Woman's Hour - Body shaming in dance, Author Charlotte Wood, Mothers’ Manifesto

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

A group of mums called Mothers' Manifesto are on day three of a five-day hunger strike in front of Parliament. They’re trying to draw attention to food insecurity and the plight of mums who have to go without food to ensure their children can eat. Today they’re meeting MPs to campaign for universal free school meals. Organiser Emma Hopkins tells Emma Barnett what they’ll be asking for.A former dancer has brought a legal case against her performing arts school alleging verbal and emotional abuse in the form of body shaming, along with allegations that the school had failed in its duty of care to her as a pupil. Last month, the case was settled out of court, and she received a pay-out, although the school did not admit liability. Her lawyer believes this successful claim is the first time a dancer has taken a dance school to court over body shaming. The woman and her lawyer speak to Emma about what happened. The woman has a court order in place to keep her anonymous, so we are not naming her. In recent years, maximalism has been all the rage in the interior design world. Patterns on patterns and riotous colours. But what are the pros and cons of adding personality to your home? Pottery artist, Mary Rose Young and Kate Sandhu, interiors influencer and founder of Kate Sandhu Renovation, join Emma to discuss.Charlotte Wood’s latest novel, Stone Yard Devotional, is set in a small convent hidden in the stark plains of the Australian outback. The main character is a middle-aged woman who takes refuge with the nuns as she grieves the loss of her parents. Charlotte joins Emma to talk about the inspiration for this book and what happened when, as she was writing it, she and her two sisters were all diagnosed with breast cancer. Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lottie Garton

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Looking back at your younger life and perhaps when you were a young adult, things that maybe you accepted as normal and acceptable might seem less so with the lens of an adult or perhaps now if you have children of your own. That's certainly the experience of one of my guests today, who's asking for you, for us all, to listen to her experience in full

and perhaps reconsider certain perceptions. It may spark for you a memory that maybe you haven't thought about for some time. Perhaps that will be difficult in itself, and all support lines will be available and support resources on the Woman's Hour website. But that is coming up and I suppose it's also our understanding of what constitutes abuse today and how we think about that and where those lines are. We're also going to hear on today's programme from one of the women on a five-day hunger strike outside the

Houses of Parliament ahead of her meeting today with MPs. That meeting going ahead, we'll hear a bit more about that. You may have seen this particular campaign. It's a group of women who have come together as mothers to talk about food insecurity in Britain and are in the middle of, which started on Mother's Day, a five-day hunger strike. An author is going to be here to talk about joining a nunnery, mouse plagues, I did not know about that, that led to a very unfortunate Google search, and human health issues, all coming up around that particular issue and also what had impacted her writing and researching of her latest novel. But I'll also be joined by an interior design specialist and house renovator

who, get this, ended up having to paint her maximalist house totally white to sell it. Maximalism, a trend that's been around for the whole of our time, all of the ages in some ways, especially if we think back to those amazing stately homes. But right through to the tiny windows those apertures on social media it's having a whole other lease of life i'm talking exactly about my own home uh those wallpapers that perhaps would never have been considered outside of the 70s which seem to be back uh recurrent patterns gilded ceilings uh all sorts of creativity going on except when you come to sell it potentially

your house if you are in the fortunate position of of owning a part of your home certainly uh you might just need to go beige you might need to go white which led us to think about before that conversation today have you seen some things on your time around houses whether you're looking to rent whether you've've gone to buy somewhere. What are the most memorable features someone else adored that you thought, well, if I could live here, I'm going to absolutely have to rip that out. A lot of people feel that way when people put bars in their homes. I'm talking about a bar where you have a drink. There's also unfortunate use of fabrics. There's all sorts of things we've heard tales this morning about having bathtubs in the kitchen. What have you

seen within homes, maybe something you put within your own home that you know nobody else would like? Have you in fact, wherever you've lived, whether you've been able to decorate as a renter, again, not a situation that's always available or possible one of those incredibly frustrating things, but either as a renter or as a homeowner, have you just thought, I'm going to live here. This is how I live here. This is how I do it. And yes, actually reading about this particular renovator today,

it was 350 quid and quite a lot of labour, but it was just possible to paint over everything with white and strip walls. You're going to live there. You're going to do what you want. What does that mean? And what does your house say about you? Do let me know. We're going the numbers normally, as always, 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate on social media at BBC Women's Hour. You can email me those particular stories.

Take me into your home, paint some pictures, if if you can of the worst things you've either seen or the best things about your home you know nobody else is going to like we're looking for marmite here you can send me a whatsapp message or a voice note on that on 03700 do watch out for those data charges and it may depend on your provider you may want to use wi-fi so do get in touch and let me know any of those and of course as i always say if there's anything else that you've heard on the program that you uh you wish to get in touch about please do so but let me first take you to a hunger strike a group of mums are taking part in a five-day hunger strike outside parliament in order to highlight the thousands of mothers who are struggling to feed their children and parents, we should say.

In their published mothers' manifestos, it's called The Women's Demands, include making sure all children in the UK have enough to eat by enforcing universal free school meals and the implementation of a loophole-free windfall tax on oil and gas companies' record profits. These are some of the demands. This group will be meeting MPs this morning to discuss next steps. One of the mothers, Emma Hopkins, joins me live from outside Parliament.

Good morning. Good morning. Hi. Emma, I've tried... Thank you so much for having us on, by the way. That's really amazing. Well, your campaign, which I believe, is it the second year you've done this? It is, yeah. We had a strike last year.

So the whole, the idea came really in January 2023. And we did a six-day strike already from Mother's Day last year. Yeah. And why are you doing this again? Yeah, so we're doing this to really, to highlight the reality of the lives of so many people, as you just said, in fact, both here in the UK, which, as we know, is a terrible situation. You know, we have one in four families who are facing food insecurity and 4.2 million children are below the poverty line, with 1 million actually living in destitution.

So that's a desperate situation here in the UK. And globally, we have 2.3 million children who are dying from malnutrition, something that's completely avoidable every year. So as a mother, you know, I just know how absolutely desperate that must be. Firstly, to not be able to feed your child, look after your child here in the UK and actually to be with your child as they die. I mean, I just, you know, that's every mother's worst nightmare, I believe. And, you know, you just feel absolutely destroyed, I think, by having your child die. And this is something that's completely avoidable. So we're calling for action on this. Sorry, when you're talking about death, obviously, there's a scale here that you're talking about food insecurity in the UK. And then you're also talking globally. Yes, exactly. because of your meeting today with MPs and your requests are centred around the UK or global?

What are you actually trying to achieve? Because, of course, what you set out to achieve last year, you're obviously not satisfied that enough change has been made because you're back doing the same thing. Absolutely. So last year we did a hunger strike, which was amazing, went really well. We made some really good connections with some MPs and that led to a meeting in Parliament last December, where we started to discuss the issues. And then we are

doing this, we've had a lot of press this time, we're meeting with other campaign groups, such as the Food Foundation, and hopefully also with Joseph Rowntree, who's here today. And we hope to have a wider meeting later in the year with other campaign groups who also we're just joining their voice for action on these issues. And, you know, the reality is we also need to look at our own food insecurity on the wider, at the wider scale, you know, our food systems are incredibly vulnerable. So not only will be looking at what's happening globally in terms of malnutrition. But also we need to be addressing this in order to secure our own food security. So our ask is that we keep our promises on climate and also on aid and that we also, you know, the loophole-free tax relief. So at the moment, oil and gas companies get 91.4% back

in tax relief for reinvestment. And this then goes into, so this can go into anything, but it can also go into the expansion and development of fossil fuel sites. Yes, but if you look at what the government have said about that, investments in upstream decarbonisation of oil and gas installations will attract a higher rate of relief at 109.25%. Producers will be effectively paid, be paid to make such investments.

I'm also aware on the day that we're talking that this is also in the news in a slightly different way about what the government is saying to do with priorities and how we have energy security in this country. But I don't if we go down that route, I suppose we may get lost away from your point. But you're well, there is. I'm just talking about, of course, the fact the news that the new gas power plants are needed to bolster energy supply. That's what the prime minister has said. But if I was to stay with your effectiveness, I mean, women striking on hunger strike outside Parliament evokes memories for,

or certainly not memories because of most people's ages now, but it evokes images of suffragettes and tactics that have been used by other sorts of protesters. It's perhaps a question from people as to what you're actually going to be able to do. You're talking about working with organisations that are already working on this. Yes, this is an action to highlight the reality and also to bring those voices, to sort of amplify that voice really voice really the of the people that are already working on this brilliantly you know including Oxfam who are obviously working on more of the global aspect um but also obviously including people like the Food Foundation who

have been incredibly supportive um and you're not eating for five you're not eating for five days yes yeah which is is I imagine uh pretty difficult in itself I would say it's really difficult and the the situation is is that you know I'm choosing to do this I'm doing it for a short period but this is a chronic issue in our country and also obviously globally I mean people are meals, mothers are skipping meals regularly in order to feed their children. We had a mother that we spoke to recently nations, you know, as poverty grows in this country. And we are actually, let me just check, we have 50% more poverty now in this country than we had in the 1970s. I think that's quite shocking, really. And it's something that we can easily do something about. And I think the demands that we're asking for, which are backed, you know, by other organizations, you know, make sense and something that we do. I mean, I think, you know, the food banks are doing an incredible job.

Thank God for food banks. But actually, you know, some people don't feel that they have the, you know, feel shame. There's a shame around going to some, for some people around going to food banks. And also the food banks are at absolute max capacity. You know, we just need to look at this in a much more systemic way. And it needs to be coming from government. Are you meeting anybody from government? Yeah, so we're having, well, we're having a meeting.

So the next meeting that we have now, which is coming shortly, we're having a meeting in Parliament, is a drop-in session. So we have been in touch with quite a few different MPs. We've had some really positive response from MPs about coming. We can't obviously say who those MPs are at this moment until they've actually come but we have had some positive responses so we're hoping to have a really positive meeting talking about the issues talking about food insecurity as well at the wider issue and the fact that our food systems are

vulnerable and in fact you know when you think about people I suppose it's just it's just about impact isn't it and and who you're actually going to meet and what could change as a consequence. I understand awareness raising and the power of that and the fact that, you know, you're here talking on the radio about your campaign and it's got people's attention. It's just people like to understand what could change as a result of it. And in order for change, yes, a cross-party section of MPs is important. But is anybody coming from the Conservative Party? Well, we have had some. We've had, we already had, yes,

we'll have some people from the Conservative Party. We've had some positive responses. So yes, hopefully, that is our hope. Well, your day what now? It'll be interesting to hear, of course, more about those meetings. Do keep us updated. I'm sure you will. But day three now of this yeah we're on day three and just to say

that we only started this campaign a year ago so i think if you think about that actually you know we're just a small group of mothers how many are you actually outside how many are you actually outside? How many are you? Yeah, so we are sort of between six and six, seven, eight that are going to do the full strike. There's two women that are really seeing how they're doing because they also have to work. They also have little ones. But we may have about eight of us that are doing the full strike. And then there's, you know, a good sort of eight

that are also doing two, three, four days, that kind of thing because of their own circumstance. That's all they can commit to. Well, thank you for talking to us today. I'm sure energy is being rationed in some ways because of where you're up to with this and the style of protest you've chosen to do. Emma Hopkins there from outside Parliament, day three, into a a hunger strike trying to raise awareness of as she described some of those issues and food insecurity. We did contact the Department for Education this morning

and were not able to get a specific response from anybody there. In January this year when we were looking back through some of the latest statements around this issue just to bring you this, Damien Hines, Minister of State for Schools, said in Parliament that this government, the Conservative government, has extended free

school meal eligibility several times and to more groups of children than any other government over the past half a century. Around two million pupils are currently eligible for benefits related to free school meals and close to 1.3 million additional infants receive free and nutritious meals under the universal infant free school meals policy and taken together over one third of pupils are receiving free meals and perhaps an issue we shall return to and not least also to hear what's happened with those meetings and those campaigners and that group of women but last September I mentioned in my introduction this morning that you were going to hear from somebody who perhaps

with the lens of an adult on her younger self has come to quite different conclusions about a part of her young adulthood. And perhaps you'll listen to this and have some of your own recollections that you may wish to share. But last September, there were accusations of bullying and body shaming against some of the UK's elite ballet schools. The BBC's Panorama and File on 4 programme spoke to a number of former dancers,

many of whom described developing eating disorders, while others stated that they had been left with mental health problems after attending the Royal Ballet and Elmhurst Ballet schools between 2004 and 2022. Both schools disputed these accounts. Since that coverage, the BBC has spoken to dozens more ballet dancers who claim they experienced a damaging culture in many schools across the UK. One of the former dancers, who featured anonymously in BBC Radio 4's File on 4 programme, attended the performing arts school The Hammond in Cheshire

between 2006 and 2009. She brought a legal case in the High Court alleging verbal and emotional abuse in the form of body shaming, along with allegations that the school had failed in its duty of care to her as a pupil. Last month, the case was settled out of court and she received a payout, although the Hammond did not admit liability. Her lawyer believes that this successful claim is the first

time a dancer has taken a dance school to court over body shaming. The woman has a court order in place to keep her anonymous, so we are not naming her. And in this exclusive interview, I spoke to her and her lawyer from Lide Solicitors, Dino Nocivelli. During lockdown, I watched a documentary on Netflix called Athlete A about gymnastics. There was something in that programme that made me turn to my husband and say, oh, we don't have a full length mirror in the house. I avoid full length mirrors. And I think it's because I've just remembered this time at Hammond and it almost triggered a flood of sort of memories, of stories. I'd been having recurrent dreams about being at the Hammond and about being essentially pushed on stage and not knowing dances and things like that that had just made

me start to think about my time there again. And particularly as a mother, I started to connect a few dots about how I felt about myself and associating that to what happened during my time there. So, you know, I have a career now in looking at about being open and honest. I work for an organisation where we think very heavily about being open and honest and trying to improve a service that we provide so with that in mind with some of the training with with all of them things i've just mentioned i actually contacted the hammond but i'm gonna i thought about it for a long time if i'm gonna get some thoughts down i'm gonna get my reflections down and i'm going to email them um i don't i'm looking back i don't really know what i expected um I

didn't tell anyone I was doing it I didn't mention it to my husband or my mum um it was just something I felt like I needed to maybe get off my chest I know that some of the teachers were still there today um so I emailed them and I think what I wasn't expecting was to be ignored first of all what did you say what did you say in your email um so i introduced myself told them that i was there the years that i was there um i explained that i've i'm recently you know i have a young daughter um i've recently watched a program which has made me reflect on my time at the hammond and i wanted to tell them about some of my experiences and it was quite emotive i felt um quite an

emotive email in terms of the the information that I'd reflected on and how it had affected me today um and I asked them what assurance what what safeguarding policies they have in place today my daughter was to do something like this today so and what did you if I may what what did you say in that email because I feel like we've missed the emotive bit from you. And we'll get into some of your experiences shortly in a bit more detail. But what did you say in that email that made you feel that they needed to improve their safeguarding? What recollections did you choose to share? So in particular, the main memory that sort of started all this was, like I said earlier,

I didn't have or i would avoid full-length mirrors um i can't remember owning one um and i didn't it wasn't an obvious thought for me to not buy one i just didn't want to buy one i didn't think it didn't occur to me to buy one um there was a time during my time at hammond in a ballet class, ballet teacher pulled me into the middle of the room. My peers were in sort of a semicircle behind me and he asked me to jump up and down in first position. So nothing technically difficult. But for a long time, he would he would clap his hands and he would shout up, up. Ask me asking me to look at myself and look at what wobbles um pointing out that i couldn't get jump very high off the floor um so that was the main first memory and as i started to delve a

little bit more um you know the regular weigh-ins that i was um you know i tried to explain um that i was a member of what was referred to as the Fat Club. But like I said, it was initially ignored. It wasn't acknowledged. It was just ignored. So you didn't get a reply? Didn't get a reply or an acknowledgement. So that annoyed me.

And because I felt it was quite personal and quite emotive, I at least expected an acknowledgement. We've got it. We're going to look at it. Thank you. You know, leave it with us for a little minute. But I didn't receive that. So after about a month or so, I sent it again for the attention of the headteacher. And I think the chair of governors and asked that it be looked into as a formal complaint,

the below email be looked into as a formal complaint. That time I received almost an immediate acknowledgement from, you know, an administrator type role and that it was forwarded on to the head teacher. And then a day or so later, I did receive an email from the current head teacher who was not my head teacher at the time. And she acknowledged my experience. She said she's sorry about that, but that's not how things are done now. Why don't you come into the school and speak to the teachers? And that upset me because I don't go back to Chester, generally, the area where the school is located, for fear of bumping into a teacher

or someone that I went there with. And I'd known that for a very know, that was for a very long time. I'd not done that. So the idea of going in and speaking to the teachers that I'd essentially complained about was not something I was in a place to do. So to go back to your earlier question, I'm very sorry, it was long-winded.

No, no, it's important to hear the detail. I didn't necessarily set out to to you know seek legal advice as such it was um it was just one of them things something popped up on my phone I think it's on one of the socials and I thought oh I wonder I wonder if I if I should you know I wonder if this is something that anyone would be interested in and I essentially just filled in an online form with a very brief introduction and asked if this would be anything, you know, anyone would want to pick up. And that's sort of where Dino and his team came in, did a lot of research and had a lot of initial conversations with me

and it grew really from there. And I'll talk to Dino shortly, your representative, your legal representative, but you then at this point when filling in that form must have started to put together more memories of what for you warranted a much more, a greater escalation of this because there's one thing to be annoyed at response and feeling like well you've been ignored or fobbed off or then invited to do something which you didn't feel appropriate but what then started to come to mind for you that made you think actually I need to take legal action what are the memories you started to share some of them um what else happened during your time at that school there was there was bullying

type behavior I believe to was bullying type behavior i believe to be bullying type behavior in terms of um you know i was always a very i was a good tapper and that was that was one of my strengths but i wouldn't be allowed in the tap number because i didn't look very good in hot pants um or you know so they advised um and that was pitched to me as, you can't go in this number because you don't look good in hot pants. Lose weight and I will put you in the number. You've still got to learn it at the side

and do everything that everyone else will. And we'll see, essentially. So I took, my recollection of that was me sort of nodding like a really eager student. So yes, I will. I will absolutely lose weight. I really want to be in this number. they did put me in the number um and it was a conversation about well you know you've not you have lost some weight so we can see that you're

trying we'll put you in and I just look back at that and think there were so many other ways to you know I was a talented tapper I would have I could have added value to that dance and that tactic to make me lose weight. I didn't think there is an adult looking back. And the point is you would also then try to lose the weight. Of course, yeah. And would you be congratulated on doing that? I don't remember being congratulated. It was always just expected.

So there would be conversations. So they would tell me to eat less carbs they would weigh me um and a couple of other friends quite quite regularly our names would go on a notice board um we would be referred to you know we were known as the fat club there's one about four of us and we would have to go to the head teacher's office to be weighed usually before and after a holiday, to see if we had put on weight. I've always been a relatively curvy young girl. And they, you know, they would aim for me to get down to sort of eight stone and have a particular look that I just knew was not going to be a look. I'm not, I wouldn't be a classical skinny ballet dancer.

But that was what they would tell me to go for and that I could achieve that by doing more cardio bearing in mind this was a full dance program of at least a nine to five day of you know active dance class but I was told not to eat after 6 p.m make sure I go the gym and do cardio before or after the dance classes um I don't recall ever being taught how to fuel my body for that type of activity. I was only ever told to eat less and move more. You know, don't do weights because that will bulk your type of physique rather than slim it down. So all of these things and tactics, you know,

teachers would tell us about things that they used to do or they knew people used to do. They would, some people eat tissue, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, to fill themselves up, or some people eat pennies because the acid in the pennies does something to your stomach that makes you not hungry. All of these kind of things started to snowball, you know, when we had conversations and I opened up discussion with some friends and

it was like oh yeah I remember that now and it was almost things that we'd I certainly blocked out up until this point of really delving further into it which is why we continue to push forward I think and and in terms of that impact on you then how how did it make you feel as a child and as a younger person I think as a younger person at the time like I said I just wanted to dance and I thought that that's just what what I would need to do to be successful in the dance world and go to auditions um upon leaving the Hammond um my confidence was again looking back I can I can really see this as a real out-of-body experience my confidence was so low um I remember them saying that you will be in in the best you know

physical condition you will ever be after leaving three years dance training which you know I appreciate is very much true but in terms of my mental capacity to go into that world um I didn't I couldn't fight for it I didn't feel worthy of it I felt completely worthless really so I would I would attend auditions and stand at the back knowing full well that in that kind of environment you needed to push forward you needed to be seen but I just just didn't have that that confidence instilled in me at all I felt like it was it was not worth him and that I wasn't worth him and the the longer term impact which has obviously stayed with you whether you were aware of it or not beyond the the mirror example has it impacted how you eat has it

continued to impact that side of of life and how you feel about yourself. Yeah, I mean, someone put it to me recently that, and I feel incredibly fortunate for this, particularly having gotten to know and listen to some of the things that have come out, you know, since Delvin went into this, but I'm confident I don't have an eating disorder, but I do have disordered eating. I know and I can recognise that I have a really unhealthy relationship with food and

myself um there would be secret eating quite regular um which again looking back i can associate that shame of just being seen to eat um so i would still you know if my husband was putting the kids to bed would be when i'd you know eat a packet crisps because that felt like a naughty you know naughty to eat out in the open not all the time but there would be moments of that um I've come to realize that you know if I was working if I've tried to work with a personal trainer and track food on my fitness pal I really struggle with that and I thought about it for so long everyone everyone tracks food I don't understand why I find this such a difficult task and it dawned on me that I think it's the accountability of and being open about what I'm eating and putting that down that I struggle with um you know it's I still feel like

I need to shy away from being open about about that um so that's the relationship maybe with food um with myself um I would very much put my worth on how I looked in terms of friendships and relationships if I wasn't slim if I wasn't pretty I wondered if my friends might still want to be friends with me and my husband is amazing and there's never been troubles there he's never wanted you know there's been no troubles there but I did wonder am I still good enough you know and i'm worthy of friendships and i i i know that that's what hammond instilled in me that my value and my worth is just about how i look um so that's that's where i am today really with that the school i should say settled out of court um you received a payout, but they didn't admit liability. I have a full statement

here. If I was to give you a little bit of that, it says a former adult student who'd attended the school in the early 2000s, pursued a personal injury claim for damages for injury, which she believed had been caused by experiences she recalled whilst at the Hammond. After investigation of the claim and being conscious of all aspects of the claim, including that the legal costs were likely to be significant and not recoverable, it was considered there was merit in exploring an early resolution of the claim. Resolution was via a form of alternative dispute resolution and appropriate settlement was reached without any admission of liability. The claimant's legal costs, even at the early stage, this early stage of the claim,

were claimed at more than three times the level of damages paid, which appears to support the financial merits of seeking early resolution. The claimant was offered the opportunity to discuss all her concerns with current senior leadership, as often occurs in claims of this nature, thereby affording an opportunity for the former pupil to fully describe her experiences and concerns and for the school to acknowledge and learn from the same. She chose not to attend such a meeting.

The Hammond takes safeguarding of all of its pupils extremely seriously and constantly reviews current practices and learning from experiences in the past. What would you say to that? I was offered the opportunity for them to come into the the mediation the early resolution early resolution meeting that we were in that day i was very um on the spot and that was the only offer that was on the table there was no offer of an apology there was no offer of acknowledgement or acceptance of anything that had happened up until this point it was still

very much my fault I had asked to be weighed I had asked for help in weight management um you know there was no acknowledgement of my experience um so when that was pitched to me that they will it's middle of the day I think um that was the only offer that they will meet with me that day I wasn't prepared for a conversation about that I had no further points to prove than what we'd already laid out in our letter of claim um and if their attitude and you know face to face if that if their if that discussion was to follow the narrative that it followed so far that morning it would upset me and I wasn't in a

position to to to want to you know engage in that kind of conversation they wouldn't be able to offer me any assurance that I was after in terms of what how they know that their school is a safe place um do you do you do you feel like you won um no, no, because of that lack of assurance. You know, if they would have come to me to say, I know this is a safe space because I have contact sessions with my staff. I invite pupils to speak to us about how they feel. I regularly, you know, we have processes and guidance. They're open on the website and we engage with parents. And these are all the steps that we take to ensure that this is

a safe space for our school. There was never any of that. It was all deflection. So it's been a very strange, since that settlement meeting, it's been a really strange feeling for me in terms of, you know, processing that and understanding it, whether I should, I don't know whether to be, I don't feel happy as such. This isn't necessarily what I set out for, but I know it's the conclusion of the road that we took. But I don't feel like they have, you know, I still don't believe it is a safe space for children or young people today. I mean, I don't have any further response to that beyond the statement, but I wanted to ask your view on it, of course. And I know with your daughter, you've put her into dance school and taken great steps to ensure the safety of that environment and all of that. But I suppose just to say at this point, why then did you want to talk out on Woman's Hour today?

What are you trying to do with this by sharing your experiences and the route that you chose to take? So I am not anti-dance or anti-dance teachers. You know, my experience in my local dance school was happy and joyous. And my little girl loves to dance and show off. So like you said, I did take steps there to speak to the teacher

and ensure that it was a safe environment for her to be in. I think that there are, I hope that there will be people listening to this that might, um, really resonate with, with what I'm saying. I'm probably be able to, um, think of me, you know, I get told a lot not to compare. So I'm trying not to compare, but we'll probably resonate and be able to go, oh, that this happened to me um and to come forward um you know this is there is still um a real toxic culture around some dance areas and sport i was just going to

sort of finish on um i feel incredibly fortunate that i don't you know i'm not suicidal and i don't have an eating disorder and i've i struggled with, you know, validating, and Dino will back this up, I've struggled to call myself an abuse survivor because it took a very, very long time for me to connect that what I went through was abuse in any way. And that was, you know, someone, again, a psychologist said to me through this,

I was in a very safe environment going into somewhere like the Hammond. I had a very, very normal upbringing. I had no trauma, no bad boyfriends, you know, mum and dad still together. Very boring upbringing and solid foundations of relationships going into the Hammond. And it's it's I can look back and understand that there were people going into that environment maybe with a bit of trauma um you know maybe with a vulnerability and they're the ones that have come out in a different position to me um who who were self-harming and who have um a really traumatic view on what happened they can't go there they can't you know we tried to bring we tried to talk to them they can't go back to that't you know we tried to bring we tried to talk to them they

can't go back to that space it's just not somewhere they want to go um and i think that that's what i want to use my voice for in the position that i'm in where i feel okay and safe um but still recognizing what we went through to help support others come forward and recognize that what they you know not to fear coming forward and not to fear the process. Let me bring in Dino at this point. Dino Nocivelli, your lawyer from Leaday. Good morning. Good morning, Emma. This case then for you, you know, there are those who have concerns about going a legal route and this not being necessarily the way to do so, especially when they hear that your client doesn't feel necessarily like she won per se. But what is your take on this, having gone through this particular case?

Yeah, there's a number of points which my client raises. And it's just at one point I want to say to you, Emma, actually from the Hammond statement whereby they mentioned the legal fees. My client didn't want to go down the legal route. All she's ever wanted is for the school to acknowledge the abuse happened and it was wrong and had an impact on it and that they would change. She's been asking for an apology since day one. They wouldn't give it to her.

And I think for my client, she's really disappointed by, despite all of this, all of this effort and time from her and her legal team, the school still don't get it. And that's born through that statement. I mean, the Hammond would say that she accepted terms including no liability for them, so they have no need to supply an apology. But an apology after all of this,

and the settlement was based on what a judge and a court would award, the apology costs of nothing. When the case is concluded, where is the legal and financial repercussion from saying, sorry, sorry for what you went through. Sorry for the impact on your life. Is there a legal precedent for the widening of what is considered as abuse then? In my view, it is. You know, I'm a lawyer who specialises in abuse, predominantly sexual abuse and physical abuse. And does this sort of treatment constitute abuse? In my view

yes you know. Sorry legally I'm not trying to cut across you I just meant has there been a change because of these sorts of cases? I think it's set in a legal precedent the fact is is that we did start court proceedings in the high court a judge agreed that my client was an abusive woman. She should be anonymous. She has an anonymity order. So it's not just my view. It's also a High Court judge. That's what I was trying to get to. Okay. Yes, yes. You know, you're 100% right, Emma. And when we consider racial abuse, lots of racial abuse cases in football, we understand the impact of words and the impact on people. I think we are

now seeing a turn on the tide and people appreciating that, yes, body shaming, that infliction of abuse is abuse, 100%. I suppose there will still also, if I could just put this to you, be a concern about, you know, your profession, some parts of it has a reputation as well about being there to make money and being there for reasons beyond justice. You'll be well aware of that reputation with some and because of some parts of your legal profession. What do you say to those who worry that this opens a floodgates for the wrong reason? My basic point is, is that these were young individuals and this school and teachers had a duty of care to them. You would not see this in any other circumstance whereby teachers daily, frequently on the same day actually, would be causing trauma to individuals whereby they are

crying, they're clearly showing distress, they may be suffering disordered eating, bulimia, anorexia. But they continue down this path. It isn't acceptable. This isn't about ambulance chasing lawyers or any other of these accusations. The fact is that these women want this to be acknowledged as abuse. Often abuse is private. This is public shaming. Often people don't know about it.

There was lists, the fat list, as it was termed. It was so public. And when people are clearly shown distress and upset, and it continues, how can you allege it's lawyers chasing the money instead of it being women suffering abuse? It is purely victim blaming. And you are right. There's often comments

about lawyers for this and that. This isn't one of your circumstances. And I think that anyone to be distracted by this unfair is victim blaming. The fact is, it shouldn't be happening. How do we create change? Dino Nocivelli there, the lawyer, the legal representative from Lido Solicitors, representing the individual, the woman that you heard who we're not naming, again because of a court order protecting her right to remain anonymous and just to reiterate, you heard the statement from the performing arts school, the Hammond

in Cheshire, the Hammond settled out of court and did not admit liability. Some powerful messages and I'm sure some of you taking that in and figuring out what you think about what you've just heard. And perhaps you relate to it. And again, maybe some thoughts will come to you even later. Katie, though, has taken the time and thank you for this to send this message in.

Very personal, which says, I went to a full time art school from the age of 10 to 18 years old. We were weighed and measured at the beginning and end of every term. And if you were deemed to have put on weight, your name was pinned up outside a separate diet dining room. You had to eat all of your meals in this room separate from your friends. I still struggle to eat in front of people I don't know and have constantly criticised my looks and figure. I love seeing strong, healthy dancers on the stage now. Thank you for letting me finally say this out loud. 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. Some other messages coming in about what I asked right at the beginning of the programme. Stretch your mind back to 10 o'clock or 1002 to be precise uh because the idea of what has gone on in your homes and what you've seen in other people's homes is what we're going to come to now in terms of decor social media of course has a lot to answer for some good much bad but a positive has been to share inspiration to help people feel emboldened, to ditch the beige, although nothing wrong, I'm sure,

that may be your choice or many of your choices as well in your home and really go there with home decor. Maximalism has been all the rage in the interior design world over the last few years. But are there some cons to it as well? Maybe when it comes to selling your home. Someone with first-hand experience of this, Kate Sandhu, interiors influencer and founder of the Kate Sandhu Renovation,

did find that this posed an issue when it came to selling her place. And I'm also joined on the line by the pottery artist Mary Rose Young, who painted her house from top to bottom in bright colours and patterns. And some of the images I've seen, it seems it includes the ceiling. Welcome to you both. Kate, let's just, if I can for a moment, pause with some of our listeners' messages. Is that okay? Because we have asked for some feedback here. And my goodness, the Woman's Hour listeners

never disappoint, but they really haven't today. Susan says, and this isn't obviously just about maximalism, but when I was a young child and pony mad, I asked my father to cut my bedroom door in half so it resembled a stable door to my absolute joy. He did it. And my mother was mortified when she came home from work. It's still there today, which I just think is wonderful. Another one here. I'm getting in touch from a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the Azores. And in 1969, my father painted our kitchen wall milk chocolate brown with huge white daisies. We loved it. But the person who owned the house was not impressed when we had to move out.

And finally, getting back to maximalism, my mum painted our downstairs loo bright pink and hung glittery sequined purses all over. In addition, we had a wall sized Spice World Spice Girls poster in our dining area. It was the coolest house for teenage girls ever says rosie what do you make of that kate first of all i mean i love that because it's all about people expressing themselves so you know especially the the stable door i love that sometimes we can be a bit obsessed with what our home looks like especially with children's rooms they can have a tendency you know to to want them to look perfect but actually it's brilliant to be able to let your children express themselves in that way it's their their part of the house so i think it's great you you're okay with it so we've

got a bit of interruption on the line i think it might be on mary rose young's line mary hello yeah hello sorry those we heard somebody else's voice there which was a bit disconcerting yeah i'm sorry it's my husband phil he's um he's got a disability and he's, you know, he's just gone out of the room. No, no. Well, that's absolutely fine. I was just checking you were there and all was OK. He was rattling his egg is what he was doing. OK, good morning. Well, good morning to both of you. You both live in your home. And I did a very small attempt at trying to describe it. What have you done with your space yeah well um i've done everything i've maximized it totally i think to put it in a nutshell it's um i kind of well i

started um uh years ago when i when i first bought the house and uh it needed um a bit of character instilling into it so i used some of the designs from my pottery and a bit of character instilling into it. So I used some of the designs from my pottery and a lot of the colours that I was already using on the inside of the house. And it set it alight and made it really lovely and fun. And I just had a lot of attention from the media at that time. And it just kind of spurred me on. It is incredible.

And as a foremost radio lover, this is the only time I ever feel when we have these sorts of discussions, I'm on the wrong platform because not being able to show our listeners, we will try and share some of this if we can on the Woman's Hour website, some images so you get the sense. Kate, just to come to you, you had gold stairs and patterned wallpaper. A lot of people, this is in your previous place, really loved it online. But then I mentioned it was an issue when you came to sell. I am a maximalist too. I have a lot of different types of wallpaper. We're talking pink and white stripes on one wall, chinoiserie, Chinese style on another. Am I going to have to buy, if I ever move,

a load of white paint, do you think? I mean, maybe, but in a way, I guess, does it matter? Because I think the important thing is, you know, there was some people were outraged that we, like, sort of had to pack the wallpaper down and painted things. But I think bigger picture, we enjoyed the house while we were there.

There's no way that someone was going to buy it and have the exact same taste. So I think, you know, it's really important to just enjoy your home, treat it like your kind of palette. It's kind of, you know, an extension of you and a piece of art in itself. And then if you need to change it to sell it,

then so be it because the bigger picture is you kind of want to move on to your next kind of project and next adventure, I guess. So I mean, that's huge pragmatism, of course. But you did, we should say, just so that people realise you had to arrive at that, you put it on the market and it didn't go straight away, did it? You had to have that moment of realising.

Yeah, yeah. So it took a couple of, we had it on the market for two weeks and, you know, maybe we were slightly arrogant, but it was that time when, especially we were in London, things were flying off the market. So, I arrogant but it was that time when especially we were in london things were flying off the market so i mean it was a little bit offensive we thought brilliant and an awful home that no one wants to buy and actually we just pulled it off the market stepped back and thought well do you know what you just gotta swallow your pride and think let's just do what we need to do to get it sold and and that enabled us to start fresh

somewhere else but yeah it was a little bit of a kick in the teeth and it was um painted over the gold stairs was a slightly sad moment but you know you did it not everyone wants gold leaf stairs no i mean i i would but that's that's just me we seem to be coming from the same place and so uh do you mary rose young and are you you ever thought, Mary, about the fact that others, what will happen to your property at some point and others may not be of the same view? Yeah, not really. I kind of just like it so much. I'm so into it and everyone that comes loves it so much. I never really think that as far as changing it into a white house

because it would just look grey because it's kind of dark by its nature. It's set down from the road. So yeah, no, not now. And more is more is more is more. Is that the motto? Yeah, I'm so dyed in the wool, you know,

and the whole concept of colour. And it's such a successful sort of thing. My life makes me so happy and my customers happy and people who come to the house are happy. So, you know, it's a no brainer, really. Well, it's lovely to hear a bit about that. We will share some images. Mary Rose Young, Kate Sandhu, thank you to you. I have to say there's one here. We went to a house for sale in Southampton, beautiful Victorian property, complete with indoor fish pond in the living room. They'd cut out the floorboards in a corner of the room, like they did with plastic and created a real pond. Quite a commitment, quite a lot to repair. Needless to say, we didn't buy the home.

And so it goes on. These are wonderful messages. If I can, I will come back to them. But let me tell you about my next guest's latest novel. Set in maybe not such a colourful environment in some ways, a small convent in the stark plains of the Australian outback of Terrain. She knows well. I'm talking about Charlotte Wood, the writer. And Charlotte Wood's main character is a middle-aged woman who takes refuge with the

nuns there as she is adjusting to the change in her life, the loss of her parents. But that's where it takes a turn and when it takes a turn. What follows is a story of introspection, despair, but it also includes a mouse plague, the skeleton of a murdered nun, and I don't want to give too much away here, but a troubling old school acquaintance, Charlotte Wood. Good morning. Hello, Emma. How are you? Stoneyard devotional, I should say the name. I didn't say that of the book. Why have you taken us to the Australian outback? Well, as my narrator has grown up in that place, it's called the Monero Plains. And it's a very, it's kind of the opposite of your last story, really.

It's a very minimalist kind of landscape, really. And I also grew up in that area. And I wanted to write a book that was quite spacious, quite stripped back, really. I wanted to experiment with including a lot of space for the reader to bring their own memories, feelings, emotions to it. And I'm getting a lot of feedback from readers that that is the case because I suppose in this world that we're in at the moment with the onslaught of chaos and the world's troubles and griefs and pains,

I think the idea of escaping to a place where there is silence, there is sort of routine and order is quite appealing to a lot of us. And it certainly appeals to my narrator who as you say sort of she unsubscribes from her life in the city and she goes and takes refuge in this little cloistered community of nuns even though she's not religious she's not she doesn't have a religious impulse at all but she she finds a kind of uncomfortable sort of peace in this place for a while at least until there are some rather disturbing visitations. Yes, and I don't want to ruin the book for people, but just to give a sense of that, I mean, I don't know if you can directly relate, but you have had the experience of losing

both parents and young. Yes, I was in my 20s when both of my parents died separately of cancer. And I suppose a lot of the book is about unearthing old griefs and sort of reburying them in a way that brings some solace, perhaps. I think the narrator has a period of feeling that she's quite ashamed of this grief that she still carries after all these years. And I think that's a very familiar experience to lots of people, that we feel that we're allowed a certain amount of time to finish grieving. But it doesn't finish. It changes texture and it can become more sort of easier to deal with over time. But I think for a lot of people, that sense of a sort of slight shame about the fact that

they can't get over this sort of grief. And I certainly have felt that. And it's interesting how many readers have come to me about this book saying, I feel that way thank you for saying that so it's sort of you know for the narrator the the process of um uncovering and resettling that grief is part of her experience and also i you know you and your your siblings i believe have had an experience where i'm sure it's brought into sharp relief, but you've each been diagnosed or were diagnosed with a different form of cancer in the last year or so? It was in 2022.

I just finished the first draft of this book, which was dealing with this theme and my relationship with my mother who, you know, had died a long time ago. And then this kind of bombshell hit my family, which was that my older sister and then me and then one of our younger sisters were all diagnosed with breast cancer in a period of six weeks. So it was this sort of psychic calamity really that hit us, especially with this sort of freight of what had happened with our parents. And we were the same sort of age that our parents died. And so everyone's fine now and we're kind of out the other side. I'm happy to hear that.

Thank you. But it sort of, it changes you, that experience. And so when I went back into writing the book, I had this sort of whole new layer of the depth of experience that I had not had before. And I read that you said when you lost your parents, it was like having acid thrown over your life in terms of what becomes important, what lives and what you take with. It's certainly when that happened with my sisters and I, it felt like a huge sort of, I thought I'd sort of integrated, you know, what had happened with our parents.

And I had to, you know, as much a degree as you can. And then when this happened, it was like, oh boy, you know, it really, that experience really sort of burned away anything that I felt was trivial or things that didn't matter. You wanted to just rule them out of your life. So when I went back into writing the book, I did feel a great commitment to having a book that was very,

that had as little artifice as possible and as little, I didn't want anything superficial in the book. I wanted only what absolutely mattered to stay in the book. To be there. Well, it's a very powerful read. Stoneyard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, who you've just been listening to. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. For coming to talk to us and sharing so much. And you can look up mouse plagues in your own time. As someone who has a slight issue with rodents, it wasn't a great moment, but I got over that for the writing, for sure. I just have to share another message, if I can, about interiors,

because Barbara said, this subject reminds me of when we were looking for our first home. Every room has a fish tank built into the furniture, including the kitchen units, the sideboard, the wardrobes and the side of the bath. The owners said they were quite happy to leave them for us. Needless to say, we didn't.

And when house hunting in 2003, I came across a living room where a dado rail had been made out of pieces of macaroni, which had been sprayed gold. What a mental image to leave you with. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Forgive us, listeners, for we have sinned. And we want to know why. I'm Becky Ripley. And I'm Sophie

Ward. And we're here to tell you about our new podcast series, Seven Deadly Psychologies. Now available on Seriously from BBC Radio 4. So ready? Born ready. Where we take a cold hard look at the psychology behind each of the seven deadly sins. We shouldn't discard them. We should ask ourselves what they mean. It's this idea that if you give in to your lusts that you are animal-like. We have to let our minds have time to free wheel. Finding empathy is probably the best tool to manage anger. To hear the whole series, just search Seven Deadly Psychologies 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 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.