Woman's Hour - Biggin Hill Women, Eco Heroines, Parental Alienation

Episode Date: April 26, 2019

We take a trip to Biggin Hill airport. Popular with millionaires and stars who travel in private jets, there's a small group of women working there. Some of them fly planes, but in the UK as a whole only 6% of our pilots are women. This week the 16 year old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has impressed the country with her confidence. She was at Westminster addressing crowds of environmentalists and meeting politicians. She's been critical about the UK’s response to climate change, telling MPs her future has been stolen. We look at how she's managed to make such an impact and hear about other influential women in the environmental movement. We explore parental alienation. It's defined as the process of psychologically manipulating a child into showing fear, disrespect or hostility toward a parent. It can happen when couples split up acrimoniously. We explore how understood the concept is and hear how the term is used in the family courts.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to Friday's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. Yesterday, a group of fathers marched on Downing Street to raise awareness of parental alienation, cited in a case in the courts earlier in the week. What does the term mean and what damage is done to a child if the parents are disrespectful or hostile towards each other? Memories of Biggin Hill and the role of women at the airport during two world wars and what work is there for women in aviation there now it's a commercial enterprise. The environment and climate change have topped the headlines throughout the week and the face of a 16-year-old girl has become familiar to all of us.

Greta Thunberg is the Swedish schoolgirl who began the trend for school strikes for climate and this week she met leading politicians at Westminster and the audience that turned up to hear her speak was said to be huge. In her speech, she told the MPs that her future had been stolen. Well, how has she managed to make such an impact? And who are the other influential women in the environmental movement that we really should know about? Bridget McKenzie is an environmental educator and the founder of Climate Museum UK. And Marianne Brown is the editor of Resurgence. Why is Greta making such an impact? It's not hard to be in awe of Greta Thunberg. Everywhere she's spoken, she's had the same tone and gravitas.

Whether she's speaking in front of billionaires or politicians or activists. I mean, she's cutting right through it. And she wouldn't be there talking to us if we didn't want to listen. And I think this is the time when really people need to hear someone calm and measured. And from a point of view of a teenager whose adulthood will be defined by how we deal with the climate crisis right now. I think she's just the perfect voice. Bridget, the influence of women in the movement seems to go back a long way.

How influential would you say women have been in the environmental movement? I think they've been extremely influential and often invisible. So right back to 1856, we had Eunice Foote, who first theorised climate change through practical experiment, but she was forgotten when John Tyndall came along three years later and did similar experiments. And ever since then, we've had women scientists, conservationists, who are 100% dedicated and innovative in their work, but not always known

about. But I think they have been influential because they've often been highly collaborative, very dialogic, accurate, observational, and often very passionate. And it really works. Marianne, what role would you say women are playing in Extinction Rebellion? Extinction Rebellion is kind of non non-gender-specific movement. It's everybody together, and I think that's also part of its appeal because its message affects everybody and anyone can join. Going back to Greta Thunberg, she's often sort of talked about as a leader and as standing out,

but, I mean, she's part of a movement. She's not a lone voice. Bridget, often people do look for leaders and for names of people who will make other people stand up and listen. I understand one of the founders is Gail Bradbrook. What's known about her? Well, I would also mention there are other women, for example, Verona Yamin, the environmental lawyer. been quite significant in Extinction Rebellion for developing systems and values that encourage cooperation and what's called holocratic leadership. And she's also really promoted the idea of regenerative culture, which is a very caring and compassionate approach to ourselves

and the planet. So those values underpin the work of Extinction Rebellion. What do you mean by regenerative culture? So regenerative culture means designing ways of being that are putting back rather than just extracting and taking away. Polly Higgins, whose death was announced this week, I know you knew her and you describe her as the earth lawyer. What do you mean by that? She was the founder of a campaign to stop ecocide or to establish an international law to make ecocide an international crime against peace. So ecocide is the widespread devastation of ecosystems and contributing to climate change is ecocidal. So she was the Earth lawyer. Just over 10 years ago, she had a vision

of the earth calling for help and dedicated herself to this idea, which was an old idea that had been sort of swept aside in the 1990s and she revived it. So Marianne, legally, what did she actually achieve? She had been working behind the scenes with countries, with nations who are being affected by climate ecocide. So small island states like Tuvalu and Vanuatu, who are very vulnerable to sea level rise. So getting the ecocide as a crime against peace involves enough people voting for that to become a crime. So she was working behind scenes to get that up on the agenda again. Marianne, I have to say a number of the women that we're talking about today,

I have actually interviewed on Woman Tower over the years. I want to ask you who you would say have been the most important women in conservation. Vandana Shiva was one I interviewed a very long time ago. Oh, fantastic. She's behind the biggest seed bank network in India, which is kind of based on reclaiming the commons and the fact that she encourages villagers to give seeds to the seed bank of kind of native seeds, which might be resistant to the effects of climate change, for example.

And then people, when they need the seeds for example when there's a drought they take but they take seeds but then they're encouraged to give back one and a quarter once they've got in enough to keep them going so it's a really amazing work that she's doing and she also came from the the chip coal movement as well which was the the original tree huggers in India in the 1970s. And they were women and men, but primarily women from poor villages who protested against commercial tree felling by literally hugging trees. Jane Goodall, I think, is another one, Marianne, that you wanted to mention. Yeah. I mean, she worked with chimpanzees in Tanzania,

I think was where she first went. She was the one who with chimpanzees in Tanzania, I think was where she first went. She was the one who discovered chimpanzees can make and use tools. So it was kind of really fundamental to how we view our relationship with the living planet as well. Yeah, she was a massive game changer. Now, Bridget, there is someone called Julia Butterfly Hill, who is not nearly so well known as the ones we've mentioned so far. She lived in a tree for two years. What do we know about her? I mean, she may be better known by those people who are driven by the idea of nonviolent direct action.

This kind of practice was developed long before Greenpeace, but Greenpeace kind of made it more better known. Putting your body in the line of, you know, ecocidal and very dangerous actions like nuclear testing and logging. So Julia Butterfly Hill put her body in a tree where first growth forests have been deforested on a massive, massive scale. What about Wangari Matai in Kenya, someone else that we interviewed on one of her? Yeah, and in some ways that's sort of putting her body with other bodies in the line, planting trees, not just defending trees.

She was the Green Belt movement that was using trees to, again, it's a regenerative culture, not only helping people out of poverty but also improving the environment around them so it's ongoing now i think she died in 2011 didn't she she did and of course she suffered terribly politically in kenya didn't she she was she was always in trouble with the authorities but just continued to get women to work planting trees. And then I remember her telling me that she got men involved much more when they were provided with charity money to get spades and wheelbarrows.

And she said, you'll always get men involved if you give them tools, which I really remembered her saying that. Wasn't it a woman who founded Greenpeace? Wasn't that Dorothy Stowe? She was one of seven or eight founders of Greenpeace and there were two other women. Yes, I mean, the founding of Greenpeace is a bit like the founding of Extinction Rebellion.

You know, it's not about individuals, but a group of people who clubbed together to get a boat and resist nuclear testing at first. But what was Dorothy Stowe's background? She and her husband Irving, they became Quakers and changed their name in honour of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who is the anti-slavery campaigner. You know, they were people who cared, cared about the future for children. I think probably one of the best known names is that of Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring. How important is she to the movement?

Yeah, I mean, she was pretty fundamental in bringing the issue of overuse of pesticides to a kind of political forum in the States. It was 1962 that Silent Spring was published. Huge impact that her book had and a huge backlash that she received just really raised awareness and it led to a ban on DDT for agricultural purposes and the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agencies. It's really right at the beginning of that kind of awareness following the Second World War when these kind of chemicals were being developed for agricultural use. Marianne, who would you say are the other young women who are Gretta's contemporaries who will have influence? Oh, well, I mean, there's thousands and thousands

of school strikers, aren't there? And I think they tend to get a lot of visibility in their localities. But I think in terms of emerging catalysts in the UK, for example. They've got Maya Rose Craig, the 16-year-old birder. She's based in Bristol, who speaks up against racism and sexism. She's got a very popular blog. She already is talked about a lot, but I think in the future she's going to be really big. What's going to be her influence on the environmental case? Racism and sexism is an important part

of the environmental movement as well. and sexism is an important part of the environmental movement as well. I mean, it's, you know, there's connections to colonialism. And if you look at these kind of inequalities, and they're all part of the same story. So I think calling out these issues in the environmental movement will help the greater cause. I was talking to Marianne Brown and Bridget McKenzie. London Biggin Hill Airport is mostly used today, apparently, by immensely wealthy footballers, musicians and business leaders who fly in and out in their own jets. But the airport is still remembered as an RAF base in the Second World War, protecting London from the enemy's bombers. A memorial exhibition has just opened at the airport commemorating those who served there.

There are the fighter pilots and the backroom boys but there's also evidence of the important roles played by women there during the two world wars. There is still a small female workforce at the commercial airport but only 6% of pilots in the UK are women, and earlier this week, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Aerospace hosted an event to discuss how to encourage and support more young women into the industry. Well, Henrietta Harrison met some of the women working at Bigging Hill

and began with the museum's director, Gemma Davey. The chimes which ring today were still three years ago. They were to announce the invasion which never came but had its portent in the skies over Britain. It's at Biggin Hill Aerodrome... Biggin Hill has some absolutely incredible women's stories which are specific to us. So we dedicate a whole section in the exhibition to the WAF,

so the women in the Auxiliary Air Force. But then actually it kind of grew because there are so many women's stories which the history books miss off. So for example, I think throughout the decades, there's been much more focus on the few, the fighter pilots, and they've become so iconic. And yet there are so many other stories. One particular story which always kind of grips our visitors and yet is so little known is the story of Joan Elizabeth Mortimer. Joan was a WAF at Biggin Hill during the Battle of Britain. And during a particularly heavy bombing raid, the all-important ground-to-air communications have been knocked out. So Joan Mortimer ran out onto the airfield, absolutely no regard to her own safety.

And she was actually physically flagging with red flags, unexploded bombs on the airfield, so pilots would be able to know where to land safely. For her bravery, she was awarded the military medal. After the war, Joan actually became quite hard up. And I think she ended up being a pig farmer, working at a laundrette. She did all sorts of things. And I think this reflects more generally for women in wartime they are given all of these opportunities opportunities to move away from home

to make money to progress their careers and yet for so many of them of course after the conclusion of the second world war it was kind of well what do we do now actually and I think certainly Joan is a really good example and in fact became so poor that when a sort of rag and bone man came to the door one day and said, have you got anything to sell? Joan invited him in and he immediately clocked her military medal and she sold it to him for £20. And she said she closed the door and she just burst into tears realising what she had just done.

Then came the broad blue line of the Royal Air Force. Men who bore the heaviest part in the struggle three years ago. Pilots of fighter command. United Nations airmen from every corner of the globe who halted the tide of German aggression, spreading gold across the face of Europe. History teaches us that actually it's a more male-dominated area. And I think that sense of history can be quite hard to break

in terms of people's perceptions. I hope that by showcasing these incredible women's stories in the museum that it might inspire more women to think actually that could be for me. Do you mind just telling us where we are? So we've just done how many flights of stairs? Three flights of stairs. This is to get to where you work every day? Yeah, we've got a vertical ladder as well.

It's an old-fashioned RAF tower, it's the original one. My name's Sinead Swidburn, I'm a student air traffic controller at London Beacon Hill Airport. I was at school, done on my GCSEs. At the age of 13 I got introduced into a club called Air Cadets. I'd done that for eight years so that's how I kind of grew the love of aviation from there. I used to do a lot of flying and gliding with them. I'm the only one in my family that's actually interested in aviation. So what sort of options are there for someone who wants to to be in aviation but doesn't want to join the RAF? And there was loads

of options. I could have gone into air stewardess I could have been a pilot gone into operations side of it but air traffic always kept my interest I think it's because I went on a camp one year to Cyprus and they had an air traffic control unit at the base that I went to and I went up there one day and I saw how much it was buzzing, exciting, and I thought this was something that I'd really like to get into. November X3 Lima, squawk 7047, basic service. Squawk 7047, basic service, 7-518, X3 Lima. Can you talk to me? Yeah. What are you doing? I have no idea what you're doing.

I've got Golf November Alpha. It's just overhead the tower. It's just turning downwind now, so it's just straight ahead that way, if you look. And he'll be landing shortly. So you're bringing a plane in now? Bringing a plane in now. It must be terrifying.

The passengers are sort of in your hands, aren't they, really? I think sometimes you've got to kind of block that mentality out because if you do, it would consume you. Just get on with the job. So we've got fast jets here and we've got helicopters and we've got spitfires which are quite fast as well so trying to get all that to work together is quite challenging whereas like Gavik and Heathrow it's all the same kind of aircraft type so their job's a little bit easier you wouldn't think it but it is

the smell is lovely. I just love it. My name is Anna Walker and I'm the only female Spitfire pilot in the world at the moment. Obviously people know Biggin Hill for being an airport now where really the rich and famous

fly in and out. There's also this heritage hangar as well. We are the only place in the world operating three two-seaters fairfiles, taking passengers flying. What drew you to fly? I've always flown. Flying's always been part of my life. My father taught me to fly when I was very young in Brazil. And when you grow up in a big country like that, planes are just part of your life. My father taught me to fly when I was very young in Brazil. And when you grow up in a big country like that, planes are just part of your life. Everyone needs to get about because of the

great distances. And you were somewhere remote? Yeah, very remote. And I didn't really realize that it was a big deal to go flying, too. I went to school and realized not everyone had an airplane in the back yard. But it wasn't a kind of a showy thing. It was just that it was a reality. My father took everyone flying the day he got his licence. And he took all, brother number one, number two, da-da-da, everyone flying. And then he took me flying. And when he finished taking everyone else flying, I was in the back of the queue again asking to have another go.

And I was only six. I can't remember much of it. But my dad said I was completely resorted with the whole thing. When you're working as a Spitfire pilot, have you been on the receiving end of any sexism? Not the clients, no. The clients are delighted.

I've never had anyone that said, oh my God, it's a woman. This morning I had a reaction from one of the passengers who was flying with someone else. She said, oh, well, when am I flying with you? I love to fly with you because to make it in this world, you must be a little bit better than the guys.

When you're display flying, then it's all formation flying, low-level flying, and you're flying with lots of other pilots. That's what I really love doing. Do you think men and women do fly planes differently in your experience? Women tend to be less showy. I mean, even when I'm teaching for private license, and you get to the point of takeoff and landing, which is the crucial bit,

and the student makes a possible landing, and usually the boy says, well, isn't that wonderful? I say, no, really, I think there's room for improvement. On the same token, one of my female pilots just did an OK landing. OK wasn't brilliant, but it wasn't bad. And then she's going to beat herself up for the next week. And I think, oh, my God, that was terrible.

So I think we're too self-critical as girls as a whole. It needs to change. What have you found the most difficult aspect of training to be in air traffic control? Have you ever frozen or lost the plot? I've definitely said the wrong things sometimes. I've messed up my words, got my words muddled up. And I think the thing is you don't want to sound silly on the frequency. You want to sound confident, like you know what you're doing so the pilots don't feel too worried about you telling them what to do. So that's quite scary. At college, you're doing a lot of work talking to fake pilots. It's all computer simulated. If it all goes wrong

here, there's no option for it to go wrong. You have to get it right first time so it's a lot of pressure. Mary Ellis she's also a woman with association at Biggin Hill. So Mary Ellis was one of the ATA pilots so women weren't allowed to be fighter pilots but there was a need to have pilots to essentially taxi and move around the country aircraft. I think it probably took quite a lot of gumption actually to think okay fine I'm going to fly this bomber with very little instruction so yeah I find it really really inspiring. I can only imagine how liberating and incredible it would have been for ATA women like Mary Alice and others to be flying a single-seater aircraft like a Spitfire or a Hurricane. It must have really symbolised a kind of freedom which would have been hard to have achieved as a woman

at that time in any other context. And that report was by Henrietta Harrison. Now still to come in today's programme is Father's March on Downing Street and a judge orders a boy to live with his father because of parental alienation. fathers march on Downing Street and a judge orders a boy to live with his father because of parental alienation. We ask what the term means

and what damage one parent expressing hostility towards the other can cause to a child. And the serial, the final episode of Ordinary Heroes. This week on Late Night Woman's Hour, Emma Barnett's guests are the scientists Maggie Adrian-Pocock and Sophie Scott and the barrister Samantha Davies and they're discussing those objects that we don't really like

but we never throw away the stuff that mysteriously sticks with you Sophie Scott starts us off in the cutlery drawer I was just thinking about this the other day because I went to get a knife out of the drawer and um i ended up this knife in my hand and i thought i can remember buying this in tesco's in blackburn when i was just about to leave home and i wanted to trolley dash around tesco's to get food and like utensils because they don't have shops in london and um but this crappy knife has stayed with me ever since that every move it's not very good knife

at some point in 1992 or 93 my partner who is prone to mending things with things from the kitchen drawer rather than tools yeah um has mended like a clock with it so it's not the end bent completely over rendering it useless for most knife purposes why is it still there so many other things in my life like valued bits of jewelry or shoes i've loved or other things have kind of come and gone you know all the things you lose how how is this what i suppose something has to stay with me but i think it's the only thing that is walked next to me and it's just from house to house from drawer to drawer and periodically does a bad job of cutting up a potato for me and then you put it back in the drawer could you throw it out do you

want us to come around and throw it out with you on one hand is it does it is it genuinely a sign of hoarding you know is that just one of many things that it just happens to be the oldest or do i kind of like it a bit for the story and the age of it but i think if i was going to say yeah it's a vibe this long yeah you were still with me yeah but i guess i mean i'm just assuming maybe marie kondo is meaning nobody's doing this kind of thing anymore if i was to look at that and say genuinely does it give me joy it doesn't really give me very much joy but i like it's a good story no sadly but i i kind of i like i sort of like the fact that it's been around that long. And this ridiculously cheap knife from Tesco is still a feature in my life on a daily basis. It seems strange.

Do you have anything like that or a few things like that? Cushions that trouble? Old pillowcases you shouldn't be using? I am a criminal hoarder. Are you? I think I can trace it back psychologically. Because when I was growing up sometimes I was with my parents split up

and I went to sort of 13 different schools so there was lots of changes so I just saw that look I was saying it I was getting a fair clip because you know that's almost one a year

yeah and so was that because you were travelling around actually no my parents split up and sometimes I was with my mum sometimes I was with my dad

sometimes schools miraculously closed around me I don't't know, I didn't touch them, I don't know what happened but so it was sort of a and sometimes for instance I sometimes went to boarding school and I'd come home and would be in a different house and my things would be gone and so I think I have a sort of got to keep that, that's a memory and so I do hoard things and it's books clothes oh yes I remember when I wore that oh I can't throw that away it drives my husband mad but I think it's part of my makeup and so yes there are things I can date back to things I love I can date back

to childhood because it was so tumultuous there are many things I can hang on to and say oh yes I remember that but it's funny isn't it I mean tell us first though Samantha for you before we broaden it out a little. Have you got stuff that you just can't throw away or are you quite ruthless? I'm, no, I can't say that I'm that ruthless, to be quite honest. And as you were talking, I was just remembering some jewellery I have. And I think that you can probably just only call it tat, because it's sort of cheap costume jewellery. But lovable tat.

But I love it. But the thing is is I now don't wear it because sometimes I pick it up and I think really no no I can't wear that it's green it's so obviously plastic and like yeah and some of it's green and it's like well you know oxidising

key part magic and it's like well literally they're no longer a pair but I've got them because I remember when I was you know 15 and bought it

and it was you know quite special buying that is your house neat I would say so I feel having only recently met you it would be quite neat

I would say so you give off a neat vibe that's really good but my sisters might disagree you've got way too much stuff I knew that beforehand

I mean how many necklaces have you got on two but each one tells a story and this one's got the faces of the moon as I'm a lunatic

but I've worn it too much so the black anodisation has come off I like it no no I don't think you're messy necessarily I just think you've got

lots of stuff I am criminally messy oh you're criminal and the state of your house Sophie is it messy or is it three of us live in a one bedroom flat in central London so that's just there's a lot going on I'm criminally messy. Oh, you're criminal. And the state of your house, Sophie, is it messy or is it...? Three of us live in a one-bedroom flat in central London,

so that's just... There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on. And one of them is me, so... So, yes, it's quite messy. But what's inside your drawers? How are they? Can I get the details?

Not necessarily. That sort of varies from time to time. So sometimes it's very neat. And then, you know, it can just sort of change. But I've got a few new rules since moving house recently, which is that I don't use any of the top shelves that I can't reach without a ladder in the kitchen, for instance, because when we moved, I used all of them,

and then we moved all the stuff out, and I'd never used any of that stuff in the last six years so I'm trying to do things like that where I can always access those things but I am one of those people, my friend said to me if somebody doesn't have a messy corner at least in their house don't trust them

if you go into a lab and it's clinically clean, well some labs need to be clean but it feels as if there's nothing going on. And where's the life? Yes. So I think you need some. Well, I would say that. But we are going through this thing where,

especially, and there's a female angle to this, on Instagram especially, this trend for, not just with Marie Kondo, cleaning, decluttering. There are professional, I say in inverted commas, cleaners, mainly women, who are getting thousands of followers for showing how to tidy up. And it's always mainly women who are then liking it as well, which is kind of, I'm not sure if that's a positive or a negative.

It's a bit weird. That's Jordan Peterson's main thing with young men, though, isn't it? He's telling young men to tidy up and give them, you know, pay attention to their personal hygiene. No, really, keep your room tidy is one of his main things you know don't let the matriarchy drag you down with your messy room so actually maybe it just is a sort of cultural thing and we're kind of seeing it go down everywhere but it's actually not it's well since we all left the homes apparently our homes are just dirtier than ever you know now there's

not a full-time person looking after yes it's not surprising but there's I saw that play recently Laura Wade's play Home I'm Darling with Katherine Parkinson in the lead role and it's just in brief um it's about to go on tour and it's about a feminist mother and a feminist daughter but the feminist mother fought really really hard for all the women around her to be able to work. And the daughter decides to become a housewife and the tension that that brings. And it's really, really interesting because she loves cleaning and being neat and doing the stuff for her husband. And she cites a book in the play, which I then tried to look up, which is for women straight after the war, how to cope for the first time without help in your home. So you have to do it all.

And do you want to know one of the big pieces of advice, apart from airing, how many times you should air a room each day? I mean, it's a full-time job, the way it's described. It's get your husband to start doing some of it. It's like this revolutionary tip that the other person sharing your household, whoever that is, it's mad. So are you in any way going to try and declutter, do you think, with this trend upon us? I have aspirations of doing that.

Yeah, but I have said that last year and possibly the year before. And it's been there. Yeah, but I'm going to do it this year. Books and shoes are my real weakness actually that's uh i feel like a book is a morally acceptable purchase and shoes are obviously a vital human right in my clearer moments i'm wearing such boring shoes please don't judge me my clearer moments i know i need to refine down my shoes i know that at one level and i do need to do the same with books again i've got books sitting around i haven't taken off the shelf since i've been moved into my flat 20 years ago but it would hurt me to not have that book in my

life it's not good and yeah you know even if you're not reading them anymore yeah that's and there might be someone who turns up who you can give it to yeah and that's that's a really pleasing thing to be able to do and I have just about started to be able to share them with my son so that's

some older ones you're working on that Maggie you sound like you need some help so what was that website no actually no

I the clutter gets to a level where something has to be done and even my tolerance level can't handle it and then I will

I will have a purge and I sort of get rid of lots of stuff. But then slowly but surely, it will creep on me again. So yes, I think I'm coming to that. Because when life gets busy as well, it just gets overwhelming. Yeah, with busy lives, it's impossible actually to be totally, absolutely neat. And I think as a child, I loved being really, really tidy. I feel like you coloured in the lines quite well as well. I did, actually.

But the thing is, as I got older, like, there just isn't time for that. I sympathise with that. I found an old Girl Guide uniform in a drawer recently that hasn't fitted me since I was 17. Oh, well. You can hear more from Emma and her guests on the weekly Late Night Woman's Hour podcast. You can subscribe, of course, through BBC Sounds. Now, I suspect at some time or another we've all done it. Dad has done something really annoying and you've been less than respectful in front of the children

or it could be the other way around and dad's the one being rude about mum. But what happens if the parents separate and the disrespect or even hatred goes further? Well, this week a group of fathers marched on Downing Street to raise awareness of what's known as parental alienation. It was cited in a case on Tuesday where an eight-year-old boy was sent by a judge to live with his father because he was picking up hateful feelings towards his dad from his mother. The parents, of course, were separated. The judge had concluded the boy was exposed to significant emotional harm. Well, Paula Roan Adrian is a barrister who specialises in family law.

Charlotte Friedman is a psychotherapist and the author of Breaking Upwards, How to Manage the Emotional Impact of Separation. Charlotte, how would you define parental alienation? Well, I think when people separate, there's always a bit of jockeying for position in respect of the children, especially when they're young. Because when you've lived with your children 24-7, it really feels quite an anxious move to have your children be shared between two households. So both parents obviously would like to have the bigger share of the children.

And there's a bit of bowed mouthing and belittling that goes on, and that goes on whether you're together or you're not together. Parental alienation is really a psychological manipulation without any legitimate justification. So it's a sort of creating an unwarranted fear or hostility in your child with a view to completely excluding the other parent from having a relationship with the child and which leads to estrangement and that's right on the other end of the spectrum of just bad mouthing the other parent and it's very damaging. Paula how much is it a term that's coming up more frequently in family law? It's definitely a term that we are learning to recognise and applying in the cases where there is an intractable dispute about contact more and more the clients that you have also are familiar with the term and so will use that when they come to see you first and so it's already a live topic just at that first meeting. So Charlotte, how has the attitude of judges to

parental alienation changed in recent years? What cases have you come across in your practice? Well, when I was at the bar, and I left the bar 12 years ago to become a psychotherapist, parental alienation was a concept, but it wasn't really talked about as such. And I did a couple of cases where there was such huge manipulation of the children. One mother where she said that the father had effectively raped her over a number of years, which absolutely was untrue.

And she told the children that in the hope that they would hate their father. In fact, it was found to be untrue. And another case which took place over a number of years where the father took the children when they separated, they were small, and he created the idea of mother being a complete monster in their minds and they would not see their mother and they would scream when they saw her. The judge didn't remove the children in that case. I understand that things are changing a bit now. But what I see in the consulting room is adults who were children of being alienated. And they are depressed.

They're anxious. They can't function. They can't form intimate relationships. It is hugely damaging. What sort of cases have you come across in your practice? Unfortunately, the same it's it doesn't change and you will have cases where a parent in the safety of the conference room that you're having will tell you Paula I don't like him and I don't want my children to like him

and I don't want my children to like his new girlfriend and I will do everything in my power to make sure they don't have a relationship and vice versa. If it's a father that I'm representing I will hear the same thing. But what are the risks of it being given more weight in court rulings? How much investigation is there into claims of rape, claims of domestic violence, claims of coercive control? There is significant investigation. And this is where, as frustrating as it is, because it takes a long time, the courts will consider allegations in depth. The courts will consider whether there is any truth behind the allegations. And if a judge finds that there is no truth, then that is the end of the matter.

The allegations cannot come up again. The allegations cannot be relied upon again. And there will be a very purposeful move towards contact between the parent and the child. How often do you think people attempt it to just make it up? I think people make it up a lot. I think that people make it up? I think people make it up a lot. I think that people make things up in order to hang on to the children for longer periods of time. It's when it becomes extreme, it becomes a

sort of pathology and it creates a childhood trauma. I mean, it is totally abusive. When I was at the bar, judges didn't have the children removed because they said that if children were settled and secure with the alienating parent, that actually it was more disruptive and more abusive to take the children away than to keep them in that household being emotionally abused effectively. And what about now? I mean, we heard of the boy being taken to his father's,

having lived with his mother. Well, I can only hope that this is the beginning of something new and that this Parental Alienation Awareness Day is going to actually start lifting the cloud on this and people are going to start having a conversation and take it seriously because its long-term consequences are extremely serious for psychological development. I mean, you've talked about the long-term consequences and the people you see who are depressed and anxious.

What about the little ones? How do they respond to it? Well, the way they manage is to collude with their live-in parent's view of the other parent because that's how they survive. They're entirely dependent on that parent looking after them. So in order to manage, they have to fit in with how that parent sees the non-resident parent. It's living with a lie, effectively. It's living with a complete untruth and making it fit your world. Otherwise, you won't survive. Paula, it's something fathers' rights groups have campaigned about for quite some time.

Families Need Fathers were the ones who marched yesterday on Parental Alienation Awareness Day. How much do you reckon it is a gendered issue? Sadly, in my experience, and that's over 20 years now, it is a gendered issue. And in my experience, it is a mother who struggles more with allowing that freedom for the child to move to wherever the father has ended up, be that on his own or in a blended family. And there may be very valid reasons, Jane, why the mother is struggling. Please let me get that across to your listeners. It may be that the mother has suffered from severe domestic abuse, be that physical or emotional. It may be that the mother has very serious concerns about the father's capacity to provide good enough care for the child. It may be the age of the child, or it might be right at the other spectrum, where the mother hates the father. And it's as simple as that.

How much would you say it's a gendered issue? I think it's an interesting question. I don't quite see it in that way. I don't think it is a gendered issue. I've seen it from both sides. And I think on the sort of less severe end of the spectrum, mothers do tend to say, well, the father can have alternate weekends and not much more. And fathers don't feel that that's just and it isn't. But I think on the extreme end of the spectrum, I think it's completely non-gendered. I think it happens equally, men alienating mothers and mothers alienating their husbands, their fathers. How would you say it is really different from when a parent might criticise a partner in a relationship or immediately post-divorce, you know, we've all said, oh, your blooming father drives me mad.

How damaging does the behaviour have to be to raise alarm? When the child doesn't want to see the other parent, when the child has absolutely bought the narrative that they're being told, and the reality is something entirely different from what they're being fed, the reality is that the other parent isn't inadequate or isn't abusive. That's dangerous because that's pathology of lies that gets drip-fed into a child's universe. But all of us, I suspect, have done it at some time when we explode with frustration. How much should we try to hide such feelings from our children?

I'm making a distinction between criticism and saying things about, you know, dad or mum's really annoying, or he shouldn't, or she shouldn't have bought you this or that. I'm making a distinction between that. That's not good. Everything impacts the child, of course, but we live in the real world. I'm talking about something which is toxic, and which is pernicious, has a long-lasting impact. And that is not just about bad-mouthing or belittling. It's about saying terrible, terrible things,

not letting up on that narrative at all. It's constant. There's no reconciliation. There's no resolving difference. The narrative keeps being fed until the child is genuinely scared of the other person. It is though Paula quite a nuanced concept I think. Is there enough understanding of how wide-ranging it can be in the court? I don't think there is but as with anything that comes through the court system, Jane, there simply isn't... It's Jenny. Jenny, I do apologise. It's all right.

There simply isn't the time really for you to apply the... There isn't the time to apply the work that needs to be done. The issue needs to be addressed and it needs to be addressed fast and we have to work fast because the longer that we leave things to rumble along then suddenly more damage that can be done. And the damages to the child of course. Absolutely but not only to the child but also to the warring parents as well. It's so unhealthy for the warring parents to have that level of hatred and unhappiness in their life. And you are taking that home and it is surrounding you and surrounding the child in everything that they do. Paula, Adrian and Charlotte Freeman, thank you both very much indeed for being with us.

And we would, of course, like to hear from you about this. Have you experienced it either as the child who's now grown up or as a parent do let us know jenny can i just say one one last thing it was just please listeners consider mediation if you're in this kind of situation consider mediation thank you i was talking to paula ron adrian and charlotte friedman now thank you for all your comments on today's programme. Lots of you got in touch about London Biggin Hill Airport. Annabelle Wynne-Jones emailed to say, I was the first female aircraft refueller in the UK

working at a commercial airport. I worked at Manchester Airport in the 90s and I loved it. We also heard from this week's late night woman's hour and why we become so attached to certain objects. Ginny Peace in an email said, I still have a cheap bread knife that I bought for my bottom drawer before getting married in 1979. I used to haunt the reject shop in Brighton in my lunch hour

to collect household things together. My children tease me mercilessly about this knife but I'm very sentimental about it and in my eyes it still cuts bread pretty perfectly. Sharon Scott emailed I would say she should frame that knife and title it this is not a knife. She's obviously attached to it but it's useless so it could be ornamental. And then on the question of parental alienation and the impact it can have on parents and children. Someone who didn't want us to use a name shared a story. My daughter was kept from me for the first six years of her life. I spent thousands getting limited access to her. My daughter was abandoned by her mother at the age of 14. The rest of the family rallied around and got her settled,

but it did affect her GCSE grades badly. I found it difficult to have any rights whatsoever in my daughter's upbringing. I think that the children should always be the priority in any decisions. My daughter is 19 now and doesn't have any qualifications. She is, though, very happy. We meet often each week. We both love rock music and photography. And when we part, we give each other a hug, which is amazing at her age. And someone else who didn't want us to use a name said, I separated from my abusive partner of 11 years last summer. Our son still sees his father every other weekend and once during the week he spends half the holidays with his father.

I do my utmost to not badmouth his dad. I totally understand he loves his father no matter what happened within our relationship. He's 10 years old and understands that what dad did to mum was not right. It's really difficult sometimes when he talks about his dad. Now do join me tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour at 4 o'clock. There's a discussion about true crime and why women make up the majority of the audience for true crime stories. And I'll be talking to Josie Rourke, who became the artistic director at the Donmar Warehouse,

and she was one of the first female theatre directors to be appointed to that role in a major London theatre. Eight years on, she's leaving. We'll talk about her swan song, Sweet Charity, and that's all tomorrow afternoon at four o'clock. Bye-bye. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's 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.