Woman's Hour - Bank Note designer Debbie Marriott, Protecting the title "nurse", Author Kate Moore & "Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner"

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

Anita Rani with Bank Note designer Debbie Marriott, Protecting the title "nurse", Author Kate Moore & "Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner"Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Managers: Emma Harth * Gayl Gordon

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. We've made it to another Friday. How's your week been? I went to the theatre this week, which was both exhilarating and emotional because the play I saw was exceptional and you'll be hearing all about it later. It's called Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner and it's on at the Royal Court. But I was also exhilarated and

emotional because I went to the theatre for the first time since the start of the pandemic and it was pure joy. I'll tell you who else might be feeling a bit emotional today. Anton de Beek. After 17 years on Strictly, he's finally landed his dream job of becoming the fourth judge, replacing Bruno Tognoli this year.

He's waited a long time and he finally gets to hang up his dancing shoes. So I'd like to ask you all if you've managed to land a dream gig of some kind after years and years of trying. Maybe it's the job, the promotion, the pay rise. Can you imagine? Let's face it, as women, we know we have to work a little bit harder to get them breaks. But does persistence eventually pay off? Has it for you? Share your stories and good news with us. Maybe you're still trying to get there and are running out of steam.

Either way, we'd love to hear from you this morning. You can text WOMENSHOUR on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. So do check with your network provider. Or you can contact us on social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. Or you can email us through our website. I also have a great collection of incredible women

lined up to speak to me this morning. We'll be discussing why you can call yourself a nurse but not actually have to be a registered nurse. You'll be hearing all about that. And author Kate Moore will be on the show to tell us about her new book and the amazing story of Elizabeth Packard. She was sent to an asylum by her husband because, wait for this, she had her own mind.

Oh, yes. I'll also be speaking to the first female banknote designer at the Bank of England who designed the new £50 note. But how many of us will actually see it? Do you still use cash or have you found that you never have it in your wallet since the pandemic? Or are you someone who has shoeboxes of the stuff under your bed? How do you feel about us potentially moving towards being a cashless society? Maybe actually you're nervous about it. Whatever your thoughts on anything you hear on the programme, we'd love to hear from you. Do text us. 84844 is the number.

Now, after years of dancing on the show and a two-week judging stint in the last series, Strictly Come Dancing's Anton Debeck is hanging up his dancing shoes as he's finally landed his dream job on the judging panel. For the next series coming up, Anton is replacing Bruno Tognoli, who's been on the Strictly

since 2004, but can't fly over from the US, where he's a judge on Dancing With The Stars due to COVID restrictions. Here's what Anton had to say about his new job that he's waited for for ages. I'm so delighted. I can't even begin to tell you. It hasn't sunk in yet, really. I can't wait to get started and get on the panel and sit with the other three judges and watch the show unfold in front of me and have that feeling of I know exactly what you meant to do.

And I know exactly how that has gone for you. And it was and I know what you're going through. And that's how I'm going to be. I'm just going to be full of empathy. Now, Anton is known for his kindness and patience and is often teamed up with women of a certain age and dancing ability. Although his humour might seem a little old fashioned to some, he is loved by a lot of Strictly fans. One of those he danced with, how can we forget, was the amazing Leslie Joseph, best known for being in Birds of a Feather. Here's a taste of when she was on Strictly. This is Leslie doing her quick step, remember, in week three. Oh, Leslie, Leslie, you were so good.

Is that bringing back memories? You know what? That actually makes me quite emotional. To be honest, Anita, at home, I bought one of those Taylor's dummies and I've got my costume from that dance in my sitting room. Oh, yeah. You've got to keep a dance. I've got my costume from that dance in my sitting room. Oh yeah you've got to keep a dance. I've got the shoes around the neck I've got the skirt I've got everything that was

so special I absolutely adored it and I love it it was my idea actually I said I've always wanted to do that and Anton bit immediately and he said yes let's go for it let's do it it was fabulous. So memorable what's he like as a dance partner? do you know what he's fantastic I mean I I felt a bit nervous when he got me because I thought here I was 71 probably the oldest person ever to have done Strictly the oldest woman and I thought oh he probably thinks I'm going to be one of those that he drags around the floor but to be honest I'm not and I wasn't and he. And he has said afterwards that I was one of the first people he danced with that pick everything up so quickly and go with him. He's lovely to dance with.

He was great fun. We never stopped laughing in rehearsals. I don't know why. We got on so well. And I absolutely adore dancing with him and adore him. I mean, that's so important to the whole experience of Strictly, to be able to dance your way through rehearsals. And Leslie, you were outstanding.

He has a reputation for being kind, patient, thoughtful. Is it all true? He is, and that absolutely is true. And he's fun. The main thing with Anton, he is fun. And he knows what he's doing. That's why I think this being a judge is so important. I also have to say that I know he's waited a long time for this job, but I think it was very important for somebody to be on Strictly, to dance on Strictly, who was an older dance

partner, because you can't have everybody looking fantastic and gorgeous and hunky and, you know, dancing with wonderful 20-year-olds. It's nice for us to be represented on the professional side as well by somebody who is slightly older. So for people of my age, then it was great to dance with him because he wasn't my age, I was much older than him. But that also was good. But I think now that he's come to what he absolutely has adored and wanted to do all the time, I think it's absolutely the right timing.

He really has, hasn't he? Can you imagine landing your dream job after 17 years of wanting it? I know, it's a long time. But I sort of feel always that things are meant and I think timing is meant. And I think this whole thing has meant that Anton has waited, he's waited. And finally, I mean, during this very strange time, this pandemic, he has landed something that he's always wanted. And I think it's great. I think it's the thing about Anton that will be so good.

He's been there. He's been on the dance floor. Unless you've taken part in Strictly, you don't know how terrifying that moment is. And I know, listen, I know everybody on that panel, but it's still when you stand there and they're going to judge you and you feel, oh, what are they going to say?

And your heart's beating. And so Anton has been there. So I think he will be kind. He will be absolutely judgmental. Yes, he will say what he feels, but he will do it in a way that is incredibly kind because he has stood there. And he's had to take a lot of the flack as the professional as well. Is he the right person for the job? Some people might be thinking, oh, he's a bit old fashioned. They should have got someone new. What do you think? You've got the wonderful Moxie who's by his side, who is fantastic. She's vibrant.

She's now, she's of this moment. And then you've got Anton who will balance that slightly. And let's face it, he really is the king of ballroom. He knows what he's doing. He has been there. He has danced competitively. He has danced in the Strictly studio. He knows what it feels like to be competitive and he knows what he feels like to have to be the entertainer. He knows what it feels like to be, yes, let's face it, the clown, as he was sometimes when he would dance with Ann Widdicombe or something. He was the entertainment so he's been there and he will know how to phrase his judgments in a way that will be um interesting and will be something that won't hurt the people he's talking to because he is very very caring yes absolutely and and also do you know what i think let's see i think oh he's

going to get an opportunity to just sit down because you and i know it is hard work doing those dances week in, week out. It is hard work. But at the same time, you get on a buzz and you get on a vibe, you know, your energy. I mean, I lost about a stone doing that. I mean, I wish now I could get into the clothes. I've kept some of the clothes and I look at them and I look longingly at them. That's kept him fit for an awfully long time. And then he will go off and do what he does. And I think, yes, the time is right that he's now a judge.

And yes, he will love sitting. But I bet you that there will be some group dances that that particular judge will get up and he will sashay onto the floor and he will dance with everybody. Because it would be silly not to use him for that as well. You need to break the barriers sometimes. Oh, yeah. He'll definitely be up and dancing. It'd be great to for that as well. You need to break the barriers sometimes. Oh yeah, he'll definitely be up and dancing. It'll be great to see that as well. I mean, everyone loses weight who goes the distance because you are so physical. You're training week in, week out, like an athlete. And you came at 11th.

You were outstanding. And as you said, you're 71. Where does your energy come from, Leslie? We all have a secret. My mother did yoga in her 90s she died at 103 just under 104 and she used to do yoga every morning which i do and also i walk everywhere i walk i exercise um i'm 75 now so yes i've got and also i have a passion for life i love what i do i love i love life and that was the one thing during the pandemic i said i cannot be too depressed

during this time because this is my precious time. And I need to keep positive and I need to walk and keep going. So how did you do it apart from walking? Because you haven't seen your son for a long time. So what's kept you going through the pandemic? It was all mental. I just mentally said, OK, let's get through today. And I'm somebody that takes day by day. And my mother's mantra was always worry about things you can change, but never worry about things you can't. So if you can't change something, you cannot worry about it. If you can change it, then you can worry and you can do and you can be proactive.

But if you can't, then, you know, you just have to suck it up and get on with the day. And that's how I am every day. And I get up in the morning and, yeah,, is everything to me. I go out and walk for two, three hours sometimes. And I walked from the Swiss Alps to Rome. Well, that's it, some of the day. So I did that. Oh, that's it then. You're blessed. You're blessed by God. I was 72 then and then I had time with the Pope. So, you know, I was 72 when I walked and the last hundred kilometres you had to walk on your own. You had to walk it. So I did that in six days. So yeah, I've got energy. Yeah, you absolutely have. I've been on tour with Leslie. I can tell you she has got energy for days, for days. Some of those young

dancers couldn't keep up. But you know what? What happens on tour stays on tour. Don't worry. That's for another conversation another day. And we are asking all our listeners, because Anton has managed to land his job after so many years. Has there been a job that you have waited for, waited for, waited for, eventually got, or one that you're still waiting to do? I think if I said anything about the job I was waiting for without even knowing that I was waiting for it, it was my walk, my pilgrimage to Rome. Although I didn't know that was there, I think if I do nothing else in my career, if I never walk again, the fact that I headed from

the Swiss Alps into Rome, which I'd never been, on an old pilgrim's route and then met the Pope, that to me was my dream job and it's what I think about every day. Lesley, you're a force, you're wonderful. Thank you so much for speaking to us this morning. Thank you for asking. Now, 84844, if you'd like to tell us about landing your dream job. Now, a woman who denied the existence of COVID-19 was struck off the nurse's register earlier this month. However, she has said she will still call herself a nurse

and is legally able to do that as the title nurse is not protected, though registered nurse is. Now, campaigners say more and more employers are calling a range of staff nurses who are not qualified or on the official register professor alison leary is from london south bank university and started a petition on this and jude diggins is the director of nursing policy and public affairs at the royal college

of nursing very good morning to you both both so alison could i call myself a nurse if i wanted to go and just just like that? Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of people will find that quite shocking this morning. Yeah, but there is no protection for the title nurse. There is for registered nurse, but that's not a title that's in common usage. So the nurse who was struck off is legally able to use the term nurse. This is Kate Shemirani. Yes, that's right. Anybody can use the term nurse. is k shemirani yes that's right um anybody uh can use the term

nurse it's not predictable is this indicative of a wider problem that staff are being called a nurse when they're not qualified i'd love to love to hear where this is happening let's give me examples of where people are being called nurse when they're not supposed to be or whether not a registered nurse it's been a long-standing issue we do patient safety research and that's how we came across it so we published a paper back in 2017 which showed lots of different titles of nursing titles were being misused so titles like advanced nurse practitioner or clinical nurse specialist being used by people without any nursing qualifications and what i've had since we published that research is a steady stream of emails and messages from the public um giving me examples of this so the

common areas this that happens in is general practice so your the general the nurse you might see in general practice might not be a registered nurse so the person does your cervical screening for example um we've got uh common areas such as mental health and assessment and treatment units where people with learning disabilities are and we're seeing it more and more now in acute hospitals and actually um it was advertising opening nursing jobs up to people with that nursing qualification and why is that a problem we've it's a patient safety issue for one thing. If people need expert nursing care,

we know from many, many different inquiries and there have been lots of inquiries over the last 50 years that missing nursing care, missing expert nursing care is catastrophic for patients. So it's absolutely essential that people have access to that care.

But it's also very confusing to the public. A lot of people who talk to me were not aware that nurse wasn't protected and I've met quite a few people in work so I met some district nurses recently who don't have any nursing qualifications but district nursing is actually a three-year undergraduate program plus specialist postgraduate qualifications to be a district nurse. It's an incredibly responsible job. I met somebody a little while ago who'd been an apprentice hairdresser a few weeks before,

sort of been given a frock and was giving insulin injections. This is because we have a massive workforce deficit in nursing and employers are actually quite desperate now. Jude, I think lots of people listening to this might be quite, particularly that example that you've used of somebody who was two weeks in after being a hairdresser's apprentice, you know, administering injections. Why is it happening, Jude? I think, good morning, Anita.

Good morning. I think this is happening because we have, as Alison just mentioned, huge deficits in nursing. Currently, there's over 36,000 nursing vacancies in England alone. Now, it has improved slightly. It has come down in the last couple of years. But the demand continues to rise and any gains we have made have in no way in nursing numbers, you know, kept up with demand. And there's still 36,000 vacancies. So I can see that employers are desperate. People need looking after.

They need people to go in and look after them. But actually, what they're doing is just creating greater risks and, in fact, putting way more risk on the registered nurse who is actually accountable for that care whoever goes and gives it because they have to delegate so I think it's it's the situation in England and it's less difficult in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales although they do have vacancies but England has a particular challenge. Alison you've been campaigning for this for years, for the title to be protected as registered nurse. Surely it's a simple fix. Why has it not happened? It is to be more complex. It requires the Secretary of State to give a mandate to the Nursing Midwifery Council. In the past, there's also been an issue with other professional groups using the title nurse, so dental nurses being a good example.

But they now have their own register, so they would be covered by this as well um and we're seeing because we're seeing um an expansion of different workers entering this workforce it is it's a really big patient safety risk now um we did an analysis of prevention of future death report from coroners and the lack of coordination of care and the expert lack of nursing care really showed up in those. So I think it is something that we really need to do as a mitigation for that risk. Jude, what can be done? Well, there needs to be properly funded workforce plans.

We've been calling for this for years. We know the population is changing, people are older, and what we haven't got and we desperately need is a population needs-based workforce plan. So understanding what are the next five, ten, twenty year needs of our health and social care population and forecast properly the workforce that we're going to need to meet that demand and then fund it. Of course, there's been years of deficit in funding nursing and indeed other medical and allied professions. But we need a properly funded and properly researched workforce plan. It's going to take time to fix this for sure. There's no silver bullet. It's not going to take time to fix this uh for sure there's no silver bullet it's not going

to get fixed overnight and we are relying a lot on overseas nurses at the moment to come in and shore up but we still have that big gap could we not is it not just a matter of changing the name because it not just be you know if you're a registered nurse you're a nurse and everybody else is an assistant or you know is it is it not that straightforward oh where it's so straightforward anita um there are um literally probably hundreds of titles and allison's research bears this out uh of people who call themselves have some version of nursing their title there's nursing assistant there's nursing support worker there's nursing practitioner there's so many different variations the school nurse the school the school nurse is a registered nurse right and she has like the district nurse that

specialist practice and postgraduate qualification so there there is a bigger piece it is on the one level simple absolutely let's protect that but we need to also i think for the public clarify what those other people's roles are and define it according to what it is that they do yeah is there any sense we're getting closer allison i think we're actually moving the way so school nurse is a really good example we were tweeting about the petition the other day and um one of the uh somebody from northern ireland actually tweeted back to me that um it stopped an advert for school nurse where nursing qualification was optional um and really you know if you're going to provide nursing service professional nursing services you

need to employ people with nursing qualifications and how how how is the petition going so you're gathering signatures you want to take this as far as you can how's the petition going? So you're gathering signatures. You want to take this as far as you can. How's it all going? I think we're almost up to about 17,000 signatures. What do you need to get to? We'd like to get to 100,000 if we can. And Jude, what are your nurses,

what are registered nurses telling you about this? How did they feel? Nurses on the ground. And actually, let's put this out there, that actually there are hundreds of thousands of nurses in britain majority women 90 women that's correct what are they saying and does that is that anything to do with it the fact that the demographic is so skewed towards women jude oh goodness um there's a whole other conversation about uh gender bias and nursing as women's work. And the value society places on women's work. Indeed, there is a whole other conversation.

Our registered nurses feel very passionately about this. And you can see, you know, in the responses that there has been to Alison's petition, indeed, and see the commentary on social media. People have been asking for this for a very long time and particularly I think ever since the prime minister's commission back in 2010 there's been a real driver but as Alison says we require it requires legislation and we've got to convince the politicians it's the right thing to do and being controversial sometimes that can be hard if there you know isn't an obvious politically. But our registered nurses feel very passionate. That's not to say we don't respect and admire the work that our nursing support worker colleagues do,

but they bring a different skill set. And that should be recognised as a different skill set in the mix of care that is given to people in clinics, hospitals, etc. Okay, well, this is a story we'll be watching closely. Come back and talk to us when you have some movement or any progress. Thank you both, Professor Alison Leary and Jude Diggins, who's the Director of Nursing Policy and Public Affairs at the Royal College of Nursing.

Your thoughts about anything? 84844. Someone's just emailed in. Mindy says, interested in your item on nurses, just want to let you know that I'm a registered psychologist. Anyone can call themselves a psychologist. It's not a protected title. Someone else says we have the same problem in the world of nutrition.

Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist. Those of us who are registered with the Association of Nutrition and registered dietitians are professionals who've worked hard for their qualifications. You can also email us. Now, the award-winning play, Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner written by Jasmine Lee Jones

opened at the Royal Court in London this week it explores cultural appropriation queerness friendship colourism and the ownership of black bodies online it is funny painful

thought provoking it's an electric piece of theatre to watch I was lucky enough to see it this week and absolutely loved it. I'm delighted to be joined by Tia Bannon, who plays Cara, one of the two lead actresses on stage, and the play's director, Millie Battier. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Millie, let me come to you first, because we've got to sort this title out.

Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner. It's not a murder mystery and it's not a psychological thriller. Why is it given that name? It's not. So what kicks off the play is that Forbes tweet that Kylie Jenner is the youngest self-made billionaire ever, which did happen in 2019. And in response to that,

Cleo decides that she'll tweet about seven methods of killing her but actually the methods of killing her are about examining her complicity in cultural appropriation and anti-blackness and that her actions and the fact that she's been able to capitalize off of as the character says stealing black women's sauce and reselling it to the world. It's about her agency and the violence of that. And so she puts this tweet out into the Twittersphere and then Tia, your character, who plays Cara, Cleo's best friend, joins her to discover what she's done.

You enter into a room and this opens up the play and this incredible two-woman production, this dialogue that takes place. And you take us into so many different worlds. Can you tell, explain to people why the Twittersphere takes such offence to that particular tweet and where it takes you? I think the internet is an incredible and scary place

where anyone can say anything because they are behind a screen. So what happens when Cleo tweets this thing, in response to Forbes tweeting that Kylie Jenner is a self-made billionaire, is that everyone and their mum and their auntie, as it says in the play, gets involved because they feel like they have the right to say what they want. And so when we enter the Twittersphere in the play, we are trying to represent as many different voices

across the entire world because whenever you enter into a conversation online, you are opening it up to the entire world. And you really do enter it like the two of you the two lead actresses on stage but then you also play twitter you are kind of taking us you're you're telling us what people are writing and you you're doing different voices i mean it's so physical just watching you perform um i mean it's incredible mean, it must be absolutely exhausting. It's exhilarating. It's a gift to have a piece of work that allows you to expand and explore your own range, to be able to do loads of different accents, to embody different physicalities,

as well as to be a part of scenes that are filled with such detail, nuance and emotional depth. And obviously, Jasmine Lee Jones, the script is amazing, Millie, and she's written it and she's just basically done something so fresh and so relevant and modern and important and using social media in a way that's probably never been done in theatre. How on earth as a director do you bring that to life? Where do you begin to stage something like that? I agree. It's an absolute gift of a play as a director to be given and trusted with. Well, I suppose in this play, the internet is the third character. It's always present, even when it's not present in the onstage action. It's always there. It's always growing. So actually thinking about it as the third character and sentient was was really important for the way that myself and the entire

team sort of collaborated to imagine it um but actually in 2019 and in the pre-pandemic world i actually became fascinated with memetic theory and that borrows from evolutionary theory it suggests that memes behave as genes do um and it was here that I was introduced to the idea of a meme sort of reproducing and spreading being reappropriated by different hosts very much like a virus and that sort of activeness really informed the way that we imagined it on stage the sort of idea that it's, considering epidemiology, it's sort of the cultural equivalent of a sneeze. And actually, that's how we sort of imagined her tweets going viral.

And our brilliant movement director, Delphine Gabory, and I were really excited by the idea of the body as a host for GIF and memes. And this idea of sort of code switching, which I think is a really important conversation in Jasmine's play in lots of respects. And also sort of embodying the Internet became really important for, I think, what the play is saying about our agency and complicity and our actions online. I think it really smartly sort of taps into that cognitive dissonance that a lot of people share with sort of being able to understand that their actions online

have real life consequences, but sort of catch up with Cleo. So it just couldn't exist in another sphere. It couldn't exist behind a screen. It had to exist in the same space as the characters. And, you know, I think the brilliance of Jasmine's writing is that these sections of the internet are really funny and actually what I don't think is immediately present is this sort of real violence underneath them.

And I think, again, it felt too easy for us to demonise them or think of them as trolls. We had to present them as ordinary people. So that's sort of how that conversation began for us, really. It's genuinely one of the best things I've ever seen on a stage. And I'm going to, I think we should play a clip. Let's have a listen. I can't believe this.

I know, right? They think I'm a 48-year-old white man from Ohio. The cheek of it. Why is it even now they're getting credit for everything? I actually can't. No, Cleo, what I was going to say is I can't believe you're making this so deep. Hold up. I'm making this deep.

How's it going? I'm JS. Your major point just stopped now. Why are you continuing to add fuel to the fire for no reason? Wow, my own brain is gaslighting me. Oh, can you stop using polysyllabic words this early in the morning? I'm going to have to draw for dictionary.com in a minute. Gaslighting. To manipulate someone by psychological means into doubting their own sanity. WTF manipulate you?

I'm just trying to understand you. Understand all of this, these methods and ting, killing. I mean, it's all just a bit extreme. Oh, I'm extreme now. I'm an extremist. No, come on, Cleo. You have certain, your politics, they're radical. Oh, I'm an extremist radical. Maybe I shouldn't be

at the house then in case I radicalise the youth then. Or maybe the government should set up a special Prevent Cleo scheme. Do you know what, Cleo? I was wrong. You are crazy. Yeah, just a little flavour. And you want more, I know you do. You need to know

what all the acronyms stand for as well. Even if you don't, you can figure it out um Tia describe the relationship between Cara and Cleo these two best friends. Cara and Cleo are lifelong friends they've known each other since childhood and so they've they've come up together they've experienced the world together in so many ways um and they have so many differences as well as things that bind them together. So they grew up in the same area and they have the same friends and they live close by, but they live in the world and they exist in two different ways.

And their races are really important because it represents this truth that black people are not monolithic. Cara is a mixed-race black woman and Cleo is a black woman and the two of them have so many intersections where they cross over and also loads of differences which are discussed within the play. Tia, what did you think when you read the play for the first time? I thought it was, wow. I thought, wow, wow wow an incredible piece of writing. But as a young black actress you know a role like this a script like this two black women on stage

that like you say represent all of this I don't think anyone's seen anything like it before what did you think? I think it's really interesting because I think it's about it's about bloody time I think that we should be seeing more of more things like this I think that people should be given more opportunity to write plays to write scripts not just for theatre to tell stories like this and for it to be more commonplace instead of being surprised. So at the time I was shocked, amazed. I felt incredibly grateful to receive this thing that felt representative of people that I knew and parts of myself.

And I'd like to see more of it. I'll tell you something else I noticed when I went to watch it. I don't think I've ever seen that many young people of colour in a theatre before, Millie. And so much laughter. I mean, you hear the laughter in theatre, but just that many, that kind of demographic in the audience. Yeah, what a joy it is actually to sit in an audience like that.

It's exactly who we hope will come and see the work. The play was originally put on in 2019. It's back on now and the world has changed so dramatically. How has that made it different this time around? It really has. I think we've both in the process and actually what sort of how we've re-examined the play. I think the big thing that we've talked about a lot in the rehearsal room and actually as informed choices we've made that feel really different are about what it means to feel grief and what it means to feel rage now,

given everything that's happened over the last 18 months or the two years since we last did the play. So it actually in lots of ways felt like we were coming to a new play, even though we did it two years ago. It just felt like everything needed reinvestigating. And yeah, both in the means of making as well as what we decided to put on stage. But I think with this play as well, you learn so much from listening to the audience. And I don't want to spoil it for anyone that's listening and might come and see it.

I hope you do. But it's, you know, the audience is really a huge part of what this play does and the conversation it has. It's a very active conversation all the way through with its audience. And people would just talk back to the play in 2019. And I think that's actually what taught me about what it was making people feel.

And this time round, it feels really different. It feels like a different conversation is being had with this play. And for that reason, I'm really glad that we sort of reinvestigated everything. Well, it is outstanding. And Tia, you are magnetic on that stage, both actresses. Millie, Tia, thank you so much. You're both at the very beginning of your careers. You're both very young.

When you're mega and you've won all the awards, will you come back to Woman's Hour and talk to us? Just putting that out there, getting in there before you become too big for us. Thank you both very much. I highly recommend it. If you get the opportunity to see it, please do. And take Anyone Young, they'll love it.

Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner. Lots of you getting in touch with the show about everything we've spoken about this morning. We will be talking about cash because I'm going to be talking to the first female banknote designer at the Bank of England. And someone has said cash is essential for many groups of people. Examples of those who don't have bank accounts, do have smartphones, suffer from medical problems that prevent them from understanding smartphones and bank accounts. Getting your dream job. Naomi says, I've landed my dream job after 22 years of wanting to be a midwife. And I finally got accepted and

began my training. Training during COVID-19 has been extremely challenging. It's been the most incredible experience. Finally being able to do something that I've always wanted to do has been a real privilege. Naomi, good on you. Congratulations. 84844 is the number to text. Now, Kate Moore, bestselling author of The Radium Girls, has written a new book, The Woman They Could Not Silence, about the little-known Elizabeth Packard, an ordinary 19th-century American housewife, mother of six.

Elizabeth, inspired by the first Women's Rights Convention of 1848, began to dream of greater freedoms and voicing her opinions on politics and religion. Increasingly threatened by her growing independence, her husband had her declared slightly insane and committed her to an asylum. So she's incarcerated for daring to have a voice. Elizabeth embarks on a ceaseless quest for justice, both inside and outside the asylum. It's a fascinating story. And Kate joins me now to tell us more. Very good morning, Kate.

Welcome to Woman's Hour. What made you want to write about Elizabeth Packard? Well, thank you so much for having me on. This inspiration for this book, which is set in the mid-19th century, actually had its inspiration in the autumn of 2017 and amidst the fire of the Me Too movement. And I'm sure like many of your listeners, I was empowered by that movement. But what really struck me was not that women were speaking up, because I think we always have.

It was that finally we were being listened to and believed. And it got me thinking, well, why had it taken so long? And all my thoughts around this idea sort of coalesced around a single realisation. For centuries, whenever women have used our voices, we've been called crazy. And that's what I wanted to write about in this book. But I'm a storyteller at heart. And it's a history book, but it reads like a novel. And so I went looking for a real woman in history to whom this had happened, you know, declared insane for having her own mind. Interesting. So you had the idea, you could see something and you wanted, I mean, just to use a phrase that we've just been talking about, we just heard a clip there from the play, gaslighting. Women have

been gaslit for centuries. Completely. And what I thought was really interesting about that clip as well is, you know, Cleo is using her voice. She's, you know, putting her political views out there and, you know, she's called crazy. That was the wording in the clip. And so you can see how prevalent it is even today. You know, we can see the echoes of it all around us. Absolutely. I mean, we were only talking about Britney Spears yesterday on the show. Precisely.

And there are so many echoes in what's happened to Britney in the story of Elizabeth Packard. Well, let's find out all about her because it is an amazing story. So tell us a bit more about her. You start the story in 1860. Set the scene for us, Kate. So it is. It's 1860, the cusp of the American Civil War. And the book, The Woman They Could Not Silence, starts with Elizabeth, this 43-year-old housewife and mother of six, lying in bed in her marital home. And it starts with this simple question.

What would happen if your husband could commit you to an insane asylum just because you disagreed with him? And that's what happens to Elizabeth. She gets committed because as, you know, crazy, for want of a better word, as it seems to us today, actually, the received scientific wisdom of the age was that women like Elizabeth, who stood up for themselves, who had, you know, their own opinions, who had their own voices, they were actually textbook examples of female insanity. And so you would find those women in the asylum, and Elizabeth does. When she's locked up, all the women around her are also sane, and they've been locked away essentially for being unsatisfactory wives.

But she's been a textbook wife for a long time, hasn't she? Explain how long she'd been married to him and they've got six children together. I mean, she's the dream wife mother in many ways. She is. And actually, she became a writer, which is partly what The Woman They Could Not Silence is about. It's about how this housewife finds this unsilenceable voice. And Elizabeth, yeah, she, you know, protests in her writings that essentially she did everything right. She was married for 21 years. She had six children. Her youngest at the time she sent to the asylum is just 18 months old.

And yet her husband rips her from her family, despite her being this exemplary wife, because she is finding her voice. You know, this is what changes. She has been the perfect wife and mother until she is no longer a silent listener, until she challenges her husband politically, religiously, and does so publicly. And for him, that is the final straw you know at that point she needs to be sent away and she needs to learn her lesson and that was something in my research for the book that I found fascinating the treatment in the asylums was what Elizabeth called a subduing treatment she said she'd been sent there to be broken in I can just just gonna say I can hear the audience booing and hissing towards the husband.

So what was it like for her in the asylum? What was that experience like at first? Well, at first, I think to many people's surprise, including Elizabeth, the asylum was nothing like we would imagine a 19th century asylum to be. The ward that she'd sent to is a place where the women dine at oil cloth covered tables. They, you know, dine with glass in China. There are paintings on the walls. And it's a very civilized environment. And that's because these women have not transgressed too much. The doctors who are treating them, including Dr. Andrew McFarland, they are there to essentially teach

the women how to behave. McFarland writes that he is his patient's superior. And he uses the metaphor of him being Prospero and the women are his caliban, there to be controlled. He wants to have control over the clothes that they wear, the food that they eat, the very thoughts that they think. And so Elizabeth at first is, you know, subjected this treatment. And as I say, the way she responds is amazing because she does become the woman they could not silence. She protests against this cruel treatment that she sees, the way women's personalities are pathologized. You know, it's a real medicalisation of female behaviour. And Elizabeth protests. And that leads her into what we, you know,

would see as the traditional idea of an insane asylum, where there is, you know, it's almost like a dungeon. And she is essentially locked up and the key is thrown away because she dares to protest and have a voice to fight for her sisters, not only for herself. I mean, it is an incredible story. So she's not insane. The doctors know she's not insane, but because she won't go along with it,

she's punished and she ends up on the eighth ward. Explain what that was like. Explain what it's like when she really is put into a proper psychiatric. So the eighth ward is totally different from the experience I've just described. You know, as Elizabeth crosses the threshold, the floor is stone cold. There are none of those sort of aesthetic trappings that she sees before. Instead, the patients are filthy. They're not cared for properly. And they themselves, you know, forbidden a voice are, you know, that she's categorized with an inmate called the filthy

insane, who literally use their own experiment to try and make their voices be heard. You know, that's how they make their mark on the world. She's committed to a place where there are dormitories, it's iron bedsteads, husk mattresses, freezing cold. And Elizabeth is sent there, even though, you know, she herself is not mentally disturbed because the doctors want to silence her voice. And that's what it's all about. And remarkably, Elizabeth writes, the worst that my enemies can do, they have done and I fear them no more. And that fearlessness is what gets her through. It's that and it's wanting to help others. So even though she's attacked physically by the other inmates, she chooses to see the humanity in them, which is an exceptional position in the mid-19th

century. But she believes that people, even if they're afflicted with mental illness, deserve human rights. And this actually only fires her up to greater desire to speak out and to change the world for the better. My goodness me, what a woman. So how long was she in the asylum for? How did she manage to get out? Well, she was in the asylum for three years, which if you think of how awful that is, because she doesn't know it's going to be three years. As far as she knows, she's there for life. How she gets out is in some ways quite amusing to think of, because, as I say, she was the woman they could not silence. And essentially the voice that she is giving to other patients, the way she is inspiring them to be themselves, to not kowtow to this subduing treatment.

The doctor who releases her from the asylum says he only let her go because she'd become a source of unendurable annoyance. She had caused too much trouble. Brilliant. Did she go back to her husband? She initially goes back to her husband, but she says she returns as a mother, not a wife. She simply wants to be there to care for her children. And without getting too much away, she miraculously manages to secure a sanity trial for herself. So the book then takes a twist into courtroom drama. And there's this landmark legal case, which was exceptional because women at the time could actually be sent to asylums

without the evidence of insanity required in other cases. They were not supposed to have a court case. There was not supposed to be a trial that Elizabeth manages to secure one. And this is part of her exceptional story. I mean, we don't want to obviously give too much away and people will go and get the book because your writing is just exquisite, Kate,

and you really take us into this story. It's amazing. But she does then hit a terrible low point. Things get worse before they get better for Elizabeth, don't they? They do get worse before they get better. And ultimately, she is left at the age of 47, penniless, homeless, childless. And Elizabeth's fortitude and resilience when she faces that situation is extraordinary because what she does is miraculously becomes a best-selling writer. This is a woman who has no capital. She goes to publishers. They refuse to publish the manuscript because she's been in the asylum. You know, they won't touch her because of the stigma of mental insanity, even though

she's, you know, a sane woman. But Elizabeth, who is incredibly forward-thinking, essentially crowdfunds her book. You you know she goes door to door she tells her story and she says to people to thousands of people will you give me 50 cents so I can print my book and she convinces you know thousands of people to respond you know people of the time described that she had this irresistible magnetism. She was a woman with a most rare command of language, a fine mind and a brilliant imagination. And so she convinces people and she becomes this best-selling writer off the back of it.

And she uses what she calls a platform of greenback independence to then become a political campaigner. And she fights to the end of her days to improve the rights of women and the mentally ill. She is successful. And she writes, I don't want another sister in America to suffer as much as I have. But she didn't go back to her husband? No, not ultimately. No, not in the end. No, she was independent to the end of her days, which given this is the mid-19th century we're talking about, is exceptional in itself. I mean, the book is set over 160 years ago. What a gift to find

this character. There you are in 2017, you go off on a quest to see what you can find and to come across Elizabeth Packard. Is she well known in the States? Do people know about her? She's not. And you can hear from my voice, I'm British, but I've written about this American woman. And I actually had to chat with my American editor, you know, when I found her story. For all I know, she was taught, you know, in history classes in high schools. But no, she's been completely forgotten. Her legacy has been eclipsed by the men who tried to silence her. So the doctor who kept her incarcerated has a mental health center named after him in Springfield, Illinois.

But there are no such monuments to Elizabeth who, you know, was so fearless and changed the world so positively. And I'm hoping that my book might redress the balance and restore her legacy because she did such an enormous amount, you know, to contribute to the cause of women. And I simply think her story is so compelling and inspirational.

You know, this woman who moves from housewife to historically significant heroine, a woman who becomes stronger through the crucible of suffering. This is her story, the story to find that unsilenceable voice. And she truly was the woman they could not silence and I hope everyone now would listen to what she has to say I mean Kate I love her so much I'm thinking of getting an Elizabeth Packard tattoo I mean yeah the story is that inspiring we've had a message in from someone saying there are so many echoes in what's happened to Brittany in what happened to Elizabeth Packard um talking about women being locked up by their husbands and

families through history the woman they could not be silenced. So someone's absolutely resonating. The story is something we find familiar. 160 years later. Completely. And as you say, the parallels with Britney, you know, completely losing her legal identity. That's what happened to married women at the time. You know, Britney talks about, you know, when she is assertive, she refuses to do a dance move, they come down even heavily on her in terms of her psychiatric care. And what really struck me as well was the way Britney talked about the sort

of pressure she felt to put out this public vision of being happy. You know, that's what Elizabeth and the other women in the asylum were expected to do, too, to paste on a smile, to become these sort of cut out dolls who don't think or feel or become angry. And so the resonances are completely there. It's actually really quite chilling to think that the situation from 1860 right the way through to 2021, you know, there are still so many parallels to what's going on today. So much, so much work still to be done. Kate, thank you so much. Thoroughly enjoyed that. And well done for finding her writings and giving her a newfound voice. I think America should maybe think about having Elizabeth Packard on a banknote. Kate, thank you. Well, I say that because this week sees the launch of a new £50 note featuring the Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing.

It will no longer be paper, which means the bank's entire collection of currently printed banknotes is made of plastic for the first time. But what work goes into making new banknotes? How do they pick who to put on it? And how do they make it easy to manufacture but extremely hard for counterfeiters to reproduce? Well, Debbie Marriott is going to tell us.

She's a banknote designer at the Bank of England. No, actually, let me welcome you properly to Woman's Hour, Debbie, the first ever female banknote designer at the Bank of England, no less. Very good morning. Welcome to the programme. So how, tell me how you got the job. How do you become a banknote designer? I don't think I was born into this world to be a banknote designer but my life has been this journey so when I left college with a fine art degree I got a first job in a small printing company where I learned to use my design skills with computers for the first time because obviously it was very early days in terms of digital art and printing but then I actually applied for an advert I saw in the Guardian newspaper for a junior artist designer at the Bank of England.

I didn't think I stood a chance, but here I am now, still working at the Bank of England. Very good. And you got the job in 1990. And of course, we'll talk about how things have changed. But being the first woman in such a of specialist field that we were in. But for me, that made me just more resilient and more determined to do well at my job. And I worked really hard to prove that I could do my job very well. Although there was, and importantly, I had a line manager at the time who was very supportive and encouraging. And I think he inspired me to be passionate about my job as I am now. So let's talk about the job, banknote designer. What exactly does it involve? What do you do?

Okay, so my job is really to make sure that the banknotes are aesthetically pleasing, that they look good. But also, most importantly, that it optimises, that the design optimises all the security features that are required on the banknote to make it more secure and difficult to counterfeit. So things like the foil hologram, the see-through windows, etc., they all have to be integrated within the design to make sure that the design can function well for its users and it looks good at the same time. So what was your involvement with the new £50 note that's coming out? Or some people call them the pinkies. So my job was one of a team of women, actually,

who helped to produce the £50 and get it out into the public, as it was this week. So we had a woman designer, myself. We had a woman technical advisor who was a scientist. We have the chief cashier, Sarah John, who's a woman who signs the notes. And there was a large team of individuals and specialist individuals to carry from the design right the way through to production and launch the note. But my job is really at the first starts once the character has been selected.

So once we had the chosen character, Alan Turing, for the 50, it was my role to produce the concept design, which finally shows who and what and how the note is going to look like when it's actually out there in the real world. And once that's been approved by the governor, it's really a job about making sure the detailed design stages and that the artwork can be produced for mass production. But it's all the way, it's a team of people working together to make sure that it's a very secure note,

that the image is good as well. I'm sure. People can be very interested in this. I'm sure it's top security. do you have any say in who gets who gets to be on the notes are you part of that process no there is a character so since um 2014 there's been a character advisory committee set up uh which has um individuals from within the bank and external and they choose a field that the banknote is going to be so for the 50 pound it was clearly Turing and then there's a specialist group on committee that then work work through the nomination because part of that process for the bank is to invite the public to nominate

characters for the 50 pound and they basically the committee then will work on the short list to decide who would be the best possible people to be on that banknote. And Turing is a great candidate to have on there. You know what he represents for the LGBTQ plus community. Really important figure to have on the new £50 note. But there was a huge upset when people realised we had so few women on banknotes. We've got, well, Florence Nightingale was the first notable woman. In 1975, she appeared.

And then we've got Elizabeth Fry and Jane Austen. That's right. So I think out of the 13 notes that had characters on them from the Bank of England, three of them have been women. But it's still an important part of my job is to make sure that the design carries significant sort of elements of the character's contribution to their field. So in order to make the note more interesting, we try to incorporate little snippets of their

life and work to incorporate within the design so that the more people look and become interested in the banknotes, the more they're likely to spot a count of it. So for Elizabeth Fry, for example, I've got one here where your readers can't see it. If you remember the old paper five pound. The old fiver, yep. Right, there we have Elizabeth Fry who was the prison reformer during the Victorian time and there's lots of small images around within the design. For example, there's a key that rotates behind her, she was awarded a key to Newgate prison and similar in the way to Jane Austen austen on the 10th we have lots of snippets relating to jane austen on the back just as we do with alan turing on the 50 pound so if you can look at the

parliament 10 in your wallets now we have references to the books um to the quill that we have a small vignette of elizabeth bennett uh writing at her desk and you know it's funny you've got the notes out in front of me because yeah like when i thought when i knew i was going to be talking to you um debbie i thought oh I'll have a look at some notes and like really pay attention because we don't pay attention. We sort of look at them, but none of us really study them. And guess what? I had no notes in my wallet. Are you concerned that we are moving away and becoming I mean, the pandemic has certainly sped up this idea of a cashless society. Are you concerned that we won't be using notes so there has been a reduction in cash use um over the past few years and obviously covid has

intensified that but uh but there are still roughly about one in five people in the uk that prefer to use cash for for payments and transactions and um it is an easy it's easy to use it's more practical in some ways, and people tend to use it for budgeting purposes or as a store of value. So there is still a need for cash in our society, and as long as there's a need for cash, they need to be designed, and we hope to include the most diverse selection of our society on our banknotes going forward.

Wonderful. It has been so fascinating talking to you, Debbie Marriott. Thank you so much. So there you go. Next time you pick up your note, have a good look and you know who designed them. And if you do get the £50 note, take a picture and post it because we all want to have a look. It's not often that you see a £50 note. Thank you so much, Debbie Marriott. Lots of you getting in touch. Wonderful. It's a woman designer, but it's plastic biodegradable. Someone wants to know. We'll have to talk about that. I sincerely hope so. Someone else says, Mitch says, I finally got my dream job in autumn 2020.

I was a teacher, then a park ranger, then a park manager. Finally, at the age of 55, I landed a job as a senior environmental education project officer with a fabulous team. Congratulations, Mitch. And on cash, somebody nameless has texted in to say, the tooth fairy only accepts cash. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Are you fed up with the news?

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