Woman's Hour - Dame Harriet Walter, Runner Eilish McColgan, Post-mastectomy bras

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

Award-winning actor Dame Harriet Walter is back on stage at the National Theatre in Federico Lorca’s newly-adapted The House of Bernada Alba. After a break of seven years playing assorted television roles including ‘difficult’ mothers in Succession and Ted Lasso, she’s back treading the boards and once again playing a formidable matriarch. She joins Clare McDonnell in the studio to talk about her career so far, as well as her newest role.As of today, police in Northern Ireland can now charge people with upskirting, downblousing and cyber-flashing. At the same time, British Transport Police are encouraging women to lower their tolerance for sexual harassment during their commute and report minor offenders more often. So is recognition of so-called 'minor' sexual offences improving? Clare speaks to Naomi Long, Leader of the Alliance Party and former Northern Ireland Justice Minister, and to women's rights activist Zan Moon.What do women look for in a bra after breast cancer surgery? Clare is joined by Katy Marks, an architect by trade, who discovered after her single mastectomy that there was no bra on the market that was flat on one side. She didn’t want to use a prosthetic and so designed her own, called Uno, which launches today. She’ll be joined on the programme by Asmaa Al-allak who won this year’s Great British Sewing Bee and is a consultant breast surgeon who has made post-surgery lingerie for her patients.Runner Eilish McColgan follows in the footsteps of her mother Liz McColgan in the pursuit of sporting greatness. Now she’s made a documentary telling their story, looking at their relationship and charting the times Eilish has broken her mother’s records – all except the marathon. Eilish joins Clare to talk about making the documentary, as well as the pressures and benefits of following in the family business.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Clare MacDonald and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and a very warm welcome to Woman's Hour. Delighted to say I am joined in the studio this morning by award-winning actress Dame Harriet Walter. A familiar face on our TV screens, more recently playing acerbic distant mothers in Succession and Ted Lasso. She's continuing that trend at the National Theatre in Alice Birch's adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca's play The House of Bernarda Alba. Also, we'll today go down as a pivotal moment in how so-called minor sexual offences against women are perceived.

Now, you may be shouting at your radio right now, there is no such thing as a minor sexual offence. But up until today, upskirting, down-blowsing and cyber-flashing were not prosecutable in Northern Ireland. Well, from today, they are. It comes on the same day that a report from the RMT Union found 80% of women that they surveyed said sexual harassment on public transport is getting worse. And almost half of female transport workers have been sexually harassed at work. A police service of Northern Ireland spokeswoman says escalating violence against women and girls does not happen in a cultural vacuum. So how far will this legislation go in helping change that culture? We'll hear from Naomi Long, MLA and leader of the Alliance Party

and former Northern Ireland Justice Minister. Also, what do women look for in a bra after breast cancer surgery? We'll hear from Katie Marks, who's discovered after her single mastectomy that there was no bra on the market that was flat on one side so she decided to design one herself and it launches today. And are you one or do you have one? I'm talking competitive mums. The reason I ask is because middle and long distance runner Eilish McColgan will be joining me in the studio, four time European Championship medalist. She's also broken several records over different distances, records originally set by her mother, Liz McColgan. Now, they've made a documentary running in the family that looks at her career and its relationship to that of her mother, who is also her coach. So tell me, what mother

daughter competitions do you have going on right now? It doesn't have to be breaking European track records, of course. Maybe you have a healthy, friendly competition going on. Or has it ever got out of hand? Has that one upmanship ruined your relationship? We want to hear your stories this morning on Woman's Hour. You can text the programme. The number is 84844. Texts will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we are at BBC Woman's Hour.

You can email us through the website or you can send us a WhatsApp message or voice note using the number 03700 100 444. Data charges may apply depending on your provider, of course. So you might want to use Wi-Fi if you can. And those terms and conditions can be found on our website. Now, let's start the show with a treat today. I'm joined live in the studio by the iconic actor, award-winning Dame Harriet Walter, who is now back on stage at the National Theatre in Alice Birch's adaptation of Lorca's play

The House of Bernarda Alba. A familiar face on our TV screens recently in succession as Lady Caroline Collingwood, the mother of the dysfunctional Roy siblings, and another distant mother in Ted Lasso, not to mention parts in Killing Eve, This Is Going To Hurt, The Crown and Downton Abbey. Welcome Dame Harriet. Thank you for welcoming me. It's wonderful to have you here. Let's start off

with this thread that runs through quite a lot of the roles I've just mentioned, Mothers, and the character you play in this play is a formidable matriarch. Had you seen the play before? I actually did it when I was 18. I played the housekeeper, La Poncia, which, you know, trying to look old. Now I have to kind of down my age a bit to play Bernardo. So I did know the play in translation, rather a lumpy translation at the time, I remember.

And Alice has done a genius job on contemporising it without in any way departing from Lorca's message. She really has. I saw it on Friday and she's absolutely done that to a T. Tell the Woman's Hour listeners the basis of the story. The basis of the story is a household in 1930s Andalusia, which has a very patriarchal culture. And she's running a house, Bernardo Alba's running a house of five daughters. No men appear in the play, or no men speak in the play, but they are the outside world. They are the threat. They are the thing she thinks she's protecting her children from. And unmarried daughters in that culture were very vulnerable. Their reputation was vulnerable.

They had to get married in a certain way and to certain people. And she basically, it's a metaphor also for Franco's Spain and the upcoming regime that's going to be very attached to the church, the Roman Catholic authority and all of those things, which are slightly alien to us, but very recognizable still in many parts of the world of a very sort of church and state link. And a woman as the sort of lieutenant of the patriarchy kind of making sure that the men's rule is carried out domestically. She is quite a terrifying character and when you watch the play there's this sense of claustrophobia and oppression and repression. Would you say she is as much as her daughters? I mean she's the one enforcing the rules in her home.

But is that because she has suffered that herself? Absolutely. There's quite a lot of reference in the play to tradition, to repetition of cycles. And Alice has brought that out poetically. It's very much, you know, when people say, oh, I'm going to see you sort of starring role Bernardo Alba. I say, no, it's not. It may be the title name, but it's actually a play about a house. The house is the star of the show and the house is the establishment and was built by my father. There's lots of references that sort of sound as though she's carrying on the tradition that she had to suffer as well.

And it in no way feels like a free, lovely character to play. She feels very oppressed and it's quite a sad play to play. It's a sad part to play. You feel, you know, you feel sad playing it. Yes, well, let's hear Bernarda in action now. She's talking here to her housekeeper, played by Tusita J. Sundara, who has worked for her and the family for 40 years and tries to be an honest voice in the ear of her employer,

despite Bernarda's resistance and dismissal of her. Let's take a listen. Your daughters live like you've stuffed them into cupboards, but neither they, nor you, nor anybody else knows what's in their ribcages. Their breath is steady and constant. Now you are quiet. I'm at peace.

Because you have nothing to say. You would fill this house with grass and invite the village in to chew upon what lies you have invented. I hide more than you think. I speak only when I have to, Bernarda. Is that so? And does your son still see Pepe at four in the morning? Are your family still spreading poison about my house? They say nothing.

Because there's nothing to say. Because there's no flesh to bite. Because I see everything. That clip sums up their relationship perfectly. And she is the character who appears unafraid of your character. They have a very close bond, but it's still hierarchical, isn't it? Absolutely. Because the other element is that in this small town or village, Bernarda is determined to set herself socially above the people around her, even though patently La Poncia is really her only possible friend who really knows her,

who's worked with her for 40 years, worked for her for 40 years, she keeps emphasising. So it's a slightly King Lear and Fool relationship where Poncia can say things that other people can't say. But at the same time, she lives in fear because Bernarda can kick her out anytime and she would have absolutely no status, no social status at all to fall back on. So yes, there's a dependency there. But Bernarda doesn't recognise her side of the dependency. How did that, I just wonder, it was a wonderful two-hander that the two of you have throughout the play. And there's quite a lot of humour there. People listening to this now might think, gosh, this sounds terribly dark.

And it is. And there's a lot of dark themes. But there are moments of joy in the relationship between the two women. Yes, there are. We love gossiping, for instance. I mean, there is that sort love gossiping, for instance. I mean, there is that sort of ambivalence that things are awful, aren't they? But tell me more, you know, and, and, yes, and there's quite a lot of humour when the daughters relax amongst, you know, on their own in their own rooms, because one of the main wonderful features

of the production is that the whole house is on view with three stories and each room is inhabited and you know when we're not in the central scene we're in our rooms doing something so we never leave the stage and there is a difference between the little cells we each go to where we're private and what we have to act out in public or in front of our mother or, you know, whatever. So that's a nice contrast which allows for a bit of humour. And it's an all-woman play, fantastic female cast with a female director, Rebecca Frecknell,

and Alice Birch, of course, adapted this version. Of course, Alice Birch found fame with her adaptation of Normal People. What difference does it make or did it make to you working with an all-female cast and an all-female environment? It's funny, there's a whole lot of language you don't need to use. There's a certain, you can trust there's a certain understanding of what it's like to be a woman, really. And, you know, we're all, there are things we notice about the text

and things in the language that I'm not saying a man wouldn't understand because presumably a theatre director would be, you know, if they wanted to do that play, they'd have got the message. It's just that there's a feeling of relaxation. There's a feeling of I don't have to explain that. And also the judgments that people put on women and actors playing those parts, you know, there are certain judgments that come from the male eye that you don't feel are coming from the director and the writer in this case case and you don't have to kind of sweep them aside before you get started.

Oh, what do you mean by that then? Do you still experience that even at this point in your career? Yes, I mean what's interesting about an all-female cast and I've been in all-female casts a lot because I did the all-female Shakespeare trilogy at the Donmar and also directed by a woman, Phyllida Lloyd. And so I suppose what I feel is that when, you know, in a conventional play in my youth, you'd have two women in a play and one would be

the nice one and one would be the whore and one would be the virgin and one would be the wicked bat and one would be, you know, there'd be these sort of simple labels attached to a few female characters. Whereas when you've got more than two or three or four or five or six, you know, how do people put those? Oh, she's the funny one. She's the nasty one. It all goes to pieces because you have to recognize the variety and multiplicity of our personalities. And in a funny way, there is a need in some audiences to say, you know, they need to pigeonhole you so that they can carry on with the story in the way that they've normally received a story. And this kind of blows a lot of that out of the water. It certainly does. I mean, it must be great for the entire cast because there is so much

complexity to the characters and people are allowed or given space to kind of play to a full range. And one of the most powerful moments I found was when there was no dialogue between you and the daughter where this sort of barbaric act happens and your character is sent, I won't plot spoil everything, but there's a horrible moment between you and then you come together and there's a desire to have a connection.

You can tell from both of you there's no dialogue but you just see that moment with the daughter reaching out to the mother and mother thinking I would love to reach out to the daughter but nothing and it's so rare that you see actors being given that space to do something without words absolutely that's wonderful you pick all that up and obviously what's gone before feeds into it. Yes, but on stage, you don't normally get those silences. It's very brave in that way, I think, the production. It really is. Listen, so we are talking about your character, a mother, and let's bring it into your television work now. More recent TV rows in succession as Lady Caroline Collingwood

and Ted Lasso, of course, as Deborah Welton, mother of Rebecca, the chair of the football club played by Hannah Waddingham. Do you ever feel like you're being typecast as the unsympathetic mother? Absolutely. I get so many unsympathetic mothers. And the irony is I had a lovely mother who was absolutely sympathetic to every bone in her body. And I haven't been a mother myself. So in a way, I'd like to just play someone who doesn't have that relationship, you know, that I can really relate to what it's like to be childless. But, you know, I think mothers get a lot of bad press and a lot of heaps of blame on them, you know, for something about for instance in succession having appeared

relatively seldom I've had so much reaction of now I understand why the children are the way they are and you go well wait a minute how about living with Logan Roy as your parent you know why doesn't he get any of the blame you know so and the other thing is that to play those people you always have to explain them inside yourself. Even if you don't exonerate them, you do. You have to find a route why they became the way they are. And what was your explanation of her then the divorce that she disguises in the only way she knows, which is sort of cutting humour. I find that more interesting than just thinking someone's born a bitch.

Well, no one's born a bitch. That's the thing, isn't it? It's the complexity. Do you find it uncomfortable to play those roles or do you think it's a complex role? I'm going to embrace this and really dig into the backstory. I definitely some are much more complex. It's down to the writing. Some are conceived in a more complex way than others. And I tend to swat the ones that are two dimensional out of the way and say I won't play them. But occasionally, yes.

But, you know, it's bad for the spirit to live with somebody like, you know, at the end of the day, living with Bernardo Alba, I want to go and see a show at the comedy store or something, you know. It's not a date night play. Not really. And I must say, looking up at the actors' faces at the end of it, I thought, wow, the audience have been through the emotional wringer, but certainly the actors. Definitely. You can't fake that show. How is it then having this success? Because in January, you're Emmy nominated for your roles in Succession in Ted Lasso as well.

How does it feel getting this kind of continued recognition? You've had it before, but it must be lovely to have this at this stage in your career yes of course it's lovely it's very strange because I you know you feel oh I wish I'd had this kind of recognition when I was younger and the parts available would have been more you know extensive um by that I mean usually the oldest character in the thing is not the biggest part you know what mean, which is unusual with Bernardo Alba. But, yeah, so there's a bit of me that says, you know, I've been slugging away for 50 years, why didn't you recognise me earlier? But on the whole, it's very nice to have that kind of recognition. Of course it is. Of course I'm rather loving it.

Yeah. Do you think, I mean, you would be able to play those characters as well as you have, though, without having done, you know, had the route that you'd had to this point in your professional career? That's an interesting question. I think obviously your life experience and your career experience feeds into all of it, of course. But the other dimension that I have no control over is the perception of the casting people and the producers and you know where they think you're at and there are plenty of people out there who are brilliant actors who never get that recognition you know it just doesn't happen for them because a lot of that is beyond your control and and you know so I think yes it's accumulation of you, people thinking you're in the right place to play that part, sort of as in, you know, whether you're on the right list.

And you probably, there are lots and lots of people who could play Caroline Collingwood who just didn't get into that position yet. Good luck for them. Yes, I mean, it's just, it is a lottery to a certain extent. Let's talk then about your book you have coming out next October with new parts for Shakespearean women. I love the idea behind this book. Tell the audience about it. Well, it's just that there are very having played lots of. I think I totted up 20 Shakespeare characters I played.

And there's always some bit of them that you apart from Cleopatra or Rosalind or something who get a lot of verbiage, there are a lot of things that you want to say in those characters that haven't been written for you to say. And so I'm not remotely criticising Shakespeare, who I worship, but I'm adding in a voice that perhaps, you know, isn't there that you wish was there. And so each character, character well I don't do them all but I'm doing about 30 different speeches and um one little scene that's between lots of people and um a couple of sonnets and you know it's so I'm sticking to the verse form for the fun of it and the discipline of it and trying to say the things that I want

the characters to say. So it's kind of noises off. This is kind of what you think they would have said? Yes. Had they been given a free voice? Yes, absolutely. There are some people who just have been overlooked and are only playing a small part in the play. And you're trying to say, hey, wait a minute, I've got my story too. And some of them are funny, some of them are not funny and quite sad. And I'm just really enjoying doing it. And will we see that on stage? Is the book chapter one? It's not really. I mean, they are certainly performable, but I think of it more as a sort of book by the loo, you know, that you dip into.

And the better you know your Shakespeare the more you'll appreciate it but I hope that people will get it even if they just remember the story from school well I'm sure that will be on everybody's stocking filler list uh next Christmas it's been an absolute delight to meet you thank you so much Dame Harriet Walter and the House of Bernarda Alba plays at the National Press. Is it opening night tomorrow night? Tomorrow night and it plays till the 6th of January. Fantastic. Well, listen, good luck with it. And thank you so much for coming into the Woman's Hour studio. Thank you. Lovely to meet you. Now, let's move on. As of today,

police in Northern Ireland can now charge people with upskirting, downblousing and cyber flashing. The offences are part of the Justice Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims Act 2022 and perpetrators could face up to two years in prison and up to 10 years on the sex offenders register. Also, it's been reported British Transport Police have said women should lower their tolerance for sexual harassment during their commute and come forward and report minor offenders more often. Well, to discuss the impact of these behaviours being made criminal in Northern Ireland, I'm joined now by Naomi Long, MLA, members of the Legislative Assembly, that stands for Leader of the Alliance Party and former Northern Ireland Justice Minister. Naomi Long, welcome to BBC Woman's Hour. Good morning. Okay, so talk us through why you proposed this bill. How big a problem is sexual harassment of women in Northern Ireland?

Well, I mean, I think the first thing was that we'd just come back to the Assembly after about three years of suspension. So the world had moved on during that period. We had a significant piece of work done by one of our senior judges, Sir John Gillan, who looked at the issues around sexual offences and brought forward some recommendations that we needed to implement. And I suppose one of the areas that we were very conscious needed to be addressed was the area around particularly online-based harassment. So things like cyber flashing and posing as a child online for grooming purposes.

But we then consulted with the public and a lot of women came forward with issues around upskirting, down-blousing and other forms of sexual offences that previously hadn't been captured by the law. And so I thought it was important that we gave those specific recognition because I think that they form part of a culture within society where women's bodies are treated as though they are essentially public property. And I think it's important that we send out very clear messages about women's, the protection of women, the protection of their dignity, and the fact that these are not trivial issues. A lot of the time when you hear about things like upskirting or

downblousing, people kind of pass it off as though it's some kind of hijinks, or it's a joke, or it's a laugh. It isn't, it's an innately, it's innately an invasion of people's personal and private space. It is incredibly degrading, and incredibly stressful for the people who experience it. And so I thought it was important that we acknowledge that when we were dealing with sexual offences and that we place this in law to send out a clear message that this is not a joke. This is a crime. It's not acceptable. And hopefully that message then will help permeate wider society and the attitudes that surround it we have to remind everybody listening upskirting uh is against the law in england and wales and it has been since 2019 and of course you're broadening

that out and i guess what you need for any law to have um clout is uh prosecutions so how hopeful are you that when women come forward that you have the resources to follow that through? Well one of the things that we did include in all of the legislation we bought through over that two and a half year period was a need for training within the public prosecution service, the judiciary, the police service because it's important that when people do you find the courage to report that that is taken seriously and so that has already been happening in preparation for the commencement of the laws today. I think that that has been a good example of how to implement new legislation. I mean we were all very keen to have it on day one but the difficulty then

is that people have a bad experience when they report it can dissuade other people coming forward so the timing of this and the preparation for it is important. With other similar legislation that Difficulty then is that people have a bad experience when they report. It can dissuade other people coming forward. So the timing of this and the preparation for it is important. With other similar legislation that we brought through during that period, things like stalking and non-fatal strangulation, that preparatory work has proven to be really useful and reports to the police have been very significant, but also prosecutions stemming from those reports have been a significant proportion of cases.

And I think that that's a positive that we should try to build on in this case, but we will really only know how seriously it's taken once we get cases actually to court, and that is some way off. Given the Legislative Assembly isn't functioning now, how has this passed? Well, this was passed before the assembly was suspended. So this happened

back in March 2022. If we were sitting here today having this conversation about new offences that need to be considered or about updates required, we wouldn't be in a position to move that forward, which I think is a real shame because the mechanisms that criminals will use to abuse people are constantly evolving particularly in an online environment so for example we already had um what are called revenge porn laws so you could be charged if you sent um images that without consent however we didn't have the threat to do that which became an issue in the intervening period where people were being coerced and controlled by the threat of disclosure. And so we've now included that in the criminal law as well. So I think that these are evolutionary processes.

And I think that that's why it's so important we have an assembly here that is able to respond, that is able to deal with it. But also, crucially, one of the big challenges that the justice system faced and was starting to face, particularly as I was leaving office, was delay. And so for women, particularly coming forward at the moment with these particular kinds of cases, it will take a long time for those to make it to court. And I think that that in itself is a traumatic experience. So I think any future justice minister would need to pick up where I left off in terms of trying to speed up justice, because I think that's where I left off in terms of trying to speed up justice, because I think that's going to be critical in terms of building confidence within the community. Naomi Long, leader of the Alliance Party, thank you so much for joining us.

We mentioned this earlier, a survey commissioned for British Transport Police found that over a third of women have been victims of sexual harassment or sexual offences whilst commuting by train or tube. It also found that half of those people have been victims of sexual offending and they say other passengers tried to help them yet only one in five witnesses reported it to the police. This comes as research from the RMT union also reported 40% of female public transport workers have been sexually harassed. So it kind of flows on from what we were just talking about with Naomi there. Let's talk to Zan Moon, women's rights activist. Zan, welcome to the programme.

Thank you. We were just talking about this kind of level of sexist abuse and how the law has now changed in Northern Ireland. But you've called for more action over sexist abuse on the London tube. So just remind people of what happened to you. Sure. So I was travelling home on a very busy Tube, the Northern Line, in January last year. And I was sat with my girlfriend and we were holding hands and a man came over and started making extremely explicit remarks, sexualising us. It was both sexist and homophobic harassment um licking his

fingers getting in our space asking us to perform sexual acts for him very loudly in front of the whole tube um he was really physically intimidating so i called out for help um everybody just looked at their phone nobody intervened i asked please, could somebody stop seats with him or help us? To which nobody responded. And we had to get off the tube a stop early in sort of fear of our safety. I reported what happened to me. And I was told that because CCTV was deleted after 72 hours on the tube carriages and the officer assigned to my case had gone on annual leave that they had lost any CCTV footage and there was really no chance of being able to do anything about this instance. I know since that incident which sounds horrific you have worked as a consultant for the British Transport Police and so what do you think to what they're saying today because that is extreme what happened

to you but they're just saying anything yet we're lowering the bar here as in we're taking even the most minor infringement seriously because there's no such thing as a minor infringement when it comes to sexual harassment be it verbal or physical what do you think to this move a hundred percent i couldn't agree more with what they're saying and i highly highly recommend that everybody listening uh does exactly what they say and report anything whether you think it's it's minor any form of harassment is absolutely not okay and it's incredibly important not only it helps the police target hotspot areas so if they know what line that's happened on they can deploy more police into that line and it also helps catch repeat offenders often people don't realize that most often sexual offenders are repeat offenders.

So it can help highlight their movements and then the police can go out and do their amazing work trying to bring those people to justice. So I couldn't agree more. I think more than anything, it's extremely important as a message to yourself. It sends your body a message that you won't stand for these microaggressions and these forms of harassment by taking a stand and reporting whatever happened, whether you think it's minor or major. I don't think we should stand for any form of sexual harassment. However, in your case, when you did report it, the CCTV was wiped. I mean, you've worked, as I said, you've worked as a consultant with the BTP since then. Do you think things have changed? I know that things have changed they've changed the uh cctv retention on the line that it happened to me

on to 30 days and seven instead of 72 hours um and they're putting more effort into these these campaigns is what you can see today um there's a lot of posters encouraging bystanders to intervene and even as you say uh i think that that in that report it said that um 50 percent of the cases that were reported had witnesses intervene which is actually a really big positive um takeaway take from this so hopefully the number will keep continuing to rise and i also encourage anybody listening if you see or witness any sexual harassment please do intervene yes and i guess that the message is also because you could be sitting there thinking i want to help this person but i don't want to get targeted it's a question of there's safety in numbers isn't there if more

than one person sort of says shouts out and says something other people may join in as well exactly that's mob mentality but you also can do really powerful things such as document it from afar if you can take a picture that's amazing but even if you also can do really powerful things such as document it from afar. If you can take a picture, that's amazing. But even if you can write down what tube you're on, what the person is wearing, what's happened, all the different details, and then go and report it yourself as a witness. That's amazing. And that doesn't require you to go and stand up and sort of put yourself in danger. But it's an extremely powerful form of standing up against violence against women. And when you came forward with your story, you had an awful lot of testimony, sadly, from other women who'd been through similar, didn't you? Yeah, I put my story out on social media and I asked other women to come forward.

And I compiled an open letter to send to the mayor about what was happening. And after two weeks, I had 200 testimonies, 19 pages long long letter which I sent to the mayor and we've been working together since and we've been working with British Transport Police since to try and help make London safer for women. So I'm really pleased to see that this survey has taken place because it shows that it is being prioritised. No matter how sad the statistics are it's important that we have conversations like this and continue to shine a spotlight. Thank you so much for joining us on BBC Women's Hour. That is Zan Moon, a women's rights activist. I want to tell you about our special Women's Hour Christmas Day programme now. It is going to be all about sprouts. It's the vegetable that everyone has an opinion on,

but whether you love them or hate them, it's one we should all be eating more of because it is a powerhouse of nutrients and for women it's even more beneficial because sprouts are packed with phytoestrogens uh you learn something every day i'm not sure what they do but they sound very good for you we're assembling a cast of experts excuse me to tell us where they originally come from, when they became a Christmas dinner staple and how, whether we like or loathe them, it's all down to our genetics. But we want to hear your sprout stories, good and bad. How

far have you gone to avoid them? Maybe you've got a killer recipe that everyone likes or perhaps you've got a trusted way to smuggle them onto the plate in another dish. Very useful. Let us know. You can send me a text 84844. We always love to get your voice notes as well on WhatsApp. That number is 03700 100444. You can email us through the website. All of those methods, of course, can be used to get

in touch with things we're talking about today as well. And plenty of you have been. We're going to be talking about competitive mother-daughter relationships. I'm going to be chatting to Eilish McColgan shortly here on the programme. And, you know, she's been beating her mother's records on the track for quite a few years now. But tell us about your relationships, your competitive relationships with your mother or your daughter. You know, it could be supportive, but it could also, you know, obviously a little bit sour as well. This text, my wife is a professional songwriter for primary schools and our daughter in her early 20s has taken up the baton.

Now they write as a pair and it's fun to see them each on their own pianos with daughter trying to get her song idea in first. Hilarious. And this text, after a few gin and tonics at the weekend, my daughter Freya and I made a fitness challenge. I'm 62 and she is 24. And by January, I'm challenged to do a headstand and she is challenged to do the splits. Bring on 2024 with gin inside you.

I would like to see that. Keep texting into us at Women's Hour 84844 on anything you hear. You may be very interested in getting involved. On the next story we're talking about, what do women look for in a bra after breast cancer surgery? I'd love to hear from you on this.

What has worked best for you? And are you happy with the range of options on offer? Now, if you've had a mastectomy, do you use prosthetics in the bra? And have you had to sacrifice luxury for comfort? Joining me now in the studio is Katie Marks, an architect by trade who discovered after she had a single mastectomy, that there was no bra on the market that was flat on one side. Now she didn't want to use a prosthetic and so designed her own bra and it's called Uno and it launches today. Welcome Katie. Hello. Thanks for coming in and also joining me live from Cardiff, Asma Al-Alak, who you may know is this year's winner of the Great British Sewing Bee. She's a consultant breast surgeon and has been known to make post-surgery lingerie for her patients.

Asma, hello. Hi, good morning. Thank you for having me. Great to have you both on the programme. Katie, let's start with you. You had breast cancer four years ago. You had a breast removed. One of the options available when this happens, of course, is surgical reconstruction. So when did you realise you didn't want that?

I think there's quite a lot of misconceptions often around the choices and that having a reconstruction is just this sort of easy thing to do. But there were lots of practical reasons why I didn't have a reconstruction straight away. So one was that I knew I needed radiotherapy and I was told by my oncologist that radiotherapy can affect the implant. So if you have an immediate reconstruction, it can sort of go a bit wonky. And another reason was that I'm a double F cup. And what a lot of people don't realize is that when you have a mastectomy, often all your skin is taken away as well. So then they have to stretch the skin from above and below where your breast was

to stitch you up again. So your skin is already stretched. And then in order to put an implant in, they have to stretch it a bit more to make another breast. And there was no way they could stretch it enough to match my breast on the other side. So then I was facing the idea of having a breast reduction on the other side. And I just thought, I don't want to do that.

You know, I've had chemotherapy, I've had radiotherapy, I've had surgery. I just don't want to do that anymore. I just want to be alive. Bins are enough by the sounds of things. And so you're asymmetric, you have one breast. How do you feel about that? I mean, that's quite a lot to get used to, isn't it? How did you adjust? It is and it wasn't an instant thing. I didn't just wake up in the morning and think, you know, I'm going to be proudly asymmetric. I would have loved to have a

breast. But I started by trying to wear prosthetics. And I had that experience, I think probably a lot of women in this situation have where you go into M&S or, you know, a shop to buy a mastectomy bra and you end up sort of collapsing in a heap in tears in the changing room, just feeling really depressed by what's on offer. What was wrong with it? Oh well it just they all feel like a bit of a contraption and you're just coming to terms with your body you're just looking at yourself in the mirror you know sort of 360 mirror in a changing room and it really you know hammers it home and yeah so that that made me feel really down and

also I found that wearing a prosthetic was a little bit like permanently wearing a bikini you know that feeling of oh how do I look in this you know is it sort of in the right position is it sort of shifting around because even though they get put into a sort of pocket within a mastectomy bra because it's not fixed to your body it still effectively rides up so I remember one one instance really vividly when I was actually doing some teaching a couple of months after my surgery and I was in in front of a room of students and I looked down and my boob was like near my shoulder I just I just thought, oh, God. Excuse me a second.

Yes, I had to just go and readjust. And from that moment, that was a bit of a turning point for me. And I just chucked it out. And I just looked at myself in the mirror and thought, right, I've just got to learn how to like myself. And part of that for me was finding clothes that looked great and I was determined to rethink how how asymmetry was sort of perceived by people because I just thought to myself you know there must be thousands of women who look like me and yet I've never walked down the road and seen anyone openly asymmetric we're all hiding why are we feeling embarrassed of having had cancer we're made to feel like you know it's not normal it's not feminine

even you know within a medical environment people with very good intentions very kindly will say to you oh you're young you know you still want to look feminine, don't you? You better have a reconstruction. And there's just so much pressure that that is the way to be feminine. I just thought, actually, I'll decide what makes me feminine. Thanks very much, you know. Yeah, and you're reclaiming that ground because you have designed a bra that actually is an asymmetrical bra. We'll get on to that in a second. Let's bring in Asma.

Asma, welcome. From your perspective as a breast surgeon, what proportion of your surgeries are mastectomies? And it's so interesting listening to Katie, isn't it? That she's sort of changing the game on all of this, saying, you know, you don't have to act, lots of women will want that reconstructive surgery, but she's saying, well, maybe if you've been through enough,

you should sort of say, well, I'm proud with the way I am now this is me going forward through life. So of the ladies who are diagnosed with breast cancer probably about a fifth or a quarter of them will have a mastectomy because as medics sometimes we have to dictate that is the advice we give them that they need a mastectomy. And there are a proportion of women who opt to have a mastectomy. And it's, it's a funny one where you have to sit and try and support women throughout the process. And there is a lot to take in. And as Katie said, it's not just about the surgery, it's about the chemotherapy, it's about the radiotherapy, it's about the hormonal therapy. And you get bombarded with all of that information but when you are um when you decide on a mastectomy

part of what our guidelines say and i always have i probably get killed for this issue sometimes with guidelines well you have to offer women a reconstruction so it's part and parcel of what you do and then you give them the pros and cons of it. And then they make a decision on what to do. So again, I think Katie is right in saying that women do feel quite pressurized because it's part of what we do. And sometimes people say, well, why won't they have it? Have you offered your patients a reconstruction? My attitude has always been is it's a lot of information to take in. It's not an easy decision to make under circumstances like that. There are

women who know their mind and will say, yes, I want a reconstruction. There are women who will turn around and say, no, I don't want a reconstruction. And our job is to try and give them as much information as possible my attitude to reconstruction again i might get told off for saying this is i take it i say to women look it's a bra filler that happens to sit on your chest but you don't have to take it off at the end of the day um because it will never be the same as your your natural breasts that had to you know be removed as part of your treatment. Are you saying you'd like to see the guidelines rewritten then you don't want to have to say that to every woman because you are inferring then that you know

this is probably what you'd prefer maybe? I think you have to find a balance. I think you have to give patients the choice, because what you don't want to happen is for a woman to turn around and say, I never had the choice. There are times when we will turn around. And as Katie was told, you know, you're having radiotherapy. I do not recommend an immediate reconstruction at this time because it's going to impact on your treatment. There are times when we have to say that. And we do take away the choice from women. But there are times when I think maybe like Katie felt, I don't know, again, I don't want to put words in your mouth, Katie, whether you felt almost like you were being pressured into having a reconstruction. And why aren't you having it? Because we're offering it to you. Did you feel that, Katie?

I suppose it wasn't so much pressured because, you know, in general my treatment has been really wonderful. And I also wouldn't want to put across the message that I think having a reconstruction is not a good thing because for lots of women it's wonderful and it's transformative. And probably if there'd been an option that that worked for me at the time I may well have gone for it but it just it didn't practically work for me at the time but I think rather than being pressured it was just that there was this whole sort of societal weight it wasn't just coming from the doctors. It was, you know, I'd literally never

seen anyone like this. I'd never seen anyone in the street, at home, anywhere be asymmetric. And so it made me feel like I was the only person feeling like this. There's no representation of that anywhere, really. Well, you are blazing a trail on this so tell us about the bra the Uno that is out today and how you designed it you're an architect by trade that must have helped. Yeah I mean it's quite interesting designing something going through a design process for something so different from what I normally do but actually there's many parallels going through a design process and I think I'm just holding it up now obviously it's on radio so you can't see it but basically it's a it's a single cup and then it's it's flat on one side and the the whole idea was that I just wanted something that felt elegant and also really

supportive to my breast but also one of the things that you don't realise before you have a mastectomy is that especially just after surgery, you're swollen. You have this, you know, most women have a bit of a seroma. So that's a buildup of fluid under the skin. It's, you're sensitive after radiotherapy.

So wearing a normal bra with a tight bit of elastic underneath is really, really uncomfortable and stops that fluid being reabsorbed back into your body. So I wanted to create something which has a uniform amount of compression all the way across the scar tissue. So that just really kind of holds you in, but still gives you a really great shape on your boob, a bit of cleavage and you know just you still feel wonderful do you know until i saw that you just held it up i didn't realize that that's what womankind needs it's absolutely beautiful but it's designed for a real woman's

body for for not pretending for saying this is what i've been through but i'm still feminine and gorgeous it's you've done a fantastic job oh thank you and i think what i find is so this is what I've been through, but I'm still feminine and gorgeous. You've done a fantastic job. Oh, thank you. And I think what I find is, so this is the bikini, again, holding this one up. And basically, I wear it all the time, you know, when I go swimming or at the beach. And I find that people sort of, they don't really notice because it's so sort of confidently asymmetric. I just walk around and at some point people will do a double take. Then, you know, that you can see their mind tick, tick, ticking.

Then eventually they put two and two together and then they just get over it. Yeah. And it's so empowering to just feel like i'm just me you know i can just be me and i can feel great whatever choice you make whether it's reconstruction prosthetic and now you've given women a third way which is absolutely brilliant just some text coming in my name is sophie wood i managed to melt my last prosthetic whilst out dancing s says post-surgery bras in this country are a joke although actually it isn't funny when what's my last prosthetic whilst out dancing? Brilliant. I love it. S says, post-surgery bras in this country are a joke,

although actually it isn't funny when trying to find a pretty and reasonably priced bra on the high street, only to discover that all that is available is something more akin to a huge dishcloth. And Pat says, when I had a mastectomy at Ipswich Hospital, I was offered and used very successfully a self-adhesive prosthetic, which adheres to the skin and looks identical to a normal breast so there's so many options out there thank you all for getting in touch and thank you so much Katie and and Asma as well it's called the Uno Bra yeah it's unobra.co.uk brilliant Katie Marks thank you so much for

coming thank you for having me it's been very very uplifting to hear your story and I'm sure lots of people listening will feel exactly the same way. And Asma Al-Alaik, thank you also for joining us, winner of course of this year's Great British Sewing Bee as well. Lovely to meet both of you. Now, Eilish McColgan is a name many of you might know as a middle and long distance runner. She holds the European record for the 10 kilometre road race and she won a gold medal in the 10,000 metres at last year's Commonwealth Games. She is in fact a four-time European Championship medalist. She's also broken several records over different distances. Records that were originally set by her mother, Liz McColgan,

who was the fastest woman in the world for more than a decade. The only record of her mum's that she's yet to break is the marathon, something she hopes to do next year. Now, she's made a BBC Scotland documentary, Running in the Family, that looks at her career and its relationship to that of her mother, who is also her coach. And I'd like to say Eilish joins me now. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Hi there. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you on the programme. Let's start at the very beginning.

The documentary features footage of your mum with a fabulous 80s hairstyle and you as a baby. So you've been involved in breaking records from when you were a baby. I remember watching your mum run when she was pregnant. Let's get people in the mood now for the documentary. Here's a clip of your mum talking about getting a world record. When Ailish came along, it was like everything was about her now.

And I wanted to do things for her. My running was about, I want to make her proud. I want to do things so that when she grows up, she's like, oh, my mum did that. I got into my routine really quickly. When she slept, I ran, just determined to prove I can still be successful. I think the first race that we took her to, she ended up getting a really bad ear infection. It was horrendous, and I remember we were there for like three nights, just walking the floor with her, like really ill and upset. And I got up the morning of the race, and I just thought, I'm not going to be able to do this.

And I went off way too fast and ended up running world record. I just like couldn't believe it because I was just like a zombie. I was just like, I couldn't even concentrate on it. I just ran. So you were clearly a part of your mum's motivation and inspiration from very from you know from from infanthood and I guess obviously she's a massive part of yours as well. Yeah massively I think as a youngster I probably didn't appreciate what level of athletics that she competed to you know both my mum and dad were athletes but when you're young you just you don't really understand what it takes to become a world champion you know it's hard enough being scottish champion or your county champ never mind being the fastest woman in the whole world so yeah there's definitely a greater

appreciation now as an adult and even more so now as a as a female to know that she obviously went through all those changes through pregnancy given birth and then less than a year after having me was world champion. I mean, that's, I can barely look after myself, never mind a little human and still be able to operate at that level of athletics is just, it's truly incredible. She broke the mould. I remember seeing Naina Terry pregnant on top of the Pops and your mum running competitively pregnant. And the message that sends out to women is is so empowering isn't it? Yeah massively I think now there are no women of my generation that are currently in athletics that feel like they have to sacrifice their family life for their career it's a completely personal decision and there's even been huge changes now with regards to sponsors you know all of the major sports companies now have

pregnancy clauses in there so that in the past it was you were just my mum was dropped by a sponsor and you were just not paid for that that time you were pregnant whereas now there are clauses in there to ensure that do you mean women are still able to come back from pregnancy. It's not like a career ending decision. So yeah, there's been some huge changes and I have no doubt that my mum was one of the trailblazers for those changes within sport. Yeah. Did you know you always wanted to run because many people going into the same profession as a parent, especially one as successful as your mother. That must have weighed heavy on you.

Honestly, I never, ever thought about it. It was always just journalists or media that would always say, oh, you know, do you feel pressured? How does it feel? But I just like to run. Like, I've always loved it. It's always been my hobby, my passion. I never, ever believed that I could make a career out of it.

I never had the confidence to think that one day I could go to Olympic Games, never mind go to three Olympic Games. It still seems a bit surreal to me that I've got to this point. But I think ultimately it comes down just to the enjoyment of it. I've never really cared whether people expect me to come first or last just because of my surname. I just think me and my mum, as much as she's a huge part of my team we're two completely different entities you know we were two different humans it doesn't mean that just because she did that I have

to do it and so yeah I think the pressure has always been external it's certainly never come from my family and it's never come from me. Tell us about your relationship with your mum then as she talks in the documentary about having to manage the balance between being a mum and being your coach so when do those two I mean clearly it's going well but are there ever moments when those two worlds collide and it doesn't go that well? Yeah I mean obviously from a younger age so teenage years when you're having little squabbles because you've not cleaned your dishes and you've not put your clothes in the laundry or generally whatever it is that all teenagers would would go through I perhaps find that a little bit more difficult

to differentiate between mum and coach than she did but she was always really good at just whenever we were down at the athletics club like my local club Dundee Wackle Harrier she would always just treat me like every other kid that was there do you mean people kids would join the club and not even realize that me and my mum were mother and daughter do you mean she was just a coach Liz and that was it so I think it was quite good to have those sort of boundaries because they were never overstepped and I think for me that was really important but it's obviously much much easier now as an adult. I mean, I moved out of the house when I was 17. And although we're on sort of different corners of the world

for most of the year, we do communicate pretty much every day, whether it's on WhatsApp, whether it's a video call, whatever it is. I mean, she's a huge part of my athletics coaching and a huge part of my life. There were some wonderful moments in this documentary. People listening may remember when you won gold in the 10,000 metres at the Commonwealth

Games last year and your mum was just in floods and you ran up to her. It's a beautiful moment. You also break your foot during a race, which you won, I might add, and qualified for the World Championships. I mean, that is some grit. In the documentary, your partner and former team GB Olympic athlete Michael Rimmer says it's a McColgan trait to prove people wrong and not give up he's right isn't he yeah I mean there's definitely that grit and determination I think like I don't

feel me and my mum are very similar but but then when I watched the documentary, I probably realised we have more similarities than I thought. I'm certainly a lot more laid back and really relaxed than my mum. But when it comes to like hard work and pushing through pain, I can see that we are very, very similar. And I think that's just because I've seen my mum's work ethic during life. I know how hard she's worked and that's sort of been instilled into me from a very very young age um but there's good sides and bad sides of that you know pushing through the pain can be a good thing in competitions but ultimately yeah you can maybe push a little bit too far and end on the other side of that of injury so for me it's trying

to find that good balance and almost I'm very fortunate I can learn from the mistakes that my mum's made learn from the mistakes my dad's made in his career Michael's made in his career like I really have people that are rooting for me every step of the way and ensuring that yeah we try not to make the same mistakes that they did. Okay I know your plan final question is to break that marathon record at London next year how confident are you you can pull it off? Yeah I would have been a little bit more confident I think if I had not been coming back from an injury that's definitely put a little bit of a spanner in the works with regards to my time frames now it's going to be tight but I'm just not going to put too much pressure on it I know I will break that record one day and it just doesn't

have to be April next year. I have all of next year to maybe focus on. If it's not quite London that I'm ready for, I won't push it. I won't make the same mistake I did this year and risk the rest of my season. So, yeah, perhaps if it's not London, there might be Chicago, Berlin.

There'll be another major in my future for sure. Good luck with it, Eilish. Thank you so much for joining us, Eilish McColgan, there. And you can watch the documentary Running the Family, BBC Scotland, from 10 o'clock on Thursday evening. That is it from Woman's Hour for today. Tomorrow, what is the best way to support a

child whose stammers? We'll hear from a Woman's Hour listener who wrote into the programme and two experts, including TikToker Jessie Yendell on living with a stammer. Talk to you then. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I love you. I know that.

Carolyn is 80, a wealthy widow. Dave is in his 50s, homeless, a former drug addict with a long criminal record. Their love affair causes a huge rift in Carolyn's family. That's our mom. We're not going to let you just do that. I'm Sue Mitchell and this story unfolded in California on the street where I live. Look what you brought into your house. He's a con artist mother. Is Dave a dangerous interloper or the tender carer he claims to be?

That's why I'm here. Thank God. Find out in Intrig, Million Dollar Lover from BBC Radio 4. Listen on BBC Sounds. If anything happens to you, I will just die. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, 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.