Woman's Hour - Carol Ann Duffy and Kathryn Williams, Care worker shortages, Peng Shuai, Divisive TV

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

Former poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and Mercury-nominated songwriter Kathryn Williams have released new album 'Midnight Chorus'. We ask them about their collaboration and how they avoided the clichés of Christmas. With added pressure from Covid and fewer staff because of Brexit, the demand for care workers has risen. In October this year there were 130,000 vacant care worker posts in England, leaving many people without the care they need. Last week, government advisors said that care worker jobs should be placed on the shortage occupation list, which would make it easier for employers to hire and sponsor migrant workers in these roles. What would this mean for the care sector? Emma speaks to Karolina Gerlich, executive director of The Care Workers Charity and Louise Arnold, Managing Director of Peninsula care homes.There has been widespread concern for the safety of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai since she posted sexual assault allegations against a former top political figure a few weeks ago. She disappeared and then returned saying she was safe and well. Now the tennis player has denied saying she was sexually assaulted. What are we to make of this? Emma speaks to Kerry Allen, China Media analyst for BBC Monitoring.The Christmas Radio Times is out and we now know what TV we can look forward to watching over the festive period. But can TV divide a household rather than unite it? Are women the gatekeepers of family TV? Or do men rule the remote? Professor of Media and Communications, Catherine Johnson, has looked at the impact lockdown has had on our family TV watching styles, and journalist Emma Beddington tells us what she’ll be tuning into in her house.Last week on the programme, we heard from Jess Duckworth - a junior doctor who has combined her two passions - music and medicine - to create an EP of relaxing music. We asked to hear about your side hustles, and the things you love doing. Today we meet two listeners; Lucy Symons is the stadium announcer for her local football club and Jenny Fyall runs her own pumpkin patch in Aberdeenshire.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Four days until Christmas and our thoughts have turned to those in care. With all of the uncertainty around rules but also staff shortages, a new report out across 25 countries looking at care during COVID makes for particularly grim reading. A team of top scientists has called for an inquiry into tens of thousands of non-COVID deaths in care homes after finding evidence that vulnerable residents died of thirst,

starvation and broken hearts in the pandemic. Almost 40% of excess fatalities, they say, were not caused by the virus, with many people dying of neglect and loneliness. Almost 40% of excess fatalities, they say, were not caused by the virus, with many people dying of neglect and loneliness. 80% of those working in care in this country, of course, are women. More on that shortly. But I should say, any of your experiences on either side of this, as someone receiving care, as someone who has a family member receiving care,

or someone who's working in the care sector, please do get in touch. And also, how is Christmas looking? What are the plans for the next few days? Text me here at Women's Hour on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate or on social media. We're at BBC Women's Hour. Or email me through the website. But I also want to ask today about your work partners.

Who you have worked with where it just clicks, where it makes what you do just that little bit better. Some call them a work wife, a work husband. You may hate that. Partners in crime maybe you go for, collaborator, the person you work with without whom work wouldn't work. Who are they? How did you meet? What was it that brought you together? And what have you managed to create or just get through together? I want to hear those stories today. You can pay tribute to your other half in the working world because I'm going to be talking to the former Poet Laureate, the first woman to hold the role, Carol Ann Duffy, and the Mercury nominated songwriter Catherine Williams to talk about their collaboration,

their creation, a new album for Christmas. They met by one falling in a ditch and the other pulling the other one out. So you beat that. Tell me who you work with, why it works and how you came together in the first place. 84844 is the number you need to text and social media, as mentioned, at BBC Woman's Hour. Also on today's programme, we're going to try and unravel what's going on

with the Chinese tennis star Peng Shui, who had spoken out about sexual assault allegations and is now denying that she said that in the first place. More on that to come. And with TV probably being the only dependable source of entertainment again this Christmas, who really has control in your house? That might be a contentious issue. Stay with us for that. But post-Brexit and now with the pressure of the pandemic, the demand for care workers has risen significantly. In October this year, there were 130,000 vacant care worker posts in England. Take that, in 130,000, leaving many people without the care that they need. Kyla told us about her experience.

I'm Kyla Harris. I am a filmmaker and disabled person located in Brighton. You know, I require 24-hour care from personal assistants, what I call PAs. My experience of organising care, which I've had to do for the last 20 years now, since I was about 15, has been that it's always difficult to recruit. It's always difficult to find personal assistants. And I think that's because care work is so undervalued. Recently, finding care for me has been extremely difficult. It always is, but because of the pandemic,

it's just completely changed the landscape of recruiting. Sometimes I'm unable to find cover for my personal care and without having care, you know, my life is at risk. And if I, you know, do require backup, I have my partner, but that puts a strain on our relationship, which I obviously don't want. One of the reasons why it's been so stressful the last few days is that a PA of mine was in contact with someone who had COVID and she was supposed to come on shift. You know, even though I employ seven personal assistants at one time, I still wasn't able to find care. And she was supposed to be working with me for four days which is extremely extremely stressful because it it's survival for me you know. Kyla Harris there who employs personal

assistants to meet her care needs and you heard it there it's survival. Well last week government advisors said that care worker jobs should be placed on what's called the shortage occupation list which would make it easier for employers to hire and sponsor migrant workers in these roles. The Migration Advisory Council also called to lift the ban on asylum seekers becoming carers quickly. Under current rules, asylum seekers are barred from working until their application has been processed. What would these changes potentially mean for the care sector, which as I said, is made up of over 80% women? Could it offer the relief it seems it so desperately needs? And also what is the shortages? What effect have the shortages had on care? Because as I mentioned,

that new report paints a grim picture. I'm now joined by Carolina Gerlach, the Executive Director of the Care Workers Charity and Louise Arnold Arnold, managing director of Peninsula Care Homes, which is a chain of five across Devon. And before I actually come to both of you, Sam's messaged in to say, Good morning, Emma. I'm a care home manager for the elderly living with dementia. It would be nice if you could also report

the positive aspects of care homes, please. Sam, thank you very much for that message and for all that you are doing. But the reality on the ground is what, Louise? I know, as I've mentioned, five care homes across Devon. What are the gaps for you? What are the shortages? How hard is it to employ people? Let's start there. Louise Arnold. I'm hoping we do have you.

Louise Arnold, can you hear me? I'll go to Carolina if we're having some issues. Carolina, let me start there. What do you think of the advice to add care workers to the shortage occupation list? Morning. Yes, it's great that this advice has finally come through. The sector has been campaigning for it ever since the new immigration rules came into place. Hopefully it will offer some relief. Obviously it won't solve all of our recruitment and retention problems. And we just have to bear in mind that it needs to be as low an admin as possible because what we don't want is an admin heavy process

to add on top of all of the duties that care managers are holding right now to get some extra people in. And the vaccination, compulsory vaccination, how much has that impacted? Or are you not feeling that yet? No, there's definitely been an impact ever since it was announced that in care homes there will be compulsory people left even before the deadline. And there were people that left on the deadline in November. It is a struggle.

There is concern about it coming into home care in spring as well. So if you look at both of immigration policy since Brexit, vaccinations, the sickness levels, better offers in other sectors, social care really is struggling with staffing levels. Louise, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Great. Louise Arnold, Managing Director of Peninsula Care Homes, a chain of five across Devon. How hard is it to fill vacancies at the moment? What are your vacancies like? So we do have vacancies. We've managed to recruit throughout this pandemic and we're very

grateful for those that have joined us during it. We have actually started our sponsorship licence application to bring skilled workers in, but it is taking a long time. We started the application in August and we are still waiting. So whilst we welcome care workers going onto a shortage list, it's the time that these things take. We all need help now. And the report that they are doing is talking about April 2022. You know, right now we need additional staff across the sector. So it is very challenging. Because at the moment, just to look at what the Home Office have said, the Minister for Safe and Legal Migration on this point, Kevin Foster said our points based immigration system is delivering on the people's priorities of getting businesses to invest in the domestic workforce while attracting those with the skills we need.

The shortage occupation list includes senior care workers. And last year, we introduced the health and care visa to support the sector to recruit the staff it needs. But businesses need to make long term investments in the UK domestic workforce, including offering hardworking care workers the rewarding packages they deserve. Our new plan for immigration will reform the broken asylum system to speed up removals of those who have no right to be in the UK. And we have been clear asylum seekers should not be allowed to work unless their claim has been outstanding for 12 months or more. This has been recently reviewed and that will not change.

But they also add that they will consider the Migration Advisory Committee's conclusions that I mentioned in my introduction carefully with regards to your sector. Are you saying you can't fill the gaps with domestic workers? Currently, we can't. So we have had staff join us during this and we have had those that are new to the sector. We've used schemes like Kickstart, which has introduced people who have never worked in a care home pre their first day of, they've never stepped in front, you know, inside. And they, most of those have actually stayed with us. They've been offered full-time positions having had their introduction. So we've done that, but we need more. We have lost a number of staff to the NHS. The vaccination, mandatory vaccination in care homes actually increased our challenge because they moved from

our sector to another area of care that wasn't having the mandatory vaccinations and this isn't just what we've how many people wouldn't get vaccinated out of interest in your world actually a very small number that actually we sort of had to go through the final route of them terminating. But a lot of people chose within the sector that I know to leave because they didn't like it being mandatory. They wanted that choice. Now, I was first in line almost to have my vaccine. I wanted to have my vaccine, but that was a choice. So it is a really difficult. And why do you think you can't fill it domestically? I think there's a number of reasons. I think people see quite a lot of negativity about the sector.

So we do need, like your caller said, we do need to change the image. We have amazing staff and they've become little families. So they talk about their work husband and work wife and everything that you said. But I think there's a lot of demand. We need more finance within the sector to be able to give people to understand that career progression. I've got people who started working in the kitchen. They've progressed. They're now sort of our lead chefs or they've switched roles. And actually some of those are now registered managers with us. So there is a career, but it's not very well publicised. So that's a challenge for us all.

I mean, I mentioned this report to come back to you, Carolina, this team of top scientists have looked at those who were in care homes and 40% of excess fatalities were not caused by the virus. What they say in this report is staff were too scared to go and work in what they believed, quote, was a death pit for nine pounds an hour. And that led to carers not going in. That's another part of this story. Do you recognise that as the executive director of the Care Workers Charity? No, actually not at all. I think what Sam mentioned in the message to you at the beginning of your programme is very important. What we really need to focus on is how many care workers did go in and stories of them not going in because they were scared. I've not really heard. We can focus on both, can't we? Both can be true. Yeah.

So in terms of people not going in, it's not something that I've come across what I've come across is people going in sometimes being maybe on their own on a shift because there were such high sickness levels within the care workforce especially around the first lockdown where we had very little PPE available to social care and people making huge sacrifices moving into care homes staying with people in their own homes for weeks and months on end to deliver that support. So those are the stories that I have heard. And obviously in the 18, 20 months now since we've had COVID, there will be deaths other than COVID because of the demographic of people who draw on social care. And while it's important, of course, to focus on those who are still going in and did go in at that time

that you're talking about, we must never forget, and did risk their own lives and their own health, we are also facing the reality, we've just talked about it, that there are shortages. And for whatever the reason, when there are shortages, care cannot be as good, can it? Yeah, that's absolutely true. We have staff who are completely burnt out from

COVID that are working on their own, where maybe there should be two or three people doing the job. And it has consequences on the quality of care. And like Louise was saying, we need many more people to enter the sector. The problem is that recognition and respect for work and social care isn't really there within our society. And that's what we need to change. We need to help people understand... Better salaries, presumably, as well, though? Well, better salaries, professionalisation,

recognition of highly skilled job that it is. And are you calling on private providers, for instance, to up the amount that they pay? Or are you calling for greater government support? I'm calling mainly for greater government support, because without greater government support, with a very robust reform and expectations at that level, anything else would be very difficult to achieve at the national level. Because there are individual private providers that pay very well.

But unless it happens across the board, so it's recognised as a sector pay and sector conditions and sector recognition, it's going to be very difficult to attract more people in. Carolina Gerlich, Executive Director of the Care Workers' Charity. Thank you to you. Final word to you, Louise, in terms of Christmas and the plans at your care homes? Are people able to see their loved ones? Of course. So we are following the guidance. We have a number of essential caregivers that join their loved ones and we've gone to the nominated visitors and we're trying to be as open as possible

whilst obviously mitigating risk as much as we can as well. Louise Arnold, thank you very much. Managing Director of Peninsular Care Homes. Anastasia on Twitter says, good morning to you. Says I have cerebral palsy. I'm receiving no support. I'm desperate for some practical support. I've gone from 40 hours to zero. I can't cope. I am really struggling. I feel like I'm dying, which is a very desperate message indeed from Anastasia. I mean, all I can say is that I'm incredibly sorry to hear that, but also thank you for sharing that or feeling you can share

that with us. You reported, Emma, that people in care are dying of thirst. That's what this new report says from scientists. When my mother was in hospital and in care, I noticed that cups of tea were brought by catering staff, placed on a table that went over the bed or on the bedside cupboard. The elderly person couldn't

reach it, and even if they could, would probably spit it. Later on, the full cups were collected with the assumption that the elderly person didn't want it. Someone has to be there to help the person drink. An observation from Christine, who's listening in London. Good morning to you. Well, we'll keep with your experiences. Please keep them coming in and letting us know what you're doing and how it's going to work over Christmas, but also perhaps what you think could be done to get more people to want to work in care homes and in the care sector.

But to bring you up to date on a story, of course, we have been following and will continue to follow. Urgent reform is needed when it comes to legal recognition of transgender people in England. That's the conclusion of a new cross-party MP's report out today. Under the current law, they have to prove to doctors that they have what's called gender dysphoria and have to live as their acquired gender for two years. The Women and Equalities Committee is calling for those conditions in England to be scrapped, saying that the Gender Recognition Act is crying out for modernisation. The government says that the current provisions are effective,

though, and that it is modernising the way people can apply for a certificate. My colleagues on the Today programme spoke to Conservative MP and the chair of that committee, the Women and Equalities Committee, Caroline Noakes, earlier this morning that has just produced this report. Caroline was asked if she thinks the two-year rule needs to be scrapped. Well, that's what the committee is recommending to the government, to scrap this arbitrary time limit, to look at the way the gender recognition panel works and review that because it's incredibly opaque at the moment and requests for information and transparency have effectively been blanked. And trans people find it very intrusive to have to justify the way they live their lives to a panel of people who they will never meet. And so would you take out the role of doctors altogether as well?

Well, we want to see the process demedicalised and move towards self-declaration, self-identification, which was something that I know Theresa May was working towards when she was still Prime Minister. And it feels very much as if we have gone backwards on trans rights over the course of the last two years. Conservative MP Caroline Noakes talking there to my colleague Martha Kani on the Today programme. We have, of course, covered the debate over sex-based versus gender-based rights this year, including Professor Kathleen Stock's first interview since resigning from Sussex University after protests against her position. The BBC's Director of Nations came on air with me

after the corporation pulled out of the Stonewall workplace scheme, citing concerns over perceptions of impartiality regarding women's and trans rights. And Nancy Kelly, the chief executive of Stonewall, also gave me her first broadcast interview since several other organisations, including the BBC, withdrew from its schemes. Those are long, detailed interviews which you can hear in full if you miss them on BBC Sounds. And we will, of course, continue to cover this issue next year as it develops.

Now, I have been asking for your partnerships and who you'd like to pay tribute to in terms of who you work with. Because the former Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, and Mercury-nominated songwriter Catherine Williams have been working together. And the result is a new album called Midnight Chorus, which Carol Ann has described as the thinking woman's guide to Christmas. We'll get into that in just a moment because I am joined by Carol Ann Duffy and Catherine Williams. But first, I wanted to make sure we listened to a track. Let's listen to the title track, Midnight Chorus. In the midnight chorus of hearts United hearts

Lovely stuff. Warm welcome to you both. Caroline, I thought I'd start with you and say, I believe you love Christmas a lot. Why is that and is that what drove this album? Well, hello, thank you for having us. Why do I love Christmas? I think it's because I was born near Christmas. As you can tell, I have a festive Carol, yes, we're there and upgraded to Carol Ann by my lovely mum so I grew up thinking it was Christmas because it was

my birthday and it wasn't until I was about six that I realised people were celebrating someone else's birthday so I've always kind of I love that, I love that because it's actually your birthday on the 23rd. So, yeah, the run up to it and then afterwards must have always been a joyous time. And Catherine, we're getting some brilliant messages in about people who work together and how they collaborate.

And I'll come to those in just a minute. But I did mention one of you had fallen in a ditch and this is how it all began. Was that you? Yeah, that's me. The cool person fell in the ditch yeah so we were we were working up in Moniac Moor in the Highlands we were working in this beautiful hut and it goes dark very quickly and um I Caroline had gone on ahead and I stepped out with guitar in one hand and a book in the other thinking I should put my phone on with the torch and before I did

that I fell into this big ditch and was so embarrassed to shout for help so I was quietly going help help until I realized no one would come if I didn't shout and so um I'd actually broken my ankle um and I was shouting for Caroline and um she came like Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility in the night. But yeah, although she did say that she couldn't help but laugh at me in the ditch. And from that, a collaboration has been born or was certainly nurtured, I imagine, after you finished laughing, Caroline.

Well, no, we'd actually met before that as a festival when Catherine managed to stay on her feet. No, actually, you didn't manage to stay on your feet at that festival, as I remember. Anyways, about a year after, as we were working up in the Highlands, and I heard this faint bleating as of a newborn lamb in the darkness and I'm really ashamed that I did totally double up laughing and then

I realized that she was in pain. Yeah and you had to kind of help her and when you stopped laughing. Well all good partnerships can come from a little bit of adversity and laughing at each other. And as I say, resulted in this album. Catherine, how does it work? Do you write the music and Carol Anne does the lyrics or you do a bit of both? I would say mostly. I mean, Carol Anne would send me lyrics or write lyrics.

But then she's very musical and she would know which words to pick with the right syllables of how they would ring in a lyric. And when I when I read her words, I could I could almost imagine that. Well, I imagine the melody just it came very quickly from what she'd written. And she had really good ideas for instrumentation and melodic passages in the song so I don't think it was so black and white as just um just she did words I did music I think we we worked really collaboratively and and there's some we will play a bit more it's it's a beautiful album there's lots of uh lots of themes in there there's quite a bit of nostalgia as well. And I know you were keen, Caroline, to avoid some of the cliches of Christmas.

Yes, I think we both wanted to do something that was truthful and in some senses autobiographical. Catherine also contributed to the lyrics, I should say. And we found we had a lot in common, our family backgrounds, our mothers. We both had an association with Liverpool. We lived there for many years. But I think we wanted to do something that was both a celebration of the time, but also acknowledged that it can be lonely and difficult.

Well, you know, Caroline, we spoke at the beginning of the year, right at the beginning of the year. And, you know, it's horrible to be able to say this again now, that we're back in uncertainty. People are not knowing what's safe to do, what's not safe to do. And I know that there's a song on there, Hang Fire, there's a kind of sadder undertone to that, with lyrics referencing the very hard year people

have had i mean how important do you think it is uh for people to be able to turn to music and poetry caroline at this time especially as we head towards christmas essential i mean i think this time of year when we in normal times, withdraw into our homes and sort of gather around the fire is the time when we're most likely to read books, read poetry, listen to music. And I've always kind of associated, and I know Catherine has, Christmas with kind of as an artist giving something to readers or listeners.

And, of course, this year in the parallel universe that we find ourselves living in, I think even more important. I mean, is Boris Johnson really prime minister? Yeah, that's still who's there. And people, of course, waiting to see if there will be further direction of which we will report as and when we get it. But the questioning, I suppose, of rules, the questioning of power, all of that is actually very much in people's minds at the moment.

And either they want to think about that or they want to escape completely. And for you, Catherine, what has been helping you through these last weeks and months? Well, I do live Instagrams to connect with fans who would maybe come to shows on their own and then i was lucky enough to have my book published this year so um that's been a good distraction a way of engaging yeah and i didn't realize how hard it is writing a book so um i want to say to authors that they're kind of my heroes. Yeah, no, I have to say, I've done it once and people always say, oh, what are you going to do again?

I said, never, never again. That was once enough, once too many times. I feel exactly the same. Catherine, I wanted to ask, Dolly Parton gets a mention in this, to you first of all, and then I'll ask Caroline, why Dolly? Well, Caroline wrote the lyric but I completely concur with her I love Dolly

Dolly Parton, you say you want to meet her, Caroline Duffy I'm sure someone can help you arrange that God, that would be good, wouldn't it? I had this rhyme swinging around my head in lockdown, like a kind of mantra,

Dear Lord, let me meet Dolly Parton just once. It kind of saved my sanity on many a dark hour. So I put it in the song. But also I think Dolly, I think it's something that we can universally agree on. She's like the good fairy at the top of the Christmas tree. I love things like give millions of pounds for COVID research and give reading books to children.

So for me, she's the grown-up Christmas fairy. I think it would be hard if we found someone who wasn't on board with a bit of that, certainly. The final track we're going to hear is Hidden Meanings, which is about sending Christmas cards. Just before we do listen to that,'s your preparation going catherine are you are you doing anything are you preparing are you now i don't know going on strike because you don't know what to do um we've been sort of um staying in the house for the last uh week um in preparation for going to

see my mum and dad in Liverpool for the first time in two years for Christmas so we're very very excited and fingers crossed hoping that everything's going to happen. Well I hope that for you and what's your Christmas looking like Caroline Duffy? Very quiet at home which is normal normally I go up to Maniac which we mentioned earlier but obviously that's been cancelled but I think Catherine and I are working later on this afternoon aren't we because we're doing

a new album. Alright the collaboration's continuing good, lovely to hear. Really lovely to hear. Well let's end by hearing some music. As I say it's called Hidden Meanings. Ticking off your address on my Christmas list I was hidden meanings from the album Midnight Chorus by Catherine Williams and Carol Ann Duffy, which is out now. Big thank you and Merry to to both of them it has also

prompted us and given you the opportunity to pay tribute to your work partner those that make work work for you uh one here from my kindred spirit at work is pam reads this message this is from christina we've known each other for about 14 years and we share a love of books this year we What a gorgeous tribute and gorgeous thing to do. Jill's written in. Hello, I'm Jill. My work wife is Nina. We've worked closely together since early autumn of 2019. I'm a practice nurse and Nina is the patient services manager at a GP practice in Bristol. We joined forces to take our

flu vaccine campaign to an alternative venue as the practice was undergoing building work. We have worked our asses off to vaccinate our patients. It's been hard, exhausting, challenging, exhilarating and fulfilling. None of this would have happened without Nina. She is my superstar and I would not have got through this year without her. Merry Christmas to all. Thank you so much for that, Jill. And Christine paying tribute to her male colleague that she can't do without.

I want to mention a colleague of mine whose name is Colin. We started working together approximately 10 years ago. What makes our working relationship so positive is mutual respect for one another's knowledge, skills and character. Strong colleague relationships can sometimes be underestimated in the workplace. Indeed, which is why we want to pay tribute to them today. Please keep those messages coming in. They're lovely to hear what you've gone through with each other and what's come out of the other side, what you've done together and why it works.

84844, you were just hearing there for a particular collaboration of poetry and music. Now, there has been widespread concern for the safety of the Chinese tennis player Peng Shui, since she posted sexual assault allegations against a former top political figure in the country. She then disappeared from public view for nearly three weeks and then returned saying she was safe and well. Now the tennis player has denied saying she was sexually assaulted. What are we to make of this, Kerry Allen, China media analyst for BBC Monitoring Service? Good morning. Good morning. You have been covering this story since the beginning. Just before we get to where we are now, the original remarks were on a social network in China. They were, yes. They were posted on a platform that's called Sina Weibo, which I suppose

would be the equivalent of, say, Facebook or Twitter. And they were posted to half a million followers. And more than 100,000 people saw this post where she said that she was forced to have sexual relations with Jiang Gaoli, a very senior former member of China's Politburo. This post was taken offline within 20 minutes. And ever since, there's been a lot of censorship around her name. So for a lot of people in China, this story has suddenly vanished and it's not being spoken about and media are not covering it. So for a lot of people, they're not really aware of this story like we are overseas, what a big story it is.

It's kind of like a parallel awareness going on or not. And then she did appear after it in a clip or she appeared somehow. Tell us about that. Yes. So she's appeared in a number of managed events in recent weeks that we've been aware of on Twitter. So state media journalists have been posting images and videos showing her whereabouts and saying that she's free. But obviously, we have to factor in that Twitter is a platform that's blocked in mainland China, and this is not at all playing out within mainland China. This latest video appeared in a Singaporean newspaper actually called Lian He Zhaobao. But it is important to note that this is a newspaper that's long been thought of as Beijing friendly.

And this video interview sees a journalist approaching her on the sidelines of an event in Shanghai. Again, I have to stress a managed event and speaks to her and asks her about the allegations. Very careful not to mention Jiang Gaoli. And she says, I have never seen or written that anyone sexually assaulted me. This point must be emphasised clearly. And she adds that she has always been very free. And on the individual man mentioned, the politician, has he made any comment? He's not made any. But in China anyway, you don't have the presence of officials on social media like you do here in the UK, for example.

I mean, you see politicians on Twitter. In China, that's not the case. So he doesn't have a platform. He doesn't have a place where he would openly speak. Normally that's been done via official media, but he retired back in 2018. And yeah, I have to stress, no official newspaper, no newspaper whatsoever has touched this story. There's been no mention of it whatsoever since her original post back on the 2nd of November. And with this particular denial that she's said this, how are we then to understand or what is the understanding on who said it then, if she's saying she didn't say it?

Yeah, so very much there's a sense that there's a lot of control around her. I mean, I find it unusual just in general that a journalist can apparently just walk up to her. And in this video, you see them bypass other big stars like basketball player Yao Ming and Olympic gold medalist Xu Lijia. They just make a beeline for her and ask her certain questions. And it almost feels like it's being orchestrated for a foreign audience to say that she's free. And we have to be conscious that this comes ahead of the Olympics. And you've got the Women's Tennis Association, for example,

that's already said that it's no longer going to host matches in China. There's a lot of sensitivity around this story and it almost seems like it's gone too far because there is now a lot of pressure for China to respond to this story and to act and nothing's happening. So instead, there's these comments coming out on Twitter, very much trying to distract from the narrative or to try to say, look, she's OK, move on to the next story. Sorry, so in terms of the Women's Tennis Association, has it responded to this latest claim?

It has, yes. It said it welcomes her appearance in a public setting, but it did say that this latest video doesn't alleviate or address concerns about her well-being and ability to communicate without censorship or coercion. And I have to stress again, she has not posted on Sina Weibo since she made her original claim. And you can't even see comments on any historic posts about her. So it almost feels like there is a lot of restriction within China, both for her to speak openly, but for anybody to speak about her whatsoever. In terms, and just to say with regards to any official response from the Chinese government to her comments, I understand what you

said about the individual. Has there been any acknowledgement? Not at all, no, nothing. Nothing on that. Just very briefly, while you're with us, and I know you look across what's going on in terms of China and the media and public figures, especially with what access we can get. There's a story about a celebrity influencer, Vaya, you tell me, who's been removed from China's social media after being fined millions for tax evasion. What's that story?

Yeah, this is a huge story. So Vaya is, I would say, China's equivalent of someone like Kylie Jenner. She's known as a super influencer and she's often called China's live streaming queen. She's a woman who does these online live streaming events and she sells everything, makeup, noodles. I've seen her sell a rocket launch in Wuhan last year. So that was quite spectacular. Yeah, she can sell literally anything. But yeah, she has, in the last 24 hours, been fined for tax evasion, an extraordinary amount of money. I mean, the equivalent of 160 million British pounds. And her Weibo account, which she had at least 18 million followers on,

has been removed. Her Taobao account, and Taobao is kind of China's version of, say, Amazon or eBay. So a shopping platform where you can host live streaming events. I think for kind of, you know, older audiences, a kind of online version of platforms like QVC, kind of shopping channels. And yeah, that's just suddenly been suspended. So a lot of people are saying that they're talking on Weibo at the moment about her suddenly being removed from the internet and questions about whether she'll be able to come back. Do we know why? We don't know.

I mean, there have been a number of scandals related to tax evasion in recent years. And we have to factor in again that China is a communist country. So the idea of people not only being able to generate mass capital, but also to influence how others spend their capital is somewhat frowned upon. But at the same time, the live streaming industry is massive in China, and it's been developing very, very rapidly. So there were projections that China had at least 600 million live streamers by the end of 2020. I mean, it does have at least 400. But yeah, it's a massive growing developing industry. And people spend a lot of money via live streaming.

They watch people shopping, they're selling certain merchandise. They, yeah, they buy things online now, especially during the pandemic when they're spending more time at home. And yeah, it's a case of whether, you know, how you control this. I mean, there have been over the last two months, more and more laws introduced

on what live streamers can and can't do. So, well, thank you for taking us into two prominent Chinese women's lives and what we do know and crucially i suppose what we don't at the same time kerry allen a chinese a china media analyst for bbc monitoring there now i did mention uh the only thing perhaps you can rely on at the moment is the tv with plans up in the air all over the place because of the new covid variant one dependable source of entertainment and companionship, I should say, a very important part of this, is your TV or laptop in your home, however you get it. But can TV divide a multi-person household more than unite it,

especially in these times where we do rely upon it? Who are the gatekeepers? Men, women, or does it depend rather than generalising, of which some of it will be a bit warning in this report, in this discussion. But we do have someone who specifically looked into the impact lockdown has had on our TV watching styles, Professor of Media and Communications, Catherine Johnson, and someone who's living this, journalist Emma Beddington. I'll come to you in just a moment, Emma. But Catherine, what have you observed in you observed in your your report, really,

and looking at how we've changed during this time in terms of perhaps how men and women interact? Well, in terms of lockdown, it made television so much more important to us. And we really just everybody was television was just the things that kept them going over lockdown. But it really changed how people were viewing. So before we studied people, went into their homes before lockdown and went back again in May 2020. And we found that there was a lot more co-viewing. So before there was a lot of people in their different rooms or even like on their laptop with their headphones on while the other person, the other partners watching on the telly. And then we found that families were coming together so there was a lovely story of a woman

who barely watched telly before lockdown she said there's nothing really on it's not really for me my kids watch it I don't watch it was living at home with our adult kids over lockdown and they discovered all of these Bollywood films so that they could watch together so they specifically went and looked for things that brought them together as a family. And she had loved watching television with her family so much that she was taking her MBE off the wall and replacing it with a flat screen telly. There you go. You also found that older women were less likely to use the TV. Is that right? Well, they struggled to use the television, yeah, and this was one of the disappointing things to be honest because a lot of the historical research shows that television

viewing fits into hierarchies in the household and in the hierarchies of the household the men were at sort of top of that that pack and tended to control the remote and the television set. We went back and we found particularly with our older women, and we're not talking very old, I mean 40 and over, that sort of sector of the women that we spoke to, quite a number of them simply couldn't use their smart TVs. So we had one woman who said, I just don't watch telly much anymore, I'm not going to have much to talk to you about. We were in her home, this was in 2019, and we said, well, just show us how you use your television set. And she just could barely turn it on, didn't know which remote to pick up, struggled to figure out how to turn them on in what order. I mean, I think probably all been there at some point in our lives. And she realized that she'd stopped watching telly since they'd got a new smart TV.

She simply didn't know how to use it and was completely dependent on her husband. And it was a real sort of shock revelation that she'd lost this thing that she enjoyed and that gave her pleasure because this new piece of technology she simply couldn't use. Well, that is fascinating and disappointing, as you say, to hear on a number of levels. Emma Baddington, let's bring you into this because we talk there about hierarchies of power. Who has control? How you decide what to watch. I'm very aware of multi-person household here. Some people, of course, live on their own or they're not going to be with people over Christmas.

How's it shaking out in the run-up to a busy, perhaps a busy time of watching in your house ahead of Christmas? I think the tension sort of starts as we all try and work out if there's anything left that we haven't already watched. As Catherine says, there has been a lot of co-viewing over the past two years probably more than ever we have done in the past um we're definitely a television household I mean I think my children know the Teletubbies or knew the Teletubbies better than they knew members of their family um and it's continued in this vein unfortunately it would be nice if we were a bit like Jürgen from Bake Off's family and we all you know played medieval instruments together but I think the

mere fact that my reference point is Jürgen from Bake Off shows you that that was never gonna happen so I'd say in our household I am of uh Catherine's older. I'm 47, but I do still know how to work our smart TV. That's good. And I would say, yeah, I think so. And I would say I think I'm still top of the TV hierarchy in the sense that my husband likes to keep physical possession of the remote control, but he doesn't actually know how to use it. And I am the only person who ever suggests anything for us to co-view

because I believe it. Honestly, I think it's part of the mental load of women in a household is now finding things that are acceptable for our entire families to watch. It's certainly part of mine. So I'll keep coming up with, you know, we could try this well-reviewed BBC drama. Or how about this? Look, somebody on Twitter says this lovely Olivia Colman series is great. And then essentially the rest of my family just sort of, you know, dismiss anything I put on. Does it work? Do you think you can get them around? I think that's an interesting thing, the additional emotional load, you know, that being another thing on the list. I think I know what will work. And unfortunately, basically,

we've watched it all. I mean, people cannot make good TV as fast as my family can watch it at the moment. Yes, definitely in these times we're living in. Exactly, exactly. So that's been tricky, because I mean, I know that all sorts of comedies will always work, but we've watched them all. And then they have very low tolerance of thrillers that have any slightly improbable element. So I'll get this sort of backseat driving criticism of like, oh, that wouldn't happen kind of thing. There's a lot of that.

So that sort of rules out all the thrillers. They won't watch anything that's just sort of slow, slow burn emotional stuff. So I've basically been trying to watch the last two seasons of Mad Men for about 10 years now. Well, I was going to say, what's your, have you got a solo guilty pleasure watching habit? Is there something? So many. Like what? So many. Do share. So as I say, Mad Men, I've been trying to watch for about five years. The Crown, none of my family will ever watch anything that has any costume drama element.

And the real, the really, really guilty pleasures, obviously, are things like Grey's Anatomy, which I do love, but which I do understand from a purely critical perspective, is perhaps not the highest quality television. If you're someone like my son who would rather be watching a seven hour black and white Lithuanian film, I do understand that that's maybe not quite his vibe. And then I have to admit that I see that season two of Emily in Paris is available soon. And I will be hiding away in my office pretending to have important work to do to sort of snatch little bits of that, I think, here and there. Because, you know, it can just destroy what you want to watch. If there's a commentary going along alongside it, just scoffing at it. And then it ruins that moment. But, you know, you also want to spend time with your family. Catherine, I think what Emma's saying there about is there anything left for us to watch together will be how quite a lot of people will be feeling.

You know, if they might even, you know, be doing that circling thing of the TV guide, whatever they do or however they try and plan. Maybe they're doing it digitally now or, you know, they're just trying, aren't they, Catherine, to perhaps find a way to to be together communally. I think absolutely right. We found I don't know whether this will work for you, Emma, or not. But we had one of our participants, actually quite a few, talked about rewatching old things from the past. And that was really comforting so we had this lovely story about this uh this man who was a father of two adult boys not men I guess who were in their 20s they were all working at home from home suddenly and they never used to watch television together at all and they were coming together and re-watching all the shows from the

kids childhood so they'd worked their way all the way through Tracy Beaker they've done Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And they were now working their way through Merlin. So I don't know whether that gives you somewhere to start, but maybe something like that would help. Emma, I was just going to say quickly, Emma, you've got a Teletubbies Christmas ahead. I feel it. Yes, it'll be a whole sort of box set in the night garden

for my 17 and 19-year-olds and my 52-year-old French husband. I'm sure he'll be a whole sort of box set in the night garden for my 17 and 19 year olds and my 52 year old French husband. I'm sure he'll be delighted. Sorry. And final word, Catherine, you were going to say something else. I was just going to say that I think we really it makes me think about the young, the parents of young children and the mothers of young children in particular, speaking to Emma, because one of the things we found was the people that were most time poor and telly deprived were the mothers of young children who found that their telly viewing was really dominated by what their kids wanted to watch. And they struggled to find any time for their own telly and really felt that they were missing out on their TV culture

and all the good shows that were going on. Well, there you go. Thank you very much to both of you. Catherine Johnson, Emma Beddington, we wish you good luck over this festive period and your co-viewing ambitions. I should say yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing or sharing with you the interview I actually did last week with Claire Foy, the actor. A very British scandal that starts on Boxing Day. And I have to say, having been very lucky enough

to see it in advance, I can recommend it. I think it will cut across, not for some of the younger viewers necessarily, but if you've got older children or you're living with those who are of that age, good luck with that one. I think that would be a lovely one on Boxing Day and then goes in that fog where you don't really know

the day of the week between Christmas and New Year. Tom has emailed to say, this year I've achieved the impossible by uniting all my friends and family and watching the same television show this Christmas Eve. I was fortunate enough to have a small part in the filming of Channel 4's Greatest Snowman. It will be very exciting.

Tom, look at you trying to get some more viewers here on Woman's Hour. Very ambitious. We like it. Thank you for that. I hope it's gone extremely well and people enjoy it. And if they don't, I'm sure they won't tell you. Although maybe they will. Now, last week on the programme, talking about side hustles and Tom's role there.

You may have heard me talking to the junior doctor, Jess Duckworth. Jess has combined her two passions, music and medicine. She's been dubbed the piano doctor. She often plays in the hospital where she works when she finishes her shift. And I asked you about your side hustles. We got a lot of messages in. I'm thrilled to be able to say I can talk to two of you who got in touch. Lucy Simmons, the stadium announcer for her local football club, and Jenny File, who runs her own pumpkin patch, somewhere thousands of people travel to visit every year. A warm welcome to you both. We just wanted to hear a little bit more. Jenny, I believe you were a journalist before and then into pumpkins. Yeah, it's probably not the most natural of career progressions, to be honest. And I never would have predicted it if you'd said to me 10 years ago, I was going to be growing 8,000 pumpkins a year. But yeah, that's what's happened. Unbelievably, it's taken over my life. So, yeah, I left my job as a newspaper journalist. I was living in Edinburgh,

I had two very small children, and ended up moving to rural Aberdeenshire, where my husband and our two children, we moved to this little house, which had a bit of land with it. And at that time, I was working as a freelancer, doing doing marketing and various other bits and bobs, just sort of keeping my hand in basically and looking after my kids. And I was working one evening at my desk and this email popped in from a friend of mine saying, have you ever thought of having a pumpkin patch because you've got a bit of land? And I have to admit, I'd never even heard of a pumpkin patch at that stage. So it was one of those things that really took over my brain and I spent a few hours that

evening in fact late into the night looking what a pumpkin patch was up on the internet and researching it and by the following day I decided I was going to go for it and it almost is a bit of a joke to be honest so the very next day it was already April which is when you have to get your pumpkin seeds in the ground like planted in order to get them ready in time for Halloween so I really got cracking very next year just in case the very next day I ordered all the pots and seeds and compost and um completely went for it uh almost destroyed myself in the process because I was doing it all by hand I tried to grow a thousand thousand pumpkins that year and it was to be honest a bit of a disaster but I did end up with a few hundred fairly sorry looking specimens but when I opened the pumpkin patch I was absolutely

overwhelmed. We had so many people wanting to come along and it was then that I realised there was actually a real demand for this sort of thing. That's amazing. So it just took over everything. And then five years on this year, yeah, it was 8,000 pumpkins. I still grew them all by hand. Of course you did. And we had 5,000, roughly 5,000 people come along. And that's incredible. I mean, so many thousands involved here of pumpkins and people.

And your side hustle is now your job. Well, that has become in fact at certain times of the year it's completely all consuming so it really has gone from something I started as a bit of a joke to something that has taken over my whole life that's and I've written I was gonna say and yeah you've written a guide as well haven't you about I wrote a um it was a cookbook actually to try and encourage people to eat pumpkins as well as carve them so it's yeah the pumpkin patch cookbook oh there you go yeah lovely well wait let me make sure we've got time just before we go to speak to uh to lucy lucy your message caught our eye and particularly mine because you said you got paid for being a stadium announcer in cheesy chips and cider i believe

well yes i mean is there another currency I'm not quite sure that I understand but how did this begin how did you become a stadium announcer at the local football club completely by mistake as all things that are any good at all happen I was minding my own business and was asked to go and see a local football match and I'd only ever had really access to football in the gigantic stadiums of the Manchester United of my partner's love and so when I was invited to go I was slightly concerned when I was told to meet them by the turnstile because I knew that turnstiles were you know few and far between and when I arrived he was actually standing there because it was just the

singles turnstile not the normal 300 that you'd find at a Manchester United match and I was introduced to the marvels of sort of nettles and molehills in the local Isthmian Premier League football so it's it's the, we call it a stadium, it's actually corrugated iron and a sort of Nissan hut, is beside a large motorway, the A3 in Tolworth. And it's not exactly salubrious, but they do serve awfully good cheesy chips. And we're talking about the Corinthian casuals.

The Corinthian casuals, they are enormously successful and very, very historied in their own little amateur world. But they are an amateur football club. The only person who's paid on staff is the physiotherapist. The rest of us are all volunteers. I believe the players are now reimbursed for their travel. Right. Okay. And maybe a cheesy chip or two. And you do stadium announcing. What sort of things are or two. And you do stadium announcing. What sort of things are you saying? Can you give us an announcement?

Well, I mean, I can give you, just because I'm slightly cheesed off that they have just, their latest signing is an Uzbek and his name is Nordebek Bobomorodo. Now, when I first had that one, I had to do a little, as I was saying his name. I practice now, so I can say it happily. But I do announce all the team players and I announce any substitutions, added time, any goals, obviously, that are scored frequently by the opposition. Have you got a voice for it? Is there a special way? Unfortunately, it's just my normal posh old lady voice,

which in a stadium of flat cap wearing gents is not always welcome. But they've got used to me now. I think they're quite proud of me. And has this become your favourite thing to do on the side, of course? Absolutely. Absolutely. I have a little patchwork of side hustles that I've knitted together. And this is my absolute favourite. I mean, not just because of the cheesy chips.

I'm actually very fond of the players and the game now. Well, I know you're also a doula, a funeral celebrant, a voiceover actress. You've got a lot going on. And that is a brilliant one to have as part of the list. Thank you so much for coming on and actually talking to us about it. Lucy Simmons, Merry Christmas to you.

Jenny Fowle, Merry Christmas to you. And thank you for telling us about your side hustle. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. 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.