Woman's Hour - Carla Bruni on her new album; Covid and working class women; Author Onjali Rauf; The English GCSE Syllabus

Episode Date: October 14, 2020

Carla Bruni's new album is described as "a wholehearted embracing of her true self." She talks to Sangita about the inspiration behind it and life under lockdown. The impact of Covid-19 on working class women. Plus the choices of set texts offered by the major exam boards for GCSE English literature. Djamila Boothman, an English and Assistant headteacher at a school in North London and children’s author Onjali Rauf discuss why we need more books written by authors of different backgrounds and ethnicities And Onjali Rauf will also be talking about her new book The Night Bus Hero which is told from the point of view of a bully. Presenter: Sangita Myska Producer: Beverley Purcell Guest: Carla Bruni Guest: Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson Guest: Onjali Rauf Guest: Djamila Boothman

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.

This program has been edited since broadcast. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. I know you just want to hear your show, but this won't take long. I'm Miles, the producer of Radio 4's Tricky Podcast. And it works like this. Four people from across the UK meet up and without a presenter breathing down their necks, talk about issues they really care about. Because sex work is quite complicated for a lot of people

and it's OK to be against it, but not to, you know, shame someone because of their profession. Across the series, we'll hear anger, shock and even the odd laugh. Another thing that really gets to me is when people say, I know what we need to do. I know what black people... Shut up. You don't...

Like, that's the thing. That's not how it works. Nobody knows. If you knew, you would have done it. Discover more conversations like this by searching Tricky on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Sangeetha Maisker with the Woman's Hour podcast for Wednesday the 14th of October. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. On today's programme, ex-supermodel, former First Lady of

France and singer-songwriter Carla Bruni tells us about her latest album. Are the books and poems taught to pupils in schools diverse enough? A new report says no. Does it mean pupils are being failed? Staying with books, we speak to the children's author Anjali Raouf about her new book, The Night Bus Hero, which is written from the point of view of a bully. And if you'd like to get in touch today, please do. We love hearing from you. We'd especially like to hear which books you think kids should be taught, but aren't. To do that, there are two ways to get in touch. Our Twitter handle is at BBC Women's Hour, or you can email us via the website. But first, working class women in the UK were worst affected by the national lockdown because they're more likely to lose work or be exposed to COVID-19, according to a new report.

The research was done by Nottingham and Warwick universities, along with the UK Women's Budget Group. The director of that group is Dr. Marianne Stevenson, and she joins us on the line. Good morning. Good morning, Sangeeta. Why did you decide to focus on the experience of working class women? And I'm interested in knowing how you have defined working class for this research. Well, Tracy Warren and Claire Leonette, who are the two principal investigators at Nottingham and Warwick Universities, have a long history of doing research into the experiences of working class women. And we'd worked with Tracy before on work for our Commission on a Gender Equal Economy. And at the Women's Budget Group, when we were looking at COVID, it was

obvious to us that working class women were particularly likely to be affected by the pandemic because of the sorts of jobs they work in, more likely to be affected by the pandemic because of the sorts of jobs they work in, more likely to be key workers and also more likely to be working in sectors that were shut down. So it made sense for us to work together. In terms of the definitions, we're using ONS definitions. So it's what's called routine and semi-routine occupations. So it's routine work would include things like cleaners, waiting staff, bus drivers, bar staff and so on. Semi-routine work, care workers, retail assistants, hospital porters and so on. So it's ONS classifications.

So what's interesting about this report is that the findings kind of confirm the gut feeling many of us had as we watched the pandemic unfold. What were your key findings? Well, I think the two key things are, first of all, that working class women are more likely to have been working in key worker roles, frontline jobs where they're particularly high risk of infection, particularly care work, for example. And secondly, when you look at who's been furloughed, over half of working class women were furloughed at some point up to June this summer. And that's significantly higher than other groups. So if you look at kind of management and professional occupations, 15% of women and 16% of men were furloughed. But, you know, 80% of their salary. And if you're already on a low salary, that has a really significant impact on your ability to pay your bills. And you looked at the impact of that on the mental health of this group of women. what did you find? Yes, and again, not really surprisingly, working class women were more likely to report that they were less happy than usual during lockdown,

and more likely to report psychological distress. And working class women, 41% said that they experienced psychological distress during April, sort of at the height of the lockdown. And that's not really surprising if you think about some of those women were working in high-risk occupations, care workers and so on. Some of them had been furloughed, so were dealing with lower rates of pay. And many of them were also dealing with the closure of schools and nurseries so trying to manage paid work while looking after their children and very very few working class women were able to work from home so they were more likely to be hit by that that struggle of balancing looking after children and carrying on with paid work. And did you manage to go that step further and work out whether they were able to access the mental health care that they needed to cope with this mixture of pressures? that there's been a real difficulty, particularly at the height of the, you know, the first height of the pandemic, where other health services, non-COVID related health services, including

mental health services, were at extreme pressure. And it was very difficult for people to get the mental health support that they needed. But also, you've got to realise that, you know, these, the psychological distress that women were suffering was to do with the situation that they were in, you know, what they actually needed was more money, support in balancing looking after children and doing paid work and so on. That that's the most important thing that make a difference. And this is one of the things that you pick up on when in the report you say that the government hasn't learnt lessons. Just outline for us what you mean. Well, I think one

of the things that we've seen since the beginning of the pandemic has been the government's been kind of catching up with itself at all stages. So, for example, it took a while before they announced that parents who weren't able to work because they had childcare responsibilities as a result of COVID could be furloughed. That wasn't immediately announced. So, to start off with, there were parents taking unpaid leave, parents leaving their jobs, and particularly mothers because they're more likely to have responsibility for children. We're seeing now with the plans for the tier three areas where hospitality, parts of the hospitality sector have been closed down. Employees are expected to survive on two thirds of their existing salary. Now, if you're in a minimum wage job, two thirds of your existing salary is a really low rate of pay to actually have to live on. And the plans aren't really

taking into account who is going to be most likely to be affected by these shutdowns. So it's not necessarily people who've got a buffer of savings, or for whom things might be a bit tight, but they can cope. It's people who are already in very kind of marginal financial situations. I would say at this point that the government would push back on some of this, wouldn't it? It would say, look, these were unprecedented times, but we saw the introduction of the furlough. We've seen the introduction of part-time working schemes. Rishi Sunak has said that by virtue of the fact that women disproportionately work in hospitality and tourism and retail, that they will be benefiting and that they are effectively having to implement

policy as they go along. What's your reaction to that? I mean, it is absolutely true that the furlough scheme has protected large numbers of people from redundancy. And as that scheme rolls back, we are expecting to see redundancy levels go up. But if you look at other European countries, they've continued their equivalent of the furlough scheme, their financial support to workers. So they haven't had this idea that somehow it's going to wind down in the autumn and everything's going back to workers. So they haven't had this idea that we, you know, somehow it's going to wind down in the autumn and everything's going back to normal, when everyone could have predicted a second wave going into the autumn and winter. It's not clear why people in

lockdown areas are expected to survive on two thirds of salaries. And people in areas, in tier two areas, where businesses may be seeing far lower numbers of customers, but haven't been officially told to close down, there isn't any support at all for those workers. So we are going to see high levels of redundancies. And Rishi Sunak's right, it's largely women who are going to be affected by the wave of redundancies that's already happening in the autumn. And you can see that with the closure of a lot of high street retail. I mean, if you go down the high street now, so many familiar chains have closed down.

And it's largely women, working class women who've been working in those jobs who are bearing the brunt of that. Yeah, well, let's wait and see what happens. Dr. Mary Anne Stevenson, Director of the UK Women's Budget Group. Thank you very much indeed. S'élever Quelque chose qui nous hante Qui nous plaît C'est quelque chose qui nous creuse Qui nous fond Et qui nous va comme un gant Quelque chose nous dit que c'est perdu Que l'on va s'adorer sans issue

Et que l'on va se croquer à mal temps Quelque chose obstinately But what is in this something It's the question that everyone asks What is this sweet something What is this jewel of this time So what you've just heard is the song Quelques Chaux from the new album by Carla Bruni. She is, of course, one of the world's most famous women.

In the 1990s, she was a supermodel gracing international catwalks and the pages of glossy magazines. Then she quit to start a career in music. In 2008, after a whirlwind romance, she married the then president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. When he left office, she returned to singing and songwriting her first love. Carla Bruni, welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me. What are the main themes that you explore in this album, Carla? Mostly, the album is all about love and desire.

So, it's not very original, but I believe love and desire are our best, you know, energy and fuel and best thing to pass time, you know energy and fuel and best thing to pass time you know you say it's not original but it's wonderfully french carla what can i say you've written all of these songs yourself how much of your personal life has been material for this album well uh it's always coming from personal life, you know, like it's always written in a place that is quite intimate for me. It's very close to me. But then while I'm writing the song, I sort of try to, you know, to be a little wider and to talk also about other people's lives. But, you know, the beginning of the song is always coming from something personal. You know, I can never write by thinking. You know, I never really write with my brain anyway. I always often write with emotions, you know. There's a song on the album called Un Secret, which many people will probably assume

is a reference to the secret that you discovered in your life as an adult, which was that the man who had raised you was not your biological father. Is that the right assumption? A little bit, but also, yeah, see, that's exactly what I was trying to explain. But my English is very poor. But I was trying to explain exactly what you said. You know, it is a secret that was revealed to me quite late because I was, you know, my late 20s. Actually, my father said that to me when he died. And then I met another father, right? But it's not only about that secret.

It's also about the pleasure of the secret because I sort of like secrets, you know, because we're in a world where everyone is exposing himself and people are always talking and there's such a taste for showing things and there's such a noise all the time. And to me, secrets are like mystery or silence. They're sort of precious. But you know what I hate that can be related to secret is lie. So I like secret, but I don't like lies. When you discovered that you had a biological parent that you hadn't known about, you dealt with it with such grace, a kind of acceptance. And I can imagine that someone else in that situation would feel that their parents had lied to them.

But that wasn't your reaction, was it? No, but I do feel like they've lied to me. But I don't have any, I mean, it doesn't make me feel bad because I wouldn't judge them you know it was also other times you know it was the 60s the 70s and maybe I don't know if I would have done the same thing I don't think I hate lying you know but also because my life was built on a lie. But no, I have no bitterness, because it made me feel good when I discovered that. And also, just when I lost my father,

I met like another father, so it was like a gift, you know. So I try to see, you know, the half full glass of water instead of seeing the empty. Because, you know, life is always full of things, you know, and if you always say the dark way, if you always see the dark way, it doesn't help. Talking about men in your life, in 2008, you met Nicolas Sarkozy, and within months, you were married to him. He was already the President of France at that point. Yes. How did it feel to have the political spotlight thrown on you with such short notice? You'd obviously lived your life on, you know, in the full gaze of cameras, but this was an entirely different.

So different. Oh, so different. You're so right. Well, it was quite an adventure, I must say. It was like another world, you know, that I never really got close to politics, never ever, you know. So being at the Elysee next to my husband was at the same time an incredible adventure. And at the same time, you know, it was quite a stress. I didn't want to make a mistake, you know. Can you imagine, like, if you make a mistake, if we make a mistake, you and I,

let's say, talking on the BBC now, it would be bad. But when you make a mistake there, it's, you know, everyone knows about it. It's just a drama. So I was always, you know, I spent four years trying to be, you know, good and not making my country and my husband embarrassed. So I kept more or less very quiet. But the nice part was that I could help a lot of people because when you're

in that position, you can really help people. And that was the good side of the position. It's interesting you say you had to keep quiet. Yet you're absolutely a woman in your own right. You were one of the top earning supermodels of your generation. You are hugely creative. You've been making several albums. Was that difficult for you to take a step back? I understand.

It wasn't so difficult because, you know, I believe in professional people, you know, and my husband always was a very, very professional politician, you know, and head professional politician, you know, and head of state, you know, he had an incredible career. So to me, to take part and to interfere with his job, you know, at the time would have been a great mistake, just as if he was coming up on stage with me when I'm playing a gig. You know, it's just, you know, it wasn't difficult for me

because it was not my part of the deal. And, you know, in France, they're very, very judgmental about the husband or the wife getting into the political life. And I believe it's right. You know, I believe one person is elected and the person who is married to is not, it's not like in America, do you understand? Or it's not like the royal family.

It's not like monarchy. This is like, it's election. So in America, they really have a first lady place, you know, and she's important and she has to give speeches. But in France, it's not at all like that. The first lady has to be laid back and basically helping people and helping her husband.

I'm looking forward to see when a woman will be elected what would happen and what we will ask to the first gentleman. So am I. Getting back to the music, you mentioned Laid Back, and that's very much your style. You have written one song on the album in English. Why did you decide to do that? Well, it's a song that is sort of coming from the past. And I play that song. First of all, it's my dream to write in English because obviously English is the language for singing. It has so much rhythm and so much simplicity.

I love English, but I'm not so fluent. So that was my first song. So it's a song about impossible love, which I really like because writing about impossible love, living impossible love is horrible. But writing about it is nice, you know, because it's very much inspiring because, you know, happiness, you know, is not so inspiring, right? But, you know, you know, heartbreaking feelings and impossible love always gives you something romantic to write about. So it's a song about impossible love. And it's my first English song, and I hope it won't be the last.

It's a small blues, I would say. I'm sure it will. Actually, we've got the chance to have a little listen to it now. So I'll never be your lady And I'll never be your girl Although I love you madly I'll never be your pearl And when you come home at night It won't be me, it won't be me It won't be me, it won't be me who holds you tight.

And it makes me want to cry and want to love and want to die because without you, nothing's right. That's Your Lady by Carla Bruni from her latest album. Carla, thank you so much for joining us and good luck. Now, we're counting down to the unveiling of the Women's Hour Power List next month. The environment is the theme. It'll showcase 30 women based in the UK who are making a significant difference to the planet. And what's been really interesting is that your nominations have come far and wide on the list. Women from your towns,

your villages, your streets who are making a difference. And that's going to be revealed on the 16th of November. So mark that in your diary. And it's worth saying, if you can't listen as it goes out, you can always download Women's Hour from the BBC Sounds app. Now, Anjali Raouf is a children's author who tackles big issues for small people. Her first two books dealt with the refugee crisis and domestic violence. Her latest, The Night Bus Hero, tackles homelessness and bullying. Anjali, welcome. Hello, Sangeeta. Thank you so much for having me. Now, the night bus hero is the story of a little boy, Hector, who bullies a homeless man. And interestingly, what you've done is chosen to write the book from Hector's perspective.

Why did you choose to do that? I just thought it'd be so interesting to see an interaction between a main character who's a bully and someone that he picks on, which in this case is a homeless man. I associate bullying with homelessness quite naturally in a lot of ways, because I think anyone who's ever been homeless, whether they're a refugee or a woman fleeing to a domestic, you know, to a shelter, or a homeless person has had to deal with bullying in so many forms. So I just wanted to tackle the story from that angle, just because I thought it would be very interesting to see if I could make this person who's a bully have another side, have another insight into what it's like to be someone who's being bullied.

I have to ask you, were you ever bullied or were you ever the bully? I don't I hope I was never the bully um i have been kind of bullied i wasn't physically bullied so much but um i'm asian i have a scarf in my head so in school i'd be you know told all kinds of things like you know go home and those kind of um things i think also as an adult you meet people that you're not you know that are not particularly nice whether they're managers and, or whether the people who just seem to have some reservation about you for some reason. But yeah, yes, but I don't think I've ever been the bully. I hope not. I would hate to have that, be that kind of person. We do have the chance, though, to listen to a short extract from the book. It's where Hector and his bullying friends, Will and Kate, approach the

homeless man, Thomas, for the first time. Let's have a listen. We reached the top of the hill where an old bench stood beneath the oak trees. And that's when I spotted him, the old man. I'd seen him there before, lots of times, sitting on the bench next to a trolley piled high with rubbish. He was in his usual long, old, crumply black coat that looked as if it had been pulled out from a bin, and was wearing the bright yellow woolly hat he always had on his head, even in summer. And without even trying, I had the most genius idea that had ever been born.

In fact, it was so genius, and so out of the box, and so unexpected, that I knew it would be enough to make Will and Katie shut up once and for all. I stopped walking, which made Will and Katie automatically stop too. Want to have some fun? I asked. Will nodded, a smile breaking out across his face and making him look like a hungry fox that had sniffed a chicken coop up ahead. See that old man there? I asked, pointing towards the bench. You mean the old trolley man? asked Katie. We're going to let him know he's not allowed here anymore.

How? whispered Katie, leaning in towards me. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. I waited for a few seconds to keep them guessing and then whispered back, I'm going to take his hat. So Anjali, we hear Hector in his full bullying force there and he feels quite unredeemable as a character at the start of the book. But actually, he goes on a journey, doesn't he? And that journey is one of learning empathy. Why was that important to you? I think we have so many stories in all of our worlds of people going through really hard times especially right now in the world's history and we want to help but before we can really help in a in a way that will really make a change we need to truly understand what someone has been through what they're going

through and to do that we need to have wells of empathy to understand the story from all angles so I think it's really crucial that everyone spend time and effort to develop that particular wonderful side to themselves in order to be able to help people deal with issues that they're really dealing with in a way that will be fruitful to everyone. Now, Anjali, you're certainly an author that's not afraid of tackling really difficult subjects in your books. The first book that you wrote, The Boy at the Back of the Class, won several awards and it follows the story of a refugee, a Syrian refugee in a British school. How did that idea come about? So I've been very lucky. I've been working voluntarily in the refugee camps in Kelly

and Dunkirk since 2015. And through that, you know, through those those years I've met so many children who are completely stuck completely struggling are on their own need so much help and in about 2017 about two years after I'd started work there I had a period in my life where I couldn't really work I couldn't go out to the camps and I couldn't stop thinking about this one particular baby that I'd met in the camps called Rehan and the book is dedicated to him and baby Rehan was living in you know one of those really horrible swampy disgusting areas that refugees often push back into and I couldn't stop thinking about him I couldn't stop wondering what was going to happen to him if he grew up to become an eight or nine year old and had to travel to somewhere safe but without even his mother to sell you know to help and support him and who was going to be his friend and who was going to take

care of him and understand his story. And literally the boy at the back of the class, the title just jumped into my head and this character jumped out at me. And it was for me, the story is really my imagining of what might happen to a young boy and what might happen to baby Rehan and all the baby Rehans of the world if they ever had to go somewhere and walk into a classroom where they knew no one and nobody knew them and they couldn't speak the language. So it was born of the children I've met and also some of the struggles I've seen them have to deal with when they get to somewhere safe as well. And transitioning those subjects into literature for children must I imagine be quite

an interesting process because these are tough subjects they're nuanced and at the same time you don't want to frighten children that you're that you're trying to talk to how do you tread that line what is your thought process? Well it's so interesting because I think kids are so aware, more than I ever was at their age, because they have so many information portals coming at them all the time. And the books are always developed around questions that I get asked by the kids in my world. So my nieces and nephews and godchildren and children of friends, they're always hungry. They're always wanting to know what's going on. They want to know why it is we have refugees on the news, they want to know why it is we're speaking about women going through particular problems, they want to know about things that

are happening and there's very few safe spaces that they can go to with their questions. So I don't find it very difficult because I'm surrounded by kids' voices asking and wanting to know and I suppose the books are in some way trying to answer the questions that I'm hearing. But I don't think they're, they're not frightened when they're asking the questions. And most are very sad when they hear the answers, but then you see this kind of really amazing push to want to do something about it.

And I love kids who, you know, are reading the books or reading anything that they're coming across and thinking, oh my God, that's horrible. I want to do something about it. And I find that who are reading the books or reading anything that they're coming across and thinking, oh, my God, that's horrible. I want to do something about it. And I find that that's the case with like 99 percent of the children I meet. They want to go in and help in some way. And you were that kid yourself, weren't you? Yes, I was very annoying to all my family and all my teachers. Bless them. Yes, I was. Yeah.

Is it true that you discovered the word feminist when you were seven? Yes. And committed? I was heartily committed. So basically, I was just, I was, you know, I'm in an Asian family, we feed 10,000 people whenever we have guests over. And I have a younger brother who was allowed to just go off and play his computer games. But I was asked to kind of lay the table and clean the house and do all the things that I imagine Cinderella had to do. So I was having a bit of a strop and an aunt just said to me, just looked at me, said, stop being a feminist. And I'd never heard the word feminist. I'd heard loads of other ref words, but I never heard of the word feminist. And the way she said it was so horrible. I thought it was a swear word.

So I kind of I was like, oh, God. So I asked my mum. My mum's lovely. She always answers my questions, bless her. And I kind of I was like oh god um so I asked my mum my mum's lovely she always answers my questions bless her and I kind of tipped her in the kitchen and asked her mum what's a feminist because you know auntie so-and-so's just called me it and she's like oh that's just someone who you know believes in women's rights and I was like what's wrong with that then so at dinner that you know that day when everyone was around the table and you know having dahl and whatever I just stood up there and said, I'm going to be a feminist. I'm a feminist, everyone. I just thought you should know. And I sat back down.

So from that day, it's been a key word in my life and it will always be. I absolutely love that story. What's wrong with that then? Absolutely nothing. Nothing. I still don't understand it. And bless my aunt, the word that she threw at me has become my life's work. So I don't think that was her cause, but, you know, here we go. And it really has become my life's work. So I don't think that was her cause, the actor, but, you know, here we go.

And it really did become your life's work. You go off to Oxford, you study feminism there. And then what happens in your own family is that there is a shocking example of gender-based violence within your extended family when your cousin's husband killed her. That incident had a huge impact on you. And what's interesting is that you turned it around and you founded your own NGO. Is that typically Anjali? Oh, gosh, no, I don't think anything's typically me. I think so so I really um was just absolutely flabbergasted that this could happen in my family um you know we regard ourselves as quite educated my you know my mom's been working for human rights for all of her life so we were just absolutely shocked that this woman came into our life with so much trauma and abuse and even after five years of trying to fight for her life and fight for her

to you know keep her children away from him etc etc. None of it worked. And, you know, my cousin passing away in such a way and her life being taken in such a horrible way, led me to really open my eyes and think, wait a minute, I'm working for all these NGOs. But why aren't all these NGOs working together? I don't understand it. And really making Herstory, which is what's been set up in her name and is her legacy. And that was set up as a book club. It was literally my only way that I thought I want to do something. I need to do something or else I'll go mad. So we set it up as a book club and it just had one aim. We're going to raise as much money as we can, raise as much awareness as we can and get some help to women's shelters, because that's where we first came to know of my cousin. And it just spiralled from there.

Suddenly all these people were coming forward with their stories. People were coming forward saying, I'm really worried about this friend. And we started trying to signpost people. And it just grew and grew. So it wasn't, I didn't ever imagine that Making Hershey would be what it is today. It kind of just was really based as a very simple book club. But I knew I had to do something beyond just working for other NGOs and also, you know, try and unite people. Because it really angered me that agencies weren't working together.

Women are still going into court with absolutely nothing to hand, even though they have, you know, social services and police and GPs with all this information. And we're still losing women because information isn't being shared. So, yeah, trying to change all of that being part of that solution is i think reflective of your passion for change which is why you're welcome which is why i want you to stay on the line because actually driving change is at the heart of our next conversation a new report claims that pupils could leave secondary school in England without studying a single novel or play by a non-white author. The education charity Teach First is now calling for at least a quarter of all set texts for GCSE literature to be by black, Asian or minority ethnic writers. But why and what difference would it make to pupils? Joining me

is Jamila Boothman, an English teacher and assistant head teacher at Woodside High School in North London. Hello, Jamila. Hi there. Good morning. Good morning. What kind of school do you teach at? I teach at a large, vibrant, culturally diverse, mixed 11 to 16 comprehensive school in Tottenham, where key stage two attainment is below the national average and the deprivation indicator is quite high above the national average. Why do you think it's important to diversify the kind of books being read? Because you took part, didn't you, in this Teach First report? Yes, I did. I mean, this isn't about replacing the classics.

As a teacher, I want to support and develop my students' cultural capital so that when they leave school and go into college and university and the world of work, they can confidently participate in discussions with familiarity of what is deemed to be legitimate culture within our society, so the Shakespeare's and the Dickens. However, I also want them to feel confident and strong and proud in their identities and to be able to steer conversations in the direction of where they come from

and to take some ownership of this really quite powerful thing that we call culture. This is also not just about empowering black and brown children, which is hugely important. But there's a huge amount of talk nowadays about privilege within society. And the truth is that in school and in the classroom, there's a really unique and fantastic opportunity for all children to experience literature by minority ethnic authors and to understand its value. So the Missing Pages report shines a light on the absence of this opportunity, this experience and this knowledge.

And these missed opportunities, which can essentially help to validate and develop lived experiences of the young people who are sitting in classrooms. I mean, Jamila, you've raised a whole host of issues there. I'd like to just try and unpick them. But the one I'd like to focus on first is this idea of what it is to diversify literature. Are we talking, and Anjali, I'd really like to get your view on this as well. Are you talking about black and Asian authors,

for example, talking or writing about the black and Asian experience, for example, or are you talking about creating a syllabus where you have non-white authors who can write about anything, not just their lived experience? Anjali? Absolutely Absolutely you want a mixture of both you don't want to confine people's creativities just because of you know their their cultural or racial roots you want them to have the freedom to write whatever they want to write about but at the same time you also need to know about our histories and our roots and what has led us to where we are in the current world when it comes to racism etc so it has to be a mixture of both. We can't confine people to just one aspect of life, of history. We have to allow both of those things to blossom,

both of those sides of the literary discourse or historical discourse to grow. Jamila, do you think that there is a danger that by being prescriptive, I mean, Teach First is saying, you know, they'd like to see a minimum of 25% of authors on the set texts of GCSE literature coming from black and Asian minority ethic backgrounds. Do you think that there is any danger that we create a sense of tokenism and actually end up boxing authors in? Well, I mean, I think the thing is that in an ideal world, young people's carers and relatives and parents will be able to kind of help them to seek out diverse texts. However, in 2020 in inner city London, where there are language barriers and literacy issues and lack of resources,

I think that the reality is that the option of kind of seeking out diverse texts is a luxury and many young people simply don't have it. So I don't think tokenism is really an issue. I think it's more about getting, allowing access and facilitating access. And I mean, I think as Anjali said, I read a really lovely exchange on Twitter

where there was a teacher who had read some of her book and it had allowed a student to kind of start talking about their experiences, I think, in Syria. And it's this thing about roles in society, but also roles in the classroom. You know, we always have the class clown. we always have the student hard worker who's quiet, we always have the kid who has their hand up all the time, because they know all the stuff because they learn it from home. And by diversifying what is being taught in that classroom, you change those roles around. And it

means that that child who may be the class clown usually actually gets to talk about something that they really know about and feel proud about that. And Anjali, playing with those characters, reassessing them, putting them in different roles, that's something that you focus on actually quite a lot, isn't it? Yes, absolutely. And I want to break the boundaries of having to, for example, have a character who's from a certain background who can only tell a sad story or a painful story, they should be able to talk about magic and whatever it is that they want to do as well. You know, you have to, I think it's really giving teachers and kids and parents and everyone real access and real access only comes through the classroom. It really does. So when I was growing up, we didn't have any black authors or anything about black history anywhere in our books.

It wasn't until I got to university that I discovered this world of amazing women, you know, black, Asian, Chinese, wherever, you know, anywhere outside of the Western Hemisphere that had made all of these amazing literary accomplishments and historical changes. So it's really crucial that we start early and that we, you know, as Julie said, people don't have the luxury of access. I didn't have I couldn't buy books all the time. I had to go to the library. And if your library doesn't have anything, then where are you? Especially as a kid who doesn't belong to the mainframe. It's really important that authors be allowed to create whatever they want to create, no matter where they're from. And teachers are able to bring in books and bring in things to a story and a history that has been missing for far too long. Jamila, just going back to this GCSE set texts issue. Now students, as I understand it, have to study a Shakespeare play, a 19th century novel, a selection of poetry since

1789, and fiction or drama from the UK from 1914 onwards. I mean, that in itself will exclude a number of authors. What do your students study? So there's a lot more flexibility at Key Stage 3. And I think at Key Stage 3, a teacher or an English department can say, well, look, I'm going to offer my students the most valuable, diverse experience that I can because it's the right thing to do. And, you know, my role as a teacher,

that's part of my contribution to society, ensuring that young people who leave me are excited about where they come from and their future opportunities. The way that that ties into Key Stage 4 and those set texts, which obviously time has to be dedicated to those for key stage four so you know as you get into year 10 some schools year nine the focus is on those texts

and I think relationships come into it and having having been able to build positive relationships with your students when they're in key stage three, challenging them to really develop their skills with the texts that they love and that they feel comfortable with, then supports you when you're trying to then teach them about the other texts. I wouldn't want anybody to think that those texts aren't enjoyable, though, because my year 10s absolutely love an Inspector Calls. And, know that they they do benefit from having a broad and diverse exposure to different types of literature and I think the report certainly doesn't suggest that that those things would be replaced it simply asks that there would be more available I mean as it stands the AQA spec features three women of colour across books,

poetry and short stories, and just one of those is a black woman. Talking to me there, Jamila Boothman and Anjali Rauf. And thank you for getting in touch with us. Lots of you talking to us about COVID-19 and working class women. Charlotte writes, as always, it's women who have to get on with it and cope with what's thrown at us. How on earth can you make ends meet if you're on minimum wage work and then furloughed? The living wage should not be cut if we don't want to push people into debt and all the horrors that can bring. On Anjali Rao's new book, Vicky writes, The Boy at the Back of the Class is the best book my 10-year-old and I have ever read together. Very excited for hericky writes, The Boy at the Back of the Class is the best book my 10-year-old and I

have ever read together. Very excited for her new book, The Night Bus Hero, just in time for her birthday. And we've had lots of suggestions from you on which books you'd like to see on the curriculum that currently aren't. Dr. Lucy Pearson is in favour of diversifying the types of authors that are currently there. She says, let's address the rather outdated nature of much of the curriculum at the same time and put some of the great contemporary writers of children's and young adults on the curriculum. Alex Wheatle, Katherine Johnson, Sita Brahmacharya

and Kandi Gawley, for starters. Luna writes The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Needs to go on, I have to say, both of those are my personal favourites. And Jennifer writes Bernadine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other and non-fiction books Black and British by David Olusoga and Tribes by David Lammy. And Philip suggests The Book from the Ground by Zhu Ben. Tomorrow Jane is back speaking to the Manchester-based artist Susie McMurray.

She'll also be exploring what it's like to be diagnosed with ADHD when you're a 52-year-old woman. Emma Mahoney explains how her life now makes sense after a late diagnosis. And do women forgive differently from men? Tomorrow, Jane will be speaking to Sandra Barefoot, who works in prisons with the Forgiveness Project. I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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, 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.