Woman's Hour - Alex Kingston plays Prospero at the RSC; Captain Preet Chandi; Alcohol, sexual assault & recall; Folic acid; All good friends?

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

Women are able to recall details of sexual assault and rape with accuracy, even if they have drunk – moderate amounts of alcohol .A study conducted at the University of Birmingham demonstrated that women who had drunk alcohol up to the legal limit for driving were able to recall details of an assault in a hypothetical scenario, including details of activities to which they had, and had not, consented. Heather Flowe, Professor of Psychology led the study.A year ago, British Army officer and physiotherapist Captain Preet Chandi (AKA Polar Preet) made history as the first woman of colour to complete a solo expedition in Antarctica. Now she’s just broken another world record: the longest ever solo and unsupported Polar ski expedition. The 33-year-old travelled 922 miles across Antarctica, beating the previous record of 907 miles set by Henry Worsley, a retired Lieutenant Colonel, in 2015. Having spent over 70 days on her own, trekking in temperatures as cold as -50C, she speaks to Anita Rani about how she endured such a physical and mental challenge.Is your partner’s ex a significant person in your life? Are they someone you tolerate - or are they someone whose company you genuinely enjoy? Would you even go so far as to call them a friend? Or even a best friend? The friendship between popstar Katy Perry and the model Miranda Kerr attracted attention this week. Why…because Katy Perry is engaged to Orlando Bloom - who Miranda used to be married to.  Katy Perry posted about her friend on Instagram calling her her “sister from another mister” and stating “I love our modern family”. So how realistic or welcome is it to be friends with your partner’s ex? We hear from the journalist Esther Walker.Adding higher levels of folic acid (otherwise known as vitamin B9) to all flour and rice would stop hundreds more UK babies being born with lifelong disabilities. That's what a group of leading scientists are saying. Women in the UK are advised to take a daily folic supplement before becoming pregnant, to reduce the risk of giving birth to babies with severe abnormalities called neural tube defects, such as spina bifida. But many don't. Anita Rani is joined by Neena Modi, Professor of Neonatal Medicine at Imperial College London.Best known more recently for her portrayal of River Song, the wife and occasional companion of Dr Who, actor Alex Kingston is currently on stage in Stratford-upon-Avon as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of The Tempest. Women playing what are regarded as traditionally male roles on stage is not unusual these days but Alex explains to Anita why making Prospero a woman and mother surviving exile on a small island makes that role much more powerful. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Professor Heather Flowe Interviewed Guest: Preet Chandi Interviewed Guest: Esther Walker Interviewed Guest: Professor Neena Modi Interviewed Guest: Alex Kingston Photographer: Ikin Yum

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, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. I want to know about your relationships today, or more specifically, if you're friends with your partner's ex. Do you have any kind of relationship with them, good or bad? Does your partner want to keep the ex in your lives? How do you feel about that? Do you put on your best fake smile and pretend I'm okay with it? Or maybe it works perfectly. Maybe you're even best mates, genuinely good friends. And if you've been married to someone, you've got children with them, they've moved on, maybe it was a bitter

split. Have you been able to get out of your own way for the sake of the children or is it more clean cut in your life? Every relationship should be an X free zone. Whatever your circumstances and your situation, I would like to hear about it. You can text me 84844. You can also email me by going to our website or you can WhatsApp me or leave me a voice note. 03700 100 444. Terms and conditions can be found on our website. Now, Pola Preet has been at it again. The army captain Preet Chandi not content with becoming the first woman of colour to complete a solo expedition in Antarctica.

She's broken another record, this time for the longest solo and unsupported expedition by anyone, full stop. 922 miles in extreme conditions, minus 50 degrees C. A week later, has she recovered? We'll be finding out. What a champ. Also this morning, I'll be talking to Alex Kingston about her new role at the RSC, playing Prospero in The Tempest as a woman, Miranda's mother. We'll also be discussing why scientists are calling for more folic acid to be added to flour and rice. And of course, I would love to hear from you on anything we discuss in the programme today. That text number once again, 84844. But first, women are able to recall details of sexual assault and rape with accuracy, even if they have drunk moderate amounts of alcohol.

A study conducted at the University of Birmingham demonstrated that women who drunk alcohol up to the legal limit for driving were able to recall details of an assault in a hypothetical scenario, including details of activities to which they had and had not consented. The findings, they say, are an important step forward towards challenging myths of women being unreliable witnesses when intoxicated at the time of the assault. Well, Heather Flo, professor of psychology, led the study and joins me now to tell me all about it. Welcome to Woman's Hour, Heather. Why did you want to look into this particular area? Hi, thanks so much for having me. We wanted to look into this topic because alcohol, it's ubiquitous in sexual assault cases. We find that at the investigation stage that the police and other legal practitioners,

like forensic medical examiners, for instance, really have a degree of caution when it comes to questioning and taking statements from complainants who are under the influence of alcohol at the time of the attack because of concerns around credibility as well as concerns around memory. Can they remember what happened to them during the assault? And what's that based on? A lot of it, well, it's all based on myth, to be honest, because nobody's ever really looked into what women can remember if they were alcohol intoxicated during a sexual encounter. And so our team was the first to do this research and we control over the amount of sexual activity that was taking place with a male acquaintance who they're described as having met as part of the scenario method. So that's really interesting that what's happening at the moment is all based on myth. So you've done this research. Let's discuss what you've done exactly.

So explain what was involved. Yes. So what we wanted to do was we wanted to put women into a situation where they made a number of choices about whether to engage with the male that they just met. And if they elected to leave, let's say the encounter happened in a bar, they were given the option of whether they wanted to leave with him and accept a ride home because all of their friends have left. And that's that's a common scenario that we read about in the papers. And if they agree to this, then next they are asked whether they want to invite the male inside because he's lost his mobile phone. And if she invites him inside, then he will begin to make sexual advances and she'll have the option

of whether to engage in the encounter or if she wants to stop consenting and call it a night if she calls it a night and stops consenting then a depiction of a legally definable act of sexual assault that is rape is described as having taken place. And then we interviewed our participants a week later using police interview tactics. And what did that entail? What we do is we use the Achieving Best Evidence Guide, which sets out how you're to interview vulnerable and intimidated witnesses, which includes sexual assault victims. And after we interviewed them, we asked them specifically about the sexual acts that took

place in the encounter and whether they consented to those sexual acts. And this is really important because there are experts who testify or who would like to testify in court that women who consume alcohol are prone to developing false memories, coming to believe that consensual sex was in fact rape. And what we wanted to do was to put this to empirical scrutiny by asking women the extent to which they could remember those acts to which they consented in the hypothetical scenario. And what did you find? Well, we found that our participants who consumed alcohol and the way that you find? Well, we found that our participants who consumed alcohol and the way that we dosed them, we dosed them according to body weight,

and they consumed three standard drinks within a 15 minute period. And the reason why we did this was to induce a fragmentary memory blackout, which is where people lose partial memory for things that they experienced while intoxicated. And what we found is those participants who had consumed alcohol, as opposed to those who consumed tonic water, were just as accurate in remembering the acts to which they consented. And they were no more likely to make a false accusation in the case of those who consented all the way through to the sexual intercourse in the scenario. But the amount of alcohol you gave them, you said three drinks, it was actually up to the drink-driving limit of alcohol. It doesn't seem like a very high level of intoxication.

Could you not argue that it's actually no surprise that they were able to recall it? What we found in our other previous research with the police interviews is that participants who are alcohol intoxicated during the encounter do form less complete memories. They report fewer details overall about the incident. But what they report is no more likely to be incorrect than people who are sober. And this is important because some people have a lay hypothesis that people who drink confabulate. And this isn't the case. People who drink know that their memories have been compromised. Everybody knows when you drink that that is going to have a deleterious effect on memory. And so people compensate for that during police interviews by reporting fewer details. So alcohol

does have an effect. But when it comes to something central and significant like sexual activity, we're not seeing that has an impact on people's ability to recall correctly the activities that they consented to. So you don't create false memories, you don't make it up? No, contrary to some defense attorney and legal experts beliefs, we find no evidence for that proposition. If anything, people who experience rape under the influence of alcohol are very unlikely to report. We know about 16% of complainants actually report to the police. And even fewer of those cases, something like 60%, drop out because the complainant stops engaging with the legal process. So it's far more likely that someone will disengage with the legal process. So it's far more likely that someone will disengage with the legal process than come forward and make a false accusation or report a false memory

about a rape that didn't occur. And this was quite a small sample, Heather, 90 women that you worked with, with this limited amount of alcohol. What happens next? What was really key about it is that we did the research with college students, which is the number one occupation group when it comes to experiences with sexual assault. With respect to the study's size, it's one of the largest alcohol studies, actually, because it's quite an intricate procedure to run it ethically. It takes a considerable amount of time. It takes a full day to run each participant in the lab outside of exam periods. It might add we are very responsible participants.

But there's also been a number of studies done in the field with self-intoxicating individuals who are consuming far more alcohol than what we did in our study. And those research studies find compatible results whereby people reduce the amount of information that they report. But the accuracy of the information they report, but the accuracy of the information is no different compared to sober people. So we feel heartened that these results should be informing the police when it comes to investigations that they need to do a thorough investigation and do a thorough interview with individuals who are involved in these crimes. It'll lead to fair justice outcomes for everyone. And the CPS, have they been given this information? Has it gone to them? Have they responded? Have they

said what they think about the research you've done? They have. I mean, the CPS have been true allies in this research. We've worked with all of their regional managers to tell them about the work that we've been doing. And they've actually incorporated our findings into their guidance for reviewing cases. And so all of their barristers, all of their prosecutors who review these cases are aware of the findings and the myths about alcohol and memory. And as someone who's done a lot of work in this area, you've been involved in research, looking into police records and archives, how these cases are prosecuted, or, you know, the assumptions that are made of women who've had a drink now that you've done this research and you're getting like you say the

cps or allies this how do you feel about it i'm really heartened and i you know it's always a woman's choice as to whether or not to report a sexual offense to the police but we hope that when victims do come forward that they feel that they will be taken seriously and that their case will be fully investigated because we know a lot of rape perpetrators are serial perpetrators and it's really important that we do thorough investigations so that we can connect cases and take very dangerous people off the streets um professor of psychology heather flo thank you very much for joining me and to talk to me about that research um 84844 is the number to text lots of you getting in touch about um whether or not you are still uh in touch with your ex's your ex's ex uh your partner's ex rather i'm getting confused hi

woman so i attended the wedding of my husband's ex before the day the whole situation seemed very bizarre but on the day that changed to my surprise. It was really lovely. I don't have a friendship with the ex, but there's no ill feeling and my husband does. I suppose it helps to know that the ex has moved on. Another one here, when I met my partner, it was very important to him that I got on with his ex wife. We did get on very well and became good friends. We usually had a family holiday together, weird, but always fun. I once spent part of Christmas with her after Ian and we usually had a family holiday together weird but always fun i once spent part of christmas with her after ian and i had had a big row sadly she died of breast cancer in 2019 and i miss her keep your thoughts and comments coming in now my next guest is the british army physio captain preet chandi although you may know her as polar preet preet made history

last year when she became the first woman of color to complete a solo expedition in Antarctica and she's back now from another Antarctic expedition with another historic record. This time she's made the furthest unsupported solo polar ski expedition in history trekking 922 miles in temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees C. The trek took 70 days and 16 hours. She was completely on her own for the entire time. This is how she sounded on her first day of trekking. Hi everyone. I'm still keeping up the long days.

But because of that, I'm not sleeping much. So I'll adjust my hours to make sure I'm getting sleep last year I was so sleep deprived at one point I started really sneezing and I don't want to do that again I'm also just very tired and I start moving very slowly when I go over 24 hours at once it's really cold cold today in weather like this. My breaks are short. Just to quickly get some food fluid before continuing. That wasn't on the

first day of the trek. The first day of the trek you left a message to your grandad, but we'll talk about that. Pola Preet, she is here. She joins me now. You look, you've got a big smile on your face. How are you feeling? A week later. I'm okay. I i'm okay i'm still recovering and you know i lost 20 kilograms so i'm putting weight on slowly and um i'm feeling a little bit less tired every day and a little bit more like myself which is really nice because i'm so impatient with myself i'm like i'm back home why don't I feel normal yeah give yourself time how does it has it sunk in

world record breaker man woman person of color all of it you are it you know I'm not sure it has um I haven't really left the house very much uh because I'm not hugely mobile at the moment and I think I'm just enjoying the simple things you you know, still sitting down on a toilet, having a warm bed, being able to eat whatever I want. Bless my mum bought Prata to the airport, which were amazing. So I think I'm, yeah, I'm just kind of taking it a step at a time. And I will reflect on it because it was quite the journey. I found it very, very difficult, hardest thing I've ever done. And, you know, I'm glad, I'm glad that I kept going after the South Pole. I didn't achieve

my original aim, but I'm so glad I kept going. And I think that in itself, hopefully provides a message, you know, it's okay to change the goalposts. Please dream big, you know, if you don't achieve that angle, that's okay. It's okay to change it it and adapt that as well what you said you've you've hurt yourself what have you done um so i've got a cold injury to my calf um so uh which can happen on long polar journeys um so it kind of looks a little bit like a burn and uh i've been um seeing the the surgeons at derby hospital who have been brilliant and um think potentially will go for surgery. But it will just be cleaning it out and a skin graft. And did that happen during the expedition?

So you were suffering with that as well as everything else? Yeah, so actually I had it a while. So it happened I think about six, seven weeks and then I covered it and I think it just didn't have time to heal because of where I was. But I think hopefully I stopped it from getting any worse. And now, you know, now that I'm back in the UK, it's been healing slowly since I've got off the ice. So that's good. And you're at home eating your mum's bronte so you'll put you put you'll put the kilograms back on I know you can do by my arms you look absolutely good you're radiant I can see you you've got a huge smile on your face you're just beaming and so you should because it's an incredible incredible achievement what did you think hearing the clip that we played because that was actually from halfway through the trip

where you were really suffering. You said you kind of walked for 24 hours. You were hallucinating. It's quite hard to hear. Yeah, I sound tired. You know what, bless, I'm thinking of my mum because she would tell me she'd listened to the voice notes and you can hear from my voice that I'm exhausted.

And I'm not surprised. I honestly was exhausted. Like, every day was a struggle. And, yeah, I'm not surprised at all. I'm just glad I kept going, really, because each day I kept thinking, it's too much, you know. It literally is that hard. And I'm not normally one to exaggerate. Like, comparing the last trip to this one was so different it was so much easier um the conditions were easy obviously

my sled was lighter too but you know it there's just no comparison whatsoever it was just um it was a struggle and you know thinking of pushing my boundaries I 100% pushed and I think it's one of the reasons to keep going you know I say that I want to inspire people to push their boundaries which means I need to push mine and I really really did. We 100% believe you that it was difficult there is no part of any of us that don't think it was hard how did you keep yourself going? Step by step I would constantly tell myself I'm okay I remember like literally in my head I was like you're okay you're okay just keep going you're okay like you know and genuinely it

was it was kind of yeah like that and some of the days like the last 24 hours which was all in one go was like horrible I can't even explain like um the Sastrugi, those wind shaped ridges were huge. I fell, I think 40 times, something like that, like a lot. And every time and I would just, I'd go down, I'd stay down for a second before getting myself up. And I would tell myself, you're okay, you're okay, just keep going. And, and within that, you know, within those tough moments, at that point, that's an hour gone gone that's two hours gone so that that time I thought I couldn't do because I'm finding it so difficult I've just done two hours you know you can do that you can do another few hours you can do the day but pre some people literally can't talk themselves off the sofa to to go for a walk to the shop um you

know or if we are genuinely having a difficult day or a struggle day, you know, you have your resources. You might pick up and talk to your mum or your friends or whatever it is or go on Instagram and see someone's kind of inspirational quote that'll give you the boost. Where did you go on your own for all that time with nothing, just the horizon and you and your own thoughts? Where did you go to give yourself that extra push? What did you think about? You know, I had my own resources. So I decided to run this school competition, you know, that I just put it up on my social media and then no organisation just said,

anybody who wants to create a logo for me to take to Antarctica, write 100 words why it should come. And I got to pick 11 of them. I created them in stickers and they were on the side of my book. And they were incredible and each week I got to announce it on my blog so there's this you know young person who gets to

hear that their logo has gone to Antarctica and I cannot explain how like excited that makes me feel um because it was just an idea and I have these ideas you know and and now I get to go into those 11 schools um and and and you know I remember falling sometimes and looking at them because I was like by the side of my sled and and it made me smile that I had them with me and this expedition was always about so much more than me and that helped me you know my pork was named Simran again my skis were named after my nephew Gunanvir and Arjun. And just having them all with me, I was doing research as well while I was there.

I was raising money for charity. And it just, you know, so sometimes I was almost a little bit like, get over yourself. This isn't about you, you know, just it's bigger than you. It's more important than you. I'm just one person. But this, just is huge like for me it was always

about doing something big and Antarctica came afterwards I mean I didn't know anything about Antarctica up until a few years ago um so I think the why is important so you know if you're on your sofa and you're struggling to to get up from that sofa you know create a why so why is it you want to do it and once you're up you literally the only thing you need to do is stand up from that sofa that's the first step once you've done that first step everything else is a little bit easier so please take that first step a lot of people might be thinking when they when they heard me read out your achievements uh and and when they heard that clip of the struggle that that question, why?

Why did she do it? Why would you put yourself through something like that? So why? Oh, you know what? For me, it's very much if a Punjabi woman from Derby can go and do this, you can go and achieve anything because nothing is impossible. And I think so often we are encouraged to stay in this box, you know, do the normal thing, whatever the normal thing is. And I want to show, and it's. Now, I'm almost like, wow, we really can do

anything, you know, believing it myself. And you can relate that to absolutely anything, whether it's the arts, whether it's science, but you know, literally anything, sports, whatever it is adventure, you want to do. And that is beyond powerful for me. You know, I look at my niece, who, bless her, so I had voice notes that I downloaded on my phone, and Simran, who's 11 now, sent me a voice note, and hearing her voice, and, you know, and she's like, so excited that, you know, she's like, and I tell everyone that my British people are, and it just, you know, I think, God, if I could inspire my niece, you know, who else could I hopefully inspire just to believe in themselves, to believe? And that's my why. I mean, pretty much everyone listening to

this is probably feeling boosted and inspired on some level right now. And also you had the voice of your granddad. We often talk about mums and grandmas and women's hour but we've got to give a shout out to your granddad tell us why yes yeah so I had my babaji with me and I truly believe that he was watching over me um for that trip you know it was a tough trip I was kept safe throughout and I made it home safe um my babaji raised me uh I mean he he lived I think it we don't never really know the age of our kind of grandparents. They made them up. Yeah I used to tell people that he was 100 when I was like you know at junior school I remember I'm not sure he actually reached there but he holds an incredibly special place in my heart

and always will and I know that when I'm ever in you know in arduous places that he's looking out for me so it's always important for me for that first one to go to him. Yeah, really pushed you as a woman, right? Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I mean, I'm so proud of you. It's such a huge achievement. You need to rest. You need to relax. Also, the other thing you don't have to worry about when you're on your own for all that time

is the stuff that we get obsessed over grooming so you oh my god you didn't you didn't have to brush your hair or wear any makeup or do any of it on one level how liberating but how is it having not combed your hair for 70 odd days the hair thing is coming back to haunt me now so so i realized i can only really deal with one pain a day. So, excuse me, either my dressing changed on my leg or somebody trying to brush my hair. So it's not quite out yet. There's still, you can't really see it, but there's this big knot here, which isn't out yet. So I still have feel in my hair. I was going to say, get some coconut oil in there.

Come on. I've still got oil in my hair from yesterday to try and soak it out so um a combination of the hairdressers and my sister-in-law Sonia kind of brushed my hair out so uh so yeah hopefully hopefully another few days because I'm so looking forward just to my hair being brushed out well enjoy all the pampering from and being fed by mum and having your hair massaged by your sister-in-law and um don't just rest for a little while and then when you're ready for the next one come back and tell us about it i will do thank you congratulations again lovely speaking to you uh preach andy does everyone feel empowered after listening to that i'm ready to climb a mountain anyone else with me okay maybe

not yet maybe we'll give it we'll plan it before we just set off. Loads of your messages coming through about exes. My husband's ex is now one of my best friends. They are godmother to our children. They are someone who I can unload to about the niggles of a long relationship, knowing exactly what my husband is like. And that's from Jane. There's no choice for my household to run as an ex-free zone. So we're embracing it.

84844, the number to text. Now, on yesterday's Woman's Hour, we heard from two of our powerless judges. This year, we're looking for 30 women working in sport and need your suggestions. You can listen back to the two judges, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and Ebony Rainford-Brent,

speaking to Newly yesterday by looking for yesterday's programme on BBC Sounds. You've got less than a week to get your suggestions in. So head to the Woman's Hour website for more information. And let us know. We need those names. The great, the good, the powerful, the people in the limelights, but also at grassroots levels.

Women who you think deserve some recognition in the field of sports. Put your names forward. Now, adding higher levels of folic acid, otherwise known as vitamin B9, to all flour and rice would stop hundreds more UK babies being born with lifelong disabilities. That's what a group of leading scientists are saying. Women in the UK are advised to take a daily folic supplement before becoming pregnant to reduce the risk of giving birth to babies with severe abnormalities called neural tube defects such as spina bifida, but many don't.

Well, I'm joined now by Nina Modi, Professor of Neonatal Medicine at Imperial College London, who's going to tell us more about this. Welcome to Women's Hour, Nina. Why is it important that women are getting enough folic acid? What are the risks if they don't? Well, thanks very much for having me. It's a really important issue because neural tube defects, which as you've just explained, are really serious and severe birth defects, can be largely prevented with adequate folic acid supplementation around the time of conception. Now, one of the problems is that, of course, about half of all pregnancies in the UK at the moment are unplanned. And of course, this means that women are not able, if they don't know that they're not planning a pregnancy, they're not able to start taking folic acid supplements in sufficient time.

And this is really the main reason, the main justification, the main rationale for supplementing foodstuffs with folic acid. So why aren't we getting enough of it? Well, lots of reasons there. So it's, as I've just said, it's largely in your diet. So it's in green leafy vegetables, those sorts of foods. So if you eat those sorts of things, you will have a reasonable folic acid level, but you may not have a sufficiently high level, which is why all women who are planning to get pregnant, it's advisable for them to take a folic acid supplement to be absolutely sure that they've got enough folic acid in their bloodstream. So standard advice at the moment is for women to take a modest folic acid supplement. And women who are particularly at risk for various reasons

of having a baby affected by a neural tube defect are asked to take a higher supplement. But of course, as we've just said, the problem is that if around half of women aren't actually planning that pregnancy actively, they will not take the supplement. Now, the baby's neural tube, so that's what forms they will not take the supplement. Now the baby's neural tube, so that's what forms the brain and the spinal cord, so absolutely crucial to normal development. That forms as an open layer and then folds over and closes like a tube,

and that closure takes place within the first month after conception. So it's really, really early on in pregnancy. It's a time when women don't even necessarily know that they're pregnant. And again, this is why it's so important that you have enough folic acid in your bloodstream from before the time that you conceive. What's happening in other countries just to compare how we are doing in the UK? Well, the UK sadly has got a much higher rate of neural tube defect-affected pregnancies than the rest of Europe. So our rate is estimated at the moment to be about 12 per 10,000 pregnancies, which is substantially higher than our European counterparts. Now, there are many reasons for this, which I could go into. No, tell us. What are the reasons?

Well, you know, there's lots of reasons. So diet is an important one. If you have a healthy diet, you're much less likely to be low in folic acid. But also obesity, diabetes, these are the things that increase the risk of having a neural tube defect, increase your requirement for folic acid. And of course, we know that the rates of obesity within women of childbearing age in Britain are horribly high at the moment. It's about 60% of our childbearing age women at the moment are overweight or obese. This is not good for them. And it's not good for their babies. And it's not good for, it won't be good for their baby's health as their children grow up

so it's it's really a it's really a time bomb but i mean that's just that's a whole other story that is a huge story that is a you know how do we use story yeah so we're dealing with the symptom here not the cause well with folic acid we're dealing with something that we can prevent and that's really what's concerning us so the uk the Medical Research Council in the UK funded an absolutely seminal piece of research which was published back in the 1990s in The Lancet and it showed clearly and categorically, it was very high quality research, it showed absolutely clearly that you could prevent the major number of neural tube defects with proper folic acid intake. Now, that was published in 1991, okay? So it's a long time ago.

In the intervening period, about 80 countries around the world have introduced fortification, what we call fortification of foodstuffs. So this is flour and rice grains with folic acid, which means the level in the population rises, which is great because it means everyone's protected. You don't have to think about it. It is fantastic, relatively low-cost protection that is equitable, that's provided to everyone. So you've got countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, 80 countries around the world have introduced this. But the UK has not introduced fortification. Now, finally, government has decided to introduce fortification.

So that's one that we're really pleased about that. That's one problem solved. But unfortunately, we're worried because they're about to propose fortification at a lower level than will be fully effective. What's the resistance to it? Well, the resistance is basing advice on historic data, which has now been superseded by new data. So science always moves on and you do the best you can with the evidence that's before you.

So when the first wave of countries introduced folic acid fortification, they were basing the levels of fortification on data that came from isolated case reports that were published in the 1950s about what might have been considered safe levels. Now if you move on from the 1950s, so we're talking 70 years further on, we've got much, much more evidence. So we know first of all that vitamin B9, folic acid, is water soluble, so it doesn't accumulate in your body. If you've got too much of it, you just excrete it in your urine.

It's safe, it's not toxic. So that's one thing. So there's no upper tolerable limit. You can't overdose on it. So that's one thing so there's no upper tolerable limit you can't overdose on it so that's one thing that's new the other crucial bit of scientific information that's that's really important is that people were worried that if you give folic acid to some people who are at risk of b12 deficiency b12 is another important vitamin. Now B12 deficiency causes neurological problems, but it also causes an anemia. And people are worried that if you give

folic acid to people who are at risk of B12 deficiency, it will cure the anemia, but it won't sort out the neurological deficit, and they might go on to develop permanent neurological damage. Now, that is a hypothetical suggestion. Our neurology colleagues, we had Peter Rothwell yesterday on a press conference talking about this, and neurology colleagues say this is not founded in what they see in practice. So you've got a theoretical fear that's being set against what is a real objective opportunity to reduce the number of neural tube defect pregnancies by about 600 to 800 a year. Which is a very significant number. And it can be done prevented but by adding folic acid. Why put it in all flour if it's pregnant women who need it? So flour is pretty

ubiquitous. Most people eat flour but of course some sections of the community prefer to eat rice rather than flour as their main carbohydrate intake. So many countries also fortify rice. Now, this is the second main issue that we have. So again, I repeat, we're delighted that fortification is going to go ahead. But one, the level's too low, as I've just said, and two, the scope is too narrow, because various sections of our society mainly eat rice, not flour. There's absolutely no reason to not fortify rice as well. Now, we already know that there are ethnic disparities in the rates of neural tube defects. So Bangladeshi women, for example, have got rates of neural tube defect pregnancies that two and a half times higher than that of white women.

And Indian women have got rates that are one and a half times higher than that of white women and Indian women who've got rates that are one and a half times higher than white women. So these are communities that may well be eating more rice than flour and what we've already got a problem in this country with widening health disparities, inequities and by fortifying just flour and not rice, which is very easy to do, you're going to risk widening these health disparities. So we suggest that rice should also be fortified. Professor Nina Modi, thank you very much for speaking to me about that this morning. Your thoughts on anything you're hearing. Get in touch. Now, is your partner's ex a significant person in your life are they someone you tolerate or are they someone whose company you genuinely enjoy would you even go so far as to call them

a mate well the friendship between pop star katie perry and model miranda care attracted attention this week why because katie perry is engaged to orlando bloom keep up everybody who used to be married to Miranda. Katy Perry posted about her friend on Instagram, calling her a sister from another mister and stating, I love our modern family. Well, to discuss how realistic or welcome it is or not to be friends with your partner's ex, I'm joined by someone who's very close friends

with her husband's ex, the journalist Esther Walker. But before we come to you, Esther, I want to hear from our listener, Linda, who got in touch with us after our call out yesterday. She's on the line now. Linda, welcome to Woman's Hour. Tell us about your friendship with your partner's ex. Thanks for having me on the show.

It's lovely to have you. My partner, we met about 40 years ago. And within a couple of weeks, he took me back to where he lived which was in the home of his ex so I met her within a couple of weeks so it was lovely to meet her and she was just welcoming right from the very very beginning and we've had a relationship now for 40 years very very close relationship I would say she's one of my best friends. Was he still living with his ex when you met him? Yes.

As mates? Were those at house share? Oh, right. Okay. How old were you? They'd been together for a couple of years and they split up maybe six months previously, but they still shared a house. So we started our relationship

and I had an extremely good relationship with his ex. So good that she is actually the godmother of my eldest daughter. And we spend every Christmas together when he's now left me and he's married again. Yep. And don't tell me, are you friends with the new one, his new partner? Yes, absolutely. Why? Absolutely. Because I think it's a very mature thing to do.

I think children need to see healthy relationships as they're growing up. And I work in a school and I think it's very, very difficult for children to have good relationships as they grow up if they see poor relationships that they're brought up with did you how many children did you have for them three three yeah that makes sense doesn't it because constantly we're being told that if you split up then you need to think about the children and what's best for for them and um absolutely yes um it sounds like you've it works perfectly well for you uh linda thank you very much it's been great to talk to you um let me bring in esther uh morning esther welcome

to the program how about you morning tell us about how your friendship began yeah so um so when i got together with my when i met my husband my now husband uh it was 2007 and his ex-girlfriend melissa was not his most recent ex-girlfriend but a few ex-girlfriends before and I think that does make quite a difference I think the most recent ex-girlfriend is is sort of challenging for all sorts of reasons and she and they were just and they were just friends and we went over to see her and her fiance who's now her husband for lunch and she was just she was just terrific I mean she was just um she's a very unique person and she's incredibly funny and very um and very kind but also sort of very like quite naughty as well um and she we're quite similar in quite a lot of ways

and we sort of obsessed about the same sorts of things we're very neurotic about our health so we bonded over that and um but we're both a little bit shy and don't find making friends that easy so it did take us quite a long time to actually be good friends what about what about the point where he says she's my ex like did you was there any like how did you feel about the possibility of being around someone who was an ex oh that's fine really I mean I when we got together you know I was 27 and my my husband was 38 so we both had we both there was no there was no pretense that the world wasn't didn't have our exes in it um around so it was fine and I I found my ex how does I feel I don't know I mean I didn't it was it was fine it was fine I thought it was quite nice that he was still friends with his ex I think that I think

that people who sort of I mean obviously you have exes who you fall out with and you don't really you don't that they're not in your life and they were mean to you or it went wrong or something you don't want to see each other I thought it was really quite there was quite a good sign that he was good friends with his ex would you be friends if he wasn't still friends with her? I mean, would you be friends independently, do you think? Yes, definitely. I mean, one of the reasons why we're friends is because we live close by, so it's just easy to see each other.

And so she lives a few streets away from me, and I'm sure I would have bumped into her at some point in the local area as well, particularly as our children are basically the same age. So she's got her eldest as a boy and her youngest as a girl and mine is the other way around but if I'd if I'd met her I would have known within 30 seconds she was great so I think I've slightly I don't know what my husband thinks about this but I think I've slightly pinched her off my husband in a way I mean I don't think that I think that I'm the one who talks to her all the time and I'm not he's actually listening and maybe he could send me a text message and tell me if that's true um so I think I think that I have slightly kind of

taken her off him in a way so yes we would definitely be friends if we met independently yeah without question well loads of people who are listening have got something to say about this um Georgie Holly says I spent yesterday evening playing games with my ex-husband and his wife of now 30 years to celebrate our younger grandson's sixth birthday. It's one of many happy times we've had together over the years at Christmas, holidays and weddings. It's good for the kids. It's good for the kids. Another one here, both my partner and I are friends with my exes. One of them lived with us for eight years between two different houses. Another one we regularly go and stay with for weekends uh someone else says my partner is a friendly guy and wants to be friends

with everyone including all of his past partners sometimes even one night stands i have a completely different view and this has always been a major source of most our arguments see that is yeah someone who wants to keep all the exes around um and uh and remain friends with them so what what do you think the key to both your friendships um with these with these women working are uh esther oh sorry um my my do you mean the caller yeah no no what do you think your key is to with with melissa i think we just get on really well i mean I think it is broadly um uh good luck and a coincidence I'm not I mean I'm you know there are people that there are people that I that I have to see who I possibly don't get on with quite as well and you can sort of

make it work but like no way that we like oh god I'm not gonna say no you don't have to say them yeah you don't have to expose them people it's people who, you know, just those people in your life that you basically have to see socially and you just have to kind of get on with them and that's fine. But you wouldn't sort of choose to kind of, you know, ring them up and like have a chat or go around and see them for a cup of tea. But I think that Melissa is just, yeah, I mean, she just, it's completely easy and straightforward

and we see eye to eye on lots of lots of things and and if we didn't we wouldn't we wouldn't because I was so Linda was saying that she she thinks that you need to have a good working relationship with with people when there are children involved absolutely I think that's true and I think that's one of the one of the situations where you just have to work really hard and then there's a teacher so she's used to just sort of getting on with people and it all being fine we didn't have any there were no children involved in this situation so it was just you you had to come to terms with the fact that your your husband wants to make stay friends with his ex as he is listening Esther do you talk about him with Melissa do you discuss him

yes there was another are there boundaries yeah definitely I mean there was you had another caller Jane who said that uh she liked being friends with her husband's ex because he and she she understood what her husband was like and that's very that that's that's what a key thing because my husband my husband is well my husband is great but marriage is always kind of complicated and difficult and you do talk to your girlfriends about things that have come up and problems that you're having and or arguments that you've had and and with melissa there is a complete it's just a shortcut because she knows she knows my husband and you know they're they're good friends and she and she really likes him and but she completely understands where i'm coming from when i say when i talk about and also she's married to someone

whose personality wise is not a million miles away from my husband she's I think she's got a type so um she has so the things you know if if there's a bit of friction in my marriage about something it's normally quite a similar sticking point with her marriage and we like to kind of thrash these things out you know from from feeling one way about this you've completely sold the idea to me it's quite nice to have like a wing woman who understands what you're going through um yeah yeah esther thank you so much uh for talking to me about this loads of you getting in touch um my ex's new partner used to be a close friend of mine and the four of us went on our birthdays for many years. I would love for that to have continued, especially since our children were also friends.

Sadly, however, she wants nothing to do with me. Never quite worked out why. Maybe another discussion for another day. I have a very good relationship with my husband's ex-wife. We celebrate all the birthdays, Christmas and Jewish holidays together. We put aside any minor personal differences to make the family work because the children are our priority. If there was an emergency, she would be my first call.

Now on to my next and final guest for the programme. Actor Alex Kingston, no less, is currently on stage in Stratford-upon-Avon as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of The Tempest. Women playing what are regarded as traditionally male roles on stage is not unusual these days and in this version of the Tempest instead of being an elderly Duke of Milan Prospero is the mother of a daughter Miranda who was struggling to survive on an island full of strange sounds and wondrous sights when one day their long-lost enemies sail into view on the horizon. You will also know Alex as River Song from Doctor Who, or who could forget her playing, Dr Elizabeth Corday from The Hay Day, the best days of ER.

Alex, welcome to Woman's Hour from Stratford. Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. It's lovely to have you with us. It's the press night tonight. It's a big deal. Everybody's going to come to watch it. You've been on stage doing it for a while, but tomorrow the reviews, how do you feel?

Well, I think actually because of the train strike, I think we're going to have a sort of a slow release of reviews and the critics are going to kind of come in over the next few days because it's extremely difficult to get up here in the current situation that we find ourselves in. But nevertheless, it just means that we have to sort of really stay on it and stay focused for the next three days and stay on our game. Not to say that we don't for the whole run,

but there's a different energy. Yeah, I was going to say, extra energy. Now, this is not the version of the story, The Tempest, that listeners will remember, as is not the version of the story, The Tempest, that listeners will remember, as it's probably one of Shakespeare's lesser-known plays. For the audience who don't know the story, can you summarise it very briefly

and tell us why your version is different? Well, I'd say that a powerful duke, the Duke of Milan, is usurped by his scheming brother and the King of Naples and set adrift to sea with his daughter. And miraculously, they don't drown. They're washed ashore on this remote island where they then survive for 12 years, in which time um prospero the duke uh hones his magical skills uh i think as a as a means of one day potentially being able to get back to civilization and and and uh reclaim his So the difference with our production is that, firstly, the Duke is female. She's the elder sister, but she is still nevertheless usurped by her younger brother. And she and her daughter are set to sea.

And the rest of the story obviously is the same, but it's about a woman, a mother and her daughter surviving on an island, which is also inhabited by spirits and by a feral young man, Caliban, who during the time that they are there together, attempts to rape her daughter. So what difference does it make them? What's the impact it has playing Prospero as a woman? Yes. I mean, I've seen various productions over the years. I think the difference for me immediately is just the stakes are so much higher. have two women seemingly vulnerable, having a very strong male force on the island, which is Caliban. And sort of the act of rape on her child, I think, not to say that her father wouldn't feel guilt for not being able to protect their child. But somehow, for a mother not to have been able to protect her daughter in this way is just horrendous. And I think also, in the past,

the play's always understood to be a story about the Duke wanting to restore his dukedom. And that's what the drive has been whereas for us the drive is is predominantly desperation it's the absolute need to get off the island before Caliban attempts to rape Miranda again which he will do and he said he'll try and the idea that Prospero at some point might end her days, might die on the island, and Miranda being stuck there with this man is just too horrendous. How satisfying for you as an actor, there aren't very many mother-daughter relationships within Shakespeare

to be able to play this in this way. No, I mean, the only ones I could think of were obviously in Romeo and Juliet, but Juliet's mother is remote, distant. Her relationship is really with a nurse. And then in The Winter's Tale, you have Hermione and Perdita. But again, Hermione is sort of reduced to this silent statue. So it's very odd that Shakespeare, I mean, I'm fascinated to know

what his relationship with his mother was. The thing that I find so ironic in this particular play is that it feels very natural that Osprey is a woman. And aside from having to change um a little bit of the language uh and and feminine and feminize in certain instances I mean she's mother rather than father um it feels so right that it's a mother-daughter relationship so that's the magic of Shakespeare as well you can adapt and create different scenarios for so many of his amazing plays. I want to talk about you a little bit.

You're back at the RSC. You started there in 1991. You were only 28. What's it like being back? It's, you know, it's so familiar in so many ways, but it's also very, very different. I'm very blessed to have a fellow actor who's playing the King of Naples, Alonso, Peter de Jersey.

And he was in the original company with me back in the day. So we both look at each other sort of slightly horrified that so much time has passed us by. But it feels like I was only here last week. That's the strange tricks that time plays on you. And who was young Alex back then? Who was the 28-year-old? And what do you think she'd make of the career that you've had

with the aspirations that she had back then? Well, I didn't really have aspirations. I just sort of, I kind of just jogged along and did whatever I was cast in. I mean, my aspirations to be at the RSC, I thought it would take a lifetime of a career to get to the RSC. So it was sort of quite a shock to be there so young. And I just remember looking up at the the actors who were playing the leads back then, you know, Roger Allum and Sue Fleetwood and John Wood and thinking, wow, you know, these are the theatre greats. And I'm sort of in the lead role now, but I don't feel that I'm a theatre great at all. Just feel I'm still a jobbing actor.

But it's nice to see the young the young ones um that the the Jessica who plays Miranda Joseph you know they are in the sort of shoes that I was in back then and um it's nice to know that they are the beginning at the beginning of their own amazing journey and it's going to be it's going to be phenomenal for both of them and you've been acting for a few decades and lots of lots has changed for women actors and women in the workplace. So what do you what have been the key shifts, do you think, for stage and screen? And also, I really want you to tell this anecdote that I heard you tell about an actor who kept putting his tongue in your mouth when you didn't want it there. Please, can you share that with the Woman's Hour hour listeners i feel like we all need to hear it well um i mean certainly going back to the rsc the things that have really um noticeably changed are just the sort of the support system that is there for um for the acting community and

and also not just the actors the crew you know the staff so there there are there's a lot more inclusivity and diversity here. But there's there's also their support. There's mental health support, physical health support. You just feel like you are properly, properly heard and taken care of in a way that didn't really exist back then. There's there's more outreach into the community, into schools. So that's all very positive. And the other thing that the RSC have adopted, which I think is terrific, it was something called the Theatre Green Book,

which was developed in the pandemic to try and find a way to be more sustainable in production. And so we have, I think, 65% of all of our set has been repurposed from other productions. We've gone into the wardrobe store and we're wearing old costumes, things like that. So it's being more sort of environmentally conscious of our production. We've used rubbish.

We have a charity called Rubbish Friends in Stratford who collected rubbish for us, which we are using in the show. Which is so important, and particularly with a play like The Tempest, which is about nature. We're going to run out of time, and I've teased them with the tongue anecdote, so you're going to have to tell us. So, yes, a rather persistent actor who I still actually,

I'm friends with him. I like him very much. But he would give me a kiss at the end of the production every night. And it was a French kiss, tongue down the throat. And I asked him not to and he wouldn't stop and so I said well if he did it again I would bite his tongue and um he didn't believe me and um so I did and I but I didn't really realize how hard I had bitten his tongue and it wasn't until the next day when I saw he was just sort of slurping on some soup that I realised that I'd actually properly bitten in his tongue and he'd had to have some stitches.

That's one way to deal with it. And I will never be forgiven if I don't ask you about Doctor Who. There will be people shouting at the radio, all the mega fans. Will you be going back? If I was asked to, I would love to of course yes absolutely 100 and why why would you like to go back river song is just such a great character and the show is uh um just full of love adventure care i love the fact that um uh it keeps being updated and that also the fans enjoy going back into the past i mean they will they will watch the sort of the tom baker shows uh you know we are a family if you join doctor who in any shape or form you become part of this huge family which is also you get brilliant lines as river song um

i want to say alex it's been such a pleasure speaking to you someone's just messaged in to say alex kingston as prospero now that's something i'll have to see well you can all you need to do is go to stratford-upon-avon she's on stage alex kingston thank you that's all for today's woman's hour join us again next time are you confused about why your mortgage rate is going up? Unsure of what causes inflation or befuddled over what GDP stands for? I've got the perfect podcast for you. I'm Tim Harford, and in my new Radio 4 podcast, Understand the Economy, I'm taking you back to basics.

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