Woman's Hour - Anorexia, Iowa Democrats, Churchill's Cook

Episode Date: February 4, 2020

We speak to Hannah Pearson who's 25 and has anorexia and bulimia. She recently asked for help from a specialist NHS eating disorder service close to where she lives but because she isn’t considered underweight enough she’s been told she has to wait 18 months. We hear from Hannah as well as Agnes Ayton from the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Last night, Americans living in Iowa had their say on who they think is the best Democrat candidate to beat Donald Trump. Women candidates include Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar. We speak to Dr Anne-Marie Angelo, originally from Virginia, who’s now Senior Lecturer in American History at Sussex University in Brighton. There was a time when domestic service was the single biggest employer of women in the UK but many of their stories have been forgotten. Author and historian Annie Gray is putting things right with her new book, Victory in the Kitchen. It tells the story of Georgina Landemare’s journey from scullery maid to the much-admired cook of the Churchill family. She's joined by Edwina Brocklesby, Georgina’s granddaughter.

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. It is a very good morning to you. A little bit later in the programme, we'll talk about what happened in Iowa last night, with a particular focus, of course, on the female candidates who are hoping to take on Donald Trump. We'll also hear an interview with the director of For Summer, the documentary that won a BAFTA at that ceremony on Sunday night. It's a very, very powerful documentary about the civil war in Syria,

in particular about the bombing of the civilian population of Aleppo. So you can hear from the director on the programme today. We'll also have an interview about Winston Churchill's cook, a woman called Georgina Landemeyer. Her granddaughter is with us

in the studio as well. I think I can say hello to you. It's Eddie, isn't it? Good morning to you, Eddie. Morning. You do triathlons and it's fair to say that you wouldn't have been able to train for triathlon on the food your grandmother was cooking for Winston Churchill, would you? To put it mildly.

She liked a bit of cream, Georgina, didn't she? She had her vegetables too. Did she? Okay, all right. Well, we'll discuss more. And also, this is opening up a wider conversation about domestic service and a big response from you. And we thank you for that.

Yesterday, I did ask to really put a call out to anyone who currently works as a cleaner, works in somebody else's house, or perhaps you employ someone in your house. How do you feel about that? There'll be more about that subject on the programme tomorrow. And keep those emails coming. We've got some cracking ones already. bbc.co.uk forward slash women's hour. Email the programme

via the website. Now we have often discussed the problems in CAMHS, the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. It really can be a long wait for a child to get a specialist referral for any mental health condition and it doesn't appear to be any easier for adults. Hannah is 25 and she has anorexia and bulimia. She lives in Greater Manchester and recently asked for help from a specialist NHS eating disorder service. She's been told, as you're about to hear, that she has to wait.

She does say she is now a healthy wait, but she is frightened she's going to get ill again. Here she is telling me about the impact her illness has on her. A lot of the time it feels like I am battling with myself. I feel like I'm always battling with a smarter version of myself and it's always one step ahead. So sometimes I feel like I've got a grip on it, but it'll throw something

else at me and you have good days and you have bad days some days you don't understand why you're having a bad day because it's maybe something that the day before you haven't struggled with or you haven't struggled with for a while and it comes back and you don't understand why you can't do a certain thing you can't eat a certain thing or you're getting really worked up about a certain thing and you feel like sometimes you're going around in circles would would anybody outside your immediate circle know that you were having these battles i don't think it would be obvious unless you knew about it. It's something that is quite a private thing and I think a lot of people like myself

go to quite long lengths to hide it from other people. I know I'm quite vocal about it now, but unless someone were to ask me, are you having a bad day, or if they were to ask what's going on, they wouldn't know. And how long have you been dealing with this? I've been dealing with it since I was a teenager but I didn't realise that I was dealing with it until my early 20s.

I didn't understand what was going on. I didn't recognise that I had any problems because it just feels like it's normal. didn't understand what was going on. I didn't recognise that I had any problems because it just feels like it's normal. It feels like it's a way of coping and without having someone abruptly tell me you have an eating disorder, I wouldn't have believed it. So who was it who actually said to you that you do have an eating disorder and you need to get help? Originally I asked for help from a GP when I was at university for help with my mental health because I thought I was just depressed or anxious and she told me that every time that

she tried to speak to me about food that all of my body language changed and I just shut down. And she was the one who suggested that I might have an eating disorder. But from there, there wasn't really any options because I was about to move. And when you were asked about food and eating, was that when you began to think, actually, this woman does have a point? That's where my problems start or originate? She pointed me towards the charity Beat,

and I read through a lot of their website, and it was quite hard to read it because I was in denial that any of this was a problem. But I recognised a lot of the signs and the symptoms that were on that website were things that I was doing, but I didn't necessarily see them as an issue. At that point, I was struggling to eat with other people. I was using exercise a lot to burn off calories.

And were you being sick? Not at that point, no. That's come later as things have just carried on and just kind of been left to deal with it on my own. So how many years have now lapsed between that appointment with the GP and where we are now? Nearly four years. And Hannah, during that four year period, have you had any medical intervention at all?

Yeah. What kind of help have you had? I've become really depressed in the past and have required being admitted to hospital on three occasions. And previously I was seen by an eating disorder service in Leicester, but because my diagnosis was bulimia, I had very limited treatment. And you're now in the Greater Manchester area, aren't you? Yeah. And this is now where you're asking for help?

Yeah. And when you ask for help, what's happened? I spoke to my GP here and she took it very seriously from the start and referred me on to the eating disorders service here in Manchester. From that, we received a letter saying that there's an 18-month wait list to be assessed so not to be treated just to be assessed and from that there's not a lot that we can do in terms of accessing any interim support so at the moment my GP is just monitoring me physically and mentally, kind of like picking up that gap in between the services.

I just feel like I've been given a green light that this isn't bad enough, that unless I am really, really unwell, that unless I'm unwell physically, that this isn't anything that is an issue. Do you know how they would choose to define really unwell? Unfortunately because the service in Manchester and I know this is the same in a lot of areas because the services are so underfunded they have to assess people based on their level of physical risk rather than the mental illness that it is.

So in Manchester, we were given a letter that said unless my BMI is under 16, I'm losing weight rapidly or I'm purging five to six times a day, I wouldn't qualify for an urgent assessment. That is pretty tough to hear because you are left with that internal battle going on that you described to me so brilliantly at the beginning of our conversation. That presumably is ongoing.

Yeah. And what can you do? In the meantime, I've just got to try my best to keep fighting with it. The reason that I asked for help was because I was struggling and I realised that all the factors that happened a year ago were starting again, there was warning signs, and I wanted to not get back to the point I was a year ago where I was in hospital so in the meantime I've just got to try and do what I can to fight it because

at the end of the day it's an illness and as much as as much as I can do on my own there are bits that I can't seem to get over on my own otherwise I would immediately choose to get over it yes um I really appreciate your your honesty and your clarity with all this but you seem to be saying that if you could be helped now it might actually help all of us in the long run because actually it might save money yeah um to treat it now or to help me to help myself now it would save a lot of money in the long run. I fear that I might end up in hospital again with it. I wouldn't end up being medically unstable or mentally unstable if this was left to go on for a year and a half.

And I know in a lot of cases that it really isn't safe for that to happen. Hannah, can I ask whether you are able to work? Are you in work? At the moment, I am working. But someone once described it to me as having an eating disorder is like having a full-time job and you can't have two full-time jobs. Well that's the voice of Hannah I thought actually really really wonderfully giving us an insight into how she deals with what she's up against. Agnes Ayton is chair of the eating disorders faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She is a consultant psychiatrist based in Oxford. Agnes, good morning to you. Good morning. How does the NHS decide who is a priority? I was very sorry to hear Hannah's description of her experiences and unfortunately

what she has experienced is not unique at all. It's happening to thousands of people, particularly in adult services. You mentioned CAMHS in the introduction. So child and adolescent eating disorder services have received funding, and they have a very helpful waiting time directive. So people are seen either within a week or within four weeks. And unfortunately, we haven't got anything similar for adults with eating disorders. Can I just interrupt you there? Because I think listeners will actually, some listeners will be quite surprised by what you've just said, because we

have focused on the problems with CAMHS. I know a lot of people have contacted this programme to say they've had to wait, or their children, more importantly, more've they've had to wait or their children more importantly more significantly have had to wait for a specialist referral what you're actually saying is that CAMHS is a better and more efficient service than adult mental health services yes? I was talking specifically about eating disorder services so CAMHS eating disorder services have received funding. But I suppose both in adult and in CAMHS services, we have found an increasing rate of referrals. So I think we are experiencing a hidden epidemic, which is not really well measured in this country. The last time when NHS looked at this was in 2007 when they found that 6% of the population screens positively for eating disorders. And certainly working in clinical practice,

we have seen almost a doubling of referrals. And this is in the context of 80% of the patients don't seek help. So what Hannah was describing is very typical. People are ashamed, fearful of seeking help. So by the time they start seeking help, they are actually quite chronically ill. Well, Hannah did express her view that, in fact, if she were treated now, it might head off even more serious problems in the future. More, to be blunt with it, more economically challenging state of affairs for the rest of us who, taxpayers, who will have to foot the bill for care. What do you say about that? I absolutely agree. It's false economy because we don't have any evidence that people are on the waiting list get better by themselves in eating disorders. In fact, we have evidence of the opposite. So when a patient receives a letter, well, you're not seen enough,

you're not sick enough, it almost kind of gives them the permission to get worse. And early intervention in any other discipline of medicine is the way to go. So that early intervention helps with cancer, helps with diabetes, helps with any other disorder. So I don't think that eating disorders should be an exception for that. So the Dump the Scales campaign, which has come to prominence, the notion that BMI is just too crude a way of assessing who should get help. You'd agree with that, would you?

I think the Dump the Scales initiative is very helpful to raise awareness that eating disorders can affect everyone regardless of their BMI. It is important to recognize that eating disorders have the highest rate of mortality of any other psychiatric illness affecting adults. And intervening early is actually cost-saving on the long term. And it's obviously helpful for the individual as well as the wider society. However, we need to have sufficient resources, which we haven't got at the moment. What about training for doctors? How much training in eating disorders

do medical students get? The training for doctors is an ongoing issue. This has been raised by the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman when they looked into the avoidable deaths of several people. And we have done some research on this. It's less than two hours, and not all doctors get trained in eating disorders. It was good to hear that Hannah's GP recognized the problem on both occasions

and they were able to make a referral. But obviously that early recognition from a GP's point of view is only helpful if there are services to receive these patients. Right. I mean, that figure of two hours training, which not all doctors might get, that will frankly devastate a lot of people who might be going through something like this or might be seeing their child go through it. And I appreciate you've raised the issue before. Why hasn't anything been done?

There has been some work on this. We have been working actively with the GMC and the GMC has been working with the General Medical Council and also with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, but it has been a very slow progress. I think eating disorders have some myths around them traditionally they are seen like a lifestyle choice and without actually improving education that stigma is not going to change I should say we do have some statements to read

this is from Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust we receive an incredibly high number of referrals every month and the demand exceeds what we're able to provide. We have improved waiting times in other services such as crisis care and we have reduced the number of people needing mental health inpatient care out of the area. However, we accept there are services such as eating disorders which need more capacity in order to be able to offer the care and treatment which is needed and from nhs england record numbers of children and young people are getting treatment for eating disorders and the nhs is expanding services for adults to

meet rising demand they point out there are around 400 beds for adult eating disorders. 400 beds is not very many, actually, Agnes, is it? This is in England. Yes, I mean, we have had the recent NHS Digital publication. We had 19,000 admissions for eating disorders, and that is almost troubling since 2010. So that's why I was using the word of hidden epidemic. We haven't got good measurements of how many people are affected by eating disorders, but what we are seeing on the ground and what NHS Manchester was reporting

actually suggests that there is an increased need. More people are affected by eating disorders and these eating disorders are actually quite severe. Yeah, well, you only had to pay attention to what Hannah was saying to get some idea of the impact it has on her daily life. Thank you very much for talking to us. That's Agnes Ayton, who's based at Oxford University. She is the chair of the Eating Disorder Faculty

of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. You, of course, can enter this conversation as well. I expect there'll be many people who related to all too much of that conversation. So bbc.co.uk forward slash Women's Hour if you want to email the programme. Now, For Sama is a brutal and completely unsparing film about Aleppo in Syria. It won the BAFTA for Best Documentary at the Ceremony on Sunday night. It was made by Wad Al-Khatib, who lived in the city of Aleppo from 2011 to 2016, and witnessed the appalling impact of bombing on the city's civilian population. Here she is speaking at the ceremony.

We did the film, and I'm so glad and I'm so honoured I'm standing here. Thank you so much for BAFTA for recognising the film in so many other categories. And as we're speaking now, the situation in Syria is still so bad. As we're speaking, there's a bombing and shelling on over 3.5 million civilians. These people there in Idlib, they should hear your voice now. They should hear that Britain, as a country, as a great country, will not let that happen again. I know it's so hard, but this award, I will dedicate it for the great Syrian people who are still suffering until today, and the great heroes of doctors, nurses, civil defense, so many other people, volunteers from the Mulham team, to Violet, to so many other people. Please, I will dedicate this award for them.

Let them hear your voice. Thank you so much. Well-deserved applause. Wadah Khatib was on the programme in September when her film first came out. She tried to tell Jenny what it was like living under constant bombardment in Aleppo. I can't really describe this as much as I can tell people to see the film to feel the same experience exactly. But it's just like the main feeling all the time that I'm alive now for the last minute of our life. And you just feel how

sometimes you are helpless to help others when you feel that I can't really do anything for them. Some of the feeling also, which I can't protect my daughter, I can't protect even myself, I can't really plan for tonight or for the next day. It's all, you feel all the time that this life will be finished at any moment. You met the man who would become your husband, Hamza, a doctor. And again, I just wondered what on earth was it like for you filming in his hospital with injured people coming in all the time, blood everywhere. It's horrific to watch.

And you were there. We were living in that hospital. Even before we and Hamza got married, we lived in the hospital. And most of the staff was living there. So the hospital was for us part of it as a home and part of it as a job. And just being there filming this, it was just a huge responsibility of documenting all these faces and all these injuries, even if I know that I will not use it for any media purpose. But I know that this is all a war crimes evidence. And we need to save all this for the future for like a hope that the accountability

will happen one day but you know you keep thinking what were people thinking of her when she was filming and then there's one scene where a woman hears her young son has been killed and comes to collect him and she shrieks at you to go on filming. She says, carry on filming me. Why do you think she did that? I know that part of the people in Aleppo were saying that this camera is their way to survive. We have all that idea, and that's why I kept filming. We've thought that people outside the world, the Western countries, when they have seen all these crimes happening in Syria, and it's all about civilians,

and it's all because of the freedom, because of the dignity, because of the shared principles that we all should have agreed on. We felt that the world in 2011, 13, and 16, and unfortunately now 19, the world will not let that happen to civilians in this time of the world. And it was just like, it's still happening, unfortunately, and this is the main message of the film. There are scenes where you show your friends and your colleagues surviving, there's only one word for it, and they're dealing with diminishing food supplies, the delight of one of your friends

over the discovery of a persimmon fruit, which she is longing to taste. How easy was it to find delight when day-to-day life was so dangerous. We were struggling to create that hope and that delight. It's just really to stay alive. You need people like Salem and Afra, the other family in the film. You need, like, really face like Sama when you are so exhausted and so disappointed to look at her and gives you all the hope.

There's part of the film when people are playing chess in the street and children, like, swimming in a hole happened because of a barrel bump. All these things, you can just look at this and have a strength and facing all the horror that was happening. There was an opportunity where you and your husband and Salma could have left. You went to Turkey because of a relative who needed to see you. Instead of leaving, you chose, through very dangerous circumstances, to come back. Why? We lived with these people in Aleppo specifically for five years,

and we knew how important for anyone to be there for the safety of the people for the hope that we can share it all and Hamza as a doctor like there's a big huge need for him me as a journalist also like I have a lot of relationship with international channels I know exactly I'm good at, so I can really play a good role in that situation. And we can just like lift the people behind and think about our safety and our daughter and forget about the other children. And the big part of this was we lived through the first two years of the peaceful demonstration. And we have that huge responsibility that we need to try to make this difference

for our life and for the other people. How dangerous was it for you and your husband to send out news reports? I mean, your films to Channel 4 and he gave reports too. This is the only way which we felt that we can tell the people outside what's happening. Against the propaganda that the Russian and the Assad regime was trying to do about saying that

all these people are terrorists, there's no civilians in these areas. And we've seen all these children. You can see in the film how many children and families are in the city. Just one part of what we felt that this is our responsibility to do, and we felt that this could change something in what happened. Why finally did you have to leave? We were forced to flee out of the city. All the 3,000 people who lived in Aleppo were forced to flee by agreement between the Russian and the Turkish government to let the Assad regime control the city.

And this was the only way for us to be survived. When I was watching the film, I saw you had your daughter, then you now have another daughter, you're settled in the UK. But looking back on the putting together of the film, as you've had to watch all that footage again, what do you suppose makes your work filming a siege and bombardment different from what a man might have done? The first thing and the first decision I've taken and I promised myself to do when I like decided that this film will happen was to be very honest, very honest to myself, very honest to other people and speak out about all my fears and all the bad feeling that I had, even if I had to say something out.

But I felt that this is a big responsibility. I'm not telling the people just my story as a mother. I'm telling them the motherhood story in Aleppo. And I need people really to understand what war means. I directed the film with another director called Edward Watts, and I want to thank him for his great work with me in this. And we both felt that there was a very part of this about the female perspective of war and of motherhood and of filmmaking. And that was all during the time when I was filming the story in Aleppo for five years. The voice of the award-winning filmmaker Wad Al-Khatib.

She was talking to Jenny on Woman's Hour back in September. And on Friday, I'll be talking to a Syrian paediatrician, Dr. Amani Balor. She's now the focus of another Oscar-nominated documentary called The Cave. This is about an underground hospital in Syria. So you can hear from her on Friday's edition of the programme. Now, at its peak, you might not know this, domestic service was the single biggest employer of women in the UK. But because it's women we're talking about here,

so many of their experiences and the intricacies of their lives have been lost. And it's thanks to people like the historian Annie Gray that we're beginning to put things right. Annie, welcome to the programme. Hello, thanks for having me. Your author is, your book that you have authored is called Victory in the Kitchen. And it's about a woman called Georgina Landemar, who was the cook to the Churchill family, notably during World War II, but both a little bit before and indeed for quite a chunk of time afterwards.

Also with us is Edwina Brocklesby, who is Georgina's granddaughter. Edwina, welcome to you too. Thank you. And you were just explaining that you've actually given quite a bit of kit to the cabinet war rooms. I have the sort of jelly moulds, saucepans, trays, and one or two, the candlestick holder that was next to his bed throughout the war. Right. It was in your possession.

Yes. But not anymore. Well done for doing that, that's brilliant. Tell us Annie, first of all, how difficult it was to find out the detail of Georgina's life? It was far more difficult than I thought it would be. I rather naively thought that it would be fairly easy because Georgina had worked for Churchill, so of course there's a huge archive down in Cambridge. In my mind I thought I'll all be there and it really wasn't partly because she didn't start to work for the Churchills till 1933

and then she only did sort of odd weekends until 1940 when she went to work for them permanently and partly because her own life it just isn't documented the Churchill servants have been pretty much removed from the archive her life before them was difficult because you've really only got census data, you've got election rolls, things like that. And very luckily, I was able to draw upon Eddie's knowledge and the sort of family archives. So Georgina did keep a memoir, which she wrote down, and then she tore it into little pieces and put it down the sink,

and Eddie saved it. So the first 26 pages of this memoir are there. Yes, which go up to only to 1895 so there's a huge gap then after that. So it really was detective work and the frustrating thing about it was when I finally got to the point where she worked for the Churchills there still wasn't anything because

they were such a rackety household. They kept temps, they couldn't retain servants. They lived wildly beyond their means. didn't they? Massively. I mean, he was an aristocrat, an Edwardian aristocrat, and yet never had any cash. So he constantly wanted to employ male chefs who were really expensive and couldn't afford it. They had untrained girls, usually in the kitchen, who Clementine, who could cook, would train up. And then, of course, the girls would leave as soon as they got training and go and get better wages.

And they're just constantly calling upon temps. So you would expect to find in the archival material things like wage books for servants and menu books, there were daily menu books both for the staff and also for the family. None of those exist. There are a few for after the war. There's one for 1937 where Georgina's handwriting appears halfway through and it was just this moment of oh thank god she

exists there's so much to dig into here first of all the French surname um that would have given her a bit of kudos presumably but this woman was not a chef because she was a woman she was only ever a cook yes so she was born Georgina Young uh in 1882 in Hertfordshire so she was born very much in a rural upbringing but moved to London very quickly because her parents were domestic servants. And the Landemar comes from her husband, who she married in 1909, a French chef called Paul Landemar. Paul had been born in the 1850s in Paris and was much older than her. So he was older than her father and already had five children. So it must have been a love match because what else would he be?

Or he could teach her stuff about French cooking. Well I think there was a level of this is this is quite a good move. She'd made cook by 1909 and so she was a cook, a head chef I think really for a very wealthy household. She was a very interesting figure in that she always worked in big households which was very rare for servants. Now you actually visited her in Downing Street I think didn't you? I did, I sat in the Prime Minister's chair. What year are we talking about here? I think I was probably about eight so we're talking 1950-ish something like that. Yeah because he was Prime Minister again after the Second World War yeah and what do you remember of it? Of being in Downing Street, just the warmth that they all felt towards my grandmother and the same with Hyde Park Gate as well.

I visited her there as a child. She'd worked for them there as well. Yes, when he wasn't in Downing Street. We need to be clear though. Yes, she got on well with the Churchills, but she was a servant. This is where it gets into slightly difficult territory. Well, you can both talk about this. Eddie first.

I don't get that feeling um i've always felt that it was part almost of a family um that they respected she respected them she'd spend an hour every day with lady churchill um working out the menus so my understanding was a sort of very confidential relationship a very close relationship and very important to both of them all right I think that comes through from a lot of the letters that I've got. I'll ask Annie about that in a second but we've got a quick clip of Georgina

talking to Joan Bakewell in 1973. Here we go. What kind of a family were they to work for? Oh very nice. All the family, every one of them, especially Sarah. She's very sweet. All of them. And Diana that died, you see, and Mary especially. And I liked Captain Soames very, very much.

I liked them all, you know. They were always so humorous. They were very nice, you see. Well, I never found people any different really. I think it's just as you are yourself. Don't you know what I mean? If you do your job and you treat them as you should do and respect them, which you do. And I've always been very happy, especially with him. I was. I felt it was good work done through the war because I did my best to look after him. And I was their duration.

And I stopped there. Well, it was my war work. And I was pleased to do it. That was how she saw it, her war work. And, of course, it was. There's a part of the book that I noted, Annie, because it talks about the post-war years and there had been a shift in the way that the servants were treated.

Georgie herself, you write, recognised the shift, recalling of Clementine that I can never forget taking her the menu book in the morning and she would correct little mistakes in such a kind way one couldn't help feel the friendship. But she did correct. That was the bit that I thought, well, I don't know, something pinged when I read that.

Yeah, and those menu books still exist, so you can see Georgina's handwriting scribbled out with Clementine's corrections put in, which were, they weren't corrections in terms of grammar or spelling or anything that you would sort of rankle at. They were things like, let's not have beef, let's have pork. But while they were close and they were undeniably close, there was always that awareness that this was servant and master or servant and mistress, even to the fact that the Churchills paid georgina's pension all the way through but i mean they paid two pounds when the state pension went up first of all to five and then to 14 pounds 50 and so on and so forth and they always paid two pounds so when you're salaried by someone and when

you're very very conscious of that difference in status, I mean, Churchill was a national legend by the time he died. People were sending him food from all over the world. Oh, it was absolutely. Indeed, during the war as well. Yeah, ridiculous. The man didn't know what the ration was. Well, he did because Georgina showed him the ration on the tray. But he thought it was a day's ration and it was a week's. Yeah. I mean, the level of Stilton alone that went into that household.

And after the war, when rationing got worse for the majority of Brit britons he struggled with the lack of meat for about two or three months but then after that all these food parcels started arriving and random people would send him food parcels from australia saying you saved the world you are the best i could send this parcel to my friends who are really suffering but you're clearly suffering too so here's a tin of camp meat and some raisins. Georgina, sorry not Georgina, I apologise, that was your grandmother, Edwina. We've got a lovely email from Aileen. A note to say I remember the lovely Mrs Landemar.

My father was Sir Winston's bodyguard for 17 years and he often talked about her. I remember sitting in the kitchen with her. So there you go, the people are out there with the connection. Thank you so much. There is much more we could say. And actually, if anyone wants to know anything

about the history of women, this is a book worth reading because Georgina started as a scullery maid, proper, tough, physical work and grafted all her life. So I hope she had a very long and happy retirement.

And I'm sure she'd be proud of you, Edwina. Thank you very much. Thank you. For coming on the programme, not least because of your athletic proclivities, which I alluded to earlier um let's try to catch up with what went on in Iowa overnight and with particular emphasis as this program always has of course on the female candidates running to be the democrat nominee um we have with us this morning Dr Anne-Marie Angelo

from Sussex University senior lecturer in American history at the University of Sussex um so Anne-Marie, as far as you know, what's happened? What went wrong? Because we don't have the results. There's a lot of confusion about the caucus in Iowa. So as far as we know, the results haven't been reported or haven't been reported out publicly because there seems to have been a problem with the app that was being used to record all of the results of the caucus. The local caucus captains have been reporting that the app crashed and then they were ringing in to report the results in their local precincts by phone and having to be on hold for an hour to an hour and a half at a time and having difficulty getting through.

So there's a lot of discord this morning. Whatever has happened here, and clearly something has, and we'll probably find out later, although we can't be certain, everyone is claiming victory, it would seem, from what I can gather. That's right. So Bernie Sanders claimed victory based on some internal data within his campaign. Mayor Pete Buttigieg has also claimed victory and has said he's going onward to New Hampshire victorious, which is New Hampshire's the primary that comes up next. So there are a lot of people kind of angling without results truly having come through. The women candidates, Elizabeth Warren is the most notable. Now, there was a point, I think, during the summer when it looked like she was really going to make a breakthrough and then it sort of didn't happen. Tell me about that.

So I think Warren has always come through as very solid in terms of her policy goals. She's got plans famously for everything you could possibly imagine. But at the same time, she's facing something similar to what Hillary Clinton faced, although they're two very different candidates, which is this idea about women candidates for president and the so-called electability factor. Well, the likability factor that came into play hugely with Hillary Clinton. That's right. So the idea that a woman can be presidential is something that a lot of Americans perceive to possibly not be the case. And so there are some people who sort of perceive that there's sexism among the electorate and therefore we should go for a male candidate in order to be safe if the Democrats want to beat Trump. And then at the same time, there are a number of male candidates still in the race who have come up not through national politics, but instead through business. And so there's a real difference. All of the three

women candidates who remain have all held national office. Who are the other two female candidates? So there's Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota, and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii. Do they have any chance at all? Probably not. Gabbard didn't campaign in Iowa. She's saving her kind of energy and resources for the New Hampshire primary. And Klobuchar did campaign in Iowa, but was polling quite low. Elizabeth Warren is someone that I've kept an eye on on social media for the last couple of years because she was always the most prominent of the female candidates. She appears to have boundless energy. And she spends ages of time, loads and loads of time,

having photos taken and engaging with people, doesn't she? That's right. I think a lot of her appeal among the voters who support her is about her kind of one-to-one personal approach and the way in which a lot of voters sort of see that as a feminist aspect of her campaign. The idea that she's interested in getting to know people at the grassroots and in talking about issues that affect people, including especially women. But could you honestly see her battling Donald Trump? And what would her tactics be? How would she take him on? She's a Harvard law professor versus Donald Trump.

I mean, I think one thing that she's done that's proven herself very well is to have a lot of preparedness. Any woman who's going up for the highest office in the country has to be supremely prepared. Yeah, but you could argue Hillary Clinton had prepared. She'd been Secretary of State. On the other hand, Elizabeth Warren has a different kind of approach in terms of her personality. One of the things that she's done very differently to Hillary Clinton is that she hasn't actually talked as much about her gender prominently in the campaign. I think that's been a strategic decision on her part. She's talked in a nuanced way about other women leaders who have come up,

women textile workers, black washerwomen in Atlanta, Georgia, all of these different women who took on the national government in strong ways. But she herself hasn't talked as much about her gender. Do you think she'll win the Democratic nomination? I would like for her to win. Do you think she's going to win? At this point, I'm not sure. I wouldn't necessarily place that on it. Bernie Sanders? Bernie Sanders is looking strong. Joe Biden is obviously the other very strong candidate.

They're both older than Elizabeth Warren by some years, I think, aren't they? Yes, they're both older. And that's a factor for a lot of voters, something that they're thinking about and looking to other candidates, including Buttigieg, of course, who's very young compared to them, as well as Michael Bloomberg. And that is Dr. Anne-Marie Angelo, who is from Sussex University. I should say, actually, there is a new BBC Sounds podcast out, which will follow the American presidential election. It is called Americast, and it features John Sopel and Emily Maitlis. And you can go to BBC Sounds now and get that. I've already subscribed because I am totally on message with BBC Sounds almost 100% of the time. Now, lots of people wanted to speak, not surprisingly, about anorexia and eating disorders.

Please pass on my deep gratitude to Hannah for speaking out, says this anonymous listener. My own experience with my 18-year-old daughter resonates with the lack of available help. As a family, we've had no support from our GP practice or the NHS, even though I have asked. I have concerns for my youngest daughter due to the impact of living with her older anorexic sister, who regularly expresses a wish to die. The NHS appears only to step in when life is truly physically at risk. It does seem such a crazy way of operating and very backwards. Another correspondent, at 16, when I became anorexic,

I was taken to the doctors by my mum and the doctor weighed and assessed me. I remember her saying to us that I wasn't a low enough weight. This triggered me to lose more because I was not low enough. Looking back, I am shocked that the doctor didn't think this would have been damaging to hear. She should surely have told my mother privately. By the time I got to CAMHS, I was at a dangerously low weight and at one point wasn't allowed to go up the stairs or go outside. It really does need to change. Another listener, my 21-year-old daughter is living with anorexia, diagnosed after having

had a blood test which showed dangerously low levels of neutrophils, a kind of white blood cell. After many more tests, including a bone marrow, it was confirmed this was due to low weight. It was only the intervention of an amazing consultant and her equally amazing GP that she got an urgent appointment for an assessment at an eating disorder centre. We still don't know when her actual treatment will start. If only she could have been seen sooner, I am confident she wouldn't be in the state she's in now. Early intervention makes so much sense. As a parent, one can only stand on the sidelines, supporting, cajoling, feeling frustrated and sad at the sheer waste of this awful illness. Thanks to everybody and particularly our thanks

to Hannah and I think you could sense in the interview with Dr Aiton that she was as frustrated as Hannah and indeed everybody else involved in this conversation but it would appear that the resources are simply not there. Now tomorrow on the programme there's going to be a wider

conversation about what we might loosely call domestic service in the 21st century. This is partly in connection to the conversation today about Winston Churchill's cook, Georgina Landemare. And a few of you have already contacted us on this. And it does, these emails I'm about to read out illustrate the varying experiences that are out there. This is a listener who is a cleaner. She says, I've been a private cleaner for over six years. I'm 64. And as I don't have a state pension for

another 17 months, I've got no option but to continue doing this. It doesn't sound a great deal. I do about 20 hours a week. But cleaning is strenuous. It requires mobility and flexibility. And no client really cares that much what you've done before you get to their house. They just want their cleaning done. I've been called upon to clean all manner of areas and items. The chimney area of two homes, they were large walk-in chimneys, very dirty with sooty style chimneys. I had to clean the large attic at another home. In fact, that's quite a regular

request. I walk animals when customers are too ill to do it themselves. I've cut grass as the owners on holiday. I regularly visit charity shops with bags of unwanted items. I feed fish. I put the bins out. The list is endless. Yes, I could say no to some of these requests, but by doing that, I feel I would come across as a negative employee and thereby possibly risk the sack. This is a more positive one. Dear Woman's Hour, Heidi is the name of the woman who came to help my mum in the house four to five years ago. She tackles any job that needs doing, not just the cleaning. Her friendship has made a huge difference to my mother. My mother is now in a nursing home,

but this woman, Heidi, still comes to clean for my dad, who is 95 and partially sighted, and she is an invaluable support for me. I cook meals that can be frozen and then microwaved by dad. Heidi, who is a trained chef, has taught me tricks of her trade and is my go-to consultant. She's a consummate professional, an absolute godsend, and above all, she is my friend and I could not cope without her. Thank you for that. And this is from a listener who says,

I live in northern France in a small chateau owned by my other half when we got married. It's a small village and I'm obliged to have a cleaner, currently the son of the cleaner who worked for my husband's first wife. I worked here as a cleaner too during my getting into the system phase back in the early 2000s. I cringe now at managing and directing my cleaner. What is worse, I know I could do it better. I have tried to say to myself that this gives me my time to do my own stuff. But the truth is, I'm embarrassed to be employing someone to clean for me. Well, in the interest of transparency, I have a cleaner too. And I do know exactly what you mean.

Having said that, I too regard too regard I mean it's very difficult I regard my cleaner as a friend and I think she thinks of me as a friend but this is all a complex area isn't it I am paying someone to do the work the truth is I could do myself um anyway as I say deep waters uh we're not going to hear from my cleaner. No. No. Oh, dear. The things she could tell. No, we're definitely not having her on. Sorry, there are voices in my head here. That's strange. That woman, Siobhan, is back in my headphones. I've got to get rid of her. Thank you to everybody who's been involved in the programme today. Really enjoyed it. And Jenny is here tomorrow, and she'll be talking more about working in the house, usually somebody else's house.

If you're listening to some other podcast, then stop now and listen to a good one, because the Infinite Monkey Cage is back for a new series, and we're doing loads of things, aren't we, Robin? We're going to be dealing with the science of laughter, conspiracy theories, coral reefs, quantum worlds, and finally UFOs. I love UFOs.

It's also, by the way, the UFO one available to watch on iPlayer. In fact, all of the series that we've done are available on BBC Sounds. I must say that I wouldn't bother with the first series. I don't think it's very good. I wouldn't bother with the first two. Yeah. But we were played by different people then, I think, weren't we? Yeah, yeah. Melvin Bragg was you.

You were Debbie McGee. Debbie McGee. Bragg and McGee. Now that is a 1980s TV detective series that I will be making. 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.