Woman's Hour - Black women and wigs, Author Helen Mort, Supporting a parent with dementia, Child poverty

Episode Date: April 2, 2019

More in our series looking at what wigs mean to a range of different women. Yesterday we looked at the experience of women who'd lost their hair through cancer treatment. Today we look at why wigs can be so political for black women. Mikai McDermott is a blogger and hair stylist and specialises in wigs for women of colour. Maria Edaferhoro chooses to wear wigs and believes there can be a stigma against them in the black community and Michelle Annan-Baidoo owns a hair salon in East London.The Sheffield-born poet Helen Mort talks about writing her first novel ‘Black Car Burning’ about women climbers, polyamory and trust. What is the best way to care for a parent with early on-set dementia? A few weeks ago we spoke to Wendy Mitchell who was diagnosed with young on-set dementia at just 58 years old. Today we hear from her daughter Sarah about how she helps support her mum and the techniques they use to make caring easier. A new report on children from low income UK families highlights their experience of hunger, shame and social exclusion because of lack of money and food. Rebecca O’ Connell lead author of Living Hand to Mouth published by the Child Poverty Action Group describes the stories she heard from the 11-15 year olds in the studyPresenter Jane Garvey Producer Beverley PurcellGuest Rebecca O’ Connell Guest Mikai McDermott Guest Maria Edaferhoro Guest Michelle Annan-Baidoo Guest Helen Mort Guest Sarah Mitchell

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. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and this is the Woman's Hour podcast from Tuesday the 2nd of April 2019. Now on the podcast today we've got part two in three conversations we're having across the course of this week about women and wigs. And today's interviews are focused on black women and how they feel or are sometimes made to feel about their personal decision about whether or not to wear a wig. You can hear too from the poet Helen Mort, who's written a novel, and from Sarah Mitchell, whose mum Wendy Mitchell was on the programme a couple of weeks ago. Wendy had a diagnosis of early onset dementia when she was just 58. And when she appeared on the programme in March, she was a hugely popular guest. So many people really were very interested in what she had to say. And so Wendy's daughter, Sarah, joined us

today. And in this podcast, you can hear too from Wendy, who was here the whole time, but stayed very quiet while Sarah was talking. And Sarah just talks to us about what it's like to be the daughter of somebody with dementia and how she goes about trying to care in the best way for her mum who still lives a very independent life. So that's your lineup on the podcast today but we started with a conversation about living hand to mouth in Britain in 2019. Free school meals for all pupils would go some way to helping the poorest children in our society. That is the view of the lead author of a new report on children and food in low-income families. Her name is Rebecca O'Connell. She was part of the Child Poverty Action Group's Living Hand to Mouth report,

which spoke to 51 children between the ages of 11 and 15 living in 45 different families. Half were in inner London, the others in a coastal town in the south of England. Now one was Amara, who is 15 and lives with her mum in a hostel in London. Amara was born in Europe, her mother was born in North Africa. Amara's words are spoken by one of my colleagues. I skip meals to share with my mum. I wait for her to come back, then at least we can have the same amount of food. We starve together throughout the day, so we can eat something together in the evening. I used to starve in school because, well, I couldn't manage to make sandwiches at home or take crisps or whatever,

so I was just starving in school for the whole day. When I'm hungry, I couldn't manage to make sandwiches at home or take crisps or whatever. So I was just starving in school for the whole day. When I'm hungry, I can't concentrate. I just need to make my mind up and know that I will eat after five or seven hours when I get home. Well, those are the words of one of the young people whose experiences are recorded in this report. The report calls that young girl Amara, though that's not her real name. What was that family's specific situation? Amara lived with her mother in a hostel in an area of inner London. Her mum couldn't find suitable employment.

She wasn't happy leaving Amara on her own in this hostel, a very large hostel with lots of families with different problems and people who weren't families, drug addicts, lots of violence. The kind of work that she was offered was often evening work. And so they were living on nothing. They didn't have at this time any access to benefits. Why not? Because of the immigration status of her mother.

So in effect, Amara herself was being punished, really, for her mother's immigration status. At school, she wasn't entitled at that point to a free school meal. So she was one of a handful of families that we interviewed. What is very concerning is that in some of the people that you spoke to, they were in work or one of the parents was in work and still they were living in poverty and couldn't afford decent meals. Why is that happening? In some families, there were two parents in paid employment, but still they were struggling to make ends meet. And that's because the cost of living has outstripped the money that's coming into families from employment and benefits in combination.

So in one family living in the coastal area, the mother was working as a carer she had to pay for petrol to drive herself to different employment so she had a car she had a car that she had to have because she needed it to visit different people in their houses who she cared for she wasn't paid for driving between these houses and she was on a zero hours contract so her income was very unpredictable her partner was in full-time employment, working for a supermarket, actually. That family were just about managing. But when something happened, the school uniform needed to be bought,

or there was an unexpected expense, then that's when the parents themselves went without proper food. So they did manage to feed their children in this family. They would run down the freezer at the end of the month to do so, but they ate toast in the evenings or sandwiches. We do know, Rebecca, that there are free school meals available to all school children in England until the end of year two. Then what happens? Only about half of children who are living in poverty currently receive a free school meal in the UK. After the end of year two? After the end of year two. Why is that? School meals aren't universal. They're means tested in England for

children above year two. So children on free school meals are what banned from having certain types of meals, bigger portions? What goes on? Yeah, some of the payment systems now are designed to make sure that children can't be identified and stigmatised at the point of sale. But one young girl in London told us about being sent to the back of the queue because she'd picked up a larger baguette and those larger baguettes were not available to children who were on free school meals. Because they exceeded something? Because they went over the just over £2 allowance that they were given on their free school meal card. That wasn't an isolated case either. In another school, a boy told us about how he was only allowed the sandwiches that came in the brown packet, not the one in the black packet,

because they were for children who weren't on free school meals. And what other kids would pick up on this, would they? They were publicly identified, so one of the girls who told us about this said it was very embarrassing because the woman at the till had told her to go to the back of the queue a lot of schools i'm sure would bend over backwards to make sure that exactly that kind of really awful incident couldn't wouldn't ever happen um who do you apportion the blame to in examples like those two um one way to address this would be to make school meals universally available to all pupils. Rebecca, what would it cost? We haven't costed it in this project. I

think the IFS have costed... That's the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The Institute for Fiscal Studies have given a figure of about £950 million for primary schools, but we don't know what it would cost to do this in secondary schools. We're not saying this is something that's going to happen immediately and overnight. We're saying that this is a question of priorities and it would be a very effective way of mitigating the effects of poverty on children's diets. But it would come inevitably at quite a cost to the taxpayer? It would come at a cost to the taxpayer but all of these are choices that we have to make about what priorities are. If you go to hospital, nobody comes around and checks whether you are entitled to something to eat.

We provide compulsory education for children in this country. It seems crazy that we don't provide them something to eat. You know, children can't learn when they're hungry. What about food banks? Because a number of the people and the families you speak to in the report do use food banks. What do you think about them? We did speak to a handful of families who had used the food banks, including one girl who told us about her experience of going to a food bank with her mother and being required to pray before they were given food, listen to a sermon and to pray before they were given food. listen to a sermon and to pray before they were given food.

Again, a specific example of a food bank at a church, in a church setting. Yeah, that's right. This is an extremely undignified experience and something that really shouldn't be allowed to happen. It also sounds like a really isolated incident. Food banks are an undignified way of eating. It's been called wasted food for surplus people, or surplus food for wasted people,

whichever way round you want to think about it. In a society like ours, it's an expectation that we're able to make a selection of food, feed our families. It's not an expectation that we queue up and beg, essentially. It's very shaming for people to have to... So you'd close down food banks? I think that food banks meet an immediate need,

but the evidence is that they don't address the long-term causes of food poverty, and in some ways they serve to further stigmatise those families who are already socially excluded. Except to say, of course, that other people who use them regularly, and I say regularly, but actually you cannot use a food bank all that often because it's simply not that simple to get access to them in the first place, might well put up a very passionate case in favour of them.

They do know at least that it's a place they can go, it's a safety net, they may not like it, but at least they're there. Absolutely, and what a terrible state of affairs that is amara who you quoted earlier she said you know i have to be grateful i think that was a very sad indictment of situation that she's in other young people shared with you their unhappiness at not being able to go out with friends and that is significant of course teenagers want to be with their friends they want to go out with friends. And that is significant, of course. Teenagers want to be with their friends. They want to go out to places like McDonald's and Nando's,

maybe if they've got a bit more money. These things are not possible for everybody, are they? Exactly. A childhood and food in the UK are both deeply steeped in consumerism. It's an expectation among most young sort of people, teenagers, that they can occasionally meet up with friends, go to McDonald's, something like that. The young people that we spoke to often felt isolated

and ashamed that they couldn't. So Faith, for example, she lived with her three sisters and her lone father. He worked full-time. He was in the inner London area. Worked full-time for the NHS. Their mum died a few years ago of cancer he was struggling she talked at length about how she was unable to join up with friends um the only money

that she had was the money he gave her for dinner money she wasn't entitled to free school meals because he worked she had two pounds a day if she wanted to go out with friends she had to save up some of that money so she couldn't be spontaneous it would take friends, she had to save up some of that money. So she couldn't be spontaneous. It would take a couple of weeks to save up enough to go out with friends. When she couldn't go, she said she didn't admit the reason why she couldn't go. She would just say, no, I don't really want to come. That's the voice of Rebecca O'Connell, lead author of the Child Poverty Action Group's Living Hand to Mouth report. I'd be really interested in your thoughts on that, particularly if you either use a food bank or you regularly give to food banks.

What do you think about that? And if you work at a school or you've been on free school meals, you can remember that experience. Are you really singled out on free school meals? Does that happen in any schools that you know about or possibly work in? At BBC Women's Hour on social media. Now the best way to care for a parent with early onset dementia this is a conversation that we really wanted to have after I talked on March the 11th to the fantastic Wendy Mitchell who was

diagnosed with early onset dementia when she was just 58. Now during the course of that conversation with Wendy she mentioned her two daughters and I'm delighted to say that one of them, Sarah, is with us this morning. Welcome to the programme Sarah. Good morning. Really great to get your insight and your perspective. I know that you first of all want us to start with just a quick clip of your mum Wendy's interview back in March. Here she is talking about getting that diagnosis. Dementia never entered my head because like so many other people I thought it only affected older people. So when dementia was first mentioned that was a bolt out of the blue. But strange enough when I did get that diagnosis I was actually relieved because it finally put an end to all

the ifs, the buts, the maybes, and I could start planning my future and I knew what I was dealing with. I know I come over as very positive and always look at the good things, the positive things. But it's a bummer of a diagnosis to get. And when the fog descends, nothing around you makes any sense. All your surroundings are alien. The time is alien. The people are alien. Now, I know that you also live alone um and you you were a single parent for many years so you were used to well a ferocious independence actually that was that

was your sort of watch words your ways of living that's right and i'm still that independent person but i just have more support now from my daughters outside of my home. Well that was Wendy in March. Sarah when you hear your mum in this very public role she now has what do you make of it all? Well it is like listening to a completely different person because my mum as she is, anybody that's only just met my mum recently could not imagine, could not possibly imagine the way she used to be. So in a way, it is very strange to hear her now, although I'm growing used to it. She did talk to me about how she had changed. Yes. And you obviously recognise that.

Absolutely. And like she said, there are some similarities to her old self her old self is just not lost she's still ferociously independent she is still uses her coping mechanisms of being organized and and that kind of thing but her personality has changed ever so much and it is it is a process of change for me as a daughter and unlike other illnesses that change means loss a lot of the time and loss means grief and so if I'm looking at it in a negative way then it's a it's a lot of grief over and over and over again which is the hard part of this but I do try and be a half glass half full kind of person and when I look at all the achievements that she she has achieved and all all everything that she's doing to raise awareness for dementia.

I would wish that she didn't have dementia, but she has, and look what she's done with it. It is quite incredible, and she has the respect of many, many people, I know that, and I'm sure more than respect, love and affection too. You happen to work as a palliative care nurse. I do. In my innocence, I suppose I might think that might make you a better carer for a mum with early onset dementia. Am I right? No, because, yeah, I work at Dove House Hospice in Hull and I absolutely love my job and I do feel that I'm

good at it. But when it comes to supporting my mum, I can often think I know best, when actually, with my mum being as independent as she is, and us having that mother and daughter relationship, I have to put my daughter hat on, and often I don't know best. And it's difficult to, because I often as well, we think quite differently about things and I can assume that I might react a certain way

when we were doing the Lasting Power of Attorney documents together which I would encourage anyone to do in this situation. Just explain what they do. So they put down mum's wishes for the future and you get a form for health and you get a form for finance and having both those documents in place means mum's wishes are met later on when the time comes she loses capacity. That's reassuring for me because I know that I would have made different decisions and it also could have caused conflict between me and my sister. Well and now you've got that sorted but you were about to tell me that actually when you were doing

it you were both thinking along slightly different lines? Absolutely. I would want treatment. I would want active treatment if I had lost capacity but was still physically quite okay. But my mum wouldn't. And you now know that. I now know that. So it makes it easier. I know that I'm making a decision that's different to mine, but is my mum's wish. And in practical terms, can we just talk about your mum's house?

Because we've established she lives alone. She wants to carry on living on her own. Yes. What modifications have you made? Well, to start with, it would be, I've offered to live at her home, but that would be a really bad thing because I would move things around. I would make noises which would disturb her. We've made so many modifications to the house.

For example, in the shower, there's the on-off switch and then there's the temperature switch. So we've indicated those. There's banisters up the stairs. There's lines on the steps outside so she can see them properly. We had to think about what kind of carpet to get because we didn't want one where you could see footsteps in the carpets um but it needed to be nice and soft and cozy so getting getting um but also you don't want too many modifications that it kind of doesn't

feel homely what about food oh, Mum's completely lost her appetite. She has no feeling of hunger anymore, which I struggled with as a nurse again because I'm trying to give her advice about what to eat, when to eat, she should eat breakfast, she should... And it's kind of a joke between us now, because at the end of the day, she has capacity. If she doesn't want to eat in the morning, then she doesn't have to eat in the morning. Who am I to say, you must eat breakfast? But you need to establish, don't you, that she

is eating one meal a day? I take your point about breakfast, but does it matter what she eats? Well, it would matter as much as anyone eating. So I know that she does get, you know, enough nutrients and, you know, all of that. But at the end of the day, my feelings in that or thoughts on that matter are out of the equation because these are her choices simple things and i say simple but i wouldn't necessarily have thought of them putting pictures and then sticking the pictures of what cupboards contain on the door of the cupboard do you do that yeah so that's done because cupboards might just appear like walls um wardrobes just appear like walls the the all the detail of the door just blends into the the walls so people's vision and hearing um with dementia is affected um black mats um it we joked on the way here i've got a black coat on and and and she joked that i

must i look like a floating head right Right, you were just floating along. Yeah, because black mats as well can look like a hole in the floor, that kind of thing. So it's taking all those things into consideration. There is so much to try to get on top of and to bear in mind, isn't there? What about quite literally tracking your mum? Technology does now allow people to do exactly that, doesn't it? Thankfully for me

i suppose mum's embraced technology and really used it to her she's on twitter for example oh she's on everything yeah she's taught me twitter so she um we've got an app which is very reassuring for me because it means that mum doesn't have to constantly let her me know where she is and she'd forget to do that anyway but she's you know we've got an app on the phone where I can track her so I can see where she is and that's just reassuring because she always has a phone on her. And that doesn't feel intrusive? Well no and if as long as she doesn't feel intruded then we're happy so she's happy that I know where she is it reassures her as well and if she knows that if she did get lost that I'd be that I know where she is. It reassures her as well.

And she knows that if she did get lost, that I'd be able to know where she is and go and pick her up. And overnight, because I know you're geographically pretty close, aren't you? Yeah, me and my sister are both close. Right. You hear of people with dementia going for a walk outside at night. And that hasn't happened with my mum yet. And whether it does happen or not, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

It's about getting the balance right, isn't it? Exactly. Because at the moment, and by the way, we should say we're talking about Wendy as though she isn't here. She isn't actually in the room. She is with us. We're really hopeful that she'll be with you chatting in the woman's hour podcast which will be available a little bit later yeah um but but she's in i mean she's in a great mood today really jolly really cheerful i know she's been here before was it familiar to her um the the details of the place wasn't familiar to her

but meeting you she she remembered that you were a nice warm kind person people will be laughing at that but anyway carry on but greeted her with a smile and you made her feel um happy and that's what she remembers she remembers the emotions of it rather than the facts and the detail of faces yeah so we don't want to be sentimental about this and i know you're anxious to avoid that but at the same time there can be there's still joy in her life and in your family life and we can't ignore that but i know you're also really keen to get across the message about research absolutely mum is heavily involved in research on the person living with dementia side but anybody can join dementia research there's a charity an organization called join dementia research it takes not very long to sign up and they link you to different trials and

studies and people with who don't have dementia we need people who don't have dementia to sign up because of any age of any age i think um people can look it up don't worry dementia to sign up. Of any age? Of any age, I think. People can look it up, don't worry. But it is significant, isn't it? It isn't any good just researching people with dementia. Absolutely, we have to have the comparison. Really interesting to get that information from you, Sarah. And I know you will talk with your mum,

alongside your mum, in the podcast later on. Thank you. Thank you. Really love to meet you. That was Sarah Mitchell. Wendy Mitchell's book, Somebody I Used to Know, is available. And I do encourage people, if you perhaps have just received a diagnosis of dementia yourself or somebody close to you has, it's an invaluable guide to what life is going to be like. Thank you very much, Sarah.

Thank you. I should mention the Women's Art Craft Prize, the tour has arrived in Glasgow. That is the last stop on the Craft Prize tour. It's at the Lighthouse in Glasgow and runs until the 26th of May. There's so much good stuff in that exhibition. I really enjoyed it. The winner was the ceramicist Phoebe Cummings, but there's loads more stuff to enjoy.

There were lots of other finalists as well, some really creative people involved. Go and have a look at the Lighthouse in Glasgow and it's running until the end of May, 26th of May. Now we talked yesterday in a three-part series of conversations about women and their relationship with wigs. Yesterday's conversation focused on wigs after cancer diagnosis and hair loss following chemotherapy. Today you're going to hear from Mackay McDermott who's a blogger and hair stylist who specialises in wigs for black women. Also you'll hear from Michelle Anan-Baidu who owns her own hair salon in East London. First the view of Maria Eder-Fajoro, who chooses often to wear wigs,

but believes there can be a stigma against them in the black community. And in fact, she wrote about this for the online magazine Galdem. I went to a live talk or discussion back in July last year, and I was actually on natural hair. So it's where I had a panel of naturalistas, as they're called. So women who wear out their natural hair. And it was just a very informative discussion, really just talking about the Afro visibility campaign. And I just found it very interesting because I was one of about four or five women that wore a wig or weave. And so I don't know, just a very interesting perspective I had because I felt

as though they were kind of bashing women who wear weaves and wear wigs and so that's what prompted me to write the article that I did and I submitted it to Galdem and this is where I am. And did you make that point at the time did you say anything? Yeah I definitely did so at the end of the discussion I stood up and I said you know I feel as though as women that choose to wear their natural hair out they kind of divide themselves from those that wear wigs and weaves and almost look at us as if why you why are you wearing wigs and weaves you know you're letting us down exactly that they condemn us on this kind of thing okay Michelle what do you what do you make of that?

Sadly, it's very true. I feel like black women do receive quite a lot of criticism for wearing wigs. Almost they look down upon because I guess with media and the images, there's a lot of images of a kind of European standard of beauty. So it's quite internalised. So if you choose to not wear a wig, it's almost like it's a form of rebellion, or women are being rebellious. So when you do wear a wig, it's almost like, well, that's not naturally how your hair looks. So why

are you wearing that wig? Makali, tell us your story. Well, I own a hair business. We're a 360 hair and beauty company. So I mostly provide wigs. I would say that's pretty much 99% of my clientele. And growing up, my own relationship with hair has essentially been like super intense. My aunt was a hairdresser. I spent loads of time at her salon. And that's how I learned to do hair. So it's always been around me I definitely understand your point on like wearing your natural hair is a form has been seen as a

form of rebellion because I guess a lot of people do link wigs to like being anti-black or to women internalizing self-hatred yeah but I think sometimes we can just wear a wig and it not be a political statement and I think a lot of times a lot of women are afforded the privilege of not having to explain themselves but I don't think black women have the same privilege when it comes to that so you deciding to wear the wig does it automatically become oh I don't like my afro that's why I'm not wearing a wig or is it just I can't be bothered to do my hair today, so I'm just going to wear my wig, which most of the time, for me anyway, it's definitely the latter.

What about the idea that in order to be or appear professional, you need to wear a wig? That's definitely a strong and valid point. And I think a lot of my clients who come to me ask me for a black straight unit because when you go into workplaces, I think they see Afros or natural hairs like untamed. And I guess that's linked to what the Afro represents. It's always linked to like, I guess, large political movements and social change. As much as I would love for women to be able to wear their natural hair to work or to wear really Afrocentric hairstyles, I can also understand that we are bound by a lot

of political and social structures that mean that people have to work, they need to earn money, they need to pay bills. And I think that the relationship that black women have with hair is so multilayered and so complex that for some people wearing their natural hair does mean that they could be fired but then for some who might have a freelance job or they earn a certain amount of money that affords them the freedom to wear the hair that they'd like like I work for myself so I can have yellow hair tomorrow you know no one's gonna say anything to me so I think you don't want to show your hair for fear of being judged. I think that's like the underlying issue.

I've actually had clients that have come in saying, oh, there's no way they can ever wear their natural hair out. And some have been told that their managers, they've been caught up on their hair, their hair choices, and they may have to reconsider their position in the business if they don't change their hair, which is really sad. A lot of it is in the corporate world. Some of it is the high-end luxury brands.

I mean, I don't want to name names, but we've had several occasions where women have come in, they've had to change their hair because of work. You have changed a bit, or been made to change, because you now have a daughter. Yes, definitely. So just tell us about the impact of having having a daughter my daughter is is very inquisitive and she does come to the salon at times as well and she's always asking a lot of questions and um ask questions about straightening her hair and a lot of now she's seven now so a lot of the um disney pixar movies always feature you know the main character with long flowing hair and afro hair doesn't naturally flow unless it's

manipulated straightened or chemically treated so i found her asking a lot more questions about straight hair and why couldn't she wear her hair straight. So I had to kind of instill in her that your natural hair is beautiful. You've got beautiful, lovely, curly hair. And then I had to look at myself also, my industry. There was times where I can even change my hair three times in a week. I've got so many wigs, can vary. I wake up depending on how i feel

i wear the red wig i wear the the long blonde one or the straight one so i did have to question okay maybe i have to be a better representation for my daughter for her to see you know natural hair is beautiful but has it made you question your whole business, actually? It has, actually, I must say. But the salon's ethos is definitely that however you choose to wear your hair, your hair should be healthy. And is it true that some of your regular clients, their male partners, have never seen their natural hair? Never. I was quite shocked to hear they'll get into bed wearing their wig. Yeah, wearing their wig.

I had a client like that literally two weeks ago she was like we've been together for 10 months now and he's never seen my hair like and i literally i said isn't that really difficult to upkeep she's like yeah i'll wear my headscarf on top of my wig to bed so that it doesn't fall off like going to all these lengths to prevent your partner from seeing something that's supposed to be normal. I know that you're a relative rarity, Michelle, in the sense that you own your business. This is your business, it's your salon. But actually, it's not the case, is it, for many, many salons that have black clientele?

A lot of the major corporations that do retail to black and ethnic consumers they're not owned by people like us it's by maybe white men or asians so um does that concern you it does actually because how are they going to tell us how we can wear our hair if they don't have the same hair i mean you a lot of customers go into the beauty supply stores and they're not able to be advised by someone that is qualified or trained to advise them on their hair. They'll ask, oh, what does this do? And it's always good, just buy it, buy it.

They just want your money. I think it's very important that there are more qualified black hair salons and stylists out there to help the consumers. Do you think this conversation... I mean, I'm interested in your daughter of seven now, so in ten years' time, 20 years' time, will we still be having this sort of conversation, Michelle? What do you think?

I'm sure we will be. Will we? Yeah, definitely, most definitely. Doesn't that worry you slightly? Because you should be able to do whatever... I mean, I'd die my head. Let's face it. And I'm not going to stop anytime soon.

But nobody, well, occasionally people might think, why is that woman still dyeing her hair? But on the whole, you know, I get away with it. Why should things be any different for women of colour? That's a very good question. I guess the structures that we operate in, I guess they don't operate with black women at the forefront. So I think that's why the conversation will continue to be had because being an afterthought means that you don't have the same chances, as many chances to mess up, to get things wrong, to try things out. So I think until we reach a point where people are being seen equally in the workplace, in society, then the hair won't be an issue. But because black hair is such a political statement

that even if you yourself are not trying to be an activist or a campaign, even if you just want to wear your you want to wear your hair out one day it automatically becomes this wider political message that you're trying to send but until it's literally the same as you just wanting to dye your hair burgundy and I just want to have highlights until we're being seen exactly the same the conversation will still happen. Really interesting to have that conversation you heard from Makai McDermott the blogger and hair stylist from Michelle Ananbedu who owns her own hair salon in East London

and Maria Eda-Fajoro who sometimes wears wigs but as you heard in that conversation does feel there can be a stigma against them in the black community. Really want your thoughts on that at BBC Women's Hour on social media and on Friday we're going to be talking about the experience of women who've experienced long term hair loss for a variety of reasons and wear wigs.

Helen Mort is here, award winning poet, last on the show, Helen. I'm sure you remember it only too vividly. 2016. And that was partly because we, in fact, I think we played it again a couple of weeks later, your poem Difficult, which got a lot of people going. Just remind people what Difficult was about. It was about this term, difficult woman, that gets used quite a lot. And I was trying to reclaim that term in quite, I suppose, in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. Yeah, there was a killer line that I loved. In London, it said, you're never more than six feet from a difficult woman.

And I think it also coincided with Theresa May, who had been called a bloody difficult woman, becoming prime minister. So that was back then. You are an award-winning poet and you're now a novelist. So what's the difference? It feels quite surreal to be calling myself a novelist. Yeah, it's such a feat of stamina, writing a novel. Most of my poems don't go over the page and I carry them in my head sometimes for six months, a short extract because it's a novel, but it's dotted with paragraphs of prose

that verge on poetry at times anyway. Yeah, I wanted some of the places in the novel to narrate the story. So I let the places speak, I guess. And this is called Norfolk Park. You stand by the railings and take me in. The cholera monument is behind you, tall and slender, adorned with moss. In front, there are trains pulling out reluctantly, the distant sound of the announcer on the Tannoy,

Chinle, Stockport, Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Oxford Road. You light the joint and light it again when the breeze snuffs it out. Inhale. Witness. Liverpool South Parkway and Liverpool Lime Street. Exhale. The headlamps of the cars as they sweep past. The showroom. The high university buildings and the higher flats. The steeples and towers like needles injecting the sky with dawn. Signs to Chesterfield, Barnsley, Rotherham. The shape of the moors in the distance.

A dark cloth thrown over a tabletop, the stars above them, the satellites, the galaxy. Liverpool South Parkway has never sounded more beguiling, I have to say. I've been there a few, and Lime Street, of course, which has just been refurbished, as many listeners will know. So tell us why you've written it in the way you have, because the structure of this novel is pretty complicated, actually. It is. I suppose it's a novel fundamentally about trust and very interesting

trust and how difficult it can be um on a personal level on a political level and so i've explored that in different ways in the book um through talking about sheffield as a place some of the community tensions that are in all of our cities and other places too, about the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster and the impacts for policing in Sheffield and also about relationships between people and about rock climbing, which is close to my heart. So I'm exploring trust, I think, on lots of different levels. So I wanted there to be threads, different threads that come together through the book. And the title actually is a reference to hill climbing?

It's to a rock climb in the Peak District, which I actually know the person who named, who was involved in naming the climb. How are these things named? So whoever climbs a route first gets the power of naming it, which is an amazing power. And they can call it anything. There are some really fantastical climbing names. And yeah, this one, Black Car Burning, has always really, really intrigued me. And how did they arrive at that name? So apparently when they were going to do the first ascent of this route,

two mates were racing out in their black cars to help with spotting, which is where you help to guard the person climbing. And they were racing so fast that my friend joked that it was going to result in a black car burning. Hence the name. And hence the name when it was climbed. Okay, I mean, this is a world about which most people know absolutely nothing. Trust is obviously pivotal in climbing.

Do you do it yourself? I do climb, yeah, I'm a rock climber. I'm not, the female climbers in my novel are really pushing the limits of what's possible. They really are. I'm not. I'm a very mediocre climber and I'm actually quite risk averse. So it's interesting that I'm so fascinated by exploring risk and trust. But you literally, no matter what level you're climbing at, you literally put your life in someone else's hands every time you attach yourself to a rope yeah but the the intimacy is is not really it's a bizarre kind of intimacy because it isn't based on knowledge of the

person's hinterland or anything about their real life is it yeah sometimes you can know relatively little about somebody that you're climbing with um of their personal life but yet know them quite in quite an intimate way because you see them at their most vulnerable. So it's a very unusual relationship, I think, the climbing partnership. Another aspect of the novel is polyamory. Now, why that? First of all, define the term and then tell us why you wanted to include it.

So I was interested in exploring trust in non-monogamous relationships, so where there's more than one person involved. And I think I was actually listening to a programme many years ago on Radio 4 where they were talking about this. It's responsible for so much. And some of the people who they were talking to who were in polyamorous relationships were sort of complaining that if their way of negotiating trust was represented in culture, it either wasn't represented at all, really. It was always a love triangle. You had to choose between one partner and the other, or it was presented as the defining thing about those characters. And so I wanted, because there are many more people

who are in open relationships or polyamorous relationships now, I guess, I wanted that to be in the book, but for it not to be the only interesting thing about those characters, if you like. So it's referenced, it's a backdrop, but it's not the subject of the novel. Yeah, that's not the reason

those characters are there. And I also wanted to sort of set a so-called monogamous relationship against this polyamorous one and show that actually negotiating trust in relationships is just really difficult. It doesn't matter what your approach

to that is or how you arrange your life. It's just really, we all face the same problems no matter what. It's just difficult to trust people. I'm really interested in whether um what would you say are poets people who secretly want to write a novel and by writing a novel have you felt that perhaps you've let down the poetry community by hopping over the hopping over the wall to the other side maybe some people would say like that yeah it's definitely different but as you say that there are these short place interludes in the novel,

which felt to me more like I was writing poetry again. So I think I was still thinking like a poet. I was still trying to distill everything down to its essence, I suppose, which is how I think when I'm writing a poem. Yeah, I mean, you can't leave poetry alone because the Norfolk Park that you read to us, it is essentially, it's so poetic. Yeah, oh, thank you.

And I meant it when I said Liverpool South Parkway had never sounded so beguiling. Yeah, I think I'm always thinking about rhythm and about sound. And a lot of this novel I wrote similarly to my poems. I heard a lot of it in my head when I was walking, when I was out running. So it came to me like that. And then I wrote it down rather than working it all out on the paper. Jackie tweets to say, Helen just claimed to be a mediocre climber, but if she climbs like she writes, I doubt this is so.

There you go. That's so lovely. Yeah, it is. Jackie's obviously a nailed-on fan of yours. Also, Helen speaks and writes absolutely brilliantly. It's actually poetic just listening to her. Thank you very much. Really enjoyed talking to you again, Helen.

And the book is called Black Car Burning, and it's challenging and it weaves all over the place, but you't be bored i'll tell you that much thank you very much um thanks to everybody who got in touch with us today um whole range of emails and tweets from you and we'll talk to wendy mitchell and to sarah mitchell in a moment or two let's go first of all to your reaction to the first conversation we had today about effectively about food poverty. One listener here says, I've used a food bank. It was amazing as they delivered to me. So absolutely no embarrassment.

This is Hope. I am a volunteer in our local food bank and I'm in agreement with some of what your contributor said. But I felt her attitude to food banks suggested she had little experience of what is on offer. Yes, some food banks are in church premises or on church premises, and many but not all food bank volunteers have religious convictions. But clients are not expected to take part in religious activities. We spend time with our clients hoping to help them to feel comfortable in the food bank. We can offer support in many of the areas resulting in the need for food bank use debt advice help with job applications etc some of our clients return not to use the food bank actually but just to have a coffee with us

and to update us about their situation there are no sermons on offer ever. Advice, yes. Friendship, yes. And acceptance and support. From a listener who says, I work in a Christian food bank. I am not religious, but actually clients here do have to pray before they get a bag of food. Also, why should children from high income families get free school meals? Perhaps richer parents should pay up front and everybody eat the same. Well, of course, back in the day, we did exactly that. These free school meals up to the end of year two are a relatively

recent thing. From Mike, it's hard enough for people to summon up the courage to come to a food bank without being told it's shameful. Tomorrow, I will meet people with a smile, giving them choices of food and eventually, without pressure, ask them if they want us to pray for them. From another listener, I apologise to all those people forced to use food banks. It is the rest

of us who should feel shame and not them. We've allowed this to happen in one of the richest countries in the world. There were no food banks after the Second World War when we were on our knees. And this is from Victoria. I got free school meals all throughout primary and secondary school years in the early 80s and 90s. At secondary school, dinner tickets were handed out before assembly each week. So we would have to walk out in front memory, but I could be a false memory. I think it's true that at my primary school in Liverpool in the 70s, the free school dinner children were in a different queue and ate at a different table. I mean, I think that was what happened.

It shouldn't have happened. And you shouldn't have gone through that experience in your school days either. Elaine says, back in the 80s, my children were on free school meals whilst I worked as a trainee social worker. One of the families I was working with was refused free school meals on the basis of income. I was pretty distressed and when I could, went to the loo for a good cry. I'm not sure it's all that relevant, except the emotions around poverty, let alone the practical issues that continue to this day, have probably got worse. On a brighter note, we all survived and I'm so proud of my kids. Great programme, says Elaine. Sorry, I slipped into Steve Wright mode there. I do apologise.

But Elaine, I'm glad you would get something out of the programme. Thank you very much for listening. And absolutely, thank you for your contribution. I'm glad things are going well for you and for your kids. And to the people who contacted us about Wendy and Sarah Mitchell, I think probably rather than reading out your thoughts, which are just saying how interesting you found what Sarah had to say, we'll just welcome them back. So I'm welcoming you back, Wendy. Thank you.

It's been a couple of weeks since I last saw you. What was it like for you to listen to Sarah? Oh, it was wonderful. Was it? Yeah. I was clapping your way you to listen to Sarah? Oh, it was wonderful. Was it? Yeah. I was clapping your way in there. Were you?

Okay. You said last time how proud you were of your children. Yeah. And I understand, having now met Sarah, I totally understand why you would be. Yeah. What do you think about what it must be like to be Sarah? Because I imagine you try to put yourself in her shoes don't you yeah I I desperately try not to encroach on their lives that's the the guilt in me I know they would quite happily

do anything that I would ask them to but it's me that that stops myself from asking so much. Because I think that's what many people with dementia feel. They feel a guilt at having to impose on loved ones' lives. Sarah talked about getting the balance right. You're still her mum. You are her mum. That's right and that isn't the same as being someone that she cares for in her professional capacity no that must be really difficult because you know with a nurse hat on she can think one thing and with her daughter hat on I think

totally different and so we have to get that balance right and I often say that I don't want a nurse coming through my front door I want my daughter coming through it Yes, I think, I imagine you're both articulate highly intelligent women do you argue, Sarah?

No, we don't and I probably make a conscious effort not to because because mum's emotions have got i've got she has less of a range of emotion now so she often says herself she feels happy sad or content and so if we argue that just makes her sad and there's no point is there's no point in that so So I try and avoid that. All right. But can I ask, in the past, did you have a kind of spark?

I mean, I say this. I should say I'm not. I'm an incredibly unconfrontational person myself. I wouldn't go for an argument. I am not a confrontational person. I hate confrontation, actually. So I'm not generally an argumentative person and and we've we've had um we've had arguments in the past as any mother and daughter would but they're quite few and far between

good okay and um what is do you have a daily routine of speaking can I ask or a daily routine of contact how does it work for you at the moment, Wendy? Well, WhatsApp is wonderful. Right, of course, yeah. Because WhatsApp means that I can type away quite happily and we use emojis, so many emojis. But we also FaceTime because I can't use the phone anymore it's always FaceTime so I can see the image

and Sarah can see me because Sarah can often see that I might not be alright but I might say I'm alright Is that true Sarah? Yeah and I think because I never really see mum on a really bad day because mum won't want me to see her on a bad day. That private part of who she used to be has kind of still stayed in some respects.

So if you're having a bad day you'd rather just be on your own and so i can tell by messages or um a short facetime call or or something like that um that you're having a bad day and that you need to get through it you call it a fog don't you and and there's there's a few words used to describe it um and do you ever feel tempted on those days to intrude on your mum or do you absolutely all every part of me wants to but i have to respect um that that wouldn't be helpful to mum it might make me feel better to go round, but it would make mum feel worse. Yeah, it'd also make me feel worse because then I'd have to concentrate on what Sarah's saying and doing rather than just letting my head clear. Because silence is the best thing for me when when the fog descends. But also the other reason why Sarah so rarely sees me on a bad day

is because when I see them, I immediately feel happy. So even if I'm having a bad day, I can still smile if I see their face because just seeing them makes me feel happy. Well, that's great. But I also understand your need for privacy and Sarah's determination to carry on respecting your need for privacy. Yeah.

I think the biggest lesson we learned with dementia is the value of talking um obviously we used to talk before but when since this diagnosis you talk at much deeper level but it has to be two-way. They want to know what I'm struggling with, but I also need to know what they're struggling with to be able to help them. So it must be a two-way conversation. That's how we found the tracker, because I didn't know that Sarah was worrying about me travelling so much.

Yes. And it was through talking that that came out and we found a solution. But we wouldn't have found that solution if we hadn't talked. And there are probably quite a few of our listeners who instinctively dislike technology. And actually, I think one of the most important aspects of your family's experience has been the way that you have harnessed technology and you made it work for you yeah

that's hilarious because I didn't used to I didn't even know what an iPad was before dementia and when I was working I had a team who did anything that went wrong on IT. It sounds like me, Wendy, to be honest. But here you are using WhatsApp, using trackers, using FaceTime. Because it's such a valuable resource that many people don't realise how it can help and I look at every type of technology now just in case

it can help Would you ever have imagined yourself doing this sort of thing? Oh my goodness no, not in a million years it would never have entered my head to look at technology as a solution for anything and because of the nature of your work sarah as a palliative care nurse i mean you are you are both

practical about what the future will hold have you had those conversations about how things really are going to change yeah absolutely um and i know that those conversations they happen every day in my line of work so i guess for me talking about those things came a lot easier and perhaps i possibly started to address them earlier than, well, I definitely started to address them earlier than when mum was ready. But I know the questions that need to be asked and perhaps sometimes I ask too many questions I don't know but um I think so many people don't have these conversations and also in my line of work I see the result of not having those conversations earlier on what happens well it just causes so much conflict because you know potentially me and my sister might have disagreed on something really important and it could have ruined our relationship forever or actually the conflict that it could have caused

yeah could have been horrendous and neither of you might have been thinking along the same lines as your as your mother no absolutely and we don't have to make those decisions now. It's going to be hard enough when it gets, you know, later on. I'm quite aware of, you know, it's not going to be easy but at least some of the pressure is off because we kind of know, you know, me and Gemma can just have talks about, right, what would mum want rather than what would we want is Gemma older or younger than you younger so you're are you the boss sister no I would say we're the other way around okay uh well I'm the oldest of two two daughters and I would say I was senior sister

although quite whether I'm the boss no I probably don't think I am either actually um but presumably your sister isn't here but has it it has has it changed your relationship with her or has it I suppose it would make both of you grow up as I imagine it would make me grow up too yeah we've got closer and um and that's that's really nice um but I think I think on a bigger picture levels any siblings growing older and and having facing your parents mortality um facing these kinds of issues i guess it's either going to make you closer or or maybe set you apart thankfully i feel we've got closer, but who knows? We've just got to take it a day at a time. I think it's... Oh, that's gone now. My head went empty all of a sudden.

I think it's made you look at life differently, or certainly Gemma. I think having a diagnosis of a life-limiting condition where the end is inevitable, but you don't know when, I think it just focuses the mind more on today. But I've just noticed in you and Gemma how you seem to look at life differently. And we're far more open now than we would ever have been, simply because it'd be very difficult to cope with dementia and cope with conflict from children which many people do because they can't handle the situation whereas I'm very fortunate in that my daughters

I'm not saying they find it easy by any means whatsoever but they've not stopped me doing things they look for solutions with me they find ways with me so I think I'm really fortunate to have two daughters that have embraced it with me Wendy, think I'm really fortunate to have two daughters that have embraced it with me Wendy thank you so much

lovely to see you again really enjoyed having you back on the programme and Sarah great to meet you and thank you both just as ever for your honesty and just for the information you're able to impart about how things are and I know people are hugely grateful.

Thank you both very much. Thank you. Jenny is here tomorrow. Amongst other things, she's going to be talking to the winner of the Great British Sewing Bee and she'll be exploring the mysteries of the adolescent brain. I really must remember to tune in. That's tomorrow, just after 10. And then, of course, there's the podcast as well. You know the way late at night, in bed, in the dark, your tired mind can wander

and strange thoughts float like balloons escaping into the sky? Well, Bunk Bed is a podcast where Peter Curran and Patrick Marber find the nearest faraway place from the hurly-burly of daily life, where tired minds can wander. Why don't you come along and eavesdrop and see if you like it? You can subscribe to Bunk Bed on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies.

I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in.

Available now.