Woman's Hour - Budget 2021. Toxic Relationships. Theatrical wig maker Angela Cobbin.

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

Budget 2021: What do you want to change? We hear from Mary-Ann Stephenson, Director of the Women’s Budget group, an independent not-for-profit organisation that monitors the impact of government policies on men and women When you look back over your past relationships do you see patterns? Whether it’s being drawn to bad boys, ending up with narcissists or falling for someone who needs looking after, it’s not unusual for us to end up in the same kind of toxic relationships again and again. So how do you break the pattern? Four women shared their very personal experiences with Woman’s Hour reporter Milly Chowles - today Nina's story., Angela Cobbin, wig designer and MBE has written a memoir. My Name Is Not Wigs takes readers through her beginnings as a hairdressing student in the early 60s to becoming a theatrical wig designer for countless plays, musicals, TV shows and films over five decades. She joins Chloe live in the studio - with a wig in hand - to talk all about it.Plus as Princess Mako a member of the Japanese royal family marries her college sweetheart Kei Komuro we talk to Hanako Montgomer a Japan reporter for Vice News about why she'll be forced to forfeit her royal status. A Japanese law which doesn't apply to men. Presenter Chloe Tilley Producer Beverley Purcell

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 Chloe Tilley. Welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to the programme. Good to have you with us. Now, despite a ticking off from the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the leaks ahead of tomorrow's budget just keep coming. Across the front pages and news websites, we learn that there will be a pay rise for 5 million public sector workers, according to The Telegraph, 7 million if you believe the Daily Mail, and 8 million if you read The Express.

Is there going to be anything left for the Chancellor to announce tomorrow when he stands up in the Commons? Well, we're going to look at the leaked giveaways to see how it will impact family budgets. But what I want to hear from you this morning is, what do you want to see in the budget? You can text us on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate.

You can also email us through our website. So what are the changes you want to see that will make a difference to your family? Also, we're going to be heading to Japan, where Princess Mako has been forced to give up her royal status after marrying her college sweetheart. Now under Japanese law a man can marry a so-called commoner and keep his royal status but a woman cannot. Well comparisons have been drawn with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle as the couple are going to head to America to live. Eyebrows were raised when the groom flew in from

the States sporting long hair in a ponytail. Can you imagine? Well, this morning, I want to hear what have you given up for love? It doesn't obviously have to be a royal title. It could be a job. Maybe you move country. Perhaps it was more serious. Perhaps it caused a family rift. You can text us 84844 or you can get in touch via social media at BBC Woman's Hour. So what have or what would you give up for love? And some heartwarming stories would be appreciated this morning. Now, while we're talking about love, when you look back over your past relationships, do you see patterns, whether it's being drawn to bad boys, ending up with narcissists or falling for someone who needs to be looked after?

It's not unusual for us to end up in the same kind of toxic relationships again and again. So how do you break the pattern? Well, four women have shared their very personal experience with Woman's Hour reporter Millie Charles. Today, we hear Nina's story. And we're also going to be speaking to the world-renowned wig maker, Angela Cobbin. She has worked with stars from Judi Dench to Joan Collins. She's here to talk about her memoir and she's also brought a couple of wigs into the studio. So I'll be looking forward to seeing those later on. Now, the front pages are awash with leaks ahead of tomorrow's budget. Many are focusing on the pay rise for millions of public sector workers. The Eye, however,

focuses on the lack of cash for schools, reporting that the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, appears to be ruling out longer school days and extra tutoring for pupils needing to catch up after the Covid lockdowns. The Chancellor does, however, say his focus will be looking to the future and building a stronger economy for the British people, strong investment in public services, driving economic growth and supporting working families. Well, it's already been announced that the national living wage is set to rise and talk of investment in family hubs. But with a backdrop of rising inflation, increased energy and food costs, how is the budget likely to impact women? Well, with us to talk about this is Mary-Anne Stevenson.

She is director of the Women's Budget Group. That's an independent not-for-profit organisation that monitors the impact of government policies on men and women. And I'm pleased to say also with us is Jesse Hewitson, who is deputy money editor at The Times and The Sunday Times. Thank you both for joining us this morning. Marianne, maybe I can begin with you to talk about the public sector pay rise, which is across many of the front of news websites and newspapers this morning. Do we know how many women this is going to affect? And I guess crucially,

whether this is going to stave off the squeeze on family budgets? Well, about 70% of public sector workers are women. So it is going to be women who largely benefit. Whether it staves off the squeeze depends on how much the pay rise actually is. So what's been leaked is that the cap or the freeze will be lifted. But we don't yet know how much the increase will actually be. And obviously, we're seeing an increase in the cost of living in food prices, in fuel prices, in housing costs in particular and that affects the poorest women worst partly because women are more likely to be poor but also because women are often what's

called the shock absorbers of poverty so they're the ones who will go without to make sure that there is food on the table and the kids have got new school shoes you're right to point out of course that we won't know for several months. Ministers consult independent advisors, don't they, to set what that level will be for the public sector pay rise. But that will be revealed in the months to come. And, Jessie, can I bring you in to talk a little bit about what I was talking about there, the front page of the Eye, the catch-up fund for schools. The Eye is reporting no longer school days or cash for extra tutoring which will be a worry for some parents won't it yes it will be so the government has announced catch-up funding so far for students um of 1.4 billion which works out as 50 pounds per pupil according to the

education policy institute um and this will mean that the total funding over the next four years per pupil, it's going to be £310 per year. So that's how much schools get. And this compares extremely poorly to, say, the US, where pupils get on average £1,600 per pupil and £2,500 per pupil in the Netherlands. The Education Policy Institute thinks we need £13.5 billion

to reverse the educational damage to pupils' learning as a result of the pandemic. So £1.4 billion is extremely low compared to that. And you may remember that Sir Kevin Collins, the former government's Education Recovery Commissioner, resigned after that amount was announced. So those things have been announced, but it is also suggested that Rishi Sunak may announce

an extra £3 billion of extra funding tomorrow for further education in the budget, most of which is expected to support 16 to 19-year-olds who did not go to university. But that's still a huge gap, isn't it, between what... I mean, you mentioned Sir Kevin Collins there, the former Tsar who was brought in by the government to look at this, said how much he thought it should be,

and then resigned when the government didn't listen. There is going to be a huge gap, and there is a worry. I mean, I was reading this morning that primary school pupils have lost three and a half months of learning. Yes, yes, absolutely. And also, I mean, one slightly bit of good news um as the mother of an autistic son is that special educational needs funding is is going to receive 2.6 billion pounds to build more special schools to create 30 000 places for kids with additional needs but i will

add that this is just for capital funding, i.e. just building the schools and repairing the schools. There's nothing at the moment to address the state of what is happening for children's special educational needs in mainstream schools, therapy and staff, etc. Which many parents with children with special educational needs whether that's autism or something else will will say it's absolutely crying out for the state school system right now that that additional support. Marianne let's talk a little bit about the national living wage this

was another one of the leaks which came out yesterday it's rising for those over the age of 23 from £8.91 to £9.50 it's's less for 21, 22-year-olds and less for apprenticeship rates. But this is, I guess it's good news for workers, isn't it? Not just women, not such good news for employers who are maybe struggling to reopen their businesses after all of the problems with the pandemic. I think it's very good news for workers. And again, it's disproportionately women who are likely to be low paid

and at national living wage rates. I think the problem is that if you look at some of the lowest paid sectors, like, for example, childcare, there needs to be additional funding for childcare in order for childcare providers to meet that rising wage bill. You know, we already know that the amount of money that the government provides to nurseries to give the free hours to parents doesn't actually cover the cost of providing those hours, which means that the privately paid for hours have to be increased to cross subsidise. And that's one of the reasons why childcare costs are so high in this country. So what we need is not just an increase in the national living wage, which is very welcome,

but actually proper investment in childcare to ensure that we, that parents are able to access childcare when they need it and that they can afford to access it. We did a survey last month with Mumsnet and a whole range of other women's organisations in the TUC, which found a really large proportion of women saying they were spending more on childcare than they were on their mortgage, and that lots of women were unable to enter the labour market at all because of the cost of childcare. So actually, investing in childcare would ultimately pay for itself, because the government will get more money back in taxes and reductions in the Social

Security Bill. It needs to be seen as an investment and as a vital form of social infrastructure. There doesn't seem to be much appetite amongst government to do that. And I know anecdotally, just by speaking to friends and colleagues, when you have small children, often women will go back to work and be out of pocket. They're actually losing money or maybe only having a little bit. I remember having a conversation with a woman saying she basically earned enough money to buy one cup of coffee a day. That was it. It was something like £2.54 or something she came away with at the end of the day after she paid for her tax and her childcare and everything like that. But she wanted to keep those skills up. So when her children were older, she would be able to continue work. But that's not an option for many people. It's not an option for many people. Obviously, childcare costs should be seen as a cost for both parents. So it shouldn't be seen just set against the mother's earnings.

But in practice, when families are making a decision about who's going to return to work or if somebody is going to return to work, it's normally the lower paid parent. And that's normally a woman who takes the hit and reduces her hours or leaves the labour market altogether. It's I mean, high quality childcare has been shown to be good for children. It lowers attainment gaps. It's good for parents because it enables them to enter work. And it's good for the economy. You know, I depend on the childcare that my GP receives so that she's available when I want to see her. We all benefit from high quality childcare. Jessie, I want to ask you about the difference between the £20 uplift in universal credit, which of course we've seen taken away in recent weeks, versus

the rise in the living wage. I mean, reading around this morning, it looks like it's going to be about £1,000 more that someone on the national living wage working full-time would get in a year before tax. But does that compensate if you're used to that £20 uplift on universal credit? Does it compensate for that? I think it's unlikely. And also, we don't really know how much inflation is going to go up by. At the moment, the Bank of England, some members are suggesting it could go reach as high as 5% this year. It could go much higher next year. So if that happens, and it's a sort of fairly realistic worry that inflation could be really quite high next year,

then it really won't. Lots of you getting in touch with us this morning on 84844 with what you would like to see in the budget. One text just come in here said, I would like to see a tax on wealth to pay for a £15 minimum wage and a decent rise for benefits. Why should poverty in this country be tolerated? Another point here picking up on a point that you made, Marianne.

Marianne Stevenson is spot on. Women are the shock absorbers of poverty going without in order to feed the family and to buy school uniform. Another suggestion here, and this does come up quite a lot. Although, Marianne, I don't think there's much appetite for this, tax the mega rich, close the loopholes which allow the very rich to avoid tax, stop austerity measures as those adversely affect the worse off, renationalise public organisations such as public transport, energy, water, as profit goes to shareholders rather than those being ploughed back in. Marianne, I want to talk to you about public transport, because I know that you very strongly feel there need to be changes,

particularly in bus routes, that will benefit women and the way that they use them. Just explain a little bit about that to us, if you would. That's right. So one of the things that has been leaked is the fact that there's going to be more money into public transport. And most of that is capital spending. So it's not on the costs of running the transport system.

It's on the infrastructure. And the key thing here is women are more likely to use public transport, but they also use public transport differently to men. So most public transport systems are designed to get people from residential areas into the centre of town and back out again in the evenings. Women do what's called trip chaining. So they will tend to make a number of shorter journeys, they might drop their children off to school, then go to work, then on

their way back to work, pop in and see their mum, check she's all right, and then go to the supermarket on the way home to get food for dinner. And our public transport system isn't really designed around that. I mean, in London and some big cities, you have things like Oyster Cards, which allow kind of multiple trips. But in lots of parts of the country, you have a number of different bus companies all running different routes. So you can't necessarily use the same ticket on those different companies. You're having to pay out separately each time. And the routes themselves aren't designed around women's transport needs. So as I said, they tend to be in and out of the centre rather than across town and around the edges. So what we need is both more money for public transport, particularly buses, but also a rethinking of how

we organise public transport to recognise the different journeys that women might take. Jessie, I also want to talk to you about the idea of family hubs. It's being reported there's going to be a network of new family hubs in England. I mean, they sound a little bit like the Sure Start centres, which many have been closed under the Conservatives. Yes, I mean, they do sound a lot like the Shaw Centres. And I know that Conservatives may be mindful of the outcry that happened when they were shut down. I'm afraid I don't have the figure to hand of how much money is going to be injected in them. But the focus is going to be on early years, as all the evidence shows, that if you support families in the early years, then it helps the children and it also reduces the burden of the state. So I have the figures on Sure Start if you want.

Fantastic, yeah. So we're looking at about 500 million into the Family Hub scheme. What you've got to bear in mind is that Sure Start funding just between 2011 and 2017 was cut by 1.2 billion. So the 500 million is less than half the amount that was cut over that period. There was a loss of over 1000 children's centres between 2011 and

2019. The government's proposing 75 new family hubs. So, I mean, it's very welcome that they're recognising the need to invest in early years. This has long-term positive outcomes for children and their families. But really, as with so many other things in what's been leaked in the budget, the scale of what's being proposed lacks the ambition to deal with the crisis that the UK is facing. What we're seeing is a major problem in the UK of poverty and declining public services, particularly Clare, and the climate emergency, and relatively small promises of additional bits of funding, all of which are welcome, but none of which are sufficient to actually deal with the problems that we're facing.

But I guess the Chancellor of the University of Sunac would say at that point, well, we've spent so much money during the pandemic, we have limited resources. Sorry, Jessie, do come in. No, I was just going to add on a personal level, as a young mum with a child who was autistic and didn't realise they were autistic,

Shoresart Centres really saved us and helped him get early intervention, which I believe may have consequences for the rest of his life. So I am extremely valuable. Yeah, me too, a fan of Sure Start. But also, I mean, in terms of not having the money, you know, if you think about the situation we were in when the welfare state was set up in 1945,

we'd just come out of the Second World War. We were in massive levels of debt. We had infrastructure that was completely collapsed, whole cities bombed into the ground. And what we did was decided to create the welfare state and the NHS and to invest in building a different and a better world. You know, we're facing an existential crisis with a climate emergency. We need to recognise that that requires funding and spending at the same level with the same ambition that we showed in 1945 when we created the welfare state. We must talk about pensions before we wrap up our conversation. Anne's got in touch saying keep the triple lock.

Elderly female pensioners are the poorest people in the UK. Another text here says, I live on a state pension of £155 a month, but my gas bill is going up by £19 a month. My pension has to go up to help fill with this huge rise. I mean, are we likely to see any date for the return of the triple lock? Marianne? I don't know what the government's intentions are there. We'll have to wait and see. I think it is really important to recognise that there are large numbers of women pensioners who have significantly lower incomes than male pensioners. I mean, women's private pensions are about a tenth of those of men's. And for those women, the state pension is what they have to rely on. And they are also dealing with rising food costs and rising fuel costs. When the triple lock was

ended last year, it was in recognition of the fact that wages didn't seem to be going up. We had the public sector pay freeze and so on. All of those things have changed. And we need to make sure that pensions keep in line with the actual cost of living for pensioners. Thank you both for joining us this morning. Very grateful to you. Marianne Stevenson, their director of the Women's Budget Group. It's an independent not-for-profit organisation

that looks at the impact of government policies on men and women. And you also heard from Jessie Hewitson, who's Deputy Money Editor at The Times and The Sunday Times. Lots of you getting in touch with us, telling us what you want to hear in the budget tomorrow. It almost feels like we've had the budget because we've had so many leaks and heard what's in it. But it is happening tomorrow.

Bundlekin on Twitter says, I want to see money for support for ventilation and air filtration in public spaces, particularly for schools and hospitals to reduce transmission of COVID and other respiratory diseases. Another tweet here from Susie saying, women are disproportionately on low pay and childcare costs

take a large proportion of their earnings, especially if a single parent. It's also mainly women who give up full-time work or their job when in a couple. And she says the hashtag living wage is a misnomer. Do keep your thoughts coming in on that. You can text us on 84844. Now this morning, Princess Mako of the Japanese royal family

married her college sweetheart. The relationship and the marriage has attracted headlines as he is a so-called commoner, thereby forcing the princess to forfeit her royal status. That's a Japanese law which doesn't apply to men, just to women. And while the royal family has largely supported the marriage, royalists and the tabloid media have speculated on her new husband's family background and their financial status. Let's find out more about this with Hanako Montgomery, who is Japan reporter for Vice News.

Morning, Hanako. Good morning. Hi, hello. Thank you for having me. No, absolute pleasure. So just explain, we mentioned there, there was some controversy about her new husband's family background and financial status. Just explain a little more, if you would. Yeah, sure.

So once the couple announced their engagement in 2017, some tabloid reports announced that Kei Komuro, his mother, owed some money to her ex-fiance, about $36,000. And once that sort of got out in the tabloid media, you know, immediately some of the Japanese public said, what are his intentions with Princess Mako? Is he just using her and her royal status to try to get a leg up in his career because he wanted to be a lawyer? And in addition to that, there is a lot of controversy around her being stripped of her royal status because once she marries a commoner, she will no longer be a part of the imperial family. So why is it that women are stripped of their royal status, but men aren't under Japanese law? Yeah, so this law was actually passed in 1947. So it's not actually seen throughout Japanese history. There have been empresses in the past. But because of

this law, and a lot of changes that happened after an extremely wartime Japan. They instituted this law that only allowed male heirs. They just believed, maybe sort of found this belief that emperors were better at ruling the country. And because of this, only males are allowed to succeed the throne. And if a woman does marry outside of the family, then she sort of says bye-bye. And what is the sense among Japanese society? I appreciate it's not just one view, but is there general support? Is there outrage? She's had to give up the royal status. What are the sort of conversations which are taking place? Right. So actually, there's a recent news poll by Kyody News in Japan that shows around 80%

of the Japanese public. So an overwhelming majority actually approves of empresses reigning the country. But, you know, a lot of this controversy is sort of coming from these tabloids, also royalists who believe in preserving this history, but younger generations, ones, you know, that see this as just a marriage of love, marriage of freedom, you know, allowing Mako to have, you know, a right as a woman to marry the person that she loves. They approve of the marriage enormously. And I understand this has actually left Princess Mako with PTSD, the sort of intrusive nature of the media coverage, possibly even sexist coverage in the media.

Yes, yes, she was diagnosed with PTSD. The Imperial Household Agency announced this earlier this month. And, you know, it's funny you mentioned that because as soon as that was announced, there has also been coverage that maybe she doesn't have PTSD, sort of questioning the report itself. You know, when I covered this marriage, I mentioned that there was an article that was going around in Japanese media about the fact that she didn't actually have PTSD. And, you know, this was from an opinion piece. And it was from someone who didn't actually even diagnose Princess

Mako. So there's just been a lot of hesitation, a lot of questioning from Princess, from the public about Princess Mako and her marriage to Komodo. But a lot of it has been based on just assumptions and kind of guessing what she may or may not be doing. Now, she could have had a big payoff, couldn't she? I think it was about a million dollars when she left the royal family to set her up. But she said, no, I don't want that. And they've also had a quite an understated marriage ceremony. Yes, yeah, about 1.4 million US dollars, I believe.

And, you know, there's just there's been some talk of that as well, you know, why she might have rejected that lump sum payment, because a few of her family members, when they left the royal family, they accepted the lump sum payment. But there has been talk that perhaps she rejected it because she didn't want to be seen as taking the public's money because it would have been taxpayers money. And the understated royal ceremony as well, you know, a very subdued ceremony, something to kind of just underline the fact that she is doing this purely for love. And she just wants a union with her longtime college boyfriend. She did a press conference or they both did a press conference, didn't they? But they did written answers.

I'm presuming because she didn't feel that she wanted to put herself under the pressure of being scrutinized by the media. Yes, yeah, you're absolutely right. They had a press conference this afternoon around 2 p.m. Tokyo time. And they gave great sweeping declarations of love and dedication to one another.

And then afterwards, they submitted this written response to five questions that they had received from reporters beforehand. And as you mentioned, it was sort of to avoid intense questioning by reporters. They wanted to just avoid, I believe, some of the strain that's been on Princess Maka, which she also spoke of during the conference. We've spoken a lot about the princess. We haven't really spoken about the man she's married. So he works in America, doesn't he? They're going to go and live there. I know that he caused outrage by having a ponytail. Tell us more. Yes, the ponytail that's made headlines in Japan. Yeah. He is. Yeah, he's working as a paralegal in New York and he's expected to hear back from his results.

The bar exam later in November, I believe. And the couple, they're predicted to live in New York and sort of start their new life there as well. And, yeah, a lot of the media coverage around Kei Komodo has been about his sort of shaggy appearance, the fact that he doesn't look up to royal standards and just questioning really his motives. And a lot of that does come from his physical appearance as well. But he got rid of the ponytail for the wedding. Am I right? Yes, he got, he cut the ponytail off. Yeah. So what do we know for their future? I know that parallels have been drawn with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, because because, you know, the media has just been so involved in their private lives. But Princess Mako, or ex-Princess Mako, I should say now, has been working as a historian at a museum in Japan. So people believe that she's going to continue in the art scene in New York and, you know, take on a few jobs there, whereas Komodo

will be continuing his career as a lawyer. Thank you so much for speaking to us today. Really interesting to hear how they've been treated and all the speculation surrounding their marriage. That is Hanako Montgomery, who is a Japan reporter for Vice News, speaking to us there. I was asking you earlier in the programme

to tell us what you have given up for love, because clearly Princess Mako has given up a lot. She's given up her royal status. Lots of lovely stories coming in. Holly says, I was working as a journalist when I attended a conference and interviewed a gorgeous vet from Northern Ireland. We fell in love. We got married last year. I relocated from England to Northern Ireland to live with my new husband and his 200 sheep. I went from a city journalist to a cow milker and lamb foster mum. But as a pop star once said, I'd rather live with him in his world than live without him in mine. Thank you, Holly. Do keep sending your positive stories. But of

course, they're not all positive. And this is reflected by this text, which has come in on 84844. I've recently discovered my mum gave up her fourth baby for us, the three she already had. Her and my dad felt they couldn't afford another child. I'm both devastated for her and amazed by her act of love. I'm now trying to find my sister and adjusting to looking at strangers and wondering, could that be her? Thank you for sharing that with us.

Do keep your experiences coming in. What have you given up for love you can get in touch on social media it is at bbc woman's hour now if you were listening on tuesday last week you will have heard from dame eileen atkins talking to emma about her memoir will she do she recalled her working class family background and the fact that though her mother was keen for her to be an entertainer, putting her on the stage as baby Aileen from the age of six, things got difficult later.

When Dame Aileen became educated, she went on to become an actor and the gap between her and her parents became unbridgeable. If you have a child that gets educated way beyond you are, there is always this awful gap. And that tension and how you navigate that can be very difficult. Yes. And when you're, I mean, I forgive myself a bit, but I did behave very snobbly towards them. I forgive myself now because you're the child, you know, but it is very hard. And all these mothers who want to push their children, I would just like to warn them now, just watch how much you push

because you might be pushing them totally away from you. Did you find a way to relate back or repair it between you? No, I didn't. It was rather sad. I would visit them all my life. And in fact, things were sort of all right between me and my mother when I, particularly in my second marriage, he suggested we saw more of her. And by then my father had died and she was on her own. And I was old enough then to live her life when I was with her

and not to bother her with any other stuff. But, you know, they didn't come and see me in the theatre. Well, is that your experience? Did a gap open up between you and your child or you and your mother or father because of education or opportunity? Or perhaps you did the pushing? Well, some of our listeners have got in touch about this. At long purple boots on instagram looked at it from the opposite angle her mother

not pushing her enough and a gap developing she writes between me and my mother she wouldn't let me see the 11 sit the 11 plus because her mum didn't let her sit it she said my two cousins in grammar school were too full of themselves which they weren't well interested to get your thoughts on that your experiences you can text us now on Woman's Hour on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour. Or of course, you can always email us through our website. Now, when you look back over your relationships, do you see a pattern? Well, our reporter Millie Charles does. In a series about damaging relationships, she talks to four women who've broken free. A few years ago, I became aware that I was stuck in a really painful loop with my love life.

I was in my late 30s, so lots of my friends were and still are happily coupled up, getting engaged, starting families, something I desperately wanted but frustratingly seemed to be completely elusive to me. I seemed consistently drawn to people who were for one reason or another unable to commit and to give me the love that I so desperately craved. I felt like I was being driven by something very unconscious or subconscious. I was aware of it, but couldn't seem to stop it. And that led me on a bit of a mission, really, to really understand what was going on. And of course, to hopefully change the pattern. For this series, I'll be meeting other people who, like me, have eventually broken free of their own painful relationship patterns. The first of which is a woman we're calling Nina,

whose attraction to bad boys started from a very young age. I started getting a bit of attention when I was about 14. Boys started calling me pretty and I wasn't just like the weird brown girl anymore, which was really exciting at the time. So so yeah we used to hang out at this local park and every week there were these boys older boys about 18 and every week they would come and rob us and there was one boy there called Chris yeah so I really liked him and I think I was very attracted to the fact that he was like this guy who was really mean to everyone, kind of scary, but he was being really nice and really sweet to me and sort of started showing this kind of vulnerable side and I was obsessed like obsessed like I could not stop thinking about him sometimes I see

him and he'd be really nice and then something would happen or sometimes he would be a total prick how long did that relationship go on that like didn't go on that long it seemed like a really long sort of painful time at the time but it went on probably for maybe five months and then I met this other guy who was sort of then my I'd say he was my first proper love he was I was probably about 15 when I met him yeah I absolutely fell in love with him basically straight away he he was a lovable rogue if you will he was a local drug dealer and he was also very charming and very lovable. And we met and we just clicked. But I really fancied him straight away.

He was definitely a nicer person than the guy before, but he was also a bit of a sociopath in many ways. And I think a lot of it was just because he was so deep into drugs that he couldn't be normal, you you know emotionally he he messed me around constantly how did he mess you around i'm just trying to think of the best way to describe it because he wasn't a violent person it wasn't like you know something really dramatic like oh he he beat me or he tried to make me smoke crack or anything like that. It was quite subtle. He was the kind of person who everyone who was around him loved, loved, loved to be around him when they were on his good side.

It would just be literally one week super charming, nice, next week totally cold and ignore me, ignore my messages, just totally ignore me, blank me. It was literally on and off for about three years. At that time I was probably about 18 by that time and had gotten over a lot of my anxieties I was like in a place in life where I wanted I was sort of ready to move on I had new horizons I'd gone to art school so I just left and went to London you said it was very on off and clearly he had a real element of danger and

darkness around him in the kind of circles and the lifestyle that he was leading. Did you have people around you saying, what are you doing? Yeah, I think my sisters were always just like, what are you doing? A few of my friends, actually a couple of my guy friends, were just like, you know, he's not a nice person. It wasn't even that he wasn't a nice person, but he doesn't care about you. I couldn't get my head around that.

And I had guys who really liked me, like really, really liked me, really good guys who wanted to go out with me. And I just was just like, no, we're just friends. I just felt like somehow if they really like you, there's something wrong with them. Yeah, if you don't feel good about yourself, then if someone else likes you, you think, well, what's wrong with you, I guess. Yeah, and I think at that time I was so, like, probably unaware of how bad my self-esteem was. Well, I hadn't even begun or thought about tackling it, really, at that age, because I'd just bury it, and probably outwardly I was very confident

and seemed quite, you know, happy and so on. But inwardly, actually, there was a lot of self-loathing there. So you went to art school. And tell me about the, you know, the next relationship that you had. Yeah, so there was various other things that didn't work out. Actually, there's one thing that I always forget in 2005 or something when the internet was still really rubbish and like you didn't have like Facebook and all of that like I used to go on this really crappy like digital pool site so you could play like virtual pool

and but you had a little chat box and you could chat to people and one day I started doing that to some guy but we ended up actually really chatting loads and loads and we had like this little internet romance and then we started chatting on the phone and um when I started talking on the phone like he actually came across really sort of abrasive and it turned out he was like this con artist but even then it was like how have I managed to even find this type of guy on the internet because you feel like you keep finding this type of person yeah I totally relate to that you know if you're on a dating app and you're sort of going through hundreds of different profiles and you go oh I like that one and then it turns out that that person's got exactly the same kind of characteristics that you've been trying to kind of move away from

and you'd be like how can I pick up on those signals from literally just a photo yeah yeah and I think the thing is if you're honest with yourself that is subtle things that are warning signals if I look over each guy I sort of now know that things like I remember the first time I spoke to the internet guy on the phone my immediate thought was deep down I got a bad feeling from him and this is something that I had from all the guys I liked at this point, this darkness. Anyway, so about a year later, I met my next guy, who was a very important figure in my life.

We met because I was out with a friend and we wanted to buy some weed, and I went into this club and I was like, right, who looks like they sell weed? And I saw him sat with a group of guys, and I went over, and we started chatting. He wanted my number straight away, and I didn't really fancy him at that time. And then we spent a lot of time hanging out,

and he would call me all the time. We'd hang out, we'd chat, we got closer and closer. And then one day we went out, and we went to a friend's house, and he was chatting to his friends and he just started talking about how he when he was younger he'd like done this armed robbery and he'd been in prison that was the moment I was like oh you know what actually I really do fancy him and I remember literally the next day I was like oh I fancy him so much I had borrowed his jumper and I started wearing his jumpers like oh I love the way he smells he's so wonderful it's so crazy thinking about now like that I couldn't make that connection that was

sort of the beginning of like three years of misery again same thing as this last guy but it was even worse because he would sort of say to me he was in love with me and he wanted to marry me and have kids with me and all this stuff he would say to me I'm coming around for dinner tonight I swear to you I'll come around we're gonna have the most romantic night and just not turn up, like literally he would do things like that. And then it turned out that he was smoking a lot of heroin and basically was money laundering and then eventually he went to prison. You've described the lifestyle that he's leading, but what was your lifestyle at that time?

Okay, so I was just a student and I was going to art school my social anxiety by that point had gone but I still had this very much this like I'm ugly thing going on which I was trying to tackle and I was managing to kind of get over that slowly as well it was fine and I had very strong goals as well so I knew what I really wanted in life I knew what career path I wanted to go down and I think that's kind of been my saving grace because I think I could have kind of gone

away with these kind of guys and gone into this lifestyle but I didn't because I was quite clear on what I wanted and I was also like really into sort of like wellness culture like that point so I was quite into like yoga and things because when I was a teenager yoga had really helped me kind of overcome some of my anxiety and stuff so I was really into that probably for myself okay except for the fact that I was felt this self-loathing that was torturing me and putting me into this kind of pit of despair every so often and it sounds like these guys are kind of reaffirming that in their treatment of you yeah yeah exactly I sort of felt it was me who was the stupid one it was me who was the one who was wrong it was me who wasn't worth a while and then eventually I left uni and I went on and I started working and I started doing quite well

and then another guy came along who actually I'd known for years and then we ended up meeting up like years years later we really got on and straight away I could tell there was something between us and we ended up sleeping together it was all the same stuff again basically of blowing hot and cold like we started sleeping together and then the next week we'd go out and he'd like snog a girl in front of me and by this point I felt so depressed because it was like I was stuck in this cycle and every time I'd go into the cycle it was worse and worse and it was like all the cracks in my mind of all these years of kind of self-loathing suddenly became like not a crack but like a hole and I got really depressed and I think one night I'd gone out with this guy that

I was sleeping with who I really liked and wanted him to go out with me and who was kind of treating me like shit and we went out and he that night he sort of said there's something really special between us and then literally like an hour later he started snogging a girl in front of me and that really upset me and I left I felt so full of anger and depression and the thing is with all of these guys it wasn't one event it was like a death by a thousand cuts, you know? By this point, I was so anxious, I was so depressed, I felt mental and I felt really trapped by this situation because the guy was in our friendship groups.

I had to deal with the fact that I would see him every week and I couldn't just run away. At that point, I was just like, I can't live with this anymore. I can't imagine my life being like this so I wanted to change and I started doing CBT I went to a therapist every week for like 10 weeks and it was very hard and especially at first because when you do CBT they say okay write down all your thoughts you know every day you have to keep a journal and when I started writing down and looking at my thoughts I was just like it really freaked me out because when you see them on paper it was really quite sad that your thoughts have turned like into such a mess and I sort of saw

it as the equivalent to having like a really messy room that you've just never realized is a mess and then you start looking at it and you're like oh dear so. So I started working through all these problems, working through why I felt this way about these guys and it slowly got better but it was quite stressful because you're kind of going against what your mind wants to do. Your mind wants to blame you for all these people and you want to call yourself stupid. So I had to unpick all those thoughts and that probably took a long time and I had the therapy for 10 weeks and then I kept doing

the uh just the practice of journaling and looking at your thoughts and then after that you know it's funny because I still met a few guys who were horrible but you know I instead of like freaking out and being like letting myself go into this like whole like oh my god I'm so stupid I'm never gonna find anyone I'm ugly I'm this I'm that and the other I was able to kind of not let it get to me it still hurt but I was just like able to keep my mind from going down that dark place I stopped like bullying myself basically then I met my new boyfriend he's just really nice to me does he have a a criminal history? No, he was a little bit of a bad boy when he was younger though. So I was like, okay, that's good. I can have my little bit of bad boy-ness. We're moving in together. He said he wants to marry me and stuff

like that. And we go on holiday and we go camping and I don't have to worry about him like suddenly ignoring me or lying to me. It's nice. Is there a part of you that finds that you know boring or not exciting compared to what you've been through I do find it hard and I have to say recently I've been like okay I think I need to start doing CBT again because there's still a part of me that wants to run away and one thing about all the guys that I've liked is it's weird it's like there's a subconscious feeling of relief I'd never have to be with them it's strange so like they couldn't attach to me but deep down I couldn't really attach to them as well like I didn't really want to get in relationships with them I don't think I've always had this fear of people taking away my freedom and so I still

have that fear sometimes I think a technique that actually my therapist didn't teach me but I kind of sort of started teaching myself was starting to think of trying to retrain my brain thinking that bad boys was boring. Love was actually more exciting, it's more of an adventure and I kept having to just literally repeat those thoughts myself and those images.

Alan de Botton said this, you have to make a decision of whether you want excitement or stability. The two are sort of pretty mutually exclusive. The excitement is caused by the inconsistency. I think that it was part of my personality that inherently finds it hard to be stable and goes towards excitement. It's hard to have both excitement and stability. instability. Our reporter Millie Charles there getting Nina's story and there's an article on our website with advice and support about changing relationship patterns and links to all of the

stories that we're going to be telling are also on there. Now imagine if you will you're watching a period drama you see a beautiful hairstyle on screen. Do you ever consider that the gorgeous updos on the young female lead or older female lead is a wig and who's making it and indeed dressing it? Well, you can get a glimpse of what it's like to make those wigs, to dress them, to fit them on sometimes difficult actors. Because Angela Cobbin is a wig designer, MBE, and she has written her memoir. Her book is called My Name Is Not Wigs, and it takes readers through her beginnings as a hairdressing student in the early 60s to becoming a theatrical wig designer for countless plays, musical TV shows and films spanning more than five decades. Well, she's live with me in the studio with two wigs, which I'm very excited about.

I'm excited that you're in the studio, but the two wigs are well, is fantastic. Angela, thank you for coming in. Thank you for inviting me. Well, before we talk about the wigs that we've got here, just tell us a little bit about where the love of working with hair began. Well, that's quite a story. I don't think I had a love for working for hair originally, but because that was what I went into, hairdressing, I then, when I finished the hairdressing side of it in a salon, I went to work in a wig boutique, just for a break, and I discovered a wonderful old book with a picture in it.

It had a wonderful picture of this 18th century wig. And I suddenly realised that was what I wanted to do. It literally clicked? It did click. I mean, I'd loved all the Fidel Sassoon geometric stuff, all those wonderful things to do. But this whole idea of these wonderful hairstyles just grabbed me. And so how do you go from saying that's what I want to do to making it a reality? Well, that's quite tricky.

We've got to remember this was sort of a long time ago in the 70s and it was easier to get a job then. It was easier to get into places, but you had to write a letter. It was none of this just ring up, you know. And the only place I could go to really was London. I could only come to London. And because my parents had been in the business years before, they had all the right ideas. And so I wrote off to firms and I got a place at Nathan's, Nathan Wiggs in London, in Drury Lane.

Wonderful place to start. And it was just incredible when I went in. I just loved it. The whole atmosphere, suits of armour, all that sort of thing. You just fall in love with these things. And so I think that's where I started to learn and I had to learn to go backwards in time which was quite tricky. Tell us about what it is like to work in the madness of a film set or backstage at a musical because for most of us we've never experienced

that. Well a musical's wonderful and it's non-stop usually you're running up and downstairs running from dressing room to dressing room round the stage quick change grab it all run back the next go to the other side of the stage stage right and left or even underneath the stage and just you know you just whiz through it and by the end of the show you're like a limp rag you know just go oh oh it's the end that's great you know marvellous I know you write a lot in the book about and I love this about your work at the Royal Opera House where you fitted 36 wigs in 35 minutes how does that even how I don't know to be honest I used to just race round race round and those wigs in those days had these awful sort of drawstrings at the

back that you pulled in tight. And then you had to hide the drawstring right up underneath. The poor women, you know, they were going, the singers, they're going, ouch, ouch, you know, while you tuck them up. I don't know how I got round. I did manage to. There were two of us to begin with. And then, of course, my colleague dropped dropped out and I seemed to somehow manage on my own. One of the rooms, they were fairly good. They used to put their own wigs on and I'd go in and just you know pin them down and they'd be okay. Tell us about some of the incredible names that you've worked with. Wow, we haven't got time, I don't think. Your highlights then.

My highlights, I suppose, was meeting people like Pavarotti and De Margot Fonteyn, wonderful dancers. I mean, all those sort of people in the opera world were absolutely glorious. Placido Domingo. I mean, I could go on naming masses. What about Joan Collins? I'm interested, Joan Collins. Well, Joan Collins was later on when I was working freelance and I was asked to make the wigs for a clandestine marriage. And I went to her apartment to do the fitting and she said to me,

I've got a short attention span so will this take long and probably not what you want to hear is it no however I did manage to do it but we we were in a lovely bathroom which was all champagne colour and very low lighting so it was a bit tricky because very difficult to get your measurements right and all that sort of thing but uh we managed it and the and the wigs were terrific you know but i there was a little bit of an a bit of an impasse with the um the production because um apparently i shouldn't have been making them and what happened was in the end i did make them just for her, I didn't do the rest of the film. You've worked with other amazing people. Judi Dench?

Well, she's wonderful, but she's very, very naughty when you're on stage with her, and I'm sure she's exactly the same when she's on film. She will get up to all sorts of tricks and pranks and drive people wild, you know, and she remains almost this sort of angelic, it wasn't me, you know, that sort of thing. I can remember her pinching my arm. I hope she's listening. Pinching my arm at the side of stage waiting to do a quick change, hoping that you're

going to scream all out and you daren't. No, you just can't so things like that yeah tell us how you go about making a wig because these wigs here are absolutely beautiful and i was saying to you before we came on air that that one of the wigs which is a a short slightly wavy auburn wig the thing that is incredible about it is is the the hairline at the front on a sort of cheap i'm thinking about the halloween wig i'm wearing to a party on saturday night hideous it is is the the hairline at the front on a sort of cheap i'm thinking about the halloween wig i'm wearing to a party on saturday night hideous it is very very cheap but it's on a it's on a in sort of just coming out of a cap if you like but there it looks like real little bits of hair coming out of skin they are pieces of hair and this is on this is on a quite a fine stage lace

it's a stock wig so it's quite. It's seen a bit of service. And it can go into other styles. It didn't have to be in this style. But I thought I'd just show how, you know, the Jean Harlow of the 1930s used to look. But this is a redhead. Of course, those listening can't see it. But it's...

You'll see it on social media later. And the hairs go in one at a time on the front hairline. They go in one at a time. So how long does that take? Well, it depends on who's knotting it. If I'm knotting it, it probably takes me quite a while. I'm very particular about how it's going to look. Fronts can take maybe a day.

So if you're going in to measure Jane Collins to make a wig, from start to finish, how long are you spending on a wig? Myself, I'd probably be spending about 10 days. Wow. 10 days to two weeks but I mean if it was someone like Joan Collins she had wigs which were 18th century and they had wire frames that were built to go on the top so that the hair is then dressed over that so that that takes quite a bit of doing. I presume that's a skill as an actor to be able to balance or not? Well, it's all to do with balance, yes. But you get the balance right and it just sits.

But it also is tied with a very fine ribbon under the chin, yes. Do you have a favourite wig that you've created or the perfect wig? Is there such a thing um i don't think i have a favorite wig no uh i think i'm always trying to make a really good man's wig so that he doesn't look as though he's wearing one. I mean, I've made them for the Les Miserables. And I said, I made one for Alfie Bowe. And it was quite a funny situation with him because very often actors will listen to, you know, their fans, or their friends, and not listen to the person who knows what they're talking about. Is that an ego at all?

Well, he's a lovely chap, but for some reason he'd combed his own wig into what can only be described as the mullet look. And I was so shocked when he walked out on stage. But I went in and I did say to him, look, you just kind of, oh, they all said it looks great like this. I said, no, no, no, no, you can't be seen with it like that. You've always been very good at standing up for yourself as well. And we don't have a lot of time left.

But I love the fact that your book is called. My Name Is Not Wigs. Because? Because when I worked at the Royal Opera House, when I first went into the ladies dressing room, all I could hear was wigs, wigs. And in the end, I just thought I can't have that anymore. I went in, I said, I'm sorry, my name is not wigs. And I think this is something that happens throughout the industry. It's makeup, wigs, costume, but we've all got names.

And it takes nothing to learn someone's name. That's right. You're quite right. Listen, thank you so much for coming. It's been absolutely fascinating speaking to you and beautiful looking at the wigs you've brought in. Angela Cobb in there, wig designer, MBE. She has written her memoir, My Name Is Not Wigs.

And a fascinating read. Thank you so much for coming in. Lots of getting in touch with us about what you want to hear in the budget. One text here. I'm trying to keep working full time until I'm 66 to get a full state pension. I'm struggling to do this

and look after my mother who's over 90. I wish I'd been educated in money and pensions when I was younger. My friends who had jobs with pensions all retired early, but I think it's going to be really challenging for people moving forward. That's all we've got time for on this edition of Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your company today and all of your messages and we'll be back at the same time again tomorrow

morning. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. I hope you can join us again next time. Thanks for listening to the podcast. I'm here to tell you about Deadhouse. Deadhouse is a trilogy of immersive audio horror shorts by Darkfield and BBC Radio 4. Each of the three episodes, Bethlehem, Salem and Xanadu, takes a different look at the separation between mind and body, placing you in the centre of disconcerting environments that feel unnervingly real. So, if you like original horror, put your headphones on, close your eyes, and meet yourself in the Dead House. Subscribe now on BBC Sounds. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

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