Woman's Hour - Candi Staton, Narcissistic mother 'Bethany', Author Emma Cline, Smart phones in school, Nurses

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Four-time Grammy award nominated singer Candi Staton has moved between several musical genres during of the course of her celebrated career – from soul, R&B, gospel and disco. However, dance music has always been her main groove with iconic tracks such as the multi-platinum 'You Got the Love' and her classic anthem 'Young Hearts Run Free'. It has recently been remixed by UK producer Benji La Vida and has had more than 2.4 million streams on Spotify alone, and there are 60,000 TikTok reels of people doing a dance challenge to the song. Candi is in the UK to play the Kite Festival of Ideas and Music in Oxfordshire this Saturday. She joins Nuala to discuss her life and music.Ghana's health system is struggling due to their nurses being recruited by high-income countries, according to the head of the International Council of Nurses. So what is it that makes Ghanaian Nurses want to come and work in the UK? Angela is a nurse from Ghana who also works with the Ghanaian Diaspora Nursing Alliance – she joins Nuala to discuss.Eight primary schools in a town in Ireland have come together and decided together to ban smartphones, Nuala speaks to Principle Rachel Harper, the leader of the initiative and Parent and PTA member Laura Bourne, to find out why and how it's been received. In our series about narcissistic mothers we have heard from the daughters so far. Today, a listener we are calling Bethany tells her side of the story. Her relationship with her daughter had been strained for a long time. In January she received a book in the post about how to spot and deal with a narcissistic mother, some passages were highlighted, and a letter. Since then she has not seen her daughter or her grandchildren. How does it feel to be labelled a narcissist and how can you move forward from there?In 2016, at the age of 27, Emma Cline became very famous indeed when her first novel The Girls was published. Set in the summer of 69 in California 14 year old Evie is caught up in a Manson Family-like cult and the violence that follows. In her new novel ‘The Guest’ Alex is a young woman whose life could go either way. She exploits the men around her as they exploit her but what does she want and where will she end up?Presented by Nuala McGovern Producer: Louise Corley Editor: Karen Dalziel

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, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. We have a disco queen on the programme today, Candy Staten. Can you believe her song Young Hearts Run Free is almost 50 years old? Well, it's been given a new lease of life with dance routines on TikTok. We're going to talk to Candy about that, but also her life and career from touring from the age of 12 to now back on the festival circuit at the age of 83. Also today, we want to continue our conversations about narcissistic mothers. Today, we'll look at how it feels to be labelled as one.

So that's coming up. Also, it takes a village. Eight primary schools in a town in Ireland have come together and decided to ban smartphones. We'll hear why and how it's going. Also, the International Council of Nurses, the ICN, they've said they're concerned about the scale of numbers that are leaving countries like Ghana for places like the UK. Well, I would love to hear from you

if you are a woman that has taken that path. Are you a nurse working in the UK but from another country? What was your motivation? What are your plans? Stay in the UK or eventually return? country. What was your motivation? What are your plans? Stay in the UK or eventually return? I want to hear it all. You can text us. The programme number is 84844.

Also at BBC Woman's Hour or email us through our website. If instead you'd like to send a voice note or a WhatsApp message, that is 03700 100 444. And if that's not enough. Also today, the author Emma Klein. Now you might have read and loved,

like I did, The Girls. And I also loved her latest book, The Guest. It is so tense. Also a thrilling read about a young woman who skewers the absurdity of life in the wealthy enclaves off Long Island in New York. We'll be speaking to Emma, who will be in studio later this hour. So 84844 if you want to get in touch. But let me turn to Ghana in particular. Their health system,

as I alluded to there, is struggling due to their nurses being recruited by high income countries. Now, it's according to the head, the ICN, of one of the world's biggest nursing groups, the International Council of Nurses. In 2022, let's take a look at some of the numbers. More than 1,200 Ghanaian nurses joined the UK's nursing registry. And the nurses have told from Ghana that the BBC, that in the UK, they could earn more than seven times what they make in Ghana. So that is some figure. Ghana is on the WHO's list of 55 vulnerable countries. They have low numbers of nurses per head of population.

The list is dubbed as the red list. It's designed to discourage systematic recruitment in those countries that are on that list. And although the UK says active recruitment in Ghana is not allowed, social media means that nurses can easily see the vacancies that are available in NHS trusts. Well, I can speak to someone who made that journey. Angela is from Ghana. She's a nurse here in the UK. She also works with the Ghanaian Diaspora Nursing Alliance. Angela, you're so welcome. Thank you very much. So what was your motivation? Why did you decide to come to the UK and nurse here instead of Ghana? I've always wanted to do more than the

services that I was offering to my patients back home. So when the opportunity opened up for nurses to be able to move to the UK, I have friends in the UK that would tell me about the advanced nursing. They were doing the sort of equipment they were doing, how they were nursing their patients. And it always sparked interest in me. So I had some personal life difficulties at the time as well and I thought, okay, this is probably the time to make the move. So that was primarily why I came. And how did you know about those opportunities? It was shared on Facebook by a friend of mine

whose friend worked in the NHS. And so how has your experience been compared to what you were expecting? So, obviously, moving into a new environment, it's tough. You leave behind everything you love, everything you know, to come and see, you know, a new opportunity. There are many challenges socially, economically, and we can talk about the difficulties in trying to settle. Sometimes in an environment with people who don't really understand you and where you're coming from, you meet people who have never heard about your country, and it's about having them to believe that you are a nurse in your own right.

So there's been quite a few challenges, but, you know, I've weathered the storms. So is that professionally, Angela, that you found difficulties or was that more personally? I'm just wondering about the nursing aspect, about people believing you're a nurse. Yeah, professionally, there are quite a few challenges. Even the route to migrate comes with quite a few restrictions within that visa route. Professionally, you come, you're tied to an employer. Obviously, you are free to move whenever you want to,

but it's not easy just jumping from one employer to the other you want that stability so you want to be happy where you are and sometimes in my opinion during my time the trust I went to they did not recognize me as a nurse they said you could cut you can call yourself anybody can can call themselves whatever they wanted to. And I don't know why, I don't know where that misconception is, that we are not equal to the task. It's so interesting because this is all about recruitment, right, from Ghana specifically, but you're coming up against that obstacle. But tell me on the flip side, what the benefits have been. It has been marvellous. I am privileged to, you know, get to the level that I wanted to. The reason why I came is to seek progression. And currently, I'm just rounding up my master's

in clinical research from King's College London. It came with a lot of hurdles and a lot of pain, but I've had the opportunity opened up to me to be able to advance as a nurse, which I probably wouldn't have back home. There are lots of specialist areas that are open to me. All I need to do is express interest and go for it. So, you know, we often hear about how stretched the NHS is, how difficult it is to work in those circumstances. And how is your day-to-day life as a nurse compared to

at home in Ghana, for example? In the NHS, obviously, it's a different country, different policies, procedures and everything. It's very different um there are lots of activities that comes with the very basic aspect of nursing back home we get to spend more time with our patients because we don't have tons and tons of paperwork you know that we need to do and we tend to have more nurses on the floor compared to the NHS. In the NHS, you can go to work and you're shot by one or two nurses to have to get the job done according to the standards that have been laid down, you know, for you to do. And are the standards much different in the level of healthcare that patients are getting in Ghana or in the UK, according to you? And it is just this one person, of course,

that we're hearing from, but delighted to hear from you, Angela. The standards, obviously, in both countries, I would say, obviously, is for a positive patient outcome, okay? It's just that, obviously, we have different protocols, we have different policies,

we have different pathways. So the UK has its own, which obviously being a first world and being with the equipments and the processes they have is way higher than what we have we have fewer you know less um equipments less things to have to deal with compared to the uk so we deal with way more in the uk than what we do back home. I understand. You paint the picture very clearly. But what about this aspect about, you know, red list countries?

Should Ghana be doing more to keep somebody like you at home? And would you go back? I would like to believe that, you know, the governing bodies are already doing their best. Obviously we have challenges in terms of creating opportunities for nurses to advance

and specialize and do the things that I wanted to do when I was in Ghana. Hence, that made me want to come in here. So as part of the Ghana Nurse Association and the Ghanaian Diaspora Nurse Alliance, you know, we're looking at giving nurses the opportunities that we come in here to pursue, you know, giving them the opportunities to specialize, giving them the opportunities to have a feel of some of these innovations that we are privileged, you know, to have here in the UK. I remember when I first

moved here, I would cry when I get home from work because I thought, oh my God, what if that patient that I had back home, you know, got these things that we have here in England. It's such an interesting thought. I mean, did you feel guilty for using your skills here instead of at home or was it more about the level of health care or equipment that you could offer your patients at home no it wasn't the guilt because I know there are still quite a lot of nurses back home even nurses that are still looking for work and cannot find my pain was you know not we not having some of the things that you have we have here in England we don't have them back home okay and I just thought to myself if we had these specialist nurses if we had these equipments maybe you know just maybe when I was there I could have done more

for my patients. Thank you so much for shining a light, telling us your story. I wish you well. Angela, thanks so much for really explaining how it is between the two countries. That's with Ghana. If you are in another country, from another country, should I say, or maybe if you're in a different country as well, maybe you've gone through it, maybe you're listening online, but you're a nurse. I'd love to hear from you. 84844, what was the motivation that you left your country and decided to come to the UK? How have you found it?

Was it like Angela's experience? Let us know here on Woman's Hour. But just while I was speaking to Angela there, a superstar came into the studio. Four-time Grammy Award nominated singer, Candy Staten has moved

between several musical genres during the course of her celebrated career. Soul, R&B, gospel, disco and dance music has been a mainstay. There's been iconic tracks such as the multi-platinum You've Got the Love or the anthem Young Hearts Run Free. And it has recently been remixed, if you feel you've been hearing it again a lot, by UK producer Benji La Vida. And it has had more than 2.4 million streams on Spotify alone. 60,000 TikTok reels of people doing the dance challenge to the song, which I really enjoyed. So great to have you in with us.

It's great to be here. And you are with us because I want to get people, they'll be dancing around and saying, hang on, where is she going to be? You're going to play the Kite Festival of Ideas and Music in Oxfordshire this Saturday, among other places, which I will let people know. But how does it feel to hear that song, to know that you've got this whole other generation that are now dancing to your music? Isn't it amazing? After all these years, after all these years, David Crawford was my producer.

And the strangest thing happened during the session. We had just both signed with Warner Brothers and they were looking for a producer. And I had known David Crawford for many years, and we always wanted to get together and do,

but I was always with other labels, so we couldn't do it. And this was the point in time. I was in L.A., California, Los Angeles, and he was there, and he was looking for an artist, and I was looking for a producer. And do you know he fasted for 40 days for this song? What do you mean? Fasted, no food, water and just juices for 40 days.

And he told me, he said, I'm going to write your song that's going to last forever. And at the moment, I didn't know what he meant. I said, David, my goodness. Okay, well, whatever. And when I was, I saw him, I told him my story about the abuse. And I was with someone at the time that I couldn't get away from. And he was threatening me and my family and my children. And I would sit there and I would tell him about it over lunch. And I realized he was writing something down. And he was actually writing Young Hearts Run Free. And he got in the studio and he finished it.

And I put it out while I sung it. He came in the studio in the room where I was, you know, the vocal booth, we call it. And he said, I'm finished and I'm going to run it down one time for you and maybe you can catch on. But it was so mean. It didn't take much to catch on because I was just singing my story in three minutes. And I walked in the studio, and he sung it down and let me know how it went. And it was like a natural, you know.

And I sung it. I said, okay, just let it roll. And I sung the song once. He said, you can come in now. I got what I want. I said, but I was just practicing. He said, no, that wasn't a practice. He said, that was you.

And that was from your heart. Now you can do it again if you want to, but I'm using the first. And so that's how that song was birthed. How amazing. Isn't that amazing? I'll never listen to the song in the same way again. And usually they listen.

I read something that said, when you're younger, you listen to the beat. When you get older, you listen to the lyrics. And that's what's happening now with our young people. The young generation are listening to the lyrics and it's telling their stories. And that's why I think it went viral. That's amazing. You started out performing gospel at the age of five.

Yes, ma'am. And by 12, then touring with the Jewel Gospel Trio what do you remember of that time I mean when I was working out this was a time of segregation I can't imagine it was horrible you know doing those days that was in the 50s and was segregation it was really bad especially especially in the South. I can imagine. And so what happened, we used to travel together. I would travel with Sam Cooke.

He was with the Soulsters, with Lou Rawls. He was with the Pilgrim Travelers. I was traveling with staple singers and Ruth Franklin and Mahalia Jackson. And we would all ride in caravans. We all had cars following each other going through the South. And we had safe houses. We couldn't stay in the, like, they didn't have a Holiday Inn for us. They didn't have any nice places for us.

So we had safe houses. And we would all make it to Shreveport or we'd make it to Texas or we'd make it somewhere that we could all stay in the same house that they had prepared for us. Because if you were caught alone, you don't know what might happen to you. So we all just stayed together, and we got to know each other like family. I knew Sam so well. We had many, many, many conversations. Lou Rawls and, oh my goodness, the Staples singles. Mavis and I were just like twin sisters. We would run around playing

and, you know, like kids do. But it was just an amazing time of my life. Yeah, what a slice of history, Candy. You've recorded 30 albums. You spent many years focusing on... And I'm working on the next one. Yes, I know. You are going for it and continue to go for it. This was really, I suppose with the early years, we're talking about gospel music as well. But with your sister,

you've recorded, you're talking about a new album, a new version of Peace in the Valley. She was one of the Jewel Trio. Jewel Trio as well. It was Naomi, Maggie and myself. We were the Jewel Trio. It was Naomi, Maggie and myself. We were the Jewel Trio. But coming up to today, you have recorded a new version of Peace in the Valley.

That was a song that Elvis used to sing. And then the album is called Back to My Roots. But why did you choose this song? I don't know. I have always loved it. We used to sing it when my mom was alive. I was born in Alabama. We had no music. We'd sit on our porch at night and she would read us the Bible.

And we would sing songs like that. We could get radio, you know, a little bit of radio, not much. So we learned that song and we'd sit there and my mother would sing with us and we'd sing Peace in the Valley. And so at the Roots album, we decided to go back and get all of our as many Roots songs. songs on the album myself but it sounded like you know the original gospel music and that's what we were we're headed for the original gospel sound yeah you can yeah very much feel it yeah and the rhythm of it music has changed gospel music especially has changed so much when i was in gospel music there were no musicians. They didn't believe. It was very religious. And they only believed in a keyboard player or a guitar player. And the quartet singers would slap their hips.

They had a bass. It was so funny. The bass would be the mouth. They had a bass person with a boom, boom, boom. And they would be slapping their heels. That was your percussion then on your leg. Yeah. Oh, I'm going home.

I'm going home. You know, that kind of stuff. That's the roots. Wow. So we wanted to kind of get a little bit of that in there and I pray that people can, the young people especially, they don't know anything about that type

of music. But you're going to bring them to it. I'm going to bring it back. I want to turn to You Got the Love. And for our listeners, originally released in 1986, remixed, re-released, 91, 97, 2006, number two in the UK dance singles charts, number one in 1986, remixed, re-released in 91, 97, 2006. Number two in the UK dance singles charts.

Number one in the UK club charts. Covered by so many. Can you count them all? I can't. I do remember Florence and the Machine. You know, that continue. I hear it often as well. Such wonderful, uplifting lyrics.

And we all go through it. Sometimes we do feel like throwing our hands up in the air, but we know we can count on God. That's what the song is all about. Because He is always there. He's never going to leave us, and He'll never forsake us. When I went through two years of, I had breast cancer, and I went through, when that song really hit me,

I was just singing it before, you know, just singing it because I liked it. But when I would go down the hallway for chemo, I would throw my hands up in the air and say, sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air. I know I can count on you. Sometimes I feel like saying, Lord, I just don't care, but you got the love I need to see me through. And he saw me through every session. And I feel like saying, Lord, I just don't care. But you got the love I need to see me through. And he saw me through every session. And I'm here today because I threw my hands in the air and I counted on God and he saw me through. I'm cancer free. I'm so delighted for you. Long may you have good health and happiness. Lots of happiness going to be happening at the

Kite Festival, as I mentioned, on Saturday, Oxfordshire. Glastonbury loves Supreme Festivals later in the summer. Thank you so much for coming in to us, Candy Staten. It's a pleasure. I haven't been here for four years and I'm so excited. Well, you come back to us again on Woman's Hour. Woman's Hour will be broadcasting from

Glastonbury for the first time on Friday, the 23rd of June. Anita Rani will be broadcasting from Glastonbury for the first time on Friday, the 23rd of June. Anita Rani will be there bringing listeners the latest from the festival. But thank you so much, Candy, for coming in. Thank you for having me.

What an uplifting message to have from Candy there. I want to move instead from the studio. We're going to pop over to Ireland for a few minutes to talk about phones. 55% of 8 to 11-year-olds

own a mobile phone. That's according to Ofcom's most recent survey from parents. That was March 2023. By 12 years of age, that figure jumps to 97%. And probably the majority of those are smartphones.

We've spoken many times on this programme about screen time or social media or smartphones and all the challenges that parents face trying to, how much do you limit the kids? You know, how much freedom should they have online? But the town is Greystones in County Wicklow and it takes a village is what we're saying about this one, because eight primary schools came together to agree on a bold plan right for parents and teachers to have a no smartphone code so no smartphones for the kids until at least secondary school which in Ireland would be 12

years of age let me bring in principal Rachel Harper hi Rachel good. Leader of the initiative and parent and PTA member, Laura Byrne. Hi, Laura. Let me start with you, Rachel. What was the specific concern about smartphones? Yeah, well, I suppose, you know, as a group of principals, we could see anxiety levels on the increase in our primary schools. And I suppose that would kind of range from at the worst extent you know school refusal or just trying to get the kids in in the morning or just anxiety around the unknown or you know different things that may arise throughout the day and I suppose from that then we decided to come together and just to see whether something that we could do as a community to try and help these children. And that's where the initiative came up.

It takes a village and it's a well-being, positive well-being, community led initiative. And part of the area that we were looking at was disregarding smartphones and social media. So you came up with the idea of reaching out to other primary schools. How quickly or how slowly was their buy-in? I'm just wondering, were people completely receptive when this was floated? Yeah, well, we could see that it was rolled out in one school already and it was going well. And we just thought how impactful it would be if all of the eight schools signed up at the same time so we were chatting around the table and we just thought if we could send out one email from all of us principals in the area to all the parents

so we sent out an email just to say that we were trying to roll out this initiative throughout the whole of Greystone's and Dalgady and that we were really encouraging parents to get behind it and that the parents association would be the ones that would be leading it on further and then I suppose at the end of the letter after all the reasons why we thought that it was good we all signed our names so a personal and signature went on the bottom so that was quite impactful because if you thought one school was being strict and if you read the email you'd see that all the all the principals had signed up so there must be something more into it so we were a little bit nervous wondering how parents would take it but I have to say I've just been so impressed and everybody has really been so

positive and really getting behind the initiative and I suppose the strength in this initiative is the more people sign up, the better. It is a voluntary code so it's up to parents to make that decision to sign up. But certainly around Great Dungeons and Dalgany there's been a huge amount of positive talk about it. Sorry to interrupt you there, but I'm just thinking, Rachel, why don't we pop over to Laura,

who's a parent and a member of the PTA. But your kid is young, right? Laura, if I've got that right, you're thinking ahead. Your kid is five? Yes, I have a five-year-old who is in his first year in St. Patrick's in the primary school

and my daughter will be starting there this September. So it's kind of perfect for me and for my cohort of moms because we're at the early stage. We're in the're kind of we're going to benefit from this the most. But is this I mean would there have been many kids or you know of friends that you know or that have kids in primary school that were accessing smartphones? From time to time I suppose you know if you're kind of Asian you might be letting them watch

Disney or something like that or they might watch something on Netflix. But I suppose, you know, a little and I think when it's monitored and supervised is fine. But it's the outside of that. It's kind of what you can't monitor and control when they kind of veer into YouTube or into spaces which aren't safe. Yeah, I was wondering what was your main concern? Like, why are you excited about this proposal? Because I suppose it feels you kind of when you think about the bullying that we kind of might have experienced, you know, from time to time growing up in schools, that left you at the school gates and you left it behind. You got to go home to a safe space.

But that's not really the case anymore in this day and age. You know, we're all plugged into these devices all of the time and we don't want our children to be the next generation of people coming forth who are going to be in the same the same boat so if we can kind of limit that and control it and not let it get out of hand um you know all the better and has everybody signed up i know you're a pta member was there any um you know people saying i don't want the school deciding what i can or cannot give my child no i haven't come across any resistance, you know, both from the PTA fellow members, but also from the majority of my friends. We were actually discussing it last night. It was a bank holiday over here.

So a few of the friends got together and we're all talking about what a positive initiative it is. You know, kind of safeguarding our children's development mentally and emotionally as much as possible for as long as we can.

You know, what's the harm in that? You know, there can only be positive outcome. I'm just going to go back to you again, Rachel, as principal. If not everybody will sign up, if a child does have a smartphone, their parent has decided to give it to them in primary school, is it going to be taken off them at the beginning of the day? What's the plan there? Or will they start? I don't know. I was thinking some sort of lucrative business, giving their smartphone to other kids. I'm just trying to think ahead here. Yeah, no, well, first of all, it's important to know that the children weren't allowed to bring phones to school, smartphones to school during the day, but it's

outside of school. And I suppose we could see kids using them outside of school. And then I suppose things that were happening at the weekend or sharing videos or different things would come back into school on the Monday or on the following day so we could see little parts of that and but if a child has their own phone I mean you know it is a voluntary code so I suppose we're kind of just putting an eye there to all the parents and the more parents that sign up the better because I suppose if there's a child in St Patrick's in our school that doesn't have a smartphone, if he or she goes to the tennis club or the rugby club at the weekend or on a camping trip, the hope is that it will become the norm across Greystowns and Doudna that it would just be normalised for them. And I suppose for the children themselves, there's a sense of fairness

there than if most people are the same or most people are signing up and again we're having a great response to it so I really do even from kids 90 plus yeah and I would say with children you know that once you explain it to them carefully um and I suppose it's important to say to them look it's not you can't have a phone we're just asking you to wait until secondary and just to explain carefully our reasons why and by all eight schools signing up to this as secondary. And just to explain carefully our reasons why, and by all eight schools signing up to this as well, that it just means that we can roll out in schools in sixth class, which would be when they're 11, 12, some training,

and we can get, you know, professional trainers in just to talk to the kids about, you know, they're going to be getting a phone next year in secondary school and it's going to be, you know, very useful for them, but just some of the things to note before they get their hands on one and you know it's important to note that look we're not against technology or anything it's just you know the kids at primary level we feel that they're just not emotionally ready uh for everything on a smartphone it's just you know the click of a button they can reach worlds that their parents are so unaware of and, you know, their teachers, etc. And it's just asking them to hold off until they're a little bit older.

We feel their childhood is getting shorter and shorter. So it's just another way to try and extend this and protect them for a little bit longer. Let's see how it goes. Really interesting experiment. I know other towns are interested as well. Rachel Harper and Laura Bourne, thank you both so much. Now, I want to move on to another conversation that has been continuing on Women's Hour.

Back in March and April, we broadcast interviews with women about their experience of being raised by women who they considered to be narcissists. We first heard from two sisters. One was convinced that their mother was a narcissist.

The other wasn't so sure. Then we talked to a woman who's cut off all contact with her mother. She felt it was her only option to protect herself. Well, today we're going to hear from a listener we're calling Bethany. She contacted us after those interviews aired because she wanted to tell the other side of the story. Back in January, Bethany received a letter and a copy of a book about how to identify a narcissistic mother. A quick internet search will bring up numerous books and articles in this vein. And the book and the letter came from her daughter. Now, Bethany was keen to tell us how it feels for her to be labelled a narcissist by her own child. Obviously, what you are going to

hear is her side of the story. It has been voiced by an actor. Our reporter, Enna Miller, asked Bethany first to describe her daughter. She's beautiful. She's very, very talented. She's become a mum to my two glorious grandchildren. And she is an uber mother. She's had a very complicated mental health journey since she was probably around 12 Which makes where she is in her life now all the more astonishing

Do you have any lovely memories of when you were a mother in her childhood? She would throw her arms around my neck and squeeze her face into my face so hard She would almost bruise my cheekbones but I loved it absolutely loved it that same beautiful intelligent girl thinks you're a monster I don't know if she genuinely believes that but it's something that's been building in her for a very long time decades she told me she has this memory of being on the tube. We were on the way to the theatre, she must have been about nine I think she tells me, we were walking up the steps of the tube and we were in a rush to get to the theatre because

probably as usual I was late and there was a shall we say Rubenesque woman in front of us. And I made a personal comment about it. She said that the thought that struck her like a bolt of lightning was that, oh my God, that's something else my mother is going to judge me about and I'm going to have to keep an eye on. I've got to constantly make sure I'm thin because that's something else my mother will be critical about. It sounds like something I would have said. And you know, I'm a product of my period. It's not an excuse, but it is a rationale. And I realise now that saying that hurt her really badly. You say that she said,

that's another thing I've got to look out for. So when it's another thing, do you know what the other things were? I must have said a lot of things that stuck with her and added to that. Because you're right, that suggests there were lots. I was a young mum. I was in my 20s, not exactly fully cooked. Someone might hear that and just think, oh, it was a comment. Big deal. Yeah. You know, I've shared that with some of my closest girlfriends and I've said, you know, these are some of the things I've said to my daughter that have had a really horrible

impact on her. And their response has been, you know, well, we've all said things like that, you live with it. And I've thought since they're right, but that doesn't make it right. I said to her not that long ago after my grandson was born, I said, you look really well, love. And she heard, you've put on weight, you're getting fat. And she told me that's what she heard. But that wasn't what I said. Consequently, I'm terribly sensitive about saying anything because it's somehow or another between my mouth and her head. The intent has changed and it lands with a completely different message and I can't do anything about it. So I've stopped saying things. I've just stopped. About a year ago, maybe a little bit more, 18 months ago, she said, I'm a bit jealous.

I think you only ever call me because you're interested in my children. You're not interested in me. And I thought, I can see why she would think that because I'm so terrified of asking her anything. I'm so terrified of the response. I've stopped expressing interest in her because I didn't want my head to be bitten off. And then when she said that to me, I thought, oh, there's a bit of hope. She does want to engage with me. And I thought, I'm going to make a point, actually. When I phone her, I'm not going to immediately start launching into chatting with my grandson and asking her about my granddaughter. I'm going to specifically ask her about her, what's going on with her,

how she's feeling, what's she up to. I started doing that. Do you know something? It's really weird. It seems to have got worse since that. The more effort I made, the worse it got. I was walking a tightrope all the time. So while you're having a chat, your brain is working at the same time. What can I say that's not going to offend? So I was having these dual conversations, the one I'm having out loud with my daughter and the internal one telling me what I had to not say, what I should say to make sure I didn't hack her off. Because always at the back of my mind, I thought, I wonder if she'll ever stop me seeing my grandchildren. She'll just withdraw completely. And lo and behold, she did.

I understand it's very raw for you because it actually wasn't that long ago. No, no, things were really going downhill. They were spiralling out of control. And I just couldn't find a solution. And she would start saying things. Whereas perhaps before she'd just been suppressing them. She was starting to raise issues like, you once did this and you once did that. And that really bothers me because I don't

want my daughter being affected by these things. And I'm, you know, I'm worried about the things you're going to say to her, which made me even more terrified about talking to her. My grandson came along and our relationship really did seem to massively improve. I was useful. I wanted to be useful for her. I thought, this is good, this is good, because I'm showing her that I can be. I'm sorry. No, it's okay. It's okay. I wanted to show her.

I wanted to show her that I'd been a bit of a crap mum. And I knew I had. But I was going to be a really good mum for her, but also be a wonderful grandmother, because I didn't have anything like that. I thanked her, I think, once in a text saying, you've made me a grandmother and it's the greatest thing. And I also thought being a mum might help her understand no mum is perfect. Then she had her daughter. And then she had my beautiful granddaughter. And it never occurred to me that she might have a bit of postnatal depression.

I did know she was grieving about her dad. Her dad died while she was pregnant. But I was still doing what I thought were the right things to support her. I didn't really understand that, actually, she didn't want me there. Things went really bad when in the new year we had a friend come and visit who's known her since she was a little girl and is very fond of her and we were going to drop by and see her but I got this very frosty reception from my son-in-law at the door and it became obvious he wasn't going to let us come in. And when I got home, my husband had spotted my phone go off and he saw it was a text. He read it and then he deleted it. He said, you don't need to read that. And he was cross with her because he could see this deteriorating behaviour and this

vilification of me as her mum. And when you say vilification, do you think any of that vilification was justified? Now I can look back and think I was such a remote mum in some ways. And I'm talking about physically remote rather than emotionally remote. I was a selfish mum. It takes years, age and hindsight to look back and go, I didn't do a very good job of that, did I? I knew that I loved being a mother and perhaps I didn't,, I didn't do a very good job of that, did I? I knew that I loved being a mother and perhaps I didn't, maybe I didn't show it that I was absent, but I felt joy at being a mum. I was busy being a very practical mum and not maybe giving them quality time. I thought it was quality time because it was doing all the things, you know, that the mothers and parents are supposed

to do. Put a roof over their heads, feed them and make sure they're in bed early. Read them a bedtime story. We were all children. So we all know that we wanted hugs, being there on sports day, you know, opening your packed lunchbox and your mum's cut your sandwiches into squares and circles and all these little things that say say I love you that aren't the practical. Everything I have done was about saying to her, this is my way of showing you I love you. You said, and I quote, that you were an absent mum. So if you were an absent mum, does that absence sort of communicate that I don't love you? Evidently it did. Her dad and I both put, for a long time, our relationship first.

And then as we became increasingly estranged, I put myself first. Yeah, I did. Completely selfishly. I didn't stop loving my children, but I wanted to do what I wanted to do. You know, I was in my thirties. I encouraged them to be independent. That was probably selfish, partly selfish, but it was also partly because that's how I grew up. I didn't have the hugs. I never had a bedtime story. Normal things that I now know and recognise are part of a normal childhood were completely absent from mine. You've said thoughtless and you've said selfish and you've said absent quite a few times. Can you give me an example? Her dad and I, he always felt couples need to have time

together. He insisted that we have at least 10 days, sometimes two weeks, but it was usually 10 days because funnily enough, I always missed them after 10 days. I was desperate to get back to them, but we travel the world and do different things. And sometimes we'd thoughtlessly book them without thinking, is it the children's birthdays? He had quite a high flying job and it was difficult for him to know when to take time off. And I think she resented the fact that I didn't point out to him, why are we going away now? We should be here. Why didn't you? We just didn't register. Thoughtless.

And did it matter to her? I think it did. Yeah, I think it did. And I can see why it did now. I mean, we'd come back with some beautiful gift or something. She'd go and spend time with her grandparents who loved and adored her. Would I do it now? If they were that age now? No, I wouldn't. But we did then. We both did. But I can understand why she's perhaps more angry with me about it. It's this expectation that mothers are more thoughtful, I think. So then, in I think it was January January she sent you the letter and the book? Yeah so I'd looked after the children for a few hours on the weekend

a week went by and I didn't hear anything I then texted her and I didn't get a reply back from that and then I realised there was something significant going on but I did start to have this kind of terror. I rang her after a week and I was upset. I just wanted to talk to her and just say, you know, what's going on? We've got to a really bad place. How can we make it better? And she was really cold. She said, I started writing to you with a book. And I said, what's the book? And she said, well, I don't want to tell you what the book is. I've highlighted some bits in it that I think are how I feel about our relationship, which I want you to read. And then maybe you'll get an

idea of why I feel the way I do. I said, oh, okay. I was trying to say to her, I'm interested. We left it at that. So another couple of days went by and it arrived. When I saw the title, I felt like I'd been punched. Am I? Am I a narcissist? Is what this book is telling my daughter is this true about me well tomorrow you can hear what bethany read in the sections of the book that her daughter had highlighted and also how she felt about it and if you want to find the details of where you can find all the

episodes in this series so far they're on the woman's hour website on today's page. Really interesting listen there. I want to move on or move back maybe really to 2016 I guess because at the age of 27 my next guest Emma Klein became very famous indeed when her novel The Girls was published.

You might remember it, you might have read it, you might have loved it like I did. It was set in the summer of 69 in California. 14 year old Evie is caught up in a Manson family-like cult and the violence, of course, as well, that follows, if you remember. But she has a new novel. It's called The Guest. Alex is a young woman whose life could go any way, really, it feels. It begins with her drifting and that is really a verb I feel that conjures up this

novel. She's drifting in the sea and she observes that in the water she was just like everyone else. No way to tell whether she belonged here or didn't. Welcome Emma Cline. Thank you so much for having me. Right let's talk about this woman in the center of the story. She's 22. She's kind of lost. She's boxed herself out of New York City and found herself at loose ends. And I think she kind of just sees every day as a question of survival on a very base level. And it's a thriller, I think. And it's so tense. You say grifter, I say drifter.

But it does definitely have, through her, because she brings us with us, two really wealthy enclaves in Long Island. Is it the Hamptons? Yeah. So it's based kind of on the east end of Long Island, the Hamptons, which I think is such an interesting setting, because at least the times I've visited, it's a community that's so organized to kind of keep outsiders away. Like you need a resident parking pass to go to the beach. So there are signs both overt and less overt about who's supposed to be there, who belongs. So true. I remember getting on the Hampton Jitney one time going out to Montauk, and there was two seats, two seats, and there was one seat and the bag in the other seat. And I was like to somebody,

would you mind if I sat down there? And they're like, yes, I would. Which I just kind of think sums it up in a way. But getting back to Alex, I mean, it's kind of this drifting that she's doing. Let's talk a little bit about it, more about it, because she manages to almost be invisible in certain situations and very visible in others. Yeah, I think drifting, I mean, that's a great way to put it. I think of her as this kind of ghost, this chameleon, who does shapeshift, depending on the needs and desires of the people around her. And in a certain way, I think there are some crossovers with the

girls. I think I'm always interested in female performance. And Alex is a character who really literalizes a lot of my interest in that. Like she, her job is literally to, you know, be an attractive young woman, to create this facade of frictionlessness. And so it was interesting to kind of put her in these scenarios. Scenarios, but without a past or a future in a way. Yeah. Do you want to read a little for us to give our listeners a feel? I'll just read from the very beginning of the book. This was August. The ocean was warm and warmer every day. Alex waited for a set to finish before making her way into the water, slogging through until it was deep enough to dive.

A bout of strong swimming and she was out, beyond the break. The surface was calm. From here, the sand was immaculate. The light, the famous light, made it all look honeyed and mild. The dark European green of the scrub trees, the dune grasses that moved in whispery unison, the cars in the parking lot, even the seagulls swarming a trash can. On the shore, the towels were occupied by placid beachgoers. A man, tanned to the color of expensive luggage let out a yawn.

A young mother watched her children run back and forth to the waterline. What would they see if they looked at Alex? In the water, she was just like everyone else. Nothing strange about a young woman swimming alone. No way to tell whether she belonged here or didn't. And there we begin to get a feel of it. But as she moves through and having, I suppose, these observations of the life that is being lived out in this part of Long Island, a lot of it appears somewhat fuzzy. Because like that water, you know, when you're kind of in

the water or on the beach and it's like things aren't that clear. Some of it is to do with the prescription drugs that she seems to be taking on a daily basis whenever she can. But there's also at times incredibly sharp details that we see. And talk to me a little bit further about Alex in that way and the performance that she is carrying out. So I thought of Alex as somebody who, you know, she does have this void at her center. There is something about how she's disassociating through her life with drugs and just mentally she can in many ways absent herself from what she's doing and what's happening. But at the same time, she is very perceptive about the world around her and about people that she encounters.

So kind of how to write a character who is both very knowing and has this major blind spot about themselves and their interiority. But you talk about the girls as well, which we touched on briefly. And there is overlap, I think, right? And we worry about this woman girl that Alex is and the girl that Evie is. Is that something that's in your day to day consciousness worrying about, I don't know, the fate of certain women that perhaps don't have that anchor? Yeah, I mean, I think just as a writer, I'm so drawn to the female experience

and kind of coming at it from different angles. And I do feel like, you know, Evie was a 14-year-old. It's such a different time of life. Everything's so heightened. You're just starting to come up against what the expectations of the world has for you, has in store for a young woman. And Alex is much more canny, much more knowing.

But at the same time, she also comes up against the limitations of kind of female power and what it means to be an object. In some ways, she objectifies herself as opposed to having it done for her. And there's an interesting kind of power in that. But then, of course, also that's limiting. Is it painful to write those characters? Because I, okay, I don't know an Alex,

but there are little parts of Evie and Alex that you might see in people. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think it was a little more excruciating to write a 14-year-old character, just because that age is so raw. And once you start kind of casting back to how it felt to, you know, live every day at this emotional fever pitch, or at least I did, you know, it can be very painful. I think Alex in some ways, even though she does experience a lot of, you know, strange and bizarre and dark things, there's something about her consciousness that I could almost enjoy writing. You know, she does things that I would never do or, you know, that she's a character who acts outside of our moral codes.

And there's something fascinating. Well, we don't know all our listeners, but yeah. I can't speak for everyone. But I just as a reader and a writer, those are always the characters I most like to follow. Do you know, there was, you're so good at those small details. Let's get down to the nitty gritty, the skin, the spots, the smells. Alex picking at that ingrown hair, for example,

or noticing that this child man that she's with has small feet and sheepskin slippers and a too big car. Are you always noticing that stuff as you walk around? No, not always. But I do think in this book for a character who is so disassociated and so outside of her experience, I think, especially her experience of her own body, it's like you can hide a lot from yourself you can pretend a lot isn't happening but you know if you have a stye in your eye that's something very literal that's something you have to experience in some way like the body doesn't lie um so to kind of have this character

who who is both living in the dream world but then sometimes has to kind of crash back down to the reality of the body and when i read about about Evie in The Girls, I remember thinking about a cult. I'd never be allowed going because I have a load of brothers and sisters. But you have even more like I always thought they would track me down and take me home. But you are the second of seven siblings. Your girls, your women are lone wolves. Is that deliberate in our last minute? Yeah. You know, I do think there's something funny about how most of my characters are only children.

But I do think I'm drawn to writing about communities and the hidden rules and hierarchies like of a commune or of a community like the Hamptons. And in a way, I think every family is its own community with its own hidden rules and language. So in some ways, I don't think it's totally, totally outside the bounds. I have to say, wonderful book. It's just so tense and I loved it. Thank you very much for coming in, Emma Klein. Just a couple of messages.

People, of course, also going to Candy saying, Candy, God of Gods, bought Young Hearts, run free as a teenager, saw her live at the Jazz Cafe. Club to you've got the love and still loving and worshipping her today, one of the greatest voices where humanity comes through every time

another from Donna, thank you for reminding me of you've got the love, sending it to my dear friend about to embark on her chemo journey for hope and strength as it was also for candy as she told us and lots of reaction to the smartphones, excellent idea, hopefully this will also for Candy, as she told us. And lots of reaction to the smartphones. Excellent idea.

Hopefully this will become the law to protect children from social media, says one. Vicky instead says, oh, I'm sorry for the children being deprived of the technology that they're going to need. Keep the messages coming. We'll try and read them. 84844.

Tomorrow, Polly Toynbee off the Guardian about her new book, An Uneasy Inheritance My Family and Other Radicals it's a great old read do join me then

and we'll talk about that and many other things on Woman's Hour but for today goodbye That's all for today's Woman's Hour join us again

next time Hello I'm India Axon and I just want to quickly talk to you about witches. In this series from BBC Radio 4, simply titled Witch, I'm going to explore the meaning of the word today. It is a twisting, turning rabbit warren of a world,

full of forgotten connections to land and to power, lost graves, stolen words, and indelible marks on the world. Because the story of the witch is actually the story of us all. Come and find out why on Witch with me, India Rackerson. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sarah Treleaven. And for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

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

It's a long story, settle in. Available now.