Woman's Hour - Dame Joan Ruddock, Katherine Parkinson, Negotiating care with siblings, Author Vanessa Chan

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

Katherine Parkinson has graced our TV screens for almost two decades, from Doc Martin and The IT Crowd to Humans and Here We Go. Now she has a comedy drama airing on ITV called Significant Other, in which she plays one half of an odd couple - neighbours who meet in highly unusual circumstances. She joins Clare McDonnell to discuss. Former Labour MP and government Minister Dame Joan Ruddock tells Clare about her call for a free vote in the Commons to legalise assisted dying. She admitted she was ready to end her terminally ill husband’s life to stop his pain. Our New Year's day programme on negotiating provoked one listener to write to us: 'I would love you to cover negotiations between carers and their parent with dementia. Another world! As is negotiating between carer and their siblings'. Professor June Andrews, who’s a fellow of the Royal College of Nursing and an author of Carers and Caring, and Dr Lis Boulton, Health and Care Manager at the charity Age UK, discuss. The Storm We Made is a new book by the debut author Vanessa Chan. Set in what we know today as Malaysia across two timelines - British colonialism and Japanese colonialism - it follows bored housewife Cecily who risks it all to become a spy for a general. But her decisions have huge repercussions for her and her family. Vanessa Chan joins Clare to discuss her book which was fought over in a seven-way auction by publishers in the UK. Steph Daniels gave up hockey in her 30s to teach PE and English and manage an all-female synth pop group called Zenana. However, in her 70s, she saw an advert for Bedford Hockey Club and decided to dust off her sticks. Since then, she’s even attended a trial for the over-70s England team and vows to try again next year. She joins Clare to talk about reigniting old passions.Presenter: Clare McDonnell Producer: Dianne McGregor

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. Good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour. Following on from Dame Esther Ransom's calls for a free vote in Parliament on assisted dying after she revealed her stage four lung cancer had led her to sign up with the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland. Today we'll hear from former Labour MP Dame Joan Ruddock. She says she considered ending the life of her terminally ill husband, Labour MP Frank Doran, with a pillow because she could no longer bear to see him in such extreme pain. Her testimony has been made to the Health

and Social Care Select Committee Inquiry. Delighted to say Dame Joan will join us in a few moments in her first broadcast interview. Actor and comedian Catherine Parkinson has graced our screens for almost two decades, from the IT crowd to humans. She joins us to talk about her comedy drama Significant Other, about a midlife messy love story between two lonely neighbours. Here's a question. Are you in the midst of negotiating care for an elderly relative? Maybe they have dementia, which is tricky enough. But what about the negotiations that go on between siblings

about who does the care and what kind of care a relative should receive? We have experts in the studio with us today to help you navigate that. So do get in touch with your questions. Also, Vanessa Chan was a high-flying communications director at Facebook. But the pandemic, her mother's death and a growing weariness of being stuck in meetings with what she describes as tech bros. Well, she decided to change tack and rights. It has paid off in spades. Her debut novel, The Storm We Made, has ended up being in a seven-way publisher bidding war.

And Vanessa will join us live from New York. And have you returned to something you loved when you were younger? We're going to hear from hockey player Steph Daniels, who returned to the sport after a 40-year hiatus and even made it to trials for England's over-70 squad, reigniting former passions. What have you gone back to? Do tell me.

You can text the programme. The number is 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we are at BBC Women's Hour and you can email us through our website or you can send us a WhatsApp message or voice note using the number 03700 100 444. Look forward to hearing from all of you listening this morning. Now, you may have seen the candid admission by the former Labour MP and government minister Dame Joan Ruddock that she was ready to end her terminally ill husband's life using a pillow in a bid to end his pain. Dame Joan's husband, Frank Doran, had been suffering from end-stage bowel cancer in 2017 and she struggled to get

him pain relief medication in the hours before he died. She's now called for a free vote in the Commons to legalise assisted dying. Now, the public debate around the subject has been revived, of course, in recent months by leading figures such as Dame Esther Ransom, who revealed that she was considering travelling to a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland if her cancer worsens. And of course, the late Dame Diana Rigg, who made a recording before her death, making the case for assisted dying. Delighted to say Dame Joan Ruddock, in her first broadcast interview about the subject, joins us now here on Woman's Hour. Welcome to the programme.

Thank you. And thank you so much for agreeing to talk about this because an incredibly painful moment in your life, but one that you want to use in your view for the betterment of other people.

Let's go back to what life was like when you were caring for your husband. I think we just got a little interference on the line there um you probably got a message coming through but um i think you're just switching that off which would uh be great for the purposes of this interview uh jose that's absolutely fine that's new technology for you what did you hear the question it's just hear the question. What was life like looking after your husband? It changed over 12 months when we had a diagnosis. Obviously, it was a great blow. We'd just retired. We were looking forward to a different kind of life after Parliament. But we were hopeful.

To be honest, I heard the words palliative care when the consultant made the diagnosis. And I realized that meant there didn't expect to be a cure. My husband didn't take it in. And so he always remained entirely optimistic that whatever happened, however much suffering with the chemo, it was inoperable actually the um way forward was to do the best to do everything they asked of us and we would get through it but it changed as he became more and more sick and chemo failed and ultimately I became a full-time carer and and how quick was that decline it it goes in peaks and troughs as people who will have gone through this know sometimes the chemo is giving some relief and it goes on well enough but i think you know for the last three months um i couldn't leave his side and and the striking bit of testimony to the health

and social care select committee who have been running an inquiry on assisted dying. Is the moment, the hours before his eventual death, when he was in extreme pain, can you take us back to that night? Indeed. What was happening was I had Macmillan nurses coming in and he was already on a permanent morphine drip into the body. And his pain was under reasonable control. But everything else had gone. I mean, people don't seem to realise that there's double incontinence, there's constant distress about the condition. The physical changes are so awful for both parties in this.

And so there's really a very, very difficult period. And again, something I hadn't been warned about is that he lost the ability to communicate. So he would try to speak to me. Obviously, he wanted to say things, but the words were completely in a jumble and couldn't be dealt with. So no palliative care deals with that. But at least the pain was going to be under control. They gave him an injection

in addition to the constant morphine. And I asked how long will this last because by this time he was groaning in agony. And they said it would last for five hours and indeed he went well for the first few hours um I said what time will you come back because this is going to be one in the morning they said oh no we go off duty at 10. So you know I was faced with this total. I knew my husband wanted help to die. We'd always talked about it, but he hadn't given me precise consent because he couldn't any longer speak to me.

And I think he was obviously terribly worried about the consequences for me. So after I heard this information, I tried to get the Macmillan people who were coming at night, the carer who stayed overnight, not with us, but in a separate room. But she was a person who couldn't administer. So I then called the out of hours doctor service. It wasn't the sort of thing they normally did. I was able to give them the name of the drug that was used for the injections ultimately after I said to them either you come or I will end his life

I didn't know what the consequences are but I will do it and eventually they came and eventually they gave it an injection which resulted in his dying seven hours later. People listening to this will, and many people listening to this, will have gone through something similar. To be pushed to that point, you had a pillow in your hand, didn't you?

I did. You thought it through. Oh yes, I picked it up I asked myself what will I have to do to ensure that if he struggles I can maintain the pressure because it has to be ended did you talk to him about it or was he in no fit state to really communicate? No, because he could no longer speak. And what I said to him when he kept trying to speak, which was some considerable days before this event, it had gone on for some days, and I simply held him and said,

we don't need to speak anymore, but i'll always be with you and i was thank you so much for talking about this i appreciate it's incredibly difficult to go through but it goes to the heart of what we're discussing today when he was still able to communicate but you just said that he had expressed his wish to have control over his own death. He had talked about that. I can't go on living like this. He was a skeleton. He was doubly incontinent.

He had to be helped to get to a commode. And finally, in the last couple of weeks, he was totally bedridden, wearing napkins. This was a vigorous, funny, intelligent, marvellous man. Reduced to this condition, I think most people would probably wish for their lives to end. And I think at the moment polls are showing about more than 80% of people actually want this choice. It's not about forcing people. It's not about people giving permission for people like me to end somebody's life.

Of course not. That's a criminal offence. But to have the choice, to have the choice. To get into those figures, there was a YouGov poll in 2021 that said almost three quarters of Britain, 73%, think the law should be changed to allow doctors to assist in the suicide of someone suffering from a terminal illness. But that figure changed when it was a personal choice and somebody wasn't

terminally ill. That figure went down. So Britain's tended to support allowing doctors to assist in the suicide of someone suffering from a painful, inc% support, 51% opposed. We're getting into the weeds of it now and this is the entire issue. So what are you calling for? I know you've given this very personal testimony to the Health and Social Care Select Committee's inquiry. What change do you want to see? I want to see it possible to have

a system which is now operating in quite a number of countries across the world starting with oregon in the us but now in european countries as well whereby a doctor or you maybe two doctors have to make a decision that somebody is, you know, fully in their right mind and they know what they want to do and that their life is going to end anyway. I mean, this is the point and normally this is life which is expected to end within six months and that at that point then there could be a choice and a means of medically supervised means of ending the life. We're looking at anything terribly dramatic, probably taking a small glass of a particular drug cocktail and under supervision and this seems to me to be entirely humane and you know the shocking thing is that people in Britain

have this kind of thing down to their pets all the time. You know, they cannot bear to see a pet suffer. We allow, you know, human beings to suffer terribly. I will just put the arguments to you, which I'm sure you've heard many times before, because I know you were involved in debates on assisted dying before your late husband became ill. The all party parliamentary group for dying well stands against the legalisation of assisted dying. Instead, says we should promote access to. And also the chair of that committee, Danny Kruger, MP, said on X recently that all experience shows legalising assisted dying

is dangerous for the most vulnerable. So what do you say to that kind of criticism, that vulnerable people could well be taken advantage of? Sheila Collins, a crossbench peer, opposes assisted dying as well, warning that the lives of autistic people, for example, and those with Down syndrome risk being less valued. How do have to be in the right, you know, have the right mental ability to make a decision. And indeed, you know, the decision is tested by experts. So I think the safeguards are there. And if we're absolutely honest, there is nothing in this world which is 100% safe. There are risks in everything. And it would be wrong to say there is no risk,

but I think the risk is very, very small indeed. And what we do know is that already some compassionate doctors are ending people's lives without a change in the law. So, you know, we ought to be honest. And I say to members of Parliament, look at what the public wants, whatever your own views, really have some regard, have some compassion. Let us have a choice. Thank you so much for joining us on Woman's Hour. We really appreciate you talking to us for the very first time about something so personal. I know it will touch many people listening today. That is Dame Joan Ruddock. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in that interview,

there is information and support available on our website. And of course, we'd love to hear from you on this issue too. 84844 is the text number that you need. Many of you are getting in touch already, but keep your texts coming in. 84844. Now, let's move on to talk to one of the great comic actresses of our time, Katherine Parkinson. She's graced our TV screens for almost two decades, from Doc Martin to the IT crowd, to humans and the brilliant Here We Go. And now she has a comedy drama

airing on ITV called Significant Other, in which she plays one half of a rather odd couple, neighbours who meet in highly unusual circumstances. I'm delighted to say Catherine joins me in the studio now. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you so much for coming in. I've seen quite a lot of this series. It's absolutely brilliant.

It's been on ITVX, the streaming platform, for quite a while, but it's now going on terrestrial TV. Your character is Anna. The set-up is quite extreme while, but it's now going on terrestrial TV. Your character is Anna. The setup is quite extreme the way it starts. So for people who haven't seen it or are looking forward to seeing it on ITV terrestrial channels, tell us about it. It is quite an extreme setup, quite an arresting beginning. My character Anna is having a heart attack and her next door neighbour, who she's never met or spoken to, has taken lots of pills to end his life and has written a letter to his, a little note to his ex-wife to say, look, look what you made me do and uh and he lies down waits for the pills to kick in and then there's a knock at the door and it's me it's Anna and she's been told by the ambulance that she uh mustn't be alone

um she needs to be with somebody um until the ambulance comes and that's the meet cute that's how they uh that's one way of describing it that's how the beautiful romance begins um uh yeah And they end up sharing the same ambulance. Yes, it's brilliant. It finds humour in very serious subject matter. To start in such a dark place kind of sets the tone for all of it. Why were you drawn to it? I was drawn to it instantly when I read the script. It's based on an Israeli show that

was a big success written by Dana Modan and who starred in it as well. And I think the difference struck me because it doesn't feel like a British script that I've read. And I think I just loved how unexpected it was. I mean, there are moments like, you know, when they finally do sort of respond to an undeniable connection that they have that they're both trying to ignore. And they do sort of get together. They don't know what to say to each other. And then Sam gets up and gets a Henry Hoover out and just hoovers. Things like that I found extremely funny because there was a truthfulness and an unexpectedness and it's that sort of laugh it engenders it's not a laugh a minute gag gagathon it's a tender but ultimately quite very hopeful uh show I think where um two people in midlife who have been battered about

and and are a bit obsessed with their sort of damaged relationships in the past somehow the their connection sort of overcomes everything yes and and and the darkness also touched touches on the loneliness of your character and his character too it's an important part of the program isn't it what loneliness does to people yes and i think specifically a sort of urban loneliness you know um when you know loneliness is a crowded room and all that and they're in this kind of huge um uh building with lots of people living very um close to each other but um have she I mean Anna works from home and I mean the only person she might see sometimes is the guy she buys all of her junk food off. And there's a nice poetry I think to the show. You know, she's literally heart sick.

She's got heart disease at 45 and I remember after we made the show it was actually in the papers that loneliness can cause heart disease and then there's some other bits of poetry where she sort of, he gets the keys to her flat and unlocks her heart. You know, I loved the way that was lightly done,

but it felt, you know, beautifully poetic. It certainly is. Let's have a little clip. This is Anna discussing her recovery and indeed her heart with her doctor. About the... Yes? The activity. Physical activity, yeah, crucial. No, the other one. Sexual activity.

Yes. What about it? When you say it's recommended, let's say, I mean, I don't know, if I hadn't done it in, you know... A few weeks? Yeah. That's totally natural, Anna. Yeah.

Or, let's say, months. Or years. Is it still recommended? Absolutely. Even more so. Because after all, that could be the reason why you're here. You think? Yes. If, as is often the case, loneliness is an issue,

then, yeah, it can be a decisive trigger. You can get a heart attack from loneliness. But where do we feel the loneliness? In our bodies. Bingo. And at that point, Anna's put her hand on her heart, hasn't she? It's sort of gut-wrenching to hear. Did it make you reflect on lonely periods in your own life?

How did you tap into that aspect of her life? Yes, it did. It did, absolutely. I think what I kept reminding myself playing Anna was that she doesn't feel sorry for herself and that there's a nobility in that and I think that's also often the case because it's only retrospectively that I've thought about lonely times because I certainly didn't think I was lonely

when I was a student and only eating from the trip vans and you know sort of speak I used to actually talk to my bicycle which I think is did it have a name normal I don't think I don't think it did have a name but you're saying then but you know I think that probably most of us, by the time we get to a certain age, have had lonelier periods. And I think that that scene that you played, what makes it particularly sort of humiliating for her is that he's such an attractive man, an attractive doctor,

and she's quite proud you know and um certainly wouldn't want anybody to think she was a lonely person um and sometimes that's the problem and that's why they can't you can't fight out of your loneliness because you you you're defensive about making connections which i think applies to anna yeah i mean i mean and what what struck me was i know actors often talk about the honesty about about approaching roles and portrayal. But it's so poignant, isn't it, that it's an honesty that they eventually have with one another that sort of leads to happiness. Do you think we often cloak that loneliness and are so worried about what other people might think that actually that can be very damaging to us personally? Yes, absolutely.

And I feel like their connection has its own life and sort of overcomes them both. They're sort of, I think what was enjoyable as an actress was playing these scenes real time where there were lots of pauses and that they will be saying one thing and Sam will be putting his foot in it and saying the wrong thing. But I think there's a different story told in their eyes when they're looking at each other,

and I think that's the wonderful thing, the powerful connection between two people can sometimes overcome all the sort of annoying behaviours and saying the wrong things, and he might not tell her she's beautiful and all the rest of it, but she can see in his eyes that they've got a very real and honest connection that's because you're such great actors that's the thing about it you're allowed the time to do that it really really is very very very gratifying to

watch that let's talk about you know you're no stranger to comedy sitcom format you want a BAFTA for playing Jen in the IT crowd and that became a bit of a cult classic, didn't it? Especially with lockdown for the younger generations. What does that feel like? Yes, I've heard that from my agent. Because I don't have much communication with the younger generation. But then what happens is people approach you on the street for something you did 20 years ago, and you feel extremely grateful they still recognise you

because I think there probably have been some physical alterations. You're so hard on yourself. But I'm very pleased that a studio sitcom has found, you know, has got what they call a long tail and has found this sort of longer life. I haven't done a studio sitcom for a long time and I'm a fan of them. My daughters love watching American ones and

I'm, you know, a fan of not going out and things and I think studio sitcoms are unfairly maligned sometimes in this country perhaps and there's a real buzz to doing them. I'll bet. Just to have that live audience there, that's one of the great things about not going out, isn't it? You hear that that instant reaction it brings it to life. Absolutely when you do you know a long-running play with comic elements in the theatre you have the privilege of working out exactly how to place a line and exactly how to do a joke and it just evolves and gets better and I think you have a chance at doing that in studio sitcoms because you've got the live reaction. Yeah. I just wanted to ask you actually about where you feel we are as far as female writing and female led dramas, especially comedy dramas.

We've got great writers like Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Michaela Cole as well, leading the charge at the moment. How much has that changed since you got involved in this game I think it's changed hugely and it's so exciting and I feel lucky to be just about young enough to be benefiting actually because one of my favorite most favorite writers is Laura Wade and you know I really do enjoy interpreting her writing because she's a she's a woman a similar age to me and of course there's a shared sensibility and I sometimes feel like we're the same on the inside and that that means there's a very um close sort of working relationship where I feel like she knows what I'm going to do almost before I do it with her writing and when I started out I I didn't really do female writers.

I did a lot of new writing in the theatre, but it was men. And I feel absolutely excited by it and slightly ashamed not to have done more writing myself. Still time. Still time, yeah. But just to squeeze in, I could talk to you for ages, but we have to plough on. You are going to be in an adaptation of Jilly Cooper's The Rivals.

I am, yes. Which is a bit of raunch, isn't it? So can you give us any insights? Oh my goodness, it's a bit of raunch. And it was an unbelievable blast to make with a very big and very fun cast. It's an eight-part uh series for disney plus um and uh i i um i absolutely loved it and i have a um a romance more more than just a raunch but a raunch too with danny dyer which um you know is obviously a gift from heaven it's a great way to start the new year happy new

year happy new year to you lovely to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming in. Significant other starts this Sunday, January the 7th, 10.15pm on ITV1. Catherine Parkinson, thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me. Great to have you. Lots of you getting in touch on a lot of the subjects we've talked about already this morning.

Dame Joan Ruddock earlier talking about assisted dying and wanting it legalised in this country. I completely agree that there should be choice about how to end life for those with terminal illnesses. My husband died of pancreatic cancer last April. My family nursed him at home for 12 agonising weeks. The hospice at home can only do so much. And there were times when his morphine

driver ran out and we had to wait hours for the nurse to come watching him deteriorate was agonizing he was skin and bones when he finally died having not eaten or drunk for weeks it is utterly inhumane um lots more texts i'll squeeze as many in as i can but do keep in touch with the program this is the number you need 84844. Now let's move on to talk about something you may have missed on our New Year's Day program it was all about women and negotiation from negotiating with a five-year-old to put their shoes on to negotiating with the in-laws right up to negotiating resolutions to international conflicts. Hayley Hassell spoke to a range of women including former Met Police hostage negotiator Nikki Perfect. Across the whole of my career, I would say that I have always underestimated the power of listening

and I didn't really know how to listen. And that most of us listen from a perspective of, oh, I can't wait for my say in the conversation. I just like to give my point of view because we do have really strong points of views and opinions and there's nothing wrong with it. It's just recognising that we don't always need to give our opinion and that sometimes people don't want to hear our opinion. I think it's really important, especially in family negotiations, especially when there's so much emotion in a family negotiation, is that you recognise when you do become emotional, when you do start talking from that emotional perspective, just recognising the space that

you're sitting in at the time. And do you need to just step out of that space for a bit before you come back? Well, that was hostage negotiator Nikki Perfect. And you can hear more from Nikki and the other women negotiators on BBC Sounds and search for that edition of Women's Hour on the 1st of January. Well, it certainly provoked a huge response, including one from one listener who contacted us on Instagram about her own family situation. Judy said this, I would love you to cover negotiations between carers and their parent with dementia, another world as a negotiating, sorry, as is negotiating between carer and siblings sadly judy has covid at the moment so get well soon judy she can't join us today but we are going to discuss the issue she raises with two experts in this field professor june andrews who's a fellow

of the royal college of nursing and an author of carers and caring and also dr liz bolton health and care manager at the charity Age UK. Welcome to both of you and thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. Thank you. Let's start by asking you, Professor June Andrews, about what Judy said, negotiating. It's negotiating with the person you're caring for, but also with other people in the family who might have different views on how that should be done. It's a bit of a

minefield, isn't it? It absolutely is. And in all the interactions that I have with people who want me to give them some help around dementia specifically, I find that I used to think that they were going to ask me about what dementia was like, about technical things to do with the neurology. But almost invariably, the question is about family dynamics and the pressure that exists upon the person who's the main carer from opinions expressed by siblings. And a lot of the problems that are created because sometimes decisions have to be made under extremely difficult circumstances. For example, if one parent dies and you're grieving for that parent having to make decisions for the other. And just at that moment, you're also in a position where with siblings who you may not have made an adult decision with in your life, you're making some really important legal, sometimes financial decisions. Life is very

difficult at that time. And we don't have the experience of having done this before, makes life difficult. The other sort of thing that people ask me about, of course, is when you've got a parent with dementia, who it's hard to negotiate with. But in some ways, I have more solutions to that than I would have to the problem of working with siblings. Is that just because it's basically the same family dynamics that there have always been, but now with a very thorny issue of a much-loved relative in the middle of it? I mean, I guess it is that, isn't it? It's that sibling rivalry maybe sometimes that you haven't moved beyond. There might be sibling rivalry, but one of the things

that we should think about, I had read somewhere that in reality, although we're siblings, although we share the same parents, we've not really been brought up in the same family. Some of us, for example, one family I'm working with just now, the oldest child in the family who's a carer and having to make decisions, she was the first child of a young couple living in a tiny apartment. The youngest sibling who's having to make decisions is a son who was born into a busy house, a middle class house where both parents were working. So their childhood experiences and their relationship with their parents are quite different. There are also gendered differences with relationships. You know, dads expect daughters to do some things.

Sons are, you know, horrified if they would have to do some things for their mothers. The negotiation about who does what isn't just about sibling rivalry and the history, although that obviously comes into it. A lot of it is about the fact that we have expectations and understandings about dementia and frailty that are quite difficult, different, sorry, that we've picked up over the course of our lives. Some family members may never have seen someone get frail and die before. Other family members may not understand what dementia is, may not recognise it, or at least have differing understandings of what it is. And so those circumstances with such a different background with each person and such

a different relationship with the parent it's really really hard for people to agree decisions and make those decisions together sometimes it's just to step up and make the decisions. Yeah we'll come back to advice on how people can do that but let's bring in Dr Liz Bolton, Health and Care Manager at Charity at Age UK. Is a lot of this resonating with you Liz and what do you find is a good place to start working through this? Yeah absolutely it certainly rings true from my own experience as a carer but also what we hear from carers at Age UK and what I know locally from my work as a trustee of a local carer support organisation. And at Age UK, we run a polling and a survey for older people's health and care every year. And one of the topics we ask about is caring for others. And when we look at the breakdown of who's providing care, we see that it's more often women, it's more often people aged

between 50 and 59, and it's more often people living with their own long-term conditions. So there are lots of complex issues going on, I think, in caring relationships. And when you add in that relationship with your siblings, which, you know, as has already been stated, there might have been rivalry, there might have been difficulties in those relationships. But I think we really, really need to be careful not to fall into the trap of assuming that the female family members will automatically be the main carer. Because we hear from hundreds of women are struggling to manage their caring responsibilities alongside their careers and their family relationships. And they talk about how the impacts on, you know, breaking down their own family relationships with husbands and children because of the demands on

their time, the problems in getting ahead in their career, or even just having time to do their job. And I think, you know, there's kind of a historic thing here with gender assumptions. So when my brother and I set up Lasting Power of Attorney for our father a few years ago now, dad assumed that I was going to look after all of his health and care needs and that my brother was going to look after all of his finances and housing because those are the two separate forms that you have to fill in. And because I've worked in health and care for 28 years, and because I work for Age UK, and I know the system, it kind of does make sense for me to cover most of the health and care issues. But as those issues and needs increase, I think it's really important to come back

and look at the balance again again because we're both working full time um and we need to not make assumptions and is the key there have you already had that conversation with your brother to say look you know that's his assumption but it certainly isn't mine um no okay i appreciate your honesty yeah i think it is because you know this this is my area this is my work area this is what I know so you know it's a lot easier for me to deal with these issues than it is for him he would have the steepest learning curve to to understand how the health and care system works to be able to support dad to get his needs met whereas for me it's really simple but I think

you know one of the things we do is we keep a spreadsheet of contacts of who's doing what and i think the time is coming to have a look at that and and look at the balance of of the responsibilities going forward that is a great idea a spreadsheet so you actually see where that balance of responsibility is let's bring in um june andrews again june I know you've actually identified two key areas of negotiations when it comes to talking about all of this within a family crisis decisions

and considered decisions. So talk us through what the difference is, if you could give us some examples. So the key areas that everybody should think about in advance are areas of finance and areas of legal issues. So as someone, for example, becomes old and frail with dementia or gets an illness where they can't speak, which we heard about earlier on in the programme, it's important that something has already been set up to make decisions.

I know you've had programmes about powers of attorney. And in that area, it's crucial that all the people who are listening now who haven't given power of attorney to anybody should do that now. You know, save this for the next generation. But if you're in a position where the person that you care for is already older and this has not been done, you've probably got some really difficult conversations you have to have before the person loses capacity to make those decisions. One of the areas that you might have difficulty with is, for example, if someone is starting to have dementia, one of the areas that people have most arguments about is questions of giving up driving. You may have two siblings, one of whom says it would ruin mum's life forever if you took her car away. And another one says, well, it would ruin mum's life forever if you took her car away.

And another one says, well, it would ruin her life if she had an accident and hurt other people. How do you make those decisions? One thing that the public guardian has said to me before is this is an area where there's a real problem if you have an even number of attorneys, because you don't have anybody with a casting vote and you have a real impasse where people can't make a decision. Another area might be the point at which you start to bring in external care that's not family care. Because the care that women do is often like invisible mending, it's something that creeps up on you over a period of time. Nobody sees it, you're trying to stop the person being humiliated by anybody noticing all

the things that you're doing for them and some of them are so intimate that you wouldn't tell anybody for example that you'd had to clean your parent or clean your parent's toilet. All of those things creep up and they are invisible. And so at the point when that carer starts to be able to say, I really need help with this, all the other siblings, particularly the ones who for gender reasons haven't been involved in the care, might take some persuading that care is needed. And that's where a lot of difficulties come because often that ageing parent will side with the siblings who say, we don't need any help in this house, we're doing just fine.

And it's because it's the invisible daughter sometimes or daughter-in-law who's quietly getting on with it at risk, as has just been said by Liz, to her family, to her personal relationship, to her work, and even to things like her future economy, economics. Because if you don't press on at work, it affects your pension, it affects your promotion. You may have problems much later in your life because of the sacrifice that you have made at this point, and which you've had to make because nobody else realises that it's time to get extra help. Believe me. Sorry. The majority of people don't end up in a care home. The majority of people don't need this kind of help.

But in the places where it is needed, it's really important to be able to persuade other people when the time has come for extra help. Yes, so the extra person and power of attorney is a good one with a casting vote. Final word to you, Liz. I guess what we're talking about is families trying to find a way through these difficult negotiations. What would be your final word of advice?

I would say when you're negotiating with family members, focus on staying calm, on how the imbalance is making you feel rather than accusing others of not pulling their weight. So sounding non-judgmental and avoiding sounding too critical. And it's a really good idea to write down what you want to get across before you start the conversation. And as Nikki said in the previous programme, be open to understanding other people's point of view because there might be a very good reason why they can't step up

and do any more at the moment because of other issues that are going on in their lives. So I think you really need to create an open relationship where you can talk honestly with the others. Great to have you both on the programme such an important topic Dr Liz Bolton their Health and Care Manager at the Charity Age UK and Professor June Andrews a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing and Author of Carers and Caring. Again, share your experiences, 84844 on the text number. Lots of you getting in touch on many of the topics we've covered so far. On assisted dying, this texter, I've watched both my parents die in agony,

as Dame Joan Ruddock described. Our palliative care services are not able to stop people dying in extreme pain. At the end of their life, we treat animals with more respect than humans and something needs to change. And this texter, the answer is funding proper palliative care, medicines and staff, not legalising early death, which would quickly become a cost-saving exercise for our broken NHS. Thank you for your text. Keep them coming in to the programme. Now, let's take you to Malaya, known to us today as Malaysia during the Second World War. A new book, The Storm We Made, is set in two timelines across British colonialism and Japanese colonialism and follows housewife

Cecily, who becomes an unlikely spy for a general, but her decision has huge repercussions for her and her family. It is the first book by debut author Vanessa Chan and was fought over in a seven-way auction from publishers here in the UK. Delighted to say Vanessa joins me now live from Brooklyn. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you for having me. Brilliant to have you and to have a seven-way bun fight over your first novel. Were you expecting that? Oh, absolutely not. I don't think anyone expects that.

I was beyond shocked. I was actually in Malaysia when the auction was going on and it was during the earlier part of the pandemic where I was still under quarantine when you had to, if you travel somewhere, you had to quarantine somewhere. I was actually quarantining with my father. And when I came out of quarantine, the auction had closed and my life had changed. Yes. And many things happened to you, didn't they, during lockdown? You had a lot of personal loss, didn't you? Yes.

I think like a lot of us, you know, the very early parts of the pandemic were very, very difficult. But for me, I was in New York City in April 2020 when it was the epicentre of the pandemic. And during that time, both my mother and my uncle passed. And I, you know, at this time was trying to write a novel about home. And I was trapped. I couldn't go home. I couldn't be with my dying mother. And it was an incredibly challenging moment of grief for me while I was trying to write this novel. And I know, obviously, that's had a profound impact on you and how you approach the novel, but just to go back a little bit to what you were doing before you decided that you wanted to write, you'd scaled the heights. You were in Facebook, communications director of the company,

hanging out with tech bros, which you write about rather amusingly, about how often it was just you and Sheryl Sandberg in meetings with however many Marks or Daves or Mikes. And you thought, I've had enough of this? Exactly. That's a simple way of looking at it. But yes, I found myself frequently in meetings with a series of men with the same name and me and one other woman, you know, often Sheryl Sandberg. And I did that for six years. You know, I started as a manager time that I switched immigration status from needing requiring a work visa to being getting residency, which was when I was no longer tied to an employer. And I was able essentially to freely pursue whatever it is I wanted. And I was stymied by this. I'd never had this freedom as long as I'd worked. I was always,

you know, an immigrant who required a visa, who had to check her paperwork before she left the country, who worried about being told that my visa was expired or something had happened. And all of a sudden, I had this incredible freedom to do what I wanted. And it took me several more years to figure out what it is I wanted to do. And I decided it was time to write that novel that had been stewing inside of me for a while. Well, you made the right choice. Let's talk about the book now. It's absolutely brilliant. The Storm We Made. It flicks between two time periods, the 1930s and the 1940s, between British-occupied Malaya and Japanese-occupied Malaya with a central character, the main character of Sicily.

And what she does to try and escape the domesticity of her life between the roles of mother, wife and spy. It's not often written about, is it, this period of the British occupation of Malaya and the Japanese occupation of Alea? Why did you decide to make that the backdrop? You know, growing up, I'd heard some of these stories from my grandparents and from other family members about the Japanese occupation. But like you said, our history books don't cover this period. And part of that is because, you know, our families are reluctant to talk about their trauma publicly, but part of it is just the nature of history is that Europe is centered, right? America is centered. And the Pacific theater of the second world war is very much not covered in history books, in fiction. And it seemed to me like it was time. It was time that these stories that I'd had swirling in me, these stories that I'd been told, I laid them down on paper,

because that's the only way that you create a history that hasn't been written. If you take the stories passed down to you through time and lay them down somewhere so that other people can read them. And especially from a female perspective, you talk about how your grandparents' generation didn't want to talk about it. Is that because of the brutality of it, of the brutality, especially to women as well? You talk about comfort women in the novel too. Do you think there's a shame attached to that? Or there's a desire just to not dig up a period of history that's so incredibly painful? I think all of that is true. I think it was an incredibly brutal period of history. I think the common statistic is in four years of occupation,

the Japanese killed more people than the British did in 50 years. This is not to say one coloniser is better than the other, but it was a terrible period of brutality and a particularly brutal period for women because girls as young as seven or eight years old were being kidnapped and recruited to work at comfort stations for Japanese officers. And the comfort station, could you explain what that is? A comfort station is a place where comfort women are essentially kept as prisoners of war to service Japanese soldiers,

you know, service their urges as they emerged. And the reason that these exist is because they did not want Japanese soldiers to go into cities to pillage and rampage. So they decided to build stations where women would be available to them. But at these stations, the women who were there were obviously not there by choice. They were kidnapped and kept, you know, and used in the worst possible ways. And some of them were children. Many of them were children because children do not get pregnant. This book has been picked up by a publisher in Japan. Just a final thought on that. You say the only way you kind of recreate a new history is to write it down.

I mean, does that feel revolutionary to you that this is now Japan wants to read your fiction, but read what actually happened? It was an incredible shock to me. I never, this book is, as you would expect, incredibly critical of Imperial Japan and what happened during the war. But we received an offer from a Japanese publisher who wrote me an extensive and touching letter that said, it is time for the Japanese people to learn about our history, not just from the perspective of soldiers going to the front, or from the perspective of Japanese people. It is time that

the Japanese people learn what happened to other people because of Japan. And it was a shock and incredible revelation to realize that this book will be in the hands of Japanese readers who will be learning about their own history. For the very first time in many cases. I think so. Very first time of their history of occupation and the way they changed the world. Well, it's a brilliant read. It really is.

And thank you so much for joining us on Woman's Hour, Vanessa. Thank you for having me. Vanessa Chan is the author and the book is The Storm We Made and it is out now. Now thank you for everybody who's got in touch. We've been asking you also about passions that you have returned to in later life. We're going to talk to somebody about that next. This texter, who is this from? This is from, bear with me, Kate in Birmingham. I bought myself a pair of beautiful ice skating boots for Christmas. I'm 45. I've always dreamt of becoming a figure skater as I love ice skating.

I don't think that dream is going to come true, but I thought, why not? Just buy the boots and skate a bit more. And I'm not sure whose permission I was waiting for, really. So I gave it to myself and I couldn't be happier. It's definitely reignited my passion for skating. Kate, thank you so much for getting in touch. That's what we're asking you now. Have you reignited a passion for something you did earlier in life?

What have you gone back to recently? How has it brought you joy? Steph Daniels gave up hockey in her mid-30s, but after seeing an advert for Bedford Hockey Club, she decided to pick up her sticks once more and has even attended trials for the over-70s England team. And Steph joins us now. Hello. Hello, Claire.

First of all, could I just say such moving stories today, particularly from Dame Joan Ruddock. And, you know, dignity and dine is so important. But I'd also like to tell your listeners that there are lots of older people out there, women especially, doing exciting things, having fun and lots of energy. Well, you're one of them and that's why we have you on. So hockey was a big part of your life when you were younger

and you were a good player. I was. Well, I suppose like most school children in England, I started when I was 11 at school, joined a club when I was 16, went on to play county hockey, middle and juniors hockey and played until I was about 35. OK, so why did you walk away from it? Well, I was a former PE teacher and anybody who knows a PE teacher from the moment they get into school from eight o'clock in the morning till they leave about six o'clock, you're so busy. At the weekend, there's school matches after school. At the weekends, I was playing club hockey, county hockey. At weekends, tournaments, Easter holidays,

Christmas holidays. And I thought, you know what? I think I want to do other things with my life. I don't just want my life to be about hockey as much as I enjoyed it. So I thought, no, enough. Enough is enough. Yeah. So the thing you had a passion for just started to feel like a chore. It did. It did. I wanted to go to the theatre. I wanted to go to concerts. I wanted to go away for weekends. And I had so little time before. So you took a break break quite a long break and you came back to it so what was the impetus what did you see what caught your eye

well I saw a picture in our local the local Bedford paper of some some an advert about walking hockey and I'd never really heard about walking hockey and I thought oh have I still got my stick would it still be the right shape could I could I still play would I still have my skill so I thought I'd go along and see and so um it's it's a wonderful group it's a wonderful community of of of walkers men women all ages and during the pandemic it was a lifesaver for all of us because we could play outside. We could have fun. We could have contact with people and get fit. So the physical and mental health of walking hockey is fantastic. And the school level, the skill level.

I mean, they say it's walking hockey, but people say I don't always walk, which is probably why I joined. Well, you went back to the running version, didn't you, for a bit? I did. I did. I did. I'm still playing. In fact, I went to training last night. Yeah, fantastic. And tell me about the kind of cross-generational aspect to this, because here you are over 70 and people listening might think, oh, well, you're all in the same age bracket and you're all walking around the same pitch.

It's not that, is it? Oh, no. Well, the proper hockey last night, there were 12 of us and a coach. And I think seven of them were still at school and five of us older older ones and i i was the i was the older one so we got 14 15 16 16 year olds and and we've got people in their um 30s 40s uh and 50s and me how does that work though as a team oh is it a bit chaotic yes it is at times because, you know, the kids, they love to dribble and they love to keep the ball. And so our team is kind of a development team.

We're trying to move them on, teach them to pass the ball because it is a team game and not just keep it to themselves. And they do a lot of the running for us. We also run. And the banter, you you know training last night you hear about all the the problems at school not getting the homework in time we talk about Israel and all the problems in the world and it's just lovely to have this real mixed event mix of ages so anybody listening to this who has a passion that they've been thinking I mean we just heard wonderful

texts from one of our listeners saying I bought rollerates. I don't know who I was waiting to get permission for to start roller skating again myself. What would you say? Oh, go for it. I mean, that's the thought. I mean, I used to love roller skating. We just used to do it around the streets. But yes, I mean, not everybody's into sport.

I mean, you can do music, you can join a choir. I mean, to do a team, something in a team is so unusual for women. Once you leave school, most women don't ever play in a team again. So to play a team sport or being in an orchestra or a choir, or just going down to the gym and being with other people, go for it. There's so many things women can do these days. You're an inspiration, Steph, and I'm sure you've inspired many of our listeners this morning to do something, reignite that passion in something they love. Thank you so much for joining us. That is Steph Daniels.

Gave up hockey in her mid-30s, but she's back playing again in her 70s. That's it from Woman's Hour from today. Talk to you tomorrow. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. From BBC Radio 4, life can be unexpected.

It was big. This was not a wind. This was not a storm. This was a tsunami. But when confronted with change, humans are remarkably resilient. I knew in that moment as I fell to the ground

that I would recover more. I'm Dr Sian Williams, psychologist and presenter of Life Changing, the programme that speaks to people whose worlds have been flipped upside down and transformed in a moment. If I had to live my life again, would I ever want to go through what I went through? There's a very simple answer to that. I would go through it again. Subscribe to Life Changing on BBC Sounds. 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.