Woman's Hour - Bernadine Evaristo, Refuges, Caring for a person with dementia, Beauty tips in lockdown, Jayde Adams

Episode Date: April 18, 2020

Caring for a partner with dementia while isolating in lockdown - former nurse Liz Brookes whose husband has vascular dementia, and Chris Black whose wife has Pick's disease discuss. Bernadine Evaristo won the 2019 Booker Prize for 'Girl, Woman, Other'. Jenni talks to her about two of her novels 'The Emperor’s Babe' and 'Mr Loverman', both have just been re-published. Beauty tips for nails, eyebrows and waxing during lockdown with Sarah Jossel, Beauty Director of The Sunday Times Style magazine. Will Elizabeth Warren be Joe Biden’s running mate now he’s committed to a female US vice-president? Jane speaks to Dr Kelly Dittmar from the Centre for American Women and Politics. How are refuges coping with the impact of Covid-19? Tamara White is area manager of 10 refuges in London. The comedian Jayde Adams has been a fishmonger, a nightclub bouncer and an Adele impersonator. She talks about her shows, Serious Black Jumper, and Couch Cabaret. Bailey Tomkinson reached number 2 in the itunes Video Music Charts without a record label or management. She sings live in the studio. Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Dianne McGregor

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. Good afternoon and welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. This week we've got the Booker Prize winner, Bernadine Evaristo, on how her earlier works are being republished and also the books that she'd recommend during lockdown. We'll look too at how women's refuges are coping with COVID-19. We'll ask who Joe Biden's running mate is going to be and we'll discuss the very important issue of eyebrow management during the lockdown.

Be very, very careful with the brow hairs on the inner corners of the brow, so essentially nearest your nose, because those are the ones that take longest to grow back and that can make you look angry in about 30 seconds or excited or sad and which is not what we're trying to do. I honestly can't remember the last time I looked excited so I think that's unlikely in my case. So some important stuff on Weekend Woman's Hour this week and that item as well. Actually that was interesting genuinely. You can hear that a little bit later and we've got music too from the Cornish singer-songwriter Bailey Tomkinson. First, it is week four of lockdown and this week we looked at caring and I talked to Liz Brooks,

who's 64 and she's looking after her husband Mike, who is 77 and Mike's had vascular dementia for nine years. They live in Lancashire. Chris Black also talked to us. He is in his mid-50s. He's looking after his wife, Helen, who is 50 and has Pick's disease. Now, they live in Hornchurch in Essex and have been together for just over 30 years. Helen worked in graphic design. Chris told me he was finding it easier, actually, perhaps unexpectedly, without outside carers coming in. We've been in this situation for just two or three years now so all of this is quite new and i'm quite nervous talking to you about it because it's quite an emotional situation but we've been very fortunate in that we've had

various carers come in to help me to look after helen so that's bathing her and feeding her and nappy changes etc however when the coronavirus started to become more prevalent I took a decision to care for Helen on my own because it was very very important to me because Helen's extreme risk vulnerable to the disease i couldn't bear thinking that she would be ill and on her own so i'm caring for her on my own and i'm actually really really enjoying it and i find that spending every minute of every day with her is actually a blessing and you can tell i'm quite emotional. Of course. But yeah, I'm really enjoying being with her, keeping her safe. I hold her hand. We sing nursery rhymes. We watch TV together.

And it's probably quite a weird thing to understand, but I feel closer to her now than I did before. And what about your neighbours and the community? Have they noticed you? Absolutely. Before, I felt totally isolated. Although I had carers coming in, the world was just going by day by day without realising the situation we were in. So as I speak to you now, I'm in a converted lounge upstairs upstairs i'm overlooking the park um we've created a really safe and comfortable environment for helen and um one of the neighbors set up a facebook group and we're all talking with each other neighbors send me messages i'm just popping

to the shops do you need anything and there's a real community spirit and now i feel strangely less isolated than i did before and if i may just tell a very very quick story i posted that we ran out of porridge because helen loves the porridge and fruit in the morning and one neighbor said well i've got a couple of sachets i'll drop them by and she left them in the porch and then another neighbor said look i'm popping to the shops tomorrow so i'll buy your box and that was fantastic however before i could return the messages on facebook to say yep we're okay now i had five boxes of porridge in my porch right from neighbors so uh we're sorted on the breakfast run right that sounds fantastic um i mean real positivity when i perhaps naively on my

part wouldn't necessarily have guessed that would be the way that conversation went. Stay with us, Chris. Liz, tell me a bit about Mike. He's a former RAF pilot. He flew in Balkans back in the Cold War days. He then came out of forces,

ran his own business in laboratory consumables. And then he's done other jobs as well. And his last job before he finally retired was driving trucks, which he absolutely loved. He said it was like flying. Yes, well, I can imagine. Well, that gives us a really full picture of him, Mike the man. But he's had vascular dementia for, well, the best part of a decade. Yes.

Are you completely on your own with him or do you have carers coming in? No, we don't have carers coming in and never have. He's relatively well. He's still able to look after himself. So with a bit of prompting, he will be mostly self-caring. He struggles now with making a cup of tea or coffee and needs a bit more support with that now um gave up cooking some time ago thank goodness i'm much happier being the cook right so yeah we're we're pretty lucky in that his vascula dementia has progressed fairly slowly over the years and he's been able to

maintain a lot of his sociability and external interest until now yes you did have you had an active social life in fact didn't you before the lockdown very busy yeah so at some level the lockdown now we're having a bit of a rest which is nice but it's endless yes endless in what way tell me more about that well it's not a holiday no it has no end although you can plan for a holiday we did have a holiday planned for may that's not going to happen without being patronizing how much of what is going on does mike understand? He's finding it difficult to process the information. He's been an avid watcher of the news ever since I've known him, and he would watch News 24, 7.

But I've had to stop it, because while he wasn't processing a lot of the information, he was picking up on the emotion. One particular morning, I woke him up to find him, he was in floods of tears. And he couldn't explain why. No. It was very clear. The impact of what's going on in the wider world

was really very, very painfully felt by him. And the impact on you, do you feel, well, do you feel anger at times? Yes. Like a rail at the television. I'm a womaness there i saw this coming i planned for our lockdown i have i i knew we would be in this position and in fact we went into self-isolation at the beginning of march because i felt that i wanted to be safe in our home, the transmission was widespread and I'm glad I did it. Chris said he felt noticed

by his local community, perhaps more than in the past. Are you getting help? Yes, I've been inundated with offers of help. A neighbour turned up at our door a couple of days ago with a load of rhubarb,

which was wonderful. Unfortunately, I have a triffid in my back garden. I usually give rhubarb to other people. It was a lovely thought and I very much appreciated it. Yes, I mean, who wouldn't want a gift of rhubarb? As it happened, you already had your own, but they weren't to know, were they?

Liz, thank you very much and thank you for being so honest. And Chris, what does the rest of the day hold for you and for Helen? We'll go for a very careful five ten minute stroll keeping our distances from everyone because it's very important that we aren't stuck in one box and one room all day long so some fresh air and some sun is great and then maybe having a bit of dance and boogie watching some music videos which helen absolutely loves and despite the fact that she can't communicate or talk um she loves music from the 80s and um we'll we'll be up dancing and uh often she'll be mouthing the the lyrics so we'll

look forward to that and chris it's it's difficult and i don't want to put words into your mouth liz says she does get angry you sound like you're well you've already said you are enjoying this phase of your life do you never ever get cross um yes i do last year was particularly difficult when helen's behavior um because she's totally disinhibited about her actions, she can't control her actions. Part of the PICS disease is that she spits. It's like Tourette's, she can't control it, so there's spitting. She would try and escape.

She's put a knife to my chest. She would try and escape from the car if we were driving to an appointment. But thankfully now her condition, because unfortunately it has advanced but she's more relaxed now. So yes, I do get angry but much less now I'm in a much calmer and more positive place now than we were last year. Well, not surprisingly, many of you expressed your admiration for Chris and for Liz and just said how much you enjoyed hearing about their commitment to their partners. Pam says, I'm also finding life as a carer easier during COVID-19.

Having tried to escape my husband's dementia by being too busy and getting out a lot. Being home now, I am calmer. I'm getting back to gardening and I'm cooking more, which is better for both of us. And it helps him as well. From David, it was really good to hear Liz and Chris talk about the care they're providing for their partners. I cared for my mum with dementia.

She is now in a care home. In these difficult times, it is important to balance anger with the system, with trying to keep positive. And from Catherine, these stories of carers are all about love, pure love. And I'm so moved. I'm sad, but I'm also uplifted. Human beings at their very best are marvellous, says Catherine. Thanks to everybody who told us their stories about caring, particularly for people with dementia during the course of this week.

Now, it's been quite a year for the novelist Bernadine Evaristo. Girl, Woman, Other, which was her sixth book, which explored the lives and the sexuality of 12 women, won the Booker Prize. Now her publishers, not surprisingly, are reissuing two of her earlier works, The Emperor's Babe, set in Roman London, seen through the eyes of a young girl from a Sudanese family, and Mr Loverman, which is the story of a man

called Barrington Jediah Walker, known as Barry. Barry is 74. He's a grandad, originally from the Caribbean, but he's living a double life in London with his wife and daughters and his secret lover Morris, who's been his best friend since they were teenagers in Antigua. Here's Bernadine. It has been incredible to suddenly get my work, my name out there, but also my books out there. And my publisher's actually reissuing most of my backlist, so it's more than two books, it's actually four with them.

And it's been an absolute treat. And I am 60 years old, you you know and I have been in the arts for 40 years and my first book was published in 1994 so to suddenly walk away with this prize has been just incredible for me. Now the Emperor's Fabe which I mentioned which is set 1,800 years ago I think in London. Yes, yes. What inspired the idea of this young black immigrant such a while back? I think it was 23 years since you wrote her. It was 2001 when it was published.

Yes, well, I'm really interested in history, in the history of the African diaspora, in black British history. And I had discovered in the 1980s that African diaspora in black British history and I had discovered in the 1980s that there had been a black presence in or at least an African presence in Roman Britain at that time and I thought wouldn't it be a great idea to set a novel in Roman London and to position a young black woman in it and see it through her eyes because it was my way of bringing the history alive for a wider readership and so yeah so that was the thinking behind it. Now it was received well critically but how much

influence do you reckon it had on the kind of stories that people felt confident about telling and publishers felt confident about publishing? it wasn't a commercial hit um you know none of my books have been commercial hits until another this one has been hasn't it yes yes this one has been so um i don't know about its influence i don't think anybody has gone that far back in history since it was published um you know there are books that do very well critically and then there are books that do very well commercially and then there are books that do very well commercially. And I would suggest that the books that do very well commercially are the ones that are perhaps the most influential.

So I think if it was published today, it would have more currency than it had 20 years ago because I think there is more interest in Black British stories, even before Go Woman Other was published and won the Booker. So I think it being published 20 years ago, it was possibly ahead of its time in terms of a wider readership. And, you know, there are actually very many novels that explore Black British history, full stop.

Very few books go back beyond Windrush. And yet we've been in Britain, you know, at least 2,000 years, I would argue even longer, and certainly very well recorded for the last 500 years. So there is so much material to explore. Now, Mr. Loverman, preceded girl, woman, other, how easy was it for you to put yourself into the life of a 74-year-old secretly gay man?

Yeah, it was quite easy, actually. It was actually a very joyful experience writing that book because it's quite comic in many ways, even though there is an underlying tragedy in that, you know, he's married to his wife Carmel for 50 years and she doesn't know she's married to a gay man. And so he's led a very secret life and sort of betrayed her in a sense. But I think as a writer, you know, what I do, and what I think most of us do is we step inside the shoes of people who are not ourselves. And sometimes that's more of a stretch than with other characters so you know I had to project

myself into the into the sort of body if you like of a man who was of a certain age who was gay who is from the Caribbean I'm not from the Caribbean you know I'm I'm of African Nigerian heritage but that for me that is also the fun of writing in a sense the more distant the character is from myself such as with Zuleika in The Emperor's Babe, the more of a challenge it is, and in a sense, the more enjoyable it is for me to write. I know you've described it as subversive to portray black queer characters. Why? It's subversive because it's something that's not done. When I started Mr. Lovemind, I looked around to see if I could find any other black writers who had written black gay protagonists. And they are few and far between.

Jackie Kay, of course, wrote Trumpet, which was about a character who was a trans character. And that was published in, I think, 1997. So it's something that certainly when I generation who is married, who is a father and grandfather and in many ways fits the trope of what we understand about that generation as gay I think was an incredibly subversive thing to do. Now I know you said his eldest daughter Donna sparked the idea for Girl, Woman, Other. How did she spark that book? Yes, well, she was a spark, probably, I would say,

in that his daughter Donna is a social worker. She's 50 years old. I really enjoyed writing her and her sister Maxine and Barry's wife Carmel. But Donna, in particular, in her youth, has a relationship with a woman. And I thought, thought oh that's really interesting and then the rest of her life she's straight and so in a sense when I was writing

Mr Loverman and there is a sort of um I think I have this kind of um uh sort of a pattern if you like where each book I write speaks to the one that's gone before so when I was writing Donna and her sort of earlier sort of gay experience i was thinking why am i not writing that story and so that the next book then becomes the book girl woman other where there are various women on the queer spectrum as well as many heterosexual women who are the all co-protagonists um so that was that was what was going on really sort of writing those female characters older women middle-aged women and then thinking oh these stories haven't been told either now like all of us you're stuck in lockdown uh and people are hungry for reading material so let's have a couple of recommendations from you what would bernadine Evaristo say,

apart from your books, of course, people should read? I've just finished a book called Five Women by Hallie Rubenhold, which is looking at and investigating and building the stories of the five women who were killed by Jack the Ripper. And it's an incredible book. And I think everybody should read it

because it's looking at women's lives in the 19th century, working-class lives in the 19th century, and also the ways in which they have been misrepresented ever since they died. And it's a powerful feminist book, but it's beautifully told. I also recommend Black Rain Falling by a writer called Jacob Ross, who I've actually known Jacob's work since the 1980s. He was a short story writer. He's now a novelist. It's a crime thriller set in the Caribbean, which is very unusual for any kind of crime novel. And it's just been

published. And I wish people would rush out by it. He's an extraordinary literary writer, but he's also written this great thriller. And he's publishing at a time when obviously the books are shut, there are no events. And I think it's going to die a death if people don't go out and buy this book. And I think if they buy it, they will enjoy it hugely. Bernadine Evaristo talking to Jenny this week. Now, I know a lot of people are actually saying they're finding concentration a bit difficult at the moment. I think I might well be one of them. Other people are saying actually they're reading more

and it's really helping them through. So, in fact, lots of you have been sharing your favourites on the Woman's Hour Instagram feed, at BBC Woman's Hour. Follow us there if you don't already and you can get involved with that conversation or you can pick up some ideas for the next book that will enthrall you.

Now, Joe Biden is going to be the Democrat candidate for the White House in the presidential election in November. He's already said he will choose a woman as his running mate. I talked this week to Dr Kelly Dittmar from the Centre for American Women and Politics, in particular about former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, who has said she'll say yes if Joe Biden

pops that vice presidential question to her. So what does Kelly think? Will it be Elizabeth Warren? I don't know. I think we have a lot of other potential choices, many qualified women, including the women who did run for president this time. We had a record number of women run for the Democratic nomination, six, including Elizabeth Warren. So she's on the list. There are some political complications to include her because if she loses her seat in our U.S. Senate, a Republican governor would then nominate her replacement. And so there are some downsides for the Democrats to have her on the ticket, not substantive, but political reasons. And so

there are other women, Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, Amy Klobuchar, certainly whose names are being floated as potential nominees. And Joe Biden himself has said that, you know, he has a running list, meaning he has many women that he's vetting and his team are vetting as potential VP candidates. But there is no doubt it will be a woman. He has made that clear. Yes, absolutely. Which honestly should have been a given. But of course, in US history is pretty rare. We've only had two women ever as vice presidential nominees. But certainly in 2020, the idea that we should have gender parity on the presidential ticket should be less of a surprise or less news. But certainly he's getting some credit for that.

Right. And I suppose what we should be thinking of is that this woman could be a potential future president because Joe Biden is of a certain vintage. He's unlikely to do two terms if he wins the first one. Is that right? Yeah, I definitely think that he's even alluded to that due to largely his age. There's a real chance that whoever is the vice president would go on to either run for the next four years or have to replace him if something happened. So he has said repeatedly that among his top concerns will be somebody who really shares his vision and his policy positions, who is basically like him. Sometimes in the past, we've seen somebody who compliments him, but certainly has different positions when we've looked at a VP choice. But

in this case, I think he really does want somebody that's pretty in line with him because he sees the prospect that they may end up being the next president in four years if he is successful this time. Yeah. There were allegations in the past of Joe Biden and inappropriate behaviour, and they've resurfaced again, haven't they? That stuff has not entirely gone away. No. And I think he will have to continue to answer for that. His campaign has put out some statements on recent allegations. He has repeatedly talked about his work historically on violence against women and other issues to try to advance women's equity in the United States, both in his time in the U.S.

Senate and when he was formerly vice president. But I do think these questions will continue to come up and they're important to voters. This should be part of the slate of issues that voters are thinking about when they determine who they want to vote for in November. Now, when I mentioned Elizabeth Warren to you, you were very, very careful to say that she wasn't nailed on. It may very well not be her. Who is your best bet, in fact? I'm really reluctant at this point to give a name because I think there are so many qualified women that are still being floated and that honestly, the Biden campaign should be looking at. So, as I mentioned, there are the women who ran for president who are all quite qualified. You have 17 Democratic women in the U.S. Senate who would be often natural fits just due to their federal experience. We have six Democratic women governors who bring that executive experience. And most recently,

Stacey Abrams, who ran for governor and is a prominent Black woman in American politics right now who's doing a lot of great work. She's been floated. And actually, this week was very open in an interview with Elle magazine that she would be the best qualified person to be vice president, in effect touting herself as a potential candidate. And I think she would bring a lot of energy. And she's younger than many of the women who are being floated. And that could be a real positive as well. Now, Donald Trump, in terms of his popularity, it's waning at the moment, but there is no doubt he will be a formidable opponent come the election in November, depending, I guess, on how the economy plays out. And of course, on what impact the coronavirus continues to have on the American public.

Those of us across the pond this week have watched the president's confrontation with Paula Reid of CBS. How is all that playing out? Yeah. So, you know, at first there was a bit of a bump in Donald Trump's approval rating in a crisis, as there is often with executives during a moment of crisis in a country. But that approval has really started to decline and folks are not very content with his response nor his administration's response. And what you saw this week with Paula Reid is just a pattern of behavior. We know that Trump doesn't handle criticism well,

and he doesn't handle that criticism, especially when it comes from women journalists, and even more so, I should add, from women of color. Women like Yamiche Alcindor of our PBS NewsHour have repeatedly been attacked by him, called names, dismissed in these press conferences. And I think what we're seeing, at least in the U.S., is that because every day he's holding an average of two hour press conference, there's a lot more instances where we see him both being confronted with the criticism of his administration's handling of this crisis and then him fighting back. And again, oftentimes those who are sort of attacked most by him or dismissed most by him have been women journalists. We should say, actually, that a record number of Republican women are running in the primary elections in the States, aren't they?

Is that because they are Donald Trump's supporters or because they've been energised by him? How do you explain that? Yeah, part of it, I think, is that in 2018, we had a record number of women running for the US House and in fact, a record number of women running for office across levels of office. But that story was really unique to Democratic women. So a record number of Democratic women ran, a record number of them won and now hold office. For Republican women, their numbers declined in 2018 at every level of office. In fact, in the U.S. House, they went from 23 members to just 13. And remember, we have 435 members of the U.S. House. So it's a huge decline in a really small number. So part of the motivation by organizations to support Republican women and recruit them

this cycle has been to really counter that decline we saw in 2018. And they've been successful. We have about 166 Republican women House candidates, which is the largest ever. And so the question will be, can they be successful, of course, both in winning their party's nominations, that will be hard, and also in winning in November if they do win those nominations. So it's not a sure bet that we'll see a record number of Republican women in office after this election. But at least there are more in the candidate pool. That's a point of progress, at least. Dr. Kelly Dittmar from the Centre for American Women and Politics. Now, you're about to hear a classic Woman's Hour item, one of those items that divides the audience

between those who enjoyed it hugely and those who felt it had no place whatsoever on this programme. You know, sometimes I think we do these things deliberately, but it can't be true. No, no, no, of course not. Anyway, this one was how to maintain beauty standards during the lockdown. It's fair to say that many of us enjoy the occasional facial, like having something done to our nails or with our nails,

and maybe do a bit of hair removal and attend to our brows. But this stuff isn't really for the amateur. You need to know what you're doing, which is why this week Jenny sought the advice of Sarah Jossel, beauty director for the Sunday Times Style magazine. Here she is telling Jenny how to take shellac off your nails properly. What you want to do want to do is you want to get your nail file and you want to buff the shellac that's the most important step that many people will forget so basically before you put on that acetone the nails shouldn't have that shine anymore that you get with your shellac then at step two is you want to get some cotton wool and dip it in acetone now lots of people will think they can use nail polish remover they can. It's got to be acetone and which you can order online at the

moment. And then you want to wrap the tinfoil around the finger. So you've got the cotton wool on the nails and then you want to wait for 10 to 15 minutes. Lots of people are using clothing pegs just to stick on each nail to keep the tinfoil in place. And then you want to wait 10 to 15 minutes. And just take one off and check it. And the nail polish should have completely lifted on either side. So the main mistake people are making is they're not waiting long enough, they're not buffing, and they're not using acetone. Clearly I failed to buff because it was quite difficult getting it off.

Yes, the buffing is the step. How good is it for the nails to be forced to give them a rest so you know the whole point of shellac is it's absolutely fine for your nails it's the removal that is what's damaging our nails because that's what's taking off the top layer of our nails making them weak um i would say now was obviously an excellent time to give nails a breather and just you know let them have some time off um i would say now was obviously an excellent time to give nails a breather and just you know let them have some time off um i would say what you want to do is really look after your cuticles because they are a telltale sign that you know your nails are just feeling and looking a little

bit um tired so the best thing for cuticles again you don't want to cut them leave there's a lot of things in beauty that i would highly recommend leaving to the professionals but one thing you can do is when you're in the bath or the shower push the cuticles back that's going to make the nails look longer and then essentially what you want to do is get that lovely shape because when people who are painting their nails now they'll find that their cuticles are getting in the way so you really want to push your cuticles back but do it when your nails are wet in the shower because otherwise it's quite tricky what's the best way to manage eyebrows and some people have false eyelashes which are stuck on professionally how do you manage that whole eye area right so brows you have a choice if you want to tint them, there are options out there.

There are some really, really easy DIY brow tints that you can use. I would say if you've never done it before and they're not bothering you too much, maybe don't do that. If you're thinking of tweezing them, very, very simple. Only tweeze the brow hairs underneath the brow shape. And make sure that you are not tweezing any of the brows in the actual shape because that's when you're going to start to alter really the whole look of your face be very very careful with the brow hairs on the inner corners of the brow so essentially nearest your nose because those are the ones that take longest to grow back and that can make you look angry in

about 30 seconds or excited or sad and which is not what we're trying to do um and i would say if you are going to tweeze also you want to get right into the roots because lots of people tweeze say the ends and then you're just breaking the hair you're not going in at the roots some people are considering um trimming their brows you just want to be very careful and please don't use scissors um just lying around in the house you do need to to invest in brow scissors um if you are going to do that and lashes you've got a long a little long slightly long journey ahead of you but um you you really just want to condition and nourish do not pull the lashes out um you want to use a lash conditioner there are lots of really really good ones out there

um some people swear by castor oil um just to put on them to really just massage them which will also help slightly slightly and remove them from your real lashes as well and by the way I think in terms of every day if you've got quite bushy eyebrows or if they're sort of helter-skelter and all over the way and what you want to do is really just brush them up if there's one tip you take get a brow gel even use some soap on a toothbrush and just brush them up and that is going to make your face look wide awake and just sort of ready to go now for people who like to remove leg armpit even pubic hair what's the way to go wax or shave it's personal preference you know waxing is going to remove the hair for a slightly longer

period of time but a lot of people find it too painful to do. Some interesting tricks that I've picked up along the way if you are going to wax avoid caffeine and alcohol right before because they can both increase skin sensitivity and lots of people forget to breathe when they're waxing because they're so nervous. You want to take lots of deep breaths. A really good trick is to exfoliate two days before waxing because that can also help actually break down some of the dry skin there, which can make it more painful. And actually, four hands are better than one when waxing. So if you are at home with someone, get them to keep the skin as tight as possible so that you can wax. And you really just want to wax in opposite directions.

And if you're at home and you're thinking, oh, I've only got one size wax strips, get creative. You can really cut them to the area of hair that you are tackling. And if it is shaving that you want to do, the best piece of advice I can give you is don't think that you can just use conditioner or a moisturizer to use when you're shaving you want to use shaving gel because essentially a conditioner is just going to coat the hair which means you're not going to get as close to shave as to if you were using shaving gel and finally sarah what about the skin a lot of women seem to be worrying about dry skin getting spotty skin in lockdown? Well, spots are very, very closely linked to stress. And I think, you know, stress and dietary changes, no one should be beating themselves up

if they are struggling with their skin at the moment. People's diets are changing. People are, you know, going through a mix of emotions. So what you want to do with your skin is be very kind to it. Don't believe every single article and buy every single product. You want to really strip it back. Be be very very gentle with what you're using and a glycerin moisturizer is really good for hydration and hyaluronic acid they're the two ingredients that are brilliant for dryness and ceramides is the third thing which is excellent for the skin's barrier function to

help with dehydration and flaky skin but you, you know, overall, you don't want to be sticking eggs and avocado to, you know, mixing it all together and trying to make face masks. It might be fun, but it probably won't be your best friend for your skin. I hope you are paying proper attention to the wisdom of Sarah Jossel, beauty director for the Sunday Times Style magazine. Now, in the interest of fairness, I am going to read out some of the criticisms and I feel that as somebody who has this week plunged headlong into controversy

surrounding Arctic role, I think I am the right person to read out some of your views, some of your views on that item. Anna says, Shaving and waxing tips on Woman's Hour. I just can't imagine being in a position where waxing is a priority. Anonymous. For goodness sake on Woman's Hour. I just can't imagine being in a position where waxing is a priority. Anonymous, for goodness sake, Woman's Hour, haven't you heard of soap and water,

tweezers, nail clippers and razors? Many of your listeners either can't afford to visit beauticians or more likely have better things to do with their lives. Can I just say, and I don't think I'm dobbing Jenny in here, that she probably does go for the occasional manicure and I myself, I'm no stranger to an eyebrow alteration. So I think we've got to be completely honest about that. Diana writes, please understand there are plenty of listeners who've never had their nails done by anybody else or had their legs waxed. I am sick of hearing how people are suffering from not having things which are totally unnecessary and which many of us have never had.

Again, I've got it in the interest of balance. There are many of us, and we're not all women, who it makes us feel better if we feel we look better. It's just a view, and I know it isn't a view held by everybody, but some of us do feel that way. Anyway, keep your ideas and your opinions coming. Honestly, I love reading the Women's Hour email inbox, bbc.co.uk slash womenshour.

There's room there for everything. And it's important to say, actually, on Tuesday, we are talking on Women's Hour about death. So many of you said you welcome the opportunity to talk about death and dying and to hear a conversation about it. And overwhelmingly you've reacted positively to the idea of the programme and you've begged me and us not to use euphemisms. So I promise there will not be any passing away, passing over or going to the other side on Tuesday's programme. It's death and dying we'll be talking about. That's Tuesday. Now Priti

Patel, the Home Secretary, gave a clear message to victims of domestic violence last weekend when she launched the hashtag You Are Not Alone. And Priti Patel emphasised that help is still available to anybody who needs to get out of a home where they're at risk. She made £2 million available to increase support for victims of domestic violence. Some victims may of course be able to get a place at a refuge, but running one of these places at the moment is obviously pretty challenging. I talked this week to Tamara White, Area Manager of 10 refuges across London. She works for an organisation called Hestia. Across the services that I manage,

we've got 82 bed spaces across those 10 sites and they're across a range of London boroughs. It's a variety of accommodation. So some of the houses are a little bit smaller, maybe five families. Everyone will have their own bedroom and then a shared kitchen, garden, communal area, bathrooms. Some of the houses are a little bit bigger. So our largest house is almost 20 bed spaces. Do you have space

available right now? So right now this morning across those sites, we've got two spaces available out of the 82. Two rooms that we hope to fill today for women with or without children who are fleeing today. Now, we do know that there have been an increase in calls to helplines. I think the figure reported, shockingly, was 120% rise in calls to helplines during the course of the lockdown. Has that translated into more people needing places in refuges, as far as you can tell? So at this point, it's a little bit hard to tell whether we've got a real increase. Certainly, our lines have always been busy. Referrals have always been more than we can actually accommodate. So it's a little hard to say whether we've seen an actual increase in the number of people

looking for a refuge space yet. But that not necessarily surprising given that people are reaching out to helplines and it's a very very difficult time to leave so I think it might be something we see a little bit further on down the line. We know that actually leaving is about the hardest thing anybody can do in these situations. Was there a time in the day when it was, if you like, a relatively safe time to get out, something that because of the lockdown just isn't available now? Yes, I mean, we used to see a lot of women, particularly those with children, who would make use of the fact, okay, they might be allowed to do a school pickup. Actually, school can be a safe space for them to go in and we could make arrangements for them to arrive, maybe pick up the children early and then leave, that sort of thing.

And obviously they're just not able to do that right now. Other women would speak to us maybe in a break at work, something like that, which obviously fewer and fewer people are in an office right now in order to make those calls. By the very nature of what refuges do, you've already mentioned it, there have to be communal areas. And of course young kids need to get out. They can't spend the whole day in one

room. It's just not possible. So how does that operate at the moment in terms of social distancing? I mean, it's extremely difficult. You know, we're providing advice and guidance to the women and the children who are living in our services. But in reality, it's very difficult. It's down to those individual people. You know, the government guidance suggests that actually you can be treated as a household if you're all living together and sharing facilities. That means that, you know, whilst the children might still be able to use the same spaces, they would all have to self-isolate if anyone showed any symptoms. We try and encourage people to maybe have a rotor so people aren't using the kitchen at the same time, using the garden at the same time, same time, thinking about which bathrooms people can and can't use if they're showing any symptoms,

that sort of thing we have to think about really carefully. And in practical terms, presumably at the moment, your clients cannot move on because they can't move out, can they? Yeah, there are ways that people can move out, but it's extremely strange times and it's a really difficult time for someone to move out. So local housing departments are still taking people, they are still offering temporary accommodation, but it's all done with plans over the phone, which can be quite daunting for people. So we are trying to keep people moving through as if there was nothing going on to try and free up their spaces. So women who are ready to move are able to do so.

And we don't kind of keep them in the refuge longer than they actually need to be or want to be. But it is just an extremely strange time for people to try and move on and much harder to move into your own independent accommodation when everything around you is shut. So it requires a lot more support from staff to be able to move on successfully.

Yeah, in terms of equipping the houses or the flats, you can't buy stuff, can you? Yeah, you can't buy stuff. It's much harder to arrange to physically move. It's very difficult to even register at a new local doctor's surgery. To think about all those things, find your new local shops that are open, set up all of your Wi-Fi, which is essential for your children's learning, that sort of thing, it's much, much harder all of your Wi-Fi, which is essential for your children's learning. That sort of thing is much, much harder all of a sudden.

And I know that in the past you would welcome donations of clothes, but you can't, presumably you can't accept anything at the moment. And there are some people who turn up at your refuges with just the clothes they're wearing. Yeah, we have to be quite careful, obviously, about accepting donations at this time. And we do have women. We had a woman last week who arrived with absolutely nothing apart from what she was wearing. And even our normal go to. So, you know, opportunities for a voucher for a clothing store. And we're not able to provide because the clothing stores are shut. So they can't have that either. So it was some frantic ringing around of people that we know to have been donors in the past that might have stocks still available and that they've collected to try and sort something out for this woman last week. And I know you also welcomed a new arrival in more ways than one last week because

a baby actually came out of hospital and straight into one of your refuges. Yeah, that's right. So mum came straight back to us after having the baby. And it's incredibly difficult. If you can imagine bringing home a newborn baby, no, you know, supportive partner into a refuge where, you know, the staff are the only people you're really seeing. And the other residents, you can't have any support from your family because they're not allowed to come and see you. And so it's so extremely difficult and isolating. And even, you know, health professionals have very limited face-to-face contact at the moment after the baby's born. So extremely, extremely challenging.

How is that baby doing? The baby is doing well. Yes, the baby is doing well. And we're trying to support mum in whatever way we can. You know, so our staff are still on site. They're still seeing people and providing that emotional support and practical support as well to make sure everyone has everything that they need. That's Tamara White who works for the organisation Hestia. Now I really enjoyed chatting to Jade Adams this week. She's a Bristol-born comedian. Now she's got quite a CV has Jade. She worked as a fishmonger in a supermarket. She was a nightclub door woman and she's also been a phenomenal Adele impersonator. In fact, it's all coming back to me now. It was Jade that got me into trouble over Arctic Roll.

Anyway, Jade's show, Serious Black Jumper, is on Amazon Prime. And if you need cheering up, and I put it to you that you might, you should investigate Serious Black Jumper. It is very funny. Jade is currently welcoming viewers to her weekly lounge interactive couch cabaret night. It's streamed as live across social media on Wednesdays. It's fair to say that drag has been quite a big part of Jade's showbiz career. And I asked her why she was so keen on it. I attracted it and I was attracted to them. I moved from Bristol to, I went to Cardiff, first of all.

I lived in Wales for a long time. Well, you were at university there, weren't you? I was. I was at the University of Glamorgan, which I don't think exists anymore. Or it does. Or it's merged with another university. You just finished them off, did you? Oh, as soon as I graduated, they were like, we're done.

No, our work is done. Yes. No more. Yeah. And then I sort of made the leap and I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar in Cardiff and I finally made the leap and moved to London. And when I got there, I ended up working in this cloakroom and this chap walked in and he had my accent.

And when we hear each other, it's like two foxes meeting in the night um this is some weird bristolian thing you know a lot of bristolians with this accent don't really leave bristol and i mean why would you bristol's fab but i um i couldn't make a comedy career in bristol so i had to come to london but then there was another one and he was called glen fussell and i met him through another friend and he runs sink the pink and he introduced me to loads of drag queens and it was the community that I managed to get work from and I did cabaret shows and drag shows and hosted things and it was just a community that let me in basically

and, you know, stand-up's not, it's not as easy to get into stand-up as it is to dress up as Adele and do an impersonation of her. Well, you were an Adele impersonator for quite some time, weren't you? Which of her songs gets the biggest reaction? I only did a few, but I think Skyfall is the one that people go for. Also, because I changed the words, which everyone always loves. I changed the words to trifle, arctic roll and crumble.

No, skyfall, crumble and arctic roll for the chorus, which isn't very funny without an audience. But it's a very funny moment, I will say. Yeah, no, listen, anything with Arctic Roll is funny. It's a real, and I don't mean to be offensive to the manufacturers or indeed to regular users of Arctic Roll, but it's a low-level pudding, Arctic Roll, isn't it? When we had it at home, and we did,

I was always very disgruntled by it i have to say um well i i think i used to be as well but then as you get older like i really appreciate a butterscotch angel delight now i really appreciate it i've had the fanciest food i've i've been dining with heston blumenthal this year because of a show i did on channel four um i met heston was uh one of the hosts on a show that i did on Channel 4 called Crazy Delicious. And it's meant that I've done some fine dining over the last couple of years. And actually, at the end of my Sirius Black Jumper show, I talk about going to one of the best restaurants in the world and getting made to feel really. You know, I had a had a bit of a working class chip on my shoulder in it in the restaurant and had a bit terrible experience that talks about confidence. But what happened? Did you have a bit terrible experience that talks about confidence but what happened did

you have a bit of a meltdown no I didn't have a meltdown I sort of walked in and we were all excited it was me and my chap dressed up in our finest which was a lot of colours and patterns and sequins and we thought we look really fancy and we rocked up and everyone was in a black turtleneck and I'm not saying that because that's what I wear in the show but we felt very silly and they um said to me when I walked in they said oh can we get you a chair with without arms sort of you know looking at my weight and and it was very offensive and yeah I I told them I told them no and I sat down and the whole story is all about because the whole show is about confidence and where I get mine from yes well there's the very funny bit

where you just show lots of pictures of the very famous and very serious and people who are taken seriously, all wearing these turtleneck black jumpers, with the exception of Helen Mirren, I think. She has a V-neck jumper on, because that's as far as Helen Mirren will go for a black turtleneck. Yeah. But, yeah, it all came... Do you remember when Dapper Laughs went on Newsnight

to sort of apologise for his bad behaviour? That was a long time ago, but he went on in a black turtleneck and it was then I started thinking, this is something a lot of people do. And I need the industry to start taking me seriously. I'll just wear a black turtleneck. And you do because you're wearing one in the show. You also talk, and this did,

it was something that I had vaguely noticed and then forgotten about, Beyonce and Jay-Z and what he wears and what she wears. Yes. She's very scantily clad and she looks fabulous. She's got a great figure. And then he comes on wearing a coat. Well, it's sort of an anorak.

It was a dad rack, wasn't it, effectively? He's got an anorak dad coat on, yeah. He comes on and he looks, I'll be honest, he looked cold when I went to see the show and she's there in like these incredible like sort of cat suits

and they're really high waisted and they're covered in she's got her cleavage out and everything she's looking sensational and then Jay-Z rocks up beside her looking annoyed wearing an anorak.

Do you think he's got jealousy issues? Oh I think probably it's there somewhere. I can only hypothesise about their relationship. Yes, you would not be so bold as to suggest that, even for a moment. So the couch cabaret, it's every Wednesday night, isn't it, this thing? Every Wednesday at 7.30pm.

Well, how do people see it? They come to my Facebook page, but I link all of this stuff on my social media anyway. So there'll be various links around for you to have a watch. Yeah. And it's exactly what it says on the tin. It's a cabaret show. It has drag acts.

It has stand-ups. It has singers. I have actors. I have musicians. I have poets. I have artists, illustrators. Because I realise it's not just stand-ups who have lost their work. Everyone has. I have artists, illustrators, because I realise it's not just stand-ups who have lost their work.

Everyone has. And some people don't have the ability or the technology to be able to create something like this. So I hope my platform is useful to people that still want to sort of keep their creative juices flowing, which I think actually people have responded quite well to that. Yes. And the people that you've invited on, have they been basically really desperate about what their prospects are i'm talking financial purely at the moment just in practical terms i'm sort of fortunate i i don't rely solely on my stand-up uh my life you know my life stuff is i'm not reliant on that i have a bit of telly going on and stuff but there are lots of comedians who have been for the last you know 20 years sort of making a living from the live circuit and they make a healthy living and they're able to sort of get mortgages and

you know you know provide for their families and that's all been taken away from them it's a very very scary time for comedians at the moment jade adams who was a guest on women's hour this week now a couple of weeks ago and it does seem like a lifetime ago now when things were different and i could talk to people who were in the same room as me. I spoke to the young Cornish singer-songwriter Bailey Tomkinson. Bailey was notable because she had managed to get herself to number two on the iTunes music video charts with no record label and no management. She started by telling me how she got into singing. I've been doing music since I was 11. I've been writing and performing since I was 11. And I've been doing gigs since I was 14,

releasing music since I was about 17. But what just happened with the press is the thing that's just kind of rocketed it. Yeah. Well, actually, what did happen? Because it sort of came out of the blue, didn't it? Yeah, so I charted with my music video into number two on the music video in iTunes next to Dua Lipa and Pussycat Dolls. And so I did an interview with Cornwall Live.

What's Cornwall Live? It's in Cornwall. It's like just all the updates in Cornwall. And someone from Plymouth asked me if I'd do an interview. They didn't specify who they were working for. And I was like, yeah, of course. And then I saw that I hadn't gone out anywhere. And then it was, it went in the Metro. And then it went in the Times.

So he sold it to the Metro and the Times. And I didn't know anything about this. But I was getting messages and pictures from people on the Tube saying, mate, you're on the Tube. And you knew nothing about this? I was literally just like, my mum like my mum woke me up she was like bae it's all gone mad she woke you up I mean that does that's serious when your mum wakes you up I mean you are 20 so you probably need your sleep don't you oh no I'm an early riser I like cracking on and get my work done I take it all back um so tell me about your style now I don't want to mention well I haven't

mentioned Taylor Swift too early in the interview but I am going to do it just because people are comparing your style to her when she was more be myself I'm not looking to be the next so and so um but she is one of my biggest inspirations she was partly to why I wanted to learn the guitar because I I think I watched a video of her at the bluebird cafe when I was like 10 and I was like oh if I want to sing that I'm going to have to play the guitar and write so she was partly to why I wanted to pick up the guitar and start writing. But I've got lots of influences. I think people have associated me and Taylor Swift because of the blonde hair and the lyrics about, you know, boys we like and stuff like that. But anyway, it's a massive compliment, definitely.

She's awesome. Well, we're going to hear you sing now. Is this the track that actually made it into the video charts? Yes, this is I Wish It Didn't End Like This. Okay, let's we had never kissed. I slept under my duvet before the sun went down. That is Bailey Tomkinson, and I wish it didn't end like this, which gives me the opportunity to say I'm afraid it has ended like this.

But I do hope you can be with me Monday morning, just after 10, for a live edition of the program. Have a good weekend. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC

and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.