who doesn't need to serve us. She could put her feet up, but she serves us. Well, yes, she's precisely that rich woman because she is the Queen of England and the head of state. A role, by the way, of course, in which she was born to it. It wasn't something she pursued. And this is where I do think we have to have sympathy for the woman. She didn't necessarily expect to be where she is. And no one can doubt the fact that she's been resilient enough to see it through.

I just, it always makes me cry when I hear her say, when they show old footage of her saying, I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service. And she meant it. Oh, it makes me have a tear in my eye. Can I just ask you a minute?

I hope it's not an uncomfortable point at which to bring in Prince Andrew. But I think there will be many people who should say, of course, he denies any accusation of wrongdoing. But there are people who feel that he really his very his continued existence as part of the family is something that really does tarnish the brand. I don't think it has tarnished the brand. I think that no one, people are sorry that Prince Andrew and Prince Harry have slightly tarnished the brand. No, but that's where, again, we've got to make it clear, you cannot equate the two. Prince Harry... No, that's quite true. It's not, it's simply not fair to do that. No, no, but it's sort of undermining in a way. But I believe that she

is still intact and we all still love her. And obviously, we've all got families with problem members in them. And I think that it doesn't necessarily reflect on her judgment of her son. After all, she couldn't know what he was doing or not doing. No. And you're right, of course, every family, well, has its issues. Yes. There's no getting away from that. Right, let's talk about some of the issues in your book.

Divorce. Now, I love this. You are quite firm here. Better stick with the devil, you know. The children far prefer it. And you can go slowly downhill together. Is that you, Mary, may I ask? Well, up to a point. I mean, some years ago, my husband's best friend pointed out, I know, Giles, it's annoying, but think through all your friends' husbands. And given that you were in love with them, would you find any one of them less annoying?

And I thought through, no, they've all got terrible defects. Each man has got something maddening about him. Of course, women do too. But I think if you think that you can fast forward or eject, like with a Netflix thing, it doesn't work. You just ride it out, you know, and then things get good again. There are situations, though, in which you simply cannot ride it out. I mean, one situation, of course, would be if one person simply wants to end the relationship regardless of the other individual's feelings. Yes, of course. That's different. But if you're both just grumbling along together, I think, you know, try and stomach it because it would be better in the long run.

Try and stomach it. Yes. And I also say that obviously we have a laugh. Giles and I have a laugh a lot of the time. You know, he is like all men. He's got things wrong with him. I have things wrong with me too. But one tip I give is go to bed early

and get up much earlier than the other person and then you minimise the contact you have with them, especially in COVID times. Yes, have some me time, even if it is at half past three in the morning. Great. Of course, do you put the heating on though? Yes, and of course there's a row with the heating because he doesn't like it and I do.

So heating rows are a big part of marriage problems. They do tend to be and I'm going to probably be told off for this, but do women on the whole like it warmer than the men? Yes, but we've got radiators, separate plug-in radiators rather than central heating. So I can do it behind his back. So you walk around the house with your independently moderated radiator? No, I just go into one room that he doesn't come into and have a radiator on there. Yeah, space is everything. You recommend separate bathrooms. Yes, of course.

Well, of course, we can't all have that. But, you know, try to keep some of the magic going. Try not to do too many things in front of each other. Yeah, OK. I think we all know what you're getting at there. I'm simply not going any further. Also, the gut. Actually, it's not unconnected. You see, you're very, how you know this, I just don't know.

The Queen does not eat improperly fermented bread and her gut is not cluttered with undigested debris. How do you know that? Well, because years ago, everyone used to eat bread, which was properly fermented. And those were the days when bread was the staff of life. Now you have the Chor of your gut and prevents the food being swept through by the little villi, the hares. Now, somebody like, well, the queen has properly made bread in the old fashioned way. And so she also not only does she have properly fermented bread, so her gut isn't cluttered, but she sits up straight while eating. Queen Victoria was taught to eat with a sprig of holly on her neck. So she keep yourself upright when eating and the food goes down the way nature intended. Too many of us hunch over laptops when we're eating.

You've just made me really alter my posture, which was diabolical. It's now significantly improved. Very quickly, advice for parties. People should just wear stickers with their name on, prominently displayed. One of the things that upsets people is if somebody they've met doesn't recognise them again. And you can't be expected to remember everyone. But if you are giving a party in the days, you know, looking forward to when we give them again. Yes, when will they be, Mary?

I'm sure there'll be a light at the end of the tunnel. Can I say I hate parties, but I'm really missing them. I'm just missing everything. Well, you've always got to have a few older people at the party and say, as people come in, give them a sticker and say, sorry, but we've got some older people coming. Do you mind wearing these? Everyone is delighted because the younger people have forgotten who the others are as well. You just have the sticker on your front and then somebody can rush up to you and remember who you are. Yes, it sounds a little sort of efficient for what is meant to be a convivial chatty session.

But if it works, I suppose it works. You're also quite brutal about leaving times. Make it clear when it's all over. What do you do? Just put the lights on? Well, that putting the lights on anecdote was in the book, was about if you want people to come through from one room to another. Yeah. And they won't come because they're slightly drunk and enjoying themselves you switch the lights off in the room and they just come through like moths to a flame to the souffle or whatever you have waiting that will otherwise be spoiled but no i've noticed that people love it. If you say, would you like to come to an early supper at seven and leave at ten, even nine, people, rather than being offended, they love it. People love a precise cut off time. And you just openly say, we've got to be up early the next morning.

And off they go. I mean, this doesn't apply to really close friends who you could say that to anyway. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'd certainly tell my friends to push off at the earliest possible. In fact, they'd know they know I wouldn't want to linger any longer than 9.25 if at all possible. Mary, stay with us because we are going to talk now about gossip. Is it actually the glue of life? I don't know whether Mary, presumably you are, you know, loads of stuff that you couldn't possibly tell me that is essentially gossip. Yes, because I do spend a lot of time on the phone thrashing things through and you can't help collecting little nuggets.

But you see, you get the nuggets if you're discreet with them and people know they can trust you. Obviously, I pass on other things like so-and-so fancies you, by the way. I would pass that on. Well, yes. Yeah. And anything else you pass on? Anything about major leading figures that you could tell us right now, just live on National Radio 4? Oh, no, that I know. No, because then I wouldn't hear any more.

But I think that there's lots of productive gossip. I think women are better than men because women see the point of little clues. So-and-so is moving house. That means somebody else can buy the house. Somebody's child is going to such a school instead of the other. That means there must be something wrong

with the other school because they're very beady, that person. You know, you can collect a lot. I don't think men really, I think men like talking but they don't listen. Sorry, that's mean of me to say that. We like sweeping generalisations, nothing wrong with those. It's a Monday morning in the middle of a global pandemic,

we'll take anything. Professor Robin Dunbar is an anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist at the University of Oxford. So you're very much our man, Robin. Is Mary on to something there? Are women collectors of what women might call useful information and men might regard as gossip? Absolutely, yes, I would say. At least to qualify that, I think it's simply a reflection of the fact that women's social world is just much more intense than men's social world. Men's

friendships are kind of rather casual and here today and gone tomorrow, whereas women have this very intense, sometimes very brittle quality to them that just makes them much more interested in, if you like, the social aspects of what people are doing because that matters. OK, let me just drill down a little bit there. First of all, perhaps a little bit dismissive of male friendship, some of which can be very intense and very important to men, I know, but also the use of the word brittle applied to women. What do you mean by that?

Women's friendships seem to be much more susceptible to catastrophic failure than men's. Men sort of tend to drift apart, or if they really get annoyed with each other, one of them will hit the other and that will be the end of it. And they'll just walk away or maybe just go and have a drink together afterwards. It's a kind of a very strange effect. But women's friendships tend to really catastrophically break if it comes to that point rather than kind of fading. I've got to tell you, I'm not sure that's going to go down terrifically well with the audience. But that's your view. We strayed off topic slightly. But what do you think about that, Mary? Well, I'm trying to think of somebody I've fallen up with

as a woman. And I can't. What happens is that you drift apart. So much of friendship is to do with propinquity, isn't it? If the person lives near you or you go to the same school with your children. I don't know about that. I haven't had personal experience of falling out, but I can imagine it happening, especially with fights over money or boys or men rather. We have strayed off the subject of gossip, and I suppose we need to understand the function of gossip. Robin, from your academic research, what is it exactly? Oh, I think the problem is created actually by the fact that we use the word gossip in two different senses.

Go on. We tend to think of it in this sort of malicious and rather sneaky and snarky sort of way, you know, the great and the good and haven't they fallen off their perch? Whereas the older meaning, literally it means God sibs. It's what you do with your peer equivalent of your godparents, namely just chatting over the fence. So it's really just saying, look, I'd rather be here talking to you

than up the road talking to Penelope or whoever. And it's all about social bonding, really. But there's a difference between talking, gossiping about people we know and our neighbours, our friends and discussing so-called celebrities. Yes, indeed. And of course, it's not just celebrities we often end up discussing in this way, but even some of our friends and members of our social circle. indeed and of course it's not just celebrities we we often end up discussing in this way but even some of our friends and members of our social circle but that's kind of one of those byproducts of all biological processes nothing in biology is is perfectly designed if you like there is always a way of exploiting it for bad. And that's essentially what the sort of negative side of gossip has come.

It's just a form of advertising or self-advertising to gain an advantage. I've spent a little, I didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge. I've been to various colleges to speak and all that sort of thing. I mean, there is no doubt that academia is one of the most gossip-ridden environments on earth. Surely, Robin, you'd have to agree with that. Absolutely. It's very famously remarked once. Only academics would spend so much energy and time arguing so violently about something so trivial. Yeah, OK. You acknowledge that at least.

Mary, you have a very good deflection, actually, technique in your book. You advise people. What is the line you're supposed to say? Well, I'd love to tell you about that, but there's going to be a development this week, so I can't. Yes. I'm against oversharing. You'll regret it later. You should do that with a professional, but not a close friend. And I think one way to stem the tide of inquiries is to say, I'd love to talk about it, but let's leave it a week because there's going to be a development. We go into it then. That's one thing. And that puts people off because by the next week, there's another thing that's swept over everyone. So they won't remember. But I just like to say that I think what's very relevant is a quote I saw from the 18th century anonymous. We praise and dispraise in conversation rather that the company should have a good opinion of our judgment than for any love or hatred to the person we mention. And that's what I think gossiping is about. We're sort of reviewing people like we might review a restaurant or a cinema

so that we say, yes, we're on the same page on that. Yeah, but we might meet another person two minutes later and be on a different page altogether. Well, I suppose so. You kind of adapted. You're fluid. I'm not saying you're hypocritical, but friendship is all about, I suppose, an echo

chamber, isn't it? Okay, yes. Thank you very much, Mary. That's Mary Killen. And Robin, echo chamber, what would you say to that? They're extremely bad, and we're very susceptible to them is the great problem. It's because our social world is naturally very small. And it's very characteristic of friendships that they tend to be very similar in the things they're interested in, their outlook on life. So this tendency to create echo chambers, I'm afraid, is just part and parcel

of the way our minds are designed. Right, and of course, the way we're living at the moment makes everything significantly more challenging. It doesn't help. No, it really doesn't help. Thank you very much, Robin. Professor Robin Dunbar, who is an anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist at Oxford.

You also heard from Mary Killen, and I'm sure she and Giles will be back on Gogglebox on Friday. Simon on Twitter says, the class and gender stereotypes about friendships portrayed by the current guests are Victorian. I'd like to welcome them both to the real world. He says, people connect in so many deep and wonderful ways. Well, yeah, I mean, you don't have to agree with anything

said by either the presenters or the guests on Woman's Hour. It's out there to get you thinking and talking and you're very welcome to contribute on social media at BBC Woman's Hour. Adult Material is a new Channel 4 drama, starts at 10 o'clock tonight. It's about Jolene Dollar, a mother of three, proudly the breadwinner of the family,

happens to be one of the top porn performers in the UK and her friendship with a young woman on set leads to a complex examination of her own life and work. It's written by Lucy Kirkwood and stars Hayley Squires as Jolene Dollar. I think we'll have a quick clip, first of all, before we talk to them both. This is Jolene Dollar at the family breakfast table.

I did my father a Christmas letter. June is. Phoebe, I did say, nice lines at the family breakfast table. I did my father a Christmas letter. June it is. Phoebe, I did say no phones at the table. Gabe, can you turn it off, please, darling? I'll stay at Angel's tonight. Her mum's away? Yeah, but bed by 11. Go and wash your hands, please.

Get that washing off the line. No, that's all right. I can do it. You get off. Don't forget, it's supposed to rain. No, I won't forget. Kids, say bye to Nanny. Bye, Mum. Bye, sweetheart. Bye, Phoebe.

Bye, Gabe. All right. I can't, Gabe. We're not at a Kids, say bye to Nanny. Bye, Mum. Bye, sweetheart. Bye, Gav. All right. I can't, Gav. We're not at a table, mate. You know that. Are you all right, Angel? I didn't know you were here. I'm going to take mine upstairs if that's all right, darling. I'll put a shifter on your Twitter.

See you tomorrow. Thanks, Mum. Oh, and the foot guy emailed again. He's getting a bit impatient now. I know. OK. Hayley, I said I'm not eating carbs. OK, well, then you can eat pesto out of a jar, babe,

because I'm not cooking three meals of an evening. Oh, and I have got a bone to pick with you, actually. I was running around like a blue-arse fly for half an hour this morning trying to find my fake lashes, and where were they? You'd already worn them. Yeah, excuse me, they are 650 a pop. I don't just wear them once and then throw them away, you know. Hayley Squires plays Jolene Dollar, and it's all written by Lucy Kirkwood.

So, Lucy, why did you want to write about porn? Even as I asked that question, I realised it's a daft question because it's so important. Well, yeah, exactly. Thank you, Jane. I think it's something that we've devoted such an enormous amount of feminist debate and column inches and anxious parental conversations to. But I think so few of us, including me when I started researching this, actually know anything about how it's made, what it's like to work in that industry. And it's an industry populated people who've normalized something which most of us would find probably unthinkable.

And that is always a really interesting place to go to as a writer. You were actually developing the series over quite a long period of time, weren't you? Yeah, that's right. It took us quite a long time to get it to the screen for various reasons, mostly because there's still a massive taboo around porn. And that's, you know, Channel 4 have been pretty brave, I think, in putting us on national television. But it's telling, isn't it, that even Channel 4 took a while to get this to the telly. It tells you something. I think it does. And I think that's partly one of the reasons I wanted to write about it.

Because as much as I think that there are a huge number of problems around porn, I also think there's a lot of hypocrisy. And I think it touches all of our lives in a way um you know for example even if you don't have a direct experience of porn if because someone in your household is a consumer or you yourself are a consumer then you'll have been affected by the ripple effects of it whether how that affects how you think about your body or how your children are learning about sex but also there are things like if you have ever bought something using a credit card online that will have been midwife by porn if you are able to get high quality video streamed to your phone that has been midwife by what do you mean well because the porn industry have put money behind

those things back when they were in their infancy so that you can because it's you know helpful to their business model for you to be able to pay for things with a credit card or watch video so anyone who thinks this is nothing to do with me, they're wrong. It's as simple as that. Hayley, did you have your character, Jolene Dollar? It's really interesting because she's been at the top of the British porn industry in the series, but she now faces competition and it's tough for her, isn't it? It is, yeah. And one of the most interesting things about Lucy's script is that we meet a character who is considered to be at the very top of her game, but is actually facing a world that is changing very quickly and a business that is changing very quickly because of the internet and the content being so freely available on the internet and how quickly young women come into the industry and then leave it again. And so one of her major struggles is dealing with her place in that and her future within that. And she's also we see her in her domestic setting as the clip we played at the start illustrates.

And she has domestic issues. The relationship with her eldest daughter tell us something about that um so phoebe is the eldest of her three children um 17 and as the series goes on we find out that she's become sexually active and their relationship with each other. Sorry, one moment. Their relationship with each other. And the way that Jolene can deal with that has been infected and affected by what she does for a living. And it explores the conversation around consent. And what's quite interesting about Lucy's writing is that Phoebe, Jolene's daughter, actually ends up teaching her a great deal as we go through the series. Yeah, particularly about consent in the first episode.

It's very, very interesting. I think what you're really keen to get across, Lucy, and I always think Catlin Moran said the best thing about porn, which is that when you watch it, you're watching people at work. And this is what you've got to bear in mind. And this programme makes very clear because you see the set, you see people just sort of standing around looking bored, which they do at work. That's what people do.

That's it, yeah. I mean, one of the things that is kind of a truism about porn, I think, is it's got very little to do with sex. I mean, I came to feel like it was much more like performance art crossed with gymnastics and and so there's I think what and I think everyone working in porn is very aware of that and I think where we have problems arising is where you take something which is explicitly about fakery and about performance and allow it to affect the real world in meaningful ways. And I suppose moving forward, the question is,

how do you police that boundary? And I think we're all experiencing that via the internet in a huge number of ways, but not necessarily related to porn. You know, we're constantly looking, trying to work out what's real on Instagram and what's not real. And I think these are questions for all of us in lots of areas of our lives. Hayley, has it altered your view of the whole business?

Not particularly, no. I mean, I don't think that I had a particularly strong opinion before I made the show. But one of the things, the main thing that it's opened my eyes up to is what Lucy was talking about in the beginning of the conversation, which is this idea of consumerism around porn yeah and just how much it affects um the content that is made and the fact that so much of the free content that's available on the

internet is owned by these huge fac, multi-billion dollar corporations. Yes. And the fact that they're top of the food chain and their influence and their need to make money filters down to what happens on set. No, you're absolutely right. And I think, Lucy, you talk about this, don't you? It's the idea of what people put into search engines,

bluntly, is what ends up being filmed for porn. That's right, yeah. Yes, that's absolutely, and that's how you end up getting these very firm categories, which we're not allowed to name on air, because people end up getting sort of fetishised into certain groups. Yeah.

I mean, to be fair to Woman's Hour, we have attempted to have conversations about porn, but I thought it was interesting that, right at the the beginning you did describe how difficult it had been for you to get this series made. So fair play to you for your persistence and to Channel 4 for going with it in the end. It's really interesting. Thank you both very much. Lucy Kirkwood, who's written adult material. Hayley Squires, who's the star as Jolene Dollar. It starts at 10 o'clock tonight on Channel

4. It is, well, it's an adult show although I'm sure young teenagers, certainly sort of beyond the age of 16, could probably benefit from seeing it. Thank you both very much and anything else you'd like us to feature along those lines about that subject, do let the programme know.

This email came in from a listener who says, I'm a happily married woman, I'm in my early 60s and my husband and I are occasional consumers of pornography. I actually wish there was the equivalent of a fair trade endorsement that would let us know that all participants were consenting and fairly treated. Well, yeah, I mean, that's a good point and I think probably a lot of people would take note of something like that if it were available.

Beryl was talking about our first conversation about the idea of people who are disabled being foster carers. Just a thought, she says, I keep hearing the term disabled people. And it sounds as though they're cars or computers which have had modifications made. So something which was a problem was stopped from functioning as it was a nuisance. Does this make us subconsciously immediately think that they're not as good as other people? Should we not be fighting to get the term

people with a disability used as they are people first and the disability isn't the major thing which defines them? Good point. Thank you very much for that. A lot of people interested in gossip and indeed in the conversation that I had with Mary Killen. Philip just has some gossip for me. Doreen's having it off with the postman, says Philip. Well, I mean, we don't know whether that's true.

Doreen doesn't get a right of reply. I imagine it's all around the village by now and now it's all around the country. But thank you for that. Alistair says, I'm just having breakfast. Can I say it's quite a late breakfast, Alistair, if you're having it listening to Woman's Hour. But anyway, he's having breakfast, listening to Woman's Hour, talking to a guest about the Queen. You can probably imagine my outrage to hear the presenter refer to Her Majesty as the Queen of England. As a proud Scot, is it any wonder independence is in the air?

Well, if I did say that, I really do apologise. I shouldn't have done it. What were you having for breakfast? I picture you there at your table, perhaps with a bit of kedgery, having a luxurious late morning breakfast. You can always write again, Alastair, and let me know. From Anna in Norfolk, possibly even close to Sandringham, I don't watch Gogglebox. Well, it's quite good. You might want to give it a whirl.

Anyway, she says, I don't watch Gogglebox, but this lady speaking about the Queen is absolutely speaking for me. There will never be a monarch like her, and whatever people say, it is a gilded cage and a goldfish bowl and the fact that she's doing it still doing it at this age is remarkable. I would love to see anybody even one of her descendants last a couple of months at her level of delivery. I personally would absolutely completely and utterly hate it. As I'm typing, I find myself agreeing with Mary's points in her book. And now the chap who's speaking about male friendships,

it's actually very interesting. Actually, continues Anna, I've had fallings out with women and my longest serving friendships, bar one, are actually with men. Anna, thank you for that. I think Robin, he did say something about female friendship which I have to say based on my own experience I couldn't agree with I mean I just think many of us

and I'm certainly including myself here are really sustained by our friendships with other women and really don't know what we'd do without them and let's end with this from David which is really buoying me up for the week actually because I'm here all week whether you like it or not and David just says usually I find your programme difficult to listen to.

But this is quite interesting. Thank you. Thanks, David. Let's put a spring in my step. Woman's Hour, back tomorrow. 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.