Woman's Hour - Baroness Hale on Roe v Wade, Women missing out on state pensions; Lara Feigel, Becoming a mother when yours is dying

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

The former President of the Supreme Court Baroness Brenda Hale joins Emma Barnett to give her reaction to the overturning of Roe vs Wade in the United States. She also talks about abortion law here in the UK, the upcoming barristers' strike and whether rape trials should get priority for court time.A new campaign is being launched today, exclusively on Woman’s Hour, aiming to help more women who are being underpaid their state pension. Mothers’ Missing Millions is specifically aimed at women who spent time out of paid work bringing up children, mainly in the 1980’s and 1990’s – but did not receive credits for this on their National Insurance record as they should have done. According to the Department for Work and Pensions’ annual report which came out in July, this is now ‘the second largest’ source of error on state pensions. Emma is joined by Steve Webb, the former pensions minister who now works at the corporate consulting firm LCP, which is offering a free guide to how women can fix this for themselves. Listener Hannah got in touch asking us to talk about being motherless when you’re about to become a mother yourself. In 2017 her mum was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when Hannah was 24 weeks pregnant with her first child, and she sadly passed away when her grandchild turned one. Emma speaks to Hannah, as well as consultant perinatal psychologist Julianne Boutaleb.In her new book, Look! We Have Come Through! Living with D.H. Lawrence, Lara Feigel, Professor of Modern Literature and Culture at King’s College London, tells the story of a pandemic year spent in the company of her partner, her two children and D.H Lawrence. Lara joins Emma to talk about D.H Lawrence and how an author can inform and change your life.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. Welcome to the programme. One of the hottest tickets around is to watch a 40-year-old woman trying not to retire from tennis. So reads one of the write-ups of Serena Williams' stunning win at the US Open against the No. 2 seed. But retire after this, she will, apparently. That is what we know, but perhaps things will change. This is what the 24-time Grand Slam winner, wearing sparkly black and a big smile, had to say after her victory.

Honestly, I'm just looking at it as a bonus. I don't have anything to prove. I don't have anything to win. I have absolutely nothing to lose. And honestly, I never get to play like this. Literally, I've had an X on my back since 99. So it's kind of fun and just coming out and enjoying it. feels she can play. And I want to ask for your experiences of that. When have you been at the end of something and perhaps you've been completely liberated? You've been able to throw caution to the wind. Maybe you've been leaving a job. Maybe you've been finishing something in your life. Maybe, I don't know, it was a relationship and there was something you could do that you couldn't do before.

What has that liberation, whatever it's been in your life, meant to you? What did you do that maybe you wouldn't do normally? You know, bad or good? I'd quite like to hear all those stories, please, and in between. You can text the programme.

The number is 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we're at BBC Women's Act. You can email me your stories. You don't have to put your real name. I always like to add that if you don't know that. to the Women's Hour website. Or you can send a WhatsApp

message or a voice note using the number 03700 100 444. Data charges could apply so you may wish to use Wi-Fi. My first guest this morning may have something to say about that, having retired from being the President of the UK Supreme Court in 2020, Baroness Brenda Hale, the first woman I should also add to have held that role. But we will also talk about that landmark decision by judges across the pond on the Supreme Court in America to overturn Roe v. Wade, effectively ending the constitutional right to abortion for millions of American women and other issues too. So stay with me for that. She's coming up very shortly. Also on today's programme, a new campaign launching exclusively

on Woman's Hour this morning, which may help you or a woman in your life claim some money wrongly withheld. One listener joins me to talk about something extremely difficult but she wanted to raise because she hasn't seen it talked about in other places, about losing her mother just as she became one. And we're going to hear why reading can be such a solace and perhaps how to recapture some of that passion you may have had for it when you were younger. All of that to come on today's Woman's Hour, so don't go anywhere. But first of all, let's talk to, and welcome back to the programme,

Baroness Brenda Hale. Baroness Hale, of course, President of talk to and welcome back to the programme, Baroness Brenda Hale. Baroness Hale, of course, president of the Supreme Court until her retirement in 2020. During her long legal career, she established many things, but one of them that you may recall, that domestic violence doesn't have to be physical, leading to greater understanding of coercive control and legal change, to name just one of the many influences she had. Her most high-profile case, arguably, was on the matter of the Queen's prorogation of Parliament

on the advice of Boris Johnson in 2020. Baroness Hale, good morning. Good morning. It's good to be with you. It's very good to have you. I mentioned your retirement from the Supreme Court in 2020. Thinking about Serena Williams, talking about being free as she heads towards retirement from what we know her for, her tennis playing. Is that a similar feeling when you're coming up to retirement in your line of work? Do you feel suddenly a greater liberty? I'm at a little more liberty than I was when I was a serving judge to comment on certain matters. But I'm very conscious of the

fact that I do not want to make the lives of my successors any more difficult than they already are. So I have to tread a little bit carefully. And when you were in the run up to retiring, how did that feel? Was it a mixed feeling, mixed emotions, or were you ready? I think I was ready. I'd been a full-time judge for 26 years, and that's quite a long time to be doing that particular job. And I thought it was time for other people to come and take up the reins. You didn't start trying to push forward with anything you felt you hadn't been able to push forward with before? Well, you can't do that as a judge. One of the things about being as a judge, you don't really

pick your cases. The cases come to you. Yes. But you have to sometimes win the battle, don't you? You know, in the room. Oh, in the room you sometimes have to win the battle and, of course, sometimes you don't. But there we go.

Yes, there we go. There is an art of persuasion. There is. I was wondering if it got any stronger just as you were coming up to retirement, but it seems it was services normal, which is what we would expect, but it's always good to ask. I'm sure we'll get many more messages coming in as well as people reach their retirement or perhaps changed role. If I could come to the ruling from a different Supreme Court, the US Supreme Court, which I mentioned, you know, it's the 1st of September today, and laws and rules are already changing, have been changing and continuing to change for what women can do depending on where they live in America, following that overturning of Roe v.

Wade, which effectively ended the constitutional right to an abortion for millions of American women. Can I just ask, do you remember how you felt when you heard the news that it had been overturned? Well, I think that I was not surprised because there had been a previous leak of a draft of the judgment, which may or may not have been genuine, but actually turned out to be pretty genuine. So I wasn't very surprised. I was, of course, extremely sorry, because I cannot see it as anything other than a retrograde step for millions of women in America. But it is, of course, a very different constitutional situation. The US Supreme Court has to try and interpret their Bill of Rights, which is now very old. And so some people find it possible to imply rights into it and other people don't.

So their role is completely different from the role of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which cannot declare acts of Parliament unconstitutional. It simply has to apply the law which Parliament has laid down. I suppose we then get into a debate, which I don't think we should do right now, but it has been debated about what that role should be and whether it's the right one and whether we have it as a better system here. And obviously, there's also the differences of, I suspect you didn't know the politics of the judges that you were sitting alongside of, whereas that's a big part of how the, well, maybe you did, you tell me, but of how the judges are made up in the Supreme Court. I shock audiences in America by saying that I didn't know the politics of my colleagues in the Supreme Court. There were two of them where it was pretty clear what their politics were, but everybody else,

no, I didn't know. And I suspect that quite a lot of them were floating voters. They weren't appointed because of their politics. We were appointed irrespective of our politics. And that's a good thing, in my view. Do you think it was right for the judges to do what they did in America? It's not for me to tell the US judges what they should or should not have done, because, as I said, they're interpreting a very old Bill of Rights, which is open to all sorts of interpretations. I think it's very unfortunate to overturn a decision which has been the law for several decades without having an extremely good reason to do so. I think that is unfortunate. It's much better if...

You don't think a reason was given that was good enough? Oh, I think that's up to them. As I say, it's not for me to tell them what they should be doing. Yes. And I mustn't do that. But you do describe it as a retrograde step. Well, it is a retrograde. And I'm just keen to understand more on that because, of course,

the decision made by those judges is affecting real women's lives. Now we understand one in three women in the United States no longer have the right to choose to have an abortion. law which was passed by Parliament. And that gives it a legitimacy that the interpretation of a constitution by judges perhaps does not have. And so I am much more content with the abortion law this side of the Atlantic. And, well, my own view on abortion is that it's an extremely difficult moral question, what to do and why to do it and how to do it. But the question is one that should be answered by the woman who is pregnant and should not be forced upon her by other people, and particularly not by people who can never become pregnant. So you're talking about men there? Well, yes. Right, because you talk about being a funder of the situation here,

abortions are still considered an illegal act under the 1967 Abortion Act, meaning any woman who ends her pregnancy without getting legal permission from two doctors can face life imprisonment under a Victorian law passed in 1861, which there have been calls for that to change. Would you support those calls? I think it's quite a complicated question, because I'm not necessarily against there being some regulation of the circumstances and methods by which abortion should be performed. And once you have any sort of regulation, you may have to have penalties for not complying with the regulation. But that's not the same as leaving the situations it currently is, which is that the 1861 Act makes abortion unlawful. And then the 67 Abortion Act makes it lawful in certain circumstances. There might be better and more sympathetic ways of doing it.

Have you ever thought about that? Is there a way that you could answer that with your knowledge of how to look at how law is structured? Well, I think what one could say, you've got to decide, well, what do we want the criteria to be? Is this a health question, which is the way the Abortion Act looks at it at the moment? Or is it a privacy, women's autonomy question, which was the way that Roe against Wade looked at it? You've first got to decide which of those two it is. It's obviously much more palatable to regard it as a health question. So the criterion that we have at the moment, that if continuing the pregnancy will be more harmful to the health of the mother than ending it, well, then an abortion is lawful. And that's something which can command a great deal of support, it seems to me.

So you first got to decide what the criteria are, and then you have to decide what the process might be. Does it have to have the approval of two doctors, or would there be other ways of doing it? Once you've made those decisions, you then decide, well, maybe we completely don't regulate it. And so there's no question of criminalisation anyway. Or whether you just have a more minor regulatory offence for those who either perform, actually really should be directed at those who perform rather than the woman who suffers the abortion. And it will be a much more minor regulatory offence. But I don't think that our current law is that bad that we need to agonise too much about it. Those against the move, including Christian Action Research and

education groups, say there have been very few prosecutions and it's only in extreme circumstances where babies are very late term and they say decriminalisation could have unintended consequences such as sex selective abortions. And some also feel that no change is needed, as you say, because it's working in the main and it's not that bad, if I was to say it in layman's terms, at the moment. But I wanted to ask you about it because there have been calls by some MPs to look at this. Of course, abortions are decriminalised in Northern Ireland. That is a change, but we're still seeing that accessing services is very hard due to the political situation. That's something that we've covered, which shows even when the law does change,

the actual change still cannot sometimes happen. This is true. It's one thing to have something lawful. It's quite another thing to have publicly funded health services providing the facilities for that to happen. And that's the situation that they're in in Northern Ireland at the moment. Yes. And just before we move on to something else,

going back to something you said about those who cannot be pregnant, deciding the law around this, do you not think men should be able to be judges on this? Oh, it's not a question of being judges. And obviously, anything to do with the law, any enfranchised person, any member of parliament can have a view on it. But it does worry me that something that is so vital to women's lives and to their sense of control over their own bodies seems to be being decided more by men than by women.

That does trouble me a bit. In the US you're talking about? Well, in the US, definitely. And particularly now that there seem to be talk in some states of putting controls on contraception, which further means controlling women's own control over their bodies. And who is going to benefit from that? Yes, I mean, we're looking at the makeup of it. And when the decision was made, it's actually

changed again since then. But there were only three women justices who were on the Supreme Court at that point. And one of the women did vote to overturn the ruling, Amy Coney Barrett. So if you're concerned about that, I mean, would you suggest a change, that there are just certain things men shouldn't be ruling on? No, no, I've not said that men shouldn't be ruling on it. But I think that when men approach a subject like this, they should bear in mind that they are participating in decisions which affect women so much more profoundly than they affect men much, much more profoundly. And I don't deny the interest that would-be fathers have in the potential child to which they have contributed.

I don't deny they have an interest, though I don't think it's an interest that should be represented in the law. But for the most part, the interest is those of women. Who represents us and how they represent us is on people's minds at the moment, because members of the Criminal Bar Association have voted to begin an indefinite, uninterrupted strike in England and Wales on Monday in a dispute with the government over pay, working conditions and legal aid funding. They're asking for a 25% rise in pay for legal aid work, have rejected the 15% offered by the government. Do you support the barrister strike?

It's not for me to support or not support a strike. I do understand why it is taking place. Because the very, very low level of fees which are paid to barristers for doing publicly funded defence work is one feature of the chronic underfunding of the criminal justice system. It's not just the barristers, it's the courts and the court buildings, it's very much the number of court sitting days, which were artificially restricted before COVID. And of course, the COVID situation made it much worse. And there is also a shortage of judges to hear cases. Why can't you say if you would agree with striking or not? I'm just interested in that. I'm not asking you now for a view on judgment or to make your judges' lives harder. I mean, you know, would you stand on a picket line with them? I don't, would you stand on a picket line with them?

I don't think I'd stand on a picket line with them. I don't. But I do, as I say, completely understand why they are doing what they are doing. And again, it's a bit like the abortion question. It's a moral question as well as a personal question, because the effect of withdrawing your services is going to be the delays in the criminal justice system will become even greater than they already are. And that will be to the disadvantage of the complainants in criminal cases. This came up yesterday.

That's one of the points. Yeah, well, I mean, I was about to ask you, but one of our listeners has also just messaged in to hear if you have a comment about, there was a story with my colleagues on the Today programme, only yesterday, my colleague spoke to a father whose daughter was allegedly raped, aged 13. They've been waiting already two years for her case to be heard. I'm not going to ask you about the specifics of the case,

but the father has now spoken about a further delay of nine months after a suitable judge could not be found to hear the case. What is your reaction to that? Well, my reaction is one of dismay. And I heard what Vera Baird, the Victims Commissioner, had to say on the Today programme about that and agreed with everything that she said. And it's all part of a much wider problem. And also, I think Wendy Joseph said that she couldn't understand why the problem had arisen because it ought to have been dealt with differently. So these are shocking stories. And that's why it's a complicated question for any barrister as to whether you do or do not withdraw your services.

But the strength of feeling is so huge. I mean, the vote in favour of taking this action was pretty overwhelming. So it just goes to show the condition in which the criminal justice system has fallen. Would you take something to court at the moment, Baroness Hale? You mean in a criminal case, would I complain? Well, yes, because the father in this particular case, but there are other examples, says he now regrets taking the case to court. It is always a difficult question if you're the victim of a sexual assault as to what you will do about it and whether you will pursue a prosecution. But I do, I accept that. But sorry, I'm sort of asking in this context of delays with Covid, now barrister strikes, also a lack of a judge in this particular case.

You know, would you would you go to court? Would you recommend going to court at the moment with the way know you should not be doing these sorts of things, and that perpetrators are prosecuted, convicted and punished. It might just take three years. It might take a very long time. So I think that one should do this. But I sympathise entirely with the people who decide that the aggravation, the difficulties, the stress is just too much and they won't do it. But I do think that people should at least start it and see what happens. Well, you also mentioned the Victims Commissioner, Dame Vera Bird. She talked about there being specific courts for rape as other cases get priority because of custody time limits,

which don't often apply in cases of rape, which decide which cases even get to court. Do you think there should be courts specifically for rape cases? Do you think that would be appropriate? Well, I think that in a sense, there are courts specifically for rape cases, because in order to try a case of rape, you have to have what we call a ticket. You have to be one of those judges who has been identified as one who is suitable to try a case of rape, you have to have what we call a ticket. You have to be one of those judges who has been identified as one who is suitable to try these cases. So in a sense, we do have such a system already. But I also think that, yes, where the defendant is in custody,

these are definitely given priority because people should not be waiting trial in custody for too long. But rape cases should also be given priority because of the extreme stress that it causes on either side of the case, whether it's a complainant whose complaint is just or a defendant whose defence is just. On either side, the stress is extreme. I'm just going to bring your mind to, I feel like we've got a few insights there, a few judgments, if we will, from you unofficially. I'm also minded to say I can see you on our video call here.

And people may remember your spider brooch from your judgment when we were talking about prorogation in this country, when we finally learned what that word meant. What have we got on today? I can see another brooch on the shoulder, Baroness Hale. It's a bee. OK, I had to ask, had to ask. As a Mancunian, I'm very happy to see a bee there. But the last thing I wanted to just bring you to while I have your time is something you mentioned right at the end of our last conversation. When we last spoke, you came on when we were there to help us mark the programme's 75th anniversary. And you just mentioned your state pension had decreased by nearly £1,000 a year after your husband had died. And you said you didn't understand perhaps why that was the case. And I do actually happen to have, it's a bit of a surprise surprise here, I happen to have the former pensions minister, Steve Webb on the line, who's actually going to be announcing a new campaign shortly. But just while he is here, and he can hear if there has been an update, has there been any movement on that for you? No, there hasn't't that's partly because i'm afraid i have not devoted the

enormous amount of time and energy that i would have to devote to trying to get to the bottom of this and what the reasoning is and what the uh regulation is that justifies it or not as the case may be i just haven't had the time to do that. That's fair enough. I've made no progress at all on it, but I know I'm not alone. Yes. I think that was the point. And when after you said it, others got in touch to say, and I think they're also reassured that, you know, our former top judge in the land was having some issues with this, nevermind them thinking, you know, what's actually happened here and have I done something wrong? And we're going to hear a bit about actually what the Department for Work and Pensions seems to have done wrong in just a moment.

But Steve Webb, good morning. Good morning, Emma. This is something that others have experienced, isn't it? It is. It's unusual, but far from unique. And the first time I came across it, I didn't believe it. I just thought it must be a mistake. And only when I really delve into it did I realise that under the old state pension, this could occasionally happen. So is it something you can sort, as it were? No, it isn't. And the short reason is that I imagine, Baroness Hale, I imagine that your late husband was a member of a company pension scheme or something like that. And basically, there's a connection between that scheme and the state scheme. So when he retired, that company pension scheme made various promises. And even after he dies, that company pension scheme still has to pay something to you.

And it does that instead of part of your state pension. So the short answer is you look at the state and the company scheme together and it kind of makes a bit more sense. But I absolutely understand. I mean, when you've just been widowed, the last thing you expect to happen is your state pension to go down. It's a nonsense. The new system doesn't do it like that but the old system sadly did well maybe i've said we've said i never got that i never got such a uh an increase in in i never got anything like that from my husband's estate so um that's what i couldn't understand that was the explanation i'd been given uh but i couldn't understand it because i couldn't see where I was getting what it is they said I was going to get. Well, that sounds about as clear as mud, doesn't it? I'd be very happy to continue the conversation if that would be helpful.

If you'd like it, Baroness Hale, we've already made the introduction on air and Steve will perhaps talk to you when you want to focus on this, but others are in that situation. So we just wanted to come back to it and we were grateful for you raising it in the first place. Baroness Hale, thank you very much for your time this morning. Thank you. Lovely to have you back. I hope to have you back again soon. Many messages coming in.

Steve, I'll come back to you in just a moment about the liberation in your life as we're talking, you know, Baroness Hale reflecting on retirement, but also Serena Williams is on our minds this morning as she feels free playing what's been described as her sort of retirement tournament as she beats the second seed in the US Open. My liberation, I got divorced in 1987 after an abusive marriage and in 1992 I stood for parliament. Please keep this message anonymous. We will. Wow. I sold my business in Denmark after a breakup and I went diving for an environmental organisation in

Belize, aged 34. There I met some fab people. I ended up moving to the UK and I'm still here 25 years after, says Annette. Good morning to you. We've got this from Sue. Brenda Hale is an amazing, inspiring woman. I'm sure she's still busy. I retired in 2018 but continue to contribute to my profession as a trustee. It's been more than rewarding than I ever could have imagined and I've learned new skills never stop developing another one I agonized and put off leaving a job says Louise and Devin I loved 15 years of being a vet serving a community I loved just handing my notice it made all the negatives the stress the terrible management and small numbers of complaining public you take up a lot of time and headspace melt away. I just got to enjoy the fire of my job, which was to connect with people and help them make decisions to give their pets good welfare. I found huge gratitude in being

able to do what I did every day. And it was so freeing. Then I got to enjoy a summer with my children with no work shackles and I was free to immerse wholly in family life. Again, so freeing. I feel like I've got wings. I think turning 40 gave them to me. And now the future lies ahead open and it's undecided and exciting. Good for you, Louise. Another one here, just one more if I can. I feel totally liberated after recently returning

from a trek in the Himalayas. My family and I completed 12 gruelling days dealing with high altitude and very basic living conditions. At 48, I didn't think I'd be able to do the six hours walking a day, but I haven't felt this fit in decades and looking for my next challenge.

I didn't miss the phone, TV or a mirror and I fully appreciate now a bed, pillow, toilet, shower, clean clothes and of course, Radio 4. Totally invigorating experience. And so it goes on, the rest of your life, being the first day of it, what it felt like to you and why. More of those stories very

shortly. But talking about being with your family and perhaps, you know, dedicating yourself or having to do it, whichever you view it as, or a bit of both. What if you hadn't been paid what you could have been paid? Because today a new campaign is being launched exclusively on Women's Hour, aiming to help more women who are being underpaid their state pension. It could help you or someone you know. Mothers Missing Millions, this is what the campaign is called, is specifically aimed at women who spent time out of paid work bringing up children, mainly in the 80s and 90s, but did not receive credits for this on their national insurance record as they should have done. According to the Department for Work and Pensions annual report, which came out in July, this is now, quote, the second largest source of error on state pensions. I say very wryly, don't worry. The first one also affected women, in case you were wondering. and Peacock, which is offering a free guide to how women can fix this for themselves and those,

of course, also perhaps in the family who want to help. Steve, let's get to this then. Could you explain about the campaign and how it came about? Yes, absolutely. And so it's a slightly strange story. Because huge errors were found on the state pension, the government for the first time in 15 years did some thorough checking of state pension records. They hadn't done it since 2005. And they literally phoned some people up who were on low pensions. And they got chatting and Mrs. Jones would say, oh, well, you know, this is my work history. This is my family history. I had children. And the DWP would say, what do you mean you had children? There's nothing on our records. And they go off and check. And it turned out it was missing from her national insurance record. So she was wrongly being underpaid state pension.

And then they make another phone call and another phone call and they just kept finding this was happening. So now in their report, they've admitted there's a systematic problem. They don't know how big it is, but we think we ought to make sure people do get this credit, this protection. So we've created a web page that we're launching on your programme today. And we hope people will just check if this applies to them and potentially in cases we've created a web page that we're launching on your program today and we hope people will just check if this applies to them and potentially in cases we've dealt with get

thousands of pounds of back pension that they should have been getting all along. How can you find out? Well there's three steps so first of all just to be clear who qualifies and who doesn't so this is a protection that came in in 1978 so we can forget any years before 1978 but in the 80s or 90s you had to be at home with a child so not in paid work because if you're paying national insurance that's fine anyway so at home with a child under 16 and not paying what was called the married woman stamp as a special reduced rate for married women so if you're paying that none of this applies but apart from that home of the kids under 16 1980 1990 1980, 1990, there should be something on your national insurance record, a credit effectively. And so what you can do is if

all those boxes are ticked, you can then check online, check your national insurance record, or phone them up and ask, and see if these credits are actually on your record. If they're not, there's a simple form to fill in. Some of these forms are complicated. This one's literally, how many kids do you have? What was their date of birth? What's their names? It's that kind of form. And then HMRC will put this information on your national insurance record and DWP will then recalculate your pension as if it had been correct from the day you retired. So you could get thousands in back pension potentially. Yes, I mean, you've called it mothers missing millions. Do we know it's actually millions? Well, the first time this error was spotted, I raised this when I was an MP in opposition back in 2008.

And DWP tried to fix it and they spent over 80 million pounds. They paid out 80 million pounds to over 35,000 mothers. So we know that the last time they tried to fix it, that was the scale of the problem. They thought they'd fixed it. And now here we are 10, 11 years later, and they suddenly admit in a public report that it isn't fixed. And so, you know, I've already helped women get thousands of pounds in back pension. And crucially, some people have been told they weren't entitled at all. So you will have listeners who phone the department, were told they weren't entitled to a pension, so didn't claim, and who actually should be getting a pension if only their record had been correct.

So a particular plea to any woman over pension age listening who has never claimed a pension, claim it. Yes, because if you've called the department and you've actually managed to get through and then you've been told no, you wouldn't have any confidence that you should go back again. Absolutely. And I'm saying the number of people we've come across who've been told they weren't entitled to a pension who actually are, or perhaps weren't when they retired, but now their husband's retired, so they should be claiming now. I really think any woman over state pension age who has never claimed a pension should claim anyway, regardless, because the worst thing they can do is say no again. A government spokesperson of this era said this year we will spend over 110 billion pounds on the state pension

and support over 12 and a half million pensioners. We're investigating an issue with the historical recording of home responsibilities protection, that's what we're talking about, with work underway to identify those affected. I suppose the problem is and I know know that you've called it Mothers Missing Millions. You've come on Women's Hour. Grateful for that to help you launch this and to try and help our listeners if they are eligible for such help. It is that people don't tend to notice these sorts of stories. So this came out in the summer a few weeks ago. Now we're in September, I can say that.

And it doesn't quite get the same attention, does it? And especially, also, you could argue when it's affecting women. And I think partly it can be very technical. I mean, you know, a lot of the details are technical. And that's really why we've produced a simple one-page website for people to just go through three steps

to try and take some of the complexity out. But the basic idea is the system was trying to provide some protection for mothers at home with kids. Many people do benefit from it, but some have missed out and they need to be made aware of that, which is why we've launched the campaign. We'll publish, I'm sure, the details of it on our website. But just if people want to go and look very soon, what do they do? Yes. So the company name is LCP, Lima Charlie Papa. So it's on the lcp

website it's just a simple page mothers missing millions and they can go and have a look at that i mean i think you heard it there in brent and brenda hale's words when she said she sounded almost a bit guilty if i could dare to say something about our former most senior judge she said you know i haven't actually had the time to look into this i think it's one of those jobs that goes to the bottom of the list even if you think you should be looking into it. It is, I guess, you know, it's becoming a cliche to talk of the cost of living crisis, isn't it? But I guess if you are being underpaid your state pension and struggling to pay your bills, well, for goodness sake, let's make sure people are getting the money they should be getting. Let's not give the government years to fix it because it could be years before they fix it.

You can fix it for yourself now. And we should say the firm that you now work for is not getting any form of kickback from this. No, not at all. No, we advise big company pension schemes. So this is the sort of pro bono thing just to help people get what they're entitled to. Steve, thank you. You've played a couple of roles for us today, informing us about this and talking to Baroness Hale about a situation, as we say, that some of our listeners also recognised when she raised it last time. The former pensions minister there, former Lib Dem MP Steve Webb,

thank you very much for your time. A message here. Today is the first day of the rest of my life after 40 years of teaching at schools and universities, wondering how I feel never have to, quote, go into work again. And here you are addressing exactly this, Emma. How brilliant. I shall listen with such interest. Well, whoever you are, no name on this. Huge congratulations to you. And I hope this is the first day of the rest of your life in terms of how you feel and continue to feel about it. I'm sure it will be. Another one. I stopped drinking in 1996. I'm now a recovering alcoholic. I have peace of mind. How much freedom is that? It is priceless, says Jojo. Message, another one. Good morning. This is funny.

I've just been having a WhatsApp chat with a former colleague who, like me, took early retirement from teaching earlier this year. Mine was just to menopause, brackets, when work were not supportive. I have since set up my own business teaching Makaton, a sign language, for those with communication difficulties. I work two days a week at a day centre where my former students attend. And I'm loving being free from all of the stress, brackets again, not good for menopause, and definitely not missing the beginning of a new academic year and the hard work that came with that.

I'm a happy 59-year-old menopausal woman. Best thing I ever did to take my early retirement. And so it carries on about when you felt liberated and what you've done with that and how it's been thereafter. Please keep your messages coming in. But one of our listeners also getting in touch, you know I appreciate it, I hope you know that by now, got in touch with us about something she felt she hadn't heard really anything said about and wanted to have a conversation with the hope of perhaps helping her situation but also letting other people know they're not alone. Hannah has just joined me in the studio and she wrote into the programme to

talk about becoming motherless when you're about to become a mother yourself, or certainly just starting that journey. Because in 2017, her mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when Hannah was 24 weeks pregnant with her first child and Hannah's mother died when her grandchild turned one. Hannah good morning welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. Well thank you for feeling like you could write to us about this. I should say we're also going to be joined in just a moment by the consultant perinatal psychologist Julianne Boutalab who will hope give us a bit of advice on this and has spoken to a lot of women while in pregnancy and then just after about various issues in their life.

But tell us a bit more about your experience. I think my mum would say before she was diagnosed, when you're pregnant, you live from one scan to the next, the 12-week scan, the 20-week scan. And when you're faced with potentially dealing with the death or the uncertainty around your mum's health, you're not only living for one scan to the next for your baby, but you're living from one scan to the next for your mum. And you kind of like accept a, you get information.

So we were told mum had pancreatic cancer and it's this. And then you can have an operation. So you're kind of like, right, I've got this information. We're doing this. And then it's something else. And it's the uncertainty alongside also being pregnant and then having a baby. Seeing the change in my mum. Mum was a very strong woman, feminist, loved women's hour, by the way.

I hope she can see that I'm doing this. And the change in how the cancer affected how she was um she became more anxious um didn't want to leave the home as much and so it was very difficult because I almost the role changed I became slightly like my mum's parent in a way because I had to hold her and and also I was becoming a mum myself um and when you do become a mum if you if you do if you can if you want to you often then reflect on parenting and and your relationship anyway so this must have been I suppose even more intense in some ways yeah it was um it was intense. I'm just I'm sorry. I'm thinking of a precious moment because I think in these situations you have to you have to have gratitude. And if there's any women out there listening to this, you have to take each day as it comes.

But, you know, I always look through my photos. And, you know, when my daughter Ella was born and my mom coming into hospital and holding her it's so precious she had that um we had to kind of be very strategic about um my birth I think that's some of the things I wanted to share with the listeners as well that I didn't feel like I had the chance like other women to think oh why don't I do hypnobirthing or why don't I do this I was thinking hang on my mum's in treatment how can I prepare myself to make sure my mom's well enough? So I decided I'd have an elective C-section. And, you know, it was I felt when I was in NCT, I was surrounded by all these women talking about all these, you know, kind of like hypnobirthing and, you know, labor. And I just thought all those opportunities for me weren't there. And it can,

it can make you feel a little bit resentful, I guess. I mean, I did actually manage to make a wonderful friendship with one woman from the NCT. But that's a good return, by the way. Yes, such a good return. I was really happy. If you just get one. Yeah, exactly. Harry, I hope you're listening. Yeah. But no, I understand you're having to change the experience and manage it in a different way to how it would have just been if it hadn't been trying to think about your mother's health as well and making it very secure as much as you could.

Exactly. And how was it when your daughter was born? And I know you had that year together, that time together, because you again had to think differently I suppose about responsibilities it was really hard it was you know what I feel like I said I need to be very grateful that my mum was there she could see my daughter being born she saw her first year um but you know it was hard because I you know she like I said it there were times she wouldn't be able to leave the house. She got very self-conscious when she lost her hair.

So we had to build her up a lot. There were moments that we were able to go out for coffee and walk to the playground with my daughter Ella. But it was difficult seeing other women with their mums and the freedom that they had that they could just leave the house and go for a coffee and go for a walk in the park and actually my mum had gone off coffee and tea because of chemo and you know I think probably a little bit agoraphobic as well so you were kind of balancing a lot of a lot of things and you know um I had to also balance out you know it's our new baby with my husband Mark Mark, who was just fantastic. But I had to just kind of balance that and then also the need to be with my mum and worrying, you know, how long do I have with her?

And so that was a pressure on me to support my family, but also to support my mum, if that makes sense. Julianne, good morning. Let me bring you in at this point. What do you want to say having heard the issues that Hannah'sannah's raised morning and thank you very much for having me um hannah you're so brave for coming on this morning and it's already a huge tribute to your mom that you're actually raising this issue i think the reality is that we are very queasy about death and dying um through the perinatal period so that sort of trying to conceive all the way you know through to actually having babies we've only just recently started to push back on you know talking about miscarriage pregnancy loss and of course this isn't the sort of thing that you're going to say when you're doing the introductory round and your maternity yoga you know um session and i think that often leads women

feeling very isolated at a time when obviously what really can happen for many of us is that we start to orientate ourselves towards our mothers. We may be really curious. How did they fall pregnant? How easy was it for them to breastfeed? How easy was it for them, you know, to needing support and needing the holding, as Hannah said just then, you have that piece of sort of emotional Jenga sort of pulled away from you. And I think that can leave people feeling very disorientated. tug of sort of being torn in two between having to be there containing and holding her mother and also then trying to think about her child and I think often what happens is women talk to me about a numbness that can descend that they sort of just have a feeling of just going through the motions getting through the pregnancy living scan to scan And it may only be much, much later that they're able to feel the grief, actually. And any advice?

Absolutely. I think one of the things I want to say to people because is recognise what's happening. And that might seem very glib, but I think often women will come, you you know they'll go to midwives or they'll go to friends I don't know what's happening with me I'm feeling really unsafe I'm you know I'm no longer sure about whether or not I want to be a mum or what sort of mum I want to be and I think what's really important is to recognise you're grieving and sometimes we grieve in advance and we grieve in advance and exactly the way Hannah says of all those moments that we thought we were going to have that you know picking a buggy together and having your mum at the christening or dedication ceremony the other advice I would say is that you really need others to mother you at risk of sounding like a social media meme but that is ultimately what we need. We need others to sort of mother us. Are there others that you can lean on? I notice Hannah doesn't mention any siblings, but are there other siblings perhaps that can take on some of the caring role?

Is there somebody who can attend appointments with you? Is it that you need to look for specific tailored response. So, for example, the Good Grief Project is excellent. They have sort of small groups of people who can meet together online and talk about what they're going through. Or is it a matter of trying to memorialise things with your mother? There was a particular woman I worked with whose mother was an avid knitter and they weren't able to talk quite understandably about what was happening because, of course course this is you know her mother's grief as well um but what they were able to do was that her mother in her last few

months of being with her was able to teach her how to knit and what they beautifully created was sort of a christening rug that her little girl wore when she was christened so it's ways of holding on to those moments whilst you know know, your mum is still here. Julianne, thank you very much for that and for your advice. Is there anything you wanted to add, Hannah? And, you know, I'm sure our listeners would want to know how you're doing now. I must say that my sister Scarlett and I

were both in the unique position of losing our mum and I couldn't have got through it without her. And I do also agree about um finding I know it's not substitutes but people who look after you and support you and um I just want to say that to the listeners that you know there are people that are going through this and it is important to access support and utilize all the support you have in your life and take each day as it comes and and I don't want to sound naff but but I do think living with gratitude is really important. And I did that when my mum was alive and I do that now.

Thank you for coming to talk to us. Thank you. And it's lovely to hear a bit about your mum as well, who obviously was a huge force in your life. Yes, she really was. She was fantastic. She sounds like she would have been great here. She would have loved this.

She would have loved this. So thank you for having me. I'm sure very proud. Hannah, thank you very much to you. And there's messages coming in again. You know, one here saying, my niece was pregnant actually with her first child when her mum died of cancer in August 2013.

She had her baby boy in the September and it was sad and traumatic, but she is now a wonderful mum herself. So others, like you say, can relate to this or know others who are in this situation. And also people getting in touch about the freedom and liberation and some of those other themes that we've been talking about. And actually a few of them relate to cancer

and trying to get on the other side of that, which again, a little bit relates to what we've been talking about, albeit in a different area. I'll come back to those messages if I can. Many of them coming in, but I want to tell you about a new book, which is called Look, We Have Come Through, Living with D.H. Lawrence. Lara Feigl, Professor of Modern Literature and Culture at King's College London, tells the story of a pandemic year spent in the company of her partner, two children and D.H. Lawrence, like you do. Lara, good morning.

Good morning. Why? Why D.H. Lawrence, like you do. Lara, good morning. Good morning. Why D.H. Lawrence? Why spend this time? I had had, I think as so many of us have, a sort of very mixed relationship with Lawrence. I'd had my moment of hating him in adolescence. I'd then fallen in love with him sort of as I turned 30, really feeling like his female characters somehow feeling empathetic towards them and feeling like I was in love with him for creating them and then had had sort of moments of rage alongside Kate Millett the iconic feminist who took him down in 1970 who I'd been reading but but I had along the way signed up to write a book about him and was ready to do that when lockdown came and so found myself I'd sort of expected to spend those years reading Lawrence, but I hadn't expected to be quite so isolated with him.

And to have, you know, he's such a strong voice to have in your head and to have his voice sort of rather unmitigatedly in my head was both kind of wonderful and at times slightly terrifying. Yeah, I mean, grabbing the time, we should say, in lockdown with two children, wherever you could to fit him in and then reflect on it. You talk about that he had he had a sense in his novels that life was a series of moods that we bring to a relationship with a lover or a child our mood of that moment and a sort of constant flux of changing moods and we confront someone else in their flux of changing moods and it may be that those are sort of wonderfully harmonious but it also may be that there's a clash and his sense was that you have those clashes and that's part of

the sort of flow of life in his novel the rainbow there's a series of scenes I particularly love where the characters Will and Anna get married and spend weeks in bed together on their honeymoon sort of not leaving the house and barely leaving the room and then suddenly she decides actually I want to get up I want to throw party. I want to invite the world in. And he's so furious that she's sort of ahead of him in this. And of course, at other times, he would have wanted it. It's just, it's a sort of flux. It's that sort of jarring of moods. And they have a massive fight. And Lawrence's sense is that these fights are sort of part of relationships, that we sort of bring our anger and then something changes.

It's part of the process of mutual self-formation that he sees relationships as being, and then we move on. And I think I found that I'd always been very frightened of both my own anger and other people's, and I found it, reading him, that I was able to sort of allow those moments to be expressed and then moved on from in a different way, both with my partner and with my children. so one thing that happened as you said snatching moments with lawrence alongside

some homeschooling was that um lawrence became an unlikely child care advisor during this period right he didn't himself have children but i've not had any guests say dh lawrence advised them in child care during lockdown yet but i'm happy this has happened. Carry on. I mean, Lawrence didn't have children himself, but he wrote children wonderfully in his novels. And he, I mean, I was quite angry with him during this time because he was a sort of terrible stepfather, I suppose, to his wife, Frida's children. She lost her children through getting together with him and he was very unsympathetic. not very disapproved of suffragettes and there are all sorts of other issues that we can't probably have time for to go into the yeah of his views of women that some have taken huge issue with but carry on he gives you some advice on uh so his advice about children is really to let them

be themselves i mean it sort of resonates like i don't know if you've heard allison gottnick here uh talking about her sort of gardener and carpenter theory, but it sort of resonates with that. The sense that we sort of overmold our children and we're constantly worried that everything that goes wrong is a kind of failure in our relationship. And he talks about don't cajole them with love, don't sort of plead with them lovingly, just tell them off briskly and sort of leave them to it. And I found that very helpful, particularly, I mean, lockdown schooling brings up so much of a sense of sort of, am I doing enough of this? Am I ruining my children's future by not making them do every exercise they've been set?

And he somehow allowed me to have a kind of brisker, more energetic attitude towards it, I suppose. You've done this before, kind of living with a writer, arguing with a dead writer, you know, figuring out what they may think and how what they've written already that you may have read before, but you can go back to could give you a different view on life before. You've done this with Doris Lessing. Yeah, I think I have identified to very extreme degrees with writers and their characters throughout my life. I think so many of us have done this. I know so many other women who've sort of graduated in adolescence from Anna Green Gables to Jane Eyre

and kind of plunged across the moors with the Brontes. And I thought when I became an academic that I moved on from that and become a sort of serious literary critic. But then in my mid-30s, I found myself, I suppose, immersed in a period of identification with Doris Lessing. I was at a point of inflection in my own life. I'd had a miscarriage. I was struggling with marriage and with the structures of family life. And I found that Lessing had questioned those structures and had turned her questioning into a search for a whole new literary form. And I wanted to write about that process. I felt that sort of alongside Lessing, I was entering a new phase of adulthood. And that seemed to me worth writing about in itself.

And it became a kind of investigation of the limits of identification, I suppose. She, both Lessing and Lawrence, aren't easy people to identify with and live alongside. They're both very gnarly, difficult figures. So it's partly engaging with the difficulties. And she was a kind of unwilling mentor, I suppose, and Lawrence became an antagonist. But I was just going to say, I like what you've written about before and talked about, which is reading out of need. Actually, a lot of people can relate to that.

When you're younger, perhaps, especially you've talked about young girls doing this, adolescent girls having their nose in a book and being fully immersed in it. But when you're an adult, perhaps not thinking of it like that, you know, what's the next thing to read rather than thinking well how do I feel at the moment and who might challenge that or who might help look at that in a different way and I think that's a great phrase reading out of need. Yeah I think for probably I feel for women in particular it's sort of reading across the centuries has had a kind of dangerous ethical charge that it's become a way to sort of overcome confines and sort of hear about larger worlds than than your own and and sort of feel that you're supported by

other voices in in quests and in struggles um and I think there's a real danger that we lose that urgency as we sort of study literature I definitely had periods of feeling that if my students I think worry that then they no longer love books in the way they did when they signed up to to study English so I definitely want in my in these books to try and recapture some of the pleasure and the need of adolescent reading but to sort of find I suppose adult ways and and to experiment with literary form and sort of finding forms that can incorporate that, as well as incorporating a questioning of sort of the role of literature in our lives and a sort of biographical discovery of these writers. Are you in a better place, do you think, having lived alongside, as you described him,

a grizzled, chuntering ghost, D.H. Lawrence, that is? I mean, I don't know if better is the word. I feel I've learnt a lot. And I think one thing that I feel Lawrence gives us now, and I think it's interesting that several other women have taken him on in the last couple of years, is a sort of more open view of many of the questions of our age. I think Lawrence was so, he was very truntering

and he was very hectoring, but he had a kind of openness to always thinking the opposite thought as well. So he'd give you a very strong opinion, but he wouldn't allow himself to think that without also really inhabiting

the opposing point of view. He said at one point, all vital truth contains the memory of all that for which it is not true. And I think that we should sort of all have that emblazoned now. I think with our current sort of very polarised debates, we can really gain from having someone who's prepared to think dialectically and prepared to allow for ambivalence and contradiction. Amen. Let's see if it catches on. I don't know, we'll see. With some it already has,

with others, perhaps there's a refresher course or a brand new course. Lara Feigl, thank you very much to you. The book is called Look, We Have Come Through. We were promised a glut of pandemic literature. And I think part of that is part of what you've done here with a sort of pandemic memoir and using D.H. Lawrence throughout. Thank you so much to all of you for your messages today. A lot of you talking about the first day of the rest of your lives at very different points of your lives. Maybe it's right now, maybe it's another day. I should also say, especially in light of our discussion about becoming a mother, just as you are losing your own mother, we do have any support that you might need listed on the BBC's Action 9 website and we'll share those links on

our website. So just wanted to raise that as well because a few of you are getting in touch. Thank you so much for your company. We'll be back tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one.

I want to jump up and down and dance and scream. This is a dream come true. I have four wonderful words for you. Podcast of the year. I'm Nami Lantokombo and yes, my show has won top prize in the British Podcast Awards. Dear Daughter is podcast of the year 2022. So if you aren't already a regular Dear Daughter listener and want to know more about what all the fuss is about, you know what to do. Just search for Dear Daughter

on BBC Sounds. The whole of Season 1 is available to binge now. Go on, listen to the podcast of the year. I'm Listen to the podcast of the year. 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.