Woman's Hour - Catfishing, Caribbean Christmas Food & Gloves

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

Catfishing is the practise of using a fake profile to start an online romance. The podcast Sweet Bobby has been shining a light on this issue through the story of Kirat Assi, a 42-year-old radio presenter who started a relationship with a person she thought to be Bobby, a handsome cardiologist, via Facebook. However, when he repeatedly fails to visit her in person, she slowly comes to learn his true identity. She shares her story with Anita, and is joined by investigative journalist Alexi Mostrous who explains the current legislation around catfishing.Is the world of horse racing being forced to face up to its own #metoo moment this week? A light has been shone on the bullying and harassment endured by professional jockey, Bryony Frost, on and off the track by a male jockey who has now been banned for 18 months, with three months suspended. We hear from race trainer Gaye Kelleway, the first woman to ride a winner at Royal Ascot, and from Annamarie Phelps, the Chair of the British Horseracing Authority.Earlier this week, Ministers revealed a 10-year drugs strategy, allocating £780m in funding for the drug treatment system in England. This will include £300m for combating more than 2,000 county lines gangs. County lines is a form of criminal exploitation where urban gangs persuade, coerce or force children and young people to store drugs and money and/or transport them to suburban areas, market towns and coastal regions. Anita speaks to two mothers whose respective families and communities have been impacted by county lines gangs. Sahira Irshad founded Mums United in Sheffield, a charity led by mothers to tackle youth violence and child drug exploitation. She is joined by Jen Jones a volunteer mother from the group. Chef and food-writer Keshia Sakarah is a second-generation West Indian of Montserratian and Barbudan heritage. Her restaurant Caribe' celebrates the diverse cuisine of the Caribbean, representing dishes from across the region. Keshia joins Anita to talk about the traditions and history behind Caribbean Christmas food.From the hand-knitted mittens to the Bluetooth-enabled glove that acts like a phone, the humble glove has been linked to honour, status and identity but also to decadence and deceit. Dr Anne Green, Emeritus Professor of French at King’s College London tells us about her new book Gloves. An Intimate History.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed

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 Felicity Finch. You may know me as Ruth in The Archers. I'm just asking for a few seconds of your time before you listen to the Woman's Hour podcast. This Christmas, thousands of people across the UK will be without a safe place to call home. But you can help change that. Thousands of people across the UK will be without a safe place to call home.

But you can help change that. St Martin's helps ensure that people experiencing homelessness can find and keep a safe place to live. Your gift could support someone to take the next step towards a more secure future. Please support the BBC Radio 4 Christmas Appeal with St Martin inin-the-Fields by donating online on the Radio 4 Christmas Appeal website. Whether you give every year or if this is your first, thank you. Now enjoy your podcast. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. I have a podcast recommendation for you today, Sweet Bobby. It's a story about a catfishing incident. A woman was duped into believing she was in a relationship with a man online for 10 years.

But what she discovered to be the truth is sad, shocking and unbelievable. And you'll be hearing about it from the woman at the heart of the story, Kirith Asi, shortly. Now, last week, I promised festive food every Friday in December. And I'm sticking to my promise because I'm greedy, quite frankly. I'm permanently hungry. And today, Keisha Sakara, who runs Karibay, a Caribbean pop-up, will be dishing up mouth-watering recipes. So make sure you've got a biscuit to hand to stave off the inevitable hunger pans. And of course, I would like to hear from you and your alternative Christmas eats.

If you are going to be doing an alternative Christmas, you can text me on 84844. You can also go to our social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. And if you fancy dropping me an email, go to our website. For me, it's turkey, all the trimmings and a variety of chili sauces and feel free to get in touch with your thoughts and experiences about any of the stories on today's show now ever have a flutter on the horses well the world of horse racing has been facing up to its own me too moment this week a light has been shone on the bullying and harassment endured by professional jockey briarney frost on and off the track

another jockey called robbie dunn has been banned for 18 months with three months suspended after he was found guilty of the charges an independent panel found him in breach of all four counts of conduct prejudicial to the reputation of horse racing. Three charges of violent or improper conduct are yet to be considered. The panel heard evidence over several days about a weighing room culture. The weighing room is where jockeys get help with their saddles. It follows charges brought by the British Horse Racing Authority. Well, with me to talk about this is Gaye Kellyway,

who's the first woman to ride a winner at Royal Ascot and is a race trainer. Gayle, very good morning. Welcome to Woman's Hour. You were at an awards ceremony last night, the Racehorse Owners Awards, and Bryony was there. She knows you're on Woman's Hour this morning. What did she say to you?

Yes, good morning. Yes, I was at the Racehorse Owners Awards last night, which is awards for national hunt and flat horses to various people's horses. And Bryony was there and I had a long chat with her. And she's a pretty tough cookie. I must say the key points here, it wasn't a one-off bollocking from an angry jockey.

This had been going on for basically over a year. And Bryony was pretty upbeat. She got a standing ovation when her horse won steeplechase with the year. And she went up on the stage with the owner. And everybody stood up and clapped her, male and female. She has strong support from the owners. She just feels that this will, she feels some of the colleagues will be very hostile towards her

for a long time. But I reassured her this will pass. And what she has done is good for our sport and women in racing and coming into racing. So I think what she's done, stood up and been heard, which a lot of girls are too frightened to do so, is a good thing, a good thing for our sport. And when she said that she feels lots of colleagues

will be hostile towards her, what did she mean? What was she talking about? Well, they won't talk to her, they'll ignore her and sort of shun her, which they have been doing, actually. And some of the valets at a meeting would refuse to help her. So, like you said, it's a bit of a boys' club a bit have been doing actually and some of the ballots at a meeting would refuse to help her so um like you said it's a it's a bit of a boys club a bit in in the weighing room and um yeah what do we what do you mean by weighing room culture what goes on in the weighing room uh what goes on in

the weighing room is that if uh someone say for instance you're riding in a race and and it's a heat of the moment and you've come across another jockey and they can really give you some bollocking and have a go at you but it's done and dusted but they can continuously have a go and then another jockey have a go at you but you can't report it, you're too scared to report it

and they keep on at you and won't leave you alone and it stays within the weighing room you can't tell a steward, you can't tell the outside world. But I think if, you know, we all say things at the heat of the moment, but I think it's a one-off thing. It's not that important. But I think if it's constant bullying that, you know,

he wouldn't leave her alone and had a go at every moment he could, I think that's a worry. And we want to encourage young people to come into our racing and enjoy it and feel comfortable when they come in within the weighing room. They have valets, but they have male valets. They don't have any women valets. And the valets actually look after the jockeys and get the saddles ready when they're rushing in and out and riding in these races.

Horse racing is quite dangerous. Riding thoroughbreds over fences is much more dangerous than flat racing and they do have you know they could be two or three falls on in each race and the jockeys have to get up and and it's providing they're okay to ride in the next race but the valleys actually look after make sure their saddles are ready and the silks are ready to put on um but because it's in within the weighing room it's males only um where the valleys say well the women have their own changing room but they feel they have to go in well they didn't in my day but they had to go in and get their saddles so they sort of mixed together a bit how was it in your day in my day with this well it was a minority i

was the in the 80s i was um i was basically the only woman basically riding and uh i wasn't allowed anywhere near my toe in the weighing room i had my changing room and the valley used to come out and and sort me out outside where the the clerk of the scales was there and away in front of the trainer so it was very very different and what was your own experience i was well my own experience i was um did were you i was sexually harassed on several occasions brought down in races because they didn't want me to rise stewards were lords and sirs and they didn't want me there i mean basically very few women um uh they didn't want women to ride in races um against men it was the aces you know hey was the aces i suffered

depression from it um but i managed to pull through and it made me quite a strong person probably a bit tough but um yeah it was very very tough but you know that's decades ago i mean now it shouldn't be happening now not in this day and age this shouldn't be happening and and for good of racing um the authorities are really looking into this and make it a more level playing field. And Gay, you're standing by her. You're speaking out. You know you've lived through it. You just explained that you were sexually harassed.

Absolutely shocking in the 80s. Why isn't everybody standing with Bryony to say enough is enough? Is there still a fear? I think there's still a bit of a fear of being unpopular. Some of the women haven't stuck with Bryony and they know it goes on. They know it goes on. They're cowards. They know it goes on.

But they're in fear that they will make themselves unpopular and they don't want to get involved. I mean, you know, we need people to speak out. You know, a lot of people won't say anything. You know, some things are best not said and all that. But, you know, we need people like Bryony Frost who's strong and comes out and and says what's actually going on so and we can have change and it's like i said it's for good for racing we'll have change for the better and surely wouldn't be better all around if people speak out and and so we get we'll be better

facilities for women jockeys anyway okay i'm I'm going to keep you there. I'm going to bring in Anna-Marie Phelps, who's the chair of the British Horse Racing Authority. You're in meetings about this all day, Anna-Marie. Obviously, it's very urgent. It's a very serious issue. It sounds like there's a problem of sexism, a culture of sexism. Morning, Anita, and thanks for the opportunity to speak speak and first of all i'd just like to thank briny and gaze mentioned her but you know if briny hadn't come forward and started this conversation

um we we were we're now in a much stronger position to try and move forward um it it does sound like it's a sexist environment and you know I would say that one thing that we're really proud of in racing is that men and women compete on equal terms on the field of play once they're out on the turf. But that is not the same as men and women being treated equally across the sport. And there are, you know, big steps we need to make. I think we have come on leaps and bounds since Gay's time.

I'm sure she would agree that the sports move forward and we have come on leaps and bounds since Gay's time I'm sure she would um agree that the sports move forward and we have some amazing pioneers and some hugely successful women now who are getting the best horses and top rides um and are you know transcend just horse racing the likes of Rachel Blackmore and Holly Doyle alongside Briony um you know, all of that is really positive. But that's not to take away from the seriousness of what's happened. It sounds like Bryony and Gay and all the other women who are in the sport have succeeded despite the culture that's around them. Is the only factor that needs improving the weighing room culture? What else can be done to make the sport

more inclusive no i think i think there's there's plenty more i mean i you know the the facilities that we have for our female jockeys need to be big if we want to encourage more women to come in we need to be ensuring that we we're creating larger and better changing rooms for them before they arrive rather than waiting for them to to come along um you know the the weighing room at the moment and we need we need to completely redesign it's a lot of our our weighing rooms are very old and it's a very old sport and that that is something that's changing there's a plan to do that but it's going to require a lot of investment and and it's a it's a process that we've started at the moment. But the profile that our female jockeys are getting has really helped.

And what about changing the sort of culture and the mindset, Gay? Let me bring you back in of everybody that's been in the sport for as long as they have been, who now need to shift their heads. Are things changing? Oh, gosh, I've seen a lot of change. I mean, I've been training racehorses for 32 years and I've seen a lot of change I mean I've been training racehorses for 32 years and I've seen a lot of change and it's wonderful that I can embrace that I've got two young apprentices one male one female treated exactly the same in the stables I mean in my day I was

the only girl in my my stable you know there was either the trainer's wife that rode out or or or the trainer's daughter and I was lucky I was a trainer's daughter, so I had the privilege of having that step in, whereas a lot of girls couldn't have that step in. That was really tough for them, but you had to have a way in in my day. But now it's like with open arms, we do a lot for racing to bring young people into it. But like you say, we want to make it a more comfortable environment.

And I think there's time for change, especially with the culture inside the weighing room. I think we need women valets. Why haven't we got women valets? There's a question there. Because there's like 25%, 30% of women riding now and very successfully. Briony won the Tingle Creek at Sandham on Saturday

where she got another standing ovation. You know, she was very well supported by the racing public. And I think, you know, like Anne-Marie says, we are changing things and we can see that. And there is time to move forward. And, you know, some of these race courses, they still got the same changing rooms when I was riding back in the 80s so we need we need a big uplift there so anne-marie what what will be done what what changes can you

implement what will you be talking about in your meeting today well i think i think one of the most important things actually for us in racing is to try and bring the sport together to talk about what is acceptable and what's not acceptable to have that really grown-up adult discussion and it's only because of pioneers like Gay and Brani speaking out that we can have that and the the support from across the sport as Gay has said both from owners and trainers and and people across the administrative side of the sport has been unbelievable for wanting to see that happen so I think I think we've got a really good opportunity here to to talk about behaviours we can talk about facilities and we can change those things are easy changing behaviours is something else it's a really different level and it's going to require real commitment from people

and it's going to require probably some some regulative change as well. But but it really does take time to do that. And that will happen as as people change on and we move on. But we have to start now. And I think this is a great moment for us to do that. Yeah, because even the phrase weighing weighing room culture really kind of takes away from what we're talking about, which is sexism. Yeah, I mean, the weighing room is not, I mean, it's not, it's not a terrible place to be. It's a place where elite athletes come together and they can really build camaraderie there.

But it is also, you know, a high octane sport. It's an area where tempers can get frayed and lines can get crossed. And what we need to make sure is that that is an environment and there is a culture where people are comfortable people like brani are comfortable putting their hand up and knowing that there won't be implications for them in the future that they won't be ostracized so we you know this this is something that needs to happen more and more and i really encourage people within racing not just the jockeys but other people that experience this sort of harassment or bullying to come forward and to use RaceWise,

which is our confidential reporting line, or to contact the BHA to do that. Because, you know, that's the only way we're going to have change is if people speak out. Anne-Marie Phelps and Gaye Kellyway, thank you very much for joining me this morning. 84844 is the number to text if you want to contact me about anything you're hearing on the show today. Now, this week, ministers revealed a 10-year drug strategy allocating £780 million in funding for the drug treatment system in England. That includes an additional £300 million for combating more than 2,000 county lines gangs. County lines is a form of criminal exploitation

where urban gangs persuade, coerce or force children and young people to store drugs and money and then transport them to suburban areas, market towns and coastal towns. The county line is both a reference to drugs being taken to different counties and the dedicated mobile phone lines used to sell drugs. It can happen in any part of the UK. It's against the law and it's a form of child abuse. Some victims of the crime are as young as seven.

Well, joining me now to discuss this further are Sahira Irshad and Jen Jones, two mums from Sheffield whose family neighbourhoods and local communities have been impacted by county lines. And they're part of Mums United, a group of local mothers fighting against rising gang violence in Sheffield. Welcome to Woman's Hour, both of you. Sahira, I'm going to come to you first because you founded Mums United. Tell me more about it. What made you want to set this up? Thank you for having us today.

So Mums United was formed about four years ago now. I was born and raised in Sheffield but I moved, I went to university and from university I went to London. So 20 years later I was raising two young children in the heart of London and I was worried about the knife crime and the violence that I was raising two young children in the heart of London, and I was worried about the knife crime and the violence that I was seeing there. And I was concerned about, you know, there was postcode wars, area code wars, and young, predominantly men, fighting amongst each other. And I just wanted to raise my children in a safe environment and the place where I associated with being safe and home was Sheffield so I moved back

and there were other reasons as well but that was the predominantly the main reason I just wanted home to where I associated with feeling safe and you know I had a good childhood here um so I moved back to Sheffield uh to be near my mum as well and and was it safer what happened when you got back it it became quite apparent that um the very reasons that I left London uh those same reasons, they were happening here in Sheffield. And, you know, I decided that, you know, I needed to actually do something about it. I saw a lot of mums, you know,

I spoke to a lot of mums who were worried about young children engaging in the local gangs. They felt that their voices weren't being heard within their homes and within the community that they lived in. And as I got to know them and as I got to build a relationship with them, I just felt that we needed to do something more. And I didn't want it to be just a place where we just come and have a cup of tea. And, you know, I just I wanted to be just a place where we just come and have a cup of tea and you know I just I wanted to be

more proactive um and that's in essence how Mums United was formed. What was your experience when you moved back to Sheffield what did you see what was happening? Um so I saw um you know drug dealing happening openly um I saw young children as young as 10 11 um engaging in um in drug activity you know they they were they were clearly um you know with groups of older boys um in the parks and this was happening openly you know um taking packages and you know when I spoke to local mums they were like yeah this is what they do you know anti-social behavior young children just being rude obnoxious and and it wasn't a nice place to be. And it came to your doorstep? Yeah literally to my doorstep and you, it was people were carrying bags of weed quite openly and just, you know, open during the day, you know, as if it was just nothing. And, you know, taking out the packages.

And, you know, there's a few times I confronted them about it. You confronted the drug dealers? Yeah, because I was just shocked um you know this was happening near my children and i asked them to to move away from you know it was near my house and and um they were just like what are you gonna do you know you're just a woman so they were obnoxious and rude uh but for me it it made me feel that you know what, I can't, this can't happen, you know, I'm not going to have men like that talk to me in that way and I need to protect my

children, my children are growing up in this area, I can't keep on running away where am I going to run to? It's the time that we made a stand and as mothers, you know, have a voice Well another mum that joined you is Jen who's a volunteer with you at Mums United but from a different part of the city to Sahara Jen how did you find out about it and what made

you want to get involved? Morning Monika thanks for having me on today the children are going to so thrilled to hear that we've spoken to you. I live in a different area of Sheffield to Sarah and I live on a council estate in Sheffield and I'm alone with two children. What happened was a couple of years ago now, before the pandemic, there was a shooting in my local community where a little boy was on his way to the local shop. And because there's two gangs having basically having beef with each other, one member of one gang tried to shoot somebody else and the little boy got caught in the crossfire. This caused great alarm and distress for parents, all parents throughout our community.

And we held a community meeting to which we invited the local MP, the councillors, the PCC and our local area, South Yorkshire Police, as well as other community representatives. It was an open meeting, all residents were invited, and the media. And most importantly, I had heard of Mums United Sheffield, which was really just starting up at the time, but I'd heard of the ideas of what Mums United were trying to do over in the shallow area of Sheffield.

And I thought, well, I'm going to be bold and ask them if they can come to this meeting to support us. And without hesitation, they said yes. Jen, what you're saying is we need to hear everything you're saying. And I think we got clear that, you know, there was a shooting

and a young boy got caught in the crossfire. Your line is a little bit fuzzy. We're just going to clip, try and sort that out. Whilst we do that, I'm going to bring Sahira back in. I mean, that is really shocking to hear. But Jen, you know, had a meeting, got local councillors down and got you over there to see what you can do. What about within your own community what how how did the mums react when you said i want us to do something

about this um initially you know a lot of the mums um they thought that it was going to be a place where they could sit and talk have um tea and samosas and pakoras and you know and which is fine we do that anyway but for me it was really kind of listening to to their stories and listening to to the just to the way that they they fate they see themselves you know what place do they have in the communities that we live in? So it was a case of, you know, a lot of mums came together. There was a lot of resistance from, you know, from certain members of the community. They didn't want us to talk.

They didn't want us to take ownership of the issues that we were having. So there has been a resistance, but there's been a lot of support as well. Jen, let's bring you back in. I mean, Boris has said we've already rolled up 1,500 county lines gangs, but we still need to do 2,000 more. As a mother on the ground, what needs to happen? What would you like to see happen? What we're currently seeing happen up to this point is that the

authorities target and pick up the young people who have been victim to being groomed by these criminal gangs to become drug runners, carry guns, store drugs, store guns, knives and weapons and so on and so forth. And yes, while they are committing crimes, they are also victims. But what we're not seeing happen is the people who are conducting all of this. And let's face it, in reality, this is grown adults, in the majority men, who are behind all of this that's happening to our children.

And another important thing, Anita, is that to these grown adults who are puppeteering the children and predominantly poor working class children or children with disabilities like autism and ADHD who are very vulnerable to being groomed that's children just like my own son which is another reason why I'm so adamant and so passionate to be to be supporting and as much as I can everything that Mums United and similar projects are doing um these these people need to be picked up and removed rather than of course it's important that there are plans in place to support people who are who are using the drugs and for them to be rehabilitated. I accept that

and I acknowledge that. But what we don't have are things like safe, supervised, responsibly run activities for youths where there are crime hotspots. And the other thing is the most saddening and heartbreaking thing of all of this is that when there's a young boy in a pool of his own blood on a pavement on a council estate somewhere because gangs have had beef with each other and he's dying and crying for his mum the man behind whatever has happened the grown adult people who have conducted all of this situation are wiping their hands of that child and saying, where do we get another one from? Because our children are dispensable to the people behind these county lines' crimes.

And it's deeply personal for you because, as you said, your own son is quite vulnerable. He has autism. How old is he? My son's 10 and he attends a special school and currently all of the children at the special school get wanded you know with a metal detector on a morning and at lunch times their belongings and their lunch packs are wanded with a metal detector because there have now been older children who are already being targeted to be groomed and to become drug runners and criminals by these gangs have been found to have brought bladed articles into school this year. Very recently, it's happened on two occasions that we know of because the school does obviously let

parents know. And whereas I appreciate that, it is also incredibly alarming. So the government is investing this 300 million pounds to tackle drug supply and county lines over the next three years but they've also separately allocated 4.8 million pounds for the development of the South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit to identify and respond to the root causes of violent crime but for you it can't happen quick enough can it? No it really can't I mean for myself for myself i need to just to put you in the full picture i've been a qualified play worker since 1998 with advanced level play work and what we do see is we sometimes see small community projects that are called youth

provisions but really it is just unqualified but well-meaning volunteers what we need the government to do with that violence reduction fund. And I will ask South Yorkshire Police, come and talk to Mums United, help us and fund and grow what we're doing and put these things in place in other areas of the city because it is so sorely needed. But do so with fully qualified play workers, youth workers, youth mentors, or provide training schemes for volunteer parents and volunteers from the community to get these qualifications so that we can put these things in place in our communities before another child dies or ends up in prison. Well they've got a place to come to haven't they Mums United. Thank you Sahira Ershad and Jen Jones for talking to me this morning. Now next week we

want to hear from you if you are a grandparent. We'd love to know if you're doing a lot of childcare for your grandkids so that mum and dad can go to work. If so, what's the cost to you? We want to hear from you financially, emotionally, and in terms of your time. Is it worth every second or do you wish you weren't relied on so much?

Get in touch in the usual ways. Drop us an email by going to our website. And of course, keep messaging me, 84844. Mums United are an amazing grassroots organisation in Sheffield and have done some great work to safeguard young people. Keep up the great work, Jen and Sahira. And that's a message that's just come in.

Now, we had Storm Arwen a few weeks ago and Storm Barra this week. I do hope you've been wrapping up warm in. Now, we had Storm Arwen a few weeks ago and Storm Barra this week. I do hope you've been wrapping up warm in your hat, of course, scarf, yes, and most importantly, gloves. From hand-knitted mittens to seductive satin numbers to Bluetooth-enabled gloves

that function like mobile phones. There's an extraordinary variety of gloves out there for us to choose from. Their powers have extended to marriage, magic and even murder. In January 2020, Vogue magazine announced that opera gloves are fast becoming Hollywood's favourite accessory. Well, Dr Anne Green is an emeritus professor of French at King's College London and has just released her new book, Gloves, An Intimate History, and joins us now to tell us more about them. Welcome to Woman's

Hour HQ. Thank you. Why did you want to write this fascinating book, Anne? Well, I originally came across the, I mean, I wasn't particularly interested in gloves at all, but I was looking at Flaubert's notebooks, a 19th century novelist, and in his notebook there's a little jotting headed theory of the glove. And he talks about gloves being really quite creepy because they move like a hand and yet they're not a hand. He says there's nothing so unsettling as a gloved hand. And I started looking at, you know, how gloves were written about and then it all moved on from there and expanded and snowballed and eventually turned into a book that starts off with Tutankhamun gloves in the pyramids and goes up to the to now. As you said it spans a fluctuating history of

gloves and how they've fallen in and out of fashion, all the various uses. They were particularly fashionable in the 16th century and then in the 19th. And now we are seeing a glove renaissance. There's such a simple staple in a wardrobe, but for some reason gloves have fluctuated in popularity over time. Why is that? Well, I think they've always, ordinary gloves have always been there, gloves for protecting your hands from the cold or from injury but in the 16th and particularly the 17th century the gloves were a tremendous status symbol so these were not just ordinary gloves, they were gloves that had most beautiful flamboyant decoration, lots of embroidery and ribbons and sequins and they weren't always necessarily worn, they could be carried just to show off that you were a person of high status.

So that kind of glove would only have been worn by a relatively small proportion of the population. And in the 19th century, you get a huge shift. There's a change in technology, so gloves start being produced more rapidly. And also with the shift in population, people moving from a sort of peasant life into cities, they want to adopt middle class mores and they all start to want to have gloves.

So a huge boom in glove making under all the etiquette that went along with wearing gloves. So in the 19th century, people were wearing gloves, you know, virtually as soon as you stepped out of the house, you had to have your glove already on and properly buttoned up. And, yes, and the really, you know, most sophisticated people would change their gloves four, five, six times a day. Four or five? How many gloves would you have in your drawers?

Well, you bought them by the dozen and, yeah, huge numbers, huge numbers. And gloves can have a power of their own if they're worn by certain people, can't they? I'm thinking of the sort of 60s in America. And Jackie Kennedy wearing gloves is a quote in the book. It's a passage from American Pastoral by the American writer Philip Roth, where he talks about Jackie Kennedy walked out there with a glove on her wrist and a glove to the elbow. And all of a sudden gloves were in style again. Yes. I mean, gloves were starting to be I mean, they were much less worn than in the 19th century. And yes, that point that's been made in the novel

is that she kind of gives a little Philip to glove wearing. But the 60s is really when society changes. Kennedy dies in 1963. That was just a little blip, I think. And then after that, you get a decline in glove wearing. You certainly wouldn't wear gloves in the middle of the summer anymore. And there's also a very feminine power to the energy of gloves, isn't there? The idea that gloves had been invented by Venus, the goddess of love, you tell us. And also there's a fabulous photograph, even the photo is seductive, of Rita Hayworth in the film Gilda, when she seductively removes a glove. Yes, a sort of striptease as she sings. Yes. I mean, gloves have, I think it's because gloves come in pairs. So a matching pair implies a sort of matching couple. So, yes, they've been associated with love and courtship.

They were a very common present to give on Valentine's Day. Men would give gloves to their sweethearts, and gloves were given as love tokens and keepsakes. And then particularly in the 19th century, you have this flirtatious gesture of dropping a glove. A woman could drop a glove in front of somebody she was interested in in the hope that he would pick it up and then a conversation could start. So that's a very flirtatious gesture.

It is a fascinating book and you get into all sorts of insights. We didn't even get to talk about Elsa and the magic of gloves. The magic of gloves, yes. Yes, well, there's a whole lot of superstition and folklore about gloves operating in a magical way. I think because they're considered to be so much part of the person. So Elsa's glove, yes, it acts as a very magical barrier between her magic powers and the outside world.

But there are lots of other magic gloves that behave in strange and wonderful ways. And they're the ones that can actually commit murder. Well, on that cliffhanger, it's out now, Gloves and Intimate History. Anne Green, thank you very much for joining me to talk to me about that fascinating stuff. And there you go. If you were thinking about needed some inspiration as to what to buy somebody for Christmas, gloves. I just want to read out this Home Office statement in terms of county lines, drugs gangs. The government is investing 300 million pounds to tackle drug supply and county lines over the next three years and has also separately allocated 4.8 million pounds for the development of the South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit to identify and respond

to the root causes of violent crime. Now to a podcast series that has been drawing attention to the internet phenomenon of catfishing, the practice of using a fake profile to start an online relationship. Sweet Bobby tells the story of Kirat Asi, a 42-year-old radio presenter who meets a handsome cardiologist, Bobby, through Facebook. Over almost a decade, they develop a friendship and then a relationship over phone and messenger apps. He moves to New York while she is based in London.

However, their relationship gradually begins to deteriorate. And when he visits London but refuses to see her, she learns that Bobby is not who he says he is. Well, earlier I spoke to Kirith about her experience alongside investigative journalist Alexi Mostras, the presenter of Sweet Bobby. We should clarify that although there are real life versions of Bobby and some of the characters described by Kirith, the references in the interview are

to fake characters played by the catfisher and to fake life events. Bear in mind that the interview potentially includes spoilers, so do switch off if you don't want to discover the identity of the catfisher. But first, to Kirith. I asked her how she met Bobby back in November 2010. I met Bobby a year after I started talking to his younger brother who'd approached me as the boyfriend of one of my cousins who he'd had a bit of an argument with her and he was hoping I would give him some tips to get back with her.

Much, much younger than me. He passed away and the brother then got in touch with me to say thank you for being a big sister figure to my younger brother. And that's where the conversations with him started. He was a married man with a kid on the way. I was in a relationship. There was no sign of anything. So Bobby is a real person that you know from your kind of social circle and you thought he'd got in touch with you to talk about the death of his younger brother he reached out to you? Yeah he's in the community East African South Asian community I know of his family really well I know some of them really well I had pictures with some of them on my social media at the time. So I knew of him. I didn't know him personally.

And then you developed a friendship online. Yeah, that just slowly developed. He just kept on talking to me. It was more like being pen pals. We'd talk occasionally. He'd reach out to me and I just respectfully, politely respond. It was a very respectful relationship. So you kind of make building this relationship, talking to somebody online. But then you met him in person at a party. The actual Bobby. I did. I didn't expect to.

I was on a hen weekend in Brighton. I saw him walk across the club and I followed him. But it was, I think, one or two in the morning. Quite rowdy in there and he responded he wasn't nasty or anything but he didn't recognize me he was quite blank and I was just like you know forget it I don't want to embarrass him because he might be just very drunk and it was difficult to hear and I was out with the girls so I let it go. So then you kept in touch with this guy online and then he disappeared for a while and you heard that he died. But then he reappeared in witness protection. But yeah, he passed away

and he reappeared and his ex-wife, wife went out to see him. And then I was told via her, via my cousin, that he was alive, which to me was me was you know I was only in the periphery of his life like he was in the periphery of mine so it was just a crazy story that you share with your friends right like what the hell so that's all it was I was shocked but it wasn't any of my business because he wasn't anybody close to me. So how did it go from like you say this bizarre twists and turns of this chap called Bobby who had died in Kenya that then came back, was back alive, but in witness protection in America. How did it go from just stories that you talk to your friends about to actually being in a relationship with him? So lots of things happened.

He was really, became really, really unwell. He and his wife, ex-wife, wife, I don't know what she was at the time, split up. But then one day when he was very unwell in the hospital, he told me he had feelings for me, which was very strange because before that he always called me his big sister. So it was really, really strange. And I was like, you're just unwell. You don't have feelings for me. I'm just, you know, you're just mistaking me being there for you and helping you out and listening to you as something else and yeah I just from there it was just a lot of pressure his illness um he became paralyzed he was leaning on me and people around him including his consultant his cousins were saying you know he really really loves you he really really loves you

so after many months it was it was just a kind of well maybe he's only got a few months left of his life to live I'd been told he wasn't going to live beyond July 2015. And I was kind of just making a dying man happy. Nothing was going to physically happen between us. I don't know if I was going to see him. It was just, you know, I wasn't ready to be in another relationship, so to speak. So I was just going to make a dying man happy and I cared about him. How would you actually spend time together?

Yeah, so we'd play like online Scrabble we'd have like date nights we'd watch like Apprentice every week he was introducing me to his family and. On WhatsApp right? It was on Facebook Messenger it was on WhatsApp. But they were all made they were all made up people that none of these people existed? Yes there were real life versions of some of these people which who I knew so I thought I was talking to people that I knew of some of them and some of them I didn't know once we're in the sort of romantic relationship side of things it was you know planning for that once we knew he wasn't going to die die who's making a recovery planning for the future but otherwise it was just you know house hunting we shared an interest in food planning for the future like you were going to just, you know, house hunting. We shared an interest in food.

Kira, planning for the future. Like you were going to get married. What was happening? This person had said you were going to get married. So he'd be sending me pictures of, you know, I think you should be wearing this colour because I really like you in this colour and your other pictures. And, you know, that kind of thing.

What, like planning the wedding? Planning the wedding. Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much sending me pictures of outfits that he you know outfits that he might want to wear locations for weddings um also house hunting he didn't want to come back to the house that he had here he wanted to have a different house talking about his career going forward if you could salvage it or not so this so you you were having you were you were having your perfect relationship, in a way. Yeah, in a way, yeah.

It is so shocking to hear, isn't it, Alexi? I mean, I've listened to the podcast, Kira, and we're going to get into it a little bit more. But Alexi, it's just like you say at the beginning of the podcast, it's a story that has to be heard to be believed. It is quite an interesting process, both for me as a reporter and for listeners, hopefully, on the podcast, because you do start off with this potential presumption that Kirat has been a bit gullible. You know, someone entering into quite an intimate relationship without even demanding a video call or anything like that.

You start off potentially from that position. But the more you understand about how it works, the more sympathy you have for how this whole thing happened. I mean, for one thing, although there were quite a lot of online personalities that Kirat was interacting with, there was one person in the real world who was telling her that all this was true and it was a person that she trusted implicitly and unless psychologically you make the decision not to

trust that person then it kind of gives a stamp of authority and approval for everything else that you're experiencing the catfisher was so sophisticated in their approach that you almost kind of stand back in disbelief and this weird kind of admiration almost for the creativity. There was this one time when fake Bobby got in touch with Kirat and said, why don't we pick out some baby clothes for my son. So they went on a website and they picked out some baby clothes. And then two weeks later or so, Kirak gets this picture of Bobby's son wearing the clothes that they picked out. Now, that's a real picture of a real child wearing the clothes that you picked out on the website. Like it's, it's real, right? But it turns out that what we think happened was that the catfisher somehow obtained a picture of Bobby's son, worked out where the clothes he was wearing came from. They must have Googled it, found it, and then reverse engineered the whole situation so that Kirat believed that she was spontaneously picking out clothes with Bobby. This wasn't an isolated incident either.

So if you add all of these up, you can begin to see how even kind of relatively superficially unbelievable situations, like the Witness Protection Programme, became realistic and believable. Especially if you have a real person in real life that you are talking to who is seems to be backing things up how did the nature of the relationship kira change i mean it was initially controlling in which you think is in a nice way because he's love bombing you and because he was so unwell you'd feel like oh my god he's so unwell and yet he's still thinking about me and he's doing all these lovely things for me but once i started questioning him it slowly became more and more abusive and controlling you know i but think of silly things like i wasn't even allowed to go to the bathroom without him knowing if i was online on i was having to sleep with him with headphones on initially it was for

medical reasons and afterwards he was just you had mental health issues, was depressed. You know, I got told off once terribly just for going to the bathroom for two minutes in the middle of the night without telling him. So what impact was this having on your life? I mean, it was really, really difficult. Every part of my life was slowly being destroyed. I'd already started losing huge amounts of weight. I was always stressed. I wasn't able to socialise. I didn't go out huge amounts of weight. I was always stressed. I wasn't able to socialise.

I didn't go out anywhere in the evenings. I wasn't really allowed to talk to my friends. I was always... He knew absolutely everything about me. And then you discovered who it was. Yes. And who was it? It was my cousin.

It was my cousin. Yeah. it was my cousin it was my cousin um yeah I you okay yeah I'm okay sorry it's just yeah I mean what can what do you say to that it was the cousin that you'd been talking to and confiding in and who was your person in real life that you were talking to about this whole situation it turned out to be the same young woman it was the cousin who I just you know initially spoken to who I thought was her boyfriend to protect her so I just you know looked out for her as I do with all my cousins as they will know sometimes I might be the big sister figure and she knew that about me. And I was very protective of her. Even the morning of the confession, I was like, you know, you're so bright. I felt so bad. She's so bright.

She's such an amazing young woman. And I was like, you've been had as well. You've been taken in by all of this as well. I was still sympathising with her and feeling bad for her too. Did you ever speak to him? Did you ever hear his voice? Absolutely, yes. I was speaking to him from mid-2015 to him? Did you ever hear his voice? Absolutely, yes. I was speaking to him from mid-2015.

So your cousin was putting on a voice? Yes, and there is a story behind that because everyone wants to know how she put that voice on. He'd lost his voice in the stroke, so it took many months for him to recover. She'd thought about everything, basically. She'd thought about every angle and had something to say. Honestly, the twists and turns,

and we do really feel for you, Kirit, throughout the whole podcast. Alexi, tell us about the current laws around catfishing. What are they? And were you surprised by them? The current legal framework in the UK does not make catfishing

in and of itself a criminal offence. So you can con someone for 10 years does not make catfishing in and of itself a criminal offence. So you can con someone for 10 years using fake identities and cause them great psychological harm, and potentially there's no breach of the criminal law involved. I mean, obviously, if you con someone out of money, then there's certain fraud charges, but catfishing in and of itself isn't illegal. It really is a remarkable lesson and I just want to know Keira how are you now?

I'm kind of glad it's out in the open because I've been doing everything in silence I've not been able to speak about it because I've been judged for not being you know I've lost my career I've lost everything that I had. I'm slowly rebuilding my life, but I've not been able to speak about any work that I've been doing just in case. I've not been able to speak about what happened to me because people judge me, like that whole victim shaming

or treat me like I'm strange. There's been all of that. So in a way, I'm glad it's out there, but I'm just taking one day at a time. It happened three and a half years ago. So in terms of the immediate trauma, I've dealt with that and I have my mechanisms for coping but you know you still have moments my last two nights I've suffered with nightmares but I'm back to more or less my bubbly self and it's just about rebuilding the rest of my life

again now. And Alexi you say at the beginning of the podcast that people who you talk to who are over 40 found it unbelievable and really questioned how somebody could allow this to happen. But people under that age seem to understand. It's just a sense from speaking to people that people under the age of 40 who have grown up online, who have grown up with social media, are very, very comfortable with the idea of forming relationships digitally. And they don't really have this kind of divide between the relationships that they form online

and the relationships that they form in real life. And it's this kind of coming together of these two different types of relationships and the blurring of these lines that potentially creates more scope for abuse and manipulation. And Alexei, what impact do you hope the podcast will have? I hope it'll help people in similar situations.

We've been contacted by dozens, like more than 25 people have got in touch with us since the podcast came out saying that they've been catfished. I mean, including one really high-profile actress who seems to have gone through a very similar experience to other people who were catfished by relatives. And it seems like there's a potential for abuse

here. Lots of people might be suffering it, and yet there is no kind of regulatory or legal structure to prevent it from happening. So if we can get a conversation going around that, then I think that Kirat, has done quite a lot. That was Alexi Mostras and Kira Assi. And the full story can be heard in the podcast series Sweet Bobby by Tortoise Media. Kira's cousin has provided a statement. She says this matter concerns a family dispute over events that began over a decade ago when I was a schoolgirl. As far as I'm concerned, this is a private family matter that's been resolved and I strongly object to the numerous unfounded and

seriously defamatory accusations that have been made about me, as well as details of private matters that have been shared with the media. 84844 is the number to text. Now we continue our look at alternative food ideas for Christmas with chef, food writer and owner of Karibay, Kesha Sakara. She celebrates the diverse cuisine of the Caribbean and representing dishes from across the region. Kesha, welcome. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Where did your passion from food come from?

Firstly, thank you for having me. Just growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. My grandmothers on both sides um just loved to cook and they presented it to me in a really positive way and I just think being a creative child I kind of just absorbed myself in it and by the time I had to start thinking of a career I couldn't think of anything else really. It was always going to be food? I think so I think so. And so how easy difficult was it for you to gain access to the food industry? Looking back now, I would say it was quite hard.

I think firstly, for females in general in the food world, it's very male dominated, as we know. If you look at most of the prominent chefs on TV, they are male. Also to see brown women in food food I just didn't see myself and I remember telling my mum around 14 I wanted to be a chef and purely out of love she kind of just didn't agree because she didn't see it as a feasible job because we couldn't see a positive example of it so I really feel like I've had to craft it myself and it's evolved in so many ways in so many positive ways um but that just started off with me actually having the confidence to be an entrepreneur I guess and a business person so then I could then curate it myself so I'm glad that I had that kind of drive to make it what I wanted it to be.

And now you have Kariba in Pop Brixton. Yes I do. Which is doing very well because the reason I know about you is because friends of mine who've eaten your food have raved about it and told me I have to get down there. So let's talk about food and let's talk about your own heritage because your family is from Montserrat and Barbados. Montserrat and Barbados. So they're both tiny islands next to Antigua. Montserrat is still actually a part of the British colony

and Barbuda is the sister island to Antigua. And they both have their own cultures. And so how has understanding the food of those islands helped you understand your own culture? It's helped me understand my own culture because the stories that are connected with the food are twinned with the history so for example Montserrat the national dish is goat water which I absolutely love and growing up in Leicester there was a smaller Caribbean population

but goat water would be cooked at like funerals and weddings. What is that? So it's like it's basically like an Irish stew but it uses goat meat instead of beef. And it's got loads of aromatics and spices in it. Sorry, yes, yes, aromatics and spices. I want to get to Christmas. I'm just one eye on the time. That's all. Tell us what you'll be cooking at Christmas.

Let's get some of these delicious dishes. Christmas, I'll definitely be making sorrel. So that's like similar to hibiscus and it's a drink and you boil it with like ginger loads of spices that's absolutely delicious and then black cake is always there which is just like a sweet cake with fruit soaked from the year before in lots of alcohol and again lots of spices both grandmas always make them and that's one of my favorite things to eat now oh and what's sauce sauce is actually um like pickled um pork which originated during enslavement excuse me and um it's kind of brined in like a vinegar and a little bit of salt and then you serve it with a

cucumber kind of relish on the side i mean that's like 100 years old hundreds of years old and we still eat it today. And will this be food that sits alongside sort of turkey and all the trimmings in your household? So as much as you have like roast potato and turkey and stuff we'll have rice and coleslaw and everything else and that's just like our British Caribbean crossover at home really. And what goes into black cake? This sounds delicious. So you have the dried fruits, so raisins, sultanas, all of that. You soak that in the alcohol and it just like rehydrates them kind of. What alcohol? Any details of the alcohol? Is it rum or what alcohol goes into it? Any alcohol?

You can use rum. Some people use sherry um any kind of like brown liquor really what advice would you give to someone who's starting out in the food industry now as someone who's done really well you know you've got entrepreneurial spirit um caribe is serving up delicious food what advice would you give to someone else who wants to start out um i would say just find something that you're really passionate about and that is that you can connect with because i feel like what motivates me is that i believe in this a lot and so even when you know i find that i'm meeting any adversities or difficulties i stay true to it because i really believe in it um build

an audience because i feel like the people that you're speaking to, if they engage with it in the same way you do, then they will help push it for you and it will grow organically. And we've had a tweet from someone saying when our children were young, they didn't like turkey. So we have a fam, we change it every year. One year we have paella tapas. The other year we had homemade KFC style fried chicken. Another year was a Japanese theme. Give them a suggestion for what they can do this year. Duck. I really like duck. Can brine that nicely overnight in a little salt and sugar,

maybe some five spice on it and roast it slowly. That's alternative. Sounds absolutely delicious. Kesha, thank you very much for speaking to me on Woman's Hour. And we've also had this last email saying, I'm currently in quarantine in Hong Kong, Delicious. Keshia, thank you very much for speaking to me on Woman's Hour. And we've also had this last email saying, I'm currently in quarantine in Hong Kong where incoming travellers have to stay in a hotel because of new. My quarantine has been extended to three weeks. So sadly, I'll be missing Christmas Day with my husband to cheer my children up.

I'll be making them a quarantine advent calendar every day of something Christmassy. For example, the example is attached, and I think it's a toilet roll holder. How very inventive. Thank you for joining me. Join me tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. 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 somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.