Woman's Hour - Beverley Knight, Care workers, ADHD and menopause, Barrister Robin Moira White

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was known as the ‘godmother of rock and roll’ and influenced countless musicians from Elvis to Johnny Cash. Now Olivier Award-winning performer Beverley Knight is playing Sister Rosetta in a new production, Marie and Rosetta, which has just opened at the Rose Theatre in London. It tells the story of Rosetta and her singing partner, Marie Knight, described as one of the most remarkable and revolutionary duos in music history. Beverley joins Nuala McGovern in the Woman’s Hour studio to discuss how the show hopes to restore these forgotten musical heroines to the spotlight. The Government has announced that care workers will no longer be recruited from overseas as part of a crackdown on visas for lower-skilled workers. The care sector has criticised the plans as "cruel" and "short-sighted". To discuss this and what good care looks like, Nuala is joined by Gavin Edwards, Head of Social Care at Unison, and care worker Kathryn Faulke, author of the memoir Every Kind of People: A Journey into the Heart of Care Work.It’s thought that around 3 to 4% of people in the UK, that’s one in 20, have ADHD - Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. However many women still remain undiagnosed for decades of their lives, with those in their 40s, 50s and 60s only now discovering they have it for the first time. Jo Beazley was diagnosed with ADHD just two years ago at the age of 49, after her symptoms worsened during the menopause. She joins Nuala along with Amanda Kirby, the former chair of the ADHD Foundation and a professor in the field of neurodiversity. This week we'll be hearing different perspectives on the recent Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman under the Equality Act, and how it could and should be interpreted on the ground. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has issued interim guidance that, in places open to the public, trans women shouldn't use women's facilities such as toilets. Today Nuala speaks to Robin Moira White, a barrister who specialises in taking discrimination cases, and who is also a trans woman. Robin transitioned in 2011 and is co-author of A Practical Guide to Transgender Law. Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Sarah Jane Griffiths

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, I'm Nuala McGovern and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. The prime minister, as you've been hearing in the bulletin, has been laying out the government's migration policy. Proposed changes include cutting the recruitment of overseas care workers and the focus of the discussion is about the numbers

of paid carers and where they come from. But this morning we want to talk about the quality of care those workers offer. What does good care look like to you? You may have used a paid carer yourself or rely on one to look after somebody in your family. What qualities and skills do you want your carer to have? Or maybe you are a care worker who takes great pride in delivering compassionate and diligent service. Well, I'd like to hear from you. You can text the programme, the number is 84844 on social media or at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website for a WhatsApp message or a voice note the number is 03700 100 444. We will hear

from a care worker who's been on the front lines who objects to the characterisation of a paid carer as a low skilled worker. Maybe you have thoughts on that. Also today the singer, songwriter and actor who is totally captivating in her latest role on stage, it is Beverly Knight, she's going to be in our Woman's Hour studio. Beverly is playing Sister Rosetta Tharp, the godmother of rock and roll. Now if you don't know a lot about her, you will in the coming hour. Also, starting today, we will be hearing different perspectives on the UK Supreme Court ruling

that decided the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex. Today Robin Moir of White, a barrister and activist who is a trans woman. Other views in upcoming programmes will also be broadcast. Plus, exploring an ADHD diagnosis during the menopause. Do stay with us. But let me begin with that announcement by the government that care workers will no longer be recruited from overseas as part of a crackdown on visas for lower skilled workers, as it has been termed. The Conservative Party did previously change the rules, which saw a drop off in the number of visas given to care workers abroad. On BBC Sunday with Laura Coonsberg on that programme yesterday, Laura asked the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, if she wanted to cut that even further.

Yes we do and we're going to change those rules this year to prevent the care worker visa being used to recruit from abroad. At all? Yes. So, but we will allow them to continue to extend visas and also to recruit from. There's more than 10,000 people who came on a care worker visa where the sponsorship visa was cancelled. Effectively, they came to jobs that weren't actually here or that were not of the proper standard. They are here and

care companies should be recruiting from that pool of people rather than recruiting from abroad. So we are closing recruitment from abroad. That is a significant change and we're doing it alongside saying we need to bring in a new fair pay agreement for care workers because we saw that huge increase in care work recruitment from abroad but without actually ever tackling the problems in the system. So that was Yvette Cooper speaking to Laura Coonsberg yesterday. Now the care sector has criticised the government's plans to end the overseas recruitment of staff as cruel and short-sighted. Let me speak to Gavin Edwards who is head of social care

at Unison. Good to have you with us, Gavin. Well, what about that care workers being recruited from the existing pool instead of from overseas? I think it's obviously the government has got a right to manage migration, but it's also got a responsibility to make sure that we've got the number of care workers that we need, and over recent decades really we simply haven't been paying those care workers enough for the difficult and skilled job that they're doing. So in the current situation I think this makes it all the more urgent that the

government moves ahead with the fair pay agreement, the sectoral agreement, the agreement that they're going to put in place for the care sector to boost the wages to ensure that we can recruit to the care sector in the way that we need to. But in the meantime, those care workers who've come to the UK from overseas need to be treated with dignity and respect, which is something which has been far too lacking in recent years. So do you believe if the wages were higher that that would change the whole landscape? I think if we see the delivery of a substantial fair pay agreement, which the government has announced that it's planning as part of the employment rights bill, and that it has substantial

investment behind it, that will go a long way to addressing the huge levels of vacancies in the care sector. I mean, it's having a hugely damaging effect on the levels of care and the availability of care in this country and so we need that national sectoral wide agreement that's going to be legally enforceable and I do think that's going to be a game-changer but we also need to make sure that those care workers who are already here from overseas are treated properly and I think there are some changes that could be made to the visa system to assist with that.

Well, let's talk about that. The overseas worker, how integral are they to the industry as a whole? Make no bones about it. The overseas workers who've come to work in the care sector in recent years have prevented the care sector from collapsing. The situation with paying conditions for care workers in the UK is so dire that it was needed that those workers would come.

In the absence of a government that was gonna do anything about pay terms and conditions, we did need those workers. It's a vital public service, social care, and yet it's a sector that has the highest vacancy rate of any sector in the economy and that was not only holding back the care sector, but also stopping us from bringing down NHS waiting times because the care packages simply weren't there for people leaving hospitals. I'm curious for your thoughts on this Gavin, a message that just came in. Overall my experience of home carers for my mum has been quite poor. We've been through four

home care agencies. Too many seem to do it as no alternative for work. Caring is a calling. I completely agree that care is a calling. I was speaking to the chair of our National Care Committee this morning, who's a support worker herself. She was telling me about the 42 plus training courses she has to do each year including safeguarding, tube feeding, oral health, issuing emergency life-saving medication. This is a difficult and skilled job by anybody's reckoning but unfortunately it's not paid as a skilled job and that's what needs to be addressed. Why do you think

that is? Why has that happened over a period of decades? Successive governments have failed to invest in the care sector. It's acutely underfunded. We also need widespread reform because it's a sector that is far too focused on profit in terms of the providers. It's too fragmented. We have 18,000 providers in the care sector as well.

I'm pleased to see the government starting to get a handle on some of these things by bringing in the fair pay agreement by its pledge to deliver a national care service. But we need to move ahead with these things now because the care sector has been waiting far too long for reform. And I do not have a response from the providers to your characterisation there about profit being a motivating factor. But they are your comments at the moment Gavin, who is Gavin Edwards Head of Social Care at Unison. Thank you very much. I do see another message coming in. My mother's two carers are with her right now. They're doing personal care to start her day. Both were recruited from overseas.

The care system collapsed without them. The way in which carers are paid is a disgrace. Care work is a highly skilled, yet these ladies are not paid for the time spent traveling between clients. They're on zero hour contracts and so no sickness pay. I can only work because these ladies come in four times a day for my mother. I'm sure that story will resonate with many. Let me bring in my next guest who's Catherine Falk who wrote a memoir on working in the care sector all through the pandemic called Every Kind of People, a Journey into the Heart of Care Work. Good to have you with this Catherine. I mean, I wonder how you would describe care work and what do people need to know about it, particularly that terminology that is

often used that it is a low skilled worker? I think that and thanks for having me on, I think that if you are doing the job properly it's certainly not no skilled work at all. There are all sorts of qualities and skills that you need. The qualities that you might need probably you need to have inherently most of them. You need to be patient, tolerant, reliable, empathic, have compassion, communicate, be sensitive, be calm, have good humour, and then the skills involved are enormous. Hoisting, safeguarding, manual handling, infection control, being observant, record keeping, it's, you know,

it's a high, I think it's a very, or I've found since I've been in it for the last five years, it's very highly skilled if you're doing it properly. You kind of chanced upon this career in some ways, would that be fair? You were the accidental carer? It would be very fair to say that, yes. I used to be a clinical dietitian in the NHS and suffered from, I think probably just suffered from burnout really, so gave that up and became less and less confident and a bit depressed at home until I felt the only job I think probably just suffered from burnout really, so gave that up and became less and less confident and a bit depressed at home until I felt the only job I could probably get was that as a care worker and I had a very poor perception of what that would be like. I thought it would probably be a bit dull and possibly unpleasant, a bit boring and it was absolutely anything but. It was interesting, fascinating, rewarding, joyful, funny and very

skilled. Yeah, I was, I was and now I still do it today. And I can't imagine doing anything else. What's wonderful about it? What's wonderful about it? Well, you, I think what's wonderful about it for me is that I go to work every day feeling like I want to go to work. I connect with people all day. I have fantastic relationships with my residents and my customers. And I go home feeling that I've done a good job. I've helped people be more independent. And we've had a good laugh along the way. I just find it fascinating and really, really rewarding. I'm interested in the skills that you outline for the ideal carer, which is, I mean, how many people are that multi skilled or multi talented

is the first thing that comes to mind. And Gavin mentioned this as well, you know, that ideally you have somebody who wants to do it as a calling or a vocation, whatever way we want to term it. But how do you find those people? That's the issue, isn't it? How do you find those people? I think that one of the issues we have alongside the financial issue, you know, the low pay, is that we have a very poor image and we need a makeover as much as anything else. We really, really do. We need to be promoting ourselves as a profession. And we need to be enticing good people in at a younger age, promoting it as a career with a career pathway through it.

There's loads of opportunities within the profession of care that are very, there's very little known about them. So we need to promote it as much as pay better for it to tempt those people in, because it is apart from being rewarding, it is really hard work, you know. So, yes, we do need to promote it more. And then we would get those people in. Those people are around, but they need to be shown that care

is a profession that they can go into. How do you feel about people being made to be social care workers just because they are looking for any job? That that is the way it is, I suppose, sold at the moment and the way many people hear it, that by and large I work with wonderful people, I have known some brilliant carers in my time and I still do both from overseas and in the UK, but it's not safe to allow just anybody to come into the profession and people are not paid enough to go into people's homes where they're caring for vulnerable people. We have to improve the quality, or ensure the quality of care.

Lots of care is really high quality at the moment, but to ensure it's high quality care, we have to recognize that there needs to be some kind of training, formal training, formal qualifications. It doesn't have to be a degree, but it needs to be some structure through care that ensures that quality of care is throughout the entire system. Lots of messages coming in on the subject of carers. My mother-in-law has carers come to her every day and on the whole they're lovely. My only issue is that they're all from overseas and because of this their accents can be quite strong.

My mother-in-law has dementia and really struggles to understand them. This causes a lot of confusion for her. That's Penny from Devon getting in touch 84844. But what is your take Catherine on today's announcement by the Prime Minister and also echoed by Yvette Cooper yesterday? Yeah, I have mixed feelings. I work with carers from outside the UK and they have been brilliant in most respects. Occasionally I've worked with those that have not been so good and I would echo your previous callers' observation that communication is paramount in care. You have to communicate well. And with elderly people or with those with dementia or those who are you know outside the capitals to be presented with somebody whose accent they don't quite understand whose culture is unfamiliar to them can be

difficult. Overall I'm afraid that if we continue, certainly the care system would have collapsed without them, they've done a fantastic job but if we focus only on bringing care workers in from overseas, I worry that we're not promoting care as a profession in this country and that we are kind of permitting the idea that care is not for us to do. It's not a good profession. So I think we should concentrate on that very much. Catherine, thank you very much. That is Catherine Falk who wrote a memoir on working in the care sector all through the pandemic called Every Kind of People, a journey into the heart of care work and before Catherine we Gavin Edwards head of social care at Unison

thanks to both of them. Your message is coming in I think the way ahead with carers is to take the training to a single national standard as in nursing training with a route to professional advancement that Sue in Plymouth in a way similar to what Catherine was calling for which is a total rebrand of the career. Now you'll remember that on the 16th of April Supreme Court judges in a case brought by the group for women Scotland ruled the terms woman and sex in the 2010 Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex. Previously, the prevailing interpretation had been

that a woman, for the purposes of the act, was either a biological woman or a trans woman who is biologically male, yet has a GRC, that is a gender recognition certificate. This week, we'll be hearing different perspectives on that ruling and taking a much deeper look at how it could and should be interpreted on the ground. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has issued interim guidance that was on the 26th of April that in places open to the public, trans women, those people with GRCs and those without, should not use women's facilities such as toilets or changing rooms. We'll look at the practical dilemmas this ruling creates for organisations,

businesses and individuals. Later this week, I'll be speaking to Sex Matters, one of the organisations who argued for this clarification in the law. But today, let's hear from a barrister who specialises in taking discrimination cases and who is also a trans woman and activist. That is Robin Moir-White who transitioned in 2011 and is co-author of A Practical Guide to Transgender Law. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the program. So what are your reflections almost four weeks on from that Supreme

Court ruling? Okay well I don't think the ruling will survive a trip to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. There was a case called Goodwin back in 2002, and we didn't have the Gender Recognition Act out of the goodwill of some government. We had it because the European Court, under the convention that we wrote and we signed up to in 1951, told the UK that it had to have an effective method of acknowledging someone's change of gender and whether or not, I think it's a particularly poor judgment by the Supreme Court

whether it's right or wrong, what we have is a situation now where that recognition is not effective and will need to be corrected. But on what grounds would the European Court of Human Rights potentially overrule the judgment? Well if you are a trans person that acknowledgement of your changed gender has to allow you to live appropriately and with dignity and if you go to the cinema or the supermarket and you are forced to use facilities that are not appropriate to your gender, then firstly your rights to privacy are compromised and

your right to live in dignity are compromised. This week I was talking about the circumstance of a trans woman who for 20 years has worked in a financial institution, is not known to be trans other than to her employers and the employers are trying to decide whether they have to tell her to go and use the male facilities. But could this not be a bedding down period in the sense of when organizations, businesses, workplaces, begin to have also adjustments for those that are trans because with the Supreme Court ruling it talked about for people not to be discriminated against.

Indeed it did and there's been a somewhat unholy rush to exclude trans people from facilities to take the Supreme Court's judgment to mean rather more than it does and the the Equality Human Rights Commission's interim statement has been widely criticized by discrimination lawyers for being part of that unholy rush. Why do you call it an unholy rush? What are you talking about? Well for example access to spaces in workplaces is not determined by the Equality Act, it's determined by other legislation than that which the Supreme Court was looking at. And that a careful look needs to be taken at how people are to be accommodated with dignity in their working life and their daily life. Which they may take steps to do in a way that they believe achieves that goal.

And I think it's put employers... But I'm saying still following the Supreme Court ruling. Well, perhaps not. Many employers or service providers have put out statements already that says we won't be excluding trans people from gender appropriate facilities because we don't think that's the right thing to do and if we've put ourselves in a position where business and service providers don't think that a ruling of our Supreme Court reflects justice and right and the dignity of people. Maybe that's why we signed up to a convention on that as long ago as 1951.

But do you not think in an instance like that, for example, some of the examples you give there, that any person within that organisation has the right now to lodge a complaint with the EHRC and that with the Equality and Human Rights Commission that implements these laws that took a look at the Equality Act 2010 in particular and gave that guidance, you know, an individual within those organisations now has the right to lodge a complaint if they disagree with that. Well they can lodge a complaint what they've got to come up with is a disadvantage. Which many people have as we've seen in the run-up to this particular case. Yeah and it frankly puts employers and service

providers in a nigh impossible position because equally the trans person who's forced into facilities that they would say are not appropriate for them or is forced to tell their work colleagues that they can't go and use the same facilities as them as they've been doing for many years is equally put into an impossible position. The Equality and Human Rights Commission have a duty to uphold the convention rights of individuals as well as the Equality and Human Rights Commission have a duty to uphold the Convention rights of the individuals as well as the Equality Act rights and so

you could, what this ruling has taken us into is a situation where I think you're likely to get complaints from either side of the debate. With that in relation Victoria McLeod is a former High Court judge who is trans, told the BBC she will go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to seek a declaration that the actions of the UK government and the Supreme Court violate her fundamental human rights, which I think is echoing a little of what you're saying there, Robin, and also of course we should say that the government has accepted this ruling saying it brings

clarity and confidence and continue to say the very last thing it does is bring clarity and confidence it has brought muddle and doubt i think that is one perspective and we're hearing of a variety of them this week but there are others that would agree

with that characterization of clarity and confidence the Justice Secretary Sabina Mahmood she said i think they've done their job, talking about the Supreme Court. I think they've sought to do it in a way that recognises that we're talking about a balance of rights, but sought to give confidence to a minority community that they still have protections. Why do you not believe that? Well, at the end of the judgement, there's a long homily from the judges about trans people still have rights. And that it shouldn't be considered a victory by either side.

Well indeed, and I've heard words like vindication used by people on the gender critical side of the debate. The problem is that it's all very well having fundamental human rights, but if in your workplace you're forced to go, you very specifically rejected your birth gender and now you're forced into facilities that reflect that, that is devastating for someone who has made those choices, made that difficult journey and their rights are not being respected. Why is it devastating? Well the very, the definition, gender dysphoria, is complete unhappiness with your birth, sex

or gender and people go through, as I'm sure is well known, considerable and difficult stages which can involve the loss of family and friends, the loss of employment, having to seek new employment in different ways, having to seek medical intervention and surgery and go through all that. And many of those people, in fact the vast majority of those people have lived perfectly successfully for many years in their affirmed gender and to be now told that you have to out yourself to work colleagues and use facilities that you've specifically rejected is devastating. I mean there are people who would say it is devastating to have to share facilities, same-sex facilities, with a biological man. Well, indeed, and there are solutions,

there are solutions to that problem, so that there are, I mean, one of the things, one of the areas that I practice in particular is religious discrimination, and some people from certain religions are very keen on the sex differences and maintaining the sex differences, And the way that you accommodate those needs are by providing additional privacy for those people who need additional privacy, not forcing particular groups into that additional privacy. So if there were accommodations for additional privacy for trans people, would that resolve the issue for you? No, that's exactly the problem. You see, additional privacy for trans people. So

you force the trans people into the additional privacy. If you say there is, there are private facilities and if you are disaffected by the idea that in your normal group there might be a trans person, then you can use the additional private facilities and know that you're not going to encounter anyone else. But we do know with this ruling the terms woman and sex in the 2010 Equality Act refer to, they say, a biological woman and biological sex. You will have also seen some...

Does that mean, for example, that my, I mean I have a barrister friend with relatively young children so can she now not take her young male children into the female facilities when she's at the cinema or the beach or the supermarket you know what is and if she can why can that why are they allowed to be accommodated and not a trans person who transitioned 20 years ago? And maybe it's boy, man, I don't have the answer on that one, but I am, I do want to know from you, that's probably with their child under a certain age, but I don't have the specifics for you right now. The act is very clear, the act says that boy and girl include, man and woman include boy and girl,

Boy and girl include, man and woman include boy and girl. That's what the Equality Act says. When it comes to some people now describing you as a man, how do you react to that? Those who do it are being deliberately offensive generally when they do. Why do you say that's their motivation? They could say that they're identifying people by biological sex. They could, people can say all sorts of things. There are unpleasant ways to refer to all sorts of people. I never choose to use unpleasant ways to refer to other people. The choice of referring to someone in an unpleasant way is a choice. They might say that having to be pleasant is not reason enough to use a term which they feel is biologically inaccurate.

Well imagine I'm in a queue in a shop and I'm an out trans person so people have seen me on the TV, have heard me here on the radio and if the shop assistant happens to know who I am and asks perhaps another shop assistant to come and open another till and shouts across the shop, would you start with the man fifth down the queue, would that be appropriate? That's just plain unpleasantness. Now if we're dealing with a court case where the gender identity of someone is relevant, that's a different matter. If we're dealing with how we behave to people in society, you know, there are appropriate ways to refer to people and inappropriate ways. Let me turn to the case again. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the EHRC, no trans organisations applied to be part of the case.

Two trans individuals, Vicky McLeod, the judge that you've mentioned already, and Stephen Whittle, Professor Stephen Whittle, applied to intervene and they are eminent squeezes from the trans world. They were both involved in the drafting of the 2004 Act. There is no bar on individuals, it's relatively unusual that individuals intervene, it's more often organisations, but there is no bar on individuals intervening and those individuals to this day don't know why they were not permitted to intervene. But the Supreme Court as you mentioned it considers legal arguments, not lived experiences as according to Accio Reindorf, one of the commissioners said that, thus an individual

is never likely to get permission. How do you understand though no organisation instead of an individual applying to intervene? I mean just to let our listeners know the list of interveners of organisations they did hear from with Sex Matters, also Scottish Lesbians, the Lesbian Project and LGB Alliance, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International. Amnesty put some very strong transpositive points

which were not followed by the Supreme Court and I think are likely to form some of the discussion when this matter gets to the European Court. You're convinced it will? Oh undoubtedly. I know of a number of applications which are in preparation at the moment. Vicky MacLeod has already said she's taking her position to the European Court of Human Rights. The first time a trans person is forced into inappropriate facilities in the NHS for example, there's likely to be injunction applications and the

new guidance which the Equality and Human Rights Commission are going to produce before the summer is susceptible to judicial review and on judicial review the European Convention rights become relevant. Until then will you abide by the ruling? I will continue to live my life in the way that I've been living it for a long time. So that sounds like a no to me. Service providers and those who provide workplaces don't have a duty to police facilities and I've never yet been challenged on my use of facilities. You previously called sex matters Kimmy Badenock and Baroness Faulkner who heads up the EHRC evil on this topic. I mean we've just

spoken about unpleasant language, do you still stand by that word? Yeah it was a strong word used at the time relative to a particular action but I, my family were involved in the Battle of Cable Street in the 1930s and I'm afraid to say excluding vulnerable minorities is a pretty unattractive position for any organisation to adopt. But many would say using language like that just inflames the rhetoric and could also be considered hateful speech. I agree.

I perhaps might not have, with a bit more thought might have used that word on that occasion but I used it on that occasion and I stand by it. So you do stand by it. Thank you for coming in, Barrister, trans woman and author of A Practical Guide to Transgender Law, Robin Moir White. More on this topic as I mentioned including on Wednesday when we'll speak to Sex Matters, one of the organisations that were heard in the Supreme Court case and next week Baroness Kishwer Faulkner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission will be here to explain how the Commission is consulting on changes to its guidance. If you want to get in touch, 84844.

Now let me turn to Sister Rosetta Tharp, a woman we should all know about as she was the godmother of rock and roll. She influenced countless musicians. Chuck Berry was quoted as saying, My whole career has been one long Sister Rosetta Tharp impersonation. A new play, Marie and Rosetta, has just opened at the Rose Theatre in London, portraying Rosetta and her singing partner, Marie Knight. Described as one of the most remarkable and revolutionary duos in music history, the play aims to bring these forgotten musical heroines back into the spotlight. Olivier Award-winning performer Beverly Knight plays Sister Rosetta and joins me now in the

studio. Good morning. Good morning. Great to have you with us. Lovely to be here. Can we start by talking about your performance? What are the words? Mesmerizing perhaps? Oh, thank you. Goosebumps all the way.

When you come down into the audience with your tambourine, it is thrilling. Tell us a little bit about Sister Rosetta Thorpe. I didn't know anything about her before I began reading into her with this particular play. Well, Sister Rosetta Thorpe was a force of nature. I mean, she was a complete child prodigy. She was playing guitar at the age of six. It was her and her mum, Katie Nubin Bell, and her mom would go out and preach around the southern United States and then in Chicago and little Rosetta would accompany her

playing guitar and roaring in the crowds and she was such a remarkable player. The way she would pick the guitar was what made her stand out from everybody else. She'd pick in in such quick succession where she wasn't singing, she'd be picking in quick succession. That in time became known as, as we all know it, the guitar solo. Paving the way for, you know, the the rock gods with their, you know, soaring guitar solos that we all know and love today. She made gospel music, so music was almost completely of a religious nature, but she got into huge trouble with her church, Church of God in Christ, which is a big kind of evangelical African-American founded church, for making secular records, which she did.

She went out and sang in the Cotton Club. She brought her brand of Christianity to the nightclubs, which was an absolute no-no at the time. You're talking about the 1930s, 40s, 50s, but she got to sing with Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington and the huge people of the time. But it was in Marie Knight and her partnership with Marie Knight that got her back in with the churches because Marie Knight was very much a proficient singer and player and their combination, their duets, which were entirely of a religious nature, just set the world on fire really. It's been lost to history. Like you did with Ntombi Zotwa and Deluvu who is Marie Knight. Oh, that's right. Oh my goodness. I mean, what a pairing. Just an amazing thing to watch.

How much fun was it to have somebody to bounce off in that way? Oh superb. Ndombi Zodwa is just a fantastically talented young actor and singer and just to be able to sing duets with someone and just have so much fun with it was brilliant. Putting together the show was everything. But it's something I felt so different. You've got these two women on stage, it's a two-hander. The intensity of it physically as well as this story that's set in such a sad time of, you know, deep, sad segregation and maybe performing in places that black people weren't able to attend. Absolutely. We find ourselves, for the duration of the show, in 1946 and it's the first scene you see is Marie and Rosetta in a funeral home

rehearsing. It took me a second, I was like that's a coffin back there. That's correct, yeah. It's a funeral home in Mississippi because as Rosetta says we can't stay in no hotel now here, you know, black people couldn't stay at access places, you know, to lay down their heads, which is why Rosetta Tharp had a tour bus. So the origins of having a tour bus as a status symbol were actually born out of complete and utter necessity because people couldn't stay in hotels. It was such a terrible and difficult time. Jim Crow was very very much adhered to in the southern United States, which meant as black women and as musicians they were in precarious positions

up and down, you and down the different states. They had a white bus driver as a shield, really, as safety, to get them food, the basic necessities that they would need. But it speaks to the bravery of both women and their tenacity and their resilience to get the music to the masses however they could and doing what they saw as God's work. What about the relationship between the two of them? So I'm glad you asked. We are almost certain that Sister Rosetta was bisexual. Her relationships with men, she had three husbands. Squirrels.

The squirrels. She had three squirrels. But she also had relationships with other women. And most people agree that one of the most loving and affectionate and close of those relationships was with Marie Knight, although in the books Sister Shout by Gail Ward, which we used to do a lot of research, Marie Knight denied absolutely that there was such a relationship, but understandable because the fundamentalism and the evangelical nature of both of their religions would have meant that that would have been a no-no, especially at that time. But the evidence was that a lot of the big kind of gospel blues singers, as Sister Rosetta Tharp was, endured relationships with both men and women.

And it was completely commonplace. It was just not out in the open. And definitely not approved by the church, of which it was a huge part of their lives. I mentioned squirrels. Do you want to tell our audience why they were called that? Squirrels. Because Sister Rosetta in our play refers to the men in her life as squirreling away her money for a rainy day, which is based absolutely in fact. She came up against men who saw the fame, saw the glitz, saw the glamour and certainly saw the money. She could demand a really good fee for what she did because she was so unique, her skill set was so unique, female

guitarist with an incredible voice and she was just basically a bank account especially for squirrel number three who outlived her. She died you know in her late 50s. But in the play as well I did come across just researching that there is a tombstone that that now says about who she is. When she died it was an unmarked grave. It was an unmarked grave for Sister Rosetta. A woman who and to give her her due and you beautifully surmised it in your intro, a woman who was part of Mount Rushmore of creating this thing that became rock and roll. Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard.

That's right. And they all came after her. Little Richard opened for Sister Rosetta Thorpe, the duck walk that everybody talks about with Chuck Berry. He saw Sister Rosetta do it first. He just got down a bit lower than she did and Elvis had loved her. And I know you've been influenced by Aretha Franklin. Yeah. But Aretha was influenced by Sister Rosetta. There you go. And now we come back full circle that you're playing Sister Rosetta Tarpe.

It's a remarkable thing. This woman whose name has been unfairly suppressed when we talk about the history of rock and roll and where it's come from and how it's been built and the architects. This woman influenced directly and indirectly just about everybody that you've heard of in modern music. You can trace it all back. And, you know, there is a direct correlation between what Sister Rosetta Tharp was doing and women like Tina Turner and certainly Aretha Franklin and her father, James Cleveland, you know, who would have revered Sister Rosetta and played those records to a young Aretha coming up. And in in turn Aretha has influenced me greatly.

What's it like performing her? What's it like with the audience? I know I was totally smitten but as I've said, how's it been? Because I can't think I came the very first night. Yes it's been incredible. People have been clapping along, cheering and deadly silent in the poignant moments of which there are quite a few. It's been a wonderful, wonderful privilege and an honour to play this iconic woman. One line I read about you, Beverly, is that your biggest achievement of your career is that you're still here.

Yeah. And I thought that might be kind of interesting to explore a little bit, particularly with the backdrop of Sister Rosetta Tharp, who stayed there through thick and thin when she was in the flavour of the month and when she wasn't. That's right. It's funny, I keep finding correlation between my own life and career and that of Sister Rosetta. The whole kind of going into the valley of not being the, as you quite rightly say, the flavor of the month or the current thing. And then coming back out the other end, which Sister Rosetta Thorpe did when she went to England. Yes, England adopted her so to speak. Absolutely because all the young

people were like who is this incredible blues woman that the Beatles and the Stones and the animals are copying you know oh my god she's the real deal type thing. And I found now I've, in this part of my career, after 30 plus years, people are looking to me going, oh, Auntie Bev, yes, go on, Auntie Bev, go on, Queen Bev and all of this, which is so flattering. But it's just, it's wonderful to have a career where I'm still able to be of service to people with my voice and hopefully with joy

and to be a figure that people are influenced by and hopefully an aspirational figure. Most definitely. Beverly Knight, thank you so much. Marie Anne Rosetta is on at the Rose Theatre in London until the 22nd of May, then on tour to Wolverhampton, you're going to get some reception there, that's right, and at the Chichester Theatre, a festival theatre from the 25th of June to the 26th of July. Beverly, because that's not enough, will be performing on BBC2 and BBC Eye players later with Jules Holland that Sunday the 25th of May at 10 p.m. I will be listening. Oh thank you. Now thanks for all your messages coming in on carers. Let me read some of them.

Dear womans are, how can we have a conversation about carers and not mention the patriarchy? Carers are labelled low skilled because care work is undervalued in a patriarchal society that exploits women's caring nature to prop up broken social systems. Where are all the men in care work outside of well-paid managerial positions? That's Alice in London. Next one, I worked in domiciliary care for five years but couldn't stand it any longer so I've turned to private care work. The colossal stress you're under to get everything done within the dreadfully unrealistic timeframe you are given. For example, I would regularly have to get a physically unstable elderly person out of bed, assist to wash and dress them, give their meds,

wash the dishes, change the bed linen, empty the bins, get breakfast and empty the commode all in 30 minutes, then get to the next client with no travel time allowance. Calls were routed back to back so you could actually only have about 20 minutes to carry out all those tasks and get to the next call on time. 84844 if you'd like to get in touch. Now it is thought that around three to four percent of people in the UK, so about one in twenty, have ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. However many women still remain undiagnosed for decades,

only discovering in their 40s, 50s and 60s that they have it. Following the success of the award-winning BBC Two series Inside Our Autistic Minds, which explored the experiences of neurodivergent people, a new documentary starts tonight with Chris Packham hearing the stories of people with ADHD. One of those taking part is Jo Beasley. She was diagnosed with ADHD just two years ago at the age of 49 after her symptoms worsened during the menopause. Welcome Jo to our studio. Thank you very much, it's a pleasure. We also have Amanda Kirby who's the former chair of the ADHD Foundation and a professor in the field of Neurodiversity also joining me down the line. Good morning Amanda. Good morning to you. So Jo, you and your undiagnosed ADHD, what was the effect on your life before the menopause and before you got a diagnosis?

So before the menopause, when I reflect back, the undiagnosed ADHD on reflection had an impact on me from when I was quite small, from when I was at school through my teenage years, through various careers etc. On reflection I can see the struggle with time, tasks, sitting still. Girls were expected, late 70s, early 80s, to sit very still at school and concentrate and get things in on time. I struggled quite a bit with that and then it was when the menopause hit things started to really become even more apparent and it was quite a struggle at that time. So what was it as you had perimenopause, menopause, wash, waded, manifest? I remember one significant moment when my

wife Ali came home from work and I was sitting on the dining room table with my laptop and I just sat there in tears and said I think I'm gonna have to give up my job I don't think I can do this anymore because the requirement to do things on time, the tasks etc etc. that I was doing, you throw in menopausal symptoms as well that I've since learned they don't run nicely next to each other at all. So I think I had exacerbated symptoms of both going on at one time. And it was just really, it was too much.

And I thought I just wasn't coping at all. And at that point though, you went to speak to somebody and got a diagnosis? What happened then was my wife Allie was working with somebody who had recently been diagnosed, my eldest daughter Katie was at uni with somebody who was diagnosed with ADHD and they both kind of around the same time came to me and said, I think we should look at this and my manager at a time was previously a special educational needs teacher, I mentioned it to her and she said, yes I think maybe you should look at that and then there was then the whole journey really began after that. And I want to come back to how it meant to get that diagnosis but I do want to bring Amanda in here. What is it about perimenopause or menopause that might exacerbate the symptoms of ADHD?

Well I think one of the big things is you've got estrogen going up and down and all over the place and estrogen can interact with dopamine and serotonin and so you might have had those symptoms but the depletion of estrogen really exacerbates it and as Joe says rightly you've got a combination of the two. So quite difficult sometimes to recognise which is menopausal symptoms, perimenopausal symptoms, and on top of this, which are the ADHD symptoms which are being unmasked, and you're seeing the combination of the two having worse outcomes.

We didn't think about it though. We weren't thinking about women 10, 15 years ago. So these are new conversations which is remarkable really. Yes it is because we often hear about girls when we talk about autism and masking very well but talking about women, menopause, post-menopausal women getting this diagnosis, do we know what percentage of women have ADHD? We were talking about in the population as a whole about three to four percent in the UK. Well, I think we don't exactly because what we were doing with most of the research done

15, 20 years ago was done on boys, on men. And so you look at the research studies, they were predominantly boys and so we're looking for boys and men symptoms. We're seeing in other conditions like autism as well, it's likely to be the gender difference are not so great as we always thought. We always thought it was two, three to one, males to females. We're thinking it's probably much less than that and maybe a little bit more males but nothing like the low levels of lack of diagnosis that we actually saw. Do you believe there's a higher awareness now among medical practitioners? Well we've got a way to go I think you know I think we've got GPs and psychiatrists,

clinicians as well, you know you've got gynaecologists who are seeing women with menopause need to think about ADHD alongside perimenopausal symptoms so I think we've still got a way to go. You know I was quite struck Jo in the documentary about the grief you were feeling post diagnosis. Yes, you had a reason for some of the ways you were feeling or had behaved. But grief and anger for all those years that were lost, perhaps, is one way of describing it. I was actually sitting in this studio making part of that film and Candace, the director, who was amazing and worked alongside her a lot, she said

bringing some pictures of you as a child and let's talk about how you felt. So that's when I was really struck by the memories of, you know, at school sit still, stop chattering, you know, be quiet, you're a bit too much. And it's really that, I mean, I've had, my life is great, you know, I have a wonderful life, but I did sit and look back and think, well, if I'd have perhaps got that support earlier on, would it have been less than a struggle? Could I have had a different career?

Could I have achieved more? You set your film to dance music, this is part of what's in the documentary. I just want to play a little burst off it actually. You recorded it in this studio I thought it's very moving when I looked at it and now you're back here with us speaking about it. Let's play it. My dad used to call me a butterfly. At 13 or 14 careers, got bored, want to try something else?

You forget people's birthdays, double book, let somebody down. That panic and that guilt and that worry. Bad friend, bad daughter, bad mother. Bad daughter, bad mother. I mean, you sum it up in 30 seconds, you love dance music, hence that beat that's there behind. Your dad used to describe you like a butterfly. But bad mother, bad daughter, bad friend, which I know in your friends and your wife and your daughter, saw it, of course,

they wanted to reassure you that you're none of that. But the low self-esteem. If you think of, if somebody forgets something, it's just that one thing that they've forgotten. If I forget to text a friend back a birthday, forget something, I'm not dealing with that one time I've forgotten something. I'm dealing with decades of feeling bad that I have been a bad friend or I've been a bad mum if I've forgotten the birthday party, etc. It's like it starts off with something in your pocket, it's then this little rucksack on your back and then it becomes this huge piece of luggage that you carry all the time. So then the next time you do something that to somebody else might seem quite small, it's

not just that one time that I'm carrying it. I've carried it for decades. The response to all of that has been wonderful when people have said, you're never too much for me. In fact, I haven't had enough of you was I've gone goosebumps because that was beautiful to hear but it's still it's decades of feeling that you are too much for people and you're bad at so many things because life is around you have to do things on time, be organized, etc. And when you can't do that it's tricky. In my last 10 seconds or so, do you think it should be renamed Amanda ADHD? Yes, I think we need to remarket it. Absolutely. New press campaign. It's not a deficit and it's not a disorder.

We keep hearing about rebranding this morning from carers to ADHD. Thank you, Jo Beasley, and thank you, Professor Amanda Kirby. Inside Our ADHD Minds is on today, BBC Two at 9pm or on the BBC iPlayer. Thanks so much for joining me. Tomorrow I'll speak to the US director Nadia Connors about her new film, The Uninvited. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. the presenter of Diddy on Trial from BBC Sounds. Sean Diddy Combs is facing a fight for his freedom as his hugely anticipated trial starts for sex trafficking,

racketeering with conspiracy and transportation for prostitution. He denies all the charges. I'll be bringing you every twist and turn from the courtroom with the BBC's correspondents and our expert guests. So make sure you listen, subscribe now on BBC Sounds and turn your push notifications on, so you never miss a thing.