Woman's Hour - Angela Rippon, Jamie Bernstein on Maestro, Scorchio! The history of The Weather Girl

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

After being the latest celebrity contestant to be voted off Strictly Come Dancing at Blackpool’s Tower Ballroom, Angela Rippon tells Emma Barnett about forming a lifelong friendship with her 28-year-old dance partner Kai Waddington. At 79, she was the oldest competitor in the series and has wowed the judges and the audience with her flexible dance moves. Sam Fraser started working as a standby weather presenter for BBC South in 2012. When a fan club for her bottom surfaced online and she became a topic on the YouTube channel, Babes of Britain, she soon realised her public reception was not on par with her male counterparts. She turned to stand-up comedy as an outlet – and compiled the experiences of women in her job to produce an Edinburgh Fringe Show, as well as Scorchio! The Story of the Weather Girl, which is on BBC Radio 4 this week. Yvette Greenway-Mansfield won a record settlement of at least £1 million from the NHS in September after her vaginal mesh implant following a hysterectomy caused traumatic complications. We hear her story and about her ongoing campaign on behalf of other sufferers. The legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein’s eldest daughter Jamie talks to Emma about her father and the new film about his life, Maestro, which is released this week. And Noam Sagi talks about waiting for news of his mother currently being held hostage in the Israeli-Gaza war.Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Manager: Tim Heffer

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 Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. I hope the weekend was a good one, whatever you got up to. For Strictly Come Dancing fans, it was the end of the road for Angela Rippon, the show's oldest contestant. But as you'll hear shortly, Angela wants us all dancing and for us to see age as a number on the page.

I spoke to her just before coming on air and one element that jumped out in our conversation was the importance of having friends of different ages to bring a whole new nuance to your life and a whole different perspective. Her dance partner, Kai Wadrington, is aged 28 and 51 years younger than Angela. A lot of people making a lot of that online since she was voted off the programme. And now they're great mates. And on

this cold November Monday morning, I thought it'd be a lovely opportunity to talk of those friendships that reach across the ages, what they've brought to your life and why you'd recommend them and how those friendships began. I know that I've certainly been enriched by those in my life who are older and now, as I get older, younger than me. So I think it's a really rich theme. There aren't many opportunities to pay tribute to those bonds. And I'd love to give you that chance here on Woman's Hour today. The number is 84844. That's the number you need to text on social media at BBC Woman's Hour or email me through the Women's Hour website. Or send a WhatsApp message or voice note with 03700 100 444.

Today, I'll also be able to bring to you a man whose mother may be amongst the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas, some of whom could be released imminently. I'll be talking to Noam Sagi shortly. Also, let's have a bit of this West Side Story. This week, the world will learn a whole lot more about one of the men behind such music with the release of Maestro, the unusual biopic telling the story of the legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein. With Bradley Cooper in the starring role and made with the family's blessing, I'll be talking to Leonard's daughter, Jamie Bernstein. With Bradley Cooper in the starring role and made with the family's blessing, I'll be talking to Leonard's daughter Jamie Bernstein

about the film and the choices that have been made, what's been left in and crucially, what's been left out. And whether women or girls, as they're often known, someone who is finding the comedy and darkness in their treatment through the ages will be joining me on today's programme. But Strictly Come Dancing's

Angela Rippon then became the latest contestant to be eliminated from the competition yesterday, leaving her partner Kai Widrington wiping away the tears. This week, the judges chose to eliminate Angela and Kai over Bobby Brazier and Diane Bussell. The show came from Blackpool Tower Ballroom, where Angela had previously presented Come Dancing some 40 years before. That's brilliant, isn't it? Angela at 79 was the oldest competitor in the programme and has wowed the judges and audiences with her flexible dance moves. Just remember that leg by the ear. With her 28-year-old dance partner, Kai, I spoke to her just before we came on air and I began by asking how she feels

about people focusing on her age. The thing is, when the producers asked me to do the programme, my first reaction was, you know, gosh, I wish you'd asked me about 10 or 15 years ago when I was a lot younger. But I do still dance, and I have been a great advocate of dance as a way of keeping fit. I mean, even the chief medical officer

came out a couple of weeks ago and said that if we all want to live longer and live stronger and fitter lives, everybody should think about exercising well into their 60s, their 70s, their 80s, even into their 90s. And that's something that I've advocated for a very long time, one way or another, with the programs that I did with Chris Van Tulleken on how to stay young, with the program that I'm involved with, the Royal Academy of Dance of Silver Swans, to get people to go to ballet class after they're 50. Because dance is, as we proved scientifically, the best all-round mind and body exercise.

It exercises every part of your body physically, and it exercises your mind, because you have to think about what you're doing. And as I say, those endorphins get to to work and you get really great pleasure out of it so when they said would I do it I thought well I know I'm I'm fit I know I'm still very flexible and so why not give it a go and I think at the beginning my my thoughts were well if I can last two three maybe four weeks that will be fantastic because I can sort of get out there and put my money where my mouth is and just demonstrate that when you're in your 70s, you can do that.

But then I, and I've told this story many times, but it's totally valid and has proved to be so even more so over the last few weeks. I was at the checkout of the supermarket doing my weekly shop and the lady next to me, she just tapped me on the shoulder as I was sort of packing everything into my bag and she said I just want to say I'm so pleased that you're doing Strictly Come Dancing because women of our age and our hair color and we were both

gray she said we we disappear we become invisible but you're going to make a few headlines for us and I I don't think I realized how prophetic that could be, but I was so touched by that and said, well, yes, I hope, you know, that I can get that message across. And I think that one of the things that I found completely overwhelming in all of this are the comments that I've had online, yes, but in the street, in the supermarket, when I've been on the bus, people have come up to me and stopped me. And there's no way of saying this without sounding as if I'm blowing my own trumpet. So forgive me.

You can do that. We'll let you do that. They've used the word inspirational and said, you know, we know that you're 79. In fact, I'm going to go on the tour with Strictly, which means I should be in my 80th year, which is just bizarre and a bit crazy to think about. But the number of people who have written or said to me in person that I've been an inspiration to them and that I've sort of been flying the flag for older women, that I've persuaded people to be fitter, to do something physical for themselves. And I did say right at the very beginning that I knew I was never going to win the competition. My goodness, there were some stunning dancers in the competition this year, all of whom now are sort of going forward towards the final in about four weeks' time now,

getting closer and closer to that glitter ball. I was never going to be one of them. I knew that. But if I could get that message across that dancing is not just a joyous thing to do, but one of the ways in which as you get older, even if you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s now, when you get into your 60s, your 70s, your 80s and your 90s, as Bruce used to say, keep dancing because it will help you in your mind and your body to stay stronger to stay fitter to stay more flexible I know there are going to be people perhaps who have medical conditions who make that impossible but but for those for whom movement is still important so that they can live a full life and if I can get that message across just by having done what I've done, that will be my glitter ball. I will see that as an achievement. And I've just been I was speaking to Kai earlier this morning and he said, have you seen have you seen what's on the Internet?

And apparently over half a million people have watched the farewell that we had to the to the program on Sunday night and and so many of them saying in their comments that it had been inspirational to watch me dance every week all it had and and for the reasons that you're talking about but but also just just another point if I can the age difference between you and Kai some people didn't realize he was he's 28 you 79 as we said. 51 year difference, 51 age difference there. And it's a friendship as well. I think that whole idea of intergenerational friendships

and what you can get from people who are at different stages is also something people have really enjoyed relating to and finding something in. Well, I've loved it because, you know, I mean, I knew how old he was when we first met. And I thought, how is this young man going to take to working with an old lady like me?

And we have become mates. I mean, we genuinely become mates. And his partner, Nadia, similarly, now is a great friend. And we can't wait now to have time where we can actually do things together. Is there any part of you that's a tiny bit relieved? You're off the schedule now. Not relieved exactly, no. Because of course I would have loved

to have been able to go a bit further in the competition for Kai. That's what they want. Yes, exactly. They want to get there. But it's a punishing schedule. It is a punishing schedule. And in fact the week leading up to Blackpool could not have been worse because I was in Manchester all week recording a brand new series of Rip Off Britain, which is going out in January. So I was in the studio. I was sort of getting up at like five forty five every morning, being in the studio by half past seven, recording the programme, leaving at about two o'clock, then fitting in the training and going backwards and forwards to Blackpool. And it was a punishing week. But, you know, I loved every minute of it.

And the intergenerational thing is interesting because that's something, again, that I've I've worked with in my in my work with the dementia community, getting younger people to talk to older people and to learn from them because older people have that reservoir that wealth of experience and knowledge and and the the number of occasions when we've brought young people in to meet older people and the things that they've learned from them have been wonderful and and you will know this Emma that you know we work in an industry that is full of of those intergenerational possibilities in that we're always working with people who are either younger or older than ourselves and many of my very close friends in the industry are you know 30 40 years younger than me

and I think that it goes back to what that lady was saying in the supermarket that the older you get sometimes particularly women we can become invisible actually, we still have so much to give in knowledge and experience and what we want to still provide to our friends, our community. There are so many things that we can do if you just forget what age someone is and just look at a person and take them for who they are amen angela rippon there someone's saying here i'm a long time watcher of strictly and i really admire angela for taking part at her age in the competition she brought respect quality and the biggest fact that age is only a number what a great team they were in that dance bonanza dance bonanza i love angela for her attitude and skill and the fabulous dancing she did every week. What inspiration. And on into generational friendships. One here saying, we run beekeeping courses.

Hard work, but a great way to meet young people and make new friendships, says Julia. And another one here, no name on it, but it says, my mother-in-law is 45 years older than me and she's my best friend. We see each other most days and talk constantly. And I've learned so much from her. She's an incredible woman with a wealth of fascinating stories to tell. Despite the age difference, we complement each other very well and have so much in common. Keep those messages coming in of intergenerational friendship and anything else you want to say throughout the programme. Now in the latest from Israel and Gaza, there are hopes for the release of some of more than 200 hostages seized by Hamas from Israel on October

the 7th in an unprecedented attack, which saw 1,200 Israelis killed. Since Hamas's attacks and massacring, Israel has bombarded Gaza in a bid to secure the release of its people, which include the elderly and babies, and dismantle Hamas and what it describes as terrorist infrastructure. Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says 13,000 people have been killed in those attacks and the latest, according to that same ministry, is that 12 people have been killed after an Israeli strike on a hospital. 31 premature babies have been moved from a different hospital, al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, to a maternity hospital in southern Gaza. The babies had to be wrapped in foil to maintain their body temperatures

while on the move, but their health condition is good, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent told the BBC. This is the same hospital that the Israeli military has released footage of, which it said shows a 55-metre long terror tunnel, 10 metres deep. Footage it says clearly proves that numerous buildings in the hospital's complex are used by Hamas as cover for terrorist activities. Qatar, which is trying to broker a deal about the hostages, says only very minor obstacles remain to Israeli hostages being

released. Among them is believed to be my next guest's mother, who's 75, Ada, who was taken from her home in Kibbutz near Oz on October the 7th, which is very close to Israel's border with Gaza. Noam Saghi joins me now. Her son, a British Israeli, is living here in the UK in London. Good morning, Noam. Good morning, Emma. Thank you for coming back to talk to us. When we last spoke on the programme, it was extremely recent. You were trying to piece together what had happened. Can I start by asking, what is the latest you and your family have heard from the Israeli government? We heard as much as you heard, nothing. There is no official formal news yet. Okay. And in terms of then where you come at this news

and what you hear like everybody else, how are you dealing with that? What are your thoughts on this, if I can ask? Yeah, I think the reason we talk about it is because it comes to your knowledge now. We know about it and we know about different initiatives and different things that are happening in the background for quite some time uh there is a great optimism at the moment because it the rumors didn't collapse at the stages that they normally collapsed before

uh but you know between something that happens and another maybe, there is a great gap. And we don't know how long and what will happen next and what the deal is like and what the trust relationship between the two sides, that this can actually happen, not just become an idea. And amongst the hostages, there is a wide variety of people we understand, women, children, babies, foreigners as well, we should say. There's been more information that has trickled out over these last extremely difficult days for you and your family and all of the hostages family. Is there any understanding about who may be prioritised or how this may work?

Again, this is rumours. Our work in the last 45 days is to release all of them. As you said, it's hard to prioritise one group over others. We're talking about kids that will be traumatised for life and will need to definitely get as soon as possible out of the tunnels and back to their parents. We're talking about elderly who is in great difficulties and vulnerability in terms of the medical conditions. We're talking about mothers, Are we talking about fathers? The groups are,

you know, so yes, there is a talk about babies, kids and mums, but we don't know what the reality of that really, you know, it's, I can speculate as much as anyone else. You're here in the UK, but you have been back to Israel. Is that right? Yeah, yeah, that's true. To see your home, your mum's home. I went back just for a short weekend to visit my family and go to my mum's house. This is one of the only houses in the kibbutz that didn't destroy it to the

bare bones. So there is still a lot of her stuff that we wanted to, that matters to her, that we wanted to salvage somehow. The looters didn't left much behind them it is a real chaos and it's devastating to see what left from that community this is peace loving you know peace activists who really worked hard to to make sure they have good neighboring relationship um the last project that they were on was a big solar farm that were supposed to be with their neighbours. And that all destroyed. It's all burned to the ground. There's nothing left. So, yes, I went to salvage a few things that really matters to my mum, which hopefully when she comes back, we can give her that. I mean, you work as a psychologist. You are now in what I can only, I can't imagine psychologically how you are day to day and how you are keeping going. But what do you want to say about these 45 days and how you are managing with this and this living in this in between space? You know, it's an interesting question

because I can talk to you a lot about my coping strategies and, you know, my family and my mother, grandchildren and how all that come into effect. But I think it's not about us. I think it's about them. I think, you know, you talk about 79 years old dancing and we're talking about 75 years old sitting in a tunnel somewhere as a hostage. And she never imagined at that age that she will find herself doing anything other than spending time with her grandchildren, reading books and having a nice time with her friends.

So it requires something that is much bigger than each of us anticipated or expected. And we are tapping into this. I think in the end of the day, I always say that what keeps me going is love. It's a love between son to his mother. And what I can give is only what I receive. You put in and then everything comes out and it's there's not much sleep there's not much food there is not much anything other than just uh try to do everything possible to bring not just mom but you know 240 people

so it's it's very difficult to stay positive and always stay positive in this moment. And there are more downs than ups. But I must. There's no other way. There is no other way. Otherwise, it's just despair and great difficulty. So it's not about me. It's about her.

It's about them. And we need to give them all the strength that we can so they can feel that they don't need to worry about us. Thank you for talking to us today. Thank you, Emma. Israeli living in the UK and hearing the news as we are hearing it about what may or may not happen with the release of the hostages taken by Hamas. Your messages are coming in and throughout the programme and I'll come to some of those shortly about bonds, about friendship, about some of the women in your life and those you value dear and please do keep them coming in. But let me tell you about my next guest Yvette Greenway Mansfield,

who won a record settlement of at least a million pounds from the NHS in September. You may remember this story, but we wanted to have the chance to hear from Yvette herself. She had a vaginal mesh implant following a hysterectomy at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire in 2009. Eight years later, she experienced pain and bleeding during a work trip in New Zealand. On her return to the UK it was suggested that the mesh might be starting to erode into her vaginal wall, something she had no idea could happen. In 2020 the mesh was removed at a private referral to Spire Bristol Hospital. Vaginal mesh products were brought to

the UK market in the mid-90s, but after 800 women in the UK took legal action against the NHS and mesh manufacturers, as of 2018, the government announced a review which found that many women's lives had been ruined because officials failed to hear women's concerns. Yvette joins me now. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me this morning. Thanks for being with us. As I mentioned, and I understand you, you settled out of court. The NHS lawyers apologise. Can I just get that feeling from you? Because it's been a long road to get there. And how was that?

Yeah, it's been a long road. And the apology didn't really mean that much because it shouldn't have happened in the first place so it's a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted and what about all the other women out there that are nowhere near an apology yet you know this is far-reaching it isn't just about one person like your previous guest was saying it's not just about me or him it's about the whole community that's been affected and for you you found out, and I just want to try and clarify this throughout through your own research, that your consent form had been doctored to add additional health risks after you signed it. What happened? Yeah, that's correct. So I'd requested my medical

notes from the hospital, including all my consultants visits, those notes and the theatre notes. And I got some notes of my own that I built up over the years. And I was just going through comparing and making sure I hadn't got anything that was duplicated that I could get rid of. I came across this pink piece of paper, which is the original consent form. And then I looked at the consent form that I got in my hospital notes. And the differences were huge. All of these things that I should have been told about were just not on there, or a large proportion of them were not on there.

So, you know, I had absolutely not been consented properly at all. And, you know, it clearly shows, there can be no argument about it at all, that the consent form was doctored. Now, you know, the NHS and perhaps the private sector as well have got to be really careful that doctors, clinicians, surgeons,

that, you know, whatever category they come into are upholding the values of practicing medicine and looking after patients because our trust has gone completely down the pan. And I'm sure this won't be the only area that this is happening. I'm sure there are other areas as well. So people have got to sit up and start taking responsibility and accountability. And I think there is a reliance upon this.

Well, they're a professional. They're a clinician. It's their word against yours. So what are little old you going to do about it? I was lucky. I kept my consent form, but I bet there's thousands of women that have not got their consent forms and perhaps, you know, may have encountered the same problems.

The hospital statement, I mean, this is from the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust said, we've directly offered our sincerest apologies to you and recognise how your life has been affected by this procedure. We hope the settlement will enable Mrs Greenway Mansfield to meet her ongoing care needs and provide security for her and her family into the future. What do you say to that? Again, it comes back to the same thing,

and I don't mean to sound negative here, but look, the truth of the matter is I didn't need this operation it should never have happened and I'm still trying to find out why did it happen where is my consultant where is the surgeon why did this happen in the first place so apologies are all very well thank you very much it sounds absolutely lovely and I'm sure it makes them feel a whole lot better okay but it doesn't make me or thousands of women like me a whole lot better when potentially we're undergoing operations. I can only speak for myself, undergoing operations that were completely unnecessary. Her own tests showed that I didn't qualify for this operation.

Why did I have it? What is your life? And we'll come back to some of the elements I raised about a government review in just a moment and that bigger picture but what what has your life been left like now how is your health today and what are the complications that you live with on a daily basis well I think first of all that the main thing for me is um I don't know where I've gone. Okay. I look at myself in the mirror. I don't know where that's gone. Okay. I'm trying to get to know myself again because it has diminished me so much. On a daily basis, there is extreme pain.

A lot of the time I've got what feels like shards of cold glass stabbing inside my vagina or around the vaginal and pubic area it's pain pain pain stabbing pains constant grinding pains and if it gets really bad I end up on the floor because I can't stand I can't sit and I just have to wait for it to go so that's my life on a daily basis of course coupled with that is the urge incontinence so I have to plan everything really really carefully um to take account of pain I have to make sure that I've taken my morphine and any other pain relief before I plan to do anything especially if it's going out and I have to make sure I've got the right clothing on so that should I have an accident um and then psychologically and I think this is what a lot of the time is overlooked, people do sort of tend to focus perhaps quite naturally on the physical aspect of things.

But in the case of MASH, the psychological impact, look, it takes away the essence of being a woman. OK, you know, they're doing gynecological procedures. And absolutely, in my case, there was no chance of intimacy going forward absolutely no chance at all that is all gone so they are removing the essence of being a woman in that sense as well and that is very hard to get your head around very hard indeed plus i feel intense anger, intense anger still. So despite the apologies, despite the award, it's like, no, this actually isn't enough because I want to know why. And other women will want to know why. And we have the right to that, surely.

The government's response, you do. And I just want to say how sorry I am, if I can. Thank you. You've been really honest there, and I'm really sorry that that's your daily reality because it just sounds hellish on every level. And yes, you're fighting, but you've still got to be a person in and around the fight and feel like you, haven't you?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, look, we are all capable of putting on a facade. Yeah. And sometimes we have to, or a lot of the time we have to, but actually that facade is devastation, distress. It's like the gentleman you held on before, he's putting on a brave face, you know. There are lots of things going on in the world

and with individuals and collectively whereby we are all presenting a facade that doesn't really reflect the internal battles or feelings. There was a government review and there were many recommendations in it. I've interviewed Baroness Cumberledge before, who was in charge of that. There has been frustration as well around the response by the government to financial redress and how to respond. But there were some also, you know, people felt like the review was

pretty fulsome and made some really good recommendations. Taking a step back from that, but using what you know of it, where do you think we've got to so that lots of other Knowing what we know about the dangers of it, which are, you know, not really disputed, a lot of evidence came out in the Cambridge Review, then a cessation, a suspension, fine. We're making it difficult for them to implant mesh generally for POP and stress urinary incontinence. But the fact is, it is still being used. And, you you know I'm not going to rest until the day this stuff is taken off the market completely I think the the amount of damage it's quite clearly caused already should be enough it really should be enough so I would like it withdrawn completely and I think that opportunity was missed um I think making it difficult for it to be used and making

sure that patients and clinicians have to jump through hoops to have it used um is not enough there is all that always that potential that you know it's going to carry on and it's useful increase also one thing i'm very very keen on is transparency i think that it's not just about the NHS trusts taking accountability and responsibility or being sued. It's about the consultants and the surgeons as well. I don't see any individual accountability from any of these NHS surgeons. My consultant, for example, is now living a very happy life in Dubai thank you very much has taken no accountability for any of this and when asked about the consent form didn't have an answer at all

now where is that responsibility and accountability so that needs to be done in cases where it's found that there's been incorrect consent done also I think we need for patients to make full consent Emma what we need is to know who's got their fingers in what pies are there any benefits than consultants and surgeons obtain from working with certain manufacturers using certain manufacturers products right do they get a benefit from that whether it's financial or otherwise you know um and that should be out in the public to me because surely you want all the knowledge as a patient that you can about that consultant from that sergeant so where's that information for the public to make those informed decisions. Yvette Greenway Mansfield thank you for your time this morning. Thank you.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said, we have asked the Patient Safety Commissioner, Dr Henrietta Hughes, to undertake work looking at redress for people affected by sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. Dr Hughes will publish a report setting out the findings from this work in early 2024. The government will consider the report's findings before deciding how to proceed. So that's the latest from the government's department and the relevant people linked to this. Your messages on friendship

and some of the people in your life who make a difference. One here, I'm 72. My mantra is you don't stop dancing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop dancing, following on from what Angela Rippon had to say. Sue got in touch to say I'm nearly 80. My partner partner's 75 we jive two or three times a week we were at the three hour dance on Saturday last night our lessons were from 6 30 till 9 and obviously we danced with all

ages from a 15 year old boy who's mad about Lindy Hop to a pretty teenage girl to a widow who's now 84 a hall full of happy faces and friends we would never have met had we slumped in front of a screen. Well, there's a bit of an irony, isn't there, about watching Strictly and not necessarily getting out and dancing. And we can visit dance venues all around the country and find friendship and happiness. Of course, you can do both. My best friend is my former drama teacher from my primary school.

Eva's 22 years older than me, and we talk weekly as we live in different countries, and we go on holidays together and love hanging out together. She's a blessing in my life. Well, i also had a very similar blessing in my life but she she recently passed away but that was my drama teacher when i was growing up so i can definitely relate to that and she was a good 60 years or so older than me but we used to speak a lot on the telephone now jamie bernstein is the eldest daughter of leonard bernstein the legendary jewish american conductor and composer.

And a new film comes out this week, Maestro, which focuses on Bernstein's relationship with his wife, the actor Felicia Montalegre. The film has attracted some controversy for the non-Jewish director and co-writer Bradley Cooper casting himself in the central role and wearing a prosthetic nose. But Bernstein's family, including Jamie, have defended these choices, saying they're perfectly fine with them.

When Jamie Bernstein came into the Woman's Hour studio, we talked about it not being a conventional biopic. It really is a portrait of a marriage. That's what this film turned out to be. The original concept for the project 15 years ago, when it was first brought to the Bernstein office and to my brother and sister and me. That original idea was more of a standard biopic project. But once Bradley Cooper came on to it about five years ago,

he completely transformed the concept to be something quite different, very unusual. This film is really not like anything else I've ever seen. It has its own unique quality. And yes, it's really a portrait of these two artists who are married to each other, and you follow them over time. And so you see how the relationship evolves over the decades. And you see my father's own life and career morphing over the decades as well, but very much in the context of his marriage and his family. And your mother also a performer, which, you know, some people may not know. Yes, her stage name was Felicia Montealegre.

Montealegre was her mother's maiden name, actually. And she was a stage and television actress back in the 1950s when television was still in its early years. She did a lot of those early television dramas. And some of them are still findable on YouTube. If you go on YouTube and you put Felicia Montalegre in the search engine, all sorts of amazing artifacts will pop up. But I mean, their marriage and how they worked and her influence on your father's work is a big part of how this is represented and what you will be intimately aware of. Was she his muse, he hers? How did that work? Well, they were both very creative. As the years went by, though, as my mother started having the three of us and life became more and more complex for my father and his own career,

I think that my mother backed off of her career for a variety of reasons. And among them, it was just so much work to be not just a mother, but also Mrs. Maestro. Mrs. Maestro is a full-time job, or it can be. And also, I think there was room for only so many egos in the house. And I think my mother decided to take one step back from her own career and just let my dad's career sort of run ahead of the pack. Do you think that was a mistake for her? Well, it's not so much that it was a mistake, but that it was a complicated decision that had all sorts of ramifications.

And whether it was right or wrong is impossible to say. I suppose just as her daughter and seeing how her life then turned out and how she felt, and some of her complex feelings in this film are explored as much as they can be. I don't know if you had that regret for her. A lot of our listeners may look at their mothers and think, I wish she'd carried on with your job. I wish she could have. It was clear to me that my mother was experiencing a lot of frustration in her life about many things. And among them, I think, were that she felt that she hadn't gone as far in her career as she could have. And I sensed that. And, you know,

I was growing up as the women's liberation movement was coming into full flower. And so these issues were very much on all of our minds. And I think I did feel some regret on behalf of my mother that she didn't take her own career further and decided to just let my father be in the spotlight all the time. So it was frustrating for her, I'm certain. It's also very clear from this, what I've learned from watching the film, that she was a very important part of your dad being able to do what he did. Oh, completely. She was the stabilizing force in his crazy life. And she gave him the structure and the, you know, the underpinnings and the safe environment and the stability and the film that your father was struggling with his sexuality and how he handled that. And it seemed that your mother knew when they were getting together that he was attracted to my father before they were married, where she comes right out in a letter and says,

you're homosexual, you know it, and I know it, and we know it, but we adore each other, and let's just make a go of it and jump into this experiment together. And on the whole, we can say that it was a pretty successful experiment, that they made a life together and that the life was full of joy. They had us three kids and our family was very close knit and we loved being together. So, you know, with all the problems that there were, the experiment was a success overall. Because also there's a scene where your mother asks your father not to tell you when you're a younger you, if I can describe it like that, and as you're depicted, of the fact that he

is gay and that he's having these relationships. Did that conversation happen? This did come out of my own book, my memoir, Famous Father Girl, which came out in 2018. And the title came from my second grade classmate, Lisa, teasing me by calling me famous father girl, because our dad was on TV. And the minute you were on television in those days, you were a famous person. And he was doing the young people's concerts. So kids knew who my dad was. In any case, I wrote about this incident in my book. And Bradley read my book and he developed that scene. And I think the understanding between my parents was that if my father was still

pursuing his gay life in some way, he was to do it separately from the family environment. And I don't know how that worked or didn't work, but I think that was their understanding. And then things got complicated because he kind of bent that agreement a little bit and brought things closer to home. And that's what we see in the film, is that, you know, he started erasing this line of demarcation between this other life that he may or may not have had, and his family life and his marriage. And so when I started hearing these rumors as a teenager, that was too soon, I think, my mother must have felt for me to be hearing about these things. And I speculated in my book, I don't know this for a fact, but I speculated that perhaps it was my mother who encouraged my father to deny the rumors to me.

But Bradley Cooper took that up and made the speculation part of his film. And when did you find out? Did you ever have a conversation? You know, we never had an actual conversation where our dad sat us down and said, this is the way things are instead. And we have to remember, this was back in the 1970s, the early 70s. And it just became gradually evident to my brother and me when we were in college. Our sister was still very young. Yes. So she came to understand this somewhat later, and it was much more difficult for her because

she was so much younger. But while my brother and I were in college, it started to become apparent that our dad was having this other life simultaneously to our family life. And we just had to kind of piece it together on our own. Was it hard being famous father-girl, you know, having that loom over your childhood for you? You know, it was sometimes confusing, yes. But our family life was so delightful and full of fun. That really came across as well in the film.

I'm glad that it did. That togetherness. So there was a lot of fun to be had on account of our dad's fame. He often invited us along on his tours. And you can't imagine how much fun that was. In fact, being here in London really brought back a lot of wonderful memories. The first time we came here, my brother and I came along with our parents and we stayed at the Savoy in a suite and it was all so madly glamorous. And our father was so

thrilled to be able to share all this with us. He couldn't wait to show us how fiercely powerful the water power pressure was in the Savoy. He said, look how fast I can fill up the tub. And you turn on the, and let's call the head waiter and order potted shrimp. And he would pull the rope to summon the head waiter. And he just got such a kick out of it himself. All of these deluxitudes, you know. And you must have met some amazing people as well along the way. We surely did. We met the Beatles. We met the Pope. Wow. The Beatles, of course, being far more exciting. I was going to say, which got you more excited, the Beatles or the Pope? Definitely the Beatles.

On the music, a beautiful part of the film, because it always would be. And yet, for those who perhaps mainly when they hear your father's name think of West Side Story, it's not a lot of West Side Story, is it? No, and I'm so glad because West Side Story is, as you say, the known quantity when it comes to our dad's music. And I was so thrilled. All three of us sibs were so thrilled that Bradley decided to include so much of our dad's other music. There's so much of it in the film. It's almost like another character. And the sound on the film is so spectacular that the music sounds entirely overwhelmingly wonderful. And so one of my hopes is that people who go to this film will become enchanted with Bernstein's music and will want to know more about it and hear more of it. It's an education from that point of view. I wonder if some may be a bit disappointed if

they don't get as much West Side Story in there. Well, if they're disappointed, they can go and watch Steven Spielberg's film remake of West Side Story that came out two years ago, and they'll be entirely satisfied with that. Yeah. Well, Spielberg's also attached to this film as well. Spielberg is one of the producers. So it all comes together in that way. It's all of a piece.

There was press at the beginning of the promotion for this film about the prosthetic nose used by Bradley and I know you're going to roll your eyes at me

because I can tell from the comments you gave at the time you and your family were not impressed that, you know, the idea of Jew face came up as a comment.

What is your response to that for people who perhaps haven't seen what you've said about it, that, you know, that is what they see when they see Bradley Cooper with very talented makeup artists bringing your father alive throughout his ages? Well, Kazu Hiro is the artist who worked on Bradley Cooper's makeup and designed these amazing prosthetics. And, you know, the nose is the least of it. He created such an incredible transformation for Bradley, turning him into our dad at different ages. It's astonishing. Also, Bradley Cooper was able to work on his voice to make it sound like our dad's voice at his different ages of life.

It's extraordinary. So the nose part of it was so lower than secondary to us. And the fact of the matter is Bradley Cooper's nose is actually quite substantial on its own, and nobody ever noticed that before. And I think they only suddenly noticed it because he was wearing prosthetics and everybody started focusing on Bradley's nose. And the prosthetics that Kazuhiro used were quite minimal, actually. It's interesting how things can be seen in a way that you haven't seen. The whole thing was distorted completely out of proportion. And, you know, our dad had a nice, fine, big nose. And Kazuhiro included that as part of his efforts to make Bradley Cooper look like our dad. So for us, it's the tempest

in the teapot of all time, really. The music is the star in many, many ways, though, of your life and of your family's life and what your dad created with your mum and how you lived. Is there a piece of music you think of when you think of your dad? What's the one for you? You know, the music that opens the film is so laceratingly beautiful. It's from his opera A Quiet Place. And in the film, Bradley Cooper himself actually plays it live on camera. He played it himself. He taught himself this piece.

The degree of his intensity when he takes on a role is something indescribable. But anyway, this piece of music happens in the moment when the son is grieving his mother's death in the opera. And there is so much wistfulness and grief in this music. It's so beautiful. It's one of my favorite pieces that my father wrote. And we hear it twice in the film at very particular moments. I'm going to go back and listen to that. Yeah, please do. It's always lovely to have a recommendation, especially from someone who grew up around how these pieces were created. Thank you so much for talking to us. You're so welcome. Thank you for inviting me.

Jamie Bernstein there, the eldest daughter of Leonard Bernstein. Sam Fraser started as a standby weather presenter for BBC South in 2012, but when a fan club for her bottom surfaced online, she became a topic of debate on the YouTube channel as well, Babes of Britain. Sam realised the public reception was sometimes not on par with her male counterparts, and it got her thinking about the term weather girl. It struck her that the description infantilised and sexualised women working in her profession and legitimised sexist treatment of women.

You know, telling us the weather. She did turn to comedy as an outlet and she put that together for Edinburgh Fringe and a thing called Stand Up Weather Girl, a show called Stand Up Weather Girl and now a documentary coming to Radio 4, of course we want to tell you about it, called Scorchio, the story of the Weather Girl. Sam, good morning.

Morning Emma. Lovely to have you with us and Weather Girl, let's start there shall we? Yeah absolutely, it's as you say a term that infantilises, it's loaded and it brings to mind that stereotype that's incredibly unhelpful. And it wasn't something that I'd thought about until I was in the role myself. You know, as soon as I got the job, my friends were saying, oh, Scorchio. And I thought, oh, oh, is that how I'm going to be perceived? Just let's explain Scorchio for a moment. So Scorchio comes from a character, Paola Fish, from the Fast Show that was a big hit back in the 90s. She's a sort of dizzy bit of fluff at the end of the news programme, slapping a sunshine magnet on a weather map.

Scorchio, Scorchio, Scorchio. Unfortunately, we can't do that in the UK because our weather is so much more diverse. But so I found myself considering what this stereotype meant and what its legacy was because it's so tenacious. Shall we just have a listen to it? We pulled out a bit of a clip this morning. This is Paul Whitehouse as an anchorman throwing to the late Caroline Ahern

who depicted the weather lady here. Yeah. Scorchio. Montoblanco. Scorchio. Costa. Scorchio. Meteorologicals. Manana. Oh, Scorchio. Buono estente. Sam, I'll let you pick that up. What are you trying to say to people more exposed to sexist abuse, sexualisation, misogyny, because of the term that's used, this weather girl term, and the stereotype, the lasting stereotype. So I think, for example, if you see the way she is framed by online outlets, news outlets, places like the Daily Mail, the Express, you'll often see that they invite a sexual gaze. So Sarah Keith Lucas, fabulous weather presenter, she might wear what we call Marks and Spencer's ladies' separates to work, but those will be reframed as Sarah Keith Lucas' flaunts curves in skin-tight dress or busty top or something like this. Carol Kirkwood comes in for a lot of this. Carol Kirkwood puts

on seriously busty display. You know, this sort of thing. They are inviting a particular gaze. That's not the invitation of the woman who's just wearing clothes to work. And I think as long as that goes on, we're going to continue with a battle for credibility, which is really unhelpful and puts us at a disadvantage, kind of causing to question our competence and our expertise. Would you say it's one of the last areas of broadcasting and kind of public representation of women that's still like this? Yeah, I think it's a cultural blind spot. I think it's a place where you can still, the papers, for example,

can still run non-stories to titillate. And, of course, I think that they think this is harmless fun and lots of the public do as well. Quite a lot of backlash last week for just bringing this up as a subject of conversation. Because you have been talking to a lot of women who work in the weather and you actually also gave one of them the chance

to reply to some of how they found this in the documentary. Yeah, absolutely. I think lots of women haven't had the chance to talk about this because it's not been considered a thing. But I think you're talking about Sarah Lee Barnett. Yes, no relation, I'm just going to say. She came to the BBC in 2003-4, the time when Michael Fish was retiring. Those two things were not linked. She wasn't coming to replace Michael Fish.

She arrived as part of the BBC's talent initiative to go outside of the organisation to find people who had some ability to make a more representative BBC. But I think Boris Johnson took to the Telegraph. Alan Corrin wrote in The Times. And they were all suggesting that she was only being brought in for her looks and because she was young. I mean, ironically, she was older than Boris Johnson

at the time he was writing that piece. She actually arrived at, I, she was older than Boris Johnson at the time he was writing that piece. She actually arrived at, I think she was 41. But they wanted to immediately suggest that, you know, Sarah Lee Barnett was a bimbo. Michael Fish was the authoritative male figure. And why were they pushing him out? So she gets her first opportunity to reply to that, that criticism and the way she was presented. And I'm really pleased that we were able to give her that voice. I mean, not telling us the whole thing, we want to listen to the documentary. It's coming out

this Wednesday directly after this programme. So it's a good bit of scheduling there. But what sort of thing do you feel like she had been waiting to say? I think she had been waiting to say, hold on a second, you know, you've reduced me to a stereotype. I think Alan Corrin actually used the word bimbo. You know, I'm a qualified, capable, intelligent woman doing a job of science. You haven't even seen me do it yet. And that's what I think she wanted to talk about. Yeah, and you can hear that and you will hear that. But when you were presenting the weather and when you were doing it, were you aware of this?

And was that part of the mentality that you were thinking, well, you know, I'm not going to dress like this because I don't want this. And I'm now aware of how I might be perceived, but I'm just going to try and do my job anyway. And was it ever a discussion uh the men doing the weather uh no I think what happened for me was I became aware of this gaze that I hadn't ever experienced in any other job before um and it's not confined just to the to the public because there is this there is kind of unspoken aspect now I think where you you have to appreciate that it's TV and your looks

are going to play a role, or your appearance. But there's a difference between being presentable, I think, and then being viewed in this very sexualised way, which is what I found when I went online. When I did that stupid thing, Emma, I googled myself. And it took me into these discussions about myself, which I couldn't believe anyone was that interested in me. It's a fast road to hell, I'll tell you that. Absolutely. Well, you'll know about, I don't know if you've had any invitations to join people in niche sexual activities. But I learned a whole new vocabulary. I had to do my research and find out what these invitations were, frankly.

And it was all very unexpected. My default has always been to use humour, to use comedy to process this stuff. And so that's when I started thinking, oh, I think there's something funny about all of this. It's the way I'm going to protect myself from it. And that's where the idea for my stand-up show came from and then I thought I asked other women for their experiences and boy did I find my mind was not unique by any stretch of imagination the irony is of course you will have been accused of having no sense of humor for oh yes that's it there's a there's a nice paradox within that but I do hope in some ways you'll have the last laugh

and you feel like you have done. But also you've done something by bringing women's voices together to allow them to respond and try and talk about things from their perspective in a way where they will be heard. Sam Fraser, thank you very much. Scorchio, the story of the weather girl, and we're using that deliberately, I believe,

will be on Radio 4 on Wednesday at 11 o'clock directly after this programme. I'll be back with you, though, tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hello, this is Marion Keys. And this is Tara Flynn. We host a podcast you might like for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds called Now You're Asking. Each week we take real listeners questions about life, love, lingerie, cats, dogs, dentists,

pockets or the lack of anything really and apply our worldly wisdom in a way which we hope will help but also hopefully entertain. Join us why don't you? Search up Now You're Asking on BBC Sounds. Thanking you. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service,

The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.