Woman's Hour - Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth; Britney Spears; Losing a parent young; Jane Austen's early work and Food and Memory

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

Two months ago the then head of the policing inspectorate Zoe Billings warned of an “epidemic of violence” against women and girls. She urged police chiefs to “get a grip” of the situation and called for it to be given the same priority as terrorism threats. On her recommendation the Home Office and National Police Chiefs Council which represents the 43 police forces In England and Wales have now funded a new post to coordinate action on the issue and have appointed Detective Chief Constable Maggie Blyth to do the job. She joins Emma Barnett ahead of a policing summit being held in the capital at the end of the week to talk about her new role and future plans.Britney Spears has addressed fans and supporters for the first time since her 13 year conservatorship was lifted by a judge in Los Angeles last Friday. The conservatorship was set in up 2008 after the US pop star faced a mental health crisis. Her father, Jamie Spears, was in charge of the conservatorship but stepped down in 2019 citing health reasons. Britney has previously called the conservatorship “abusive” amid claims that her father was spying on her and illegally recording her conversations. But what does Britney's social media post reveal about her? Emma is joined by Jennifer Otter-Bickerdike professor of Popular Music at the BIMM Institute whose latest book is called Being Britney: Pieces of a Modern Icon. Jane Austen is known and loved for six novels - four published towards the end of her short life and 2 published after her death. In a new book 'Jane Austen Early and Late' Freya Johnston of St Ann's College Oxford argues that the teenage writing contained in three notebooks deserves to be better known and that it sheds new light on her later work. For millions of families, the past 18 months have been defined by grief. And an online growing community, mainly fronted by young women, is helping others to find support through loss. New research by Marie Curie reveals that around half of people in the UK think we don’t talk enough about death and dying as a society. Emma speaks to two young women about their own experiences. Amber Jeffrey is the founder of The Grief Gang podcast. Helen Smith has an Instagram page called Lockdown Grief.Eating Well with Dementia is a new community written recipe book from West Yorkshire. Inspired by the work of their local dementia cafe and cooking group, the book was developed by Young Dementia Leeds, a community service supporting people living with early onset dementia and their families. Emma Barnett speaks to Liz Menacer, Service Manager at Young Dementia Leeds and Diana Harris-Smith whose late husband was diagnosed with early onset dementia in 2016. They explore the role of food, memory and dementia.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to the programme. Today we learn that the word of the year for 2021, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is perseverance. And while the initial surge of interest in that word stemmed from NASA's mission to Mars in February, as you'll remember, I'm sure the Perseverance rover made its final descent, editors at the dictionary felt the word was also an apt one, given the challenges of 2021. Today, we're going to talk about grief with someone who lost their father to Covid at the start of the pandemic, and specifically what it's like to lose someone important to you at a young age. Grieving when you are young, what does it do to you? How does it shape the rest of your life? How does it influence your relationships and the way that you look at the world around you? You can text me here at Women's Hour on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate

or on social media. Get in touch with me via at BBC Women's Hour or email me your experiences and views on this via our website. Perseverance is defined by Cambridge Dictionary as, quote, continued effort to do or achieve something, even when this is difficult or takes a long time. Well, sometimes in the fog of grief, persevering is the achievement in itself. How have you persevered?

Any tips you have on coping with loss would be warmly welcomed. Life, of course, in some ways may be inching back to normality for many people, but for some, they are just trying to muddle through life while grieving, whether it's related to the pandemic or not. But of course, that's more in our thoughts than ever before. Also on today's programme, the latest on Britney Spears' freedom. How free is she from her family and the legal arrangement that's constrained her every move for the last years that we've known about it, but also before

then when we didn't know about it. Why Jane Austen's early work deserves a reading, one fan and academic makes her case, and how a new cookbook is helping the families of those with early-onset dementia. But first, two months ago, the then head of policing inspectorate Zoe Billingham warned of an epidemic of violence against women and girls. She's urged police chiefs to get a grip of the situation and called for it to be given the same priority as terrorism threats. She came on the programme and talked about this in great detail. If you missed it, catch up on BBC Sounds. We went into what actually was there in terms of what's going on with policing,

but also what isn't with regards to the vetting between different forces. On her recommendation, and there were several, the Home Office and National Police Chiefs Council, which represents the 43 forces in England and Wales, have now funded a new post to coordinate action on the issue. And the person who's just been appointed to that role is Detective Chief Constable Maggie Blythe, who joins me now for her first broadcast interview in the role. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me. So your role is what?

So my role is very much around coordinating the national policing response to violence against women and girls. And the plans that I have in place are very much around listening to all that's been going on this year. We see this very much as a watershed moment for policing. But we know that why we see it as a watershed moment very much because of two things, really. The absolutely tragic incidents around the death of Sarah Everard earlier this year and the fact of how she died is to us something that's really rocked policing. At the hands of a serving police officer. At the hands of a serving police policing, policing to listen and act. But also in terms of wider society, we know that policing needs to do and make some changes.

But we also know that this is an opportunity perhaps for addressing some of the wider issues around male violence towards women and girls in our society. So my role is twofold. It's to look at the policing response, but also very much to work with other partner agencies, other parts of the sector, to look at how do we take this moment and possibly an opportunity to make some real long lasting changes that help women and girls feel safer in their everyday lives. But I suppose you mentioned those agencies. There are those looking specifically at rape, domestic abuse, stalking. All sorts of roles already exist.

Why is this role necessary? Policing has already prioritised and done a lot of work around domestic abuse, rape and serious sexual offences, a range of offences that come within violence against women and girls. But we recognise in terms of the volume of crime that we're dealing with in this area, and we recognise because of the approaches that are very different, quite rightly, in different parts of the country

for our 43 different local police forces, that having a coordinating role enables us to draw that together, to look at the data, to look at what's happening across the country, and also to be able to link across to those other sectors that we think, if we work more effectively together, can make a real impact. But what are you going to do about sexism in the police? You know, let's just remind a few different elements of this. WhatsApp messages between officers. What about the idea that there's a culture in the police that we weren't perhaps quite as aware of? Of course, I'm very aware we're speaking as two police officers

are awaiting sentencing after taking and sharing inappropriate photos of Nicole Smallman and Biba Henry. We had Mina Smallman on the programme not long ago. What about that? So part of my approach is the coordination of those plans across the 43 different police forces. But part of that approach is also to look at trust and confidence. I think in this watershed moment, we know policing has lost the confidence of women and girls of many of our public. And so part of my plan and my approach is also looking at conduct and behaviour within policing to ensure that there is greater trust from women and girls towards reporting different crimes around violence against women and girls, but also to address some of the cultural issues that we know we have got in policing and are already doing very much around. So that's a central part of my role too. I want to get into that, if I can, in more detail.

But I wanted to play you a clip, if I can, because getting a grip of the police response to violence against women and girls is a very tough task, given the low trust some have in the police, not all. We've seen officers accused of domestic violence, of inappropriate sexual conduct towards vulnerable victims. More cases were highlighted just last night on a programme here on Radio 4 called File on 4. I recognise you won't be familiar with the specifics of this case,

but some of our listeners may have also heard that, and I wanted to share it again in case they hadn't. One of them was Nicola Brooks. She was groomed for sex by a former inspector at Sussex Police, Tony Lum. She contacted him after being stalked online and she told the reporter Melanie Abbott how he visited her regularly, becoming increasingly familiar until a line was crossed. One thing led to another and we were kissing again and then we ended up in bed that night. It was a one-off. I was like,, well, you know, I'm not going to see you again. He said, well, it should hope so after what we've just done.

But she only ever received two more emails from him. When she confided in an officer in the Metropolitan Police, she realised that what he'd been doing was wrong. It led to a misconduct hearing, which Tony Lum didn't attend. Eventually, Tony Lum's 27-year career in Sussex Police ended in January last year, sacked for gross misconduct. It emerged he'd had sex on duty with three other women. Another, like Nicola, was also vulnerable.

Tony Lum visited her back in 2012 on police business. A neighbour she confided in reported their relationship to the force, believing it was wrong. The police made one cursory phone call to that neighbour. Nothing else happened, leaving Tony Lum free to later prey on Nicola. She only discovered this when reading the investigation report. I was nearly sick.

I had to get up and walk around the room. I was shaking so much. I was nearly sick. I had to get up and walk around the room. I was shaking so much. I was so furious. He could have been stopped in 2012 and he would never have been able to get to me. We asked Sussex Police why they didn't investigate the 2012 case properly. They told us they couldn't answer. People who heard that last night, just to remind you, I'm with the Detective Chief Constable Maggie Blythe. What should they be

thinking? It's really disturbing to hear of incidents like that. And I know that across the country, police forces take really seriously any conduct that falls below what's expected of a police officer. And what I would ask is that any woman in that situation reports and we will take that very seriously and we will listen. To the same police? I mean, this is the thing, isn't it? If the police abuse their position of power, how can you? I mean, let's just tie it to your new role and the new role that's been created. You're the first to have this role. How can you ensure that won't happen again? I'm deeply sorry to hear of incidents like that and I

know that we have a long way to go to rebuild that trust and that has to be first and foremost of what I do two parts to it we need to make sure that within policing we are doing everything we can to build back that trust to listen and to respond to any woman who reports an incident of violence against them in any way and particularly where it involves a police officer and I can absolutely tell you that that will be taken at the utmost seriousness and secondly we need to look at why is this happening and I think it goes back to the point that I made that we are at a moment in time where perhaps we are listening to the experiences of many, many women and girls who

are coming forward. We're seeing the numbers of reported incidents around domestic abuse and rape increasing, but we know that we have a long way to go to have successful outcomes with many of those crimes. But women are coming forward and we don't want incidents like the one that you've just played to stop them reporting because otherwise those changes that we know we need to see in society won't happen. Policing has a really important part to play and we want to do that with other organisations, with schools, education, prevention to talk about what's happening. In terms of your situation that you're describing now and what you want to do looking at the conduct within policing, do you support the idea from Her

Majesty's Chief Inspectorate of Constabulary Tom Windsor that there should be for instance spot checks of officers' phones to look at messaging groups? The vetting that is undertaken of police officers is extensive and is also under review all the time and at the moment again. And the measures that can be taken within police forces already in terms of work, phones and mobiles, are something that are always looked at. We have to be really careful about being proportionate to any conduct and being proportionate in terms of access to personal phones. But I absolutely know that when police officers join and through any training,

it's reiterated and reinforced the importance of, as a police officer, it's not just when you're on duty, it's your private life too. I'm not saying it's everybody, but yes, of course, in training you're going to talk about people's conduct privately and professionally. But these messages, only some of them have come to light. I mean, I have to say, I've asked several people now, whether it's from the IOPC, the Independent Office of Police Conduct,

yourself in this new role. I actually asked somebody, the Commissioner for Data last week, do they support this idea? Nobody actually supports so far that I've spoken to on this issue, this idea of spot checks. What are you going to do if you don't do spot checks? Because, you know, do you want people to call each other out? So two things, spot checks can happen always of work phones and work devices in terms of going into one's personal life that requires different forms of authorisation. So being really clear about that. But secondly, the calling out is as important. The spot checks are there and those expectations and standards are very much there. But the calling

out is as important because we know that cultures can grow up within teams, within parts of organisations, not just in policing, in all sorts of institutions where women having the courage to be able to stand up and call things out, but men too playing their part in being part of the solution, in being not just a bystander of what's going on, but actually maintaining those expectations of how we behave at work and how we treat women. And I think we are going to see... I know you've just said about men, if I may just interrupt at that point I know you just said about men also calling things out and and you know there's a lot of challenges with calling out colleagues whatever it is as people can recognize not least we've also heard that when police officers have reported stuff about the police there has been sometimes cover-ups and there has been not what there should have been not just in this sort of instance there

hasn't been perhaps the best due process but but I mean, why should it be you as a woman who's doing this? Why does it take a woman to try and clean up the issues to do with violence against women and girls? Do you think a man might be better placed? I think men are the solution towards much of male violence against women and girls. But what I want to do and what my colleagues working across policing and leaders across all aspects of policing, not just at the top, but through all of parts of an organisation, is to encourage environments within the working environment where women can speak about what's happening to them, if it is, and men too are setting standards around behaviour. Some of that is about listening conversations, it's around staff networks, it's around how officers feel

able to talk about how they're in their working environment. And I think as we shine the spotlight on this, we are going to see more and more cases coming to the surface where it is deemed absolutely unacceptable to behave in certain ways. But you've got to have a mentality of trust between officers. So how is that going to work? I, you know, let's say you and I were working together and you were inappropriate and I called you out. Are you then going to have my back on the street? I mean, grassroots police officers have told us they're fearful of calling out bad behaviour because colleagues may not then support them. So the officers that I talk to and I talk to frontline officers regularly and to the colleagues I talk to within policing, it's about having

cultures where it's possible to talk about these things and have the conversations. It's not an environment where one person feels they have to call something out without that support. So supportive environments where leaders right through to the front line are having these conversations, which I know we are having in every police force at the moment, to ensure that individuals, women and men, feel comfortable to call out behaviour that falls below the standard. And that will include when out on patrol, a member of public behaves towards a female officer in a discriminatory way or in an unpleasant way, that male colleagues feel able to support that woman and will do so, and women feel able to seek the support through their

team and their officers they're out on patrol with. Those are really important to create that culture of working that I think is in many police forces already. And as we keep, as I say, shining that light, we are going to see more and more cases rooted out because we will not tolerate that within our policing environment. In terms of, so that's I suppose about the police and its culture, but to talk about how it affects the public and doing a better job about what happens to women who are subjected to violence and to crime in this way that we're talking about. She has suggested, Zoe Billingham, as I mentioned,

that violence against women and girls be put on the same footing as terrorism. Do you think that would be the thing that changed this? I mean, it would be, of course, around budget and prioritisation. How are you in your job going to make it that there are more prosecutions where there needs to be and there are the right focuses? It is an absolute priority to policing violence against women and girls. And in terms of the volume, the impact it has on everyday policing, it is huge. So from that regard, it is having the same impact already as counterterrorism.

It has the same impact in terms of the harm it has on women's lives, on local communities, on local police forces. Domestic abuse alone is around 15% of all recorded crime. So I think that prioritisation is there. We know we need to get better. We need to get better at our criminal justice outcomes. But we also need to get better at working with organisations that can look at how victims are supported. We can play our part with that relentless focus on perpetrators, managing the risk of the men, usually that create the harm to women and girls. But we need to work with others to also support victims to feel they have the confidence in the system

to keep going for a successful criminal justice outcome or feeling supported if they don't want that and they want something else. Maggie, I hope you'll come back, let's say in a year, OK, maybe less if you wish. What will represent success in your role? Success for me is three things is having much greater consistency across our police forces around our focus on perpetrators and on perpetrator programmes not just on victim support. Secondly that working with other organisations women and girls report to us that they feel safer in public places but also online online. And that's a long way to go. It's not going to just be done in a year. We're talking about a long term change. It's good to hear what your framework is. And then thirdly, the really important bit for me, and again, this isn't going

to be immediate, it is going to take time, is that trust and confidence being rebuilt, rebuilt in policing from women and girls, but also rebuilt in society. Because if we really are going to grab this moment, and I really do think it is a moment, this isn't just about policing, arresting our way out of it. It is about working with other parts of the sector, other parts of the criminal justice system, and education. Education has a huge part to play in how boys grow up and how men think it's right to behave towards women and girls. I think that's a long term ambition. But I would like to see what we can do certainly over the next year in ensuring that we listen and act. We'll talk again. Thank you. Maggie Blythe, Deputy Chief Constable, thank you very much and in this new role. I should also say

that clip we played was from File on 4, which was on last night. Who's policing the police? You can catch it on BBC Sounds and again on Radio for this coming Sunday at five o'clock. Many messages, I have to say, coming in around my initial question with regards to grief and specifically what it was like to lose somebody when you were young. Please keep those messages coming in because we'll be talking about that after our next discussion. 84844. And any tips you have for people who are going through this now, please do share them and you're being generous in doing so. But I wanted to bring you an update on Britney Spears because she's addressed fans and supporters for the first time since her 13-year conservatorship was lifted by a judge in Los Angeles last Friday. It was set up in 2008 after the pop star faced a mental health crisis. Her father, Jamie Spears, was in charge of it, but stepped down as a personal conservator in 2019, citing health reasons.

She's previously called this legal arrangement abusive amid claims that her father was spying on her and illegally recording her conversations. This is what she said in a social media post. OK, so I'm here today to answer all of you guys' questions. And the first question that you guys have been asking me is, what am I going to do now that the conservatorship's over with? Very good question. Well, let's see. I've been in the conservatorship for 13 years. It's a really long time to be in a situation you don't want to be in. So I'm just grateful, honestly, for each day and being able to have the keys to my car and being able to be independent and feel like a woman and owning an ATM card, seeing cash for the first time,

being able to buy candles. It's the little things for us women, but it makes a huge difference. And I'm grateful for that. You know, it's nice. It's really nice. But I'm not here to be a victim. I lived with victims my whole life as a child. That's why I got out of my house and I worked for 20 years and worked my ass off. I'm here to be an advocate for people with real disabilities and real illnesses. I'm a very strong woman, so I can only imagine what the system has done to those people. Britney Spears speaking on her social media feed. Joining me now, Jennifer Otter-Bickerdike, Professor of Popular Music at the BIM Institute, whose latest book is called Being Britney, Pieces of a Modern Icon. What do you make of what Britney Spears had to say there?

Good morning. Thank you so much for having me, Emma. It's really exciting to be able to talk to you about this. This was a big moment because this is the first time we're hearing from Britney completely unfettered in 13 years. And do you know what I find the most interesting about this? I don't know about you, but going from 27, she's going to be 40 December 2nd. That's a big chunk of your life. You know what I mean? And to go that long without being able to express yourself or evolve and get those kind of feelings and emotions out. I could not believe how articulate she was, to be honest. And it does make you think, where is she in terms of

emotionally developed? I don't mean that in a nasty way whatsoever. But it just God, like the thing she was saying, like, it just really hit me like, feel like a woman seeing cash for the first time buying candles I mean those are things when I was 18 years old and had my first dormitory room I'm like I can go out and buy Pringles if I want it had that kind of you know what I mean like that like I can do whatever I want it had that kind of vibe to it of a kid and it made me excited to hear her say that but I'm getting goosebumps saying this to you, but sad at the same sort of way, this time has been taken away from this woman, you know? And this is, I think one of the things that writing and being Brittany really did for me,

this is one of the most famous women in the world, one of the most recognized faces. And I know this has been said over and over again, and Brittany does say it in this video she makes, this can happen to any one of us, Emma Emma and that's the terrifying part of it. I said very briefly with regard to why she was put into this arrangement and facing a mental health crisis just very briefly why was that put in place what's your understanding of that? Well just I won't without boring everybody rehashing things there's a couple of very well-known incidents that happened, like her shaving her head publicly, her hitting a paparazzi with an umbrella in his car. But one of the things I talk about in Being Britney, she had two children back-to-back. And she had also, of course, the glare not just of the things I discovered is that at one point 20% Emma

of different tabloid websites, 20% of their income was just from Britney Spears so it was a Britney Spears industry and it was all on this one young woman and the reason I bring up her having the two kids is because if you look at what Britney was going through, it was

postpartum depression signs all over it, I was like checkum depression, like, like signs all over it. Like, I was like, check, check, check, check, check. But we weren't really talking about that at that time period. And let's, let's be honest. I mean, I think it was more exciting, more lucrative, let's call a spade a spade here, more lucrative to, to see, woo, what's Brittany going to do next? What's going to be the next thing she's going to do? The next crisis, she's going to kind of go from one to the next two. And, you know, I have to say, I've said this before, in other interviews, one thing that's horrifying for me, personally, I was the marketing director of a big record label

at the time. And I was just, you know, I'm, I was raised in Santa Cruz, California, Emma, I'm like, you know, feminist forever. And I was just as guilty as everyone else, Emma of being like, what's the next thing going to be? You know what I mean? And like, looking back at my own behavior has been shocking and horrible. And I have to say, one of my editors for being Britney is a young 28 year old woman who's a big Britney fan has looked up to Britney. And I was almost a therapy session with her working with her Emma because I was like, Oh, God, I'm so sorry, Melissa, that I did this to Britney, even though I didn't do anything. But the fact that I didn't do anything does that make sense I mean

none of us did I mean I think the other thing to say is while there's more that we think we know there's a lot that we don't and I think there was a line on this the other day it's a now deleted post by her but she's also now blamed her mum for this legal arrangement she says what people don't know is my mum is the one who gave him the idea. I will never get these years back. She secretly ruined my life. And I suppose the other thing is, how much do you think we're still indulging in a fantasy and a prurience and an interest in Britney Spears without perhaps knowing the full facts? Because there are still concerns about perhaps how she'll even handle this freedom. Emma, have you been talking to my best friend, Tammy Cady in Santa Cruz,

California? Because I have to say another person I interviewed early on in this is my best friend growing up is a private investigator and her area of expertise has been conservatorship for the last 25 years. And when I interviewed her, I went in all guns blazing because I'd just been talking to a lot of the Free Britney folks. And I was just like, how dare they do this to Britney? You know, women power. And my friend was like, back it up. Hold on a second, Jen.

And was like, you are only seeing one side of the story, which is exactly what you're seeing here, Emma. There's we and one of the great things about Britney that makes her such a fascinating figure is because there's so little information about her, we can project onto Britney whatever we want. And that allows us to think she's innocent, she's this, there's that. And one of the things Tammy said to me when I was interviewing her is what you said, it's postpartum depression, but there could be a whole extravaganza of other things that we do not know. I think the one thing we do know is that the conservatorship laws need to be looked into. I think that's one thing. Well, I hadn't been talking to her, but I suppose it's the journalism and being a detective sometimes that can be relatively similar. And, you know, that's a forensic ask. I'm not saying I'm anywhere near that. But my point is, I'm always questioning what we don't know. And I suppose looking at this post, you know, she's speaking freely, as we think, and as we say, but I suppose it's just keeping that one eye on learning

from how it has been before, and thinking about what we don't know. And also, you know, how free she really is. Yeah, how free she is is really now i think going back to the beginning of what i was saying how can she not be more angry does that make sense like she's so controlled even in that clip like i can't even imagine and even when she on june 23rd when she testified in court there was so much rage but she still was so controlled so i i'm 100 there with. I think you always have to be questioning what else is happening behind the scenes, how much of it is scripted. And that sounds very cynical. I think it's very, it's much more fun to be like, now she's totally free. This

is who she really is. That's much more, that participatory part of it is much more, like I said, fun to be a part of. But like you said, if we're critical about it, intellectual about it, there is a whole nother scenario most likely going on as well. Well, we do know she's made that post. We do know that it's the end of that legal arrangement. And the rest, of course, perhaps we'll find out more and more or not. Jennifer Otter-Bickerdike, thank you very much for talking to us, Professor of Popular Music at the BIM Institute, who's written a book called Being Britney, Pieces of a Modern Icon. Now, I said you've been getting in touch about grief and how it affects you. For many people, anxiety, stress and, of course, grief

have defined the last 18 months of living through a global pandemic. New research by the end-of-life charity Marie Curie reveals that around half of people in the UK think we don't talk enough about death and dying as a society. But what about losing someone when you are young? Between March of last year and April of this, one and a half million children worldwide lost either a parent, grandparent or caregiver to COVID-19. There are fears that grief's severe impact on mental health will be the next health crisis as a result. I'm joined now by two bloggers who both have platforms dedicated to exploring the topic of grief.

Amber Jeffery, the founder of the Grief Gang podcast, and Helen Smith, who has an Instagram page and community called Lockdown Grief. Welcome to you both today. And Helen, before I was going to start with you, if I can, but, you know, the messages we've got coming in today, and I'm sure you're quite familiar with this with people who've been in touch with you. You know, there's one here that says life goes on, but grief never leaves you. Another one here, because we want to specifically feel and understand what it's like to lose people when you're young. A message that says, hi, Emma, I lost my mum when I was nine years old.

I believe it has had a massive impact on my life. Myself and my siblings were terrified of losing our dad and will suffer to this day with our mental health, with depression and anxiety surrounding loss. When we did lose dad, I was 32. I had a breakdown. In February 2020, just before lockdown, I lost my beloved husband of 44 years. I'm not coping at all.

I'm now 65. The future is terrifying and I live in the constant fear that I may lose my children and grandchildren. It's been a constant that shaped my life since losing my mum all those years ago. Vanessa signs off there with a kiss. I'm so sorry, Vanessa, on so many levels there. And thank you for sharing that and feeling like you could. But I know, Helen, that, you know, I will come to your story in just a moment. But part of what you're doing is because you want to facilitate those types of conversations. Yes, absolutely. I think, for me, sharing has always been a form of therapy, which I know isn't the case for a lot of people. And for me, being able to have these open and

honest conversations around grief and loss is so incredibly important. It's something that is going to affect every single one of us in our lives. And there is still such a stigma attached to it. So for me personally, if by talking about it openly, if trying to normalise grief and the effect that it has on your entire life helps one other person, then that is a huge silver lining for me in my own loss. Tell me about your loss. So I lost my dad, Ian, on the 12th of April 2020. So it was at the start of the first wave and it was to COVID-19.

He was 73 years old. Not that I feel it's relevant, but he had no underlying health issues because that is unfortunately one of the first questions that people now ask you um with the loss during the pandemic and yeah it completely shattered me my dad was my best friend we were very very close family unit it was very quick and to this day the word that I used to describe it over and over is surreal completely and utterly surreal. I was looking through your page and there's some lovely pictures of you and your dad with your

faces squashed together and it looked like an incredibly strong bond indeed. Yeah it was it really really was I mean to me I think it was normal because that was how it always been with us but actually it's only since dad died that so many people have been like, we used to love seeing your bond, seeing pictures of you together, seeing the silly videos you used to share. And it actually made me sit back and think, you know what? I'm so incredibly lucky because not everybody does have that relationship. But for me, therefore, losing my dad and losing that relationship

has had a profound effect on me. And it's changed your relationship, hasn't it? Your relationship with your partner and also where you live and kind of how you are day to day. Tell us a bit about that. So my partner is actually a police officer. So he ended up having to work throughout the pandemic. So that in itself adds a strain to any relationship, let alone when I have just lost my dad. And because I lost him during lockdown, as soon as I could, I actually relocated because I was furloughed from work, which was a blessing in disguise, actually. And I relocated to go and stay with my mum because she had been left alone, having seen my dad get whisked away in an ambulance.

Of course, she was my top priority. I was really, really fortunate that my partner is incredibly understandable. We've got great communication. So it was a lot of work, same as anything. It took a lot of communication and honesty from me to explain what I needed from him as support, what I found helpful, what wasn't so helpful. So I'd actually say it strengthened our relationship massively. And yes, as you mentioned, we then also took the decision to relocate from London to Surrey so that I could be near my mum,

because I just couldn't bear the thought in all honesty of her now having to live alone, having dealt with this trauma and this sudden loss of her husband. And your relationship with her must have also changed. Absolutely. It's strengthened massively. I always thought that we had a good relationship before, but I think having gone through this traumatic, it was traumatic experience together and such a unique experience. I think when you go through that with someone or someone else has experienced

similar you've automatically got a strengthened bond just in that relatability and understanding of what it really feels like so yeah I was going to say you you also then have perhaps more responsibility with regards to your mum and it is we're talking about being young how old are you I'm 33 and and of course a little bit younger when this happened but you know I lost my dad at 31 and now and and now I suppose you have a responsibility you didn't have before absolutely but in all honesty I know my mum is very aware of being a burden on me and I tell her so often it's not a burden to me to me it is a necessity it's natural for me that actually my mum now is my priority I've witnessed one of my parents die

I'm going to do everything I can in my power to look after my remaining parents so yes of course there's the added responsibility and I will always prioritize my mum but for me that is just something that is a given for me so I don't I don't feel like it's a burden in any way shape or form. Amber let me bring you into this good morning. Good morning thank you Emma. Tell us about your loss. Yes so my loss it goes back a long time ago about five years ago I was 19 at the time and I lost my lovely mum Sue Valentine to a very sudden heart attack she was here one day and gone the next and as you can imagine being a 19 year old it was my first ever bereavement I'd never experienced a loss on that scale before it just

absolutely rocked my world and my older brother our world I know who's listening and um we were just catapulted into this world of navigating a life without mum and over the last five years it's it's a constant journey grief is a constant journey it's a constant project that you will forever be working on and I think for anybody listening that can sound really daunting because I think society by society sometimes we can be told there's a time frame on grief and you know give it a couple of years you'll be all right and the cold hard pill of it is this is for life but for me I used to find that very daunting but now I actually see that as quite I say lovely for lack of a better word but grief for me my grief for me is just a

whole lot of love for my mum. So I'm quite happy to work on that for the rest of my life because it means on working on my relationship and my love of my mum for the rest of my life till I'm here, till I'm gone. That is an incredibly beautiful way of pushing it and keeping them with you, I suppose, as you live and keeping them alive with you and as you carry on and persevere, to go back to the word we've now heard is the word of the year, perseverance. What was it like when it happened in the sense of the word used by Helen there was surreal? But can you, for people who might just be at the beginning of this, can you explain how it impacted you? Grief in those early weeks and those early months, it touches everything in your life. It seeps itself and digs its claws into everything in your life. And it just engulfs everything. And

you often look and you think there will never be a time in my life where I won't feel, it won't, it will be constantly forever the first thing that is on my mind when I wake up in the morning. And I'm here to tell you that it won't be. One day it won't be the first thing that is on my mind when I wake up in the morning and I'm here to tell you that it won't it won't be one day it won't be the first thing on your mind and you might think that could be what does that mean I'm forgetting them does that mean I don't miss them anymore does that mean I don't love them as much not at all we adjust we persevere we mold with our grief we adapt with it um and so yeah for people who are in the early throes of it and thinking there is no way out of this really dark hole there is and there's people out there who just get it like I've met through Helen through my online community and you find people who just get it and you don't have two

heads you're not an alien don't worry well and and also the the other side of this that we're specifically focusing on is what it does to you as a younger person as well, because you were 19 and you're really just forming yourself at that point and thinking about how to be a person in the world and have your own relationships. How do you think it's altered the course of your life? Absolutely. Being 19, I was freshly 19 and I didn't know what I wanted to do career wise. I didn't know how to use a washing machine, Emma. I remember doing my first washing load after mum died and looking at the washing machine and going, oh, my God, how on earth do I use this? It completely turned my world upside down. She looked after you well, hadn't she?

She looked after me. The one thing she did teach me was how to cook. She went, if it's going to be something I'm teaching you, it's to be how to cook so I never went hungry when she died that's for sure but it completely yeah altered how and I thought what kind of woman do I want to be and how will I even navigate what woman I'm going to be without the main woman in my life and there has been times where I think I don't know how that's going to be but what when I find myself in those moments I speak obviously more to my experience of a maternal losses my mum instilled so many lessons and so many morals within me that when I feel what kind of woman do I want to be um and not following my mum's footsteps because I am my own being and I am my own woman but she instilled a

lot of those lessons and and morals in me that I know I'll be all right um and I'll always come out on top so it's um but when you're young and bereaved you are stripped of so much and that was one thing I found that when I would speak with other people in my life be in my work and they were older maybe 20 years my senior and they go I know how you feel darling I lost my mum and they lost them maybe in their 40s and 50s so that's not to disrespect disregard them but I was like but you've got 20 years more than me your mum got to see you get married have babies to hold your children I'm grieving not only for the loss of my mum but for all what should have been and not even should have been just for me what should have been for my mum my mum lost out on so much and there's that whole added layer and we can often

being young and bereaved you can look to those future milestones and think oh my gosh that's going to be really hard when I get there I know when I have a baby I'll probably have an identity crisis and think oh my gosh what kind of mother will I be without my mother but like I said she's instilled I what she's my mother she's instilled all of that in me I know I'll be a good mum I know on my wedding day I'll be fine and it's just you look you look to the future and you can acknowledge that those milestones will be hard but you cross that bridge when you get to it I could listen to you all day Amber on that and people can on the Grief Gang podcast. Amber Jeffrey, thank you so much.

Helen, let me just let you come back on some of what Amber was saying there. And I've also had a look through some of the messages coming in, not least from James, who's written in to say that he lost his wife to breast cancer in 2018 with their two children being 13 and 10 at the time. And he goes on to say, Helen, that some of their friends couldn't handle it. And it's a very odd thing, Helen, that people are allergic to grief. They don't want to think about death unless they very much have to. Have you had any of that experience? Absolutely. I mean, I'll be honest with you. Similar to Amber, the loss of Herma, my dad was my first bereavement and my

experience of grief. So had I not been through this this I probably would have been on the other side of the fence and absolutely naive about grief because it is just a thing as a community and as a country we just clamp up and don't talk about things that are difficult we'd rather just push them to the side and not have to worry about it until it happens to you but the thing is with death it will happen to everybody and it will touch you at some point in your life. Regardless, so for me, it really opened my eyes and thought, you know what? I was as much guilty of it, but we really, really do need to make it the norm to talk about death and dying and to talk about our wishes once we die and to talk about grief. Because it is life changing and it will affect every single one of us and I think there's a stigma attached to it that can be seen that you're morbid and that you know you're

depressing because all you want to talk about is your dead dad it's absolutely not that I want to talk about my dad on a separate note because I love and adore him and he was part of my life and he will continue to be part of my life but aside aside of that, I think it's really important to normalise grief as an emotion, same as any other emotion that we talk about. So I'm really, really big on just campaigning for just making it normal, having no stigma or any shame about talking about grief and the pain that comes with it.

Well, everyone can check out your page, Lockdown Grief, on Instagram and hear more of you as well, which I could keep going with. Helen Smith, thank you. And may I say to both of you how sorry I am for your respective losses, because I think that's also really important to say, you know, to actually acknowledge what people have lost and who they have lost. Especially in light of what you're just saying there, Helen, about not talking about it and also building on what Amber said. Sally sent a message in saying, I was prevented from grieving. My lovely father believed that what you didn't know

or didn't talk about didn't hurt you. I think it's coloured my whole life. Well, keep those messages coming in, incredibly powerful ones about how important this is and this is as a conversation. Life goes on, but grief never leaves you is a real theme also on those messages. Well, somebody who wrote about life, love and all in between, Jane Austen, known and loved for six novels, four published towards the end of her short life,

two published after her death. But what about the writings of hers? We don't know. Maybe there are things we can learn about ourselves. Let's see. In a new book, Jane Austen, Early and Late, Freya Johnston of St Anne's College Oxford argues her teenage writing deserves to be better known and it sheds new light on her later work. Freya, you're going to have to make a strong case here, I think. Thank you, Emma. Yes, I mean, you might argue that Jane Austen doesn't really need any more fans. She's hardly unknown. She's even on a banknote. But it's true that the early stuff is still rather under the radar even for people who are who are very keen on the novels and she did produce three

notebooks between the ages of 11 and 17 that are full of quite unexpected material that's to say teenage binge drinking theft adultery suicide murder the style is recognizably Austen's, but the subject matter is really quite different. So I think it does add quite a lot to our sense of what she produced by way of written work, where the novels came from and their origins in this quite riotous and different sort of subject matter. Are you able to read an extract of her earlier work? Tell us what you're going to read. Yes, I've got, well, I've got actually an extract from the earliest story, we think. So bear in mind, this is probably written by someone aged 11.

This is not one of the murderous bits. It's recognisably still bonnet and, you know, visiting territory. So it's two girls going to visit two other girls they haven't met yet. The story's called Frederick and Elfrida. And this is how it goes. On being shown into an elegant dressing room ornamented with festoons of artificial flowers, they were struck with the engaging exterior and beautiful outside of Jezalinda, the eldest of the young ladies. But ere they had been many minutes seated, the wit and charms which shone resplendent in the conversation of the amiable Rebecca

enchanted them so much that they all with one accord jumped up and exclaimed, seated, the wit and charms which shone resplendent in the conversation of the amiable Rebecca, enchanted them so much that they all with one accord jumped up and exclaimed, lovely and too charming a fair one, notwithstanding your forbidding squint, your greasy tresses and your swelling back, which are more frightful than imagination can paint or pen describe. I cannot refrain from expressing my raptures at the engaging qualities of your mind, which so amply atone for the horror with which your first appearance must ever inspire the unwary visitor. So you see, it's completely over the top. But I mean, also much more, much ruder than you expect, you expect in terms of the comments made to this poor, this poor girl. An honest woman, a woman after my own heart,

many of our listeners, I'm sure. Why, though, do you think, I mean, you could argue, regardless of it being Jane Austen, do we really need, you know, very young person's view, if you like, when they're not fully formed, perhaps? Do we need an insight into them? Or is this just more, if you love Jane Austen, you want more and more of her?

Well, I think there are two aspects to that. There's been a general growing interest, I think, in child and teenage writings. We've just been talking about grief at a young age. And actually, a lot of these stories are to do with death. They're quite brutally indifferent to it and laugh at it, but they are interested in it. And after all, in this period, you might well expect by the age of 11 to have lost a parent or a sibling. I think teenage writing has its own value that is worth defending, both as a kind of category of writing and as a way of, in Austen's case

and the case of lots of other writers, seeing what happened next or seeing where the novels came from. And if you read this stuff first, it does actually make you rather more tuned into the nastier, spikiest, satirical bits of the published fiction. We tend to overlook those because we're all familiar with the souped up film versions of Austen, which which rather underplay the nastiness of some of the some of the mature fiction, too. So I think there are two aspects to it that this kind of writing is worth thinking about seriously in general. And in Austen's case, if you start with this and read forwards, as opposed to simply looking at the published novels that we all know, which she began to publish from the age of 35,

you do become alert to a different side of her. Have these been censored or why haven't we had them until now? Well, they came out only in bits and pieces because the family were the custodians of her reputation for a long time. So her first biographers were her brother and her nephew and her nieces, and they were very keen on suppressing this material. In fact, it's remarkable that it survived, really, partly because Austen herself was obviously so keen to preserve it. But the relatives afterwards did not really want it to reach the public. They published some little bits of the relatively inoffensive material,

but it didn't come out in full until the 1950s. And even then, the editor at that stage sounded as if he would rather it had been destroyed. Do you think she would have wanted this out there? I mean, we can't possibly know. Obviously, it was preserved. But I am thinking of the fact that, you know, you write all sorts of things when you're a teenager, you may not then want them to be out there in the public. Well, she did share this material with her relatives. So that's another thing that makes it odd that her nephew and nieces were not keen on it reaching the public. Her nephew, who was her first biographer, Edward Austin Lee actually wrote some conclusions

to unfinished teenage stories by his aunt so they cooperated on this I think she may have intended it for publication even at the point of writing but it didn't reach or it wasn't it would must have been suggested to her I suppose but this is conjecture that actually this sort of thing was not going to get into print you have to to tone it down. These are also really short, these works. They're called novels, most of them, but they're only about a page and a half, sometimes long, you know, at most about 20 pages. So they'd have had to turn into something else to get into print. Well, maybe, as you say, that could be the gateway perhaps into because some people find, of course, you know, reading Austen itself, if they're forced to especially, through studying,

not always the most pleasurable experience. But I'm sure you can't relate to that. Or maybe you can. Freya Johnston has got a book called a new book, Jane Austen, Early and Late. And I should say, tomorrow, in the spirit of seeing Jane Austen afresh, an all-female retelling of

Pride and Prejudice is currently on stage in London. I saw it last night. Singing and dancing is absolutely hilarious and is incredibly accessible. So a little bit more for you if that's your thing. And if it's not, I promise you'll still find it entertaining. Now, I want to just go to something else, which I think will also tie in with what we've been discussing today

with regards to the power of memory and also how we kind of commemorate lives and commemorate people because certain smells and tastes can provoke the most powerful memories. And that's the experience of those running a dementia cafe in Leeds. So much so a new recipe book has been born,

Eating Well with Dementia, it's called. It's been developed by Young Dementia Leeds, which is a community service supporting people living with early onset dementia and their families who run this popular cafe. I'm joined now by Liz Meniser, she's the service manager at Young Dementia Leeds, and Diana Smith-Harris, who was a carer for her late husband, Eugene, who was diagnosed with early onset dementia in 2016. Diana, I'll come to you in just a moment. But Liz, tell us about the idea for this book, because I know, as I say, it came from the Dementia Cafe that you run.

And tell us what a Dementia Cafe is. We got some funding in 2018 to create some food and nutrition and cooking groups. And in that respect, this is an ability to help people. Well, perhaps I'll bring you in as well, Diana, here to help people remember who they are, because it's such a powerful thing, food, isn't it? It is, yes. So we've got a number of recipes in the book you know I put in some Caribbean twist in terms of jerk chicken and rice and beans but there's salmon I mean it's very nutritional in terms of the types of foods that are in there the soups and things like that and and one of the things is that as a carer you don't always have time they might have a bad day and you don't have

time to cook a decent meal so we've put something in around batch cooking. We've put in some easy recipes that can be done quite quickly. So that, you know, you as the carer and the person you're caring for are getting some nutritional food and not just throwing something in the microwave. And this was, and how important was food? We'll come back to the cafe in just a moment. But how important was food with your care and your love for your husband, Eugene? Yeah, it was really important.

He had a feast for salmon. If I could give him salmon every day, he would eat salmon every day. He loved it prior to having dementia. But it was really important to him and important to me because he was a walker. So he was walking three times a day. So I needed to get the calories in him because he was gradually losing weight because he was burning quite a lot of calories and so for me it was really important I was just gonna say did it unlock memories do you think as well for him

yes I think so the food especially the Caribbean bit if you loved the rice and peas he said he could literally just eat it on its own he didn't want anything with it I mean I did give him chicken and things with it but he just would eat a bowl of rice and peas if you let him yeah and for you and just coming back to you liz the dementia cafe what role does that play in people's lives who live nearby um the dementia cafe is a sort of informal forum which the carers and people with dementia can get together and socialise safely, which is really important. The idea for us to do the cafe came when Inspire North took over the contract and carers had voiced that they hadn't got this space. So it's become quite integral to sort of our service development and it's allowed us to sort

of co-produce various projects and i know that you you want to and are still involved diana you want to still help people and what was interesting when you talk about the previous um discussion about grief i mean i think this is the way that i have dealt with maybe my grief is that i have thrown myself in got involved keeping Eugene alive really and talking about because early onset's quite different from somebody who's older so it was really important to push forward that so for me it's quite cathartic in that I'm involved and I'm pushing the the sort of thing around the book and about early onset which again is still a new concept to people. I have a very good friend who lost their mother to early onset and it is very different, isn't it?

Yes, very different. Yeah. And in what way for people who don't know? Obviously, you're younger, so people may have younger families. They've got children. There's the financial aspect. You're not of pensionable age so in terms of money and whatever you know you don't have the same inroads into finances as you would as an older person and definitely the younger bit and what we've done at the cafe is that once a month we have a family get together as the cafe where parents can come with their children and their aunties and their uncles so it's a family cafe on once a month rather than it just being for the carer or for the person with dementia.

It's actually a whole istic event. The book is called Eating Well with Dementia. Liz and Diana, would you say to anybody who's caring for somebody at the moment, try and prioritise the food as well in the middle of all of this? Yeah, not only from a nutritional perspective either. I mean, food is a really good tool for stimulating people with dementia.

It promotes choice, it promotes independence because you can get the person with dementia involved in the preparation of it and it stimulates the senses, smell, touch, ear, insight and, of course, taste. And it also promotes socialization and memories. I mean, we do cognitive stimulation therapy at the centre and we all get cheeses for people to taste. We get sweets and people will sort of bring back, it will bring back childhood memories.

We've got some quotes in the book about sort of like a anne marie who had fish and chips on her honeymoon so fish and chips will always bring back that memory and it's incredible it's incredible the the taste and smell and the way it's linked to memory in that way thank you so much to both of you for coming on this morning good luck with it. The book is called Eating Well with Dementia. Liz Maness are there and Diana Smith-Harris. Thank you. Messages coming in

about how you have coped and what you wanted to say about grief, specifically if it affected you when you were young and if it's affecting you now. My father died when I was 10. My baby sister died when I was four,

never leaving hospital. In 1962, I was never told he had died. I just overheard adult conversation. I wasn't told about the funeral. I just noticed all the grown-ups leaving for the day. My mother never spoke to me about it. Children were not involved then.

You just got on with it as best you could. The loss of my father and the ensuing silence has affected me ever since. Mary says, thank you for that message. No name on that. I can tell you that the grief, the open wound, the bleeding grief of losing my mother at the age of six has shaped my life. I was almost 30 before I could utter anything about it. I cried myself to sleep every night

until I was in my teens. It happened in the early seventies, excuse me, and there was no counselling. Everyone at school knew, but no one said anything. There were no words, comforts, cuddles. Top of the Thank you for sharing that, Mary. Thank you to all of you today for those messages. Some very hard indeed to share. I'm very grateful as always. And thanks for your company. I'll be back with you tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. I'll be back with you tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's

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