Woman's Hour - Candice Carty-Williams, Summer school plans, Campaign against DV in Iran

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

As two black British women writers – Bernadine Evaristo and Reni Eddo-Lodge - top the UK fiction and non-fiction book charts for the first time, Jane asks bestselling author of Queenie, Candice Carty-Williams and Sharmaine Lovegrove founder of Dialogue Books, what publishing houses should be doing to make the trend last. The hashtag #publishingpaidme has shown that in many cases globally black women were paid smaller advances than their white counterparts – could we now see a step-change in the way the publishing industry treats black writers and readers?Iranian film maker Mina Keshavarz on her new documentary The Art of Living in Danger – which follows female lawyers in Iran campaigning to make domestic violence illegal. Mina also talks about her grandmother who’d taken her own life after suffering domestic abuse – and how she inspired the film. In the latest instalment of our series Troupers we speak to Calina Toqir, a well-known figure in Glasgow’s Roma community, brought to our attention by the Govanhill Housing Trust. This week Education Secretary Gavin Williamson will apparently be setting out plans for pupils in England to attend Summer Schools after abandoning plans to get all primary pupils back to school for a month before the summer break. Will they reach the pupils who really need them? Susannah Hardyman is chief executive of the education charity Action Tutoring; Natalie Perera is executive director at the Education Policy Institute, an independent research charity; and Dave McPartlin is headteacher of Flakefleet Primary in Lancs - how do they think it could work?Presented by Jane Garvey Produced by Jane ThurlowInterviewed guest: Candice Carty-Williams Interviewed guest: Mina Keshavarz Interviewed guest: Calina Toqir Interviewed guest: Susannah Hardyman Interviewed guest: Natalie Perera Interviewed guest: Dave McPartlin

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. Welcome to the programme. We'll talk about the notion of summer schools for England a little bit later in this programme. If you've got any views on that, make sure you're listening a little bit later or you can email us via our website or tweet at BBC Women's Hour. And are you tempted to do some of that non-essential shopping today?

Perhaps you work in a shop. How do you feel about going back to work or about working in this new, very different retail environment? You can tell us your views on that as well this morning. But we are going to start by talking about publishing, by talking about British writing, specifically the fact, and it's something we noted on Friday's edition of the programme, that two black British women, Bernadine Evar it's something we noted on Friday's edition of the programme, that two black British women, Bernadine Evaristo and Renée Edo-Lodge, are currently top of, respectively, the fiction and UK non-fiction bestseller charts. It's the first time this has ever happened.

Quite recently, the hashtag Publishing Paid Me has shown that in many cases globally, black women writers are paid smaller advances than their white counterparts so um things really do have to improve in that area it would seem but we could be at a real moment of change here let's talk to two women who are closely involved in all this candice carty williams is the author of the best-selling novel queenie it's also available i should say on b Sounds. Candice, good morning to you. Good morning. And Charmaine Lovegrove is a publisher. She founded Dialogue Books back in 2016. Dialogue Books, Charmaine, is part of the wider Little Brown group, is that correct?

That's right, and also Hachette. Right, which is even bigger than Little Brown. Absolutely. So we have different federal companies and Little Brown is one of them and I'm really proud to be there. Okay. I mean, we should say, I suppose, just that simple fact illustrates the complexity of all this. The publishing world is a complicated one. And to most of us, it's a completely alien world, isn't it? Yeah, it's really interesting, you know, because when people talk to me about dialogue, they often think that we're an independent. There are many independents like Jacaranda and Hope Road and Consava Republic. But I'm at Little Brown and Hachette is the second biggest publishing house globally. And we're the biggest e-book retailer, sorry, publisher.

And it's really, really interesting to sort of be part of that ecosystem, but there's not enough of people like me. There's not enough black people in these positions, either acquiring books or in sales or across the board marketing publicity. So that's where it becomes quite complicated. Right, OK. Well, thank you for making that as clear as it's possible to make it, I should say. So you're relatively new to publishing.

Candice, you were in the publishing industry for quite some time. Tell us how you got into it and why you wanted to work in that world. So I didn't ever think that publishing would be something that I could do just because where I was coming from in my life, I didn't really understand the access would be something that I could do just because where I was coming from in my life, I didn't really understand the access that I had to working in books. But when I found out from a friend at university that you could work in books and not just in libraries, which is what I wanted to do, I applied to do internships because I kind of understood that was the only way that I would make my way in.

And after doing, I think, two or three internships long long term that's when I was offered a permanent job. But did it feel a welcoming place to you? No not especially I think something happens to the psyche when you are in a room with no one else who is like you and so I spent many years in those spaces in my head and quite literally, and not realising the damage that that was having on me, you know, to not have anybody who looked like me or represented what I did or stood for. And what about the books that were published

whilst you were there, the writers who were chosen, the money they were given? What would you say about that? So it still reflects what we're seeing today still. Smaller advances, not in the case of one really well-known author. But apart from that, it was the same situation, the same attention given, so very little attention given in terms of marketing, publicity, and all of these things I recognised were quite unfair.

And I never I mean, I did understand, but I could never quite understand the logical, logical reasoning behind that. I know it must have been very difficult because you did feel alone. But did you challenge this? Yeah, so about a year in, I started the Guardian Fourth Estate Short Story Prize, which was a really amazing thing and something that's still going. And that was to redress the balance in some way, because I didn't really understand why we weren't even seeing these voices come through and be heard and understood as being part of a literary space. And the hashtag publishing paid me. Did you, were you surprised by what that revealed? I guess not. No, not slightly. Not slightly at all. Because this is something that I've been in a position to see for such a long time. And now it's kind of just coming to light.

And also just, I guess, some of the authors who shared, I'd already known because I'd met them and spoken to them and I'd been amazed by how much money they'd received for what went on to be a really amazing body of work. So, I mean, Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist was reprinted maybe four or five times in the UK. And the advance was? I'm going to say, was it less than $10,000, I think?

I guess here it was much smaller. Yeah, I mean, the plain fact is, I guess most of us wouldn't have a clue what a reasonable advance for a book would be. What would you say about that, Charmaine? I think it's a really big issue that we have a system called comps where we look at what books came before and how well they did to work out what we should pay. If you're a black writer you don't have comps if you're writing about race and Britain and you know there's not that many people who've been given the space to be able to do that. And then when they're exceptional, like books like Candice or Bernardini Veristo, then with Girl, Woman, Other and with Queenie, then, you know, we're not allowed to really use those as comps because they're considered exceptional.

So it's a really challenging situation. But there's also a point of it about author care and the point with author care is that authors aren't really taken often are not taking through the system and the process so that they have greater clarity on what's happening because publishing is so big and that's a really big problem for us especially as black people because we feel you know what I could hear it it wasn't just about the money, it's about the knowledge of the process and being left behind and not being led to publication carefully. Of course, writers are often rather delicate, creative flowers. And I say

that with immense respect, because writers have brought me more pleasure than just about anybody else on the planet, I should say. They need nurturing. And somebody like Bernadine Evaristo has been a good writer for a long, long time, but seemingly Charmaine Little celebrated until recently. I've been a huge fan of Bernadine for the last 20 years. I think she's absolutely exceptional. And as a publisher, I like to follow in the footsteps of her publisher, Simon Prosser,

who is at Hamish Hamilton, where it's all about that sort of nurturing. And I'd like to think that my authors, so say, for example, Paul Mendes with Rainbow Milk or Arunasana Koji with Nudibran, you know, some of these authors, I can really nurture them to have long lasting future careers and not just be a one hit wonder or one hit obscurity. And I think that's really important. Right. Which brings us on to the situation where we are at a point where we have this. And it is extraordinary. It's an overused term. But Bernardine Evaristo and René Eddo-Lodge heading both the fiction and nonfiction bestseller charts. First time it's ever happened.

Candice, what do you think of this? And who do you believe is buying the books? And does it matter? So I think it's important to say that this conversation wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for, I mean, I wouldn't be on the radio now, if it wasn't for George Floyd's murder. So that's sad. You know, just makes upset um that we're here because of that sole incident um which contributes incidents um in the UK and the US and

across the world um and so I find it very hard to celebrate this um and I won't celebrate this um and I won't publicize my own book or market my own book off the back of I think it's appropriate so uh yeah just makes me feel really sad so um okay well no Charmaine go on I know you want to say something so I have a book called The Vanishing Half that's being that's by Brit Bennett and she didn't have a publisher in the UK with her first book The Mothers so I took it on and it's absolutely incredible. It's one of those books that will be on the shelves forever. That she's being published in this moment is an absolute coincidence.

So adversely, I can't not publicise her because we've had this set up for over a year and a half. You know, my team, Celeste and Millie, have done an absolutely incredible job. But you would say that you do share some of the qualms that Candice expressed there. I'm really angry that black people are still dying, being murdered brutally on the streets in the UK and in the US. And that that's the moment in which we are sort of looking at black voices. You know, I am really angry about that. But I don't want the books that would be coming out anyway, to be getting lost. And what we're seeing is that books that were published before are now taking the fall. But there's also there's lots of work that's been done,

being done alongside that with new authors. And that's what we need to sort of highlight, that not all the books that are coming out now are part of this, I really hate to call it a trend, it's heartbreaking what's happening. It's really difficult for all of us as black people. No, I mean, to call it a trend is obscene. And I absolutely understand why you'd have more than misgivings about saying exactly that.

But I would like to know from you, Candice, who you think is buying these books. And is it the how can I put it? Is it people who would normally buy books and now realise there's an almighty gap in their knowledge? I think it's the people who have seen these books and they've maybe thought it's that these books are not for them um and now in this movement in this time um in this time that seems to be something of a or a relution um people are white people uh are trying to engage in in in these books and engage in how to be supportive um and i've seen that a lot on social media i've seen lots of people asking how do i support how do i engage how do learn more? And this is the way that they're doing this. And so it's no surprise that Rainy Edo Lodge's book, While I'm No longer Talking to White People About Race, which addresses this

exact thing, is number one in the nonfiction paperback charts, because it's people trying to learn. Thank you both very much. Really appreciate you coming on the programme this morning. That's Candice Carty-Williams. And you also heard from the publisher, Charmaine Lovegrove. Our thanks to them. I was also struck actually by a tweet from the novelist Dorothy Coombson, who's appeared on Woman's Hour, who said, Black writers don't want special consideration. We don't want special treatment.

We want a level playing field and equality of opportunity, the chance to write books and explore as many subjects and genres as our white counterparts. So your views welcome, of course, you can contact the programme however you like, whenever you like. Now more countries than you might think, 49 according to the World Bank, have no specific law against domestic violence and Iran is one of them. The Iranian filmmaker Mina Kashavas has made a documentary, The Art of Living in Danger, which follows female lawyers in Iran campaigning to make domestic violence illegal.

Mina also told me about her grandmother who'd taken her own life after suffering domestic abuse. She had helped to inspire Mina to make the film. We are talking about how our grandmother passed away, what was kind of the sickness that she had because always we got that she was sick and because of that she passed away. We never knew what has happened to her and then my mom started to talk about that, that actually she never been sick and she committed suicide because she wasn't satisfied with her life. And our father was a very angry man kind of dictator. So your grandfather had been abusive towards her? Not physical violence, but controlling everything. And forced her to be pregnant. He wanted everything to be in a way that he wants.

And he forced his wife and my grandmother to take care of all children. They had eight kids. And asked her to kill everywhere,, be in the right place. And he was just outside and working and having fun with his friends. And my grandmother just had to stay at home and take care of children and everything at home. It's the thing that my mom remembers. So this obviously had quite an impact on you. Yeah.

What did it do to you? Actually, when I found out about what has happened to her, because I was a teenager and it shocked me. Also, when I was very young, in my childhood, I had this question, what's the difference between me and my brothers? Why for something I'm not allowed to do? And everyone said that because of the society, you can't go outside until late at night it's not safe for

you as a girl it was always a question for me but when I found out about my grandmother's story something changed in my mind and my approach to my life I think and I think since then I became a feminist and I was looking for all discrimination against women in my country and my society and also in other countries. And always I wanted to tell this story somehow. Well, what sort of freedoms did Iranian women have before the revolution? We never been forced to have hijab before the Islamic revolution. It happened after the revolution. And also before the revolution, for many years, women rights activists, they worked a lot to pass a family law in the parliament.

That happened four years before revolution and passed in the parliament that women has equal right with men in the family. But as soon as the revolution happened, everything changed. Can you just tell us about some of the basic rights that Iranian women don't have that we might take for granted in the UK? Actually, in Iran, we don't have any specific law to support women against violence. So if any violent act happened to a woman, there isn't any place that you can go and make a complaint. As a woman, we can't get a divorce. We don't have any right to our child. We don't have a right to work outside without permission of our husband. We can't travel outside country without permission from

our husband. And as I said in my film, all women in Iran, they are property of their father, or if we marry, we are property of our husband. Of course, in a society, we have a lot of progressive men that they never care of the law. They don't control you or they let you everything that you want to do. But if they want control you, they can do it legal. Bearing in mind the challenges you have, how did you make the film practically? Actually, domestic violence always, it was an issue in my mind to talk about that. But I didn't want to follow a victim of domestic violence. I wanted to show another alternative that we can have. I wanted to show powerful women and strong women who are fighting with all this discrimination in my country. So when I found out

about this campaign of women, and some of those are my friends, I thought that it's a good moment to talk about this subject, to show another approach and aspect of domestic violence and also violence generally against women in my country so I started to work on this film and then I thought that okay I can tell the story of my grandmother. It's kind of a very personal story, and I can make a link between that time and nowadays. As a woman, nothing has changed in Iran for us. And it wasn't easy film. It was a very, very difficult film in terms of safety and security, because women issues is a very sensitive issue in Iran. And also also it's kind of the first theme, first documentary theme that talk about women rights activists and their movement in Iran.

Do you know, for example, how many women are killed by their husbands every year in Iran? The only official rate that we have from the police, Iranian police, is that half of women who were being killed in a year, they have been killed by a male member in their family. But we don't have any exact rate to know how many women. No, and of course, what we need to make clear is that there is a similar rate of violence in this country and indeed throughout the world. Do you think the situation is worse in Iran or is it simply harder to get at? I know that domestic violence is unfortunately a subject that women around the world are facing. But the difference, it's not about it's worse than other countries in Iran.

But the difference is that we don't have any supportive law. If one woman wants to go somewhere and ask for help, she can't do that. If her husband kicked out of house, his wife in the middle of the night, she can't go anywhere and she has to go back to that house. We don't have any safe house. We don't have any place to support women. We don't have any supportive law. A woman has to stay in that violent relationship. Of course, we need all other cultural change and education and other things. But I think law is the first step that we don't have it in Iran. Could your film be shown in Iran? Unfortunately, not officially, but I have planned to show it in Iran, and I want to publish it on the Internet for free to make access for all people around the country. And I have some plans to travel with the film in small cities and a small group of women to show the film.

It's not easy, but we can do it in an official way, I'm sure. I grew up here and I'm working in Iran and always I find a way to show my film in Iran to people that they are my target group. So we are working on our strategy now and we have some kind of plans to do that. Well, that's the voice of the Iranian documentary maker Mina Keshevaz. And the title of her film is The Art of Living in Danger. Now, tomorrow on Women's Hour, it looks as though the government is going to scrap plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act. Now, there were plans to allow people to self-declare their gender,

of course, but it seems that isn't going to happen now, at least if you believe the reports in some of the Sunday newspapers. So we're going to ask tomorrow what this will mean for the wider debate, which has at times, of course, become incredibly toxic. So that's tomorrow on Woman's Hour. Also, I just want to mention a phenomenal achievement by one of those guests I will never forget, Kathy Sullivan, who's now 68. And she was on Woman's Hour in March, early March before lockdown, which just seems like another lifetime now. walk in space and to descend to the very deepest point in the ocean. She has just been down to the Mariana Trench, which is seven miles beneath the surface. So here's a brief extract from the interview she gave Women's Hour in early March. She's talking to me about the link between space and ocean expeditions. In one level, they're quite closely connected, and that is you have to mount a fairly complex expedition to explore and understand either realm. So I had begun doing oceanographic expeditions my fourth year at university and loved going out to sea, really enjoyed the jigsaw puzzle, if you will, of planning an expedition and thinking through all the what-ifs so you could carry on even if the weather turned bad or a bit of equipment broke down.

And that's essentially the same discipline, but on steroids, that NASA sort of needed for the job that I was applying for, which was what we called it Mission Specialist. How does it work? It's a little bit like when you're asked to be recruited to the spy services in Britain. You get a little bit of a note in your university pigeonhole or a tap on the shoulder at a cocktail party or something. How did they recruit for NASA? Yeah, a little more

blatantly than that. Okay. Especially back then, this was the first round of selections for this new thing called the Space Shuttle. And at the time it was projected the shuttle would fly very, very frequently. So NASA was wanting to really dramatically expand the number of people in the astronaut corps. They hired Nichelle Nichols, who'd been the actress that played Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek. And they had her going around encouraging women and people of color, people who'd never been in the astronaut corps before, to throw their hat in the ring. They put advertisements in many of the scientific trade publications that academics would be looking at. In my own case, I was at graduate school in Canada.

You won't be surprised to know NASA did not advertise widely in Canada. But they had caught my brother's attention in California. And when I went home for a Christmas break, he began encouraging me to apply for the program. When I first thought it was, you know, continue being an oceanographer, but now try to do it from 200 miles away from Earth. I thought that was nonsense. But when I made this connection between the expeditions I already love to do, and the kind of expeditionary work, it sounded like NASA was planning with the shuttle, then it started to make some real sense. An incredible woman. That's Kathy Sullivan. Our congratulations to her. She is now the first person to have walked in space

and to have gone to the very deepest point in the ocean. That is quite a life story, that one, isn't it? And she was just one of those deeply, deeply impressive women. You're fortunate enough to meet if you're me. Well, that's when I could meet people, which now I can't. Now, the Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, is apparently planning to set out plans for summer schools in England this week. I have to say it's shrouded in mystery. No one seems to quite know when it's going to happen.

But we are told that something is going to be announced at some point this week. This, of course, is after the government abandoned the idea of getting pupils back to school for a whole month before the summer holidays. So how will summer schools work and will children be interested in going? Will parents be willing to send their pupils, their children, to summer schools? Susanna Hardiman is Chief Executive of the education charity Action Tutoring. Natalie Pereira is Executive Director at the Education Policy Institute. That's an independent research charity. And we hope too to have a word with headteacher Dave McPartlin,

who's from Flake Fleet Primary in Fleetwood in Lancashire. We'll talk to him in a moment. Susanna, first of all, what do you think of the whole idea of summer schools for England? Well, I think fundamentally the government are leaving it really quite late to make this announcement. Summer schools, to be implemented really well, take time to set up and to engage parents and encourage pupils to attend and make sure they're structured really well to achieve an impact. And simply, there really isn't enough time to get these well set up at large scale for this summer.

And what we'd really like to see as an alternative is a much more sustained approach to pupil catch up from September. So summer schools might be a start, but we certainly don't think that they are the whole solution to the huge learning loss from COVID. But let's say summer schools do happen, what should they focus on? So the evidence suggests that for summer schools to be really effective, they would have a mixture of focus on pupil well-being, which I think is especially important given the circumstances and the length of time pupils are being away from school. But they would also incorporate some small group tutoring to really help academic focus. But in order for them to really work, not only do you need that appropriate structure, but the buy-in is really critical. And all the evidence suggests that the biggest problem with summer schools is how you

actually achieve that regular attendance and make sure you don't have pupil dropout. And I think there is a real danger that if the right pupils don't attend these summer schools, the pupils that really need the support the most, that actually they widen the attainment gap even further. It would be an unintended consequence. This is the difficult thing, isn't it? You use the term the right pupils. You mean, as you went on to explain, those children who really do need to be there. And we know that statistically they are the least likely to attend, Susanna. Exactly. That's the problem. And Action Tutoring is an educational charity that works with pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. And we use high quality volunteer tutors to provide support in English and maths.

But we know that ensuring people buy-in and attendance in our programmes isn't easy, even in term time. So to ensure it during the summer holidays will be a big challenge for schools. And again, that comes back to the point about have we got enough time to really set these up well and deliver them at scale. Natalie from the Education Policy Institute is lack of time your biggest concern here? Lack of time is definitely a concern for us. We agree to an extent with Susanna we think there should be a much greater focus during the summer on pupil well-being programs including arts, drama and lots of outdoor activities and actually I think that is then how you get parental buy-in and you get engagement from families by making those activities such that they keep young people

happy and healthy during the summer. And as well as providing those kinds of activities, it's also important that the government provides preschool meals for disadvantaged pupils during those summer programmes as well. Yeah. Do you think, it's so difficult when we get into using terms like the right pupils, how do you engage parents with the very notion of sending their kids to schools of this sort, Natalie, over the August period, for example? Well, the first thing is about the language we use. So rather than calling it schools, refer to it as activities and wellbeing programmes. And as I say, make the content the kind of content

that families want to engage with. And the second thing is if you make an activity or a service universal, you remove the stigma from just focusing on poorer families. Right. I mean, I think that's important, isn't it? Let's bring in Dave, who's our headteacher. Mr McPartlin, which is how you should be addressed, of course, as a headteacher, how much do you know, do course, as a head teacher, how much do you know,

do you know, about the government's plans for summer schools in England? I know zero. I know as much as anybody else gets off the internet or TV, and even then I don't believe half of it. I don't know very much, to be totally honest,

and we're not leaving very long, are we? Well, we're not, no. Would you say you were living just week from week in terms of running your primary school? I think it's more like day by day, to be not, no. Would you say you were living just week from week in terms of running your primary school? I think it's more like day by day, to be honest, sometimes. And I think what's difficult is trying to figure out which voices to listen to out there in terms of all the things that are on social media.

You know, even when you go into the garage forecourt and you look at all the newspapers out in front of you, you're going to get a very different story depending on which newspaper you pick up. It's very, very challenging at the moment. The situation changes so frequently. I think we've got to a point now where suddenly a minister, particularly Boris, will get up there and announce something, and it doesn't necessarily feel that it's being discussed very widely and even planned, if I'm totally honest.

And I've tried to remain out of the political side of things, but I do feel a sense of responsibility for my staff and our community to give them some certainty moving forward, and that seems to be what's very much lacking at the moment. Is there any appetite from parents for a sort of summer school, Dave? Do you know? Truthfully, I don't know. I think it depends on how it's explained to parents. You know, we've already talked about the vocabulary that we use.

Is it a summer camp? But it depends on who's staffing it, how it's set up, you know, what that looks like during the summer. But it just isn't very long now. You know, who's actually going to run these things? Well, I was going to ask, what about your staff? Would they be willing, willing some of them to work in one do you know i i can't fault that the staff or you know education staff have been absolutely incredible in in such a rapidly changing you know landscape they've been brilliant but the reality is i think that they deserve a break and it's really hard because to many people it looks like you know we've not been working for we've not had very many children in but the reality is from from getting up on a morning to going to bed normal working hours don't apply and that the notifications and the emails and

and the communication with people the zoom calls i actually do think that they need a break before we go into the next phase in september which none of us know what it looks like at the moment i actually think staff need a break so if we're talking about summer camps and getting other people in we're going to need a long time to get that organised, to get the DBS clearances in place. You know, how do we do that? And I would love to know a little bit more information from the government. Well, we are told that the Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, will be making an announcement at some point this week. Dave, Natalie mentioned the issue of poverty and particularly free school meals over summer.

What are you aware of anecdotally from the children that you look after in Fleetwood about how families are coping at the moment? You know, we've got some families who for this period of time will have felt very, very difficult. You know, they're struggling, you know, they've maybe lost their job or didn't have a job. And the support networks are not in place. And they may be living in very small accommodation. Not all of them, but some of them. And I finally started thinking, I've got three children.

I've got a two-year-old, a three-year-old, and a 12-year-old. And there are times we're very, very fortunate. We have a comfortable lifestyle, a nice, you know, plenty of space in the house. We're very, very lucky. But even we found it difficult trying to work full-time from home when, you know, the space in the house we're very very lucky but even we found it difficult trying to work full-time from home when you know the kids can go and play and for some of our parents it would have felt impossible they're struggling to make ends meet we've got we're very lucky that fleet we're together this group set up to feed our families you know it's being put

together it breaks at speed it's been difficult so on the one hand we want to get them in but on the other hand we need to know that it's safe for staff to be in with them it's very very challenging at the moment. It does sound Dave as though you really are working in the dark thank you very much for involving us in just some of the

detail of your working life at the moment, we appreciate it thank you. Susanna and Natalie briefly, what do either of you think of some of the, what I was going to say, extraordinary notions that people are now discussing, maybe not so extraordinary, the idea of just every child repeating the entire school year? Susanna, what about that? I think, again, the logistics of that would be hugely challenging to enable that to happen for every pupil. And I don't believe it will be needed necessarily

if we can get the right catch-up support in place for pupils that need it. Some pupils have been having plenty of learning and home support during this time but for those who perhaps haven't had those kinds of benefits then additional support needs to be provided in the autumn term and well beyond the autumn term hopefully for a sustained one or two year period at least to enable them to catch up. And again, that can come through wellbeing support, but also through tutoring programmes that have really strong evidence of being able to support pupils in small groups to make really good progress. And Natalie, what about the notion, Dave made clear that he believes his staff do need a break in order for them to be at their absolute peak back in September when school starts again,

so they can get the kids back up to speed. Maybe they do need a holiday and summer school isn't a good idea. Yeah, I have a lot of sympathy with that. Our recommendation to the government has been that summer schools should be staffed by people already working in the sector. So youth workers, play workers, early years workers, all of whom have a really valuable role to play, but where we can then give teachers a bit of a break over the summer. Okay, thank you very much indeed for talking to us. We appreciate it. Natalie Pereira from the Education Policy Institute. You also heard from Susanna Hardiman of the education charity Action Tutoring

and Dave McPartland, who's a headteacher in Fleetwood in Lancashire. That conversation about summer schools was about England, of course. We know that a third of Welsh pupils are going to go back to school at the end of June. In Scotland, children are going back on the 11th of August, which is a week earlier than planned. And in Northern Ireland, everybody's going back to school in a phased way from late August, which is a week earlier than planned. And in Northern Ireland, everybody's going back to school in a phased way from late August, we're told. Now, before lockdown, Women's Hour began talking to women who volunteer in all sorts of areas, in cafes, in food banks, doing valuable

work with the homeless, the sorts of women who, frankly, keep the nation going and get stuff done. They are basically troopers. Today you can hear from Kalina Tokia, who's a well-known figure in the Roma community in Glasgow. She was brought to our attention by the Govan Hill Housing Trust. My name is Kalina. I'm from Romania. I have two children. I'm the woman.

I'm only in the house. I don't have work at the moment. I have the children. I do the school, come in the house, cleaning house, cooking. And sometimes I help people which need my help. Tell me about that. You help people who need your help. What kind of people? What kind of help? Sometimes if I'm in the doctor, sometimes people need me, Roma people, for translate, for give me one point. And every time people need me, I'm going and I have time.

I wanted to find out a bit more about Kalina, so I talked to some of the support workers at the Govan Hill Community Trust. I met Kalina when I first started my work because every week she would come with a different lady she was trying to help. Sometimes it was English lessons, sometimes it was medical help, sometimes it was even personal problems. You know, she's just throwing all she's got at helping whoever happens to need her help. I think that's what makes her one of the most impressive people that I've ever met. Kalina is one of the first people that I met when I started work at the Govan Hill Housing

Association around three years ago. We were doing English lessons and that was my first kind of favorite part of my job because we got to meet all these really amazing Romanian ladies who didn't get a lot of formal education back in Romania. We used to count on Kalina all the time to bring all her friends over and to advertise all our English lessons and just like drag the ladies to the lessons you know in in a very natural way I think she's a really good communicator into the at the heart of our community and she just has people's trust naturally because she's never asked for anything back when helping people it's just she'll find

someone who needs her help maybe maybe they'll ask her for it maybe they won't even have to and she'll just you know take them to the doctor or take them to me to help them with a problem or just do anything she can and, you know, use her English, which is not perfect, and her skills, which are not perfect. Just use everything she's got just to do a little something for someone who is more needy than she is. Sometimes maybe it's too much, you know, just discounting on her goodwill. How does it make you feel to hear that? I feel happy.

I'm sorry, Zizi, because I'm so emotional. I've never heard anything like that, and I can't talk. She's apologizing because she's a bit nervous. First, I learned that I don't understand English. After, like, slowly, slowly, I do college and after I do. So Karina was just saying there's been a, there was a progression obviously from her not being able to speak in English at the beginning to like moving towards being able to actually support other people. She was actually coming to the office to prepare for this interview

and she bumped into a lady on the street that she's never met before. She's never met this lady. So this lady on the street came up to her and said that she needed help to register her children with a GP. So Kalina then essentially asked the lady to come with her to the Governell Housing Association offices where we have community support workers and eventually helped the lady get an appointment to register, fill in the registration forms. If not I help people, I feel my heart not happy. Help the lady get an appointment to register, fill in the registration forms.

If no, I help people, I feel my heart, not happy. If I help one people, someone woman, someone man, I feel better. How does it feel to be part of this community in Govan Hill? Happy. And does it feel like home? Yes. Yes. And our reporter there was Laura Thomas.

She was talking to Kalina Turkiya, who is a figure from Glasgow's Roma community and doing some good work there at the moment, as so many people are, of course, right now. Now, let's talk through some of your views on the programme today. Theodora wanted to talk about the first conversation we had about black writers and how they fare in the publishing industry. She says, I bought Candice's book in April of last year. It was in a prominent display in the bookshop and She says, I bought Candice's book in April of last year. It was in a prominent display in the bookshop and I loved all the different covers with lots of different colours. It was an instantly attractive book.

The story looked good, but into the book hoard it went. However, it is now at the very top of my enormous to-be-read pile. Yes, get stuck in, Theodora. I know what you mean, actually. I've got a teetering pile of books in my bedroom, which one day I will get round to reading. But my big fear is running out of things to read. I know it's ridiculous. But Jane says it was good to hear Dorothy Coombson quoted on the programme today. And I'll just do that again, because it is really important what Dorothy

said. She is a novelist, of course. We want a level playing field and equality of opportunity and the chance, said Dorothy, to write books and explore as many subjects and genres as our white counterparts. It really isn't much to ask, Dorothy went on to say in a thread on Twitter last week. And I think I'm right in saying that Dorothy does have a new novel coming out and she's going to be on Women's Hour in the next couple of weeks. So I'm looking forward to that. Toyin said, much respect to those women's stances and great strength of character on not wanting to capitalise from the death of George Floyd. No, I absolutely echo that. And another listener, I wanted to add to your discussion about authors that there are many writing competitions and short stories and first novel competitions where you are not allowed to add your name or any detail about yourself. Therefore, the whole thing is judged on the

quality of the writing alone, not on the colour of your skin, and that is really important. Now, summer schools. Steph, unless it's made compulsory, there is no way I would get my 15 year old to go to any kind of summer school. I'd be happy to send him, but unless it's compulsory, it would be a struggle to get him to go. From Lucy, who's going to be teaching at these magical summer schools? Well, that was something that our head teacher was wondering. The teachers have been planning, teaching and working all this time, says Lucy. And I don't know, but I imagine Lucy might have a link to the teaching profession. Philippa, listening to all this, why is it taking teachers so long to respond?

This is a different tack. They've had three months to plan different scenarios. The NHS has built hospitals in days. Yes, but it's not up to teachers, Philippa, to plan the future. They can only go on government advice in this area, which is what our head teacher in Lancashire was saying. He is completely reliant on information from the centre, which appears to come out somewhat erratically in his experience, and he never knows what's coming next. supply teacher who hasn't been able to work since the school closures i would be very happy to work during the summer holiday that's another interesting point um zoe says silently shouting at the radio summer schools no one has mentioned the army of unsung and underappreciated fully qualified teachers who prop up the education system and have been furloughed throughout the lockdown

i am talking about supply teachers. They deserve a mention. Well, OK, you've had two mentions now. From another listener, I think the kids need a few weeks to have fun without the worry of schoolwork, to regroup and prepare themselves for the new school year. Plus, the teachers need a break too. It isn't fair to make the assumption

they've been off work when they haven't. From Susan, children have been largely confined to home now since the end of March. Some have enjoyed online teaching. Others will have had a very different experience due to a lack of access to computers, parents juggling work and childcare.

The gap between the haves and the have-nots will be large. Parents will still be juggling, although I don't know the details of summer schools. Why not simply repeat the year for all children and try to return to a level playing field? I know that does keep coming up. I mentioned it myself because I'd heard it mentioned in another radio discussion last week. And I appreciate that there will be all sorts of logistical problems if you repeat the

whole year but nevertheless maybe it's time to start suggesting exactly that. From Leslie, listening to comments on this about not having enough time, regrettably the very nature of a pandemic surely means that time is not on your side. Menopausal Mother says, as a teacher we all have the well-being of our pupils at the forefront of our thinking but who is going to teach at summer schools? I haven't stopped work since the 20th of March Many days I'm working in excess of 12 hours

prepping, recording, uploading lessons and then marking them I am exhausted Jill says It's a nonsense that meaningful, well-run summer holiday activities could be mounted now. Still interesting to hear specialists say that creative offers like drama and music are far more likely to result in children from disadvantaged backgrounds attending. The arts are powerful. From Bill, on a day when small retail businesses are working out means to open

to customers, we hear another head complaining about the lack of support. Heads, especially of academies, usually praise their independence from government interference. Surely, like managers throughout industry and the service industries, they should be finding compromises and solutions and not finding difficulties. From Dot, a two-week holiday for teachers would be fine this August. Well, we don't know whether Dot's a teacher herself, but I'm not sure whether teachers would agree. But kids need to be back, says Dot. There seems to be very little evidence that children suffer badly from or transmit Covid. The government should show strong leadership, put in more support workers in schools.

I've got six grandchildren. They all need to get back. Limited social distancing, I feel, would work. The two metre won't work for younger kids in particular. Testing and fast results would help support schools to monitor how things are going, says Dot. Don't think we're quite at that stage yet, are we? Tomorrow on the programme,

we revisit the topic of the Gender Recognition Act. It was back in some of the Sunday newspapers yesterday because there are now reports that the government is going to reassess the idea that you could self-identify in terms of gender. So we'll talk about that subject on the programme tomorrow and also involved, not involved in that conversation, but a welcome guest on the programme, the lexicographer Susie Dent will be with me too. I hope you can listen and join in. We'll see you then. I find quantum mechanics confusing today.

Hello, I'm Brian Cox. And I'm Robert Ince, and the Infinite Monkey Cage is back for a new series, and we are dealing with so many fantastic ideas, and even better, no one that we've asked has got an alibi for getting out of doing the show so in this series we have got one of the first episode alone we talk about the end of the universe with brian green katie mack eric idol and steve martin yes you heard that

steve martin and eric idol are joining us anyway enjoy the new series we're having a fantastic time making it brian's particularly enjoying it because he's hundreds miles away from me and they're just using technology to create some sense of proximity. That's the great thing about it all. That's the Infinite Monkey Cage on BBC Sounds now. Well, not now. I mean, there's no unique definition of now in physics. Simultaneity is relative. It's on BBC Sounds, isn't it?

Unless you've got that Robbie Ninson Professor Cox I'd leave that poor pussy Alone in its box That cat may be as dead as a rat You can wage In the infinite monkey cage I'm Sarah Treleaven And for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories

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