Woman's Hour - Diana Parkes, Breast health and sport, Great Stork Derby, No More Page 3

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

Diana Parkes, the mother of a woman killed by her pilot husband more than a decade ago has called on the Justice Secretary to intervene over his possible release from prison in November.  Anita talks to Diana Parkes, Joanna's best friend Hetti Barkworth-Nanton and the former Justice Secretary Robert Buckland. Why do breast injuries in sport appear to go under-reported and what are the potential consequences? And can a well-fitting sports bra prevent a woman’s breasts from bouncing a reported 10,000 times during an hour-long run? World leading breast expert Associate Professor Deirdre McGhee from University of Wollongong, Australia joins Anita to discuss breast health and exercise. When the wealthy financier Charles Vance Millar died, he left no direct heirs, so he decided to leave today’s equivalent of $9 million to the woman who had the most children over the next 10 years. This sparked what became known as “The Great Stork Derby”, a so-called contest that created a media frenzy. It’s the inspiration behind Caroline Lea’s new novel ‘Prize Women’. She speaks to Woman’s Hour about the real historical event.Jo Cheetham was studying for a PhD and working as a nanny in London, when she read news of an upcoming protest. Before she could talk herself out of it, Jo officially joined the No More Page 3 campaign team. Over three years, Jo protested up and down the country, contended with trolls, gave a group performance on the West End stage and spoke at the Scottish Parliament. In her memoir 'Killjoy' Jo describes everyday people doing extraordinary things and the power of a grassroots campaign.Presenter: Anita Rani Studio manager: Bob Nettles

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 Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. On the programme today, I would like to hear from you about something unusual you may have inherited in a will. The reason I'm asking is because later in the programme we'll be hearing the story of the Great Stork Derby. Let me fill you in. In 1920s Toronto, a financier called Charles Vance Miller died leaving no direct heirs to his fortune, which was over $500,000, the equivalent of about $9 million

in today's money. But rather than leave his money to a charity, he made the unusual stipulation in his will that it would go to the woman who in the following 10 years would bear the most children. Well, this sparked what came to be known as the Great Stork Derby. I know we're going to get into a fascinating story that we will be hearing about a little bit later and discussing all the issues around what he did. But this morning, I would like to know if you have ever inherited anything unusual or surprising in a will. Shakespeare left his wife, Anne Hathaway, his second best bed.

Janice Joplin left £2,000 for her 200 favourite friends to spend on one big party in her honour. The comedian Jack Benny arranged in his will for his widow, Mary, to receive a single red rose every day for the rest of her life. And Dusty Springfield's will

contains specific instructions of how she wanted her cat, Nicholas, to be looked after. She wanted him to live in an indoor treehouse, have Dusty's old records serenade him at night, and for him to be married to a friend's female cat. So what have you been left, or indeed what are you planning on leaving in your will?

You can get in touch in the usual way the number to text 84844 you can contact us via email by going to our website or you can send me a whatsapp voice note or a message on 03700 100444 i'm still waiting to inherit the fortune from a long lost relative i never knew i had also on the program how are our breasts affected by sport? If you are someone who does sport regularly, you will be very interested to hear that one. And Jo Cheetham will be here to talk about her memoir, Killjoy. The story of how she found herself at the centre of the No More Page Three campaign. That text number once more for all of you.

If you'd like to get in touch with about anything you hear on the programme today. Your thoughts and opinions are most welcome. It's 84844. But first, I'm going to start by giving you a stat. According to the most recent data from the Office of National Statistics, there were 114 domestic homicides in the year ending March 2021, a similar number to the average over the last five years. Robert Brown battered his 46-year-old wife, Joanna, to death with a claw hammer in 2010 with their two children within earshot. In 2011, he was convicted of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility and was given a 26-year sentence. He could be released later this given a 26-year sentence. He could be released later this year after serving half his sentence. Well, now Joanna's mother, Diana Parks, is campaigning to prevent his release and is calling on the Justice Secretary to intervene.

You may remember this time last year, Diana appeared on Woman's Hour alongside the then Duchess of Cornwall. It was Diana's story that inspired the Queen's Consort into raising awareness of domestic abuse. Well, I'm joined now in the studio by Diana and Joanna's best friend, Hetty Barquith-Lanton. Together, they set up the Joanna Simpson Foundation, which aims to transform the lives of children impacted by domestic violence. Diana, Hetty, welcome to Woman's Hour. Diana, you were at Westminster yesterday to highlight this case. What was the response? How was that? It was amazing, really. Ever since Hetty and I were invited to Buckingham Palace

for the United Nations Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, that we met Carrie Johnson. And she just latched on to our story. And in fact, we really have her to thank and Hetty for getting to where we are now with this. I mean, it's just accelerated at such a pace. It's incredible. Yeah, you've got some support at the highest level. And we're going to hear shortly from the former Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland, who was there. But what have you been told about him being released later this year? What information do you know?

So Robert Brown is entitled to be released in November 2023. He doesn't have to apply for parole. He's just out. He doesn't have a medical check parole. He's just out. He doesn't have a medical check? No. Even though he went into prison suffering from adjustment disorder. So who knows what he might be suffering from now, but no medical check. He'll just come out and be on licence for 13 years.

Sorry. Who is going to monitor him? I keep asking for 13 years. It's an awful long time. What we do know, and which is why we're really driving this campaign hard, is that we know from our discussions with the probation that he has been assessed as being dangerous. He's a critical public protection case, which means he needs to be very closely monitored for the protection of the public. Now, ordinarily, a critical public protection case would not be released into society, but his sentence means he has to be. And this is why we're doing this campaign, because we believe not only are we frightened, but it is really critical for the safety of the public that we stop this from happening.

Diana, you said last year when you were on Woman's Hour that you were terrified about his reliefs. Can you explain why? Well, we still are. He'll have been festering in jail for, when he comes out, 13 years, and he will be blaming everybody but himself for what he did. He's been stripped of everything, his status, his job, his house,

and most of all, his children. And he will be fuming. And he's always said, and he'd said to my daughter before he killed her, that he hated our family and had done for all the time they'd been married. And what about the idea that he might be released? How does that make you feel? We're really stressed. We're quite frightened. I mean, not just for our family, but for Joe's best friends as well, because he'll blame them as well for causing all the stress that they had.

You put a question to Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, on Laura Kunzberg's programme, and he said he'll be willing to meet you. What would you like to say to him? Well, just in fact on Tuesday, I received a telephone call from his office to say that he would be pleased to meet me next week, which is amazing. So what will you say to him? Well, put all the case to him and pinpoint where it's gone wrong.

I think I agree with that. And the really important thing to get across to him is that this is not about us trying to get justice. We won't ever get justice. Jo will always, forever, we can't say that she was murdered, we have to say that she was killed. This isn't a justice thing. This is about absolutely the protection of us, but critically the public. And so we'll want to reinforce for him, why do we believe that Robert Brown is dangerous? And therefore, why do we believe from a public protection perspective he needs to act and he needs to act now. We asked the Justice Secretary, in fact any minister in the Justice Department

to come on the programme. Nobody was available but they did send us a statement. I'd like to read it out. They've said this was an appalling crime and our thoughts remain with Joanna Simpson's family and friends. The Deputy Prime Minister will do everything in his power to keep the most dangerous offenders behind bars and has pledged to give this case his closest personal attention. Hetty, you're a friend of Joanna's. Why do you believe that he shouldn't be released now?

So I believe he shouldn't be released now because all of the pointers point towards him being dangerous. So there was a history of domestic abuse. Everything that we work with, I'm now the chair of Refuge and everything that we do at Refuge, you know, we can see the signs. Domestic abuse is never a single event. It's always a series of events. And what happened to Jo was all of those telltale signs in terms of coercive control, stalking, even stalking down to the last day that she was alive. So that's a pattern of behaviour that doesn't disappear overnight. It doesn't disappear when the victim is killed. And that's the assumption often. So it's really, so that's one thing in terms of the kind of pattern of domestic abuse but the

second thing and to be honest I think it's been quite horrific working with probation because when we started working with probation we wanted to express how frightened we were and actually what they've done is further reinforce that by saying you know what you're right he is a critical public protection case so we want to get across to Dominic Robb how dangerous this man is, why he's dangerous, and therefore why we are asking for what we're asking for. Well, earlier this morning, I spoke to the former Justice Secretary, Sir Robert Buckland, and asked him how after this awful crime, Robert Brown could be released halfway through his sentence. Here's what he had to say. The law up until very recently,

when it was changed by an Act of Parliament that I put through as Lord Chancellor, was that for a sentence that is anything other than a life sentence or a particular sentence that is extended in terms of its time in prison, then there is an automatic release provision that allows people who have been sentenced to be released after halfway.

Now, this man was given a 26-year sentence, but the rules then meant that he would be released automatically after the halfway point, which is, of course, 13 years. That was changed, as I said, by the law that I put through. That means that in cases like this now where there's an automatic release provision, they'd have to serve two thirds of the sentence that was imposed. And that would apply for anybody sentenced for a violent or sexual offence where they get over four years of imprisonment. And further to that, there is a new provision in the Act that was passed that allows the Secretary of State to, instead of allowing an automatic release, to refer a case to the Parole Board for them to decide

whether the criminal should be released released if it is felt and if there's evidence to show that this person poses a substantial risk of serious harm to the public. So we've got two checks and balances now that increased term of imprisonment which would have meant that Brown wouldn't have been eligible for release until 2027. And then this power to stop automatic release and to ask the Parole Board to consider. These are the changes that you've made when you were in the role, but it doesn't apply now to this specific case, does it? And you're the former Justice Secretary, but how likely is it that the current Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab,

is going to intervene and take a look at this? You know, I'm not going to attempt to prejudge it. I haven't seen documentation. It'll be up to him and his officials to come to a view. But I do think that it's right that the campaign that has been launched with the incredible support of Joanna's mother, Diana, get the fullest possible publicity. Because important though this case is, there are many others in this position who are deeply concerned, traumatised, anxious, worried about what might happen when a perpetrator of such an appalling crime is released into the community. If he is released, how could his case be dealt with within the community? What happens?

Well before release, the agencies will be working, the police and indeed the probation service and the prison authorities will work together to draw up a list of conditions that this person will have to live under even though they're released. So anybody who's released before the end of their full term of imprisonment is on what we call licence. And those licence conditions can vary greatly. They can be a very long list of conditions, for example, preventing entry to certain parts of the country

that are geographically delineated, making conditions on contact, a whole range of what I think we'd all regard as common sense conditions to limit and to restrict and to prevent the possibility of individuals like this from being any way in touch with victims' families and indeed behaving in a way that would be wholly inconsistent with their release if those terms are breached then the the perpetrator can be recalled immediately to prison there's no court hearing there's no adjournment there's no delay they can be brought straight back into prison and And the recall provisions are used very, very often where people do this.

If you remember the case of Colin Pitchfork, I think all of us remember that case, the Leicestershire case, where he'd killed two women about 20 or 30 years ago. In the end, despite my efforts, he was released. But within a few weeks, he breached his license conditions and he was brought straight back inside so it does show that why did that why did that happen in that case then if you you said despite your efforts so you tried but well the powers that the secretary of state currently have are to ask the parole board to reconsider their decision to release uh at the moment the Secretary of State doesn't and they used to years ago, Home Secretaries in those days used to have the

direct power to intervene to stop releases. That was changed a while ago and it was felt that the parole board being more independent looking at the evidence would make a more sort of independent decision. But there's a mechanism that was available to me to ask them to reconsider, which I did on that occasion. And I do feel that my concerns were actually borne out by events because Pitchfork was brought back in because he breached the conditions. The key thing, I think, for everybody listening is, you know, how well are those licensed conditions policed? Well, I think, for everybody listening is, you know, how well are those licensed conditions policed?

Well, I think, and it's a very good question. Yeah, because, you know, recently we've heard some damning reports into the probation service, concerns about excessive workload, shortages of staff. It's exactly what you said. How confident are you, given the problems with the service that Robert Brown's case is going to be dealt with correctly? Well, I am more confident than I was. I think that the probation service has undergone a lot of change recently. And I, again, when I was in charge, brought forward reforms to the probation service to bring it all back together. And I also, through the prisons and probation Service, recruited an extra thousand probation officers by the time I'd left office.

I think that programme carried on. What would you say to Diana? That the probation service should be absolutely on top of this case from start to finish, and that we expect the highest standards from them. The vast majority of domestic homicides, as I'm sure you are aware, Sir Robert, are carried out by men. There is a government majority of domestic homicides, as I'm sure you are aware, Sir Robert, are carried out by men. There is a government review into domestic homicides.

What's happening with it? When is it going to be published? It's been conducted by Claire Wade, a very experienced barrister dealing with this type of case. Casey was asked to look at the overall framework of sentencing in domestic homicide which covers murder and indeed manslaughter um i gave there's a particular example i think that is that is that is difficult for the courts at the moment there are differences in the levels of sentence that are passed between somebody who might have carried a knife to the scene or a weapon to the scene, which obviously suggests a high degree of pre-planning, and a person who might arm themselves at the scene with a knife and then commit the act.

Now, it's felt that in the context of domestic homicide, that doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of life in an abusive home, where, you know, ordinary items in the kitchen become weapons of offense you know a kitchen knife um you know blunt instrument uh that we have lying around our home and we don't think anything about but does that mean that therefore the domestic perpetrator should have a lighter sentence in those circumstances and there's a perverse issue as well what about where um you know we've had cases where women who have been uh controlled who have lived a life of abuse have had to arm themselves in order to protect themselves from a stronger perpetrator

stronger man you know very often they're put in a worse position because they might be holding some sort of defensive weapon or some sort of item in order to protect themselves. And there have been some sentences that, you know, perhaps have not necessarily reflected the reality of lives and perceptions for women who are physically less strong. And therefore all these issues sort of interact in quite a complex way. And that's why Claire Wade, who's a very experienced criminal barrister, was given the job by me to look at this particular framework and come up with some proposals for change if necessary. And that report is ready, I'm told,

and therefore it's now incumbent on the MOJ to publish it and to publish its response. And I very much hope that if there is to be proposed change, that we can get on and do it in Parliament as quickly as possible. So in the meantime, as we await the report and the changes to be made, is the justice system currently failing women? I think that in many cases the justice system is delivering for women. I think one of the challenges is to get those cases into court, and that's a conversation that we've often had about investigation, about women feeling failed by the system and therefore withdrawing their complaints, or actually getting to the system in the first place,

because we know that i think it still applies that for every complaint of domestic abuse that has been made there will have been 70 at least 17 previous incidences which have not been complained about to the police because the victim perhaps doesn't see themselves as a victim or just hasn't felt strong enough or in a position to make that complaint. And I think uncovering that particular issue is going to be crucial if we are to, frankly, end the culture of abuse. Because what we're dealing with here is the symptoms, the consequences,

the disastrous aftermath of domestic abuse, coercive control, and then violence resulting in death, we need to do much more to deal with the causes at root, so that fewer and fewer people will resort to this behaviour. And we make it as unacceptable as, for example, you know, what we did with drink driving and all those other issues many years ago, talking about domestic abuse, exposing it and saying that it is entirely unacceptable in our society is the only way that we're going to really tackle

what is a vicious and wicked problem for far too many women and girls and indeed men as well. That was the former Justice Secretary Sir Robert Buckland who spoke to me earlier this morning at HETI. I asked him whether the justice system is failing women. Did it fail Jo? Absolutely failed Jo entirely. So Jo the verdict was a travesty. Anybody you speak to, the police, the legal people, the public, obviously Joe's friends and family, it was an absolute travesty of a verdict because it did not reflect the reality of what she went through. And why and how did that happen? It was fundamentally, lots of reasons,

but at its heart, it's a criminal justice system that allowed Robert Brown to continue to abuse Joe through that criminal justice system in the court he effectively portrayed Joe as a terrible woman who had effectively driven him to do the thing that he did and that's not just something that you see in it wasn't a one-off problem in terms of that trial. It is something that is still happening every single day, up and down the country, both in domestic homicide trials, and indeed in the family courts, and in the criminal system. It is an endemic issue around misogyny through the criminal justice system that we have to call out and we have to address. And which is why it's so important for both of you to talk about this, that you've set up this foundation.

And I'd like to know what you've been able to achieve. But before I do, I'm quite interested to hear what the impact has been on you and the rest of the family. Well, obviously devastating. It's something that you just never get over. The grief is always there, but you learn to walk alongside it. And my grandchildren are proof of that. They're absolutely brilliant. They really are. And how about you, Hattie?

What's about the toll something like this takes on you? It's heavy. It's very heavy. I suffered from PTSD for about eight years. And four years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer, which hopefully I'm clear. And there is no doubt whatsoever that that was an autoimmune response driven by the high levels of stress that came from this. I hoped that after the trial I could pick things up and carry on but with such a devastating verdict that just simply wasn't possible. And how are you

Diana? Well I had to carry on because I had two children nine and ten who depended on me for everything so I just cracked on. And what have you been able to achieve by setting up the foundation? Well, I think we're making people aware of where the terrible misgivings of domestic abuse, how it's not properly monitored, how not properly dealt with at all. And what families go through is just dreadful, dreadful. And as Hetty says, because in her role as chair of refuge, she deals with this kind of thing virtually every day. And she sees how dreadful people are affected by this yeah you you'd mentioned hessy

that you know the signs are there as the chair of refuge you do indeed hear stories like this and work with women in the in domestic abuse who come who survived domestic abuse or or don't yeah um you were best friends with joe what what signs did you see? So often women themselves who are in very coercive relationships who are in an abusive relationship don't recognize that they are in that kind of relationship and it can take a woman an average of five years to get the help that they need and a lot of those five years is even recognizing there's a problem so as Joe Jo's friend, you've got to bear in mind that this was before the days when people were talking about coercive control.

Domestic abuse wasn't a term that was used. People talked domestic violence. So quite often, Jo and I used to talk about it. We said, well, he's never hit you, therefore it's not domestic violence. If I look back now, however, I can A, see the patterns, and I can B, see the high risk

that she was in. So let me explain that a little bit. So throughout her marriage to Robert Brown, the first telltale sign was just after she'd married him and she phoned Diana. She phoned me and she said, Mara, I've made a terrible mistake. Now we hear this a lot in domestic abuse is that there will be a point at which the that the perpetrator suddenly realizes they have control that will be an event like a marriage or a pregnancy are those the two typical events where suddenly they'll go from being charming to being a completely different person but by that that time, they've got their woman trapped. So that's the first sign.

And then slowly, slowly, over a number of years, he would coerce her. So he would put her down constantly. He would target things that for her were important. So she was a homemaker, and she would do anything to protect and support the children. So he was always kind of contradicting her and challenging her on things like that. So if she cooked a lovely meal, he would never say she cooked a lovely meal. He'd

have something different. He'd cook something different for himself. He was targeting the things that meant a lot to her. If it was about the children, it was about going to school. So that pattern continued. Then he attacked her with a knife and threatened lot to her. If it was about the children, it was about going to school. So that pattern continued. Then he attacked her with a knife and threatened to kill her. Very typical of these dangerous cases where there's no violence, but there's threats of violence which further creates control. Then they separated. Then three years of intimidation, stalking her, breaking into her house,

cutting the wires of heration, stalking her, breaking into her house, cutting the wires of her CCTV, all of this drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, to the point whereby she was a sitting duck. It must be incredibly difficult. I know you have to do it because you are out there to highlight this because this is what you are campaigning for and you have a huge amount of support at a very high level. But it must be incredibly draining on you personally, Dana. Well, sadly, I did a programme earlier on, on BBC Breakfast, in which I did fluff, because I just felt quite tired, to be honest, because I'm nearly 84,

and it's bringing it all back in great big capital letters now. How are the children doing? They are brilliant. They are. In fact, I asked my grandson if he would mind that I said they never want to be photographed at all by the press. So whenever we go anywhere, they have to stay apart from me because we don't want Robert Brown, if he is released, to know what they look like now. And that's one of the tragedies of this, is that those children were nine and ten at the time. They were made to travel in the car with their dead mother. They are now in their early 20s. Yes, they're adults, fantastic,

but they're still massively vulnerable and they should be focusing on their lives and taking off into the world. But they are focusing on their lives. They're doing really well. Yes. But obviously there's always this in the background. And it shouldn't be there.

So we need the support of the public to make sure that they support the campaign, hashtag Not Another Jo, and that they write to their MP to ask their MP to put pressure on Dominic Raab to give this really due attention. Diana and Hetty, thank you very much. Thank you so much for inviting us. Thank you for speaking to me this morning. Thank you so much for inviting us. Thank you for speaking to me this morning. Thank you. 84844 is the number to text if you would like to talk to me about anything you hear on the programme this morning. Holly in Bristol has been in touch to say family court judges are typically men and older and coercive relationships and abuse is not recognised enough.

Another message here from someone saying leaving a coercive relationship isn't always an escape. I left a mentally abusive coercive relationship when my baby was seven weeks old. My son is now three and the abuse continued through my through the family courts as there are no bruises or physical abuse. It's been very hard to prove this in court. I've been in 15 court hearings in two years. Keep your stories coming through. And if you'd like to share a longer story, then feel free to send us an email via our website now this year's woman's hour power list will be celebrating women in sports as you know we're busily whittling down our long list until the big reveal at the end of this month but until then we'll be bringing you lots of issues from the world of sport that we

think you might like to know about and today we're talking about breast health and exercise. For those of you who like to lace up your trainers and pound the streets or the treadmill to keep fit, here's a question for you. Can you guess how many times your breasts might be bouncing when you go for a run? Well, according to my next guest, the answer is up to 10,000 times an hour. I will let that sink in. Joining me to discuss how best to look after our breasts when we play sports is Associate Professor Deirdre McGee, a Breast Anatomy and Biomechanics

Researcher at Breast Research Australia, University of Wollongong. She's also a sports physiotherapist and a world leader in the field of breast injury in sports. So Deirdre, you are the perfect person to talk to me about this we'll come to your thoughts on sports bra and how we can minimize breast bounce and exercise in just a moment but let's start with something our listeners may be less familiar with that is breast injuries what are our breasts made of and how might they be injured when we're playing sport well the breasts are made of fatty tissue and encased in fibrous tissue. And then we have our glandular tissue buried within that soft mound.

And they're attached to the chest wall via the muscles around the perimeter of the breast. And so they're soft. There's only skin covering them and if you get a blow to your anterior chest wall because they're highly vascular they'll bruise swell and it'll really hurt they're very well innervated are there long term consequences if we if we were to do anything about it in terms of the research we know on sports injuries we don't have any long-term data because we've only just identified that these air injuries are occurring in sport. But if we look at the research on breast injuries that are occurring from seatbelt injuries in motor vehicle accidents,

women can have long-term consequences to their breasts. They can develop scarring in their breasts, which can down the track mimic breast cancer. It looks like breast cancer from clinical exam and from imaging. And there's also women who have breast implants who have ruptured. There's scarring that can affect the growth of the breast in an adolescent female. And women who are breastfeeding, we know that they can have damage to the ducts and the glands of their breast, which could mean that the treatment means we have to stop them from breastfeeding. So yeah, there can be long-term consequences. So how can a sport-related breast injury be treated?

We're treated like any soft tissue injury, where we follow the basic what the acronym we call is police so we ensure that we protect it whether we stop the athlete from playing or we pad the breast to protect it if they choose to keep playing and then we work out OL is optimal load so we work out what we can do to minimize breast movement and that would be increasing breast support and then we follow ice and compression to treat the swelling and the bruising and the pain and the e we use as education because it's very important that women understand that we need to monitor that breast to make sure that it returns to their normal. And in order for them to know that it returns back to their normal,

they need to know what their normal is because we know that women's breasts are different. Some women have lumps in their breasts all the time and that's their normal. So we really need women to be breast cancer aware and monitor their breasts so they know what their normal is. I'm interested to know how much of a taboo subject this is within sport because in 2019 it's a study that was conducted with Breast Research Australia with elite female athletes. 36% reported experiencing breast injuries. I'm sure you are of this. A fifth said that the injury

negatively affected their performance. But here's the shocking bit. Over 90% of these women did not report it to a coach or a medical professional. Why do you think that is? And that's been across the board, not only from the research that we've conducted, but also there's research that's been conducted in America by Laura Smith, another physiotherapist, and she found the same thing in volleyball, in basketball, in soccer. So women, this is a silent injury. And part of the problem is that it doesn't fit,

breast tissue doesn't fit into injury surveillance. So when we have injury surveillance systems, we look at a type of injury, a muscle sprain, a ligament strain, or we look at a region of the body. And in many sports, these have been taken from a male sport. So it's a male figure. So the breasts don't fit in region or nature of injury. Athletes also reported that they were sensitive to talk about their breasts to a male coach or a male physio. They were warrior women, they were playing sports they'd loved for years that were traditionally male sports and they didn't really want to be

different to a male and also because of breast tissue being glandular tissue they didn't think anyone could help them. They didn't understand that a physio could actually help treat that pain and help them to recover quicker. And it starts by having conversations like this as well, doesn't it? What are your thoughts on protective equipment? Well, the research we did on women found that only a small percentage used any protective equipment. And most of them complained about issues of comfort and heat and restrictions of their arms with the breast protective equipment they were wearing.

So there wasn't a high regard for it. There are some female specific breast protective equipment on the market but there's no evidence published anywhere that any of those garments can actually decrease the force sustained by the breast. Indeed, we don't even have any data of what the magnitude of the forces are that the breast experience during a tackle or when a woman hits the ground with her chest. And what about the women who might be listening who just enjoy exercising? They don't play sports at an elite level, but they like going for a long run.

What are your thoughts on sports bras? Should we all be wearing them? If you're involved in a sport that involves running and jumping and forceful arm movements, regardless of your breast size, then you are much more comfortable and you have freer movement of your trunk and better posture when your breasts are supported. Also, we know that women experience nostalgia, breast pain associated with their hormones, and women experience breast pain associated with breast movement, particularly

women with large breasts and older women. And a highly supportive, well-fitting sports bra can solve all of those problems so it it's a no-brainer all women deserve a high level of breast support if they're involved in those type of sports. Deirdre will take it thank you very much it is a no-brainer thank you so much for speaking to me about that this morning that's the associate professor Deirdre Magee at Breast Anatomy and Biomechanics Researcher at the Breast Research Australia. Your thoughts on anything?

84844. Isabella Coles has been in touch saying I'm 14 and a competitive swimmer. I find I have to always wear a sports crop top while doing dry land training. I have to wear a tight swimming race suit for my swimming racing

as it can be uncomfortable. I think injuries should be spoken about more so solutions could be found isabel i think that is a very good idea we will continue to talk about them here on woman's hour now on to my next story china is racing to undo an era of birth limits a number of new incentives encouraging people to have children highlight the challenges china faces in trying to boost its declining population. In local provinces, there are incentives that include 30 days marriage leave and a one-off subsidy of around £1,700 to families having a third child. Well, there is a story. I mentioned it in the opener. It is called the Great Stork Derby. Have you heard of it? Well, it's a real

event that took place in Toronto in the 1920s. When the wealthy financier Charles Vance Miller died, he left no direct heirs. So he decided to leave today's equivalent of around $9 million to the women who had the most children over the next 10 years. This sparked what became known as the Great Stalk Derby, a so-called contest that created a media frenzy. It's the inspiration behind Caroline Lear's new novel, Prize Women, which comes out next month. And Caroline joins me to tell me all about this. So the so-called Great Stalk Derby,

tell us a bit about it, because people thought it was a practical joke at first, didn't they? Absolutely. It was initially thought to be, yeah, something that was quite farcical. And I mean, the public at the time viewed it as as kind of a practical joke. So there were lots of stories that ran about women who might be involved and lots of speculation about their their lives.

For the first sort of six years of the competition, there was no real media attention around it. And it was only when the will was sort of contested by the Attorney General at the time, and he sought to kind of distribute the money elsewhere, that there was then public outcry because the story had been picked up by the newspapers. And so you had a situation where journalists were going around lots of the so you had a situation where journalists were going around lots of the poorer areas of Toronto where there were women who were horrifically economically deprived particularly because this was during the Great Depression and knocking on women's doors and offering to give them a dollar to take their photo

and telling that they were in the running for this money. And lots of the time, these women didn't really have kind of a voice of their own and desperately needed the money, but then found themselves caught up in this maelstrom where every little detail of their lives was under some sort of public microscope. And I think that was really what inspired me to want to write Prize Women. Talk about the women yeah absolutely well we're in you're in the right space what do we know about this women the women who were in who eventually entered the competition as it were what what how varied were they um so lots of the women um i'll talk in a second about the women who ended up uh being awarded the money

um but lots of the women who were caught being awarded the money. But lots of the women who were caught up in the competition, as I said, were from poorer areas in Toronto, or had other kind of social disadvantages that then made them figures of public derision eventually. So because a lot of the court battle around the Stork Derby focused on which women deserve the money or which of their babies should count, inverted commas, a lot of the women had had various things that discounted them in the end. One woman had five children from one relationship and five children from another and actually the man in her second relationship was essentially coercing her into having children and had drawn up a contract saying that he would kind of share the money with her after she'd had these children. He freely admitted in court that he'd given her a

black eye, that he'd beaten her door down and this was kind of greeted with laughter and kind of an almost like a celebration of the idea of this man who had kind of got won over on this woman in order to be awarded the money. Another of the women was an Italian Canadian immigrant and had an awful lot of real vitriol directed against her because she already had a great number of children. She ended up, I mean, she had 25 births. Only 12 of the children lived. The death rate for the children who were sort of in this competition or who were born to these mothers was much higher than elsewhere in the population.

So what was the process of deciding who would get the money eventually? It was essentially men who decided. It was a court battle where the lawyers were men, the judge was a man, and he was possibly kind of highly influenced by the kind of public prurience and scrutiny at the time where there were lots of people who were discussing which of the women deserved the money and why they didn't because of their behaviors. So because they lived in a really, really poor circumstances, one of the women who I sort of, the characters in my novel are fictionalized,

but one of the women and I use her story in the novel, lived in a really poor area and her house was infested with rats and one of her babies died of rat bites and she had to kind of recount that along with some of the stillbirths she'd had and discuss why she still deserved the money. And then when she broke down in court the story was reported in the papers as her being kind of hysterical and screaming. And there was so much of the language that was used to describe these women that was

so divisive and inherently misogynistic. And, you know, when there are stories that come up about financial incentives for women to have children, I just think it's such a nuanced and difficult discussion to have because it's not always about supporting women. And essentially women are the ones who bear the brunt of the emotional burden around childbirth as well as the kind of practical concerns and I just think yeah it's it's a difficult discussion. So who eventually got the money?

Who won? It's even strange to use that terminology isn't it? It really is the idea of kind of babies counting and women winning this prize but the four women who eventually won were white they were middle class when the journalists went to their houses um they reported on the cleanliness of the houses and kind of the serenity of the surroundings um and so once again it's this idea of kind of who is more deserving and mothers and women who are more deserving and that was really what I felt when I was writing Prize Women that it wasn't just a story about kind of a farcical baby race that it was a story that had so much relevance today for women and mothers being put on trial for the role that they play and the extent to which they conform to expectations or if they don't the kind of vitriol that's that's heaped upon them for not meeting expectations.

And the book is coming out in a month? It's coming out on the 27th of April, yes. Another one of those stories that when you read about it, you're shocked. How do we not know about this? And tells us so much about not just how women were treated in the 1920s, but we can reflect on where we are right now. Caroline, Leah, thank you so much for speaking to me. The book is called Prize Women.

Keep an eye out for it. Fascinating story. Thank you so much. Thank you. Now on to my next guest, Jo Cheetham. She spent her childhood in a council house in Rotherham, writing poems and drawing clothes on page three models. Years later, she was a long way from home,

studying for a PhD, working as a nanny in London, when she read the news of an upcoming protest. Before she could talk herself out of it she officially found herself joining the No More Page Three campaign. Over the three years she protested up and down the country she made an unlikely group of friends and she's written a book all about it. It's her memoir called Killjoy and she's in the studio to tell me more. Well done, congratulations on writing the memoir. I loved how this story is about you becoming part of the campaign but it's also your story and it's about class and there's a lot of humour in this. So we want to talk about your family so we'll start right at the beginning. Tell me about being a girl and the gender roles and the expectations growing up in Rotherham. Well growing growing up in Rotherham in the 80s, it wasn't a great time to

be a girl, to be honest. You know, my dad bought the sun, everybody's dad bought the sun. I saw page three absolutely everywhere from a very young age. You know, it was in the house, it was at school, it was at the chip shop. Can you remember when you buy chips and it would be wrapped in newspaper? And you'd get it there even on your chips. It's not a surprise. Yeah, I know, right? It was, you know, it was on the bus.

It was the page three calendar. It was in the doctor's waiting room. It was behind the counter at the butcher's. I saw it absolutely everywhere I went. And yeah, I just grew up seeing these working class young women sort of semi-naked in the paper. And it always just felt a little bit weird to me. You know, when I was very young, I would draw clothes on the models because I thought, well, it must be cold. Why are they naked when everybody else has got clothes on?

And yeah, then when I got a little bit older, you know, and I started to think about why this was in the paper, it used to make me feel really uncomfortable. And you wanted to leave Rotherham and go to university. Was that expected of you though? Absolutely not. The school careers advisor, when I told him I wanted to go to university, he pretty much said to me, well, you know, you'll end up getting married and having kids. So it'll be a waste of money. You know, it's a waste of money for a girl like you. And that actually just made me really determined to go to university just to prove him wrong.

So, yeah, I mean, nobody in my family had ever been to university. I didn't know anybody who'd been to university. It just wasn't expected at all. So how did you get there? Well, it took a really long time. So I left school. You know, I did a load of different jobs, did my A-levels. I studied locally so I could live at home while I was at university in Sheffield.

And then I just saved up money. I got a scholarship to study in London. And I moved down here when I was about 29 to do an MA and it was quite a culture shock to be honest. In what way? So my university was really prestigious and the other students were mainly privately educated they were very clever. Is this when you were you is this pre-PhD? Yeah so I came down to London to do an MA and then I stayed on to do a PhD. Clever. Oh, thanks.

In art history? Yes, which again is an unusual choice. I didn't know it was sort of a typical sort of posh degree to do. I had no idea. I just thought I like art and I like history. What did your family think of you coming to London to study art history? Oh, my dad was excited that I was going to university because, you know, there was no expectation I would do that and he thought it was a good thing to do.

My mum just said, oh, Joanne, they won't like you. You're going to be too different. You're not going to like it. You know, do something else. You don't have to go. And it really was a shock. I felt really out of place. The other students were so clever.

They were very wealthy. They all just seemed so tall with like really good teeth, you know, and they were named after Shakespearean characters. And I felt like some kind of Dickensian urchin. Like I felt short and common and stupid. And a lot of people took the mickey out of my accent as well. It happened all the time. And there was one bit in the book that really struck me.

You talk about going to a conference where you had to make a speech and you've been practicing it by using the ironing boards as a make do lectern as you do very good imagery and then you ran away you didn't do the speech you bottled it so much work in but the that i wanted to explore that sort of imposter syndrome you even even now you're saying saying they were tall with great teeth. Yeah, they were. I can picture them. But that imposter syndrome was really deeply embedded in you. Yeah. I didn't feel like I belonged in that kind of academic environment at all. And I just walked into the conference and yeah, everybody just seems so clever and so articulate and they were dressed differently. You know, I was wearing like an old dress from H&M. They were all in skirt suits. The men were in linen trousers. All the men seemed to

be called Julian. There was just a certain kind of person who was there. And I was not that kind of person. And I was there, you know, I was ready to speak. And I just felt like I couldn't breathe. I ran out of there and just ran home. So how did you get involved with the No More Page Three campaign? You're the young girl drawing clothes on the page three models and you find yourself in this world where you are alien to everyone around you. What did finding that campaign do for you? How did you find it and how did it change? So I read about it in a newspaper when I was in London

in the middle of all of this imposter syndrome, basically. And it just struck a chord with me me and I just remembered everything about my childhood and everything about how I'd felt seeing page three growing up and I actually I went to a protest the first protest I've ever been to in my whole life that was just after I'd run away from that conference and my self-esteem was an all-time low and I just went to this protest and met Lucy who'd started the campaign and we just really hit it off and from that point we stayed in touch and then I ended up joining the team. How self-conscious were you at the protest? Oh so self-conscious. I hated it more than anything. Why? There was a press photographer there and she was like shouting

instructions you know look angry walk towards me, looking fierce, holding the sign. And I just forgot how to walk. You know, when you feel really self-conscious and I'm like, I can't even remember how to walk. I sort of like trip trapped towards her like a horse. I didn't know what I was doing. It was really horrible. I hated it. But you did find your voice eventually.

You ended up speaking at the Scottish Parliament. How did that come about? How did you find your voice to be able to speak out? It's interesting because I feel like rather than finding a voice, I was trying to recover the one I'd lost. I feel like when I was a kid, I knew exactly how I felt about everything. I knew what I wanted and how to ask for it. And then you grow up and sort of life kind of beats that out of you, particularly if you're a girl, right? And yeah, I just wanted to get back to that person that I used to be. And that's what I was trying to do. And your grandma was an inspiration? Yeah, she was an absolutely amazing person. You know, my granddad died before I was born, and she'd been such a good role model, such an independent woman, always did whatever she wanted.

She was very assertive. So, yeah, she was a great role model for me. So just how embedded did you become in the campaign? How much of your life did it take over? It took over everything for two and a half years. I mean, there was me and to begin with about six other volunteers. None of us had any experience of campaigning at all. We didn't have any money. We didn't have a single idea what we were doing. We were kind of making it up as we went along. And it had to slot in, you know, in between our busy lives.

You know, some of them would be taking the kids to school and talking on the phone to a journalist at the same time. And we were doing lots of jobs and caring for relatives and stuff like that. It kind of filtered in between every bit of spare time that we had for that two and a half years. And did that take a toll? Yeah, it was absolutely exhausting. And we got a lot of trolls as well. There was a lot of abuse online.

Like what? I mean, anyone who speaks out about any sort of feminist issue, they get a lot of trolls online. And we would have so much abuse on a daily basis that it just became normal we were used to it we were totally used to it um i mean i guess that's why you called the book kill joy right yes because we were all kill joys what kinds of things were you told what what sort of stuff were you reading being said about you oh i mean there was the nicer end of the scale which is that we're you know puritans and that we're against nudity and, yeah, that we're killjoys, that we don't know how to have a laugh and that it's no fun.

But then at the other end of the scale, there were, like, rape threats, death threats, really serious, unpleasant, graphic messages. So what keeps you going then? Is it the solidarity between all of you? Yeah, we had this amazing group. We all really supported each other. And we laughed about it as well as

much as we could I mean sometimes you couldn't laugh about it but you know laughing at these kinds of messages it gave us some kind of power over it I suppose. And how important was class within the group and the friendship that you've you formed? It was really interesting because most of the people who were on the team were working class women. And it mattered to us because we'd grown up seeing, you know, these newspapers every day. We'd all grown up with the sun in our homes. And because they were always, well, almost always working class young women in the newspaper, it was kind of sold to us as empowerment you know it was like this was the best you could hope for as a working class woman to have this kind of lifestyle and this kind of fame and to have this kind of look we were supposed to aspire to that and so you found your your crew yeah yeah but it was um you got a lot of support uh from mps claire short caroline luc, and from the Girl Guides. How much did this help the cause? Massively. Really, I think things turned a corner when the Girl Guides got involved,

because they were one of the first organisations to formally support the campaign. And it just kind of, it galvanised us and it gave us a purpose as well to have these incredible young women speaking out about these issues that still really mattered to them to have this younger generation involved it just really spurred us on and it built momentum yeah it did got the Welsh Assembly Scottish Parliament back to you and then the Irish Sun stopped page three how did it feel to have made that change? It felt amazing. That felt amazing. And at that point, we really were very optimistic that the sun in the UK would follow suit

and drop the topless images. It really gave us something to work towards and we were really hopeful at that point. And then? And then they did drop page three in January 2015, but then they brought it back. So they got rid of the images and then two days later, they brought it back so they got rid of the images and then two days later they brought it back and said it was all a joke and uh how did that did you you

must have all taken that quite personally you know what we kind of expected some kind of stunt because it's the sun and they'd never really acknowledged that the campaign exists you know and we knew that they might try some kind of stunt like this. So we weren't massively surprised, but we were really tired. We were exhausted with all the ups and downs. Tired, but they were a force. I mean, it is a brilliant read. Has it changed your writing about the experience?

Yes. In what way? Because it's reminded me that we've kind of all got more power than we think we have. And that it can feel overwhelming that there's so much to do in the world. But if you just try, just try one thing, it might work and you might have a good time doing it. It is very inspiring. It's such an inspiring read. And especially because you tell it so well. And your story coming from Rotherham, moving to London amongst all those posh tall people.

But you held your own. And it is a great read and it's out now. Yes, it is. Killjoy. It comes out today. Happy, happy publication day. Oh, thank you, Anita. Jo Teatam's Killjoy, out now.

Join me tomorrow for more Woman's Hour. Thank you, Jo. Thank you. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Please, I beg you in the name of God, I need some assistance from you. Who is worthy of our trust? I just thought this is very, very shady and there's something definitely wrong about this. He didn't believe me. I said, well, I'm not a schemer. I'm

not a bad person. Join me, Matthew Side, for the latest season of my BBC Radio 4 podcast, Sideways. Seven new stories of seeing the world differently and the ideas that shape our lives. I need to figure out a way to really compensate him or else I'm going to be the scammer that I accused him of being. Sideways on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have

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