Woman's Hour - Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Going away with friends, Potty training

Episode Date: May 11, 2019

Cellist, songwriter and singer Ayanna Witter-Johnson performs her track Unconditionally from her new album Road Runner.It’s nearly a year since Ireland voted in a referendum to change its law on abortion. The majority who cast their vote last May wanted to repeal the Eighth Amendment and liberalise the law. So what is the abortion provision like now and how have the changes been rolled out? We’ll hear from Dr Rhona Mahony the Executive Director of Women’s Health in Ireland, Sinead Gleeson is a writer and essayist and Susan Lohan is a member of the Collaborative Forum on Mother and Baby Homes.What's the appeal of a weekend away with female friends - and what stresses can it put on friendship? The actor Arabella Weir and Tianna Johnson the founder of Black Girls Camping Trip discuss.An estimated 5000 women a year around the world are killed through so called honour killings by a member of their own family. The investigative journalist Lene Wold tells us about her new book, Inside An Honour Killing, where a father and daughter tell their story.We hear from listeners about how attitudes to food affect what - and how much - we eat, and from the registered nutritionist Laura Thomas.Travel writers Kathi Kamleitner and Gail Simmons tell us why they love solitary hiking.What are the do’s and don’ts of potty training? What has changed over the generations? We hear from the Potty Training Consultant Rebecca Motram and from Christina Hardyment the author of Dream Babies.Presented by Jenni Murray Produced by Rabeka Nurmahomed Edited by Jane ThurlowInterviewed guest: Rhona Mahony Interviewed guest: Sinead Gleeson Interviewed guest: Susan Lohan Interviewed guest: Arabella Weir Interviewed guest: Tianna Johnson Interviewed guest: Lene Wold Interviewed guest: Ayanna Witter-Johnson Interviewed guest: Kathi Kamleitner Interviewed guest: Gail Simmons Interviewed guest: Rebecca Motram Interviewed guest: Christina Hardyment

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Good afternoon. The Netflix film Wine Country was shown last night. Does a weekend with the girls always involve drinking, dancing, singing and a bit of falling out? There was a fight once about who was going to sleep on the bed underneath the window. And I don't even think we were drunk at that point. But then the people I'm closest to are the people I was at school with. So we kind of replicate what we were doing when we were 15. Arabella Weir and Tiana Johnson shared their experiences. Ayanna Witter-Johnson plays her cello, Rubin, and sings Unconditional, inspired by her mother. We hear from you in the phone-in about how you choose

what you're going to eat. The Norwegian journalist Lena Vold describes her meetings with a Jordanian father who killed his elder daughter and the younger daughter who was maimed but survived. How does he justify killing for honour? Liverpool fans have given us You'll Never Walk Alone as an earworm this week. What about the women who love to walk alone? And potty training. Why has the no nappy, hold the baby over the toilet from birth method become fashionable again? There's a very good thing called grunt and run I believe. You notice what the baby's doing and of course it does require pretty full-time close attention from a parent and that is in a sense why the whole thing went out of fashion because women were doing all sorts

of other things. And we'll find out what those other things were. Now Tuesday's programme came from the meeting room in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin on the anniversary of the referendum which enabled the change in the law on abortion. In January, it became legal to have an abortion in Ireland up to 12 weeks. But how smoothly has it been rolled out? Well, Jane spoke to the writer and essayist Sinead Gleeson, Susan Lohan, a member of the Collaborative Forum on Mother and Baby Homes, and Dr Rona Marnie, the Executive Director of Women's Health in Ireland East. had been very uncertain before that vote as to what the outcome would be. A lot of people had been very quiet about their views. We had the usual debate. People described that referendum as being very divisive, but actually it wasn't. It was quite an informed debate, and I think we do

have to look back at the history of it. We look back to 1983 when the Eighth Amendment was put into the Constitution, which effectively stymied any ability to legislate for abortion. And that was a really divisive debate. I was 11. I still remember it. And a lot of misinformation, a lot of emotion. This time around, we'd had quiet voices of women for many years who'd taken cases to the European courts, but more importantly, many women who'd travelled to have a termination of pregnancy.

And so many women in Ireland had direct experience of travelling, usually to the UK, for termination of pregnancy. And so many women in Ireland had direct experience of travelling, usually to the UK, for termination. So we were quite au fait with this subject. We were quite aware of it. And then coming up to this referendum, we had the Citizens' Assembly, where we had a group of citizens taken from, if you like, all walks of life who grappled with this.

And in fact, their recommendations were far more liberal than anyone had anticipated. Yeah. I'm interested. of life who grappled with this and in fact their recommendations were far more liberal and than anyone had anticipated yeah um i'm interested there's a your book constellations you know it is is brilliant and there's a paragraph i just want to draw people's attention to reproductive health is about autonomy agency choice and heard it's also about money class access and privilege ireland's history for women is the history of our bodies. We should say, of course, that abortion in Britain in 1967 was the Abortion Act. And before then, if you had a few quid, you could get a safe abortion, but not if you didn't have any money.

And this issue is sometimes we forget, don't we? Yeah, forget that the 1967 Abortion Act, while it applies to UK, doesn't apply to Northern Ireland and still doesn't. And we've had a couple of convictions for women who've taken tablets. We've had a mother up in court for trying to procure tablets for her 15-year-old daughter, who was in an abusive relation, but mother and daughter didn't want this pregnancy to go ahead. In my experience, I mean, I thought in my lifetime we would never have this vote. I'd really started to think that we wouldn't. And I have a daughter and thought about her life and how it would be.

But it is about money and it is about class. If you have the money to take a cheap flight, it used to be the ferry. If you're undocumented, if you're in direct provision in this country, if you're not wealthy, if you're in an abusive relationship where you can't slip away for a couple of days. And the law as it stands, while it is a huge change and important, is still only up to 12 weeks. Not everybody knows that they're pregnant by 12 weeks. So it's still quite problematic.

I do think it's important that we acknowledge those who didn't want to repeal the 8th. Let's hear from a young woman, Christine Nilové. She's 22 and she voted no to repealing the 8th. The danger of having abortion laws and allowing for abortion in a country is that it's kind of like an easy way out that they say, well, we're providing choice for women,

they can have an abortion now. I mean, like, where were the committees on adoption laws? Where were the committees on supports for women? They were only committees on abortion and I think that, as a society, we shouldn't be settling for that. And that is why when we have abortion in our country the government isn't under as much pressure

to provide the other supports there for women. Susan Lohan, from your perspective, what do you think of that? Well, Adoption Rights Alliance and our sister organisation Justice for Magdalene Research we unequivocally supported women's choice in in the last referendum and we would have encouraged people to uh to vote to repeal the eighth i find it very interesting and listening to recordings such as you just played the adoption argument is always trotted out and why aren't we supporting and why don't such women access state supports. Of course, the evidence is irrefutable.

We have never supported women in pregnancy in Ireland, particularly those who were unmarried. And the international evidence is that where abortion is available, adoption rates remain fairly static. It's not the actual pregnancy per se, the choice whether to continue or not, that women are contemplating when they're contemplating adoption. The main issue is how will they proceed once the child is born? Will they have sufficient funds?

Will they have accommodation? Because landlords weren't going to allow any of those hussies into their bedsits. So mention of supports is highly exaggerated, I think. So progress. What do you want to see happening now? Well, I think there's a rush within government, which we found in the collaborative forum, which was a group of 19 individuals directly affected either by their own stay in a mother and child institution or a relative's stay in one of those places. So we want everybody affected by these issues to have access to all of their personal information.

We want them to have access to institutional files so they can actually ascertain the human rights abuses they suffered. It's quite detailed, really. For the benefit of people listening in Britain who may not be completely aware For the benefit of people listening in Britain who may not be completely aware of the scale of this, you gave me an incredible statistic before the programme started. What was that? Yeah, in 1967 the official Irish government figure for adoption was that 97% of all non-marital children were taken for adoption. Now that's a figure that eclipses other Catholic countries

like Italy and Spain by a factor of maybe 30%. So we're looking at a forced adoption regime in Ireland, which of course no Irish politician will ever utter those words. And last May, we had the special UN rapporteur on children's exploitation, and particularly the sale of children. She met with us and she very much took on board all's exploitation and particularly the sale of children she met with us and she very much took on board all of our comments about the sale and trafficking of Irish children to the US and particularly on a cross-border basis from north to south or south to north so the UN is very very frustrated with successive Irish governments. They want a prompt, timely investigation into these matters and similar areas such as the Magdalen laundries.

Susan Lohan, Sinead Gleeson and Dr Rona Marnie. Last night, a new film was released on Netflix called Wine Country. It's about a group of friends who go away for a weekend in Napa Valley, home of many of California's vineyards, and they're up for celebrating a 50th birthday with some wine tasting. Let me know what you smell. There's no wrong answers. Green apple? Yeah. Yes. Very good. Green apple. I want to say canned peaches. No. You said there was no wrong answer.

Yeah, but, you know, peaches. There was no peaches in there. Okay. What else you got? Oh, lemon. Yes, very good. Oh, I taste the lemon, yeah. You don't taste it, you smell it.

Grapes. Well, yeah, of course. Nice. That's smart. Definitely, yeah, of course. Nice. That's smart. Definitely grapes in there. Can't go wrong with that. Jasmine. Well, that's egregious.

Pinot egregious. Thank you. You're killing it. I'm going to eat this. Oh, we lost Mason. Well, the film was directed by Amy Poehler and she's in it, as are Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph and a number of other female comedians

and inevitably, along with the drinking, singing, laughing and dancing, there is a degree of tension among the friends. Why do weekends away with friends tend to follow a similar pattern, but lots of us continue to do them? Well, Tiana Johnson is

the founder of Black Girls Camping Trip, and the actor and writer Arabella Weir likes a weekend away with the girls. Arabella, why do you like a weekend away with the girls? It's probably the most honest I can be. You know, you're just at your least guarded. You're not holding your stomach in because it's a new boyfriend or anything like that. You're just at your least guarded you're not holding your stomach in because it's a new boyfriend or anything like that you're just completely there are no expectations other than you being there. Why Tiana did you set up Black Girls Camping Trip? I think that when going away and when deciding which holiday destinations that we're going to go to our culture plays a massive part in what we're where we're deciding to go and what we're deciding to go to. Our culture plays a massive part in where we're deciding to go

and what we're deciding to do. And for us, like for being a black girl, for example, culturally, sleeping outside and doing outdoorsy things, those are not considered like things that people do. They're not things that we do as black people. So one of the things I really wanted to do was introduce young black girls like myself

and even older black women who would have never tried these things. I wanted to introduce them to something they would have never done before do you actually like camping sometimes the very first time i went i went in north carolina um when i was studying abroad and it was amazing like i camped at the top of a mountain we woke up the next morning we watched the sunrise and mountains it wasn't raining it was not raining you're trying to do this in the uk it was freezing though like the top of the mountain snow ice everything so it's freezing but um at home i i enjoy the element that bringing it to people so i can see how excited

they are about trying something new and doing it for people who are like them for me personally right now i do i really don't like coming it's really, it's work for me, you know what I mean? But you still like going away with a group of women? Yes, yeah, I do. I do. I do like doing that with my friends. Although I have had some really bad experiences in the past. You're selling this really well. I do.

It is nice because like what you're saying is that, you know, you become more vulnerable. So you strip away all the things like family, you strip away work, and then you just get to hang out with your girlfriends. you're just your raw relationship with them so that's really nice and drink wine i was about to raise a bit of wine yes i think it is the required wine country is about a wine tasting as we heard to celebrate a 50th birthday. What role, Arabella, does alcohol tend to play in your weekend? Pivotal. Not to say essential.

I couldn't imagine a weekend away with my oldest girlfriend without wine. And before I get letters, it's just the way it is. It's the means by which everything becomes easier. It's the means by which your defences are down. And I don't mean we couldn't be honest with each other if we hadn't had a drink. But you're kind of, it's the party element. You're having a laugh.

And then, of course, in there, there'll be tantrums and tears and fights in my case. There was a fight once about who was going to sleep on the bed underneath the window. A literal fight? Yeah, a physical fight. Oh my God. I mean, come on, we were 30, it was fine.

So, and I don't even think we were drunk at that point. But then the people I'm closest to are the people I was at school with. So we kind of replicate what we were doing when we were 15. I think actually that comes over in that film. You're just all reduced to sort of teenage girls. Tiana, you said you had had some sort of teenage girls. Tiana you said you had had some difficult experiences what difficult experiences have you had? So when I turned 17 it became like a really like a thing for everybody to go on a group holiday with their

friends because you know you finally have your own job you have your own money um so you know you can go anywhere and your parents can't really tell you that you can't go so it became like a thing so some of my friends from college we decided to go to Portugal people had like previously had problems within the group so leading up to it obviously we were quite poor like we're working minimum wage jobs so it took a long time to pay off this holiday and from the very first payment to the day it came loads of things about the dynamic of our relationships had changed since that very first day so all of those things came out on the holiday I think once we were getting closer to going to Portugal, everybody was trying to pretend like everything's OK

because they wanted to have a good holiday. We'd spent our money on it. But once we got there, everything came out. Like I was saying before, everything stripped away. You're just there and your raw relationship with this person will come out. And so it caused loads of problems for us. How much does money and who pays for what affect the dynamic in the group? Hugely I think that is true of any relationship

even as you know with your children but that's why in a way it's a sort of when you go on holiday with your girlfriends by and large you're all paying the same. And in fact, I think it can change it hugely if somebody goes, no, I really want to go to this restaurant. Everyone's going, but, you know, it's 100 quid a head or something. And you don't want to be in that. You want to be in the most democratic environment. You do not want it to be one friend saying, look, I can afford it. I'll just pay for everyone.

Because then suddenly you're their guest. And suddenly you're the kind of, you know, in a servant position to their master. It's not desirable. You have to be, you have to share everything equally at whatever level. Yeah, I would say the exact same thing. But I think the choices, who decides who makes the choices is...

Who's the leader. Yeah. So like which hotel we went to, which hotel we went to, why we went to this hotel, the perks are like, if we went and it wasn't good, then we could say, oh my gosh, it was you.

You was the person who said we should come here and it wasn't even good. The beds are like this. When things have happened like this, how do you make up at the end of it? We never recovered. Or don't you? Oh no, we always recovered. You need to recover because that's the stronger relationship you'll ever have with the person you've recovered from, in case having a physical fight with them but because I suppose the love is the love and the shared friendship is greater

than the argument about who got what bed I mean you know you could probably do two days of not talking to them no problem Arabella Weir and Tiana Johnson and Rina emailed I've been going on girls weekends with my friends of 30 years some knew knew each other for longer, for the past 15 years. Ever since we started earning a little bit more money. It's our annual retreat away from children and partners and what life throws at us. We all have our own role, travel agent, chef, sous chef, cleaner, bartender and entertainment. We split our bills equally. Although we still stick to a modest group budget, it's all about us being together rather than splashing out too much.

Ianna Witter-Johnson could not have had greater praise from the critics. One wrote, She's the artist of our times. She's a cellist, songwriter and singer and everyone needs to be listening to her right now. She is fire. Well, she has a name for the cello she plays and with which, or should I say, with whom she dances. He's Ruben. she told me why she dedicated her song unconditionally to her mother I wanted to thank her for encouraging me

when I was nine and wanted to give up the piano for investing in me investing in my music lessons in my education in general and just for always letting me believe that I can do whatever I want and never telling me you need to do this or the other just encouraging me Now we've got a microphone set up for you and there's also a microphone

for Ruben and up he comes ready for unconditionally Ayanna Witter-Johnson You are the source of my love and you are the essence of truth and you grow as I grow too because yes, in me. More than just... I am a wizard, Johnson, and unconditionally. Still to come in today's programme, how do you decide what to eat? Well, you told us on the phone. Liverpool fans never do it, but why do women like to walk alone? And potty training. Why has no nappies and the toilet from birth become fashionable? Now, earlier in the week, we talked about new parents and the do's and don'ts when you go to

visit them. Maybe lasagna is possibly the best gift you could bring. There's now an article and a video on the Woman's Hour website with tips from Ellie Gibson and Clemmie Telford. Now there's been a great deal of debate in recent years about the term honour killing. Should the murder of a child by a parent or sibling in the name of the family's honour be called anything but murder? Lennevold is a Norwegian journalist who spent a number of years in Jordan where such murders have been common for quite a long time and where a woman thought to have disgraced her family and consequently at risk, can be imprisoned supposedly for her own safety. In her book Inside an Honor Killing, she talks to a father who killed his elder daughter and

severely maimed his younger daughter. She also talked to the survivor. Why has she stuck with the title honour killing? I decided to use this term because it says something of the reasons why these people kill and I think it's important to make a distinction between domestic violence and honour killings so if you want to understand these murders and if you want to work to change these practices I think it's important to talk about the root causes for these killings. So what are the reasons that are given? I think it's estimated there are now 20 such killings a year in Jordan and many more across the world. Well, it could be reasons as small as using mascara, taking, to walk together with a guy that is not a part of your family,

to be raped, to get pregnant outside of marriage. So it's all sorts of reasons which there really is no standing for in Islam or in the Quran. To what extent are men ever victims? Is it mostly women who are victims? It's mostly women, but in some cases you also see that men are killed in the name of honour. This is often if he's gay, but I also see in some of these cases that I read from Jordan that men are forced to commit suicide. And this is much more common than being killed by other family members.

Now, the two main people that you've spoken to in your book, Amina, the surviving daughter, and her father Rahman. Why were they willing to speak to you? Well, Amina wanted to talk to me because she thinks it's really important to get this story out. She wants to work against these practices. And she feels that the fact that she had to spend

13 years in prison for a crime that was supposed to be towards her, against her, makes her so angry. And she really wants to change these practices for other women in Jordan who are under the same pressure. And what about the father? What reasons did he give for his actions? He had killed his older daughter, severely maimed Amina, the one that you spoke to. And it was also revealed that he'd actually killed his own mother. Yeah. And this is an important part of the story, because when Raman was only a child, he was forced to kill his own mom. And of course, this does something to you as a person psychologically. And sometimes when Raman has explained his reasons for killing his own

daughters, he says it's because he was a damaged man already from the beginning, that he was forced to kill his own mom when he was a child. And that society in a way, changed him into a person that he really didn't want to be. And what about the role of women in families where this kind of thing occurs? You describe the sister's mother as very conservative. What would her role have been in all of this? Well, the women also have an important role in these killings, because they are the ones who talk about these rumors. They are the ones who also want their husbands or their brothers to uphold the family's honor. So they really have

a big part of this as well. How worried were you when you were researching this story in Jordan for your own safety? I've taken some chances but I think you have to do that when you investigate stories like this and to me it has been so important to get Amina's story out there so I've taken some risks and at times I've been really worried that someone might want to hurt me or that they might be able to track down Amina, which has been my main concern. How did you manage to get access? Because Amina is very carefully hidden away. We won't give any details as to how. How did you get access to her and to Raman? Well, I spent a lot of time to try to track down Raman. And he was the one that was most

difficult to get in contact with. But I managed to persuade him by saying that I knew that he was a famous man in the neighborhood. And he was known for being a respectful man that knew a lot about honor. And I wanted him to explain me what honour killings are and this part of his culture. Like being a woman from a westernised country, I put myself as a bit naive and he wanted to explain me his culture and his way of thinking. How did your understanding of honor change

as you continued your investigation? You describe reading the Quran, finding out as much as you possibly can. What did you conclude was at the root of all this? Well, I think the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that honor killings really hasn't a lot to do with Islam. And that's also why I keep on using the term honor killings, because some people say that's exonophobic to use that term,

because it says something bad about Muslims. But really, I've had interviews with imams and people who have studied Islam, and what they have told me is that honor killings has nothing to do with Islam, that it's actually against Sharia, and that people who kill in the name of honor and blame Islam haven't read the holy book correctly.

So it is cultural rather than religious. It's definitely cultural, yeah. There was a time in Jordan where women were so much freer than they were when you started your research, wearing miniskirts, not feeling they needed to cover themselves. What changed? Well, the country has gone in a different direction, I think, at least from the people I've spoken to.

One of my guides told me that his grandmother used to wear miniskirts while his younger child now uses a niqab. So seen from the outside, from our point of view, it seems like it's going in the wrong direction. But I think that the reason for this is the fact that Islam is getting a stronger hold in Jordan because of the economic depression, because of the troubles that the country have been through. And to be a more religious country really isn't a problem as long as you don't use violence.

Now, Queen Rania, I know, has led moves for change on these killings. What does the law say now about them? They have changed the law in 2016. So up till 2016, you could actually get only three to six months for honor killing. But now these laws have changed so you can get as much as 15 to 20 years. And this is a huge step in the right direction because as the guardian of the family, it makes a difference to if you had to be away in prison for 15 years, you wouldn't be able to support your family. You wouldn't be able to support your family.

You wouldn't be able to give them an income. So it makes a difference. I was talking to Lena Vold. Last week, you may remember the interview with Sophie Hagen, the Danish comedian and podcaster who's written a book in which she describes herself as happy fat. Well, not all of us are happy to be fat, and dieting is pretty much universal across the land. So on Monday, Jane hosted a phone-in in

which we asked you how you make your choices about what you're going to eat. Are you obsessed with cutting out the carbs and restricting what you eat for the purposes of weight loss, are you happier to eat what you fancy, regardless of the consequences? Jane was joined by the registered nutritionist, Laura Thomas, and they heard from Adele, who says she's bored with food. If I could just pop a pill, as the astronauts do, that would just take care of it, and then I could get on with my life. Is it because you're in charge of planning, prep, buying? Yeah, the buying, the planning, the menu, the food, who will eat what,

the preparing, just the constant every day, three meals a day plus snacks. It's just, let me out. How old are your teenagers? My son has just turned 20 and my daughter is 18. Yeah, I mean, teenage lads, you can't fill them, can you? No, hollow legs, literally. You mentioned snacks. Now, are snacks, strictly speaking, necessary?

I'm a snacker myself. Of course they're not. Of course they aren't. We never had snacks when we grew up. But it's just the kids, when they're studying, they just want to be able to graze through the day. And who am I to deny that? No, believe me, I'm as weak-willed as you, Adele. But you're right.

I didn't have snacks growing up. They weren't a thing. You ate your meals and that was it. But you also have this major responsibility that you're responsible for the health of your children. And if you don't give them the correct food, you know, and they get something down the line, then it's your fault. Yeah. And it's a way of showing love. Absolutely. Giving food and sometimes giving food that isn't strictly necessary.

Thank you, Adele. I think we can talk to Marilyn, who's in North Wales. Now, I know you've already told one of my colleagues that you are bulimic, is that right? Yes and probably I have been since my 40s after I had my second child. I have quite a toxic relationship with food. I's it's delightfully sparse on those two days um now last week um on the thursday i was supposed to be on on you know on my fasting um and i had a i had a croissant with with some friends and immediately felt guilty, absolutely, totally guilty, because I'd eaten that pastry that really I shouldn't have done. And so there's this constant swings and roundabouts the whole time and food becomes a toxic issue. And do you think it's been that way for, did you say, have you any idea?

I'm 71. I put weight on after I had my second child in my 40s. And I've been fighting it ever since. And now it's a health issue because I have arthritis and I have to lose weight in order to have an op. I've lost quite a lot of weight, but it's a constant battle. And Marilyn, it does really sound as though this is governing your life to an extent which just not acceptable is it laura what would you say to marilyn the problem is that this is normalized the 5-2 diet and other diets very similar to intermittent fasting and all these kinds of things are just so ubiquitous at this point and we

consider them to be healthy but there's absolutely nothing healthy about that binge restrict pattern and just getting caught in that cycle and going round and round the merry-go-round trying to find the next best diet. And the other thing that's really interesting, you know, we've had a lot of conversations, a lot of listeners saying, oh, diets work. It's just a matter of willpower. We actually have very strong evidence that in the long term diets don't work. And that's not really something that's controversial within nutritional science. And, you know, one thing, just one consequence of diets is that it can deplete serotonin, that sort of hormone that makes us happy and improves our mood and our body image. And so if you're dieting, depleting your serotonin levels,

then you're making it more likely that you will turn to food to get some comfort and support. Marilyn, honestly... That's the... Often, if you are bulimic and you're under stress, the chances are that you will eat something in order to comfort yourself. And I'm completely aware that it's totally

unhealthy psychologically i really hope things do do get better for you marilyn thank you oh cheers i'm sure it will well we've got uh a doctor uh who's been listening dr jenny goodman so what i wanted to add was the social dimension that the conversation thus far has been as though each person struggling with their relationship to food is an individual in a bubble and the issues are all their personal issues. What needs saying is that this is to do with our environment, our sugar-loaded, junk food-loaded environment, that wherever we look, and it wasn't the case 50 years ago, there are sugary snacks and junk food and adverts for sugary snacks and junk food

targeted at people of all ages and that we are almost powerless to resist them because sugar is very very addictive and we're programmed by evolution to crave sugar in breast milk is very sweet and that's an evolutionary tendency that made sense thousands of years ago in hunter-gatherer times because it doesn't make any sense now okay laura wants to say something. Yeah, I just want to pick up on this point around the concept of sugar addiction because it's actually been fairly, well, there's a lack of evidence to support this idea that people are addicted to sugar in the same way that they are addicted to cocaine or heroin. And so, for instance, people often point to animal experiments that show that

rats will drink water that's laced with sugar over water that's laced with an addictive drug. And what gets often missed out of these conversations is that actually those rats have been fasted for 12 to 24 hours before they are exposed to these solutions. And therefore, you know, if I had been starved for 12 to 24 hours beforehand, I would go crazy for some sugar water as well. It's like drinking Lucozade. Jenny? Yeah, I mean, I would agree that the mechanism is completely different from drug addiction. The neurological mechanism, of course, is different.

But the effect is the same in that we are programmed by evolution to go for sweet things, which would, you know, in Stone Age times have been the occasional piece of fruit from a tree. But we wouldn't have had access to the vast amount that we have access to now. So, for example, your earlier conversation about how was it in the 60s and 70s as kids none of us needed snacks between meals partly because they weren't there but mostly because we ate proper meals now you were describing earlier somebody has a skimpy breakfast a skimpy lunch and therefore does need to snack i actually think if we went back to three full meals a day and had the time and the mindset to sit down and chew them properly and enjoy them we would be less vulnerable to the pull to the sweet stuff but we would still be vulnerable to it to an extent because it's there and i think the

discussion should include something about advertisers and the vast millions and billions of money amounts of money made by the manufacturers of food much much of it junk food and sugar-laced food that we actually don't need at all. Jenny, Marilyn, Adele and Laura Thomas spoke to Jane. You'll never walk alone has been ringing in the nation's ears ever since Liverpool's amazing footballing triumph on Tuesday night. But Gerry and the pacemakers' sentiment never applies to those who choose to walk alone and love it. But what's the appeal of setting off on a long hike or ramble entirely by yourself?

Gail Simmons is the author of The Country of Larks, detailing her journey across the Chilterns in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson. Kathy Kamleitner blogs about her walks on the Hebridean Way and the Isle of Bute. Why does she walk on her own? I walk by myself really to connect with myself, to get away from my daily life and my work life and everything that just goes on and reconnect with my thoughts and have time to go through things

and process what's going on in my life. But then also just to spend time outside and in nature. I know you've said it's become something of a feminist issue for you. What do you mean by that? I think it is because a lot of women I talk to don't want to walk by themselves because they're scared of, you know, something happened to them or what what if they encounter someone who wants to harm them and also I don't actually know how to walk

by myself I don't have the skills I don't have the knowledge I lack the confidence and I don't see the same with my male peers or male hikers that I meet so I do think it's an issue that particularly women face and so hiking by myself as a woman and writing about it that gives me this opportunity to tell other women that no actually you can do it you don't have to be an outdoor you know professional in order to experience this so gail what do you see as the advantages of walking alone really like kathy i think you can immerse yourself in your surroundings, much more so if you're on your own and not with a group of people that you might be chatting to. Certainly, you know, if you're walking in the countryside,

you can see wildlife. You know, I've come across groups of fallow deer who haven't noticed me approaching. In Italy, where I've done a lot of walking, you might come across wild boar. They're seen as sort of frightening, fierce creatures, but actually they're very shy and it's very, very lucky to see them. If you're walking with a group of people and you're talking then you're probably not going to see the wildlife

because it will have gone by the time you approach. And also I think as a writer like Kathy I think if you want to talk to people when you walk and I do and I meet people and I interview them I think you can approach them much more easily as a lone person or lone woman, particularly if you're approaching another lone woman. You're much more likely to be trusted if you're on your own. And I've travelled also a lot in the Middle East and certainly as a Western woman, not always walking on my own,

but as a Western woman there's huge advantages of being on your own. You're just much more allowed into female society, which you wouldn't be if you were a Western man. So there are many advantages to walking as a woman alone, I think. What's been the furthest distance you've walked alone? The furthest distance I've walked alone was in Western Tuscany. I walked all the way through an Etruscan landscape from almost the coast, the Marema, it's called, on the western Tuscan coast, to Orvieto and Umbria.

And I set out, it was about 70 miles, I think it was, and I was learning a walk that I was going to take a group of people on. I set out with sort of trepidation, thinking, how am I going to spend this whole week on my own? I'm going to be lonely, what's going to happen? But as the days went on, I just loved it more and more. And, you know, the landscape was sort of talking to me. And I didn't really meet many people, but you meet sort of farmers and peasants and, you know, various people like that.

And at the end of the week, at the end of the walk, I just wanted to carry on. I just didn't want to stop. It was just such a lovely experience being on your own in nature and the freedom each day of not knowing where you're going to end up. Cathy, you were very dismissive of the dangers of being on your own. But what happens if, let's say, you're up high in the wilds, the mist comes down and you're lost? I mean, there's certainly very real risks about being out by yourself, but also hiking with a friend or hiking in a group. I mean, that can happen if you're with three other people and it's just as dangerous and scary as if you're by yourself I think it's a lot about preparing and having a way out and

knowing how to react and also having the confidence to calm yourself down and stay calm and find a solution rather than freaking out and panicking because that's when the mistakes happen and that's when you know you you injure yourself but if you actually manage to stay calm and you know you got this you know how to get yourself out of this situation it did happen to you once didn't it it did it did it was actually my first day on the hebridean way i followed a path that wasn't really a path it was just signposts on the moorlands in the hills. And it was very misty. The clouds were closing in and I didn't see the next signpost.

And I was like, well, now what have you gotten yourself into? Why did you do this? And I started to panic a little bit and thought, oh, God, what? I don't know where to go forward. I don't know where to go back. But then I just took a few breaths, took a few steps towards where I thought the next signpost would be pinched my eyes and I saw it through the mist

it was just about staying calm enough and making choices where I knew, ok, I know where I am right now and even if I just take five steps I can just take those five back if I don't feel confident And Gail what sort of preparations do you make to keep yourself safe? Well I think it's just about being well prepared and well equipped for a start you've got to have good footwear because you can't walk any distance with bad footwear so you have to have good footwear that you know will keep you going

and keep you safe and with good ankle support usually because if you're walking in rough terrain then you know if you turn an ankle and you're on your own, that's a bit of a problem. So have good ankle support in your boots, good maps, of course, look at your maps beforehand, plenty of water is important. I find a walking stick or walking poles, as we have nowadays, quite useful.

Not really so much to help you walk along, but to swipe away brambles and nettles. But also it's a kind of good psychological prop to have that stick. You know, pilgrims used to walk with staffs. There's something about walking and having that sort of pull with you and stick with you that makes you feel somehow safer. I think you said at one point it might be useful if a horrible dog came towards you. That has never happened. Certainly not in England.

But, you you know you've got that feeling that if you were attacked by a fierce animal, it hasn't happened in this country, that you have that sort of extra bit of protection. But I think it's a psychological piece of protection as well. Cathy, are there any places where you would not walk by yourself? In the UK, no. I couldn't imagine or I couldn't think of anywhere. I think where I would be more concerned or maybe would probably not immediately hike by myself is areas where there's bears around or, you know, large predatory animals where it just takes a bit of experience to know how to react

and how to avoid encounters. And Gail, what about you? Are there any places you would choose not to be by yourself? Well, it's not so much countries that I would choose or landscapes I would choose not to be by myself, but probably just environments. Like I probably wouldn't walk around a town by myself at night. Somehow I've never felt frightened in the countryside, you know, in the way that you might do if you're, if it's sort of two o'clock in the morning and you're lost in a town. I haven't come across a place where I feel, oh, I wouldn't want to walk here. I was talking to Gail Simmons and Cathy Camlight there.

Lucy on Instagram said, I've just completed England's coast-to-coast walk alone to mark my 40th birthday. It's a 190-mile walk over 14 days from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood's Bay in Yorkshire. It was only my second ever long distance walk and I loved it. Walking alone over days has changed me. Anyway, I am a walking convert and wanted to share the sense of wonder, calm and presence felt when walking alone. And then Witch Mountain tweeted, I often walk alone. It's easier to think and feel immersed in the landscape and pretend I'm a pony. I never feel afraid. Is that the subtext? But occasionally lonely. Sometimes the cat comes too.

Now, who knows what will be expected of little Archie Harrison when it comes to potty training. All we know thus far is that his father's been changing nappies, which suggests he won't be going through the fashion which is to hold a baby from birth over the toilet and have them out of nappies from the get-go. What does work best with least anxiety for the parent and the child, and how have trends changed over the years? Rebecca Mottram is a children's nurse who runs her own company specialising in potty training. Christina Hardiman is an historian and the author of Dream Babies.

When was potty training first introduced in the manuals for parents? It was right there in the very first manuals. It was taken for granted that you would start straight away with potty training and what the baby did was lie across the lap and you'd have a tiny potty underneath it be quite comfy and you'd make encouraging noises and that sort of thing there was a strong belief in habits and getting used to routines and training not least because of course they didn't have disposables. They had all sorts of other horrible things they had to wrap around their baby's bottoms to keep them dry.

And when was this? In what period? The manuals began at the beginning of the 19th century. And the Dr. Spock of the Victorians was Pi Henry Chavasse, who was still having editions printed in the 1940s, just before the very first Dr. Spock manual. And he was very influential, his advice to mothers. And he was very keen on this regularity. He was also very kind-hearted. And the truth about poppy training, as with all childcare manuals,

is you have kind of disciplinarian people and very tender-hearted people, which is quite well suited to different characters of parents. Now Rebecca I know you teach from birth elimination which is a big title for I think holding the baby over the toilet what does it actually involve? Hi yeah so people call it elimination communication which is quite a ridiculous name, really. I just tend to call it baby pottying because that kind of makes sense to me. And basically, it's about thinking that when you're, you know, all babies are going to wee and poo, whatever we do, we can't really prevent that. So it's kind of thinking about a different way of managing that. So it is like Christina described.

You literally hold your baby over something else that's not a nappy. But I think a really common misconception is that people who do this nowadays don't use nappies. And that's not really the truth. Certainly both my children use nappies as well. You know, we have very busy lives and it's difficult to do that for every single wee or poo. So it's more a case of learning about when you know that they will do it and helping them some of the time to do it outside a nappy. But you see, my understanding is that some people do do it without nappies and then i will how do you judge when your child your tiny baby needs to go to the toilet there's a very good

thing called grunt and run i believe you take the uh you notice what the baby's doing and of course it does require close attention and pretty full-time close attention from a parent and that is in a sense why the whole thing went out of fashion, because women were doing all sorts of other things. And then they discovered disposable nappies. So why try at all? But it does seem to be coming back into fashion, Rebecca, doesn't it? Yeah, it's definitely back in fashion for lots of different reasons. And what Christine is saying is right, you do have to give a bit of extra attention. but if we think about the way that we normally think about how babies communicate to us that they're actually very good at telling us things and all sort of new mothers learn to recognize

the difference between when a baby's crying because they're tired or when they're hungry and actually learning about their elimination it's a similar kind of level of awareness. And it doesn't have to be something that you do all the time. You can very much do it just some of the time. So most people probably have recognized their own child's poo face. I know I did with both of mine. It's fairly obvious when they were pooing. And a lot of people now just try to do it for the poo

because it's actually much easier to poo when you're being held in that position. I mean, I don't know how many people have ever had to or tried to poo lying down, but it's actually quite difficult. And when you hold your baby in a way over a potty or something, it becomes much easier. So it's not as difficult as people might think it is. And it certainly has a lot of benefits. Christina, I know you were born in 1946 and I don't suppose you remember what happened, but you may have spoken to her about it. What method did your mother use? Well, I'm pretty sure it's what was in the Mothercraft book, which is Mary Tooby King's book.

And that was very formal routines. But that the same year was I was born born, Dr Spock began to come out. So when I was bringing up my own four daughters, I was actually doing the big Terry nappy thing. And there you did encourage them to get on a pot fairly quickly because it was such hard work washing the nappies. I remember my husband washing them in a mountain stream when we were on holiday. But I think a big incentive now, having had this age of comfort disposables,

where babies in fact can't feel if they're wet. So those signals that Rebecca was talking about are much less apparent. In some ways, it'd be something to be said to go back to nappies where the baby felt a bit uncomfortable and got nappy rash. And to what extent, Christina, would you say that concern for the environment and the disposable of disposable nappies is starting to change things? I'm sure that is, should, certainly should be behind it, because the situation where they're making pampers and nappies in bigger and bigger sizes,

I believe there's even a nine-year-old one. And it does seem that we cannot throw, as we do now, eight million disposable nappies a year in the UK alone into landfill. Because even if they're supposed to be biodisposable, there's a big question mark over that. And so I think it's a thoroughly good thing that we should start thinking about ways of things. But at the same time, as with all bringing up babies, you've got

to make them suit your life and not let them, in a sense, run you. So your lifestyle may require one thing and the baby another. If you can afford a nanny, a trained nurse or whatever, then that's fine and dandy. But one has to be realistic, I think. Rebecca, what sort of problems might a child have if a parent is, let's say, too domineering about it? You know, puts you on the potty, insists that you do something, gets cross if you don't. Or if parents start too late, and what would you consider too late? Yeah, it's a really good question I think if we if we just go back a little bit and if we

think about other things that we do with babies like we use high chairs or we put them in a baby bath or we put them in a car seat and we don't really make a big deal out of any of those things you know we just we teach our babies that this is what happens in this place and that becomes completely normal to them and I think we can kind of approach potty pottying in the same way that we just kind of make it a normal part of their life and I think that that massively helps when it comes to potty training later on because obviously a very young baby is not going to be able to manage without nappies on their own there's not as much independence possible until they're a bit older

generally it's kind of agreed from about 18 months and onwards that some independence can be can be had and I think if when you approach potty training from that point if they've already had the experience of of sitting on a potty and using a potty sometimes and the potty training process becomes much easier and that's quite important really because most people will start potty training when their child's a toddler and generally nowadays it's around two and a half to two and a half to three and that's really anyone with children will know yeah that's a really, anyone with children will know. That's a really difficult time because children will be very resistant

to being told what to do. And so the more normal it already is for them, the easier that process is. Rebecca Mottram and Christina Hardiman. We had lots of emails and tweets on this. Beverly said, as soon as my son could sit up unaided after he'd fed, I would sit him on his potty, give him a toy, and he would happily sit and very shortly afterwards would produce

a poo. I can't remember how soon he was out of nappies, but it was very early and no trauma. And Claire said, we sit our children in high chairs, baby baths, car seats, etc, but we're not expecting anything of them. Why put an expectation on a little child to use a potty? We sat our daughter on the toilet before bed every night when she was two with no expectation that she would use it. Just before she was two and a half she asked to wear pants. We weren't prepared and had to go out to buy some. She was dry from then on with no effort on her or our part. Easy. Why make all the fuss? Now on Monday the programme will be presented by Tina Dehealy.

She'll be talking to three people about being the children of parents who have transitioned. And women's toilets, we look at their value as places of camaraderie, retreat, and maybe even high drama. We'd like to hear from you about your experiences in the loo. Let us know. That's all for this afternoon. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. Bye-bye. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in.

Available now.