Woman's Hour - Arlene Foster, Kate Wilson, Kelly Critcher

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

Arlene Foster, First Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the DUP, has stood down. She was the first woman and the youngest person to hold both jobs. In her resignation announcement she said that her election as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party broke a glass ceiling, and she also spoke about the trolling she's received. We discuss what her legacy will be. Kate Wilson has been giving evidence at The Royal Courts of Justice because she's suing The Metropolitan Police and the National Police Chiefs Council. She's taking legal action because she fell in love with a man who wasn't who he said he was. He was an undercover policeman who called himself Mark Stone. He was really Mark Kennedy whose job was to infiltrate environmental protest groups. Kate will have to wait until later in the year to get a result but she explains why she's taken the action.We talk to Kelly Critcher, who's a palliative care nurse. She works at the first hospital in the UK to declare a critical incident of Covid 19. She's written a book called A Matter of Life and Death: courage, compassion and the fight against the corona virus on the front-line.And do you share the bath water? TV property developer, Sarah Beeny, does. She gets in the bath after her husband and four sons. Sarah tells us why.

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. Have you lost a job or been forced to leave a role that you loved? One of the most powerful women in politics, Arlene Foster, First Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, fell on her sword yesterday after more than 20 DUP Northern Ireland Assembly members and four MPs signed a letter voicing no confidence in her leadership. She was the first woman and youngest person to hold both jobs

and has done so for the past five years. We'll talk more about her legacy and the impact of her work shortly. But in her resignation speech, Arlene Foster said it had been the privilege of her life to serve the people of Northern Ireland. It was clear it was a role she adored and threw herself into. When have you then lost a job or been forced out of a role that you adored, gave everything to? Arlene Foster in that speech did also make particular mention of the misogyny she's received. Perhaps your gender played a role in losing a job. What was it? When Thank you. see Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website and it's a pretty good moment to let you know of course I welcome your candor I hugely value hearing your views and experiences I hope

you know that by now and the great news I can hear more of them because I can announce today from next month Woman's Hour will in fact be that a whole hour regular listeners to the program will know that we have a drama for the last 15 minutes or so but from May 17th we will have that time allowing us to go in more depth on the issues we cover and have more time with our interviewees and crucially more opportunity to hear from you. So bring it on, the Power Hour, a full fat 60 minutes. Also on today's programme coming up the story of one woman's court battle with the police that she was deceived into a relationship with an undercover officer. She's taking them to court and

continuing to battle. You'll hear the latest in that. You'll also know that all life is here on Woman's Hour, always has been. The property expert Sarah Beeney will be with us, talking about how sharing bathwater with her husband and four sons has garnered quite a response after she

revealed it in a newspaper. All that to come. So let us know anything you relate to in that particular conversation. But back to Arlene Foster, First Minister of Northern Ireland, leader of the DUP, who stood down yesterday after 85% of the DUP's parliamentarians in the Stormont Assembly and Westminster signed a letter of no confidence in her leadership. The process has started to find someone new to replace her. As I said, she was the first woman and the youngest person to hold both jobs. In her resignation announcement yesterday, she said that her election as leader of the DUP broke a glass ceiling. She also touched on the trolling she's received. My election as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party broke a glass ceiling.

And I am glad that I have inspired other women to enter politics and spurred them on to getting involved in elected office. And I understand the misogynistic criticisms that female public figures have had to take. And sadly, it's the same for all women in public life. So I want to encourage you to keep going and don't let the online lynch mob get you down. Alison Morris is a journalist at the Belfast Telegraph and Roseanne Kelly is the chief executive of Women in Business in Northern Ireland. Welcome to you both. Alison, if I could start with you, what was her undoing? Well, there's a series of events that obviously led up to this. I think most probably the most prominent one being the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Brexit Protocol. There was an opinion within the party that she had been hoodwinked by Boris Johnson, that she had been charmed by him.

He appeared at the DUP party conference. She described him as a close ally, a close friend of the party. And then we know he promised there'd be no sea border. And that's exactly what he delivered. Now, when we come down to it, there was a lot more people involved in those negotiations than Arne Foster. And the men within the DUP who are at Westminster would have been much closer to Boris Johnson and actually helped manoeuvre him into his post when they were trying to get rid of Theresa May. And yet's the person obviously that's going to bear responsibility for that and then I think she'd sort of put her finger in the wind and seen a change in social attitudes and realised that if the DUP was to survive long term they had to appeal to younger voters and

their continuing reliance on on blocking any aspect of change, be that same-sex marriage, be that abortion regulations. Those things, whether she believes in them or not, were not the same things that young unionists felt so strongly about. Last week, there was a vote, and I know that some of your listeners will probably find this bizarre in the year 2021, but there was a vote to ban conversion therapy, where people think that churches can, you know, cure gay people of their gayness. And the DUP wanted a clause in that. They didn't want conversion therapy banned. And Arlene Foster abstained. And that upset some of the very hardline fundamentalist members of the party who felt she was going soft on gay rights. And that, I think, is one of the things that sort of led to this being advanced but the letter to to Oister has been doing the rounds within the DUP for about two months now

it was just up until this week until they managed to get that enough signatures to try and push push it over the line I think she was very disappointed yesterday you can hear in her tone some of those MLAs who have signed that letter are people who would have once been very close to her, people who she would have encouraged up through the ranks of the party. I'm sure she's feeling very betrayed this morning and as you said, she was the first woman to lead a party, the party of

Ian Paisley, the party of Reverend Ian Paisley this was a party of men, of middle age, Bible thumping men so for a woman to rise up to be the leader of that was quite astonishing at the time, especially a woman who wasn't a free Presbyterian, who didn't actually come from that same world. But as you mentioned just there to come in, you talk about what some of our listeners may be thinking. They also may be thinking, does she describe herself, does she

think of herself as a feminist? She chose very specifically to mention glass ceilings and to talk about the misogynistic abuse that she received. And yet there will be some who can't think of her as a feminist for some of her views, notably around abortion, and also wondering if she even herself views herself like that. I don't think that Arlene Foster would describe herself in any way as a feminist, maybe as a role model to other women who want to get into politics, but a role

model to women on the right who want to get into politics. And, you know, I am one of the founders of Women in Media Belfast. We had an international Women's Day event, which had to take place online obviously due to COVID. Arlene Foster participated in that. And in the clip that she gave just, she spoke of Margaret

Thatcher. She spoke of, you know, how hard you know you can be it if you can't see it, that she grew up seeing this very powerful woman, that she was her role model. And she spoke of, you know, how do you know you can be it if you can't see it, that she grew up seeing this very powerful woman, that she was her role model. And we know that, you know, Margaret Thatcher may have broken the glass ceiling in terms of being a political, a female political leader, but was certainly no friend of women when she got into that role. I think that, you know, while Arlene Foster has clearly tried to encourage other women in the DUP, and we've seen a significant rise in the number of elected DUP women during her time as leader.

When it comes to actual women's rights in terms of people in Northern Ireland, I don't think having a woman in that role has made much of a difference. I was going to say, her legacy for women will be what then? I think that, you know, we can definitely say that, you know, in the terms of the patriarchal structure of unionism, it was always a very male-dominated world you wouldn't have seen very many female politicians she's managed to change that but those female politicians would be female politicians to the right of politics they

aren't they're not people who are beating down the door to try and encourage you know women's rights and changes to the abortion legislation um i think that you know there's there's definitely value in saying that a woman getting into that role is certainly something to be commended. But, I mean, I doubt very much. I mean, in terms of how I consider my feminism, certainly wouldn't be how I would consider Arlene Foster. But as you say, those on the right would. And important to reflect that, and for some, just by being there,

it will have made some kind of impact, as she mentioned, about Margaret Thatcher. Roseanne Kelly, you actually know Arlene Foster personally through your business role. You've sat with her at dinners. You've got the temperature of the woman. Yes. Good morning, Emma, and thank you for inviting me on. I mean, my relationship with Arlene is very much as chief executive of Women in Business. And that's an organisation that she has been hugely supportive. I would have known her mostly in her role

when she was Minister for Enterprise. And she was very personable, very easy to get on with, and a very good supporter of women in business. I mean, like I said, I have sat with her in terms of she's come along to our awards and conferences. She was hugely supportive. We had a conference in 2014 she brought along a delegation of Arab emirate women to the conference so my experience certainly has been of a woman who has been supportive of our organization and will do what she can to help and support.

Conversations over the dinner table, very personable as well, talking about doing a Tesco shop online at 11 o'clock, relaxing, watching Sex and the City and a glass of wine. You know, this is the Arlene Foster that I would have seen. I think in terms of her public persona, completely different. I think, you know, the party behind her has forced her to go, I think, on many occasions in different directions than she would have liked to. I mean, I think if you look at the likes of Jacinda Ardern in terms of the party supporting her, having that party fully behind her, she's able to be empathetic and inclusive and all of that.

I don't think Arlene was able to be the authentic leader because of the party that was behind her. So you saw a different Arlene away from the public persona where perhaps, you know, I don't want to put words in your mouth, she had to kind of man up and perform the role of leader as DUP to keep those people behind her. Yes, I believe that. I mean, and again, I can only go on my experience. I had a meeting with both her and Michelle in January. Michelle O'Neill then?

Yeah, Michelle O'Neill. And again, talking about childcare, talking about women returners, talking about we're looking at a global conference for women in business in 2023. And both very supportive and both talking about the fact that they were mums and the challenges that they had as women leaders. I mean, some of the comments that have been made online um about those women are just absolutely horrendous and I think the challenge that um it has been to be a a leader of the DUP um but as a woman has been massive and you know I I'm actually um delighted that she she will maybe get some time to breathe now that she has resigned, because I do believe she's had a really, really challenging role. I don't agree with everything she's done. I was going to say, I'm not sure that you probably do as CEO of Women in Business in Northern Ireland,

because of the Northern Ireland Protocol, what's going to happen with Brexit. I'm sure there's been some fraught discussions with business leaders as to how to get to grips with that after it went in a completely different direction as to how she was hoping and her parties would. I also think Christina's message, I want to put to both of you, if I can. Christina says she should have been sacked due to her not reading the Green Deal, doing nothing when someone alerted to her that that scheme was a waste of money. She is and was incompetent. And I would say the same of a man. So just come back to you, Alison Morris, journalist at the Belfast Telegraph.

The Ashford cash scandal wouldn't go away, would it? The green energy scheme set up by Arlene Foster, which went massively over budget. It did. And at the time, she was asked to step aside for a period of three weeks to allow a quick investigation. Refused to do that, which I think shows you the stubbornness of Arlene Foster as a person. Now, I know for any woman in a role, and just to go back to what was being said, there's times

that we all feel, I do crime reporting, you feel you have to sort of toughen up and try and dial down a wee bit on the qualities I think that make us better at our jobs, but they're the qualities that people in the public eye feel like they can't show. i've noticed that there was empathy within arlene foster show during the start of the coronavirus there was times when she changed the legislation to allow people who were terminally ill to be married when that wasn't when weddings weren't being allowed at the time

there is obviously a woman who is a bit of crack when you get her you know in a social setting there but um her public persona was very you know would have been a very stern almost based on margaret thatcher type of persona um she was very lucky in terms of the rhi and the green energy scandal and that the inquiry into that the report came out i think it was probably the week just before we went into the the strictest of lockdown and clearly the news agenda at that stage had significantly moved on um and that was not a priority and at the forefront of people's minds she probably would have got a much harder time had it not been for the the pandemic coming along and and taking away all other news out of the

cycle i was going to say just to bring in finally roseanne i suppose that's a sign of equality if you are being judged on the on the job overall you know what what your record actually was uh great you know great number of reports yesterday, of course, writing it was about Brexit. Yes, I mean, Brexit probably will be one of the things that Arlene is known for. But again, I don't think it falls squarely with her. And I think it goes back to the party

and some of the decisions that were made by the party that she had to front up and go with. I think absolutely, yes, mistakes have been made. And I mean, all leaders make mistakes. But yeah, I think... Well, also just to say, I was going to say just one final point, if I can, on the personal side.

She was in the papers last week for a very different reason. She's gone to court in order to defend her marriage after tweets were written alleging she'd had an affair. Now, I can't comment on the case per se yet, but that sort of side of her that you're talking about and how she's talked because going to court because of how important her family is to her. Yeah. She has talked on occasions about, I have a son the same age as hers, and we chatted about her children and her daughter going to university

and, you know, and how that was going to be. But, yeah, absolutely. I think on a personal level, she has taken, had to deal with quite a lot. And I just wonder, would we even have the same kind of court case, you know, if it was a man? And I think... Well, that's a question to ponder,

slightly run out of time to keep going with that, but I'm sure we could ponder that for longer. Roseanne Kelly, thank you for your time. CEO, Chief Executive of Women in Business in Northern Ireland and to Alison Morris there, journalist at the Belfast Telegraph. Messages coming in, just specifically, I mean, Maggie says you can't support abortion and call yourself a feminist.

You cannot deny people help to change unwanted same-sex attraction and call yourself democratic. Other views come in, I'm sure, on that as well. And you're getting in touch about when you lost your job. I lost my job as a school nurse in 1991. It affected me for years, but I ended up in a much better place. I lost my job seven a school nurse in 1991. It affected me for years, but I ended up in a much better place. I lost my job of seven years. Four years ago, it's had a massive effect on my life,

confidence and self-esteem as I was 50 at the time. Of course, we know this is a very sad reality for more and more people because of the pandemic. Let us know about your experiences and how this comes home to you. Keep those messages coming in on 84844. Kate Wilson is joining us now and I mentioned her at the beginning that she spent this week and last giving evidence at the Royal Courts of Justice as she sues the Metropolitan Police and the National Police Chiefs Council. She's taking

the legal action because she fell in love with a man who wasn't who he said he was. He was an undercover policeman who called himself Mark Stone. He was really Mark Kennedy, whose job was to infiltrate environmental protest groups. Kate will have to wait until later in the year to get a result, but joins us now. Good morning. Good morning. How did you meet one another? Well, I met Mark at a community centre in Nottingham at a political meeting that was happening there. We sat next to each other in the meeting. We got talking.

We became friends. And quite quickly, I think within about a week of that meeting, we had started a romantic relationship. And you were a protester, you were an activist? Yes, I was involved in environmental and social justice campaigning. And was he pretending to sort of be part of that world or interested? Yeah, he showed up, he was new in the city and he showed up saying that he wanted to get involved

and we were a very open space. We wanted to bring new people in, get people interested in the issues. So I think it was probably very easy for him to come in and start building relationships with us. And you began a relationship. How long did it go on for? We were together as partners for almost two years. We moved in together and then I moved away, but we stayed very close friends and he began a relationship with another close friend of mine, which lasted for six years. And we were close friends right up until 2010, so seven years. And how did you find out he wasn't who he said he was? His girlfriend at the time, who is known in the press as Lisa,

she found a passport in a different name and she challenged him about it and looked into it and eventually it became clear that Mark had been an undercover police officer and he was married with two children. And she let you know? Yes, yes. I got a phone call once people had the proof. I received a phone call to warn me that it would be going public. I know you don't want to go over all details here because you're in the middle of this fight. And I want to come to that because not least you're taking on institutions here and you want to talk about those bigger problems. But could you just tell us sort of how something like that does make you feel when you've trusted somebody and they're, you know, your love at that time? It's very, very difficult to explain how it feels.

I think one of the most important things about it is that in the beginning it feels like a very personal betrayal. This man that I loved who was a very important part of my life turned out not to exist at all. I mean, he was lying to me about everything. But it's more than that, because actually what we found out later is that it's not just the police officer who's lying to you. They have a cover officer. I mean, Mark had the same cover officer for the seven years that I knew him. And that man was basically round the corner most of the time.

And Mark was telling him everything that we did. Every 15, 20 minutes, he was on the phone or sending text messages. They had tracking devices that meant they could follow where we were going. And then there's a whole middle management team and a command structure within the police that are making decisions about that relationship so it's not it's not really a story of personal betrayal like once once you take a step back and look at it it's it's uh it's a political betrayal this is this is the state interfering in the most intimate parts of your life. And it's not just something between me and Mark.

It's much bigger than that. You're the only one pursuing this current legal action, even though you and seven others started a legal case 10 years ago. What are you trying to achieve and what keeps you going? So what we, 10 years ago when we started this claim, what we wanted was answers. I mean, that's very important from a personal point of view. We wanted to know what they were keeping about us on file.

We wanted to know who knew about what was going on, how far up the command structure it went. And we wanted to make sure it never happens again. And for me, that's what's important about this ongoing part of the claim. So this case that I've had this week has been going on in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal and it's a human rights claim and the point about the Human Rights Act is for the state to be able to investigate what's gone wrong and make sure that that can't happen again. And do you believe there is, that sexism is at play in any of this or what would you say to people who say undercover police have got to be convincing in their in their actions

so two two separate questions um so in terms of sexism yes i think i mean one part of our claim is under article 14 of the human rights, which is about sexist discrimination. And I think it's really important to remember that even though I'm the only person who's been able to take this case this far, there were eight of us in the beginning. There's now 27 women participating in the public inquiry into undercover policing who all had relationships with undercover officers like this. It's a systemic practice of abuse and using women's bodies as an operational tool by the police. Because you would argue, just to be clear,

which is what I meant by the other part of the question, that you don't need to do that to do what you're doing in terms of trying to surveil. Okay, so I don't actually think that what they were doing needed to happen at all. They were sending undercover police officers for years on end on what were basically extremely broad ranging phishing missions. They weren't investigating crime. They were gathering intelligence on political dissent. It's the sort of thing that you hear about happening in the Soviet bloc. And you talk, people talk about the Stasi.

This isn't, it's not about crime. This is about the, I mean, what one of the judges said in the trial the other day, one might say that the government just has no business sending secret police officers in to spy on its political opponents. And that's a very important point. I suppose the thing I'm trying to get to is that even if you did agree with them having to do that, which it's clear that you don't, and we don't have all the time or the details on that, they don't need to actually go and have relationships with women. They don't need to take women into their trust and sleep with them and have loving relationships. I mean, it's not just that they don't need to.

The police have admitted that this relationship that Mark had with me was a violation of Article 3 of the Human Rights Act. Now, Article 3 is the article that deals with torture and inhumane and degrading treatment, and there are simply no circumstances in which it is acceptable to violate Article 3. So some of the other human rights, the right to privacy, the right to freedom of expression, they can be qualified.

So if there is a question of national security or serious crime under the law, they can justify breaching those rights. But there are rights like the right to life and the right to live free from torture that they're simply not allowed to breach. I can't quite imagine how, but it must have changed you in so many ways, this experience. Do you still protest? Do you still campaign on the environment? And how do you kind of live, I suppose, within our society, having had this happen by a force within society you should be able to trust to look after you? Well, I mean, it's very difficult. I find it very difficult to talk about that side of it.

And I mean, this this court case has been going on for 10 years. So in a way, it has completely taken over my life. It's extremely difficult to to trust people in general. So Mark isn't actually the only police officer that I knew. I now know that six different individuals who I knew as friends or housemates' friends turned out to be undercover police officers doing this kind of work. Mark was by no means the only police officer they were sending in. They had

completely saturated political movements like the climate camp, like the protests around the G8 summit. I mean, it's horrifying and I do find it very difficult to engage with those kind of spaces. But I also think it's incredibly important that people do. There's a phrase that came up a lot in the hearing, which was the judges are looking at whether this was necessary in a democratic society. And I think that we've all got to remember how important protest is in a democratic society. Which has been also at the forefront I suppose during lockdown with various protests going ahead or not going ahead. Kate Wilson thank you for talking to us I'm sure we will catch up with you again. The Met Police and National Police Chiefs Council said in a statement the Investigatory Powers Tribunal is considering

an ongoing civil claim in relation to Kate. The claim alleges breaches of human rights in relation to an inappropriate long-term relationship by an undercover officer, Mark Kennedy, a former Met officer who at the time was seconded to the now disbanded National Public Order Intelligence Unit and entered into a relationship with her whilst deployed and using a cover identity. The hearing is finished now and waiting for judgment. It would be inappropriate to make any further comment on the case. Now, to talk about a vocation, when your whole nursing vocation is to care for people with limited lifespans, to help them and their families to have a good end-of-life experience so they can die peacefully and without pain,

how do you cope when working through a pandemic in which people are suddenly having to die alone, scared and with no time to prepare? All in a hospital which seems constantly on the verge of being overwhelmed. Well, palliative care nurse Kelly Critcher has written about her career and being at the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic last spring, working at Northwick Park in north-west London, the first hospital in the UK to declare a critical incident. Her book, where it's all in, is called A Matter of Life and Death,

Courage, Compassion and the Fight Against Coronavirus on the Front Line. Kelly, good morning. Good morning, Emma. Just remind us what palliative care is. To me, palliative care is really about living well until you die so it's about helping people who are living with any kind of life limiting illness whether that's something like a cancer or something like an end-stage kidney failure a dementia and really thinking about when time is limited what's important to that person their family those around them and what can we do to try and help them achieve their wishes it must be an incredibly rewarding but also draining role during regular times.

What was it like when the pandemic began last March? It was just incredible really. Like with the whole world, everything just turned on its head practically overnight for us. And I think that the most important thing to think about is that when we look after patients who have a life limiting illness, people that are trying to understand their diagnosis and come to terms with the fact that they're dying, we normally have time to help them with this. We normally have days, weeks, months and when the pandemic came along it turned all that around and we were forced to have those difficult conversations and to help people understand what was happening in a really short time span. We found out very quickly

that people weren't living long with this. You know, sometimes people would come in extremely unwell and they might die within a matter of hours or just short days. And trying to help people cope during that time and cope alone a lot, you know, often, was really, really challenging for us as a palliative care team, but also for the doctors, nurses and carers on the wards. It's remarkable. I feel like the last year's sort of time

has bent in a way you can't quite remember various elements of it or how we used to be and for you it's remarkable to think back perhaps that mask wearing wasn't required outside the Covid wards themselves and the sort of protection that you had with your colleagues. Yeah absolutely I mean we I worked for London Northwest Truston northwest trust and i felt they were fantastic they gave us guidance according to public health england but as we all know things were changing daily and sometimes during the day and and so we would go along with whatever we were being told and right at the start that meant that on most wards we weren't wearing masks or you know sometimes we were told to wear a mask we were going in to see a patient but we certainly weren't wearing masks on the wards. I was just gonna say I was reminded of it

though because I know that was your experience but there was an image that circulated in the media on the 20th of March last year three frontline nurses at your hospital wearing blue clinical waste bags on their bodies because they yet didn't have any PPE they were appealing for more help and it was reported a couple of weeks later that they had all tested positive for coronavirus. Do you remember that? And what was the reaction where you were? Yeah, I do remember it. In fact, it was, again, something that somebody mentioned to me and I'd forgotten about. And I really think that they didn't mean it to go viral for a start. And certainly from my experience of working at Northwick Park, there was never any shortage of PPE. There were sometimes times when things suddenly changed. So suddenly the rules might have changed or the guidance might have changed. And it may have

taken a day to get that in place. But the things happened very, very quickly. And I felt we were very well protected. And that's the point that you have to have those things in place to be able to do your job which had become so much more difficult as you just described at that time. I don't think everybody and I certainly wasn't aware that you were able to let some Covid patients go home to die. How did you make that happen? With great difficulty at the best of times it's very, very difficult to facilitate a rapid discharge home when we know somebody's dying in their last days of life. And so imagine that then in COVID where there was no certainty about whether carers would go in to support families. There was no certainty about whether district nurses would be able to and available to go in to give symptom management medications that are, you know, often needed at end of life. With the transport, be able to take somebody home who is COVID positive.

So literally hours on the phone, myself and my colleagues, just hours talking, guiding, counselling families through what they're going to see over the coming hours and days, helping patients to understand what's happening, working with the community teams, guiding people towards online resources, and just preparing them as best as possible, knowing that basically you're sending them into the unknown. But that's their wish. And for some people, that was their absolute dying wish. What do you say to somebody when you're with them in their final moments um well when they're in the final moments you're there we're normally at a point when they're unresponsive but in covid times

people were more responsive and until later on so i think you know most of my my job is about listening and so you need to take the time to understand where that person's at how much do they know about what's happening to them and helping them as much as possible to understand that there's a really high risk that time might be short. There's a really high risk that you might die very soon. And I know this is very, very difficult for you to think about and to hear. But if this is the case, what can we do for you? What's important to you right now? How do you cope and how are you now so I work with a fantastic team um we really support each other and it and it was so great during Covid there was times when people were off sick there was time we we had less than 50% of our staff some people couldn't go out onto the wards so it was really tough and it was like one person would have a really bad day and everyone else would greet around them and pick them up and then the next day you might be having a bad day um adrenaline gets you through 100 you know during

the worst of it it was like every day I was buzzing buzzing and just wanting to go in and get out there and do as much as I could to help um and then at the end of the first wave when that adrenaline's over you hit that wall the adrenaline hangover kicks in and I literally crashed and I know that I'm just one of many many people in the NHS that that happened to. And then you just have to pick yourself back up and keep going? Yeah that's the trouble isn't it because in most cases if you've been through something terrible like that you can step back and take some time off but think about the hospital you know as soon as the COVID crisis was over there was a massive influx of patients into the into the hospital again and you know all the people that have been keeping out of hospital that needed desperate treatment so you don't have

that chance to stop and recover it just carries on for me I just took a couple of days a few days off I did nothing um I helped I talked to one of the um Macmillan psychologists at work that really really helped talk to my team and my family um and that was what worked for me but it was very different for everyone what what is your view of of dying are you scared of it having been around so much more than most people that's a really good question I don't think I'm actually scared of dying but I have a young family so the worries about what you leave behind when you die that for me is a worry but you know I think a lot about it I've planned some of my end of life already in terms of I've written an advanced care plan because I know what's important to me um like could you give us could you give us one

example from that just in case people don't know I don't know yeah yeah so there's a website called compassion in dying and it helps you make advanced wishes and it's just like you can fill in a document and for me it's just expressed now on paper my husband knows where it is should I lose capacity to make decisions for myself in any kind of condition that's expected to be long term so say for example I had a terrible car accident and I was severely brain damaged and wasn't expected to recover for me that's not a quality of life I would want to continue so I've expressed my wishes for my life not to be prolonged if I was in that type of state.

But for me, it's important, having seen what I've seen throughout my career, that people know what's important to me. And I think that's the most important thing. Well, thank you for talking to us, but thank you for all that you have been doing and coming back again after you hit that wall. Thank you. And just to say it's been a privilege to work for the NHS during this time and the

support from the public and everyone has been overwhelming. And thank you. You don't need to say thank you. We need to say thank you. Palliative care nurse there, Kelly Critcher, A Matter of Life and Death is her book, Courage, Compassion and the Fight Against the Coronavirus on the Frontline from the part of it that she saw. Messages still coming in about jobs that you have lost. We started talking about Arlene Foster, one of the most powerful women in politics, falling on her sword yesterday in terms of votes of no confidence.

A message here, Jo from Liverpool just wanted to share, says, hello, I lost my job five years ago. It was very hard, but I got a better job and it actually made me more confident. I didn't realise what skills I had until I left my old job. I now have a beautiful three-month-old daughter and that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't lost my job. So all the best from Jo who's listening in Liverpool. Good morning to you. Now over the weekend, I read a Day in the Life article and I discovered, I love those ones, that I discovered a number of

interesting facts about the property developer come presenter, Sarah Beeney. For instance, she likes to rise early. She likes to talk to her sons about feminism, despite thinking it's an old fashioned term. But the thing that really caught my eye was the fact that she shares her bathwater with her husband and four sons, often taking the sixth turn in the tub. Sarah joins us now because I'm not the only one who noticed, Sarah. You seem to have been inundated. Yeah, do you know, it's really bizarre because I didn't realise that anyone would find this so weird. You know, the things that you do at home, you kind of think, well, obviously everyone else does that. But no, it's created, people are really divided. 50% of people think, yeah, that's totally normal. I always get out of the bath and go, does anyone want the water before pulling the plug out? The other half of people think it's some sort of really horrific thing to do,

which is amazing. So, yeah, it's created quite a stir. Well, it may be something that people think is from a bygone era when people were trying to rely on your expertise and on boilers or whatever that would take a long time. Is that why you're doing it at the moment? Well, to be honest, not completely. I mean, it is partly.

We're in a temporary house because we're building a new house and we're in a temporary house. And so there's enough hot water for one really good deep bath. And I wasn't going to waste money by putting in a new system because we're not here for very long. So I kind of thought, OK, well, we'll build a new house because we're not here for very long so um so i kind of thought okay well we'll build a new house and there isn't enough water so i mean sometimes a couple of the boys will will take a shower um but often yeah there's a lot of extra dunking in the bath but

it's amazing yeah it's really sort of got under hot people have got hot under the collar about it but you're getting you know you really are getting the fag end aren't you if you're the very last one in here and you know i've got to ask you're not worried about a few people on the way having a having a pee do you know that's weird because people have said this but in our family we're really clear there's three items in the bathroom one's a bath one's a loo and one's a basin and i don't think there's any confusion i've never caught my kids brushing their teeth in the loo or trying to bath in the basin we all know we're all really aware of what the different things are like that's what they that's what they tell you Sarah but I don't know any do you know really honestly

I kind of think that is a really weird thing just like I wouldn't brush my teeth in the loo and neither of them none of them would I think I don't think people pee in the bath and if you do pee in the bath you definitely shouldn't share a bath. That's what I'd say. If you're going to do any kind of toilet habits in the bath, I would say maybe, you know, maybe you should just like pull the plug. Would you share with anyone? I mean, would you share with other family members, siblings?

No, I mean, not unless, I mean, I suppose if you're on holiday and you were really cold and wasn't enough hot water um yeah i mean i definitely have shared a bath with my with my brother when i was younger but no i wouldn't choose to share a bath with anyone other than the people i'm closely related to we are already uh getting a few responses you may imagine and you've been having them yourself angela says as a member of a household of six children i always had to share bath water we had a small water heater on the kitchen wall that filled a

tin bath with about an inch of water. The bath was then dragged in front of the fire in the sitting room as the eldest I went first then followed by my five siblings. Each time there was a change of child the bath was topped up with more hot water. Not good to be the last one in Sarah Beeney. This was back in the early 70s so not that long ago.

To this day I do not like having a bath and I love the privacy of my shower. Well, fair enough. I mean, I'm not trying to convert the world here. Do you know, really, honestly, it was just in the middle of an interview. It's amazing how much interest it's got. But it's funny. I mean, you obviously, your expertise is property and how people live, but those habits that you're talking about can be so different. And you think it's completely normal for what you're doing. Completely. Well, I discovered there's all sorts of things that I've discovered.

Like there's lots of people who don't open their bedroom window at night. Never. You don't? Never. Although my husband and I have this fight. I can't bear it. The thought of sleeping with the window shut and like inhaling all that kind of like double kind of fumes that is to me that is that's nice there we are you see

isn't that weird I would never sleep with the window shut I mean why do you want to breeze across your face during the night because it's lovely better if there's a big wind and a storm that's even better you're all snugly up under the duvet. Yeah, I can't understand. Imagine, when the thought of waking up being in a room the same temperature as your bed would be really weird. People are very divided. And honestly, half the people sleep with the window shut

unless it's incredibly hot in the summer. And half the people would never sleep with the window shut at all. Well, as previously discussed, and we did have a whole item on this and it carried on going for some time I am regularly very cold so that's my excuse but and other other women have felt the same but perhaps they'll be disgusted at my admission there. Sarah we're not going to get to the bottom of that but thank you for coming on Woman's Hour and talking about your family ablutions so honestly and some people saying of course I do this it's completely normal so are not alone. Far from it. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one.

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