Woman's Hour - Anna Lapwood, Femicide research, June Almeida

Episode Date: May 6, 2020

Anna Lapwood is one of the UK’s few female concert organists. She was the first woman to be awarded an Organ Scholarship at Magdalen College, Oxford, in its 560-year history. She was then appointed the youngest ever Director of Music at Pembroke College at Cambridge University aged just 21. She has used this position to spearhead a number of initiatives including a choir for 11-18 year old girls and the Cambridge Organ Experience for Girls which encourages girls to take up the organ. We hear her Pembroke Chapel Choir performing Media Vita by Karensa Briggs. Anna's also making her presenting debut hosting BBC Four’s coverage of the BBC Young Musician 2020. MPs are to try to outlaw the courtroom murder defence of “rough sex gone wrong” during parliamentary debates on the domestic abuse bill, as cases of domestic violence soar during the coronavirus lockdown. Elizabeth Yardley is Professor of Criminology and Director of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University. She tells us about her research into femicide in Great Britain in the 21st Century and what action she thinks needs to be taken to save women's lives and achieve justice for those killed.In 1964, June Almeida identified the first human coronavirus at her laboratory in St Thomas' Hospital in London. Her paper to a peer-reviewed journal was rejected because the referees said the images she produced were just bad pictures of influenza virus particles. She died in 2007 and is only now getting recognition. Medical writer, George Winter explains more about how her research helps us in understanding COVID-19.Inspired by the tradition of May Queens, the Queens of Industry represented industries like coal mining, railways, wool and cotton. The tradition began in the 1920s and took young women out of their day to day lives to promote their industry and represent their fellow workers. They were celebrated at an exhibition at Leeds Industrial Museum in 2018 and Louise Adamson talked to the exhibition’s curator, John McGoldrick; Deborah Barry, who was Northumbria Coal Queen in 1982 and Doreen Fletcher, née Kerfoot, who was Yorkshire Wool Queen in 1947.Another in our series of interviews with women around the world who are sewing face masks at home for family, friends and sometimes health-workers to wear during the pandemic. Sara Fitzell is Maori and lives on the North Island of New Zealand.Presented by Jenni Murray Produced by Jane ThurlowInterviewed guest: Elizabeth Yardley Interviewed guest: George Winter Interviewed guest: Anna Lapwood Reporter: Louise Adamson Reporter: Maria Margaronis

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.

Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Wednesday, the 6th of May 2020. Good morning. Anna Lapwood is a concert organist, presenter of the coverage of the BBC Young Musician 2020, and creator of the hashtag PlayLikeAGirl. We'll talk and hear some of her music. The woman who discovered the first human coronavirus in 1964. Who was June Almeida? In our series of women making masks for friends and family during the pandemic, we meet Sara, who's Maori and lives on New Zealand's North Island. Queens of industry, inspired by the tradition of the May Queen, the women who were chosen to promote coal mining, railways, wool and cotton, and we've another of your laughing babies sent to us by you after we discussed why babies laugh today.

Luke will cheer us up. You may have seen in the papers yesterday that a husband in Ipswich had been charged with the murder of his wife. She had been fatally wounded with a gun. So far during the lockdown we know there were at least 16 domestic murders of women and children between the 23rd of March and the 12th of April according to a group called Counting Dead Women, and clearly the numbers are going up. Domestic violence has risen up the political agenda in recent weeks and months, and the Domestic Abuse Bill, currently being discussed in Parliament, is looking to outlaw the defence of rough sex gone wrong, which came to prominence when Natalie Connolly's killer claimed she had died in such a

way. Elizabeth Yardley, Professor of Criminology at Birmingham City University, has carried out research into femicides in Great Britain in the 21st century, and she joins us from Birmingham. Elizabeth, what prompted you to carry out this research? Good morning, Jenny. Well, there'd been very little academic research done looking at femicide and rough sex. And this is something that seemed to be quite new. So we needed to examine a number of cases together to basically look for any patterns in the circumstances and the context of those femicides. Because basically we just needed to know what was going on with them. How then did you select the cases you would examine? So we started out looking for information that was in the public domain about women who'd been killed in so-called sex

games gone wrong where there'd been a conviction and information was quite few and far between really. So I began by looking at the We Can't Consent to This website. They're an organisation that raises awareness about femicide. I looked at news media reports, I looked at court transcripts, so it was really cobbling together information from a lot of different sources. So through the 21st century how many cases did you come up with? So I discovered 43 cases of women who'd been killed in Britain in the period 2000 to 2018 so not an insignificant number. What did you discover about the perpetrators? So there were various things that came out of the data, which were quite interesting. Firstly, in terms of the perpetrator's age. So they seem to be significantly older than the victims.

So the most common combination that I found was perpetrators in their mid-30s to mid-40s with victims in their mid-20s to mid-30s. And also there were some really interesting things coming out about occupation as well. So I found an over-representation of women in caring occupations, so care assistants, classroom assistants, and an over-representation of perpetrators who were unemployed. So that was particularly interesting to me. What conclusions then did you draw from the knowledge that a lot of the perpetrators have been unemployed? Because across the board, you know, in lots of other cases, it seems to have no influence what class the person is, whether there's wealth, whether there's a good job or not. Why is this different?

I think this was really interesting because when I looked at the bigger picture of what's happening in these cases, these were cases where there'd been convictions for murder or manslaughter. So looking at the perpetrators who were unemployed, that's a bit of an indication of a lower socioeconomic status. So it could be that they were less able to construct a compelling narrative around a sex game gone wrong that a court would believe. So potentially looking at men in higher socioeconomic groups, they might not be killing women in sex games gone wrong, but equally they may well be, and they might be getting away with it. What conclusions did you make from what you discovered about the victims? How much blame has been placed on them?

There's been quite a lot of victim blaming going on and this is something that's been with us for centuries. Women are increasingly held responsible for the behaviour of men that they're in intimate relationships with. And the sentencing really did bear this out. So men who were convicted of murdering their partners received, on average, shorter sentences than men convicted of murdering women they weren't in intimate relationships with. So the average sentence length in partner relationships was 15.7 years for murder. And when we looked at the relationship of just met, it was 27.3 years. So I think there's still that

onus on women to protect themselves from harm, the old adage, why didn't they just leave? And that was very much coming out in this research. Why have you concluded the rough sex defence has become more common? Well, I think it's the mainstreaming of rough sex in popular culture, to be honest. If we look at things like Fifty Shades of Grey, if we look at the way that pornography and women's magazines present acts like strangulation as play, this essentially creates a culturally approved script that perpetrators are then able to use to basically explain away

and justify and excuse their violence. And that completely fails to acknowledge the context of violence against women. What contribution will your work make to the debate which is going on at the moment about rough sex in relation to the domestic abuse bill well i'm really pleased to see the domestic abuse bill but it does need to go much further particularly in bringing an end to this defense of rough sex that's being used by perpetrators and i think it's not just the defence itself that we need to draw attention to and get that into the bill, but it's the social context in which this kind of defence

has been able to take root. Why have men actually been able to use it? And that's because we still hold women responsible for men's behaviour and for women's victimisation. And I think unless we start shifting the emphasis to perpetrators and actually challenging some of the values and the beliefs that underlie their decisions to do harm I think we're going to carry on having these kind of discussions for years unfortunately. Have you learned anything from the research that you've done on that point of why men decide to do harm in this way? Well I think it goes back to all of the things that researchers like myself are always drawing attention to. We have a patriarchal hangover in our culture. I think we're under this impression that because of the women's movement,

because of second wave feminism, we have all this wonderful equality and liberty but actually we don't we still judge women based on the success or failure of their relationships with men we still hold them responsible for their own victimization so we really do need to to look at this kind of toxic toxic hybrid as I call it that we have between patriarchy and neoliberalism. And we really need to ask some very critical questions around it. What do you make of what appears to be a huge rise in domestic violence just during the lockdown? I'm not surprised at all, unfortunately, because one of the tactics that perpetrators use to control victims is isolation, is cutting people off from their friends and their families. And lockdown accelerates this process because the scrutiny that our friends and our family carry out of our relationships is much more distant.

And it's easier to destroy somebody's self-worth when none of us are allowed to physically see our support network. So I think a lot of women are now in danger of fatal violence much sooner than they would be under normal circumstances. It's been a catalyst. But I think it's important to emphasise that lockdown hasn't caused men to abuse women. It hasn't turned men into abusers overnight. These men were abusers anyway. And it's not the lockdown that's responsible for the violence it's the perpetrators and i think we should always remember that how confident are you that the domestic abuse bill will get through with the rough sex amendment included um i really am incredibly hopeful that

this does happen um but but again you never can can you? I think we have some very strong support for it. Obviously, there is this evidence now in the form of my research. So so I think we're in a better position than we've ever been. But yeah, cautiously optimistic, I'd say. Professor Elizabeth Yardley, thank you very much indeed for being with us this morning. Now, a lot of us will have had experience in towns and villages across the country of the tradition of the May Queen, usually a teenage girl chosen to represent her community for a year. In the 1920s, the idea was extended to include Britain's big industries, from coal to cotton and railways to wool. Queens of industry continued into the 1980s.

It took young women out of their day-to-day working lives to become queens who would promote their industry and represent their fellow workers. They were celebrated at Leeds Industrial Museum in 2018. Louise Adamson had a tour of the exhibition with the curator John McGoldrick and heard from some of the queens My first duty was to sit on the back of this lorry

with a pretty dress on, in the rain following the brass bands and the miners' banners down the street in Bedlington and waving at the crowds People used to touch me, see, if I were real. That was all part of it, you see. Here we've got the Railway Queen gown and this was made in the mid to late 1920s. The railways were the first industry to think about

having a queen to represent them and this was really part of a bid to try and unite the industry. After the First World War, there'd been quite a lot of discord, lots of strikes, and this was both managers and unions' way of trying to create a figurehead. The regalia was extremely grand. So this is a long, dark blue velvet gown with a huge train. It's got not real diamonds, but fake diamonds.

It's got gold braid. So it just showed that the companies took it all very seriously. So John, tell me about why you decided at the museum to do an exhibition about Queens of Industry. We were visited by a lady called Doreen Carefoot back in 2015. And she told us that she used to be the Yorkshire Wheel Queen. And we looked at each other and said, well, what was that? We'd never heard of it before.

And with a little bit of background research, we found out that there were queens of other industries like the cotton industry and the wool industry and lots of other industries. Doreen was elected the Wool Queen of Yorkshire in 1947. She was a weaver based in Batley near Leeds. I gave a speech. It wasn't easy. 1947. She was a weaver based in Batley near Leeds. I gave a speech.

It wasn't easy. I couldn't tell them I was a weaver. The things that we'd learned in looms. And I got up and said what I thought. And I thought, oh, I've done all right there. She did an interview for the exhibition film, but sadly Doreen passed away in her 90s

a week after the exhibition opened. But her family did come to the exhibition opening, but sadly Doreen passed away in her 90s a week after the exhibition opened. Our family did come to the exhibition opening and really sort of got a lot out of celebrating Doreen's history. Becoming wheel queen or cotton queen catapulted a lot of women who could be weavers, they could be winders, they could be machinists. The chance to become

wheel queen or a cotton queen represented quite a dramatic shift in their fortunes really and gave them a year off to go and promote the industry and experience a completely different lifestyle to what they were used to. When I was royal queen I went to a lot of events. I had lots of lovely clothes made specially for me. How then were women chosen to be queens of industry? You can't avoid it, but one of the criteria was physical appearances.

Generally, it was the more conventionally attractive women who were chosen for the roles, but looks weren't the only factor. Most of the successful queens were exceptional and had a skill or set of skills that really suited them for the job. Number one role was really to represent the industry, to try and promote the products and the people involved in the industry. That could be international and national trade events, going to lobby for their industry at Parliament and some of the cotton queens got to meet the Prime Minister of the day. We're moving forward now in time to the 1980s and I'm joined by a real queen of industry,

Deborah Barry, who was Northumberland Coal Queen in 1982. And Deborah, we're looking here at a display cabinet which has got some memorabilia from your time as the Northumberland Coal Queen. Tell me a bit about this. In the display cabinet we have the sash from 1982 which says Northumberland Coal Queen. It's very bright and gaudy and red satin with the gold brocade and tassels on the end and that was actually given to me on the evening when I was crowned Coal Queen. Alongside we have a small tiara that's looking a little sad after all these years but again that was given to me on that evening. How did you come to be Northumberland Coal Queen? At that time you had to be the daughter, wife, sister or work in the

industry yourself so you had some direct relationship with the industry. My father had worked underground for many years so I qualified and they had a competition on the Friday evening before the Northumberland Miners Picnic which was the annual gathering of the mining communities. There were a few other young ladies from the community there and we'd all been instructed to turn up with a pretty day dress and a swimsuit so that we could walk up and down in front of the judges, answer a few a ddychmygu i'r cyfrifwyr, ateb ychydig o gwestiynau. Roedden nhw eisiau gwybod pwy oedden ni, ble oedden ni, beth oedd ein gobeithiau a'n ambisiynnau. Ac ar ddiwedd y noson,

ddewisodd y rhan o'r cymuned. Fel rhan o'r holl set-up, roedd yna gyfansoddiad genedlaethol i'r Coel Gwyns, a oedd yn cael ei which was held at Blackpool. The whole event had been sponsored by a catalogue company, so we were doing a big fashion show for them, and one of the dance routines that we tried to do was to Eye of the Tiger. They'd had to teach us everything from how to walk and how to stand,

even how to put fake tan on. I have to admit, there were a lot of very streaky legs. So we're going to take you up to the 1930s now and tell you about one of the most extraordinary industry queens at the time, Audrey Mossom. She was from Blackpool in Lancashire and she was the daughter, Audrey Mossum. She was from Blackpool in Lancashire and she was the daughter of a railway guard. She was asked to go on a trip to Moscow. Now if you look here we've got a reproduction of a photograph of Audrey setting off from London and when she got to the

continent a special train whisked her right through to Moscow. Now it's never been quite established whether she actually met Stalin face to face but she was introduced to Stalin's right-hand man Lazar Kaganovich who was the Russian Minister of Transport and this 15 year old girl was effectively being brought into the lion's den and she was presented to a mass meeting of Russian railway workers on International Women's Day. Quite an overwhelming experience for her, I imagine. So tell me, Deborah, then, about what you actually did during the time you were Northumberland Coal Queen. What was your role? I think my role at that time was more of a PR role.

I spent quite a few weekends sitting on the back of a float, waving at crowds, promoting coal as the fuel of the future. I also spent time in the colliery, encouraging the gentlemen to sign up to the magazines, the health and safety initiatives that were there. And how did the miners react to you? How did they feel about having a coal queen in their presence? I think there was a certain amount of delight, I have to admit.

It makes me smile to think about it but it was interesting because I went underground once I spent a whole day down Ellington Colery which was a big modern pit and when I eventually met up with this particular group of men they said we knew you were coming we could smell your perfume in the air for the last hour John we're standing now in front of the display which talks about the cotton queens I love this picture here of Marjorie Knowles she's looking very regal in a tiara and lots of ermine she stood amongst a bunch of cotton industry workers and they're all dressed in their aprons and she does look as if she's from a different planet. Marjorie had this experience

when she was driven back from Blackpool through the industrial cotton towns of East Lancashire. Her car was mobbed and they estimated there were 10,000 people in her hometown of Burnley there to meet her when she returned and when she got to the town hall she stood on the steps and delivered a really powerful speech about how women were basically not the weaker sex. And she says, I appeal to the so-called weaker sex to show that we can be stronger than the men in more ways than one by doing all that is possible to help cotton. And Deborah, we're looking here at a big display with lots of pictures. Yes, there's one of me there standing next to a mining machine underground right on the coal face. My face looks very clean but the gentleman next to me looks rather dirty and then there's one in my national

coal board orange boiler suit coming down the stairs with half a dozen gentlemen behind me with their lamps on and their safety gear. You look very 1980s. The boiler suit actually they were quite fashionable then weren't they? Yes I had a pale blue one of my own. But that particular one, I mean, it was huge for me. You can see I'm almost lost in that. And I'm not sure the colour's very flattering, but I did have big hair that day. And over here we've got an exhibit which really illustrates how Doreen was basically catapulted to fame. It's a fan letter from a young lad called Gunther

who lived in the Soviet sector of Germany just after the Second World War. He says it's just because he wants to improve his English that he's writing to her. I think there might be a little bit more to it than that. We note that Doreen has written at the top, I did not reply. Probably wise. Deborah, I'm sure it was fun being the Coal Queen. Looking back on it now,

do you feel perhaps the whole thing was a bit sexist? I suppose that some people may say it was sexist. It doesn't occur to me in that way because the world was so very, very different. Do I think it was demeaning for women to walk up and down in a swimsuit? Well, perhaps, but it was demeaning for women to walk up and down in a swimsuit? Well, perhaps, but it was of its time. From being a whore queen, it gave me the confidence to do my business later on in life better. I've just been fortunate that I've been popular

and I enjoyed it very much and did my best. The late Doreen Kerfoot, Yorkshire Wool Queen in 1947 and John McCaldrick was talking to Louise Adamson. If you were a Queen of industry, do let us know. We'd love to hear from you. You can send us a tweet or, of course, you can send an email. Still to come in today's programme, the next in our series of women making masks at home

for friends and family to wear during the pandemic. Sarah is Maori and lives on New Zealand's North Island, and the concert organist, Anna Lapwood, and some of her music. Now, earlier in the week, you may have missed a discussion about when children should go back to school. And also, Normal People,

why has it been such a hit? Do download the podcast. All you have to do is go to BBC Sounds if you missed the live programme. We've also, by popular request, extremely popular request, been playing the laughing babies you've sent to us. Now, today, to entertain us, it's Luke, who't it and we've loved your laughing babies we really have i'm sure there'll be lots more now i, I think for most of us, the first time

we heard the dread word coronavirus was in late January as the first reports of cases came to light. But in 1964, the first human coronavirus was identified by June Almeida, who was a virologist working in a laboratory at St Thomas Hospital in London. Well, to discuss her background and the importance of her work, I'm joined by the medical writer, George Winter. George, June Almeida left school when she was 16. What was her background at home? Yes, first of all, thanks for inviting me on to talk about June Almeida.

Yes, she was born in Glasgow in 1930, and her father was a bus driver. And she attended Whitehill Senior Secondary School, where she received a high quality Scottish education. And her subjects included Latin, Greek and, of course, science, where she won a prize in her fifth year. And she was passionately interested in photography. And that had a bearing, I think, on the quality of some of the electron micrographs that she later produced. But how did a girl who didn't go to university, didn't have her degree in medicine, become a scientist and a virologist? Well I think she had a at the outset a keen interest just in a passion for knowledge and understanding and when she became a histopathology technician at Glasgow Royal Infirmary and that's when her thirst for knowledge, as it were, was allowed to expand.

And in 1952, she moved to London to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. And she had a research assistance post there. And in 1954, after marrying Henry Almeida, they emigrated to Canada in 1956. And when she was appointed an electron microscopy technician at the Ontario Cancer Research Institute in Toronto, that's really when her electron microscopy career took off. And, sorry. How did she come to identify coronavirus? her electron microscopy career took off. And, sorry. How did she come to identify coronavirus?

Well, when she was in Canada in 1964, Professor Tony Watterson of St. Thomas's happened to be visiting and he saw the quality of her work and he invited her back to St Thomas'. Meanwhile, Dr David Terrell was running the research programme at the Common Cold Research Unit in Salisbury. And in 1960, 1961, they had been taking swabs and nasal washings from pupils at a boys boarding school in the Epsom area. And those who had common cold symptoms provided nasal washings. And Terrell's group were able to cultivate and isolate some rhinoviruses and other respiratory viruses. But there were a few that they were unable to cultivate, but they produced cold symptoms in volunteers. So using the technique of organ culture, they were able to propagate

the virus, but they didn't know what it looked like. So what could it be? And it occurred to David Terrell that an electron microscopy might be the way forward, but you still needed concentrated purified preparations, etc. But he had heard of Juno Almeida's new improved techniques on electron microscopy. And as he wrote in his memoir, Cold Wars, he wrote, we were not hopeful, but felt that it was worth a try. And so a sample, it was labelled B for Bravo 814, was sent up to London by train. Juno made a, processed it and she saw virus particles and that was the, that was to be called coronavirus.

But when she tried to publish her paper, it was rejected because people said, no, no, no, it's just a different kind of flu. Why was that? Yes, well, in fact, when she saw the particles that Terrell had sent her, she realised that when she had been working on infectious bronchitis of chickens and also on mouse hepatitis liver inflammation, that she had seen the same particles. But as Terrell in his memoir her paper on the subject had been rejected because the referee said the images were just bad pictures of influenza virus particles so that was as for the name they looked at

the appearance of the virus and noticed that they had a kind of halo surrounding them. And Terrell writes, recourse to a dictionary produced the Latin equivalent, Corona. And so the name Coronavirus was born. Why has she not been recognised? I mean, hers is an extraordinary career. Yeah, well, I think she was widely recognised in virology. For example, between 1958 and the early 80s, she produced, she wrote or co-wrote over 100 publications. So her name was well recognised in virological circles, but I suppose it's just since the public interest in corona has,

and I'm happy to say, exposed to a wider public the influence that she had in many areas of virology beyond coronavirus. What do you reckon has been the effect of her research on the way we're responding to COVID-19? Well, I think it still has echoes today. For example, just last month, there was a paper published by a group in Marseille. They were looking at coronavirus,

how quickly you could diagnose it. And they reported they had got a sample and they had screened the sample in 10 minutes, between 10 and 40 minutes by electron microscopy. And I think if I had a bottom dollar, I would bet that the methods that they used were strongly influenced by June Almeida. So she still has, her influence is still at work in the world of electron microscopy, certainly. George Winter, thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning. Now the debate continues about whether people who don't need personal protective equipment for their work should nevertheless

wear a face mask when they're out exercising or shopping. We've been hearing from women around the world who've been setting to on their sewing machines and making face masks at home for family, friends and sometimes health workers to wear during the pandemic. Sara Fitzell is Maori and is from New Zealand's North Ireland. She spoke to Maria Magaronis. Here we go. I'm just a mum in New Zealand. I do a few different things.

I'm a tattooist and run like a small beauty studio. So I freelance in makeup and special effects and I'm a youth facilitator here. So I run an annual house of horrors here in New Zealand. Making masks, it was just a matter of pulling out my sewing machine really. It was a flow which turned into something bigger than I thought. So at the moment, I'm mainly using cotton. I have skeletons, I have Frankenstein, I have cherries and fruit and flowers.

A fabric I had bought to make a bag, but that's got sexy legs on it with high heels and fishnet stockings, I believe. And my latest ones are neon colours with like a lace over top. They are literally just going out my door. I'm literally making them and they're going out to a basket by my gate for a non-contact pick up faster than I can make them really. I would have made over a thousand of them

because I spent probably three nights without a word of a lie. I would have got up at about 6.37 in the morning and I would have still been sewing at about 3 in the morning and got close to 500 masks out for free just for essential workers that were panicking. They had no masks at all or they just didn't feel protected enough and wanted mine to be able to wear over them or just feel a little bit more style-y, I guess. On and off, I've always done sewing from when I was probably at high school.

I make little bits and pieces here and there, which is how these masks come about as well. My family is Māori here in New Zealand, and we're actually from a little place, a little lake out past Rotorua here called Rotoiti. I've got children myself who are autistic. I've had to change a lot and adapt to my child's way of learning. He loves drawing and so does my youngest girl. She's also autistic, so that's where my creative side came out. Making masks is something fun to do with my kids.

Sarah Fitzell, makingks in New Zealand. Anna Lapwood is one of the UK's very small number of female concert organists. She was the first woman to be awarded an organ scholarship at Magdalen College, Oxford, and then became the youngest ever director of music at Pembroke College at Cambridge. She was all of 21. She's been encouraging girls to hashtag play like a girl and she started a choir for girls in Cambridge. She's the presenter of this year's coverage of the BBC Young Musician 2020 which began last Sunday and I have to say her music is rousing to say the least. Anna, what was it about the organ that made you so passionate about it? Well, I think it's one of those instruments where it's just so much fun to play.

I mean, you have to use your hands and your feet at the same time. It's a bit of a test for the brain. It's basically an ab workout. But also, it's an instrument that resonates with so many people in so many different communities and can be people's only sort of experience of classical music if they're churchgoers. And so I think it's just a really exciting instrument and also just so much fun. But I don't think it was the first instrument to really grab you, was it? It wasn't, no no so I was actually a harpist before I was an organist but I loved orchestral playing and I think I loved the experience of

being totally immersed in the music and being surrounded by it and I think you get the same thing with the organ I guess it's probably one of the reasons that it's then the instrument that stuck with me. Now there's this hashtag play a girl. How did find slightly problematic. And so I created this sort of very tongue in cheek thing, just saying, well, actually, I'm going to play like a girl instead. And it has then sort of it's since taken off. And it's been really lovely to see people using it as a message of empowerment. And I just think reinforcing the fact that actually playing like a woman is a positive thing and it might be slightly different. It might be the same, but it should be a positive thing overall. But why do you think it's difficult to persuade girls to take up the organ?

I think historically, the organ has been linked to choristerships. And historically, those have been awarded to boys, not girls. In the last 30 years or so, we have seen many more girls' choirs spring up around the place. And we are starting to see, I girls. In the last 30 years or so, we have seen many more girls' choirs spring up around the place. And we are starting to see, I think, that reflecting in more female organists. But I think also, because there are so few female organists, it becomes quite difficult if a girl goes on an organ course, if there are 40 boys and there are only three girls. It is quite a difficult experience. And so a lot of what I'm trying to do is make it a sort of safe space for them and create organ courses that are just for girls so that there are 40 girls

there instead and they can just explore the instrument and have some fun without having to worry about um oh I'm one of the only girls. How surprised were you when you got your scholarship to Modelling College Oxford for the first time in centuries for a woman to get it it was it was very I was not expecting it at all um I'd been intending to apply for a place where I only had to play for sort of a couple of services a week and then the director of music at Magdalen just said actually you should think about applying for Magdalen and that was a scholarship where you had to play for eight services a week so you're playing a service every day and then three on a Sunday and you had one day off so you were getting through an immense amount of repertoire and I think I was more

surprised I didn't really think about the fact that I was a woman until I arrived and then I'd been at a girls school and was suddenly launched into this world where it was a totally male choir and so I basically didn't have any contact with women other than a couple of university friends so it was a big shift for me but it was a I mean a totally formative time and I wouldn't be where I am now without it. Director of Music at Pembroke College Cambridge as I said at the age of all of 21 and I know your chapel choir, which you conduct, has released a single, Media Vita, by Karenza Briggs. Shall we have a listen to a little bit of that? Oh, yes.

Here we go. Media Vita In mortes su Amen. Oh, that's so beautiful. But clearly mixed sex. But I know you've also set up Pembroke Girls' Choir. Why have you set up a girls' choir? Well, I mentioned earlier that historically choristerships have been something that have been for boys

and that we have seen a sort of surge in girls' choirs in the last 30 years or so. And in Cambridge, I just saw there's actually, there's Girls' Choir already, who are absolutely fantastic. And they've been running for, I think, 11 years now. But I don't think just one girls' choir is enough. And so we set up a choir with a slightly older age group, so girls aged 11 to 18. And what's brilliant about it is if you think about any other chance where girls who are 11 years old can work as sort of colleagues and as equals alongside girls who are 18 it doesn't it doesn't really

happen and so yeah it's sort of the highlight of my week doing their rehearsals what's the best organ you've ever played oh my gosh oh dear um I loved the Albert Hall um I got to go and have a sort of midnight practice session in there, which was just the most incredible experience being there basically by yourself. It's me and my dad. And we had to wear hard hats because there was for whatever reason, and just having so much power at your fingertips and literally just being able to put out the stops. It was so exciting. How do you practice at home? Well, I've actually, just before lockdown, I bought a practice organ, which has been my complete saving grace.

My neighbours possibly don't like it quite as much as I do. I bet they don't. Oh, they might, though. I mean, because you play well. You're not just practicing, are you? Well, they did have a little Les Mis sing-along the other day, and I played along, which I think they found quite amusing. There's also an NHS choir. Now, I'm intrigued how this is working.

Yes, so this is something that a couple of my Pembroke Choir colleagues actually came up with and they asked me to help. So they're working on the COVID ward at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge. And we've just passed a thousand members this week. So basically what we do is we have Facebook Live rehearsals, where I sit and play the piano and sing, and I can't hear anyone else, but they can all comment in real time. And it's surprising how much it can actually feel like a normal choir practice and create a real, a beautiful sense of community. So we're now recording our first piece together, they're all recording on their phones, and sending in individual recordings.

And that's a version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow that's been written specially for us. And then we have to just try and piece together a thousand singers. How hard could it be? Sounds a bit complicated to me, but I'm sure you'll manage it. Just one other question. How much did you enjoy The Young Musicians? I know you managed the recording before lockdown. Yes, so it was the last week before everything changed, basically.

So it holds a very special place in my heart for many reasons. I mean, it was the most incredible experience. I've watched that competition since I was tiny and it's inspired so many children. And I think what I love most about the coverage on Sunday was seeing people on Twitter saying how their seven year old got up early in the morning to practice for the first time ever once they'd watched that, or how their teenager went and tried to learn the opening of Schubert's Erlkönig because they saw an 11-year-old play it on the competition. I think that's the real power of BBC Our Musician.

Anna Lapwood, pleasure to talk to you. Thank you very much indeed for being with us. Lots of response from you on Queens of Industry. Dean said, Paul said, a thing of the past. See the webpages for the Eye Mouth Herring Queen in Scotland. Kath emailed My Mother Mary Wood was the first Wool Queen in 1931.

She lived in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire and was a warper at Wormald's and Walker's Mill. She was a beautiful lady but very natural and the judges chose her because she was unaffected with natural loveliness and an infectious smile. The girls were judged on poise, etiquette, good grooming and common sense. Mum

turned up for the competition straight from work, a simple black dress, no makeup and her hair dishevelled because she'd had to walk from her mill in Ravensthorpe to the town hall at Dewsbury, a distance of about four miles. I have some very precious photographs of her when she was crowned. When she started a rugby match between Dewsbury and Rochdale Hornets at Crown Flats Rugby Field, and when she was taken up in a small aeroplane. An amazing experience for a working class girl. Mum went back to work in the mill and worked there until retiring at 60. She was always hard-working, very caring mum, neighbour,

and in later years, grandma and great-grandma, a very special lady. And Sally wrote about June Almeida, well done for shining a light on the Scots virologist who in the 60s identified Corona Group. The world needs to know about June Almeida DSC. Now do join me tomorrow if you can when we'll be discussing Florence Nightingale. We'll talk about her life, her legacy, and of course her impact on nursing today because next week marks 200 years since her birth. And also we'll be asking,

could your relationship survive one partner's endurance sport obsession? In her new novel, The Motion of the Body Through Space, Lionel Shriver explores the impact of extreme exercise on the aging body and on one marriage in particular. Do join us tomorrow, if you can, usual time, two minutes past 10. Bye-bye. My name's Louis Theroux and I'm doing a new podcast for Radio 4. It's called Grounded with Louis Theroux. I've assembled a series of interviews from my own home. The idea is that we can dig a little deeper, peel back the layers and find out

who they really are. A free-flowing exchange of ideas, reflecting on what's going on now, but also looking back at the past. And featuring, at no extra cost, extraneous family noises in the background and dodgy microphones. Two people communing through the miracle of the interweb at long distance and yet so very close. To hear new episodes as soon as they go live, just subscribe to Grounded with Louis Theroux on BBC Sounds. 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.