Woman's Hour - Author Melanie Reid, Parenting tips, Intrepid women

Episode Date: March 5, 2019

We talk to Journalist and Author Melanie Reid about her memoir where she gives us an honest account about when she fell from her horse, breaking her neck and fracturing her lower back. Melanie was paralysed from the top of her chest down she spent almost a year in hospital. To help her recover she turned to the one thing she knew, writing to help her navigate her way through a world that had previously been invisible to her. Her book 'The World I fell Out Of' comes out this week.We hear from a Curator involved in an exhibition about the lives of women who carried out anthropological fieldwork around the world in the early twentieth century. Six are being featured in a new exhibition at The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.What queries and problems do you have when it comes to parenting? Author and Psychotherapist Philippa Perry talks about her latest publication ‘The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read’ and answers your questions about how to parent well and give children a healthy start.Producer: Sej Asar

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.

Hi, this is Jane Garvey, and thank you for downloading the Woman's Hour podcast. It's Tuesday the 5th of March 2019. On the podcast today we'll hear about some intrepid women travellers from the early part of the 20th century. You'll get parenting advice from the psychotherapist Philippa Perry and we start with an interview with Melanie Reid who also features at the end of our podcast today. So there's more from her and we hope from her husband, Dave, as well,

who's with us now and I think he's going to be willing to talk. We'll see. I'm looking at him. No. Well, maybe. Maybe he'll be willing to talk towards the end of the podcast. Melanie, as many of you will know, is a columnist in the Saturday Times magazine and her column is called... It's called Spinal Column, isn't it, Melanie, actually?

That's what it's called. Yes. OK, and Melanie started what it's called. Yes. Okay, and Melanie started writing it after a riding accident, how many years ago? Nine years ago. Right, so you can hear that interview as part of the Woman's Hour programme and then at the end of the podcast there'll be more from her including some of your reaction to our conversation. Here we go with the live show.

Good morning and one of our guests this morning is the brilliant Times columnist Melanie Reid. We'll talk to her in a moment. Also on the show today, Philippa Perry, the psychotherapist who's written a new book about parenting. It's called The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read. And Philippa has said to me that she'll take on just about any parenting issue today. So if you've got a question, we've already had some good ones at BBC Women's Hour on Twitter. If you're worried about your parenting issue today. So if you've got a question, we've already had some good ones, at BBC Women's Hour on Twitter. If you're worried about your parenting or your parenting style or there's something you feel you need a bit of advice on, you can make contact with the programme today.

Let's start then with Melanie. I've been always, I must be honest, always wanted to interview you, Melanie, because I have been an avid reader of your column in the Saturday Times magazine, which you started writing after your accident. Just tell us a little bit about how the accident happened. The spinal column started after I took a Friday off to go horse riding, did a head plant over a jump when my horse refused and found myself in the Scottish spinal unit with a broken neck

and staring at the possibility of not being able to work. And I felt like I was reporting from the front line. It was an extraordinary experience. I sort of thought I had to write about this. And my then editor, very kindly, he said, well, let's do this. And the spinal column was born and developed a life of its own. Well, I was contacted on Twitter earlier today by a listener called Sam, who just wanted to let you know how important that column has been to her.

And I know many other people have expressed similar sentiments over the years but she has a daughter who's in a wheelchair and she just said that the column is incredibly helpful to her but she just described it as beautifully written funny and blunt as hell and I think that the blunt as hell is the key phrase well you know that because you spare us nothing no because I've never seen the point of not being honest. And that whole thing about being a war correspondent, you're on the front line. You're in the trenches and there's a lot of sticky brown stuff there. And it's tough. It's tough out there.

You can be blown away. And I always felt, say it like it is, because disability is, it can be grim, it can be funny. And it's largely hidden to the happy, shiny world that most able-bodied people exist in and see reflected back through the mirrors of TV and radio and the media. You know, advertising hoardings, they don't feature people with problems. How soon after the accident, you know, advertising hoardings. They don't feature people with problems. How soon after the accident did you know how seriously hurt you were? Well, the doctors informed us very early on that the likelihood was a wheelchair.

I think Dave was told very quickly. That's your husband? My husband, sorry. Yeah, and it was only after I'd sort of come out from the worst of the morphine, maybe a couple of weeks later, that they told me this. And, of course, I made denial an art form, and I decided I was going to fight it. And that helped in a way, because false hope is better than no hope. I've always believed that.

I continue to believe that. And so I just fought very hard at rehabilitation. And I did improve. My condition did gradually improve because my spinal injury was such that I did get a little bit of nerve recovery and a little bit more mobility than I might have expected. So my condition was better a year later than it looked at the time. a little bit more mobility than I might have expected. So I think my condition was better a year later than it looked at the time. You met a lot of people in that spinal injuries unit.

You were there for a year, which is an enormous chunk of time, in a life that had been very rich and full of people and good times and all sorts of experiences before then. And you write brilliantly well about the mix of people and the mix of circumstances that have brought them there. It's unmakeupable. It is beyond fiction. It's true. There is the whole mix of people to whom disaster happens, and it's so random.

So it's everyone from the highest in the land to the lowest and the most unfortunate people. And we were there alongside each other, the professionals, the aristocrats, the people who are addicted to drinking drugs, the, you know, the villains, the people who've been stabbed. And it was like a maternity unit on steroids because you met absolutely everybody and you got along. You shared the same problems and you got along with each other and you had to laugh at the same grim stuff. And you made friends with the most wonderful people. It was great. I mean, it was one of the upsides was the black humour. But there's also a lot of very, very bad times. The nights at times just sound truly hideous.

Well, they're grim because you have time to think. There are no distractions and you can't move very much, so you just lie there. You exist in your own head and it's not a great place because you're churning over your future and everything and the future is toxic. And I had good advice from other people who'd been through the experience who said just try to live in the moment and focus on getting through the next day

and just do not dwell on what's going to happen because it's too grim to think about. And you'll spoil the moment now if you do that. What makes, in your experience, what makes a good nurse? She's kind. He's kind. There are people who they put themselves a little bit in your shoes and they don't just treat you as another chore they have to tick off but in the same breath I'd like to say that I appreciate exactly how hard they have to work and how they very very rarely almost have time to do that to to to be kind and consider your feelings because they carry such a workload they they are just people with natural warmth who will introduce themselves and they care.

They care that you're comfortable. They approach you with that look on their face that says, what can I do for you instead of why are you bothering me? I've got so many other things to do. And what makes a bad one? Bad ones are the ones who don't empathise, who don't really care about you. Did you meet many of them?

No. No, but the ones you do meet are spectacular. There are one or two that you silently plot their downfall in the small dark hours and you wish you had revenge because they probably don't mean to. They're probably just a bit ignorant maybe and they don't think about other people's feelings. They're not empathetic. But they can have a disproportionately big impact on your stay in hospital. You do write in some detail about your bowels

and about the importance of going to the loo. It's incredibly important. Yeah, bowels matter, yeah. Yeah, and I know you also had a string of bladder infections, didn't you, which have largely now been dealt with. We can talk about that in a moment. But bowels, when you can't do a poo on your own, you have to be helped. And that's a, well, it's a complicated business at times and time-consuming.

It's a crash course in total rock-bottom reality, doubling continents, because when your bowels and your bladder are paralysed, you have to make them work artificially, and that means taking bucketloads of laxatives. And every morning, you were in the hospital you're hoisted onto a shower chair wheeled over a loo

and your bowels are trained through bowel management you're trained to do a poo every morning and then the nurse with the skillful index finger and latex gloves comes round and these are wonderful women. They kneel down and they just put a finger in and they check that you're ready to go for the day.

And upon them depends your happiness and your confidence and your ability to go out and live that day. Because if you live in fear of having an accident, you're not going to go out. So if you get your bowel management right, that's wonderful. But if you don't't then it's awful and you learn to live with that longer term longer term spinal injury people are blithe about it and can handle it but I didn't get that far and you're you now have a colostomy bag don't you which I think has been hugely helpful now have a colostomy bag, don't you, which I think has been hugely helpful.

I had a colostomy and I wear stoma bags. So apologies, yeah. And for me it was transformative because it enabled me to, I can change them myself just with my damaged hands, but I can do it myself. And therefore I don't have to go in a shower chair every morning. And that is like, that was like getting half my life back. That was almost as good as being

able to walk again, because I could live again after that. Your relationship with Dave, who you mentioned, he features very prominently in the column in The Times. He's also a big part of your memoir, The World I Fell Out Of. Your relationship with him is obviously changed by this. It can't be any other way, can it? No, it's like a nuclear explosion. You have to rebuild relationships after it. But he is a wonderful man,

blessed with the most profoundly funny, great sense of humour. He's very blunt. He says it like it is humour and he's very blunt he says it like it is and he's very loyal and he he has evolved into the most fantastic wonderful friend and lover and companion

and our relationship has developed into something which I'm very lucky to have. And I know from other people who've had women who've had spinal injuries whose partners have not been able to cope and have left, just quite how I know how blessed I am. You have mentioned in the past the dynamic when a man is cared for by a woman can often be rather different, can't it? Yeah, because women are so much more,

their instinct for caring is such that they fall in love with, often they fall in love with the person they're caring for. So it's easy for men to cop off with their carers. Well, it does happen, doesn't it? It does, it happens a lot. And that's great. I mean, I'm really, really happy for both of them.

But it's a lot harder for women who are disabled to find a man who... It happens. And, you know, please, I don't want to upset anyone who has a wonderful relationship with a woman who's paralyzed or is finally injured. But it doesn't... Those women are less likely to find a partner and fulfilment. I took a lot away from reading this book, but the thing I really want people to focus on, and I'm sure you'll understand why,

is that you would now give anything. You're a tall woman, you're athletic, you're very striking, and you make it very clear in the book that you wish you could get back those ridiculous periods of time which you devoted to agonising over how you looked, weight, all this utter cobblers that actually just takes up so much headspace. The hours I spent in front of a mirror agonising, if I could put all those together, there'd be years of time I could have spent living, doing sport, running. That, I mean, that's what you never get back. And you don't

realise at the time how much energy you're wasting. Yeah, I just really want people to have a, just have a think about that this morning. This is from Felicity. It's just an email we've received. Listening to your interview with Melanie, I want to add, I followed her column and found it inspiring, even though I haven't got a spinal disability. She's got me through some very difficult times and given me hope, even though my situation is not as bad as hers. I want to pass her book on to my daughter.

Well, I do urge, for a multitude of reasons, people to read this book, not least for that message about not obsessing, sweating the small stuff. Your future is, I guess, dependent on devoting more time to your writing. Do you ever think you would ever go away from the writing? And is the writing, frankly, a huge part of you retaining your sanity? Yes, absolutely. It is my escape. It's a life boy for me. Absolutely. It's a distraction. It gives me something to think about. Otherwise, what would I do? Reading and writing is really what I, it's all physically I'm capable of doing. But I mean, yes, I'm just trying to think about the impact that your column has on people.

And the reaction must be consistent. You get emails and you get tweets and people coming to talk to you all the time, do you? I feel very loved. I mean, I genuinely mean that. It's a fantastic warmth that I get from people and I know I've helped a lot. And I'm very privileged in how much that has helped me in return. And I guess the same wouldn't apply to some of those people you met on that ward in Glasgow over the course of that year. No, and that's the sadness.

I was lucky. I was lucky. Melanie, it's a fantastic book, and I've really enjoyed talking to you, and thank you so much. Thank you, Jane. Melanie Reid is going to be part of the Woman's Hour podcast, which we'll be making available to you later. And any questions you would like me to put in the podcast, which we'll record about 11 o'clock,

you can contact us, of course, at BBC Woman's Hour on Twitter. Melanie, thank you very much. We'll talk again then. So to Philippa Perry, who's here as well this morning. Philippa, good morning to you. Good morning. The author and psychotherapist. And you're here, really, to discuss parenting

in all its many challenging forms. I am. Yes, your daughter is how old? 26. Right, okay. Well, so you know everything. It's all fine. I don't know everything as I found out when I was babysitting this Sunday and... What happened then? Well, we had to put an awful lot of energy into the soothing part because

the little person we were babysitting really did want his mummy. Right, and she wasn't available, but you were. And she wasn't available. Is it possible, actually, at any time, to judge another parent and their parenting? I don't think it's a great idea because we don't know what's gone beforehand. And quite often often when we

judge a parent what we're doing is just trying to feel better about ourselves because parenting is so difficult it's so tricky it's so you just when you think you've got it you find you haven't got it so if you see someone else failing you can think oh I'm not that bad and judge them and um we don't know what their childhood was like compared to their childhood they might be doing brilliantly so we shouldn't judge i had exactly that experience last week in a shop um when i looked at a woman who was frankly shouting at her primary school age child and i went home feeling rather smug and a lot happier that's appalling isn't it what i do in those situations is go to the mother and go, are you having a bad day?

And then I interrupt the shouting and maybe I can soothe the mother who can then soothe the child rather than judge the mother. It's going to make everything worse, isn't it? Let me go through some of the questions that have come in for you. Here's one. I don't need to mention any names this morning. I won't mention any names, by the way, so if you want to get involved, rest assured, you'll be anonymous. What to do with a testosterone-fuelled 13-year-old boy who wavers between delightful and funny,

still wants to be kissed and tucked in at night, but then there are awful moments of aggression when he towers above me and uses his size to intimidate and snaps at reasonable requests. Help. Well, just because you think he's using his size to intimidate doesn't mean he is. We often slip up by thinking we know other people's motivations. And what we can do in a situation like that is not when the flash is happening, but at another time say, I have this problem, because when you put down boundaries for children,

define yourself and not the child. I have this problem. When you tower over me like that, when you're angry, I feel this. And what I would like instead is if we could thrash out any problems face to face rather than you being taller than me because I get scared. Define yourself, not the child. Define yourself, OK. Yeah. Define yourself, not the child.

Right. So you take me. Tell me a bit more about that. OK. that because I'm okay when we're putting down boundaries with children because we all have our limits and we need to put a boundary down before we get to our limit it's a really good idea to not define the child like say you are doing this to me because nobody likes to be defined and perhaps he's not trying to intimidate perhaps he's no idea that he's intimidating. But if we define ourself and say, I prefer it when we're talking, we're face to face,

so can we sit down because you're so much taller than me and I'm getting a crick in my neck or I feel intimidated or whatever it is. It's much easier to hear when someone's defining themselves rather than if they're defining you. Okay, question from Jessica. Do you have any thoughts or advice on sleep issues? There's so much stigma attached to controlled crying, especially in regards to attachment.

What would you say about that? I think there's no getting away from the time we have to spend with our children. So we can put it in positively at first, rather than trying to repair things we've got wrong later on. And a child who associates bed with cosy comfort, being snuggled, is more likely to want to go to bed or want to go to sleep than one who is associating it with loneliness, desperation, a feeling of falling and a feeling of not being held. So rather than sleep training, which is when you actually manipulate the child into not crying, and you want a relationship with your child, you don't want a relationship based on manipulation.

No, but on the other hand, you do want to kip. Okay, I'm coming to that. So what you can do is rather than encourage the child to sleep outside of their comfort zone, so when they get really, really stressed, is to nudge them towards sleeping within their comfort zone. So that means if the only way at the moment is your base comfort zone for the child is to say you're nursing them at your breast, just do one step at a time and take the child off the breast and stroke the head instead. And then you do the next, when they're comfortable with that, then you do the next step. So it's steps to separate within their comfort zone, not beyond it. It takes a bit longer, but that way the child keeps associating nighttime with nice things rather than horrible things.

We learn by what we associate experiences with. So if we want a child to do something, it's best if they associate lovely, warm, loving feelings with it rather than being scared or being alone or being lonely. And that applies at any age and every age, presumably. Well, it applies to me. Laura says, how do you raise a kind child? I think that's a really good question. Well, if I was just to say to you, Jane, be kind. Yeah, probably wouldn't work. You'd, and I said that to you all the time, you'd probably learn, be aggressive, because children do as they are done to.

And it takes a long time for them to pick it up. And sometimes you think they're never going to. But if we demonstrate kindness, if we demonstrate thinking about other people's feelings, especially our child's feelings, then they will eventually pick it up. Children do ape those around them. And you have, you know, the early couple of years or three years, they're only around people that you can um you know control who they're around and so you can make sure that they are surrounded by kindness and they will pick it up it will take long and we need optimism that they will pick it up but but they do sometimes we really do need optimism another question here um what about introducing independence into a child's life? And how can you nurture whilst also creating that environment of independence or the possibility of independence? We needn't be in a rush to be independent, for our children to be independent, because they want to be independent.

And the best way we can nurture independence is by not pushing our children away. The more we push them away, whether it's at night, whether it's to go to a party independently or whatever it is, the more they cling to us. If we are always there to go back to, they feel more confident to take little forays out into the world. So if you're at the playground and there's a nice little safe fence all the way around it, just sit on the bench. Let them go away from you and then come back to you. And they will naturally want to explore. And if they feel sure that you're always going to be there when they come back, then they get a lot more independent. Can I talk about screens? Because I know there's been a burning desire for people to just learn how they approach the child who cries when their iPad is taken away from them. Well what children need and what we all need is a sense of connection, a sense of being involved and before the advent of screens

we got this sense of connection by being with each other or playing games with each other. And parents, too, love their screens because it can be lonely looking after a little baby or a toddler. So you do get a sense of, you know, you can chat with your friends on Facebook. You get the sense of connection, which is absolutely lovely and we all love it. But I think what is good is we set the example as early as we can of connecting with the child rather than getting our sense of connection via a screen. We're the grown-up. We can show self-discipline when it comes to our screens. OK, I suppose I want to really put myself inside the household where we have developed, for whatever reason, a lifestyle which does occasionally mean too many screens.

OK. And that the child could be a boy, could be a girl, simply is desperate to be on their iPad. Well, you know, because it's gone on now for, we're entering hour three. Yeah. And yes, it is raining outside. What do you do? You define yourself. I'm not happy with you being on the screen so long. So I'm going to take it away.

I'll let you finish this game. And then I'm going to take it away because I don't like you being on the screen that long. Do you want to help me make lunch or do you want to play a board game? Well, they'll say no. They won't want to play. Nobody wants to play. I mean, no one wants to play a board game. All right.

If you don't want to play, you'll say no. They won't want to play it. Nobody wants to play it. I mean, no one wants to play a board game. All right, if you don't want to play Gordale, you don't know, I'm sure you're very resourceful and you'll find something to do that isn't a screen, but I'm not happy with you being on a screen. You don't have to be entertainment's officer. And if you are not happy with a child on a screen, you can say so and take the screen away. And if they're unhappy, you can soothe them.

I can see you're furious that I've taken your screen away. I'm sorry about that. It's no getting away people having feelings. And we have to be alongside our children when they're having feelings, even if we're finding those feelings inconvenient. And we have to help them articulate them. Just one very quick one. If your child has a fear you believe is irrational or frankly it is irrational what do you do about that well the fear what they're saying that that you know perhaps it's monsters under the bed yeah something like that and we know there's no monsters under the bed however their fear is real even if the reason they're giving to it is the best narrative they can come up with at the time for that fear. So we should hear the fear and take that fear seriously.

Always take it seriously. Take the feeling seriously, even if the content doesn't make any sense. Really interesting. Good advice from Philippa Perry. And there'll be more in the Women's Hour Parenting Podcast. Now, this edition of the Parenting Podcast will be available next week, but you can pitch in if you want to at BBC Women's Hour on Twitter. Now let's talk about intrepid women. There's an exhibition at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford celebrating the work of early 20th century women travellers. These women who carried

out this really important anthropological fieldwork at a time when the whole thing was very male dominated indeed. One of the curators of Intrepid Women, Fieldwork in Action, is Julianne Nicholson. We'll hear from her in a moment or two, but first, have a listen to this. This is a short clip from the legendary explorer Freya Stark. I think I was a traveller from birth because I always ran away as a small child and had to be searched for and brought back by my parents.

And my people, they walked over the Dolomites when we were babies, my sister and I, and carried by the guide in a basket. So the travelling was brought out in us quite young. That is the voice of Freya Stark from the Woman's Hour archive, which, as you'll know, is pretty remarkable. And Freya was on the programme in 1976. Freya Stark is the name we know. And the point of your exhibition is to draw attention to the names we should know. What sort of women were they? They were probably like Freya Stark. They were from privileged backgrounds. One can't pretend that. But they did absolutely extraordinary things. There are six of them, but they all, they were doing fieldwork in very different parts of the world and over quite

a long period of time. In fact, the latest one in the exhibition is still alive. That's Audrey Buck Colson, who worked in the 1950s, particularly in South America. And what was she looking at there? She was working with the Akawa'o people in Guyana and working with them on fieldwork for anthropological fieldwork. So recording their daily lives, recording what they did and collecting artefacts from there. She also made extraordinary films and audio recordings there. And there's some footage of her doing audio recording of children in 1950s. She must be delighted by the fact that the exhibition is on. She's absolutely thrilled, actually, that the exhibition has broadcast her film from the 1950s,

and particularly because she really wants to highlight the Akwaeo people and their claim for legal title to their ancestral lands, which is a pretty hot topic, actually. Yes. Audrey is still alive then. Let's go back in time to the very earliest intrepid female traveller you're celebrating. Yes, the earliest was Barbara Ferreira Moreco. And she's particularly noticeable because she bought the bullet.

And in 1906, she was the first woman to sign up and enrol on the Oxford Anthropology Diploma. Now, at that time, women weren't recognised at all. In fact, they were given a very difficult time at Oxford then. They were not given undergraduate degrees until 1920, which is a bit weird to think of now. But she signed up in 1906 to do the diploma. She was the only woman to do it. But in the end, she was the only woman to get a distinction in it. As I say, at this time, Oxford University was really institutionally somewhat a hostile environment for women. Yeah, we shouldn't forget that, should we? Not only were these women brave in their travelling,

they'd actually had to use an enormous amount of courage to get to Oxford. Absolutely, not easy at all. I mean, I'd heard that women who were studying in Oxford in some of the women's colleges, they could go there, they could study, but they couldn't even talk to other undergraduates who were male, which seems a bit bizarre now, even if they were their own brothers. So I'm sorry, that is utterly ridiculous. They were not allowed to communicate verbally with any other undergraduate, even their own brother. Absolutely. So that's difficult to imagine now. It is a little hard to imagine. Tell me about somebody else, Ursula Graham Bower.

Ursula Graham Bower was a bit later on in the proceedings. She first went to the Naga Hills and Manipur in 1937. She was actually quite young then, she was 23. And she was invited by a friend, Alexa MacDonald, to visit her brother, who was working in the Indian Civil Service in Imphal, which is the kind of colonial service but actually that that plan of hers did not work out at all instead Ursula fell in love with the Naga Hills and the people of the Naga Hills and certainly didn't sort of shack up with a man from the colonial office she got really obsessed with it from the very first time she went into the hills once she was back in England she tried to work out how on earth she could could return to the Naga Hills and Manipur but it it wasn't the easiest for her. I mean, we think of discrimination in different ways, but she hadn't been able to finish her schooling. And she'd really wanted to go to university, but in fact, both of her brothers went to university, but there wasn't enough family

money for her to go to university. So she was never able to finish her formal education. But she decided that she would just write to various anthropologists in the UK to see what on earth could be done by somebody who has no proper qualifications. And she'd taken a few snaps when she was first out in Nagaland and showed them to the Royal Geographical Society, and they turned out to be quite a lot better than she'd thought. And once she'd written to these anthropologists, they wrote to her really positively, saying that actually very little photography had been done in the Manor of Poor Hills and good sets of still photographs or better still cine film illustrating sort of craft processes would be welcome so that opened a door for her to go back to the Naga Hills and start you know doing photography she also got a bit of

an entree because when she went back she went back with her camera and movie equipment, but was told that she could travel around the Naga Hills to quite remote areas with a medical assistant who dispensed medicines to remote villages. And so that gave her an avenue to work within those villages. Now, you mentioned the possibility of acquiring a husband along life's highway. I think it's fair to say that actually husbands were not always terribly helpful, were they? I don't think husbands were helpful. I mean, she very much worked on her own. I mean, she obviously met lots of people,

but no, she travelled on her own except for with the compounder who was the dispenser. She'd also been told by various people, mostly men, she couldn't possibly hack doing this. She couldn't do the walking. She wouldn't be able to deal with those hill areas. She wouldn't be able to stand all that intense hilly walking. So, but she thought, I'll just do it anyway. What about the difficulty these women had when they returned to the UK in being taken seriously? They had been to some incredible

places, but did people actually want to hear about what they'd seen? I don't know, actually. Some of them did publish their writings, including Ursula Brembaugh, who we've just spoken about. She wanted to write a popular book to try and deal with the misunderstandings between the British and the Naga people. And her book, Naga Path, was really popular and I think showed that community as real people

rather than just ciphers. And so that did get quite a lot of interest. And other of the women did have published volumes, but very few of them got formal places as academic positions. In later life? In later life. One of them, in fact, was things were so bad for her. She's not actually featured in this exhibition, but there is a small display of her still on display in the museum.

And what's her name? Her name is Maria Czapliska And she did her fieldwork in Siberia in 1914 and 15. And she'd had some entrees for academic work. She'd already published two books and had been seen as a really exceptional scholar. But when she got back to the UK, she could not really find a position. And in the 1930s, she committed suicide, a combination of personal things, but also the fact that she couldn't get a job. And wasn't taken seriously. Wasn't taken seriously. What about the fact, we've got to look at this through 21st century eyes. were nevertheless white, upper middle class in most cases, and venturing into parts of the world that may or may not have wanted them to be there. Do you have misgivings about all this now?

In a way, I do, especially when you hear somebody's voice like Freya Stark. And actually, I've not heard the voices of some of these women, but they were definitely privileged women. It was an unequal relationship that they had with the communities they worked with. But I think on the whole, their input was valued. And in fact, there was a letter that came to a friend of her daughter's because Ursula Graham Bower's daughter, Catriona Child,

still lives in Delhi and visits Nagaland a lot, saying that they were going to do a Zemei Olympics, a Zemei Naga Olympics in November 2019. And they wanted Alison Khan, who's an academic and has worked a lot with Katriona Child, to do the filmmaking for that Olympics. And they definitely recognised absolutely that people should not overlook the input and help

that they were given by Ursula Graham Bauer when she was with them in the 1930s and 1940s. It's really good to be able to bring some attention to those women who I think richly deserve it, actually. They really were incredibly brave. And that exhibition is called Intrepid Women, Fieldwork in Action. It's at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and you can see photographs from it on our Instagram page,

if you follow us, or feed. If you follow us on Instagram, it's at BBC Woman's Hour, of course, just like it is on Twitter. Now, you might well know, certainly those of you who live in and around London, that it's the Women of the World Festival at the South Bank Centre in London over this forthcoming weekend. And there are two themes, really, for the Saturday and the Sunday this year, what now and what next?

And that gives us an opportunity on the programme today to discuss leadership, particularly leadership initiatives and programmes for indigenous women. And I'm delighted to say that with us is a woman who has shattered quite a few glass ceilings. It's Vonda Malone. Welcome to the programme, Vonda. Thank you. The first ever female indigenous mayor of Torres Shire Council. You were elected in 2016. Yes. Now, the Taurus Straits Islands are where exactly?

So they're remote islands off the far north Queensland, far north Queensland in Australia. So it's about an hour off the Australian mainland and it's a number of islands, about 100 that scatter between that all the way to the Australian PNG Papua New Guinea border. Right. I mean, that gives people a really good idea of where exactly you're from. It's brilliant to have you here. Also with us is Dr. Sandra Phillips, who's coordinator of Indigenous PhD programs at the University of Technology in Sydney. Welcome to you too,

Sandra. Good morning. Before we hear a bit more from Vonda about about her story why is it so important to have programs like the one you run at the university to try and get women to take these qualifications? So I will clarify that the access opportunities are open to Indigenous women and men. What we find though in higher education in Australia that women take up the opportunities at a higher rate and also with greater success. So we do have quite a number of Indigenous women in our research masters and research PhD programmes. And we also have quite a good rate of Indigenous

academic employment of women, comparing quite favourably nationally. And it's so important, of course, to get the qualifications. In fact, our previous feature was a part of that as well. It's about women being taken seriously and opening up the opportunities for them. Oh, absolutely. And ensuring that we can bring through different perspectives. So it's not just about participation for the sake of participation, but it's about ensuring that a range of robust, dynamic perspectives that are informed by empirical research or by coherent thought get, you know, get time to develop, get time to be made coherent and be able to then be translated and communicated effectively. So I think, you know, ensuring that we have robust perspectives about all aspects of society at the local and global levels is really important. Well, Wanda, you must have, you're from an island called Thursday

Island. You must have, growing up, known some female authority figures, not least in your own family, of course. Yeah, I guess we were quite isolated in the area that we are, so we didn't have TV till quite late. And so we weren't exposed to what's out there. We were actually 10 years behind the Australian mainland. And so my, I guess, main role models were within my family, being my mother, being a very strong woman, as well as my grandmother. And I guess that resilience and persistence as I've inherited that. Yeah. But the mayor presumably would always have been a man back in the day? Most definitely, because we come from a very strong patriarchal community and culturally.

So it's very rare and unusual to have women in the positions that I am in. Yeah, and I guess too that you, I think, went for election. You failed the first time. Second time, you actually went back for more. Did you ever consider quitting the first time when you didn't win? No, I think it was a very good experience. It just exposed me and gave me more motivation to get the, I guess, more experience behind me and be a bit more equipped to deal with the community

matters that I'm dealing with now. Well, we'll talk about some of them in a minute because you have real challenges in your part of the world. Just a brief word, Sandra, last week on the programme, we actually talked about British Muslim women and the failure effectively of white feminism to embrace them properly. What would you say about that from your perspective? I think it's really important to not compete around who perhaps is more oppressed by the patriarchy and its twin white supremacy. So it's important that we develop ways, patterns of thinking that ensure that, you know, the prototype white middle-class woman isn't centred as the prototype woman,

in the same way that the 70-kilogram Caucasian man aged 25 to 30 is considered the universal human being. So we have to ensure that white feminism or mainstream feminist movements don't kind of make the same mistakes that patriarchy continues to make. How are things in Australia in terms of the way white feminists might treat you, Sandra? What would you say? Can I mention something else, Jane?

And this may then fold back on answering that particular question, that in Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are 21 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Indigenous Australian women. That's a pretty devastating statistic, isn't it? Yeah. So then in terms of looking at mainstream feminism, is that a burning issue for mainstream feminism?

I don't know. Probably. I suggest it isn't. Okay. I take your point, although it should be. Yeah. Wanda, your particular challenge in terms of climate change is just formidable, isn't it?

Just explain what's been happening. So a lot of our communities are very low-lying. And so particularly in the monsoonal period, which is what we're experiencing now at this time of the year, we do have coastal inundation. So those communities are, in 20 to 30 years from now, really prone to inundation. And that means that those communities, I guess the make-up of those communities and connection to that land is very susceptible to climate change.

But what can you do? The things that we have been advocating with both the state and federal governments is about, I guess, creating resilience within our communities to best plan for the future event around climate change. We understand that we do have a role to play in our communities, but at the same time, have the greater message out there that climate change is not only an issue for us in the islands of the Torres Strait, but it is something bigger and the Australian government and the world will need

to make those measures around addressing or mitigating some of those issues around climate change. Right. It is an incredible task before you. And a brief word, Sandra, if you don't mind, on what you're going to be talking about at WOW over the weekend. It's effectively your perspective on global leadership and the way you're dealing with it. Yes, and I referred to local and global before as if they may well be distinct things,

but I think characteristics of leadership can function at the local level as well as they can at the global level. So I think we're seeing a failure of leadership at all levels currently. And some of the characteristics of, Vonda and I have been talking about this, throwing the ideas around. What are the characteristics of good leadership? And I think capacity building others is an important part of being a good leader. That you can't be a leader without peers and without strong and robust communities. Right.

Well, I wish you both the very best of luck in building everything that you've got to do practically and intellectually as well. Thank you both very much. Dr. Sandra Phillips and Vonda Malone, they are both speaking at the Women of the World Festival at the Southbank Centre in London this Saturday. So it'd be very interesting to hear more from them if you're interested in what they had to say. speaking at the Women of the World Festival at the Southbank Centre in London this Saturday. So it'll be very interesting to hear more from them if you're interested in what they had to say. And actually, it was really important stuff,

so who wouldn't be interested? Melanie Reid is still here, as I promised, and so is Dave. And Dave, I think now is your time to say, to acknowledge that you are actually with us. Yes, I'm here in the flesh. Thank you, Jean. Slightly reluctant, but I think... Is he normally like this, Melanie? No, absolutely not. No, I didn't in the flesh. Thank you, Jean. Slightly reluctant, but I think, is he normally like this, Melanie? No, absolutely not.

No, I didn't think he would be. He's normally the, he's the head of entertainment. You're right. Okay. Can I just read some of the emails we've had about your interview, Melanie? This is from Andrew. Listening to Melanie, I am struck at how spot on her description of the social interactions within a spinal injuries unit is. It is such a leveling

place for those from all backgrounds young and old carers and patients alike i am an anaesthetist and my time on a spinal injuries unit as a student nurse was one of the most rewarding and thought provoking periods of my life my experiences then still inform my actions today at work and at play. This is from Alison, inspiring and chastening. I also get the message about how important being listened to is. It's mentally and physically torturous. I'm particularly thinking of poor 60-year-olds who can't retire as promised and nobody listens to their cries of pain and anger.

From Jackie, thank you, Melanie, for helping me cope with my illness, which has kept me isolated for 20 years. Her column often mirrors my feelings and also mirrors my sense of humour. I hope your book comes in audio form, as I'm not able to concentrate on long passages of print. Well, it will come, won't it? I've done my own. I actually read it myself.

I was going to ask you about that. You can say it. Yes. Audible. Yes. Andrew Marr did too. He recorded the foreword and I read the audible.

Right. And how long did that take? That's quite a task, isn't it? Four days from 9.30 to 5.00 and it was exhausting. Yeah, I can really imagine. Not least because you are reliving your own experience. Yeah, there were a few very damp patches. Plus also, it's hard because when you get tired, you slump and that slumps your breathing and you can't elucidate as well. Yeah. Physically tiring.

Well, I'm really glad that Jackie makes that point because it is important that this book in particular comes out as an audiobook so people who can't concentrate for whatever reason will be able to hear what you've got to say. And Dave, you have read some of this book, although I gather not all of it yet. Yeah, I've read about two thirds of it and the last third, I found it

quite sad and the things that I didn't realise that were going on in Melanie's head when she was alone in the hospital in the night and the realisation of what was to come or not it made me want to weep, to be honest. And, you know, I always thought

I was a tough guy, having worked in newspapers in Glasgow for the vast majority of my life, that I would be able to withstand that sort of thing. But it really made me quite almost weak and just wanted to avert my gaze from the book so someday I'll finish the last third but you know here we are where we are and I keep saying that but it's a fact every day is a challenge every time we go out I've got to look ahead to do a recce to see if the wheelchair will go over the gravel and people will say our house is absolutely free of steps you'll get in alright

but then you get to a step and you can't get the wheelchair over things like that you just don't think about as an able-bodied person and Melanie and I are very much our own people before this accident and we didn't rely on anybody's help think about as an able-bodied person and Melanie and I are very much our own people when before this accident and we didn't rely on anybody's help. I was going to ask about that because now inevitably Melanie other people are a part of your everyday life aren't they? Yes I have a carer

who comes every morning and she's great she helps me wash and dress and then she leaves um but but there is no doubt that you you lose your some of your privacy your privacy as as a family unit as a couple is intruded upon uh but it's another reason i feel guilty because it's it's a you know dave has has lost that Dave has lost that, but we do make the best of it. The bit, I keep remembering bits of the book. You do talk, and I think it's important that people know this. If you're in a wheelchair, you can get trapped at social events, can't you? Talk about that, Melanie, because it is important. People need to know this.

Well, my new knowledge is that hell is being at a cocktail party or one of these sort of standy upy talky upy talky things yes uh because in a wheelchair and a crowded one because in a wheelchair you can't move around you get trapped and people will come and talk to you and they're often very very kind but conversations outlive their natural life because these people feel they can't then sort of leave you and move on to somebody else because they're sort of deserting the disabled person and so you're uh you know if i left her she wouldn't have anyone talk to talk to me this is making me cringe but i think it's really important well well so people people uh and and then you get the very, boring and rather worthy people who think they'll come and talk to you.

And it's lovely to talk to them, but those conversations outlive their life too. And you can't escape because you can't suddenly, as you can when you're on your feet and you can just sort of swing around and say, oh, I must go and refresh. Can I get you another drink? That old trick. Can I go to, or I need must go and refresh. Can I get you another drink? That old trick. Can I go to, or I need to go to the loo or slip away. But you can't do that in a wheelchair because, you know, you'd need someone to part the Red Sea and go through.

And plus you're at fart height and people will fart and move away. I really hadn't thought about that. Not being a person who farts, that had never occurred to me. Very few people do, do they? Well, actually, genuinely, Melanie, I don't very often, but that's really not what we're supposed to be talking about. All of this is a world, of course, of which you knew nothing.

Oh, nobody does. Nobody does. In the top world, the top world, when you're happy, shiny, healthy, fit people, nobody knows about it. It's not until you plunge down into the bottom world that you realise what it's like down there. And I was as ignorant and complacent as anybody. Yeah. Well, I guess we're all guilty of both of those things. Dave, this is a terrible

question but I'm going to ask it anyway. What have you learned about yourself Dave in the last slightly less than a decade? I try not to think too much about myself. I never in a million years would have believed that I could deal with human waste. I had difficulty when I was a young father dealing with the baby's nappies. I honestly never thought I could deal with that, but the situation was there, and some of it was horrific at times, both for Melanie and me.

I mean, the dignity of poor Melanie just was right out the window, having to be hosed down and the tears. So what I learned about myself was sort of grit your teeth, get on with it, don't think about it. It has to be done. There is no choice. Nobody else is going to come along and say,

oh, I'll do that. So it's between the two of you. And in a strange kind of way, it's brought us even closer together. So that was something else I discovered. But in fact, when Melanie at one point shocked me when she said, I think you should leave me. You didn't sign up for this. I thought she was throwing me out because

she didn't fancy me anymore. It never entered my mind for a nanosecond that I would walk away from that situation. And that has taught me something. I was going to say keep my mouth shut and just get on with it, but here I am rambling

on. Well, you're not rambling on. I'm trying very hard not to be made tearful by you, Dave, but I'm not going to let it happen because I'm like you. Well, we're all brutal northerners in here, so we're not going to let that happen. But I hugely admire you both, and it's been really fascinating to talk to you and just to get just a tiny idea of what it's been like for Melanie

and indeed for you. But I'm conscious this is Woman's Hour. And if I give you too much credit, Dave, people will object. But you can give him some credit, can't you, Melanie? You're allowed to. Yeah. I mean, a man who should never have been a carer has become a carer. And he's really very good at it. Right. I think we'll let you have the final word on that one.

Thank you both very much. And Jenny is here tomorrow with the programme and the podcast. Hello, I'm Greg Foot and I'm hosting a new Radio 4 podcast called The Best Things Since Sliced Bread. Have you ever wondered what's fact and what's fad when it comes to wonder products? Face creams,

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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.

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