Woman's Hour - Amy Winehouse remembered; Women's cricket; Botox and fillers; Violence against women strategy

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

This Friday marks 10 years since the tragic death of the singer Amy Winehouse from alcohol poisoning at the age of just 27. A new documentary film, Reclaiming Amy on BBC 2 on Friday at 9pm features Amy's closest friends and family and seeks to tell the story of the real Amy. We hear from her mother, Janis and close friend Catriona Gourlay.A brand-new cricket competition, the Hundred is launching today. It's the first time a major team sport competition, which features both male and female teams, has opened with a women’s match. Despite a push for equality, the women playing in this tournament are set to earn thousands of pounds less than the men. Can this competition change things further for women in cricket? Head of the Women's Hundred and Female Engagement at the ECB, Beth Barrett-Wild and English international cricketer, Kate Cross join Chloe to discuss.After a year long inquiry the all party parliamentary group on aesthetics beauty and wellbeing has called for much tougher regulation of Botox and fillers. MPs say the lack of proper regulation is putting women at risk. But their report stops short of recommending that only healthcare practitioners should be allowed to inject. We hear about the background and some of the horror stories from our reporter Melanie Abbott, and then from David Sines, who chairs the body registering practitioners and overseeing training providers, the Joint Council of Cosmetic Practitioners and Leslie Blair from the British Association of Beauty therapy and Cosmetology, which represents therapists.Plans to tackle violence against women and girls following the mass protests when the marketing executive Sarah Everard was murdered on her way home from a friend's house, have been unveiled by the government. This strategy also comes amid concern about low rape conviction rates and a culture of sexual harassment at schools. Chloe is joined by Andrea Simon, Director of End Violence Against Women Coalition and BBC special correspondent, Lucy Manning.

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 Chloe Tilley. Welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to Wednesdays at Woman's Hour. Now, she was a phenomenal talent who died at the age of just 27 after a much-documented struggle with alcohol and drugs. But ten years after the death of Amy Winehouse, her family and close friends are reclaiming Amy by sharing their memories to counterbalance

the tabloid coverage that so many of us remember. Well, I've been speaking to Amy's mum Janice and close friend Catriona about Amy Winehouse ahead of a new BBC documentary about her life. You're going to hear that shortly. Also today, for the first time, a major sports competition will see women and men get an equal billing. Cricket's The 100 launches tonight, opening with a women's match. Now, it's aimed at making cricket more accessible to younger

and more diverse audiences. It's simplifying jargon and it's trying to broaden out from its white male middle class roots. But, and it's a big but, for its white male middle class roots but and it's a big but for the next five weeks the women playing in the tournament will earn thousands of pounds possibly tens of thousands of pounds less than men the maximum a woman will be paid is 15 000 pounds a man could earn a hundred thousand pounds we'll be speaking to the head of the women's hundred at the england and wales cricket board and also to the the England cricketer Kate Cross. We're also this morning going to be talking about Botox and fillers after MPs looking into the beauty industry have concluded a complete absence of regulations of non-surgical beauty treatments is dangerous and has to change.

They're recommending that fillers should be prescription only after horror stories of people having botched procedures. So if you have Botox or fillers, do you think that this goes far enough to protect you? Do you want more regulation? Or actually, if you've regularly used a beauty therapist for fillers, do you think it's unfair to penalise them? Another issue is about cost.

Will it raise the cost? And is there a danger it will drive therapists doing fillers underground? I also want to hear from you this morning. If you're a beauty therapist, how could a potential change in the rules affect your business?

Share your experiences, good and bad, this morning. You can text us on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. And do check with your network provider for exact costs on social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour or of course you can email us through our website.

Already I can see that the tweets are coming in on this. 100% regulate botched procedures end up costing the NHS time and money, not to mention the distress and the harm to individuals, which is 99.9% of women. Thank you, Naomi, for that tweet. Do keep your thoughts coming in on that on 84844. And as the government releases its strategy to tackle violence against women in the next half an hour, we're getting to hear what's being promised and if it goes far enough to satisfy groups that are calling for change. But first, it's 10 years ago this week since the death of the incredibly talented Amy Winehouse

from alcohol poisoning at the age of just 27. The singer and songwriter was a one-off. She achieved international stardom, winning five Grammy Awards for her album Back to Black. She also made headlines, of course, for the wrong reasons. Her descent into drug and alcohol addiction and her troubled relationship and marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil was much documented. Well those around her, her family, were accused of not doing enough to support her. In particular her father Mitch, often at her side, said the film Amy in

2015 portrayed him in the worst possible light. Well a new documentary film, Reclaiming Amy, on BBC2 on Friday night at nine o'clock, features Amy's closest friends and family and seeks to tell the story of the real Amy. Well, I spoke to her mother, Janice, and close friend, Catriona Gourlay, who's spoken for the first time. And I asked them, why now? You'll hear from Janice first. I was given an opportunity to do it. Why not? And an opportunity to do it in your voice? Yes, on my own.

And did you find it a helpful process? In a funny way, I should say yes. But yes, it's a process of it all. I'm very lucky with the way I am. I have a good constitution and I'm very much yes and. Very matter a fact. Do you approve of that, Catriona? Yeah, and I completely agree.

I think from my perspective, one of the reasons that myself and the girls that have taken part decided to do it was because there's been so much misinformation out there surrounding Amy and her life. And it's almost, in in a way our silence is almost contributing to that and we can't complain about the the lack of of real information around her if we don't contribute to these things I suppose. Was it a difficult decision? Very yeah you sort of open the door to people saying not particularly nice things. You know, the usual not particularly helpful comments.

You know, more people coming out of the woodwork and questioning your motivations for doing it. But I'm really happy with how it's turned out. And I think she would be as well. I mean, Janice, let's talk about Amy, because it really came across in the documentary about what a strong-willed, talented child and young woman she was. Yes, Amy, I would say the strong-willed. Because, yes, if I said to Amy, don't, she did. Amy did what she wanted to.

And that's hard as a parent, isn't it? Yes, yes. Well, it was almost a game. And so how did you navigate that through childhood? I just went along with it. And I did. I didn't try and go against her. I was with her. Always. When did you realise she had this incredible talent?

Probably when she was eight or nine. She would sing at home constantly, where her brother and I would say, Amy, shut up. I cut out a lot of that watered, kind of in-between music that was around. You know, I went straight for the good stuff when I was a kid. In my house, you couldn't have something on unless it was good, just a good song that you could show off your voice to. She liked Sinatra, she liked Ella Fitzgerald,

she liked all the standards, and she sang them so well. And where did that talent come from? I would say it's her own within. Katjana, you were friendly with Amy for a long time. Just explain to us a little bit about how you met and the friendship. So we met through a school friend, a guy that had just been to school with her, I went to college with, and he was always talking about his friend Amy and she was a great singer and you know when you're at that age when you're kind of

teenager it will sound probably quite childish now I thought oh yeah this girl sounds great you know she's a singer and we met each other and I was like oh actually yeah she is great and is also incredibly talented. And I mean you were very close. I mean, you lived together, didn't you? Yes. Yeah, we lived together in Camden and in East London as well, but we had flats kind of one above the other in Hackney as well. So she sang a lot, as we've heard from Janice, but we didn't get to see Amy, obviously, when she wasn't performing.

So just Amy the mate, what was that like? This will sound like slightly boring and a bit obvious, but we did normal things that girls do at that age. We were, you know, hanging out in Camden or going to play pool. I worked in a vintage shop and Amy would come and help me. She loved organising and sorting things. This is by no means suggesting that our house was anything less than, I mean, you remember.

It was messy, was it? Just a bit, to put it mildly. But Amy used to love to come to my work and help organise the belts. She could honestly sell anything to anyone as well. And working in a vintage shop, do you think that helped Amy get her distinctive style with the eyeliner and the beehive that we all remember her so well for?

Yeah. So in between Frank and Back to Black, we all dressed like that. You know, we all had the beehives and the flick eyeliner and so on and the headscarves. The ballet pumps were Amy's thing. She had those. Oh, constant. Yeah, she had it. And that was one thing I got from her. But yeah, it really did shape her style.

You know, she started wearing the bowling shirts and that kind of slightly more rockabilly look that she had. And she got more tattoos. I know you were thrilled about that, weren't you? Not happy with the tattoos? No. I love how one time she said, Mum, do you want me to get a tattoo with you on there?

Mum? I said, don't worry, Amy, no. Well, she listened then. It's interesting in the documentary because you talk about your relationship and you talk about how you had an intimate relationship with Amy, which for many people it will be the first time they've heard about that. Was that a difficult decision to open up and talk about that? Yes, and also really awkward talking about it with Janice here as well

and it was I'm keen not to go into that too much myself and Naomi who's also in the documentary we went round and round in circles I mean we talked about a lot whether it's something we should mention and to my mind there's no point in me waiting for 10 years and never speaking about Amy if I'm not providing any new information, any more context around her life that might be punctuated by certain things or, you know, people think about either drinking or whatever else, the other stuff and or, you know, the most obvious relationship in her life. her friends and she had a lot of other things going on um that perhaps she would have felt more comfortable talking about if we were you know if we were Amy in 2021 I think you know that would be something she'd probably be a lot more open about because it has changed a lot hasn't it in a decade society's attitudes towards mental health and well-being. Do you do think she'd be judged in a different way by the media, by society? Yeah, absolutely.

I just think that, you know, the language and the verbiage that was used about her at the time, I just don't think people would get away with it. You know, especially when it came to her mental health and the sort of stuff that Amy declined house and things like that. You know, I know it played a significant part in, you know, her issues with her mental health and how she saw herself.

Because even though she'd say she didn't read things, I knew she did. If you think everybody views you in a certain way or that you're just this, you know, chaotic mess, it's not going to do wonders for how you view yourself either. Well, that's the thing. People listening to this, Janice and Will, you've both mentioned it. You've said people will remember certain points in her life

and it's only a part of her life, whether it was the drug taking, whether it was the alcohol, her struggles with that. I mean, Janice, for you, how much did you know of what was going on in Amy's life at that time when she was struggling? I didn't. She was protective of me.

She wouldn't let me know. Yeah. So I didn't know. She didn't want to let me know. So did you learn things through making this documentary? I think so, yes. Yes. What were the things that you learned? Hmm. It's probably difficult to actually say, I learned this, this and that.

I think just a various amount of things. hmm, it's probably difficult to actually say, I learned this, this and that. I think just a various amount of things. I mean, I remember there was one, there's one part of the documentary where you're sitting around a table, Katriona, you're there with your friends and you were talking about Amy's bulimia and the real struggle that she had with that. I mean, had you heard of that before, Janice?

Were you aware? No, at the time I realised it's almost ignorance, that I was not aware of it. Anything to do with addiction, and bulimia is another sort of addiction as well, addiction is the most private thing for anybody. And you become so adept at being able to mask things that even the closest person to you,

I've, you know, I have a friend now that we will talk about it. But it's really hard to get to that point. What do you think Amy would think if she was listening into our conversation now and hearing us talk about Catriona's relationship with her and the bulimia and everything? What would Amy say?

I think Amy would have one word for it. she says a lot of bollocks that yeah you know that i know yeah yeah yes she yes she would yeah she would but i don't i mean i wouldn't have done it if i thought that she would i think she'd understand now because of what happened that it is important and that it's all been done with the best intentions and for the right reasons. Because, you know, perhaps had Amy had the confidence to talk about things in a bit more detail, things might have been different. Let's talk, Janice, about the things that we have to talk about. We have to talk that people know about with Amy, her troubled relationship and marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil, her drug addiction, alcohol. That was hers. All I was going to say, no, of course,

what I was going to say was that has been widely talked about and there's been a lot of criticism of your family and the dealing of that, particularly Mitch. And I just wonder if you feel your family was scapegoated by the media. Yes, I think so. Yeah, I completely think they were. I think people did not understand. No, and it's so hard.

I knew the more I pushed against that situation, I'd get to the point where I was being cut out because... When you said situation, you mean her relationship? Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, it's very hard. There were friends of ours that ended up not being friends with her anymore because they tried to, and you're kind of caught between a rock and a hard place for something like that because you need to be able to be there to have a positive influence on someone and be around no matter what your opinion is so it's a it's a bit of a balancing act with something like that I'd say I know in the documentary Mitch your ex-husband Amy's dad was talking about how he felt he'd made mistakes he could have maybe done things differently I just wonder if you look back

do you ever look at any moments I mean we all do as human beings and just think, could I have done something different? The good thing is, no, I don't. I don't because you can't change how you were. You can look back at them and say, if, if, but at the time you don't and couldn't. Everybody wants people to scapegoat and to pass judgment. And they weren't there when Janice and mitchell were there all the time every time something happened they would be there and make sure she was all right or you know the countless times she was taken to rehab facilities or there was an intervention

but people have kind of made their own mind up so that's a bit that i find quite frustrating and people have made their mind up as well by that's a bit that I find quite frustrating. And people have made their mind up as well by reading the coverage in the media at the time. You've touched on how unfair you felt that was. For you, Janice, as a mother, to see the way that your daughter was being portrayed, particularly in the tabloid press. Well, the good thing with me is I, again, stepped back.

It was just a story. So you didn't read it or you read it and just forgot it? Yeah, I saw clips and I thought, OK, let that go. I just didn't take it on board, thank heavens. Yeah, it got so out of hand that actually it was best not to engage with it in any way. It was best for her and for everyone just to try not to engage with it. Because there are pictures in the documentary you just forget

that she was chased down the street by the media and often covering her head and trying to just get through crowds. Yeah. What people don't see with some of that footage as well is the things that would be being shouted to her to get a reaction. I remember being in a cab with her once

and someone opened the door, threw some knickers on the floor and a load of pills, slammed the door and started taking pictures. So it looked like she'd, you know, it was the contents of her handbag that had spilled out. And there'd be banks and banks of people outside the house all the time. We used to have to put, like, I think we had to put shaving foam around the edges of the window so that they couldn't... It was just ridiculous

they'd rent out flats that were in the same complex as us and you know when you're trying to deal with a situation all the stuff that amy was going through and that's kind of added on top it's um yeah it's not particularly helpful as you say she was basically hounded yeah you managed to get an injunction out, didn't you? So that they had to be a certain distance away after a while. Yes. But that took quite a while to come through, I think. You have spoken about Back to Black being a millstone around Amy's neck.

Just explain a little bit about what you mean with that. Had she had an opportunity to get another album under her belt and start touring that, it would have been something new to focus her attentions on. I don't know if you agree, Janet. Yes. If you think about it, quite a few of those songs are pretty morose. We only said goodbye with words

I died a hundred times If you then add into the mix that you're, you know, you've got 130,000 people watching you sing songs about the unhappiest point in your life. And, you know, sometimes she may or may not have had a drink as well. You know, that's going to exacerbate the feeling that you feel when you're singing those songs. She said to me once, I think it was something like, every song I've ever written is about a sad time or a raw deal.

That was her way of doing it. And everything bad that happened in her life, she would write about it. Yeah. I know, Janice, in the documentary, there's a lovely part about all of the belongings you still have of Amy's. I know you've got a big storage unit. And I know that a lot has been given to charity yes things like that but you've also got a cabinet haven't you in your is it your dining

room where you've got belonging just tell us the things that are in that cabinet well the Amy the Amy cabinet it's like her her shoes because these shoes were like whoa she adored them they're the Louboutin ones yeah yeah And so we got those. And we have little snips of things that were Amy's. Fans still get in touch with you? Yes, yes. It's a funny thing where Richard tweets, he's me, when he tweets.

And they want to meet me with me. This is your husband, isn't it? Yes, yes. So we'd have this thing where we meet with him, but he doesn't tell them. But it's nice. They're going to know now. You're shattering the illusion.

I know, I know, I know. But do you enjoy meeting fans of Amy? Oh, yes, always. If they want to meet, why not? And do you listen to her music? It's on. And that's the whole thing. It's on. My thing is the whole thing, it's on.

My thing is, every day, there seems to be an Amy moment. Every day. Whether it's on the radio, TV, there's a quiz, she's a question. It's like there's always Amy moments. The thing that I find hardest, actually, is to hear her speaking voice. That tends to make me well up. It's 10 years since her death, which in itself, I just couldn't believe that it has been 10 years.

And I can't imagine what it's been like for you as a close friend and clearly Janice, you as her mother. Are you finding it difficult as you approach the 10th anniversary of her passing? Thank goodness, no. It's just a celebration of Amy, is what it is. I agree. We all meet up on the day of the anniversary, so we go to the cemetery.

And then we have a tradition where we go to... It's effectively like an upmarket kebab shop in Palmer's Green. Don't give it away, people will be there. But that's it, we all go to the ground and then all go back to this restaurant after. Yeah, and we've been doing it for years. It's a routine. And it's just nice, we can spend some time together.

The main thing is we celebrate Amy. How do you want your daughter to be remembered? I think as a fun person, which she was, and she had a good sense of humour, she'd make jokes of everything. So quick-witted as well, like unbelievably quick-witted and so talented and so charming and so funny. Bless her so Abel, that's how she was. When you say Abel, what do you mean? Her abilities as a songstress, as a writer. I mean, she just could do it so easily.

And we mustn't forget, of course, that Amy's music is still making a huge amount of money, which is being used for a lot of good. There is the foundation, of course. Tell us, remind us a little bit about the work that the foundation's doing. The foundation was set up after Amy passed is to help people that were like Amy, young people who just couldn't help themselves. And we set up things to help people that were like Amy. Young people who just couldn't help themselves and we set up things to help them. I think she'd really approve of all the different projects that you work on as well. I've really enjoyed being involved in some of them. There's one woman who speaks in the documentary and says I don't think I would be here if it wasn't for the foundation

and that must be very heartwarming nice to know what we're doing is good very satisfying i couldn't resist him his eyes were like yours his hair was exactly Now he's just not as tall But I couldn't tell When it was dark And I was lying down You are everything He brings nothing to me And I can't even remember his name

And that was Amy Winehouse performing Love Is Blind live in the Woman's Hour studio way back in 2003. I was speaking to Amy's mum Janice and Amy's friend Catriona Gourlay and that BBC documentary Reclaiming Amy is on Friday night on BBC2 at 9 o'clock and on Monday Front Row discuss the musical legacy and life of Amy Winehouse

with musicians Natalie Williams and Troy Miller and the director of Reclaiming Amy documentary Marina Parker. You can catch up with that on BBC Sounds. Cathy in Glasgow has got in touch saying, Hi, Woman's Hour. Thank you for remembering Amy Winehouse today. It seems to me the parents of celebrities are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

The Winehouse family were often accused of a lack of duty of care for Amy. What exactly were they supposed to do? She was a wealthy, independent woman. You cannot section somebody because you don't agree or like their behaviour. It's always female celebrities that are hounded by the press. Things have to change. You can add your thoughts this morning. You can text us on 84844 or we're at BBC Women's Hour on social media.

Now, you may have seen the trails on BBC TV for a new cricket competition, The 100. It's aimed at bringing a younger, more diverse audience to the sport and it's putting women at the forefront. It's the first time a major team sport competition, which features both men and women's teams, has opened with a women's match. Organisers say they hope to address gender parity in the sport. But despite this push for equality, women playing in the tournament for the next five weeks are set to earn thousands of pounds less than men. Figures from the England and Wales Cricket Board's own gender pay gap report back in 2019 shows the average hourly pay for women cricketers is 43.6% lower than men's. So can this competition change things for women in cricket?

Well, with us now is the head of the Women's 100 and female engagement at the ECB, Beth Barrett-Wild, and the English international cricketer Kate Cross is also with us. Morning to both of you. Hi there. Good morning. Morning, everyone. Morning. Now, Beth, let's start by, if people haven't seen a lot of the promo stuff for the 100, just explain to us what it is. I know it's simplified cricket, but explain it. Yeah, so the 100 is our brand new world-class cricket competition that

we're launching this summer, launching tonight in fact with a standalone women's match, but it's going to feature eight brand new teams with men's teams and women's teams playing alongside each other from seven cities across England and Wales and it's really going to fuse world-class cricket on the field with some blockbuster family entertainment off the field. At its core it's all about trying to throw cricket stores open to more people, especially families and young people, and really engage with a bigger and wider audience. So it's getting rid of jargon, it's getting rid of overs, it's just 100 balls, it's simple for people to follow. Why was the decision made to open this

with a women's match? I think the decision to open with the women's game just really demonstrates our commitment to giving equal levels of profile and prominence to the women's competition alongside the men's competition. I think the 100 is all about trying to make cricket as accessible and inclusive as possible for more people. And I think the fact that we're going to be opening with a standalone women's match this evening at the Kirova, Kate is going to be playing in and she might get to bowl that

that first ball in this world-class professional cricket competition I think it just really shows how far the women's game has come and just how committed we are to its future so I'm mega excited and it's been a long time coming but yeah I cannot wait to see that first ball bowled this evening by one of our brilliant female players. Kate let me bring you in because there has really been a revolution in cricket, particularly for women. Well, in the last decade, how important is it for you to see or for you to be playing in that opening game of the 100 tonight? Yeah, first and foremost, it's going to be really exciting. I think it's a new format for all of us as players as well. We've got to get our heads around. but I think for the girls it's an amazing

opportunity you know we've we work so hard behind the scenes and I feel like we're starting to get some visibility now and that's something that the 100 is going to create for a lot of girls um not just the international players that you know get shown on Sky Sports quite regularly but some of the amazing things that are happening at domestic level as well are starting to get seen now um so yeah it's gonna hopefully it's gonna be an amazing night tonight we're all just looking forward to it I feel like we've spoken about the hundred now for two years and we're just desperate to actually play some cricket tell us what it was like for you growing up as a girl playing cricket in what was clearly a male dominated sport did that spur you on or or was it a deterrent uh no it was never a deterrent for me if anything it was um I you know I kind of

like to prove people wrong and I never felt like I was doing anything abnormal you know cricket was part of my life it was part of my childhood um but I was heavily influenced by the you know male generations of my family so um I think heavily influenced by the male generations of my family. So I think that's something else that the 100 hopefully will be able to create is a legacy of players who can be female role models for young people. Well, for anyone, really. We always say as players, like you can't be what you can't see. And when I was a kid, I didn't see female cricketers. I didn't know that there was an England women's cricket team until I was 13 or 14. And I was heavily involved in the game at that point. So I think it's just incredible that, you know,

someone might be able to turn on terrestrial television tonight and see a game of cricket that girls are playing in and it might inspire them to want to go and buy a cricket bat tomorrow and play the game, which is ultimately what the 100 is there to do. It's to try and inspire some people to get involved in our amazing game. Beth, we've got to talk about the money involved here because The Telegraph has been looking at the big disparity between the amount women and men are paid in this competition.

Female players are going to get between £3,600 and £15,000 during this five weeks, but men playing in exactly the same competition are going to earn between £24,000 and £15,000 during this five weeks, but men playing in exactly the same competition are going to earn between £24,000 and £100,000. I mean, it's great that women are playing the opening match, but if they're not getting paid as much, is that an empty gesture? Yeah, I think that pay disparity between the men's and women's players is something that we've always been very open about. We've always been very transparent about that disparity. And I think that's really important, actually, because it is an issue and a something that we've always been very open about we've always been very transparent about that disparity and I think that's really important actually because it is an issue and a challenge that we want to address as quickly as possible and it's certainly an issue that's very close to my heart um I think I'd like to sort of highlight that it's not just cricket

where this um this massive gap does exist between pay and other sports other team sports in particular are in a similar position but I think with regards pay, I think it is really important that we do just take a step back and look at this amazing journey that the women's game is on at the moment. So I first joined ETV back in 2014 as media manager for the England women's team. So I was looking after Kate's media duties back then. And I actually remember writing the press release to announce the first wave of professional contracts for the England women's team. So there were 18 of those at the time. And if you look at what's happened in the women's game since then over the last seven years the fact that in addition to the hundred tonight launching with a standalone women's match

and we've also got our new professional regional structure where we've got 41 professional contracts within that and so 41 new opportunities for women to earn a living in the game. So that's great but people will listen to this and say but why is it men are getting so much more? What is the reason? I think that the men's and the women's games are in different places in their maturity at the moment. I think the hundred isn't the reason why the gender pay disparity exists. That that reason comes down to hundreds of years of unequal investment into women's and men's sports and women's and men's cricket and what we are trying to do now at pace and as quickly as possible is to close that gap so everything that the 100 is doing is trying to create visibility stature

platform profile and scale for women's cricket to attract a wider audience so when kate and her manchester originals team go out and play in this match this evening at the ovalval, hopefully we'll have a decent crowd there. We'll have thousands of people in there watching. It's going to be live on the BBC. It's going to be live on Sky Sports. And that visibility is the, I guess, is the growth vehicle for us to be able to really start gaining that commercial revenue within women's cricket, which we've not had before. So there is a disparity. We are doing everything we can to create the conditions to close that gap and close that disparity through that marketing investment through that visibility um as quickly as possible but um like i said it is an issue that is close to my heart and we're doing everything we can um to close that gap as

quickly as possible kate i wonder what you want to say about that, playing and getting paid so much less money. And also the fact that I know that some female players who also have jobs outside cricket because they're not on professional contracts, aren't able to work because of the COVID safe environment. So they're having to effectively take five weeks unpaid leave and be paid less than the men. I mean, how are you feeling about that? I mean, yeah, that's not an ideal situation, but I think COVID has created a lot of unideal situations for a lot of people over the last 12 months. So I think in terms of that, that just is what it is.

And, you know, we have to find a way of coping for this tournament for that. The thing that, I mean, we speak or get asked quite a lot about the pay gap within cricket. And as players, we have never asked for equal pay. That's not something that is on our agenda. Hopefully it will be in years to come don't get me wrong i think that's the the way that the women's game is going it is absolutely flying and i've no doubt that in five ten years we won't be talking about these kind of things but what we um i guess

protest for as players is equal opportunity you know being able to train professionally being able to have access to gyms and good coaching and you know background staff and things like that that can help progress the game um so i think it's very easy to look at the gender pay and say that it's very you know there's a there is a big gap there and we're not daft we know that but there's also a lot of things that are going on behind the scenes that don't get spoken about, which I think is a shame sometimes. And I think that's where the 100 is something that has created that opportunity for a lot of girls. In the Kia Super League, for example, we used to train at outgrounds. We used to train on second team pitches, club grounds sometimes.

I've had two training sessions at the Oval already within two days of this tournament starting. So it just goes to show how far the progress has been made in the women's game. And that is only going to make us better as cricketers. And if we're a better product, then that's going to also increase that pay gap. Well, decrease the pay gap. And Beth, moving forward, I mean, even at my daughter's school, she plays cricket as the summer sport now. There's no rounders. There's nothing else. It is cricket. And there is a lot of investment. You like that, do you, Kate? I can see you smiling.

I never played cricket at school. Yeah, I had to go to my local club. So it was always rounders or netball for me. And that's probably what's going to make the difference for the future, isn't it, Beth? That now there is such investment in girls picking up a bat and playing sport absolutely I think that's it and Kate talks about it at the start you know one of the key roles that the 100 can can provide is that visibility piece to really inspire that next generation of girls in particular and I think the investment that's going into the grassroots game is is substantial as well so through our transforming women and girls cricket action

plan we're looking at every single area. So not just the top end with the professional space with the 100 and England women, but all the way down through the grassroots, through programmes such as All-Stars Cricket and Dynamo's Cricket. And it's just all about normalising cricket as a sport for men and women, boys and girls.

And I think listening to Kate speak about her personal journey at the start there, mine was exactly the same. So only girl in my local club, all the way through till I was sort of 17 18 years old so um that's changing that is changing very quickly um we're we're optimistic about the future and we're very um much looking forward to a gender balanced future for cricket well Kate particularly best of luck tonight and throughout um and throughout the course of the hundred thank you both for speaking to us today we had there from England international cricketer Kate Cross and also Beth Barrett-Wild,

who is head of the Women's 100 and female engagement at the ECB. I've had a text come in here again. Cricketers are entertainers, just like actors or musicians. Their pay is set by the number of people who want to watch them and are willing to pay to do so. So women cricketers can have no legitimate complaint. As Kate was saying there, they've never asked for equal pay. They've asked for equal coverage. And Pauline on email says, just wondering, are there any mixed teams for any high profile professional sport? If not,

I wonder why not? Would it be a way to help iron out the gender pay gap? Get in touch with us. We're on 84844 on the text. Now, there are some that see Botox and fillers as part of their regular beauty routine but a group of MPs say the non-surgical beauty industry is like the wild west and needs to urgently change. After a year-long inquiry MPs on the all-party parliamentary group on aesthetics beauty and well-being have called for much tougher regulation of them and the organisation set up to oversee the training of practitioners has gone a step further, saying only healthcare professionals should be able to inject.

Well, our reporter Melanie Abbott has been following this debate for many years and is here with us now to explain it. So this isn't the first time that fillers and Botox have come under the spotlight, is it? No, very much not. It was right back in 2013 that the then NHS medical director, Sir Bruce Keogh, said that fillers were a crisis waiting to happen. And he also said that if you have these treatments, you've got no more protection and redress than someone buying a ballpoint pen or a toothbrush.

But despite commissioning his review, the government at the time really did very little with it. So what are the current rules? Anyone can inject a dermal filler. I could inject one to you if we weren't speaking remotely. And Botox, though it is prescription only, it is widely injected by non-medics through a practice called remote prescribing. Now, that is illegal, but there are some therapists who find doctors who are willing to prescribe the Botox, but there are some therapists who find doctors who are willing to prescribe the Botox, and then the therapist does the injections. There are dozens of training courses that claim to teach you how to do this, some of them in just a day. Many of them aren't regulated, and there is no national standard for training. Now, in the intervening years since the

Bruce Keogh's report, there have been, unfortunately, lots of horror stories as these procedures have been becoming more and more popular. One problem with fillers can be something that's called occlusion. Now, that's where the blood supply becomes blocked. If this isn't treated, you can actually lose the flesh. It can die. And the medical term for this is necrosis. And we reported on a case where this almost happened back in January we spoke to Emma who got her lips injected with filler in lockdown

I think she must have hit an artery straight away with the point she'd done it because she disappeared out the room for a couple of minutes and literally as soon as I looked in the mirror me lip was swelled out probably like the size of a golf ball, throbbing pulse and black. And she just said, oh, you're going to bruise really bad. And I didn't even see anything. I just basically got up and went straight away. And as soon as I got home, tried to put ice on it, got them done on the Thursday night, it was a Saturday morning when I'd woke up, face was going purple from my lips all the way up the side of my nose because there was no blood supply getting in. Two days after I was straight

through the clinic to get them sorted out and what did the clinic say she deals with them all the time and she said this is probably by far one of the worst cases she's seen but she deals with them on a weekly basis my skin was losing the blood supply all up the side of my face into my nose so it wasn't just my lips that had to be injected she had to inject behind my nose and all of the side of my nose and my face because all the whole artery was blocked so it all had to be from probably just under my eye all the way down my face and then all through my lips had to be injected but she'd said if I had left it any more days it probably would have been a plastic surgeon that had been broken into for lip reconstruction not just to get them dissolved. Sounds like you were very lucky. Yes definitely definitely was might have been somebody who'd

only had them done for the first time and that happened and the lady who carried the procedure out had said oh no it's a bruise it'll go it'll go in a few days somebody could have listened to that and they wouldn't have known the risk could have just thought oh yes it's a bad bruise I'll leave it and that's when it gets to the point of where you can end up losing your lips. I've always used registered nurses I always have done but the lady I used this time I didn't even know she wasn't registered. That was Emma and her lips as you would have gathered were only saved because the cosmetic nurse she subsequently saw injected dissolver into her lips and lots of medical practitioners report having to put things right like this. A survey by the British College of Aesthetic Medicine for Women's Hour back in

January found that nearly three quarters of those surveyed had treated people for bodged fillers. So bring us right up to date. Tell us what is in this report by MPs. Yeah, they've made 17 recommendations in that report. Maybe one of the most important is that fillers should be prescription only. They've also recommended premises should be licensed, they should be national minimum standards for training. But what they have stepped back from is saying that injectables should only be given by healthcare professionals. They say that there's good and bad practice by both medics and by beauty therapists. Melanie, thank you for that.

Well, one person who's disappointed by this stance is Professor David Sines, who chairs the Body Registering Practitioners and Overseeing Training Providers. It's called the Joint Council of Cosmetic Practitioners. Now, I know, Professor, that in in the past you've approved beauty therapists to train to inject fillers. Lots of criticism from medics for that but you've now changed your mind so just explain why that stance has changed. Well Chloe I think we should be clear to say we've

never actually admitted anyone onto our register to actually inject But your point is well made. The original intention was to have a national standard against which an enforceable statutory framework would enable us to determine whether or not competence could be assessed for any practitioner. But we decided in 2018 to suspend any further engagement for injectables for beauty therapists until we received assurance from government that they were intending to introduce a statutory framework of regulation for beauty therapists. Now, today, we have heard that that is not the intention. So we have come out very firmly to say we will not be supporting any non-healthcare professional to inject toxins or to insert dermal fillers.

We don't have the assurance to actually protect the public in the absence of a statutory accountable framework. Well, let's bring in Lesley Blair, who's from the British Association of Beauty Therapy and Cosmetology, which represents therapists. Lesley, where do you stand on this? Because there will be many beauty therapists who carry out fillers at the moment. Do you think it's right that your members should be stopped from doing that,

if, of course, the government listens to this report? Yeah, I think as an organisation that promotes best practice within the industry, high levels of professionalism and fit for purpose qualifications in beauty, we made the decision a few years ago not to insure botulism toxin or dermal fillers. Now, for us, this was due to the lack of regulation governing both the training procedures and products, together with the fact that only prescribing practitioners are able to actively manage any complications safely and legally. Also, given the studies on mental well-being and the impact of these invasive procedures, we also believe practitioners should be trained to do psychological pre-screening evaluations beforehand and be accountable for the

decisions that are made. and I think the accountability is key here. It's very important to mention that we do ensure and support other invasive treatments laser etc but it was our stance due to the lack of any regulation or fit for purpose training that we made the stance that we would not be ensuring beauty therapists or beauty professionals to undertake these procedures. There is a recommendation in this report that anybody who is giving a filler should be looking at the mental well-being, particularly when you think of how many young people, it's mentioned in the report that so many young people targeted on social media and many people who've had these botched procedures, it's by being targeted on social media and clicking on links and then pursuing that but there will be people listening here who at home who are saying well hang on a minute I've had fillers for years by my beauty

therapist I've never had a problem why should this be taken away from me plus the people you represent are going to lose business aren't they? Okay so there's no doubt that sadly it would further impact an already devastated beauty industry, you know, with COVID and the way business has been going. However, we have got to consider the well-being of clients and that has always got to take precedence over anything. these procedures to a very high standard and arguably even sometimes higher than their medically trained counterparts however with no regulation there is no accountability what they are unable to do legally is to manage the complications even if they've been trained how this must be done by a prescribing practitioner due to the complications management medicines being prescription only and they would need to be present for each appointment just in case something was to go wrong. Some clients do this because they have medical and beauty practitioners on site but it's not required legally presently so I think that it's the

it's the complication management that is key here and for clients who have been going to therapists for years that's great they've not had a complication. If they did, their therapist would not be able to actively manage that without a medic or a pres complication management procedures need to be carried out pretty quickly after the procedure has gone wrong. We just mentioned about vascular occlusions, about necrosis. So hyaluronidase needs to be injected into the site and that needs to be done pretty quickly. Okay, so you're making it clear that there needs to be people there, medical practitioners there if things go wrong. But Professor so you're making it clear that there needs to be people there, medical practitioners there, if things go wrong. But Professor Sines,

people will say that if the government listens to this recommendation, won't the cost of procedures increase? And that's not a good sign for consumers either. But it's not a necessary increase. Certainly, I do appreciate

one particular cost. If dermal fillers become a prescription-aided device, that will require a price for an actual prescription, no question about that. And I think the normative price is around £30 for a prescription. But can I be really clear, this is at the heart of public protection. And in my view, the public demand and should expect that level of public protection. So I should, I don't see an enormous cost in the actual application of treatment, but there is a cost associated with training as well,

Chloe. There's no doubt about that. But there is also a danger, isn't there, and both of you will probably want to pick up on this, that this just drives the industry underground. I mean, I've heard anecdotally people during lockdown, reputable beauty therapists and practitioners weren't willing to come over and carry out procedures, but people had them over to their house, had other people over to the house to administer this kind of thing. There is a danger that you will still get pop-ups, you'll get people appearing in hotel rooms and carrying this out. So wouldn't it be better to train everybody rather than forcing people out of the business? Professor, do you want to answer first?

First of all, let me be very clear. We are stating that over time there needs to be a real understanding that there was statutory enforcement of a training standard. Licensing takes us a long way towards that, and that's to be admired. And I want to congratulate Carolyn Harris and Judith Cummings on the production of a number of very significant recommendations. It just stops short of statutory enforcement. What that means to members of the public is that a practitioner is not accountable to a professional body if their practice falls below the standard. Like a doctor or a nurse,

I'm using the term could be struck off for a fitness to practice condition, this does not apply in the absence of statutory regulation. So I would say that there are very good examples of beauty therapists who on the virtue of their experience are performing treatments to a level of satisfaction to members of the public, but that cannot be accepted as a uniform standard. Your point about being driven underground is already underground, Chloe. It's endemic. We've seen such an increase exponentially in training companies popping up, as you heard from Mel just now in her introduction, and practitioners using mobile vans, even injecting in sheds. I'm really, it's quite an unbelievable story.

So we're saying all the more reason for one statutory framework to legally enforce standards. Let's almost take this to the point of suggesting there could be criminal penalty if practitioners do not practice in accordance with a legal standard. Okay, let me just jump in for this moment because Leslie, I just want you very briefly,

if you would, do you worry this gets driven further underground? I would worry that, as David so rightly said, that it kind of already is. But it's not just beauty professionals that are taking underground either. We've noticed that during the COVID situation. And it does give us the question

of how reputable are people if they are willing to work underground and do we want that to be the case anyway? reputable are people if they are willing to work underground? And do we want that to be the case anyway? So I think that what we are really trying to advocate is that we have a standard of training for everyone who's doing this treatment and for people that are qualified to carry out fully and to manage all the complications as well. You've made that point. Brilliant. Well, thank you ever so much. Thank you, Lesley, for joining us.

I am grateful to you for your time this morning. It's Lesley Blair from the British Association of Beauty Therapy and Cosmetology. And we also heard from Professor David Synes, who chairs the Body Registering Practitioners and Overseeing Training Providers. I do want to say that we asked the Minister and Dean Doris to come on. She wasn't available.

She has said she's looking forward to reviewing the report and is committed to patient safety and ensuring the highest quality training is accessible to all practitioners. Now, plans to tackle violence against women and girls following the mass protests when the marketing executive Sarah Everard was murdered on her way home from a friend's house are being unveiled by the government. This strategy also comes amid concern about low rape conviction rates and a culture of sexual

harassment at schools. Well, I'm joined now by Andrea Simon, Director of End Violence Against Women Coalition. And also first, we're going to speak to the BBC special correspondent Lucy Manning. Now, Lucy, we were expecting this report to be out by now. I know it's been somewhat delayed, but what do we know about what's going to be in it? Well, the report should be published around lunchtime, but we have had quite a lot of detail from the Home Office as to what is in it. The starting point is that 180,000 people responded to the government when they asked for feedback to feed into this strategy about what women wanted to try and make them more safe and to try and end violence against women. And most

of those replies came in the weeks after Sarah Everard's murder. What the government is promising is a radical strategy to deal with violence against women. The Home Secretary is saying that she doesn't want any women to feel frightened out on the streets, out at night. And what they've done that is good is that they've taken an approach across government. So it involves lots of government departments. It involves the Home Office, the Justice Department, Transport. So they're trying to make transport safer for women at night. There's going to be a hotline that people can call in 24 hours to report rates, a website where people can say which parts of the city or towns are dangerous and should be looked at,

some money around £5 million to help make the streets safer. There will be a main police officer in charge of dealing with violence against women and they're going to ban virginity testing. So quite a lot across the board. I think where there is disappointment is on the level of funding to try and change things. And also there was demands from some of the women's groups that they wanted a law to ban street harassment when you're out on the street, if people are harassing you, that they wanted that as an actual illegal act. And the government said they'll look carefully at it, but they think there might be existing legislation. Lucy, thank you ever so much for explaining that to us. Let's bring in

Andrea Simon from the End Violence Against Women Coalition. We heard that Lucy saying the government's describing this as a radical strategy. I mean, are you happy with what's being talked about? Improved policing, transport, education, victim support and offender management? I think firstly, this is a long awaited strategy. We haven't had a full strategy since March 2020. That's been a considerable gap. I think what we would welcome is an acknowledgement of the seriousness and scale of violence against women. And that warrants radical change and this whole systems approach, which should have prevention at its heart.

So we welcome recognition of that in the government's new strategy. And it's right that there should be measures which reach right the way across policing health education and transport um so that so that we can ensure that sort of tackling violence against women and girls becomes everyone's business and every part of government's business but to make this strategy one that will deliver for all women and girls we we need more than just assurances we actually need actions that will swiftly make that difference to women and the funding that's necessary to make that happen. It has to follow all of this work. And it's also got to be accountability to make sure that, you know, what the government is saying they're planning to do will actually happen and that there is some consequences

if improvements aren't made. So I think that calling this strategy groundbreaking and saying it's going to transform sort of responses to VORG is fine. But actually, I think there's a bit of disappointment around the lack of funding that is going to accompany the work. When you say VORG, you mean violence against women. Are you disappointed that there isn't a specific law to address street harassment? because the government's line is the laws are already there they just need to be applied? I think that some things that constitute public sexual harassment can be dealt with through existing laws like those on public disorder and there's other things that don't fall into to being covered by existing laws. I mean one of the

problems is that most women aren't aware of what might be a criminal offence, what is covered or they don't know how to report incidents. There's very little visibility as well of the impact of reporting some of this as well. I think that we need to look at the distinction between sort of what happens harassment-wise in public and online and in private spaces as not always being so clear and distinct. I mean, one thing that we've seen is the rise of things like cyber flashing, which is an increasingly common experience. And actually, the law commissioners just published their report on cyber flashing, which is recommending that we do create a new criminal offence there. But I mean, that just highlights that some of the funding that's going into responses to street lighting and CCTV, for example, aren't necessarily going

to be effective in terms of addressing sort of the evolving nature and the complexity around sexual offending that we do see, which is increasingly also being committed online. Briefly, before we have to leave it, there is the criminalisation of virginity testing, though, which is a step forward. It's the first time something like virginity testing

has been addressed in a violence against women and girls strategy. I do think that there are whole cohorts of women, however, that aren't very visible in this strategy. There's no significant big moves in terms of supporting black and minority ethnic women or migrant women, which I think is a big gap. We've seen how migrant women who've been victims of domestic abuse were left out of the Domestic Abuse Act protections. And we know that the UK still hasn't ratified the Istanbul Convention, despite signing that some nine years ago. That's the gold standard European convention for addressing violence against women and girls.

So I think that there are some moves here, but there's still some huge gaps for particular groups of survivors. Andrea, thank you for your time. That's Andrea Simon, Director of End Violence Against Women Coalition. I just want to read you this final message which has come into us when we're talking about Amy Winehouse. It says, I was a police sergeant in Westminster when Amy Winehouse lived in St John's Wood and we would regularly patrol her street, not because she was a celebrity, but because the paparazzi were completely out of control and would camp on her doorstep 24-7. They were rude, rowdy, pushy and loud and especially on night shifts my team would voluntarily go there and try and make life for Amy and her neighbours more bearable. We could tell she was vulnerable and under siege and we felt sympathetic towards her. She was always polite and friendly and we were distraught when we heard of her passing.

The press were relentless and it saddened us all. Thanks for your company today on Woman's Hour. I'll be back at the same time again tomorrow. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. I hope you can join us again next time. What would you do if your house just disappeared? You need to calm down. People are staring. You're causing a scene. Too right I am. I can't find my own house.

A new five-part mystery from BBC Radio 4. Ah, Neville, it'd be better if you didn't ask questions about that. Oh, but you see nothing. It was a whirlwind that took yours. It just clean sucked it up. One man's fight for answers. There must be a new Bermuda Triangle on Tory Island if houses can just disappear like that. The House That Vanished. Available now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.